page_title: Olivier Levasseur
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Olivier Levasseur / Biography
context_page_description: Olivier Levasseur, was a French pirate, nicknamed La Buse or La Bouche in his early days for the speed and ruthlessness with which he always attacked his enemies as well as his ability to verbally attack his opponents. He is known for allegedly hiding one of the biggest treasures in pirate history, estimated at over £1 billion, and leaving a cryptogram behind with clues to its whereabouts.
context_section_description: Born at Calais during the Nine Years' War (1688–1697) to a wealthy bourgeois family, Levasseur became a naval officer after receiving an excellent education. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), he procured a letter of marque from King Louis XIV and became a privateer for the French crown. When the war ended he was ordered to return home with his ship, but he instead joined the Benjamin Hornigold pirate company in 1716. Though he already had a scar across one eye limiting his sight, Levasseur proved himself a good leader and shipmate.
  After a year of successful looting, the Hornigold party split, Levasseur partnering briefly with Samuel Bellamy before deciding to try his luck on the Brazilian Coast. His ship was lost in a storm off Cotinga Island in Paranagua, Brazil, on March 9, 1718, but Levasseur reappeared in the Caribbean in June of that year in a smaller vessel that he managed to capture on his way back from Brazil. After William Moody was ejected from command by his disgruntled crew in late 1718, they elected Levasseur as captain in Moody's place. In 1719, he operated together with Howell Davis and Thomas Cocklyn (who had also served under Moody) for a time. In 1720, they attacked the slaver port of Ouidah, Kingdom of Whydah (on the coast of what is now Benin), reducing the local fortress to ruins. Later that year, he was shipwrecked in the Mozambique Channel and stranded on the island of Anjouan in the Comores. His bad eye had become completely blind by now, so he started wearing an eyepatch.
  From 1720 onwards, Levasseur launched his raids from a base on the island of Sainte-Marie, just off the coast of Madagascar, together with pirates John Taylor, Jasper Seagar, and Edward England. The Great Mughal's heavily armed but also heavily laden pilgrim ships to Mecca sailed these seas. Levasseur's quartermaster at this time was Paulsgrave Williams, who had been Bellamy's quartermaster and fellow captain until Bellamy was killed in a storm off Cape Cod. They first plundered the Laccadives, and sold the loot to Dutch traders for £75,000. Levasseur and Taylor eventually got tired of England's humanity and marooned him on the island of Mauritius.
  They then perpetrated one of piracy's greatest exploits: the capture of the Portuguese great galleon Nossa Senhora do Cabo (Our Lady of the Cape) or Virgem Do Cabo (The Virgin of the Cape), which was loaded full of treasures belonging to the Bishop of Goa, also called the Patriarch of the East Indies, and the Viceroy of Portugal, who were both on board returning home to Lisbon. The pirates were able to board the vessel without firing a single broadside because the Cabo had been damaged in a storm; to avoid capsizing the crew had dumped all 72 cannon overboard, then anchored off Réunion island to undergo repairs. (This incident would later be used by Robert Louis Stevenson in his novel Treasure Island, in which the galleon is referred to as The Viceroy of the Indies in the account given by his famed fictional character Long John Silver).
  The booty consisted of bars of gold and silver, dozens of boxes full of golden Guineas, diamonds, pearls, silk, art, and religious objects from the Se Cathedral in Goa, including the Flaming Cross of Goa, made of pure gold and inlaid with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. It was so heavy that it required three men to carry it to Levasseur's ship. In fact, the treasure was so huge that the pirates did not bother to rob the persons of the ship's passengers, something they normally would have done.
  When the loot was divided, each pirate received at least £50,000 worth of golden Guineas, as well as 42 diamonds each. Seagar died when they sailed to Madagascar to divide their take; Levasseur and Taylor split the remaining gold, silver, and other objects, with Levasseur taking the golden cross.
  In 1724, Levasseur sent a negotiator to the governor on the island of Bourbon (present-day Réunion) to discuss an amnesty that had been offered to all pirates in the Indian Ocean who would give up their practice. However, the French government wanted
caption: Jolly Roger flag of pirate Olivier Levasseur (La Buse), described as a "white ensign with a figure of a dead man spread in it"; one of the few mentions of a black-on-white Jolly Roger flag.[5]