The Sea Beggar A Sloop of My Own

From the golden age of pirates and privateers comes the novel The Sea Beggar: A Sloop of My Own. This is the second novel of the Sea Beggar series of a historical novels about Ephraim Bogardus who was a Dutch American Hudson River mariner of the early 18th century. Ephraim Bogardus lived between 1687 and 1770. The term sea beggar or in Dutch watergeuzen means a sea robber and was applied to Dutch privateers. Ephraim Bogardus considered himself to be a watergeuzen or sea beggar. In this novel Ephraim tells his story of how he had his own sloop built by his brothers in Albany and obtained a letter of marque from the governor of New York to hunt Spanish and French prizes and to trade commodities like flour and tobacco in the Caribbean. Ephraim and his brother Cornelius sailed to North Carolina in 1711. Queen Anne’s War between Great Britain against Spain and France is still in full swing. North Carolina at the was at the time a wild and wooly place with fights over the government of the new colony and threats of attack by Native Americans. Along the way the brothers captured a Spanish privateer sloop which they kept as their own with his brother Cornelius as the captain. Together Ephraim in his sloop the Watergeuzen and Cornelius in the former Spanish sloop renamed Wyntie Bosch operated out of North Carolina and sailing the Caribbean. Together the Bogardus brother traded tobacco for arms on the Dutch island of Stint Eustatious also known Golden Rock, fought Native American tribes in North Carolina and captured Spanish and French ship to take as prizes. Standby for high adventure from the golden age of pirates and privateers as told in fiction by Ephraim Bogardus. The author of this tale, James B. Battles, is a retired Navy Captain. Captain Jim is a sailor of sloops in the Chesapeake Bay and the Caribbean. He is also a family historian. He has applied his sailing skills with his historical expertise to create a historical novel about one of his ancestors, Ephraim Bogardus.