Leigh Ashworth (pirate & privateer)

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Leigh Ashworth (pirate & privateer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Ashworth

Leigh Ashworth (fl. 1716-1719) was a pirate and privateer operating in the Caribbean in the early 1700s.

Leigh Ashworth was captain of a sloop named Mary, originally outfitted for privateering with a commission from Jamaican governor Lord Archibald Hamilton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Archibald_Hamilton

Ashworth sailed alongside pirate/privateers Henry Jennings, James Carnegie, and Samuel Liddell

Henry Jennings in the Sloop Bersheba
Samuel Liddell in the Cocoa Nut
Leigh Ashworth in the Sloop Mary
James Carnegie in the Sloop Discovery
Francis Fernando in the Sloop Bennett

future Pirate captain Charles Vane was then part of Jennings’ crew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jennings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carnegie_(pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Liddell_(pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fernando
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Vane

Later joined by "Black Sam Bellamy" with his associate Paulsgrave Williams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Bellamy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulsgrave_Williams

Ashworth accepted the general amnesty offered to Pirates in 1718
by Woodes Rogers, Governor of the Bahamas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodes_Rogers

Ashworth next spent time ferrying ships and goods back and forth from South Carolina to Jamaica, encountering Blackbeard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard

Late that year, Ashworth accepted another privateering commission against the Spanish and French.

Ashworth was still privateering as of 1719 but there are few records of his activities beyond that point.