Pirate Latitudes: A Novel (28 page)

Epilogue

A
CCORDING TO HIS own memoirs,
Life Among the Privateers of the Caribbean Sea
, Charles Hunter searched for Sanson’s treasure during all of the year 1666, but never found it. The gold coin did not have a map scratched on its surface; instead, there was a funny series of triangles and numbers, which Hunter was never able to decipher.

Sir James Almont returned to England with his niece, Lady Sarah Almont. Both perished in London’s Great Fire of 1666.

Mrs. Robert Hacklett remained in Port Royal until 1686, when she died of syphilis. Her son, Edgar, became a merchant of substance in the Carolina Colony. In turn, his son, James Charles Hacklett Hunter, was governor of the Carolina Colony in 1777, when he urged that the colony side with the northern insurgents against the English army under the command of General Howe in Boston.

Mistress Anne Sharpe returned to England in 1671 as an actress; by that time, women’s parts were no longer played by boys, as they had been earlier in the century. Mistress Sharpe became the second most famous woman from the Indies in all Europe (the most famous, of course, being Madame de Maintenon, mistress of Louis XIV, who had been born on Guadeloupe). Anne Sharpe died in 1704, after a life of what she herself described as “delicious notoriety.”

Enders, the sea artist and barber-surgeon, joined Mandeville’s expedition on Campeche in 1668 and perished in a storm.

The Moor, Bassa, died in 1669 in Henry Morgan’s attack on Panama. He was run down by a bull, one of the many animals Spaniards released in an attempt to protect the city.

Don Diego, the Jew, lived on in Port Royal until 1692, when, at an advanced age, he died in the earthquake that destroyed the “wicked city” forever.

Lazue was captured and hanged as a pirate in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1704. She was said to have been a lover of Blackbeard’s.

Charles Hunter, weakened by malaria during his searches for Sanson’s treasure, returned to England in 1669. By that time, the raid on Matanceros had become a political embarrassment, and he was never received by Charles II, nor accorded any honor. He died of pneumonia in 1670 in a cottage in Tunbridge Wells, leaving a modest estate and a notebook, which was stored at Trinity College, Cambridge. His notebook still exists, as does his grave, in the cemetery of the Church of St. Anthony in Tunbridge Wells. The stone is nearly worn smooth, yet it can still be read:

HERE LYES

CHAS. HUNTER, CAPT.

1627–1670

Honest Adventurer and Seaman

Beloved of His Countrymen

In the New World

VINCIT

About the Author

M
ICHAEL
C
RICHTON’S
novels include
Next
,
State of Fear
,
Prey
,
Timeline
,
Jurassic Park
, and
The Andromeda Strain
. He is also known as a filmmaker and the creator of
ER
. One of the most popular writers in the world, he has sold over 150 million books, which have been translated into thirty-six languages; thirteen have been made into films. He remains the only writer to have had the number one book, movie, and TV show at the same time.
Pirate Latitudes
was discovered as a complete manuscript in his files after his death in 2008.

.

OTHER BOOKS BY MICHAEL CRICHTON

FICTION

The Andromeda Strain

The Terminal Man

The Great Train Robbery

Eaters of the Dead

Congo

Sphere

Jurassic Park

Rising Sun

Disclosure

The Lost World

Airframe

Timeline

Prey

State of Fear

Next

NONFICTION

Five Patients

Jasper Johns

Electronic Life

Travels

Credits

Cover design and illustration by Will Staehle.

Interior text design by Lucy Albanese.

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

PIRATE LATITUDES
. Copyright © 2009 by Michael Crichton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Epub edition © November 2009 ISBN: 9780061938740

Version 03202013

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available upon request.

978-0-06-192937-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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