Christopher Myngs (1625-1666) was a Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy of England and a famous pirate in the Caribbean Sea. Myngs was known for his wanton cruelty while fighting against Spain in the Anglo-Spanish War of 1654-1660 and in buccaneering ventures in the 1660s, and he fought against the United Provinces in the 1660s during the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Myngs was mortally wounded in the Four Days' Battle in 1666, and he died of his wounds in London.
Biography[]
Christopher Myngs was born in 1625 in Norfolk, and he served as captain of Elizabeth during the First Anglo-Dutch War, capturing two men-of-war from the United Provinces as prizes. In 1656, he became commander of the Jamaica Station of the Royal Navy, and in February 1658 he became a commerce raider during the war with Spain in the Caribbean. He had a reputation for unnecessary cruelty, sacking and massacring entire towns and leading buccaneers against the Spanish. In 1658, he destroyed Tolu and Santa Maria in Colombia after failing to capture a Spanish treasure fleet, and he plundered Cumana, Puerto Cabello, and Coro in Venezuela in 1659. Spain considered him to be a mass murderer and a common pirate, and in 1660 he was arrested for embezzling half a million pounds, which he gifted to a fellow English navy officer after stealing it from the Spanish. In 1662, he was reappointed to the navy following the English Restoration, and in 1663 he led an expedition against the Spanish in the Caribbean with Henry Morgan and other buccaneers, sacking Campeche in February 1663. However, he was severely wounded in the attack, and he returned to England to recover. In 1665, he became a Vice-Admiral under Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and he fought in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. On 11 June 1666, Myngs was shot in the cheek and shoulder by a Dutch marksman during the Four Days' Battle, and he died of his wounds in London.