Laurens Prins (c. 1630-January 1717), also called Lawrence Prince, was a Dutch buccaneer under Henry Morgan who later became a slave trader.
Biography[]
Laurens Prins was born in Amsterdam, the United Provinces, in the 1630s. He became a buccanner in the service of Captain Henry Morgan, joining him in Port Royal in 1670. He earned lots of money from a raid on Panama, using it to buy a property on Liguanea Plain in Jamaica. After Morgan's death in 1688, Prins became a slave trader, running slaves from West Africa to the West Indies.
Prins became involved with Governor Laureano Torres y Ayala of New Spain's Cuba in November 1715, where Torres promised to pay Prins to hand over wanted pirate Bartholomew Roberts to him. Roberts, who was in the employ of Prins, was to be double-crossed and sold to Torres. However, the real plot was by Torres, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar in the Caribbean, to kill "the Sage" for his blood to open the Observatory in Long Bay, Jamaica.
Prins was responsible for an attack by British troops and slavers on the Mayan city of Tulum, where his men were ambushed by the Mayans, using sleeping darts to knock out his men before finishing them as they slept. As Prins put it, the skirmish was a huge waste of men and coin. Two pirates, Edward Kenway and Anne Bonny (both secretly members of the Assassins Order), tracked Prins down to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1717 after using Torres as bait to tail to Prins' location. Their plan was to use Prins to find out where Roberts was; Bonny had originally set out to simply kill Prins and Torres. They were discovered while tailing Prins and Torres, and British regulars attacked them as Prins called the deal off and fled. However, that night they found Prins at his mansion, and were ready to strike.
Death[]
Prins' death
Prins' mansion was defended by British troops, and was guarded by many gates. Bonny deceived the guards by pretending to be cut and wounded, and they opened the gates to help her; she killed both of them with her sword and Kenway and Bonny snuck in. Prins was found in the gazebo behind his mansion, and Kenway walked into the gazebo and stabbed him with his hidden blades. Prins ridiculed Kenway for watching an old man suffer, and Kenway responded by saying that Prins had himself inflicted suffering on many people. When Prins accused Kenway of being an assassin, Kenway said that he was only motivated by coin, and Prins said that he had also been motivated by coin, before dying.