Philip Fitzgerald

Philip Fitzgerald (fl. 1672–1675, alias Felipe Geraldino or Philip Hellen) was an Irish pirate and privateer who served the Spanish in the Caribbean. History Fitzgerald obtained a commission as a Spanish privateer (guarda costa) out of Havana in 1672. Late that year he captured the English ship Humility under Matthew Fox, abusing the captured crew until several of them died. Fox testified that when Fitzgerald was asked why he was so barbaric to English captives, he exclaimed: “giving no reason but that his countrymen were ill-used by the English 24 years ago, and he should never be satisfied with English blood, but could drink it as freely as water when he was adry; and he had commission to sink or take all ships trading from Jamaica, and kill those.” Early in 1673 he captured the 130-ton logwood hauler Virgin of Edmund Cooke, putting him and his crew in a longboat with no provisions. Cooke survived, and incensed at losing a second ship to the Spanish some time later, finally turned to piracy against the Spanish. Fitzgerald captured more English ships near Campeche in late 1673 alongside Jelles de Lecat (“Yellows”) and Jan Erasmus Reyning, the three of them accounting for more than 40 captures.