Thomas Tew, from Newport, Rhode Island, had been a successful privateer for many years before 1692. In that year, however, privateers began to have very little business, due to England�s truce with Spain. In the spring of 1692, several tradesmen and officials decided to try to better their luck. They asked Thomas Tew to captain the seventy-ton sloop Amity. Tew accepted, and hand-picked a crew of sixty privateers whom he had sailed with before. His new crew was told that they had been commissioned by the English Royal Africa Company to raid a French trading post in Africa. After acquiring a commission from the governor of Bermuda, Tew set sail.
Once the Amity was well out to sea, Tew informed his crew of his real plans. The voyage he had in mind would be much more prosperous and easier then the one that would take them to a French trading post in Africa. Tew planned to sail to the Indian Ocean and prey on vulnerable Moorish ships. This would be easy, Tew told his crew, because Moorish ships were slow, clumsy, and poorly defended.
After a run of bad luck in the Indian ocean, the Amity came upon a prize. She was defended by over five hundred well armed soldiers, but not very well apparently, because they gave up without a fight. Upon boarding the ship, Tew�s men found silks, spices, elephant tusks, and �100,000 of gold and silver. When the Amity landed in St. Mary�s to careen (that is, repair and clean the hull of the ship) and divide up treasure, each man�s share turned out to be �1,200. In December of 1693, the Amity set sail for home full of plunder. Upon hearing of Tew�s success, hundreds of men set sail eastward in hopes of finding similar fortune.
