Edward Low

Edward Low, also known as Ned Low (other spellings include Lowe and Loe; c. 1690–1724), was an English pirate active in the early 18th century during the final years of the Golden Age of Piracy. Low was born into poverty in Westminster and was a thief from an early age. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts, as a young man. His wife died in childbirth in late 1719. Two years later, he became a pirate, operating off the coasts of New England, Nova Scotia, the Azores, and in the Caribbean. Low captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career, burning most of them. Although he was active for only three years, Low remains notorious as one of the most vicious pirates of the age, with a reputation for violently torturing his victims before murdering them. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality." The New York Times called him a torturer, whose methods would have "done credit to the ingenuity of the Spanish Inquisition in its darkest days." The circumstances of Low's death, which took place around 1724, have been the subject of much speculation.