n which
he described how he was forced to sign the pirates' articles under threats
of instant death. If his journal is to be believed, Upton escaped from the
pirates at the first opportunity, landing on the Mosquito coast. After
being arrested by the Spaniards as a spy, he was sent from one prison to
another in Central America, at last being put on board a galleon at Porto
Bello, to be sent to Spain. Escaping, he got aboard a New York sloop and
arrived at Jamaica in December, 1726. While at Port Royal he was pressed
on board H.M.S. _Nottingham_, serving in her for more than two years as
quartermaster, until one day he was accused of having been a pirate. Under
this charge he was brought a prisoner to England in 1729, tried in London,
and hanged, protesting his innocence to the last.

URUJ. See BARBAROSSA.

VALLANUEVA, CAPTAIN.

A Dominican.

Commanded in 1831 a small gaff-topsail schooner, the _General Morazan_,
armed with a brass eight-pounder and carrying a mixed crew of forty-four
men, French, Italian, English, and Creoles of St. Domingo.

VANCLEIN, CAPTAIN MOSES. Dutch filibuster.

Was serving with L'Ollonais's fleet off the coast of Yucatan when a mutiny
broke out, of which Vanclein was the ringleader. He persuaded the
malcontents to sail with him along the coast till they came to Costa Rica.
There they landed and marched to the town of Veraguas, which they seized
and pillaged. The pirates got little booty, only eight pounds of gold, it
proving to be a poor place.

VANE, CAPTAIN CHARLES.

Famous for his piratical activities off the coast of North America,
specially the Carolinas.

In 1718, when Woodes Rogers was sent by the English Government to break up
the pirate stronghold in the Bahama Islands, all the pirates at New
Providence Island surrendered to Rogers and received the King's pardon
except Vane, who, after setting fire to a prize he had, slipped out of the
bay as Rogers with his two men-of-war entered. Vane sailed to the coast of
Carolina, as did other West Indian pirates who found their old haunts too
warm for them.

Vane is first heard of as being actively engaged in stealing from the
Spaniards the silver which they were salving from a wrecked galleon in the
Gulf of Florida. Tiring of this, Vane stole a vessel and ranged up and
down the coast from Florida to New York, taking ship after ship, until at
last the Governor of South Carolina sent out a Colonel Rhet in an armed
sloop to try