Robert Culliford is probably the most successful pirate that you have never heard of.

Pirate historian Philip Gosse in The Pirates’ Who’s Who writes of Culliford:
Captain of the Mocha. A Madagascar pirate. Little is known of him except that one day in the streets of London he recognized and denounced another pirate called Burgess.

Culliford was a lot more than that. In September 1698, almost 10 years into a piratical career that had taken him from the Caribbean to India and then to St Mary’s Island, he captured one of the richest prizes in pirate history: the Great Mohammed, an enormous Moslem pilgrim ship with an immense treasure.

After returning to St Mary’s, in August 1699, Culliford managed to receive a King’s pardon from Captain Thomas Warren and with it finally planned to return to his native Cornwall.

The trip back to England took him another year and was not without incidents. On his arrival in London in August 1700, Culliford was arrested on suspicion of piracy and spent the next two years imprisoned.

He was ultimately saved from hanging only because his testimony in the trial of another pirate, Samuel Burgess, was considered more important.

When Culliford was finally released in the summer of 1702, he disappeared from official records and as a consequence, was pretty much forgotten by history until 2002 when Robert Zacks gave him the role he merits as Captain Kidd’s nemesis in Pirate Hunter.

Zacks’ 2002 book is not only an excellent Kidd’s biography, but it’s the first and to this day remains the most complete biography of Culliford.

From it we know that during a two months period he spent free in London, Culliford had the time and the opportunity to hide the treasure that he brought back from the East Indies.

As nothing is known about what happened to Culliford and his treasure after 1702, this blog will investigate rumors that he returned to sea, moved to the colonies as well as develop and study new theories.