he renamed The Gift. Ward first sailed for Algiers, but several of his men were arrested upon entering the city. Algiers had been attacked by another English mariner, Richard Giffard, only months earlier. They sailed to the Moroccan Atlantic port city Salé, Morocco where in 1605 several English and Dutch sailors, including Richard Bishop and Anthony Johnson, joined Ward's crew. In the summer of 1606, Ward captured a dhow in the Strait of Gibraltar allegedly carrying Catholic slaves. In August 1606 Ward arranged with Uthman Dey to use Tunis as a base of operations. Uthman Dey, or Kara Osman Dey, was the commander of the Janissary corps in Tunis. That garrison supplanted the Pasha of Tunis as the rulers of Tunis in 1598, making Uthman Dey the military dictator of the city. According to their arrangement, Uthman Dey would have first refusal of all goods, up to ten percent of all goods captured. In early November 1606 Ward captured the English merchantman John Baptist under Captain John Keye. He renamed the merchantman Little John after the English folk hero. From this base, Jack Ward was easily able to capture many ships from several European states. Ward's top lieutenant, William Graves, captured a small English merchantman called the York Bonaventure captained by Andrew Barker. The richest hauls on these early cruises were the valuable Venetian ships Rubi (taken on 16 November 1606) and Carminati (taken on 28 January 1607). The Reniera e Soderina John Ward outfitted Gift, Little John, Rubi, & Carminati for piracy over the late winter and early spring of 1607. His fleet headed for the Adriatic Sea when they were scattered by a terrible storm. Ward, onboard Gift, found only the Rubi before heading for the Eastern Mediterranean. On 26 April 1607, between Cyprus and Turkey, Ward spotted "a great argosy of fourteen or fifteen hundred tons" named Reniera e Soderina. Rubi was 400 tons, and Gift only 200 tons, yet the crew elected to attack the Reniera e Soderina. They fought a three-hour firefight, but Reniera e Soderina was too large to maneuver in the light winds, so her guns never scored a hit. Ward's ships managed to pierce her hull five times, lighting bales of hay aflame inside. Finally, Ward ordered his ships to close and prepare to board. The crew of Reniera e Soderina voted to fight and repel the boarding party, and the captain