[1] 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.

[5] The loss of his wife had a profound effect on Low: in his later career of piracy, he would often express regret for the daughter he left behind, and refused to press-gang married men into joining his crews.

[10] At first working honestly as a rigger, in early 1722 he joined a gang of twelve men on a sloop headed for Honduras, where they planned to collect a shipment of logs for resale in Boston.

A day later, Low led the twelve-man gang, including Francis Farrington Spriggs, who went on to become a notorious pirate in his own right, taking over a small sloop off the coast of Rhode Island.

Killing one man during the theft, Low and his crew turned pirate, determined "to go in her, make a black Flag, and declare War against all the World.

Their mirth and their anger had much the same effect, for both were usually gratified with the cries and groans of their prisoners; so that they almost as often murdered a man from the excess of good humour, as out of passion and resentment; and the unfortunate could never be assured of safety from them, for danger lurked in their very smiles.Low headed south and began operating in the waters of Grand Cayman, including being lieutenant to the established pirate George Lowther, who captained the Happy Delivery,[1][12] a 100-ton Rhode Island sloop with eight cannon and ten swivel guns.

[13] Fast acquiring a taste for cruelty, Low taught Spriggs a torture technique that involved tying a victim's hands with rope between their fingers and setting it alight, burning their flesh down to the bones.

[12] In one notable raid in June 1722, Low and his crew attacked thirteen New England fishing vessels sheltering at anchor in Port Roseway, Shelburne, Nova Scotia.

[15] Captain Loe, with the usual Compliments, welcomed me on board, and told me, He was very sorry for my Loss, and that it was not his Desire to meet with any of his Country-men, but rather with Foreigners, excepting some few that he wanted to chastise for their Rogueishness, as he call'd it.Low abandoned his plans of plundering the rich shipping trade off the coast of Brazil, and moved on to the Caribbean.

George Roberts, a mate on the British ship King Sagamore, recounted a meeting with Low aboard the Rose Pink.

[17] Forty leagues (120 nautical miles or around 220 km) to the east of Surinam, Low and his fleet of two ships (the Rose Pink and the Fancy, captained by a young Charles Harris) dropped anchor to remove growth such as seaweed and barnacles from the outside and bottom of the boats, in a process known as careening; no dry dock was available to pirates.

Low was captaining a schooner, the Squirrel—and his crew were forced to strictly ration their fresh water to half a pint (around 275 ml) per man, per day.

[19] Failing to reach their initial destination of Tobago due to light winds and strong currents, Low's depleted fleet made it to Grenada, a French-owned island.

[20] The Pyrates [were] waiting there for them, took them and Plundered them; they cut and whiped some and others they burnt with Matches between their Fingers to the bone to make them confess where their Money was, they took to the value of a Thousand Pistoles from Passengers and others, they then let them go, but coming on the Coast off of the Capes of Virginia, they were again chased by the same Pyrates who first took them, they did not trouble them again but wished them well Home, they saw at the same time his Consort, a Sloop of eight Guns, with a Ship and a Sloop which were supposed to be Prizes, they were Commanded by one Edward LOW.

The Pyrates gave us an account of his taking the Bay of Hondoras from the Spaniards, which had surprised the English and taking them, and putting all the Spaniards to the Sword Excepting two boys, as also burning The King George, and a Snow belonging to New York, and sunk one of the New England Ships, and cut off one the Masters Ears and slit his Nose, all this they confessed themselves.Low's new fleet captured many more sloops, including one that Low kept, naming it the Fortune.

[19] One of Low's most noted episodes of cruelty followed: in his rage, he slashed off the Portuguese captain's lips with a cutlass, broiled them, and forced the victim to eat them while still hot.

"[16] One story describes Low burning a French cook alive, saying he was a "greasy fellow who would fry well"; another tells how he once killed 53 Spanish captives with his cutlass.

Low fled in the Fancy with a skeleton crew and £150,000 in gold on board[10] and headed back to the Azores, leaving Harris and the Ranger behind.

[25] When Solgard returned to New York, he was presented with the freedom of the city and a gold snuffbox for his part in bringing some of Low's crew to justice.

He captured a whaling vessel 80 miles (130 km) out at sea, and in a foul mood following the encounter with the Greyhound and the loss of Harris, he tortured the captain before shooting him through the head.

[4] Heading south again, Low captured a 22 gun French ship and a large Virginian merchant vessel, the Merry Christmas, in late June 1723.

In late 1723, Low and Lowther's fleet captured the Delight off the coast of Guinea, mounting fourteen guns on her, with command being given to Spriggs.

Captain Charles Johnson—considered by some to be Daniel Defoe writing under a pseudonym[26]—in his A General History of the Pyrates, stated that Low and the Fancy were last sighted near the Canaries and Guinea.

Diamond had lost her canoe and could not give chase, leaving Low to his fate near Roatan, where he was supposedly killed by the indigenous Miskito.

[28] Initially, Low used the same flag as his associates Francis Spriggs and Charles Harris: a skeleton holding an hourglass and a spear stabbing a heart on a black field.

He that shall be found guilty of taking up any Unlawfull Weapon on Board the Privateer or any other prize by us taken, so as to Strike or Abuse one another in any regard, shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall see fit.

[24] By 1700, the European states had enough troops and ships at their disposal, following the end of a number of wars, to begin better protecting their important colonies in the West Indies and in the Americas without relying on the aid of privateers.

Howard Pyle, in an 1880 children's book on pirates, said: "No one stood higher in the trade than [Low], and no one mounted to more lofty altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness.

"[30] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his work The Green Flag, described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality".

[3] The New York Times said "Low and his crew became the terror of the Atlantic, and his depredations were committed on every part of the ocean, from the coast of Brazil to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland".