Charles Swan’s date and place of birth are unknown
Swan commanded a ship during Sir Henry Morgan’s 1671 sack of Panama. He was already an experienced captain at this time. In 1682, he brought a merchant vessel from Jamaica to London. There he became friendly with Basil Ringrose, and the two men arranged financing for a smuggling venture to Chile and Peru.
Swan’s ship for this venture, the appropriately named Cygnet, carried sixteen guns. This indicates that Swan and Ringrose had from the outset intended to turn to piracy.
Swan met up with the pirates Edward Davis and Peter Harris off northern Peru. When they saw that Harris’ pirates had handfuls of gold in their pockets, Swan’s crew forced him to turn pirate. The three pirates joined forces, and sailed their ships to the Gulf of Panama in February 1685. Here they waited, in the hope of intercepting Peruvian treasure ships. They were joined by several hundred French pirates, but in June the buccaneers were defeated by Spanish warships and the French and English contingents split up.
Swan went on to Mexico looking for the Manila galleon. He tried to capture a Peruvian treasure ship at Acapulco. He failed, because the vessel was protected by a battery of Spanish guns on the mainland. He also missed the Manila galleon. He then continued north, in search of gold and silver mines. The pirates travelled about fifteen miles inland and occupied Tepec in Mexico. As they returned to their ships, the Mexicans ambushed their party and killed fifty crewmen, including Basil Ringrose.
Swan sailed west in April 1686, hoping to use his booty to buy luxury goods in Asia. The Cygnet reached Guam in only 54 days but as the food began to run out, the crew plotted to eat the officers. Swan stopped at Mindanao in the Philippines. His men spent their money here on women and wine. However, the crew mutinied when Swan refused to leave. They left him and about 36 other members of the crew stranded on Mindanao, in January 1687.
Shortly after having been abandoned, Swan quarrelled with one of the Sultan’s generals, and this general subsequently arranged Swan’s murder.