Crossword Genius

Cook’s underwear viler after fouling (4,4,6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

long john silver

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'fouling' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.

'cook's underwear viler' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'underwear' could be 'longjohns' (I've seen this before) and 'longjohns' is present in the answer.
an anagram of 'viler' is 'ilver' which is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'after' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for long john silver that I've seen before include "Treasure-seeker" , "Literary pirate" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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