Raiders and Rebels: A History of the Golden Age of Piracy
Frank Sherry
Language: English
Pages: 322
ISBN: 0061572845
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
I he most authoritative history of piracy, Frank Sherry's rich and colorful account reveals the rise and fall of the real "raiders and rebels" who terrorized the seas. From 1692 to 1725 pirates sailed the oceans of the world, plundering ships laden with the riches of India, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Often portrayed as larger-than-life characters, these outlaw figures and their bloodthirsty exploits have long been immortalized in fiction and film. But beneath the legends is the true story of these brigands—often common men and women escaping the social and economic restrictions of 18th-century Europe and America. Their activities threatened the beginnings of world trade and jeopardized the security of empires. And together, the author argues, they fashioned a surprisingly democratic society powerful enough to defy the world.
Roughing It (Penguin American Library)
To pay the bills he had incurred as governor of the Bahamas, Rogers had remained as undaunted by poverty as he had been by the threats of the pirate captain Charles Vane. Relentlessly he had pleaded his case in high places. With the help of friends and—apparently—by selling family properties, he had managed to extricate himself from the worst of his poverty. Then in 1726, after the Admiralty had turned an unsympathetic ear to his plea for a just recompense for his labors in the Bahamas, the.
L’Olonnois, François, 60 London, social conditions in, 43–51 lookouts, 114, 132 Lorrain, Paul, 191–192 Louis XIV, king of France, 37–39, 41–42, 201–202 William III vs., 45, 62, 119–120, 149, 151, 200, 202 Low, Edward, 352–356 Low, George, 127 Lowther, George, 350–351, 352 MacCarthy, Dennis, 83, 258 Macrae, Captain, 286–289 Madagascar: colonization of, 86–87 as pirate nation, 84, 85–100, 111, 116–117, 118, 121, 122, 143–144, 146–147, 196–201, 357, 363 Plantain as “king” of,.
Berth provided an opportunity for a seaman to achieve some worldly prosperity. Furthermore, the cruel discipline aboard other ships was virtually absent on privateers. Enterprising sailors, therefore, were usually more than willing when offered a chance to join a privateering venture, even though the rule aboard privateers was always “no prey, no pay,” and even though privateering seamen had to face the danger of combat at sea. Privateering, however, was far less popular among traders than it.
Replacement would be a trustworthy, proven servant of the Crown whom the king could count on to enforce his laws—especially the Navigation Acts. The king had also made up his mind that he would name his new appointee not only governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, but also captain-general of all the military and naval forces in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey as well. The king’s new man in America would be the most powerful royal governor ever to serve in the colonies.
To form. Rogers hoped that an armed troop of ex-pirates would not only add to his own slender force of regular soldiers but also help channel the energies of his unruly ex-brigands into positive activities. But the pirates made poor soldiers. As Rogers put it in his journal: “These wretches can’t be kept to watch at night, and when they do, they come very seldom sober, and rarely awake all night.” Nevertheless, he persisted in his efforts to make soldiers out of his “reformed” pirates. Rogers.