Pirates - BCC NavalAction

Rogues who made war on the world

“I am a free prince.” boasted pirate Charles Bellamy to the captain of a Boston merchantman captured off South Carolina in 1717. “and I have as much authority to make war on the while World as he who has a hundred sails of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field.” However grandiose Bellamy's assertion may sound today, it was not without foundation in his own way. For Bellamy lived at the zenith of the Great Age – some said Golden Age – of piracy, when thousands upon thousands of brigands made what amounted to war all along the sea-lanes of the world.

Although the era lasted scarcely 30 years, in that time the pirates plundered shipping to the point where normal commerce and even the economy of some countries were threatened. Spanish, French, British, Dutch, Indian, Arabian, it made no difference what flag a vessel sailed under. The pirates turned their hands against all men, and every vessel was fair prey. So immense was their booty and so powerful their impact that the most fearsome of the pirates and their exploits became legends in their own lifetime the fiendish Blackbeard forcing a Portuguese captive to eat his own ears, nose, and lips; Captain Kidd stringing up an entire crew by their arms in the tropical sun to make them confess the location of their gold; Henry Every ravishing, then falling in love with and marrying the daughter of the great Mogul of India.

But if some of these tales were largely apocryphal, the truth about the pirates was incredible enough. Who these men were, why they suddenly burst into the world and how they met their doom has fascinated historian for years.

Famous pirates

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Pirate ships

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