Book description
Long before Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and Black Barty terrorised the
Caribbean, the seas around the British Isles swarmed with pirates.
Thousands of men turned to piracy at sea, often as a makeshift
strategy of survival. Piracy was a business, not a way of life.
Although the young Francis Drake became the most famous pirate of the
period, scores of little-known pirate leaders operated during this
time, acquiring mixed reputations on land and at sea. Captain Henry
Strange ways earned notoriety for his attacks on French shipping in
the Channel and the Irish Sea, selling booty ashore in south-west
England and Wales. John Callice, and his associates, sailed in consort
with others, including another arch-pirate, Robert Hicks, plundering
French, Spanish, Danish and Scottish shipping, in voyages that ranged
from Scotland to Spain. The first British pirates led erratic careers,
but their roving in local waters paved the way for the more aggressive
and ambitious deep-sea piracy in the Caribbean.
