as the order of things. After all, as David Cordingly tells us in Under The Black Flag (1996), even when the young Welch privateer, Henry Morgan first arrived in the West Indies in 1654, he was part of a British expedition sent out to capture Spanish Hispaniola. When the attempt failed, they decided to attack the less-fortified island of Jamaica. They were successful, and Jamaica became a British settlement that evolved into one of the most important bases of operations for the Royal Navy against the Spanish during those early years.
Morgan was given letters of marquee (commissions) from the Governor of Jamaica and carried out many raids against Spanish possessions in Central America, with the blessings of the Cromwell and the English Crown. Then at age thirty-two, Henry Morgan was made Admiral of the original ‘Brethren of the Coast,’ a loose and diverse association of French, Dutch and English privateers and pirates from Tortuga, who worked together to carry out raids on Spanish ports and towns, rather than attack ships. They operated under a strict, but remarkably democratic code known as the ‘Law of the Coast,’ and shared the spoils of their efforts. Many of these ‘buccaneers,’ as they were also called, were excellent marksmen who carried French muskets rather than swords and cutlasses, as later pirates did.
During those years, the war with Spain was rekindled several times, and the French were also hostile. At one point, the settlement at Nassau had been plundered and burned three times, and the people there were left to fend for themselves. But according to Peter Earle, since there were only occasional and minor complaints about a few of the ‘masterless men’ like Benjamin Hornigold at Nassau, England was not that interested in ‘small scale villains, so far away.’
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So arose the pinnacle of the Pirates Republic, with its infamous circle of captain cohorts, Henry Jennings, Ben Hornigold, Bart Roberts, Sam Bellamy, Charles Vane and Edward Teach (or Thatch), as well as many smaller operators like Calico Jack Rackham (with Anne Bonny and Mary Read) and James Bonny. But after several seasons of ‘lawlessness,’ London began to wonder if the Bahamas might not be turning into another Madagascar.
The King’s Pardon in 1718 created a short period of relief for British authorities. Some of the outlaws accepted the reprieve, came ashore and stayed there, including Ben Hornigold and Henry Jennings. The rest of them were hell-bent upon ‘sailing under their own flags.’ Attacks against virtually all seagoing vessels along the coasts, and in the shipping lanes of the Atlantic seaboard and Eastern Caribbean reached new heights between 1719 and 1720. When the British finally decided to act, they were decisive. This time, many Royal Naval ships were sent, and authorities began soliciting aid from local captains. Even newly reformed pirates (including Ben Hornigold) became pirate hunters. Suddenly there was a local threat, just as formidable as any hurricane or Spanish fleet … right on the doorstep of the Pirates Republic.
Late in the game, some of the pirates like Captain Bartholomew Roberts and his crew had extended their operations to the coast of West Africa and as far east as the Indian Ocean. But off Cape Lopez, Gabon, in February of 1722, Robert’s gallant ship, Royal Fortune met its fate at the hands of Royal Navy Captain Challoner Ogle, commander of the Swallow. Roberts lost his life, and two hundred sixty-two pirates from two pirate ships were captured in a humiliating defeat. But the body of ‘Black Bart,’ still dressed in his scarlet waistcoat, was thrown over-board by the members of his crew, rather than let it be taken by the British.
Although the last execution of a pirate from the Golden Age on an island in the Indian Ocean didn’t take place until 1730, David Cordingly writes, ‘Of twenty-seven trials held between 1700 and 1728, in only five cases were the executions restricted to the ringleaders…,’ so as the total number of pirates operating in the Atlantic in 1720 was only about two thousand strong,