Author: savage | The Golden Age of Piracy

The Pirate King

The Pirate King: The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy by Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him “the pirate king” for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero. Rumors swirled about his disappearance. The only certainty is that Henry Avery became a ghost.

What happened to the notorious Avery has been pirate history’s most baffling cold case for centuries. Now, in a remote archive, a coded letter written by “Avery the Pirate” himself, years after he disappeared, reveals a stunning truth.…

Piracy Act 1744

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US privateers in the Revolutionary War. From the book A history of American privateers (1900) by Edgar Stanton Maclay. Under this act British subjects serving as privateers for an enemy of Great Britain could be tried for a felony not treason. It was easier to convict someone of a felony than prove treason. It was passed during the War of Austrian Succession waged from 1740 to 1748, in which Britain fought against France and Spain. As with many wars before, privateers were an integral part of the armed forces of all powers, and it would seem that British citizens regulary found employment with foreign powers.

An example of using privateers to support navies, occurred in 1744, when a British force of 300 men accompanied by two privateers from Saint Kitts successfully captured the French half of neighbouring Saint Martin. In late May 1745, two French royal frigates of 36 and 30 guns respectively under Commodore La Touché, together with three privateers sailed from Martinique to invade and capture the British colony of Anguilla in retaliation, but were repelled with heavy loss in the Battle of Anguilla.…

The Pirate Menace

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The Pirate Menace – Uncovering the Golden Age of Piracy by Angus Konstam

This account explores the most notorious pirates in history and how their rise and fall can be traced back to a single pirate haven, Nassau. Angus Konstam, one of the world’s leading pirate experts, has brought his 30 years of research to create the definitive book on the Golden Age of Piracy. Many of the privateers the British had used to prey on French and Spanish shipping during the War of the Spanish Succession turned to piracy. The pirates took over Nassau on the Bahamian island of New Providence and turned it into their own pirate haven, where shady merchants were happy to buy their plunder. It became the hub of a pirate network that included some of the most notorious pirates in history: Blackbeard, ‘Calico Jack’ Rackam, Charles Vane and Bartholomew Roberts.

The growth of piracy led to a major surge in attacks in the Caribbean and along North America’s Atlantic seaboard.…

Fiddler’s Green

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Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets,
No more on the docks I’ll be seen,
Just tell me old shipmates, I’m taking a trip mates,
And I’ll see you someday on Fiddlers Green.

That was a pretty tune. I ain’t ever heard it before,” commented Benton once the song had come to an end and the small group of men had taken out their pipes and tobacco pouches.

The idea of Fiddler’s Green is based on the maritime myth of an after-life of a paradise for seamen, which was popular in the nineteenth century, where there is perpetual merriment, music, and dancing. The origins of this myth are not entirely clear, but some scholars suggest that it may have been inspired by the Greek myth of the Elysian Fields, a paradise for the dead. A mythical afterlife similar to Heaven, Fiddler’s Green was said to be a place of bliss and happiness in which fiddle music was played for all eternity.…

Spirits of the sea

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Both stranded pirates sat in silence for a while, listening to a slow, but pleasant tune with a catchy chorus, to which most of the visitors of the tavern were earnestly singing along with.

Put your money on the barrel,
Rum and baccy on the quay,
Put your money on the barrel,
Drink to the spirits of the sea.

The chorus sung by the patrons of the tavern in the Story Fiddler’s Green taken from the song Spirits of the Sea, which can be found on the double album of the same name by The Dolmen, a folk rock band from Weymouth in the south-west of England. It’d like to thank them for letting me use it in the book. The album was self-released on 6th August 2010. It consists of a collection of original songs, sea shanties, and atmospheric musical arrangements interspersed with tales and narrations of the historical exploits of several well-known pirates.…