Pirate Nation. David Childs

      Copyright © David Childs 2014

      First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

      Seaforth Publishing,

      Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

      47 Church Street,

      Barnsley S70 2AS

       www.seaforthpublishing.com

      Published and distributed in the United States of America and Canada by

      Naval Institute Press

      291 Wood Road

      Annapolis, Maryland 21402-5034

      This edition is authorized for sale only in the United States of America, its territories and possessions and Canada.

      First Naval Institute Press eBook edition published in 2015.

      ISBN 978-1-61251-936-4 (eBook)

       British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      A CIP data record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing of both the copyright owner and the above publisher.

      The rights of David Childs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      Typeset by MATSTypesetting, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex SS9 5EB

      Print edition by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

      Contents

Exchange Rates

1 Protestants in Pursuit of Profit

2 Apprentice to a Pirate

3 Pirate Ships of War at Sea

       4 Arms and Actions

       5 Piracy in the Pacific

       6 The American Dream

       7 The Azores and the First Battle of the Atlantic

       8 A Preference for Pirates – The Failure of the Spanish Armada

      Peculation and the Piratocracy

       9 The Land Rats

      10 The Duke’s Denial

      11 Disturbing the World

      12 Low Water

      Appendices

       1 Letters of Reprisal and Bonds for Good Behaviour, 1591–95

       2 Commission issued by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Cumberland, 28 March 1595

       3 John Donne, ‘The Storm’ and ‘The Calm’, 1600

       4 Inventory of Malice Scourge, 1600

       5 Estimated Costs of Equipping a Pirate Vessel

       6 Authorisation to Equip a Vessel of War under the Admiralty of Zealand, 1582

       7 Tennyson, ‘The Little Revenge, A Ballad of the Fleet’

       8 Cargo Unloaded at Seville, 1593

       9 The Appraisement of Prizes

      10 Notes from State Papers Concerning Piracy, 1578

      11 Complaints of the Dutch Concerning English Piracy, 1589

      References and Bibliography

      Notes

      Maps

      Index

       Exchange Rates

      £1 in 1600 would be worth about £130 in 2014.

      ***

      There were 20 shillings to the pound and twelve pennies to the shilling.

      One crown was worth five shillings.

      ***

      (approximate for the period)

      One gold ducat was worth seven shillings.

      One silver ducat was worth 5s 6d.

      One pesos de oro was worth 8s 3d.

      One real was worth six pennies.

      ***

      34 maravedis = one real.

      8 reals = one peso.

      One pound weight (lb) = 0.45 kilograms.

      One hundredweight (cwt) = 50.8 kilograms.

      One foot = 30 centimetres.

       CHAPTER 1

       Protestants in Pursuit of Profit

       I write not this in favour of piracies, for I hate all pirates mortally.¹

      Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer, November 1590

      For two hundred years, the least safe track along which an Englishman could travel upon his lawful occasion was the sea lane that lay between Ushant and London Bridge, along which, as if in sea-thickets, pirates waited to snag in their barbs all whom appeared weaker than themselves.

      This barbed infestation arose because exploitable gaps existed in the surveillance of the sea by the forces of law and order. Such piracy took root because it was nurtured by sections of society ashore, including many in the magistracy who, charged with its eradication, dealt in maritime malfeasance and took an active role in its ordering and establishment while protecting those engaged in the trade. It grew stoutly during the last two decades of the sixteenth century because Queen Elizabeth I, her Lord Admiral and most of her Privy Council, with the honourable exception of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, profited from supporting the leading practitioners of this illegal trade.

      Each level of growth had a geographical locus. Thus a local rogue turned rover might land and dispose of his piratical gains under cover of darkness near the harbour which was his home. At county level, a crooked but influential member of the gentry, such as the local vice admiral, could make it known that he was prepared to turn a blind eye to such activities at a price, or even sponsor a few ships and seamen of his own. At this stage of growth the Crown, when so minded, attempted to cauterise the activity, although there were always those in authority, such as the Lord Admiral, who controlled both the navy and the Admiralty Court, who could covertly condone that which they were charged to condemn.² The result was that the pruning hooks of legality were handled with such discretion that those dispatched by both sea and land to root out piracy wielded their secateurs in a lackadaisical manner – only snipping with full force on those least able to offer rich rewards in their defence. No effort was ever made to constrain those who returned with the most golden fruits from further afield, regardless from whose orchard they had been snatched.

      By the mid sixteenth century England had earned her epithet of a nation of pirates, but in the quarter century that closed with Elizabeth’s death in 1603, the country turned from being a nation of pirates into a pirate nation; a state whose own ruler was identified as a pirate queen who (along with most her advisers, favourites and legal practioners) was a beneficiary of piracy.