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Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life by David Cordingly

By David Cordingly

For this rousing, revisionist heritage, the previous head of exhibitions at England's nationwide Maritime Museum has combed unique files and files to provide a so much authoritative and definitive account of piracy's "Golden Age." As he explodes many approved myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is natural fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a fact that's extra advanced and sometimes bloodier. sixteen pp. of images. Maps.

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Extra resources for Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates

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Two years before writing Treasure Island he made a return voyage across the Atlantic, though not in vessels in any way resembling the schooner Hispaniola: the outward journey from the Clyde was in the passenger ship Devonia and the return voyage was in the Royal Mail liner City of Chester. Several years later, when he had become an established writer, he voyaged extensively among the Pacific islands. The effect of Treasure Island on our perception of pirates cannot be overestimated. Stevenson linked pirates forever with maps, black schooners, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders.

As the threat of piracy receded and attacks on merchant shipping in the Caribbean and along the American seaboard became few and far between, the public perception of pirates underwent a change. Instead of being regarded as common murderers and robbers they began to acquire the status of romantic outlaws. This image was given a major boost with the publication of an epic poem by Lord Byron in the early years of the nineteenth century. It was entitled The Corsair and described the adventures of Conrad, a proud and tyrannical pirate leader.

A pirate was, and is, someone who robs and plunders on the sea. According to a law against piracy which was passed in the reign of King Henry VIII, the term not only applied to robbery on the high seas but also to felonies, robberies, and murders committed in any haven, river, creek, or place where the Lord High Admiral had jurisdiction. A privateer was an armed vessel, or the commander and crew of that vessel, which was licensed to attack and seize the vessels of a hostile nation. ” Originally the license was granted by the sovereign to enable a merchant whose ship or cargo had been stolen or destroyed to seek reprisals by attacking the enemy and recouping his losses, but by the sixteenth century the system was being used by maritime nations as a cheap way of attacking enemy shipping in time of war.

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