Spanish gold - David Cordingly

Storiesof individual pirates in the Caribbean, from Blackbeard to Calico Jack, havebeen the stuff of legend since the eighteenth century, but in Spanish Goldpirate expert David Cordingly at last gives us the big picture in all its boldand ruthless truth.

Cordingly shows how the attacks of the buccaneers on the treasure ports of theSpanish Main, and the sacking of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in 1671, were theprologue to an explosion of piracy which led to the establishment of a piratecolony at Nassau in the Bahamas. By 1717, so many ships had been raided andtrade so badly disrupted that the merchants of London had to act.

The man they selected 'to drive the pirates from their lodgement' was CaptainWoodes Rogers, himself a former privateer who had sailed round the world withWilliam Dampier the buccaneer explorer as his pilot. Woodes Rogers had capturedthe fabled Manila treasure galleon, and rescued Alexander Selkirk from a remotePacific island - indeed, it was his account of Selkirk's ordeal that inspiredDaniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.


Woodes Rogers' resolute actions as Governor of the Bahamas restored order tothe colony and proved a defining step in the campaign against the pirates,inspiring the fight-back against men like Blackbeard, Calico Jack andBartholomew Roberts, all of whom died in dramatic circumstances.

Played out against the background of fierce colonial rivalry between Britain,France and Spain, linked with the slave trade, the sugar plantations of theWest Indies, and the fabulously rich trade in gold and silver from the NewWorld, the true story of the rise and fall of the pirates of the Caribbeanmakes for a tale even more interesting and surprising than the legendsthemselves.