- 7 months ago
Documentary, Britain's Outlaws, Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues, part 2, Pirates
Dr. Sam Willis narrates and presents this 3 part documentary series about Highwaymen, Pirates and Roques of a bygone era in Britain. We visit some actual sites along the way.
Dr. Sam Willis narrates and presents this 3 part documentary series about Highwaymen, Pirates and Roques of a bygone era in Britain. We visit some actual sites along the way.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Of all the renegades in Britain's age of outlaws, pirates were the most pursued.
00:20Hunted down on the high seas, their bloody exploits would be followed by an appalled but enthralled public.
00:30In May 1701, the corpse of a convicted pirate was brought downriver from Execution Dock to the lower reaches of the Thames, here at Tilbury Point.
00:47The body was tarred to preserve it and then hung in chains above the shoreline.
00:53The body was that of Captain William Kidd, whose exploits and downfall had so captivated the country.
01:01Kidd's corpse was displayed here as a dire warning to all seafarers entering the great port of London to resist the temptations of piracy.
01:10Kidd was the product of an era of feverish mercantile expansion, powered by a vast network of seaborne trade.
01:22By plundering this global movement of commodities and riches, pirates became the most wanted outlaws in the world.
01:29With flamboyant names like Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Black Bart, pirate captains would become infamous beyond the seas.
01:43And through ballads, plays and books, they would be transformed into legend.
01:53And that transformation from reality to mythic outlaw is one of the most enduring historical puzzles of the period.
02:02I'm going to take to the seas to explore just how this change happened and examine the devastating impact of these swashbuckling adventurers.
02:16Captain Kidd's tarred corpse would rot away here over several years until the birds had picked his carcass clean.
02:24But this warning went unheeded, for the golden age of piracy was only just beginning.
02:32For a man who would come to be seen as heralding an age of piracy, Captain Kidd had never set out to be a pirate at all.
03:01By the late 1690s, with the escalation of the Nine Years' War against France, Kidd, as a highly experienced sailor, saw the opportunity to make his fortune, not as a pirate, but as a privateer.
03:15Piracy was outright robbery on the high seas, but privateers were mercenaries issued with a license by the government to loot the merchant ships flying the colours of England's enemies at sea.
03:32Their license was issued in the form of a letter of mark and reprisal, and this one, dated 11th December 1695, is Kidd's own privateering commission, granted and signed by no less than the King of England himself, William III.
03:48But this wasn't quite as it seemed, because there was a second commission, this one to hunt down pirates in the Indian Ocean, whose plundering was seriously disrupting trade with the East.
04:06Now, this venture was cooked up by a shady syndicate of some of the most powerful men in England, who would all share from the spoils of Kidd's enterprise.
04:15And with the King himself, due to get a 10% share in the profits, the stakes were very high.
04:23Failure was not an option.
04:26And yet Kidd's misfortune was to begin almost as soon as he set sail.
04:32As his ship, the Adventure Galley, slipped down the Thames here at Greenwich, Kidd, armed with a newfound arrogance from having an actual royal commission,
04:41believing himself above the law, refused to dip his flag and fire a salute at a royal yacht as he passed, which was against all custom.
04:51And when, outraged, the captain of the yacht fired a shot as a reminder, Kidd's crew responded with a surprising display of impudence.
04:59They climbed the yards and slapped their backsides in distem.
05:02The response was harsher than they could have ever expected.
05:12Because of Kidd's failure to salute, the captain of the naval yacht retaliated by boarding his ship
05:18and press-ganging most of his carefully hand-picked men into naval service.
05:23With only a skeleton crew, Kidd set course for Madagascar, known to be the great pirate bolt hole of the Indian Ocean
05:39for its good anchorage and strategic position on important Mughal trade routes from India,
05:45then being exploited by Europe's maritime powers.
05:49We're talking about an age of tremendous colonial rivalry.
05:56France, Spain, Holland and England, all endeavouring to create colonies and to conquer land.
06:04And so you've got a lot of merchant ships of different nations competing to get more money out of the Caribbean or India and from the Far East.
06:16And pirates aren't fools.
06:19They gather where the trade routes are narrowing and they can pounce.
06:27Within sight of Madagascar, Kidd suffered a major setback when a third of his crew perished with cholera.
06:35And the only new recruits he could find turned out to be former pirates,
06:39men who had already turned to piracy and expected Kidd to do the same.
06:46Kidd's bad luck persisted.
06:50After several more months without plunder or prizes and facing the very real prospect of returning home empty-handed,
06:58Kidd made the grave decision to leave the Indian Ocean and head for the Red Sea,
07:04a rich area full of Mughal merchants and wealthy pilgrims travelling to and from Mecca.
07:11Kidd's presence there all but announced that he had turned to piracy.
07:15After a devastating raid on an Indian Mughal fleet by a pirate named Captain Henry Avery two years before,
07:32the East India Company, whose monopoly on trade with the Indian subcontinent depended on the continuing patronage of the vastly rich Mughal Empire,
07:41was extremely wary of it happening again.
07:44But Kidd's crew now put increasing pressure on him to take prizes, no matter what flag they sailed under.
07:51In desperation, Kidd attacked a Mughal merchant convoy, technically his first foray into piracy.
07:58But when he was repelled, tensions between Kidd and his crew spilled over.
08:04The ship's gunner, William Moore, claimed that he had brought the crew to ruin and desolation,
08:09upon which Kidd picked up a heavy iron-hooped bucket and brought it down on Moore's head with such ferocity that he fractured his skull.
08:17And Moore later died.
08:24Admiralty law allowed captains a degree of leeway in the use of violence, but this was murder.
08:30Kidd remained unrepentant, though, confident that his good friends in England would save him from prosecution.
08:37And still feeling empowered by his letter of mark from the key, he now grew more and more reckless.
08:47In January 1698, after some minor successes, Kidd took his greatest prize,
09:00a 400-ton Armenian ship called the Queda Merchant,
09:04which was sailing with French passes, for which Kidd had a licence to attack.
09:09However, when he discovered that its cargo was owned by a Mughal nobleman,
09:17he tried to hand the ship back, but his crew refused.
09:20Wishing to avoid a full mutiny, Kidd relented and kept his new prize.
09:31But when news reached London, various naval commanders were sent out
09:35to pursue and seize the said Kidd and his accomplices
09:38for the notorious piracies that they had committed.
09:42Now a wanted man, with several Englishmen of war in pursuit,
09:50and with the East India Company baying for his blood,
09:53Kidd made sail for Boston, where his friend Lord Bellamont,
09:56the governor of New York, had promised him safe refuge.
10:00But Kidd was sailing into a trap that would land him in the dock.
10:04This here is a letter from Lord Bellamont, which he had sent to Captain Kidd.
10:10Lord Bellamont had financed all of Kidd's expeditions,
10:13and they'd been friendly with each other.
10:15You can see in the language of the letter here, he's saying,
10:18do not be discouraged by the false reports of ill men.
10:21Don't believe what people are telling you.
10:22Okay.
10:23Yes, you may be assured of my having interest employed
10:26to do you all the service that I can.
10:29He's going to do everything he can to help him.
10:31But actually, he was luring Captain Kidd to Boston to get him arrested.
10:35Lord Bellamont did not want to be associated with piracy at all whatsoever.
10:39Okay.
10:40So he used that previous friendship to get Kidd.
10:43But unfortunately, when he arrived in Boston, he was then thrown in prison.
10:46Do we think Kidd was a bit gullible here?
10:48Was he just relying on a sense of trust that had existed before?
10:52I think Kidd was desperate at this point, to be honest.
10:54I think he knew that, unbeknownst to him,
10:56somehow he had been accused of piracy when he did not believe he was a pirate.
11:00And so he was going to take any means he could to try to protect himself.
11:04It seems clear to me that Kidd hasn't been unfairly labeled as a pirate.
11:08He was clearly a pirate.
11:09He attacked the ships of a nation and he didn't have a license to do so.
11:14I think Kidd was a pirate.
11:15But I think, above everything else, he was a scapegoat.
11:18And this is because, just a few years before, a pirate named Henry Avery had disrupted trade between the Mughals and the East India Company.
11:26And then, just a couple years later, Captain Kidd does the same thing.
11:30The Mughals then threatened to cut off all trade, which would have practically bankrupted the East India Company.
11:36Britain had to make Kidd an example to the Mughals that, yes, they would take care of piracy in the most brutal fashion.
11:42So they could show the world exactly what would happen to a pirate if they threatened trade and the British economy.
11:49So what we have here is an indication of just how much of a show trial this was.
11:54This lengthy document that I'm holding is the actual trial transcription verbatim of Captain Kidd's trial.
12:00And this sold out because it sold so many copies.
12:02At this point, pretty much everybody knew who Captain Kidd was because his crimes had been reported in newspapers for several years on both sides of the Atlantic.
12:10People were fascinated with pirates because these were maritime outlaws committing their crimes thousands of miles away.
12:16They didn't declare allegiance to their formal countries.
12:19They were these people who had social mobility that nobody else had.
12:24And people wouldn't be able to see them until their execution.
12:26What was the scene like at Kidd's execution?
12:35Well, actually, I could show you that, Sam, because there's a picture here in the Newgate calendar.
12:39So this here is a pirate being executed at execution dock.
12:43This is how Captain Kidd would have been executed.
12:45You can see the noose is around his neck.
12:48Here's the crowd of people.
12:49And here we have the Admiralty Marshal sitting on his horse.
12:52And in his hand, you can see right here, the silver oar of the Admiralty.
12:57The silver oar was always present at these executions.
13:00I've actually got the silver oar that was used at Captain Kidd's trial and execution.
13:06Let's have a look.
13:09There it is.
13:10There it is.
13:11As you can see, it's got all the symbols.
13:13That's definitely the Tudor arms.
13:15This is the garnet and coronet of James Stewart, the Duke of York.
13:19And very clearly the fouled anchor, which was the symbol of the Admiralty.
13:23Yes.
13:23A very powerful symbol of maritime authority.
13:25It was, yes, definitely.
13:28Everyone who would see it would know exactly what it meant.
13:30However, there's one further and even more compelling artefact from Kidd's darkest days.
13:50And it's this, a letter from Captain Kidd to Sir Robert Harley, the leader of the Tories.
13:56It's Kidd's last desperate attempt to save himself from the noose.
14:00And what's particularly interesting are these few lines.
14:04That in my late proceedings in the Indies, I have lodged goods and treasure to the value of £100,000,
14:12which I desire the government may have the benefit of.
14:16It's a massive bribe and the promise of an enormous stash of loot.
14:20This is Kidd's real legacy, the founding myth of buried pirate treasure.
14:26The secret location of Kidd's treasure, if it ever existed, has never been found,
14:40even though there continue to be claims of its discovery up to this very day.
14:45Kidd had highlighted not only the easy seduction of piracy,
14:57but also how privateers quickly became a hindrance and were shut down by the government
15:02when they ceased to serve the interests of the nation and its expanding empire.
15:07The government's attitude to piracy changed because of the exploits of Kidd,
15:15because they damaged British trade, and Britain's future was going to be a great maritime nation.
15:21This was accepted already.
15:22This was the way that a small island could get global power.
15:25So, obviously, piracy, which people had winked at before because it simply damaged the Spanish
15:32or other people that people didn't really care about,
15:35now it was a problem and it had to be suppressed.
15:38But far from suppressing the pirate menace,
15:48Kidd's very public humiliation only served to heighten the fascination with these maritime outlaws,
15:54and in particular, it now rekindled a feverish interest in the elusive Captain Henry Avery,
16:01the one pirate who had got away.
16:03Avery had made the most profitable pirate raid in history
16:12when, in September 1695, he captured the Gang Isawai,
16:17a heavily armed Mughal trading ship carrying over £600,000 worth of precious metal and jewels,
16:24the equivalent of £52 million in today's money.
16:29For his actions, a bounty of £1,000 had been put on his head,
16:34leading to the first worldwide manhunt in recorded history.
16:39But unlike Captain Kidd, Avery slipped the net,
16:44and rumours abounded for years that he had ended up in a pirate republic called Libertalia.
16:50As the story goes, Libertalia was a place where people were equal,
17:02and goods were shared, and laws were fair,
17:05and the pirates flew a white flag as opposed to a black flag
17:08to show that, you know, there was no threat and people were free under this flag.
17:13And stories like that, of course, are a great threat to society back home,
17:18which is tremendously unequal and very harsh.
17:24Fugitive outlaws had always caught the public imagination,
17:27and Avery was no exception.
17:30Stories of his big prize, his vanishing act, and his pirate utopia
17:34passed between deckhands across the oceans
17:37and returned to England in the form of popular ballads,
17:40and this one was purportedly penned by Avery himself.
17:46Now this is the course
17:48I intended for to steer
17:53My false-hearted nation
17:58To you I declare
18:01If Avery was indeed the author of this ballad,
18:05then he was not only fuelling his own infamy,
18:08but spreading sedition.
18:10If Avery was indeed the author of the author of the
18:12Ballads were very dangerous things.
18:14They were banned in periods of political unrest,
18:18because you could turn a populace like that by singing ballads.
18:22It doesn't seem likely to us today.
18:25Ballads particularly appealed to the lower classes.
18:27They were very accessible.
18:29They were sold on the streets,
18:30and they were just printed on single sheets of paper on one side.
18:33And if you couldn't read very well,
18:35well, the ballad monger would sing the ballad in order to attract a crowd,
18:39and make their sales.
18:41For the price of a few pennies, or nothing at all if you remember it,
18:45you were up to date with the latest news.
18:47I have done thee no wrong
18:51Thou must me forgive
18:54The sword shall maintain me as long as I live
19:03Whilst pirates clearly had mass appeal,
19:07What was now surprising was that amongst the chattering classes swashbucklers like Avery
19:13and tales of his remarkable disappearance became the fashionable new topic.
19:17And it was a play based on Avery which did much to foster the legend of the pirate as a brave outlaw.
19:24The successful pirate opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1712.
19:30Set as a tragic comedy, it cast Avery as a self-styled King of the Pirates
19:36and features a rum bunch of incompetents hotly debating the virtues of piracy.
19:40Come on now, sir. I'll oppose you with his faults.
19:47Is he not extremely violent and intemperate with his desires?
19:51Granted.
19:52A hero should be, though. That immoderate desire for power. That unquenchable appetite for rule
20:02that has long been dignified by the slaves of tyrants.
20:09But he is no tyrant. Therefore, tis virtue in him to desire power.
20:18The public absolutely loved it, much to the irritation of the critics.
20:22One of whom was outraged by the way that it glamorised villainy
20:27in making a swabber a mere deckhand into the hero of a tragedy.
20:32Notwithstanding all you've said, he is still only an overgrown thief.
20:37Why, the worst you hypocrites of order can say, and it is to his immortal honour,
20:44is that he has leapt the pale of custom and is a royal outlaw.
20:51But for one member of the audience, the writer and journalist Daniel Defoe,
20:56the play was proof enough of the pirates' broad cultural appeal.
21:00With his customary journalistic chutzpah, Defoe was to capitalise on the pirates' appeal
21:17and their ambiguous morality, not only in Robinson Crusoe but in several of his books,
21:23making him, in effect, the first pirate novelist.
21:28But there was another book published in this period which surpassed all others in chronicling
21:33the lives and exploits of the pirates of the Great Golden Age.
21:37Now, I was brought up on stories of real pirates and they were all inspired by this book.
21:43As titles go, it's pretty difficult to beat. A general history of the robberies
21:48and murders of the most notorious pirates.
21:53This was the pirate brilliantly packaged and neatly presented,
21:58and the public absolutely loved it.
22:01The book tapped into a growing vogue for criminal biography,
22:05but its author, a Captain Charles Johnson, remains a mystery figure,
22:09as elusive as many of the pirates themselves.
22:13Johnson displayed such a detailed knowledge of the life and language of the sea
22:18that it was thought by many that he must have been a retired sea captain,
22:22that he'd perhaps attended pirate trials or even interviewed pirate crewmen.
22:27But there has also been a long-standing and far more intriguing belief
22:31that Johnson was merely a pseudonym for our old friend Daniel Defoe.
22:36So, within that slim volume are the detailed lives of 20 or so celebrated pirates,
22:48and it has become a sort of touchstone for piracy,
22:51and it's been used as the basis, really, for the golden age of pirates.
22:57And what I found fascinating over the years, as I've done research in different areas,
23:03is it all checks out. The capture of ships and what the various pirates did with the crew
23:08and did with the ships. Totally authentic.
23:14And one of the most surprising details of Johnson's book is its account of a democratic
23:20code of conduct, or the Pirates Code, as it was generally known.
23:23The Pirates Code provided rules for discipline for the fair division of plundered loot,
23:30and it even set aside specific sums of money for injuries sustained to different parts of the body.
23:37For example, in pirate currency, the most highly valued part of your body was your right arm,
23:42for which you received 600 of these pieces of eight. Your left arm was valued at 100 less,
23:48and your legs at 100 less again. Bizarrely, a finger and an eye were equally valued at 100 pieces,
23:55but I suspect that you had to make your own eye patch.
24:02Seaman had a very harsh life. They worked for long hours, for years, for very low pay.
24:09When tales came back about pirates running their ships on more democratic lines,
24:15made joint decisions and decisions in common and shared their supplies,
24:19this would never have happened on a navy ship or a merchant ship. And this is egalitarian.
24:29So, a pirate crew could easily find its numbers swelled by sailors desperate to escape an oppressive
24:35ship and more than happy to switch allegiance and sail under the black flag.
24:40And the lure of the black flag was to become far greater following the end of the war of the
24:50Spanish succession in 1713, which not only saw Atlantic trade resume, but also witnessed thousands
24:58of British seamen relieved of military duty. The result was a large number of idle but highly
25:06trained sailors at a time of considerable seaborne trade, as all of the European maritime powers
25:12sought to expand their colonial empires. Now, a great deal of money could be made transporting goods
25:18on this network. But if you knew that network, you could, of course, just steal it,
25:23which is why peacetime provided so many opportunities for the maritime outlaw.
25:28This was especially so in the seas around the West Indies, with its lucrative trade in sugar and,
25:37more notoriously, slaves. There were ships all over the place, merchant ships,
25:43waiting to be plundered. So you had in the Bahamas a whole lot of unemployed seamen, adventurers,
25:51out-of-work privateers and pirates, all waiting for action. It became so full of people looting and
25:57raping and whatever, that it became, in a way, what we call now a failed state.
26:21During the war of the Spanish succession, Nassau in the Bahamas had been utterly ransacked and left
26:35in ruins. By 1715, still ungoverned and undefended, it had become a pirate haven.
26:43By the following year, the pirate population outnumbered Nassau's law-abiding citizens
26:48by 10 to 1. It had become, in effect, a pirate republic, a sprawling encampment of carousing,
26:55fornicating sailors, funding their profligate lifestyles with plunder.
26:59It seemed as though Captain Avery's mythical pirate kingdom had come alive.
27:18The Native Truth
27:42The Native Truth
27:46One of the rising ringleaders of this new encampment of renegades
27:51was a tall, robust Englishman from Bristol named Edward Teach.
27:59By March 1717, Teach had formed a company of 70 men aboard his six-gun sloop
28:06and had begun to cultivate a formidable reputation.
28:09His flag was soon the most feared on the horizon
28:17and with his mane of coarse dark locks, he now went by the catchy new name of Blackbeard.
28:24The skull and crossbones has been a symbol of death since the Middle Ages
28:27and in this great period, the pirates adopted it as their own menacing symbol
28:32with each captain having his own version.
28:35And unsurprisingly for Blackbeard, who was obsessed with his image,
28:39his flag had it all.
28:41If ever there was a symbol to strike fear into the heart of your victim,
28:45then this was it.
28:50A skeleton holds an hourglass in one hand to show you that your time is running out
28:55and a spear in the other, threatening to draw blood from your heart if you do not surrender.
29:01And if this wasn't enough, Blackbeard added horns and cloven feet to his skeleton
29:06to signify that he was in league with the devil.
29:09Sailors during the early 18th century were almost universally superstitious
29:18and aside from the sight of Blackbeard's flag,
29:22the sight of the man himself was enough to cause the crews of merchant ships to surrender.
29:27His reputation rests entirely on his appearance, which was vividly recorded in Captain Johnson's book.
29:41This beard was black, which he suffered to grow of an extravagant length.
29:47As to breadth, it came up to his eyes.
29:49He was accustomed to twist it with ribbons in small tails and turn them about his ears.
29:55In time of action, he wore a sling over his shoulders with three brace of pistols hanging in holsters like bandoliers
30:01and stuck lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of his face,
30:07his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure
30:11that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful.
30:22Blackbeard was ruthless.
30:23On one occasion, when a victim didn't voluntarily offer up the ring on his finger,
30:29he simply cut it off, ring and all.
30:31And he wasn't above maiming his own crew.
30:34We also know that he shot his second mate, Israel Hands, in the knee,
30:38just to remind him who was boss.
30:43If Blackbeard looked like a walking arsenal, then it was for a very good reason.
30:47Flintlock pistols like this only fired a single shot.
30:51And they were also notoriously unreliable at sea.
30:54So if your pistol failed to fire because of a damp charge,
30:57you could go straight on to the next one.
30:59And then when both were used up, you still had your cutlass.
31:03One of the most important articles of the Pirate's Code
31:07was to keep your pistols and cutlass clean and fit for service,
31:11especially in the run-up to an attack.
31:14They would all be on deck, waving cutlasses, firing in the air,
31:18and as they came alongside, they would also throw a primitive form of hand grenade
31:23onto the deck of the merchant ship, which caused chaos,
31:26and send over a grapnel rope and haul themselves alongside,
31:32by which stage normally the petrified crew, not used to battle,
31:37just said, we surrender.
31:39Blackbeard's reign of terror lasted two years.
31:48Tormenting the American eastern seaboard from the Caribbean to North Carolina,
31:53he plundered sugar, rum, and loot from a series of English merchant vessels.
31:58But following his ruthless blockade of Charlestown Harbour in May 1718,
32:20the governor of Virginia issued a warrant for Blackbeard's arrest
32:24with a reward of £100 for his capture, dead or alive.
32:33Lieutenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl was dispatched to hunt him down
32:38and eventually tracked him to the shallows of Ocracoke Inlet.
32:42Blackbeard raised a bottle of liquor in salutation
32:57and declared that Maynard and his crew were cowardly puppies
33:00before calling out to them,
33:02Damnation seize my soul if I give you quarters or take any from you.
33:07Blackbeard was ready for a fight.
33:09The ensuing battle was brief and bloodthirsty.
33:14As the ships closed in, Blackbeard's men hurled bottle grenades
33:17and using grappling hooks and boarding axes, they clambered on board.
33:22But Maynard had hidden most of his crew below deck
33:25and they now took the pirates by surprise,
33:28engaging in furious hand-to-hand combat,
33:31with Blackbeard coming up against Maynard himself.
33:34Holding his cutlass aloft, Blackbeard lunged with such ferocity
33:38that he sheared off Maynard's blade near the hilt.
33:42But coming for him again, Blackbeard was surrounded and hit from all sides.
33:48Riddled with shot and cut to ribbons,
33:50Blackbeard then suffered a terrible wound to his neck
33:53from a Scotsman wielding a broadsword.
33:56Well done, lads, said Blackbeard,
33:58before staggering but cocking his pistol again.
34:01I'll do better, said the Scotsman,
34:03before hacking away at his neck again deeply,
34:06killing that great man dead on his own deck.
34:09With their captain's fighting spirit,
34:17Blackbeard's men fought on, but were soon overcome.
34:21As proof of Blackbeard's death,
34:23and in order to collect the reward of £100,
34:26Maynard called for Blackbeard's head to be severed
34:29and hung up on the bowsprit.
34:33The rest of Blackbeard's corpse was then thrown overboard,
34:42whereupon hitting the water, according to legend,
34:45it then swam several times around the sloop,
34:48searching for its own severed head,
34:50before sinking without trace.
35:00Because of his fearsome reputation,
35:03Blackbeard's death was seen as a major coup
35:06in the war against piracy,
35:08and, in propaganda terms,
35:09as significant as the trial and hanging of Captain Kidd.
35:18But even with Blackbeard gone,
35:21there were still some 2,000 pirates roving the seas.
35:25The colonies were facing what amounted to an imperial crisis.
35:33We've got the Golden Age pirates rampaging across the Caribbean.
35:38They're disrupting trade.
35:39The colonial governors are complaining to London.
35:42You've got to do something about it.
35:44The governor of Jamaica is saying,
35:46I can't send a ship in or out
35:48without it being captured by pirates.
35:49And one of the things the authorities do,
35:52they get onto the admiralty and they say,
35:55send more ships to the Caribbean.
35:58So it actually becomes part of the brief of the navy
36:01to suppress the pirates.
36:02The naval ships that were sent out
36:05tended to be what are called sixth-rate ships.
36:08They were 40 guns or so,
36:11and they were powerful vessels,
36:13but they were quite big.
36:14They weren't able to go into shallow estuaries and bays.
36:18The pirates selected mostly what are called sleuths.
36:24They were relatively shallow draft compared to the naval ships,
36:27so they could sneak in and out of estuaries and bays and channels
36:32that the naval ships couldn't get into.
36:36The naval ships,
36:38if there were only four to cover the entire Caribbean,
36:41and there were, what,
36:42two to three hundred pirate ships operating in that same area,
36:47the naval ships couldn't be everywhere at once.
36:49So the navy had a difficult job,
36:51and in a way, the pirates had the advantage.
36:57But as the government soon realised,
37:01it would take more than deploying a few more naval ships.
37:05In 1717, under the new King George I,
37:09one of the measures taken to quell the pirate menace
37:11was the issue of a royal proclamation,
37:14an act of grace,
37:15in which the king promised that any pirate
37:17who voluntarily surrendered himself to British authorities within a year
37:21would receive his most gracious pardon.
37:24One of the pirates who took advantage of this amnesty,
37:30albeit briefly,
37:31was Captain John Rackham,
37:33whose colourful cotton clothes
37:35earned him the equally colourful nickname of Calico Jack.
37:39Calico Jack achieved lasting fame,
37:42not for his actions,
37:43which amounted to seizing a handful of vessels in the seas of Jamaica,
37:47but for his association with two of his crew members,
37:50which became one of the most beguiling and frankly suspect episodes
37:55of the entire golden age of piracy.
38:01It was whilst taking advantage of the pirate amnesty
38:04and frequenting the taverns of Nassau
38:06that Calico Jack met and courted a bold young Irish woman
38:10named Anne Bonney.
38:11And with his return to piracy soon after,
38:14he took her to sea,
38:15and she joined his crew dressing in men's clothes.
38:19Now, here, the story takes a rather brilliant turn.
38:22When Calico Jack's sloop revenge captured a merchant ship,
38:26he acquired a young sailor by the name of Mark Reed.
38:29Now, Anne Bonney,
38:30who was serving on Jack's crew dressed in men's clothes,
38:33took a bit of a fancy to this young sailor
38:35and in a quiet moment alone revealed to him
38:38that she was, in fact, a woman,
38:40upon which Mark Reed revealed
38:42that he was also a woman named Mary.
38:45In late 1720,
38:52a merchant sea captain named Jonathan Barnett
38:55with a commission to hunt down pirates
38:57took Calico Jack and his crew by surprise
39:00whilst they enjoyed a rum party anchored off Jamaica.
39:04Jack and his men were too drunk to fight
39:06and fled to the hold,
39:08leaving only Bonnie and Reed to resist.
39:10The two women flew at Barnett's men like furies,
39:14firing their pistols,
39:15wielding their cutlasses and axes
39:17and shouting obscenities as they went.
39:20But they were unable to rouse their crew,
39:22who tamely gave up,
39:23with Calico Jack himself calling for quarter.
39:30Calico Jack's female crew members
39:33would end up behind bars,
39:34but their exploits have posed questions ever since
39:38and, for leading folk musician Martha Tilston,
39:41their story has provided the inspiration
39:43for a new composition,
39:45which she has asked me to perform with her.
39:47Martha, it's really exciting
39:48that you've written a ballad about pirates
39:51because ballads were the way
39:52that the activities of the pirates,
39:54which happened thousands of miles away,
39:55were brought home and sold to the masses.
39:57You're part of a long tradition.
39:59Well, I imagine it was totally fascinating
40:00for people to hear this,
40:01especially for women who maybe
40:03were not in a situation
40:04where they're having a particularly adventurous life
40:06or living a life that was very sort of stuck at home.
40:09To read about that is a way of escaping
40:11or to hear about it,
40:12so you'd pass the story around.
40:13But it would have spread.
40:14I think the news and the story would have spread
40:16because a good story spread through music
40:18and storytelling at that time.
40:20You've written a duet,
40:21so there's a male voice,
40:23the voice of the jailer,
40:24who's taking Anne Bonny off to her cell
40:26and then Anne Bonny and Mary Read singing.
40:28Well, I wanted to get the male and the female.
40:29I think what was beautiful about the lady pirates
40:31is they were out in this fairly male world,
40:33but there was a good female presence there
40:35and it's nice to put that across
40:37and also the voice of the law and the outlaw, I guess.
40:40Let's give it a go.
40:41Okay.
40:41Oh, step aside, I'm Anne Bonny
40:54I am a lady pirate
40:57And there's more beside me out on the sea
41:00All dressed in manly fares
41:03Climbing up the rigging
41:06Leaping down with the moon on our blades
41:11On the edge of life we're living
41:14And we'll take if you're not giving
41:17Then we'll slip away
41:19Into the velvet night
41:22Oh, come with me Anne Bonny
41:29I'll show you to yourself
41:32An outlaw is an outlaw
41:35And you all hang just as well
41:38And you all hang just as well
41:41But you thought that we never could tell
41:44But you didn't hide your shape so well
41:50Throwing like a barrel over the ocean
41:54Oh, and we had your pen
41:56No, you never knew
41:57Throwing like a barrel over the ocean
42:00Oh, and you fought us well
42:02Like a man downwind calico and merry-o
42:06But hang it, I will never be free
42:09As a herring doll on the ocean
42:12Oh, you'll sing my name for history
42:15There's something really romantic
42:19And very attractive about the idea
42:21Of these female pirates out
42:23And were they dressed up as men or not
42:25And why were they dressed up as men
42:26And for me, my instinct
42:28When I sort of read about it
42:29Or heard about it
42:29Was that that's just going to be
42:31Easy to climb the rigging
42:32If they haven't got skirts
42:33I can imagine that when they were
42:35Taking over other ships
42:36Or when they were in battle
42:37That to sort of to not obviously
42:40Be a woman might be advantageous
42:41But I can't imagine they hid
42:43The fact that they were women
42:45For that amount of time
42:46On a ship with loads of men
42:47No, I mean, that's the thing
42:48I think that really stands out for me
42:50I mean, I like to think
42:51That all of the men knew
42:52They were women
42:53Yeah, for sure they would
42:54I can't imagine how you'd do it
42:55But also why would you do it
42:56Calico Jack was her lover
42:58So, I mean, how would she
42:59Keep that from the whole ship
43:00We come and did a ship one day
43:04Out on the stormy seas
43:06And of the men that joined us
43:09There was one young Mary Reef
43:12She was dressed in manly fare
43:15We became a savage pair
43:18We rode the waves
43:20With the moon in our head
43:24Thrown like a barrel over the ocean
43:27And we had you pinned
43:29No, you never knew
43:31Thrown like a barrel over the ocean
43:33No, and you fought as well
43:35Like a man
43:37Downwind, Calico, and Mary-o
43:40But I will never be hind
43:42Free as a heaven-goal
43:44On the ocean-o
43:46You sing my name through history
43:48Legislation passed since Captain Kidd's trial
44:05Meant that Admiralty law
44:06Could now be administered
44:07In the colonies
44:08That the accused
44:10Did not need to be sent
44:11Back to England
44:12Unsurprisingly
44:14Jack and his men
44:15Were found guilty
44:16At the ensuing trial
44:17And were sentenced to death
44:18Now in prison
44:20Jack was allowed
44:21To see Anne
44:21One last time
44:22But far from pitying him
44:24She brazenly reprimanded him
44:27For their capture
44:27Had you fought like a man
44:30And she scowled
44:31You need not have been hanged
44:32Like a dog
44:33It was at the point
44:35Of their sentencing
44:36That Bonnie and Reed's story
44:38Took its last
44:39And most dramatic twist
44:41When the judge passed sentence
44:44He asked them
44:45If they had anything to say
44:47The ladies replied
44:48My lord
44:49We plead our bellies
44:51They claimed
44:52That they were pregnant
44:53The judge ordered
44:54A physical examination
44:55To be undertaken
44:56And both women were
44:58Indeed found to be pregnant
44:59And both were granted
45:01A stay of execution
45:02For Mary Reed however
45:12This was no happy resolution
45:14As she contracted a fever
45:16Soon after the trial
45:18And died in prison
45:20As for Anne Bonny
45:29There's no historical evidence
45:30That she was executed
45:32Or released
45:33Like Captain Henry Avery
45:35She simply vanished
45:37Following his execution
45:53Calico Jack's body
45:55Like that of Captain Kidd
45:56Was hanged in chains
45:58As a warning to others
45:59On a sandy spit
46:01Off Port Royal in Jamaica
46:03Now known as Rackham's Key
46:05But plenty of others
46:08Would follow him to the gibbet
46:09Nassau in the Bahamas
46:28Which had been a pirate republic
46:30Of lawless riot
46:31And drunken revelry
46:33Had been brought under control
46:34With the appointment
46:35Of Captain Woods Rogers
46:36As the island's governor
46:38He continued to offer
46:40That royal pardon
46:41And set about
46:42Rebuilding the island's defences
46:44Captain Woods Rogers
46:50Is a key figure
46:51In the war against the pirates
46:54He was a tough
46:55And resolute sea captain
46:57He had orders
46:58To drive the pirates
47:00From their lodgment
47:01And he goes out there
47:03With a fleet of ships
47:04Gets a hostile reception
47:06But he establishes order
47:07He captures some pirates
47:09And he then sets up
47:11A show trial
47:12Which he presides over
47:14Nine of them
47:15Are hanged on the beach
47:16In front of the fort
47:17Of Nassau
47:18And this sent a signal
47:21Really across the Caribbean
47:23That there's a man
47:25In Nassau now
47:26Who's in charge
47:27Who's restoring order
47:29And in effect
47:30It was an example
47:32To other colonial governors
47:34That if you're tough
47:35With the pirates
47:36You can get rid of them
47:38Following the clampdown
47:43In the Caribbean
47:44Many of the pirates
47:45Set off across the Atlantic
47:47For other less well patrolled waters
47:49And it was to the slave coast
48:00Of West Africa
48:01That they headed
48:02It was in these waters
48:04Just two years before
48:05That one sailor
48:07Had risen to prominence
48:08A pirate captain
48:10To eclipse all others
48:12In what was to be
48:13The final flourish
48:14Of this age of plunder
48:16His name was
48:21Bartholomew Roberts
48:22An outspoken
48:23And disciplined man
48:24Whose swarthy
48:25Welsh complexion
48:26Would lead to him
48:27Being remembered
48:28As Black Bart
48:29Like many sailors
48:31Of his generation
48:31Bart had faced a dilemma
48:33When his ship
48:34Had been captured
48:35By pirates
48:35And he had reluctantly
48:37Turned pirate
48:38But that reluctance
48:40Was then blown out
48:41Of the water
48:41When his crew
48:42Elected him captain
48:44Since I have
48:46Dipped my hands
48:47In muddy water
48:48He surmised
48:48It's better
48:49To be a commander
48:50Than a common man
48:52Over the course
49:04Of three years
49:05From 1719
49:07Black Bart
49:08Had wrought havoc
49:09Among merchant shipping
49:10On both sides
49:11Of the Atlantic
49:12And by the time
49:14He reached the shores
49:15Of Africa
49:15In June 1721
49:17He was in command
49:19Of a flotilla
49:19Of three vessels
49:20In addition to his
49:22Flagship
49:22The Royal Fortune
49:24Such was the size
49:32And loyalty
49:33Of his combined crew
49:34That Black Bart's
49:36Little fleet
49:37Seemed like a proper navy
49:38Especially when you
49:40Consider the way
49:41That he further
49:41Formalised the pirate's code
49:43Amongst his articles
49:45Or rules
49:46He stipulated
49:47That no one
49:47Was to game
49:48At cards or dice
49:49For money
49:49Anyone found
49:50Seducing women
49:52Or bringing them
49:52On board
49:53Disguised
49:54Would suffer death
49:55Oh and the lights
49:56And candles
49:57Had to be out
49:57By 8pm
49:58So that's no fun
50:00No women
50:01And you all had
50:01To be tucked up early
50:02Bartholomew Roberts
50:05Was in a way
50:07The most resolute
50:08And unbending
50:09Of all pirates
50:10He was another
50:11Puritanical character
50:12I should think
50:13Completely terrifying
50:14To meet
50:14Those who did
50:16Those who did put up
50:17A fight with
50:17Bartholomew Roberts
50:18Had a really bad time
50:20And were usually
50:21Eliminated in horrible ways
50:23I mean not just
50:24Cutting off ears
50:25And noses
50:25But he would
50:27Hang them up in the rigging
50:29And use them
50:29For target practice
50:30And this was simply
50:32In order that
50:33The word would get around
50:34You don't mess around
50:35With Bartholomew Roberts
50:36Black Bart proved
50:44So elusive
50:45That those in pursuit
50:47Began to think
50:48He was invincible
50:49Beyond capture
50:50Even pistol proof
50:52As his own crew
50:53Described him
50:54However there was
50:55One man
50:56Captain Chaloner Ogle
50:58Of HMS Swallow
50:59Who had been tracking
51:00Bart for some
51:00Eight months
51:01And he was soon
51:02To find his quarry
51:03In his sights
51:04Sail ahoy
51:08Sail ahoy
51:09When the cry
51:11Came for sail ahoy
51:12Black Bart was enjoying
51:13A breakfast of strong tea
51:15Because he abhorred liquor
51:16And Salma Gundy
51:18A pirate speciality
51:19Of pickled herring
51:20Boiled eggs
51:21Meat and vegetables
51:22But for a man
51:24Normally so disciplined
51:26And astute
51:27Black Bart
51:28Had finally been caught out
51:30Looking through his telescope
51:36He saw that the approaching ship
51:39Was using the old
51:40Ruse de guerre
51:40Of flying false flags
51:42And he quickly ordered his men
51:44To ready themselves for battle
51:46Black Bart
51:54Perhaps sensing
51:55That the fatal hour
51:56Was upon him
51:57Decided to go out in style
51:59And dressed gallantly
52:00For the engagement
52:01As Captain Johnson's
52:04General history
52:05Of the pirates records
52:06Roberts himself
52:08Made a gallant figure
52:09Being dressed in a rich
52:11Crimson damask
52:12Waistcoat and breeches
52:14A red feather in his hat
52:16A gold chain round his neck
52:18With a cross hanging to it
52:19A sword in his hand
52:21And two pairs of pistols
52:23Hanging at the end
52:24Of a silk sling
52:25Flung over his shoulders
52:27According to the fashion
52:28Of pirates
52:29Bart's plan was a
52:33Characteristically bold one
52:34If he was to stand
52:35Any chance of escape
52:36He would need
52:37To force that naval ship
52:38Onto a new course
52:39But that involved
52:41Sailing directly towards her
52:42Which would expose
52:43His ship
52:44To cannon fire
52:45The two ships
52:49Closed on each other
52:51And exchanged broadsides
52:53Captain Ogle's ship
52:55The swallow
52:55Remained unscathed
52:57But black Bart
52:58Lost its mizzenmast
53:00Though on it sailed
53:01Heading out
53:02Into open sea
53:03However as the noise
53:06Subsided
53:06And the smoke cleared
53:07After that first broadside
53:09The helmsman noticed
53:10Bart slumped on deck
53:11On a pile of rigging
53:13Not realising he was injured
53:14He swore at him
53:15To get up
53:16And fight like a man
53:17But Bartholomew Roberts
53:19Was dead
53:20His throat had been ripped out
53:22By grapeshot
53:22And before his body
53:24Could be seized
53:24And taken as a trophy
53:26His faithful crew
53:27Wrapped it in a sail
53:28Weighed it down with shot
53:29And consigned it to the deep
53:31A second broadside
53:39Brought the royal fortune's
53:40Mainmast down
53:41Upon which black Bart's crew
53:43With their spirits sunk
53:45And their captain gone
53:46Called for quarter
53:47For his success
54:00Captain Ogle
54:01Was awarded a knighthood
54:02The only British naval officer
54:05To be honoured specifically
54:06For his actions against pirates
54:08The battle
54:13Black Bart's death
54:14And the subsequent trial
54:16Of his remaining crewmen
54:17At Cape Coast Castle
54:19On the coast of Ghana
54:20Was to prove the turning point
54:22In the war against pirates
54:24And this is their death warrant
54:37A small piece of paper
54:39That would herald
54:40The end of an era
54:41Ye and each of you
54:44Are adjudged and sentenced
54:45To be carried back
54:46To the place
54:47From whence you came
54:48From thence
54:49To the place of execution
54:51Without the gates
54:52Of this castle
54:53And there
54:55Within the flood marks
54:57To be hanged by the neck
54:58Until you are dead
55:00Dead
55:01Dead
55:02Like Captain Kidd
55:15Some 20 years before
55:17These 52 dead pirates
55:20Swaying out across the Atlantic
55:21Were a stark reminder
55:23Of the perils of piracy
55:25It was the greatest slaughter
55:28Of pirates
55:29Ever carried out
55:30By the admiralty
55:30And in the stroke
55:32It brought this brief
55:33And bloody age
55:34To a dramatic finale
55:35Black Bart's short career
55:51Had amounted to capturing
55:53Over 470 vessels
55:55And plundering riches
55:57Worth a total
55:58Of around 20 million pounds
56:00In today's money
56:01When the rewards
56:02So greatly outweighed the risks
56:04It's no wonder
56:05That so many sailors
56:07Embrace the life of piracy
56:09In his book
56:12Captain Johnson
56:12Devotes more space
56:14To Black Bart
56:15Than to any of his contemporaries
56:17And it includes a quote
56:18From Bart himself
56:20That for me
56:21Serves as a mantra
56:22For all pirates
56:23In an honest service
56:26Says he
56:26There is low wages
56:28And hard labour
56:29In this
56:30Plenty and satiety
56:32Pleasure and ease
56:33Liberty and peace
56:34And power
56:35A merry life
56:36And a short one
56:37Should be my motto
56:38Now what's that
56:40If not the Faustian pact
56:42Of all outlaws
56:43As Georgian Britain's
56:47Imperial
56:48And mercantile ambitions
56:50Marched on
56:50So its navy
56:52Grew in size
56:52And strength
56:53Bolstered by vast numbers
56:55Of sailors
56:56Who only a few years earlier
56:58Might have easily
56:59Joined the ranks
57:00Of the pirates
57:01They may have been
57:05A bunch of common outlaws
57:06But these pirates
57:07Had shaken
57:08The very foundations
57:09Of a fledgling empire
57:11That would spread
57:12Across the world
57:13Once their lawless
57:14Reign over the seas
57:15Was ended
57:15And these maritime renegades
57:25Left a powerful legacy
57:27Ordinary men
57:30And women
57:30Forging new identities
57:32And a dangerous vision
57:34Of freedom
57:34Far removed
57:35From the authoritarian
57:36Social order
57:38Of Georgian Britain
57:39To the establishment
57:41They were enemies
57:42Of mankind
57:43But to the public
57:45They became folk heroes
57:47And have remained so
57:49Ever since
57:49It would seem
57:51That in this short
57:52But sensational
57:53Period in our history
57:54It was the pirate
57:55And not Britannia
57:57Who really ruled the waves
57:58Next time
58:07Outlaws come closer
58:09To home
58:10In the teeming cities
58:11Of Georgian Britain
58:12And with no established
58:13Police force
58:14The thief
58:15The robber
58:15And the cheat
58:16Could live beyond the law
58:17Rogues like Jack Shepard
58:20Who no prison would hold
58:22And Deacon Brody
58:24The original
58:25Jekyll and Hyde
58:27Jekyll and Hyde
58:57Jekyll and Hyde
58:58Jekyll and Hyde
58:59Jekyll and Hyde
59:00Jekyll and Hyde
59:01Jekyll and Hyde
59:02Jekyll and Hyde
59:03Jekyll and Hyde
59:04Jekyll and Hyde
59:05Jekyll and Hyde
59:06Jekyll and Hyde
59:07Jekyll and Hyde
59:08Jekyll and Hyde
59:09Jekyll and Hyde
59:10Jekyll and Hyde
59:11Jekyll and Hyde
59:12Jekyll and Hyde
59:13Jekyll and Hyde
59:14Jekyll and Hyde
59:15Jekyll and Hyde
59:16Jekyll and Hyde
59:17Jekyll and Hyde
59:18Jekyll and Hyde
59:19Jekyll and Hyde
59:20Jekyll and Hyde
59:21Jekyll and Hyde
59:22Jekyll and Hyde
59:23Jekyll and Hyde
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