Gabriel Hannon

The Death of Piracy

When they signed the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, England signed the death sentence for
every pirate, English and otherwise, in the Atlantic World (Earle, 135, 2003). On July 12, 1726,
at the gallows in Boston, William Fly hanged, and as he died, the last great line of English pirates
in the Atlantic died with him (Rediker, 267: 1987). In the 56 years between these two dates,
thousands of sea-bandits roved the seas, some legitimate privateers, most attempting to operate
under the guise of privateers, and some outright pirates, who etched their names on the face of
history, whose brutality has been forgotten such that they have become the heroes of our youth.
But, as Odysseus trod in Ajaxs footsteps before the dust had time to settle on the plains of Troy,
so too did every pirate look over his shoulder to see ships of the Royal Navy bearing down. At
first, the pirates had little to fear: their ships, more fit to the waters of the Caribbean, often outran
the mostly derelict and generally unfit ships that the Royal Navy sent to hunt them down (Little,
199, 2010). As the years progressed, however, the Navys campaign escalated fewer and fewer
pirates escaped, until the last noose tightened around Flys neck. Still, the question remains, why
did the British want, or need, to end Atlantic era piracy, and how did it take 56 years for the most
powerful navy on Earth end a practice which they ended up wiping out in less than a decade once
they truly cracked down at the end of the apex of piracys Golden Age?
To even consider the question of why the British signed the Treaty of Madrid and,
eventually, followed through with the suppression of piracy, one must investigate why piracy
rose as a whole in the Atlantic world, and the particular role that the English had in this
emergence. Taking the need for naval power as a prerequisite for a nation states success on an
international scale due to Columbus discovery of the New World, the European states needed to

figure out how they would expand their maritime power. In the years before state navies existed
and even the early years of such official navies, the state relied on private men-of-war; in more
familiar terms, on the direct ancestor of pirates for maritime power: privateers. Though these
particular terms only came into use in the 1640s and 1660s respectively, the tradition of states
such as England and France hiring out privately owned vessels and commissioning them to
attack enemy ships goes back to the reprisal system of the Middle ages (Starkey 70-71, 2001).
This system relied on letters of marque and reprisal, which both tacitly allowed for small acts
of war during peacetime as reprisals for alleged previous attacks, and set the precedent for the
letters of marque which would become crucial to the latter day privateers (Starkey 71: 2001).
In the emerging Atlantic World, dominated by Spain and Portugal and their trade empires,
England, in particular, relied on its privateers to augment its navy, which was nothing like the
behemoth it eventually became. Henry VIII made the first real moves towards an official Navy,
initially by constructing more vessels as early as 1510, but fundamentally by enlarging the
bureaucracy, facilities, and general infrastructure in the 1540s that provided the the backbone for
what would become the Royal Navy in 1660 (Paine 432: 2013). Still, English privateers in the
16th, 17th, and even late 18th Century acted essentially as arms of the state, there to bolster the
Royal Navy, and its predecessors, in its worst moments, notably with Drake and the Spanish
Armada, the fleets of privateers who took to the seas during the War of Spanish Succession, and
even those who sailed during the American Revolution (Loughton, 201: 1881). Most important
to the study of piracy, however, are the privateers who were given license to attack Spanish ships
in the Caribbean. Starting with the trading voyages of Francis Hawkins in the 1560s, England
realized that Spain drew its wealth and power almost entirely from its New World colonies, a
realization which se the tone for the next century of English involvement in the West Indies.

England would attempt to extract wealth from the new world by, at first, plundering sources of
Spanish wealth and then later establishing their own strongholds in the New World (GerassiNavarro 24: 1999).1 Knowing that they did not want to provoke an all out war with the Spanish,
the English chose to interrupt Spanish activities in the New World not with their own navy, but
with the privateers. Acting somewhere at the unclear intersection of criminality, acts of war, and
hopes that any actions conflicts in the Caribbean would not carry over to the European theater, in
the years between 1559 and 1672, English privateers, who went by different titles over the course
of these years, harassed the Spanish (Mattingly 150-56: 1962). These conflicts did occasionally
boil over into European conflicts, the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the English counter-armada in
1589 being prime examples, but mostly the two powers accepted that there was no peace
beyond the line -- a phrase which does not actually originate from this time period, but
historians use it as a convenient way to summarize European actions in the West Indies
(Mattingly: 1962).
At the bookends of this era lie two of the most famous English privateers: Drake and
Henry Morgan. A brief comparison of their exploits, and the results thereof, economic and
political, demonstrates the difference in attitudes towards piracy and privateering at the
beginning and end of this era, which sets the stage for the eradication of piracy that began at this
eras end. Though time has immortalized both of these mariners as swashbuckling sea-bandits,
the Spanish reviled them as pirate bastards and sea-dogs. For simplicity's sake, take only into
account this similarity: both Drake and Morgan led daring raids against the Spanish Main, in
particular the ports of the Spanish treasure fleet, Drake on Nombre de Dios in 1572-3 and
Morgan on Panama in 1671 (Gerassi-Navarro 27: 1999; Hanselmann et al 142-148: 2016). These
1 Note that the French also came to this realization, and actually did so before the English, but the English soon far
exceeded the French in their involvement in the West Indies.

two raids, both enormously successful, were celebrated by the English. Drakes showed the
English just how much there was to be gained, both by harassing the Spanish and by establishing
footholds in the New World. Of course, his actions, and the actions of other English captains who
had the approval of Elizabeth I enraged the Spanish, so Elizabeth, and the leaders of England
over the next century learned to play a delicate diplomatic game with the Spanish, pushing them
only as far as they could without sparking another Spanish Armada (Mattingly 158-9). Morgan,
on the other hand, acted at a point in history when England had made formal, colonial progress
in the Caribbean. Barbados was an enormously profitable English colony, as was Jamaica,
Morgans home base, which was captured by the English in 1655 as a consolation prize for Haiti
in an expedition in which he sailed, and in 1662 Royal Africa Company gained access to the
Spanish asiento (Zahedieh 589-90: 1986). Seen as the greatest prize in the West Indies, the
asiento, the right to sell slaves to the Spanish colonies, opened up a whole new world of profits
to English merchants and the government that not even the bounties of privateering could match.
With this in mind, friendly, non-privateering relations with the Spanish, while not a natural thing
between nations so long divided, was in the self interest of the English. In this spirit, the Spanish
and English signed the Treaty of Madrid in 1670, outlawing privateering (Paine 456: 2009). So,
while Morgans 1671 raid was welcomed with cheers upon his return to Port Royal, he returned
to an economy much more reliant on legitimate trade, and, more significantly, he returned a
criminal. He was, in fact, brought back to England a criminal for violating the terms of the
Treaty of Madrid, though he was able to make a successful defense given the fact that he had
acted under a commission from Sir Thomas Modyford, a privateer-friendly governor of Jamaica
who was removed shortly after the signing of the treaty of Madrid (Zahedieh 575: 1986), and
because of the time delay between the signing of the treaty and the arrival of the news in the

Caribbean -- a defense that was not necessarily true, but it held due to his reputation and the lack
of desire on the part of London to jail an English hero (Norton 41, 59: 2014).
Zooming out, these two cases subtly demonstrate the rise and fall of privateering,
revealing that its own success led to its demise. Privateering demonstrated the wealth that the
New World held, directing the English toward their eventual rise to mercantile dominance. In
short, the privateers provided the initial capital needed to justify involvement in the Caribbean,
and that initial influx, combined with the sugar revolution, led to the enormous profitability of
the West Indies. Still, during the rise of English mercantilism, there was room for privateers
working in the grey area to turn a profit illicitly. By 1670, however, that grey area faded and it
became accepted in mercantile discourse that piratical imperialism had served its purpose and
that it should henceforth be the duty of the government and the navy to eradicate piracy and so
make the seas safe for trade and shipping (Earle 135: 2003). And with the signing of the Treaty
of Madrid, the navy came in to eradicate piracy. And they promptly did nothing.
For all the talk of the Treaty of Madrid and the mercantile imperative for safe shipping
lanes, the first movements of the Royal Navy against privateers and pirates were almost
comically ineffective, especially considering the state of the Royal Navy at this point. With
Charles IIs restoration to the throne in 1660, England had upon its throne a monarch who loved
the sea and believed deeply in the importance of a navy to international affairs and domestic
prosperity. Samuel Pepys, an important naval administrator throughout the Restoration,
considered Charles II a king who best understands the business of the sea of any Prince the
world ever had (Lavery 30: 1983). He possessed a fleet of 156 ships, 75 of the Fourth Rate or
higher, a huge fleet by the days standards, far larger than any possessed by previous English
monarchs, and he continued to secure Parliamentary funding for modest expansions of the fleet,

mostly on the larger end of the scale (Lavery 30-33: 1983).2 With all this, one could expect that
the suppression of piracy and privateering, once begun after Madrid, would be easy.
Unfortunately, the Navy had other, more obligations. First, the Anglo-Dutch Conflicts of the
1660s and 70s drew the great majority of the Navys most powerful ships (Lavery 35-37: 1983).
Second, even at the conclusion of those conflicts, the First through Third Rate ships, which
served in the line of battle between Navies and were the flagships of more important admirals,
were laid up in peacetime in order to extend their service life (Earle 136: 2009). Thirdly, during
the 1670s the ships most suitable to suppressing Atlantic Piracy were occupied in campaigns
against the corsairs of Barbary and Sallee (Earle 136, 2009). As such, the Caribbean was nearly
devoid of official Royal Navy ships: Jamaica had only two fifth or sixth rate ships throughout the
1670s, which were only occasionally operational due to poor upkeep on the part of the
Admiralty, Barbados had one ship, and the remaining Leeward Islands had only a ketch, a type
of ship not even rated in the English classification system (Earl 136:2009). To make up for this,
Caribbean officials often supplemented their forces by taking former privateering ships into royal
service, though this provided only a temporary, hypocritical, and insufficient fix (Earle 137:
2009). Though it would be easy to question this distribution of resources in light of the Treaty of
Madrid, European conflicts clearly took precedent. Furthermore, the Barbary corsairs attacked
English merchant ships, whereas the privateers rarely harassed English ships, as this was the era
before pirates dropped their national allegiances.
Even had the navy managed to get more ships to the Caribbean, as they did in the 1680s
and 1690s, the suppression of piracy was still no easy task, and the campaign ran into a myriad
of problems. First, half of the game of catching pirates was to make them fear that they would be
2 Over the course of the age of sail, Ships of the Royal Navy were rated on a scale from one to six, First Rate being
the behemoth flagships 90 to more than 100 guns, down to the comparatively miniscule Sixth Rate ~20 gun frigates

captured, a tactic utilized to great effect in the final years of the campaign (Rediker 1-13: 2004).
With such a small fleet, a population still willing to supply those on the grey area between piracy
and privateering, and a huge, largely unknown sea to patrol, it was nearly impossible for the
Navy to project its power unto the entire Caribbean. Second, identifying a potential pirate ship
definitively was practically impossible, as was knowing the diplomatic repercussions of any
potential boarding attempt, as Spanish coastguards were known walk a fine line between
guarding the coast and boarding foreign vessels for plunder (Earle 137-8: 2009). Furthermore,
many of the more notorious pirates of this era were in fact Frenchmen sailing under privateering
commissions. Any attack by official Royal Navy ships on these French vessels had the potential
to initiate an international affair as privateer on privateer battles never would (Little 192: 2010).
Luckily for the English, Louis XIV and his government ceased to issue privateering commissions
in 1684 (Eale 138: 2009), though that did not stop men like Jean Hamlin, a French pirate who
made no pretense of his piracy (Earle 143: 2009). Another roadblock was the corruption of the
English captains assigned to the Caribbean. The Caribbean theater was not a place where careers
were made in the Royal Navy, so captains more than occasionally engaged illicit trading.
Between extracting convoy fees, charging exorbitant fees for carrying passengers whom they
were not allowed to have on board, and carrying merchant goods, captains could turn a pretty
profit, though it had nothing to do with pirate hunting (Earle 139-141: 2009).
On the whole, the Royal Navy was, over the next few years, able to overcome these
issues. Simply being in the Caribbean augmented their knowledge of the waters, which, though
still inferior to pirates, sufficed. Tighter laws, culminating 1698s Act for the More Effectual
Suppression of Piracy, reduced the number of safe havens the pirates could return to by
criminalizing the act of aiding pirates (Norton 42: 2014). Eventually, more ships were sent to the

Caribbean, and with them came more serious oversight by the Admiralty, both in terms of
directing the campaign and making sure that captains were fighting pirates, not lining their own
pockets, the former imperative made official in General Orders from the Admiralty in July 1686
(Earle 140-141).
One problem, however, continued to plague the Royal Navy throughout the duration of
its campaign against piracy, both in this timeframe and the generation after: they just never had
the right ships. Pirate ships, often refit from slavers, had two distinct features that made them
maddeningly evasive to the Royal Navy. First, they had much shallower drafts, allowing them to
go places that the deep keeled frigates never could. Augmenting this, many pirate ships had oars
which kept them deliciously out of reach in light air (Earle 139: 2009). These features go a long
way to explaining the general trend of pirates to turn former slave ships and sloops into their
flagships, rather than even trying to take naval ships. But, more than anything, the pirate ships
were always faster than the ships that the Royal Navy sent after them, even into the 1720s (Earle
139: 2009). Though it is easy to think that a ship, once constructed, will be seaworthy for years,
ships deteriorated rapidly when under active service. This deterioration factor kept the Royal
Navys most powerful, and potentially useful ships for this campaign, laid up. The process of
ship maintenance is costly and the English government could only spend so much money on its
Navy, especially during years of official peace. Pirates maintained incredible vigilance in caring
for their ships, knowing that their only hope of survival lay in outracing the Royal Navy every
time they met. Not only did they maintain the ships they did have, but whenever they saw a
faster ship, they took it (Earle 184). In contrast, during the initial years of the campaign, both this
one and that in the apex of the Golden Age, the Admiralty refused to let their captains careen
their ships for repair in the West Indies, and the repair and rebuilding docks back in London were

constantly overworked and behind schedule when they returned for supplies and repairs (Earle
186:2009; Lavery 84: 1986). Eventually, however, these limits were eventually pulled back, most
notable in the 1720s. Captains were allowed to careen multiple times a year, and thus did not
have to return to London so often, bolstering the continuity of the fight (Earle 188: 2009).
This last discussion of repairs offers an interesting archaeological connection. The Royal
Navy kept much more detailed records of their ships than pirates, which would make excavations
of English ships sunk in the New World, this would not necessarily enlighten the studies of
piracy and the navy to the extent that wrecks like what is possibly Blackbeards Queen Annes
Revenge off the coast of North Carolina and the Whydah near Cape Cod can enlighten pirate
scholars. Instead, it would be interesting to see if the archaeological record can help trace the
changes in ship maintenance in the New World. No specific locations for repair locations are
given in general histories of the Royal Navy, and pirates certainly did not want anyone to know
where their ships were careened, for this was their most vulnerable moment. Perhaps the
historical record can point to likely locations for repairs, both for the Royal Navy and pirate
crews. If two sites, one for each group, can be found, each with tools remaining, it would be
useful to analyze the remains in search of different techniques that might have been employed by
the two groups. If they were discovered, non-English techniques employed by pirates could
suggest the roles that foreigners played on pirate crews, or indicate particular adjustments made
for the Caribbean that the Royal Navy never caught onto. No matter the result, an investigation
of the tools and locations of repair would provide an interesting lens into the speed race in the
war against pirates.
Regardless of their shortcomings in boat selection and general organization, by the 1690s,
the British campaign had been effective, and Atlantic World piracy largely reached an end.

Remaining sea bandits, such as William Kidd and Henry Avery, fled to the more open waters of
the Indian Ocean, but their actions were trivial compared to what came before. If all remained as
it was at the turn of the century, it was essentially mission accomplished for the Admiralty in a
little under three decades. Except for one problem: The War of Spanish Succession. With it, the
pirate once again became patriot. It led to the return of privateering, a dramatic expansion of the
Royal Navy, and, as every historian of piracy will say, and even some policy makers of the day
did say, a dramatic resurgence of large-scale piracy upon its completion. After a thirty year
campaign, initiated by the Treaty of Madrid, the War of Spanish Succession brought about the
resurrection of piracy into its Golden Age.
The return of piracy, however, did not last, as the War of Spanish Succession only put off
the inevitable death of piracy, and made the struggle that much more brutal in its final years. The
final campaign struggled with the same issues as the first one, and it added to its scope the West
Coast of Africa, where Bartholomew Roberts, among others, held the slave trade in the palm of
his hand (Earle 200-1: 2009). As the pirates of this era are much better remembered than the
privateers of the era previous, this fight is easier to document, and the grey area between pirate
and privateer was replaced by the black and white of pirate and Royal Navy. After the Navy
spent 1716-1718 relearning the same lessons it learned in the 1670s and 1680s, from the lack of
knowledge of the region to greed by the captains, and the never resolved problem of having the
correct ships, the campaign gained momentum in 1718 (Earle 188-190). The campaign reached a
turning point with the death of Roberts in 1722. His death, and the fall of his crew of over 300,
accelerated a phenomenon which had been gaining steam among the pirates: quitting. Seeing the
brutality of the Royal Navy, many common pirates realized the danger of their profession, and
took any opportunity to escape before they too suffered the fate of Blackbeard and Roberts (Earle

200). Only the hardiest, most brutal pirates remained. They too were picked off, one by one, until
William Fly stood at the gallows, the last pirate of a Golden Age.

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