- I'm Alice Loxton and
I present documentaries over on History Hit TV. (upbeat music) If you're all passionate
about all things history, sign up to History Hit TV. It's like Netflix, but just for history. We've got hours of ad-free documentaries about all aspects of the past. You can get a huge discount
from History Hit TV. Make sure you check out the details below and use the code ABSOLUTEHISTORY, all one word, when you sign up. Now on with the show. (dramatic percussive music) (dramatic music) - Of all the renegades in
Britain's age of outlaws- (gun firing) pirates were the most pursued. Hunted down on the high
seas, their bloody exploits would be followed by an
appalled but enthralled public. (slow dramatic music) In 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. The body was tarred to preserve it, and then hung in chains
above the shoreline. The body was that of Captain William Kidd, whose exploits and downfall
had so captivated the country. Kidd's corpse was displayed here as a dire warning to all seafarers entering the great Port of London to resist the temptations of piracy. Kidd was the product of an era of feverish mercantile expansion, powered by a vast network
of seaborne trade. By plundering this global movement of commodities and riches, pirates became the most
wanted outlaws in the world. With flamboyant names like Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Black Bart, pirate captains would become
infamous beyond the seas. (upbeat music) And through ballads, plays, and books, they would be transformed into legend. (slow dramatic music) And that transformation from
reality to mythic outlaw is one of the most enduring historical puzzles of the period. I'm going to take to the seas to explore just how this change happened and examine the devastating impact of these swashbuckling adventurers. Captain Kidd's tarred
corpse would rot away here over several years, until the birds had picked his carcass clean. But this warning went unheeded, for the golden age of piracy
was only just beginning. (dramatic music) (water burbling) (upbeat music) (birds squawking) For 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. By 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. Piracy 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 colors of
England's enemies at sea. Their license was issued in the form of a letter of marque and reprisal. And this one, dated 11 December, 1695, is Kidd's own privateering commission, granted and signed by no less than the King of England
himself, William III. But 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. Now 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. And with the King himself due to get a 10% share in the profits,
the stakes were very high. Failure was not an option. And yet Kidd's misfortune was to begin almost as soon as he set sail. As his ship, the Adventure Galley, slipped down the Thames here at Greenwich, Kidd, armed with a new-found arrogance from having an actual royal commission, believing 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. And when, outraged, the
captain of the yacht fired a shot as a reminder,
Kidd's crew responded with a surprising display of impudence. They climbed the yards and slapped their backsides in disdain. (men shouting) (slow dramatic music) The response was harsher than
they could have ever expected. Because of Kidd's failure to salute, the captain of the naval yacht retaliated by boarding his ship and press-ganging most of his carefully hand-picked
men into naval service. (dramatic music) With only a skeleton crew,
Kidd set course for Madagascar, known to be the great pirate
bolthole of the Indian Ocean for its good anchorage
and strategic position on important Mughal
trade routes from India, then being exploited by
Europe's maritime powers. - We're talking about an age
of tremendous colonial rivalry. France, Spain, Holland, and England, all endeavoring to create
colonies and to conquer land. And 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. And pirates aren't fools. They gather where the
trade routes are narrowing and they can pounce. (slow dramatic music) - Within sight of Madagascar,
Kidd suffered a major setback when a third of his crew
perished with cholera, and the only new recruits he could find turned out to be former pirates, men who had already turned to piracy and expected Kidd to do the same. Kidd's bad luck persisted. After several more months
without plunder or prizes, and facing the very real prospect of returning home empty-handed, Kidd made the grave decision
to leave the Indian Ocean and head for the Red Sea, a rich area full of Mughal merchants and wealthy pilgrims
traveling to and from Mecca. Kidd's presence there all but announced that he had turned to piracy. (slow dramatic music) After a devastating raid
on an Indian Mughal fleet by a pirate named Captain
Henry Avery two years before, the East India Company,
whose monopoly on trade with the Indian subcontinent depended on the continuing patronage of the vastly rich Mughal Empire, was extremely wary of it happening again. But Kidd's crew now put
increasing pressure on him to take prizes, no matter
what flag they sailed under. In desperation, Kidd attacked
a Mughal merchant convoy, technically his first foray into piracy. But when he was repelled,
tensions between Kidd and his crew spilled over. The ship's gunner, William Moore, claimed that he had brought the
crew to ruin and desolation, upon 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, and Moore later died. (slow dramatic music) Admiralty law allowed
captains a degree of leeway in the use of violence,
but this was murder. Kidd remained unrepentant, though, confident that his good friends in England would save him from prosecution. And still feeling empowered
by his letter of marque from the King, he now grew
more and more reckless. In January 1698, after
some minor successes, Kidd took his greatest prize,
a 400 ton Armenian ship called the Quedagh Merchant, which was sailing with French passes for which Kidd had a license to attack. However, when he discovered that its cargo was owned by a Mughal nobleman, he tried to hand the ship
back, but his crew refused. Wishing to avoid a full mutiny, Kidd relented and kept his new prize. But when news reached London,
various naval commanders were sent out to pursue
and seize the said Kidd and his accomplices for
the notorious piracies that they had committed. Now a wanted man with several
English men of war in pursuit, and with the East India
Company baying for his blood, Kidd made sail for Boston, where
his friend, Lord Bellomont, the Governor of New York,
had promised him safe refuge. But Kidd was sailing into a trap that would land him in the dock. - This here is a letter
from Lord Bellomont which he had sent to Captain Kidd. Lord Bellomont had financed
all of Kidd's expeditions and they had been
friendly with each other. You can see in the language of
the letter here, he's saying, "Do not be discouraged by
the false reports of ill men. "Don't believe what
people are telling you." - [Host] Okay. - "Yes, you may be assured of
my having interest employed "to do you all the service that I can." He's going to do everything
he can to help him. But actually, he was luring
Captain Kidd to Boston to get him arrested. Lord Bellomont did not
want to be associated with piracy at all whatsoever. - Okay. - So he used that previous
friendship to get Kidd. But unfortunately, when
he arrived in Boston, he was then thrown in prison. - Do we think Kidd was
a bit gullible here? Was he just relying on a sense of trust that had existed before? - I think Kidd was desperate
at this point, to be honest. I think he knew that, unbeknownst to him, somehow he had been accused of piracy when he did not believe he was a pirate, and so he was going to
take any means he could to try to protect himself. - It seems clear to me that Kidd hasn't been unfairly labeled as a pirate. He was clearly a pirate. He attacked the ships of a nation and he didn't have a license to do so. - I think Kidd was a pirate, but I think above everything
else, he was a scapegoat. And this is because
just a few years before, a pirate named Henry
Avery had disrupted trade between the Moguls and
the East India Company. And then, just a couple of years later, Captain Kidd does the same thing. The Moguls then threatened
to cut off all trade, which would have practically bankrupted the East India Company. Britain had to make Kidd an
example to the Moguls that, yes, they would take care of piracy in the most brutal fashion, so they could show the world exactly what would happen to a pirate if they threatened trade
and the British economy. So what we have here is an indication of just how much of a show trial this was. This lengthy document that I'm holding is the actual trial transcription, verbatim, of Captain Kidd's trial. And this sold out, 'cause
it sold so many copies. - Wow. - At 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. People were fascinated with pirates because these were maritime outlaws committing their crimes
thousands of miles away. They didn't declare allegiance
to their formal countries, they were these people
who had social mobility that nobody else had. And people wouldn't be able to see them until their execution. (slow dramatic music) - What was the scene
like at Kidd's execution? - Well, actually, I
can show you that, Sam, because there's a picture here
in "The Newgate Calendar." So this here is a pirate being
executed at Execution Dock. This is how Captain Kidd
would have been executed. You can see the noose is around his neck. Here's the crowd of people. And here we have the admiralty
marshal sitting on his horse. And in his hand, you can see right here the silver oar of the admiralty. The silver oar was always
present at these executions. I've actually got the
silver oar that was used- - [Sam] Aha, how extraordinary. - At Captain Kidd's trial and execution. - [Sam] Let's have a look. There it is. - So there it is. As you can see, it's got all the symbols. - [Sam] That's definitely the Tudor arms. - This is the garnet and coronet of James Stuart, the Duke of York. - [Sam] That's very
clearly the fouled anchor which was the symbol of the admiralty. - [Rebecca] Yes. - A very powerful symbol
of maritime authority. - It was, yes, definitely. Everyone who would see it would
know exactly what it meant. (slow dramatic music) - However, there's one further and even more compelling artifact
from Kidd's darkest days. And it's this, a letter from Captain Kidd to Sir Robert Harley,
the leader of the Tories. It's Kidd's last desperate attempt to save himself from the noose. And what's particularly
interesting are these few lines. "That in my late
proceedings in the Indies, "I have lodged goods and treasure "to the value of 100,000 pounds, "which I desire the government
may have the benefit of." It's a massive bribe and the promise of an enormous stash of loot. This is Kidd's real legacy, the founding myth of
buried pirate treasure. (slow dramatic music) The secret location of Kidd's
treasure, if it ever existed, has never been found,
even though there continue to be claims of its discovery
up to this very day. Kidd had highlighted not only
the easy seduction of piracy, but also how privateers
quickly became a hindrance and were shut down by the government when they ceased to serve the interests of the nation and its expanding empire. - The government's
attitude to piracy changed because of the exploits of Kidd, because they damaged British trade, and Britain's future was going to be a great maritime nation,
this was accepted already. This was the way that a small
island could get global power. So obviously, piracy, which
people had winked at before 'cause it simply damaged
the Spanish or other people that people didn't really care about, now it was a problem and
it had to be suppressed. (slow dramatic music) - But far from suppressing
the pirate menace, Kidd's very public humiliation only served to heighten the fascination
with these maritime outlaws and, in particular, it now rekindled a feverish interest in the
elusive Captain Henry Avery, the one pirate who had got away. Avery had made the most
profitable pirate raid in history when, in September 1695, he
captured the Ganj-i-Sawai a heavily-armed Mughal trading ship carrying over 600,000 pounds worth of precious metal and jewels, the equivalent of 52 million
pounds in today's money. For his actions, a bounty of 1,000 pounds had been put on his head, leading to the first worldwide
manhunt in recorded history. But unlike Captain Kidd,
Avery slipped the net and rumors abounded for
years that he had ended up in a pirate republic called Libertalia. (slow music) - As the story goes,
Libertalia was a place where people were equal, and goods were shared, and laws were fair. And the pirates flew a white
flag as opposed to a black flag to show that, you know,
there was no threat and people were free under this flag. And stories like that, of course, are a great threat to society back home, which is tremendously
unequal and very harsh. Fugitive outlaws had always
caught the public imagination, and Avery was no exception. Stories of his big
prize, his vanishing act, and his pirate utopia
passed between deckhands across the oceans and returned to England in the form of popular ballads. And this one was purportedly
penned by Avery himself. (gentle music) ♪ Now, this is the course ♪ ♪ I intended for to steer ♪ ♪ My false-hearted nation ♪ ♪ To you I declare ♪ If Avery was indeed the
author of this ballad, then he was not only
fueling his own infamy, but spreading sedition. - Ballads were very dangerous things. They were banned in
periods of political unrest because you could turn
a populace like that by singing ballads. It doesn't seem likely to us today. Ballads particularly appealed
to the lower classes. They were very accessible,
they were sold on the streets, and they were just printed on single sheets of paper on one side. And if you couldn't read very well, well, the balladmonger
would sing the ballad in order to attract a
crowd and make their sales. For the price of a few pennies, or nothing at all if
you could remember it, you were up-to-date with the latest news. ♪ I have done thee no wrong ♪ ♪ Thou must me forgive ♪ ♪ The sword shall maintain me ♪ ♪ As long as I live ♪ - [Sam] Whilst pirates
clearly had mass appeal, what was now surprising was that, amongst the chattering classes,
swashbucklers like Avery and tales of his remarkable disappearance became the fashionable new topic. And it was a play based on
Avery which did much to foster the legend of the pirate
as a brave outlaw. (upbeat music) "The Successful Pyrate"
opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1712. Set as a tragic comedy, it cast Avery as a self-styled king of the pirates and features a rum bunch of incompetents hotly debating the virtues of piracy. - Come on now, sir, I'll
oppose you with his faults. Is he not extremely violent and intemperate with his desires? - Granted. A hero should be, though. That immoderate desire for power, that unquenchable appetite for rule that has long been dignified
by the slaves of tyrants. But he is no tyrant. Therefore, 'tis virtue
in him to desire power. - The public absolutely loved it, much to the irritation of the critics, one of whom was outraged by the way that it glamorized villainy
in making a swabber, a mere deckhand, into
the hero of a tragedy. - Notwithstanding all you've said, he is still only an overgrown thief. - Why, the worst you
hypocrites of order can say and it is to his immortal honor, is that he has leapt the pale of custom and is a royal outlaw! - But for one member of the audience, the writer and journalist Daniel Defoe, the play was proof enough of the pirate's broad cultural appeal. (slow dramatic music) (slow music) With his customary journalistic chutzpah, Defoe was to capitalize
on the pirates' appeal and their ambiguous morality, not only in "Robinson Crusoe"
but in several of his books, making him, in effect,
the first pirate novelist. But there was another book
published in this period which surpassed all others in chronicling the lives and exploits of the pirates of the great golden age. Now, I was brought up on
stories of real pirates, and they were all inspired by this book. As titles go, it's
pretty difficult to beat, "A General History of
the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates." (upbeat music) This was the pirate brilliantly packaged and neatly presented, and the
public absolutely loved it. The book tapped into a growing
vogue for criminal biography, but its author, a Captain Charles Johnson, remains a mystery figure, as elusive as many of
the pirates themselves. Johnson displayed such
a detailed knowledge of the life and language of the sea that it was thought by many that he must have been
a retired sea captain, that he'd perhaps attended pirate trials, or even interviewed pirate crewmen. But there has also been a long-standing and far more intriguing
belief that Johnson was merely a pseudonym for
our old friend Daniel Defoe. - Within that slim volume
are the detailed lives of 20 or so celebrated pirates. And it has become a sort
of touchstone for piracy. And it's been used as the basis, really, for the golden age of pirates. And what I've found
fascinating over the years as I've done research in different areas, is it all checks out. The capture of ships and
what the various pirates did with the crew and did with
the ships, totally authentic. (slow music) - And one of the most surprising
details of Johnson's book is its account of a
democratic code of conduct, or the Pirate's Code as
it was generally known. The Pirate's Code provided
rules for discipline, for the fair division of plundered loot, and it even set aside
specific sums of money for injuries sustained to
different parts of the body. For example, in pirate currency, the most highly valued part of
your body was your right arm, for which you received 600
of these, pieces of eight. Your left arm was valued at 100 less, and your legs at 100 less again. Bizarrely, a finger and an eye were equally valued at 100 pieces, but I suspect that you had
to make your own eye patch. (slow dramatic music) - Seamen had a very harsh life. They worked for long hours,
for years, for very low pay. When tales came back about
pirates running their ships on more democratic lines,
made joint decisions and decisions in common
and shared their supplies, this would never have happened on a navy ship or a merchant ship. And this is egalitarian. - So, a pirate crew could
easily find its numbers swelled by sailors desperate to
escape an oppressive ship and more than happy to switch allegiance and sail under the black flag. (dramatic music) And the lure of the black flag was to become far
greater following the end of the War of the Spanish
Succession in 1713, which not only saw Atlantic trade resume, but also witnessed
thousands of British seamen relieved of military duty. The result was a large number of idle but highly-trained sailors at a time of considerable seaborne trade, as all of the European maritime powers sought to expand their colonial empires. Now a great deal of money could be made transporting goods on this network. But if you knew that network, you could of course just steal it, which is why peacetime provided so many opportunities
for the maritime outlaw. This was especially so in the
seas around the West Indies, with its lucrative trade in sugar and, more notoriously, slaves. There were ships all over the place, merchant ships, waiting to be plundered. So you had in the Bahamas a
whole lot of unemployed seamen, adventurers, out-of-work
privateers and pirates, all waiting for action. It became so full of people looting, and raping, and whatever
that it became, in a way, what we would call now a failed state. (slow dramatic music) (birds chirping) - During the War of
the Spanish Succession, Nassau in the Bahamas had been utterly ransacked
and left in ruins. By 1715, still ungoverned and undefended, it had become a pirate haven. By the following year,
the pirate population outnumbered Nassau's law-abiding
citizens by 10 to one. It had become, in effect,
a pirate republic, a sprawling encampment of
carousing, fornicating sailors funding their profligate
lifestyles with plunder. It seemed as though Captain Avery's mythical pirate kingdom had come alive. (upbeat music) (people cheering) (birds chirping) One of the rising ringleaders of this new encampment
of renegades was a tall, robust Englishman from
Bristol named Edward Teach. (dramatic music) By March 1717, Teach had
formed a company of 70 men aboard his six-gun sloop and had begun to cultivate
a formidable reputation. His flag was soon the most
feared on the horizon. And with his mane of coarse, dark locks, he now went by the catchy
new name of Blackbeard. The skull and crossbones
has been a symbol of death since the Middle Ages. And in this great period,
the pirates adopted it as their own menacing symbol, with each captain having his own version. And unsurprisingly for
Blackbeard who was obsessed with his image, his flag had it all. If ever there was a symbol to strike fear into the heart of your
victim, then this was it. A skeleton holds an hourglass in one hand to show you that your time is running out, and a spear in the other,
threatening to draw blood from your heart if you do not surrender. And if this wasn't enough, Blackbeard added horns and
cloven feet to his skeleton to signify that he was
in league with the devil. Sailors during the early 18th century were almost universally superstitious. And aside from the sight
of Blackbeard's flag, the sight of the man himself was enough to cause the crews of
merchant ships to surrender. His reputation rests
entirely on his appearance, which was vividly recorded
in Captain Johnson's book. "This beard was black "which he suffered to grow
of an extravagant length. "As to breadth, it came up to his eyes. "He was accustomed to twist it
with ribbons and small tails, "and turn them about his ears. "In time of action, he wore
a sling over his shoulders "with three brace of pistols "hanging in holster like bandoliers "and stuck lighted matches under his hat, "which appearing on each side of his face, "his eyes naturally
looking fierce and wild, "made him altogether such a figure "that imagination cannot form
an idea of a fury from hell "to look more frightful." Blackbeard was ruthless. On one occasion when a
victim didn't voluntarily offer up the ring on his finger, he simply cut it off, ring and all. And he wasn't above maiming his own crew. We also know that he shot his
second mate, Israel Hands, in the knee just to
remind him who was boss. If Blackbeard looked
like a walking arsenal, then it was for a very good reason. Flintlock pistols like this
only fired a single shot, and they were also
notoriously unreliable at sea. So if your pistol failed to
fire because of a damp charge, you could go straight on to the next one. And then when both were used
up, you still had your cutlass. One of the most important articles of the Pirate's Code was to keep your pistols and cutlass
clean and fit for service, especially in the run-up to an attack. They would all be on
deck waving cutlasses, firing in the air. And as they came alongside, they would also throw a
primitive form of hand grenade onto the deck of the merchant ship, which caused chaos, and
send over a grapnel rope and haul themselves alongside,
by which stage, normally, the petrified crew, not used to battle, just said, "We surrender." (dramatic music) Blackbeard's reign of
terror lasted two years. (men yelling) Tormenting the American Eastern Seaboard from the Caribbean to North
Carolina, he plundered sugar, rum and loot from a series
of English merchant vessels. (guns firing)
(men yelling) But following his ruthless blockade of Charleston Harbor in May 1718, the governor of Virginia issued a warrant for Blackbeard's arrest, with a reward of 100 pounds
for his capture, dead or alive. Leftenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl was dispatched to hunt him
down, and eventually tracked him to the shallows of Ocracoke Inlet. (slow dramatic music) (men yelling) Blackbeard raised a bottle
of liquor in salutation and declared that Maynard and his crew were cowardly puppies,
before calling out to them, "Damnation seize my soul, "if I give you quarters
or take any from you." Blackbeard was ready for a fight. The ensuing battle was
brief and bloodthirsty. As the ships closed in, Blackbeard's men hurled bottle grenades. And using grappling
hooks and boarding axes, they clambered on board. But Maynard had hidden most
of his crew below deck, and they now took the pirates by surprise, engaging in furious hand-to-hand combat, with Blackbeard coming up
against Maynard himself. Holding his cutlass aloft, Blackbeard lunged with such ferocity that he sheared off Maynard's
blade near the hilt. But coming for him again, Blackbeard was surrounded
and hit from all sides. Riddled with shot and cut to ribbons, Blackbeard then suffered a
terrible wound to his neck from a Scotsman wielding a broadsword. "Well done, lad," said Blackbeard, before staggering but
cocking his pistol again. "I'll do better," said the Scotsman, before hacking away at
his neck again deeply, killing that great man
dead on his own deck. With their captain's fighting spirit, Blackbeard's men fought
on but were soon overcome. As proof of Blackbeard's death, and in order to collect
the reward of 100 pounds, Maynard called for
Blackbeard's head to be severed and hung up on the bowsprit. The rest of Blackbeard's corpse
was then thrown overboard, whereupon hitting the
water, according to legend, it then swam several
times around the sloop, searching for its own severed head, before sinking without trace. (slow music) Because of his fearsome reputation, Blackbeard's death was
seen as a major coup in the war against piracy
and, in propaganda terms, as significant as the trial
and hanging of Captain Kidd. But even with Blackbeard gone, there were still some 2,000
pirates roving the seas. The colonies were facing what amounted to an imperial crisis. (dramatic music) - We've got the golden age pirates rampaging across the Caribbean. They're disrupting trade,
the colonial governors are complaining to London, "You've got to do something about it." The Governor of Jamaica is saying, "I can't send a ship in or out "without it being captured by pirates." (slow music) And one of the things the authorities do, they get onto the admiralty and they say, "Send more ships to the Caribbean." So it actually becomes part
of the brief of the Navy to suppress the pirates. The naval ships that were
sent out tended to be what are called sixth-rate ships. They were 40 guns or so. And they were powerful vessels. But they were quite big. They weren't able to go into
shallow estuaries and bays. The pirates selected mostly
what are called sloops. They were relatively shallow draft compared with the naval ships, so they could sneak in and
out of estuaries, and bays, and channels that the naval
ships couldn't get into. The naval ships, if there are only four to cover the entire Caribbean
and there were, what, 200 to 300 pirate ships
operating in that same area, the naval ships couldn't
be everywhere at once. So the Navy had a difficult job and, in a way, the pirates had the advantage. (birds chirping) - But as the government soon realized, it would take more than
deploying a few more naval ships. In 1717, under the new king, George I, one of the measures taken
to quell the pirate menace was the issue of a royal
proclamation, an Act of Grace, in which the king promised that any pirate who voluntarily surrendered himself to British authorities within a year would receive his most gracious pardon. (upbeat music) One of the pirates who took
advantage of this amnesty, albeit briefly, was Captain John Rackham, whose colorful cotton clothes earned him the equally colorful
nickname of Calico Jack. Calico Jack achieved lasting fame, not for his actions which amounted to seizing a handful of vessels
in the seas off Jamaica, but for his association with
two of his crew members, which became one of the most beguiling and frankly suspect episodes of the entire golden age of piracy. It was whilst taking advantage
of the pirate amnesty and frequenting the taverns
of Nassau that Calico Jack met and courted a bold young
Irishwoman named Anne Bonny. And with his return to piracy soon after, he took her to sea. And she joined his crew,
dressing in men's clothes. Now here the story takes
a rather brilliant turn. When Calico Jack's sloop,
Revenge, captured a merchant ship, he acquired a young sailor
by the name of Mark Read. Now, Anne Bonny, who was
serving on Jack's crew dressed in men's clothes, took a bit of a fancy
to this young sailor, and in a quiet moment alone revealed to him that
she was in fact a woman. Upon which, Mark Read revealed that he was also a woman named Mary. In late 1720, a merchant sea
captain named Jonathan Barnet, with a commission to hunt down pirates, took Calico Jack and his crew by surprise whilst they enjoyed a rum
party anchored off Jamaica. Jack and his men were too drunk to fight and fled to the hold, leaving
only Bonny and Read to resist. The two women flew at
Barnet's men like furies, firing their pistols, wielding
their cutlasses and axes, and shouting obscenities as they went. But they were unable to rouse
their crew who tamely gave up, with Calico Jack himself
calling for quarter. Calico Jack's female crew
members would end up behind bars, but their exploits have
posed questions ever since. And for leading folk
musician Martha Tilston, their story has provided the inspiration for a new composition, which she has asked me
to perform with her. Martha, it's really exciting that you've written a
ballad about pirates, because ballads were the way that the activities of the pirates, which happened thousands of miles away, were brought home and sold to the masses. You're part of a long tradition. - Well, I imagine it
was totally fascinating for people to hear this,
especially for women who maybe were not in a situation where they were having a
particularly adventurous life, or living a life that was
very sort of stuck at home. To read about that is a way of escaping, or to hear about it. So you'd pass the story round. But it would have spread. I think the news and the
story would have spread, because a good story spread through music and
storytelling at that time. - You've written a duet,
so there's a male voice, the voice of the jailer who's taking Anne Bonny off to her cell. - Yeah. - And then Anne Bonny
and Mary Read singing. - Well, I wanted to get
the male and the female. I think what was beautiful
about the lady pirates is they were out in
this fairly male world, but there was a good
female presence there, and it's nice to put that across. And also the voice of the law
and the outlaw, I guess, so. - Let's give it a go. - Okay. (gentle music) ♪ Oh, step aside, I'm Anne Bonny ♪ ♪ I am a lady pirate ♪ ♪ And there's more beside
me out on the sea ♪ ♪ All dressed in manly fare ♪ ♪ Climbing up the rigging ♪ ♪ Leaping down with the
moon on our blades ♪ ♪ On the edge of life we're living ♪ ♪ And we'll take if you're not giving ♪ ♪ Then we'll slip away ♪ ♪ Into the velvet night ♪ ♪ Oh, come with me, Anne Bonny ♪ ♪ I'll show you to your cell ♪ ♪ An outlaw is an outlaw ♪ ♪ And you all hang just as well ♪ ♪ And you all hang just as well ♪ ♪ But you thought that
we never could tell ♪ ♪ But you didn't hide your shape so well ♪ ♪ Thrown like a barrel
over the ocean, oh ♪ ♪ And we had you pinned ♪ ♪ No, you never knew ♪ ♪ Thrown like a barrel
over the ocean, oh ♪ ♪ And you fought us well ♪ ♪ Like a man ♪ ♪ Down went Calico and Mary, oh ♪ ♪ But hanged I will never be ♪ ♪ Free as a herring
gull on the ocean, oh ♪ ♪ You'll sing my name through history ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ There's something really romantic and very attractive about the idea of these female pirates out, and were they dressed up as men or not, and why were they dressed up as men and, I mean, for me, my instinct
when I read about it, or heard about it, was that
that's just going to be easier to climb the rigging if
they haven't got skirts on. I can imagine that when they
were taking over other ships or when they were in battle,
that to not obviously be a woman might be advantageous. But I can't imagine they hid
the fact that they were women for that amount of time on
a ship with loads of men. - No, and that's the thing, I think, that really stands out for me. I'd like to think that all of the men knew they were women and- - Yeah, for sure they would. I can't imagine how you'd do it, but also why would you do it. Calico Jack was her lover, so, I mean, how would she keep
that from the whole ship? ♪ We commandeered a ship one day ♪ ♪ Out on the stormy seas ♪ ♪ And of the men that joined us ♪ ♪ There was one young Mary Read ♪ ♪ She was dressed in manly fare ♪ ♪ We became a savage pair ♪ ♪ We rode the waves with
the moon in our hair ♪ ♪ Thrown like a barrel
over the ocean, oh ♪ ♪ And we had you pinned ♪ ♪ No, you never knew ♪ ♪ Thrown like a barrel
over the ocean, oh ♪ ♪ And you fought us well ♪ ♪ Like a man ♪ ♪ Down went Calico and Mary, oh ♪ ♪ But I will never be hanged ♪ ♪ Free as a herring
gull on the ocean, oh ♪ ♪ You sing my name through history ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ - Legislation passed
since Captain Kidd's trial meant that admiralty law could now be administered in the colonies, that the accused did not need
to be sent back to England. Unsurprisingly, Jack and
his men were found guilty at the ensuing trial and
were sentenced to death. Now, in prison, Jack was allowed
to see Anne one last time, but far from pitying him, she brazenly reprimanded
him for their capture. "Had you fought like a man," she scowled, "you need not have been
hanged like a dog." It was at the point of their sentencing that Bonny and Read's story took its last and most dramatic twist. When the judge passed sentence, he asked them if they had anything to say. The ladies replied, "My
lord, we plead our bellies." They claimed that they were pregnant. The judge ordered a physical
examination to be undertaken, and both women were indeed
found to be pregnant, and both were granted a stay of execution. (slow music) For Mary Read, however,
this was no happy resolution as she contracted a fever
soon after the trial and died in prison. As for Anne Bonny, there's
no historical evidence that she was executed or released. Like Captain Henry Avery,
she simply vanished. (slow music) Following his execution,
Calico Jack's body, like that of Captain Kidd, was hanged in chains
as a warning to others on a sandy spit off Port Royal in Jamaica, now know as Rackhams Cay. But plenty of others would
follow him to the gibbet. Nassau, in the Bahamas, which
had been a pirate republic of lawless riot and drunken revelry had been brought under
control with the appointment of Captain Woodes Rogers
as the island's governor. He continued to offer that royal pardon and set about rebuilding
the island's defenses. (slow music) - Captain Woodes Rogers is a key figure in the war against the pirates. He was a tough and resolute sea captain. He had orders to drive the
pirates from their lodgement. And he goes out there
with a fleet of ships, gets a hostile reception,
but he establishes order. He captures some pirates and he then sets up a show
trial which he presides over. Nine of them are hanged on the beach in front of the Fort of Nassau. And this sent a signal
really across the Caribbean that there's a man in Nassau now who's in charge, who's restoring order. And in effect, it was an example
to other colonial governors that if you're tough with the pirates, you can get rid of them. - Following the clamp-down
in the Caribbean, many of the pirates set
off across the Atlantic for other less well-patrolled waters. (slow music) And it was to the slave
coast of West Africa that they headed. It was in these waters
just two years before that one sailor had risen to prominence, a pirate captain to eclipse all others, in what was to be the final
flourish of this age of plunder. His name was Bartholomew Roberts, an outspoken and disciplined man whose swarthy Welsh complexion would lead to him being
remembered as Black Bart. Like many sailors of his generation, Bart had faced a dilemma when his ship had been
captured by pirates, and he had reluctantly turned pirate. But that reluctance was
then blown out of the water when his crew elected him captain. "Since I have dipped my hands
in muddy water," he surmised, "it's better to be a
commander than a common man." (slow dramatic music) Over the course of three years from 1719, Black Bart had wrought havoc
among merchant shipping on both sides of the Atlantic. And by the time he reached the shores of Africa in June 1721, he was in command of a
flotilla of three vessels in addition to his
flagship, the Royal Fortune. Such was the size and
loyalty of his combined crew that Black Bart's little fleet
seemed like a proper navy, especially when you consider the way that he further formalized
the Pirate's Code. Amongst his articles or rules
he stipulated that no one was to game at cards or dice for money. Anyone found seducing women or bringing them on board
disguised would suffer death. Oh, and the lights and candles
had to be out by 8:00 pm. So that's no fun, no women, and you all had to be tucked up early. - Bartholomew Roberts was, in a way, the most resolute and
unbending of all pirates. He was a rather puritanical character and, I should think, completely
terrifying to meet. Those who did put up a fight
with Bartholomew Roberts had a really bad time and were usually eliminated
in horrible ways. I mean, not just cutting
off ears and noses, but he would hang them up in the rigging and use them for target practice. And this was simply in order
that the word would get around, you don't mess around
with Bartholomew Roberts. (thunder rumbling) (slow dramatic music) - Black Bart proved so
elusive that those in pursuit began to think he was
invincible, beyond capture, even pistol-proof, as his
own crew described him. However, there was one man, Captain Chaloner Ogle of HMS Swallow, who had been tracking Bart
for some eight months, and he was soon to find
his quarry in his sights. - Sail ahoy! Sail ahoy! - When the cry came for sail ahoy, Black Bart was enjoying a
breakfast of strong tea, because he abhorred
liquor, and salmagundi, a pirate speciality of pickled herring, boiled eggs, meat and vegetables. But for a man normally so
disciplined and astute, Black Bart had finally been caught out. Looking through his telescope, he saw that the approaching ship was using the old ruse de
guerre of flying false flags, and he quickly ordered his men to ready themselves for battle. Black Bart, perhaps sensing that the fatal hour was upon him, decided to go out in style and dressed gallantly for the engagement. As Captain Johnson's "General History Of The Pirates" records, "Roberts himself made a gallant figure, "being dressed in a rich
crimson damask waistcoat "and breeches, a red feather in his hat, "a gold chain round his neck
with a cross hanging to it, "a sword in his hand,
and two pairs of pistols "hanging at the end of a silk sling "flung over his shoulders, "according to the fashion of pirates." Bart's plan was a
characteristically bold one. If he was to stand any chance of escape, he would need to force that
naval ship onto a new course, but that involved sailing
directly towards her, which would expose his
ship to cannon fire. (slow music) The two ships closed on each
other and exchanged broadsides. (gun firing) Captain Ogle's ship, the Swallow, remained unscathed, but Black
Bart's lost its mizzenmast. Though on it sailed,
heading out into open sea. However as the noise subsided and the smoke cleared
after that first broadside, the helmsman noticed Bart slumped on deck on a pile of rigging. Not realizing he was injured, he swore at him to get
up and fight like a man. But Bartholomew Roberts was dead. His throat had been
ripped out by grapeshot. And before his body could be
seized and taken as a trophy, his faithful crew wrapped it in a sail, weighed it down with shot,
and consigned it to the deep. A second broadside brought the Royal Fortune's mainmast down, upon which Black Bart's
crew, with their spirits sunk and their captain gone,
called for quarter. For his success, Captain Ogle
was awarded a knighthood, the only British naval officer
to be honored specifically for his actions against pirates. (slow music) The battle, Black Bart's
death, and the subsequent trial of his remaining crewmen
at Cape Coast Castle, on the coast of Ghana, was
to prove the turning point in the war against pirates. And this is their death warrant, a small piece of paper that
would herald the end of an era. "Ye and each of you are
adjudged "and sentenced "to be carried back to the
place from whence you came. "From thence to the place of execution "without the gates of this castle. "And there, within the flood marks, "to be hanged by the neck until
you are dead, dead, dead." (slow dramatic music) Like Captain Kidd some 20 years before, these 52 dead pirates swaying
out across the Atlantic were a stark reminder
of the perils of piracy. It was the greatest slaughter of pirates ever carried out by the admiralty. And in a stroke, it brought this brief and bloody age to a dramatic finale. (slow dramatic music) Black Bart's short career had amounted to capturing over 470
vessels and plundering riches worth a total of around 20
million pounds in today's money. When the rewards so greatly
outweighed the risks, it's no wonder that so many sailors embraced the life of piracy. In his book, Captain
Johnson devotes more space to Black Bart than to any
of his contemporaries, and it includes a quote
from Bart himself that, for me, serves as a
mantra for all pirates. "In an honest service," says he, "there is low wages and hard labor. "In this, plenty and satiety, "pleasure and ease, liberty and power. "A merry life and a short
one shall be my motto." Now, what's that if not the
Faustian pact of all outlaws? As Georgian Britain's imperial and mercantile ambitions marched on, so its navy grew in size and strength, bolstered by vast numbers of sailors who only a few years earlier might have easily joined
the ranks of the pirates. They may have been a
bunch of common outlaws, but these pirates had
shaken the very foundations of a fledgling empire that
would spread across the world once their lawless reign
over the seas was ended. (dramatic music) And these maritime renegades
left a powerful legacy. Ordinary men and women
forging new identities and a dangerous vision
of freedom far removed from the authoritarian social
order of Georgian Britain. To the establishment they
were enemies of mankind. But to the public, they
became folk heroes, and have remained so ever since. It would seem that in this short but sensational period in our history, it was the pirate and not Britannia who really ruled the waves. (slow dramatic music)
