Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean
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Wagner, Kip, Pieces of Eight: Recovering the Riches of a Lost Spanish Treasure Fleet (London and New York, 1966)
Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (London, 1957)
Williams, Basil, The Whig Supremacy, 1714–1760 (Oxford, 1939)
Williams, Glyn, The Prize of all the Oceans: The Triumph and Tragedy of Anson’s Voyage Round the World (London, 1999)
Williams, Glyndwr, The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters, 1570–1750 (London and New Haven, 1997)
Williams, Neville, The Sea Dogs: Privateers, Plunder and Piracy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1975)
Woodard, Colin, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (New York and London, 2007)
Acknowledgments
The idea for this book was first suggested to me by my writer friend Richard Platt, who thought that it was time for a fresh look at the adventurous career of Captain Woodes Rogers. My thanks to him and to Bill Swainson, my editor at Bloomsbury, who took on the book and, as usual, had shrewd advice on how to deal with a subject which proved to be more complex and wide ranging than a straightforward biography.
The book is based on the Colonial Office and Admiralty documents held by the National Archives (Public Record Office) in London, and on material in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. The writings of William Dampier, Captain Charles Johnson, Daniel Defoe and Woodes Rogers himself have been an essential resource, while Crusoe’s Captain, a well-documented biography of Rogers by Brian Little which was published in 1960, proved a most useful starting point. I have also made use of a considerable number of more recent books and would like to acknowledge my debt to the following in particular: The Pirate Wars by Peter Earle, Blackbeard by Angus Konstam, Villains of All Nations by Marcus Rediker, Seeking
Robinson Crusoe by Tim Severin, British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century by David J. Starkey, The Great South Sea by Glyn Williams, and The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard.
Fifteen years ago I organised an exhibition entitled Pirates: Fact and Fiction at the National Maritime Museum in London. This led to the writing of Life Among the Pirates (entitled Under the Black Flag in the United States), which has done remarkably well over the years and resulted in my acting as consultant for an exhibition based on the book at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and a small exhibition on pirates at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. I was also involved in the creation of a museum of piracy at Nassau in the Bahamas, and was historical consultant for the first of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, as well as for several documentary films on pirates. These and other ventures resulted in visits (some under sail) to many West Indian islands as well to Key West, Florida, and several museums on the east coast of North America. During the course of these visits my wife and I received generous hospitality from many people and would especially like to thank Peter and Mary Neill, William and Kerstin Gilkerson, Claudia and Craig Pennington, Madeleine Burnside, Julie McEnroe, Benjamin ‘Dink’ Bruce, John Hightower, Simon and Robin Robinson, Tom Goodwin and Ellen, and Orjan and Amanda Lindroth.
I would also like to thank Gill Coleridge, my literary agent, for her constant support over the years, and to thank her assistant, Cara Jones, for fielding a steady stream of queries on pirates and other maritime subjects. The staff of Bloomsbury, my publishers, have been as helpful and efficient as always and, in addition to Bill Swainson, I would like to thank Nick Humphrey and Anna Simpson for their valuable input, and Laura Brooke for handling the publicity. Thanks also to John Gilkes for the beautifully drawn maps, and to Richard Dawes, the copy editor, for spotting and correcting numerous errors, inconsistencies, and misspellings. Of course I remain responsible for any that remain.
As in the past my greatest debt is to my family. My son Matthew has taken a keen interest in the subject and has been a constant source of ideas and practical suggestions; my daughter Rebecca has helped me sort out my thoughts over coffee in the British Library on many occasions; and, in addition to her advice and encouragement throughout the writing of this book, my wife has shouldered most of the responsibility for family and grandparent duties so that I could get the book finished. It is to her, therefore, that this book is affectionately dedicated.
D.C.
Brighton, Sussex
January 2011
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID CORDINGLY was for twelve years on the staff of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, where he was curator of paintings and then head of exhibitions.
He is a graduate of Oxford, and the renowned author of the definitive book on pirates, Under the Black Flag, as well as Seafaring Women and Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander. Cordingly lives with his wife by the sea in Sussex, England.