Pirates: Terror on the High Seas-From the Caribbean to the South China Sea

Piracy has always provided a good opportunity for ruthless men to seek their fortunes. For the young man – very few older men went “on the account” – piracy offered a means of escape from the monotony of shore-based jobs and brought with it the added spice of treasure, definite danger and excitement, wine and women, and a chance to see the world. But it was a dangerous calling, and few took up active piracy for more than a the careers of some famous pirates like Blackbeard, Kidd, and Avery lasted no more than two or three years, and few, like Morgan or Drake, lived long enough to enjoy their plundered wealth.
From time immemorial there have been In the second millennium B.C., Phoenician merchant ships were preyed upon in the Mediterranean, and in the classical age of Greece, the islands of the Aegean were home to generations of pirates. In 78 B.C., young Julius Caesar was held for ransom by pirates. Much later, when Spanish conquistadores discovered astonishing quantities of gold treasure in the New World, this provoked two centuries of buccaneering on the Spanish Main – the Golden Age of Piracy. And on the other side of the world, the fabled riches of the East brought forth in the South China Sea the most formidable of all the world’s pirates in both numbers and in cruelty. Nor has piracy ever died out; along the coast of Brazil, the west coast of Africa, and above all in the Malacca Strait – the greatest concentration of merchant shipping in the world – pirates still practice their ancient trade.