Gerry Brooke takes a look at a new book about Bristol’s pirates and privateers.

If you looking for swashbuckling piratical tales then forget Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and the rest of those fictional Pirates of the Caribbean.

They might be great fun but here, in Bristol, we have our very own real life piratical heritage.

Who could match Blackbeard, perhaps the most feared, and ferocious, pirate of all, or measure up to the bravery of privateer Captain Woodes Rogers, one of the few men to ever capture and bring home a Spanish treasure galleon?

Alongside these figures, as Ken Griffiths and Mark Steeds point out in their new book, Pirates and Privateers out of Bristol, are other West Countrymen with great stories to tell.

Men such as the acclaimed Somerset navigator William Dampier and Cotswolds born Dr Thomas Dover, both members of a Bristol expedition which, 300 years ago, rescued the marooned sailor Alexander Selkirk, the prototype Robinson Crusoe.

All these real life characters walked the streets of Bristol and enjoyed the hospitality of her many dockside inns.

It was their adventures and stories, say the authors, that inspired such great writers as Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island), Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe) and Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels)

Looking back through the mists of time the life and times of these freebooters may seem very romantic, the very ideal of freedom.

But in reality it was just the opposite.

“Pirates have become romantic figures because they no longer threaten us - unlike modern pirates who can still be a danger” explained Ken Griffiths.

“In reality 17th and 18th century pirates, with very few exceptions, were renowned for their cruelty.

“But this must be weighed against their achievements in navigation, skilled seamanship and the location of new lands.”

European seamen first became linked with piracy, which has a history stretching back to Roman times, over 500 years ago, during the Elizabethan age.

“Following the discovery of Haiti (Hispaniola) by the Spaniards in 1492 England was content to use her sea rovers to plunder bullion and other goods from Spanish ships and settlements” says Ken.

But the famous or should I say infamous, swashbuckling days of piracy were yet to come.

Successive monarchs and governments turned a blind eye, when it suited them, to what was in reality grand theft (and often murder) on the high seas.

Some pirates, though perhaps not their full stories, are well known through songs and folklore.

There was William (Captain) Kidd for example who, after spending much of his life in the Caribbean, ended his days hanging from a metal cage at Tilbury dock as an example to all high seas law breakers.

And then there was the Devon born pirate Henry Avery who plundered an Indian ship bound for Mecca to the value of some £200,000 but ended his days living in poverty in Bideford.

But there is much less written about many others - the Jamaican sea rover Thomas Tew for instance, or Captain Skinner, murdered by his own pirate crew.

Or indeed Edward England, a former merchant captain who joined a pirate band but was then marooned by them on the island of Mauritius.

Mentioned by Long John Silver in the novel Treasure Island England had his own pirate ship, the Pearl, which he and his crew sailed to West Africa.

The list of pirates - and there must have been many, many more whose names have been long forgotten - seems to go on and on.

Have you ever heard of “Calico” Jack Rackham, for instance, or the Welshman “Black Bart” Roberts, whose crew outrageously raided a Portugese treasure fleet but who ended his days on deck, struck down by grapeshot that ripped his throat open?

And who now remembers, except perhaps in song, that doughty pair of wily female pirates associated with Rackham - Irish born Anne Bonny and Londoner Mary Read who dressed as men?

These are all great stories and co-author Mark Steeds, who is also, incidentally, secretary of the Long John Silver Trust, a Bristol charity which promotes the city’s maritime and literary past, makes a great job of bringing them to life.

“I've been interested in pirates and privateering ever since reading Treasure Island as a child” says Mark.

“I couldn't believe that such exciting things emanated from the place where I was born.”

“After helping to get the Long John Silver Trust - and a Bristol Treasure Island trail - off the ground I wanted to find out more about our local pirates and privateers.

“Once my co-author Ken and I started looking we found revelation after revelation - in fact it was a job knowing when to stop.

“We’d first thought about doing a book on the less publicised mariners of the Spanish main during a get together at a Clifton pub

“That was over two years and since then we’ve had a lot of fun exploring old Bristol, uncovering what remains of our swashbuckling past.

“ The search took us to the Central Library, the Records Office and, of course, the internet.

“The many highs ranged from finding a the brilliant picture of Dr Dover and the marooned sailor Alexander Selkirk at Glenside Hospital Museum to discovering an extensive range of early editions at the Central Library.

“The team behind Fiducia, the book’s Southville publishers, helped us enormously.

“Illustrations by Roy Gallop, for instance, were augmented by some superb photography, not only from Rosie Tomlinson, who took the bulk of the new pictures, but also by Ken’s wife Carol.

“Roy's partner Tess did the proof reading and a former Lord Mayor, Councillor Royston Griffey, was kind enough to put together a foreword.

“Everyone was kind and generous with their help and knowledge - a credit to Bristol and what it has to offer a researcher.”

Privateering, or state licensed piracy, seems to have started as far back as 1405 when a Letter of Marque” (authority to organise private ventures to seize ships of other nations) was granted by King Henry IV to the Bristol masters of the James and Trinity.

England was then at war with Owain Glyndwr, the Welsh freedom fighter and it was the ships of his allies, the French, who were landing troops in Wales, that the King was most fearful of.

“Up to the end of the 17th century London was the most active port for privateering ventures” says Mark.

“By the beginning of the 18th century, however, Bristol achieved parity with London and, for some years, even managed to fit out more privateers than the capital city”

In 1585, with England at war with Spain, Letters of Marque were granted to two Bristol ships owned by influential merchant John Whitson, who later founded Red Maids School.

It was obviously a lucrative business.

Some of the most profitable years of privateering, explains Mark, were between 1625 and 1630 with England at war with both Spain and France.

The types of goods seized by Bristol ships included timber, tobacco, palm oil, cochineal, wheat and sugar.

“A Bristol ship, the Comfort, captured a Spanish merchantman from Brazil carrying 500 chests of sugar” he says.

That must have been a sweet prize indeed.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, three hundred years ago, as many as 128 privateers were fitted out in Bristol alone.

As I said, a lucrative business, so when did it all come to end?

“Although privateers continued to operate throughout the Napoleanic wars their contribution was minimal” explains Ken

“It was the beginning of the end.

“In 1856 Britain signed an agreement formally ending its involvement in privateering.”

But as Ken points out, piracy refuses to go away and is still very much with us to-day.

Pirates and Privateers out of Bristol by Ken Griffiths and Mark Steeds is published by Fiducia Press and costs £10.00