Birth of a Buccaneer or Privateering for Dummies

Buccaneer by Dudley Pope

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Neither the Golden Age of Piracy nor the pirates themselves sprang fully formed from dragon's teeth. It (and they) came about by a very singular and unlikely set of circumstances.

First, it required the base material, the people. These were supplied by the rise of Cromwell in England and the death of the King. Cavalier supporters were exiled or fled to the Caribbean to escape the new regime. Most were not sailors or adventurers but minor nobility and landowners. Added to these were the sweepings of the streets and inmates of prisons in England and unfortunate Irish, all of whom were kidnapped and sent to the Caribbean as "indentured servants", slaves in all but name.

Next was a suitable location, a base in hostile Spanish territory where the pirates could find safe harbour, supplies, crew, and businessmen to buy their plunder. This came about by the a doomed expedition sent by Cromwell to exert English power in the Spanish Main in the form a fleet led by Penn and Venables. The expedition was a miserable failure, many of the soldiers and sailors dying from disease and hunger rather than Spanish weapons. The best the survivors could do was to capture the Island of Jamaica, which was largely unoccupied but which boasted the finest harbour in the region. The English founded a settlement there, a settlement that would come to be named Port Royal, the most sinful city in the entire world.

In this novel, Ned Yorke, an exiled member of a Cavalier family, has his estate in Barbados stolen from him, leaving him with only a merchant vessel, and a crew of ex-servants and his lover, the wife of the Roundhead supporter who stole his estate. He is not a hardened adventurer or even any kind of a sailor, just as could be expected from someone who was basically a plantation owner.

And yet during the course of the novel we see our hero moulded by circumstances beyond his control into first a pirate, a buccaneer, and then a privateer, a pirate with a license. He commences his career at the very time when the seeds of Port Royal and the Golden Age of Piracy are first planted. Although he would prefer to find a new plot of land to restart his plantation, this is not to be, and slowly and painfully he realises that his only option is piracy and he sets about learning the necessary skills while at the same time keeping his followers alive and fed and dealing with the hostile Roundhead Governor of Jamaica.

This is not the novel for someone looking for another "Pirates of the Caribbean" or the ordered and structured adventures of an officer in the Royal Navy. Instead it is a view of the life at sea and of a band of ordinary men and women forced to adopt piracy as a way of life. The language, history, and the lifestyle of the period are well and accurately portrayed, and the characters feel very real and human, with all their strengths, frailties, and lusts. Even the women are well portrayed, being neither helpless playthings or pure and haughty ladies, but real and very hardy people, suited to a very harsh and dangerous time.

I give the book five stars and I intend to read the rest of the series. I recommend you give it a fair try too.



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