"Incredible as it sounds, pirates made it all but impossible for any kind of serious fishing. It was like something out of the seventeenth century. The coast is riddled now with pirates; the Navy is hunting them down. A couple of small towns, especially along the keys, set up good defenses. They had only one road to block, and their own navies to guard the fishing boats, so they got through relatively OK, but the hurricane last fall knocked them over pretty hard."
