They flourished for much of the seventeenth century, taking prizes and striking terror into the hearts of merchant seamen, especially the Spanish, who controlled much of the trade and shipping in the Caribbean and Atlantic. Many countries considered the pirates to be the “scourge of mankind.” England loved them. By harassing Spanish ships, pirates made room for English trade and expansion. In the bargain, pirate ships took hard and violent men off the streets and put them to work, then brought back stolen goods to English markets and sold them on the cheap. Pirates spent handsomely to outfit
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