Villains of All Nations Quotes

“John Atkins, the naval surgeon, spoke of the transition from privateer to pirate as going from “plundering for others, to do it for themselves.”
― Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age

“It was on old joke among underfed, angry sailors that should mutiny fail, the weight of their bodies would not be enough to hang them.”
― Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age

“Seamen could expect little relief from the law, whose purpose in the eighteenth-century Atlantic was, according to Jesse Lemisch, “to assure a ready supply of cheap, docile labor.”
― Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age

“Job Bayley, facing death for piracy in a Charleston courtroom in 1718, was asked by the attorney general of South Carolina why he and his fellow freebooters fought Colonel William Rhett and the vessels sent by the government against them. Bayley probably brought a roar of laughter from those attending the trial when he answered, “We thought it had been a pirate.”
― Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age

“why he and his fellow freebooters fought Colonel William Rhett and the vessels sent by the government against them. Bayley probably brought a roar of laughter from those attending the trial when he answered, “We thought it had been a pirate.”
― Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age