Hello, sailor!

Richard Sanders

20 June 2007

Richard Sanders recalls the exploits of Bartholomew Roberts, a swashbuckling 18th-century buccaneer to match Johnny Depp — except that he drank tea, and was probably gay

But Roberts’s success helped glue his crew — which at one point numbered more than 350 men — together. Through 1719 and 1720 they ravaged shipping along the entire eastern seaboard of the New World, from Brazil to Newfoundland. By the spring of 1720 they had brought all trade in the eastern Caribbean to a halt, and Roberts’s reputation as the greatest pirate of the age was firmly established.

The pirates Roberts gathered around him in some ways conformed to our stereotype, in some ways not. They really did dress in jewellery, white silk shirts and fine, embroidered waistcoats, like children let loose in a costume cupboard — 18th-century bling, conveying the unmistakable message to common seamen that crime paid.

There was also a smattering of wooden legs and eye patches. Pirates operated complex systems of injury insurance, and it was common practice to retain invalids in non-combatant roles. Like Long John Silver in Treasure Island, many ended up as ships’ cooks. Parrots were also popular pets, and those that could talk were valued particularly highly.

Roberts flew a black flag, although the designs he used were more complex than the conventional skull and crossbones. One showed Roberts himself standing astride two skulls representing ‘A Martinican’s Head’ and ‘A Barbadian’s Head’ — two islands he had particular hostility towards. Another showed a figure brandishing a flaming sword at a skeleton, ‘intimating a defiance of death itself’.

Neither Roberts nor any other pirate of this era ever made victims walk the plank. In fact, it’s remarkable how few people Roberts and his men killed. Of the 400 merchant ships they captured, just two put up a fight. Other than in battle, they never killed a single passenger or crew member from any of their prizes.