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he entered the service of the Duke of Savoy,
purchased a Savoyard marquis ate, and married
a lady of noble birth. [Lucie-Smith, 1978: 83]
At one time, Eston was told that James I of England had
offered him a pardon. "\Vhy should I obey a king's orders," he
asked, "when I am a kind of king myself?" This quip reminds
us of numerous speeches recorded in Defoe's General HiJtory
0/the Pyratu which hint at the existence of a pirate "ideology"
(if that's not too grand a term), a kind of proto-individualistanarchist
attitude, however unphilosophical, which seems to
have inspired the more intelligent and class-conscious buccaneers
and corsairs. Defoe relates that a pirate named Captain
Bellamy made this speech to the captain of a merchant vessel
he had taken as a prize. The captain of the merchant vessel
had just declined an invitation to join the pirates:
I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop
again, for I scorn to do anyone a mischief,
when it is not to my advantage; damn the
sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of
use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy,
and so are all those who will submit to be governed
by laws which rich men have made for
their own security; for the cowardly whelps
have not the courage otherwise to defend what
they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether:
damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and
you, who serve them, for a parcel ofhen-hearted
numbskulls. They vililY us, the scoundrels
do, when there is only this difference, they rob
the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and
we plunder the rich under the protection of
our own courage. Had you not better make
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them one of us, than sneak after these viIlians
for employment?
\Vhen the captain replied that his conscience would not
let him break the laws of God and man, the pirate Bellamy
continued:
You are a devilish conscience rascal, I am a
free prince, and I have as much authority to
make war on the whole world as he who has a
hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of
100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience
tens me: but there is no arguing with
such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors
to kick them about deck at pleasure.
It's interesting to compare a "farm laborer" with
the heart of a king. with Henry Mainwaring, the gentleman
pirate who (JiJ accept an English pardon and (like Henry
Morgan some years later) betrayed his former low companions.
Or consider the only real aristocrat (as far as I know)
to turn Turk, Sir Francis Verney:
A turbulent youth, Verney lost a quarrel with
his stepmother about his inheritance, and in
the autumn of 1608 left England in disgust. He
arrived in Algiers and played a part in one of
the frequent wars of succession, then turned
corsair. In 1609 he was reported by the
English ambassador in Spain to have taken
"three or four Poole ships and one of
Plymouth." In December 1610 he was said by
the Venetian ambassador in Tunis to have
apostasized. At this period he was an associate
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