Description

---

From David Cordingly, one of the world’s foremost experts on pirate history, and author of the perennial favorite Under the Black Flag, comes the thrilling story of the man who fought the real pirates of the Caribbean. Sea captain, privateer, and colonial governor, Woodes Rogers was one of the early eighteenth century’s boldest and most colorful characters. Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean is the definitive account of his incredible life.

At a time when Europe’s maritime nations fought over islands and territories, and pirates and other scoundrels were flourishing, Rogers sailed into the center of the action. In 1708, in the midst of Britain’s war with Spain, Rogers was hired to lead a mission against Spanish targets in the Pacific. A fearless adventurer who lost his fortune as often as his temper, he battled scurvy and hurricanes and mutinies—and along the way captured a treasure galleon and rescued the shipwrecked Alexander Selkirk, whose four-year ordeal on a remote Pacific island inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe.

When the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 led to an explosion of piracy in the Caribbean, King George I appointed Rogers governor of the Bahamas. There he found himself in charge of a string of islands being plundered by raucous felons, from the notorious “Blackbeard,” who kept lit matches under his hat to give himself a hellish cast, to Charles Vane, a particularly brutal pirate captain, to Anne Bonny and Mary Read, rare female pirates who escaped the hangman’s noose only by revealing their pregnancies.

With rich and vivid details and plenty of action, David Cordingly chronicles a rollicking adventure that is as fascinating and gripping as any seafaring legend.

About the Author

---

David Cordingly was for twelve years on the staff of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, where he was curator of paintings and then head of exhibitions. He is a graduate of Oxford, and the renowned author of the definitive book on pirates, "Under the Black Flag," as well as "Seafaring Women" and "Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander." Cordingly lives with his wife by the sea in Sussex, England.

Praise For…

---

Praise for David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag
 
“Plenty of thrills and adventure to satisfy any reader.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
 
“This is the most authoritative and highly literate account of these pernicious people that I have ever read.”—Patrick O’Brian
 
“[A] lively history . . . If you’ve ever been seduced by the myth of the cutlass-wielding pirate, consider David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag.”—USA Today
 
“[A] wonderfully entertaining history of pirates and piracy . . . a rip-roaring read . . . fascinating and unexpected.”—Men’s Journal
 
“Engagingly told . . . a tale of the power of imaginative literature to re-create the past.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“Entirely engaging and informative . . . a witty and spirited book.”—The Washington Post Book World