Spanish Gold

The amazing true story of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and all the other pirates of the Caribbean and Captain Woodes Rogers, the privateer turned governor of the Bahamas, who brought them to book.

'Both a brilliant idea and an engrossing book that tells the story of a ship of the line in Nelson's day' Bernard Cornwell, Books of the Year, Mail on Sunday

'David Cordingly is a brilliant historian: authoritative but easy to read, with an eye for the story yet with a touch light enough to let the facts speak for themselves' Daily Telegraph

Today most of us know what we know about pirates from icons like Long John Silver and Jack Sparrow. But who were the real pirates of the Caribbean, and where did they come from? And how were they tamed? David Cordingly's latest book reveals the true story to have been at least as fascinating and gripping as the legends.

After the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, there was an explosion of piracy across the Caribbean and along the eastern seaboard of North America. Hundreds of unemployed sailors roamed the seaports and many were tempted to take to piracy. Unable to attack enemy targets any longer, they replaced their national flags with the black flag and became 'pyrates and enemies of all mankind'.

Nowhere was the problem greater than in the Bahamas. So, after years of ignoring the problem, the British Government was forced to act. Three warships were despatched across the Atlantic with orders to suppress the pirates and it was agreed that a Governor of the Bahama Islands be appointed 'to drive the pirates from their lodgement'. The man selected for the nigh impossible task was Captain Woodes Rogers, a former privateer who had made his name (he rescued Alexander Selkirk, the model for Defoe's Robinson Crusoe) and his fortune (GBP9m) by leading a highly successful voyage round the world.

This is the story of his battle with the pirates, told in David Cordingly's inimitable style.