But if American colonial piracy presents a smaller array of legal documents than American colonial privateering, it makes up for it by its rich abundance of picturesque narrative and detail. The pieces here brought together show us piracy off Lisbon and in the East Indies and at Madagascar, at Portobello and Panama and in the South Sea, in the West Indies, and all along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to the coast of Guiana. They exhibit to us every relation from that of the most innocent victim to that of the most hardened pirate chief. They make it clear how narrow was sometimes the line that divided piracy and privateering, and how difficult it must have been to learn the truth from witnesses so conflicting and of such dubious characters, testifying concerning actions of lawless men in remote seas or on lonely shores.
Most of the pirates famed in story, who had anything to do with colonial America, appear in one way or another in these papers. On the history of Henry Every, for instance, and even on the oft-told tale of William Kidd, not a little new light is cast. Kidd's letters from prison, the letter and petitions of his wife, the depositions of companions, the additional letters of Bellomont, make the story live again, even though no new evidence appears that is perfectly conclusive as to the still-debated question of his degree of guilt. The wonderful buccaneering adventures of Bartholomew Sharp and his companions, 1680-1682, at the Isthmus of Panama and all along the west coast of South America, are newly illustrated by long anonymous narratives, artless but effective. And indeed, to speak more generally, it is hoped that there are few aspects of the pirate's trade that are not somehow represented in these pages.
At least it will not be denied that the documents, whether for piracy or for privateering, show a considerable variety of origins. Their authors range from a Signer of the Declaration of Independence to an Irishwoman keeping a boarding-house in Havana, from a minister of Louis XIV. or a judge of the High Court of Admiralty to the most illiterate sailor, from Governor John Endicott, most rigid of Puritans, to the keeper of a rendezvous for pirates and receiver of their ill-gotten goods. Witnesses or writers of many nationalities appear: American, Englishmen, Scots, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, a Portuguese, a Dane or Sleswicker, a Bohemian, a Greek, a Jew. The languages of the documents are English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin. Though none of them are in German or by Germans, not the least interesting pieces in the volume are those (docs. no. 43, no. 48, and no. 49) which show a curious connection of American colonial history with the very first (and characteristically illegal and unscrupulous) exploits of the Brandenburg-Prussian navy.
