Charles Captain Johnson - General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates

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A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE
ROBBERIES & MURDERS
OF THE
MOST NOTORIOUS PIRATES

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Copyright 1998, 2002, 2010 by Conway Maritime Press

Introduction copyright 1998, 2002, 2010 by David Cordingly

First published in Great Britain by Conway Maritime Press, a division of Batsford Communications PLC
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First Lyons Press paperback edition, 2002. This edition published in 2010.

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Text designed by Libby Kingsbury

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN 978-1-59921-905-9

Printed in the United States of America

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In May 1724 a new book appeared in Charles Rivingtons shop near St Pauls Cathedral, London. It was a small book of octavo format with a plain leather binding and looked rather dull compared with the finely bound bibles and religious works which dominated the interior of the shop. The author, Captain Charles Johnson, was not well know and the book would have passed unnoticed if it had not been for the arresting title, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates . Anyone curiously picking it up and glancing through it would have seen at once that it was a vivid and bloodthirsty account of a dozen English and Welsh pirates who had recently been in the news.

The book was illustrated with three copper engravings of the most famous of the pirates. There was a picture of Blackbeard whose gory death at the hands of Lieutenant Maynard in 1718 had been reported on both sides of the Atlantic. There was a fold-out picture of the female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny who had been captured and put on trial in Jamaica in November 1720. And there was a picture of Captain Bartholomew Roberts who had been killed in a battle with a naval warship in 1721 after a spectacular career during which he had looted and burnt several hundred ships on the coasts of America and west Africa.

Captain Johnsons book took the lid off a shocking world of crime on the high seas and had all the ingredients for a bestseller. It contained graphic accounts of murder, torture and rape in exotic locations. And it was topical because there had been an alarming increase in pirate attacks during the six or seven years prior to the books publication. The newspapers had reported a succession of sensational pirate trials at home and abroad. Crowds of people flocked to Execution Dock on the Thames waterfront to watch the last moments of condemned pirates, and anyone taking a boat downstream would have seen the dead bodies of the more notorious pirates hanging in chains from gibbets at prominent points along the river.

So in spite of its modest appearance Captain Johnsons book sold briskly. Within a few months a second edition was published, the author noting in his preface, The first impression having been received with so much success by the public, occasioned a very earnest demand for a second. A third edition followed in 1725 and in 1726 a much enlarged fourth edition appeared. This included biographies of a dozen more pirates and was published in two volumes. Captain Johnson was so encouraged by the reception of the book that he decided to expand his subject matter and in 1734 he published A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers, &c. to which is added a genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the most notorious Pyrates .

It has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates. He provided a sweeping account of what came to be called the Golden Age of Piracy. He gave an almost mythical status to the more colourful pirates such as Blackbeard, Calico Jack and the female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny. And what was perhaps even more significant, he inspired later generations of writers and film-makers who adapted elements of his stories and gave us the image of the pirate which has become so familiar. It is an image which combines elements of fact and fiction and includes walking the plank, marooning, buried treasure, wooden legs, black eye patches, the jolly roger, and parrots squawking Pieces of eight.