5 - The Pirate and the Emperor: Power and the Law on the Seas, 1450–1850

Summary

“ For elegant and excellent was the pirate's answer to the great Macedonian Alexander, who had taken him: the king asking him how he durst molest the seas so, he replied with a free spirit, ‘How darest thou molest the whole world? But because I do with a little ship only, I am called a thief: thou doing it with a great navy, art called an emperor.’”

St. Augustine, The City of God, Book IV, Chapter IV.

There is a description of piracy that spans the ages: illegal and armed aggression at points of maritime traffic that are important but under weak political control. The aggression is committed by the marginal who seek to appropriate the wealth of the more affluent, or by new-comers desiring to force their way into preexisting trade routes. This elementary description tells us about plundering and illegality; it tells us about immediate causes and motivations. But it leaves out the questions of what law is invoked against the pirate, and behind the law, of what power is involved in this maritime confrontation over matters of trade.

In the rise of merchant empires at the beginning of the modern era that is the focus of this book, what is called piracy is also easily recognizable. From sea to sea and age to age, we observe the same phenomena appearing – at once picturesque, violent, and sordid.