Member-only story
If You Wanna Be Happy, Be a Fucking Pirate
Bartholomew Roberts, the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, had a motto “A short life and a merry one at that.”
Robert’s life was indeed short by modern standards (he lived only 39 years), but it was one to remember. Having gone to the sea at the age of thirteen, Roberts was caught by the pirates and soon became the right hand of another famous pirate of the century. He set his foot on almost every continent, sailed every sea and ocean, and captured more than 400 vessels. Unfortunately, he died in the battle from a shot, which struck him in the throat.
Roberts wasn’t the only pirate to die in the prime of his life. L’Olonnais, a famous buccaneer plying the Caribbean in the late 1600s, was eaten by cannibals at 39. Captain Kidd, a Scottish pirate, was executed at the age of 47. And Blackbeard, one of the most intimidating pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy, was slashed in the neck at 40.
Life at sea was dangerous and full of hardship. It didn’t bode anything but death in a battle, execution, or a disability with dim prospects for a retirement allowance. Still, thousands of men preferred this way of life to ordinary lives. One of the reasons for that, I believe, was that life ashore wasn’t that shiny either: you would spend most of your life working hard, eating little, having almost no fun, and die from…
