The native officials, unable to distinguish the rogues from the honest
traders, held the East India Company's servants responsible for the
misdeeds of the piccaroons, from whom they suffered so grievously. Still,
whatever their nationality might chance to be, it is fair to say that the
generality of them were courageous rascals and splendid seamen, who, with
their large crews, handled their ships better than any merchantmen could
do. When a pirate ship was cast away on a desolate coast, they built
themselves another; the spirit of the sea was in their veins; whether
building and rigging a ship, or sailing and fighting her, they could do
everything that the most skilful seamen of the age could do. As was said
half a century later of La Bourdonnais, himself a true corsair in spirit,
their knowledge in mechanics rendered them capable of building a ship
from the keel; their skill in navigation, of conducting her to any part
of the globe; and their courage, of fighting against any equal force.
Their lives were a continual alternation between idleness and extreme
toil, riotous debauchery and great privation, prolonged monotony and days
of great excitement and adventure. At one moment they were revelling in
unlimited rum, and gambling for handfuls of gold and diamonds; at another,
half starving for food and reduced to a pint of water a day under a
tropical sun. Yet the attractions of the life were so great that men of
good position took to piracy. Thus, Major Stede Bonnet, of Barbados,
master of a plentiful fortune, and a gentleman of good reputation, fitted
out a sloop and went a-pirating, for which he was hanged, together with
twenty-two of his crew, in November, 1718. Even women, like Anne Bonny
and Mary Read, turned pirates and handled sword and pistol. Desperate,
reckless, and lawless, they were filled with the spirit of adventure, and
were the forerunners of the men that Hawke, Nelson, and Dundonald led to
victory.

Long after they had disappeared from the seas the Indian trade continued