| During the Anglo-Spanish War in the period 1585 -1603, privateers annually brought loot, amounting to 100 - 200 thousand pounds - cosmical sum for those times, to the ports. Net income was 60% on invested capital! According to political scientist William Foster, during the entire reign of Elizabeth I, the British "sea dogs" brought 12 million revenue to their country. The Dutch excelled in the first half of the 17th century. The Netherlands West India Company, founded in 1621, actively used the privateers, to torment the Spanish empire and also the Portuguese colony (on the grounds that from 1580 to 1640, Portugal was part of Spain). The management of the corporation has developed a special plan of attacks on the "silver fleet" and in 1628, Peter Hein had even managed to capture one of them in the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba. Privateers got 177 329 pounds of silver, 135 pounds of gold, thousands of pearls and goods, worth 11.5 million guldens. The net profit of the company was 7 million. In total, when it was time to sum up the first results, it appeared that, 5 million guldens were spent on 806 ships and 67000, which were dispatched into the sea. Priveeters were successful in capturing 547 ships in Atlantic and sale of goods from the captured ships in Holland brought a net income of 30 million to the shareholders. In general, only a one-third turnover of the East India Company was in the field of peaceful trading operations and the remaining was invested and obtained from the sea piracy and robbery of "enemy" ports.
What are the type of goods, which fell into the hands of the corsair & their "employers"? Gold, silver, precious stones, precious skins, tobacco, cacao, indigo, cochineal, log wood ... Production volumes grew by leaps and bounds. Here are a few examples.
1659. Commodore Christopher Myngs leaves Jamaica (by then already the largest corsair base in the world) with three frigates and 300 "armed men" on board. He devastates the ports of Cumana, Puerto Cabello and Coro. In the Coro port, following the inhabitants, who were fleeing into the jungles, the British seized 22 boxes of treasures - 400 pounds of silver in each box. The loot is estimated at 200 000 pounds.
1668. Henry Morgan, king of the filibusters, having 460 people in the beginning, attacked Costa Rican city of Puerto Bello. The loot was 250 000 pounds of jewels besides other products. As a result, the budget of the colony of Jamaica exceeded three times the amount sent to parent state and is enough to clear the debts of Charles II.
In such a situation, it is natural that the authorities, at all levels, became a reliable tactical partner of the pirates. According to the records, the annual income of the Jamaican governor Sir Thomas Modyford was 2500 pounds. At the same time, the royal salary was only 1000 pounds, 600 came from taxes on alcohol, 400 - for letters of marque (they were estimated at only 20 pounds a piece) and even 500 - in the form of gifts from filibusters. It was no secret that the governor bought goods very cheaply from privateers, who immediately "legitimized" them in the Admiralty Court by his brother - part-time chief judge of the island. And then, the property was shipped to England, where it was marketed by the son of Sir Thomas. True, as a consequence, the high-ranking patron had to serve a few years in the Tower of London, but coming out, he quietly occupied the post ... the post of the main judge of Jamaica!
During the "golden age" of the corsair period in Jamaica, the entire economic activity, in fact, depended on a single operation: the "pumping" of funds from the pirate operators into the coffers of businessmen. Port Royal, capital of the colony, transformed into a Mecca for buyers of the loot, moneylenders and pimps. According to contemporary evidence, 800 houses were found there in 1668, which were "cost as much as if they were on good shopping streets in London".
Some planters (slave agriculture remained in the inner parts of the island) and even horses had silver shoes. Within 10 years of the corsair flourishing, the number of pubs in the city has doubled. During the night, the robbers squandered around 2 - 3 thousand piasters here – the entire share of his loot.
Those who have become rich easily did not have enough thought to invest money in land, real estate or some other "clean" business. They all thought that the filibuster happiness is forever.
The sunset of corsair period started with a paradox – the wealth hunters attained such prosperity that they had hunters amongst them - in French "Sea Musketeers". Traders from among the subjects of Louis XIV realized, that it would be good to invest in the "business of the century". But, by then, the Spaniards had already been taken to the cleaners by the British. That means, it was now necessary to rob Englishmen! The occasion was the outbreak of war (1689-1697) between the two countries. Within two years of war, the French occupied 3000 Albion ships in the Atlantic but lost only 67 of their own. And in 1694, raiders, under the command of Jean Baptiste du Casse, got very close to the world of filibustering - Jamaica.
Sooner or later, it was bound to happen: states became stronger, formed an international system for patrolling the waters and the merchant ships became less vulnerable to attacks. But only the well-known Spanish-American War in 1898, marked the last limit of the colonial empire in Madrid, seems to have ruined the last filibusters in the Caribbean - no one had ever heard about them since then. |
Somali pirates caused a lot of troubles with hijacking of the ship in the recent days. U.S. Navy rescued the ship captain, and killed several Somali pirates. The Somali pirates vowed revenge against USA and France. President Obama is considering declaring war on sea piracy and may send military to attack pirate bases.
