Pirate Hunter; the Life of Captain Woodes Rogers

Publisher: Pen & Sword Maritime; £19.99
Publication Date: 2008

Rogers, the son of a sea captain, was born in Bristol in 1679. Through family influence and marriage he had become a freeman of the city by the age of 26 and, having had considerable experience as a seaman, was able to mount an expedition to circumnavigate the globe. He received sponsorship from city dignitaries and a royal commission from the Lord High Admiral to attack and plunder enemy vessels – to become, in effect, a licensed privateer. His mission was to sail into Pacific waters and take whatever Spanish treasure he could.

Three years later, having put down several mutinies, fought numerous battles with the Spanish and captured a number of vessels, he returned to Bristol with an impressive haul of booty, two-thirds of which went to the sponsors and one-third to the officers and crew. Interestingly, he called at the island of Juan Fernandez in the South Seas in search of food and water and there rescued Alexander Selkirk, abandoned on the island four years previously. Selkirk, described by Rogers as a man ‘clothed in goat skins who looked wilder than the first owners of them’, was, of course, the basis for Defoe’s classic character, Robinson Crusoe.

The second part of the book deals with how Rogers was appointed as the first Governor of the Bahamas with a brief to rid the area of pirates and establishing the rule of the British government over the islands. This account, much of which is drawn from Rogers’ own journal, tells of considerable struggles with disloyal colleagues, shortages of manpower and money and ill-health. Ultimately he was largely successful in setting-up a small, relatively peaceful community and by 1732, the year of Rogers’ death, the threat of pirates had gone. This biography is illustrated with 8 pages of black-and-white photographs. - Christine Holroyd