EMPIRE of BLUE WATER: CAPTAIN MORGAN'S GREAT PIRATE ARMY, the EPIC BATTLE for the AMERICAS, and the CATASTROPHE that ENDED the OUTLAWS' BLOODY REIGN (audiobook) by Stephan Talty

 

Published in 2007 by Random House Audio
Read by John H. Mayer
Duration: 13 hours, 26 minutes.
Unabridged.

Stephan Talty writes a lot about pirates in Empire of Blue Water. Not modern pirates, but the swashbuckling pirates that most Americans imagine when they hear the word "pirate". The modern personification of that word is Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. In the late 1600s, the personification of that word was a Welshman named Henry Morgan.

Morgan was technically not a pirate. He was a privateer. If you were in the Spanish government, there was not much of a difference between a privateer and a pirate, except that privateers came with an extra level of annoyance. 

17th century England did not have the money to expand the Royal Navy enough to confront Spain. Spain was more than 200 years into looting the Americas and had a very, very large navy to protect that loot as it came across the Atlantic to the home country. 

England did have something that Spain did not have - a lot of entrepreneurs that owned their own ships. England decided to license any interested ships to attack Spanish ships for their cargoes. The crown got a cut and basically a navy for hire. 

Privateer ships were staffed by a diverse group of men (women were almost never allowed on one of their ships). They were very democratic - everyone got to vote on targets and everyone got an equal share of the booty afterwards. Bonus shares were given to men who performed bravely or completed certain acts in battle. Once a target was chosen, the officers had command and their orders were to be followed - or else. Officers got bonus shares. If you were injured, you were compensated from the loot. If you died, your heirs were compensated. 

Pirate ships worked a lot like privateer ships, except they did not have to report back to any government and share any of their treasure. But, they had no safe havens to return to. If a Spanish ship chased a privateer, it could, theoretically, flee towards any English port and find safety. 

Jamaica served that purpose in the Caribbean, particularly the city of Port Royal. Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1690s. It was never rebuilt, but at one point it was the largest and wildest city in any English colony in the New World. You could easily make an argument that it was the wildest port in the entire English empire.

The danger with privateers, of course, is that once unleashed, they are hard to rein in. The English came to an agreement with the Spanish that was dependent on the privateers stopping and then had a very hard time bringing them under control - until someone had the bright idea (not being sarcastic) of bringing Henry Morgan into the government of Jamaica and letting the ultimate privateer bring the privateers under control.

Talty talks about A LOT of things in this book. It is a thorough examination of the entire privateer phenomenon - from the instability of the Spanish royal family to the ossification of the Spanish bureaucracy to the craziness of Port Royal, Talty tells the story well. 

Where he falls short is the description on just about any military campaign. It becomes an unending list of what happened in the order they happened - like a series of bullet points on a boring history professor's PowerPoint. As an audiobook listener, I frequently found my attention wandering at the points that should have been the most interesting parts of the book simply because of the way it was presented. 

Because of that, I am going to give this audiobook a score of 3 stars out of 5. I was irritated at the number of times I had to go over parts of the audiobook because of the way it was told.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: EMPIRE of BLUE WATER: CAPTAIN MORGAN'S GREAT PIRATE ARMY, the EPIC BATTLE for the AMERICAS, and the CATASTROPHE that ENDED the OUTLAWS' BLOODY REIGN by Stephan Talty.

PIRATE LATITUDES by Michael Crichton

Published in 2009.

The year is 1665 in Pirate Latitudes and the English colony of Jamaica is surrounded by a constellation of Spanish colonies. The Caribbean is in a near-perpetual state of war as English privateers attack Spanish treasure galleons hauling literally tons of New World silver and gold to Spain.

Charles Hunter is the captain of an English privateer ship named Cassandra (or, he is simply a pirate when Spain and England are not at war). He has learned that Spain has a fortress on a remote island called Matanceros to protect ships that attempt, but fail to make the trip to Spain. They cannot return to their port of origin alone. In fact, the less time they are alone and exposed to privateers, the better. So, Spain has built an impregnable fortress to protect such ships. 

Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

At least it is supposed to be impregnable. Hunter is very sure that he has figured out a way that the perfect team can infiltrate the fort and then take the ship that it is supposed to protect. And, he has just learned that a ship full of treasure has taken refuge in the bay at Matanceros - just waiting for him to come and take it....

After Michael Crichton passed away in 2008 this completed and previously unknown book was found on his computer. This novel is a complete story but it is just feels like it was just not done. Parts of it hum along and feel like a Crichton story. There is intensity, science, and mystery. For example, the hurricane scene and the cannon scene and the abandoned island. Those scenes are all together and they feel like they have been worked over with a lot of care. Other scenes, such as the last few chapters, feel like a first or second draft. This makes for an uneven read, which really can't be helped. Crichton fans will want to read the book but they will wonder how truly great this short novel could have been if he had only had the time to really finish it.

I rate this novel 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Pirate Latitudes.