Quoted from LIFE AMONG THE PIRATES by DAVID CORDINGLY: "Since piracy is simply armed robbery on the high seas, and has been accompanied by a catalog of cruelties and atrocities, it is surprising that it should have acquired a comparatively glamorous image. Part of the explanation may be found in the exotic locations where many of the pirates operated, of Coral islands, tropical waters, lagoons and sandy beaches fringed with coconut palms. There is also the romance of the sea.
"Another part of the explanation may be the anarchic nature of piracy. Most people are condemned to lives of monotony. Year in and year out, workers in offices, factories and large and small companies follow the same daily routine. They catch the same bus or train, they drive along the same route and suffer the same delays and traffic jams. They endure hours of boredom, often doing a job which gives them little or no satisfaction. They come home to face the predictable problems of family life or the loneliness of a flat or apartment in some dreary location. What greater contrast could there be with a life or piracy?
"The pirates escaped from the laws and regulations which govern most of us. They were rebels against authority, free spirits who made up their own rules. They left behind the grey world of rain swept streets and headed for the sun. We imagine them sprawled on sandy beaches with a bottle of rum in one hand and a lovely woman by their side, and a sleek black schooner moored offshore waiting to carry them away to distant and exotic islands.
"There is a less obvious explanation for the attraction of the pirates. In his lengthy poem, 'The Corsair', Lord Byron created a pirate who was aloof and alien, a man of loneliness and mystery with a cruel past and an untamed spirit. As all women know and some men can never understand, the most interesting heroes of literature and history have been flawed characters.
"The real world of the pirates was harsh, tough and cruel. They were more likely to drown in a storm or suffer death by hanging than they were to live out their days in luxury on the riches they had plundered.
"The fact is we want to believe in the world of the pirates as it has been portrayed in the adventure stories, the plays and the films over the years. We want the myths, the treasure maps, the buried treasure, the walking the plank, the resolute pirate captains with their cutlasses and earrings, and the seamen with their wooden legs and parrots. We prefer to forget the barbaric tortures and the hangings, and the desperate plight of men shipwrecked on hostile coasts. For most of us the pirates will always be romantic outlaws living far from civilization on some distant sunny shore."