Captain Crook and the Philanthropic Pirate: 18th Century Law vs Modern Legal Reform

Marin Harris

Fear ye pirates?! If you answered in the affirmative, you may be a merchant captain in the 18th century. It may be some time ago now, but the remedial effects of pirates on employment relations on the high seas provide for some interesting analysis on the consequences of an ineffective justice system. Indeed, this piratical influence lends itself to some notable comparisons with contemporary issues of poverty and organised crime.

It’s important to understand the horrors of working aboard a merchant ship as a sailor in the 18th century. Profit incentives meant that merchant captains would provide sailors with ridiculously low wages (paid annually) and often-rotten food (that’s what a lack of health and safety regulations will do). However, these captains were also endowed with tremendous discretion when it came to ‘discipline’ aboard their ships. Often exercising torturous punishments for ‘crimes’ like not working to their unrealistic standards, sailors would be subject to whippings, beatings, and all manner of creative maiming the captain dreamed up. Many people died due to injuries given by their captains, often because the captain had a temper.

The courts in England were not entirely unaware of this problem. Sailors were able to bring cases before a judge to seek justice for a captain breaching the right to administer only ‘moderate punishment’. However, 18th-century court procedure demanded that suitors pay for the court costs. The payment of wages annually was one barrier, but the price itself was so high that it required that sailors bring cases jointly just so that a judge could hear their case. Additionally, their captain was also the one controlling the purse strings and could deduct wages at their own discretion; sailors would often find themselves contending with contradicting witness statements from their crewmates, as the captain had warned the crew that those seeking justice would not receive their full wages should they aid their colleague. It was incredibly rare for captains to face the consequences of their actions.

Naturally, a lot of injustice was done, and many sailors were bitter about this. That’s where pirates came in. Pirates, of course, were often barbaric individuals whose conduct should not be congratulated, but they did have some positive effects on employment relations. Many pirates, including Charles Vane and Bartholomew Roberts, felt duty-bound to punish those captains who mistreated their crews. Merchant captains would then suffer grim deaths at the hands of the pirates. Indeed, it sometimes happened that previous crew members of a merchant captain would attest to the poor treatment they had endured aboard their ship, sealing that captain’s fate. However, this system also worked in the reverse. Honourable merchant captains would often be rewarded for their kind treatment of their crews, and sent on their way by their attackers. On one occasion, a pirate aboard Bartholomew Roberts’ ship attested to the fine character of the victim merchant captain, who was consequently rewarded with another ship of his own.

The effect of this piratical justice was that it reformed merchant captains’ treatment of their crews. Fearing the terrifying deaths they would receive should pirates come upon them, merchant captains determined to treat their crews with respect so that they would be more likely to survive such an encounter. Pirates, therefore, played a more effective judicial role in regulating captains’ behaviour than the traditional justice system did.

Where legal reform is needed, solutions can crop up from the most unusual of places. Organised crime has often filled the void left by inadequacies of governments to provide true social justice - particularly in poorer communities. This was the case for sailors in the 18th century, too, who tended to be from poor and/or criminal backgrounds; sailing was the only career that would take them. Without protections for these people from poverty-stricken homes, pirates served as their arbiters of justice. So, while the golden age of piracy seems so foreign to us today, the lessons we can learn about ensuring those without voices are protected before nefarious groups fill that void are as salient as ever.

Sources: 

TS Rhodes, “Black Sails History: Dastardly Merchant Captains,” (13 January 2016) https://www.denofgeek.com/culture/black-sails-history-dastardly-merchant-captains/.

Peter Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates (Princeton University Press: USA, 2009).