Pirate tales from the law

BY ARTHUR M. HARRIS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE AVISON
BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1923
Copyright, 1922, 1923 , By Arthur M. Harris.
All rights reserved
Published August, 1923
Printed in the United States of America
Heave to, Shipmate!
Here’s a book,—a book about pirates, the grim old fellows of the eighteenth century, who used to surge over the bulwarks of honest merchantmen in a wave of cutlasses, pistols and general deviltry.
Not all of them, Shipmate. Not Lewis, Rackham, Davis, Low and others, but of those who were caught, or some of whose subordinate rascals were caught, by the fierce messengers of His Most Gracious Majesty the King, or taken in combat—dreadful combat—by the oaken-hearted stalwarts of Authority, and brought to Justice and hanged up at old Execution Dock, hard by Thames River, as it swirls muddily from London Bridge.
That’s the point about this book, Shipmate. It’s the story of the Old Game, the Grand Account, as those ruffians termed their wicked trade, stripped of legend, excised of exaggeration and presented to you as it was adduced in the courts of law by the sworn witnesses, the probing counsel, the directing judges and the juries who cast their capital verdicts. History, in other words; veritable history, but recounted—well, as you shall see for yourself.