Grey Charles. Pirates of the Eastern Seas (1618-1723)

London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co, 1933. — 336 p.There is no theme in the gamut of the literature of travel and adventure that has a more absorbing interest to the ordinary reader, young or old, man or woman, than tales of Piracy on the High Seas. Distance ever lends enchantment, and though, in truth, these men were but sea robbers and their history a record of crime, the attendant circumstances of a roving, adventurous and uncontrolled life combined with the fairly easy acquisition of wealth, great or comparative, enthrals those who have been denied adventure, save through the vicarious medium of the printed page or the silver screen, and even those to whom these talcs may recall memories of as adventurous, if less lawless deeds. Romance lingers even to old age with most of us and abides most with those whom fate has confined to the well ordered lines of old countries and the eternal sameness of a factory or office life varied only by an occasional mass holiday. How few are they that have not thrilled to such tales and in fancyjoined in a voyage to the Spanish Main or the Eastern Seas wherein sailed the stately treasure galleon, or the rich pilgrim ship that would yield to hardy ruffians red gold, rich jewels and fair women at risk of a life worth little at the best.