Using nuns and monks as human shields does sound like a tactic of Johnny Depp‘s swashbuckler Captain Jack Sparrow.
But this was no Hollywood storyline, it was what famed Welsh-born pirate Captain Henry Morgan was accused of in the foundational text for the Pirates of the Caribbean.
Now, an ‘extremely rare’ complete copy of De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, by Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, which was published in 1678, has emerged for sale.
The Dutch book, which is expected to sell for up to £70,000 when it comes up for auction at Bonhams, is regarded as the first witness report of life on board a pirate ship.
However, the work led to a high-profile libel trial that pitted Exquemelin against his former ship mate Morgan, who was furious at the author’s depiction of him as a torturer.
Morgan successfully sued the publishers of the English edition, and the passage about him having used nuns and monks as human shields in what is now Panama were removed.
But Exquemelin’s book still sparked a fascination with pirates that still endures to this day.
The hugely popular Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, which starred Depp and began in 2003, was the ultimate culmination of that interest.
De Americaensche Zee- Roovers was also the main text that revealed the so-called Golden Age of Piracy to the world.
The copy being sold in London is the first to appear for 130 years. Only a handful of Dutch editions are held by institutions around the world.
Matthew Haley, managing director of Bonhams, said: ‘The image of a pirate with a Johnny Depp-like moustache and goatee beard and the whole myth of a pirate really comes from this book.’
He added: ‘The author was on board buccaneering ships in the Caribbean, so it is an eyewitness account.
‘While copies of the other editions and other translations have come up for auction, we haven’t been able to find this edition coming up in more than 130 years.
‘There are a handful in public libraries but it is an extremely rare book.’
Although he was regarded as a pirate in the Caribbean, Morgan was working for the English Commonwealth to facilitate British trade.
He led buccaneer missions to take over Spanish strongholds in the Caribbean, but fell out of favour with King Charles II when he attacked Panama in 1671, in defiance of a peace treaty.
But he soon regained the monarch’s affections and was later appointed as Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, where he died in 1688.
The copy of De Americaensche Zee-Roovers is being sold by a US-based seller via Bonhams in London on November 20.
This post was originally published on here
