Piracy
ROMAN NAVY
The powerful, efficient fleets built and men trained by the Romans in order to maintain their world dominance. Unlike the Etruscans, the Romans were not a great seafaring people and maintained an aversion to such activities right until the last years of the Empire. For this reason the development of the navy was delayed in favor of the LEGIONS until…
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Dutch versus Spain/Portugal–the Colonial War
The Dutch were particularly fond of privateers. Piet Heyn amazingly captured the whole of the Spanish treasure fleet – complete with gold and silver booty from its American colonies – during the Battle in the Bay of Matanzas in September 1628. Heyn became a folk hero and part of a…
Captain John Ward I
In the summer of 1608 an Englishman arrived at the small palazzo near the Grand Canal that served as the official residence of Sir Henry Wotton, James I’s ambassador at Venice. The sailor’s name was Henry Pepwell, and he was just come from Tunis, where he had been gathering intelligence…
Captain John Ward II
According to Andrew Barker’s True and Certain Report, it was a wealthy Catholic who unwittingly offered Ward an escape route back to the days that had been. The man sold off his Hampshire estate with the intention of moving himself, his wife and children, and all his worldly goods (including…
Captain John Ward III
When John Ward and his men arrived in Tunis in 1605, Uthman Dey’s enthusiasm for piracy, and the eagerness of English outlaws to play their part in the war against Christendom, were already causing anxiety in Europe. In February 1603 the French vice-consul at Zante counted eleven English pirates who…
Barbary Corsair Hamidou Raïs
Algiers the capital of Algeria in the time of Rais Hamidou The U.S.-Tripoli conflict had come close to destabilizing the entire Barbary Coast. Algiers threatened war with America because the annual tribute of naval stores was late in coming. Tunis threatened war because American vessels blockading Tripoli harbor persisted in…
Carthaginian Sunset: Metaurus and Zama
On the whole, the professional soldier was worth his salt until the first war with Rome was over, and he would, by the time of the next bout, supply the core of Carthaginian armies. Unlike a Roman army, therefore, a Carthaginian army was a heterogeneous assortment of races, and in…