1718 King's Pardon

[lwhitehead]

I've bin thinking of this lately, the 1718 King's Pardon the Woodes Rogers brought to Nassau. It's goal was to drive out the Pirates or stop them by offering the blanket Pardon. But there was a problem the colony itself made money of the Pirates with them gone Rogers had a hard time getting Money to Nassau, the Pirate Republic was a Boomtown a Hell on Wheels.

There is an Island next to Cuba called Island of Youth this would have make a good place for Pirate Republic

LW

[Jas. Hook]

There is an Island next to Cuba called Island of Youth this would have make a good place for Pirate Republic

LW

Sounds like a great place to set up shop, only 134 miles from Havana but I think that the creation of a pirate republic on Isla de Pinos (Isle of Pines) would have be frowned upon by Spain's King Philip V and would have be expunged before the first bottle o' rum was uncorked.

(Castro era 1978 Cuba's Isle of Youth - Isla de la Juventud)

Jas. Hook

[lwhitehead]

The point of this posting is that when Woode Rogers cleaned up the Island of New Providence he was a garbage man which means he was going to be rewarded, in the grand English style he was told afterwards to bugger off politically.

The problem with Pirates is that they were like Bootleggers of 1920's they could make the fast cash but they couldn't save for a rainy day, also they couldn't build ether so clearing a building a republic on a Island would be very hard.

LW

[grossmusic]

Nothing polite about throwing Rogers in debtor's prison while he was in poor health after he returned to England.

Isle of Pines was a hangout for several pirates who probably smuggled & traded offbook with Spaniards. These were mercenaries with no loyalty to the homeland. In fact, Englishman John Rackam declared himself a citizen of Cuba when he was captured.

['Beer Belly' Bellamy]

Is there a source of a copy of such a King's Pardon? Governors had the power to issue such a document, but how did it looked like?

With the knowledge I could make myself such a King's Pardon document - you never know, it could be helpful one day

Edited July 19, 2015 by 'Beer Belly' Bellamy

['Beer Belly' Bellamy]

Thanks to a very helpful hint I learn to get such a pardon document right here: http://www.lettersofmarque.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=2