YOU have to admire the man's spirit. In 1682, Bartholomew Sharpe had just cheated the hangman's noose. Aged 32, he had about 16 years of piracy behind him, but in the previous two years had got himself into some particularly hot water.
He and 330 buccaneers had done what generations of Englishmen had dreamed of doing. After hacking their way across the jungles of Panama, they had stolen a fleet of Spanish ships and embarked on an unprecedented orgy of looting and murder up and down Spain's "private lake" - the South Pacific. Full article