Many thanks to Jonathan Reeve of The History Press for commissioning the book, to Simon Hamlet and Robin Harries for seeing it through to publication, and to Sandra Mather of the University of Liverpool for preparing the maps with such skill. Although this work draws on my own research among the records of the High Court of the Admiralty in The National Archives at Kew, which was originally undertaken under the supervision of Professsor Kenneth Andrews, it makes extensive use of the contributions of other scholars. In particular, I would like to acknowledge my debt to the works of K.R. Andrews, D. Loades, D.B. Quinn and N.A.M. Rodger on maritime and naval history, and the works of Peter Earle and Marcus Rediker on the history of piracy. In addition, I thank the staff of The National Archives and The British Library for their assistance, and the archivists of local record offices who responded promptly to my enquiries.