The Atrocities of the Pirates - Tapa dura

The unparalleled sufferings of the author during his captivity among the pirates.

In 1822, Aaron Smith, a young English seaman, was taken captive by Cuban pirates when his ship was boarded en route from Jamaica to England. Forced to work as a navigator and as a member of pirate boarding parties, he witnessed unspeakable acts of murder and torture. Befriended by a young Cuban woman, he managed to escape with his life, but was arrested as a pirate in Havana and sent back to England in chains. There, he found himself on trial for his life at the Old Bailey courthouse - with the attorney general himself leading the prosecution. Smith's dramatic account of his personal experience is a brutally honest, unromanticized look at piracy in the nineteenth century. (6 1/4 X 9 1/4, 196 pages, illustrations)