The Great Age of Pirates (For a Living)
End of 1778. Pirate sightings poured in nonstop from across Europe. Pirates sailing up the Elbe River were crushed by Hamburg's land forces. Bremen citizens allied with pirates who came up the Weser River and slaughtered the nobles. Amsterdam nearly fell after clashing with eighty galleys. Barcelona was besieged by a pirate admiral of unknown affiliation but successfully annihilated them under the divinely inspired command of King Carlos III. Spain announced coastal patrols to protect merchant ships from all nations. Yet strangely, the pirates in the Mediterranean only grew more numerous day by day.
"It's gotta be the British, right?"
"High probability, yes."
The sun rose on 1779. France began every Sunday—the first day of the week—with the screams of the condemned. French citizens gathered at the scaffold every Sunday for picnics. Vendors even sprang up around the execution sites, selling snacks fit for watching a beheading or sundry goods. Land prices around the scaffolds skyrocketed the moment these markets formed. After all, Sundays guaranteed peak crowds, and as a national event, security was top-notch.
Executions fell into two main categories: the gallows and the guillotine. Even with the guillotine available, they still used hanging for surprisingly practical reasons. Executioners rested on Sundays too. Obvious, right? In the modern era, you might work holidays and rest on workdays, but not in the 18th century. Pretty much everyone in 18th-century France took Sundays off. So why hold executions on Sundays? Mostly my stubbornness.
It took promises of double regular pay, 1% of the condemned's assets as incentives, educational opportunities for their kids, and various perks to convince them. Even then, most skilled executioners refused. That left few who could operate the guillotine. Sometimes we'd order a beheading but end up hanging because no one knew how to work it.
"Is there really any reason to hold executions Sunday mornings, Your Majesty? Frankly, nearly all the costs of Sunday executions are unnecessary. Shift them to weekdays, and you'd save ninety percent. At least the lawyers are free—that's the biggest expense."
"This isn't wasting money. It's setting a rule. Can you guarantee no one works on Sundays?"
People who work when others rest should earn enough to rest when others work. I have no intention of squandering one-seventh of the nation's productivity every week.
"Bakers, steel mills, doctors—those jobs don't get holidays..."
"Exactly. That's why we pay premium wages for holiday work. It's unspoken pressure: if you're making them work rest days, pay at least this much."
Ah, this is 'overtime pay.'
"Your Majesty, the bloodsuckers have less conscience than you think. They'll judge arbitrarily by royal standards and use it as an excuse to cut wages."
Ah, that's the 'all-inclusive wage system'... I hadn't entirely overlooked it. Seeing how scrawny the kids were, those 18th-century Europeans might think to exploit them for cheap labor.
"Martial law again?"
"Aren't you over-relying on martial law, sire?"
Fair point. If it could be solved with martial law, we could've fixed it without declaring it. More importantly, without uprooting Europe's social norms, securing labor rights is impossible. Raid a 21st-century factory yelling "No child labor!" and folks would tsk-tsk the end times and pelt the owner with stones. Do the same in an 18th-century factory, and they'd complain about overregulation.
"Next item. Reports of multinational pirates stirring near coastal cities. Mostly, our privateers have plundered their ships in retaliation or sunk them with coastal guns."
Plunder pirate ships? The phrasing feels off.
"Handle spoils as you see fit. The key is civilians. Any civilian casualties?"
"None so far."
"Good enough."
That's the hallmark of livelihood pirates. "Professional pirates" might be the better term.
"They're full-on righteous outlaws now."
Rob civilians because times are tough? Rookie mistake. Hong Gil-dong, Ishikawa Goemon, Robin Hood, Arsène Lupin, and the Scarlet Pimpernel—righteous bandits never prey on common folk. More precisely, bandits who rob civilians can't become righteous outlaws. To the state, both are just robbers. The crime starts with the theft, regardless of motive. But the people—not the state—decide who's a righteous outlaw and who's a mere bandit. That's why civilian-robbing bandits never make the cut.
Besides, civilians have little worth taking. For outlaws to thrive, national security must collapse and livelihoods grow dire. In hard times, robbing struggling civilians? You'd likely get nothing but infamy. Better to hit notorious rich fat cats and corrupt officials for a big score. Bonus: hand out some loot to civilians to hide your tracks. Righteous outlaws aren't flawless—they strive for honor precisely because they know shame.
"Doesn't matter. Assign mounted police escorts to our bourgeois along the coasts."
"Yes, sire. We'll issue the formal decree."
Perfect. Cleans up those hard-to-pin-down dissidents without martial law. This is why we need private enterprise. Nothing's as inefficient as government spending.
January 9, 1779, Gibraltar.
Gibraltar buzzed with an unprecedented swarm of Mediterranean merchant ships... or so no one believed. To Spain and other nations, it was a massive pirate den.
After Carlos III crushed the pirate admiral who besieged Barcelona, the Gibraltar Strait fell fully under Spanish control. Even foreign merchant ships had to pass Spanish "disease quarantine." Officially to block plague-ridden vessels preemptively—but no one bought it.
So the pirates got clever: "Can't pass as pirates? Pass first, then board pirate ships!"
Hordes of "merchant ships" poured into Gibraltar. From traditional sharp-prowed sloops and cutters to dispatch barges—anything that floated. Britain's landlords took a modest fee in francs and let the "merchants" dock. Naturally, none carried real cargo. Some had mundane goods like grain or olives—Spain's top exports—but plenty brazenly brought ship biscuits and clean barrels, pirate staples. Even limes.
"What the hell? Limes? They think we're pansies?"
"Easy, Tommy. It's trade goods."
"True. Gibraltar girls must grow up pretty."
Jobless drifters from across Europe grabbed personal supplies and hunted captains. Stand around the docks, and some navy- or blue-coated skipper—God knows from where—would recruit. Get picked, and you were crew.
"You, you, and you. What's that in your pocket? Limes?"
"Yes. His Majesty said they're good for sailors."
"'Yo'?"
"Er, he said they're good."
"Whatever. We don't take crybabies. Scram."
French unemployed struggled with cultural gaps... but
"Limes? You from France, lad?"
"Yes. Grew up in Le Havre."
French among themselves? No issue. It even bonded them tighter through shared culture.
"Le Havre! I'm from Nantes. Famous for shipyards—you must know ships."
"Worked there three years."
"Perfect. Hop on that brig ahead. We'll send you home with a chest of gold."
"Thank you!"
"Thanks? I owe you. Fellow Frenchmen—ain't we brothers?"
Fledgling captains and unemployed from every nation boarded "merchants" and scattered across the Mediterranean.
"Hand over the kidnapped Europeans, you heathens!"
"اهرب! إنه الجيش الفرنسي النظامي! (Run! It's the French regular army!)"
Righteous French pirates battled Barbary corsairs.
"The great British Empire has come to liberate you!"
"What're they yapping? British pirates! Run!"
"Ahem... Civilians are shy. Spread word: we gentlemen only hit wicked tax farmers and the rich."
"Wha—tax farmers? Bless you, British pirate sirs! Their big house is down the hill!"
"Now we're talking. Blast 'em with the twenty-four-pounders."
Righteous British pirates fought wicked tax farmers.
"¡No tienes nada que perder excepto tus cadenas, y nada que ganar excepto la libertad!"
Righteous Spanish pirates fought wicked capitalists.
Thus curtained up the Great Age of Pirates, gorgeously capping the 18th century.