Come in, come in. Tea? Cakes? We have excellent cakes here, now that the mill is running so smoothly. A terrible trial we had with it at first, but now there is more time for leisure. Such time! I’ve been able to build a little boat, even, and my sons and I sail on the lake you saw as you came up. Ah! Canada, not so bad. It reminds me of home.

I was not a pirate for long. Two years before the mast, maybe a little more. I left Amsterdam ahead of a press to force young men into the Navy; I wouldn’t have any of that, but the sea didn’t seem like a bad choice, so I joined a ship of ill-repute. Well, yes, it was a pirate ship. But it was a life of my choosing, not chosen for me, and that has always made the difference.

It suited me, suited me fine for a while. I can’t say I grew rich, but I put some aside – my spoils are the good strong mill on the river and the land surrounding. Of course it wouldn’t do to talk too much about how I bought them now, what with my standing here.

The seas were all right, and I tell you I didn’t anticipate leaving when I did – but we pulled alongside harbor one night, off the coast of America, and I saw the land, laid out before me, a new land at least to me. I was on the night watch, but it was bitter cold and no others were on the deck. So I took my chance; using a rope and with all my worldly goods clutched to me, I swung from the deck of the ship a deserting pirate, and landed on the shore an immigrant.

It wasn’t long before I found that many of my people – Dutch, not reformed pirates – were making their way to Canada, where the land was good and winters cold. So I came too, and bought this little plot of land. I have a sweet wife and many sons, and they say one day soon I will be chosen as the next minister. 

Not a bad end for a pirate.

It’s talk like A pirate day, not talk like EVERY pirate day. This year I chose my venerable ancestor, an undocumented immigrant who built a boat, a mill, and a dynasty in eastern Canada before becoming minister of the Mennonite church.

Come in, please, come in. I can’t entertain you shipboard as I once could, but there is tea and plenty of food, and I understand you’ve done well for yourself at the gambling tables. I suppose I can afford to lose a little now and then. My late first husband was a wealthy man and I magnified his wealth – well, you know how.

I think there should be discipline in everything, you know, even lawlessness. When I ruled the sea and the Red Flag Fleet, no one disobeyed me. Literally. Those who did were beheaded. But, on the other hand, I think my rule was mainly benificent. Did you know I forbade those under my command to steal from villagers who supplied us? That only made sense, of course. Death was also the sentence for any assault on a female captive. One makes these laws when one grows up as I did.

I also insisted that anything taken from town or ship was to be presented, registered, and given out amongst all – oh, the original taker got a percentage, and twenty percent is better than nothing, you know. That’s how you keep a sailor happy.

My dear second husband, he also issued some laws, I suppose, but they weren’t written down or very well enforced. What were they? Who knows. What does it matter? My laws were what mattered.

Eventually, of course, it became easier just to tax the local cities than to keep sacking them. Nicer for all concerned and not so much work for us. Bureaucracy will have its day, sooner or later, always.

That is how I came to be here, you know; several years ago, after I defeated their entire Navy, the government offered amnesty to pirates. Well they might; what other option did they have? But I was wealthy, so why should I continue to work when I was no longer a criminal? It was in 1810 that I left crime behind forever and opened this little gambling house. Here I am content, you know, and I think I will be until I die. Hopefully not for a long, long time!

Oh, I am called many things. I was born Shi Xianggu, and I am called Cheng I Sao, sometimes, but mostly I am known as Ching Shih – the Widow Ching, wife of two pirates, but a pirate empress myself.

(After all, it’s Talk Like A Pirate day, not Talk Like Every Pirate day. I chose Ching Shih.)

(Also if you enjoyed this, consider dropping some spare change in my Ko-Fi!)

When I was a very young man, I sailed from King’s Lynn, where nothing much has happened for longer than I care to state, though we did have a plague in 1665, long before I was born. Aye, it was no place for a restless man unless he put to sea, and so I did. Determined to bring some form of fame or at the least notoriety to my name, having come from such unromantic origins, I took to piracy once I had mastered the sail.

Oh, those were good days, when we used canoes to rob merchant ships off Nassau. How I delighted in swarming the big ships! It pains me to say it, but I did miss our little periaguas when I finally attained my big thirty-gunner, the Ranger. I hear you may know of my second, Teach, who in those days commanded the sloop I left for the Ranger, and sailed under my flag. He has some notoriety of his own, these days.

Together we took wine merchants and spirit merchants, and merchants of alcohol, and merchants who sold distilled liquors, and other such similar creatures. The shipful of flour bound for Havana, now, that was an error, and somewhat embarrassing, but you might say that in the right hands flour is still gold.

The time we raided a ship for their hats (having thrown ours overboard while drunk, the night before) may not be my finest moment, but one must admit it had style.

I never admitted to piracy outright whilst I was at it, and I never took an English ship, so that the front of privateerage in service of my country should at least be maintained. But I have taken a pardon now, as a pirate, so I suppose there’s no harm to calling it such. I have it in mind to speak to the new governor of the Bahamas; he says he has a place in his government for pirate-catchers, and I should be just as happy taking ships if they be pirate ships, as I was taking merchants. Pirates are probably the wealthier.

And wouldn’t it be funny if I took Jack Rackham, or my old friend Teach?

My name is Benjamin Hornigold, and I am the hat-thief, the rum-taker, the flour-snatcher, and the pirate-chaser of King’s Lynn.

Yearly, on the 19th, I remind my readers that it is Talk Like A Pirate Day, not Talk Like Every Pirate Day.

I do not believe I am a pirate, but you may say as you like, it matters little to me. Perhaps my history may enlighten you as to the particulars of my condition in this regard.

My forefathers served in the Crusades, and sailed against Spain at the height of England’s need. I received from the hand of the Queen Herself, God rest Her and protect Her Faithful Servant, that I might defend the fishing fleet of Newfoundland through force of arms and Privateerage.

Good days were the days I captained the Happy Adventure in service of Her Majesty. Better days I have never had. It was a dark year indeed when the bloody Scot succeeded Her, and made peace with Spain. James the First, pah. An unworthy successor to my Lady Queen.

I was not a pirate, whatever the law may say; James may revoke my commission as a privateer until the day of resurrection, but I do not recognise his authority nor his treaty with the Spanish. If he would not make war with Spain, I would, and so I did, from the West Indies to the Mediterranean to the Barbary Coast, under the sponsorship of noble families in England. As long as English ships sailed loyal to him, I would prey on them too, to teach them the error of their ways.

I was not a pirate, but it was I who took the Fort San Felipe del Morro where Drake could not. It was I who built a fleet so terrible and powerful that no other fleet ever captured or conquered Peter Easton. I was not a pirate, no; I was an emperor, and kings and queens could neither ignore nor disobey me on the open water.

Ah, it is all behind me now. Now I am not a captain of any fleet, but they call me the Marquis of Savoy. This little mansion in Villefranche is delightful, is it not? Two million pounds’ worth of gold will buy a man some comforts when he is too old to sail, this much is true.

My name is Peter Easton, and God as my Witness, I was never a pirate. I was a servant of Her Majesty, and though She be dead these many years, Her servant I remain. A drink to the health of Elizabeth, who made me the king of the waves, and a drink to your health as well, my friends. May all sailors come to such a happy end as I.

As with every year I remind my dear readers that it is talk like A Pirate day, not talk like Every Pirate day. (Peter Easton: totally was a pirate.)

When I was in the monastery of St. Vulmar, in Samer, these many years ago, I had a reputation for gambling despite my religious training. Indeed I am a monk, or rather was, by training if not vocation, though I do not think any holy order would take me now.

But allow me to preach a little sermon if you will: perhaps they shall call it the Sermon of Vengeance. Vengeance drove me from the monastery (well, vengeance and a fat inheritance; don’t let them tell you monks are not a greedy lot in this day and age) when my father was killed. That death remains unsatisfied, but there is nothing to be done about it now. At any rate, it was vengeance which eventually drove me from my native Boulogne, as well, and into the arms of the English.  

In England, it was the vengeful temper of that good King John, my friend and patron, which granted me thirty galleys to attack Normandy, his holdings there having been recently lost. The king’s vengeance, and my own, drove me to spill even the blood of my own countrymen, as I chased them down the coast of Normandy and about the islands of the Channel, driving them from Jersey and Guernsey, and from this blessed isle of Sark where I make my home. We are all English now, so I am told.

They say I am more myth than man these days, and truly perhaps it is so. It is good sport to be a pirate in the Channel, to prey on rich merchantmen with the blessing of the King. But there is a high price for such things.

Trickery and wickedness, it is true, I learned after my father’s death. I learned to lie and sneak and flatter that I might make my way in the world. But I would not have been so spurred were it not for other knowledge already acquired when I reached the monastery as a young man. I have studied the dark arts, you see, the wickedest magic in Spain, at the knee of the masters of Toledo. I have learned the summoning of demons and the binding of souls. Did you think my rule here in the Channel was simply an accident of fate? The devil keeps me, my friends, him and his black vengeance, and so long as I am in the favours of England the devil will see ships delivered wholesale to my piracy.  

They say that none live long who live ill-intentioned. I believe I shall prove them wrong, but at the end of my days the devil will collect. Thus, meanwhile, I will live happily and do as I please. I will have food and gambling, music and wine, and rob the merchants at my leisure. It is a good life, while it is to me.

Now, if you pass through Boulogne on your travels, for surely you seem uneasy to rest here, ask about the disposition of the man Hainfrois de Heresinghen. If you encounter him and do him ill you will have done me a great pleasure. And you may say to him, if you act, that you were sent by Eustace, the Black Monk, whose father he slew so many years ago.

The Devil and I will thank you.

What? It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day, not Talk Like Every Pirate Day.