Henry Mainwaring,(1587-1653) was an English lawyer, soldier, writer, seaman and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1622. He was for a time a pirate based in Newfoundland and then a naval officer with the Royal Navy. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. In 1616, shortly after he had given up piracy, he wrote this, addressed to King James I. It is an detailed account of piracy as it existed in the early 17th Century, and consists of sober and accurate fact, far removed from the romantic picture and exaggerated stories current at the time, and even more so today.
