Introduction

It’s been a while since Henry Every made his second big mistake. He should never have turned to crime to begin with, which was the ˆrst. Not that Henry and his associates were unsuccessful criminals. On the contrary, they were daring and resourceful, and they overcame tremendous hardships to further a pirate career that spanned 5 years and half the globe. (See Figure I.1.)

And what a career it was! In their last seizure alone, Every and his crew took the Portuguese ship Gungi Suwaie and its treasure valued at £325,000. As the new owner of what would be $400 million in today’s money, Every is alleged to have offered to retire the British national debt in exchange for a pardon. Three hundred years later, leaders of a drug cartel would make similar offers to their government, and these, like Every’s, would be refused.