Booty: Perfect Bookends

A quick one today as I've lots of business to attend to. I want to share, though.

Behold, these amazing bookends from the good folks over at the ever fabulous Fab dot com. Made by the otherwise mid-century modern folks at Daily General, these sturdy metal bookends are painted an appealing shade of charcoal. The detailed galleon on both brings to mind the days of the buccaneers on the Spanish Main. Just the perfect pieces to hold your General History of Pyrates or perhaps those swashbucklers featuring Errol Flynn.

My thanks to my friend Eric Grant who sent me the link via Twitter. That's what friends are for! (Follow him here.)

Happy Friday, Brethren! We'll spy ye tomorrow for SMS.

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Furl

When we use words like furl, furling or unfurl, we generally think of a flag or flags. While flags were unfurled at sea – although far less frequently than in the popular imagination – these words refer more often to controlling the bounty of a ship’s fair sails.


To furl is to roll and tie a sail evenly on its yard. This is a far more treacherous occupation in high winds than one might imagine, as more than one scene in well done movies (Captain Blood, Master and Commander etc.) has shown. In such cases, when dirty weather is current or threatening, the men are often set to what is called furling. Here, the sail is rolled close to its yard or stay by hauling on the lines. A cord is then wound over the full length of the rolled sail keeping it even more secure.

For furling, the line used was known as a furling-line from at least the 16th century. By the late 18th century, it was more commonly referred to as a gasket or en Français garcette (a word which is, curiously, feminine). This is a long, flat cord the use of which Admiral Smyth discusses in The Sailor’s Word Book thus:

In bad weather, with a weak crew, the top-sail is brought under control by passing the top-mast studding sail halliards round and round all, from the yard-arm to the bunt; then furling is less dangerous.

Obviously, the ship is dealing with very extreme weather in such a case. It is important to note that by using the word “weak”, the Admiral is indicating a ship short on able hands.

Conversely, furling in a body is a way of storing topsails used only in port. This is done by gathering the loose parts of the sails into the top of their respective masts. This is the opposite, essentially, of common furling or “furling in the bunt” done at sea. When sails have been furled in a body they can be covered with tarps and essentially stored in situ, thus keeping them free from vermin and molds.

So ends another etymological foray. May your furling be only common and in fair winds, Brethren. Happy Saturday to you and your mates!

Header: Engraving of hands furling sails via Cindy Vallar’s History of Maritime Piracy

Booty: "... We Must Fight"

In Rafael Sabatini’s archetypal pirate novel Captain Blood, the titular hero sails his ship between two Spanish galleons, guns blazing both larboard and starboard. The scene is nail-biting in the book but the risk pays off; Blood is successful in his fight with the larger, better armed Spanish foe. The scene was translated nicely to the big screen in the 1935 film of the same name, with Errol Flynn as Blood exhorting his crew through the struggle to ultimate victory.


Though Sabatini claimed that physician turned slave turned pirate Peter Blood and his exploits were inspired by Henry Morgan, it bears noting that Blood is a far better sailor than Morgan ever was – or cared to be. As more than one writer has noted, Blood actually resembles none other than Triple P favorite Laurens de Graff. The tall, handsome, Dutchman whose bravery was legendary among the Brethren of the Coast actually did sail his ship between two galleons of the Spanish Armada and came out the better for it. As all good writers know, you can rarely best history with fiction.

Before de Graff and his crew of French, Dutch, British and African pirates met the famed Armada de Barlovento of the New World, Laurens gave a rousing speech to encourage his fellows to action. Some of de Graff’s impromptu words were documented by Alexander Exquemelin and they ring as true today as they did over 300 years ago:

You are too experienced not to understand the peril we are running and too brave to fear it. It is necessary here to be cautious of all yet to risk all, to defend and attack at the same time. Valor, deception, fear and even despair must all be put to use on this occasion; where, if we fall into the hands of our enemies, nothing awaits us but all sorts of infamies, from the most cruel torments to, finally, the end of life. We must escape their barbarity, and to escape, we must fight.

No matter what life throws at you, Brethren, today or any day, remember the words of Laurens de Graff. Be cautious of all yet risk all but above all: fight.

Header: Errol Flynn as Captain Peter Blood c 1935

Booty: Duel!

Sometimes piratical things just fall into my lap, which is why Triple P has Friday Booty. What started out as a way to share hilariously random stuff like this has turned into an experiment in the absurd and wonderful connections between our modern world and the freebooters we love. That said, is everyone ready for dueling?

Yesterday the First Mate sent me a YouTube video from a new ad campaign from Captain Morgan Rum. The ads feature Marisa Miller (whose name is curiously trademarked, just as an aside) as the Captain’s First Mate. In this sequence we find her alone on a beach, her ancient galleon at anchor in the harbor behind her, going through a stack of casks that one has to assume are full of Captain Morgan (the rum; not the dude). To her seeming delight, another pirate shows up no doubt after her booty (the rum; not the… oh never mind) and the cutlasses start flying.

While I’m no expert, I did take fencing in college and my instructor – affectionately known to us as “Mr. P” – would have had a good laugh with that one. So much is wrong with it that it’s impossible to pick a place to start. Don’t get me wrong, I get the point; we’re not watching the fencing, are we?

All the same, and by way of comparison, go to this post to see real fencing in a piratical context. Or, just watch this clip from one of the best movies on swordsmanship ever made, Ridley Scott’s The Duellists. Harvey Kitel, who plays the driven Feroud, learned to fence for the movie in a very short time and is clearly a natural. He also illustrates one of Mr. P’s favorite injunctions to his students: “Get your hair out of your face; it’s another weakness your opponent can manipulate.” Are you listening, Marisa Miller ™?

People: Monsieur le Filibustier

The stories surrounding today’s buccaneer are as colorful as any that might be told about, or by, a sea rover. He was a gentleman of Paris until creditors forced him into piracy for money. He had a winning way with the ladies and left the Spanish Senoras of towns he sacked in love with him. He retired to a chateau along the Seine a wealthy and much sought after adventurer. He wrote about his experiences and left his journal for the entire world to witness.

The list could fill a page or two but the truth of the matter is no one knows any of it for sure. Raveneau de Lussan surely could have done all those things for he handily documented all in the thrice-published tome The Filibusters of the South Sea which first appeared in 1689. But we’re not sure he wrote that book, or that his name was actually Raveneau de Lussan, or where he came from. The sparse information we do have, however, makes the entire story even more tantalizing.

Much like many of the great pirates and privateers, de Lussan appears in a hotbed of freebooters, seemingly out of nowhere. He turns up as an indentured servant in Sante Domingue in 1679. How old he was at the time is unknown but one can assume he was relatively young as his master was evidently a grower of sugar cane and a sadist to boot. Much like the real Francois L’Olonnais and the fictional Captain Blood, de Lussan and his fellows suffered mightily at the hands of their master. Some hints indicated that the man may have himself been a boucanier from the old days and therefore quite possibly a runaway indentured servant himself. Whatever the actual circumstance, de Lussan turned to that sure-fire occupation for indentures denied their promised piece of land: piracy.

It seems that de Lussan was a well educated and even refined man. His prose in Filibusters rivals that of Exquemelin, who was a trained doctor. Though there is no real “story arc” per ce the entire experience of being a buccaneer and attacking prey by land and at sea is documented, probably with a good deal of accuracy. Much like Exquemelin and Pere Labat, de Lussan leaves nothing out. He even goes so far as to quote letters left behind by the enemy he most distrusted: the Spanish. Here is part of one:

… advance within the shot of your arquebusses, let not your men fire but by twenties, to the end your firing may not be in vain. And when you find them weakened, raise a shout to frighten them, and fall in with your swords…

This snippet says a lot about Spanish fire power – or lack thereof – in the face of the buccaneers. Fearing rebellion, the Spanish governments would not allow even their soldiers in the New World the more technologically advanced muskets so favored by the French. The Spanish were forced in these cases to advance within twenty paces of the threatening ladrones while the French, expert shots, picked them off.

At sea de Lussan notes similar tactics. He indicates that captains would order those deadly muskets fired at will, killing officers and cutting rigging more capably than cannon. He notes in one case that “Using our fusils, we made so great a fire upon them that they were forced to close their port holes and bear up to the wind.”

De Lussan is also in no way shy about the buccaneers’ use of torture. He consistently refers to “persuasion” of any kind as le chevalet – the “little horse” – meaning the rack. There is very little discrimination as to who will be put on the little horse, with a few noted exceptions. De Lussan is clear that he would never allow a woman, child or member of the clergy to be tortured or even threatened if he could help it at all. He goes out of his way to note that at every city sacked from the Panama Coast to Guayaquil in Peru he, at the very least, would take the time to hear Mass in the local church before even thinking of plunder.

And really, it is the ladies upon whom de Lussan most dwells. While he repeats vehemently his distrust of all the Spanish time and again, he seems rather taken by their elite Donas. He is personally mortified when, while escorting a young and particularly lovely noblewoman to safe haven in a church, she begins to weep uncontrollably. He enquired more than once as to her obvious apprehension until she finally blurted: “Oh please Senor; do not you eat me!” To his dismay he would later learn that the Spanish told their children stories of monkey-like buccaneers descending from the dark forests to cannibalize the unsuspecting – and one assumes naughty – young person.

The finest story involving the fairer sex in de Lussan’s catalogue involves the young widow of the Spanish Treasurer at the city of Guayaquil. De Lussan took part in sacking the city in 1684 and does not seem ashamed to say he was involved in a good deal of the carnage there. He stops short of saying he himself killed the widow’s husband but tells us that he went to pay a call upon the Treasurer’s house all unaware that he had been a married man. He found the widow “… dissolved in tears and most disheveled” and excused himself immediately “… with all gallantry”. The widow evidently thought quite a bit of de Lussan, calling him back to her house the next day and virtually throwing herself at him. She promised her husband’s position and all his wealth if de Lussan would elope with her into the woods and hide there until his mates had gone. She even went so far as to remove her dainty shoes and silk stockings, baring her feet to the buccaneer as proof of her love.

Raveneau de Lussan, for all his courtly gestures, could not be tempted and returned to his ship to sail back to Tortuga. Five years later his book was available in France but what had become of the dandy filibuster is still a mystery. The book was republished in 1690 and again in 1695 with revisions but whether or not those were done by Monsieur de Lussan is up for debate. Like so many other free booters, Raveneau de Lussan simply disappeared leaving more than most but very little to hold on to nonetheless. But a good story is always worth while, and a good pirate story is so much more.

Header: Engraving of a French musketeer c 1685

Booty: Duel In The Sand

It's New Years Eve, of course, and as a special gift to the Brethren I’d like to share my very favorite sword fight from any pirate movie ever made. That’s right! The battle between Basil Rathbone as the evil (and you will note, French) Le Vasseur and Errol Flynn as our hero (British, of course), Stephen Blood in Captain Blood. I love this scene from the much lionized movie for many different reasons but for one in particular: Basil Rathbone.

Yeah, you were expecting me to say ol’ Errol, weren’t you? Don’t get me wrong; I love Mr. Flynn. Rathbone, though, was probably the greatest fencing movie actor of his or arguably any age. Unlike Flynn, who is all muscle and athletic prowess with very little of style mixed in, Rathbone is a study in technical precision. Every thrust and parry, even on those ridiculously dangerous wet rocks in Laguna Beach, is surgery perfect. He’s a vision of Dumas’ D’Artagnon come to life as a pirate villain.

I frequently fall into imagining this sequence as a romanticized retelling of the infamous duel between Laurens de Graff (Flynn) and Nicholas Van Horn (Rathbone) and I even imagine a similar exchange of words as they duke it out on the sand. In fact, Rathbone notoriously gave Flynn lip during the filming of another famous movie wherein they dueled to the death over Olivia de Havilland: The Adventures of Robin Hood. While filming that duel, Flynn chuckled that he “always got the girl.” Rathbone pulled up short, saluted Flynn and said – doubtless in that steely monotone that only Vincent Price could do better – “Yes you do, but I could actually kill you.” And given his fencing skills, and the obvious points in both duels where he backs off and allows Flynn to get the better of him, it is quite clear that Rathbone wasn’t bragging. Or lying.

Best wishes for a happy and safe New Years Eve, Brethren. Enjoy!

(Note: When I went to the YouTube video of the complete duel, embedding was disabled so here, as a poor substitute, is the short AMC doc on the staging of the duel. Pull the movie out tonight as part of your celebration and enjoy the duel in its entirety if your appetite has been wetted. You’ll be glad you did.)

Home Ports: Basse-Terre

One of the more shadowy figures in the already hard-to-dig-into world of the buccaneers is Frenchman Jean Le Vasseur. Aside from occasional mentions by our old friend Alexander Exquemelin, who claimed to know him personally, and the use of his name for Basil Rathbone’s villainous character in Captain Blood, no one seems very forthcoming about the man. His legacy, however is – or was – carved in stone. Quite literally built rock by rock, Le Vasseur’s masterwork on the Island of Tortuga was known as the Fort of the Rock and it stood impenetrable for ten years.

Le Vasseur was a military engineer in his native land. He most probably came from Bordeaux or Gascony and is last documented in France in that hotbed of Huguenot rebellion La Rochelle. When that fortress fell to the Catholics many displaced Protestants set their sights on the New World and the potentially lucrative profession of piracy. Le Vasseur appears to have been among them as he turns up in Jamaica in 1640.

It seems Le Vasseur was better at organizing and leading men that he was as a sailor and by 1642 he was on the island of Tortuga off Hispanola. Here he managed to round up the somewhat savage boucaniers that ran wild in the forests hunting local pigs and generally doing manly things among men (women didn’t show up in force for another decade or so). Somehow Le Vasseur got this group of free thinkers to start thinking ahead, organize for the good of all, and build a fortress from which to head out on their piratical expeditions.

Le Vasseur chose the sheltered harbor of Basse-Terre, where the rocks that would be used to build the fort were plentiful and the high ground was almost impossible to get to, especially while being fired upon from a fortress. The 30 foot cliff up from the harbor had a rock outcropping perfect for defense and sighting prey. There was a natural spring (above) and behind that the island turned into a dense jungle that made an ideal retreat if the fortress was breached. Basse-Terre literally translates as low-ground and may have been named by Le Vasseur himself, although it is probable that the boucaniers were using that name for the harbor when he showed up.

By 1644 Le Fort de Rocher loomed over Basse-Terre Bay. According to Exquemelin it boasted 24 heavy cannon (probably 30 pounders) and could hold and support a force of 800 men. Over the course of the next 9 years the fort stood firm despite attempts to raid it made by both England and Spain. It was not until 1653 when Le Vasseur assigned a successor to his leadership and began to think about retirement, that the fort fell.

In January of 1654, Spanish ships invaded the harbor and began a siege on the fort. While the ships kept the boucaniers occupied, a spy abetted by Le Vasseur’s successor, who would be paid in Spanish gold, helped slaves open up a road to the back of the fortress. Cannon were dragged up the road and turned to smashing the weakest point of the fort. The boucaniers who could fled. Le Vasseur was assassinated in the melee and the Spanish overran the Fort of the Rock.

This signaled the slow decline of Tortuga as a buccaneering stronghold. By the 1690s, after much political shuffling, France would have a firm grasp on San Domingue (the future Haiti) including Tortuga. By then, though, the buccaneer port of choice would be Petit Goave where men like Nicholas Van Horn and Laurens de Graff would see their hey days as the true successors of the mysterious Jean Le Vasseur.

People: "The Great Pirate Of Petit Goave"

Today's buccaneer is rather like the high school football star who is, to the surprise of many, eclipsed at the 10 year reunion by that nerd who made it big in rock and roll (who knew he could play the guitar and sing?). If you say Laurens de Graff to most people today they might ask you if you've had a recent medical procedure. The six foot something model of the 17th century sea rover now stands in the ominous if physically diminutive shadow of Morgan, which is too bad really. Even though Jamaica's eventual Lieutenant Governor did have some awesome riffs.

Lauens de Graff is thought by most historians to have been born in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, some time in the 1650s. There is some debate, however, as to his actually genetic heritage. Some authors claim de Graff was a mulatto, saying that his name may actually have been assumed by him as a play on the word griffe, someone with African or Native American blood. It's an ongoing debate that, along with a few other points, makes de Graff very similar to our old privateering ami Dominique Youx. No one is sure where he came from or who he was, but his deeds speak louder than words.

It is known that de Graff went to sea young and aboard Spanish ships. Here he learned seafaring and picked up the working of the great guns. According to that famous buccaneer biographer Alexander Exquemelin: "One has never seen a better artillerist". He also witnessed the unfortunately common art of Spanish torture and sometime in the 1670s decided he was fed up. Either captured by boucaniers or deserting his Spanish ship voluntarily, de Graff joined the Brethren of the Coast at Tortuga and was raiding Spanish shipping by 1676.

By 1679, de Graff was Captaining the 28 gun brig Tigre and carrying a French commission from Governor Pouancay of Saint Domingue (now Haiti). De Graff was large and in charge. Standing about 6' 3" he was handsome, swarthy and blond according to Exquemelin. He was also reputed to be an expert swordsman and touchy about his honor. His fellows gave him a wide berth when he was in a foul mood or drinking but his success meant he never lacked for men. Or ladies (more on that tomorrow).

De Graff was also a busy buccaneer. Like Francois L'Olonnais he rarely took much time off and was all over the Spanish Main most of any given year. Unlike L'Olonnais or Morgan for that matter, de Graff was a sailor first and foremost and a sea raider because of it. He famously raided the 30 gun Spanish warship carrying the annual pay for the garrison of Havana in 1682, for instance. The following year he captured three Spanish warships that attacked him off Cartagena, and then sent the Governor of the town a note thanking him for the Christmas gifts. De Graff's rare raids on land were almost always in concert with other captains, Michele de Grammont and Nicolas Van Horn in particular.

The most famous of these was staged against the city of Veracruz on the Gulf Coast of what is now Mexico in May of 1683. De Grammont took the lead, with de Graff and Van Horn as his lieutenants, and the plunder and carnage were probably equal to Morgan's much more famous raid of Panama. Not satisfied with the take in gold and silver from the town, the three buccaneers decided to move wealthy prisoners to Sacrificios Island in the Gulf and demand ransom from the Spanish.

Things turned ugly when Spanish warships fire on the Island while the buccaneers were bringing food from their ships to feed their prisoners. Van Horn in particular was outraged and lined up a few likely hostages to decapitate in retaliation. De Graff steped in and said he wouls not allow the carnage. Van Horn questioned his courage and then it became a point of honor. De Graff and Van Horn already disliked each other over a previous botched raid on a Spanish treasure ship for which de Graff blamed Van Horn. What actually happened to set off the duel is still debated (I'm giving you Exquemelin's story) but the outcome remains the same.

"Voila," Laurens cried out, drawing his cutlass. Van Horn did the same and the fight on the beach commenced. It was not, in fact, a fight to the death but a typical French match to settle honor: a duelo. Laurens struck Van Horn on the wrist. Van Horn was then said to port en coupe or carry a blow and the duel was over. De Graff upheld his honor. Unfortunately for Van Horn the wound, which no one appeared particularly concerned about following the duel, festered. Nicolas Van Horn died and was buried, according to Exquemelin, at Cay Logrette on Sacrifice Island.

None of it seemed of much interest to de Graff. Once the Spanish finally ransomed the prisoners at Sacraficios he returned to raiding. He traded up to the 40 gun ship Neptune the same year. In April of 1685 he and de Grammont tried a raid on Campeche that ended in disaster as the Spanish were warned ahead of time. De Graff was met by an armada of five Spanish warships in the Gulf. Exquemelin calls Laurens the bravest of his crew as they faced down the impossible enemy before them. De Graff takes advantage of every opportunity and famously splits the armada in two, firing both his broadsides as his ship sails into the very center of the maelstrom. De Graff is wounded but will not leave the deck. Night falls at last and, to the buccaneers' surprise, the Spanish turn tail and run.

After another land raid at Tihosuco, de Graff seems to have decided to settle down. He briefly considered defecting to the English but finally settled on Saint Domingue where he purchased a plantation and became a French citizen. He was appointed to the local military by Governor de Cussy and defended Saint Domingue from 1691 to 1695 during the war against Britain. In 1699, after years as a settled planter, he joined Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville's expedition to the Mississippi river as a pilot. Some historians claim he settled there, but it is almost certain that he returned to Saint Domingue, his plantation and his second wife.

De Graff died in 1704, leaving an estate worth approximately 200,000 livres to his wife and daughter in Saint Domingue's Quartier Morin. Pretty good for a pirate.

Though author Rafael Sabatini claimed to have used Morgan as his inspiration for the character of Peter Blood in the book (and later movie) Captain Blood, one has to wonder. The exploits of the pirate Blood mirror de Graff's at so many points right down to the famous sailing between two men-of-war, broadsides blazing. And then, of course, there is the duel on the beach between Blood and LeVasseur which mimics de Graff and Van Horn but with the fictional Arabella Bishop present to add titillation.

Exquemelin called Laurens de Graff "the great pirate of Petit Goave" and went on to say of him: "To resolve, to attempt and to accomplish, these are all the same thing to him." A freebooter like that is surely worth remembering.

But wait, there's more. Tomorrow the history and legend of the women in Laurens' life. Talk about titillation...

Movies: "Climb the Mainmast You Monkeys!"

I'm going to go straight out to the end of the mainsail crosstrees and say that "Captain Blood" is the greatest pirate movie ever made. Its only rival to my mind is DeMille's silent version of "The Buccaneer" with Friedrich March as Jean Laffite (although the 1950 version with Yul Brynner in the role is no slouch), but I'm just a tad bias there. Errol Flynn is the definitive swashbuckling hero. He is all handsome poise and manly flair without a single dangling bead or drop of eyeliner to muck up the picture. That man was a stud.

For those of you who have not experienced the sheer popcorn and soda for a nickle delight that is "Captain Blood", I will first of all say shame on you. Go put it in your Netflix queue right now. Seriously, I'll wait.

Back? Good. You'll be glad you did that, trust me. Anyway, I'll give you a brief rundown of the plot just because its kind of silly to do a review without telling you what the movie is about. The plot itself seems a little overdone now. In all honesty though, the joy of "Captain Blood" is not necessarily in its plot, it's in the exuberant, "I dare you to call me a ham" acting of every last one of the people in the film. It's in the wonderful camera work and direction by Mr. Casablanca himself, Michael Curtiz. Most of all, it's in the fun of being able to watch two virtual unknowns turn into stars right before your eyes. How often does that happen these days?

Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is a physician in England in 1685. The movie makes it clear upfront that Blood has "dropped the sword and picked up the lancet" so we won't be surprised later when he's a fencing master. Oh yeah, and he's also Irish. He's kind of a tall, handsome, agreeable version of Doctor Stephen Maturin from the O'Brian novels, but we'll talk about him another time.

A simmering revolution is going on in the farmlands of the country as the Protestant people are upset with their Catholic king James II for being, well, Catholic. William and Mary are in exile in Holland and the people make their displeasure known by attacking the English army guerrilla style. A local skirmish causes injury to one of the rebels, and the Doctor is summoned to stitch up the wounded man. The army finds the rebels and Blood is accused of treason for giving "harbor, succor or comfort to a rebel". Despite his plea of "Its right innocent I am", guilt by associations gets Peter Blood a death sentence. In the nick of time, somebody figures out that British colonies in the Caribbean need hands to work the fields and so off Blood and his new pals go to life as slaves in Port Royal Jamaica.

Upon landing, the prisoners are subjected to a slave auction. The Governor is there, despite his horrible gout, as are plantation owners Dixon and Bishop (Lionel Atwill). We are informed that Dixon is the worst kind of master from the get go, but Bishop doesn't seem much better. Along for the ride is Arabella Bishop (Olivia de Havilland), the landowner's strong willed and beautiful niece. The usual auction fun ensues and, when Blood is too Spartacus for Bishop, Dixon steps up to buy him. Arabella saves the day. Having her own money, she buys Blood and keeps him from the clutches of Dixon.

The movie got some bad "insider" press before it was released by Warner Bros. for the amount of torture shown on film. The slaves, who would in actuality have been indentured servants, are treated to some grim miseries including flogging and branding. The first branding - done by Dixon to a runaway - is juxtaposed with the Governor whining to his incompetent physicians about his unbearable gout. If you think about it too long, it is pretty nasty and a lot closer to reality than movie goers in 1935 probably wanted to get. I like that though, and I think it probably took some doing for Curtiz to be able to avoid having to edit the thing all to hell.

Through her charm, Arabella manages to get Dr. Blood to treat the Governor and, before you can say "lay off the fat", he can walk again. This scares the pink pants off the two local doctors, who eventually supply Blood with his own ship. He plans to sail off with his fellow slaves and never see Jamaica again. Of course the plot is discovered, more brandings and beatings are implied or witnessed. When it's Peter's turn for a scourging, Spanish raiders show up and plunder the island. Peter and his boys hurry down to the docks only to find that their ship has been burned. No worries! We'll take the Spaniard galleon! And kick Spanish ass while we do! Huzzah!

Doctor Blood is now Captain Blood and he and his crew terrorize the Caribbean. He's notorious now but he is thoughtful about his treatment of prisoners and ladies in particular. Oh, Errol! Anyway, Port Royal is ransomed by the British and Arabella takes a vacation to England. On her way home, in a freaking aircraft carrier with staterooms the size of a generous loft, her ship is taken by the notorious French pirate from Tortuga, Captain Le Vasseur (Basil Rathbone). Rathbone is just as awesome as Flynn here, coming off with the threatening menace of an Edward Teach and the suave, ladies' man air of a Jean Laffite. I'd have a hard time choosing between Le Vasseur and Peter Blood frankly. Needless to say, Arabella doesn't.

Blood rescues his lady love and the two pirates duel over her on a very recognizable beach in Laguna, California. But who cares? The fencing is impeccable and when Le Vasseur is stuck in the gut he crumples to the sand, the waves washing over his dead body without Rathbone so much as flinching. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

William and Mary return to England and take the throne, the big battle at sea, against the French no less, is won and Blood returns triumphant to Jamaica to claim the Governor's mansion and the hand of his saucy lady love Arabella. The End.

The DVD has a ton of special features including discussion about the score, the original novel by Rafael Sabatini and the cast. All in all, its one of the best ways to spend a Saturday night with the family. And I'm sorry Mr. Depp, Errol Flynn is still the best pirate ever. Period.