Jolly Roger (Dover Maritime)
We all know the literary and Hollywood image of pirates as  one-eyed, rum-swilling brutes sailing the seas in search of  booty. While that has some basis in reality, no one ever really  walked a plank or strolled around with a parrot on his shoulder.  For the most part, these guys were common crooks looking to make  a quick buck any way they could, and a ship far from home with  salable goods in its hold was an easy target. Once European  governments began sending their navies to catch and punish the  thieves, most of these brigands went back to legitimate sailing  jobs. Pringle's 1953 volume separates the fact from the fiction  regarding these scourges of the sea.Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.