[An Important Document Addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty and Governors of the American Plantations, Concerning The Confiscation of Pirate Goods and Establishing an Act that will allow Pirates to

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An excellent addition to any collection of piracy material and an important contribution to colonial laws concerning America: Richard West’s substantial manuscript opinion was instrumental in the permanent establishment of colonial courts for the trying of pirates. Addressed to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, Attorney-General Richard West (c.1691-1726) gives his legal opinion on the matter of trying and executing pirates abroad, especially in the Americas. It was area of law that needed addressing. Previously, the 1536 “Offences at Sea Act” demanded that anyone accused of piracy be tried in London through the Admiralty courts. This proved increasingly expensive through the Golden Age of Piracy (the long version: 1650-1730, the short: 1716-1726) in the Caribbean. Matters were made worse when in 1684, “most colonial trials came to a halt when the English government decided that the colonies did not have jurisdiction to try any piracy cases … Colonial governments were interested in prosecuting pirates. But not if they had to foot the bill. Consequently, when they captured pirates, they often just let them go. The problem that this criminal ‘catch and release’ policy created intensified in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when a new wave of watery bandits took to the sea” (Leeson). Namely, the rise of piracy in the Red Sea which further stretched the Admiralty’s resources. The 1700 “Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy” acknowledge

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