On Pirates

Here is an interesting post on pirates, via Lew Rockwell. I find pirates intriguing since my great- great-great grandfather was a Chinese pirate who raided the Philippines in the first part of the 19th century. Eventually he settled down and became a landowner. The article claims that pirates were in some ways better than the merchant ships and ships of the line as far as the way the sailors were treated. And pirates never transported slaves, which the "respectable" ships did. I read somewhere that the pirates had their own code of honor, and while it was cruel and lawless, it was not much different from the justice meted out by the British navy.