In 1845 the trading schooner Ariel was seized off the coast of China while carrying a valuable cargo worth millions of dollars in today’s money. This act of piracy was unusual because it was not carried out by a band of desperate cutthroats but by two of the ship’s own officers. The schooner Ariel wasContinue reading “Mutiny on the Ariel”
Tag Archives: Pirate
The Caledonia’s perilous last voyage
On a stormy December night in 1831, eleven desperate convicts seized a small ship at Moreton Bay and forced its captain to take them to a South Pacific Island. But as the prisoners turned pirates climbed aboard the vessel, little could they have imagined that most of them were escaping one reign of terror forContinue reading “The Caledonia’s perilous last voyage”
Tales from the Quarterdeck 