Captain Phil's Pirate Shop

In the first half of the 18th century, cargo ships crossed the Atlantic from Europe to the Americas in unprecedented numbers bringing raw materials and specie to financially fuel Europe’s never-ending cycle of expansionism. Increased shipping was a boon for those who had loose moral convictions regarding seizing property on the high seas and the period has been dubbed by many historians as the golden age of piracy. The stories you’ve been told from childhood of pirates being near psychopathic reavers of the deep blue weren’t the norm for the period. Just because one is a criminal does not necessarily makes one’s motives unjust. Most pirate ships were micro chasms of the democratic wave that would wash over the American colonies a few decades later. Some groups of pirates, like those noble Scots who took to the seas to finance the Jacobite Rebellion, saw their endeavors as a way to strike out against unjust monarchies. While the spectrum of reasons for piracy ran the gambit from pure hedonistic greed to loftier pursuits, there was one notable exception—Captain Phil.