Who are the real Pirates?

“and so we overtook the sloop commanded by Captain Beer. We raided and stripped it to the bone. Most of their crew had been slaughtered by the time we managed to board but captain Bellamy wanted to keep the merchant vessel. We voted instead to burn it, although an invitation had been extended for Captain Beer to join us if he so wished. He refused with an ashen face, quivering with rage, as we proceeded to shove the ex-captain around the deck jeering and spitting on him. That’s when Bellamy swelled his chest and roared:

"I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery;

Fuck those crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, as a numbskull slave. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage.

Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?"

Beer at this point had his hands bound but still managed to mournfully mumble how his conscience would not let him break the laws of God and Man.

We laughed sarcastically, delighted to see the flimsy constructions the poor man employed as justifications. Bellamy thundered again, spittle flying from his mouth:

"You are a devilish conscience rascal! I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me! But there is no arguing with such snivelling retches, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure."

That’s what I liked about working with Bellamy, he always had a way with words. Sometimes you’d wish he would use them more sparingly but his heart was in the right place. I won’t say he treated us with courtesy or kindness but the man had integrity and that’s not so easy to find these days, if it ever was