How did a pardon, a governor and the Royal Navy end the Golden Age of Piracy?

Pirates were not beaten by one great battle. They lost their safe harbour, were offered a pardon, and were hunted by a growing naval presence. The events of the latter half of 1718, including the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in Nassau, were a turning point in the history of piracy in the Western Hemisphere. Without a safe base and under growing pressure from naval forces, the pirates lost their momentum.

The carrot came first. On 5 September 1717, a proclamation announced clemency, the King's Pardon, for pirates who surrendered by 5 September 1718, and colonial governors could grant it. Then came the stick. Before Rogers, the Bahamas were described by a governor of Bermuda as without any face or form of government. Rogers arrived at Nassau on 24 July 1718. Charles Vane escaped in a small sloop, but Nassau and New Providence were in Rogers's hands. In December he tried ten captured men, convicted nine and had eight hanged. The executions cowed the island so much that a plot to restore piracy shortly after Christmas attracted little support.

By early 1719 the remaining pirates were on the run, and most headed for West Africa to seize poorly defended slave ships. Historians consider the deaths of Bartholomew Roberts in 1722, William Fly in 1726 and Olivier Levasseur in 1730 to mark the end of the Golden Age. After 1730, pirates in large numbers generally disappeared, chased from the seas by a new Royal Navy squadron based at Port Royal, Jamaica, and Spanish coast guard privateers.

Rogers himself did not get a happy ending. Back in Britain he found his company liquidated and, personally liable for his debts from Nassau, he was imprisoned for debt.