The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy [Paperback]

Barry Clifford (Author), Kenneth Kinkor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 2003

On January 2, 1678, a fleet of French ships sank off the Venezuelan coast. This proved disastrous for French naval power in the region, and sparked the rise of a golden age of piracy.

Tracing the lives of fabled pirates like the Chevalier de Grammont, Nikolaas Van Hoorn, Thomas Paine, and Jean Comte d'EstrÉes, The Lost Fleet portrays a dark age, when the outcasts of European society formed a democracy of buccaneers, settling on a string of islands off the African coast. From there, the pirates haunted the world's oceans, wreaking havoc on the settlements along the Spanish mainland and -- often enlisted by French and English governments -- sacking ships, ports, and coastal towns.

More than three hundred years later, writer, explorer, and deep-sea diver Barry Clifford follows the pirates' destructive wake back to Venezuela. With the help of a lost map, drawn by the captain of the lost French fleet, Clifford locates the site of the disaster and wreckage of the once-mighty armada.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Diver and shipwreck explorer Clifford (Expedition Whydah) produces an entertaining account of his 1998 exploration of the Caribbean reef of Las Aves, off the coast of Venezuela, where more than 1,000 French seamen and accompanying "filibusters" (pirates) ran aground in 1678. Clifford shows why the Las Aves calamity "one of the most fatal naval catastrophes of its time" was not only "the spark that ignited the golden age of piracy" but also the event that "probably meant the end of any chance for French domination over the West Indies." The bulk of the book is a fascinating investigation of the life of 17th-century pirates. Clifford argues that, in the wake of their destruction of much of the French naval force in the Caribbean, "pirate crews carried on a unique social experiment, creating a sea-faring society that was fundamentally democratic, egalitarian, fraternal and libertarian." Clifford does not overlook the crime and squalor of "hell towns" occupied almost exclusively by pirates, such as the legendary Penzance in England or the island of Tortuga, off the coast of Hispaniola. But his profiles of renegade sailors Captain Thomas Paine, the Chevalier de Grammont and others make vivid the complexity of the pirate world. Unfortunately, Clifford's detailed recollections of his ultimately successful discovery of two pirate vessels at Las Aves simply can't compete with his descriptions of pirate life; this less-interesting secondary narrative is overshadowed by his own ability to bring that lost pirate world alive for the reader.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Clifford, the author of Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World's First Pirate Ship and the Man Who Found Her and subject of a PBS National Geographic Explorer special on his discovery of the Whydah, here attempts to weave together two stories: the almost-forgotten 1678 wreck of the French West Indies fleet, under the command of Jean Comte d'Estrees, on the treacherous reef of Las Aves off the coast of Venezuela and Clifford's 1997-98 expedition to explore the site of the catastrophe and document the remains of the lost fleet. The 18-ship French fleet was accompanied by a flotilla of about 15 ships manned by privateers. Clifford argues that by encouraging the "Brethren of the Coast" to form their own alliances, this attempted combined operation launched "the golden age of piracy" and thus profoundly affected the history of America. Unfortunately, Clifford's historical narrative, lavishly illustrated with 84 black-and-white photos and drawings, coexists uncomfortably with his narrative of the contemporary expedition. Presenting the lives and adventures of these 17th-century pirates often depends more on speculation than documentation, and Clifford's account of the confusions and double-dealings he encountered during the contemporary expedition is perhaps more than a reader needs to know about such problems. Readers familiar with Expedition Whydah may be interested in this recent Clifford expedition, but the truly fascinating thesis about the role of piracy in the history of America still remains to be explored. Recommended for larger public libraries with an interest in maritime history. Robert C. Jones, Warrensburg, MO
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (October 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060957794
• ISBN-13: 978-0060957797
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #778,793 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Venezuela

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Stories In One Book, October 5, 2002

By 

C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy (Hardcover)

Barry Clifford has written an interesting book on a fleet of French ships that were in pursuit of Dutch ships which led the French into the treacherous waters of the reef off of Las Aves Island near the coast of Venezuela in 1678. He states the wreckage of the French fleet on Las Aves was the beginning of some of the greatest pirate careers in history. British and French ships would attack Spanish ships as they returned to Spain after loading up on riches in the New World. Many pirates, Clifford states, met a brutal demise and he goes into detail in regard to a number of pirates to illustrate his point while one in particular, Thomas Paine (not the one of Common Sense fame), managed to retire and lead a somewhat respectable life. Clifford organized a team to visit the site in 1998 and locate the fleet for purposes of drawing and photographing whatever he may find of the remains. He was not interested in disturbing the reef by removing artifacts. Clifford goes into interesting detail on his team's visit to Las Aves as they go about doing their assigned work. Clifford alternates throughout the book covering piracy during the 1600's and his visit to the site during 1998. I took a chance on buying this book through the History Book Club not really knowing what I was getting. I found this book to be very worth while to read and it will have a permanent place in my library.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another engrossing read by expeditioneer Barry Clifford, July 31, 2003

By 

Rachel E. Pollock (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy (Hardcover)

Another book by the "archeological privateer" Barry Clifford, the oceanic excavator who found the wreck of Black Sam Bellamy's ship the Whydah in the sands off Cape Cod. His writing has improved since he wrote "Expedition Whydah," though he's still not a master with words. No matter, his subjects are always facinating enough I don't mind that the prose can be a bit clunky.

This one traces his team's discovery and exploration (underwritten by Max Kennedy, the BBC, and the Discovery Channel) of a wreck of an entire fleet of ships--5 French warships and two pirate ships the French fleet hired to assist them in warfare--on the reef of Los Aves off the coast of Venezuela. In a similar vein to the Whydah book, Clifford intersperses his text with photographs, maps, and drawings, and alternates the story of his expedition with history about the pirates involved in the wrecks.

In this case, he does the opposite of the Whydah story (which traced Sam Bellamy's rise to captainship and followed him until his demise), and instead follows the lives of the documented pirates who *survived* the massive wreck at Los Aves, among them a famous and ridiculously lucky mulatto captain named Laurens de Graff, and a New England pirate named Thomas Paine who later went on to return to his home and established himself as a powerful and corrupt politician (not the same Thomas Paine that wrote the "Common Sense" political publication, this was a few decades earlier). The historical portions of the text offer a lot of great insight into the piratical/buccanneer climate (political, economical, etc) of the mid- to late-17th c. in the Caribbean and Spanish Main.

Most interesting is the existance of a period map he brought with him, drawn by the leader of the shipwrecked fleet from shore where he survived the wreckage, outlining the positions of each wreck and labelling them by name--his accuracy was apparently quite high, so it functioned like a literal 'treasure map,' showing the explorers exactly where they would find the wrecks of which ships! There's not as much info on artifacts in this one, since they merely mapped and filmed the wrecks and haven't excavated yet (unknown if they will, in fact, due to most of the wreckage having become an integral part of the ecosystem of the reef by now), but there's a lot of really new discoveries on the research front (pub date on this is 2002) about the various pirates involved, most of whom are lesser known names (as opposed to the more "famous" pirates like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who came later...these were the pirates operating on the cusp of the Golden Age of Piracy).

So, if you want to read some detailed info about pirate captains of the pre-1700 era, this is a good book to check out!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buccaneers and Underwater Archeology, March 30, 2004

By 

David Stapleton (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy (Paperback)

Barry Clifford has put together an entertaining book that tells two stories linked across 300 years by a maritime disaster that drastically altered the fate of the Caribbean. He interleaves the stories in a successful effort to provide tension and suspense, keeping the reader interested throughout the book.

The first story is a narrative of the underwater exploration of the site of the wreck of Jean Comte d'Estrées fleet off Las Aves island. He details the interpersonal relationships and trials of gaining approval to explore the wrecks in foreign waters. While I am not very interested in underwater archeology, Clifford made these segments entertaining and very readable.

For my interest, the other thread of the book was the real meat. Barry Clifford provides a detailed history of several of the major figures from the beginning of the Golden Age of Piracy, specifically 1678 to about 1700. He provides a good deal of information on the Chevalier de Grammont, de Graf, Thomas Paine (not the author of Common Sense) and Nikolaas Van Hoorn. Clifford recounts the many sackings of towns, and interactions with local governments, including the changing attitudes as the years wore on.

Overall, I found this to be an entertaining and informative read. I may have to look into finding copies of his other books. For more information on piracy in the Caribbean (from the Spanish viewpoint) try Pirates in the Caribbean :1493-1720 by Cruz Apestegui. P-)