NARRATOR: Tropical, beautiful and deadly.
The Caribbean, for centuries home to adventurers, heroes and villains.
DR DELGADO: The Caribbean has hundreds of islands and deadly reefs and yet,
what made it all the more frightening was that it was a lawless place.
NARRATOR: Above all other seas, the Caribbean is famous for pirates.
DR BEEKER: Pirates of the Caribbean.
How can you not be excited about pirates and pirate ships?
Everyone's intrigued by this golden age of piracy.
NARRATOR: For years archaeologists have searched in vain
for pirate ships.
Now the discovery of rare evidence is unearthing
the true story behind the most famous
pirate names of all time Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan
allowing us to drain this ultimate pirate sea
and uncover buried archaeological treasure.
NARRATOR: This is the Caribbean coast of Panama,
on the estuary of the Chagres River.
In 1671, British born buccaneer, Captain Henry Morgan,
arrives here with a giant fleet of 36 ships,
packed with nearly 2,000 pirates.
Morgan has spent years raiding the coast of the Spanish Main,
Spain's colonies in the Americas.
But the Chagres Estuary is the mother lode because all of the riches
of the Spanish Empire passed through here.
PROF GROVE: Spain is depending on bullion supplies
to keep its economy going and it's there to be stolen.
NARRATOR: Here in these crocodile infested waters,
Henry Morgan pulls off the greatest pirate raid of all time.
Documents prove the attack took place, but for centuries
no hard evidence has ever been found on the sea floor.
Now, almost 350 years later, could this newly discovered
shipwreck be the crucial breakthrough?
Archaeologist, Frederick Fritz Hanselmann is on a mission.
For the past ten years, he's been scanning the seabed
and reef here for evidence of Morgan's raid.
DR HANSELMANN: For an archaeologist, Panama's a phenomenal place to work.
It all happened here and especially piracy.
NARRATOR: He's teamed up with maritime archaeologist, James Delgado,
who's studied Caribbean piracy for decades.
DR DELGADO: Pirates loved the Caribbean because there were so many places to hide.
You could tuck into a tiny little key or an island
or you could come to the coast of, say,
Central America and hide out there.
It was the perfect place for pirates.
NARRATOR: It's this secrecy that makes finding hard evidence
of Pirates extremely difficult.
Outlaws prefer to leave no clues, but Fritz and Jim have found one lead:
a letter by Henry Morgan himself, describing how his men attack and overrun
the fort overlooking the Chagres River, the Castile San Lorenzo.
Morgan's letter also recounts that after the battle, he had to abandon five vessels,
including his flagship, the Satisfaction.
MALE: I had the ill fortune to cast away the ship I was in and four more.
NARRATOR: No one has ever found the Satisfaction,
but Fritz and Jim are determined to try.
These are treacherous waters, full of swirling tides,
shifting sands and the deadly Lajas Reef
and mud washed down out of the jungle buries any clues that may remain on the sea bed.
But despite the challenges, Fritz has conducted a series of surveys
using specialized scanning equipment and identified some promising targets.
Could one of them be part of Henry Morgan's pirate armada?
There's only one way to find out.
The water empties from the river mouth, taking with it centuries of silt and mud,
revealing something astonishing.
There on the reef, preserved by the mud, the hull of a ship.
Over 50 ft long and 22 ft wide, the size and shape
typical of a 17th century galleon,
fitting the period of Henry Morgan's raid.
And there's more.
All down the centre, rows of boxes.
Could they be chests full of treasure?
Despite the risk of crocodiles, Fritz decides to take a closer look.
DR HANSELMANN: We're gonna splash on this site,
take a look at the shipwreck and see what we've got on our hands.
NARRATOR: He locates the boxes and some have objects still inside.
DR HANSELMANN: When you look at it and you say, "You know what, the cargo hold is full,
has all these wooden chests, has all these crates."
NARRATOR: In the lab, Fritz makes another discovery.
DR HANSELMANN: These are cargo seals and these would have been used
to mark bales of silk.
NARRATOR: Silks are precious cargo, a good prize for any pirate, as are these,
heavily encrusted sword blades.
Were they once wielded by a fearsome buccaneer?
DR HANSELMANN: And if you look closely,
you can see part of the blade is exposed.
NARRATOR: Then, in a rusted mass, Fritz identifies the remains of other,
more everyday items.
Shoes for the mules bringing the gold and silver to be shipped back to Spain.
Not something a pirate would risk his life for.
DR HANSELMANN: A vessel loaded with swords, wooden chests, wooden barrels,
is basically going to be a supply ship.
NARRATOR: It's likely not a pirate ship, so Fritz digs into Spanish records
and finds a name the Encarnación.
A merchant vessel packed with goods to restock Spain's colony in Panama,
including crates full of mule shoes.
Fritz has not unearthed evidence of Henry Morgan's famous raid,
but he has shown exactly why this region attracted pirates like him.
The Chagres River forms part of the shortest crossing point
from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans,
making it the hub of all Spanish imperial trade routes, funnelling out the gold,
silver and other treasures mined or looted by the Spanish Empire.
DR DELGADO: We are at the mouth of the Chagres River which was,
to all intents and purposes, the original Panama Canal.
While it doesn't completely cut across the Isthmus,
it goes enough of the way so that you can bring their treasure down,
put it on a boat and take it out to ships waiting
right here at the moth of the river .
NARRATOR: All of this explains why Henry Morgan came here with his pirate fleet.
But his ships are still missing.
Fritz continues his survey
and, on a different part of the reef,
picks up a new target.
Could these mysterious pieces of wreckage finally lead him
to one of Morgan's long lost pirate ships?
NARRATOR: For centuries there's been no hard archaeological evidence
for Henry Morgan's raid.
No pieces of eight, no secret map marked with an X.
Just a letter, written by Morgan himself, stating that he lost five ships.
Now, Fritz Hanselmann's latest underwater scanning has given us the data we need
to part the pirate seas.
The seaward side of Lajas reef is now exposed and on it lie remarkable relics.
Scattered on the bottom are eight cannon and all of them look to be different sizes.
Could these be the actual weapons used by Morgan and his band of buccaneers?
DR HANSELMANN: So, this is British, that's British, that is potentially French.
DR DELGADO: Now that we're in the lab and we're seeing everything cleaned off,
the sense that's emerging is a group of guns from the same time and a mix of guns,
not only in terms of size but in terms of nationality.
DR HANSELMANN: If it's a naval ship or it's a naval ordnance,
they're gonna be more standardized, they're gonna be more similar in size,
whereas a pirate is gonna make use of anything
that they can get their hands on.
NARRATOR: The mismatched weapons fit the profile of a pirate
and their sizes do to.
Small cannon like these aren't big enough to sink a ship,
but that's exactly why pirates like them.
DR HANSELMANN: They wanna disable it so that they're able to take the goods,
take the treasure.
Some literature describes these guns as murderers because they're smaller,
they're used for antipersonnel, they're used more like a shotgun
to take out multiple people above decks,
to clear off the deck so that they can capture the ship rather than sink it.
We're looking at a 17th century version of Grand Theft Auto, just using ships.
NARRATOR: It's a promising clue.
Next, Fritz and Jim make out a faint mark on one of the cannon.
A mark that hints at something very exciting.
DR HANSELMANN: This particular gun has markings of a foundry in England,
so this is a British falconet that was made in the mid to late 17th century.
NARRATOR: The date fits perfectly with Henry Morgan's raid.
DR DELGADO: This gun was loaded, still had the ball in it,
which means they sailed in with this thing ready to go.
You're not expecting to find an English gun on a Spanish reef in the 1600s
unless they've come there to have some mischief.
The best fit we have for these is that these are from Morgan's ships.
NARRATOR: At last, a genuine pirate relic,
almost certainly left behind by Captain Henry Morgan himself.
But if Morgan's cannon are here, what happened to his ships?
The way the weapons are scattered across Lajas Reef may offer another clue.
Fritz returns to Morgan's letter.
MALE: I gave orders for the fleet to follow me into the harbour.
NARRATOR: A tropical storm is building, so Morgan seeks the safety of a sheltered cove,
but it's too late.
Lashing seas drive Morgan's own flagship straight onto the reef.
DR HANSELMANN: A ship is not like a car where you can slam on your breaks
and avoid a collision, so Morgan runs his flagship, the Satisfaction,
aground and four other ships follow suit with a pile-up on Lajas Reef.
NARRATOR: As the ships wreck, the cannons are thrown loose.
DR DELGADO: Timbers are cracking, the hull is breaking like a walnut
squeezed in a vice.
The masts have fallen, rigging, ropes are snapping,
men are jumping or falling off and the sides of the ship
where these would be attached, they're likely just coming right down
and so things are raining down on the bottom,
all over the reef, rolling and tumbling.
NARRATOR: It's now clear, Morgan's ships were shattered,
their wooden remains vanished over time.
But 350 years later, Fritz has found his cannon.
According to Morgan's letter, most of his men scrambled to safety.
Undeterred by the loss of his ships,
Morgan then does something even more audacious.
This seaborne buccaneer launches a land invasion,
marching his men across the narrow strip of land towards the Pacific coast,
to ransack Spain's colonial capital, Panama City,
leaving it a smoking ruin.
DR DELGADO: The result is utter shock in the Spanish court.
It's as if a bomb has gone off in Madrid.
Panama has fallen.
NARRATOR: But why does a pirate, famous for hit and runs,
want to destroy Spain's main city in the Americas?
Fritz discovers a 17th century document that reveals Henry Morgan's true purpose.
The English call Morgan not a pirate but a privateer,
an admiral working for the English King Charles,
contracted to attack and rob Spanish colonies.
Morgan recruits hundreds of pirates from around the Caribbean
to help him in his raids,
splitting the profits with King Charles.
DR DELGADO: And so, when they're robbing, they're not just robbing,
they're acting as an agent of the English crown.
NARRATOR: Making Henry Morgan a very rich and powerful man.
DR HANSELMANN: I believe Henry Morgan is perhaps the most successful pirate
or privateer ever, for the simple fact that he actually retired
and enjoyed the spoils of his wealth.
NARRATOR: Across the Caribbean, other privateers follow in Morgan's footsteps,
serving their king while getting rich quick.
In a sea where no one country has overall control and with fleets of treasure ships,
this turns the Caribbean into a paradise for pirates.
And yet, throughout the whole region,
all that remains are rare and tantalizing clues.
But now, what can this remarkable wreck site
reveal about another legendary pirate?
Charlie Beeker of Indiana University has spent
a lifetime on the trail of a buccaneer,
every bit as infamous as Henry Morgan.
Captain William Kidd.
DR BEEKER: You think of Captain Kidd and you've really gotta think about the
probably the most infamous of all pirates we have.
NARRATOR: The inspiration for countless books and movies,
William Kidd was one of the Caribbean's most successful raiders.
His exploits make him rich, famous and feared.
Charlie is on the hunt for Kidd's last ship,
a mysterious wreck that has eluded historians for over 300 years.
Called the Quedagh Merchant, it was a pirate super-ship
with a towering stern castle and covered with intricate carvings.
Some believe it might have been stuffed with treasure
when it disappeared in 1699 off a small island
near the south coast of the Dominican Republic.
Charlie is on his way to the last known location of Kidd's famous flagship.
DR BEEKER: There is a shipwreck here, we know that.
Whether or not it's Captain Kidd, we'll see, but we'll take a look at it,
try and get some footage of it.
Do our first preliminary assessment of what we think might be there.
NARRATOR: This close to the shore,
Charlie fears the waves may have destroyed key evidence
to link this wreck to Captain Kidd.
But even from the surface, he can make something out.
DR BEEKER: Well, you know, if it's Captain Kidd's shipwreck,
there's been people looking for this site for 300 years.
It'd be really quite exciting to see what we've got.
Cannons, lots of cannons.
NARRATOR: Finding 17th century cannons at the site
encourages Charlie to gather more information
scouring the seafloor for clues.
And by using the data he collects, it's possible for us to drain this rocky shore,
to reveal an extraordinary wreck site,
one that's survived centuries of breaking waves.
Among the relics, more cannon, carefully stacked almost seven feet high.
Beneath them, flukes of three large anchors poke out
and another smaller pile of cannon, making 26 in total.
This ship was certainly well armed, but did it belong to Captain Kidd?
Charlie needs more evidence so he heads to a local archive.
Buried deep in the files he finds an account written by Captain Kidd himself.
DR BEEKER: This is William Kidd's signature.
It says here there are 20 some cannons in the hold.
We have 25, 26 cannons on the site.
NARRATOR: It's a close match
but to be certain that he's found Captain Kidd's infamous pirate flagship,
Charlie needs something more conclusive.
And then he makes a stunning breakthrough.
NARRATOR: The rocky shore of an island near the Dominican Republic,
maybe the final resting place of the Quedagh Merchant
commanded by the infamous pirate, Captain William Kidd.
So is it?
Returning to the drained Caribbean seafloor
the two cannon piles give a clue to where the ship's hull would have been.
Buried beneath the canon pile and preserved in the seabed, precious clues,
surviving fragments of wood.
It's such a rare discovery that Charlie Beeker hopes it can help him close this case
and name the wreck.
DR BEEKER: What's unusual about the hull was it's single plank, just exterior only.
NARRATOR: The fragment from the wreck's hull reveals it was all joined together
with an interlocking tongue and groove technique known as rabbeting.
DR BEEKER: I knew we had it. I knew we had a very unique constructed vessel.
You know, it may not mean much to the
to the layman, but I have to tell you,
that's not how we build ships in Europe,
it's not how we build ships anywhere in the Americas in the 17, 18, 19th century.
NARRATOR: The workmanship is extremely precise
and labour-intensive,
so where has this mystery ship come from?
Charlie examines the fragment more closely.
DR BEEKER: Most exciting, this piece that was brought up is teak.
NARRATOR: Teak is the most durable and water resistant species of wood,
but in the 17th century its most likely origin is India, some 8,000 miles away.
What is an Indian ship doing in the Caribbean?
Charlie digs deeper into the story of the Quedagh Merchant.
Back in the archives he finds that, just like Henry Morgan,
Captain Kidd was a privateer, working for the English king in 1698.
His mission, to prey on foreign vessels in the Indian Ocean.
There, Kidd spies an unusual ship, the Quedagh Merchant.
DR BEEKER: It had a very high stern castle, very ornate, lots of carvings on it.
This wasn't a European-built vessel, this was something built in India.
NARRATOR: Kidd sees the vessel is flying a foreign flag,
making her fair game for a British privateer.
He captures her and discovers she is full of treasure silks, sugar and gold.
He likes this beautiful, powerful prize so much that he decides to use her
as his own flagship and so he sails her back to the Caribbean.
But then his fortunes change dramatically.
DR BEEKER: He and his men were claimed to be pirates.
In the first stop he finds, the governor says,
"Oh, you're being accused of being a pirate"
and he says, "Why am I a pirate?"
NARRATOR: Because he's working for the English king,
Captain Kidd believes the captured ship is a legal prize.
What he doesn't know is that the treasure on board
belongs to a nobleman in the court of the Indian Mughal Emperor.
Kidd's theft triggers a crisis that threatens Britain's trade
along the African and Indian coasts.
That means he is now a very big problem to powerful people in London and a wanted man.
DR HANSELMANN: And he's sailing around the Caribbean in this really foreign ship
from the Indian Ocean, so it's not like he's inconspicuous.
NARRATOR: Kidd decides to leave his ship in the hands of a merchant
and heads to Boston to clear his name.
But there he's arrested and sent to London.
By now he's a pawn in an international power game and expendable.
Found guilty of piracy
he's sentenced to death.
DR BEEKER: When they hanged him up the first time, the rope broke.
He lands on the ground, and of course, I would think that might be a sign from God
or someone else that maybe we ought to talk about this.
No, they just strung him up a second time
and then took a gibbet and put is body into a steel cage
and hung that up to warn everyone else not to turn pirate.
NARRATOR: But what happened to the beautiful prize that cost a pirate his life,
the Quedagh Merchant?
The drained wreck site contains one final piece of information.
On some of the wood, tiny burn marks.
Charlie pieces this together with the matching number of cannon,
the last known sighting of the ship and its unique teak construction to confirm
that this really is Captain Kidd's ship and discovery its fate.
Even before Kidd's trial, the merchant looking after his ship starts to panic.
The beautiful Quedagh Merchant is now a floating liability.
And so, not wanting to share Kidd's fate,
he takes off what treasure he can and sets her ablaze.
She drifts gently down wind, before settling into her final resting place.
Charlie has his own pirate prize.
Captain Kidd's famous flagship positively identified.
DR BEEKER: So to actually find a pirate ship and prove a pirate ship,
it just doesn't get any better than that.
I mean, this is the real thing.
NARRATOR: With her towering stern castle, intricate carving and 30 guns,
the Quedagh Merchant was an irresistible, but deadly temptation.
Kidd's fate marks a sea change in Caribbean pirate history.
DR HANSELMANN: Eventually they cease giving these privateering commissions
but what happens is you have a large group of men
who are used to making a certain amount of money,
having some income, having some coin in their pocket
and all of a sudden they can't do that anymore.
They're not gonna go back to being normal sailors, getting paid lousy wages.
They're gonna become pirates.
NARRATOR: The fall of Captain Kidd heralds the golden age of piracy
as dozens of ex privateers now go way beyond the law, inspiring countless legends,
from Long John Silver to Jack Sparrow.
A character reminiscent of the most feared and famous pirate of them all,
the infamous Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.
And now, archaeologists may be about to solve an enduring mystery.
What happened to his flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge,
the most feared pirate ship of them all.
NARRATOR: June 10th, 1718.
The Queen Anne's Revenge, one of the most terrifying pirate ships of all time,
is prowling the Atlantic coast of North America.
She's fresh from one of the most daring raids in pirate history,
blockading the port of Charleston, South Carolina
when, our of nowhere, she runs aground.
The captain orders, "abandon ship."
He leaves some of his crew on a nearby island, then disappears.
A few months later, he is dead.
His name, Blackbeard.
The way Blackbeard has been portrayed in movies
and TV shows has shaped our idea of what a pirate looks and sounds like.
BLACKBEARD: Ahhaarr.
DR BRIGGS: I like to think of Blackbeard kind of
as the Jimi Hendrix of the pirate world.
He changed the face of piracy forever.
Blackbeard captured dozens of prizes, sank tons of ships
and really terrorized the Caribbean.
NARRATOR: Even in his own lifetime, Blackbeard is a living legend.
Contemporaries describe him as tall with a long frock coat packed with pistols,
blazing eyes and a giant beard, stuffed with burning cannon fuses
which fizzle as he walks.
After 300 years of mystery and legend,
what can this strange pile of metal reveal
about the fate of Blackbeard and his ship?
In 1996, in Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina,
a professional diving company called Intersal comes across something unexpected.
DAVID: They picked up a disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field
and so, when they picked that target up, the divers
were sent down to see what created that signature on the magne-tometer.
NARRATOR: They ask a team of archaeologists to investigate.
Among them, Dr. Lisa Briggs.
DR BRIGGS: If I'm honest it's kind of terrifying to dive on.
The water is really murky, it's a sand tiger shark breeding ground.
NARRATOR: As Lisa searches through the murky waters,
she discovers unusual looking shapes on the seabed.
DR BRIGGS: The first thing you're confronted with is this massive pile of artefacts,
but it's covered in sea urchins and lots of marine life
and you really have to try to interpret what it looked like in the past.
NARRATOR: Could these mysterious objects be from the Queen Anne's Revenge?
Using the dive scans made by Lisa and the team of investigators,
we can now drain away these murky waters to reveal a monster.
A mysterious pile of jagged metal, made of several cannon
and at least two giant anchors stuck together.
Nearby, scattered about, even more cannon, at least 24 in all.
Across the whole site, metal balls of various shapes and sizes.
DR BRIGGS: We're talking hundreds if not thousands of cannon balls.
This ship, it was armed to the teeth.
It had dozens of cannons, it had swivel guns on the decks
and it had over a quarter of a million pieces of lead shot.
NARRATOR: This is the kind of weaponry you'd expect
from the Caribbean's most fearsome pirate,
though it's not conclusive evidence that this is Blackbeard's ship.
But on the wreck site there's another clue.
A distinctive wooden structure and on it,
remarkably preserved, markings.
DR BRIGGS: A V and an I which in Roman numerals is a five and a one which is six.
This is a common marker for the depth of the stern post.
NARRATOR: The stern post is the piece of wood
at the back of the ship that holds the rudder.
The number corresponds to its height.
DR BRIGGS: When we actually measured it though,
we realized that this did not equate to six English feet,
this equated to six French feet.
NARRATOR: In the 18th century, the French and English
don't agree on anything, even the length of a foot.
DR BRIGGS: So, the stern post and probably the majority of the vessel
was constructed in France.
NARRATOR: Its French origins are a key piece of evidence.
Naval records reveal that Blackbeard's ship began
its life as a French frigate called La Concorde.
DR BRIGGS: We have archival evidence form the captain of La Concorde
who was making a case to his boss and said,
"Hey, I'm really sorry I lost the ship but this very terrifying pirate,
Blackbeard, took it from me."
NARRATOR: The location of the wreck, the overwhelming fire power
and the confirmed French origin all point to one conclusion.
DR BRIGGS: I'd say with probably a 99 percent accuracy
that this is the Queen Anne's Revenge, this is Blackbeard's ship.
NARRATOR: After 300 years, the most famous pirate ship of them all has been found.
And the archaeological evidence allows us, for the very first time,
to reconstruct Blackbeard's flagship in all her fearsome glory.
DAVID: She was a fast sailing warship,
a French light frigate, designed for speed.
And by the time Blackbeard got hold of her,
she literally would have been bristling with guns.
NARRATOR: This is a ship to strike fear into all who sailed the seas.
So why does Blackbeard abandon her and her crew?
The answer lies in British archives.
In 1718, with piracy plaguing the Caribbean,
the authorities launch a crackdown.
Blackbeard steers clear and heads north to escape.
But in the end, he realizes he can run but he can't hide.
DAVID: Continuing to operate a vessel the size and with the reputation
of Queen Anne's Revenge, he saw the writing on the wall.
NARRATOR: For all her firepower, the Queen Anne's Revenge is too small
to take on the might of the British Navy and yet too big to lie low.
Lisa concludes that is why Blackbeard runs her aground.
DR BRIGGS: This was a deliberate act,
not only getting rid of a ship that could have gotten him busted
further up the coast, but to keep a larger share of the treasure to himself
and get rid of over 100 pirates in the process.
NARRATOR: But Blackbeard can't shake the pirate life.
Six months later he's back, hoping for one final pay day
and this time the Royal Navy makes sure they do track him down and kill him.
With the death of Blackbeard, the golden age of piracy is drawing to a close.
Over 900 miles to the southeast,
on a remote reef in the Turks and Caicos Islands,
can these abandoned anchors help explain how Caribbean piracy finally ends.
NARRATOR: To the southeast of Blackbeard's former pirate stronghold in the Bahamas,
is the remote archipelago of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Michael Pateman is a historian who's become fascinated by a local legend
about an 18th century shipwreck on a reef far out to sea.
MICHAEL: Everyone talks about this is the most fascinating wreck to see.
This is the best wreck in the Caribbean.
What was the ship, what was it doing there, how did it wreck?
Who, who was on this ship?
NARRATOR: The wreck is nearly two hours away.
It's a risky journey.
This is hurricane season and the weather could change at any time.
MICHAEL: It can be perfectly calm in the harbour but we go out there
and it's rough and it's very isolated.
NARRATOR: Michael arrives at a spot around seven miles southwest
of the remote Big Sand Cay.
The swell keeps down just enough.
Forty feet beneath the waves, to one side of a jagged ridge of corral, are giant anchors.
Nearby, a cluster of cannon.
But with no surviving hull, it's impossible to know what ship this is.
Using Michael's scan data to drain this remote reef,
reveals a stunning underwater landscape, rich with clues.
To the side of an outcrop of coral, at least 28 cannon in a rough line.
A large pile of rectangular objects is ballast.
To the other side of the rock, anchors.
Each of these measure 15 ft in length and weigh 4500 lbs.
The ship wrecked here must have been large.
And what's more, the cannon all seem identical to each other.
To Michael's eye, the wreckage is at least 200 years old.
He consults the Turks and Caicos government records in the archives
of the national museum.
They confirm that in 1790, a vessel sinks in exactly
the spot where this wreck is located.
The casualty of a great storm.
She belongs to the British Royal Navy and her name is HMS Endymion.
HMS Endymion is 115 ft long.
Navy designers have managed to fit in not one but two gun decks,
doubling the number of cannons she's able to carry to an impressive 44.
She's unusually powerful for a ship of her class.
PROF GROVE: She's not meant to fight in the line of battle,
she's meant to operate in shallow waters
and operate against relatively small vessels.
She's a fast, well armed trade defence vessel.
She was the policeman on the beat.
NARRATOR: In other words, Endymion was a pirate stopper.
In the 60 years since Blackbeard, Britain's Royal Navy has become more powerful.
Beating other European powers for control of the seas,
it's now on a mission to stamp out piracy.
MICHAEL: Well, the Endymion is just a perfect example
of how the British controlled the seas in the Caribbean.
So you can just see this powerful vessel sailing around, escorting ships,
attacking pirates if there were pirates.
NARRATOR: Michael's research can now reveal
what caused the British Navy ship to sink.
On August 23rd, 1790 HMS Endymion is sailing alone in the open sea,
after protecting merchant ships from pirates, when she hits this uncharted reef.
But there are plenty of others ready to take her place.
Endymion was just one of dozens of vessels the Royal Navy had at its disposal,
all ready to take on the pirates of the Caribbean.
PROF GROVE: To lock this place down, you've got to exert overwhelming force.
You've got to show that you can outpirate the pirates.
NARRATOR: It's the end of the pirate's paradise.
Gone are the land grabs of Henry Morgan and the hit
and run antics of Captain Kidd and Blackbeard.
Now, the Caribbean's lawlessness is replaced by the rise of the British Empire
and then the emergence of the new United States of America.
MICHAEL: So, the Caribbean stopped being such a lawless environment
really after the European powers stopped fighting each other.
BLACKBEARD: Fire!
NARRATOR: The golden age of piracy is over.
But we've still not seen the last of them.
DR DELGADO: As long as there's crime, there's going to be crime on the water.
Any place where you have people passing through, isolated, vulnerable,
then a pirate's going to be there.
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