Even women, like Anne Bonny and Mary Read, turned pirates and handled sword and pistol.

Desperate, reckless, and lawless, they were filled with the spirit of adventure, and were the forerunners of the men that Hawke, Nelson, and Dundonald led to victory.
Long after they had disappeared from the seas the Indian trade continued to be exposed to the ravages of native pirates, who were not finally coerced into good behaviour till well into the nineteenth century.

Of the European pirates Kidd, the most ignoble of them all, is alone remembered, while the name of Angria is only recalled in connection with the destruction of Gheriah by Watson and Clive.

The long half-century of amateur warfare waged by Bombay against the Angrian power is dismissed in a few words by our Indian historians, and the expeditions sent forth by Boone against Angrian strongholds are passed over in silence.

An account of some of them is given in Clement Downing's curious little book "Indian Wars," valuable as the relation of an eye-witness; but the work, published in 1737, is inaccessible to the general reader, besides shewing many omissions and inaccuracies.
The early records of the East India Company have furnished the foundation on which this neglected chapter of our Indian history has been compiled.
If the Company's servants appear at times in an unfavourable light, the conditions of their service must be considered, while the low standard of conduct prevailing in England two hundred years ago must not be forgotten.
They were traders, not administrators, and the charter under which the Company traded was of very insecure duration.