Costain Thomas B. Costain 
For My Great Folly 

The story of a young scholar who leaves his books to join a pirate ship-and achieves manhood fighting side by side with the legendary buccaneer John Ward. For My Great Folly re-creates the fascinating era of English pirates who waged a private war with Spain in the seventeenth century and where the English sailors sought Spanish gold on the high seas during Stuart England under James I.