In Buccaneers and Pirates, by Frank R. Stockton, he mentions wanting to "be called a marine Robin Hood" and how he would "take from the rich and give to the poor" (Stockton 1). But, if we look at the facts in Under the Black Flag, we read that "pirates were not maritime versions of Robin Hood and his Merry Men" (Cordingly xiv).
Another connection can be made to where most pirates came from. In Under the Black Flag, Stockton writes, "The French played a major part in the history of piracy. Many of the most successful and most fearsome of the buccaneers who prowled the prowled the Spanish Main came from French seaports" (Cordingly xvi). In Buccaneers and Pirates, the author states, "There was a Frenchman of that period who must have been a warm-hearted philanthropist, because, having read accounts of the terrible atrocities of the Spaniards in the western lands, he determined to leave his home and his family, and become a buccaneer, in order that he might do what he could for the suffering natives in the Spanish possessions" (Stockton 18-19). Both accounts are completely opposite, contrasting in the motives of the buccaneers. Both mention them being French, but Cordingly writes that they're brutal, while Stockton perceives them as kind and doing their duty to society, even going as far as calling the Frenchman a "philanthropist," coming from the French etymology,"philanthropique," or the Greek word, "philanthrōpos," meaning 'man-loving.'
