A link just for the fun of it.

[Coconut Kid]

Try looking here:

http://www.wargamer.com/aos/piracy.asp Link now dead 

One of the first entries:
"Avast, Matey, Thar Still Be Pirates
on the High Seas Today"

by Mark G. McLaughlin

A Brief History of Piracy Under Sail

     Piracy has been a way of life and commerce since the “Sea-peoples” ravaged Pharaoh’s trade routes over 3,000 years ago.  Those peoples and their descendants and emulators dominated the Mediterranean trade routes until Pompey and Caesar eradicated them in the last century before the birth of Christ.  Although there were always brigands afloat, large, organized pirate fleets disappeared from European history for nearly 800 years.  When they did return, they returned with a vengeance.
Mark G. McLaughlin is a war game designer who has published through GMT Games board and card games. Most are of the Napoleonic Era. Another, Rebel Raiders on the High Seas, is a comparatively short and simple game of the naval conflict at sea and on the great rivers in the American Civil War. Easily playable in less than three hours, Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic contest between two players, one seeking to reunite the Union by force, the other to maintain its new independence in the face of the escalating industrial might and resolve of its northern brother. More of a representation than a detailed simulation of that conflict, the game is intensely engaging, highly interactive and moves along quickly, with players constantly responding and reacting to their opponent’s moves.

I was unable to locate a new site with his article mentioned above.

[Coconut Kid]

The Wikipedia article is certainly worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates

The main article Piracy in the Caribbean is also worth while:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_Caribbean

In the early 19th century, piracy around the East coast of North America and The Gulf Coast as well as the Caribbean increased again. US Navy history states that hundreds of pirate attacks occured in American and Caribbean waters between the years of 1820 and 1835. The decline of European Naval presence in this time is a direct cause of the resurgence. After the American Revolution, from about 1783 to 1835, the United States was left to secure the region's waterways from pirates. At the time the US navy was very small compared to that of European countries. Therefore pirates in the Americas were able to reestablish a region of pirate havens. Jean Laffite is probably the greatest pirate/privateer of the time, operating in Carribean and American waters from his bases in Texas and Louisiana. About the time of the Mexican/American War, The United States Navy was strong enough and had basically destroyed the pirate threat in the West Indies. Ships were now converting to steam so the Golden Age of Sail and the classical idea of pirates in the Caribbean ended. Privateering, similar to piracy, continued as a asset in war for a few more decades.

Privateering would remain a tool of European states, and even of the newborn United States, until the mid-19th century's Declaration of Paris. But letters of marque were given out much more sparingly by governments and were terminated as soon as conflicts ended. The idea of “no peace beyond the Line” was a relic that had no meaning by the more settled late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.