Illustration of Captain Bartholomew Roberts with two ships the Royal Fortune and the Ranger taking sail from Whydah Road Ouidah on the Coast of Guinea, 11th January 1722. Bartholomew Roberts (1682-1722), born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who was, measured by vessels captured, the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy. From A general history of the pyrates, from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny by Captain Charles Johnson and Daniel Defoe (1724).