Most of the pirates were once poor working seamen, who were either mutinied when serial pirates seized a merchant vessel, or volunteered when pirates bombarded the vessels. There was a democratic and egalitarian culture on the ship as captains and quartermasters were chosen by popular voice votes. Pirates foment a social justice order and organized legal systems where they agreed upon a “distribution of justice” meted out by pirate crews upon their nobility victims. They showed no mercy and vociferous contempt they had for “for the merchant captain, royal official, and the system of authority those figures represented and enforced.(p.85)” Whereupon each crewmember had to abide and sign the creed of articles agreed upon by was the vagabond