Studies of early modern piracy in Scotland have been weighted towards the North Sea and eastern sea ports. There are no comparative studies of Scotland’s west coast and Irish Sea regions during the late-sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. The maritime environment on Scotland’s west coast is markedly different from that of the east. Lowland Scots of the western burghs traversed the wider milieu of English, Welsh, Irish, Manx and Highland exchanges during the late-sixteenth century in a smaller, more intimate, body of water than that of the North Sea.

This chapter assesses the extent to which piracy affected Scotland’s sea ports along the southwest coast in this period, and how this problem was addressed. Scottish mariners on the southwest coast were not only victims, but also willing and able practitioners of maritime depredation. The preventative and reactionary policies of the Scottish crown and government are assessed in comparison to attempts to deal with piratical attacks by the seafaring communities themselves. It presents the argument that central authorities in Scotland largely failed to reduce piratical attacks, and thus created the need for the maritime communities themselves to act against pirates in the Irish Sea and North Channel. It demonstrates how piracy and maritime criminality presented a real danger to merchant shipping of the southwest, during a period where piracy was having a detrimental effect to the diplomatic status of mutual amity between the Scottish and English crowns.