Rafael Sabatini may come to the rescue!<br/><br/>Dr Peter Blood had been a soldier and a sailor, before settling down and taking up a life of medicine.<br/>Attending to rebels hurt in his village, he is captured by Royalists and sentenced for treason (for aiding rebels).<br/>He escapes death by hanging because slaves are needed to work plantations in the New World.<br/>When the Spanish attack he escapes, and with fellow slaves seizes a pirate ship and becomes Captain Blood.<br/><br/>You've got a good reason for a deep well of anger, you've got billowy white shirts and fancy pirate hats, cutlasses and rapiers...<br/><br/>The Sea Hawk features a similar betrayal, this time by a half-brother.<br/><br/>These (and other Sabatini novels) were turned into pirate films, filled with swashbuckling.