Book excerpt: When the Templars were disbanded by papal order in 1307, their fleet disappeared from its base at La Rochelle. The author maintains that a portion of the fleet became the first pirates to fly the Skull and Crossbones - marauding through the Mediterranean, and later preying on the ships of the Vatican coming from the rich ports of the Americas as the Pirates of the Caribbean. Another portion of the fleet fled to the deep fiords of Scotland and came under the command of the St Clair family of Rosslyn - the founders of freemasonry. These Templars made a voyage to Canada in the year 1398, nearly 100 years before Columbus.