Goofs

In the sequence when Thorpe & the galley slaves are preparing to escape, a guard descends to check on noise below deck. Just before his POV shot of the "sleeping slaves" cuts back to him, a slave can be seen creeping out behind the second row on the lower right. But on the cut, the guard, still looking, turns away.

When the crew intercept a shipment of gold in the Panama forest, they fire multiple shots from muzzle loading flintlocks without reloading. Although the flintlocks were not available at the time, most men would carry two pistols into a fight because they knew they would not have an opportunity to reload.

When Thorpe is being escorted to the Queen's chambers, he finds his lost monkey. They are together when the Queen enters. Thorpe bows and sets the monkey on the floor. The monkey is standing by himself. In the succeeding closeup, the monkey is holding Thorpe's hand.

In the initial battle scene, the Albatross is shown sailing around the Spanish ship with her sails always set the same. This means that she had to sail into the wind at some point, which is impossible for sailing ships.

English pirates and privateers did not operate in the English Channel. They operated in the Caribbean Sea, the area through which Spanish convoys carrying gold back to Spain normally passed through.

During the initial battle between the Albatross and the Spanish ambassador's ship, the Spanish captain orders the cannon to be double-shotted. That means to load two balls (shots) into each cannon. While such a tactic was used during battles, typically it was reserved for close-in battles when distance was not a concern - the object was to maximize damage. No wonder the Spanish broadside fell short. Also only one splash per gun can be seen - double-shots would have generated two splashes per gun and while they may have been close together, they would have been distinct.

Just before the Albatross engages with the Spanish ambassador's ship, one of Thorpe's men says "We're sucking the wind out of the Spaniard's sails." In order to employ such a tactic, one ship must be directly upwind of the other. Then the wind does not reach the downwind ship because it was "sucked up" by the upwind ship. The positions of the two ships do not at all support that tactic.

In the conversation with the astronomer in which he attempts to explain where the constellation of Orion will pass over land, the astronomer makes mention of the Earth turning on its axis. This wasn't promulgated until Galileo began making observations with his telescope in n1609, twenty-one years or later after the events in this film.

All the Spaniards speak English with each other instead of Spanish. They only speak Spanish to the Indians. However, it was not common at the time the film was made to have long stretches of dialogue in a foreign language and then subtitle them. This became more common in the 1960s.

The opening sea engagement between the Albatross and the Spanish ship shows The Spanish ship using galley slaves to move the ship. The captain makes an open apology saying "The sails cannot entice the wind", and yet the Albatross closes under full sail and catches up to the Spanish ship within a few minutes. This is impossible, even if both ships were under full sail, it would take hours for one ship to close enough for combat when first sighted by the lookout.

Captain Ortiz opens a door towards the end of the movie when he is running away from Thorpe and a thin wire is visible, attached to the door. A sword slides down the wire to give the impression that it is thrown at Ortiz and barely misses him.

During the initial fight, stock footage is used showing two Napoleonic era ships of the line at close quarters. There is only a minor similarity between the galleys of the 16th century and the ships of the line of the late 18th century.

Horse teams are carefully assembled so that they work well together, with each position having a horse that does well in that position. One cannot simply take a horse without team experience - such as the typical Hollywood saddle mounted horses - and use them on a team. When Doña Maria takes the carriage, the right front horse is fighting the team rig, constantly trying to bolt and running at an angle to the rig. This is clearly a saddle horse and an extremely disturbed one, given the circumstances.

During the ship combat scene, one of the pirates swings on a rope and knocks down two men sitting on a mast. As he does so, the cutlass he is holding in his teeth falls down as the man recovers his balance.

At the beginning of the movie during King Phillip's monologue, the map on the wall shows western and northern parts of the North American continent which were not known at the time.

The story takes place in 1588. The flint-lock muskets and pistols used in the film were not in use until two-hundred years later.

When Sir John greets Capt Thorpe, they shake hands. This greeting did not become customary in Europe for another century.

Doña Maria says that one of the flowers in the garden was a different species than the others. The concept of a species was created by Linaeus in the 18th century.

When attacking Don Alvarez' ship, The quartermaster orders to "rake the ship from the stern". This tactic of shooting parallel to the length of the ship, was only first used in naval combat until the mid XVII century, when the ship of the line was built. Before that time, naval gun technology was not developed enough for raking to be effective.

In the galley fight scene between Thorpe, some of the escaping galley slaves, and the Spanish captains in the great room, Thorpe chases one captain with the letters. In an outside shot, the captain opens a door to escape, the line to guide a cutlass thrown at Thorpe that misses and goes into the door is briefly visible.

When Doña Maria returns to London from Dover with Capt Thorpe in the back with her, the impression is given the trip will be short. The driver curses the fog making them late in getting to London.

The trip from Dover to London (roughly 75 miles) would have take two to three days (depending on weather) by coach. Even only stopping to change horses the trip would have been a good day to day and a half journey. Not the few hours depicted in the movie.

Shortly after Capt Thorpe is put aboard the galley as a slave, there is a screen comment saying "Along the Coast of Seville". A small boat approaches from the shore with dispatches for Cadiz.

Seville (the province and city) are both land locked. Seville is also only 60 miles from Cadiz by land.

When Thorpe and his men approach the Albatross after escaping the ambush, they comment there is no watch set. Yet until they board the ship they fail to see the corpse hanging from the yardarm.

When what's left of Captain Thorpe and his men are coming back to their ship after being ambushed by the Spanish, you can see the shadow of a boom mic on the upper right portion of the ship on the screen.

Captain Lopez refers to his ship as a galley. Galleys were narrow, coastal ships moved by oars with two masts and lateen-rig (all triangular sails), and were not suited for rough seas like the English Channel. The ship is a galleon.