I love Pirates! (NES version), it's such an awesome game. Had to find a Caribbean map for navigation though since I got tired of navigating via memory (and not finding any towns nearby as easily, especially my starting town). Apparently, with the original game, it gave you a map to navigate with. With that, I also learned how the sun sight also works (when the sun hits it's apex, line up the top of the sight with the bottom of the sun, there, you'll get an accurate longitude. Very damn helpful when trying to figure out where you are alongside a map.
Although I was playing as an apprentice (IE- Easy mode) to get the hang of it, when it came dividing time, post selling of my ships (except a war galleon I snagged), capturing the Treasure Fleet, and finding 2 treasure chests, maxing out my food stores and more than enough cannons to make chump meat out of St. Augustine, I had a grand total value of 101100 pieces of eight. Due my ranking and difficulty, I kept 5880 5200 of it. Not a bad start for ascending to a higher difficulty.
Oh yeah, and nearly 2 in-game years passed since I started the game, and I am now a well-known journeyman English Captain (age: 26, and in fine health) sword master, the Spanish hate my guts since I also have one of their ships (War galleon) which I flaunt in their territory and raid their forts like no tomorrow; I carry with me (new game+ difficulty up to Journeyman) 6770 Gold, and 550 acres of land, and have 1/4 of a map to a lost family member (plantation), and a complete treasure map not far from start. All I need is an invasion Sloop ship, and I'll be set to sell more ships.
I haven't had so much fun in a game like this in a long time.
EDIT:
Maybe I should've revisited town to lessen my troops before dividing. I'll reload the past save before I did so and see if I can plunder more.