The commander of one of the other ships was so much frightened by what
had occurred in so short a space of time that he ran his vessel aground
and wrecked her, her men jumping out into the water and making for the
land. As for the other ship, the pirates boldly attacked her and
captured her, and as she was a very fine vessel, Morgan left his own
small vessel, in which he had been commanding his fleet, and took
possession of her. Thus, in a very short time, the whole state of
affairs was changed. The Spaniards had no ships at all, and Morgan was
in command of a very fine vessel, in which he led his triumphant fleet.

Victory is a grand thing to a pirate as it is to every human being who
has been engaged in a conflict, but none of the joys of triumph could
equal the sordid rapacity of Morgan and his men. They spent days in
trying to recover the money and plate which were on board the sunken
Spanish ships. The sterns of these projected above water, and a great
deal of valuable treasure was recovered from them. The pirates worked
very hard at this, although they had not the slightest idea how they
were to pass the castle and get away with the plunder after they had
obtained it.

When the wrecks had been stripped of everything of value, the time came
for demanding a ransom for not burning the town and hanging the
prisoners, and as the poor citizens knew very well what they might
expect, they sent word to the admiral, who had escaped to the castle,
begging him to accede to the demands of Morgan, and to let the wretched
pirates go. But the admiral, Don Alonso, was a thoroughbred Spaniard,
and he would listen to no such cowardly suggestion. He would consent to
no ransom being paid, and on no account would he allow the pirates to
pass the channel. The citizens, however, who knew what was good for
them, raised the money, and paid the ransom in coin and cattle, and
Morgan declared that if the admiral would not let him out of the lake,
he would have to attend to that matter himself.

But before he made another bold stroke against the enemy his stingy and
niggardly spirit urged him to defend himself against his friends, and
before endeavoring to leave he ordered a division of the spoils. Many of
the goods taken from the two towns were on board the different vessels
of the fleet, and he was very much afraid that if his comrades, who
commanded the other ships, should be so fortunate as to get out to sea,
they would sail away with the booty they carried, and he would not see
any of it. Therefore, the booty from every ship was brought on board his
own fine vessel, and every man was put through an examination as rigid
as if he had been passing a custom house, and was obliged to prove that
he had not concealed or kept back any money or jewels. The value of the
plunder was very great, and when it had been divided, according to the
scale which Morgan had adopted, the pirate leader felt safe. He now had
his share of the prizes in his own possession, and that to him was more
important than anything else in the world.

The question of getting away was a very serious one; the greater part of
his fleet consisted of small vessels which could not defy the guns of
the fort, and as the stout hearts and brawny arms of his followers could
be of no use to him in this dilemma, Morgan was obliged to fall back
upon his own brains; therefore, he planned a trick.

When everything had been prepared for departure, Morgan anchored his
fleet at a distance from the castle, but not so far away that the
Spaniards could not observe his movements. Then he loaded some boats
with armed men and had them rowed ashore on the side of the channel on
which the castle stood. The boats landed behind a little wood, and there
the men, instead of getting out, crouched themselves down in the bottom
of the boats so that they should not be seen. Then the boats, apparently
empty, were rowed back to the pirate ships, and in a short time, again
full of men sitting, upright, with their muskets and cutlasses, they
went to the shore, and soon afterwards returned apparently empty as
before.

This performance was repeated over and over again, until the people in
the castle were convinced that Morgan was putting his men on shore in
order to make a land attack upon the rear of the castle during the
night. But the Spanish admiral was not to be caught by any such clumsy
stratagem as that, and, therefore, in great haste he had his big cannon
moved to the land side of the fort, and posted there the greater part of
his garrison in order that when the pirates made their assault in the
dead of the night they would meet with a reception for which they had
not bargained.

When it was dark, and the tide began to run out, the pirate vessels
weighed anchor, and they all drifted down toward the castle. Morgan's
spies had perceived some of the extraordinary movements in the Spanish
fortifications, and he therefore drifted down with a good deal of
confidence, although, had his trick been discovered in time it would
have gone very hard with his fleet. It is probable that he had taken all
these chances into consideration and had felt pretty sure that if the
cannon of the fort had been opened upon them it would not have been the
big ship which carried him and his precious load which would have been
sunk by the great guns, and that no matter what happened to the smaller
vessels and the men on board them, he and his own ship would be able to
sail away.

But the Spaniards did not perceive the approach of the drifting fleet,
for they were intrepidly waiting at the back of the castle to make it
very hot for the pirates when they should arrive. Slowly past the great
walls of the fort drifted the fleet of buccaneers, and then, at a
signal, every vessel hoisted its sails, and, with a good wind, sailed
rapidly toward the open sea. The last pirate vessel had scarcely passed
the fort when the Spaniards discovered what was going on, and in great
haste they rolled their cannon back to the water side of the fort and
began firing furiously, but it was of no use.

The pirates sailed on until they were out of danger, and then they
anchored and arranged for putting on shore the greater number of their
prisoners, who were only an encumbrance to them. As a parting insult,
Morgan fired seven or eight of his largest guns at the castle, whose
humiliated occupants did not reply by a single shot.

In order to understand what thoroughly contemptible scoundrels these
pirates were it may be stated that when Morgan and his men reached
Jamaica after a good deal of storm and trouble on the way, they found
there many of their comrades who had not been able to join them at their
rendezvous at Savona. These unfortunate fellows, who had not known where
Morgan had gone and were unable to join him, had endeavored to do some
piratical business of their own, but had had very little luck and a
great many misfortunes. Morgan's men, with their pockets full of money,
jeered and sneered at their poor comrades who had had such hard times,
and without any thought of sharing with them the least portion of their
own vile gains they treated them with contempt and derision.

The buccaneer, Captain Henry Morgan, was now a very great personage, but
with his next expedition, which was a very important one, and in its
extent resembled warfare rather than piracy, we shall have little to do
because his exploits in this case were not performed on our Atlantic
coasts, but over the Isthmus, on the shores of the Pacific.

Morgan raised a great fleet, carrying a little army of two thousand men,
and with this he made his way to the other side of the Isthmus and
attacked the city of Panama, which, of course, he captured. His terrible
deeds at this place resembled those which he performed after the capture
of the smaller towns which we have been considering, except that they
were on a scale of greater magnitude. Nearly the whole of the town of
Panama was burned, and the excesses, cruelties, and pillages of the
conquerors were something almost without parallel.

Before marching overland to Panama, Morgan had recaptured the island of
St. Catherine, which was a very valuable station for his purposes, and
had also taken the castle of Chagres on the mainland near by, and on his
return from the conquest and pillage of the unfortunate city he and his
forces gathered together at Chagres in order to divide the spoils.

Now came great trouble and dissatisfaction; many of the buccaneers
loudly declared that Morgan was taking everything that was really
valuable for his own, especially the precious stones and jewels, and
that they were getting a very small share of the booty of Panama. There
seemed to be good reason for these complaints, for the sum of about two
hundred dollars apiece was all that Morgan's men received after their
terrible hardships and dangers and the pillage of a very rich town. The
murmurings and complaints against Morgan's peculiar methods became
louder and more frequent, and at last the wily Welshman began to be
afraid that serious trouble would come to him if he did not take care of
himself. This, however, he was very capable of doing. Silently and
quietly one night, without giving notice to any of the buccaneers at
Chagres, except a few who were in his secret, Morgan, in his large ship,
sailed away for Jamaica, followed by only a few other vessels,
containing some of his favored companions.

When the great body of the buccaneers, the principal portion of which
were Frenchmen, found that their leader had deserted them, there was a
grand commotion, and if they had been able, the furious men who had had
this trick played upon them, would have followed Morgan to treat him as
they had so often treated the Spaniards. But they could not
follow--Morgan had taken great care that this should not happen. Their
ships were out of order; they had been left very short of provisions and
ammunition, and found that not only were they unable to avenge
themselves on their traitor leader, but that it would be very hard for
them to get away at all.

Poor Esquemeling, the literary pirate, was one of those who was left
behind, and in his doleful state he made the following reflection, which
we quote from his book: "Captain Morgan left us all in such a miserable
condition as might serve for a lively representation of what rewards
attend wickedness at the latter end of life. Whence we ought to have
learned how to regulate and amend our actions for the future."

After Morgan had safely reached Jamaica with all his booty, the idea
renewed itself in his mind of returning to St. Catherine, fortifying the
place and putting it in complete order, and then occupying it as a
station for all pirates, with himself the supreme governor and king of
the buccaneers. But before he had completed his arrangements for doing
this there was a change in the affairs at Jamaica: the king of England,
having listened to the complaints of the Spanish crown, had recalled the
former Governor and put him on trial to answer for the manner in which
he allowed the island to be used by the pirates for their wicked
purposes against a friendly nation, and had sent a new Governor with
orders to allow no buccaneers in Jamaica, and in every way to suppress
piracy in those parts.

Now the shrewd Morgan saw that his present business was likely to become
a very undesirable one, and he accordingly determined to give it up.
Having brutally pillaged and most cruelly treated the Spaniards as long
as he was able to do so, and having cheated and defrauded his friends
and companions to the utmost extent possible, he made up his mind to
reform, and a more thoroughly base and contemptible reformed scoundrel
was never seen on the face of the earth.

Morgan was now a rich man, and he lost no time in becoming very
respectable. He endeavored to win favor with the new Governor, and was
so successful that when that official was obliged to return to England
on account of his health, he left the ex-pirate in charge of the affairs
of the island in the capacity of Deputy-Governor. More than this, King
Charles, who apparently had heard of Morgan's great bravery and ability,
and had not cared to listen to anything else about him, knighted him,
and this preГ«minent and inhuman water-thief became Sir Henry Morgan.

In his new official capacity Morgan was very severe upon his former
associates, and when any of them were captured and brought before him,
he condemned some to be imprisoned and some to be hung, and in every
way apparently endeavored to break up the unlawful business of
buccaneering.

About this time John Esquemeling betook himself to Europe with all
possible despatch, for he had work to do and things to tell with which
the Deputy-Governor would have no sympathy whatever. He got away safely,
and he wrote his book, and if he had not had this good fortune, the
world would have lost a great part of the story of what happened to the
soft little baby who was born among the quiet green fields of Wales.

Even during the time that he was Deputy-Governor, Morgan was suspected
of sharing in the gains of some buccaneers at the same time that he
punished others, and after the death of Charles II. he was sent to
England and imprisoned, but what eventually became of him we do not
know. If he succeeded in ill-using and defrauding his Satanic Majesty,
there is no record of the fact.




Chapter XX

The Story of a High-Minded Pirate


After having considered the extraordinary performances of so many of
those execrable wretches, the buccaneers, it is refreshing and
satisfactory to find that there were exceptions even to the rules which
governed the conduct and general make-up of the ordinary pirate of the
period, and we are therefore glad enough to tell the story of a man,
who, although he was an out-and-out buccaneer, possessed some peculiar
characteristics which give him a place of his own in the history of
piracy.

In the early part of these sketches we have alluded to a gentleman of
France, who, having become deeply involved in debt, could see no way of
putting himself in a condition to pay his creditors but to go into
business of some kind. He had no mercantile education, he had not
learned any profession, and it was therefore necessary for him to do
something for which a previous preparation was not absolutely essential.

After having carefully considered all the methods of making money which
were open to him under the circumstances, he finally concluded to take
up piracy and literature. Even at the present day it is considered by
many persons that one of these branches of industry is a field of action
especially adapted to those who have not had the opportunity of giving
the time and study necessary in any other method of making a living.

The French gentleman whose adventures we are about to relate was a very
different man from John Esquemeling, who was a literary pirate and
nothing more. Being of a clerkly disposition, the gentle John did not
pretend to use the sabre or the pistol. His part in life was simply to
watch his companions fight, burn, and steal, while his only weapon was
his pen, with which he set down their exploits and thereby murdered
their reputations.

But Monsieur Raveneau de Lussan was both buccaneer and author, and when
he had finished his piratical career he wrote a book in which he gave a
full account of it, thus showing that although he had not been brought
up to a business life, he had very good ideas about money-making.

More than that, he had very good ideas about his own reputation, and
instead of leaving his exploits and adventures to be written up by other
people,--that is, if any one should think it worth while to do so,--he
took that business into his own hands. He was well educated, he had
been brought up in good society, and as he desired to return to that
society it was natural for him to wish to paint his own portrait as a
buccaneer. Pictures of that kind as they were ordinarily executed were
not at all agreeable to the eyes of the cultivated classes of France,
and so M. de Lussan determined to give his personal attention not only
to his business speculations, but to his reputation. He went out as a
buccaneer in order to rob the Spaniards of treasure with which to pay
his honest debts, and, in order to prevent his piratical career being
described in the coarse and disagreeable fashion in which people
generally wrote about pirates, he determined to write his own
adventures.

If a man wishes to appear well before the world, it is often a very good
thing for him to write his autobiography, especially if there is
anything a little shady in his career, and it may be that de Lussan's
reputation as a high-minded pirate depends somewhat on the book he wrote
after he had put down the sword and taken up the pen; but if he gave a
more pleasing color to his proceedings than they really deserved, we
ought to be glad of it. For, even if de Lussan the buccaneer was in some
degree a creature of the imagination of de Lussan the author, we have a
story which is much more pleasing and, in some respects, more romantic
than stories of ordinary pirates could possibly be made unless the
writer of such stories abandoned fact altogether and plunged blindly
into fiction.

Among the good qualities of de Lussan was a pious disposition. He had
always been a religious person, and, being a Catholic, he had a high
regard and veneration for religious buildings, for priests, and for the
services of the church, and when he had crossed the Atlantic in his
ship, the crew of which was composed of desperadoes of various nations,
and when he had landed upon the western continent, he wished still to
conform to the religious manners and customs of the old world.

Having a strong force under his command and possessing, in common with
most of the gentlemen of that period, a good military education, it was
not long after he landed on the mainland before he captured a small
town. The resistance which he met was soon overcome, and our high-minded
pirate found himself in the position of a conqueror with a community at
his mercy. As his piety now raised itself above all his other
attributes, the first thing that he did was to repair to the principal
church of the town, accompanied by all his men, and here, in accordance
with his commands, a Te Deum was sung and services were conducted by the
priests in charge. Then, after having properly performed his religious
duties, de Lussan sent his men through the town with orders to rob the
inhabitants of everything valuable they possessed.

The ransacking and pillaging of the houses continued for some time, but
when the last of his men had returned with the booty they had collected,
the high-minded chief was dissatisfied. The town appeared to be a good
deal poorer than he had expected, and as the collection seemed to be so
very small, de Lussan concluded that in some way or other he must pass
around the hat again. While he was wondering how he should do this he
happened to hear that on a sugar plantation not very far away from the
town there were some ladies of rank who, having heard of the approach of
the pirates, had taken refuge there, thinking that even if the town
should be captured, their savage enemies would not wander into the
country to look for spoils and victims.

But these ladies were greatly mistaken. When de Lussan heard where they
were, he sent out a body of men to make them prisoners and bring them
back to him. They might not have any money or jewels in their
possession, but as they belonged to good families who were probably
wealthy, a good deal of money could be made out of them by holding them
and demanding a heavy ransom for their release. So the ladies were all
brought to town and shut up securely until their friends and relatives
managed to raise enough money to pay their ransom and set them free, and
then, I have no doubt, de Lussan advised them to go to church and offer
up thanks for their happy deliverance.

As our high-minded pirate pursued his plundering way along the coast of
South America, he met with a good many things which jarred upon his
sensitive nature--things he had not expected when he started out on his
new career. One of his disappointments was occasioned by the manners and
customs of the English buccaneers under his command. These were very
different from the Frenchmen of his company, for they made not the
slightest pretence to piety.

When they had captured a town or a village, the Englishmen would go to
the churches, tear down the paintings, chop the ornaments from the
altars with their cutlasses, and steal the silver crucifixes, the
candlesticks, and even the communion services. Such conduct gave great
pain to de Lussan. To rob and destroy the property of churches was in
his eyes a great sin, and he never suffered anything of the kind if he
could prevent it. When he found in any place which he captured a wealthy
religious community or a richly furnished church, he scrupulously
refrained from taking anything or of doing damage to property, and
contented himself with demanding heavy indemnity, which the priests
were obliged to pay as a return for the pious exemption which he granted
them.

But it was very difficult to control the Englishmen. They would rob and
destroy a church as willingly as if it were the home of a peaceful
family, and although their conscientious commander did everything he
could to prevent their excesses, he did not always succeed. If he had
known what was likely to happen, his party would have consisted entirely
of Frenchmen.

Another thing which disappointed and annoyed the gentlemanly de Lussan
was the estimation in which the buccaneers were held by the ladies of
the country through which he was passing. He soon found that the women
in the Spanish settlements had the most horrible ideas regarding the
members of the famous "Brotherhood of the Coast." To be sure, all the
Spanish settlers, and a great part of the natives of the country, were
filled with horror and dismay whenever they heard that a company of
buccaneers was within a hundred miles of their homes, and it is not
surprising that this was the case, for the stories of the atrocities and
cruelties of these desperadoes had spread over the western world.

But the women of the settlements looked upon the buccaneers with greater
fear and abhorrence than the men could possibly feel, for the belief
was almost universal among them that buccaneers were terrible monsters
of cannibal habits who delighted in devouring human beings, especially
if they happened to be young and tender. This ignorance of the true
character of the invaders of the country was greatly deplored by de
Lussan. He had a most profound pity for those simple-minded persons who
had allowed themselves to be so deceived in regard to the real character
of himself and his men, and whenever he had an opportunity, he
endeavored to persuade the ladies who fell in his way that sooner than
eat a woman he would entirely abstain from food.

On one occasion, when politely conducting a young lady to a place of
confinement, where in company with other women of good family she was to
be shut up until their relatives could pay handsome ransoms for their
release, he was very much surprised when she suddenly turned to him with
tears in her eyes, and besought him not to devour her. This astonishing
speech so wounded the feelings of the gallant Frenchman that for a
moment he could not reply, and when he asked her what had put such an
unreasonable fear in her mind, she could only answer that she thought he
looked hungry, and that perhaps he would not be willing to wait
until--And there she stopped, for she could not bring her mind to
say--until she was properly prepared for the table.

"What!" exclaimed the high-minded pirate. "Do you suppose that I would
eat you in the street?" And as the poor girl, who was now crying, would
make him no answer, he fell into a sombre silence which continued until
they had reached their destination.

The cruel aspersions which were cast upon his character by the women of
the country were very galling to the chivalrous soul of this gentleman
of France, and in every way possible he endeavored to show the Spanish
ladies that their opinions of him were entirely incorrect, and even if
his men were rather a hard lot of fellows, they were not cannibals.

The high-minded pirate had now two principal objects before him. One was
to lay his hand upon all the treasure he could find, and the other was
to show the people of the country, especially the ladies, that he was a
gentleman of agreeable manners and a pious turn of mind.

It is highly probable that for some time the hero of this story did not
succeed in his first object as well as he would have liked. A great deal
of treasure was secured, but some of it consisted of property which
could not be easily turned into cash or carried away, and he had with
him a body of rapacious and conscienceless scoundrels who were
continually clamoring for as large a share of the available
spoils--such as jewels, money, and small articles of value--as they
could induce their commander to allow them, and, in consequence of this
greediness of his own men, his share of the plunder was not always as
large as it ought to be.

But in his other object he was very much more successful, and, in proof
of this, we have only to relate an interesting and remarkable adventure
which befell him. He laid siege to a large town, and, as the place was
well defended by fortifications and armed men, a severe battle took
place before it was captured. But at last the town was taken, and de
Lussan and his men having gone to church to give thanks for their
victory,--his Englishmen being obliged to attend the services no matter
what they did afterward,--he went diligently to work to gather from the
citizens their valuable and available possessions. In this way he was
brought into personal contact with a great many of the people of the
town, and among the acquaintances which he made was that of a young
Spanish lady of great beauty.

The conditions and circumstances in the midst of which this lady found
herself after the city had been taken, were very peculiar. She had been
the wife of one of the principal citizens, the treasurer of the town,
who was possessed of a large fortune, and who lived in one of the best
houses in the place; but during the battle with the buccaneers, her
husband, who fought bravely in defence of the place, was killed, and she
now found herself not only a widow, but a prisoner in the hands of those
ruthless pirates whose very name had struck terror into the hearts of
the Spanish settlers. Plunged into misery and despair, it was impossible
for her to foresee what was going to happen to her.

As has been said, the religious services in the church were immediately
followed by the pillage of the town; every house was visited, and the
trembling inhabitants were obliged to deliver up their treasures to the
savage fellows who tramped through their halls and rooms, swearing
savagely when they did not find as much as they expected, and laughing
with wild glee at any unusual discovery of jewels or coin.

The buccaneer officers as well as the men assisted in gathering in the
spoils of the town, and it so happened that M. Raveneau de Lussan, with
his good clothes and his jaunty hat with a feather in it, selected the
house of the late treasurer of the city as a suitable place for him to
make his investigations. He found there a great many valuable articles
and also found the beautiful young widow.

The effect produced upon the mind of the lady when the captain of the
buccaneers entered her house was a very surprising one. Instead of
beholding a savage, brutal ruffian, with ragged clothes and gleaming
teeth, she saw a handsome gentleman, as well dressed as circumstances
would permit, very polite in his manners, and with as great a desire to
transact his business without giving her any more inconvenience than was
necessary, as if he had been a tax-collector or had come to examine the
gas meter. If all the buccaneers were such agreeable men as this one,
she and her friends had been laboring under a great mistake.

De Lussan did not complete his examination of the treasurer's house in
one visit, and during the next two or three days the young widow not
only became acquainted with the character of buccaneers in general, but
she learned to know this particular buccaneer very well, and to find out
what an entirely different man he was from the savage fellows who
composed his company. She was grateful to him for his kind manner of
appropriating her possessions, she was greatly interested in his
society,--for he was a man of culture and information,--and in less than
three days she found herself very much in love with him. There was not a
man in the whole town who, in her opinion, could compare with this
gallant commander of buccaneers.

It was not very long before de Lussan became conscious of the favor he
had found in the eyes of this lady; for as a buccaneer could not be
expected to remain very long in one place, it was necessary, if this
lady wished the captor of her money and treasure to know that he had
also captured her heart, that she must not be slow in letting him know
the state of her affections, and being a young person of a very
practical mind she promptly informed de Lussan that she loved him and
desired him to marry her.

The gallant Frenchman was very much amazed when this proposition was
made to him, which was in the highest degree complimentary. It was very
attractive to him--but he could not understand it. The lady's husband
had been dead but a few days--he had assisted in having the unfortunate
gentleman properly buried--and it seemed to him very unnatural that the
young widow should be in such an extraordinary hurry to prepare a
marriage feast before the funeral baked meats had been cleared from the
table.

There was but one way in which he could explain to himself this
remarkable transition from grief to a new affection. He believed that
the people of this country were like their fruits and their flowers. The
oranges might fall from the trees, but the blossoms would still be
there. Husband and wives or lovers might die, but in the tropical hearts
of these people it was not necessary that new affections should be
formed, for they were already there, and needed only some one to receive
them.

As he did not undertake his present expedition for the purpose of
marrying ladies, no matter how beautiful they might be, it is quite
natural that de Lussan should not accept the proffered hand of the young
widow. But when she came to detail her plans, he found that it would be
well worth his while to carefully consider her project.

The lady was by no means a thoughtless young creature, carried away by a
sudden attachment. Before making known to de Lussan her preference for
him above all other men, she had given the subject her most careful and
earnest consideration, and had made plans which in her opinion would
enable the buccaneer captain and herself to settle the matter to the
satisfaction of all parties.

When de Lussan heard the lady's scheme, he was as much surprised by her
businesslike ability as he had been by the declaration of her affection
for him. She knew very well that he could not marry her and take her
with him. Moreover, she did not wish to go. She had no fancy for such
wild expeditions and such savage companions. Her plans were for peace
and comfort and a happy domestic life. In a word, she desired that the
handsome de Lussan should remain with her.

Of course the gentleman opened his eyes very wide when he heard this,
but she had a great deal to say upon the subject, and she had not
omitted any of the details which would be necessary for the success of
her scheme.

The lady knew just as well as the buccaneer captain knew that the men
under his command would not allow him to remain comfortably in that town
with his share of the plunder, while they went on without a leader to
undergo all sorts of hardships and dangers, perhaps defeat and death. If
he announced his intention of withdrawing from the band, his enraged
companions would probably kill him. Consequently a friendly separation
between himself and his buccaneer followers was a thing not to be
thought of, and she did not even propose it.

Her idea was a very different one. Just as soon as possible, that very
night, de Lussan was to slip quietly out of the town, and make his way
into the surrounding country. She would furnish him with a horse, and
tell him the way he should take, and he was not to stop until he had
reached a secluded spot, where she was quite sure the buccaneers would
not be able to find him, no matter how diligently they might search.
When they had entirely failed in every effort to discover their lost
captain, who they would probably suppose had been killed by wandering
Indians,--for it was impossible that he could have been murdered in the
town without their knowledge,--they would give him up as lost and press
on in search of further adventures.

When the buccaneers were far away, and all danger from their return had
entirely passed, then the brave and polite Frenchman, now no longer a
buccaneer, could safely return to the town, where the young widow would
be most happy to marry him, to lodge him in her handsome house, and to
make over to him all the large fortune and estates which had been the
property of her late husband.

This was a very attractive offer surely, a beautiful woman, and a
handsome fortune. But she offered more than this. She knew that a
gentleman who had once captured and despoiled the town might feel a
little delicacy in regard to marrying and settling there and becoming
one of its citizens, and therefore she was prepared to remove any
objections which might be occasioned by such considerate sentiments on
his part.

She assured him that if he would agree to her plan, she would use her
influence with the authorities, and would obtain for him the position of
city treasurer, which her husband had formerly held. And when he
declared that such an astounding performance must be utterly impossible,
she started out immediately, and having interviewed the Governor of the
town and other municipal officers, secured their signature to a paper in
which they promised that if M. de Lussan would accept the proposals
which the lady had made, he would be received most kindly by the
officers and citizens of the town; that the position of treasurer would
be given to him, and that all the promises of the lady should be made
good.

Now our high-minded pirate was thrown into a great quandary, and
although at first he had had no notion whatever of accepting the
pleasant proposition which had been made to him by the young widow, he
began to see that there were many good reasons why the affection, the
high position, and the unusual advantages which she had offered to him
might perhaps be the very best fortune which he could expect in this
world. In the first place, if he should marry this charming young
creature and settle down as a respected citizen and an officer of the
town, he would be entirely freed from the necessity of leading the life
of a buccaneer, and this life was becoming more and more repugnant to
him every day,--not only on account of the highly disagreeable nature of
his associates and their reckless deeds, but because the country was
becoming aroused, and the resistance to his advances was growing
stronger and stronger. In the next attack he made upon a town or village
he might receive a musket ball in his body, which would end his career
and leave his debts in France unpaid.

More than that, he was disappointed, as has been said before, in regard
to the financial successes he had expected. At that time he saw no
immediate prospect of being able to go home with money enough in his
pocket to pay off his creditors, and if he did not return to his native
land under those conditions, he did not wish to return there at all.
Under these circumstances it seemed to be wise and prudent, that if he
had no reason to expect to be able to settle down honorably and
peaceably in France, to accept this opportunity to settle honorably,
peaceably, and in every way satisfactorily in America.

It is easy to imagine the pitching and the tossing in the mind of our
French buccaneer. The more he thought of the attractions of the fair
widow and of the wealth and position which had been offered him, the
more he hated all thoughts of his piratical crew, and of the dastardly
and cruel character of the work in which they were engaged. If he could
have trusted the officers and citizens of the town, there is not much
doubt that he would have married the widow, but those officers and
citizens were Spaniards, and he was a Frenchman. A week before the
inhabitants of the place had been prosperous, contented, and happy. Now
they had been robbed, insulted, and in many cases ruined, and he was
commander of the body of desperadoes who had robbed and ruined them. Was
it likely that they would forget the injuries which he had inflicted
upon them simply because he had married a wealthy lady of the town and
had kindly consented to accept the office of city treasurer?

It was much more probable that when his men had really left that part of
the country the citizens would forget all their promises to him and
remember only his conduct toward them, and that even if he remained
alive long enough to marry the lady and take the position offered him,
it would not be long before she was again a widow and the office vacant.

So de Lussan shut his eyes to the tempting prospects which were spread
out before him, and preferring rather to be a live buccaneer than a dead
city treasurer, he told the beautiful widow that he could not marry her
and that he must go forth again into the hard, unsympathetic world to
fight, to burn, to steal, and to be polite. Then, fearing that if he
remained he might find his resolution weakened, he gathered together his
men and his pillage, and sadly went away, leaving behind him a joyful
town and a weeping widow.

If the affection of the young Spanish lady for the buccaneer chief was
sufficient to make her take an interest in his subsequent career, she
would probably have been proud of him, for the ladies of those days had
a high opinion of brave men and successful warriors. De Lussan soon
proved that he was not only a good fighter, but that he was also an
able general, and his operations on the western coast of South America
were more like military campaigns than ordinary expeditions of lawless
buccaneers.

He attacked and captured the city of Panama, always an attractive prize
to the buccaneer forces, and after that he marched down the western
coast of South America, conquering and sacking many towns. As he now
carried on his business in a somewhat wholesale way, it could not fail
to bring him in a handsome profit, and in the course of time he felt
that he was able to retire from the active practice of his profession
and to return to France.

But as he was going back into the circles of respectability, he wished
to do so as a respectable man. He discarded his hat and plume, he threw
away his great cutlass and his heavy pistols, and attired in the costume
of a gentleman in society he prepared himself to enter again upon his
old life. He made the acquaintance of some of the French colonial
officers in the West Indies, and obtaining from them letters of
introduction to the Treasurer-General of France, he went home as a
gentleman who had acquired a fortune by successful enterprises in the
new world.

The pirate who not only possesses a sense of propriety and a sensitive
mind, but is also gifted with an ability to write a book in which he
describes his own actions and adventures, is to be credited with unusual
advantages, and as Raveneau de Lussan possessed these advantages, he has
come down to posterity as a high-minded pirate.




Chapter XXI

Exit Buccaneer; Enter Pirate


The buccaneers of the West Indies and South America had grown to be a
most formidable body of reckless freebooters. From merely capturing
Spanish ships, laden with the treasures taken from the natives of the
new world, they had grown strong enough to attack Spanish towns and
cities. But when they became soldiers and marched in little armies, the
patience of the civilized world began to weaken: Panama, for instance,
was an important Spanish city; England was at peace with Spain;
therefore, when a military force composed mainly of Englishmen, and led
by a British subject, captured and sacked the said Spanish city, England
was placed in an awkward position; if she did not interfere with her
buccaneers, she would have a quarrel to settle with Spain.

Therefore it was that a new Governor was sent to Jamaica with strict
orders to use every power he possessed to put down the buccaneers and to
break up their organization, and it was to this end that he set a thief
to catch thieves and empowered the ex-pirate, Morgan, to execute his
former comrades.

But methods of conciliation, as well as threats of punishment, were used
to induce the buccaneers to give up their illegal calling, and liberal
offers were made to them to settle in Jamaica and become law-abiding
citizens. They were promised grants of land and assistance of various
kinds in order to induce them to take up the legitimate callings of
planters and traders.

But these offers were not at all tempting to the Brethren of the Coast;
from pirates _rampant_ to pirates _couchant_ was too great a change, and
some of them, who found it impossible to embark on piratical cruises, on
account of the increasing difficulties of fitting out vessels, returned
to their original avocations of cattle-butchering and beef-drying, and
some, it is said, chose rather to live among the wild Indians and share
their independent lives, than to bind themselves to any form of honest
industry.

The French had also been very active in suppressing the operations of
their buccaneers, and now the Brethren of the Coast, considered as an
organization for preying upon the commerce and settlers of Spain, might
be said to have ceased to exist. But it must not be supposed that
because buccaneering had died out, that piracy was dead. If we tear
down a wasps' nest, we destroy the abode of a fierce and pitiless
community, but we scatter the wasps, and it is likely that each one of
them, in the unrestricted and irresponsible career to which he has been
unwillingly forced, will prove a much more angry and dangerous insect
than he had ever been before.

This is what happened to these buccaneers who would not give up a
piratical life; driven away from Jamaica, from San Domingo, and even
from Tortuga, they retained a resting-place only at New Providence, an
island in the Bahamas, and this they did not maintain very long. Then
they spread themselves all over the watery world. They were no longer
buccaneers, they were no longer brothers of any sort or kind, they no
longer set out merely to pillage and fight the Spaniards, but their
attacks were made upon people of every nation. English ships and French
ships, once safe from them, were a welcome prey to these new pirates,
unrestrained by any kind of loyalty, even by any kind of enmity. They
were more rapacious, they were more cruel, they were more like fiends
than they had ever been before. They were cowardly and they no longer
proceeded against towns which might be defended, nor ran up alongside of
a man-of-war to boldly board her in the very teeth of her guns. They
confined themselves to attacks upon peaceable merchant vessels, often
robbing them and then scuttling them, delighted with the spectacle of a
ship, with all its crew, sinking hopelessly into the sea.

The scene of piratical operations in America was now very much changed.
The successors of the Brothers of the Coast, no longer united by any
bonds of fellowship, but each pirate captain acting independently in his
own wicked way, was coming up from the West Indies to afflict the
seacoast of our country.

The old buccaneers knew all about our southern coast, for they were
among the very first white men who ever set foot on the shores of North
and South Carolina before that region had been settled by colonists, and
when the only inhabitants were the wild Indians. These early buccaneers
often used its bays and harbors as convenient ports of refuge, where
they could anchor, divide spoils, take in fresh water, and stay as long
as they pleased without fear of molestation. It was natural enough that
when the Spanish-hating buccaneer merged into the independent pirate,
who respected no flag, and preyed upon ships of every nation, he should
feel very much at home on the Carolina coasts.

As the country was settled, and Charles Town, now Charleston, grew to be
a port of considerable importance, the pirates felt as much at home in
this region as when it was inhabited merely by Indians. They frequently
touched at little seaside settlements, and boldly sailed into the harbor
of Charles Town. But, unlike the unfortunate citizens of Porto Bello or
Maracaibo, the American colonists were not frightened when they saw a
pirate ship anchored in their harbors, for they knew its crew did not
come as enemies, but as friendly traders.

The early English colonists were not as prosperous as they might have
been if the mother country had not been so anxious to make money out of
them. They were not allowed to import goods from any country but
England, and if they had products or crops to export, they must be sold
to English merchants. For whatever they bought they had to pay the
highest prices, and they could not send into the markets of the world to
get the best value for their own productions.

Therefore it was that a pirate ship was a very welcome visitor in
Charles Town harbor. She was generally loaded with goods, which, as they
were stolen, her captain could afford to sell very cheaply indeed, and
as there was always plenty of Spanish gold on board, her crew was not
apt to haggle very much in regard to the price of the spirits, the
groceries, or the provisions which they bought from the merchants of the
town. This friendly commerce between the pirates and the Carolinians
grew to be so extensive that at one time the larger part of the coin in
circulation in those colonies consisted of Spanish gold pieces, which
had been brought in and used by the pirates for the purchase of goods.

But a pirate is very seldom a person of discretion, who knows when to
leave well enough alone, and so, instead of contenting themselves with
robbing and capturing the vessels belonging to people whom their Charles
Town friends and customers would look upon as foreigners, they boldly
sailed up and down the coast, seeking for floating booty wherever they
might find it, and when a pirate vessel commanded by an English captain
and manned principally by an English crew, fell in with a big
merchantman flying the English flag, they bore down upon that vessel,
just as if it had been French, or Spanish, or Dutch, and if the crew
were impertinent enough to offer any resistance, they were cut down and
thrown overboard.

At last the pirates became so swaggeringly bold and their captains so
enterprising in their illegal trading that the English government took
vigorous measures, not only to break up piracy, but to punish all
colonists who should encourage the freebooters by commercial dealings
with them. At these laws the pirates laughed, and the colonists winced,
and there were many people in Charles Town who vowed that if the King
wanted them to help him put down piracy, he must show them some other
way of getting imported goods at reasonable prices. So the pirates went
on capturing merchantmen whenever they had a chance, and the Carolinians
continued to look forward with interest to the bargain days which always
followed the arrival of a pirate ship. But this state of things did not
last, and the time came when the people of Charles Town experienced a
change of mind. The planters were now growing large quantities of rice,
and this crop became so valuable that the prosperity of the colonies
greatly increased. And now the pirates also became very much interested
in the rice crops, and when they had captured four or five vessels
sailing out of Charles Town heavily laden with rice, the people of that
town suddenly became aware of the true character of a pirate. He was now
in their eyes an unmitigated scoundrel who not only stole goods from all
nations, which he brought to them and sold at low prices, but he
actually stole their goods, their precious rice which they were sending
to England.

The indignant citizens of Charles Town took a bold stand, and such a
bold one it was that when part of a crew of pirates, who had been put
ashore by their comrades on account of a quarrel, made their way to the
town, thinking they could tell a tale of shipwreck and rely upon the
friendship of their old customers, they were taken into custody, and
seven out of the nine were hanged.

The occasional repetition of such acts as this, and the exhibition of
dangling pirates, hung up like scarecrows at the entrance of the
harbors, dampened the ardor of the freebooters a good deal, and for some
years they kept away from the harbor of Charles Town, which had once
been to them such a friendly port.




Chapter XXII

The Great Blackbeard comes upon the Stage


So long as the people of the Carolinas were prosperous and able to
capture and execute pirates who interfered with their trade the Atlantic
sea-robbers kept away from their ports, but this prosperity did not
last. Indian wars broke out, and in the course of time the colonies
became very much weakened and impoverished, and then it was that the
harbor of Charles Town began to be again interesting to the pirates.