Book of Pirates | Page 7

other suffered; what one gained, the other gained. The only separation that
came betwixt them was death, and then the survivor inherited all that the other left. And
now it was another thing with Spanish buccaneer hunting, for two buccaneers, reckless of
life, quick of eye, and true of aim, were worth any half dozen of Spanish islanders.
By and by, as the French became more strongly organized for mutual self- protection,
they assumed the offensive. Then down they came upon Tortuga, and now it was the turn
of the Spanish to be hunted off the island like vermin, and the turn of the French to shout
their victory.
Having firmly established themselves, a governor was sent to the French of Tortuga, one
M. le Passeur, from the island of St. Christopher; the Sea Turtle was fortified, and
colonists, consisting of men of doubtful character and women of whose character there
could be no doubt whatever, began pouring in upon the island, for it was said that the
buccaneers thought no more of a doubloon than of a Lima bean, so that this was the place
for the brothel and the brandy shop to reap their golden harvest, and the island remained
French.
Hitherto the Tortugans had been content to gain as much as possible from the
homeward-bound vessels through the orderly channels of legitimate trade. It was reserved
for Pierre le Grand to introduce piracy as a quicker and more easy road to wealth than the

semi-honest exchange they had been used to practice.
Gathering together eight-and-twenty other spirits as hardy and reckless as himself, he put
boldly out to sea in a boat hardly large enough to hold his crew, and running down the
Windward Channel and out into the Caribbean Sea, he lay in wait for such a prize as
might be worth the risks of winning.
For a while their luck was steadily against them; their provisions and water began to fail,
and they saw nothing before them but starvation or a humiliating return. In this extremity
they sighted a Spanish ship belonging to a "flota" which had become separated from her
consorts.
The boat in which the buccaneers sailed might, perhaps, have served for the great ship's
longboat; the Spaniards out-numbered them three to one, and Pierre and his men were
armed only with pistols and cutlasses; nevertheless this was their one and their only
chance, and they determined to take the Spanish ship or to die in the attempt. Down upon
the Spaniard they bore through the dusk of the night, and giving orders to the
"chirurgeon" to scuttle their craft under them as they were leaving it, they swarmed up
the side of the unsuspecting ship and upon its decks in a torrent--pistol in one hand and
cutlass in the other. A part of them ran to the gun room and secured the arms and
ammunition, pistoling or cutting down all such as stood in their way or offered opposition;
the other party burst into the great cabin at the heels of Pierre le Grand, found the captain
and a party of his friends at cards, set a pistol to his breast, and demanded him to deliver
up the ship. Nothing remained for the Spaniard but to yield, for there was no alternative
between surrender and death. And so the great prize was won.
It was not long before the news of this great exploit and of the vast treasure gained
reached the ears of the buccaneers of Tortuga and Hispaniola. Then what a hubbub and
an uproar and a tumult there was! Hunting wild cattle and buccanning the meat was at a
discount, and the one and only thing to do was to go a-pirating; for where one such prize
had been won, others were to be had.
In a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular business. Articles were
drawn up betwixt captain and crew, compacts were sealed, and agreements entered into
by the one party and the other.
In all professions there are those who make their mark, those who succeed only
moderately well, and those who fail more or less entirely. Nor did pirating differ from
this general rule, for in it were men who rose to distinction, men whose names, something
tarnished and rusted by the lapse of years, have come down even to us of the present day.
Pierre Francois, who, with his boatload of six-and-twenty desperadoes, ran boldly into
the midst of the pearl fleet off the coast of South America, attacked the vice admiral
under the very guns of two men-of-war, captured his ship, though she was armed with
eight guns and manned with threescore men, and would have got her safely away, only
that having to put on sail, their mainmast