The Pirates Whos Who | Page 2

of pirates in
that monumental work with the rich profusion of divines! Even during
the years when piracy was at its height--say from 1680 until 1730--the
pirates are utterly swamped by the theologians. Can it be that these two
professions flourished most vigorously side by side, and that when one
began to languish, the other also began to fade?

Even so there can be no excuse for the past and present neglect of these
sea-adventurers. But a change is beginning to show itself. Increasing
evidence is to be found that the more intelligent portions of the
population of this country, and even more so the enlightened of the
great United States of America, are beginning to show a proper interest
in the lives of the pirates and buccaneers. That this should be so
amongst the Americans is quite natural, when it is remembered what a
close intimacy existed between their Puritan forefathers of New
England and the pirates, both by blood relation and by trade, since the
pirates had no more obliging and ready customers for their spoils of
gold dust, stolen slaves, or church ornaments, than the early settlers of
New York, Massachusetts, and Carolina.
In beginning to compile such a list as is to be found in this volume, a
difficulty is met at once. My original intention was that only pirates and
buccaneers should be included. To admit privateers, corsairs, and other
sea-rovers would have meant the addition of a vast number of names,
and would have made the work unwieldy, and the very object of this
volume as a book of ready reference would not have been achieved.
But the difficulty has been to define the exact meaning of a pirate and
of a buccaneer. In the dictionary a pirate is defined as "a sea-robber,
marauder, one who infringes another's copyright"; while a buccaneer is
described as "a sea-robber, a pirate, especially of the Spanish-American
coasts." This seems explicit, but a pirate was not a pirate from the
cradle to the gallows. He usually began his life at sea as an honest
mariner in the merchant service. He perhaps mutinied with other of the
ship's crew, killed or otherwise disposed of the captain, seized the ship,
elected a new commander, and sailed off "on the account." Many an
honest seaman was captured with the rest of his ship's crew by a pirate,
and either voluntarily joined the freebooters by signing their articles, or,
being a good navigator or "sea-artist," was compelled by the pirates to
lend them his services. Others, again, were in privateer ships, which
carried on a legitimate warfare against the shipping of hostile countries,
under a commission or letter of marque.
Often the very commission or letter of marque carried about so
jealously by some shady privateer was not worth the paper it was

written on, nor the handful of dubloons paid for it. One buccaneer
sailed about the South Seas, plundering Spanish ships and sacking
churches and burning towns, under a commission issued to him, for a
consideration, by the Governor of a Danish West India island, himself
an ex-pirate. This precious document, adorned with florid scrolls and a
big, impressive seal, was written in Danish. Someone with a knowledge
of that language had an opportunity and the curiosity to translate it,
when he found that all it entitled the bearer to do was to hunt for goats
and pigs on the Island of Hispaniola, and nothing more.
When, at the conclusion of hostilities, peace was declared, the crew of a
privateer found it exceedingly irksome to give up the roving life, and
were liable to drift into piracy. Often it happened that, after a long
naval war, crews were disbanded, ships laid up, and navies reduced,
thus flooding the countryside with idle mariners, and filling the roads
with begging and starving seamen. These were driven to go to sea if
they could find a berth, often half starved and brutally treated, and
always underpaid, and so easily yielded to the temptation of joining
some vessel bound vaguely for the "South Sea," where no questions
were asked and no wages paid, but every hand on board had a share in
the adventure.
The buccaneers were a great source of piracy also. When a war was on
hand the English Government was only too glad to have the help of
these daring and skilful seamen; but when peace was declared these
allies began to lead to international complications, and means had to be
taken to abolish them, and to try and turn them into honest settlers in
the islands. But when a man has for years lived the free life, sailed out
from Jamaica a pauper, to return in six weeks or less with, perhaps, a
bag of gold worth two, three, or four thousand