The Pirates Whos Who | Page 4

in the pages of this book, but it has some very fine
engravings of such famous pirates as Avery, Roberts, Low, Lowther,
and "Blackbeard."

The third edition of the "History of Pirates," of 1725, has a quaint
frontispiece, showing the two women pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary
Read, in action with their swords drawn, upon the deck of a ship. While
the fourth edition, published in 1726, in two volumes, contains the
stories of the less well-known South-Sea Rovers.
After studying the subject of piracy at all closely, one cannot but be
struck by the number of pirates who came from Wales. Welshmen
figure not only amongst the rank and file, but amongst the leaders.
Morgan, of course, stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is
curious how certain races show particular adaptability for certain
callings. Up to two hundred years ago the chief pirates were Welshmen;
to-day most of our haberdashers hail from the same land of the leek. It
would be interesting to try and fathom the reason why these two
callings, at first sight so dissimilar, should call forth the qualities in a
particular race. Perhaps some of our leading haberdashers and linen
drapers will be willing to supply the answer.
I sometimes wonder what happens to the modern pirates; I mean the
men who, had they lived 200 years ago, would have been pirates. What
do they find to exercise their undoubted, if unsocial, talents and
energies to-day? Many, I think, find openings of an adventurous
financial kind in the City.
Politics, again, surely has its buccaneers. One can imagine, for example,
some leading modern politician--let us say a Welshman--who, like
Morgan, being a brilliant public speaker, is able by his eloquence to
sway vast crowds of listeners, whether buccaneers or electors, a man of
quick and subtle mind, able to recognize and seize upon the main
chance, perfectly ruthless in his methods when necessity requires, and
one who, having achieved the goal on which he had set his ambition,
discards his party or followers, as Morgan did his buccaneers after the
sacking of Panama. Nor is Europe to-day without a counterpart to the
ruffian crews who arrogantly "defied the world and declared war on all
nations."
One great difficulty which the author of this work is met with is to
decide who was, and who was not, a pirate.

Certain friends who have taken a kindly, if somewhat frivolous, interest
in the compilation of this work have inquired if Sir Francis Drake was
to be included; and it must be admitted that the question is not an easy
one to answer. The most fervent patriot must admit that the early
voyages of Drake were, to put it mildly, of a buccaneering kind,
although his late voyages were more nearly akin to privateering cruises
than piracy. But if, during the reign of King Philip, a Spaniard had been
asked if Drake was a pirate, he would certainly have answered, "Yes,"
and that without any hesitation whatever. So much depends upon the
point of view.
In the 1814 edition of Johnson's "History of Highwaymen and Pirates,"
the famous Paul Jones holds a prominent place as a pirate, and is
described in no half measures as a traitor; yet I doubt if in the schools
of America to-day the rising young citizens of "God's Own Country"
are told any such thing, but are probably, and quite naturally, taught to
look upon Paul Jones as a true patriot and a brave sailor. Again, there is
Christopher Columbus, the greatest of all explorers, about whom no
breath of scandal in the piratical way was ever breathed, who only
escaped being a pirate by the fact that his was the first ship to sail in the
Caribbean Sea; for there is little doubt that had the great navigator
found an English ship lying at anchor when he first arrived at the Island
of San Salvador, an act of piracy would have immediately taken place.
For the student who is interested there are other writers who have dealt
with the subject of piracy, such as the buccaneers Ringrose, Cooke,
Funnell, Dampier, and Cowley; Woodes Rogers, with his "Voyage to
the South Seas"; Wafer, who wrote an amusing little book in 1699
describing his hardships and adventures on the Isthmus of Darien. Of
modern writers may be recommended Mr. John Masefield's "Spanish
Main," "The Buccaneers in the West Indies," by C.H. Haring, and the
latest publication of the Marine Research Society of Massachusetts,
entitled "The Pirates of the New England Coast," and last, but far from
least, the works of Mr. A. Hyatt Verrill.
The conditions of life on a pirate ship appear to have been much the
same in all vessels. On procuring a craft by stealing or by mutiny of the

crew, the