Buccaneers and pirates of our coastsStockton, Frank R.
History
Buccaneers and pirates of our coasts
Stockton, Frank R.
Buccaneers -- Juvenile literature; Pirates -- Juvenile literature
When young Morgan reached the Barbadoes he was resold to a planter, and
during his term of service he probably worked a good deal harder and was
treated much more roughly than any of the laborers on his father's farm.
But as soon as he was a free man he went to Jamaica, and there were few
places in the world where a young man could be more free and more
independent than in this lawless island.
Here were rollicking and blustering "flibustiers," and here the young
man determined to study piracy. He was not a sailor and hunter who by
the force of circumstances gradually became a buccaneer, but he
deliberately selected his profession, and immediately set to work to
acquire a knowledge of its practice. There was a buccaneer ship about to
sail from Jamaica, and on this Morgan enlisted. He was a clever fellow
and very soon showed himself to be a brave and able sailor.
After three or four voyages he acquired a reputation for remarkable
coolness in emergencies, and showed an ability to take advantage of
favorable circumstances, which was not possessed by many of his
comrades. These prominent traits in his character became the foundation
of his success. He also proved himself a very good business man, and
having saved a considerable amount of money he joined with some other
buccaneers and bought a ship, of which he took command. This ship soon
made itself a scourge in the Spanish seas; no other buccaneering vessel
was so widely known and so greatly feared, and the English people in
these regions were as proud of the young Captain Morgan as if he had
been a regularly commissioned admiral, cruising against an acknowledged
enemy.
Returning from one of his voyages Morgan found an old buccaneer, named
Mansvelt, in Jamaica, who had gathered together a fleet of vessels with
which he was about to sail for the mainland. This expedition seemed a
promising one to Morgan, and he joined it, being elected vice-admiral of
the fleet of fifteen vessels. Since the successes of L'Olonnois and
others, attacks upon towns had become very popular with the buccaneers,
whose leaders were getting to be tired of the retail branch of their
business; that is, sailing about in one ship and capturing such
merchantmen as it might fall in with.
Mansvelt's expedition took with it not only six hundred fighting
pirates, but one writing pirate, for John Esquemeling accompanied it,
and so far as the fame and reputation of these adventurers was concerned
his pen was mightier than their swords, for had it not been for his
account of their deeds very little about them would have been known to
the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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