Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 50550-h.htm or 50550-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50550/50550-h/50550-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50550/50550-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/captainwilliamki00abbo CAPTAIN WILLIAM KIDD AND OTHERS OF THE BUCCANEERS by JOHN S. C. ABBOTT [Illustration] New York Dodd, Mead and Company Publishers Copyright 1874, By Dodd & Mead. Copyright 1902, By Laura Abbott Buck. PREFACE. There can scarcely anything be found in the literature of our language, more wild and wonderful, than the narrative contained in this volume. The extraordinary career of Captain Kidd, a New-York merchant, the demoniac feats of those fiends in human form, Bonnet, Barthelemy, and Lolonois; the romantic history of the innocent female pirate Mary Read, and of the termagant Anne Bonney; the amazing career of Sir Henry Morgan, and the fanaticism of Montbar, scarcely surpassed by that of Mohammed or Loyola, combine in creating a story, which the imagination of Dickens or Dumas could scarcely rival. And yet these incidents seem to be well authenticated. The writer has drawn his facts from Esquemeling’s _Zee Roovers_, Amsterdam, 4to, 1684; Oexemelin’s _Histoire des Aventuriers_, 12mo, Paris, 1688; Johnson’s _History of the Pirates_, 2 vols., London, 1724; Thornbury’s _Monarchs of the Main_, 3 vols., London, 1855; _History of the Buccaneers of America_, 1 vol. 8vo, Boston, 1855; with many other pamphlets, encyclopædias, and secondary works. In exploring this hitherto almost unknown field of research, the writer has been as much surprised at the awful scenes which have opened before him, as any of his readers can be. There are but few thinking men who will peruse this narrative, to whom the suggestion will not arise, “What a different world would this have been, and would it now be, were all its inhabitants conscientiously, prayerfully, with brotherly love striving to do right.” And this is the religion of Jesus. He has taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come on earth as in heaven.” JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. FAIR HAVEN CONN CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. _Origin of the Buccaneers._ PAGE Renown of Captain Kidd.--Wild Legends.--Demands of Spain.--Opposition of the Maritime Powers.--The Rise of the Buccaneers.--The Pirates’ Code.--Remonstrance of Spain.--Reply of France and England.--Confession of a Buccaneer.--Adventures of Peter the Great. 9 CHAPTER II. _William Kidd becomes a Pirate._