The success of Morgan’s enterprise stimulated the piratical crews to similar deeds of daring, and the depredations continued, not only in the West Indies and eastern South America, but afterwards along the Pacific, the cities of Leon, in Mexico, New Granada, on the lake of Nicaragua, and Guayaquil, the port of Quito, being taken, sacked, and burned. Finally, France and England joined Spain in efforts for their suppression, the coasts were more strictly guarded, and many of the freebooters settled as planters or became mariners in honest trade. Some of them, however, continued in their old courses, dispersing over all seas as enemies of the shipping of the world; but by the year 1700 their career had fairly come to an end, and the race of buccaneers ceased to exist. ELIZABETH FARNESE AND ALBERONI. In 1714 certain events took place in Spain of sufficient interest to be worth the telling. Philip V., a feeble monarch, like all those for the century preceding him, was on the throne. In his youth he had been the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. of France, and upon the death of that great monarch would be close in the succession to the throne of that kingdom. But, chosen as king of Spain by the will of Charles II., he preferred a sure seat to a doubtful one, and renounced his claim to the French crown, thus bringing to an end the fierce "War of the Succession," which had involved most of the powers of Europe for many years. Philip, by nature weak and yielding, became in time a confirmed hypochondriac, and on the death of his wife, Maria Louise, in 1714, abandoned himself to grief, refusing to attend to business of any kind, shutting himself up in the strictest seclusion, and leaving the affairs of the kingdom practically in the hands of the Princess Orsini, the governess of his children, and his chief adviser. Sorrow-stricken as was the bereaved king, affairs were already in train to provide him with a new wife, a plan being laid for that purpose at the very funeral of his queen, as some writers say, between the ambitious Princess Orsini and a cunning Italian named Alberoni, while they, with a show of grave decorum, followed Maria Louise to the grave. The story of Alberoni is an interesting one. This man, destined to become prime minister of Spain, began life as the son of a gardener in the duchy of Parma. While a youth he showed such powers of intellect that the Jesuits took him into their seminary and gave him an education of a superior character. He assumed holy orders and, by a combination of knowledge and ability with adulation and buffoonery, made his way until he received the appointment of interpreter to the Bishop of St. Domino, who was about to set out on a mission from the Duke of Parma to the Duke of Vendôme, then commander of the French forces in Italy.