We hear much of the bold, wild ways of these adventurers; we have been taught by history and tradition to consider them devoid of redeeming qualities, and few of us realize that the buccaneers were far from being true pirates, that they were not alike, that many were corsairs through force of circumstances rather than by choice, that they had their own laws and code of honor, and that they were a most important factor in shaping the destiny of the New World. To them, incredible as it may seem, we owe an immense debt of gratitude. Had it not been for them the British never would have retained their foothold in the Caribbean, and we, to-day, might be under Spanish rule. Many of them, too, were educated men and left us records which are of incalculable scientific or historic value; for example, Dampier, who was a keenly observant field naturalist and devoted far more of his time to penning descriptions of fauna and flora than to slitting Spanish throats; [1] and Esquemelling, [2] the erstwhile accountant, who left us a classic as a result of his years as a ship’s supercargo among the buccaneers. Yearly, Americans by the thousands flock southward to tour or to stop for a time in the West Indies or about the shores of the Caribbean, but few of these are aware of the intimate associations with the buccaneers which all these places hold. Yet we may dwell in the very hostelry wherein pirate chieftains reveled and spent their ill-gotten gold; we stroll through little towns which have echoed to the ribald songs and lusty shouts of roistering pirate crews; we sail, in palatial steamships, above the long-forgotten hulks of burned and scuttled galleons, and we haggle with shopkeepers or native boatmen in whose veins may flow the blood of Morgan, Hawkins, or Montbars. Bereft of the buccaneers, the Caribbean and its shores lose their greatest fascination, and as the most desirable localities are those intimately associated with the sea-rovers and their deeds or misdeeds, it seems fitting to travel about the Spanish Main and the West Indies in the wake of the buccaneers. It is to point out the romantic associations of these waters and islands and make a visit to them more interesting, to weave a little of the lives and deeds of the buccaneers into the story of the locality, and to give brief sketches of the most noteworthy, while at the same time describing the places, their attractions, and their present condition, that this book has been prepared.