Moreover, as the islands then under the British flag were not above harboring well-disposed pirate craft, it is exceedingly doubtful if even peppery old Governor Stapleton bestirred himself greatly, with his meager forces, against the buccaneers. He well knew that he could not hope to destroy or capture them all and that too much hostility would merely result in reprisals on British merchant ships which the struggling English colonies could ill afford. My quest for buccaneer relics or remains on St. John was not very successful. Sam and my St. Thomas friends had, as I have already mentioned, assured me that the place possessed many remains such as buildings and forts; that pirate cannon were scattered in the brush, and that weapons, pieces of eight, doubloons, and onzas had often been found by the natives. It was even hinted that somewhere about Rendezvouz Bay there was a vast pirate treasure hidden. But as there is no bit of land upon this planet whereon pirates actually or traditionally ever set foot that does not boast of its treasure-trove, I took the last-mentioned report for what it was worth and no more. Even on matter-of-fact St. Thomas—or, rather, on the outlying cays—there is supposed to be vast treasure concealed; and many a St. Thomian has spent much time and no little energy in industriously digging the soil in the vain hopes of unearthing this pirate gold. However, I did place credence in the tales of pirates’ ruins and pirates’ guns, and did not think it either impossible or improbable that an occasional ancient coin had been found. Indeed, when one old man vowed that there were even pirate wrecks to be seen, coral-incrusted, upon the sandy bottom of Privateers’ Bay, I judged it within the bounds of possibility that this might be so, for buccaneers’ ships sometimes sank, like other craft, and wood—especially stout oak and teak—will endure for many centuries under salt water. But, while I found St. John charming; although I enjoyed my tramps and rambles through its bay-filled forests and along its beautiful coast; while I found many an overgrown, deserted plantation and crumbling ruin of great house and mill bearing mute testimony to the negro uprising of two centuries ago; while I stood upon the height whereon that sturdy little company of Dutch and Danes had gathered at old Peter Duerloo’s barricaded and cannon-guarded home and driven back the savage black hordes; while near at hand I tripped over a rusty, ancient carronade which I saw fit to believe was one of the “two small guns” which according to history had hurled their death-dealing grapeshot among the blood-crazed negroes, still, of buccaneers I found no indisputable trace. There are some ancient crumbling walls near the landing-places at both Privateers’ and Rendezvous Bay,—ruins of man’s handiwork evidently antedating the oldest Danish or Dutch masonry upon St. John,—but there is nothing to prove that these were buildings erected by pirates.