“None of those men were buccaneers,” his father declared. “Drake and Hawkins were privateers—Drake being Admiral of Queen Elizabeth’s navy—and won their fame in the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Later they attacked and took towns on the Spanish Main and destroyed Spanish ships, but they were neither pirates nor buccaneers. In fact, they were both dead before buccaneers became of any importance as sea rovers. On the other hand, Blackbeard was an ordinary pirate—a sea robber who made no attempt to discriminate between friend and foe and scuttled and robbed ships of his own countrymen as readily as those of other nationalities. But as he was an interesting character and was among the last of the important or dangerous pirates of the Caribbean I will tell you something of his life and career later. “The first buccaneer to rise to any fame was Pierre Le Grand, or as he was oftener called, Peter the Great, a native of Dieppe in Normandy. Le Grand’s first and only achievement, and the one which brought him fame, was the taking of the Vice Admiral of the Spanish fleet near Cape Tiburon in Haiti. With a small boat manned by twenty-eight of the rough buccaneers Le Grand set forth in search of prizes and cruised among the Bahamas, but for many days saw no ship. Provisions were running low, his men were grumbling and he had about decided to give up in despair when they sighted a huge Spanish ship which had become separated from the rest of the convoy. Setting sail they headed for the vessel and at twilight were very close. In order to force his men to their utmost, Le Grand ordered one of his crew to bore holes in the bottom of the boat and then, running their tiny craft alongside the Don, and armed only with swords and pistols, the buccaneers swarmed over the sides of the doomed ship. Taken absolutely by surprise, for the Spaniards had not dreamed that the handful of ragged men in a tiny sail boat intended to attack them, the crew of the ship, nevertheless, resisted stoutly. But they were ruthlessly cut down and while some of the buccaneers drove the Spaniards across the deck, others with Le Grand at their head, dashed into the cabin where the unsuspecting Vice Admiral was enjoying a quiet game of cards with his officers. “As Le Grand leaped across the room and placed his pistol at the Admiral’s breast the dumbfounded Spaniard exclaimed, ‘Lord bless us! Are these devils or what?’ “But he soon realized that whatever they were his ship was in their hands and that he and his men were prisoners. Le Grand, however, was neither a brutal nor a bloodthirsty wretch, as were many of his successors, and, having impressed as many of the Spanish seamen into his service as he required, he set the others, including the Admiral and the officers, ashore, and set sail with his prize for France. So great was the booty he secured by this one coup that he gave up buccaneering and settled down in France for life.