They found him surrounded by books with odd, old-fashioned, worn leather bindings and with some faded and yellowed maps and cuts on the table before him. “Well, boys,” he greeted them, “I suppose you want to know all about the buccaneers who sailed the Spanish Main, eh?” “Yes, and Fred wants to know if Captain Kidd was a pirate or a buccaneer,” replied Jack. “Neither!” laughed his father. “Captain Kidd was, as you boys would say, ‘the goat’ of a lot of unprincipled men. But we’re getting ahead too fast. We’ll discuss the famous Kidd when we come to him.” “Well, that gets me!” declared Fred, as the boys found comfortable seats in the big leather chairs. “Captain Kidd not a pirate!” “Pirates,” began Mr. Bickford, leaning back in his chair, “have been known ever since men first used boats. The earliest histories mention them. There were Phœnician pirates, Greek pirates, Roman pirates, and the old Vikings were nothing more or less than pirates. Then there were the Malay pirates, the Tripolitan pirates and the Chinese pirates who still exist, and we still have harbor pirates, oyster pirates and river pirates. A pirate is any one who preys upon shipping or steals merchandise in a boat, and he may be and usually is a sneaking, cowardly rascal without a redeeming feature. Moreover, a pirate preys on any one and every one, and while some pirates, such as the Vikings, confined their forays to certain nations and their ships and did not molest others, yet most pirates loot, murder and destroy with impartiality and fall upon their own countrymen or others alike. But the buccaneers were very different. In the first place, buccaneers were not known until comparatively recent times and the first buccaneers had their origin in 1625. “At that time England was at war with Spain, and the Spanish Government claimed all the New World and decreed that any ships found trading in the Caribbean or neighboring waters, or any settlers found upon the islands or the Spanish Main, were pirates and would be treated as such.” “But, Dad, what is the Spanish Main?” asked Jack, interrupting.