“I’ll tell you of him presently,” replied Mr. Bickford, “but let us follow up the history of the buccaneers in its proper sequence first. As I have said, the buccaneers, as such, were practically destroyed when Morgan was made Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica and waged a relentless war on his former associates. But to drive the corsairs from all their lairs in the Islands and about the Spanish Main was too big a job even for Morgan and the British king. To be sure they were driven from Jamaica, but the French still held Tortuga; there was a fortified island where they foregathered in Samaná Bay in Santo Domingo, and on many a small outlying bay and islet they were comparatively safe. Then there were the Dutch Islands and the Virgins. These last were particular favorites of the buccaneers. They belonged to France, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and England and always they had been neutral ground for the freebooters. Here in these tiny out-of-the-way spots they could careen and refit, could carouse ashore and were safe from pursuit. The people looked upon them as friends; they spent money freely, and in return for the privileges and security afforded them, they never molested the inhabitants or their property. Many a buccaneer has swung to his own yardarm for an insult to some Virgin Islander; many a man was pistoled by his captain for attempting to make free with Virgin Islander’s property, and in the Virgin Island ports—in St. Martin, St. Barts, St. John, Anegada and even in St. Thomas the remnants of the Brethren of the Main found snug lairs. “Many of the little islands were surrounded with dangerous reefs, where large ships could not enter, but whose secret channels were known to the buccaneers, and at almost all of them the corsairs erected forts and mounted guns. Montbars, the ‘Exterminator,’ as he was called, made his headquarters at Saint Bartholomew or St. Barts as it is more commonly called, others selected St. Martin, others Virgin Gorda and still more Anegada. All about here are names redolent of the buccaneers, such as Norman Island, Dead Man’s Chest, Rum Island, Dutchman’s Cap, Broken Jerusalem, while we also find such places as Sir Francis Drake’s Bay, Rendezvous Bay, Privateers’ Bay, Gallows Bay, Doubloon Cove, etc. “Most of the freebooters at Anegada were destroyed or driven off by expeditions sent from Jamaica by Morgan, for Anegada, like Virgin Gorda and Tortola, were British; but the buccaneers, who, you must remember, were now out-and-out pirates and had been declared so by England and France, were still comparatively safe in the Dutch and Danish isles. Indeed, the Danish officials were quite openly in league with the pirates, and one governor of St. Thomas, Adolf Esmit—who, by the way, had been a buccaneer himself—was closely identified with a most notorious pirate, Jean Hamlin.