Naturally other ships were fitted out, to prey on commerce, that had not even the flag of a country like the South American republics. It was not difficult to find capitalists to support such enterprises and merchants who were literally “fences” for sea robbers. There were spirits who did not need any capital beyond a sword, men who would get a ship by taking it with a crew of their own kind. Nevertheless, the curse of the criminal was upon them this far, that they never dared venture so far from their hiding-places as to attack the packet trade that crossed the Banks of Newfoundland _en route_ between Europe and the northern ports of the United States. And this seems a little curious, too, for rich prizes might have been had there. The geographical conditions of the waters favored them, for the Caribbean Sea was a sea of a thousand islands and ten thousand inlets and bays, where the piratical craft might hide ship and plunder, and fit out for further depredations. And it was a climate to delight the lazy, while fruits and wild animals for food abounded, and the morals of the inhabitants that were nominally law-biding were of a grade to suit the pirates. After the peace was made between the United States and England the Yankee merchants hastened to retrieve the losses they had endured during the prolonged trouble, by engaging once more in the West India trade. It was a lucrative trade. A ship that hit the market just right might clear the cost of her in a single voyage. But as time went by, the number that sailed from port and never returned, although no hurricane had been encountered, and the number that came in with tales of races for life with vessels that swarmed with eager cutthroats, increased until, in the year 1819, the Government of the United States undertook the task of clearing the sea of the vicious horde. It was not as easy a task as it would seem to one who in this day reads of the matter. For the leaders of the states in South America were striving under the most adverse circumstances to set up republican forms of government. They were patriots in principle. The Monroe doctrine had not yet taken form, but the people of the Anglo-Saxon republic looked upon the efforts of the Latin-Americans with a kindly eye, holding fast to the doctrine that “the cure for the evils of liberty is more liberty.” It was necessary to destroy the pirates and yet at the same time aid rather than injure the young nations of the continent. Accordingly Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of Lake Erie (he was commodore by courtesy only, captain being the highest rank in the navy), was detailed to the work. He had the _John Adams_ for a flagship, and the _Constellation_, Captain Alexander Scammel Wadsworth, and the _Nonsuch_, Captain Alexander Claxton, for his squadron. [Illustration: United States Sloop-of-War _Albany_ Under Sail. _From the “Kedge Anchor.”_]