Many of them had every intention of returning to their country upon the appearance of the next proclamation, and as they saw the prospect of a safe return for themselves they were not under the necessity of acting on the rule that dead men tell no tales. They did not make their prisoners walk the plank. They did not even burn their prizes, but were often content with taking out such provisions and portable property as their immediate occasions made desirable, and then allowing the plundered merchant-ship to continue her voyage. They were by no means so thoroughly hated as they ought to have been, to judge by the more recent opinion held of the pirate. In fact, till towards the end of the pirate's existence he was nearly as much the product of the Government's management as of his own sins. During Charles II.'s reign, his governors in Jamaica gave what they were pleased to term commissions to all who would plunder the Spaniard. The Spaniards retaliated by giving commissions to all who would plunder anyone else. The marauder who victimised the Spaniard was sure of a market, and a refuge in Jamaica. The other marauder who was prepared to feed upon English, Dutch, or French, was sure of a welcome in Cuba. When Governments suddenly took to being virtuous, a sense of wrong inflamed the minds of the men who had hitherto been allowed to live in recognised lawlessness. Captain Kidd, for example, manifestly thought that Lord Bellomont and the other gentleman who sent him out to Madagascar to cruise against the pirates, were only assuming a decent excuse for a little speculation in piracy on their own account. The freebooters who settled at Providence, in the Bahamas, were really to be pardoned for not realising that the happy days of Governor Moddiford at Jamaica were over. When they were made to understand that there were to be no more of these cakes and ale, the majority, under the command of Captain Jennings, promptly came in. Captain Jennings was the owner of an estate in Jamaica, and he brought a comfortable little sum back with him from his piratical adventures. The residue, who probably had no comfortable sum to bring with them, did not come in, and as they were given to understand that they would certainly be hanged if caught, they took in self-defence to giving no quarter. So at the end of the great war, the powers who had encouraged privateering while the fighting lasted, without inquiring too closely how far the privateer confined his operations to the enemy only without plundering the neutral, became suddenly very strict. Then the men whom they had allowed to become hardened to a life of pillage took refuge in downright piracy. These men were the _Pescadores del Puerto Escondido_ who enlightened the pages of Michael Scott. The Spaniards tolerated them as the English Governors of Jamaica had once encouraged the Buccaneers. It was not until a combined vigorous effort of the English and the United States navies had driven