The pirate wind was an ill wind, but it blew wonderful luck to those merchants who loaded ships to their scuppers with fiery Jamaica, red-hot brandy, gunpowder, small arms and cannon balls, and sent them off to trade with some negro king, ’twas said. On the voyage they would call at a lonely isle for wood and water and there they would meet other ships manned by the most open-fisted merchants ever known. No wrangling over a bale or two. Such bargains, the like of which never could have been made even with the most unsophisticated of dusky potentates. It was true, these merchants lacked the gravity of their kind; tossed the bowl about a good deal; and swore,--well, like pirates! And so home with a rich cargo. With such a reputation for reckless daring, why, it may be asked, were the pirates not more successful when engaging ships of war? John Atkins, surgeon on board the “Swallow,” man-of-war, that took three pirate ships on the Guinea coast in 1722, tells the reason. “Discipline,” says the Doctor, “is an excellent path to victory; and courage, like a trade, is gained by an apprenticeship, when strictly kept up to rules and exercise. The pirates though singly fellows of courage, yet wanting such a tie of order and some director to unite that force, were a contemptible enemy. They neither killed or wounded a man in the taking; which ever must be the fate of such rabble.” From whatever source the pirates sprang, they were, taking them by and large, brisk, courageous men, who were for making hasty estates at the expense of the public and ever athirst for the juice of the sunny isle, that magic fluid which helped them to forget that last pilot of many a good pirate,--the Man with the Silver Oar. ERNEST H. PENTECOST. [Illustration: A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE _Robberies and Murders_ Of the most notorious PYRATES, AND ALSO Their _Policies_, _Discipline_ and _Government_, From their first RISE and SETTLEMENT in the Island of _Providence_, in 1717, to the present Year 1724. WITH The remarkable ACTIONS and ADVENTURES of the two Female Pyrates, _Mary Read_ and _Anne Bonny_. To which is prefix’d An ACCOUNT of the famous Captain _Avery_, and his Companions; with the Manner of his Death in _England_. The Whole digested into the following CHAPTERS;