adventurers from the United States, but was unknown under that name until the expedition of Lopez to Cuba in 1850. Aaron Burr was a filibuster, although we may justly doubt the virtue of his motives. William Walker, perhaps the foremost of them all, invaded Lower California in 1854, attempted to found a republic, was defeated, and later conquered Nicaragua and became its president, only to shift about in his meteoric career of destiny and sail against Honduras, where he was captured, court-martialled, and shot in 1860.

It is to the buccaneers, however, that the history of piracy is indebted for the “glory” which may fill its pages; it is to the men of the stamp of Morgan, Dampier, Peter of Dieppe, and Van Horn, who by their courage, dash, and spasmodic chivalry lent sufficient romance to their misdeeds as to obscure the crime, that we owe the stirring tales of the conquests in the West Indies and South America. And no less a pirate was Francis Drake, who, despite his knighthood and the official countenance the Elizabethan government lent to his attacks upon Spanish galleons and cities, stands forth as one of the greatest free lances of the world. His history is unique, brilliant, and commanding; his service for his country and the attack upon the Spanish Armada atoning, as it were, for his piratical crimes. What irony of fate, that this wonderful man, a knight of England, a member of Parliament, a warrior and sailor, a robber and conqueror, should now lie in a lead coffin at the bottom of the sea off Porto Rico, conquered by death while on his way to the islands so often the object of his pillage!

The constant warring of Spain against the powers of the world, not at home but in her western possessions, finally led to that outlawry which under the name of buccaneers terrorized the Caribbean Sea during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1625 the island of St. Christopher was settled by the buccaneers to establish a base; and later the island of Tortuga was captured, which became the scene of constant warfare until the capture of Jamaica in 1655.[*] Pre-eminent amongst the buccaneers of this period who made the Spanish Main a synonym for robbery and bloodshed was Captain Henry Morgan, who, as a pirate, captured Jamaica, was knighted by Charles II., and later made Deputy Governor of the island. He it was who led the buccaneers to the South Sea, opening for them a rich field for booty, by marching across the Isthmus of Panama, fighting a battle and capturing and plundering the city, and, seizing the Spanish vessels in the harbor, set sail for the South Sea, returning by way of Cape Horn with fabulous prizes. After the capture of Cartagena in 1697, the organization of these intrepid, daring, and able freebooters disrupted, and the glory waned and vanished; the degeneracy was rapid and complete, till cut-throats and villainous outlaws took the place of their great predecessors.

History shows that in our own country pirates appeared along the Carolina coast as far back as 1565, and before the settlement of the country by the English, under charter of Charles II., the pirates of the Spanish Main occupied the coast, the many harbors lending refuge and safe retreat, while permitting the burying of treasures.

The Carolinas remained friendly to pirates with a persistency of popular favor which was well-nigh ineradicable. And this is quite readily understood when we reflect that the depredations were committed upon ships of His Catholic Majesty, the foe of England, and that the pirates brought their gold and silver plate to the colonies for sale and barter, thus bringing wealth and resource to the struggling communities; and, lastly, the example and sanction set by the king in knighting Henry Morgan, the leading pirate of the day. It was impossible to obtain a jury to convict any one upon the charge of piracy, and so the authorities found themselves helpless.

The best known of all the pirates in America is beyond doubt Captain Kidd, of whom we all have sung:

The English government, alarmed at the bold and heinous offences committed by the Indian pirates in the Colonies, issued to him letters of marque against the French and the ubiquitous rover of the coast, whose “Jolly Roger” floating from the mizzen, with its sinister portend, struck terror to the helpless merchantman.

His work was efficient and sweeping, and in 1691 the Council of the City of New York presented him £100, in appreciation of his energetic campaign. In 1697 he reached Madagascar to annihilate the pirates in the Eastern waters, but soon strange reports reached England concerning his actions, and it developed that he had fallen a victim to the seductive aphorism, “the pirate is the free child of the sea,” and in the degree as he was their destroyer, so he rose as their energetic leader. Subsequently he sailed to the West Indies, Delaware, Oyster Bay, and, burying his treasures on Gardiner’s Island, set sail for Boston, where he was captured, sent to England, and hanged on Execution Dock, London. The treasures found on Gardiner’s Island amounted to $170,000, and to this day hopes are entertained of other buried booty.

The scope of Mr. Herrmann’s lecture is not to embrace the history of piracy, but to narrate the incidents and vicissitudes of a pirate’s life and to illustrate their modus operandi. His story depicts to us the terrible misdeeds as practised by those ferocious and heartless demons, amongst whom Captain Fly, Captain Teach, the Blackbeard, and Captain North were the most notorious.

H. A. H.

New York, February, 1902.

PIRATES AND PIRACY.

A LECTURE.

The limitations of a lecture will not permit the discussion of the subject upon an extended scope, nor will it allow a more than cursory review of the general doings, adventures, and methods of pirates in general, leaving the historical treatment for another occasion.

The Latin word piratia defines the crime, answering to robbery on land, with the distinction that it is committed upon the high seas or navigable waters generally. The law of nations has defined it as the taking of property from others by open violence, with intent to steal, and without lawful authority, on the sea. And with the stringency arising from the ever-growing depredations, and the community of interests of the civilized world, the crime was made punishable