The Book of Buried Treasure / Being a True History of the Gold, Jewels, and Plate of Pirates, Galleons, etc., which are sought for to this day

Of all the lives I ever say, A Pirate's be for I. Hap what hap may he's allus gay An' drinks an' bungs his eye. For his work he's never loth: An' a-pleasurin' he'll go; Tho' certain sure to be popt off, Yo, ho, with the rum below!
In Bristowe I left Poll ashore, Well stored wi' togs an' gold, An' off I goes to sea for more, A-piratin' so bold. An' wounded in the arm I got, An' then a pretty blow; Comed home I find Poll's flowed away, Yo, ho, with the rum below!
An' when my precious leg was lopt, Just for a bit of fun, I picks it up, on t'other hopt, An' rammed it in a gun. What's that for? cries out Salem Dick; What for, my jumpin' beau? Why, to give the lubbers one more kick! Yo, ho, with the rum below!
I 'llows this crazy hull o' mine At sea has had its share: Marooned three times an' wounded nine An' blowed up in the air. But ere to Execution Bay The wind these bones do blow, I'll drink an' fight what's left away, Yo, ho, with the rum below!
— An Old English Ballad .

The language has no more boldly romantic words than pirate and galleon and the dullest imagination is apt to be kindled by any plausible dream of finding their lost treasures hidden on lonely beach or tropic key, or sunk fathoms deep in salt water. In the preface of that rare and exceedingly diverting volume, The Pirates' Own Book, the unnamed author sums up the matter with so much gusto and with so gorgeously appetizing a flavor that he is worth quoting to this extent:
In this tamed, prosaic age of ours, treasure-seeking might seem to be the peculiar province of fiction, but the fact is that expeditions are fitting out every little while, and mysterious schooners flitting from many ports, lured by grimy, tattered charts presumed to show where the hoards were hidden, or steering their courses by nothing more tangible than legend and surmise. As the Kidd tradition survives along the Atlantic coast, so on divers shores of other seas persist the same kind of wild tales, the more convincing of which are strikingly alike in that the lone survivor of the red-handed crew, having somehow escaped the hanging, shooting, or drowning that he handsomely merited, preserved a chart showing where the treasure had been hid. Unable to return to the place, he gave the parchment to some friend or shipmate, this dramatic transfer usually happening as a death-bed ceremony. The recipient, after digging in vain and heartily damning the departed pirate for his misleading landmarks and bearings, handed the chart down to the next generation.