If, as some assert, the popularity of a book is to be estimated according to the number of editions through which it passes, the history of Captain Sir Henry Morgan has, at least in past few generations, been very dear to English-speaking people.
At least this is true of the Esquemeling history; the first English edition was printed under date of 1684—about the time that the hero of it was a State prisoner standing his trial for levying war against Spain, contrary to his Majesty’s express orders, and for the doing of those deeds of conquest for which he had once been honoured. Upon the title page of the quaint old volume is given briefly and concisely the bibliography of the history to its then condition. That it was originally written in Dutch, thence translated into Spanish by Alonso de Bonne-Maison, and now faithfully rendered into English for the first time.
More particularly, the Dutch history from which the Spanish translation was taken is a work published at Amsterdam in 1678, entitled, “De Americaensche Zee Roovers.” A number of other translations beside the Spanish and English accounts were made cotemporarily with other European languages, the best known of which is, perhaps, the French “Histoire des Aventuriers qui se sont signaley dans les Indies,” published originally in 1686. Another French edition, considerably enlarged and appearing in four volumes, was published in 1775.
In each new translation and each new edition the original narrative was expanded by additional matter. A year or two after the appearance of the earliest English edition—that of 1684—a second appeared in the same general form with the first, but with a supplement treating of the adventures of Captain Sharp, Sawkins, Coxon, and others on the coasts of the South Sea from the journal kept by Mr. Basil Ringrose. Both of these two editions are now of considerable rarity, and, being rather better printed than cotemporary volumes of the kind, and being, besides, well and interestingly illustrated by portraits of the more prominent freebooters, curious maps and quaint plates, they are in considerable esteem with collectors of old books. Of the two the second edition is the more valued because of the additional matter and maps, but for ordinary literary purposes the first edition is, perhaps, more preferable. The whole value of the history culminates and centres with Captain Morgan, and that part treating of the adventures of Captain Sparks and the others is not only dull, protracted, and prosy, but excessively tedious. Accordingly for the present purposes it has been deemed better to adhere to the scheme of the first edition, which is in reality a history of Captain Morgan’s expeditions, rather than to unnecessarily extend the volume upon the lines more usually followed.
From these two earlier editions has sprung a host of successors. The second—that containing the adventures of Captain Sharp, Sawkins, Coxon, and others—with some further additions was reprinted in Walker’s “British Classics” (12mo, 1810), besides which the history has appeared in a score of cheaper forms adapted to more popular reading and far too obscure and too numerous to trace and follow.
In the edition here presented some few changes have been made, some of the long and tedious bits of description have been omitted, but as a whole the history of Captain Morgan and his fellow buccaneers stands almost exactly as originally told by the English translation of the Spanish translation of the Dutch Buccaneer Pirate Story.
VIII.
It was about 1680-5 that the English Government, as was shown in the case of Sir Henry Morgan and others, seriously took in hand the suppression of freebooting. Morgan was only one of many punished for having at one time or another levied private war upon Spain. Then came the Peace of Ryswick between France and Spain, which gave the finishing blow to buccaneering as a semi-legal venture; henceforth nothing remained but open piracy to those bold spirits, too active in the ferment of their passions to be contained by the bottle of law. Both France and England joined in stamping out freebooting, and for a little while it seemed as if they had succeeded—but it was only for a little while.
Filibustering and semi-piracy had become too much a part of the life of the West Indies, and was too thoroughly congenial to those who sought escape from the restraints of civilization to be thus easily put an end to. It was only the stem of buccaneering that had been lopped away by the sword of the law; from the roots sprung a new and more vigorous offshoot—the flower of Piracy itself. Under the new order it was no longer Spain alone that suffered, but the lawful commerce of all nations that became the prey of these ocean wolves. During the early eighteenth century the Spanish main and adjacent waters swarmed with pirate crafts, and the fame of their deeds forms a chapter of popular history that may almost take rank with that which tells of Robin Hood, Friar Rush, Schinderhannes, and other worthies of the like kidney of a more or less apocryphal nature.
Who has not heard tell of Black-beard? Who does not know of the name of the renowned Captain Kid? Who has not heard the famous ballad which tells of his deeds of wickedness?—a rhythmical chant such as has from the beginning of time been most taking to the popular ear:—