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 by death, and jurisdiction was recognized in that country into whose ports the pirate may be carried.
Piracy flourished in its reckless dare-deviltry and wanton lawlessness about one hundred and fifty years ago, its most productive operations being confined to the Spanish Main, over whose vast paths the newly discovered wealth and hidden treasures of the New World were carried. The unprotected state of commerce permitted these piratical invasions with immunity and thus allowed this nefarious trade to flourish and develop unchecked and uncontrolled. By reason of this the lawless element of the community was encouraged and allured by the visions of fabulous riches with the attendant excitement incident to its capture. Pirates, as a class, were principally outlaws, social outcasts, or ’longshoremen of a desperate and brutal character, who deemed it the more enjoyable the more hazardous their undertaking, and who considered it safer to maraud on the high seas than upon the land, in constant fear of the minions of the law. But not all pirates were of this character. Some, not inherently vicious nor absolutely depraved, had adopted this lawless calling by reason of some stigma which deprived them of their social position; others, by reason of their indolence; and others from sheer necessity, who found in their dire distress the justification for the dangerous step.
