The 11th and 12th of William III., and the 8th George I., are both statutes against piracy, and are indications of the years in which their ravages were peculiarly felt. By the first, any natural-born subject committing an act of hostility against any of his Majesty's subjects, under colour of a commission from any foreign power, could be tried for piracy. And further, any commander betraying his trust, and running away with the ship, or yielding it up voluntarily to a pirate, or any one confining his captain to prevent him fighting, was adjudged a pirate, felon, and robber, and was sentenced to death.
The later acts make it piracy even to trade with known pirates.
Commanders or seamen wounded, or their widows slain in piratical engagements, were entitled to a bounty not exceeding one-fiftieth part of the value of the cargo, and wounded men received the pension of Greenwich Hospital. If the commander behaved cowardly, he was to forfeit all his wages, and suffer six months' imprisonment.
Such are a few of the facts connected with the almost unrecorded and uncertain history of the pirates of New Providence and Madagascar, the most loathsome wretches that perhaps, since Cain, have ever washed their hands in human blood. Ferocious yet often cowardly, they were subtle and cruel, with none of the frequent generosity of outlaws, and little of the enterprise of the military adventurers. Long ago have their bones crumbled from the dark gibbets on the lonely sand islands of the Pacific, and they remain without monument or record, except in prison chronicles and forgotten voyages. We have reviewed their history simply as the natural sequel of our annals, and as an illustration of the character of the English seaman in its most brutal and satanic aspect.
THE END.
CHIEF AUTHORITIES.
BUCCANEER WRITERS.
John (Joseph?) Esquemeling's[1] Bucaniers of America; or, an Account of the most Remarkable Assaults committed on the Coasts of the West Indies by the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga; with the Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan. Translated into English from the Dutch, with a Portrait of Sir H. Morgan, a Map and Plates, with a Table. 4to. London. 1684.
[1] Rich, in his "Bibliotheca Americana Nova," 1835, confounds Esquemeling, the Dutchman, with Œxmelin, the Frenchman. The English translation of 1684 speaks of Esquemeling's work as written by a Frenchman and Dutchman together, the name being French and the language Dutch. Rich describes it as first printed in Dutch, 1678; then translated into Spanish; then from Spanish into English, and from English into French; the author's name being changed in the latter translation.
—— De Americanische Zee Roovers. 4to. Amsterdam. 1678.
—— Hisp. 12mo. Col. Ag. 1682.
—— Eng. 12mo. London. 1684.
—— 4to. Col. Ag. 1684.
—— 12mo. 4 vols. Maps and Plates. Trevoux.