In beginning compiling such a list as is to be found in this volume, a difficulty is met at once. My original intention was that only pirates and buccaneers should be included. To admit privateers, corsairs, and other sea-rovers would have meant the addition of a vast number of names, and would have made the work unwieldy, and the very object of this volume as a book of ready reference would not have been achieved.  But, the difficulty has been to define the exact meaning of a pirate and of a buccaneer. In the dictionary a pirate is defined as "a sea-robber, marauder, one who infringes another's copyright"; while a buccaneer is described as "a sea-robber, a pirate, especially of the Spanish-American coasts." 

This seems explicit, but a pirate was not a pirate from the cradle to the gallows. He usually began his life at sea as an honest mariner in the merchant service. He perhaps mutinied with other of the ship's crew, killed or otherwise disposed of the captain, seized the ship, elected a new commander, and sailed off "on the account." Many an honest seaman was captured with the rest of his ship's crew by a pirate, and either voluntarily joined the freebooters by signing their articles, or, being a good navigator or "sea-artist," was compelled by the pirates to lend them his services.

When, at the conclusion of hostilities, peace was declared, the crew of a privateer found it exceedingly difficult give up the roving life, and were liable to drift into piracy. Often it happened that, after a long naval war, crews were disbanded, ships laid up, and navies reduced, thus flooding the countryside with idle mariners, and filling the roads with begging and starving seamen.

These were driven to go to sea if they could find a berth, often half starved and brutally treated, and always underpaid, and so easily yielded to the temptation of joining some vessel bound vaguely for the "South Sea," where no questions were asked and no wages paid, but every hand on board had a share in the adventure.

The buccaneers were a great source of piracy also. When a war was on hand the English Government was only too glad to have the help of these daring and skilful seamen; but when peace was declared these allies began to lead to international complications, and means had to be taken to abolish them, and to try and turn them into honest settlers in the islands.

But when a man has for years lived the free life, sailed out from Jamaica a pauper, to return in six weeks or less with, perhaps, a bag of gold worth two, three, or four thousand pounds, which he has prided himself on spending in the taverns and gambling-hells of Port Royal in a week, how can he settle down to humdrum uneventful toil, with its small profits? Thus he goes back "on the account" and sails to some prearranged rendezvous of the "brethren of the coast."

If such a history were to include the whole of piracy, it would have to refer to the Phœnicians, to the Mediterranean sea-rovers of the days of Rome, who, had they but known it, held the future destiny of the world in their grasp when they, a handful of pirates, took prisoner the young Julius Cæsar, to ransom him and afterwards to be caught and crucified by him.

The Arabs in the Red Sea were for many years past-masters of the art of piracy, as were the Barbary corsairs of Algiers and Tunis, who made the Mediterranean a place of danger for many generations of seamen. All this, while the Chinese and Malays were active pirates, while the Pirate coast of the Persian Gulf was feared by all mariners. 

Then arose the great period, beginning in the reign of Henry VIII., advancing with rapid strides during the adventurous years of Queen Elizabeth, when many West of England squires were wont to sell their

estates and invest all in a ship in which to go cruising on the Spanish Main, in the hope of taking a rich Spanish galleon homeward bound from Cartagena and Porto Bello, deep laden with the riches of Peru and Mexico.Out of these semi-pirate adventurers developed the buccaneers, a ruffianly, dare-devil lot, who feared neither God, man, nor death. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century piracy was on the wane, and practically had died out by the beginning of the nineteenth, the final thrust that destroyed it being given by the American and English Navies in the North Atlantic and West Indian Seas. But by this time piracy had degenerated to mere sea-robbing, the days of gallant and ruthless sea-battles had passed, and the pirate of those decadent days was generally a Spanish-American half-breed, with no courage, a mere robber and

 murderer.

The advent of the telegraph and of steam-driven ships settled for ever the account of the pirates, except in China, when even to this day accounts reach us, through the Press, of piratical enterprises; but never again will the black, rakish-looking craft of the pirate, with the Jolly Roger flying, be liable to pounce down upon the unsuspecting and harmless merchantman.

After studying the subject of piracy at all closely, one cannot but be struck by the number of pirates who came from Wales. Welshmen figure not only amongst the rank and file, but amongst the leaders.  Morgan, of course, stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is curious how certain races show particular adaptability for certain callings. Up to two hundred years ago the chief pirates were Welshmen; to-day most of our haberdashers hail from the same land of the leek. It would be interesting to try and fathom the reason why these two callings, at first sight so dissimilar, should call forth the qualities in a particular race. Perhaps some of our leading haberdashers and linen drapers will be willing to supply the answer.

I sometimes wonder what happens to the modern pirates; I mean the men who, had they lived 200 years ago, would have been pirates. What do they find to exercise their undoubted, if unsocial, talents and energies to-day? Many, I think, find openings of an adventurous financial kind in the City.

Politics, again, surely has its buccaneers. One can imagine, for example, some leading modern politician—let us say a Welshman—who, like Morgan, being a brilliant public speaker, is able by his eloquence to sway vast crowds of listeners, whether buccaneers or electors, a man of quick and subtle mind, able to recognize and seize upon the main chance, perfectly ruthless in his methods when necessity requires, and one who, having achieved the goal on which he had set his ambition, discards his party or followers, as Morgan did his buccaneers after the sacking of Panama. Nor is Europe today without a counterpart to the ruffian crews who arrogantly "defied the world and declared war on all nations."  One great difficulty which the author of this work is met with is to decide who

was, and who was not, a pirate.

Certain friends who have taken a kindly, if somewhat frivolous, interest in the compilation of this work have inquired if Sir Francis Drake was to be included; and it must be admitted that the question is not an easy one to answer.

The most fervent patriot must admit that the early voyages of Drake were, to put it mildly, of a buccaneering kind, although his late voyages were more nearly akin to privateering cruises than piracy. But if, during the reign of King Philip, a Spaniard had been asked if Drake was a pirate, he would certainly have answered, "Yes," and that without any hesitation whatever. So much depends upon the point of view.

The conditions of life on a pirate ship appear to have been much the same in all vessels. On procuring a craft by stealing or by mutiny of the crew, the first thing to do was to elect a commander.

This was done by vote amongst the crew, who elected whoever they considered the most daring amongst them, and the best navigator. The next officer chosen was the quartermaster.

The captain and quartermaster once elected, the former could appoint any junior officers he chose, and the shares in any plunder they took was divided according to the rank of each pirate.

The crew were then searched for a pirate who could write, and, when found, this scholar would be taken down to the great cabin, given pen, ink, and paper, and after the articles had been discussed and decided upon, they were written down, to be signed by each member of the crew.

As an example, the articles drawn up by the crew of Captain John Phillips on board the Revenge are given below in full:

1.

Every man shall obey civil Command; the Captain shall have one full Share and a

half in all Prizes; the Master, Carpenter, Boatswain and Gunner shall have one

Share and quarter.

2.

If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he

shall be marroon'd with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small

Arm, and Shot.

3.

If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or game, to the value of a

Piece of Eight, he shall be Marroon'd or shot.

4.

Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.

5.

That Man that shall strike another whilst these Articles are in force, shall

receive Moses's Law (that is 40 Stripes lacking one) on the bare Back.

6.

That Man that shall snap his Arms, or smoak Tobacco in the Hold, without a cap

to his Pipe, or carry a Candle lighted without a Lanthorn, shall suffer the same

Punishment as in the former Article.

7.

That Man that shall not keep his Arms clean, fit for an Engagement, or neglect

his Business, shall be cut off from his Share, and suffer such other Punishment

as the Captain and the Company shall think fit.

8.

If any Man shall lose a Joint in time of an Engagement, shall have 400 Pieces of

Eight; if a limb, 800.

9.

If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle

with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death.

These formalities took time and much argument and the drinking of many bowls of punch, and, when once settled, the next business was to make a flag. The Jolly Roger, consisting of a human skull and two crossed thigh-bones, was generally portrayed in black and white. Some crews preferred a study in red and white. More enterprising captains with imagination and taste, such as Captain Bartholomew Roberts, who was a truly remarkable man and the greatest pirate who ever "declared war upon all the world," aimed at something more elaborate. Roberts flew several flags, all made to his own design.

On one was depicted a "human anatomy," holding a rummer, or glass, of punch in one bony hand, and a flaming sword in the other. Another favorite flag of Roberts had a huge portrait of himself, sword in hand, and two skulls. 

Another had a "skellington" standing with either foot firmly placed on a skull, and under one skull were embroidered the letters A.B.H., under the other A.M.H., which letters stood for a Barbadian's head and a Martinican's head, to warn any inhabitant of either of these islands what to expect if he was so unfortunate as to be taken prisoner by Bartholomew, who never forgot nor forgave two occasions on which he was very roughly handled by ships from Barbadoes and Martinique.

The weak point in all pirate ships was the lack of discipline. Time and again some successful enterprise, almost completed, was thrown away by lack of discipline. No captain could be certain of his command or crew. If he did anything they disapproved of, the crew would throw him in chains into the hold, or as likely overboard, and elect another. It is on record that one ship had elected thirteen different commanders in a few months. Some of the big men retained their commands, Roberts holding the record, for a pirate, of four years, until his death; while Bartholomew Sharp holds the record for a buccaneer.

Having procured a vessel, perhaps little more than a fishing-boat, sometimes only an open row-boat, the embryo pirates would paddle along some coast until they came across an unsuspecting craft, one not too big for the desperados to attack. Hiding their arms, they would row alongside, and then suddenly, with shouts and curses, board the vessel, kill any who resisted, and start a cruise in their new ship, their number being increased by volunteers or forced men from amongst the prize's crew. Cruising thus, the pirates would gradually get together a small fleet of the fastest and best sailing vessels among their prizes and increase their crew as they went along.

Both the buccaneers and the pirates had their favorite haunts and places of rendezvous. These had to be within easy sailing distance of one or more regular trade routes, and at the same time had to be in some quiet spot unlikely to be visited by strange craft, and, besides being sheltered from storms, must have a suitable beach on which their vessels could be careened and the hulls scraped of barnacles and weeds.

The greatest stronghold of the buccaneers was at Tortuga, or Turtle Island, a small island lying off the west coast of Hispaniola.

Here in their most piping days flourished a buccaneer republic, where the seamen made their own laws and cultivated the land for sugar-cane and yams. Occasionally the Spaniards or the French, without any warning, would swoop down on the settlement and break up the small republic, but sooner or later the buccaneers would be back once again in possession.

The favorite and most flourishing headquarters of the West India pirates was at New Providence Island in the Bahama Islands, occupied today by the flourishing town of Nassau, now the headquarters of those worthy descendants of the pirates, the bootleggers, who from the old port carry on their exciting and profitable smuggling of whisky into the United States. 

The numerous bays and islands lying off the coast of South Carolina were very popular with the free booters in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; while Port Royal, in Jamaica, was noted from early days as the port from which the most famous buccaneers sailed for the Spanish Main, and to which they returned with their plunder.

The French filibusters and pirates mostly used the Virgin Islands, while the Dutch patronized their own islands of Curaçao, Saba, and St. Eustatius. But the buccaneers did not allow the chance of nationality to divide them, for Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Dutchmen, all "brethren of the coast," sailed together and plundered the Spaniard in open and equal friendship. 

An entirely different group of pirates arose in the South Seas, with their headquarters in Madagascar.

Here the pirates went farther towards forming a permanent society than at any other time during their history, with the exception of the Barbary corsairs, who had their strongly fortified settlements for many years at Algiers, Tunis, and Sallee.

The origin of the buccaneers is interesting, and I cannot do better than quote the opening chapter of Clark Russell's "Life of William Dampier," in the English Men of Action Series, published by Messrs. Macmillan in 1889. He writes:  "In or about the middle of the seventeenth century, the Island of San Domingo, or Hispaniola as it was then called, was haunted and overrun by a singular community of savage, surly, fierce, and filthy men. They were chiefly composed of French colonists, whose ranks had from time to time been enlarged by liberal contributions from the slums and alleys of more than one European city and town.  These people went dressed in shirts and pantaloons of coarse linen cloth, which they steeped in the blood of the animals they slaughtered. They wore round caps, boots of hogskin drawn over their naked feet, and belts of raw hide, in which they stuck their sabres and knives. They also armed themselves with firelocks, which threw a couple of balls, each weighing two ounces. The places where they dried and salted their meat were called boucans, and from this term they came to be styled bucaniers, or buccaneers, as we spell it. They were hunters by trade, and savages in their habits. They chased and slaughtered horned cattle and trafficked with the flesh, and their favourite food was raw marrow from the bones of the beasts which they shot. They ate and slept on the ground, their

table was a stone, their bolster the trunk of a tree, and their roof the hot and sparkling heavens of the Antilles."

The Spaniards, who were jealous of any other nation than their own having a foothold in America, determined to get rid of these wild but hitherto harmless buccaneers. This they accomplished, and in time drove the cattle-hunters out of Hispaniola; and to make sure that the unwelcome visitors should not return, they exterminated all the wild cattle. This was the worst mistake the Spaniards could have made, for these wild men had to look for other means of supporting themselves, and they joined the freebooters and thus began the great period of piracy which was the cause of the ultimate breaking-up of the Spanish power in the West Indies.

Of the life on board buccaneer and pirate ships a somewhat hazy and incomplete picture reaches us. The crews were usually large compared with the number of men carried in other ships, and a state of crowded discomfort must have been the result, especially in some crazy old vessel cruising in the tropics or rounding the Horn in winter. Of the relationship between the sea-rovers and the fair sex it would be best, perhaps, to draw a discreet veil. The pirates and the buccaneers looked upon women simply as the spoils of war, and were as profligate with these as with the rest of their plunder.

We know that Sir Henry Morgan was married and provided for his widow in his will.  Captain Kidd, wife, and child, resided in New York, in the utmost conjugal happiness and respectability, but then Kidd was a martyr and no pirate.

Captain Rackam, the dashing "Calico Jack," ran away to sea with the woman pirate, Mrs. Anne Bonny, and they lived together happily on board ship and on land, as did Captain and Mrs. Cobham. The only other pirate I know of who took a "wife" to sea with him was Captain Pease, who flourished in a half-hearted way—half-hearted in the piratical, but not the matrimonial sense—in the middle of the nineteenth century.

A certain settler in New Zealand in the "early days" describes a visit he paid to Captain Pease and his family on board that pirate's handy little schooner, lying at anchor in a quiet cove at that island.

On stepping aboard, the guest was warmly welcomed by a short, red-faced man, bald of head and rotund in figure, of about fifty-five years of age. His appearance suggested a successful grocer rather than a pirate. On the deck were seated two ladies, one nearing middle age, the other young and undoubtedly pretty.

At the feet of these ladies sprawled several small children. Captain Pease proceeded to introduce his guest to these as Mrs. Pease No. 1 and Mrs. Pease No. 2. The ladies continued their sewing while a conversation took place on various subjects. Presently, taking out his watch, the pirate turned to the younger lady, observing that it was nearing teatime. Mrs. Pease No. 2, laying down her sewing, went to the cabin, from which the rattle of teacups and the hiss of a boiling kettle were soon heard.

Tea being announced as ready, the party entered the cabin, Mrs. Pease senior taking the place at the head of the table and pouring out the tea while the younger Mrs. Pease very prettily handed round the cups and bread and butter, the guest particularly noticing with what respect and thoughtfulness she looked after the wants of the elder Mrs. Pease.

As a pirate Captain Pease was second or even third rate, confining his daring to seizing small unarmed native craft, or robbing the stores of lonely white traders on out-of-the-way atolls.

But as a married man he showed himself to be a master; matrimony was his strong suit, domesticity his trump card.

He gave one valuable hint to his guest, which was this: "Never take more than two wives with you on a voyage, and choose 'em with care." 

One is apt to disassociate serious matrimony, and still less responsible paternity, with the calling of piracy, but with Captain Pease this was far from being the case.

Every one of his wives—for he had others on shore—contributed her mite, or two, to the growing family, and the Captain really could not say which of his offspring he was most proud of.

It seems at first strange that a man of Captain Pease's appearance, figure, and settled habits, almost humdrum, should have been such an undoubted success with the ladies; but that he was a success there can be no doubt.

Perhaps his calling had a good deal to do with this attraction he had for them.

Death, portrayed by a skeleton, was the device on the flag beneath which they fought; and a skeleton was for ever threatening to emerge from its cupboard aboard every pirate vessel.

The end of most of the pirates and a large proportion of the buccaneers was a sudden and violent one, and few of them died in their beds. Many were killed in battle, numbers of them were drowned. Not a few drank themselves to death with strong Jamaica rum, while many of the buccaneers died of malaria and yellow fever contracted in the jungles of Central America, and most of the pirates who survived these perils lived only to be hanged.  It is recorded of a certain ex-prizefighter and pirate, Dennis McCarthy, who was about to be hanged at New Providence Island in 1718, that, as he stood on the gallows, all bedecked with coloured ribbons, became a boxer, he told his admiring audience that his friends had often, in joke, told him he would die in his shoes; and so, to prove them liars, he kicked off his shoes amongst the crowd, and so died without them.

The trial of a pirate was usually a rough and ready business, and the culprit seldom received the benefit of any doubt that might exist.  If he made any defense at all, it was usually to plead that he had been forced to join the pirates against his wish, and that he had long been waiting for an opportunity to escape.

Once condemned to death, and the date of execution decided, the prisoner, if at Newgate, was handed over to the good offices of the prison Ordinary; or, if in New England, to such vigorous apostles of Christianity as the Rev. Cotton or the Rev. Increase Mather.

The former of these two famous theologians was pastor of the North Church in Boston, and the author of a very rare work published in 1695, called "An History of Some Criminals Executed in This Land." Cotton Mather preached many a "hanging" sermon to condemned pirates, a few of which can still be read. One of these, preached in 1704, is called "A Brief Discourse occasioned by a Tragical Spectacle of a Number of Miserables under Sentence of Death for Piracy."

On the Sunday previous to an execution the condemned pirates were taken to church to listen to a sermon while they were "exhibited" to the crowded and gaping congregation. On the day of the execution a procession was formed, which marched from the gaol to the gallows.

At the head was carried a silver oar, the emblem from very early days of a pirate execution. Arrived at the gibbet, the prisoner, who always dressed himself in his, or someone else's, best clothes, would doff his hat and make a speech. 

Men that are virtuous serve the Lord;

And the Devil's by his friends ador'd;

And as they merit get a place

Amidst the bless'd or hellish race;

Pray then ye learned clergy show

Where can this brute, Tom Goldsmith, go?

Whose life was one continual evil

Striving to cheat God, Man and Devil.

BLACKBEARD - A Bristol man who settled in Jamaica, sailing in privateers, but not in the capacity of an officer.  In 1716, Teach (Blackbeard) took to piracy, being put in command of a sloop by the pirate Benjamin Hornigold.

STEDE BONNET - The history of this pirate is both interesting and unique.  He was not brought up to the seafaring life, in fact, before he took to piracy, he had already retired from the Army with the rank of Major.

ANNE BONNY - Anne was born in County Cork, and her father was an Attorney-at-Law, who practiced his profession in that city, her mother being a lady's maid to the attorney's lawful wife.

MARY READ - Born in London of obscure parentage, all that is known for certain is that her mother was a "young and airy widow"

WILLIAM KIDD - In the whole history of piracy there is no name that has so taken the world's fancy than has that of William Kidd.  And yet, if he be judged by his actions as a pirate, he must be placed amongst the second- or even third-rate masters of that craft.

MORGAN HENRY -  Robert Morgan, he early took to the seafaring life. When quite a young man Morgan went to Barbadoes, but afterwards he settled at Jamaica, which was his home for the rest of his life.

JEAN LAFITTE - Jean and his brother first appeared in New Orleans in the year 1809. Though blacksmiths by profession, they soon took to smuggling goods brought by privateersmen and pirates. The headquarters of this trade was on the Island of Grande Terre in Barataria Bay.

JACK RACKAM -  Served as quartermaster in Captain Vane's company. On one occasion Vane refused to fight a big French ship, and in consequence was dismissed from his ship and marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of America, while the crew elected Rackam to be their captain in his place.

THOMAS TEW -  A famous pirate, whose headquarters were at Madagascar. He was mentioned by name in King William III.'s Royal Warrant to Captain Kidd to go hunting for pirates, as a specially "wicked and ill-disposed person."

RICHARD WORLEY - His reign was short, lasting but six months from start to finish. He was first heard of in September, 1718, when he set out, in company with eight other desperadoes, from New York in a small open boat "upon the account."