The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-07-12
PIRATE MORGAN.
A freebooter Who Was Knightcd and Be-
camo Respectable.

A freebooter Who Was Knightcd and isc-
camo Respectable.
When the Spaniards were driven from
Jamaica, they left behind them q num-
Der OF slaves, who sought shelter in the
mountains and dcfied the authorities,
says the Boston Herald. These bandits
were nearly eNterminatcd soon after the
English occupation, but the remnant
later grew to be powerful and greatly
troubled the colony. They We're known
as the Maroons, and the stories of their
desperate struggles for freedom, of the
privileges wrung from the whites, and
of their assistance in suppressing the
rising of the blacks in 1865, reads like
romance. Six hundred of these trouble
some marauders were transported to
Nova Scotia. The descendants of the
ancient A1aroons are even to this day
separate people, and still enjoy the
privileges granted to their ancestors.
Pirates and their bloodthirsty deeds
have furnished so often the plot and
theme for tho mclodramatist and the
dime-novclist that one hesitatcs to write
about them in sober earnest. But they
were no myths in Jamaica, and no ac-
count of Jamaica's past, however brief,
can omit reference to the part they
played in It's history, especially as the
most dreadful calamity that ever visited
the island is connected with them.
The jamaica pirates generally sought
to throw over their maurauding and pill
laying expeditions the sanction of legal
authority by obtaining letters of
marque, but they were nevertheless
pirates pure and simple. One chief
after another secured the Spanish main,
capturing vessels, usually Spanish, on
the high seas, and when the ocean did
not offer enough to satisfy his cupidity
and love of adventure, attacked cities
and towns, laying waste with fire and
SWORD! and committing horrible burbar-
tiles and cruclties, Nothing was sacred
to these human devils and yet they
were tolerated for many years by the
Jamaica authorities. The island profited
by their expeditions, and the last half
of the seventeenth century witnessed
prosperity rs great as it was wicked and
dcmoralizing.
Port Royal was the capital of the
pirate empire, and the Maroons filled it
with wealth and dcbauchcry. There they
maintained in semi-barbaric state their
great establishments. They lived like
men who, with the wealth of princes,
did not know when they might die, and
who had no fear of God or man. Imagi-
nation can hardly picture the character
of the populacc of that little city under
the sun or the life within it's walls. To
1T came the reckless, the desperate, the
men most skilled in villainy. With
them they brought the spoils of richly
laden Spanish galleons bound home
with silver and gold, the ransoms of
cities, and whole provinces and fleets of
merchant vessels frcighted with rich
stuffs from all the markets of the world.
All this and more was poured into Port
Royal, and was spent with lavishncss
and Extravaganza that is possible only
with treasure bought at SO slight Il cost
as that of human life.
Nothing seemed lacking to make it
the wickedcst place on earth, yet the
vengeance of the Lord apparently
passed it By. But it was only for sea-
son. One day the earth opened and in
two minutes the city, its palaces and
its novels lay ut the bottom of the sea.
Thousands of the inhabitants persisted
with their ill-gotten gains, and the I'M
buried dead, floating in the harbor or
hcapcd upon the land under q tropical
sun, bred horrible pestilencc that car
ried off thousands Of those who escaped
the earthquake. To-day the waters of
the bay hide from sight the ancient city.
Was ever rctributivc justice more terri
bic or complete?
Romantic and exciting as were the
lives OF all these buccaneers, that of
Henry Morgan, the greatest of the free
bootcrs was the most SO. From white
slave in Barbados, where he had been
sold into scrvitude, lie became first the
most daring and successful of the pirates,
and later a knight, and, as lieutenant
governor of Jamaica, the ruler of that
island. At the sacl1ing of Panama he
obtained one hundred and sevcnty-five
mule loads of treasure. The governor
who gave him his commission was re-
called for that act, but Henry Morgan
was kpghted, and as Sir Henry turned
his back upon his former companions
and made Il most popular governor of
the colony.