The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-03-23
THE PIRATES CAPITAL.
The Fate That Befell One of the Wori
Cities in the World,

Cities in the World.
When the Spaniards were driven from
Jamaica they left behind them number of
slaves, who sought shelter in the mountains
and defied the authorities. These bandits
we're nearly exterminated soon after the
English occupation, but the remnant later
grew to be powerful and greatly troubled
the colony. They are known as the Ma
rooms, and the story of their desperate
struggles for freedom, of the privileges
wrung from the whites, and Of their assist
ance in suppressing the rising of the blacks
in 1866 reads like romance. Six hundred
of these troublesome marauderS were trans
ported to Nova Scotia. The descendants of
the ancient Maroons are even to this day a
separate people. and still enjoy the priv-
leges granted 10 their ancestors, says
writer in the Boston Herald.
Pirates and their blOodthirsty deeds have
furnished so often the plot and theme for
the melOdramatist and the dime novelist
that one hesitates TO write about them in
sober earnest But they we're no mvths in
Jamaica. and no account of Jamaca'S past,
however brief, can omit reference to The
part they played in its history, especially as
the most dreadful calamity that ever visited
the island is connected with them.
The Jamaican pirates generally sought to
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, ana when the ocean did not
offer enough to satisfy his cupidity and love
of adventure, attacked cities and towns, lay
ing waste with fire and sword and commit
ting horrible barbarites and crueltes.
Nothing was sacred to these human devils,
and yet they were tolerated for many years
by the jamaican authorities. The island
profted by their expeditions, and The last
half of the seventeenth century witnessed a
prosperity as great as 1t was wicked and
demoralizing.
Port Royal was the capital of the pirate
empire. and the Marooners filled it with
wealth and debauchery. There they main
tanned in semi barbarc state their great es-
tablishments. 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. Imagination can hardly
picture the characterof the populace OF that
little city under the sun, or the life within
It's walls. To it came the reckless, the des-
perate, the men most skilled in villalny.
With them they brought the Sp0ilS OF richly
laden Spanish galleOns bound home with
silver and gold. the ransoms of cities and
whole provinces, and fleets of merchant YES
sells, freighted with rich stuffs from all the
markets of the world. All this and more
was poured into Port Royal, and was spent
with lavshneSs aud extravaganza that is
possible only with treasure bought at SO
slight cost as that of human life.
Nothing seemed lacking to make ii the
wickedest place on earth; yet the vengeance
of the Lord apparently passed it BY But
it was only for q season. One day the earth
opened and in two minutes the city, its
palaces and its novels lay at the bottom of
the sea. Thousands Of the inhabitants per-
ished with their ill-gotten gains, and the un-
buried dead, floating in the harbor or heaped
upon the land under tropical sun, bred
horrible pestilence that carried off thousands
Of those who escaped the earthquake. To-
day the waters Of the bay hide from sight