The times., 1898-06-12
BLUE -8LO0DED PIRATES
ScOurges of Arrogant Spain in
Centuries Gone By.
TERRORS TO THE HIBALG0S
GentlemanIy Marine FreebOoters
Who Forced Capfiyes to Swing
From the lardarm or Walk the
PIank-An Ell Iish Knight ina
Their List of Captains.

In the region of the Caribbean Sea,
where now the fleets of the American
Navy are engaged in just and righteous
scourging of Spains modern armada, CEN
turies ago the island strongholds of Spain
were at the mercies of the bold buccan-
neers of the West Indies. The history of
the Western Hemisphere presents ro-
mantle and thilling chapters of the PROV
ess, savagery, and brutality of these
ocean robbers
The blue-blooded, bluebeard buccaneer
was not a marine freebooter who made
the pillage of defenseleSs coasts and as
saults upon the weil-garrisoned opulent
cities his sole vocation They were an ad-
venturous, murderous and pillaging set,
but still not outlaws among nations. They
were gentlemen pirates, SO to speak. One,
at least, was knighted by the sovereign of
so orderly a nation as Great Britain, for
a series of marauding expeditions which
rose to the ma magnitude of respectable war
and almost broke the power of Spain in
sub-tropical and South America. By vir
tue of the Bull of Dominion issued by
Pope Alexander VI, after the return of
Columbus from his first western voyage,
giving Spain all the lands discovered west
of the Azores, the Spaniards, true to their
grasping instincts, undertook to grab eV-
erything in the shape of an island or
mainland in reach, and carried their saw
agery not only to the extent of a colonial
policy of native depopulation, but seized
and massacred all persons of friendly ma
tions. The buccaneer was, while a sailor
by occupation, at the same time hunter
and planter in his island retreat, and
withal a mortal enemy of the Spaniards.
The gains acquired in the seafaring
achievements made them opulent in the
merchandise and products of two worlds,
while many a beauty of blue AndaluSian
blood was known TO adorn their island
castles. The seat of power of the bucca-
neerS in the height of their fame was the
island of Hispaniola, or San Domingo and
Haiti as we know it better, the island of
Tortuga to the northward and jamaica
south of Cuba. Pierre lie Grande, or Peter
the Great a French adventurer from Nor
mandy, was the first of the TortuSan
buccaneers and acquired enormous wealth
in merchandise and ships. With single
boat and twenty-eight daring men, while
threading his way through the Bahama
channel, he fell upon and seized the vice
admiral of a Spanish fotilla and valuable
cargoes on the way to the Spanish colo
NAL possessions.
If there is anything possible that may
be said creditably of these old-time ma
rauders it may. be conveyed in the fact
that they were declared to be not so much
actuated by willful piracy as they were by
hostility to the arrogance and assump-
tions of Spain in the new world that had
been discovered by Columbus.
It was in the tortuous channels about
the Caribbean and Bahama isles that they
| fingered and watched for the richly
freighted galleons and caravels of Spain.
Conflicts were short and sharp and gener-
ally decided in favor of the buccaneers,
| who gathered in immense harvests of the
| treasures of the Western isles and the
Spanish main.
| Among the most famous of these buc-