The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-15
Famed Spanish Main May Become Property
 Of American People
England May Turn Islands Celebrated In Song and Story
 to United States to Liqudate Debt

tioner and looping off their heads. and this after he had taken goods valued at 100000 crowns
 One other of the old buccaneers owes the i'll fame that is still asso- Ciated with his name to his cruelty. He was Montbars the Exterminator, who became a sea rover not so much for the booty he might get as for the Spaniards he might be able to kill. His anger had been so stirred through tales he had heard of Span ish cruelty to Indians that he burned to clear the Western Hemisphere of the Dons. To that end he became q buccaneer. and ran down every Span ish sail he could find, killing all on board, men, women and children. friars. priests and nuns alike. If there was loot worth taking, he took it. If not, he sailed on. satisfied that there was one shipfu1 less of Spaniards in the Spanish Main because of Mont bars the Exterminator.
 Some Were Pious Also.
 Very many of the men whose names glow sombrely on the pages of buccaneer memoirs were almost as widely known for their chivalry and piety as for their crimes.
 There was Alexandre Bras de Fer who because of his seamanship, his mastery of the art of robbing with out physical pain, his ability to force captured islands to pay tribute to him periodically and his farsighted wisdom In planning his captures, was called Alexander the Great. He was never cruel. Even when his capture was a ship of war he treated his pris- oners with the utmost courtesy and gentleness.
 Admirers of Sir Henry Morgan are fond of telling of his justice and his belief in fair play. citing as one illus traitor his handling of the survivor of q duel. This man. an English buccaneer in Morgan's crew, quar- relied with a French shipmate over tho possession of the marrowbone of an OK, a great delicacy with the old sea rovers. To settle the dispute as to which of them really owned the marrowbone the two men decided to fight duel with swords. While the Frenchman was taking his posi- ton the Englishman ran him through the back win his sword, killing him instantly. The incident was reported to Morgan, and he had the English man put into irons and sent to Ja- maica, saying that an affair like that was not be Hooked Upon with fslvor,a even though the principal actor was one of his own country men!
 Some of the other stories that have filtered through the glamour of great ness thrown around Morgan are far from being illustrative of any gentle ness. When he took Porto BeIlo. which Is on the mainland. with its splendid Notifications and fine garri- I,A prrr +I1a n Q castle, after the town had surrender ed, and burned the castle with all the men. Citizens who were not in tha castle were imprisoned in churches and there tortured or killed. In other captured forts he caused to be killed men and women and all members of religious orders.
 Hard on old Comrades. After Morgan was made Deputy Governor of Jamaica by Charles IL he was very severe with the buc- cancers, causing many of his old as- | sociates to be tried and hanged Not | withstandlng this fact he was sus- pected by Spain of being the direct | ing head of the buccaneers, and after Duke of York became King of Eng land as James II. the influence of the | Spanish court was sufficient to have | Morgan recalled from the West In dies and put into prison in England John Esquemeling, himself a buc- | cancer and the author of Dutch | history of the buccaneers which has | been translated into French, Span | ish and English, tells of the piety ot | the buccaneers. So too do other | chroniclers, notably Dampierre, Oex l melin, Buccaneer Commander SharI | and Father La Bat.
 Father La Bat says the Catholic: among them were very devout ant always made full confession as soor as they reached port after a grea | robbery and killing at sea- TheJ