SEA-ROVERS 



arrived at Corunna the Spanish treasury was empty, and lying there 

 waiting for their wages it is only natural that the crews should get dis- 

 satisfied and soon be ready for anything. Avery collected the most 

 promising men of both ships and seized his vessel the Charles II to go 

 a-pirating. That he was not as bloodthirsty as he is often described is 

 shown by the fact that the captains and the loyal members of the crews 

 were allowed to go ashore unharmed, although Avery knew perfectly 

 well that the first thing that they would do would be to start a hue and 

 cry for him. He appears to have been scrupulously just to his followers, 

 which was rather a rare thing with the out-and-out pirates, and after a 

 number of minor prizes they took a valuable ship belonging to the Great 

 Mogul. On the spoil of this prize the crew retired, but some of them 

 were captured later and hanged after they had been acquitted once. 

 Avery himself returned to Bristol a rich man and is said to have been so 

 thoroughly cheated by the good Quakers of that town that he died a 

 beggar. His activities, and the natural annoyance of the Great Mogul, 

 led to a proper patrol of the distant seas being instituted. 



Madagascar. 



During the latter part of the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth 

 century an extraordinary state of aflEairs sprang up in Madagascar, which 

 became a regular pirate centre. Merchants whose ships might well be 

 the next attacked went out there with cargoes of stores and liquors for 

 the pirates and brought back return cargoes of goods that had been 

 stolen on the High Seas. It is illuminating that this was allowed to con- 

 tinue so long ; in fact one cannot help thinking that the maritime powers 

 deserved to be plundered for their neglect of the most obvious measures 

 of protection. 



The Buccaneers. 



It is almost customary to lump the pirates and the buccaneers 

 together and to treat them as one set of lawbreakers, whereas the latter 

 regarded themselves, and were frequently regarded, as good citizens 

 who had most of them suffered at the hands of the Spaniards and were 

 waging a private war on Spain, no matter what happened to be the state 

 of affairs in Europe. The trouble was that many adventurers who fitted 

 out their ships against the Spaniards found a dearth of Spanish prizes 

 and therefore in their need took the first one which came to hand, but 

 that was regarded as an unfortunate accident. Originally they were 

 the settlers who established themselves in the Spanish islands to hunt the 

 wild cattle and to prepare the hnccan, or dried beef, which was very 

 much in demand by seafarers in those days. Had they been left alone 

 they would certainly have made excellent citizens and have contributed 

 considerably to the prosperity of the Spanish colonies, but in an unlucky 

 moment the Dons decided that they were trespassers and should be 

 exterminated. The result was that they made them enemies for ever, 

 and as they were not strong enough to stamp them out they suffered 

 greatly at their hands. The spirit of hatred against the Spaniard appears 

 to have been the only thing that kept the English, French and Dutch in 



293 



