SEA-ROVERS 



harmony in the West Indies. While they were peaceful citizens redress- 

 ing a grievance against the Spaniards, the buccaneers were well enough 

 in their way, but they soon degenerated and it has been said that the only 

 real difference between them and the pirates proper was that the latter 

 regarded their ships as their homes and the buccaneers only as a means 

 of transport to their booty. 

 Sir Henry Morgan. 



Surely one of the most extraordinary romances of ocean roving is 

 the life of Sir Henry Morgan. He called himself a buccaneer and a 

 respectable citizen, yet his methods shocked even the buccaneers them- 

 selves. His appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica caused a 

 scandal, yet he was every bit as good an administrator as most of his 

 contemporaries. He was born in Wales in 1635 and as a lad is sup- 

 posed to have been kidnapped in the streets of Bristol and shipped off to 

 the West Indies, although this story is open to doubt. In those waters 

 he soon made his name for daring and in 1668 was given the command 

 of a privateer fleet by the government. In 1670, although still quite a 

 young man, he made his reputation for good by leading a party to the 

 sack of Panama, acting with consummate skill but robbing his followers 

 of the greater part of their plunder and abandoning most of them at 

 Chagres. In 1672, in consequence of his having continued his raids in 

 spite of the Anglo-Spanish treaty, he was arrested and taken to England. 

 But he was a man after the Merry Monarch's own heart, with the result 

 that he returned with a knighthood and a commission as Deputy- 

 Governor. Many accusations were brought against him, but he 

 managed to weather all his troubles in spite of the fact that he was 

 manifestly guilty of helping pirates and various other offences which 

 were not in keeping with the dignity of a Lieutenant-Governor. In 1688 

 he was nearly upset, but on the intercession of the Duke of Albemarle 

 the King ordered his reinstatement. He died shortly afterwards and 

 his funeral showed the very real affection which the Jamaicans felt 

 towards this extraordinary adventurer. 



Captain William Dampier. 



Although regarded nowadays principally as a navigator who carried 

 out surveying work far in advance of his time, William Dampier was 

 primarily a buccaneer who was in the front rank of his profession. His 

 father tried to make him a shopkeeper, but he was soon away to sea and 

 did well in the Navy against the Dutch before he migrated to Jamaica. 

 From there he drifted into the logwood trade, which was directly against 

 all the Spaniards' edicts. Once there it was only a short step to 

 buccaneering proper, and this step was taken before 1678. In the 

 following year he sailed v/ith Coxon, Sawkins and Sharp, a notorious trio, 

 and happily for us he kept a full diary of his adventures. His band 

 crossed the Isthmus of Panama and after taking several prizes a number 

 of them, including Dampier, sailed out into the Pacific. This venture, 

 like so many others of the same description, ended in quarrels and 

 Dampier was soon back in the Caribbean. He then shipped in the 



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