4 
BAHAMA PIRATES. 315 
appendage of the British crown, upon the ground of his discovery, 
although more thana hundred years before Columbus had made 
the acquaintance of some of them, sailed through the group, and 
claimed all for Ferdinand and Isabella. Soon after this alleged 
discovery by Capt. Sayle, Charles the Second of England made 
a royal grant of all the Bahamas, including the islands which 
Columbus visited in 1492, to the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, 
Sir John Caterel, Lord Berkley, Lord Sibley, and Sir Peter Cole- 
ton—the proprietors of Carolina; who did very little for the 
islands which was of any service to England or to themselves. 
Afterwards, the outlaws of civilization and savages of the sea, - 
frequented the islands, and made them the center of their hostile 
operations against the commerce of the world. With vessels of 
light draft, they mastered the intricacies of the tortuous chan- 
nels, and made themselves familiar with the points of special 
danger, the safest lines of approach and retreat, the harbors of 
refuge, the best places for concealment, and the strongholds of 
defense. No light-houses, buoys or reliable charts warned the 
marincr, or guided him in his course over the perilous waters. 
Countless rocks and reefs, extensive shoals and banks, intricate 
currents and cross-currents, severe storms, and an occasional 
hurricane, would seem to have been sufficient without the still 
more fearful peril of armed and demoniac brigands of the sea. 
The pirates who succeeded the original inhabitants must have 
been lineally descended from the early inhabitants of England, 
if the following description of the latter by Greene is to be credi- 
ted: ‘From the first, the daring of the English race broke out 
in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirate’s swoop, in the fierce- 
ness of their onsct, in the carcless glee with which they seized 
either sword or oar. ‘ Foes are they,’ sang a Roman poet of the 
time, ‘fierce beyond other foes, and cunning as they are fierce; 
the sea is their school of war, and the storm their friend; they 
are sea-wolves that prey on the pillage of the world.’ ” 
