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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



the idea that the buccaneers were devils, cannibals, and beings 

 of monstrous form. They revenged themselves upon the enemy 

 whom they dared not meet by mangling and subjecting to mimic 

 tortures such dead bodies of the invaders as were left behind, — 

 an exhibition of impotent rage which only excited the buc- 

 caneers to fresh cruelties. 



One of the English buccaneers — William Dampier — became 

 subsequently an eminent discoverer, author, and philosopher. 

 After receiving a collegiate education, he went to sea in northern 

 latitudes, which for a time disgusted him with a maritime life. 

 A voyage to the East Indies, the superintendence of a plantation 

 in Jamaica, and three years spent among the logwood-cutters of 

 Campeachy, gave him a strong bias for the tropical waters. In 

 Campeachy he became acquainted with some of the buccaneers, 

 whose descriptions of their adventures kindled in him a fond- 

 ness for a roving and piratical life. He joined an expedition 

 under Captain John Cooke : an English pilot named Cowley 

 was engaged as master, and embarked in complete ignorance of 

 the nature of the voyage. They sailed in August, 1683, in the 

 Revenge, mounting eight guns and manned by fifty-two men. 

 Cowley was told the first day that the vessel's mission was 

 trade and her destination St. Domingo ; on the second, he was 

 informed that piracy was her object and Guinea her market. 



Stopping at the Cape Verd Islands, they resolved to go to 

 Santiago, in the hope of finding some ship in the road, and in- 

 tending to cut her cable and run away with her. They saw a 

 ship at anchor, and approached her with hostile intent. They 

 were not far off when her company struck her ports and ran out 

 her lower tier of guns. Cooke bore away as fast as he could, 

 convinced that he was unable to cope with a Dutch East India- 

 man of fifty guns and four hundred men. Some time after, 

 when off Sierra Leone, they fell in with a newly built ship of 

 forty guns, well furnished with water, provisions, and brandy, 

 which they boarded and captured. They named her the Re- 



