Part 1 (1/2)

Pirates and Piracy.

by Oscar Herrmann.

INTRODUCTION.

There is hardly a person who, as a school-boy, had not received the fire of imagination and the stimulus for adventure and a roaming life through the stirring narratives concerning Captain Kidd and other well-known sea rovers. A certain ineffable glamor metamorphosed these robbers into heroes, and lent an inalienable license to their ”calling,” so that the songster and romancist found in them and their deeds prolific and genial themes, while the obscure suggestions of hidden treasures and mysterious caves have inspired many expeditions in quest of buried fortunes which, like the Argo of old, have carried their Jasons to the mythical Colchis.

The pens of Byron, Scott, Poe, Stevenson, Russell, and Stockton, and the musical genius of Wagner, were steeped in the productive inspiration of these lawless adventurers, and Kingsley found in Lundy Island, the erstwhile nest of the reckless tribe, a subject for his ”Westward Ho!”

Byron, in ”The Corsair,” sings:

O'er the glad waters of the dark-blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home!

These are our realms, no limits to their sway, Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.

Ours the wild life in tumult still to range From toil to rest, and joy in every change.

Piracy was the growth of maritime adventure, and developed with the advancement of commerce. The Phnicians and Greeks were especially apt in the interstate wars which frequently degenerated into rapine and plunder, and with them piracy became a recognized enterprise. In Homeric times it was dignified with a respect worthy of a n.o.bler cause-a sentiment in which the freebooters of later centuries took arrogant pride. The pirate-cruel, vicious, debased to the lowest degree of turpitude-established a moral code governing his actions and circ.u.mscribing his wanton license, and it was in the rigorous observance of these ”trade laws” and customs of their realm that this abortive sense of honor manifested itself.

The successes of the Phnicians and Greeks soon made the Mediterranean the theatre of maritime robbery, in later years conducted under the authority, sanction, and immunity of the Barbary powers. In fact, so reckless had the enterprise become that the temerity of the free lances knew no bounds, and headquarters, so to speak, were established, and for a long time maintained, at Cilicia.

The vigorous campaign of Pompey in 67 B.C. against the pirates was but the precursor of that systematic defence which the nations of the world eventually adopted. The Hanseatic League of the cities of Northern Germany and neighboring states, no doubt, had its origin in the necessitous combination of merchants to resist the attacks of the Nors.e.m.e.n. England sent out many expeditions to destroy the pestiferous freebooters who swarmed from the African coast, and finally, in 1815, the United States sent Decatur to Algiers to annihilate the nefarious corsairs, who had thrived and become brazen in their recklessness during the three centuries of their ascendant power. The incursions of the Algerine pirates were made as far north as England, Ireland, and Iceland, and through them an iniquitous slave trade was developed. The law of nations did not place its ban upon this slave traffic until by statute England and the United States attempted to obliterate this ineradicable blot upon our civilization, and only a half century ago Austria, Prussia, and Russia declared it to be piracy.

Piracy, by the law of nations, is punishable with death within the jurisdiction of any nation under whose flag the capture may have been made, for the pirate is the common enemy of mankind. Although it has pa.s.sed the zenith of its perverse glory, and modern naval development has made it impracticable and impossible, vestiges of piracy remain in the Malay Archipelago and the China Sea. As recently as 1864 five men were hanged in London on such a charge.

Privateering, the resourceful auxiliary to a weak navy, is also piracy, though not recognized so by the law of nations. The private s.h.i.+p which, under the authority of letters of marque and reprisal issued by the government, made war upon a hostile power, was always an indispensable adjunct to naval warfare. England considered our privateer Paul Jones a pirate. During the Civil War the Confederate cruisers were termed pirates, and the _Alabama_ claims made upon England for damage done by the _Alabama_, the _Florida_, and the _Shenandoah_ arose from permitting privateers to depart from her ports.

The rise and sway of the corsairs of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, developing from disorganized piracy, was evidently the result of the persecution of the Moors of Spain in the sixteenth century, who, exiled and retributive, sought revenge and lucre in the attacks upon the argosies from India to Spain. Their successes attracted adventurers from Asia Minor, and thus augmented they acquired formidable power, established citadels and states, governed by daring and sagacious leaders, and levied blackmail upon Christian countries for the protection of commerce. It was not until the vigorous campaign of Decatur that the backbone of this sanctioned lawlessness of the Barbary States was broken and safety upon the high seas of the East a.s.sured.

The bold character of these marauders can be best imagined when we reflect that in the seventeenth century the Algerine pirates cruised in the English Channel, blockaded the Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1635 for weeks in an English port, where he remained helpless till succored by an English man-of-war, and actually entered the harbor of Cork and carried away eight fishermen, who subsequently were sold as slaves in Algiers.

But, as we have seen, piracy, which at one time was the formidable enemy of mankind and a menace to progress and development, is now merely a matter of history.

The limits of this article will not permit any extended review of lawless maritime depredations in its various phases, but it may be within our province to refer for a moment to the buccaneers and filibusters of our own continent. The late war in Cuba brought the filibusters once more into prominence. The term applies to one who, warring upon another country, does so, not for private gain, but for public benefit, and refers generally to those who had attempted to conquer certain Spanish-American possessions upon the plea that the objective country was suffering from anarchy and oppression. The theory was that salvation could only be found in annexation to the United States; and if this be so, there are many spiritual filibusters within our borders to-day. The term has now become generally applicable to adventurers from the United States, but was unknown under that name until the expedition of Lopez to Cuba in 1850. Aaron Burr was a filibuster, although we may justly doubt the virtue of his motives.

William Walker, perhaps the foremost of them all, invaded Lower California in 1854, attempted to found a republic, was defeated, and later conquered Nicaragua and became its president, only to s.h.i.+ft about in his meteoric career of destiny and sail against Honduras, where he was captured, court-martialled, and shot in 1860.

It is to the buccaneers, however, that the history of piracy is indebted for the ”glory” which may fill its pages; it is to the men of the stamp of Morgan, Dampier, Peter of Dieppe, and Van Horn, who by their courage, dash, and spasmodic chivalry lent sufficient romance to their misdeeds as to obscure the crime, that we owe the stirring tales of the conquests in the West Indies and South America. And no less a pirate was Francis Drake, who, despite his knighthood and the official countenance the Elizabethan government lent to his attacks upon Spanish galleons and cities, stands forth as one of the greatest free lances of the world.

His history is unique, brilliant, and commanding; his service for his country and the attack upon the Spanish Armada atoning, as it were, for his piratical crimes. What irony of fate, that this wonderful man, a knight of England, a member of Parliament, a warrior and sailor, a robber and conqueror, should now lie in a lead coffin at the bottom of the sea off Porto Rico, conquered by death while on his way to the islands so often the object of his pillage!

The constant warring of Spain against the powers of the world, not at home but in her western possessions, finally led to that outlawry which under the name of buccaneers terrorized the Caribbean Sea during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1625 the island of St.

Christopher was settled by the buccaneers to establish a base; and later the island of Tortuga was captured, which became the scene of constant warfare until the capture of Jamaica in 1655.[1] Pre-eminent amongst the buccaneers of this period who made the Spanish Main a synonym for robbery and bloodshed was Captain Henry Morgan, who, as a pirate, captured Jamaica, was knighted by Charles II., and later made Deputy Governor of the island. He it was who led the buccaneers to the South Sea, opening for them a rich field for booty, by marching across the Isthmus of Panama, fighting a battle and capturing and plundering the city, and, seizing the Spanish vessels in the harbor, set sail for the South Sea, returning by way of Cape Horn with fabulous prizes. After the capture of Cartagena in 1697, the organization of these intrepid, daring, and able freebooters disrupted, and the glory waned and vanished; the degeneracy was rapid and complete, till cut-throats and villainous outlaws took the place of their great predecessors.

[Footnote 1: Driven from St. Christopher, the expatriated French and English outlaws settled in San Domingo, an island over whose plains thousands of wild cattle roamed, and found excellent revenue in the capture of these beasts and the sale of the flesh and hides. The peculiar manner of smoking the beef and preserving the hides, known as ”bucchanning,” gave them their name.]

History shows that in our own country pirates appeared along the Carolina coast as far back as 1565, and before the settlement of the country by the English, under charter of Charles II., the pirates of the Spanish Main occupied the coast, the many harbors lending refuge and safe retreat, while permitting the burying of treasures.

The Carolinas remained friendly to pirates with a persistency of popular favor which was well-nigh ineradicable. And this is quite readily understood when we reflect that the depredations were committed upon s.h.i.+ps of His Catholic Majesty, the foe of England, and that the pirates brought their gold and silver plate to the colonies for sale and barter, thus bringing wealth and resource to the struggling communities; and, lastly, the example and sanction set by the king in knighting Henry Morgan, the leading pirate of the day. It was impossible to obtain a jury to convict any one upon the charge of piracy, and so the authorities found themselves helpless.

The best known of all the pirates in America is beyond doubt Captain Kidd, of whom we all have sung:

Oh, my name is Captain Kidd, As I sailed, As I sailed.