with a
Barbary pirate of twenty guns, and was hard put to it to escape. And,
as the seventeenth century drew near its close, these pests of the sea
so increased, that evil was sure to befall the peaceful merchantman
that put to sea without due preparation for a fight or two with the
sea robbers.

It was in the low-lying islands of the Gulf of Mexico, that these
predatory gentry--buccaneers, marooners, or pirates--made their
headquarters, and lay in wait for the richly freighted merchantmen in
the West India trade. Men of all nationalities sailed under the "Jolly
Roger,"--as the dread black flag with skull and cross-bones was
called,--but chiefly were they French and Spaniards. The continual
wars that in that turbulent time racked Europe gave to the marauders
of the sea a specious excuse for their occupation. Thus, many a
Spanish schooner, manned by a swarthy crew bent on plunder, commenced
her career on the Spanish Main, with the intention of taking only
ships belonging to France and England; but let a richly laden Spanish
galleon appear, after a long season of ill-fortune, and all scruples
were thrown aside, the "Jolly Roger" sent merrily to the fore, and
another pirate was added to the list of those that made the highways
of the sea as dangerous to travel as the footpad infested common of
Hounslow Heath. English ships went out to hunt down the treacherous
Spaniards, and stayed to rob and pillage indiscriminately; and not a
few of the names now honored as those of eminent English discoverers,
were once dreaded as being borne by merciless pirates.

But the most powerful of the buccaneers on the Spanish Main were
French, and between them and the Spaniards an unceasing warfare was
waged. There were desperate men on either side, and mighty stories are
told of their deeds of valor. There were Pierre Francois, who, with
six and twenty desperadoes, dashed into the heart of a Spanish fleet,
and captured the admiral's flag-ship; Bartholomew Portuguese, who,
with thirty men, made repeated attacks upon a great Indiaman with a
crew of seventy, and though beaten back time and again, persisted
until the crew surrendered to the twenty buccaneers left alive;
Francois l'Olonoise, who sacked the cities of Maracaibo and
Gibraltar, and who, on hearing that a man-o'-war had been sent to
drive him away, went boldly to meet her, captured her, and slaughtered
all of the crew save one, whom he sent to bear the bloody tidings to
the governor