ame up from the coast of Brazil
to the Spanish Main with a name ready-made for him. Upon the very first
adventure which he undertook he captured a plate ship of fabulous value,
and brought her safely into Jamaica; and when at last captured by the
Spaniards, he fairly frightened them into letting him go by truculent
threats of vengeance from his followers.

Such were three of the pirate buccaneers who infested the Spanish
Main. There were hundreds no less desperate, no less reckless, no less
insatiate in their lust for plunder, than they.

The effects of this freebooting soon became apparent. The risks to be
assumed by the owners of vessels and the shippers of merchandise became
so enormous that Spanish commerce was practically swept away from these
waters. No vessel dared to venture out of port excepting under escort
of powerful men-of-war, and even then they were not always secure from
molestation. Exports from Central and South America were sent to Europe
by way of the Strait of Magellan, and little or none went through the
passes between the Bahamas and the Caribbees.

So at last "buccaneering," as it had come to be generically called,
ceased to pay the vast dividends that it had done at first. The cream
was skimmed off, and only very thin milk was left in the dish. Fabulous
fortunes were no longer earned in a ten days' cruise, but what money
was won hardly paid for the risks of the winning. There must be a new
departure, or buccaneering would cease to exist.

Then arose one who showed the buccaneers a new way to squeeze money out
of the Spaniards. This man was an Englishman--Lewis Scot.

The stoppage of commerce on the Spanish Main had naturally tended to
accumulate all the wealth gathered and produced into the chief fortified
cities and towns of the West Indies. As there no longer existed prizes
upon the sea, they must be gained upon the land, if they were to be
gained at all. Lewis Scot was the first to appreciate this fact.

Gathering together a large and powerful body of men as hungry for
plunder and as desperate as himself, he descended upon the town of
Campeche, which he captured and sacked, stripping it of everything that
could possibly be carried away.

When the town was cleared to the bare walls Scot threatened to set the
torch to every house in the place if it was not ransomed by a large sum
of money which he demanded. With this booty he set sail for Tortuga,
where he arrived safely--and the problem