It is only by constant teaching
that they learn that they must not do so; that they must not take
by force what does not belong to them. So it is only by teaching and
training that people learn to be honest and not to take what is not
theirs. When this teaching is not sufficient to make a man learn to be
honest, or when there is something in the man's nature that makes him
not able to learn, then he only lacks the opportunity to seize upon the
things he wants, just as he would do if he were a little child.

In the colonies at that time, as was just said, men were too few and
scattered to protect themselves against those who had made up their
minds to take by force that which they wanted, and so it was that men
lived an unrestrained and lawless life, such as we of these times of
better government can hardly comprehend.

The usual means of commerce between province and province was by water
in coasting vessels. These coasting vessels were so defenseless, and the
different colonial governments were so ill able to protect them,
that those who chose to rob them could do it almost without danger to
themselves.

So it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested
with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to stop
merchant vessels and take from them what they chose.

Each province in those days was ruled over by a royal governor appointed
by the king. Each governor, at one time, was free to do almost as he
pleased in his own province. He was accountable only to the king and his
government, and England was so distant that he was really responsible
almost to nobody but himself.

The governors were naturally just as desirous to get rich quickly,
just as desirous of getting all that they could for themselves, as was
anybody else only they had been taught and had been able to learn that
it was not right to be an actual pirate or robber. They wanted to be
rich easily and quickly, but the desire was not strong enough to lead
them to dishonor themselves in their own opinion and in the opinion of
others by gratifying their selfishness. They would even have stopped
the pirates from doing what they did if they could, but their provincial
governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing
merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore. The provinces
had no navies, and they really had no armies; neither were there enough
people living within the community to enforce the laws a