n their
lives as regular pirates; among these, the idea of organization was very
prominent. Of course it was hard to get a number of free and
untrammelled crews to unite and obey the commands of a few officers. But
in time the buccaneers had recognized leaders, and laws were made for
concerted action. In consequence of this the buccaneers became a
formidable body of men, sometimes superior to the Spanish naval and
military forces.

It must be remembered that the buccaneers lived in a very peculiar age.
So far as the history of America is concerned, it might be called the
age of blood and gold. In the newly discovered countries there were no
laws which European nations or individuals cared to observe. In the West
Indies and the adjacent mainlands there were gold and silver, and there
were also valuable products of other kinds, and when the Spaniards
sailed to their part of the new world, these treasures were the things
for which they came. The natives were weak and not able to defend
themselves. All the Spaniards had to do was to take what they could
find, and when they could not find enough they made the poor Indians
find it for them. Here was a part of the world, and an age of the world,
wherein it was the custom for men to do what they pleased, provided they
felt themselves strong enough, and it was not to be supposed that any
one European nation could expect a monopoly of this state of mind.

Therefore it was that while the Spaniards robbed and ruined the natives
of the lands they discovered, the English, French, and Dutch buccaneers
robbed the robbers. Great vessels were sent out from Spain, carrying
nothing in the way of merchandise to America, but returning with all the
precious metals and valuable products of the newly discovered regions,
which could in any way be taken from the unfortunate natives. The gold
mines of the new world had long been worked, and yielded handsome
revenues, but the native method of operating them did not satisfy the
Spaniards, who forced the poor Indians to labor incessantly at the
difficult task of digging out the precious metals, until many of them
died under the cruel oppression. Sometimes the Indians were kept six
months under ground, working in the mines; and at one time, when it was
found that the natives had died off, or had fled from the neighborhood
of some of the rich gold deposits, it was proposed to send to Africa and
get a cargo of negroes to work the mines.

Now it is ea