but as heretics.
Domenique de Gourges, of Rochelle, heard of this fine exploit of
fanaticism, equipped a ship, and sailed across. He caught the Spanish
garrison which had been left in occupation and swung them on the same
trees--with a second scroll saying that they were dangling there, not as
Spaniards, but as murderers.

The genius of adventure tempted men of highest birth into the rovers'
ranks. Sir Thomas Seymour, the Protector's brother and the King's uncle,
was Lord High Admiral. In his time of office, complaints were made by
foreign merchants of ships and property seized at the Thames mouth. No
redress could be had; no restitution made; no pirate was even punished,
and Seymour's personal followers were seen suspiciously decorated with
Spanish ornaments. It appeared at last that Seymour had himself bought
the Scilly Isles, and if he could not have his way at Court, it was said
that he meant to set up there as a pirate chief.

The persecution under Mary brought in more respectable recruits than
Seymour. The younger generation of the western families had grown with
the times. If they were not theologically Protestant, they detested
tyranny. They detested the marriage with Philip, which threatened the
independence of England. At home they were powerless, but the sons of
honourable houses--Strangways, Tremaynes, Staffords, Horseys, Carews,
Killegrews, and Cobhams--dashed out upon the water to revenge the
Smithfield massacres. They found help where it could least have been
looked for. Henry II. of France hated heresy, but he hated Spain worse.
Sooner than see England absorbed in the Spanish monarchy, he forgot his
bigotry in his politics. He furnished these young mutineers with ships
and money and letters of marque. The Huguenots were their natural
friends. With Rochelle for an arsenal, they held the mouth of the
Channel, and harassed the communications between Cadiz and Antwerp. It
was a wild business: enterprise and buccaneering sanctified by religion
and hatred of cruelty; but it was a school like no other for seamanship,
and a school for the building of vessels which could out-sail all others
on the sea; a school, too, for the training up of hardy men, in whose
blood ran detestation of the Inquisition and the Inquisition's master.
Every other trade was swallowed up or coloured by privateering; the
merchantmen went armed, ready for any work that offered; the Iceland
fleet went no more in search of cod; the Channel