for the execution, the digging of the graves, and the
cheering drams which the executioners found needful after their grisly
work.

But if American colonial piracy presents a smaller array of legal
documents than American colonial privateering, it makes up for it by
its rich abundance of picturesque narrative and detail. The pieces
here brought together show us piracy off Lisbon and in the East Indies
and at Madagascar, at Portobello and Panama and in the South Sea, in
the West Indies, and all along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland
to the coast of Guiana. They exhibit to us every relation from that of
the most innocent victim to that of the most hardened pirate chief.
They make it clear how narrow was sometimes the line that divided
piracy and privateering, and how difficult it must have been to learn
the truth from witnesses so conflicting and of such dubious
characters, testifying concerning actions of lawless men in remote
seas or on lonely shores.

Most of the pirates famed in story, who had anything to do with
colonial America, appear in one way or another in these papers. On the
history of Henry Every, for instance, and even on the oft-told tale of
William Kidd, not a little new light is cast. Kidd's letters from
prison, the letter and petitions of his wife, the depositions of
companions, the additional letters of Bellomont, make the story live
again, even though no new evidence appears that is perfectly
conclusive as to the still-debated question of his degree of guilt.
The wonderful buccaneering adventures of Bartholomew Sharp and his
companions, 1680-1682, at the Isthmus of Panama and all along the west
coast of South America, are newly illustrated by long anonymous
narratives, artless but effective. And indeed, to speak more
generally, it is hoped that there are few aspects of the pirate's
trade that are not somehow represented in these pages.

At least it will not be denied that the documents, whether for piracy
or for privateering, show a considerable variety of origins. Their
authors range from a Signer of the Declaration of Independence to an
Irishwoman keeping a boarding-house in Havana, from a minister of
Louis XIV. or a judge of the High Court of Admiralty to the most
illiterate sailor, from Governor John Endicott, most rigid of
Puritans, to the keeper of a rendezvous for pirates and receiver of
their ill-gotten goods. Witnesses or writers of many nationalities
appear: American, Englishmen, Sco