me but in her western possessions, finally led to that outlawry which
under the name of buccaneers terrorized the Caribbean Sea during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1625 the island of St.
Christopher was settled by the buccaneers to establish a base; and later
the island of Tortuga was captured, which became the scene of constant
warfare until the capture of Jamaica in 1655.[1] Pre-eminent amongst the
buccaneers of this period who made the Spanish Main a synonym for
robbery and bloodshed was Captain Henry Morgan, who, as a pirate,
captured Jamaica, was knighted by Charles II., and later made Deputy
Governor of the island. He it was who led the buccaneers to the South
Sea, opening for them a rich field for booty, by marching across the
Isthmus of Panama, fighting a battle and capturing and plundering the
city, and, seizing the Spanish vessels in the harbor, set sail for the
South Sea, returning by way of Cape Horn with fabulous prizes. After the
capture of Cartagena in 1697, the organization of these intrepid,
daring, and able freebooters disrupted, and the glory waned and
vanished; the degeneracy was rapid and complete, till cut-throats and
villainous outlaws took the place of their great predecessors.

[Footnote 1: Driven from St. Christopher, the expatriated French
and English outlaws settled in San Domingo, an island over whose
plains thousands of wild cattle roamed, and found excellent
revenue in the capture of these beasts and the sale of the flesh
and hides. The peculiar manner of smoking the beef and
preserving the hides, known as "bucchanning," gave them their
name.]

History shows that in our own country pirates appeared along the
Carolina coast as far back as 1565, and before the settlement of the
country by the English, under charter of Charles II., the pirates of the
Spanish Main occupied the coast, the many harbors lending refuge and
safe retreat, while permitting the burying of treasures.

The Carolinas remained friendly to pirates with a persistency of popular
favor which was well-nigh ineradicable. And this is quite readily
understood when we reflect that the depredations were committed upon
ships of His Catholic Majesty, the foe of England, and that the pirates
brought their gold and silver plate to the colonies for sale and barter,
thus bringing wealth and resource to the struggling communities; and,
lastly, the example and sanction set by the king in knighti