John S C Abbott

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. We have represented this book in the same form as it was first published. Hence any marks seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

Few periods in history have become so intertwined with legend as the era of the buccaneers-or "pirates" as they later became known. Originally privateers commissioned by the French, and later by the English and Dutch crowns, to hunt Spanish ships in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th century, the innate lawlessness of the profession inevitably spiraled out of control. The buccaneers eventually became pirates-and had to be forcibly suppressed by the governments which had initially commissioned them. Focusing first on the extraordinary career of Captain Kidd, a New York merchant turned buccaneer, this work also includes the often shocking life stories of other equally famous-and bloodthirsty-pirates such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; Stede Bonnet, Barthelemy, and Lolonois. It also covers the story of Anne Bonny, the amazing career of Sir Henry Morgan, the cruel fanaticism of Montbar, and the romantic history of Mary Read. It tears away the myths which have surrounded this incredible time, and tells the true story of the men-and women-who sailed the seas seeking glory, fame, and wealth, and stopping at little to get it. "There can scarcely anything be found in the literature of our language, more wild and wonderful, than the narrative contained in this volume. . ."-from the Preface. This then, is the true story of the pirates of the Caribbean.

The adventures of our Pilgrim Fathers must ever be a theme of absorbing interest to all their descendants. Their persecutions in England, their flight to Holland, their passage across the stormy ocean, this new world, as they found it, swept by the storms of approaching winter, their struggles with the hardships of the wilderness, and conflicts with the ferocious savage, -all combine in forming a narrative replete with the elements of entertainment and instruction. Fortunately, there can be no doubt in reference to the essential facts. All these events have occurred within the last three hundred years, a period fully covered by authentic historical documents. In giving occasional extracts from these documents, I have deemed it expedient to modernize the spelling, and occasionally to exchange an unintelligible, obsolete word for one now in use.

On the southern coasts of the Baltic Sea, between the latitudes of 52 and 54 , there lies a country which was first revealed to civilized eyes about three hundred years before the birth of Christ. The trading adventurers from Marseilles, who landed at various points upon the coast, found it a cold, savage region of lakes, forests, marshy jungles, and sandy wastes. A shaggy tribe peopled it, of semi-barbarians, almost as wild as the bears, wolves, and swine which roamed their forests. As the centuries rolled on, centuries of which, in these remote regions, history takes no note, but in which the gloomy generations came and went, shouting, fighting, weeping, dying, gradually the aspect of a rude civilization spread over those dreary solitudes. The savage inhabitants, somewhat tamed, increased in numbers, and there appeared a tall and manly race of fair complexion, light hair, stern aspect, great physical strength, and very formidable in battle. Still centuries elapsed, leaving little for history to record but war and woe. Fierce tribes swept in all directions. Battle was life's great business.