ST INDIA PIRATES

ADVENTURES AND EXECUTION OF CAPT. JOHN RACKAM

LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF ANNE BONNEY

ADVENTURES AND HEROISM OF MARY READ

HISTORY OF THE ALGERINE PIRATES

ADVENTURES, TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF CAPTAIN GOW

THE PIRATE'S SONG

THE DANISH AND NORMAN PIRATES

The Saxons, a people supposed to be derived from the Cimbri, uniting the
occupations of fishing and piracy, commenced at an early period their
ravages in the German Ocean; and the shores of Gaul and Britain were for
ages open to their depredations. About the middle of the fifth century,
the unwarlike Vortigern, then king of Britain, embraced the fatal
resolution of requesting these hardy warriors to deliver him from the
harassing inroads of the Picts and Scots; and the expedition of Hengist
and Horsa was the consequence. Our mention of this memorable epoch is
not for its political importance, great as that is, but for its effects
on piracy; for the success attending such enterprises seems to have
turned the whole of the northern nations towards sea warfare. The Danes,
Norwegians, and Swedes, from their superior knowledge of navigation,
gave into it most; and on whatever coast the winds carried them, they
made free with all that came in their way. Canute the Fourth endeavored
in vain to repress these lawless disorders among his subjects; but they
felt so galled by his restrictions, that they assassinated him. On the
king of Sweden being taken by the Danes, permission was given to such of
his subjects as chose, to arm themselves against the enemy, pillage his
possessions, and sell their prizes at Ribnitz and Golnitz. This proved a
fertile nursery of pirates, who became so formidable under the name of
"Victalien Broders," that several princes were obliged to arm against
them, and hang some of their chiefs.

Even the females of the North caught the epidemic spirit, and proudly
betook themselves to the dangers of sea-life. Saxo-Grammaticus relates
an interesting story of one of them. Alwilda, the daughter of Synardus,
a Gothic king, to deliver herself from the violence imposed on her
inclination, by a marriage with Alf, the son of Sygarus, king of
Denmark, embraced the life of a rover; and attired as a man, she
embarked in a vessel of which the crew was composed of other young women
of tried courage, dressed in the same manner. Among the first of her
cruises, she landed at a place where a company of pirates were bewailing
the loss of their comman