t of a line of great monarchs, and
one of the best of them all; a man of lofty spirit, temperate appetites,
and courageous endurance, who, had he lived in more prosperous days, might
have ruled in the royal halls of Cordova with a renown equal to that of
the most famous caliph of his race.

HENRY MORGAN AND THE BUCCANEERS.

As the seventeenth century passed on, Spain, under the influence of
religious intolerance and bad government, grew weak, both at home and
abroad. Its prominent place in Europe was lost. Its vast colonial
provinces in America were scenes of persecution and anarchy. There the
fortresses were allowed to decay, the soldiers, half-clothed and unpaid,
to become beggars or bandits, the treasures to be pilfered, and commerce
to become a system of fraud; while the colonists were driven to detest
their mother land. This weakness was followed by dire consequences. Bands
of outcasts from various nations, who had settled on Spanish territory in
the West Indies, at first to forage on the cattle of Hispaniola, organized
into pirate crews, and, under the name of buccaneers, became frightful
scourges of the commerce of Spain.

These wretches, mainly French, English, and Dutch, deserters and outlaws,
the scum of their nations, made the rich merchant and treasure ships of
Spain their prey, slaughtering their crews, torturing them for hidden
wealth, rioting with profuse prodigality at their lurking-places on land,
and turning those fair tropical islands into a pandemonium of outrage,
crime, and slaughter. As they troubled little the ships of other nations,
these nations rather favored than sought to suppress them, and Spain
seemed powerless to bring their ravages to an end. In consequence, as the
years went on, they grew bolder and more adventurous. Beginning with a few
small, deckless sloops, they in time gained large and well-armed vessels,
and created so deep a terror among the Spaniards by their savage attacks
that the latter rarely made a strong resistance.

Lurking in forest-hidden creeks and inlets of the West India islands, they
kept a keen lookout for the ships that bore to Spain the gold, silver,
precious stones, and rich products of the New World, pursued them in their
swift barks, boarded them, and killed all who ventured to resist. If the
cargo was a rich one, and there had been little effort at defence, the
prisoners might be spared their lives; if otherwise, they were flung
mercilessly into t