ves made laws so fair and free,
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.
Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and
gold,
Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old;
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,
Who flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone."

The buccaneer is "a gallant sailor," according to Kingsley's poem--a
Robin Hood of the waters, who preys only on the wicked rich, or the cruel
and Popish Spaniard, and the extortionate shipowner. For his own part,
when he is not rescuing poor Indians, the buccaneer lives mainly "for
climate and the affections":--

"Oh, sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze,
A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees,
With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar
Of the breakers on the reef outside that never touched the shore."

This is delightfully idyllic, like the lives of the Tahitian shepherds in
the Anti-Jacobin--the shepherds whose occupation was a sinecure, as there
were no sheep in Tahiti.

Yet the vocation was not really so touchingly chivalrous as the poet
would have us deem. One Joseph Esquemeling, himself a buccaneer, has
written the history and described the exploits of his companions in plain
prose, warning eager youths that "pieces-of-eight do not grow on every
tree," as many raw recruits have believed. Mr. Esquemeling's account of
these matters may be purchased, with a great deal else that is
instructive and entertaining, in "The History of the Buccaneers in
America." My edition (of 1810) is a dumpy little book, in very small
type, and quite a crowd of publishers took part in the venture. The
older editions are difficult to procure if your pockets are not stuffed
with pieces-of-eight. You do not often find even this volume, but "when
found make a note of," and you have a reply to Canon Kingsley.

A charitable old Scotch lady, who heard our ghostly foe evil spoken of,
remarked that, "If we were all as diligent and conscientious as the
Devil, it would be better for us." Now, the buccaneers were certainly
models of diligence and conscientiousness in their own industry, which
was to torture people till they gave up their goods, and then to run them
through the body, and spend the spoils over drink and dice. Except
Dampier, who was a clever man, but a poor buccaneer (Mr. Clark Russell
has written his life)