ay. The loyal
chronicler had as firm a belief in the absolute inability of his hero to
fly from danger as was shown by the Scottish Douglas, when he stood, his
back against a mass of stone, and invited his enemies to "Come one, come
all." The bushy-browed pirate of the drawn cutlass had so often
expressed his contempt for a soldier who would even surrender, to say
nothing of running away, that Esquemeling could scarcely believe that
Roc had retreated from his enemies, deserted his friends, and turned his
back upon the principles which he had always so truculently proclaimed.

But this downfall of a hero simply shows that Esquemeling, although he
was a member of the piratical body, and was proud to consider himself a
buccaneer, did not understand the true nature of a pirate. Under the
brutality, the cruelty, the dishonesty, and the recklessness of the
sea-robbers of those days, there was nearly always meanness and
cowardice. Roc, as we have said in the beginning of this sketch, was a
typical pirate; under certain circumstances he showed himself to have
all those brave and savage qualities which Esquemeling esteemed and
revered, and under other circumstances he showed those other qualities
which Esquemeling despised, but which are necessary to make up the true
character of a pirate.

The historian John seems to have been very much cut up by the manner in
which his favorite hero had rounded off his piratical career, and after
that he entirely dropped Roc from his chronicles.

This out-and-out pirate was afterwards living in Jamaica, and probably
engaged in new enterprises, but Esquemeling would have nothing more to
do with him nor with the history of his deeds.

Chapter XI

A Buccaneer Boom

The condition of affairs in the West Indies was becoming very serious in
the eyes of the Spanish rulers. They had discovered a new country, they
had taken possession of it, and they had found great wealth of various
kinds, of which they were very much in need. This wealth was being
carried to Spain as fast as it could be taken from the unfortunate
natives and gathered together for transportation, and everything would
have gone on very well indeed had it not been for the most culpable and
unwarranted interference of that lawless party of men, who might almost
be said to amount to a nationality, who were continually on the alert to
take from Spain everything she could take from America. The English,
French, and Dutch gover