ch an extent that they threatened to do away
entirely with that series of primary robberies to which Spain had
devoted herself. I do not know that there were any companies formed in
those days for the prosecution of buccaneering, but I am quite sure that
if there had been, their shares would have gone up to a very high
figure.

Chapter XII

The Story of L'Olonnois the Cruel

In the preceding chapter we have seen that the buccaneers had at last
become so numerous and so formidable that it was dangerous for a Spanish
ship laden with treasure from the new world to attempt to get out of the
Caribbean Sea into the Atlantic, and that thus failing to find enough
richly laden vessels to satisfy their ardent cravings for plunder, the
buccaneers were forced to make some change in their methods of criminal
warfare; and from capturing Spanish galleons, they formed themselves
into well-organized bodies and attacked towns.

Among the buccaneer leaders who distinguished themselves as land pirates
was a thoroughbred scoundrel by the name of Francis L'Olonnois, who was
born in France. In those days it was the custom to enforce servitude
upon people who were not able to take care of themselves. Unfortunate
debtors and paupers of all classes were sold to people who had need of
their services. The only difference sometimes between master and
servant depended entirely upon the fact that one had money, and the
other had none. Boys and girls were sold for a term of years, somewhat
as if they had been apprentices, and it so happened that the boy
L'Olonnois was sold to a master who took him to the West Indies. There
he led the life of a slave until he was of age, and then, being no
longer subject to ownership, he became one of the freest and most
independent persons who ever walked this earth.

He began his career on the island of Hispaniola, where he took up the
business of hunting and butchering cattle; but he very soon gave up this
life for that of a pirate, and enlisted as a common sailor on one of
their ships. Here he gave signs of such great ability as a brave and
unscrupulous scoundrel that one of the leading pirates on the island of
Tortuga gave him a ship and a crew, and set him up in business on his
own account. The piratical career of L'Olonnois was very much like that
of other buccaneers of the day, except that he was so abominably cruel
to the Spanish prisoners whom he captured that he gained a reputation
for vile hum