be her
subjects, and the Spaniards must defend themselves against them just as
if they were an independent nation.

But it is impossible for men who have been brought up in civilized
society, and who have been accustomed to obey laws, to rid themselves
entirely of all ideas of propriety and morality, as soon as they begin a
life of lawlessness. So it happened that many of the buccaneers could
not divest themselves of the notions of good behavior to which they had
been accustomed from youth. For instance, we are told of a captain of
buccaneers, who, landing at a settlement on a Sunday, took his crew to
church. As it is not at all probable that any of the buccaneering
vessels carried chaplains, opportunities of attending services must have
been rare. This captain seems to have wished to show that pirates in
church know what they ought to do just as well as other people; it was
for this reason that, when one of his men behaved himself in an improper
and disorderly manner during the service, this proper-minded captain
arose from his seat and shot the offender dead.

There was a Frenchman of that period who must have been a warm-hearted
philanthropist, because, having read accounts of the terrible atrocities
of the Spaniards in the western lands, he determined to leave his home
and his family, and become a buccaneer, in order that he might do what
he could for the suffering natives in the Spanish possessions. He
entered into the great work which he had planned for himself with such
enthusiasm and zeal, that in the course of time he came to be known as
"The Exterminator," and if there had been more people of his
philanthropic turn of mind, there would soon have been no inhabitants
whatever upon the islands from which the Spaniards had driven out the
Indians.

There was another person of that day,--also a Frenchman,--who became
deeply involved in debt in his own country, and feeling that the
principles of honor forbade him to live upon and enjoy what was really
the property of others, he made up his mind to sail across the Atlantic,
and become a buccaneer. He hoped that if he should be successful in his
new profession, and should be enabled to rob Spaniards for a term of
years, he could return to France, pay off all his debts, and afterward
live the life of a man of honor and respectability.

Other ideas which the buccaneers brought with them from their native
countries soon showed themselves when these daring sailors bega