been handed down to us
in a desultory way.

I do not deal here with the children of fancy; I believe that every man,
or woman too--since certain of the gentler sex cut no small figure at the
game--mentioned in this volume actually existed.

A time has come when every form of learning, however preposterous it may
seem, is made as unlaborious as possible for the would-be student.
Knowledge, which is after all but a string of facts, is being arranged,
sorted, distilled, and set down in compact form, ready for rapid
assimilation. There is little fear that the student who may wish in the
future to become master of any subject will have to delve into the
original sources in his search after facts and dates.

Surely pirates, taking them in their broadest sense, are as much entitled
to a biographical dictionary of their own as are clergymen, race-horses,
or artists in ferro-concrete, who all, I am assured, have their own "Who's
Who"? Have not the medical men their Directory, the lawyers their List,
the peers their Peerage? There are books which record the names and the
particulars of musicians, schoolmasters, stockbrokers, saints and
bookmakers, and I dare say there is an average adjuster's almanac. A peer,
a horse, dog, cat, and even a white mouse, if of blood sufficiently blue,
has his pedigree recorded somewhere. Above all, there is that astounding
and entertaining volume, "Who's Who," found in every club smoking-room,
and which grows more bulky year by year, stuffed with information about
the careers, the hobbies, and the marriages of all the most distinguished
persons in every profession, including very full details about the lives
and doings of all our journalists. But on the club table where these books
of ready reference stand with "Whitaker," "ABC," and "Ruff's Guide to the
Turf," there is just one gap that the compiler of this work has for a long
while felt sorely needed filling. There has been until now no work that
gives immediate and trustworthy information about the lives, and--so sadly
important in their cases--the deaths of our pirates and buccaneers.

In delving in the volumes of the "Dictionary of National Biography," it
has been a sad disappointment to the writer to find so little space
devoted to the careers of these picturesque if, I must admit, often
unseemly persons. There are, of course, to be found a few pirates with
household names such as Kidd, Teach, and Avery. A few, too, of the
buccaneers, heade