d by the great Sir Henry Morgan, come in for their share.
But I compare with indignation the meagre show of pirates in that
monumental work with the rich profusion of divines! Even during the years
when piracy was at its height--say from 1680 until 1730--the pirates are
utterly swamped by the theologians. Can it be that these two professions
flourished most vigorously side by side, and that when one began to
languish, the other also began to fade?

Even so there can be no excuse for the past and present neglect of these
sea-adventurers. But a change is beginning to show itself. Increasing
evidence is to be found that the more intelligent portions of the
population of this country, and even more so the enlightened of the great
United States of America, are beginning to show a proper interest in the
lives of the pirates and buccaneers. That this should be so amongst the
Americans is quite natural, when it is remembered what a close intimacy
existed between their Puritan forefathers of New England and the pirates,
both by blood relation and by trade, since the pirates had no more
obliging and ready customers for their spoils of gold dust, stolen slaves,
or church ornaments, than the early settlers of New York, Massachusetts,
and Carolina.

In beginning to compile such a list as is to be found in this volume, a
difficulty is met at once. My original intention was that only pirates and
buccaneers should be included. To admit privateers, corsairs, and other
sea-rovers would have meant the addition of a vast number of names, and
would have made the work unwieldy, and the very object of this volume as a
book of ready reference would not have been achieved. But the difficulty
has been to define the exact meaning of a pirate and of a buccaneer. In
the dictionary a pirate is defined as "a sea-robber, marauder, one who
infringes another's copyright"; while a buccaneer is described as "a
sea-robber, a pirate, especially of the Spanish-American coasts." This
seems explicit, but a pirate was not a pirate from the cradle to the
gallows. He usually began his life at sea as an honest mariner in the
merchant service. He perhaps mutinied with other of the ship's crew,
killed or otherwise disposed of the captain, seized the ship, elected a
new commander, and sailed off "on the account." Many an honest seaman was
captured with the rest of his ship's crew by a pirate, and either
voluntarily joined the freebooters by signing their articles, or