Daring Deeds Of Famous Pirates - free ebook by E. Keble (Edward Keble) Chatterton

NOTE

The contents of this book have been taken from Lieutenant Keble Chatterton’s larger and more expensive volume entitled The Romance of Piracy....

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CHAPTER I THE EARLIEST PIRATES

I suppose there are few words in use which at once suggest so much romantic adventure as the words pirate and piracy. You instantly conjure up in your mind a wealth of excitement, a clashing of lawless wills, and there pass before your eyes a number of desperate dare-devils whose life and occupation are inseparably connected with the sea. The very meaning of the word, as you will find on referring to a Greek dictionary, indicates one who attempts to rob. In classical times there was a species of

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CHAPTER II THE NORTH SEA PIRATES

I am anxious to emphasise the fact that piracy is nearly as old as the ship herself. It is extremely improbable that the Egyptians were ever pirates, for the reason that, excepting the expedition to Punt, they confined their navigation practically to the Nile only. But as soon as men built sea-going vessels, then the instinct to rob and pillage on sea became as irresistible as on land. Might was right, and the weakest went to the bottom. Bearing this in mind, and remembering that there was alway

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CHAPTER III PIRACY IN THE EARLY TUDOR TIMES

The kind of man who devotes his life to robbery at sea is not the species of humanity who readily subjects himself to laws and ordinances. You may threaten him with terrible punishments, but it is not by these means that you will break his spirit. He is like the gipsy or the vagrant: he has in him an overwhelming longing for wandering and adventure. It is not so much the greed for gain which prompts the pirate, any more than the land tramp finds his long marches inspired by wealth. But some impe

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CHAPTER IV THE CORSAIRS OF THE SOUTH

When, in the year 1516, Hadrian, Cardinal St. Chryogon, wrote to Wolsey bitterly lamenting that from Taracina right away to Pisa pirates, consisting of Turks and African Moors, were swarming the sea, he was scarcely guilty of any exaggeration. Multifarious and murderous though the pirates of Northern Europe had long since shown themselves, yet it is the Mediterranean which, throughout history, and more especially during the sixteenth century, has earned the distinction of being the favourite and

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CHAPTER V THE WASPS AT WORK

But if Barbarossa was dead, his sagacious brother Kheyr-ed-din was ready to take up his work, and he proceeded on more scientific principles. He began by sending an ambassador to Constantinople, and begged protection for the province of Algiers. This, having been granted, he was appointed officially, in 1519, Governor of Algiers. His next step was to reinforce his garrisons at different parts of the coast and so secure his territory from attacks by sea. And in order to make for safety on the sou

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CHAPTER VI GALLEYS AND GALLANTRY

But there was a third great Barbarian corsair to complete this terrible trio. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din we have known. There is yet to be mentioned Dragut, who succeeded to the latter. He too was a Moslem who had been born in a coast village of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Rhodes. His early life is that of most pirates. He went to sea when quite young, was devoted to his profession, was filled with ambition, became an expert pilot and later became a skipper of his own craft. Then, feeling the

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CHAPTER VII PIRACY IN ELIZABETHAN TIMES

But although the Mediterranean was the sphere of the Barbarian corsairs, yet this sea lawlessness was not confided to that area. The Narrow Seas were just about as bad as they had been in the Middle Ages. And Elizabeth, with the determination for which she was famous, took the matter in hand. As early as the year 1564 she commanded Sir Peter Carew to fit out an expedition to clear the seas of any pirates and rovers that haunted the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall; yet it was an almost impossib

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CHAPTER VIII ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN AND TURKISH PIRATES

But a much more adventurous voyage was that of a ship called The Three Half Moones , which, with a crew of thirty-eight men and well found in arms—“the better to encounter their enemies withall”—set out from Portsmouth in the year 1563. In some ways the story reads like mere romance, but it has been so thoroughly well-vouched for that there is not a particle of suspicion connected with it. Having set forth bound for the south of Spain they arrived near the Straits of Gibraltar, when they found t

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CHAPTER IX THE STUART NAVY GOES FORTH AGAINST THE “PYRATS”

After the death of Queen Elizabeth and the respite from the Anglo-Spanish naval fighting there was little employment for those hundreds of our countrymen who had taken to the sea during the time of Drake. Fighting the Spaniards or lying in wait for treasure ships bound from the West Indies to Cadiz was just the life that appealed to them. But now that these hostilities had passed, they felt that their means of livelihood were gone. After the exciting sea life with Drake and others, after the pro

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CHAPTER X THE GOOD SHIP EXCHANGE OF BRISTOL

A satirical English gentleman who lived in the reign of Charles II. and described himself as formerly “a servant in England’s Navie,” published a pamphlet in 1648 in which he complained bitterly of the inability of “the present Government,” even in spite of the expense of vast quantities of money, “to clear England’s seas of Ireland’s Pyrates.” The latter belonged at this time especially to Waterford and Wexford. A large amount of money, he bewailed, had been and was still being spent “to reduce

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CHAPTER XI A WONDERFUL ACHIEVEMENT

Rawlins knew he could rely on his fellow-countrymen, but at first he hesitated to say anything to the four Hollanders. At last, however, he found them anxious to join in with the scheme, and his next effort was equally successful, for he “undermined” the English renegado-gunner and three more, his associates. Last of all, the Dutch renegadoes of the “gunner-room” were won over and persuaded by the four Hollanders. The secret had been well kept, and Rawlins resolved that during the captain’s morn

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CHAPTER XII THE GREAT SIR HENRY MORGAN

About the year 1636 a certain London mariner, named Dunton, had an experience somewhat similar to that which we related in the last chapter concerning Rawlins. Dunton had the bad luck to be taken by the Sallee pirates, who then sent him out as master and pilot of a Sallee pirate ship containing twenty-one Moors and five Flemish renegadoes. The instructions were that Dunton should sail to the English coast and there capture Christian prisoners. He had arrived from Barbary in the English Channel a

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CHAPTER XIII “BLACK-BEARD” TEACH

The sea-rovers whom we know by the name of buccaneers had an origin somewhat similar to that of the Moslem corsairs of Barbary. The reader will not have forgotten that the latter, after being driven out of Spain, settled on the north coast of Africa, and then, after being instructed in the nautical arts by the seamen of different nationalities, rose to the rank of grand corsairs. So, likewise, the buccaneers were at first inoffensive settlers in Hispaniola, but, after having been driven from the

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CHAPTER XIV THE STORY OF CAPTAIN KIDD

We come now to another historical pirate, who, both in America and England, will long be remembered for his very interesting exploits. Following the modern tendency of endeavouring to whitewash notorious criminals of a bygone age, a recent writer has sought to dismiss the idea that Kidd was to be numbered among the pirates. I admit that at one time this man was an honest seaman, and that force of circumstances caused his career to become completely altered. But a pirate he certainly became, and

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CHAPTER XV THE EXPLOITS OF CAPTAIN AVERY

If the sixteenth century was the “grand” period of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean, the eighteenth will ever remain memorable for the manifold activities of those English seamen who took to piracy as a far more remunerative profession than carrying freights. If we look for any explanation of this, I think it is not far to seek. You have to take into consideration several points. Firstly, it seems to me, in all phases whether political or otherwise, whether concerned with the sea or with

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CHAPTER XVI A “GENTLEMAN” OF FORTUNE

“In an honest service there are commonly low wages and hard labour: in piracy, satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.” Such was the remark which a certain Captain Bartholomew Roberts, a notorious seventeenth-century pirate, was said to have made, and no doubt there was a certain amount of truth in this

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CHAPTER XVII PAUL JONES, PIRATE AND PRIVATEER

We come now to consider the exploits of another historical character whose life and adventures will ever be of unfailing interest on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet, perhaps, this amazing Scotsman is to-day better known in America than in Great Britain. Like many another before him he rose from the rank of ordinary seaman to become a man that was to be had in great fear if not respect. His fame has been celebrated in fiction, and very probably many a story of which he has been made the hero

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CHAPTER XVIII A NOTORIOUS AMERICAN PIRATE

The notorious sea-robber of whom we are to speak in the following chapter has an especial interest for English and American readers, from the fact that he was a member of the Chesapeake during her historic duel with the Shannon . This Charles Gibbs was born in the State of Rhode Island in the year 1794. From the sulky, refractory character which he exhibited as a child any reader of human nature could have guessed that his career promised none too well, and when his full powers had been develope

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CHAPTER XIX THE LAST OF THE ALGERINE CORSAIRS

And now let us take a final look at that pestilential spot, Algiers. We have seen how that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had been constantly attacked and conquered, but before long the Algerines had again broken out into piracy. So soon as their invaders withdrew their forces the corsairs rebuilt their walls, fitted out their new craft and went roving the seas and harassing innocent ships. They had pillaged the coastline of the French Riviera, burning and killing and destroyi

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CHAPTER XX PIRATES OF THE PERSIAN GULF

We have seen throughout this volume that there have always been certain geographical areas which have been favoured by pirates as their suitable sphere for roving. Madagascar, Malabar, the north coast of Africa, the West Indies—these and others have been the scene, not of one piratical incident, but of scores. The Persian Gulf is to this day not quite the peaceful corner of the globe that undoubtedly some day it will become. It is still patrolled by the Royal Navy for various reasons, including

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CHAPTER XXI THE STORY OF AARON SMITH

If the expression had not been used already so many thousand times, one might well say of the following story that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Had you read the yarn which is here to be related you would, at its conclusion, have remarked that it was certainly most interesting and exciting, but it was too exaggerated, too full of coincidences, too full of narrow escapes ever to have occurred in real life. But I would assure the reader at the outset that Smith’s experiences were actual a

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