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Then an albatross was seen wheeling above the sea. Then, on March 6, two lonely land seals went plying past; and whales were noticed. Surely they were nearing the region that Drake, the English freebooter, had seen and named New Albion two hundred years before. Suddenly, on the morning of March 7, the dim offing ahead showed thin, sharp, clear lines. The lines rose higher as the ship approached.
In the first days of the revolution, Sir Geoffrey Gates, the freebooter, little comprehending the earl's merciful policy, and anxious naturally to turn a victory into its accustomed fruit of rapine and pillage, placed himself at the head of an armed mob, marched from Kent to the suburbs of London, and, joined by some of the miscreants from the different Sanctuaries, burned and pillaged, ravished and slew.
Even the tales of the time, which recounted the desperate acts of the freebooter, with not a little of wild and fanciful exaggeration, did not forget to include numberless striking instances of marked, and even chivalrous generosity.
As a smuggler in 1804, as a custom-house officer a few years later, as a patriot, a freebooter, a Brazilian general, an Argentinian commander, as President of Uruguay against Lavalleja, as an outlaw against General Oribe, and finally against Rosas, allied with Oribe, as champion of the Banda Oriental del Uruguay, Rivera had certainly ample opportunities for perfecting himself in that study of which he was the ardent devotee.
The Covenanter, or freebooter, saw in the antagonists of his "real rebellion" and opposers of the designs of his dark policy, only the enemies of God and the adversaries of his Providence.
He had a protege in Argall, a disorderly ruffian who was made deputy-governor of the colony in 1617. His administration was that of a freebooter; but the feeble and dwindling colony had neither power nor spirit to do more than send a complaint to London.
If his example as a father was not admirable, at least he showed it to a numerous offspring, for by his two marriages he was the parent of no fewer than sixteen children. Perhaps the prize for sheer political ruffianism, for the frank audacity of the freebooter, unshadowed by the darker vices of his better-born associates, may be awarded to Rigby.
It must have been a sublime faith in that homely adage that there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking him with butter which moved Bob McGraw to cudgel his nimble brain until he had discovered exactly how it would be possible for him to accomplish legally what every freebooter with an appraising eye on the public domain is troubled to accomplish illegally.
Reason may disapprove of such a character as that of Rob Roy, but the imagination and the feelings are carried away by so much generosity, such dauntless exertion in behalf of the friendless, as were displayed by the outlawed and attainted freebooter. He was true to his word, faithful to his friends, and honourable in the fulfilment of his pecuniary obligations.
Old Andrew Fairservice used to say, that "There were many things ower bad for blessing, and ower gude for banning, like Rob Roy." Here the original manuscript ends somewhat abruptly. I have reason to think that what followed related to private a affairs. Grahame of Killearn by that daring freebooter, while levying the Duke of Montrose's rents.
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