United States or Nepal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Our brutal commercialism has been a temporary aberration; the quintessential Englishman is not the hero of Smiles' 'Self-help'; he is Raleigh, Drake, Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, or Wordsworth, with a pleasant spice of Dickens. He is, in a word, an idealist who has not quite forgotten that he is descended from an independent race of sea-rovers, accustomed to think and act for themselves. Mr.
But of all this there is little record, and the lives of these pirates yield us none of the scenes of picturesque wickedness and wholesale murder which embellish the stories of Blackbeard, Morgan, and other sea-rovers of old. Yet the career of the Lafittes has an historical interest which makes it worth the telling.
Even as far back as the thirteenth century, indeed, lawless sea-rovers, mostly Bretons and Flemings, had infested the English Channel and the seas about Great Britain.
"You ought to know by this time," said Garth, speaking for our Viking-boy, "that the sea-rovers never went out to maraud or explore without the bird of Odin." "I shouldn't like to have a creature like that calling out 'Bad, bad! as I started on a voyage of discovery.
Coming to more modern times, it was held on and off from 1505 to 1729 by the Portuguese, a permanent memorial of whose occupation remains in the shape of the grim old fortress, built about 1593 on the site, it is believed, of a still older stronghold. These enterprising sea-rovers piously named it "Jesus Fort," and an inscription recording this is still to be seen over the main entrance.
When Alfred reigned, the English already had a distinct national being; when Charlemagne reigned, the French, as we use the term to-day, had no national being whatever. The Germans of the mainland merely overran the countries that lay in their path; but the sea-rovers who won England to a great extent actually displaced the native Britons.
Here are the larger number, if not the most interesting, of those curious churches of the sea, which protected the French townsman of the Mediterranean coast from the rapacity of sea-rovers and pirates, and many more orthodox enemies of the Middle Ages. From the great beauty of its situation, the small city of Antibes is at once a type of the old régime and of the new.
Perhaps they had just got to sleep again when the same operation had to be repeated; for the ice broke time after time, and kept the unfortunate "sea-rovers" in constant activity. It is enervating work being always at one's post, and sleeping with one eye open. They had a hard time to contend with, our ten comrades, and the calm way in which they took everything was extraordinary.
With every moment he had become more certain what manner of men these were. His lips moved to shape a single terrible word "Pirates!" The buccaneers were much talked of in those days, and though the New England ports were less troubled, because better guarded, than those farther south, there had been many sea-rovers hanged in Boston within Jeremy's memory.
Raleigh followed the example of the sea-rovers of his day, committing what would now be called piracy on the high seas. Not long had the fleet left the Canary Islands before a Spanish ship was seen and captured. It was quickly emptied of its cargo,—a welcome one, as it consisted of fire-arms. Very soon after a second ship was captured. This was a Flemish vessel, laden with wines.
Word Of The Day