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These islands were first introduced to the notice of the English by a dreadful shipwreck. In 1591 Henry May sailed to the East Indies, along with Captain Lancaster, on a buccaneering expedition. Having reached the coast of Sumatra and Malacca, they scoured the adjacent seas, and made some valuable captures.
When such retreats were available the laws against piracy did not reduce buccaneering so much as they depopulated Jamaica of its white inhabitants. After 1680, indeed, the North American colonies became more and more the resort of the pirates who were being driven from West Indian waters by the stern measures of the English governors.
"I have no wish to go back, you may be sure of that," I answered; "but what do your companions say?" "Well, sir, three of them are pretty well agreed with me; but there is one, Herman Jansen, the Dutchman, who has a fancy for the buccaneering life we have led, and I don't like to trust him."
"How near one seems to that far-off region of fever and swamp, of sun and sea, of adventure and blood, and old buccaneering, standing by those swift waters, already on their way thither! Should I go? Was I not too good to go, and be lost? Think of the high moral considerations involved? No matter, I didn't go I came! Well!
It must have been a strange thing for a man accustomed to pens and ink, to yard-sticks and scales, to feel obliged to enroll himself into a company of bloody, big-bearded pirates, but a man must eat, and buccaneering was the only profession open to our ex-clerk.
It's always a ship, and they can get to buccaneering again, I suppose." "First ship that ever I lost," said Captain Smollett. I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and when I got to sleep, which was not till after a great deal of tossing, I slept like a log of wood.
Again, he always brings me the first primrose and spares no pains to find it. Such little acts argue a kindly nature. But against them, you have to set his unreasoning dislike of human beings and a certain shall I say buccaneering spirit." "He feels, and so he'll suffer as I did. The more you feel, the more you suffer."
The one on which he had been seated, and which had evidently just been hewn down, bore the name of Crowninshield; and he recollected a mighty rich man of that name, who made a vulgar display of wealth, which it was whispered he had acquired by buccaneering. "He's just ready for burning!" said the black man, with a growl of triumph. "You see I am likely to have a good stock of firewood for winter."
"And who is this buccaneering captain of whom we have heard so much of late years?" asked Mr Tarwig. "He goes under different names, sir; and, although I may happen to know his right one, you will excuse me if I decline to tell it," answered Dillon, the dark frown still resting on his brow as he spoke.
It proved to be a Spanish vessel which the mutineers had captured and which was now manned by them. But the mutineers who had sailed away full of pride and insolence now returned in very humble mood. Their buccaneering had not succeeded as they had hoped. They were starving, and instead of boldly demanding entrance, and putting in force their haughty threats, they were eager to make terms.
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