Sir Henry Morgan
BUCCANEER
Sir Henry Morgan—Buccaneer.A Romance of the Spanish Main
BY
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
Author of "For Love of Country," "For the Freedom of the Sea,""The Southerners,"
"Hohenzollern," "The Quiberon Touch," "Woven with the Ship," "In the Wasp's Nest," Etc.
Illustrations byJ.N. MARCHAND and WILL CRAWFORD
G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
[Pg 7]PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1903, by
THE PEARSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
Copyright, 1903, by
G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
Copyright, 1903, in
GREAT BRITAIN
[All rights reserved]
Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer Issued October, 1903
[Pg 8]
TO MY ONLY BROTHER
COLONEL JASPER EWING BRADY
LATE U.S. ARMY
[Pg 9]
"Woe to the realms which he coasted! for there
Was shedding of blood and rending of hair,
Rape of maiden and slaughter of priest,
Gathering of ravens and wolves to the feast;
When he hoisted his standard black,
Before him was battle, behind him wrack,
And he burned the churches, that heathen Dane,
To light his band to their barks again."
Scott: "Harold the Dauntless."
[Pg 10]
PREFACE
In literature there have been romantic pirates,gentlemanly pirates, kind-hearted pirates, even humorouspirates—in fact, all sorts and conditions ofpirates. In life there was only one kind. In thisbook that kind appears. Several presentations—inthe guise of novels—of pirates, the like of whichnever existed on land or sea, have recently appeared.A perusal of these interesting romancesawoke in me a desire to write a story of a real pirate,a pirate of the genuine species.
Much research for historical essays, amid ancientrecords and moldy chronicles, put me in possessionof a vast amount of information concerning thedoings of the greatest of all pirates; a man uniqueamong his nefarious brethren, in that he played thepiratical game so successfully that he received thehonor of knighthood from King Charles II. Abelted knight of England, who was also a brutal,rapacious, lustful, murderous villain and robber—andundoubtedly a pirate, although he disguised hispiracy under the name of buccaneering—is certainly[Pg 11]a striking and unusual figure.
Therefore, when I imagined my pirate story Ipitched upon Sir Henry Morgan as the character ofthe romance. It will spare the critic to admit thatthe tale hereinafter related is a work of the imagination,and is not an historical romance. Accordingto the latest accounts, Sir Henry Morgan, by asingular oversight of Fate, who must have beennodd