of the nameless classics which were of so much concern to all of us when we were young, the most important were certainly those salt and blusterous volumes that told of pirates. it was in vain for kindly relatives to give us books on nelson and his like; for their craft, beautiful though they might be to the eye, had ever the moralities lurking between decks, and if we met them it was only that we might make their crews walk the plank, and add new stores of guns and treasure to the crimson vessel with the sinister flag which it was our pleasure to command.
and yet the books that gave us this splendid dominion, where are they now? in truth, i cannot say. examination of recent boys’ books has convinced me that p. 183the old spirit is lacking, for if pirates are there, it is only as the hapless victims of horrible british crews with every virtue save that one which youth should cherish most, the revolutionary spirit. who would be a midshipman when he might be a pirate? yet all the books would have it so, and even mr. kenneth grahame, who knows everything that is worth knowing, does not always take the right side in such matters. the grown-up books are equally unsatisfactory to the inquiring mind. “treasure island,” which is sometimes loosely referred to as if it were a horn-book for young pirates, hardly touches the main problems of pirate life at all. stevenson’s consideration for “youth and the fond parient” made him leave out all oaths. no ships are taken, no lovely females captured, nobody walks the plank, and captain john silver, for all the maimed strength and masterfulness that henley suggested to the author, falls lamentably short of what a pirate should be. captain teach, of the sarah, in the “master of ballantrae,” is better, and there were the makings of a very good pirate captain p. 184in the master himself, but this section of the book is too short to supply our requirements. the book must be all pirates. defoe’s “captain singleton” repents and is therefore disqualified, and marryat’s “pirate” is, as stevenson said, “written in sand with a saltspoon.” mr. clark russell, in one of his romances, ingeniously melts a pirate who has been frozen for a couple of centuries into life, but though he promises well at first, his is but a torpid ferocity, and ends, as it began, in words. nor are the histories of the pirates more satisfying. captain johnson’s “history of notorious pirates” i have not seen, but any one who wishes to lose an illusion can read the trial of william kidd and a few of his companions in the state trials of the year 1701. the captain of the adventure galley appears to have done little to merit the name of pirate beyond killing his gunner with a bucket, and the miserable results of his pilferings bear no relationship to the enormous hoard associated with his name in “the gold bug” of poe, though there is certainly a familiar note in finding included among his p. 185captives a number of barrels of sugar-candy, which were divided in shares among the crew, the captain himself having forty shares. the turkish pirates mentioned in “purchas” cut a very poor figure. you can read there how four english youths overcame a prize crew of thirteen men who had been put in the ship jacob. in a storm they slew the pirate captain, for with the handle of a pump “they gave him such a palt on the pate as made his brains forsake the possession of his head.” they then killed three of the other pirates with “cuttleaxes,” and brought the ship safely into spain, “where they sold the nine turkes for galley-slaves for a good summe of money, and as i thinke, a great deale more than they were worth.” not thus would the chronicles have described the pirates who fought and caroused with such splendid devotion in my youth. to die beneath the handle of a pump is an unworthy end for a pirate captain. the “history of the buccaneers of america,” written by a brother of fanny burney, a book which was the subject of one of mr. andrew lang’s p. 186appreciative essays, is nearer the mark, for among other notable fellows mentioned therein is one fran?ois l’olonnois, who put to death the whole crew of a spanish ship, ninety men, by beheading them, performing himself the office of executioner. one of the gentlemen in this book turned buccaneer in order to pay his debts, while it is told of another that he shot one of his crew in church for behaving irreverently during mass. sir henry morgan and richard sawkins performed some pretty feats of piracy, but their main energies were concerned in the sacking of towns, and the whole book suffers from an unaccountable prejudice which the author displays against the brave and hard-working villains of whom he writes.
in truth, these real pirates are disappointing men to meet. they are usually lacking in fierceness and in fidelity to the pirate ideals of courage and faithfulness to their comrades, while the fine nobility of character which was never absent from those other pirates is unknown in the historical kind. few, if any, of them merit the old p. 187portuguese punishment for pirates, which consisted in hanging them from the yards of their own ship, and setting the latter to drift with the winds and waves without rudder or sails, an example for rogues and a source of considerable danger to honest mariners.
if that were a fitting end for great knaves, the meaner ruffians must be content with the pump-handle and the bucket.
it is hard if our hearts may not go out to those gloomy vessels, with their cargoes of gold and courage and rum, that sail, it seems, the mental seas of youth no more. were they really bad for us, those sanguinary tussles, those star-lit nights of dissipation? a pinafore would wipe away a deal of blood, and the rum, though we might drink it boiling like quilp, in no wise lessened our interest in home-made cake. but these regrets are of yesterday, and to-day i must draw what consolation i may from the kindly comment of mr. lang: “alluring as the pirate’s profession is, we must not forget that it had a seamy side, and was by no means all rum and p. 188pieces-of-eight. and there is something repulsive to a generous nature in roasting men because they will not show you where to steal hogs.”
