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[Illustration: 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._

[Illustration]

_Illustrations by J.N. MARCHAND and WILL CRAWFORD_

G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 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_


_TO MY ONLY BROTHER_

COLONEL JASPER EWING BRADY

_LATE U.S. ARMY_


    "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."




_PREFACE_


In literature there have been romantic pirates, gentlemanly pirates,
kind-hearted pirates, even humorous pirates--in fact, all sorts and
conditions of pirates. In life there was only one kind. In this book
that kind appears. Several presentations--in the guise of novels--of
pirates, the like of which never existed on land or sea, have recently
appeared. A perusal of these interesting romances awoke in me a desire
to write a story of a real pirate, a pirate of the genuine species.

Much research for historical essays, amid ancient records and moldy
chronicles, put me in possession of a vast amount of information
concerning the doings of the greatest of all pirates; a man unique among
his nefarious brethren, in that he played the piratical game so
successfully that he received the honor of knighthood from King Charles
II. A belted knight of England, who was also a brutal, rapacious,
lustful, murderous villain and robber--and undoubtedly a pirate,
although he disguised his piracy under the name of buccaneering--is
certainly a striking and unusual figure.

Therefore, when I imagined my pirate story I pitched upon Sir Henry
Morgan as _the_ character of the romance. It will spare the critic to
admit that the tale hereinafter related is a work of the imagination,
and is not an historical romance. According to the latest accounts, Sir
Henry Morgan, by a singular oversight of Fate, who must have been
nodding at the time, died in his bed--not peacefully I trust--and was
buried in consecrated ground. But I do him no injustice, I hasten to
assure the reader, in the acts that I have attributed to him, for they
are more than paralleled by the well authenticated deeds of this human
monster. I did not even invent the blowing up of the English frigate in
the action with the Spanish ships.

If I have assumed for the nonce the attributes of that unaccountably
somnolent Fate, and brought him to a terrible end, I am sure abundant
justification will be found in the recital of his mythical misdeeds,
which, I repeat, were not a circumstance to his real transgressions.
Indeed, one has to go back to the most cruel and degenerate of the Roman
emperors to parallel the wickednesses of Morgan and his men. It is not
possible to put upon printed pages explicit statements of what they did.
The curious reader may find some account of these "Gentlemen of the
Black Flag," so far as it can be translated into present-day books
intended for popular reading, in my volume of "COLONIAL FIGHTS AND
FIGHTERS."

The writing of this novel has been by no means an easy task. How to
convey clearly the doings of the buccaneer so there could be no
misapprehension on the part of the reader, and yet to write with due
delicacy and restraint a book for the general public, has been a problem
with which I have wrestled long and arduously. The whole book has been
completely revised some six times. Each time I have deleted something,
which, while it has refined, I trust has not impaired the strength of
the tale. If the critic still find things to censure, let him pass over
charitably in view of what might have been!

As to the other characters, I have done violence to the name and fame of
no man, for all of those who played any prominent part among the
buccaneers in the story were themselves men scarcely less criminal than
Morgan. Be it known that I have simply appropriated names, not careers.
They all had adventures of their own and were not associated with Morgan
in life. Teach--I have a weakness for that bad young man--is known to
history as "Blackbeard"--a much worse man than the roaring singer of
these pages. The delectable Hornigold, the One-Eyed, with the "wild
justice" of his revenge, was another real pirate. So was the faithful
Black Dog, the maroon. So were Raveneau de Lussan, Rock Braziliano,
L'Ollonois, Velsers, Sawkins, and the rest.

In addition to my desire to write a real story of a real pirate I was
actuated by another intent. There are numberless tales of the brave days
of the Spanish Main, from "Westward Ho!" down. In every one of them,
without exception, the hero is a noble, gallant, high-souled,
high-spir