gold,
Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old;
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,
Who flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone."


The buccaneer is "a gallant sailor," according to Kingsley's poem--a
Robin Hood of the waters, who preys only on the wicked rich, or the
cruel and Popish Spaniard, and the extortionate shipowner. For his
own part, when he is not rescuing poor Indians, the buccaneer lives
mainly "for climate and the affections":-


"Oh, sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze,
A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees,
With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar
Of the breakers on the reef outside that never touched the shore."


This is delightfully idyllic, like the lives of the Tahitian
shepherds in the Anti-Jacobin--the shepherds whose occupation was a
sinecure, as there were no sheep in Tahiti.

Yet the vocation was not really so touchingly chivalrous as the poet
would have us deem. One Joseph Esquemeling, himself a buccaneer,
has written the history and described the exploits of his companions
in plain prose, warning eager youths that "pieces-of-eight do not
grow on every tree," as many raw recruits have believed. Mr.
Esquemeling's account of these matters may be purchased, with a
great deal else that is instructive and entertaining, in "The