French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Arab, Malay or other local pirates. In
the Bay of Bengal alone, piracy on a dangerous scale was practically
unknown.

There was no peace on the ocean. The sea was a vast No Man's domain,
where every man might take his prey. Law and order stopped short at
low-water mark. The principle that traders might claim protection and
vengeance for their wrongs from their country, had not yet been
recognized, and they sailed the seas at their own risk. Before the close
of the seventeenth century the buccaneers had passed away, but their
depredations, in pursuit of what they called "free trade," were of a
different nature from those of the pirates who succeeded them. Buccaneer
exploits were confined to the Spanish main, where they ravaged and burnt
Spanish settlements on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, moving with large
forces by sea and land. According to Esquemeling, Morgan sailed on his
expedition against Panama with thirty-seven sail and two thousand
fighting men, besides mariners and boys. But the Spanish alone were the
objects of their attack. So long as Spain claimed a monopoly of South
American trade, it was the business of Spain alone to keep the marauders
away; other Governments were not disposed to assist her. Hardly had the
last of the buccaneers disappeared from the Western seas, when a more
lawless race of rovers appeared, extending their operations into the
Indian Ocean, acting generally in single ships, plundering vessels of
every nationality, though seldom attacking places on shore.

Of these men, chiefly English, the most notorious were Teach, Every, Kidd,
Roberts, England, and Tew; but there were many others less known to fame,
who helped almost to extinguish trade between Europe, America, and the
East. Some idea of the enormous losses caused by them may be gathered
from the fact that Bartholomew Roberts alone was credited with the