Therefore it was that while the Spaniards robbed and ruined the natives
of the lands they discovered, the English, French, and Dutch buccaneers
robbed the robbers. Great vessels were sent out from Spain, carrying
nothing in the way of merchandise to America, but returning with all the
precious metals and valuable products of the newly discovered regions,
which could in any way be taken from the unfortunate natives. The gold
mines of the new world had long been worked, and yielded handsome
revenues, but the native method of operating them did not satisfy the
Spaniards, who forced the poor Indians to labor incessantly at the
difficult task of digging out the precious metals, until many of them
died under the cruel oppression. Sometimes the Indians were kept six
months under ground, working in the mines; and at one time, when it was
found that the natives had died off, or had fled from the neighborhood
of some of the rich gold deposits, it was proposed to send to Africa and
get a cargo of negroes to work the mines.

Now it is easy to see that all this made buccaneering a very tempting
occupation. To capture a great treasure ship, after the Spaniards had
been at so much trouble to load it, was a grand thing, according to the
pirate's point of view, and although it often required reckless bravery
and almost superhuman energy to accomplish the feats necessary in this
dangerous vocation, these were qualities which were possessed by nearly
all the sea-robbers of our coast; the stories of some of the most
interesting of these wild and desperate fellows,--men who did not
combine piracy with discoveries and explorations, but who were
out-and-out sea-robbers, and gained in that way all the reputation they
ever possessed,--will be told in subsequent chapters.