demonstrated that it was feasible to practice piracy against Spain and
not to suffer therefor. Blood had been shed and cruelty practiced, and,
once indulged, no lust seems stronger than that of shedding blood and
practicing cruelty.

Though Spain might be ever so well grounded in peace at home, in the
West Indies she was always at war with the whole world--English, French,
Dutch. It was almost a matter of life or death with her to keep her hold
upon the New World. At home she was bankrupt and, upon the earthquake
of the Reformation, her power was already beginning to totter and to
crumble to pieces. America was her treasure house, and from it alone
could she hope to keep her leaking purse full of gold and silver. So it
was that she strove strenuously, desperately, to keep out the world from
her American possessions--a bootless task, for the old order upon which
her power rested was broken and crumbled forever. But still she strove,
fighting against fate, and so it was that in the tropical America it was
one continual war between her and all the world. Thus it came that,
long after piracy ceased to be allowed at home, it continued in those
far-away seas with unabated vigor, recruiting to its service all that
lawless malign element which gathers together in every newly opened
country where the only law is lawlessness, where might is right and
where a living is to be gained with no more trouble than cutting a
throat. {signature Howard Pyle His Mark}




HOWARD PILE'S BOOK OF PIRATES