ROBBERS OF THE SEAS
As the sea has furnished opportunities for so much good,—for manly
exertion, knowledge of the world, and acquaintance with people outside
of one’s own country, and for gaining wealth,—so it has given a chance
for unscrupulous men to show the worst that is in them; and the
guarding of shore towns and merchant vessels from piratical attacks has
always been a part of the usefulness and duty of a nation’s naval force.
As on land there are robbers and highwaymen, so on the ocean robber
ships have often been lying in wait for vessels loaded with treasure,
and have landed crews of marauders to make havoc with rich seaboard
provinces. Such robbers on the high seas are termed pirates, and their
crime was visited by the old laws with torturing punishments; yet they
were never more daring than when the laws against them were severest.
The word is Greek, and the first pirates who figure in history are
those of the Greek and Byzantine islands and coasts—bloody ruffians
who originated the amusing method of disposing of unransomed prisoners
by making them “walk the plank,” as has been done within the present
century.
The intricate channels and hidden harbors of the Ægean Sea long
remained a hiding-place of sea-robbers, and are still haunted by
them, though every few years, from Cæsar’s time till now, the kings
of the surrounding countries have sent expeditions to break them
up. In the sixteenth century piracy in that region was especially
prevalent. The crews then were chiefly Turkish, but the great leaders
were two renegade Greeks, the brothers Aruck and Hayradin Barbarossa
(“Redbeard”).
[Illustration: WALKING THE PLANK.]
It happened that Spain, having conquered the Moors of Granada in 1492
and pursued her victories across the straits, had gained control of
Algeria (at that time a collection of small Mohammedan states), and
held it until the death of King Ferdinand in 1516. Then the Algerians
sent an embassy to Aruck (sometimes spelled Horuk, or Ouradjh)
Barbarossa, requesting him to aid them in driving out the Spaniards,
and promising him a share in the spoils. He eagerly accepted this
proposition, seeing a great deal more in it than the Algerians saw;
and the moment the Spaniards had been beaten and expelled he murdered
the prince he had come there to help, seized upon the city and port
for himself, and made it the headquarters of that system of desperate
piracy which became the dread of all Europe. These robbers of the sea
called themselves _corsairs_, from an Italian word signifying “a race”;
and they generally won, because they had the best and swiftest vessels
of that time, such as feluccas, xebecs, and the like. The black flag
which they flew was not blacker than their reputations, so that even
yet to call a man as bad as a Barbary pirate is to mean that he could
not be much worse if he tried. The Spanish colonies in America, a few
years later, began sending home immense treasures dug in the silver-and
gold-mines of Peru and Mexico, and extorted from the natives or stolen
from the temples of those unhappy countries. A quantity of ingots and
gold and silver ornaments equal in value to fifteen million dollars
of our modern money was taken at one time by Pizarro, in Peru, as the
ransom of the Inca Atahualpa, and booty amounting to a similar sum
was gained in the sacking of various cities. This great inpouring of
wealth caused a general giving up of manufactures and trade in Spain,
and was one of the reasons of her final decline in power, and it had
the immediate bad effect of making piracy more attractive than ever.
The treasure-ships, though convoyed by war-ships, were often attacked
and captured by the corsairs. Barbarossa’s fleets were more like
armadas of a powerful nation than mere pirate craft; and whenever it
happened that his commanders were defeated, they would land upon the
nearest unprotected coast of Spain, France, or Italy, and pillage and
burn some town in revenge. How galling this was to all merchants and
travelers we can hardly understand in these days; but so strong were
the corsairs that the fleets and armies of various governments, and
even of the Pope, which were sent against them, could not gain their
stronghold nor suppress their cruisers, at least for more than a short
time. Charles V of Spain tried greatly to conquer them; but although
his forces, attacking Aruck Barbarossa from the province of Oran, near
Algiers, defeated and killed him, Hayradin (more properly spelled
Khair-ed-din) Barbarossa succeeded his brother, and, placing himself
under the protection of Turkey, continued to build up the power of
the pirates. His first care was to fortify the city of Algiers, and
he expended a great deal of money and labor on the perfection of the
harbor, compelling all his prisoners and thousands of citizens to work
as slaves on the defenses. Next he conquered Tunis, and was selected by
the sultan as the only fit man to sail against Andrea Doria, the great
Genoese naval commander of the Christians in their wars against the
Turks early in the sixteenth century. Mediterranean commerce became so
unsafe that watch-towers were built all along the coasts, and guards
were kept afoot to give alarm at the approach of the corsairs. Charles
V gathered together a powerful armament, and sailed to the rescue of
Tunis, recapturing it for its rightful sovereign in 1535; but he was
never able to capture Hayradin Barbarossa, who lived out his life in
Algiers as “a friend to the sea and an enemy to all who sailed upon
it.” After his time the power of the pirates continued under other
leaders; and not Algeria alone, but Tripoli, Morocco, and even Tunis,
harbored piratical vessels in every port, and the rulers shared their
spoils; piracy, indeed, was the source of their national revenues, and
was encouraged by the Sultan of Turkey inasmuch as all these states
were his vassals.
Every few years some European power—Spain, France, Venice, or
England—would lose patience, send a fleet, and open a campaign that
would be successful in destroying certain strongholds, releasing a
crowd of prisoners, and burning or sinking many ships. The city of
Algiers was bombarded almost into ruins in 1682, and the job completed
a year later, after the Algerians had tossed the French consul out to
the fleet, with their compliments, from the mouth of a mortar. They
were fond of such jokes. Nevertheless, the city speedily recovered, and
piracy, complicated by Moslem fanaticism and Turkish politics, harassed
commerce during all the next century, partly because Europe was so busy
in its own wars that it had no time for outside matters, and partly
because it was for the advantage of certain nations (particularly
of Great Britain, which, in possession of Gibraltar and Port Mahon,
might have suppressed this villainy) to let the corsairs prey upon
its foes—especially France. The actual result was that most or all of
the European powers fell into the custom of paying to Algiers, Tunis,
Tripoli, and other rulers of the Barbary (or Berber) States large sums
of money as annual tribute to restrain them from official depredations
upon their coasts and commerce, besides other large payments for the
ransom of such Christian prisoners as each sultan’s lively subjects
continued to take in spite of treaties.
In this shameful condition of affairs the newly independent United
States was obliged to join during the first years of its existence, to
secure immunity for our commerce in the Mediterranean, because we had
not yet had time to create a navy. By the end of the century, however,
the United States was able to defend itself at sea, and in 1801
answered the insults of Tripoli by bombarding its capital seaport until
the dey sued for mercy and promised to behave himself. Nevertheless,
he needed another lesson, and in 1803 a second American fleet was sent
to the Mediterranean, commanded by Preble, in the _Constitution_,
with such subordinate officers as Bainbridge, Decatur, Somers, Hull,
Stewart, Lawrence, and others that later became famous. One incident
of this campaign, which began by frightening the Sultan of Morocco at
Tangier into abject submission, but was especially directed against
Tripoli, is well worth remembering.
[Illustration: THE “ARGUS” CAPTURING A TRIPOLITAN PIRATE FELUCCA.]
Captain Bainbridge, going alone in the fine frigate _Philadelphia_ into
the harbor of the city of Tripoli, had unfortunately run aground, and
there, overpowered by the number of his enemies afloat and ashore,
had been compelled to give up his ship, and find himself and all his
crew taken prisoners. He managed to get word of his misfortune to
Commodore Preble at Malta, and that officer at once took his fleet to
Tripoli—Decatur, in the _Argus_, gallantly capturing on the way one
of the great lateen-sailed piratical crafts of the enemy, which later
proved a useful instrument in the contest. The fleet blockaded Tripoli
for a while, and shelled the fortifications somewhat, just to give the
bashaw a hint, and to encourage the poor prisoners; but none of the big
vessels was able to enter the narrow, tortuous, and ill-charted harbor
in the face of the many batteries, under whose guns the _Philadelphia_
could be seen at anchor with the Tripolitan flag at her main, so they
sailed away to Syracuse to make preparations for reducing this nest of
barbarians. Gunboats of light draft and mortar-vessels had to be fitted
out; but the first thing was to try to carry out a plan that Decatur
and all his friends had been maturing ever since they had arrived—the
destruction of the _Philadelphia_, not only because she had been
refitted into a powerful weapon in the hands of the enemy, but because
it was galling to national as well as naval pride to see her flying a
foreign flag. The plan was this:
Decatur was to take a picked crew of seventy officers and men on
the captured felucca (renamed _Intrepid_), and attempt at night to
penetrate to the inner harbor of Tripoli in the disguise of a trader,
supported as well as possible by the gun-brig _Siren_, also disguised
as a merchantman. As his pilot was an Italian and a competent linguist,
it was hoped the ketch could get near enough to set fire to the ship,
whirl a shotted deck-gun into position to send a shell down the main
hatch and through her bottom, fire it, and escape before the surprise
was over. The chances of failure were enough to daunt the bravest, yet
every man in the fleet wanted to go.
On February 15, 1804, Decatur in his felucca, and Somers commanding the
brig, found themselves, toward evening, again in sight of the town,
with its circle of forts crowned by the frowning castle. The great
_Philadelphia_ stood out in bold relief, closely surrounded by two
frigates and more than twenty gunboats and galleys. From the castle and
batteries 115 guns could be trained upon an attacking force, besides
the fire of the vessels, yet the bold tars on the _Intrepid_ did not
quail.
The crew having been sent below, the pilot Catalona took the wheel,
while Decatur stood beside him, disguised as a common sailor. It
was now nine o’clock, and bright moonlight. Standing steadily in,
they rounded to close by the _Philadelphia_, and, boldly hailing her
deck-watch, asked the privilege of mooring to her chains for the night,
explaining that they had lost their anchors in the late storm, and so
forth, until at last consent was given.
Having dragged themselves close to the frigate, it was the work of only
a moment to board her with a rush, overpower her surprised crew, and
make sure of her destruction by means of the combustibles and powder
they had brought with them. Before their task was done, however, they
had been discovered, and it is almost a miracle that they were able to
return to their felucca, and make their way out of the harbor, through
a rain of harmless cannon-balls; yet they did so, and Decatur was
justly honored for one of the most gallant exploits in naval annals.
A few weeks later Preble’s squadron shelled the pirate city and
fortresses into ruin, forced Tripoli as well as Algiers and Tunis
to respect them and thenceforth the American flag, and gave these
arrogant rulers the new sensation of paying instead of receiving money
for bad deeds. It put an end to the corsairs.
Turkish and Barbary pirates were not the only ones in the world,
however. Although the old Norwegian vikings and rough Norman barons did
not go under that name, they were scarcely anything else, in fact, as
the neighboring peoples could testify, though this was far back before
modern history began. But when the Spaniards and the French began
to colonize the West Indies, and to dig mines in South and Central
America, not only were the Barbary corsairs given a fresh incentive,
but a new set of pirates sprang up, the most daring that the world has
ever seen.
As the archipelago east of Greece had sheltered the hordes of the
Turkish sea-robbers, so the many islands, crooked channels, reefs
unknown to all but the local pilots, small harbors, and abundant food
of the Antilles, made the West Indies the safest place in the world
for pirates to pursue their work. To these new and wild regions, in
the sixteenth century, had flocked desperados and adventurers from all
over the world. When the wars with their chances of plunder died out
after the campaigns led by Cortés, Pizarro, Balboa, and the rest of the
Spanish _conquistadores_, many ruffians seized upon vessels by force,
or stole them, and turned into robbers of the sea. At first, as a
rule, they had farms and families on some island, and went freebooting
only a portion of the year. The island of Hayti, or Santo Domingo,
was then settled by farmers, hunters, and cattlemen, the last-named
of whom, mainly French, passed most of their time in the interior of
the island, capturing, herding, or killing half-wild cattle and hogs.
But the monopolies which Spain imposed upon the colonists interfered
with the market for their produce and induced an illicit trade, which
led to frequent encounters with the Spanish navy. As the constant wars
between Spain and France and England increased the difficulties of
trade, large numbers of the colonists joined the freebooters, who then
became extremely numerous and formidable, losing their old name and
becoming known by that of the cattlemen—buccaneers, from the French
word _boucanier_.
First Santo Domingo, then Tortugas, and finally Jamaica were
headquarters of the buccaneers, who were made up of men of all nations,
united by a desire to prey upon Spain as a common enemy. They were
thousands in number, possessed large fleets of ships and boats, were
well armed, and finally formed a regular organization with a chief and
under-officers. The most noted of these chiefs, perhaps, was Henry
Morgan, a Welshman, who was at one time captured and taken home to
England for trial. To his own surprise, instead of being executed,
he was knighted by Charles II, who had not been at all grieved at
seeing Spanish commerce harassed; and Morgan was returned to Jamaica
as commissioner of admiralty, where at one time he acted as deputy
governor, using his opportunity to make it unpleasant for those of
the buccaneers with whom he had formerly had disagreements as to the
distribution of prizes.
The earlier buccaneers found ample plunder in the Spanish fleets. They
patrolled the sea in the track of vessels bound to and from Europe, and
seized them, allowing or compelling the crews to become pirates, or
else to be killed or carried into slavery. This work, however, employed
only a portion of the buccaneers; and early in the seventeenth century,
as the commerce of Spain declined, it became too uncertain a means of
wealth to suit them. But the rich Spanish settlements still remained;
and often, therefore, they equipped a great fleet, enlisted men under
certain strict rules as to sharing the spoils, and sailed away to
pillage some coast. There was hardly an island in the West Indies from
which, in this way, they did not extort immense sums of money under
threat of destruction of the people. The mainland also suffered from
the marauders. Great cities, like Cartagena in Venezuela, Panama on
the Isthmus, Mérida in Yucatan, and Havana in Cuba, were attacked
by armies of buccaneers numbering thousands of men. Sometimes their
fortifications held good, and the enemy was beaten back; but sooner or
later all these cities, and others, smaller, were captured, robbed of
everything valuable that they contained, and burned or partly burned.
For years the buccaneers were the terror of the Caribbean region, and
after the famous sacking of Panama, under Morgan, in 1671, their power
spread across the Isthmus and scourged the southern seas. We have no
way of knowing the amount of the treasure which they captured from the
merchant vessels and from the coast of Peru; for the moment they got
home from an expedition they wasted all their booty in wild carousing,
so that the spoils earned by months of exposure, and wounds, and danger
of death, would be spent in a single week.
At last even England and France, after secretly favoring the
buccaneers, became roused to the necessity of controlling them, and
it was with this object in view that a certain Captain William Kidd
was fitted out at private expense toward the end of the seventeenth
century, and armed with King William’s commission for seizing pirates
and making reprisals, England being at war with France. Just why it
was, nobody has explained, but Captain Kidd spent his time in loitering
around the coast of Africa, where no pirates were to be found, until he
grew quite disheartened, and, fearing to be dismissed by his employers
and to be “mark’d out for an unlucky man,” he started a little pirate
business for himself, in which he gained more of a certain kind of
fame than any of the rest; for popular tradition supposes him to have
hoarded his booty and buried it. “Captain Kidd’s treasure” has been
sought for until the whole eastern coast of the United States is
honeycombed with diggings for it; but probably he had eaten and drunk
it up before 1701, when he was captured and executed in England. About
this time, however, and without his valuable aid, the combined naval
forces of all the nations interested in the commerce of the New World
broke the power of the buccaneers, and their depredations ceased. Their
story is one of the wildest, most romantic, and most terrible in the
history of the world.
[Illustration:
“In revel and carousing
We gave the New Year housing,
With wreckage for our firing,
And rum to heart’s desiring.”
]
The trade of piracy was carried on during the eighteenth century in the
region of the West Indies by unorganized bands of desperados who had
all the faults and none of the greatness of the men they succeeded, and
who received little attention from the world at large. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century the Barataria pirates came into notice on
the coast of Louisiana, taking the place of the buccaneers, but in a
much smaller way. Their leaders, Pierre and John Lafitte, carried on
business quite openly in New Orleans; and their settlements on the
marshy islands along the coast, and their “temple,” to which persons
came out from the city to buy goods, were open secrets. But in the
War of 1812, although the British tried to buy their services, they
redeemed themselves by standing true to the American government, which
had just been trying to exterminate them, and so they won public pardon
and an added glamour of romance.
For the same reasons as those in the case of other island systems, the
East Indies have always been infested with pirates, whose light, swift
vessels run in and out of the intricate channels among the dangerous
coral reefs, where government cruisers dare not follow, while the
people on shore sympathize more with the pirates than with the police.
The East Indian sea-robbers are, as a rule, natives of that
region—Malays, Borneans, Dyaks, and Chinese, with many half-savages
of the South Sea Islands. This is more like a continuance of savage
resistance to civilization than real piracy, since the pirates of the
Atlantic are civilized sailors in mutiny against their own people
and national commerce. The result is just as bad, however; for these
East Indians are as bloodthirsty and cruel as the others, and if they
do not kill their victims, or save them for some cannibal feast (as
would probably happen in the New Hebrides and some other islands),
they condemn them to a life of misery. But in these days of improved
sea-craft, piracy, even in Malayan waters, is weak. Our consuls and
government agents watch suspicious vessels; our telegraph warns the
naval authorities in a moment; our steam-cruisers outspeed the swiftest
craft of the black flag; our rifled guns silence their cheap artillery;
and our coast surveys furnish maps so accurate that the pirate no
longer holds the secret of channels and harbors where he can safely
retreat. If, therefore, the old “Redbeards” should come back to life
and try to be kings of the sea, as they rejoiced to be a couple of
centuries ago, their pride would soon be humbled, and they would gladly
return to their graves and their ancient glory.
There is a form of sea-roving which has been at times not very
different from piracy; it is called _privateering_, and history shows
a good many cases where it has degenerated into sea-robbery pure and
simple.
A privateer is a ship, owned by a private citizen or citizens, to which
authority is given by a government to act as an independent war-vessel.
Its commission is called a “letter of marque” (_lettre de marque_ in
French), entitling it to “take, burn, and destroy” a certain enemy’s
property on the sea or in its ports. It has no right, of course, to
attack any one else.
The object and plea of the government issuing commissions to privateers
is that thus a great many more armed vessels can be sent afloat
than the government has money to equip, and that consequently far
more damage will be done to the enemy, by crippling his trade and
resources, than regular men-of-war alone can accomplish. Private
capital has been willing to take the risk because rewarded by a large
share of the prizes; and from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of
the eighteenth century this was one of the most profitable of marine
industries, for then nearly universal wars made almost any capture
legitimate. In the earlier times even the limited regulation that came
later was absent, and there was small choice between a privateer and
a pirate. Queen Elizabeth found the hundreds of privateers which she
had commissioned against the Spanish and Dutch preying upon her own
people, and robbing fishermen, coasters, and small shore towns, to such
an extent that she had to suppress them as bandits. Those were the
times when Hawkins could use a royal fleet to wage war upon the Spanish
colonies for private reasons; and when his ablest lieutenant, Drake,
could make his notable journey around the world a history of robbery
and slaughter. On the west coast of South America he spent months in
destroying Spanish vessels and ravaging and burning settlements; yet
it was thought remarkable, when he returned from his circumnavigation
of the globe, that the Queen hesitated somewhat before recognizing his
great achievements as a seaman, for fear of complications with Spain!
[Illustration: MALAY PIRATES ATTACKING A STEAMER.]
Spain, in those days of first harvest from her American possessions
and the East Indies, was the prey of everybody on the high seas able
to rob her, and formalities were joyously disregarded by both sides.
Her galleons carried precious cargoes of spices, silks, and East India
goods around the Cape, and brought silver ingots and gold bars from the
Spanish Main. They were usually convoyed by regular war-ships, and had
to run the gantlet of the enemy’s fleets whenever Spain happened to be
openly at war with somebody, as was usually the case; and otherwise
must escape buccaneers in West Indian waters, Malayan and Chinese
pirates in the far East, and irregular sea-rovers along the West
African coast, while the corsairs made the Mediterranean route doubly
dangerous.
[Illustration: PAUL JONES’ FIGHT IN THE “BON HOMME RICHARD” WITH THE
“SERAPIS.”]
The gradual growth of organized navies, the development of
international law, and the increasing organization of the civilized
world generally, slowly tamed these wild practices and reduced
privateering to some sort of control. Thus Jean Bart, the popular
hero of French naval history, who flourished toward the end of the
seventeenth century, was recognized and supported by the French monarch
as a free-lance in the Mediterranean, because his humble birth
prohibited him from taking a commission in the regular navy, which
amounted to a sort of apology for his deeds.
During the wars of the United States with England privateering was
extensively practised on both sides, and was of especial value to the
Americans. Congress issued private commissions as early as March,
1776, and the ablest statesmen upheld it as a means of employing the
ships, capital, and thousands of seamen that must lie idle when the
enemy’s cruisers were ranging the ocean highways unless permitted to
arm themselves and assist the government in an irregular warfare,
trusting to the value of their captures for remuneration. That the
chance of such reward was enough inducement is shown by the fact that
during the first year of the Revolution nearly three hundred and fifty
British vessels were captured, chiefly West Indiamen, worth, with their
cargoes, five million dollars. As Great Britain did not recognize
the flag of the United States, not only these, but even our regular
naval officers, were regarded by them as pirates, rather than true
privateers—Paul Jones first of all; but she never acted on this theory
with the severity that would have been visited upon true pirates.
In the naval warfare that came later between the United States and
France, privateering again flourished, and was a source of immense
profit to the principal seaports whence these swift, effective Yankee
vessels were despatched. No less than three hundred and sixty-five
American privateers were sent out between 1789 and 1799, and swept the
seas almost clean of the French merchant flag.
Then came the second war with Great Britain, which was fought over
a question of the sea rather than of the land,—the right of search
claimed by the British,—and once more American and British privateers
swarmed upon the highways of commerce. Of our merchant ships in all
parts of the world, about five hundred were lost; but this was more
than paid for, since our two hundred and fifty privateers captured or
destroyed, during the three years and nine months of the conflict, no
less than sixteen hundred British merchant vessels of all classes.
This disparity of results was largely due to the greater number of
English merchant vessels, but is also to be credited to the superior
speed and handiness of the Yankee vessels, most of which were
“Baltimore clippers,” topsail-rigged schooners with raking masts, that
could outsail and out-manœuver anything afloat. “They usually carried
from six to ten guns, with a single long one, which was called ‘Long
Tom,’ mounted on a swivel in the center. They were usually manned with
fifty persons besides officers, all armed with muskets, cutlasses, and
boarding-pikes.”
An English writer, Mr. R. C. Leslie, is of the opinion that this type
of vessel grew out of models in vogue in the West Indies, long before,
for the small piratical craft that made those waters the terror of
travelers.
[Illustration:
DRAWN BY W. TABER. ENGRAVED BY HENRY WOLF.
UNITED STATES FRIGATE “CONSTELLATION” OVERHAULING THE SLAVER “CORA.”]
These Baltimore clippers, too, enlarged and square-rigged, but still
the fastest things on the western ocean, formed the craft with which
the slave-trade was continued between Africa and America long after
it had been condemned by the civilized world. For many years previous
to the American Civil War, which put an end to the larger part of the
traffic by destroying its market, England and the United States kept
squadrons patrolling the African coast to arrest the slavers and free
their “cargoes.”
What wild, wild tales of the sea do these reminiscences of piracy,
privateering, and the slave-chase bring to mind—tales of horror, and
yet full of such deeds of daring and romance and fierce delight as must
stir the heart in spite of brain and conscience!
Pirates are things of the past—no more to be feared except in a small
way in the Malayan and Chinese archipelagoes. The African slave-trade
is extinct, so far as shipment across the ocean is concerned, save
where, now and then, an Arab dhow steals with its black cargo along
the East African foreland, or flits across the Gulf of Aden or the Red
Sea. Privateering has been forbidden by international treaty among the
larger European powers, which now recognize that trade goods, even
of belligerents, must be held safe in the ships of neutrals (except
articles declared contraband of war), because the business of the
world cannot stop, or even be put in jeopardy, by a quarrel between
two nations. Privateering, therefore, has been abandoned in Europe
as a method of war since the treaty of Paris in 1856, though Prussia
came pretty near it in 1870, by organizing what she called a volunteer
fleet, and Spain reserves the privilege of commissioning privateers.
The United States, however, and some other countries whose policy
or ability forbid them to have a large navy, would not enter into
the European agreement above mentioned, mutually to abstain from
privateering, on the plea that to do so would be to yield the most
powerful weapon of a nation weak in naval armament and sea commerce,
against any of many possible enemies whose large sea-borne commerce
would expose it to the most serious wounds. In our Civil War the
President issued no letters of marque, although authorized to do so.
It was customary to speak of the Confederate cruisers _Alabama_,
_Shenandoah_, _Florida_, etc., as privateers, or even pirates, and
they actually played the part with a success woeful to us of the
North, and to Great Britain, which had to pay for the damages caused
by the _Alabama_; but, strictly speaking, they were neither, because
commissioned by a temporary but regular government, whose flag might
have been recognized if its arms had succeeded.
[Illustration: Cannon.]
More lately (1898) the United States has announced it as its policy to
refrain from privateering, though no formal signature has been given to
any international agreement to that effect.
[Illustration:
STEAM YACHT. “HALCYON.” SANDY HOOK LIGHT-SHIP. “VOLUNTEER.”
“MAYFLOWER.”
A SPIN OUT TO SEA.—WELL-KNOWN YACHTS ROUNDING THE SANDY HOOK LIGHT-SHIP.
(From the painting by J. O. Davidson, owned by F. A. Hammond, Esq.)]