"Many virtues weighted by excess sink among the vices,
Many vices, amicably buoyed, float among the virtues."
Had Mr. Tupper been acquainted with the career of Captain Davis of the
Spanish Main, he would have found many apt illustrations of his thesis.
Captain Davis had the vices incidental to a piratical career, but they
were amicably buoyed up by some virtues which would have adorned a
different station in life. He was a great stickler for parliamentary
law, and everything under his direction was done decently and in order.
Whenever it was possible, he made his demands in writing, a method which
was business-like and left no room for misunderstanding. After a sloop
had been seized and duly pillaged, we are informed that:--
"In full possession of the vessel and stores and goods, a large bowl of
punch was made. Under its exhilarating influence it was proposed to
choose a commander, and to form a future mode of policy. The election
was soon over and a large majority of legal voters were in favor of
Davis, and, no scrutiny being demanded, Davis was declared duly elected.
He then addressed them in a short and appropriate speech."
The chief virtue of Davis seemed to be neatness, which on one occasion
he used to admirable advantage. "Encountering a French ship of
twenty-four guns, Davis proposed to the crew to attack her, assuring
them that she would prove a rich prize. This appeared to the crew such a
hazardous enterprise that they were adverse to the measure; but he
acquainted them that he had conceived a stratagem that he was confident
would succeed."
This stratagem was worthy of the Beau Brummel of pirates. At the
critical moment, the crew "according to the direction of Davis appeared
on deck in white shirts, which making an appearance of numbers the
Frenchman was intimidated and struck." Why the white shirts should have
given the appearance of numbers it is difficult to understand, but we
can well understand the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates'
immaculate attire.
Most of the pirates seem to have conducted their lives on a highly
romantic, not to say sensational plan. This reprehensible practice, of
course, must shut them off from the sympathy of all realists of the
stricter school, who hold that there should be no dramatic situations,
and that even when a story is well begun it should not be brought to a
finish, but should "peter out" in the last chapters, no one knows how or
why. Sometimes, however, a pirate manages to come to an end sufficiently
commonplace to make a plot for a most irreproachable novel. There was
Captain Avery. He commenced the practice of his profession very
auspiciously by running away with a ship of thirty guns from Bristol. In
the Indian Ocean he captured a treasure-ship of the Great Mogul. In this
ship, it is said, "there were several of the greatest persons of the
court." There was also on board the daughter of the Great Mogul, who
was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The painstaking historian comments on this
very justly: "It is well known that the people of the East travel with
great magnificence, so that they had along with them all their slaves,
with a large quantity of vessels of gold and silver and immense sums of
money. The spoil, therefore, that Avery received from that ship was
almost incalculable." To capture the treasure-ship of the Great Mogul
under such circumstances would have turned the head of any ordinary
pirate who had weakened his mind by reading works tinged with
romanticism. His companions, when the treasure was on board, wished to
sail to Madagascar, and there build a small fort; but "Avery
disconcerted the plan and rendered it altogether unnecessary." We know
perfectly well what these wretches would have done if they had been
allowed to have their own way: they would have gathered in one of the
spicy groves, and would have taken up vociferously their song,--
"Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul!
Let the world wag as it will."
Avery would have none of this, so when most of the men were away from
the ship he sailed off with the treasure, leaving them to their evil
ways, and to a salutary poverty. Here begins the realism of the story.
With the treasures of the Great Mogul in his hold, he did not follow the
illusive course of Captain Kidd, "as he sailed, as he sailed." He did
not even lay his course for the "coasts of Coromandel." Instead of that
he made a bee-line for America, with the laudable intention of living
there "in affluence and honor." When he got to America, however, he did
not know what to do with himself, and still less what to do with the
inestimable pearls and diamonds of the Great Mogul. An ordinary pirate
of romance would have escaped to the Spanish Main, but Avery did just
what any realistic gentleman would do: after he had spent a short time
in other cities--he concluded to go to Boston. The chronicler adds,
"Arriving at Boston, he almost resolved to settle there." It was in the
time of the Mathers. But in spite of its educational and religious
advantages, Boston furnished no market for the gems of the Orient, so
Captain Avery went to England. If he had in his youth read a few
detective stories, he might have known how to get his jewels exchanged
for the current coin of the realm; but his early education had been
neglected, and he was of a singularly confiding and unsophisticated
nature--when on land. After suffering from poverty he made the
acquaintance of some wealthy merchants of Bristol, who took his gems on
commission, on condition that they need not inquire how he came by them.
That was the last Avery saw of the gems of the Great Mogul. A plain
pirate was no match for financiers. Remittances were scanty, though
promises were frequent. What came of it all? Nothing came of it; things
simply dragged along. Avery was not hanged, neither did he get his
money. At last, on a journey to Bristol to urge the merchants to a
settlement, he fell sick and died. What became of the gems? Nobody
knows. What became of those merchants of Bristol? Nobody cares. A
novelist might, out of such material, make an ending quite clever and
dreary.
To this realistic school of pirates belongs Thomas Veal, known in our
history as the "Pirate of Lynn." To turn from the chapter on the Life,
Atrocities, and Bloody Death of Black Beard to the chapter on the Lynn
Pirate, is a relief to the overstrained sensibilities. Lynn is in the
temperate zone, and we should naturally reason that its piracies would
be more calm and equable than those of the tropics, and so they were.
"On one pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen
to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently
lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the
river." It is needless to say that these men were pirates. In the
morning the vessel had disappeared, but a man found a paper whereon was
a statement that if a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and hatchets were
placed in a certain nook, silver would be deposited near by to pay for
them. The people of Lynn in those days were thrifty folk, and the
hardware was duly placed in the spot designated, and the silver was
found as promised. After some months four pirates came and settled in
the woods. The historian declares it to be his opinion (and he speaks as
an expert) that it would be impossible to select a place more convenient
for a gang of pirates. He draws particular attention to the fact that
the "ground was well selected for the cultivation of potatoes and common
vegetables." This shows that the New England environment gave an
industrial and agricultural cast to piracy which it has not had
elsewhere. In fact, after reading the whole chapter, I am struck by the
pacific and highly moral character of these pirates. The last of
them--Thomas Veal--took up his abode in what is described as a "spacious
cavern," about two miles from Lynn. "There the fugitive fixed his
residence, and practiced the trade of a shoemaker, occasionally coming
down to the village to obtain articles of sustenance." By uniting the
occupations of market-gardening, shoe-making, and piracy, Thomas Veal
managed to satisfy the demands of a frugal nature, and to live respected
by his neighbors in Lynn. It must have been a great alleviation in the
lot of the small boys, when now and then they escaped from the eyes of
the tithing-men, and in the cave listened to Mr. Veal singing his
pirate's songs. Of course a solo could give only a faint conception of
what the full chorus would have been in the tropical forests, but still
it must have curdled the blood to a very considerable extent.
There is, I must confess, a certain air of vagueness about this
interesting narration. No overt act of piracy is mentioned. Indeed, the
evidence in regard to the piratical character of Mr. Veal, so far as it
is given in this book, is largely circumstantial.
There is, first, the geographical argument. The Saugus River, being a
winding stream, was admirably adapted for the resort of pirates who
wished to prey upon the commerce of Boston and Salem. This establishes
the opportunity and motive, and renders it antecedently probable that
piracy was practiced. The river, it is said, was a good place in which
to secrete boats. This we know from our reading was the invariable
practice of pirates.
Another argument is drawn from the umbrageous character of the Lynn
woods. We are told with nice particularity that in this tract of country
"there were many thick pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and places where the
rays of the sun at noon could not penetrate." Such a place would be just
the spot in which astute pirates would be likely to bury their treasure,
confident that it would never be discovered. The fact that nothing ever
has been discovered here seems to confirm this supposition.
The third argument is that while a small cave still remains, the
"spacious cavern" in which Thomas Veal, the piratical shoemaker, is said
to have dwelt no longer exists. This clinches the evidence. For there
was an earthquake in 1658. What more likely than that, in the
earthquake, "the top of the rock was loosened and crushed down into the
mouth of the cavern, inclosing the unfortunate inmate in its unyielding
prison?" At any rate, there is no record of Mr. Veal or of his spacious
cavern after that earthquake.
No one deserves to be called an antiquarian who cannot put two and two
together, and reconstruct from these data a more or less elaborate
history of the piracies of Mr. Thomas Veal. The only other explanation
of the facts presented, that I can think of as having any degree of
plausibility, is that possibly Mr. Veal may have been an Anabaptist,
escaped from Boston, who imposed upon the people of Lynn by making them
believe that he was only a pirate.
I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more
edifying than entertaining. He can never resist the temptation to draw a
moral, and his dogmatic bias in favor of the doctrine of total
depravity is only too evident. But his book has the great advantage that
it is not devoid of incident. Take it all in all, there are worse books
to read--after one is tired of reading books that are better.
I am inclined to think that our novelists must make home happy, or they
may drive many of their readers to "The Pirate's Own Book." The policy
of the absolute prohibition of romance, while excellent in theory, has
practical difficulties in the way of enforcement. Perhaps, under certain
restrictions, license might be issued to proper persons to furnish
stimulants to the imagination. Of course the romancer should not be
allowed to sell to minors, nor within a certain distance of a
schoolhouse, nor to habitual readers. My position is the conservative
one that commended itself to the judicious Rollo.
"'Well, Rollo,' said Dorothy, 'shall I tell you a true story, or one
that is not true?'
"'I think, on the whole, Dorothy, I would rather have it true.'"
But there must have been times--though none are recorded--when Rollo
tired even of the admirable clear thinking and precise information of
Jonas. At such times he might have tolerated a story that was not so
very true, if only it were interesting. There are main thoroughfares
paved with hard facts where the intellectual traffic must go on
continually. There are tracks on which, if a heedless child of romance
should stray, he is in danger of being run down by the realists, those
grim motor-men of the literary world. But outside the congested
districts there should be some roadways leading out into the open
country where all things are still possible. At the entrance to each of
these roads there ought to be displayed the notice, "For pleasure only.
No heavy teaming allowed." I should not permit any modern improvements
in this district, but I should preserve all its natural features. There
should be not only a feudal castle with moat and drawbridge, but also a
pirate's cave.