NO ROMANCE HERE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

NO ROMANCE HERE

THIS is the time of year when the gardener takes hig spade and digs over his vegetable garden so that the winter's cold may help him in his work of breaking up the soil. The other day the writer sallied out, spade in hand, to attack the soil, and, not long after turning over the first rich, black sod, be saw something gleaming in the winter sunshine. It was a gold sovereign— something of a rarity in these days of creased and tattered banknotes. Being an imaginative sort of person, his thoughts turned to talcs of buried treasure, and, from that point, to pirates. When we think of pirates, we are influenced in our mental picture of them bv the romantic stories we have read. We think of "Treasure Island," for example. Pirates, for most of us, are gallant figures, richly dressed, carefree and fearless, roaming the Spanish Main in a life of glorious adventure. Their brave ship Haunts the Jolly Roger at its peak. The pirates' prey consists of evil Spaniards who lose both their gold and their lives as penalty for their villainy. As creatures of fiction these splendid people are valuable. They have fought and sung their merry way through the paj/es of many an exciting book. Vet, in sol>.?r fact, it must be confessed that there is very little romantic about the p-.rate of reality, and history can tell us little or nothing to his credit. The world knew pirates long before the days of Captain Kidd. The worst outbreak in classical times came to a head 07 years before the birtb of Christ. In that year I'ompey, the famous Roman soldier, was appointed to clear tho Mediterranean Sea of pirates, and he did so in three months. Pompey divided the Mediterranean into thirteen parfa and appointed a squadron and a commander for each. Thus he cut a net about the enemy and drove them before liim until he was able to wipe them out in a sea tight at (Joracesium. Until Pompey took the matter in hand, the pirate hordeß had been the scourge of the inland sea. They consisted mainly of Greek sailors who had taken to the ocean after the Roman conquest of their native land. They made descents upon the coast, stormed cities and carried to the slave markets the wretched people they captured. These pirates had more than a thousand ships, and one can imagine the panic when this fleet, manned by desj>erate men, bore down on a defenceless town. Gilded streamers floated in the breeze behind the ships. The oars were inlaid with silver, and the sails flaunted the air with stripes of rich purple. Piracy continued to lie a recognised practice, and long after Pompev's day its centre shifted to the northern sen, ravaged by the hardy Norsemen who were later to play havoc in Saxon England. So great was the outcry against the raids carried out by the cruel and bloodthirsty men that the towns on the Baltic Sea, and others on coasts nearby, formed a league of

mutual protection, called ths Has seatic League. As the jrsars pasaet the scene of greatest piratical activity changed batik to the Mediterranean, but this time it was not Greek* but Bsvsfe men from Morocco w lio engaged in the trade. They wert the <1 readed Corsairs, anil their raida curried them as far a* tlis English Channel. This was in the seventeenth century, and on one occasion they snapped up a« one priee £. r >oo worth of linen belonging to the Tjord Deputy of Ireland and blockaded him, the Kind's representative, for weeks in an English j»ort while be waited for a ship of war to carry him across the Irish Kea. In 1035 the Corsairs actually entered Cork Harbour and seieed a bout with eight Irish fishermen, who were cm tie J off to be bo Id us slaves in Algiers. The pirates of whom we liave been told the most are the Imceanecrs, who roved the Hpaniab Main in tlie seventeenth century. They preyed inuinly oil Spanish ships trading lie(ween Spain and her rich nrw colonies in the West Indies and on the American muinbiad. Then® pirates were French, English uud l)iitch. Well-known names amongst those d(si>eradoe» were 'Morgan, who enptwrod I'anama iu 1070, Mcmtrtmr, L'OJonois and Banco. The pence of Uyswick, Itctwocn Kngiund. Km nee, Spain nnd Holland, cheeked this West Indies bund, and our tale moves on a few yours uitil we come to CupIn in Kidd. fierllupN the most famous pirate of them all. Those of us who lielieve thai pirates are heroes of romance would do well to study the history of Captain Kidd, for it plainly shows that, he was no less than a traitor and a villain. Kidd was a Bcot and the son of a minister of the ohurch. He m'ent early to sea and gained a name (or eourage and resource in fighting against the French. In the dying years of the seventeenth century tlie British colonics iu America were suffering from raids by pirates, who ulbo infested (he Indian Ocean and attacked ships trading between Europe and India. It was decided in England to take action ugjainst the pirates. Tlie Earl of Bellamont was sent out to America by William 111. specially to take this matter in hand. Kidd himself was given a fine ship of thirty guns and held, tlie King's commission to hunt down the pirate ships uud destroy them. Kidd made Ilia way to tlie inland of Madagascar, tlie chief liuse of those who were supposed to be his enemies, but it was not long Itefore reports reached England that Kidd himself was playing pirate. After a two years' cruise he returned tx> the Went Indies. Kidd sailed up the coast of America, buried treasure worth £14,000, tlie result of his piracy, on an island near where New York stands to-day, and then hud the impudence to sail into Boston Ilurliour, the hefdquarters of the Earl of Bellamont himself. There hi was arrested and sent to England. Trial and execution followed, although, strangely enough, it was for murder and not for piracy that Kidd was lumped. How different this wretched figure—traitor, murderer anj thief —from the pirate of romance and fiction.