Of course it was hard to get a number of free and
untrammelled crews to unite and obey the commands of a few officers. But
in time the buccaneers had recognized leaders, and laws were made for
concerted action. In consequence of this the buccaneers became a
formidable body of men, sometimes superior to the Spanish naval and
military forces.
It must be remembered that the buccaneers lived in a very peculiar age.
So far as the history of America is concerned, it might be called the
age of blood and gold. In the newly discovered countries there were no
laws which European nations or individuals cared to observe. In the West
Indies and the adjacent mainlands there were gold and silver, and there
were also valuable products of other kinds, and when the Spaniards
sailed to their part of the new world, these treasures were the things
for which they came. The natives were weak and not able to defend
themselves. All the Spaniards had to do was to take what they could
find, and when they could not find enough they made the poor Indians
find it for them. Here was a part of the world, and an age of the world,
wherein it was the custom for men to do what they pleased, provided they
felt themselves strong enough, and it was not to be supposed that any
one European nation could expect a monopoly of this state of mind.
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