The only advantage
that Portugal could expect from the newly discovered treasures of the
West were those which her seafaring men, acting with the seafaring men
of other nations, should wrest from Spanish vessels homeward bound.
Consequently, there were Portuguese among the pirates of those days.
Among these was a man named Bartholemy Portuguez, a famous
_flibustier_.
It may be here remarked that the name of buccaneer was chiefly affected
by the English adventurers on our coast, while the French members of the
profession often preferred the name of "flibustier." This word, which
has since been corrupted into our familiar "filibuster," is said to have
been originally a corruption, being nothing more than the French method
of pronouncing the word "freebooters," which title had long been used
for independent robbers.
Thus, although Bartholemy called himself a flibustier, he was really a
buccaneer, and his name came to be known all over the Caribbean Sea.
From the accounts we have of him it appears that he did not start out on
his career of piracy as a poor man. He had some capital to invest in the
business, and when he went over to the West Indies he took with him a
small ship, armed with four small cannon, and manned by a crew of picked
men, many of them no doubt professional robbers, and the others anxious
for practice in this most alluring vocation, for the gold fields of
California were never more attractive to the bold and hardy adventurers
of our country, than were the gold fields of the sea to the buccaneers
and flibustiers of the seventeenth century.
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