But a pirate is very seldom a person of discretion, who knows when to
leave well enough alone, and so, instead of contenting themselves with
robbing and capturing the vessels belonging to people whom their Charles
Town friends and customers would look upon as foreigners, they boldly
sailed up and down the coast, seeking for floating booty wherever they
might find it, and when a pirate vessel commanded by an English captain
and manned principally by an English crew, fell in with a big
merchantman flying the English flag, they bore down upon that vessel,
just as if it had been French, or Spanish, or Dutch, and if the crew
were impertinent enough to offer any resistance, they were cut down and
thrown overboard.
At last the pirates became so swaggeringly bold and their captains so
enterprising in their illegal trading that the English government took
vigorous measures, not only to break up piracy, but to punish all
colonists who should encourage the freebooters by commercial dealings
with them. At these laws the pirates laughed, and the colonists winced,
and there were many people in Charles Town who vowed that if the King
wanted them to help him put down piracy, he must show them some other
way of getting imported goods at reasonable prices. So the pirates went
on capturing merchantmen whenever they had a chance, and the Carolinians
continued to look forward with interest to the bargain days which always
followed the arrival of a pirate ship.
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