Chapter XXIV
A Greenhorn under the Black Flag
Early in the eighteenth century there lived at Bridgetown, in the island
of Barbadoes, a very pleasant, middle-aged gentleman named Major Stede
Bonnet. He was a man in comfortable circumstances, and had been an
officer in the British army. He had retired from military service, and
had bought an estate at Bridgetown, where he lived in comfort and was
respected by his neighbors.
But for some reason or other this quiet and reputable gentleman got it
into his head that he would like to be a pirate. There were some persons
who said that this strange fancy was due to the fact that his wife did
not make his home pleasant for him, but it is quite certain that if a
man wants an excuse for robbing and murdering his fellow-beings he ought
to have a much better one than the bad temper of his wife. But besides
the general reasons why Major Bonnet should not become a pirate, and
which applied to all men as well as himself, there was a special reason
against his adoption of the profession of a sea-robber, for he was an
out-and-out landsman and knew nothing whatever of nautical matters. He
had been at sea but very little, and if he had heard a boatswain order
his man to furl the keel, to batten down the shrouds, or to hoist the
forechains to the topmast yard, he would have seen nothing out of the
way in these commands.
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