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THE BUCCANEERS OF AMERICA.
The most terrible name, perhaps, in the juvenile literature of England
and English America, during the last century and a half, has been that
of WILLIAM KIDD, the pirate. In the nursery legend, in story,
and in song, the name of Kidd has stood forth as the boldest and
bloodiest of buccaneers. The terror of the ocean when abroad, he
returned from his successive voyages to line our coasts with silver and
gold, and to renew with the devil a league, cemented with the blood of
victims shot down whenever fresh returns of the precious metals were to
be hidden. According to the superstitious of Connecticut and Long
Island, it was owing to these bloody charms that honest money-diggers
have ever experienced so much difficulty in removing these buried
treasures. Often, indeed, have the lids of the iron chests rung beneath
the mattock of the stealthy midnight searcher for gold; but the flashes
of sulphurous fires, blue and red, and the saucer eyes and chattering
teeth of legions of demons have uniformly interposed to frighten the
delvers from their posts, and preserve the treasures from their greedy
clutches. But notwithstanding the harrowing sensations connected with
the name of Kidd, and his renown as a pirate, he was but one of the last
and most inconsiderable of that mighty race of sea robbers who, during a
long series of years in the seventeenth century, were the admiration of
the world for their prowess, and its terror for their crimes.
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