ironServices.com

English Audio Books

  • Great Pirate Stories
  • Great Pirate Stories
    French, Joseph Lewis
    Download the book

    Piracy embodies the romance of the sea at its highest expression. It is
    a sad but inevitable commentary on our civilization, that, so far as the
    sea is concerned, it has developed from its infancy down to a century or
    so ago, under one phase or another of piracy. If men were savages on
    land they were doubly so at sea, and all the years of maritime
    adventure--years that added to the map of the world till there was
    little left to discover--could not wholly eradicate the piratical germ.
    It went out gradually with the settlement and ordering of the far-flung
    British colonies. Great Britain, foremost of sea powers, must be
    credited with doing more both directly and indirectly for the abolition
    of crime and disorder on the high seas than any other force. But the
    conquest was not complete till the advent of steam which chased the
    sea-rover into the farthest corners of his domain. It is said that he
    survives even today in certain spots in the Chinese waters,--but he is
    certainly an innocuous relic. A pirate of any sort would be as great a
    curiosity today if he could be caught and exhibited as a fabulous
    monster.
  • SPONSORED LINKS