As to Molly and Matt Abrahamson, they both enjoyed a pension of
ten pounds a year for as long as they lived; for now that all was

well with him, Tom bore no grudge against the old fisherman for
all the drubbings he had suffered.

The treasure box was brought on to New York, and if Tom Chist did
not get all the money there was in it (as Parson Jones had opined

he would) he got at least a good big lump of it.
And it is my belief that those log books did more to get Captain

Kidd arrested in Boston town and hanged in London than anything
else that was brought up against him.

V
JACK BALLISTER'S FORTUNES

WE, of these times, protected as we are by the laws and by the
number of people about us, can hardly comprehend such a life as

that of the American colonies in the early part of the eighteenth
century, when it was possible for a pirate like Capt. Teach,

known as Blackbeard, to exist, and for the governor and the
secretary of the province in which he lived perhaps to share his

plunder, and to shelter and to protect him against the law.
At that time the American colonists were in general a rough,

rugged people, knowing nothing of the finer things of life. They
lived mostly in little settlements, separated by long distances

from one another, so that they could neither make nor enforce
laws to protect themselves. Each man or little group of men had

to depend upon his or their own strength to keep what belonged to
them, and to prevent fierce men or groups of men from seizing

what did not belong to them.
It is the natural disposition of everyone to get all that he can.

Little children, for instance, always try to take away from
others that which they want, and to keep it for their own. It is

only by constant teaching that they learn that they must not do
so; that they must not take by force what does not belong to

them. So it is only by teaching and training that people learn to
be honest and not to take what is not theirs. When this teaching

is not sufficient to make a man learn to be honest, or when there
is something in the man's nature that makes him not able to

learn, then he only lacks the opportunity to seize upon the
things he wants, just as he would do if he were a little child.

In the colonies at that time, as was just said, men were too few
and scattered to protect themselves against those who had made up

their minds to take by force that which they wanted, and so it
was that men lived an unrestrained and lawless life, such as we

of these times of better government can hardly comprehend.
The usual means of commerce between province and province was by

water in coasting vessels. These coasting vessels were so
defenseless, and the different colonial governments were so ill

able to protect them, that those who chose to rob them could do
it almost without danger to themselves.

So it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested
with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to

stop merchant vessels and take from them what they chose.
Each province in those days was ruled over by a royal governor

appointed by the king. Each governor, at one time, was free to
do almost as he pleased in his own province. He was accountable

only to the king and his government, and England was so distant
that he was really responsible almost to nobody but himself.

The governors were naturally just as desirous to get rich
quickly, just as desirous of getting all that they could for

themselves, as was anybody else only they had been taught and had
been able to learn that it was not right to be an actualpirate

or robber. They wanted to be rich easily and quickly, but the
desire was not strong enough to lead them to dishonor themselves

in their own opinion and in the opinion of others by gratifying
their selfishness. They would even have stopped the pirates from

doing what they did if they could, but their provincial
governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing

merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore. The
provinces had no navies, and they really had no armies; neither

were there enough people living within the community to enforce
the laws against those stronger and fiercer men who were not

honest.
After the things the pirates seized from merchant vessels were

once stolen they were altogether lost. Almost never did any
owner apply for them, for it would be useless to do so. The

stolen goods and merchandise lay in the storehouses of the
pirates, seemingly without any owner excepting the pirates

themselves.
The governors and the secretaries of the colonies would not

dishonor themselves by pirating upon merchant vessels, but it did
not seem so wicked after the goods were stolen--and so altogether

lost--to take a part of that which seemed to have no owner.
A child is taught that it is a very wicked thing to take, for

instance, by force, a lump of sugar from another child; but when
a wicked child has seized the sugar from another and taken it

around the corner, and that other child from whom he has seized
it has gone home crying, it does not seem so wicked for the third

child to take a bite of the sugar when it is offered to him, even
if he thinks it has been taken from some one else.

It was just so, no doubt, that it did not seem so wicked to
Governor Eden and Secretary Knight of North Carolina, or to

Governor Fletcher of New York, or to other colonialgovernors, to
take a part of the booty that the pirates, such as Blackbeard,

had stolen. It did not even seem very wicked to compel such
pirates to give up a part of what was not theirs, and which

seemed to have no owner.
In Governor Eden's time, however, the colonies had begun to be

more thickly peopled, and the laws had gradually become stronger
and stronger to protect men in the possession of what was theirs.

Governor Eden was the last of the colonialgovernors who had
dealings with the pirates, and Blackbeard was almost the last of

the pirates who, with his banded men, was savage and powerful
enough to come and go as he chose among the people whom he

plundered.
Virginia, at that time, was the greatest and the richest of all

the American colonies, and upon the farther side of North
Carolina was the province of South Carolina, also strong and

rich. It was these two colonies that suffered the most from
Blackbeard, and it began to be that the honest men that lived in

them could endure no longer to be plundered.
The merchants and traders and others who suffered cried out

loudly for protection, so loudly that the governors of these
provinces could not help hearing them.

Governor Eden was petitioned to act against the pirates, but he
would do nothing, for he felt very friendly toward

Blackbeard--just as a child who has had a taste of the stolen
sugar feels friendly toward the child who gives it to him.

At last, when Blackbeard sailed up into the very heart of
Virginia, and seized upon and carried away the daughter of that

colony's foremost people, the governor of Virginia, finding that
the governor of North Carolina would do nothing to punish the

outrage, took the matter into his own hands and issued a
proclamationoffering a reward of one hundred pounds for

Blackbeard, alive or dead, and different sums for the other
pirates who were his followers.