Page:Intrepid & daring adventures of sixteen British seamen.pdf/4

4 power of the mother country. Foreigners, as well as Americans, eagerly embarked in the business of legalised plunder, not from any principle of patriotism, it is obvious, but upon mere mercenary speculation. British sailors, more than those of any other country, were enamoured of the exploits which such a field of enterprise presented for their achievement, and many of them left their peaceful London and Liverpool traders to share, if not in the honours, at least in the anticipated profit and pleasure of a course, perhaps a life, of perpetual hostility.

Previous to the arrival of Lord Cochrane’s fleet on the coast of Chili, privateering was nearly at its height in the South American seas, and it is to that period, viz. in 1818, that the following isolated passage of history belongs.

Soon after Valparaiso had fallen into the hands of the revolutionary forces, a few British seamen resolved to set up as privateers on the Chilian and Peruvian coasts. With this view, having in the first instance, procured the governor’s licence, they purchased an old West Indian drugger boat, (a vessel similar to a lighter in this country) as sorry looking a craft as ever ventured a league to sea, but the small stock of dollars which they had succeeded in scraping together did not enable