This is what happened to these buccaneers who would not give up a piratical life; driven away from Jamaica, from San Domingo, and even from Tortuga, they retained a resting-place only at New Providence, an island in the Bahamas, and this they did not maintain very long.  Then they spread themselves all over the watery world.  They were no longer buccaneers, they were no longer brothers of any sort or kind, they no longer set out merely to pillage and fight the Spaniards, but their attacks were made upon people of every nation.  English ships and French ships, once safe from them, were a welcome prey to these new pirates, unrestrained by any kind of loyalty, even by any kind of enmity.  They were more rapacious, they were more cruel, they were more like fiends than they had ever been before.  They were cowardly and they no longer proceeded against towns which might be defended, nor ran up alongside of a man-of-war to boldly board her in the very teeth of her guns.  They confined themselves to attacks upon peaceable merchant vessels, often robbing them and then scuttling them, delighted with the spectacle of a ship, with all its crew, sinking hopelessly into the sea.

The scene of piratical operations in America was now very much changed.  The successors of the Brothers of the Coast, no longer united by any bonds of fellowship, but each pirate captain acting independently in his own wicked way, was coming up from the West Indies to afflict the seacoast of our country.

The old buccaneers knew all about our southern coast, for they were among the very first white men who ever set foot on the shores of North and South Carolina before that region had been settled by colonists, and when the only inhabitants were the wild Indians.  These early buccaneers often used its bays and harbors as convenient ports of refuge, where they could anchor, divide spoils, take in fresh water, and stay as long as they pleased without fear of molestation.  It was natural enough that when the Spanish-hating buccaneer merged into the independent pirate, who respected no flag, and preyed upon ships of every nation, he should feel very much at home on the Carolina coasts.

As the country was settled, and Charles Town, now Charleston, grew to be a port of considerable importance, the pirates felt as much at home in this region as when it was inhabited merely by Indians.  They frequently touched at little seaside settlements, and boldly sailed into the harbor of Charles Town.  But, unlike the unfortunate citizens of Porto Bello or Maracaibo, the American colonists were not frightened when they saw a pirate ship anchored in their harbors, for they knew its crew did not come as enemies, but as friendly traders.

The early English colonists were not as prosperous as they might have been if the mother country had not been so anxious to make money out of them.  They were not allowed to import goods from any country but England, and if they had products or crops to export, they must be sold to English merchants.  For whatever they bought they had to pay the highest prices, and they could not send into the markets of the world to get the best value for their own productions.