Why was Mark jolly! He took an impartial view of things, or a partial one if you will, for his idiosyncrasy; opened his eyes to the difficulties, but closed his mouth on the subject of them, by which I mean he never allowed they were difficulties. Which is, in a word, the way to get along! Not that jollity will bear us safely over all life's billows; no, I don't say that! Of a truth there's some will swamp even it, like winking, as the poet says; but for all that, the "jolly boat's" the best of human make. Were I disposed to illustrate this, how might I adduce history, in its form of biography, and poetry, also. What victories over difficulties have been achieved by cheerfulness, always united to action, as must needs be,for cheerfulness, if inactive in necessity's turn, would become despondency from her very consciousness of duty's neglect ! The triumphs of cheerfulness ? I would borrow my records from the perils of earthquakes, of shipwreck, of fire! Beautiful star, bright, ever twinkling cheerfulness! How often has it looked on some downcast sufferer and whispered hope and couragecourage! That star, that bright, particular star, shone on poor Baron Trenck, in his dark dungeon, when the tiny mouse, subdued by captive love, became his friend and partner of his meals. Time would fail me to cite the examples ready to my hand. Your memory will doubtless furnish them. The unsafest position is the feeling of perfect safety. Belshazzar and Sennacherib realized that fact. Now, you will observe that Mark Tapley never felt himself so; in which respect he was, most decidedly, a very superior person to either Sennacherib or Belshazzar. Mark's cheerfulness kept him continually alive; and being alive, in the fullest sense, he was always on the look-out for circumstantial hurricanes and tornadoes, to enjoy them; such little elementary trifles being the food of his jollity. Now, gentlemen, I say all honour to Charles Dickens, who introduced Mark Tapley to us, as the preacher of a light yet profitable sermon ; a sermon for every day, and for every class of men and women. And all praise to Mark Tapley, of the Blue Dragon (now the Tapley Arms), in the little Wiltshire village, for the lamp he lit, and ever holds, to guide and cheer the sorrowing downcast wanderer. Moreover, and lastly, let us not forget to venerate fair, fat, and forty, Mrs. Lupin that was; who is still the smiling hostess of the Tapley Arms, though older than before, but not less admirable. PATIENCE BRINGS ROSES. From the German of W. Nagël. On prickly shrub doth Patience grow; A wreath of roses smile! THE BRETHREN OF THE COAST. BY W. J. OSTELL. THE dignified Muse of History has cared but little for the byeways of the World's story. With haughty stride and robed in the imperial purple, her place has nearly ever been in the grand triumphal march, the gorgeous ceremonial, and amidst the pomp of tragic dénouements. With kings for actors, their lives, loves, hates, wars, and fates for incidents, and the large round world for stage, the minor strugglers and doers have passed unheeded by the impassive Muse, save as "accessory to the plot." Yet, indented on the roll of mankind's chronicle, are to be found at infrequent intervals many a subsidiary drama of striking interest and eventful import. Amongst these episodes we call to mind none more strongly marked or curiously interesting than that of the story of the sea confederacy of Buccaneers and Filibusters eventually combined as the Brethren of the Coast. We confess that for us the story of the Brethren of the Coast has always had a peculiar fascination. John Sterling, son of the Thunderer of the Times, tells how, when a boy, he found a copy of Montaigne's Essays in his father's library, and treasured it up till future years enabled him to fulfil his long-cherished wish of visiting the wise essayist's château in Gascony. Amongst the books we inherit is a history of the daring adventurers who head this paper, translated from the German of J. M. Von Archenholtz, and dated 1807. Next to the boy's Iliad, dear old "Robinson Crusoe," this account of the daring sea-brotherhood was the jacket-pocket companion of our play-hours and rambles; and although, as yet, we have not visited the scenes in which they were such prominent actors, and much doubt whether we ever may, yet have we persistently and eagerly snatched up any waifs and strays of information regarding our unlicensed heroes; and the appearance some time since of Mr. Thornbury's "Monarchs of the Main"- -a work we found most entertaining from its subject, lively in description, and full of pen-pictures-set us rummaging anew our stores of the Buccaneer annals. To make our story more easily intelligible, we must take a retrospective glance at the history of the South American continent, the scene of their varied fortunes. The Spaniards having been the first to discover and appropriate the lands in the New World, including the finest islands of the West Indies, it was not long before adventurers of other nations hastened to share in the greatly exaggerated wealth with which, in popular belief, the golden lands abounded. These men went with the certainty of meeting with hostility from the Spaniards-and with the determination of returning it with hostility. The Spaniards endeavoured to extirpate at once and for ever these insolent intruders, and employed armed cruisers, or guardacostas, the commanders of which had orders to take no prisoners! The consequence was that English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese leagued themselves for mutual protection and equal reprisal on the haughty Spaniard, treated every Spanish ship as an enemy, made descents on the coasts, ravaging their towns and settlements, and repaid cruelty by cruelty. An incessant warfare was thus established between Europeans in the West Indies entirely independent of their respective governments. All Europeans not Spaniards, whether there was peace or war between their nations in the Old World, on their meeting in the New, regarded each VOL. X. other as friends and allies, styled themselves Brethren of the Coast, held the Spaniard as their common foe, and "No peace beyond the line" became the motto of the Brethren, as it had been that of their precursors, and even prototypes, England's naval worthies, Drake, Cavendish, Frobisher, Oxenham, and Raleigh. The period of the rise and setting of these floating republics or filibustering confederacies is limited to the latter half of the seventeenth century. Readers of history know well enough that this was a stormy period in European affairs. The Huguenot internecine struggle in France, and the Parliamentarian contest in Britain, had sent many Frenchmen and Englishmen to the New World; the disjointed times had cast on the rocky islets and sandy keys of the Caribbean Sea a motley population of gallants and Puritans, rovers and refugees, Catholics and Protestants, planters, hunters, and seamen-had "sharked up a list of landless reso. lutes," impelled mainly by greed of gain, but largely also by revenge on the cruel and rapacious Spaniards, whose monarch claimed sole right of treasure-trove to half of the world by special bull from Pope Alexander VI. forsooth; and whose bigoted and bloodthirsty intents as expressed by the "invincible Armada" (the discomfiture of which has been well termed the Salamis of modern Europe), and by the dragoonadings, under Alva, in the Low Countries, as well as the horrors of Spanish satraps' cruelty to natives and barbarity to forlorn strangers in the Indies, which rumour swiftly carried to Europe, renewed and fostered the old bitterness of hate. The Brethren of the Coast were first known by the name of Flibustiers, a French sailor's corruption of freebooter. The derivation of Buccanier was from the Caribbean word boucan, the flesh of the wild cattle when smoked and cured, and was also given to the hut or place in which it was thus dried and preserved. As early as 1630 a party of emigrants from Normandy, finding Hispaniola almost deserted by the Spaniards, who neglected the Antilles to push their conquests on the mainland, landed on the south side and located. Orders came from Spain to kill off the wild cattle originally introduced by Columbus, particularly round the coast. Weary of the wretched life they now led on shore, they sought a desperate but congenial occupation in joining the Filibusters to attack the well-laden vessels passing from the rich American colonies to the Spanish mothercountry. The laws of association of the Brethren of the Coast were peculiar, and sprang out of their special circumstances. As men, they conceived a lofty idea of their individual independence, and, when disengaged from active service, every one followed his own whims, without regard for those of his fellows. In service, their patience seemed inexhaustible—they endured hunger, thirst, and excessive fatigue without a murmur, such being the true mark and warranty of a Brother of the Coast. They evinced a strong attachment for the externals of religion, and previous to engagement, prayed fervently-never omitting to earnestly beseech for victory and a good prize especially-severely beat their breasts, and were mutually reconciled, asking pardon for past offences, and embracing each other to show their unanimity. There was an agreed scale of prize-money; special awards for gallant actions and particular services, and a tariff for wounds. Let us now take two or three detached pictures of the feats of these redoubtable Picaroons. Probably the first successful adventurer of the Buccaneers was a native of Dieppe, called Pierre le Grand, by which heroic appellation he afterwards became known. He began his career by sailing in a large canoe with a band of only 28 followers, and on the western coast of St. Domingo met a large Spanish vessel mounting cannon and carrying above 200 men. The sun was setting when they neared the floating fort, and ordering their chirurgeon to bore holes in the sides of their own little barque, that, there being no escape, might lend desperateness to valour, they clambered up the sides of the tall Spaniard, and burst almost suddenly into the state cabin, surprising the officers playing at cards, who, seeing no enemy's vessel (for by this time the surgeon's handiwork had caused the canoe to disappear), cried out in superstitious dismay, "Jesu, save us, these men are devils!" and tamely surrendered. The vessel was laden with riches, and its prudent captor steered at once for his own la belle France, bidding adieu to the scenes of his sudden fortune for ever. The news of this exploit added fuel to fire; and not only the freebooters' head-quarters at Tortugas were in an uproar, but the news spread to the ports and amongst the mariners of Europe. For our next picture, Mr. Thornbury shall be the limner:-John Davis, cruising about Jamaica, became a scourge to all the Spanish mariners who ventured near the coast of the Caraccas, or his favourite haunts, Carthagena and Boca del Toro. Having a long time traversed the sea and taken nothing, he resolved, with 90 men, to visit the lagoon of Nicaragua and sack the town of Granada. An Indian, from the shores of the lagoon, promised to guide him safely and secretly, and his crew, with one voice, declared themselves ready to follow him wherever he led. By night he rowed up the river to the entry of the lake, and concealed his ships under the boughs of the trees that grew upon the banks; then, putting 80 men into his three canoes, he rowed on to the town. By day they hid under the trees, at night they pushed on towards the unsuspecting town, and reached it on the third midnight, taking it, as he had expected. without a blow and by surprise. To a sentinel's challenge they replied that they were fishermen returning home, and two of the crew, leaping on the shore, ran their swords through the interrogator. As soon as they arrived at the town they separated into small bands, and were led one by one to the houses of the richest inhabitants. Here they quietly knocked, and, being admitted as friends, seized the inmates by the throat and compelled them, on pain of death, to surrender all their money and jewels. They roused the sacristans of the principal churches, from whom they took the keys, and carried off all the altar plate that could be beaten up or rendered portable. The pixes they stripped of their gems; they gouged out the jewelled eyes of the Virgin's idols, and hammered up the sacramental cups into convenient lumps of metal! Newspaper readers and students of the politics of to-day-which is the history for to-morrow-will recollect Nicaragua as the scene of the exploits of a nineteenth-century Filibuster, the Yankee Walkeran adventurer who has not yet played out his part on the stage of spasmodically revolutionary South America. The Filibusters had so cleanly swept the seas by their continual surprisals and captures, that carracks and caravels were no longer to be found. Emboldened by their success, and much driven by necessity, they began to venture on the mainland; and, as riches must be had, to attack towns, and strongly fortified towns too. This phase of Buccaneer lite was its grandest and most remarkable, and the annals of the world have scarcely ever shown more of misplaced bravery and bootless endurance. The first who signalized himself in this broader field of dazzling temerity was one L'Olonnois, a native of Sables d'Olonne, in Poictou, whence he derived the only name by which he was ever known. With boldness he united prudence and address, and was evidently stamped out for a leader, as he soon proved. A series of fortunate captures terminating in utter shipwreck, himself alone saved by being cast bleeding and naked on a savage shore, opened the drama of his corsair life; and the successive scenes were but a repetition of the former. Wrecked in the Bay of Campeachy, and severely wounded, his men being all killed by the Spaniards, he saved his life by stratagem. Smearing himself with the blood of his comrades and the sand of the shore, he hid himself among the slain. Putting on the clothes of a dead Spaniard, he soon after boldly entered the town, where he grimly watched the rejoicings of his enemies over his own death. He managed to persuade some slaves to steal a canoe, and with them reached Tortugas. The remembrance of the cruelty of the Spaniards, in murdering his shipwrecked crew, was never to be effaced, and was quickly to be repaid a hundredfold. Pressed by poverty, he with difficulty contrived to arm two small vessels, manned by 21 men, which he conducted to Cuba, intending to pillage the city of Los Cayos! But the Spaniards were alert, and the governor of the Havanna immediately despatched a frigate of six guns and 90 men, and, in addition, a negro executioner; the governor having exacted an oath from all to give no quarter to a single pirate soul. One morning, at daybreak, the frigate was suddenly boarded, on both sides, by 21 men devils; and, though their 90 opponents struggled toughly, the conclusion of the affair was, that "the engineer was hoisted by his own petard," in other words, L'Olonnois, with his own hands, beheaded the lot, save one who was sent to the baffled governor with the message, that "he hoped shortly to inflict the same fate upon Monsieur the Governor himself." Associating with Basco, formerly a military officer in Europe, L'Olonnois now mustered a force of eight ships, armed with cannon, and 650 fighting men; and in 1660, attacked Maracaibo, a town of some 6,000 inhabitants, and protected by two islands and a fort. Seventeen guns, of heavy calibre, and troops and men fighting for all they held dear, fortified eminence, and large bastions, were of no avail: armed only with pistol and sabre, in four hours the freebooters had captured the fort, and cut the whole of its garrison to pieces. But the town itself was eighteen marine leagues distant from the fort, and the forewarned and alarmed inhabitants had had time to forward their wives, children, and wealth, and even sick and aged, to Gibraltar-forty leagues farther away. After fifteen days' possession of the stripped town, the 600 disappointed braves resolved to march upon Gibraltar; but, upon approaching it, and discovering the intrenchments cut in the ground, the hollow roads, the inundated fields, the concealed and open batteries, and other appropriate preparation for their reception, even they faltered-as well they might. But an energetic appeal from their commander, clinched with the promise, that "Whoever from this moment betrays the least fear, dies by my hand," soon aroused the old daring within them, and 380 disembarked to face the dangers that fronted their goal. First through the hollow enfiladed road, losing many a comrade, who, dying, exhorted the survivors onward, then through treacherous marshy ground, they found themselves exposed to a battery of 20 guns, which cleared their front ranks, and they had to beat retreat with munched chagrin. But L'Olonnois had not shared in the retrograde movement, and, coming up, conceived and executed William the Norman's stratagem, by pretending flight. The Spaniards now fancied they saw a chance of exterminating all their foes by a single blow, and, abandoning their fort, poured out on the retreating band, to find themselves turned in flank by their furious enemy. The city was the hard-won prize of the freebooters, with a loss of 40 killed and 68 wounded, against upwards of 500 Spaniards who had bitten the dust. The total value of their plunder, exclusive of moveables, which were intended for pious purposes-the sinners were going to build a chapel at Tortugas-amounted to 260,000 piastres. enterprise was but one of L'Olonnois' many raids of fortified cities, eclipsing in daring and success even this remarkable despoiling of the fortified Spaniard. The interest of our bye way historical annals culminates with the Napoleon of these soldiers of fortune, Sir Henry Morgan. He had shown coolness, determination, and intrepidity when a seaman under Mansveldt-a master This |