He insists at considerable length,
and with a vehemence which in itself makes it plain that an opposite
opinion was held in some quarters, that it was no part of the design
of Blood or of any of his companions in misfortune to join hands
with the buccaneers who, under a semi-official French protection,
made of Tortuga a lair whence they could sally out to drive their
merciless piratical trade chiefly at the expense of Spain.
It was, Pitt tells us, Blood's original intention to make his way
to France or Holland. But in the long weeks of waiting for a ship
to convey him to one or the other of these countries, his resources
dwindled and finally vanished. Also, his chronicler thinks that he
detected signs of some secret trouble in his friend, and he
attributes to this the abuses of the potent West Indian spirit of
which Blood became guilty in those days of inaction, thereby sinking
to the level of the wild adventurers with whom ashore he associated.
I do not think that Pitt is guilty in this merely of special
pleading, that he is putting forward excuses for his hero.
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