d'Ogeron, the governor of the island, who levied as his
harbour dues a percentage of one tenth of all spoils brought into
the bay, and who profited further by commissions upon money which
he was desired to convert into bills of exchange upon France.
A trade that might have worn a repellent aspect when urged by
greasy, half-drunken adventurers, boucan-hunters, lumbermen,
beach-combers, English, French, and Dutch, became a dignified,
almost official form of privateering when advocated by the courtly,
middle-aged gentleman who in representing the French West India
Company seemed to represent France herself.
Moreover, to a man - not excluding Jeremy Pitt himself, in whose
blood the call of the sea was insistent and imperative - those who
had escaped with Peter Blood from the Barbados plantations, and
who, consequently, like himself, knew not whither to turn, were
all resolved upon joining the great Brotherhood of the Coast, as
those rovers called themselves. And they united theirs to the
other voices that were persuading Blood, demanding that he should
continue now in the leadership which he had enjoyed since they had
left Barbados, and swearing to follow him loyally whithersoever he
should lead them.
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