OCR Text |
Show NO HONORS PAID FAMOUS PIRATE Jamaica Ignores Memory of Henry Morgan. There Is no monument to Sir Henry Morgan In Jamaica, although he was once lieutenant governor there, following fol-lowing a career of piracy second to none in the wide confines of America's Ameri-ca's Mediterranean, the Carribbean sea. In all of Kingston there Is not a street, square or lane named after him. Visitors to the Island frequently frequent-ly express surprise at the lack of even a tablet perpetuating the memory mem-ory of the man who ravaged the Spanish Main and then at the behest of his government stamped out buccaneering buc-caneering in the British West Indies. Born in Wales, he first arrived In the West Indies as a stowaway on a ship bound for Barbados. A short time later he reached Port Royal, across the bay from Kingston, with a string of prize ships captured at Campeehe. Shortly afterward he pillaged pil-laged and burned Panama, the oldest town on the American continent. This raid netted him 175 mule loads of treasure. He was infamous for cheating and Ill-treating his men, usually robbing them of their shares of booty. His schemes of torture were fiendish In the extreme, combining practically all the brutalities ever Invented In all countries since the very beginning begin-ning of time. Finally arrested In Jamaica and shipped to England to give an account ac-count of his crimes, his glib tongue and riches saved him from punishment. punish-ment. Instead of being hanged, he was knighted and sent back to Jamaica Ja-maica as lieutenant governor with a commission to abate piracy on all the waterways leading to or surrounding sur-rounding any of the British West Indies, the king of England believing believ-ing It to be a good idea to set a thief to catch a thief. Morgan betrayed his former accomplices, ac-complices, hanging them without trial or mercy, and thus for the time ending piracy In British dominions. His despotism finally led to his recall. re-call. Some say Sir Henry Morgan died peacefully in England under an assumed as-sumed name; others that he resumed his piratical career and was killed in a raid; while the best-liked story Is to the effect that some of his old shipmates tied him in spread-eagle fashion on the shore and let the Incoming tide slowly drown him generally considered an appropriate fate. |