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Show 10 SCOTT WATSON 196. Weatern Newspaper Union.) A Certain Pirate Named Hiram rRDIXARILY you wouldn't expect a man with the prosaic and sober name of Hiram to. be a "pirate bold," but Capt. Hiram Breakes, the son of a well-to-do Dutch councillor of the Island of Saba in the West Indies, was not only a pirate but about as bloodthirsty blood-thirsty and desperate a scoundrel as the history of piracy records. In the year 1704 Hiram described as a handsome, well-built youth of nineteen was placed In command of a ship plying between Saba and Amsterdam. In Amsterdam he fell In love with a Mrs. Snyde and, although he and his lady love conspired to murder mur-der her husband and succeeded in doing do-ing so, they were acquitted of the crime at the trial. Then Hiram decided de-cided to go a-plrating. He stole his employer's ship and cargo, renamed the vessel the Adventure and set forth upon his freebooting career. His first exploit was to sail Into Vigo harbor In full view of the forts guarding it, seize a ship, the Acapulco, Just in from Valparaiso and make off with her. The captain and crew were murdered and from the Chilean ship the pirate took 200,000 small bars of gold. Then Breakes took over the Acapulco for his own and sailed Into the Mediterranean. At Gibraltar he called upon the governor and "for a consideration" was granted a commission commis-sion as a British privateer. Under this semiofficial license to plunder he preyed upon all shipping in the Mediterranean, Medi-terranean, British as well as any other. A strange paradox this Capt. Hiram Breakes for one historian records re-cords the fact that "he was one of the religious variety of pirate, for after six days of robbing and throat-slitting throat-slitting he would order his crew to clean themselves on the Sabbath and gather on the quarter-deck. There be would read prayers to them and would often preach a sermon after the Lutheran Lu-theran style, thus fortifying the brave fellows for another week of toil and bloodshed." Breakes reached the full measure of his Infamy while sailing near the Balearic islands. On the coast of Minorca he saw a nunnery and proposed pro-posed to his men that they should each get a wife apiece. They gladly agreed and the diabolical plan was carried out. After this affair, Breakes decided de-cided to retire from piracy. He returned re-turned to Amsterdam to claim Mrs. Snyde, only to find that she had been hanged for poisoning their little son. With the career of his partner In crime ended, Captain Breakes fell a victim to melancholy and finally in a fit of madness threw himself Into a canal and was drowned. He cheated the gallows but, as was the case with most of his kind, death was the final victor. Pirate and Millionaire IF THESE pirate yarns were but fiction fic-tion and the sort of fiction which carries a moral, In that good is always triumphant and evil always Ignomlnl-ously Ignomlnl-ously defeated, then would they all end the same way with the pirate leader mounting the gallows with the bitter knowledge that his pirating did not pay, either financially or In the mental satisfaction of successful endeavor. en-deavor. But since they are simple chronicles of fact, those who read them for a moral must sometimes bt disappointed. Consider the case of Capt. John Bowen. He did not die on the gallows. gal-lows. His pirating was profitable, immensely im-mensely so, and so long as historj has any record of him he was enjoying enjoy-ing his gains. Ill-gotten thoufei they were. Perhaps there was a certain element of poetic justice in this, for he started on his career by the capture cap-ture of a French vessel, the Speaker,, owned by an English company engaged In the Infamous slave trade. Af er taking this prize Captain . Bowen and his "merrie companye" began raiding in the South seas from Bengal to Madagascar. Then his ves-I ves-I sel went on the rocks off Mauritius. but the shipwrecked pirates found I an unexpected friend in the Dutch i governor of the island who supplied I food and medical supplies for the ; marooned freebooters. For three j months tliey enjoyed his hospitality and then Bowen sailed awny. I Whatever else he may have been, ' Kmven was not ungrateful, for lila parting gift to the Dutch governor was '',f00 pieces of right and the wreck of the Speaker with all its gims and stores. Upon arriving at .Madagascar, which by this time (1701) w;;s a notorious rendezvous for pirates, he hviill a town and fort to protect it. Soon afterwards two ships, ignorant of the character of the place, came into port and you may be sure that Bowen toi k adMiit;tge of this providential visit. lie seized Hie two vessels and c:iin "eat "a pyrating." I'.uwen held a stral'-gic position in Lis headquarter: at M:'d:ignear, for the trade upon the Sou:li seas was -i.-if - -ini'-; i!:j.-h from his town to interrrpi seme finsY niereliiintman hiijeii vvirli a v;:'i:;i!iie i-ir;n and then lie nr.d l is IViheis we: p it-ir',; enjoying enjoy-ing their h'ot. It is .C!ii!itf.. Unit in a s: ort time thU I'irnte Innl i!t!;cii more ilmii a million doli-irs in money ::s v.ell ;ts ':-e;tT n:;.ii. titles of vniilii hie Hi- :-"!::ii.ii'se. Then l.e wisely de-ri,;o'! de-ri,;o'! tint it w:s time to quit. So lie his men settled dnwn amoni: the friws'ily I'ntrli (who no rttii?! enjoyed their simre of the en;,!;. in' loot) on AtatiT ti :o :ir.;l llif-rp (lie'l ;-i |