The sailor of that day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate
in our own. There could be little doubt, for instance, that this
very ship's crew, though no unfavourable specimens of the
nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it,
of depredations on the Spanish commerce, such as would have
perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice.
But the sea in those old times heaved, swelled, and foamed very
much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind,
with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law. The
buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling and become at
once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even
in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a
personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic or casually
associate. Thus the Puritan elders in their black cloaks,
starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not
unbenignantly at the clamour and rude deportment of these jolly
seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion
when so reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the
physician, was seen to enter the market-place in close and
familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel.
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