Buccaneers - Charles II

There is a passage in Bryan Edward's History of the West Indies (vol. i. p. 164. 4to edit. 1793), in which he gives an opinion that the buccaneers of Jamaica were not the pirates and robbers that they have been commonly represented; and mentions, on the authority of a MS. journal of Sir William Beeston, that Charles II. had a pecuniary interest in the buccaneering, and continued to receive a share of the booty after he had publicly ordered the suppression of buccaneering: and also, speaking of Sir Henry Morgan, and the honours he received from Charles II., gives an opinion that the stories tol…