Explore "Prince Rupert" by Cutcliffe Hyne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Surely men were never born with less eye to the future than these Brethren of the Coast, or Buccaneers, as they are more modernly named. Apart from slaying the wild cattle of Hispaniola and bucaning the resultant meat, their two sole industries were fighting and spoiling the Spaniard in the Carib Sea and on the Main, and then frittering away their hard-gotten gains at Tortuga over the wine shops and the hussies of the town, or against the cogged dice of Monsieur D'Ogeron, the Governor, up at his castle.
It was in vain that Captain Wick and that most noble of quartermasters, Prince Rupert, pointed out to the ship's company dazzling schemes for future gain. "They didn't know; " they "weren't feeling greedy; " it "seemed but a doubtful investment," and two or three, more candid than the rest, would be condemned if they took the pains to earn so much as a single piece-of-eight more, till they swilled what had been got down their thirsty necks. In fine, they were men for whom the morrow was so risky that they had grown to the habit of living only for the day, and it was one of their highest ambitions to have nothing in their pocket, if they should chance to be killed, that would benefit an enemy's purse.