In the Bay of Bengal alone, piracy on a dangerous scale was practically unknown.
There was no peace on the ocean.

The sea was a vast No Man's domain, where every man might take his prey.

Law and order stopped short at low-water mark.

The principle that traders might claim protection and vengeance for their wrongs from their country, had not yet been recognized, and they sailed the seas at their own risk.

Before the close of the seventeenth century the buccaneers had passed away, but their depredations, in pursuit of what they called "free trade," were of a different nature from those of the pirates who succeeded them.