History of the Buccaneers of America

The last of his published works, History of the Buccaneers of America, published in 1816, is Burney's historical account of the Spanish, English, and French expansion in the New World. In it, he takes a harsh look at those "miscreants" from his own country who took up arms against the Spanish explorers for glory, revenge, and gold and stole treasures from the native people.

Far from hagiographic, Burney is highly critical of his countrymen's loose morality: he hoped to produce an account ...