There is none other in all history to whom
he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.
[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]
Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his
outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through
life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of
his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
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