CHAPTER IV.

THE PIRATES OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND THE KINGS OF MADAGASCAR.

Laws and dress--Government--Blackbeard--His enormities--Captain Avery and the Great Mogul--Davis--Lowther--Low--Roberts--Major Bonnet--Captain Gow--the Guinea coast.

The last refugee Buccaneers turned pirates, and settled in the island of New Providence.

The African coast, and not the main, was now their cruising ground, and Madagascar was their new Tortuga. They no longer warred merely against the Spaniard--their hands were raised against the world. Their cruelty was no longer the cruelty of retaliation, but arose from a thirst of blood, never to be slaked, and still unquenchable. There was no longer honour among the bands, and they grew as cowardly as they were ferocious. Flocks of trading vessels were scuttled, but no town attacked. We waste time even to detail their guilt, and only append the terrible catalogue as a _finis_ to our narrative.

The following articles, signed by Roberts's crew, may furnish a fair example of the ordinary rules drawn up by pirate captains:--

"Every man has a vote in affairs of moment, and an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized; which he may use at pleasure, unless a scarcity make it necessary for the good of all to vote a retrenchment.

"Every man shall be called fairly in turn by list on board the prizes, and, over and above their proper share, shall be allowed a change of clothes. Any man who defrauds the company to the value of a dollar in plate, jewels, or money, shall be marooned. If the robbery is by a messmate, the thief shall have his ears and nose slit, and be set on shore at the place the ship touches at.

"No man shall play at cards or dice for money.

"The lights and candles to be put out at eight o'clock at night. If any of the crew, after that hour, still remain inclined for drinking, they are to do it on the open deck.

"Every man shall keep his piece, pistols, and cutlass clean, and fit for service.

"No woman to be allowed on board. Any man who seduces a woman, and brings her to sea disguised, shall suffer death.

"Any one deserting the ship, or leaving his quarters during an engagement, shall be either marooned or put to death.

"No man shall strike another on board, but the disputants shall settle their quarrel on shore with sword or pistol.

"No man shall talk of breaking up the company till we get each £100. Every man losing a limb, or becoming a cripple in the service, shall have 800 dollars, and for lesser hurts proportional recompence.

"The captain and quartermaster shall receive two shares of every prize. The master, boatswain, and gunner one share and a-half, and all other officers one and a-quarter.

"The musicians to rest on Sundays, but on no other days without special favour."

From another set of articles we find, that

"He that shall be found guilty of taking up any unlawful weapon on board a prize so as to strike a comrade, shall be tried by the captain and company, and receive due punishment.

"All men guilty of cowardice shall also be tried.

"If any gold, jewels, or silver, to the value of a piece of eight, be found on board a prize, and the finder do not deliver it to the quartermaster within twenty-four hours, he shall be put to his trial.

"Any one found guilty of defrauding another to the value of a shilling, shall be tried.

"Quarter always to be given when called for.

"He that sees a sail first, to have the best pistols or small arms on board of her."

One of the most cruel of their punishments was "sweating," an ingenuity probably invented by the London rakes and "scourers" of Charles the Second's reign. They first stuck up lighted candles circularly round the mizenmast, between decks, and within this circle admitted the prisoners one by one. Outside the candles stood the pirates armed with penknives, tucks, forks, and compasses, and the musicians playing a lively dance, they drove the prisoner round, pricking him as he passed. This could seldom be borne more than ten minutes, at the end of which time the wretch, maddened with fear and pain, generally fell senseless.

Their diversions were as strange as their cruelties. On one occasion some pirates captured a ship laden with horses, going from Rhode Island to St. Christopher's. The sailors mounted these beasts, and rode them backwards and forwards, full gallop, along the decks, cursing and shouting till the animals grew maddened. When two or three of these rough riders were thrown, they leaped up and fell on the crew with their sabres, declaring that they would kill them for not bringing boots and spurs, without which no man could ride.

In dress the pirates were fantastic and extravagant. Their favourite ornament was a broad sash slung across the breast and fastened on the shoulder and hip with coloured ribbons. In this they slung three and four pairs of pistols, for which, at the sales at the mast, they would often give £40 a-pair. Gold-laced cocked hats were conspicuous features of their costume.

For small offences, too insignificant for a jury, the quartermaster was the arbitrator. If they disobeyed his command, except in time of battle, when the captain was supreme, were quarrelsome or mutinous, misused prisoners, or plundered when plundering should cease, or were negligent of their arms, as the master he might cudgel or whip them. He was, in fact, the manager of all duels, and the trustee of the whole company, returning to the owners what he chose (except gold and silver), and confiscating whatever he thought advisable. The quartermaster was, in fact, their magistrate, the captain their king.

The captain had always the great cabin to himself, and was often voted parcels of plate and china. Any sailor, however, might use his punch-bowl, enter his room, swear at him, and seize his food, without his daring to find fault, or contest his rights. The captain was generally chosen for being "pistol proof," and in some cases had as privy council a certain number of the elder sailors, who were called "lords."

The captain's power was uncontrollable in time of chase or battle: he might then strike, stab, or shoot anybody who disobeyed his orders. The fate of the prisoner depended much upon the captain, who was oftener inclined to mercy than his crew.

Their flags were generally intended to strike terror. Roberts's was a black silk flag, with a white skeleton upon it, with an hour-glass in one hand, and cross-bones in the other, underneath a dart, and a heart dripping blood. The pennon bore a man with a flaming sword in one hand, standing on two skulls, one inscribed A.B.H. (a Barbadian's head), and the other, A.M.H. (a Martiniquian's head).

EDWARD TEACH, _alias_ Blackbeard, was born in Bristol, and at a seaport town all daring youths turn sailors. He soon became distinguished for daring and courage, but did not obtain any command till 1716, when a Captain Benjamin Hornigold gave him the command of a sloop, and became his partner in piracy, till he surrendered.

In the spring of 1717, the pair sailed from their haunt in New Providence towards the Spanish main, and taking by the way a shallop from the Havannah, laden with flour, supplied their own vessels. From a ship of Bermuda they obtained wine, and from a craft of Madeira they got considerable plunder.

Careening on the Virginian coast, they returned to the West Indies, and capturing a large French Guinea-man, bound for Martinique, Teach went aboard as captain, and started for a cruise. Hornigold, returning to New Providence, surrendered to proclamation, and gave himself up to Governor Rogers.

Blackbeard had in the mean time mounted his prize with forty guns, and christened her the _Queen Anne's Revenge_. Cruising off St. Vincent, he captured the _Great Allan_, and having plundered her, and set the men on shore, fired the ship, and let her drift to sea.

A few days after, Teach was attacked by the _Scarborough_ man-of-war, who, finding him well manned, retired to Barbadoes, after a cannonade of some hours. On his way to the mainland, Teach was joined by Major Bonnet, a gentleman planter, turned pirate, who joined with him, commanding a sloop of ten guns. Finding he knew nothing of naval affairs, Teach soon deposed him, and took him on board his own ship, on pretext of relieving him from the fatigues and cares of such a post, wishing him, as he said, to live easy and do no duty.

While taking in water near the Bay of Honduras, they surprised a sloop from Jamaica, which surrendered without a blow, striking sail at the first terror of the black flag. The men they took on board Teach's vessel, and manned it for their own use.

At Honduras they found a ship and four sloops, some from Jamaica, and some from Boston. The Americans deserted one vessel, and escaped on shore, and the pirates burnt it in revenge. The other vessel they also burnt, because some pirate had been lately hung at Boston. The three sloops they allowed to depart.

Taking turtles at the Grand Caiman's islands, they sailed to the Havannah, and from the Bahamas went to Carolina, capturing a brigantine and two sloops. For six days they lay off the bar of Charlestown, taking many vessels, and a brigantine laden with negroes. The people of Carolina, who had not long before been visited by the pirate Vane, were dumb with terror. No vessel dared put out, and the trade of the place stood still. To add to these misfortunes, a long and expensive war with the natives, only just concluded, had much impoverished the colony.

Teach detained all the ships and prisoners, and being in want of medicines, sent a boat's crew of men ashore, with one of the prisoners, to ask the governor to supply him with the drugs. The pirates were insolent in their demands, and, swearing horribly, vowed, if any violence was offered to them, that their captain would murder all the prisoners, send their heads to the governor, and then fire the vessels and slip cable. These rude ambassadors swaggered through the streets, insulting the inhabitants, who longed to seize them, but dared not, for fear of endangering the town. The governor did not deliberate long, for one of his brother magistrates was in the murderer's hands, and at once sent on board a chest, worth about £400, which the pirates returned with in triumph. Blackbeard then released the prisoners, having first taken about £1500 out of the ships, besides provisions.

From the bar of Charlestown the kingly villains sailed to North Carolina, where Teach broke up the partnership, objecting to any division of money, preferring all the risk and all the profit. Running into an inlet to clean, he purposely grounded his ship, and Hands, another captain, coming to his assistance, ran ashore by his side. He then with forty men took possession of the third vessel, and marooned seventeen other men upon a sandy island, about a league from the main, where neither herb grew nor bird visited. Here they would have perished, had not Major Bonnet taken them off two days after.

Teach then surrendered himself, with twenty of his men, to the Governor of North Carolina, and received certificates and pardons from him, having soon crept into his favour. Through the governor's permission, the _Queen Anne's Revenge_, though avowedly the property of English merchants, was forfeited by an Admiralty Court, as a Spaniard, and declared the property of Teach. Before setting out again to sea Blackbeard married his fourteenth wife, twelve more being still alive. The governor, who seems to have been half a pirate, and wholly a rogue, performed the ceremony.

In June, 1718, he steered towards Bermudas, and meeting several English vessels, plundered them of provisions. He also captured two French vessels, one of which was loaded with sugar and cocoa, and bound to Martinico. The loaded vessel he brought home, and the governor, calling a court, condemned it as a derelict, and divided the plunder with Teach, receiving sixty hogsheads of sugar as his dividend, and his secretary twenty. For fear the vessel might still be claimed, Teach declared it was leaky, and burnt her to the water's edge.

He now spent three or four months in the river, lying at anchor in the coves, or sailing from inlet to inlet, bartering his plunder with any ship he met, giving presents to the friendly, and ransacking those who resisted. His nights he spent in revelries with the planters, to whom he made presents of rum and sugar, sometimes, when he grew moody, laying them under contribution, and even bullying his confederate, the villainous governor.

The plundered sloops, finding no justice could be obtained in Carolina, determined with great secresy to send a deputation to the Governor of Virginia, and to solicit a man-of-war to destroy the pirates.

The governor instantly complied with their request. The next Sunday a proclamation was read in every church and chapel in Virginia, and by the sheriffs at their country houses. For Blackbeard's head £100 was offered, if brought in within the year, for his lieutenant's £20, for inferior officers £10, and for the common sailors £10. The _Pearl_ and _Lime_, men-of-war, lying in St. James's river, manned a couple of small sloops, supplied by the governor. They had no guns mounted, but were well supplied with small arms and ammunition. The command was given to Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of the _Pearl_, a man of courage and resolution.

On the 7th of November the Lieutenant sailed from Picquetan, and on the evening of the 21st reached the mouth of the Ollereco inlet, and sighted the pirates. Great secresy was observed: all boats and vessels met going up the river were stopped to prevent Blackbeard knowing of their approach. But the governor contrived to put him on his guard, and sent back four of his men, whom he found lounging about the town.

Blackbeard, frequently alarmed by such reports, gave no credit to the messenger, till he saw the sloops. He instantly cleared his decks, having only twenty-five of his forty men on board. Having prepared for battle with all the coolness of an old desperado, he spent the night in drinking with the master of a trading sloop, who seemed to be in his pay.

Maynard, finding the place shoal and the channel intricate, dropped anchor, knowing there was no reaching the pirate that night. The next morning early he weighed, sent his boat ahead to sound, and, coming within gunshot of Teach, received his fire. The lieutenant then, boldly hoisting the king's colours, made at him with all speed of sail and oar, part of his men keeping up a discharge of small arms. Teach then cut cable and made a running fight, discharging his big guns. In a little time the pirate ran aground, and the royal vessel drawing more water anchored within half a gunshot. The lieutenant then threw his ballast overboard, staved all his water, and then weighed and stood in for the enemy.

Blackbeard, loudly cursing, hailed him. "D---- you villains, who are you? From whence come you?" The lieutenant replied, "You see by our colours we are no pirates." Teach bade him send a boat on board that he might know who he was. Maynard answered that he could not spare his boat, but would soon board with his sloop. Whereupon Blackbeard, drinking to him, cried, "Devil seize my soul if I give you quarter or take any." Maynard at once replied, "He should neither give nor take quarter."

By this Blackbeard's sloop floated, and the royal boats were fast approaching.

The sloops being scarcely a foot high in the waist, the men were exposed as they toiled at the sweeps. Hitherto few on either side had fallen. Suddenly Blackbeard poured in a broadside of grape, and killed twenty men on board one ship and nine on board the other; his vessel then fell broadside to the shore to keep its one side protected, and the disabled sloop fell astern. The Virginia men still kept to their oars, however exposed, because otherwise, there being no wind, the pirate would certainly have escaped.

Maynard finding his own sloop had way, and would soon be on board, ordered his men all down below, for fear of another broadside, which would have been his total destruction. He himself was the only man that kept the deck, even the man at the helm lying down snug; the men in the hold were ordered to get their pistols and cutlasses ready for close fighting, and to come up the companion at a moment's signal. Two ladders were placed in the hatchway ready for the word. As they boarded, Teach's men threw in grenades made of case-bottles, filled with powder, shot, and slugs, and fired with a quick match. Blackbeard, seeing no one on board, cried out, "They are all knocked on the head except three or four, and therefore I will jump on board and cut to pieces those that are still alive."

Under smoke of one of the fire-pots he leaped over the sloop's bows, followed by fourteen men. For a moment he was not heard, during the explosion, nor seen for the smoke. Directly the air cleared Maynard gave the signal, and his men, rising in an instant, attacked the pirates with a rush and a cheer.

Blackbeard and the lieutenant fired the first pistols at each other, and then engaged with sabres till the lieutenant's broke. Stepping back to cock his pistol, Blackbeard was in the act of cutting him down, when one of Maynard's men gave the pirate a terrible gash in the throat, and the lieutenant escaped with a small cut over his fingers.

They were now hotly engaged, Blackbeard and his fourteen men--the lieutenant and his twelve. The sea grew red round the vessel. The ball from Maynard's first pistol shot Blackbeard in the body, but he stood his ground, and fought with fury till he received twenty cuts and five more shot. Having already fired several pistols (for he wore many in his sash), he fell dead as he was cocking another. Eight of his fourteen companions having now fallen, the rest, much wounded, leaped overboard and called for quarter, which was granted till the gibbet could be got ready.

The other vessel now coming up attacked the rest of the pirates, and compelled them to surrender. So ended a man that in a good cause had proved a Leonidas.

With great guns the lieutenant might have destroyed him with less loss, but no large vessel would have got up the river, so shallow, that, small as it was, the sloop grounded a hundred times. The very broadside, although destructive, saved the lives of the survivors, for Blackbeard, expecting to be boarded, had placed a daring fellow, a negro named Cæsar, in the powder room, with orders to blow it up at a given signal. It was with great difficulty that two prisoners in the hold dissuaded him from the deed when he heard of his captain's death.

The lieutenant cutting off Blackbeard's head, hung it at his boltsprit end, and sailed into Bath Town to get relief for his wounded men. In rummaging the sloop, the connivance of the governor was detected; the secretary, falling sick with fear, died in a few days, and the governor was compelled to refund the hogsheads.

When the wounded men began to recover, the lieutenant sailed back into James's river, with the black head still hanging from the spar, and bringing fifteen prisoners, thirteen of whom were hung.

Of the two survivors, one was an unlucky fellow captured only the night before the engagement, who had received no less than seventy wounds, but was cured of them all and recovered. The other was the master of the pirate sloop, who had been shot by Blackbeard, and put on shore at Bath Town. His wound he received in the following way: One night, drinking in the cabin with the mate, a pilot, and another sailor, Blackbeard, without any provocation, drew out a small pair of pistols and cocked them under the table. The sailor, perceiving this, said nothing, but got up and went on deck. The pistols being ready, Blackbeard blew out the candle, and, crossing his hands under the table, discharged the pistols. The master fell shot through the knee, lamed for life, the other bullet hit no one. Being asked the meaning of this cruelty, Blackbeard answered, by swearing that if he did not kill one of them now and then, they would forget who he was.

This man was about to be executed, when a ship arrived from England with a proclamation prolonging the time of pardon to those who would surrender. He pleaded this, was released, and ended his days as a beggar in London.

It is a singular fact that many of Blackbeard's captors themselves eventually turned pirates.

Teach derived his nickname from his long black beard, which he twisted with ribbons into small tails, and turned about his ears. This beard was more terrible to America than a comet, say his historians. In time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols hanging to it in holsters like bandoliers. He then stuck lighted matches under his hat, and this, with his natural fierce and wild eyes, gave him the aspect of a demon.

His frolics were truly satanic, and only madness can furnish us with any excuse for such crimes. Pre-eminent in wickedness, he was constantly resorting to artifices to maintain that pre-eminence. One day at sea, when flushed with drink, "Come," said he, "let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it." He then, with two or three others, went down into the hold, and, closing up all the hatches, lighted some pots of brimstone, and continued till the men, nearly suffocated, cried for air and pushed up the hatches. Blackbeard triumphed in having held out longest.

The night before he was killed, as he was drinking, one of his men asked him, if anything should happen to him, if his wife knew where he had buried his money. He answered that nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should have all.

These blasphemies had filled the crew with superstitious fears, and perhaps unnerved their arms in the last struggle. The survivors declared that, once upon a cruise, a man was found on board more than the crew, sometimes below and sometimes above. No one knew whence he came and who he was, but believed him to be the devil, as he disappeared shortly before their great ship was cast away.

In Blackbeard's journal were found many entries illustrating the fear and misery of a pirate's life. For instance--

"3rd June, all rum out; our company somewhat sober; rogues a plotting; great talk of separation; so I looked sharp for a prize. 5th June, took one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, d---- hot; then all things went well again."

Some sugar, cocoa, indigo, and cotton were found on board the pirate sloops, and some in a tent on the shore. This, with the sloop, sold for £2500. The whole was divided amongst the crews of the _Lime_ and _Pearl_, the brave captors getting no more than their dividend, and that very tardily paid, as such things usually are by English governments.

CAPTAIN ENGLAND began life as mate of a Jamaica sloop, and being taken by a pirate named Winter, before Providence was turned into a freebooter fortress, became master of a piratical vessel. He soon became remarkable for his courage and generosity.

When Providence was taken by the English, England sailed to the African coast, a hot place, but not too hot for him, like the shores of the main. He here took several ships, among others the _Cadogan_, bound from Bristol to Sierra Leone--Skinner, master. Some of England's crew had formerly served in this ship, and, having proved mutinous, had been mulcted of their wages and sent on board a man of war, from whence deserting to a West Indian sloop, they were taken by pirates, and eventually joined England and started for a cruise.

As soon as Skinner struck to the black flag, he was ordered on board the pirate. The first person he saw was his old boatswain, who addressed him with a sneer of suppressed hatred. "Ah, Captain Skinner," said he, "is that you? the very man I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and will pay you now in your own coin."

The brave seaman trembled, for he knew his fate, and shuddered as an ox does when it smells the blood of a slaughter-house. The boatswain, instantly shouting to his companions, bound the captain fast to the windlass. They then, amidst roars of cruel laughter, pelted him with glass bottles till he was cut and gashed in a dreadful manner. After this, they whipped him round the deck till they were weary, in spite of his prayers and entreaties. At last, vowing that he should have an easy death, as he had been a good master to his men, they shot him through the head. England then plundered the vessel and gave it to the mate and the crew of murderers, and they sailed with it till they reached death's door, and the port whose name is terrible.

Taking soon after a ship called the _Pearl_, England fitted her up for his own use, and re-christened her the _Royal James_. With her they took several vessels of various nations at the Azores and Cape de Verd Islands.

In 1719 the rovers returned to Africa, and, beginning at the river Gambia, sailed all down the torrid coast as far as Cape Corso. In this trip they captured the _Eagle Pink_, six guns, the _Charlotte_, eight guns, the _Sarah_, four guns, the _Wentworth_, twelve guns, the _Buck_, two guns, the _Castanet_, four guns, the _Mercury_, four guns, the _Coward_, two guns, and the _Elizabeth_ and _Catherine_, six guns. Three of these vessels they let go, and four they burnt. Two they fitted up as pirates, and calling them the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ and the _Flying King_, many of the prisoners joined their bands.

These two ships sailed to the West Indies, and careening, started for Brazil, taking several Portuguese vessels, but were finally driven off by a Portuguese man-of-war. The _Revenge_ escaped, but soon after went down at sea; the _Flying King_ ran ashore; twelve of the seventy men were killed, and the rest taken prisoners. Thirty-two English, three Dutch, and two Frenchmen of these were at once hung.

But to return to England. In going down the coast, he captured two more vessels, and detained one, releasing the other. Two other ships, seeing them coming, got safe under the guns of Cape Corso castle. The pirates, turning their last prize into a fire-ship, resolved to destroy both the fugitives, but, the castle firing hotly upon them, they retreated, and at Whydah road found Captain la Bouche, another pirate, had forestalled their market.

Here England fitted up a Bristol galley for his own use, calling it the _Victory_. Committing many insolences on shore, the negroes rose upon them and compelled them to retire to their ship, when they had fired one village, and killed many of the natives.

They now put it to the vote what voyage to take, and, deciding for the East Indies, arrived at Madagascar (1720), and, taking in water and provisions, sailed for the coast of Malabar, in the Mogul's territory. They took several Indian vessels, and one Dutch, which they exchanged for one of their own, and then returned to Madagascar. England now sent some men on shore, with tents, powder, and shot, to kill hogs, and procure venison, but they searched in vain for Avery's men.

Cleaning their ships, they then set sail for Panama, falling in with two English ships, and one Dutch, all Indiamen. Fourteen of La Bouche's crew boarded the Englishmen in canoes, declaring that they belonged to the _Indian Queen_, twenty-eight guns, which had been lost on that coast, and that their captain, with forty men, was building a new vessel. The two English captains, Mackra and Reily, were about to sink and destroy these castaways, when England's two vessels, of thirty-four and thirty-eight guns, stood in to the bay. In spite of all promises of aid, the _Ostender_ and _Kirby_ deserted Mackra, a breeze admitting of their escape, while the pirate's black and bloody flags were still flaunting the air. Mackra, undaunted by their desertion, fought desperately for three hours, beating off one of the pirates, striking her between wind and water, and shooting away their oars, when they put out their sweeps and tried to board. Mackra being wounded in the head, and most of his officers killed, ran ashore, and England following, ran also aground, and failed in boarding. The engagement then commenced with fresh vigour, and, had Kirby come up, the pirates would have been driven off. England, obtaining three boats full of fresh men, was now in the ascendant, and soon after Kirby stood out to sea, leaving his companion in the very jaws of death. Mackra, seeing death inevitable, lowered the boats and escaped to land, under cover of the smoke, and the pirate, soon after boarding, cut three of their wounded men in pieces. The survivors fled to Kingstown, a place twenty-five miles distant.

England offered 10,000 dollars for Mackra's head, but the king and chief people being in his interest, and a report being spread of his death, he remained safe for ten days, then obtaining a safe conduct from the pirate, Mackra had an interview with their chief. England and some men who had once sailed with Mackra protected him from those who would have cut him to pieces, with all who would not turn rovers. Finding that they talked of burning their own ships, and refitting the English prize, Mackra prevailed on them to give him the shattered ship, the _Fancy_, of Dutch build, and 300 tons burden, and also to return 129 bales of the Company's cloth.

Fitting up jury masts, Mackra sailed for Bombay, with forty-five sailors, two passengers, and twelve soldiers, arriving after much suffering, and a passage of forty-three days, frequently becalmed between Arabia and Malabar. In the engagement he had thirteen men killed and twenty-four wounded, and killed nearly a hundred of the pirates. If Kirby had proved staunch, he might have destroyed them both, and secured £100,000 of booty. Opposed to him were 300 whites and eighty blacks. We are happy to record that this brave fellow was well rewarded, and honoured with fresh command.

Nothing but despair could have driven Mackra, he said in his published account, to throw himself upon the pirates' mercy, still wounded and bleeding as they were. He did not either seem to know how friendly the Guiana people were to the English, so much so, that there was a proverb, "A Guiana man and an Englishman are all one."

When he first came on board, England took him aside and told him that his interest was declining among his crew, that they were provoked at his opposition to their cruelty, and that he should not be able to protect him. He advised him, therefore, to win over Captain Taylor, a man who had become a favourite amongst them by his superiority in wickedness. Mackra tried to soften this wretch with a bowl of punch, and the pirates were in a tumult whether to kill him or no, when a sailor, stuck round with pistols, came stumping upon a wooden leg up the quarterdeck and asked for Captain Mackra, swearing and vapouring, and twirling a tremendous pair of whiskers. The captain, expecting he was his executioner, called out his name. To his delight, the bravo seized him by the hand, and, shaking it violently, swore he was d----d glad to see him. "Show me the man," cries he, "that dares offer to hurt Captain Mackra, for I'll stand by him; he's an honest fellow, and I know him well."

This put an end to the dispute. Taylor consented to give the ship, and fell asleep on the deck. Mackra put off instantly, by England's advice, lest the monster should awake and change his mind.

This clemency soon led to England's deposition, and on a rumour that Mackra was fitting out a force against them, he was marooned with three more on the island of Mauritius, and making a boat of drift wood, escaped to Madagascar.

The pirate, detaining some of Mackra's men, set sail for the Indies. Seeing two ships which they supposed to be English, they commanded one of their prisoners to show them the Company's private signals, or they would cut him in pound pieces. On approaching, they proved to be Moorish ships from Muscat, loaded with horses. They rifled the ships and put the officers to the torture, and left them without sails and with the masts cut through.

The next day they fell in with the Bombay fleet of eight vessels and 100 men, despatched to attack Angria, a Malabar chief. Afraid to show their fear, the pirates attacked the fleet and destroyed two laggers, torturing the crew and sending them adrift. The commodore of the fleet would not fight the pirates without orders, which so enraged the governor of Bombay, that he appointed Mackra the commander, and enjoined him to pursue and engage England wherever he met him.

Some time after this, the same fleet, aided by the Viceroy of Goa, landed 10,000 men at Calabar, Angria's stronghold, but were compelled to retreat.

The next day between Goa and Carwar the pirates drove two grabs under the guns of India-diva castle, and would have taken the island but for the delay. At Carwar they took a ship, and sent in a prisoner to demand water and provisions, for which they offered to surrender their prize. Failing in this they sailed for the Laccadeva islands, and landing at Melinda, violated the women, destroyed the cocoa trees, and burnt the churches. At Tellechery they heard of Mackra's expedition, and cursed his ingratitude. Some wished to hang the dogs who were left, but the majority agreed to keep them alive to show their contempt and revenge.

At Calicut they attempted to take a large Moorish ship in the roads, but were prevented by some guns mounted on the shore. One of Mackra's men they obliged to tend the braces on the booms amid all the fire. When he refused, they threatened to shoot him or loaded him with blows. His old tormentor, Captain Taylor, being gouty, could not hold a cudgel. Some interceded for him, but Taylor declared if he was let go he would disclose all their plans.

They next arrived at Cochin, and, sending on shore a fishing boat with a letter, ran into the road, saluting the fort. At night boats came off with provisions and liquor. The governor sent a boat full of arrack and sixty bales of sugar, and received in return a present of a table clock, and a gold watch for his daughter. The boatmen they paid some £7000, and threw them handfuls of ducatoons to scramble for. The fiscal brought out cloths and piece goods for sale, but the fort opened fire when they chased a vessel under its shelter. They were soon after chased by five tall ships, supposed to be Mackra's, but escaped. Their Christmas for three days they spent in a carouse, using the greater part of their fresh provisions, so that in their voyage to the Mauritius they were reduced to a bottle of water and two pounds of beef a day for ten men.

Fitting up at Mauritius, they sailed again in two months, leaving this inscription on one of the walls: "Left this place the 5th of April, to go to Madagascar for limes." At the island of Mascarius they fell upon a great prize, finding the Viceroy of Goa in a Portuguese ship of seventy guns, lying dismasted on the shore. Of diamonds alone she had a cargo worth four millions of dollars. The viceroy coming calmly on board, taking them for English, was captured with all his officers, and ransomed for 2000 dollars. To the leeward of the island they found an Ostend vessel, which they sent to Madagascar to prepare masts for the prize, and followed soon after with a cargo of 2000 Mozambique negroes. When they reached Madagascar they found that the Dutch crew had made the pirates drunk, and sailed back to Mozambique, and from thence to Goa with the governor.

They now divided their plunder, most of them receiving forty-two small diamonds as their share. The madman, who obtained one large one, broke it in a mortar, swearing he had got now a better share than any of them, for he had forty-three sparks.

Some of the pirates now gave up their wild life and settled in _matelotage_ at Madagascar, on the tontine principle of the longest liver inheriting all.

The two prizes were then burnt, and Taylor sailed for Cochin to sell his diamonds to the Dutch, and thence to the Red and China Seas, to avoid the English men-of-war.

The pirates, about this time, had 11 sail and 1500 men in the Indian seas, but soon separated for the coast of Brazil and Guinea, or to settle and fortify themselves at Madagascar, Mauritius, Johanna, and Mohilla. A pirate named Condin, in a ship called the _Dragon_, took a vessel from Mocha with thirteen lacs of rupees (130,000 half-crowns), and burning the ship settled at Madagascar. The commander of the English fleet, still in pursuit of these pirates, attempted to prevail on England to serve him as spy and pilot, but in vain.

Taylor, resolving to sail to the Indies, but hearing of the four men-of-war, started for the African main, and put into Delagoa, destroying a small fort of six guns. This fort belonged to the Dutch East India Company, but its 150 men had been deserted, and left to pine away and starve; sixteen turned pirates, but the rest, being Dutch, were left to die. They stayed in this den of fever three months, and having careened, paid the Dutch with bales of muslins and chintzes.

Some now left, and returned to settle in Madagascar. The rest sailed for the West Indies, and, escaping the fangs of two English men-of-war, surrendered themselves to the Governor of Porto Bello. Eight of them afterwards passed to Jamaica as shipwrecked sailors, and shipped for England. Captain Taylor entered the Spanish service, and commanded the man-of-war that afterwards attacked the English logwood-cutters in the bay of Honduras, and caused the Spanish war.

CAPTAIN AVERY was a more remarkable man than England, and his ambition of a wider kind. He was a native of Plymouth, and served as mate of a merchant vessel in several voyages. Before the peace of Ryswick, the French of Martinique carried on a smuggling trade with the natives of Peru, in spite of the Spanish _guarda costas_. The Spaniards, finding their vessels too weak for the French, hired two Bristol vessels of thirty guns and 220 men, which were to sail first to Corunna or the Groine, and from thence to the main.

Of one of these ships, the _Duke_, Gibson was commander, and Avery first mate. Avery, planning with the boldest and most turbulent of the crew, plotted to run away with the vessels, and turn pirates on the Indian coasts.

The captain, a man much addicted to drink, had gone to bed, when sixteen conspirators from the other vessel, the _Duchess_, came on board and joined the company. Their watchword was, "Is your drunken boatswain on board?" Securing the hatches, they slipped their cable and put to sea, without any disorder, although surrounded by vessels. A Dutch frigate of forty guns refused to interrupt their progress, although offered a reward.

The captain, awoke by the motion of the ship and the noise of working the tackle, rang his bell, and Avery and two others entered the cabin. The captain, frightened and thinking the ship had broken from her anchors, asked, "What was the matter?" Avery replied coolly, "Nothing." The captain answered, "Something has happened to the ship; does she drive? what weather is it?" "No, no," said Avery, "we're at sea with a fair wind and good weather." "At sea?" said the captain, "how can that be?" Upon which Avery told him to get up and put on his clothes, and he could tell him a secret, for he (Avery) was captain, and that was his cabin, and that he was on his way to Madagascar to make his fortune and that of all the brave fellows who were with him.

Avery then bade the captain not to be afraid, for if he was sober and minded his business, he might in time make him one of his lieutenants. At his request, however, he sent him on shore with six others.

On reaching Madagascar they found two sloops lying at anchor, which the men had run away with from the West Indies, and who, taking his vessel for a frigate, fled into the woods and posted themselves in a strong place with sentinels. Discovering their mistake, after some cautious parleying, they united together and sailed for the Arabian coast. Near the river Indus they espied a sail and gave chase, believing they had caught a Dutch East Indian ship, but found it to be one of the Great Mogul's vessels, carrying his daughter with pilgrims and offerings to Mecca. The sloops boarded her on either side, and she at once struck her colours. The Indian ship was loaded with treasure, the slaves and attendants richly clad and covered with jewels, and all having vessels of gold and silver, and large sums of money to defray their expenses in the land journey.

Taking all the treasure, they let the princess go, and the ship put back for India. The Mogul, on learning it, threatened to drive the English from India with fire and sword, but the Company contrived to pacify him by promising to deliver up to him the pirate ship and her crew.

The rumours of this adventure occasioned a report at Wapping that Jack Avery had married the Great Mogul's daughter, founded an empire, and purchased a fleet.

Avery, having secured his prize, determined to return to Madagascar, build a fort and magazine where he could leave a garrison to overawe the natives when he was absent on a cruise. A fresh scheme suggesting itself, he resolved to plunder his friends the sloops, and return to New Providence. He began by sending a boat on board each of his allies, desiring their captain to come and attend a general council. At this meeting he represented to them that if they were separated in a storm they must be taken, and the treasure would then be lost to the rest. He therefore proposed, as his ship was so strong that it could hold its own against any vessel they could meet with on those seas, to put the treasure on board in his care, in a chest sealed with three seals, and that a rendezvous should be appointed in case of separation. The two captains at once agreed to the proposal as manifestly for the common good.

That day and the next the weather was fair, and they all kept company. In the mean time Avery persuaded his men to abscond with the plunder, and escape to some country where they might spend the rest of their days in splendour and luxury. Taking advantage of a dark night, they steered a new course, and by morning had lost sight of the outwitted sloops.

Avery now resolved to steer for America, change his name, purchase a settlement, and die in peace and charity with all the world--a calm, rich Christian. They first visited New Providence, afraid that they might be detected in New England as the deserters from the Groine expedition. Avery, pretending that his vessel was a privateer that had missed her mark and was sold by the owners, disposed of her to good advantage, and bought a sloop.

In this vessel he touched at several parts of the American coast, giving his men their dividends, and allowing those who chose to leave the ship. The greater part of the diamonds he had concealed at the first plunder of the vessel. Some of his men settled at Boston; but he, afraid of selling his diamonds in New England, betook himself with a few companions to Ireland, putting into one of the northern ports, and avoiding St. George's Channel. The sailors now dispersed. Some went to Dublin, and some to Cork, to obtain pardons from King William.

Avery, still afraid of being apprehended as a pirate if he offered his diamonds for sale, passed over to England, and sent for some Bristol friends to Bideford. They agreed, for a commission, to put the stones into the hands of Bristol merchants who, being men of wealth and credit, would not be suspected. The merchants, after some negotiation, visited him at Bideford, and, after many protestations of honour and integrity, received several packets of diamonds and some vessels of gold to dispose of. They gave him some money for his present necessities and departed. Changing his name Avery continued to live at Bideford, visited by those relations to whom he confided his secret. The merchants, after many letters and much importunity, sent him small supplies of money, scarce sufficient to pay his debts and buy him bread. Weary of this life, he ventured over privately to Bristol, and to his dismay, when he desired them to come to an account with him, they threatened to proclaim him as a pirate, for men who had been robbed by him could be found on the 'Change, in the docks, or in any street.

Afraid of their threats (for he never showed much personal courage), or detected by some sailor, he fled to Ireland, and from thence again solicited the merchants, but in vain, for a supply. In a short time reduced to beggary, he resolved to throw himself upon their throats, and obtain money or revenge, and, working his passage on board a trading vessel to Plymouth, travelled on foot to Bideford. In a few days he fell sick and died, and was buried at the expense of the parish.

To return to the deserted crews of the sloops. They, believing the separation an accident, sailed at once to the rendezvous, and then discovering the cheat, and having no more fresh provisions, resolved to establish themselves on land. They therefore made tents of their sails, and unloaded their vessels. On shore they were joined by the crew of a privateer which had been despatched by the government of Bermuda to take the French factory of Goree, in the river Gambia, and had turned pirates by the way, Captain Tew, their captain, capturing a large Arabian vessel in the strait of Babelmandel, in spite of its crew and 300 soldiers. By this prize his men gained £3000 a-piece, and but for the cowardice and mutiny of the quartermaster and some others would have captured five other ships. This leading to a quarrel, the band left off pirating, and retired to Madagascar. Captain Tew sailed to Rhode Island, and obtained a pardon.

The pirates lived at Madagascar like little princes, each with his harem, and with large retinues of slaves, whom they employed in fishing, hunting, and planting rice. The English sided with some of the negro princes in their wars, and struck such terror in their adversaries by their fire-arms, that whole armies fled at the sight of two or three of the white faces. At first, these piratical chieftains waged war on each other, but at last, alarmed by a revolt of the negroes, united in strict union.

Before this they tied their slaves to trees, and shot them to death for the smallest offence; and at last the negroes, uniting in a general conspiracy, resolved to murder them all in one night. As they lived apart, this would undoubtedly have been done, had not one of their black concubines run nearly twenty miles in three hours to discover the plot. They instantly, upon this alarm, flocked together in arms, and compelled the advancing negroes to retire. This escape made them very cautious. They therefore fomented war between the native tribes, but henceforward remained neutral. All murderers and outlaws they took under their protection, and turned into body-guards, whilst the vanquished they defended. By this diplomacy, worthy of the most civilized people, they soon grew so powerful and numerous as to be compelled to branch out in colonies, parting into tribes, each with their wives and children.

They had now all the power and all the fears of despotism. Their houses were citadels, and every hut a fortress. They generally chose a place overgrown with wood, and situated near a spring or pool. Round this spot they raised a rampart, encircled by a fosse. This wall was straight and steep, could not be ascended without scaling ladders, and had but one entrance. The hut was so hidden that it might not be seen at a distance. The passage that led to it was intricate, labyrinthine, and narrow, so that only one person could walk it abreast, and the path wound round and round, with so many cross-paths, that any one uninitiated might search for hours and not find the cabin. All along the sides of the path, huge thorns peculiar to the island were stuck into the ground, with points uppermost, like _chevaux-de-frise_, sufficient to impale the assailant who ventured by night.

These men were found in this state by Captain Woods Rogers, when he visited Madagascar in the _Delicia_ (40 guns), wishing to buy slaves, to sell to the Dutch of New Holland. The men he met had been twenty-five years on the island, and had not seen a ship for seven years. The petty kings of the bush were covered with untanned skins, and were savage wretches, overgrown with beard and hair. They bartered slaves for cloths, knives, saws, powder, and ball. They went aboard the _Delicia_ and examined her with care, and, talking familiarly with the men, invited them on shore, intending to surprise the ship by night when there was a slender watch kept, having plenty of boats and arms. They wanted the men to surprise the captain, and clap those who resisted under hatches. At a given signal, the negroes were to row on board, and then all would start as pirates and roam round the world. The captain, observing the intimacy, would not suffer his men to even speak with the islanders, choosing an officer to negotiate with them for slaves.

These pirate kings were all foremast men, and could read no more than their chief secretaries could write. The chief prince of this Newgate paradise had been a Thames waterman, who had committed a murder on the river.

As even a few years since an old sailor at Minehead was known as the "King of Madagascar," we suppose divine right and hereditary succession still continue in that Eden of gaol-birds.

During the time of war the pirates diminished in number and turned privateersmen, but increased at the peace of Utrecht, when the disbanded privateersmen again turned thieves for want of excitement and some more honest employment.

About 1716, Captain Martel appeared as commander of a pirate sloop of eight guns and eighty men, that, cruising off Jamaica, captured a galley and another small vessel, from the former of which he plundered £1000. In their way to Cuba they took two more sloops, which they rummaged and let go, and off Cavena hoisted the black flag, and boarded a galley of twenty guns, called the _John and Martha_. Part of the men they put ashore and part enrolled in the crew.

The cargo of logwood and sugar they seized, and, taking down one of the ship's decks, mounted her with twenty-two guns and 100 men, and proceeded to cruise off the Leeward Islands, capturing a sloop, a brigantine, and a Newfoundland vessel of twenty guns.

They soon after plundered a Jamaica vessel, and two ships from Barbadoes, detaining all the best men, and from a Guinea galley they stole some gold dust, elephants' teeth, and forty slaves.

In 1717, they put into Santa Cruz to clean and refit with a small piratical fleet of five vessels, warping up a little creek, very shallow, but guarded by rocks and sands. They then erected a battery of four guns on the island, and another of two guns near the road, while a sloop with eight guns protected the mouth of the channel.

In November, 1716, the commander-in-chief of all the Leeward islands sent a sloop to Barbadoes for the _Scarborough_, of thirty guns and 140 men, to inform her of the pirate. The captain had just buried twenty men, and having forty sick could scarcely put out to sea. However, putting on a bold heart, he left his sick behind and beat up for recruits at all the islands he passed. At Antigua he took in twenty soldiers, at Nevis ten, and the same number at St. Christopher's.

Unable to find the pirate, he was on the point of putting back, when a boat from Santa Cruz informed him of a creek where he had seen a vessel enter. The _Scarborough_ instantly sailed to the spot and discovered the pirates, but the pilot refused to enter. The pirates all this while fired red-hot shot from the shore; but at length the ship anchored alongside the reef and cannonaded the vessels and batteries. The sloop in the channel soon sank, and the larger vessel was much punished, but the _Scarborough_, fearing the reef, stood off and on for a day or two and blockaded the creek. The pirates, endeavouring to warp out and slip away, ran aground, and, seeing the _Scarborough_ again standing in, fired the ship and ran ashore, leaving twenty negroes to perish. Nineteen escaped in a sloop, and the captain and twenty other negroes fled to the woods, where it is supposed they perished, as they were never heard of again.

Captain CHARLES VANE, our next Viking, is known as one of the men who helped to steal the silver which the Spaniards had fished up from their sunk galleons in the gulf of Florida.

When Captain Rogers with his two men-of-war conquered Providence, and pardoned all the pirates who submitted, Vane slipped his cable, fired a prize in the harbour, hoisted the black flag, and, firing a broadside at one of the men-of-war, sailed boldly away. Capturing a Barbadoes vessel, he manned it with twenty-five hands, and, unloading an interloper of its pieces of eight, careened at a key, and spent some time in a revel.

In the next cruise they captured some Spanish and New England vessels, and one laden with logwood. The crew of the latter they compelled to throw the lading overboard, intending to turn her into a pirate vessel, but in a fit of caprice suddenly let the men go and the ship with them. The prize captain, offended at Vane's arrogance, left him, and surrendered himself and 90 negroes to the governor of Charlestown, receiving a free pardon. Vane saluted the runaway with a broadside as he left, and lay wait for some time for him, but without success. Soon after this two armed sloops started in pursuit of Vane, and, failing in the capture, attacked and took another pirate vessel that was clearing at Cape Fear.

In an inlet to the northward Vane met Blackbeard, and saluted him, according to piratical etiquette, with a discharge of his shotted guns. Off Long Island he attacked a vessel that proved to be a French man-of-war, and gave chase; Vane was for flight, but many of the men, in spite of the enemy's weight of metal and being twice their force, were for boarding. A pirate captain in all cases but that of fighting was controlled by a majority, but in this case had an absolute power; Vane refused to fight, and escaped.

The next day Vane was branded by vote as a coward and deposed, and Rackham, his officer, elected captain. Vane and the minority were turned adrift in a sloop. Putting into the bay of Honduras, Vane captured another sloop, and fitted it up as a pirate vessel, and soon after captured two more. Vane was soon after shipwrecked on an island near Honduras, and most of his men drowned; he himself being supported by the turtle fishermen. While in this miserable state, a Jamaica vessel arrived, commanded by a Buccaneer, an old acquaintance, to whom he applied to help him. The man refused, declaring Vane would intrigue with his men, murder him, and run off as a pirate. On Vane expressing scruples about stealing a fisherman's boat from the beach, the Buccaneer declared that if he found him still there on his return he would take him to Jamaica and hang him.

Soon after his friend's departure a vessel put in for water, and, not knowing Vane to be a pirate, took him on board as a sailor. On leaving the bay the Buccaneer met them and came on board to dine. Passing to the cabin he spied Vane working in the hold, and asked the captain if he knew that that was Vane, the notorious pirate. The other then declared he would not have him, and the Buccaneer, sending his mate on board with at loaded pistol, seized Vane and took him to Jamaica, where he was soon after hung.

Rackham, after a cruise among the Caribbee islands, spent a Christmas on shore, and when the liquor was all gone put to sea. Their first prize was an ominous one, a ship laden with Newgate convicts bound for the plantations, which was soon after retaken by an English ship of war. Two others of his prizes were also recaptured while careening at the Bahama islands by Governor Rogers, of New Providence.

They then sailed to the back of Cuba, where Rackham had a settlement, and there spent their plunder in debauchery. As they were fitting out for sea, they were attacked by a Spanish guarda costa that had just captured an English interloper. Rackham being protected by an island, the Spaniards warped into the channel at dusk and waited for day. The pirates, roused to despair, boarded the Spanish prize with pistols and cutlasses in the dead of the night, and, threatening the crew with death if they spoke, captured her almost without a blow, and slipping the cable stood out to sea. When day broke the Spaniards opened a tremendous fire upon the deserted pirate vessel, but soon discovered their mistake.

1720 was spent in small cruises about Jamaica, their crew being still short; they then swept off some fishing boats from Harbour Island, and landing in Hispaniola, carried off some wild cattle and several French hunters.

He then captured several more vessels, and was joined by the crew of a sloop in Dry Harbour Bay. But their end was at hand. The governor of Jamaica despatched a sloop in pursuit of them, who found the pirates carousing with a boat's crew from Point Negril, and they were soon overpowered.

A fortnight after sentence of death was passed upon nine of them at a court of admiralty held at St. Jago de la Vega. Five of them were executed at Gallows Point in Port Royal, and the four others the day after at Kingston. Rackham and two more were afterwards taken down and hung in chains, one at Plumb Point, one at Busk-key, and the other at Gun-key. By the terrible Draconic laws of Jamaica, the nine boatmen from Port Negril were also hung by their side. After such justice, can we wonder at the crimes to which despair too often drove the pirates?

Among these "unfortunate brave," as Prior generously calls them, two female pirates are not to be forgotten. The first of these, Mary Reed, was the daughter of a sailor, whose wife having after his death given birth to an illegitimate girl, palmed it off as a boy, in order to excite the compassion of her husband's mother. Being reduced in circumstances she put the girl out as a foot-boy, but she soon after ran to sea, and entered on board a man-of-war. Quitting the sea service Mary Reed wintered over in Flanders and obtained a cadetship in a regiment of foot, behaving herself in many actions with a great deal of bravery, and finally entering a regiment of horse. Here she fell in love with a comrade, a young Fleming, whom she eventually married, and set up an eating-house at Beda, called "The Three Horse-shoes." Her husband dying, and the peace ruining her trade, Mary went into Holland, and joined a regiment quartered on a frontier town, but, finding preferment slow, she shipped herself on board a vessel bound for the West Indies.

The vessel was taken by English pirates, and the amazon, being the only English sailor, was detained. A pardon soon afterwards being issued, the crew surrendered themselves, but Mary Reed sailed for New Providence, and joined a privateer squadron fitting out there against the Spaniards. The crews, who were pardoned pirates, soon rose against their commander, and resumed their old trade, and Mary Reed among them. Abhorring the life of a pirate, she still was the first to board, and was as resolute as the bravest. By chance Anne Bonny, another disguised woman, being with the crew, discovered her sex, and soon after she fell in love with a sailor whom they took prisoner, and was eventually married to him. Her husband hated his new profession as much as herself, and they were about to quit it when they were both taken prisoners.

On one occasion Mary Reed, to prevent her husband fighting a duel, challenged his opponent to meet her on a sand island near which their ship lay, with sword and pistol, and killed him on the spot.

At the trial she declared that her life had been always pure, and that she had never intended to remain a pirate. When they were taken, only she and Anne Bonny kept the deck, calling to those in the hold to come up and fight like men, and when they refused firing at them, killing one and wounding several. In prison she said the fear of hanging had never driven her from piracy, for but for the dread of that there would be so many pirates that the trade would not be worth following.

Great compassion was evinced for her in the court, but she was still found guilty, though being near her pregnancy, her execution was respited. She might have been pardoned, but a violent fever coming on soon after her trial she died in prison.

Her companion, Anne Bonny, was the illegitimate daughter of a Cork attorney. Her father, disguising the child as a boy, pretended it was a relative's son, and bred it up for a clerk. Becoming ruined he emigrated to Carolina, and turning merchant bought a plantation. Upon her mother's death Anne Bonny succeeded to the housekeeping. She was of a fierce and ungovernable temper, and was reported to have stabbed an English servant with a case-knife. Marrying a penniless sailor, her father turned her out of doors, and she and her husband fled to New Providence, where he turned pirate. Here she was seduced by Captain Rackham, and ran with him to sea, dressed as a sailor, and accompanied him in many voyages. The day that Rackham was executed she was admitted to see him by special favour, but she only taunted him and said that she was sorry to see him there, but that if he had fought like a man he would not have been hung like a dog.

Becoming pregnant in prison she was reprieved, and, we believe, finally pardoned.

Captain HOWEL DAVIS, our next sea king, was a native of Milford, who, being taken prisoner by England, was appointed captain of the vessel of which he had been chief mate. At first, he declared he would rather be shot than turn pirate, but eventually accepted sealed orders from England, to be opened at a certain latitude. On opening them, he found they directed him to make the ship his own, and go and trade at Brazil. The crew, refusing to obey Davis, steered for Barbadoes, and put him in prison, but he was soon discharged.

Starting for New Providence, the pirates' nest, he found the island had just surrendered to Captain Woods Rogers. He here joined the ships fitting out for the Spanish trade, and at Martinique joined in a conspiracy, secured the masters, and started on a cruise against all the world. At a council of war, held over a bowl of punch, Davis was unanimously elected commander, and the articles he drew up were signed by all the crew.

They then sailed to Coxon's-hole, at the east end of Cuba, to clean, that being a narrow creek, where one ship could defend itself against a hundred, and, having no carpenter, they found some difficulty in careening. On the north side of Hispaniola, they fell in with a French ship of twelve guns, which they took, and sent twelve men on board to plunder, being now very short of provisions. They had scarcely leaped on deck before another French vessel of twenty-four guns and sixty men hove in sight. This vessel Davis proposed to attack, quite contrary to the wish of his crew, who were afraid of her size. When Davis approached, the Frenchmen bade him strike, but giving them a broadside, he said he should keep them in play till his consort arrived, when they should have but hard quarters. At this moment came up all the prisoners, having been dressed in white shirts, and forced on deck, and a dirty tarpaulin was hoisted for a black flag. The French captain, intimidated, instantly struck, and was at once, with ten of his hands, put in irons.

The guns, small arms, and powder in the small ship were then removed, and the prize crew sent on board the larger vessel. Part of the prisoners were put in the smaller and now defenceless bark. At the end of two days, finding the French prize a dull sailer, Davis restored her to the captain, minus her ammunition and cargo. The Frenchman, vexed at being so outwitted, would have destroyed himself had not his men prevented him.

Davis then visited the Cape de Verd islands, and left some of his men as settlers among the Portuguese. They also plundered many vessels at the Isle of May, obtained many fresh hands, and fitted one of their prizes with twenty-six guns, and called her the _King James_. At St. Jago the governor accused them of being pirates, and Davis resolved to resent the affront by surprising the fort by night. Going on shore well armed, they found the guard negligent, and took the place, losing only three men. The fugitives barricaded themselves in the governor's house, into which the pirates threw grenades. By daybreak the whole country was alarmed, and poured down upon them, but they, unwilling to stand a siege, dismounted the fort guns and fought their way to their ships.

Mustering their hands, and finding themselves still seventy strong, they proposed to follow Davis's advice, and attack Gambia castle, where a great deal of money was always kept, for they had now such an opinion of Davis's courage and prudence that they would have followed him anywhere.

Having come within sight of the place, he ordered all his men below but such as were absolutely necessary for the working of the vessel, that the people on shore might take her for a trader. He then ran close under the fort, anchored, and ordering out the boat, manned her with six plain-dressed men, himself as the master, and the rest attired as merchants. The men were instructed what to say.

At the landing-place they were received by a file of musqueteers, and led to the governor, who received them civilly. They said they were from Liverpool, bound to the river of Senegal to trade for gums and ivory, but being chased to Gambia by two French men-of-war, were willing to trade for slaves; their cargo, they said, being all iron and plate. The governor, promising them slaves, asked for a hamper of European liquor, and invited them to stay and dine. Davis himself refused to stay, but left his two companions.

On leaving he observed there was a sentry at the entrance, and a guard-house near, with the arms of the soldiers on duty thrown in one corner. Going on board he assured his men of success, desired them to keep sober, and when the castle flag struck to send twenty hands immediately ashore. He then seized a sloop that lay near, for fear the crew should discern their preparations.

He put two pairs of loaded pistols in his pocket, and made all his crew do the same, bidding them get into conversation with the guard, and when he fired a pistol through the governor's window, leap up and secure the piled arms.

While dinner was getting ready, the governor began to brew a bowl of punch, when Davis, at a whisper of the coxswain who had been reconnoitring the house, suddenly drew out a pistol, and, clapping it to the governor's breast, bade him surrender the fort and all his riches, or he was a dead man. The governor, taken by surprise, promised to be passive. They then shut the door, and loaded the arms in the hall, while Davis fired his piece through the window. The men, hearing this signal, cocked their pistols, got between the soldiers and the arms, and carried them off, locking up the men in the guard-room, and guarding it without. Then striking the flag, the rest of the crew tumbled on shore, and the fort was their own without the loss of a man. Davis at once harangued the soldiers, and persuaded many to join him, and those who resisted he sent on board the sloop, which he first unrigged. The rest of the day they spent in salutes--ship to castle and castle to ship, and the next day plundered. Much money had been lately sent away, so they found only £2,000 in bar gold, and many rich effects. They then dismounted the guns, and demolished the fortifications.

A French pirate of 14 guns, and sixty-four men, half French, half negroes, soon joined Davis, and they sailed down the coast together. They soon after met another pirate ship, of 24 guns, and spent several days in carousing. They then attacked in company the fort of Sierra Leone, and the garrison, after a stiff cannonade, surrendered the place and fled. Here they spent seven weeks careening; and, capturing a galley, La Bouce, the second captain, cut her half deck, and mounted her with 24 guns. They now sailed together, and appointed Davis commodore, but, like men of a trade, soon quarrelled, and parted company. Off Cape Apollonia Davis took several vessels, and off Cape Points Bay attacked a Dutch interloper, of 30 guns, and ninety men. After many hours' fighting the Dutchman surrendered to the black flag, having killed nine of Davis's men at one broadside. This vessel Davis called the _Rover_, fitted with 32 guns and 27 swivels, and, sailing to Anamaboe, captured several ships laden with ivory, gold dust, and negroes, saluting the fort, and then started for Prince's island, a Portuguese settlement near the same coast.

They here captured a Dutchman, a valuable prize, having the governor of Acra and £150,000, besides merchandise, on board, and recruited their force with thirty-five hands. The _King James_ springing a leak, they deserted her and left her to sink. At the isle of Princes Davis passed himself off for an English man-of-war in search of pirates, and was received with great honours by the governor, who approved of his openly plundering a French vessel which he accused of piracy. A few days after Davis and fourteen of his men attempted to carry off the chief men's wives from a small village in which they lived, but failed in the attempt. But Davis had determined to plunder the island by means of the following stratagem. He resolved to present the governor with a dozen negroes in return for his civilities, and afterwards to invite him with the friars and chief men of the island to an entertainment on board his ship. He would then clap them in irons, and not release them under a ransom of £40,000.

This plot proved fatal to him. A Portuguese negro, swimming ashore at night, disclosed the whole. The governor dissembled and professed to fall into the snare. The next day Davis went himself on shore to bring the governor on board, and was invited to take some refreshment at the government house. He fell at once into the trap. A prepared ambuscade rose and fired a volley, killing every pirate but one, who, running to the boat, got safely to the ship. Davis, though shot through the bowels, rose, made a faint effort to run, drew out his pistols, fired at his pursuers, and fell dead.

Upon Davis's death, Bartholomew Roberts was at once chosen commander, in preference to many other of the _lords_ or head seamen. The sailors said, that any captain who went beyond their laws should be deposed, but that they must have a man of courage and a good seaman to defend their commonwealth. One of the lords, whose father had suffered in Monmouth's rebellion, swore Roberts was a Papist. In spite of all, Roberts, who had been only taken prisoner six weeks before, was chosen commander. He told them that, "since he had dipped his hands in muddy water, and must needs be a pirate, he would rather be commander than mere seaman."

Their first thought was to avenge Davis's death, for he had been much beloved for his affability and good nature. Thirty men were landed, and attacked the fort in spite of the steep hill on which it was situated. The Portuguese deserted the walls, and the pirates destroyed the guns. Still unsatisfied, they would have burnt the town, had it not been protected by a thick wood, which furnished a cover to the enemy. They, however, mounted the French ship with twelve guns, running into shoal water, battered down several houses, and then sailed out of the harbour by the light of two ships to which they set fire. Having taken two more vessels and burnt one of them, they started by general consent for Brazil.

Cruising here for nine weeks and taking no prize, the pirates grew quite discouraged, and resolved to steer for the West Indies, but soon after fell in with forty-two sail of Portuguese ships laden for Lisbon, and lying off the bay of los Todos Santos, waiting for two men-of-war of seventy guns each for their convoy. Stealing amongst them, Roberts hid his men till he had closed upon the deepest of them, threatening to give no quarter if the master was not instantly sent on board. The Portuguese, alarmed at the sudden flourish of cutlasses, instantly came. Roberts told him they were gentlemen of fortune, and should put him to death if he did not tell them which was the richest vessel of the fleet. The trembler pointed out a ship of forty guns and 150 men, more force than Roberts could command; but Roberts, replying "They are only Portuguese," bore down at once upon it. Finding the enemy was aware of their being pirates, Roberts poured in a broadside, grappled, and boarded. The dispute was short and warm. Two of the pirates fell, and many of the Portuguese. By this time it was pretty well seen that a fox had got into the poultry-yard. Signals of top-gallant sheets were flying, and guns fired to bring up the convoy that still rode at anchor. Roberts, finding his prize sail heavy, waited for the first man-of-war, which, basely declining the duel, lingered for its consort till Roberts was out of sight. The prize proved exceedingly rich, being laden with sugar, skins, tobacco, and 4000 moidors, besides many gold chains and much jewellery. A diamond cross, which formed part of this spoil, they afterwards gave to the governor of Caiana. Elated with this spoil, they fixed on the Devil's Islands, in the Surinam river, as a place for a revel, and, arriving there, found the governor ready to barter.

Much in want of provision, Roberts threw himself, with forty men, into a prize sloop, in hopes of capturing a brigantine laden with provision from Rhode Island, which was then in sight, and was kept at sea by contrary winds for eight days. Their food ran short, and failing in securing the prize, they despatched their only boat to bring up the ship.

Landing at Dominica, Roberts took on board thirteen Englishmen, the crews of two New England vessels that had been seized by a French guarda costa. At this island they were nearly captured by a Martinique sloop, but contrived to escape to the Guadanillas. Sailing for Newfoundland they entered the harbour with their black colours flying, their drums beating, and trumpets sounding. The crews of twenty-two vessels fled on shore at their approach, and they proceeded to burn and sink all the shipping and destroy the fisheries and the houses of the planters. Mounting a Bristol galley that he found in the harbour with sixteen guns, Roberts destroyed nine sail of French ships, and carried off for his own use a vessel of twenty-six guns. From many other prizes they pressed men and got plunder. The passengers on board the _Samuel_, a rich London vessel, he tortured, threatening them with death if they did not disclose their money. His men tore up the hatches, and, entering the hold with axes and swords, cut and ripped open the bales and boxes. Everything portable they seized, the rest they threw overboard, amidst curses and discharges of guns and pistols. They carried off £9000 worth of goods, the sails, guns, and powder. They told the captain "They should accept of no act of grace. The king might be d---- with their act of grace for them: they weren't going to Hope Point to be hung up sun-drying like Kidd's and Braddish's company were; and if they were overpowered they would set fire to the powder, and _go all merrily to hell together_."

While debating whether to sink or burn the prize, they espied a sail, and left the _Samuel_ tumultuously to give chase. It proved to be a Bristol vessel, and hating Bristol men because the Martinique sloops were commanded by one, he used him with barbarous cruelty.

Their provisions growing scarce, Roberts put into St. Christopher's, and, being refused succours, fired on the town and burnt two ships in the road. They then visited St. Bartholomew, where they were well received. Sailing for Guinea, weary of even debauchery, they captured a rich laden vessel from Martinique, and changed ships. By some extraordinary ignorance of navigation, Roberts, in trying to reach the Cape Verd islands, got to leeward of his port, and, obliged to go back again with the trade wind, returned to the West Indies, steering for Surinam, 700 leagues distant, with one hogshead of water for 124 souls.

Great suffering followed their pleasures in the islands of the Sirens; each man obtained only one mouthful of water in twenty-four hours. Many drank their urine or the brine and died fevered and mad; others wasted with fluxes. The rest had but an inch or two of bread in the day, and grew so feeble they could hardly reef and climb. They were all but dying, when they were suddenly brought into soundings, and at night anchored in seven fathoms water.

Thirsty in the sight of lakes and streams, and maddened with hunger, Roberts tore up the floor of the cabin, and, patching together a canoe with rope yarn, paddled to shore and procured water. After some days, the boat returned with the unpleasant intelligence that the lieutenant had absconded with the vessel.

This Lieutenant Kennedy's sail into Execution Dock we will give before we return to Roberts. Upon leaving Caiana Roberts's treacherous crew determined to abandon piracy. Their Portuguese prize they gave to the master of the prize sloop, a good-natured man, whose quiet philosophy under misfortune had astonished and pleased them. Off Barbadoes Kennedy took a Quaker's vessel from Virginia, the captain of which allowed no arms on board, and his equanimity so attracted the pirates that eight of them returned with him to Virginia. These men rewarded the sailors and gave £250 worth of gold dust and tobacco to the peaceful captain. At Maryland the treacherous Quaker surrendered his friends, who were all hung on the evidence of some Portuguese Jews whom they had brought from Brazil.

Off Jamaica Kennedy captured a flour vessel from Boston, in which himself and many others embarked. This Kennedy had been a pickpocket and a housebreaker, could neither read nor write, and had been only elected captain for his cruelty and courage.

His crew, at first afraid of his treachery, would have thrown him overboard, but relented, on his taking solemn oaths of fidelity. Of all these men only one knew anything of navigation, and he was so ignorant that, trying to reach Ireland, he ran them ashore on Scotland. Landing they passed at first for shipwrecked sailors; seven of them reached London in safety, the rest were seized at Edinburgh and hung, having attracted attention by rioting and drunken squandering. Two others were murdered on the road.

Kennedy turned robber, and some years after was arrested as a pirate by the mate of a ship he had plundered, turned king's evidence, but was hung in 1721.

We must now return to Roberts, whom we left swearing and vapouring on the coast of Newfoundland. He began by drawing up a code of laws and establishing stricter discipline, and then steered for the West Indies, capturing several vessels by the way, and was soon after pursued by a Bristol galley of twenty guns and eighty men, and a sloop of ten guns and forty men, despatched by the Governor of Barbadoes. Roberts, taking them for traders, attempted to board, but was driven off by a broadside, the king's men huzzaing as they fired. Roberts, crowding all sail, took to flight and escaped, after a galling pursuit, by dint of throwing overboard his guns and heavy goods. He was henceforward particularly severe to Barbadian vessels, so deeply established were the principles of justice and compensation in the mind of this great man.

In the morning, they saw land, but at a great distance, and dispatching a boat, it returned late at night with a load of water: they had reached Surinam. The worst blasphemer heard the words, and fell upon his knees to thank a God whom he had so often denied. They swore that the same Providence which had given them drink would bring them meat.

Taking provisions from several vessels, Roberts touched at Tobago, and then sailed to Martinique to revenge himself on the governor. Adopting the custom of the Dutch interlopers, he hoisted a jack and sailed in as if to trade. He was soon surrounded by a swarm of sloops and smacks; then sending all the crews on shore on board one vessel, minus their money, he fired twenty others. His new flag bore henceforward a representation of himself trampling on the skulls of a Barbadian and Martinique man. At Dominica he took several vessels, and several others at Guadaloupe, and then put into a key off Hispaniola to clean and refit.

While here, the captains of two piratical sloops visited him, having heard of his fame and achievements, to beg from him powder and arms. After several nights' revel, Roberts dismissed them, hoping "the Lord would prosper their handy works." Three of their men, who had long excited suspicion by their reserve and sobriety, deserted, but being recaptured were put upon their trial. The jury sat in the steerage, before a bowl of rum punch; the judge on the bench smoked a pipe. Sentence was already passed, when one of the jury, with a volley of oaths, swore Glashby (one of the prisoners) should not die. "He was as good a man as the best of them, and had never turned his back to a man in his life. Glashby was an honest fellow in spite of his misfortune, and he loved him. He hoped he would live and repent of what he had done; but d---- if he must die, he would die along with him," and as he spoke he handled a pair of loaded pistols, and presented them at two of the judges, who, thinking the argument good, at once acquitted Glashby. The rest, allowed to choose their executioners, were tied to the mast and shot.

Amply stocked with provision, they now sailed for Guinea to buy gold dust, and on their passage burnt and sank many vessels. Roberts, finding his crew mutinous and unmanageable, assumed a rude bearing, offering to fight on shore any one who was offended, with sword or pistol, for he neither feared nor valued any. On their way to Africa they were deserted by a prize, a brigantine, which they had manned. Roberts being insulted by a drunken sailor, killed him on the spot. His messmate returning from shore declared the captain deserved the same fate. Roberts hearing this stabbed him with his sword, but in spite of the wound the seaman threw him over a gun and gave him a beating. A general tumult ensued, which was appeased by the quartermaster, and the majority agreeing that the captain must be supported at all risks, the sailor received two lashes from every man on board as soon as he recovered from his wound. This man then conspired with the captain of the brigantine and his seventy hands, and agreed to desert Roberts, as they soon after did on the first opportunity.

Near the river of Senegal the pirates were chased by two French cruisers of ten and sixteen guns, who mistook him for one of those interlopers for whom they were on the look-out. The pair surrendered, however, with little resistance on the first shot of the _Jolly Roger_, and with these prizes they put into Sierra Leone. About thirty retired Buccaneers and pirates lived here, one of whom, who went by the name of Crackers, kept two cannon at his door to salute all pirate ships that arrived.

They found that the _Swallow_ and _Weymouth_ men-of-war, fifty guns, had just been there, and would not return till Christmas; so, after six weeks' debauch, they put out again to sea, plundering along the coast. They exchanged one of their vessels for a French frigate-built ship, pressing the sailors, and allowing some soldiers on board to sail with them for a quarter share.

They found an English chaplain on board, and wanted him to go with them to make punch and say prayers, but as he refused they let him go, detaining nothing of the property of the church but three prayer-books and a corkscrew. This ship they altered by pulling down the bulkheads and making her flush. They then christened her the _Royal Fortune_, and mounted her with forty guns.

They next proceeded to Calabar, where a shoal protected the harbour. Enraged at the negroes refusing to trade, they landed forty men under protection of the ships' fire, drove back a party of 2000 natives, and then burnt their town. Still unable to obtain provisions, they returned to Cape Apollonia. Here they took a vessel called the _King Solomon_, boarding her from the long boat in spite of a volley from the ship, the pirates shouting defiance. The captain would have resisted, but the boatswain made the men lay down their arms and cry for quarter. They then cut her cable, and rifled her of everything. They next cut the mast of a Dutch vessel, and strung the sausages they found on board round their necks, killing the fowls, and inviting the captain to drink from his own but, singing obscene French and Spanish songs from his Dutch prayer-book.

Going too near the land they alarmed the coast, and the English and Dutch factories spread signals of danger.

Entering Whydah with St. George's ensign and a black flag flying, eleven ships instantly surrendered without a blow; most of the crews being, in fact, ashore. Each captain ransomed his cargo for 8 lbs. of gold dust, upon which they gave him acquittals, signed with sham names, as "Whiffingpin" and "Tugmutton." One vessel full of slaves refusing to give any ransom, he set fire to it, and burnt eighty negroes who were chained in the hold; a few leaped overboard to avoid the flames, and were torn to pieces by the sharks that swarmed in the road.

Discovering from an intercepted letter that the _Swallow_ was after him, Roberts put back to the island of Anna Bona, but the wind failing steered for Cape Lopez. The cruiser had lost 100 men from sickness in a three weeks' stay at Prince's island, and, unable to return to Sierra Leone, turned to Cape Corso, unknown to Roberts, who was ignorant of the causes that had led to their return. Receiving many calls for help, and finding the trade of the whole coast disturbed, the _Swallow_ sailed for Whydah. The crew were impatient to attack the pirates, learning that they had an arms' chest full of gold, secured by three keys. Recruiting thirty volunteers, English and French, the _Swallow_ reached the river Gaboon, and soon discovered the pirates, one of whom gave them chase, believing her a Portuguese sugar vessel, and the sugar for their punch now ran short.

The pirates were cursing the wind and the sails that kept them from so rich a prey, when the _Ranger_ suddenly brought to and hauled up her lower ports, while the first broadside brought down their black flag. Hoisting it again, they flourished their cutlasses on the poop, but tried to escape. Some prepared to board, but, after two hours' firing, their maintop came down with a run, and they struck, having had ten men killed and twenty wounded. The _Swallow_ did not lose one. The _Ranger_ carried thirty-two guns, and was manned by sixteen Frenchmen, seventy-seven English, and ten negroes. Their black colours were thrown overboard. As the _Swallow_ was sending a boat to board, an explosion was heard, and a smoke poured out of the great cabin. It appeared that half a dozen of the most desperate had fired some powder, but it was too little to do anything but burn them terribly.

The commander, a Welshman, had had his leg shot off, and had refused to allow himself to be carried below. The rest were gay and brisk, dressed in white shirts and silk waistcoats, and wearing watches.

An officer said to a man whom he saw with a silver whistle at his belt--"I presume you are boatswain of this ship." "Then you presume wrong," said the pirate, "for I am boatswain of the _Royal Fortune_--Captain Roberts, commander." "Then, Mr. Boatswain, you'll be hanged," said the officer. "That is as your Honour pleases," said the man, turning away.

The officer asking about the explosion, he swore "they are all mad and bewitched, for I have lost a good hat by it." He had been blown out of the cabin gallery into the sea. "But what signifies a hat, friend?" said the officer. "Not much," he answered.

As the sailors stripped off his shoes and stockings, the officer asked him if all Robert's crew were as likely men as himself? He answered, "There are 120 of them as clever fellows as ever trod shoe-leather; would I were with them." "No doubt on't," said the officer. "It's naked truth," said the man laughing, as he looked down at his bare feet.

The officer then approached another man, black and scorched, who sat sullenly alone in a corner. He asked him how it happened. "Why," said he, "John Morris fired a pistol into the powder, and if he had not done it I would." The officer said he was a surgeon, and offered to dress his wounds, which he bore without a groan. He swore it should not be done and he would tear off the dressing, so he was then overpowered and bandaged. At night he grew delirious and raved about "brave Roberts," who would soon release him. The men then lashed him down to the forecastle, as he resisted with such violence to his burnt sore flesh that he died next day of mortification. The other pirates they fettered, and sent the shattered ship, scarcely worth preserving, into port.

The next day Roberts appeared in sight with a prize, and his men ran to tell him of the cruizer as he was dining in the cabin with the prisoner captain. Roberts declared the vessel was his own returning, or nothing but a Portuguese or French slave ship, and laughed at the cowards who feared danger, offering to strike the most apprehensive. As soon as he discovered his mistake he slipped his cable, got under sail, and ordered his men to arms, declaring it was "a bite."

He appeared on deck dressed in crimson damask, with a red feather in his cocked hat, a gold chain and diamond cross round his neck, a sword in his hand, and two pairs of pistols hanging pirate-fashion from a silk sling over his shoulders. His orders were given in a loud voice and with unhesitating boldness. Informed by a deserter that the _Swallow_ sailed best upon a wind, he resolved to go before it, if disabled to run ashore and escape among the negroes, or if, as many of his men were drunk, everything else failed, to board and blow up both vessels.

Exchanging a broadside he made all sail he could crowd, but steering ill was taken aback and overtaken. At this critical moment a grapeshot struck him on the throat, and he sat calmly down on the tackle of a gun and died. The man at the helm running to his assistance, and not seeing a wound, thought his heart had failed him, and bade him stand up and fight it out like a man, and remember the _Jolly Roger_. Discovering his mistake the rough sailor burst into tears, and prayed the next shot might strike him. The pirates then threw their captain overboard, with all his arms and ornaments, as he had often requested in his life.

When Roberts fell the men deserted their quarters and fell into a torpor, till their mainmast being shot away compelled them to surrender. Some of the crew lit matches and tried to blow up the magazine, but the rest prevented them. The black flag, crushed under the fallen mast, they had no time to destroy.

The _Royal Fortune_ was found to have forty guns and 157 men, forty-five of them being negroes. Only three were killed in the action, and the _Swallow_ did not lose a man. She had upwards of £2000 of gold dust in her. From the other vessel the same quantity was embezzled by an English captain, who sailed away before the _Swallow_ arrived.

The prisoners were mutinous under restraint, and cursed and upbraided each other for the folly that had brought them into that trap. For fear of an outbreak they were manacled and shackled in the gun-room, which was strongly barricaded, and officers with pistol and cutlass placed to guard it night and day.

The pirates laughed at the short commons, and swore they should be too light to hang. Those who read and prayed were sneered at by the others. "Give me hell," said one blasphemer; "it is a merrier place than heaven, and at my entrance I'll give Roberts a salute of thirteen guns." The whole of the prisoners made a formal complaint against "the wretch with a prayer-book," as a common disturber.

A few of the more violent conspired, having loosened their shackles, to rise, kill the officers, and run away with the ship. A mulatto boy who attended them, conveyed messages from one to the other, but the very evening of the outbreak two prisoners heard the whispers, and warned the officers. They were then treated rougher, and heavier chains put on.

The negroes and surgeon on board the other ship also contrived a conspiracy, the surgeon knowing a little of the Ashantee language. They were betrayed by a traitor, all re-chained, and brought to Cape Corso castle to be tried. Here they grew chapfallen, forgot to jest, and begged for good books. Some joined in prayers, and others sang psalms. Brawny, sunburnt, scarred men were seen spelling out hymns, and, through the blood-red haze of a thousand crimes, trying with moistened eyes to look back to calm Sunday evenings when fond mothers had first taught them the words of long since forgotten prayers.

When the ropes were fitting only one appeared dejected, and he had been ill with a flux. A surgeon of the place was charitable enough to offer himself as chaplain, and represented to them the urgent need of repentance and the tender forgiveness of a Saviour. They hardly listened to him, but some begged caps of the soldiers, for the sun was burning on their bare heads. Others asked for a single draught of water. When they were pressed to speak of religion, they burst into curses, and imprecated vengeance on their judge and jury, saying they were hung as poor rogues, but many worse escaped because they were rich.

He then implored them to be in charity with all the world, and asked their names and ages. They said, "What is that to you? we suffer the law, and shall give no account but to God." One cursed a woman in the crowd for coming to see him hung, and another laughed at their tying his hands behind him, "for he had seen many a good fellow hung, but never that done before." A third said, the sooner the better, so he might get out of pain.

Nine others showed much penitence. One obtained a short reprieve, and devoted it to prayer, singing the thirty-first Psalm at the foot of the gallows. Another (the deserter) exhorted the seamen to a good life, and sang a psalm. The next instant a gun was fired, and he swung from the fore-yard-arm. Bunce, the youngest of them all, made a pathetic speech, and begged forgiveness of God and all mankind. Seeing the gallows standing on a rock above the sea, he took a last look at the element which he had so often braved, and saying, he stood "as a beacon on a rock to warn mariners of danger," was turned off by the hangman.

CAPTAIN WORLY, the next adventurer, embarked in an open boat, with eight other men, from New York in 1718, captured a shallop up the Delaware river, and soon took many other vessels, pursuing an English cruiser from Sandy Hook. He had now twenty-five men and six guns, and his crew had taken an oath to receive no quarter. While careening in an inlet in North Carolina he was attacked by two government sloops. These cruisers boarded him on either side, and the pirates fought so desperately that only the captain and another man were taken prisoners, and being much wounded were hung the next day for fear they should die, and the law not have its due.

Captain GEORGE LOWTHER was originally second mate on board a vessel carrying soldiers to a fort of the Royal African Company's on the river Gambia, the very one that had been destroyed by Davis. Captain Massey, who commanded these men, offended at the arrogance of the merchants, plotted with Lowther, who had been ill-treated by his captain, to run away with the vessel. They then started as pirates--their vessel, the _Delivery_, having fifty men and sixteen guns. The worthy partners soon quarrelled, Massey knowing nothing of the sea and Lowther nothing of the land. Massey wished to land with thirty men and attack the French in Hispaniola, but Lowther refused his consent; and when Lowther resolved to scuttle a ship, Massey interposed in its behalf. Massey, soon after this, being put on board a prize with ten malcontents, gave himself up at Jamaica, and was sent to cruise in search of his old partner. Massey wrote to the African Company, and prayed to be forgiven, or at least shot as a soldier, and not hung as a pirate. He then came to London, gave himself up, and was soon after hung.

Off Hispaniola Lowther captured two vessels--one of them a Spaniard, the crew of which, in consideration of their being also pirates, and having just boarded an English ship, were drifted off in their own launch, but the English sailors were enrolled in their own crew. They then put into a key, cleaned, and spent some time in revelry. Starting again about Christmas, at the Grand Caimanes they met with a small pirate vessel, commanded by a captain named Low, who now became Lowther's lieutenant. The old ship they sank, and soon after attacked a Boston vessel, the _Greyhound_, which, though only 200 tons, refused to bring to in answer to Lowther's gun, and held out for an hour before she struck her ensign, seeing resistance hopeless. The pirates whipped, beat, and cut these men cruelly, and at last set fire to their vessel, and left them to burn and perish. They soon after burnt and sank several New England sloops; a vessel of Jamaica they generously sent back to her master, and two other vessels they fitted up for their own use, mounting one with eight carriage and ten swivel guns.

With this little fleet, Admiral Lowther, in the _Happy Delivery_, went to the gulf of Matique to careen, carrying ashore all their sails and stores, and putting them in tents on the beach. While the ships, however, were on the keel, and the men busy heaving, scrubbing, and tallowing, they were attacked by a large body of the natives. Burning the _Happy Delivery_, their largest ship, and leaving all their stores behind, they then turned one sloop adrift, and all embarked in the other, the _Ranger_. This disaster, and the shortness of provisions, soon produced mutiny and mutual recrimination.

In May 1721 they went to the West Indies, capturing a brigantine, which they plundered and sank, and then started for New England. Low and Lowther always quarrelling, at last parted, Low taking forty-four hands in the brigantine, and leaving the same number in the sloop to Lowther. The latter for some time captured nothing but fishing vessels, and a New England ship with a cargo of sugar from Barbadoes. Off the coast of South Carolina, being pursued by an English vessel that he had imprudently attacked, he was driven on shore in his attempts to escape. The English captain, in attempting to board, was shot, and his mate declined the combat. The pirate sloop soon put again to sea, but much shattered, and with many of the crew killed and wounded. The winter Low spent in repairing, in an inlet of North Carolina, where his men pitched tents, and lived on the wild cattle they shot in the woods, while in very cold nights they slept on board the ship.

After a cruise round Newfoundland the pirates sailed for the West Indies, and put into a creek in the island of Blanco, not far from Tortuga, to careen. Here they were attacked by the _Eagle_ sloop of Barbadoes, belonging to the South Sea Company. She fired a gun first to make Lowther show his colours, and then boarded. Lowther and twelve of his crew made their escape out of a cabin window after their vessel had struck. The master of the _Eagle_, with twenty-five men, spent five days in search of the fugitives, and, capturing eight only of them, returned to Cumana.

The Spanish governor applauding the _Eagle_ condemned the sloop, and sent a small vessel with twenty-five hands to scour the patches of _lignum vitæ_ trees that covered the low level island, and took four pirates, but Lowther and three men and a boy still escaped. It is supposed he then destroyed himself, as he was found soon after by some sailors dead, beside a bush, with a burst pistol by his side. Of his companions nine were hung at St. Christopher's, two pardoned, and five acquitted; four the Spaniards condemned to slavery for life, three to the galleys, and the others to the Castle of Arraria.

Captain Spriggs was another of this same gang, having been quartermaster to Lowther. In 1723 Spriggs, with eighteen men, sailed by night from the coast of Guinea, in the _Delight_ (a man-of-war) taken by Low, for they had quarrelled as to the punishment of a pirate who had murdered another. Low was for mercy and Spriggs for the yard-arm.

They then chose Spriggs captain, hoisted the black flag, and fired all their guns to honour his inauguration. In their voyage to the West Indies they plundered a Portuguese bark, tortured the crew, set them adrift in a boat with a small quantity of provisions, and then burnt the vessel. The crew of a Barbadoes sloop they cut and beat for refusing to serve with them, and turned them off like the Portuguese. They next rummaged a logwood ship from Jamaica, cut the cable, broke the windows, destroyed the cabins, and when the mate refused to go with them, every man in the vessel gave him ten lashes, which they called "writing his discharge" in red letters flaring on his back. George the Second's birthday they spent in roaring out healths, shouting, and drinking, expecting that there would be an amnesty at his accession, and vowing, if they were excepted, to murder every Englishman they met. They next gave chase to a vessel (supposed to be a Spaniard), till the crew made a lamentable cry for quarter, and they discovered it was the logwood vessel they had turned off three days before, not worth a penny. Enraged at this, fifteen of them flew at the captain and cut him down, though his mate, who had joined the pirates, interceded for his life. It being midnight, and nearly all, as usual at such an hour, drunk, it was unanimously agreed to make a bonfire of the Jamaica ship. They then called the bleeding captain down into the cabin to supper, and made him, with a sword and pistol at his breast, eat a dish of candles, treating all the crew in the same way. Twenty days afterwards they landed the captain and a passenger on a desert island in the Bay of Honduras, giving them powder, ball, and one musket. Here they supported life for fifteen days, till two marooned sailors coming in a canoe paddled them to another island, where they got food and water. Espying a sloop at sea, they made a great smoke and were taken off after nineteen days' more suffering. Spriggs, while laying wait to take his revenge on the _Eagle_, was pursued by a French man-of-war from Martinique, and then went to Newfoundland to obtain more men and attack Captain Harris, who had lately taken another pirate vessel. Of their future fate we hear nothing. Let us hope they sailed on till they reached Gallows Point and there anchored.

JOHN GOW was one of the crew of an Amsterdam galley, who in 1724, in a voyage to Barbary, plotted to murder the captain and seize the vessel. Having first cut his throat they tried to throw him overboard, but as he grappled with them Gow and the second mate and gunner shot him through the body. They then murdered the chief mate and the clerk, who was asleep in his hammock; the latter, handing the key of his chest, begged for time to say his prayers, but a sailor shot him as he knelt, with a pistol that burst as he fired.

The murders being over, one of the red-handed men came on deck, and, striking a gun with his cutlass, cried "You are welcome, Captain Gow, to your new command." Gow then swore that if any whispered together or refused to obey orders, they should go the same way as those that had just gone. They plundered a French fruit vessel and some others, but were soon after stranded on the Orkney coast, where they had intended to clean, were apprehended by a gentleman named Fea, and brought up to London.

Gow obstinately refusing to plead, his thumbs were tied with whipcord till they broke. As he still remained silent he was ordered by the Draconic law of those days to be pressed to death. When the preparations were completed Gow's courage failed him, he sullenly pleaded not guilty, and was soon after, with nine of his crew at the same time, executed.

Captain WEAVER, of the _Good Fortune_, brigantine, which had taken some sixty sail off the banks of Newfoundland, on his return from thence came to Bristol, and passed himself off as a sailor who had escaped from pirates, walking openly about the town. Here he was met by a captain whom he had once plundered, and who invited him to share a bottle in a neighbouring tavern, telling him he had been a great sufferer by the loss of his ship, but that for four hogsheads of sugar he would never mention the affair again. Unable to obtain this compensation he arrested Weaver, who was soon after hung.

Captain EDWARD LOW, our last commodore, was originally a London thief, the head of a gang of Westminster boys, and a gambler among the footmen in the lobby of the House of Commons. One of his brothers was the first thief who stole wigs by dressing as a porter, and carrying a boy on his head in a covered basket. He ended his days at Tyburn.

Low was originally a logwood cutter at Honduras, but quarrelling with his captain, and attempting his life, put off to sea with twelve companions, and taking a sloop, hoisted a black flag, and declared war against the world. Of his adventures with Lowther we have already made mention. In May, 1722, while off Rhode Island, the governor ordered a drum to beat up for volunteers, and fitted out two sloops with 140 men to pursue him, but Low contrived to escape, and soon after running into Port Rosemary, seized thirteen vessels at one stroke, arming a schooner of ten guns for his own use, putting eighty men on board, and calling her the _Fancy_. He was soon after beaten off by two armed sloops from Boston. Low waiting too long for his consort, a brigantine, to come up, in steering for the Leeward Islands, they were overtaken by a dreadful storm, the same which drowned 400 people at Jamaica, and nearly destroyed the town of Port Royal. The pirates escaped by dint of throwing over all their plunder and six of their guns, and put into one of the Caribbees to refit, buying provisions of the natives. In this storm it was that forty sail of ships were cast away in Port Royal harbour.

Once refitted, Low sailed into St. Michael's road, and took seven sail, threatening with present death all who dared to resist. Being without water, he sent to the governor demanding some, and declaring that if none were sent he would burn all his prizes. On the governor's compliance he released six, and fitted up the seventh for himself. Another one they burnt. The crews they compelled to join them, all but one French cook, who was so fat that they said he would fry well. They then bound him to the mast, and allowed him to burn with the ship. The crew of another galley they cruelly cut and mangled, and two Portuguese friars they tied up to the yard-arm, pulling them up and down till they were dead. A Portuguese passenger looking sorrowfully on at these brutalities, one of the pirates cried out that he did not like his looks, and cut open his belly with his cutlass, so that he fell down dead. Another of the men, cutting at a prisoner, slashed Low across the upper lip, so as to lay the teeth bare. The surgeon was called to stitch up the wound, but the medical man being drunk, Low cursed him for his bungling. He replied by striking Low a blow in the mouth that broke the stitches, telling him to sew up his chops himself.

Off Madeira, they seized a fishing boat, and obtained water by a threat of hanging the fishermen. While careening at the Cape Verd Islands, after making many prizes, Low sent a sloop to St. Michael's in search of two vessels, but his crew were seized and condemned to slavery for life.

In careening his other ship, it was lost, and Low had now to fall back on his old schooner, the _Fancy_, which he sailed in with a hundred men. Proceeding to the West Indies, they captured, after some resistance, a rich Portuguese vessel called the _Nostra Signora de Victoria_, bound home from Bahia. Several of the crew they tortured till they confessed that during the chase their captain had hung a bag of 11,000 moidors out of the cabin window, and when the ship was taken dropped it into the sea. The pirates, in a fury at this, cut off his lips, broiled them before his face, and then murdered him and thirty-two of his crew. In the next month they seized four vessels, burning all those from New England.

In the Bay of Honduras Low boarded a Spanish sloop of six guns and seventy men, that had that morning captured five English vessels. Finding out this from the prisoners in the hold, these butchers proceeded to destroy the whole crew, plunging among them with pole-axes, swords, and pistols. Some leaped into the hold and others into the sea. Twelve escaped to shore: the rest were knocked on the head in the water. While the pirates were carousing on land, one wounded wretch, fainting with his wounds, came to them and begged in God's name for quarter, upon which a brutal sailor replied, he would give him good quarters, and, forcing him down on his knees, ran the muzzle of his gun down his throat, and shot him. They then burnt the vessel, and forced the English prisoners to return to New York, and not to Jamaica.

Hating all men of New England, Low cut off the ears of a gentleman of that nation, and tied burning matches between the fingers of some other prisoners. The crew of a whaler he whipped naked about the deck, and made the master eat his own ears with pepper and salt.

On one occasion, the captain of a Virginian vessel refusing to pledge him in a bowl of punch, he cocked a pistol and compelled him to drain the whole quart. Off South Carolina, his consort was taken by a cruiser, but Low basely deserting him, escaped, and off Newfoundland took eighteen ships, and in July, 1723, he fitted up a prize called the _Merry Christmas_, with thirty-four guns, and assumed the title of admiral, hoisting a black flag, with the figure of death in red. At St. Michael he cut out of the road a London vessel of fourteen guns, which the men refused to defend. The ears of the captain Low cut off, for daring to attempt resistance, and giving him a boat to escape in, burnt his ship.

He then visited the Canaries, Cape de Verd Islands, and lastly, the coast of Guinea. At Sierra Leone he captured the _Delight_, of twelve guns, which he supplied with sixteen guns, and sixty men, appointing Spriggs, his quartermaster, as captain, who two days after deserted him, and sailed for the West Indies.

Of the end of this detestable monster we know nothing, but if there is any truth in old adages, he could not have well perished by a mere storm.

The best account of a pirate's life extant is to be found in Captain Roberts's Narrative of the Loss of his Vessel in 1721, preserved in Astley's amusing Collection of Voyages, four dusty quartos, that contain a mine of "auld warld" information.

This Captain Roberts, it appears, contracted with some London merchants to go to Virginia, to fit out a sloop, named the _Dolphin_, with a cargo "to slave with" on the coast of Guinea, and then to return to trade at Barbadoes. Arriving at that island, in 1722, he was discharged, and upon that bought the _Margaret_ sloop, and started again for the African coast. At Curisal he turned up to procure a supply of wood and water, and the next morning after his arrival, it being calm as day broke, he looked out and espied three sail of ships off the bay, and making one of them plain with his glass, observed that she was full built and loaded, and supposed that she and her companions wanted water, as they first brought to, then edged away without making any signals.

As soon as the day broke clean and they made his ship, one of them stood right in towards her, and as the sun rose and the wind freshened, tacked more to the eastward. As she drew nigher, Roberts found her by his glass to be a schooner full of hands, all in white shirts; and when he saw a whole tier of great guns grinning through the port-holes, he began to suspect mischief. But it was now too late to escape, as it held calm within the bay, and the three ships came crowding in as fast as the wind, flaunting out an English ensign, jack, and pendant. Roberts then hoisted his ensign. The first of the three that arrived had 8 guns, 6 patereroes, 70 men, and stretching ahead hailed him. Roberts said he was of London, and came from Barbadoes. They answered, with a curse, that they knew that, and made him send a boat on board.

The pirate captain, John Lopez, a Portuguese, who passed himself off as John Russel, an Englishman, from the north country, asked them where their captain was. They pointed him out Roberts, walking the deck. He instantly called out, "You dog, you son of a gun, you speckled shirt dog!" for Roberts had just turned out, wore a speckled Holland shirt, and was slipshod, without stockings. Roberts, afraid if he showed contempt by continued silence they would put a ball through him, thought it best to answer, and cried "Holloa!" upon which Russel said, "You dog you, why did you not come aboard with the boat? I'll drub you within an inch of your life, and that inch too."

Roberts meekly replied that only the boat being commanded aboard, he did not think he had been wanted, but if they would please to send the boat, he would wait upon him. "Ay, you dog you," said the Portuguese, "I'll teach you better manners." Upon this eight of the pirates boarded, and took possession of the ship, and as soon as Roberts came alongside, the pirate began again to threaten to drub him for daring to affront him; and when he declared he meant no offence, cried out, "D--n you, you dog, don't stand there to chatter, come aboard," and stood with a cutlass ready drawn to receive him. While still hesitating, the gunner, who wore a gold-laced hat, looked over the side, and said, "Come up, master, you shan't be abused." When he got up, the pirate raised his sabre as if to cut him down, asking what a dog deserved for not coming aboard when the boat was first sent. Roberts replied, if he had done amiss, it was through ignorance, as he did not know what they were. "Curse you," said the pirate, "who do you think we are?" Roberts now trembled for fear, for having once been captured by pirates at Newfoundland, he knew--one wrong word and the knife was at his throat. After a short pause, he said, "I believed you were gentlemen of fortune belonging to the sea." At this the Portuguese, a little pacified, said, "You lie, we are pirates."

After vapouring for some time, the pirate asked, in a sneering tone, why Roberts had not put on his clothes to visit gentlemen. Roberts replied, that he did not know of the visit when he dressed, and, besides, came in such a fright on account of their threats, that he had very little thought or stomach to change clothes, still, if it would please them to grant him the liberty, he would go and put on better clothes, hoping it was not yet too late. "D--n you," said the pirate, "yes, it is too late; what clothes you took you shall keep, but your sloop and what is in her is ours." Roberts said, he perceived it was, but hoped, as he lay at their mercy, they would be so generous as to take only what they had occasion for and leave him the rest.

The Portuguese said, "that was a company business, and he could say nothing about that yet." He then bade him give an account of his cargo and money, and of everything aboard his sloop, for if upon rummaging they found the least article concealed, they would burn the vessel and him in her. The pirates standing by also begged him to make a full discovery of all money, arms, and ammunition, which were the chief things they sought after, for it was their way to punish liars and concealers very severely. Roberts then drew up an account from memory, and asked to see his ship's papers that he might complete it. Russel said, "No, he would take care of the papers, and if anything was found missing in the inventory he must look out for squalls." During this time the pirates were rummaging the sloop, but found nothing but a ring and a pair of silver buckles not inserted in the list.

During the capture a Portuguese priest and six black fishermen, taken on board at the Isle of Sal, who had been sent on shore, escaped to the hills. Russel, seeing them, told Roberts that he had captured the fishing sloop to which the fugitives belonged, but one of his gang had run away with it, carrying off £800 in cash, in addition. Russel then slipped cable and made Roberts pilot them to Paraghisi, in company with their other vessel, the _Rose Pink_, of thirty-six guns, commanded by Edmund Loe, their commodore. At Paraghisi they landed thirty-five men and captured the fugitive priest, five negroes, and the old governor's son. Russel on his return was received with great ceremony by his commander, the gunner acting as master of the ceremonies and presenting Roberts.

Captain Loe welcomed him aboard with the usual compliments, "It's not my desire, captain," he said, "to meet with any of my countrymen (but rather foreigners), excepting some few whom I want to chastise for their roguishness; but, however, since fortune has ordered it so that you have fallen into our hands, I would have you be of good cheer and not cast down."

Roberts replied, "I am very sorry, sir, that I chanced to fall in your way, but I feel I am still in the hands of gentlemen of honour and generosity, in whose power it is still to make my capture no misfortune."

Loe said, "It does not lie singly in my breast, for all business of this nature is determined by a majority of votes in the whole company, and though neither I nor, I believe, any of the rest desire to meet with any of our nation, yet when we do it cannot well be avoided to take as our own what Providence sends us; and, as we are gentlemen who depend entirely on fortune, we durst not be so ungrateful to her as to despise any of her favours, however mean, for fear that she might withdraw her hand and leave us to perish for lack of those very things we had slighted."

After this philosophical utterance, the great man, who sat astride on a great gun, and not, like other potentates, in a chair of state, without moving from his place, begged Roberts, with much condescension, to make himself at home, requesting to know what he would drink. The broken-spirited man, still trembling for his life, replied, "He did not care then much for drinking, but out of a sense of the honour they did him in asking he would drink anything he chose." Loe told him "Not to be cast down, it was the fortune of war: d----, sir, care killed the cat, and fretting thinned the blood and was d---- bad for the health. To please the company he should be brisk and cheerful and he would soon have better fortune."

He then rang the bell and bade one of the _valets de cabin_ bring in a bowl of punch. This was brought and mixed in a rich silver bowl holding two gallons. He then called for some wine, and two bottles of claret being brought, Roberts sipped at the claret while Loe drained the bowl with his usual philosophy and contentment. As he grew warm with the fragrant draught, he told Roberts that he was a d----d good fellow, and he would do him all the favours he could, but wished he had had the good fortune to have been captured ten days earlier, when they had taken two Portuguese outward bound Brazilmen, laden with cloth, woollens, hats, silk, and iron, for he believed he could have prevailed on his company to have loaded Roberts's ship. "But now unfortunately," he added, as he put down the empty bowl, "they had no goods at all, having flung all the Brazil stuffs into David Jones's locker (the sea). He did not know, however, but he might meet Roberts again (such things did come round), and then if it lay in his way he would make Roberts a return for his loss, for he might depend on his readiness to serve him as far as his power or interest could reach." To this outburst of sympathy Roberts replied by bowing and sipping his unrelished glass of claret.

While they were talking word was brought that Quartermaster-General Russel had arrived with the prisoners, and the commodore, ordering the empty bowl to be removed, bade them come in. Russel, the chief officers, and the prisoners then crowded into the cabin, and to the question of "How goes the game?" Russel gave an account of his expedition. On landing they had at once seized two blacks, who had been sent by the governor as heralds, and used them as guides. Though the road was uneven and rocky they reached the town, twelve miles distant, that night, surprising the governor and priest. Russel told them, that hearing they had great stores of dollars hoarded up, he had come to share it with them, as it was one rule of his trade to keep money moving and circulation brisk. The priest said they had none, and the island was barren and uncultivated. Russel said he had only two senses, seeing and feeling, which could convince him the information was false. The priest then lit a number of consecrated wax-candles, and allowed them to search. They found, however, nothing but twenty dollars, which he did not think worth taking. The men then lay down to sleep, keeping their arms loaded and their pistols slung, and setting a watch. The next morning he carried the prisoners to the boats.

Upon this tame conclusion, Loe, who had been sitting patient and quiet as a judge, started up and said, interrupting Russel, "Zounds! what satisfaction is this to me or the company? We did not want these black fools, d----n them! No, we wanted their money, and if they had none, they might have stayed ashore or gone to the devil."

Russel, nettled at this rebuke, replied fiercely, "I have as much interest in getting the money as any of the company, and did as much to find it: I don't believe there was more than we saw, and that wouldn't have been sixpence a head, a trifle not worth having our name called in question for. For my part, I am for something that is worth taking, and if I can't light on such, I never will give the world occasion to say that I am a poor sneaking rogue and mean-spirited fellow. No, I will rob for something of value, or not at all, especially among these people, where, if our company breaks, we may look for a place of refuge; and I boldly affirm that it is a fool's act to draw on us their odium by such peddling thefts, that would be by all men accounted a narrow-souled, beggarly action, and would be cursed to all futurity by this fraternity, who might suffer for its effects."

Captain Loe, abashed by the murmur of approval that followed this speech, said, "it was all very true, and carried a deal of reason with it, that he was satisfied with Russel's judgment and courage in the affair; but come," says he, "let us do nothing rashly"--and filling a bumper, drank to Russel, wishing Roberts better success in his next voyage.

Russel then went on shore again, and, finding the priest had escaped to the mountains, told the governor, an old negro, that he should burn the town to ashes if he was not brought in in three hours' time. The governor said the thing was impossible, that he lay at their mercy, and hoped he would not destroy the innocent for the guilty. Russel declared the doom should not be deferred, but promised the priest should not be killed if he surrendered himself. While parties of blacks were on the hunt, Russel ordered an ox to be roasted for his men, and a pipe of wine to be broached; and on the priest being captured, treated all the natives at their Christian minister's expense, leaving him to extract it from them again in tithes.

The priest and governor, when they heard they were to be taken on board, to assure Loe of their poverty, prayed not to be detained as slaves. Russel told them he was a Catholic, and no harm should be done them. They were soon afterwards released. Loe then ordered a hammock for Roberts, till his own and ship's fate were decreed by the company, telling him generously, in language rather metaphorical than strictly accurate, that everything in the ship was at his command, and begging him not to vary his usual course of hours, drinking, or company. Next morning about eight, as Roberts was pacing unemployed and melancholy on the deck, three pirates came up to him, and said that they had once sailed with him on board the _Susannah_, in 1718. They expressed sorrow for his ill luck, and promised to do something for him. They said they had fifty pieces of white linens, and eight of silk, and that when the company had agreed to restore him his ship, they would make interest to load it. Then looking about as if wishing to tell him a secret, and seeing the deck clear, which it seldom was in pirate vessels, with much concern they informed him that if he did not take abundance of care, he would be forced to stay with them, for their mate had found that he knew the coast of Brazil, whither they were bound after they had scoured that of Guinea, and they would take him as pilot. Then enjoining him to secresy (for their lives depended upon it), they said they had been in close consultation as to his fate, and had almost agreed to take him as a forced prisoner. They had praised him as kind to his men, and a good paymaster, and, knowing the pirate law that no married man could be forced to join their ships, swore at a hazard that he was married, and had four children. His mate had turned informer, but he was as yet ignorant of their articles, which they never showed till they were signed. His only chance of escape was to keep up to their story. Russel, one of the council, had been in favour of breaking through the law in this special case, and keeping Roberts at all events till they could catch another guide, but Loe was opposed to it, telling them it would be an ill precedent and of bad consequence, for that if once they took the liberty of breaking their articles and oath, nothing would be sure. They added that most of the company being of Loe's opinion, Russel was vexed and determined if possible to break the articles.

Soon after they were gone, Loe came on deck, and bidding him good morrow, with many compliments, ordered the flag, the signal for consultation, to be hoisted. This they called "the green trumpeter," and was a green silk flag, with the figure of a trumpeter in yellow, and hoisted on the mizen peak. Upon this all came on board to breakfast, crowding both cabin and steerage.

After breakfast Loe asked Roberts, as if casually, if he was married and had children. The latter answered he had five and perhaps six, for one was on the stocks when he came away. He then asked him, if he had left them well provided for. Roberts replied, he had left his wife in such indifferent circumstances, having met with recent misfortunes, that the greater part of his substance was in that ship and cargo, and if that failed they would want even for bread.

Loe then turned to Russel and said, "It won't do, Russel."

"What won't do?" replied the quartermaster.

"You know what I mean," said Loe; "it must not and it shall not be, by----"

"It must and shall be, by----" replied Russel; "'Self-preservation is the first law of nature,' and 'Necessity knows no law,' says the adage."

"Well," says Loe, "it shall never be by my consent."

The rest of the company then declared it was a pity, and ought to be seriously weighed and put to the vote. Loe said, indeed it ought, and that there was no time like the present to determine the matter. The rest all cried, "Ay, it is best to end it now." Loe then ordered all hands upon deck, and bade Roberts stay in the cabin.

In about two hours (awful hours for Roberts, to sit listening for shouts or cries), Loe came down, and asked him how he did. Russel said, with a frown, "Master, your sloop is very leaky."

Roberts replied it was, wishing to depreciate its value.

"Leaky," said Russel, "I don't know what you could do with her if we gave her you, for all your hands now belong to us." Russel then continued to taunt him for his want of cargo and provision, as if to give a keener edge to his misery.

At last, "Come, come," said Loe, "let us toss the bowl about, and call a fresh course."

They then proceeded to carouse and talk of their past transactions at Newfoundland, the Western Islands, the Canaries, &c., and at dinner tore their food one from the other, thinking such ferocity looked martial.

Next morning one of the three men contrived to speak to Roberts, and apologized for his caution, as they had an article making it death to hold any secret correspondence with a prisoner. He then informed him that his own mate was his great enemy, and seemed likely to turn rogue and enter with them, leaving him only a boy and a child to manage the sloop. Both he and his companions heartily wished to join him, but found it would be death even to mention it, as they had an article that any of the company advising or merely speaking of separation should be shot to death by the quartermaster's order, without even court-martial. Russel had been Roberts' friend till the mate had told him of his captain's knowledge of Brazil, and had even planned a gathering for him nearly equal in value to what they had taken, for it was a custom in pirate vessels to keep a spare stock of linen, silk, gold lace, and clothes, to give to any prisoner whom they took a liking to or had known before. Loe was his friend, the sailor assured him, but that he could do little against Russel, who had really more power and sway than anyone else.

Some time after this man left him, Captain Loe turned out, and, passing the usual compliments, sent for some rum, and discoursed on many indifferent subjects. Upon all of these Roberts was obliged to appear interested, dreading this sea-despot's displeasure. Perhaps a button-holder, like this Trunnion, never had so attentive an auditor, or so hearty an applauder of anecdotes, good or bad.

About ten o'clock Russel, the evil genius, came on board, and accosted Roberts in an agreeable manner, trying to conciliate him into consenting to his proposal. He said, he had been considering Roberts's scheme, and did not see how he could carry it through. He believed Roberts was a man of understanding, but in this case was directed by sheer desperation rather than reason. For his part he did not think it would stand with the credit or reputation of the company to put it into his power to throw himself wilfully away, as he seemed determined to do. Wishing him indeed well, he had been thinking all night upon a scheme which, without exposing him to danger, would turn out more to his advantage than anything he could expect by getting the sloop. (Here Roberts's eye brightened.) He had resolved to sink or burn the sloop, and detain Roberts as a prisoner, all the company promising to give him the first prize they took, or to allow him to join their crew. This would be the making of him, and enable him to soon leave off sea, and live ashore if he were so inclined.

Roberts thanked him, but said he thought he should gather no advantage from such a plan, for he could not dispose of a ship or cargo without a lawful power to sell, and if the owners heard of it, he should be either obliged to make restitution, or be thrown into prison, and run the hazard of his own life.

Russel replied that his objections were frivolous, and could easily be evaded. To avoid detection, they would make him a bill of sale, and give him powers in writing that would answer any inquiry. As for the owners, they would take care from the ship's writings, which they always first seized, to let him know who were the owners of the cargo, and where they lived. These writings should be made in a false name, which Roberts could assume till all were sold.

Roberts said there was abundant address in his contrivance and much plausibility in the whole. But were he even sure that all would turn out well, he had a still stronger motive than any he had yet mentioned, and that was his dread of the continual sting and accusation of his conscience. He then with more courage than he had hitherto shown, began to expatiate on the duty of restitution, and tried to awaken his hearers to some sense of the sin of piracy.

Many said, with a laugh, he would do well to preach a sermon, and would make a good chaplain. Others shouted that they wanted no preaching there. "Pirates had no god but money, no saviour but their muskets." A few approved of what he said, and declared that if a little goodness, or at least rude humanity, was in practice among them, their reputation would be a little better both with God and man.

A short silence followed, which captain Russel broke by employing some Jesuitical sophistry, to persuade Roberts that it would be no sin for him merely to accept what they had stolen, since he had no hand in the theft, and was their constrained prisoner. "Suppose," he said, "we should still resolve to sink or burn your sloop, unless you will accept of her. Now, where I pray, is the owner's property when the ship is sunk or burnt. I think the impossibility of his ever having her again cuts it off to all intents and purposes, and our power was the same, notwithstanding our giving her to you, if we had thought fit to make use of it."

Loe and the rest here burst out laughing, declared it was as good as a play to hear the two argue, and that Roberts was a match for Russel, though few could generally stand up to him in a fight with mere words.

Roberts not allowing this praise to over-balance his prudence, would not drive Russel further, seeing him vexed at their applause. He merely said that he knew he was absolutely in their power to dispose of as they pleased, but that having hitherto been treated so generously by them, he could not doubt of their future goodness to him. That if they would please to give him his sloop again, it was all he requested at their hands, and that, he doubted not, by his honest endeavours he should be able to retrieve his present loss.

Upon this Captain Loe said, "Gentlemen, the master, I must needs say, has spoke nothing but what I think is very reasonable, and I think he ought to have his sloop. What do you say, gentlemen?" The majority cried out with one voice, "Ay, ay, by G---- let the poor man have his sloop again, and go in God's name and seek a living in her for his family."

In the evening Russel insisted on treating Roberts on board his own schooner before his departure. All passed off well till after supper, when a bowl of punch and half a dozen of claret were put on the table. The captain first took a bumper, wishing success to the undertaking, and this toast passed round, Roberts not daring to refuse to drink. The next health was, "Prosperity to our trade." The third, "Health to the King of France." Russel then proposed "The King of England's health," and all drank it, some repeating his words, others saying, "the aforesaid health." Just before it came to Roberts, Russel poured two bottles of claret into the punch, and his prisoner disliking this mixture, begged to pledge the health in a bumper of claret.

At this heresy, Russel, who had laid his trap, flew into a passion, "D----" he said, "you shall drink in your turn a full bumper of that sort of liquor the company does." "Well then, gentlemen," said Roberts, "rather than have words, I will drink, though it is in a manner poison to me." "Curse you," said Russel; "if it be in a manner or out of a manner, or really rank poison, you shall drink as much and as often as anyone here, unless you fall down dead, dead."

Then Roberts, dreading a quarrel with his old enemy, took the glass, which held about three-quarters of a pint, and filling a bumper, said, "The aforesaid health." "What health is that?" said Russel. "Why," answered Roberts, "the health you have all drank--the King of England's health." "Who is king of England?" said Russel. "In my opinion," said Roberts, "he that wears the crown is certainly king of England." "Well," argued his opponent, "and who is that?" Upon his saying King George, he swore at him, and said the English had no king. Roberts replied, laughing, "He wondered he should begin and drink a health to a person who was not in being." At this quip, Russel drew a pistol from his sash, and would have shot his unoffending enemy dead, had not the gunner snatched it out of his hand. At this Russel, who was a Roman Catholic and a Jacobite, grew still more maddened, and fired another at Roberts, saying, "The Pretender is the only lawful king." The master striking down the barrel, the pistol went off without doing mischief.

High words then arose between Russel and the gunner, and the latter, addressing the company, said, "Well, gentlemen, if you have a mind to maintain these laws, made, established, and sworn to by us all, as I think we are obligated by the strongest ties of reason and self-interest to do, I assure you my opinion is that we ought to secure John Russel, so as to prevent his breaking our constitution."

When Russel attempted, still in a passion, to defend his conduct, the gunner declared, "That no man's life should be taken away in cold blood till the company, under whose care he was, had so decreed it." Then accusing him of hating Roberts, merely because he had been prevented from breaking the articles by detaining him, he left the spot.

Russel's arms were next taken away, and Roberts, being guarded during the night, was sent to the commodore in the morning, there being a law among them to receive no boats aboard after nine o'clock at night.

About four in the afternoon Russel came to Loe, with Spriggs, the commander of the other ship, and told him that Roberts's mate was willing to join them as a volunteer. Loe said, in that case Roberts would have no one but a child to help him; and he thought, in reason, they could not give him less than the mate and two boys.

Russel said he could not help that, "the mate was a brisk lusty young fellow, and had been upon the account before. He had declared he would not go in the sloop unless forced; that when he first came to Barbadoes his resolve had been to ship himself on board the first pirate he met with." Loe replied, "That to give the master a vessel without men was only putting him to a lingering death, and they had better knock him on the head at once."

Russel replied, "as for that they might do as they pleased; he spoke for the good of the company and according to articles, and he should like to see or hear the man who dared to gainsay it. He was quartermaster, and by the authority of that office should at once enter the mate, and had a pistol and a brace of bullets for any who opposed him." Loe said he would not argue against law and custom, but he thought if they kept the mate they should substitute another man.

Russel said, with an oath, grinding his teeth, "No, the sloop's men were enrolled already in his books, and he should rub no names out." Then turning to Roberts, he added, "The company, master, has decreed you your sloop, and you shall have her; you shall have your two boys, that's all: but you shall have neither provisions nor anything else more than she has now. And, as I hear some of the company design to make a gathering for you, that also I forbid, by the authority of my office, because we are not certain but we may have occasion ourselves for those very things before we get more. And I swear by all that's good and bad, if I know anything that's carried or left on board the sloop against my order, or without my knowledge, I will set her on fire that very instant, and you with her."

After a little more dispute and feeble and intimidated resistance to this violence, Russel's stern resolution and heartless villany carried the day, and about dusk they parted, each to his own ship, several professing kindness to Roberts, but none giving him anything. When Russel was ready, he sent Roberts into his boat, and bringing him to his own ship, ordered supper for him, and bottles, and pipes and tobacco, being set on the table, he invited Roberts and his officers into his cabin.

His revenge was now accomplished and the wretch, now resolved to make Roberts taste the tortures of death, by anticipation, addressed him with a sneer worthy of the applause of hell.

"Captain Roberts," he said, "you are very welcome, and I pray you eat and drink heartily, for you have as tedious a voyage to go through as Elijah in his forty days' journey to Horeb, and, as far as I know, without a miracle, it must be only by the strength of what you now eat, for you shall have neither eatables nor drinkables with you in the sloop." Roberts replied, "I hope not so," but Russel answered he would find it certainly true.

Roberts then said, that rather than be put on board the sloop in that manner, when there was no possibility of escaping but by a miracle, he should be glad to be sent ashore on some island off the coast of Guinea, or even to tarry on board till an opportunity occurred to land where he pleased, for he would yield to anything else they should think fit to do with him, except entering into their service.

Russel answered with an oath, the usual prelude of a pirate's harangue, that it had been once in his power to have been his own friend, but as he chose to slight their proffered favours, and had made that choice, he must now take it, as all apologies were too late; and he thought he had proved himself a better friend than Roberts could have expected, since he had caused him to have more differences with his company than he had ever had before.

Roberts pleaded the innocence of his intentions, and intreated Russel and all the gentlemen present to consider him an object rather of pity than vengeance. But his tormentor, more inexorable than a headsman, said: "All your whining arguments, you dog, are now too late. You not only refused our commiseration when it was offered, but ungratefully despised it. Your lot is cast, and you have nothing to do but to go through your chance with a good face. Fill your belly with victuals and good drink, and strengthen yourself for three days or so, or have some brandy and die drunk, and be happy. This is your last meal in this world, so fail not to make the most of it. Yet, perhaps, such a conscientious man as you pretend to be may have a miracle worked for you, but for my own part I don't believe God himself, if there is one, could help you. I pity the boys, and have a great mind, Roberts, to keep them on board, and let the miracle be worked on you alone."

The master and governor said they heard the boys were willing to take their chance with the master, let it be what it would. "Nay, then," said Russel, "it is fit the young devils should, and I suppose the master has made them as religious and conscientious as himself. However, master," he cried, "eat and drink heartily; this is your last supper, as the priests call it, and don't try to change your allotted fate, or it may provoke us to treat you worse."

"Gentlemen," said Roberts, with a resignation that would have touched any other man, "I have done; you can do no more than God is pleased to permit you, and I own for that reason I ought to take it patiently. God forgive you." "Well, well," said Russel, "if it is done by God's permission, you need not fear He will permit any harm to befall one of his peculiar elect."

About ten at night, in order that darkness might add to his dismay, some of Russel's partisans brought the sloop's boat. In answer to an inquiry as to whether they had cleared the vessel as he had ordered, they replied with an oath, "Ay, ay, she has nothing on board except ballast and water." "Zounds," said Russel, stamping on the deck, "did I not bid you stave all the casks that had water in them?" "So we have," was the reply; "the water we mean is salt water leaked in, and now above the ballast, for we have not pumped her, we don't know when." He asked if they had brought away the sails. They said they had, all but the mainsail that was bent, for the other old mainsail was so rotten it was only fit to cut up for parcelling, and was so torn it could not be brought to, and was past mending.

"Zounds," said Russel, "we must have it, for I want it to make us a mainsail. The same miraculous Power that brings the rogue provisions will bring him sails."

"What a devil! is he a conjuror?" said one.

"No, no!" replied Russel, "but he expects miracles to be wrought for him, or he would never have chosen what he has."

"Nay, nay, if he be such a one, he will do well enough."

"But I doubt," cried another, "if he be such a mighty conjuror, for if he was, how the devil was it that he did not conjure himself clear of us?"

"Pish!" cried a third, "may be his conjuring books were all shut up."

"Ay," said a fourth, "now we have all his conjuration books over board, I doubt he'll be hard put to it."

The gunner alone seemed to retain any trace of humanity, he bade Russel take care he had not this to answer for some day when he would be sorry for it. "Howsum-dever," he said, "you've got the company's assent, I can't tell how, and, therefore, I shall say no more, only that I, and I believe most of the gentlemen came here to get money, but not to kill, except in fight, much less in cold blood, or for private revenge. And I tell you, Jack Russel, if ever such cases as these be any more practised, my endeavours will be to leave this company as soon as convenient."

Russel made no answer, but ordered his men to fetch the mainsail from the sloop. He then gave Roberts an old worm-eaten musket, a damp cartridge, and two half pounds of tobacco "as a parting present." His victim was then conducted with great ceremony over the side into his own boat, and put on board with his two boys.

As their boat was putting away, Roberts thought he heard his mate's voice, so he called to him and said, "Arthur! what, are you going to leave me?" A voice replied, for it was pitch dark, "Ay." "What!" said Roberts, "do you do it voluntarily, or are you forced?" He answered faintly, "I am forced, I think!" Roberts answered "Very well." The mate then called out and asked Roberts, if he ever had an opportunity, to write and give his brother an account of him. Roberts asked where he lived, and the mate replied at Carlingford, in Ireland. Now this mate the captain had picked up at Barbadoes, a naked shipwrecked man, who had served in a New England sloop. He had bought him clothes and instruments, and treated him with sympathy and kindness. He was a rigid Presbyterian, a great arguer on theological points, and a loud inveigher against the Church of England. Although he had never before been heard to utter an oath, as soon as Russel persuaded him to join the pirate crew, he became constantly drunk, and outdid them all in blasphemy and wickedness, but he had told his new companions so much of Roberts's kindness, that but for Russel they would not have allowed him to join them.

Next morning Roberts proceeded to rummage the sloop, and sweeping out the bread lockers, he found about his hat crown full of biscuit crumbs, some broken pipes, and a few screws of tobacco. They had left his fore-staff, but took his bedding, although they generally lay upon deck, or against a gun carriage. In the hold, the more merciful had left ten gallons of rum in one hogshead, and thirty pounds of rice in another, with three pints of water and a little flour, together with some needles and twine, sufficient to repair his rotten sails. A day or two afterwards they caught a shark, which they boiled for several dinners, using the shark's liver, melted, for oil. He soon after reached Curisal, obtained a negro crew, was wrecked, built a boat, and was eventually taken home by an English ship.

Scarcely less interesting than this narrative of Roberts is that of Captain William Snelgrave, who was engaged in the slave trade on the Guinea coast in 1738. Having escaped one of the dreaded Salee rovers, he was taken at Sierra Leone by Captain Cocklyn of the _Rising Sun_, a pirate commanding three vessels and a gang of eighty men. He had been marooned by a man named Moody, but had gradually collected men, and captured, in a short time, ten English vessels. Moody's crew, soon after Cocklyn's departure, disliking their captain's cruelty, put him and twelve more in an open boat, which they had taken from the Spaniards off the Canary Islands, and chose a Frenchman named Le Bouce as their commander, who instantly put back and joined Cocklyn, whom they liked because he was fierce and brutal, being resolved to have no more gentlemanlike captains like Moody.

The next day Davis, the pirate, arrived with 150 well disciplined men, the black flag flying at his mast head.

The evening Snelgrave entered the river, he observed a suspicious smoke on land, but his mate said it was only travellers roasting oysters, and it appeared afterwards that he was a traitor. On standing in for the river's mouth, the pirate vessels appeared in sight. Towards dusk he heard a boat approaching, so he ordered twenty men to get ready their firearms and cutlasses. Lanterns being brought and the boat hailed, the pirates fired a volley at the ship, being then within pistol shot distance, a daring act for twelve men, who were attacking a ship of sixteen guns and forty-five men.

When they began to near, the captain called out to fire from the steerage port-holes. This not being done, he went below, and found his people staring at each other, and declaring they could not find the arm chest. The pirates instantly boarded, fired down the steerage, shooting a sailor in the loins, and throwing hand grenades amongst them. On their calling for "mercy," the quartermaster, who always headed the pirate boarders, came down from the quarterdeck and inquired for the captain, asking how he dared to fire. On Snelgrave saying it was his duty to defend his ship, the quartermaster presented a pistol at his breast, but he parried it, and the bullet passed under his arm. The wretch then struck him on the head with the butt end, bringing him on his knees. On his getting up and running to the quarterdeck, the pirate boatswain made a blow at his head with his broad sword, swearing no quarter should be offered to any captain who dared to defend his vessel. The blow missed him, but the blade cut an inch deep in the quarterdeck rail, and there broke. The pirate's pistols being all unloaded, he then struck at him with the butt end of one of them till the crew cried out for his life, and said they had never sailed with a better man. One of the crew, however, had his chin cut off; another fell for dead on the deck. The quartermaster who came up, told him he should be cut to pieces if his men did not recover the pirate's boat that had run adrift. On recovering this, he took him by the hand, and declared his life was safe if none of his crew complained of him. The pirate then fired several vollies for joy at their recovery, but forgetting to hail their companions, were fired on by the other ships. When Snelgrave questioned the quartermaster why he did not use his speaking trumpet, he asked him angrily whether he was afraid of going to the devil by a great shot, "for that he hoped to be sent to hell by a cannon ball some time or other."

The pirates now prepared for dinner by cramming geese, turkeys, fowls, and ducks, all unpicked, into the furnace, with some Westphalia hams, and a large sow in pig, which they only bowelled, leaving the hair on. Soon after this, a sailor came to Snelgrave to ask him what o'clock it was, and on the captain's presenting him with his watch, laid it on the deck, and kicked it about, saying it would make a good football. One of the pirates then caught it up, and said it should go into the common chest, and be sold at the mast.

Snelgrave was soon after carried on board the pirate ship. The commander told him he was sorry for the bad usage he had met with, but it was the fortune of war, and that if he did not answer truly every question he would be cut into even ounces, but that if he told the truth they would make it the best voyage he had ever taken. One of them asked if his ship sailed well on wind, and on his saying, "Very well," Cocklyn threw up his hat, saying she would make a brave pirate man-of-war. A tall fellow, with four pistols in his belt, and a broadsword in his hand, then came up and claimed him as an old schoolfellow, and told him secretly that he was a forced man, having been mate in a Bristol vessel lately captured, and was obliged to go armed. He told him also that at night, when the pirates drank hard, was the time of most danger for prisoners.

A bowl of punch was then ordered, and the men, going into the great cabin, sat on the floor cross-legged, for want of seats, drinking the Pretender's health by the name of "King James the Third." At midnight they gave Snelgrave a hammock, and his old schoolfellow kept guard over him with a drawn sword, but he could not sleep for the songs and cursing. About two o'clock the pirate boatswain came on board, and hearing Snelgrave was asleep, declared he would slice his liver for daring to fire at the boat, and refusing to give up his watch. Griffin threatened to cleave him if he came nearer, and struck at him with his sword. In the morning, when all were sober, the sentinel complained of the boatswain for infringing the pirate law, "that no ill usage be offered to prisoners when quarter has once been given." The crew proposed the offender should be whipped, but Snelgrave prudently begged him off. Soon after, his own first mate came to tell him that, being badly off and having a scolding wife, he had joined the pirates. He found out afterwards that he had hid the arm-chest, and dissuaded the men from resistance.

The pirate then began to rummage the vessel, and, not caring for anything but money, threw overboard, before night, about £4000 worth of Indian bales. They broke up his escritoires, and destroyed his chests of books, swearing there was "jaw work enough for a whole nation." Against all religious books they exercised a strict censorship, for fear of any of the crew being roused to qualms of conscience, or taking a dislike to the profession. The wine too began to be passed freely round, and the pirates grew merciful, and good-humouredly made up a bundle of clothes for the prisoners. At this moment one of Davis's crew, a pert young fellow of 18, broke open a chest for plunder, and on the quartermaster complaining, replied "that they were all equal, and he thought he was in the right." The quartermaster then struck at him with his sword, and pursued him into Davis's cabin, where he thrust at him, and ran him through the hand, wounding the captain as well. Davis vowed revenge, saying that if his man had offended, no one had a right to punish him, and especially in his presence. He then instantly went on board his own ship, and bore down upon Cocklyn, who finally consented to make the quartermaster beg pardon for his fault.

Snelgrave was sitting in the cabin with the carpenter and three or four other pirates, when the boatswain came down very drunk, and beginning to abuse him was turned out of the place. Soon after a puff of wind put out the candle, and the boatswain returning, declared Snelgrave had put it out, with the design of going into the powder-room and blowing up the ship; and in spite of the carpenter declaring it was done by accident, he drew a pistol and swore he would blow out the dog's brains. In rising to blow in the candle Snelgrave and the carpenter had, unknown to the boatswain, changed places. The pistol flashing in the pan, the carpenter saw by the light that he must have been shot if it had gone off, and in a rage ran in the dark to the boatswain, wrenched the pistol from his hand and beat him till he was nearly dead. The noise alarmed the ship, and the disturber was carried off to bed.

The next morning Davis's crew came on board to divide the wines and liquors. They hoisted on deck a great many half hogsheads of claret and French brandy, knocked out their heads and dipped out cans and bowls full, throwing them at each other, and washing the decks with what was left. The bottles they took no trouble to mark, but "nicked" them, as they called it, by striking off their necks with a cutlass, spilling the contents of about one in every three. The eatables were wasted in the same way. Three drunken pirates coming into the cabin, and tumbling over Snelgrave's bundles of clothes, threw three of the four overboard. A fourth pirate, more sober than the rest, opened the remaining bundle, and taking out a black suit and a wig, put them on and strutted on deck, throwing them over in an hour when the crew had drenched him with claret. When Snelgrave mildly expostulated with him on this robbery, he struck him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, whispering at the same time a caution never to dispute the will of a pirate for fear he might get his skull split for his impudence.

When night came on, Snelgrave had nothing left of four bundles of clothes but a hat and a wig, and these were soon after put on by a drunken man, who staggered into the cabin, saying he was "one of the most respectable merchants on the African coast." As he was leaving the room, a sailor came in and beat him severely for taking what he had no right to, and thinking he was one of the crew. The interposer then comforted Snelgrave, and promised to recover what he had lost, while others of the crew brought him food.

Next day, Davis, ordering all the crews on the quarter-deck, made a speech in Snelgrave's behalf, persuading them to give him a ship and several thousand pounds' worth of miscellaneous plunder. One of the men proposed they should take him with them down the Guinea coast, and if they took a Portuguese vessel, to give him a cargo of slaves. Down the coast he might sell his goods for gold dust, and then, sailing for St. Thomas's, sell his ship and the slaves to the Danes, and return to London a rich man. Snelgrave demurring to this, they grew angry, thinking their gift would have been legal, but Davis kindly said, "I know this man and can easily guess his thoughts, he thinks he would lose his reputation. Now, I am for allowing everybody to go to the devil in their own way, so beg you to give him the remains of his own cargo and let him do as he thinks fit."

This they granted, but of his own adventure not more than £50 worth was now left. The sailors had taken rolls of fine Holland and opened them to lie down in on the deck. Then when the others came and flung buckets of claret over them, they flung the stained parcels overboard. In loading, the pirates always dropped the bales over, if they were not passed as quickly as they expected. The Irish beef they threw away, Cocklyn saying Snelgrave had horsebeans enough to last his crew six months.

Soon after this the brutal quartermaster fell sick of a fever, and sent to Snelgrave to beg his forgiveness, for having attempted to shoot him. He said he had been a wicked wretch, and that his conscience tormented him, for he feared he should roll in hell fire. When Snelgrave preached repentance he declared his heart was hardened, but he would try, and he ordered Snelgrave to take any necessaries he wanted from his chest, but died that night in terrible agonies and cursing God. This so affected many of the new recruits that they begged Snelgrave to get them off, and promised not to be guilty of murder or other cruelty. In the cabin the pirates found some proclamations, and being unable to read asked the prisoner to do it for them. He then read His Majesty's proclamation for a pardon to all pirates that should surrender themselves at any of the British plantations by the 1st of July, 1719. The next was the declaration of war against Spain. When they heard the latter, some said they wished they had known it before they left the West Indies, as they might have turned privateersmen, and have enriched themselves. Snelgrave told them it was not yet too late, there being still three months left of the term prescribed. But when they heard the rewards offered for the apprehension of pirates, a Buccaneer who had been guilty of murder, treated the proclamation with contempt, and tore it in pieces. Amongst other men that consulted Snelgrave was a sailor named Curtis, who, being sick, walked about the deck wrapped in a silk gown. He had sailed with Snelgrave's father. Among other spoil the three pirate captains had found a box with three second-hand embroidered coats, which they seized and put on. The longest falling to Cocklyn's share, who was a short man, it reached to his ankles, but Le Bouce and Davis refused to change with him, saying that as he was going on shore where the negro ladies knew nothing of white men's fashions, it did not matter, and moreover, as his coat was scarlet embroidered with silver, he would be the bravest of them all.

These clothes being taken contrary to law, and without the quartermaster's leave, the crew were offended, declaring that if they suffered such things, the captains would assume a new power, and soon take whatever they liked. The next morning when their captains returned, the coats were taken from them, and put into the common chest; and it having been reported that Snelgrave had advised the costume, many of the men turned against him, one of them threatening to cut him to pieces. A sailor who stood near told Snelgrave not to be frightened at the man's threat, for he always spoke in that way, and advised him to call him "captain" when he came on board, for the fellow had once been commander of a pirate sloop, did not like the post of quartermaster, and loved to be called by his old title. On entering the ship, Snelgrave said softly to him, "Captain Williams, pray hear me on the point you are so offended about." Upon this Williams gave him a playful blow on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, and said "I have not the heart to hurt thee." He then explained the affair, drank a glass of wine with him, and they were friends ever after. The pirates next captured a French ship that they had at first taken for a forty-gun ship in pursuit of them. The men drunk and newly levied, might at this time have easily been cut off, and the hundred sail of ships they afterwards destroyed saved. When some of the men cried out that they had never seen a gun fired in anger, Cocklyn caned them, telling them they should soon learn to smell gunpowder. The French captain they hung at the yard-arm for not striking at their first shot. When they had pulled him up and down several times till he was almost dead, Le Bouce interfered for his countryman, protesting he would sail no longer with such barbarous villains. They then gave him the French ship, first destroying her cargo, cutting her masts by the board, and running her on shore, as old and useless.

Snelgrave's ship being now fitted up by the pirates, he was invited to its christening. The officers stood round the great cabin, holding bumpers of punch in their hands; and on Captain Cocklyn saying, "God bless the Wyndham galley," they drank the liquor, broke their glasses, and the guns thundered a broadside.

The new ship being galley built with only two flush decks, the powder-room scuttle was in the chief cabin, and at that time stood open. One of the guns blowing at the touch-hole, set fire to some cartouch boxes that held small arm cartridges, the shot of which flew about, filling the room with smoke. When it was over, Davis remarked on the great danger they had been in, the scuttle having been all the time open, and 20,000 lb. weight of powder lying under. Cocklyn replied with a curse, "I wish it had taken fire, for it would have been a noble blast to have gone to hell with."

The next day the pirate captains invited Snelgrave to dinner, and during supper a trumpeter and other musicians, who had been taken from various prizes, played and sang. About the middle of supper there was a sudden cry of fire, and a sailor boy, running in, with a pale face, said the main hatchway was on fire. The crew were then nearly drunk, and many of them leaped into the boats, leaving the officers and the fifty prisoners. On Snelgrave remarking to Davis the danger they were in, being left without a boat, Davis fired a great gun at the fugitives, and brought them back. The gunner then put wet blankets on the bulk head of the powder-room, and so saved it from destruction. This immense store of powder had been collected from various prizes, as being an article in great request with the negroes. Snelgrave took one of the quarterdeck gratings and lowered it over the ship's side with a rope, in case he should be obliged to leave the ship, and all this time the drunken sailors were standing on the quarterdeck, to the horror of the prisoners, shouting, "Hurrah for a quick passage to hell!"

About ten o'clock the master, a brisk and courageous man, who, with fifteen more, had spared no pains to conquer the flames, came up miserably burnt, and calling for a surgeon, declared the danger was now all over. The fire had arisen from the carelessness of a negro, who being sent to pump out some rum, held his candle so near the bung-hole of the hogshead that a spark caught the spirit. This soon fired another tub, and both their heads flew off with the report of a cannon; but though there were twenty casks of rum, and as many of pitch and tar in the store, all the rest escaped.

Before morning, the gunner's mate having spoken in favour of Snelgrave's conduct during the fire, the crew sent for him to attend the sale of his effects on board the Wyndham galley. Some promised to be kind to him; and the captain offered to buy his watch. As they were talking, a mate, half drunk, proposed that Snelgrave should be kept as a pilot till they left the coast, but Davis caned him off the quarter deck.

Two days after this the pirates took a small vessel belonging to the African Company. Snelgrave's first mate then told them that he had been once very badly served by this company, and begged that they would burn the vessel in revenge. This was about to be ordered when Stubbs, a quick-witted sailor, stood up and said, "Pray, gentlemen, hold, and I will prove to you that the burning of this ship will only advance the company's interests. The vessel has been out two years; is old, crazy, and worm-eaten; her stores are worth little, and her cargo consists only of red wood and pepper, the loss of which will not harm the company, who will save the men's wages, which will be three times the value of the cargo." This convinced the crew, who at once spared the vessel, and returned her to the captain.

A few days afterwards, Snelgrave's things were sold at the mast, many of the men returning him their purchases, his old school-fellow in particular begging hard on his behalf. When the fiercer men observed the great heap of things he had collected, they swore the dog was insatiable, and said it would be a good deed to throw them overboard. Hearing this, Snelgrave loaded his canoe, and, by the advice of his friends, returned to shore. Soon after he left, his watch was put up for sale, and run to £100 in order to vex Davis, who, however, bought it at that enormous price. One of the sailors, enraged at this, tried the case on a touch-stone, and, seeing it looked copperish from the alloy in the gold, swore it was bad metal. They then declared Snelgrave was a greater rogue than any of them, since he had cheated them all. Russel laughed at this, and then vowed to whip him when he came next. Upon the advice of his friends, Snelgrave hid in the woods till the pirates left the river, and soon after returned with several other ruined men to England.

Of the MADAGASCAR PIRATES some scanty record in Hamilton's Account of the East Indies, published in 1726. He mentions the fact that the pirates had totally destroyed the English slave trade in that island, in spite of several squadrons of men-of-war sent against them. To use the author's own rather ambiguous words, "A single ship, commanded by one Millar, did more than all the chargeable fleets could do, for, with a cargo of strong ale and brandy, which he carried to sell them in 1704, he killed about 500 of them by carousing, though they took his ship and cargo as a present from him, and his men entered, most of them, into the society of the pirates." Commodore Littleton lent them blocks and tackle-falls to careen, and, for some secret reasons, released some of their number.

The author concludes in the following manner: "Madagascar is environed with islands and dangerous shoals both of rocks and sand. St. Mary's, on the east side, is the place which the pirates first chose for their asylum, having a good harbour to defend them from the weather, though in going in there are some difficulties. But hearing the squadrons of English ships were come in quest of them, they removed to the main island for more security, and there they have made themselves free denizens by marriage." And the author is of opinion it will be no easy matter to dispossess them. In 1722 Mr. Matthews went in search of them, but found they had deserted St. Mary's Island, leaving behind them some marks of their robberies, for in some places he found pepper strewed a foot thick on the ground. The commodore went, with his squadron, over into the main island, but the pirates had carried their ships into rivers or creeks, out of danger of the men-of-war, and to burn them with their boats would have been impracticable, since they could have easily distressed the crews from the woods. The commodore had some discourse with several of them, but they stood on their guard, ready to defend themselves in case any violence had been offered them.

The 11th and 12th of William III., and the 8th George I., are both statutes against piracy, and are indications of the years in which their ravages were peculiarly felt. By the first, any natural-born subject committing an act of hostility against any of his Majesty's subjects, under colour of a commission from any foreign power, could be tried for piracy. And further, any commander betraying his trust, and running away with the ship, or yielding it up voluntarily to a pirate, or any one confining his captain to prevent him fighting, was adjudged a pirate, felon, and robber, and was sentenced to death.

The later acts make it piracy even to trade with known pirates.

Commanders or seamen wounded, or their widows slain in piratical engagements, were entitled to a bounty not exceeding one-fiftieth part of the value of the cargo, and wounded men received the pension of Greenwich Hospital. If the commander behaved cowardly, he was to forfeit all his wages, and suffer six months' imprisonment.

Such are a few of the facts connected with the almost unrecorded and uncertain history of the pirates of New Providence and Madagascar, the most loathsome wretches that perhaps, since Cain, have ever washed their hands in human blood. Ferocious yet often cowardly, they were subtle and cruel, with none of the frequent generosity of outlaws, and little of the enterprise of the military adventurers. Long ago have their bones crumbled from the dark gibbets on the lonely sand islands of the Pacific, and they remain without monument or record, except in prison chronicles and forgotten voyages. We have reviewed their history simply as the natural sequel of our annals, and as an illustration of the character of the English seaman in its most brutal and satanic aspect.

THE END.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES.

BUCCANEER WRITERS.

JOHN (JOSEPH?) ESQUEMELING'S[1] Bucaniers of America; or, an Account of the most Remarkable Assaults committed on the Coasts of the West Indies by the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga; with the Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan. Translated into English from the Dutch, with a Portrait of Sir H. Morgan, a Map and Plates, with a Table. 4to. London. 1684.

[1] Rich, in his "Bibliotheca Americana Nova," 1835, confounds Esquemeling, the Dutchman, with Oexmelin, the Frenchman. The English translation of 1684 speaks of Esquemeling's work as written by a Frenchman and Dutchman together, the name being French and the language Dutch. Rich describes it as first printed in Dutch, 1678; then translated into Spanish; then from Spanish into English, and from English into French; the author's name being changed in the latter translation.

---- De Americanische Zee Roovers. 4to. Amsterdam. 1678.

---- Hisp. 12mo. Col. Ag. 1682.

---- Eng. 12mo. London. 1684.

---- 4to. Col. Ag. 1684.

---- 12mo. 4 vols. Maps and Plates. Trevoux. (Augmentée de l'Histoire des Pirates Anglais depuis leur Etablissement dans l'Isle de Providence jusqu'au Presént.): 1775.

OEXMELIN, ALEXANDRE OLIVIER--Histoire des Avanturiers qui se sont signalés dans les Indes Occidentales depuis Vingt Ans. Traduite de l'Anglais par le Sr. de Frontignières; avec un Traité de la Chambre de Comptes établie dans les Indes par les Espagnols, traduit de l'Espagnol; le tout enriché des Cartes et des Figures, avec des Tables. 2 vols. 12mo. Paris. 1688.

---- 8vo. Paris. 1688. 2 tom.

JESUIT HISTORIANS.

PIERRE FRANÇOIS XAVIER CHARLEVOIX--Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole, ou de St. Domingue, écrite sur des Mémoires Manuscrits du P. Jean Baptiste le Tertre, Jésuite Missionaire à St. Domingue, et sur les Pièces Originales qui se conservent au Dépôt de la Marine; avec des Cartes, des Plans, et des Tables. 2 vols. 4to. Paris. 1730-31.

Piratas de la America y Luz à la Defensa de las Costas de Indias Occidentales. Traducida del Flamenco en Espanol, por el Doctor Buena Maison, Medico Practico en la Amplissima y Magnifica Ciudad de Amsterdam Dala à Luz esta Tercera Edicion, D.M.G.R. Madrid. 4to. 1763. 12mo. 1682. 4to. 1684.

JEAN BAPTISTE DU TERTRE, missionaire apostolique dans les Antilles--Histoires des Antilles Habitées par les François; avec des Figures. 4 vols. 4to. Paris. 1667-71.

JEAN BAPTISTE LABAT, Dominicain Parisien, professeur des Philosophies à Nanci, etc.--Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amérique. 8 vols. 12mo. Paris. 1742.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER'S Voyage Round the World. Illustrated with Maps and Plates. 4 vols. in 3. 8vo. London. 1703-9.

CAPTAIN COWLEY'S Voyage Round the Globe. 8vo. London. 1679.

LIONEL WAFER'S Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America. 8vo. London, 1699. 8vo. London, 1704.

CAPTAIN JAMES BURNEY'S Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. 3 vols. 4to. 1803-13-17.

CAPTAIN T. SOUTHEY'S Chronological History of the West Indies. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1817.

LIST OF BUCCANEER CHIEFS,

FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THEIR EMPIRE TO ITS DOWNFALL.

LOUIS SCOTT. PIERRE LE GRAND. PIERRE FRANÇOIS. ROC THE BRAZILIAN. BARTHELEMY PORTUGUES. LOLONNOIS THE CRUEL. ALEXANDRE BRAS DE FER. MONTBARS THE EXTERMINATOR. MOSES VAN VIN. PIERRE LE PICARD. TRIBUTOR. CAPTAIN CHAMPAGNE. LE BASQUE. SIR HENRY MORGAN. CAPTAIN SWAN. CAPTAIN SHARP. CAPTAIN BRADLEY. CAPTAIN COXEN. CAPTAIN BETSHARP. DAMPIER. CAPTAIN GROGNIET. CAPTAIN YANKEY. LAURENT DE GRAFF. SIEUR DE GRAMMONT. SIEUR DE MONTAUBAN. DE LISLE. ANNE LE ROUX. VAUCLIN. OVINET. ELIAS WARD. WILLIS. D'OGERON. CAPTAIN DAVIS. VAN HORN. CAPTAIN MICHAEL. CAPTAIN ROSE. CAPTAIN DAVIOT.

LONDON: SERCOMBE AND JACK, 16 GREAT WINDMILL STREET.

Just Published, Illustrated with Portraits,

THE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES,

COMPLETING THE WORK, OF THE

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT & CABINETS OF GEORGE III.

FROM ORIGINAL FAMILY DOCUMENTS.

BY THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM & CHANDOS, K.G.

Among the principal important and interesting subjects of these volumes (comprising the period from 1800 to 1810) are the following:--The Union of Great Britain and Ireland--The Catholic Question--The retirement from office of Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville--The Addington Administration--The Peace of Amiens--The connection of the Prince of Wales with the Opposition--The Coalition of Pitt, Fox, and Grenville--The Downfall of the Addington Ministry--The conduct of the Princess of Wales--Nelson in the Baltic and at Trafalgar--The Administration of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox--The Abolition of the Slave Trade--The Walcheren Expedition--The Enquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York--The Convention of Cintra--The Expeditions to Portugal and Spain--The Quarrel of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning--The Malady of George III.--Proceedings for the establishment of the Regency. The Volumes also comprise the Private Correspondence of Lord Grenville, when, Secretary of State and First Lord of the Treasury--of the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, when President of the Board of Control and First Lord of the Admiralty--of the Duke of Wellington, during his early Campaigns in the Peninsula; with numerous confidential communications from George III., the Prince of Wales, Lords Castlereagh, Elgin, Hobart, Camden, Essex, Carysfort, Melville, Howick, Wellesley, Fitzwilliam, Temple, Buckingham, Mr. Fox, Mr. Wyndham, &c. &c.

N.B.--A FEW COPIES OF THE FIRST AND SECOND VOLUMES OF THIS WORK MAY STILL BE HAD.

"These volumes contain much valuable matter. There are three periods upon which they shed a good deal of light--the formation of the Coalition Ministry in 1783, the illness of the King in 1788, and the first war with Republican France."--_Times._

"A very remarkable and valuable publication. In these volumes the most secret history of many important transactions is for the first time given to the public."--_Herald._

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Mismatched quotation marks in one paragraph of Chapter I were left as in the original.