time after, it being about two o'clock in the morning, the pirate boatswain (that attempted to kill me when taken) came on board very drunk, and being told I was in a hammock, he came near me with his cutlass. My generous schoolfellow asked him what he wanted; he answered, 'To kill me, for I was a vile dog.' Then Griffin bade the boatswain keep his distance, or he would cleave his head asunder with his broadsword. Nevertheless, the bloodthirsty villain came on to kill me; but Mr. Griffin struck at him with his sword, from which he had a narrow escape; and then he ran away. So I lay unmolested till daylight.
I come now to relate how Mr. Simon Jones, my first mate, and ten of my men entered with the pirates. The morning after we were taken he came to me and told me that his circumstances were bad at home; moreover, he had a wife whom he could not love; and for these reasons he had entered with the pirates and signed their articles. I was greatly surprised at this declaration, and told him I believed he would repent when too late. And, indeed, I saw the poor man afterwards despised by his brethren in iniquity, and have been told he died a few months after they left Sierra Leone. However, I must do him the justice to own he never showed any disrespect to me, and the ten people he persuaded to enter with him remained very civil to me. But I learned afterwards from one of them that, before we came to Sierra Leone, Jones had said that he hoped we should meet with pirates, and that it was by his contrivance that the chest of arms was hid out of the way when we were taken. And when I called on the people in the steerage to fire on the pirate boat, Jones prevented them, declaring that this was an opportunity he had long wished for, and that if they fired a musket they would all be cut to pieces. Moreover, to induce them to enter with the pirates, he had assured them that I had promised to enter myself. So it was a wonder I escaped so well, having such a base wretch for my first officer.
As soon as the fumes of the liquor were out of the pirates' heads they went on board the prize, as they called my ship, and all hands went to work to clear it, by throwing over bales of woollen goods, with many other things of great value, so that before night they had destroyed between three and four thousand pounds worth of the cargo – money and necessaries being what they wanted. The sight of this much grieved me, but I was obliged in prudence to be silent.
That afternoon there came on board to see me Captain Henry Glynn, with whom I was acquainted, who resided at Sierra Leone, but though an honest, generous person, was on good terms with the pirates. He brought with him the captains of the two other pirate ships, and Captain Davis generously said he was ashamed to hear how I had been used, for their reasons for going a-pirating were to revenge themselves on base merchants and cruel commanders, but none of my people gave me the least ill character; and, indeed, it was plain that they loved me.
This was by no means relished by Cochlyn; however, he put a good face on it.
That night the boatswain came down into the steerage, where he had seen me sitting with the ship's carpenter, but since we happened to have changed places, and it had grown so dark he could not distinguish our faces, he, thinking I sat where he had seen me before, presented a pistol and drew the trigger, swearing he would blow my brains out. By good fortune the pistol did not go off, but only flashed in the pan; by the light of which the carpenter, observing that he should have been shot instead of me, it so provoked him that he ran in the dark to the boatswain, and having wrenched the pistol out of his hand, he beat him to such a degree that he almost killed him. The noise of the fray being heard on board the pirate ship that lay close to us, a boat was sent from her, and they being told the truth of the matter, the officer in her carried away this wicked villain, who had three times tried to murder me.
I had one bundle of my own things left to me, in which was a black suit of clothes. But a pirate, who was tolerably sober, came in and said he would see what was in it. He then took out my black suit, a good hat and wig, and some other things. Whereon I told him I hoped he would not deprive me of them, for they would be of no service to him in so hot a country, but would be of great use to me, as I hoped soon to return to England.
I had hardly done speaking, when he lifted up his broadsword and gave me a blow on the shoulder with the flat side of it, whispering in my ear at the same time:
'I give you this caution, never to dispute the will of a pirate; for, supposing I had cleft your skull asunder for your impudence, what would you have got by it but destruction?'
I gave him thanks for his warning, and soon after he put on the clothes, which in less than half an hour after I saw him take off and throw overboard, for some of the pirates, seeing him dressed in that manner, had thrown several buckets of claret upon him. This person's true name was Francis Kennedy.
The next day, understanding that the three pirate captains were on shore at my friend Captain Glynn's, I asked leave to go to them, which was granted, and next day I went on board in company with them. Captain Davis desired Cochlyn to order all his people on the quarter-deck, and made a speech to them on my behalf, which they falling in with, it was resolved to give me the ship they designed to leave to go into mine, with the remains of my cargo, and further, the goods remaining in the other prizes, worth, with my own, several thousand pounds. Then one of the leading pirates proposed that I should go along with them down the coast of Guinea, where I might exchange the goods for gold, and that, no doubt, as they went they should take some French and Portuguese vessels, and then they might give me as many of their best slaves as would fill the ship; that then he would advise me to go to the island of St. Thomas and sell them there, and after rewarding my people in a handsome manner, I might return with a large sum of money to London and bid the merchants defiance.
This proposal was approved of, but it struck me with a sudden damp. So I began to say it would not be proper for me to accept of such a quantity of other people's goods as they had so generously voted for me. On which I was interrupted by several, who began to be very angry.
On this Captain Davis said: 'I know this man, and can easily guess his thoughts; for he thinks, if he should act in the manner you have proposed, he will ever after lose his reputation. Now I am for allowing everybody to go to the devil their own way, so desire you will give him the remains of his own cargo and let him do with it what he thinks fitting.'
This was readily granted; and now, the tide being turned, they were as kind to me as they had at first been severe, and we employed ourselves in saving what goods we could.
And through the influence of Captain Davis, one of the ships the pirates had taken, called the 'Bristol Snow,' was spared from burning – for they burned such prizes as they had no use for. And I was set entirely at liberty, and went to the house of Captain Glynn, who, when the pirates left the river of Sierra Leone, together with other English captains who had been hiding from the pirates in the woods, their ships having been taken, helped me to fit up the 'Bristol Snow' that we might return to England in it. And we left the river Sierra Leone the 10th day of May, and came safe to Bristol, where I found a letter from the owner of the ship I had gone out with, who had heard of my misfortune, and most generously comforted me, giving money for my poor sailors and promising me command of another ship – a promise which he soon after performed.
I shall now inform the reader what became of my kind schoolfellow, Griffin, and my generous friend Davis. The first got out of the hands of the pirates by taking away a boat from the stern of the ship he was in when on the coast of Guinea, and was driven on shore there. But afterwards he went passenger to Barbadoes in an English ship, where he was taken with a violent fever, and so died.
As for Davis, he sailed to the island Princess, belonging to the Portuguese, which is in the Bay of Guinea. Here the people soon discovered they were pirates by their lavishness; but the Governor winked at it, because of the great gain he made by them. But afterwards, someone putting it into his mind that if the King of Portugal heard of this it would be his ruin, he plotted to destroy Davis. And when, before sailing, Captain Davis came on shore with the surgeon and some others to bid farewell to the Governor, they found no Governor, but many people with weapons were gathered together in the street, who at a word from the Governor's steward
