tion>Arthur Conan Doyle
The Dealings of Captain Sharkey, and Other Tales of Pirates
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664637680
Table of Contents
CAPTAIN SHARKEY: HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT'S CAME HOME
THE DEALINGS OF CAPTAIN SHARKEY WITH STEPHEN CRADDOCK
HOW COPLEY BANKS SLEW CAPTAIN SHARKEY
ONE CROWDED HOUR
(BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE SINGULAR JOURNAL OF JOHN M'ALISTER RAY, STUDENT OF MEDICINE.)
J. HABAKUK JEPHSON'S STATEMENT
TALES OF PIRATES
I
CAPTAIN SHARKEY: HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT'S CAME HOME
When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, others were absorbed into the fishing-fleets, and a few of the more reckless hoisted the Jolly Rodger at the mizzen and the bloody flag at the main, declaring a private war upon their own account against the whole human race.
With mixed crews, recruited from every nation they scoured the seas, disappearing occasionally to careen in some lonely inlet, or putting in for a debauch at some outlaying port, where they dazzled the inhabitants by their lavishness and horrified them by their brutalities.
On the Coromandel Coast, at Madagascar, in the African waters, and above all in the West Indian and American seas, the pirates were a constant menace. With an insolent luxury they would regulate their depredations by the comfort of the seasons, harrying New England in the summer and dropping south again to the tropical islands in the winter.
They were the more to be dreaded because they had none of that discipline and restraint which made their predecessors, the Buccaneers, both formidable and respectable. These Ishmaels of the sea rendered an account to no man, and treated their
