setting-out, and a worsecoming home.
About the year ---- I began to see the bottom of my stock, and thatit was time to think of further adventures; for my spoilers, as I callthem, began to let me know, that as my money declined, their respectwould ebb with it, and that I had nothing to expect of them further thanas I might command it by the force of my money, which, in short, wouldnot go an inch the further for all that had been spent in their favourbefore.
This shocked me very much, and I conceived a just abhorrence of theiringratitude; but it wore off; nor had I met with any regret at thewasting so glorious a sum of money as I brought to England with me.
I next shipped myself, in an evil hour to be sure, on a voyage to Cadiz,in a ship called the ----, and in the course of our voyage, being on thecoast of Spain, was obliged to put into the Groyn, by a strong southwestwind.
Here I fell into company with some masters of mischief; and, among them,one, forwarder than the rest, began an intimate confidence with me,so that we called one another brothers, and communicated all ourcircumstances to one another. His name was Harris. This fellow came tome one morning, asking me if I would go on shore, and I agreed; so wegot the captain's leave for the boat, and went together. When we weretogether, he asked me if I had a mind for an adventure that might makeamends for all past misfortunes. I told him, yes, with all my heart; forI did not care where I went, having nothing to lose, and no one to leavebehind me.
He then asked me if I would swear to be secret, and that, if I did notagree to what he proposed, I would nevertheless never betray him. Ireadily bound myself to that, upon the most solemn imprecations andcurses that the devil and both of us could invent.
He told me, then, there was a brave fellow in the other ship, pointingto another English ship which rode in the harbour, who, in concert withsome of the men, had resolved to mutiny the next morning, and run awaywith the ship; and that, if we could get strength enough among ourship's company, we might do the same. I liked the proposal very well,and he got eight of us to join with him, and he told us, that as soon ashis friend had begun the work, and was master of the ship, we shouldbe ready to do the like. This was his plot; and I, without the leasthesitation, either at the villainy of the fact or the difficulty ofperforming it, came immediately into the wicked conspiracy, and so itwent on among us; but we could not bring our part to perfection.
Accordingly, on the day appointed, his correspondent in the other ship,whose name was Wilmot, began the work, and, having seized the captain'smate and other officers, secured the ship, and gave the signal to us.We were but eleven in our ship, who were in the conspiracy, nor could weget any more that we could trust; so that, leaving the ship, we all tookthe boat, and went off to join the other.
Having thus left the ship I was in, we were entertained with a greatdeal of joy by Captain Wilmot and his new gang; and, being well preparedfor all manner of roguery, bold, desperate (I mean myself), without theleast checks of conscience for what I was entered upon, or for anythingI might do, much less with any apprehension of what might be theconsequence of it; I say, having thus embarked with this crew, which atlast brought me to consort with the most famous pirates of the age, someof whom have ended their journals at the gallows, I think the givingan account of some of my other adventures may be an agreeable pieceof story; and this I may venture to say beforehand, upon the word of apirate, that I shall not be able to recollect the full, no, not by far,of the great variety which has formed one of the most reprobate schemesthat ever man was capable to present to the world.
I that was, as I have hinted before, an original thief, and a pirate,even by inclination before, was now in my element, and never undertookanything in my life with more particular satisfaction.
Captain Wilmot (for so we are now to call him) being thus possessed of aship, and in the manner as you have heard, it may be easily concludedhe had nothing to do to stay in the port, or to wait either the attemptsthat might be made from the shore, or any change that might happen amonghis men. On the contrary, we weighed anchor the same tide, and stood outto sea, steering away for the Canaries. Our ship had twenty-two guns,but was able to carry thirty; and besides, as she was fitted out fora merchant-ship only, she was not furnished either with ammunition orsmall-arms sufficient for our design, or for the occasion we might havein case of a fight. So we put into Cadiz, that is to say, we came to ananchor in the bay; and the captain, and one whom we called young CaptainKidd, who was the gunner, [landed,] and some of the men who could bestbe trusted, among whom was my comrade Harris, who was made second mate,and myself, who was made a lieutenant. Some bales of English goods wereproposed to be carried on shore with us for sale, but my comrade, whowas a complete fellow at his business, proposed a better way for it;and having been in the town before, told us, in short, that he would buywhat powder and bullet, small-arms, or anything else we wanted, on hisown word, to be paid for when they came on board, in such English goodsas we had there. This was much the best way, and accordingly he and thecaptain went on shore by themselves, and having made such a bargainas they found for their turn, came away again in two hours' time, andbringing only a butt of wine and five casks of brandy with them, we allwent on board again.
The next morning two _barcos longos_ came off to us, deeply laden, withfive Spaniards on board them, for traffic. Our captain sold them goodpennyworths, and they delivered us sixteen barrels of powder, twelvesmall rundlets of fine powder for our small-arms, sixty muskets, andtwelve fusees for the officers; seventeen ton of cannon-ball, fifteenbarrels of musket-bullets, with some swords and twenty good pair ofpistols. Besides this, they brought thirteen butts of wine (for we, thatwere now all become gentlemen, scorned to drink the ship's beer), alsosixteen puncheons of brandy, with twelve barrels of raisins and twentychests of lemons; all which we paid for in English goods; and, over andabove, the captain received six hundred pieces of eight in money. Theywould have come again, but we would stay no longer.
From hence we sailed to the Canaries, and from thence onward to theWest Indies, where we committed some depredation upon the Spaniards forprovisions, and took some prizes, but none of any great value, while Iremained with them, which was not long at that time; for, having taken aSpanish sloop on the coast of Carthagena, my friend made a motion to me,that we should desire Captain Wilmot to put us into the sloop, with aproportion of arms and ammunition, and let us try what we could do; shebeing much fitter for our business than the great ship, and a bettersailer. This he consented to, and we appointed our rendezvous at Tobago,making an agreement, that whatever was taken by either of our shipsshould be shared among the ship's company of both; all which we verypunctually observed, and joined our ships again, about fifteen monthsafter, at the island of Tobago, as above.
We cruised near two years in those seas, chiefly upon the Spaniards;not that we made any difficulty of taking English ships, or Dutch,or French, if they came in our way; and particularly, Captain Wilmotattacked a New England ship bound from the Madeiras to Jamaica, andanother bound from New York to Barbados, with provisions; which last wasa very happy supply to us. But the reason why we meddled as little withEnglish vessels as we could, was, first, because, if they were shipsof any force, we were sure of more resistance from them; and, secondly,because we found the English ships had less booty when taken, for theSpaniards generally had money on board, and that was what we best knewwhat to do with. Captain Wilmot was, indeed, more particularly cruelwhen he took any English vessel, that they might not too soon haveadvice of him in England; and so the men-of-war have orders to look outfor him. But this part I bury in silence for the present.
We increased our stock in these two years considerably, having taken60,000 pieces of eight in one vessel, and 100,000 in another; and beingthus first grown rich, we resolved to be strong too, for we had taken abrigantine built at Virginia, an excellent sea-boat, and a good sailer,and able to carry twelve guns; and a large Spanish frigate-built ship,that sailed incomparably well also, and which afterwards, by the helpof good carpenter
s, we fitted up to carry twenty-eight guns. And now wewanted more hands, so we put away for the Bay of Campeachy, not doubtingwe should ship as many men there as we pleased; and so we did.
Here we sold the sloop that I was in; and Captain Wilmot keeping hisown ship, I took the command of the Spanish frigate as captain, and mycomrade Harris as eldest lieutenant, and a bold enterprising fellowhe was, as any the world afforded. One culverdine was put into thebrigantine, so that we were now three stout ships, well manned, andvictualled for twelve months; for we had taken two or three sloops fromNew England and New York, laden with flour, peas, and barrelled beef andpork, going for Jamaica and Barbados; and for more beef we went onshore on the island of Cuba, where we killed as many black cattle as wepleased, though we had very little salt to cure them.
Out of all the prizes we took here we took their powder and bullet,their small-arms and cutlasses; and as for their men, we always took thesurgeon and the carpenter,