As for me and my crew, we obtained full and even generous recognition for our exploit, the merchants of the various West Indian islands combining together to present me with an exceedingly handsome service of plate, and to subscribe to a purse the contents of which was to be divided _pro rata_ among the other officers and men of the expedition. The Admiral was good enough to express unbounded satisfaction at what he was pleased to term "the unusual skill and discretion" with which the task of exterminating a most formidable nest of pirates had been carried out; and he took considerable pains to afford me an early opportunity, not only to undergo the formalities of a court-martial for the loss of the _Wasp_, but also to pass my examination. Immediately after this latter event he presented me with my commission to a crack frigate; and in her I subsequently saw much exciting service, lasting up to the short-lived peace of Amiens, toward the end of the year 1801, by which time I had attained to the rank of post-captain. But although many of my subsequent experiences as an officer of the British Royal Navy were sufficiently strange and exciting, it was never again my lot to cross swords with a pirate; for "pirating" became an occupation to be shunned, so far as the West Indian waters were concerned, for several years after the memorable example made by the British Government in the inexorable hunting down and destruction of the notorious Garcia, the pirate of Hayti, and his formidable band. End of Project Gutenberg's A Middy of the King, by Harry Collingwood