Pirates who fell in with ships usually sought to gain recruits among the captured crews. The alternative was to walk the plank or to be set adrift in an open boat, or landed on an uninhabited island. For those who thus agreed under compulsion a still harder fate was often in store. Captain Massey was an unfortunate instance of this. While serving in the Royal African Company he was for some time engaged in the construction of a fort upon the coast with a detachment of men. They ran short of food, and suffered frightfully from flux. When at the point of death a passing ship noticed their signals of distress, and sent a boat on shore to bring them on board. The ship proved to be a pirate. Captain Massey did not actually join them, but he remained on board while several prizes were taken. However, he gave information at Jamaica, the pirate captain and others were arrested and hanged, and Captain Massey received the thanks of the governor, who offered him an appointment on the island. But Massey was anxious to return to England, whither he proceeded armed with strong letters of recommendation to the lords of the Admiralty. To his intense surprise, "instead of being caressed he was taken into custody," tried, and eventually executed. His case evoked great sympathy. "His joining the pirates was evidently an act of necessity, not choice," and he took the earliest opportunity of giving up his involuntary associates to justice—a conduct by which he surely merited the thanks of his country, and not the vengeance of the law. From the foregoing account it is easy to draw conclusions concerning the state of public morals and manners in the eighteenth century. Both the atrocity of the crimes and the barbarity of the punishments surpass everything the twentieth century can show, while to the populace generally the highwayman and the bully were heroes. Though our century is by no means free from crime, we may congratulate ourselves that we have advanced beyond the eighteenth, at least so far as crimes of violence are concerned. END OF VOLUME I. FOOTNOTES: [323:1] Cant names of the period for drinks. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: The following corrections have been made to the original text: Page 56: perfect type of the brutal gaoler[original has "goaler"] Page 63: In London crime was rampant[original has "rampart"]. Page 75: Another certificate states that William[original has "Wililam"] Dominic Page 77: a warrant may be made for his banishment.[period missing in original] Page 82: the "verser," and the "[quotation mark missing in original]barnacle;" Page 99: when brought up at Westminster[original has "Westminister"] for perjury Page 99: charged by a cheesemonger[original has "chesemonger"] as being the man Page 137: [quotation mark missing in original]"For long there was nothing among them Page 154: On the death of the king (William[original has "Wililam"] III)