There followed another year’s interval in roaming about from place to place, and then the French campaign against Algiers attracted him, not to fight on behalf of the French but for the pirates. He accordingly embarked on a ship that landed him at Barcelona, whence he crossed to Port Mahon and tried to make his way to Algiers; but the vigilance of the French fleet prevented him from getting any nearer than Tunis, and at last returned from Marseilles to Boston. A few days later he went to New Orleans, and there he signed on as one of the crew on board the _Vineyard_ brig. Up till now he had led a restless, wandering, wicked life of self-indulgence. He had robbed and murdered. But now we come to the climax and decline of his career. The details which follow are essential to the story, and they indicate better than any number of words the type of character to which Gibbs belonged. The skipper of this brig was William Thornby. She sailed away from New Orleans, bound for Philadelphia, with a valuable cargo of cotton, sugar, molasses, as well as over £10,000 in dollars. When the ship was about five days out from her port the crew began to talk about the money on board, and some of them, including Charles Gibbs, made up their minds to seize the ship. Before attaining this object they realised they would have to kill the captain and mate. On the night of the 23rd of November, soon after midnight, the opportunity for putting this dastardly deed into action arrived. One of the crew named Dawes was at the helm. As the brig was ploughing her way over the lonely sea, rolling her masts across the star-specked sky, the steersman suddenly saw the steward emerge from below with a light in one hand and a knife in the other. He set down the light, and then, taking the top of the pump, struck the captain on the head. The latter cried “Murder!” but he was then seized firmly by Gibbs and the cook at the head and the heels, and without further delay hove overboard. Roused by the unwonted noise on deck, the mate now came up the hatchway, but, as he approached, two others of the crew named Atwell and Church were waiting for him, and struck him over the head just as he was asking for the reason of the noise. The mate then rushed back into his cabin, followed by Gibbs, who, by reason of the darkness, could not find him. So the murderer ran on deck, fetched the binnacle light, with the aid of which the helmsman was steering, and returned below. This time he found his victim, and two others of the crew knocked him down and then dragged him on deck. Dawes, since he could not now see his compass to steer by, left the helm to see what was going on. And as the other men were hauling the mate along, they called to Dawes to assist them. In a few moments the mate was thrown over the side alive and was even heard to cry out from the water twice. He was never picked up, so must have been drowned.