------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Confessions of a Pirate. "I am a Devonshire man, and was born near Salcombe. A wild-looking place is Salcombe Range. My father's cottage stood on the hill facing directly down the bay, or range, as they call it in the west country, so that the only view I remember in childhood was that of the dark cliffs on each side of its entrance, with its heaving and foaming waters; the only music I ever heard, their hollow melancholy sound. "My father had been an officer of excise at Plymouth, and, having somehow or other made his fortune, retired here to end his days. This he soon did, for, shortly after I was born, my mother dying, he took to drinking harder than ever--he was never a very sober man--and before I was seven years old I was left an orphan. I had now no one to look after me, except an old woman, whose chief occupation was mixing smuggled spirits to fit them for the market; when she used to taste and taste the stuff till she went reeling to bed. I consequently had plenty of time and opportunity to follow my own inclinations, and was early taught all sorts of wild pranks by boys older than myself. "For some time my principal employment consisted in dodging the steps of the revenue officers, both when a run was about to be made, and afterwards when the tubs and cases were to be carried up the country. I could neither read nor write, and as for religion, I never heard of it; indeed, I was as ignorant as could well be. At last, the clergyman of the parish took compassion on my unprotected state; and the old woman who had charge of me dying, like my father, in a fit of drunkenness, he sent for me up to his house, and asked me if I should like to go to school. Though I did not know what school meant, I answered `Yes,' for I wanted to go somewhere; it little signified to me where. As I was treated kindly I got on very well, so that in three years I was considered one of the best scholars in the school, though at the same time one of the wildest. The vicar was a strict man, and, though he expressed himself satisfied with my progress, I was never a favourite of his.