Journal of Voyages: Containing an Account of the Author's being Twice Captured by the English and Once by Gibbs the Pirate...Dunham, Jacob
History
Journal of Voyages: Containing an Account of the Author's being Twice Captured by the English and Once by Gibbs the Pirate...
Dunham, Jacob
Voyages and travels
"_Piracies._--The last news that has been received from this
squadron is contained in the New-York papers extracted from the
_St. Thomas' Times_ of March 5. On the 4th the squadron got
under weigh and put to sea from St. Thomas'. Piracies of an
enormity that the bare recital of them make the blood run cold,
are continually taking place. A Dutch Brig was taken in sight
of Moro Castle, at Havanna. The French Brig La Jeune Henrietta
was taken on the 17th of March, the captain, passengers, and
all the crew were most cruelly beaten, and they and the vessel
robbed. The Schooner Success, from Matanzas, bound to New
Providence, was captured and converted into an assistant
pirate, two ladies, passengers, made prisoners, one of whom was
hanged up till life was almost extinct, in order to make her
confess where the money on board was secreted. The Dutch Brig
Minerva was captured and burned. The Brig Columbia, from
Washington, North Carolina, was captured, robbed of parts of
her cargo and sails. The Brig Alert, from New Orleans, was
boarded off the Moro by three boats, the captain and cook
killed, and one man mortally wounded. A brig has lately arrived
from the Balize, belonging to Kennebunk, formerly commanded by
Captain Perkins, she was from Port-au-Prince, via Campeachy,
where he was boarded by a pirate schooner of about forty tons,
manned by forty ruffians. 'They stabbed Captain Perkins in a
cruel manner and cut off one of his arms; he then told them
where the money was, which amounted to two hundred doubloons;
after which they cut off his other arm and thigh, placed oakum
dipped in oil under his body and in his mouth, and set fire to
it, which soon put an end to his life. The mate had a sword
thrust through his thigh, and the vessel was robbed of
everything moveable, such as cables, anchors, charts, books,
rigging, sails, &c.' It would seem by these accounts, which
have all come to hand the past week, that our squadron was of
little or no use in those seas. The true way we think would be
to put armed crews on board of merchantmen, at sea, after they
had left the port they sailed from, and in this way the pirates
could get no intelligence of vessels destined to go against
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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