Lieutenant Archer was officially commended for the part he had played, and was promoted to command the frigate _Tobago_ after a few months of duty on the admiral’s staff. You will like to hear, I am sure, how he wound up the long letter home which contained the story of the last cruise of the _Phoenix_. I must now begin to leave off, else my letter will lose its passage, which I should not like, after being ten days at different times writing it, beating up with a convoy to the northward, which is a reason that this epistle will never read well, for I never sat down with a proper disposition to go on with it. But as I knew something of the kind would please you, I was resolved to finish it; yet it will not bear an overhaul, so don’t expose your son’s nonsense. You must promise that should any one see it beside yourself, they must put this construction on it--that it was originally intended for the eyes of a mother only--as upon that supposition my feelings may be tolerated. You will also meet with a number of sea terms which if you do not understand, why, I cannot help you, as I am unable to give a sea description in any other words. I remain His Majesty’s most true and faithful servant and my dear mother’s most dutiful son. CHAPTER X THE ROARING DAYS OF PIRACY In Bristowe I left Poll ashore, Well stocked wi’ togs an’ gold, And off I goes to sea for more, A piratin’ so bold. An’ wounded in the arm I got, An’ then a pretty blow; Come home to find Poll’s flowed away, Yo, ho, with the rum below! It was in the early part of the eighteenth century, two hundred years ago, when the merchant voyager ran as great a risk of being taken by pirates as he did of suffering shipwreck. Within a brief period flourished most of the picturesque scoundrels who have some claim to distinction. Blackbeard terrified the Atlantic coast from Boston to Charleston until a cutlass cut him down in 1717. He was a most satisfactory figure of a theatrical pirate, always strutting in the center of the stage, and many others who came later were mere imitations. Robert Louis Stevenson was able to imagine nothing better than Blackbeard’s true sea-journal, written with his own wicked hand, which contained such fascinating entries as this: Such a day, rum all out;--our company somewhat sober;--a damned confusion amongst us! Rogues a-plotting--great talk of separation--so I look sharp for a prize. Took one with a great deal of liquor on board;--so kept the company drunk, damned drunk, then all things went well again.