The experience of an unlucky master mariner in that era of the best-known and most successful pirates may serve to convey a realization of the gamble with fortune which overshadowed every trading voyage when the perils of the deep were so cruel and so manifold. And it is easy to comprehend why the bills of lading included this petition, “And so God send the good sloop to her desired port in safety. Amen.” In the year of 1718 the _Bird_ galley sailed from England in command of Captain Snelgrave to find a cargo of slaves on the coast of Sierra Leone. The galley, as sailors then used the term, was a small, square-rigged vessel not unlike a brig, although properly the name belonged to craft propelled by oars as well as sails; but seamen in all ages have had a confusing habit of mixing the various classifications of vessels. It was nothing against the character of Captain Snelgrave that he was bound out to the Gold Coast in the rum and nigger trade. The ship-chandlers of Liverpool made special displays in their windows of handcuffs, leg-shackles, iron collars, short and long chains, and furnaces and copper kettles designed for slave-ships. The English Missionary Society owned a plantation and worked it with slaves. In America the New England colonies took the lead in the slave-trade, and the enterprising lads of the coastwise ports sought berths in the forecastles of the African traders because of the chance of profit and promotion. It was not held to the discredit of John Paul Jones that he learned seamanship before the mast in the slaver _King George_ before he hoisted the first naval ensign of the United States above the quarter-deck of an American man-of-war. No sooner had the _Bird_ galley dropped anchor in the river of Sierra Leone than three pirate ships came bowling in with a fair breeze. They had been operating together and had already captured ten English vessels. Captain Snelgrave eyed these unpleasant visitors with suspicion, but hoped they might be on the same errand as himself. At eight o’clock in the evening, however, he heard the measured thump of oars and descried the shadow of an approaching boat. The first mate was ordered to muster and arm twenty men on deck in readiness to repel boarders. The second mate hailed the boat and was answered; “The ship _Two Friends_ of Barbadoes, Captain Elliott.” This failed to satisfy the master of the _Bird_ galley, and he shouted to the boat to sheer off and keep clear.