The _Exertion_ jogged along without incident for a five weeks’ passage, which brought her close to Cape Cruz and the end of the run, when a strange sail swept out of a channel among the sandy Cuban keys, with sweeps out and a deck filled with men. There were forty of them, unkempt, bewhiskered, and they appeared to be so many walking arsenals of muskets, blunderbusses, cutlasses, pistols, and dirks. Their schooner mounted two carronades, and flew a blue-and-white flag of the Republic of Mexico, which was a device popular among sea-rovers who were no better than they should be. It permitted liberty of action, something like a New Jersey charter which corporations have found elastic in times more recent. Captain Lincoln hove the _Exertion_ to and hoped for the best, having only five men and seven muskets with which to repel boarders. The United States was at peace with Mexico and Spain, and he tried to believe, as he tells us, that “the republican flag indicated both honor and friendship from those who wore it.” Alas! it was soon discovered that these were common pirates, for they sent a boat aboard in charge of the first lieutenant, Bolidar, with six or eight Spaniards, “armed with as many of the aforementioned weapons as they could well sling about their bodies.” The _Exertion_ was ordered to follow the other schooner, the _Mexican_ by name, and the two vessels came to anchor off Cay Largo, about thirty leagues from Trinidad. There one of the pirates, the sailing-master, who called himself Nikola, remained in the _Exertion_ to examine the captain’s papers. This forbidding person was, in fact, a Scotchman, as his speech readily disclosed, and he was curiously out of place among the dirty crew of Spanish renegades. In him the unlucky skipper of the _Exertion_ had found a friend, of whom he said: This Nikola had a countenance rather pleasing, although his beard and mustachios had a frightful appearance,--his face, apparently full of anxiety, indicated something in my favor. He gave me back my papers, saying, “Take good care of them, for I am afraid you have fallen into bad hands.” The pirates then sent a boat to the _Exertion_ with more men and arms, leaving a heavy guard on board and taking Captain Lincoln and his Yankee seamen off to their own low, rakish craft, where they served out the rum and vainly tried to persuade them to enlist, with promise of dazzling booty. Captain Lincoln was not at all attracted by this business opportunity, and sadly he returned to his schooner, where he found Lieutenant Bolidar in the cabin and the place in a sorry mess. It is well known that, whatever their other virtues, pirates as a class had no manners. With a few exceptions the best of them lived like pigs and behaved like hooligans. The captain’s narrative declares: