One would have thought my stay in such a delightful place as this, particularly, long enough to have recovered from the effect of my fatigue and wounds, would have been indispensible. A Samaritan kindness was bestowed on me in sickness, and employment offered me in health. But with all these inducements, there was another source of anxiety than the thoughts of home. Every night we were visited by four men armed so precisely like those fell monsters who had murdered my shipmates and been the cause of all my sufferings, that I could not feel safe in their society.[H] [Footnote H: There were probably Pirates in the neighborhood; for it appears by the papers since, that a piratical schooner captured by the Sea Gull, was fitted out at VILLA CLARA--a town not very far distant Easterly from St. Claire.] The only person I found on the plantation who could speak English, was a slave, formerly of _St. Thomas'_, who gave me some history of his master's character, immense wealth, the number of new plantations he was yearly forming, &c. Among other things he informed me that his name was (as he pronounced it) _Sir Thomas_, and that he was an _Alcalde_, or magistrate, for that part of the Island. This last information was important to me, for it was necessary that I should procure a _pass_ from some civil officer in order to travel in safety to Matanzas. On the third morning after my arrival, finding myself somewhat recruited by my kind treatment, I desired this slave to go with me to his master, and ask of him a pass to proceed to Matanzas. The Alcalde readily granted my request; and while he was writing the pass, an English Carpenter (who I afterward learned built the Alcalde's house) entered the room, and looking at me, exclaimed, "for God's sake who are you! you appear to be an American or Englishman?" to which I replied, I am an American. After several questions and answers, I was compelled to tell him my whole story, part of which concerning the Pirates, I had concealed from the inhabitants of St. Claire, from motives of personal safety. But the generous hearted Carpenter, whose sensibility I began to perceive had been a little indebted to some more diffusible stimulant than his native sympathy, burst into tears, exclaiming very rashly and imprudently, "they are a d----d set of Pirates all over the Island." After my pass was finished, its translation by the Carpenter being satisfactory to me, I began to make arrangements to depart, having expressed through him, my gratitude to the Alcalde and his family, for the kind treatment I had received at their hands, which I shall ever review as the mean of preserving my life. But the Carpenter supposing from what I had suffered that I should be unable to perform the journey to Matanzas, endeavored to persuade me to remain, giving me the strongest assurances that I should be both welcome and safe at St. Claire, the owner of which he extolled to the highest