The schooner was, I found, the _Black Joke_, belonging to the island of Guernsey. Lyal so worked on my imagination, by the accounts he gave of the life of a privateer's-man, and the prize-money to be made, that he soon persuaded me to enter aboard her. There cannot be the shadow of a doubt that I ought to have gone back, by the first opportunity, to join my own ship; though, of course, I knew that, under the circumstances of the case, I ran very little fear of punishment by not doing so, should I at any time happen to fall in with her. The schooner was a very large vessel of her class, and mounted sixteen 6-pounders, with a crew of some eighty men or more. Captain Savage, who commanded her, was a bold dashing fellow, but he cared nothing for honour, or glory, or patriotism. He had only one object in view in fighting--it was to make money. Privateering was the shortest and easiest way he knew of, and as his professional knowledge and experience fitted him for the life, he took the command of the _Black Joke_. His first officer, Mr Le Gosselen, was just the man for the sort of work to be done. He was a strongly-built, short, bull-necked man, and a first-rate seaman; but whatever human sympathies he might have had in his youth had all apparently been washed out of him. The schooner had only left Guernsey, after a refit, the day before I was taken on board her. I had been a fortnight in her before any prize of consequence was made. A few coasters had been surprised by means of the fishing-boat, but their cargoes were of very little value, and only two or three were worth sending into port. Of the rest, some were sunk, and others allowed to continue on their voyage, after anything worth having was taken out of them. The time had at last arrived when Captain Savage hoped to fall in with a convoy of French ships coming home from the West Indies. For a week or more we cruised about in the latitude they would probably be found in, but we saw nothing of them. At length, at daybreak one morning, several sail were seen hull down to the northward, and steering east. The wind was about south, so we stood away close-hauled towards them, in order to reconnoitre them more perfectly. As the sun rose, and we drew nearer, many more appeared, their white sails dotting the ocean far and wide. "That's what we've been looking for, my lads!" cried the captain, pointing them out to the crew. "If we get hold of two or three of those fellows, we shall soon line our pockets with gold."