Here is a typical haul from one craft: Twenty-six hogsheads and three barrels of rum, valued at fifteen hundred dollars; twenty-five hogsheads of molasses, worth seven or eight hundred dollars; three barrels of sugar, value one hundred and fifty dollars; cotton, indigo, wire cable of varying values, a small amount of French and Spanish coins, one pair of silver buckles and one silver watch. Thus, you see, the boys cleaned up systematically from the hold to the captain’s waistcoat pocket. They peddled their merchandise alongshore, where the business, though more risky than in a happier day, was still keen. They grabbed vessels on the high seas or at anchor in way ports. One captured in the latter situation was the _Francis_, and here is her mate, Mr. Killing, who is anxious to tell us himself just how it all happened. Proceed, Mr. Killing. “The 31st of July (1718) between nine and ten of the clock, we came to an anchor about fourteen fathom of water.... In about half an hour’s time I perceived something like a canoo: So they came nearer. I said, here is a canoo a-coming; I wish they be friends. I haled them and asked them whence they came? They said captain Thomas Richards from St. Thomas’s.... “They asked me from whence we came? I told them from Antegoa. They said we were welcome.” (Pirates certainly loved their little joke!) “I said they were welcome, as far as I knew.” (Which you observe was not very far. A man of careful statement, this Mr. Killing.) “So I ordered the men to hand down a rope to them. So soon as they came on board they clapped their hands to their cutlasses; and I said we are taken. So they cursed and swore for a light. I ordered our people to get a light as soon as possible.... “When they came into the cabin the first thing they begun with was the pineapples, which they cut down with their cutlasses. They asked me if I would not come and eat along with them? I told them I had but little stomach to eat. They asked me why I looked so melancholy? I told them I looked as well as I could--” (Before we smile at the worthy mate let us wonder a moment how we would have looked in the same fix.) “They asked me what liquor I had on board. I told them some rum and sugar. So they made bowls of punch and went to drinking the Pretender’s health, and hoped to see him king of the English nation--” (This was doubtless the result of Major Bonnet’s treasonable propaganda. Here was an incipient navy for the Pretender had he only known it.) “They then sung a song or two. The next morning ... they hoisted out several hogsheads of molasses and several hogsheads of rum. In the after part of the day two of Bonnet’s men were ordered to the mast to be whipt....