Samuel Button deposed in Court that what is above written is the truth and whole truth to his best knowledge. 11th of August 1681. EDW RAWSON, Secret. THE _CAMELION_. _50. Agreement to Commit Piracy. June 30, 1683._[1] [Footnote 1: This very curious document (for one does not expect to find pirates agreeing in writing to pursue a course of piracy) is found embedded in one of the indictments in the case of the _Camelion_, in vol. I. of the wills in the office of the surrogate, New York City, pp. 312-313 of the modern copy. Its presence among wills requires a word of explanation. The governor of a royal colony was usually chancellor, ordinary, and vice-admiral, and as such might preside in the courts of chancery, probate, and admiralty--courts whose common bond was that their jurisprudence was derived from the civil (or Roman) law, and not from the common law. Most of his judicial action was in testamentary cases. It was therefore not unnatural that the few admiralty cases and cases of piracy tried in these early days should be recorded in the same volume as the wills, though distinguished by the simple process of turning the book end for end and recording them at the back. In this case the record begins with our document 51; but the present document, copied into one of the indictments, is earlier in date. The substance of another pirates' agreement (Roberts's company, 1720, see doc. no. 117) is given in Charles Johnson, _General History of the Pyrates_, second ed., pp. 230-232; another (Phillips's company, 1727, see doc. no. 120 and note 10), _ibid._, verbatim, pp. 397-398.] _June the 30th day, 1683._ Articles of Agreement between us abord of the _Camillion_,[2] Nich. Clough Comander, that wee are to dispose of all the goods thatt are abord amongst us, every man are to have his full due and right share only the Commander is to have two shares and a half a share for the Ship and home[3] the Captain please to take for the Master under him is to have a share and a half. Now Gentlemen these are to satisfy you, as for the Doctor a Share and half, and these are our Articles that wee do all stand to as well as on[4] and all. [Footnote 2: The _Camelion_ had in 1682 sailed for the Royal African Company to the slave-mart of Old Calabar on the west coast of Africa, thence with a cargo of negroes to Barbados, thence to Montserrat and Nevis, thence in June, 1683, to London with a cargo. Off Nevis, June 29, the crew took possession of the ship, then made this agreement on the 30th, sold part of the cargo at the Dutch island of Curacao, and brought the vessel to Sandy Hook. For their trial, see the next document.] [Footnote 3: Whom.] [Footnote 4: One. The larger shares for captain, master, and doctor were in accordance with custom. Clough, the master, was forced to join the mutineers.]