As a boy it was my ambition to fight Indians, but if I had known as much about them then as I do now, I would have selected pirates. They have none of the claims on life which the real, red, native Americans enjoy, and they can be fought on the glorious sea instead of on land, which adds to the inherent excitement. It was in the Summer of 1874 that I made my first plunge into piracy, for, with all of the trimmings and aids to deception stripped away, that was what it really amounted to. I did not know into just what I was being led when I embarked in this new enterprise; but I am frank to say that it would have made no difference, for a free translation of the word “pirate” is “adventure of the first order,” and that was what I was looking for. When I reached London, after my strange escape from execution in Santo Domingo and the exploration of the headwaters of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, Frank Norton was coming up from the Mediterranean with the “Leckwith,” carrying a general cargo, and I had not long to wait for him. He was joyous when I told him I was ready to accompany him to the China Sea, which he had pictured as an El Dorado of excitement, with many golden Manoas that might be converted into Bank of England notes. There was to be no filibustering there for we had no thought of playing against the concert of Europe with our one little fiddle, even had there been any prospective revolutions worth the hatching; but Norton insisted that there was plenty of adventure to be found and much money to be made in handling equally illegitimate cargoes which included no explosives or munitions of war. As he was familiar with that part of the world I took his word for it, without going into minute details. He said we would need the “Leckwith” and two ships to carry on the business to the best advantage, so I selected the “Surprise,” an American brig, and the “Florence,” a topsail schooner, both stout, fast ships. I put Lorensen on the “Leckwith” as sailing master, George Brown on the “Surprise,” and old Bill Heather on the “Florence.” The “Surprise” took on a general cargo for Japan and was ordered to rendezvous at Hong Kong, while the “Florence” loaded for Singapore. Norton and I followed in the “Leckwith.” Two brass cannon were mounted in place of the yacht’s guns she carried and we took on board four small carronades, a French _mitrailleuse_, and several hundred rifles, cutlasses, and side arms, with an abundance of ammunition, all of which were stored in the hold.