one of the ruffians, and having the keys wrested from me; another time I was shot at. 'Tis true that in both cases the persons suffered for their attempt, and, in the last, I thought a little too cruelly; for the fellow who let off the carabine, was not only put to the torture to make him confess his accomplices, but afterwards broken on the wheel, where he was left to expire, the most shocking spectacle I ever beheld.

I had been in my office about three months, when a ship arrived from Port Royal, another Spanish settlement on the coast, with nine English prisoners on board. I was standing in the street as they were coming up from the port with a guard of soldiers to the governor's house. I thought something struck me in the face of one of the prisoners, that I had before been acquainted with. I could not stop them for us to speak together; however, in about an hour after, they were all brought down to prison, there to be lodged till the governor signified his further pleasure. As soon as the poor creatures found I was an Englishman, they were extremely happy, even in their distressed situation; though, indeed, they were treated with lenity enough, and only sent to the prison till a lodging could be provided for them, they having been, in the course of the war, made prisoners as well as myself, and then on their return home. I now had an opportunity of taking notice of the man whose face I thought I knew, and I was more and more confirmed that I was not mistaken. In a word, I verily thought that this man was the person for whose supposed murder I had suffered so much in England; and the thought was so strong in my head, that I could not sleep a wink all the night. In the morning after their arrival, I told them that if any of them had a mind to walk about the town, I would procure them permission, and go along with them. This man said he would go, and it was what I wished. Three other prisoners, that went out along with us, walked a little in advance. I now took the opportunity, and looking in his face,' Sir,' said I, 'was you ever at Deal?' I believe he at that instant had some recollection of me; for putting his hand upon my shoulder, tears burst into his eyes. Sir,' said I, if you are the man that I take you for, you here see before you, one of the most unfortunate of human kind.-Sir, is your name Collins?' He answered, it was. Richard Collins?' said I. He replied, 'Yes.' Then,' said I, 'I was hanged and gibbetted on your account in England.'

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After our mutual surprise was over, he made me give a circumstantial detail of every thing that happened to me in England, from the moment we parted. I never saw any man express such concern as he did while I was pursuing my melancholy adventures; but when I came to the circumstance of my being hanged, and afterwards hung in chains, I could hardly prevail upon him to believe my relation, till backed by the most serious asseverations, pronounced in the most serious manner. Well,' said he, young man, (for I was then but in my five-and-twentieth year, and Mr. Collins might be about three-and-forty)" if you have sustained misfortunes on my account, do not imagine (though I cannot lay them at your door) that I have been without my sufferings. God knows my heart, I am most exceedingly sorry for the injustice that has been done you; but the ways of Providence are unsearchable.' He then proceeded to inform me by what accident all my troubles had been brought about:-When I left him in bed, having at first awoke with an oppression he could not account for, he found himself grow extremely sick and weak. He did not know what was the matter; he groaned and sighed, and thought he was going to die; when accidentally putting his hand to his left arm, in which he had been blooded the morning before, he found his

shirt wet, and, in short, that the bandage having slipped, the orifice was again opened, and a great flux of blood ensued. This immediately accounted for the condition in which he found himself. He thought, however, he would not disturb the family, which he knew had gone to bed very late. He therefore mustered all his strength, and got up with his night-gown loose about him, to go to the neighbouring barber, who had bled him, in order to have the blood stopped, and the bandage replaced. He lived directly opposite the public-house, and when he (Mr. Collins) was crossing the way, in order to knock at the door, a band of men, armed with cutlasses and hangers, came down the town, and seizing him, hurried him towards the beach. He begged and prayed; but they soon silenced his cries. At first he took them for a press-gang; though he afterwards found they were a gang of ruffians belonging to a privateer, aboard of which they immediately brought him. However, before he got thither, he fainted through loss of blood. The surgeon of the ship bound up his arm; for when his senses returned, he found himself in a hammock, with somebody feeling his pulse. The vessel was then under way he asked where he was? They told him he was safe enough. He immediately called for his night-gown; it was brought him; but a considerable sum of money that was in the pocket of it he could get no account of. He complained to the captain of the violence that had been done him, and of the robbery the men had committed; but the captain, being a brutish fellow, laughed at his grief, and told him, if he had lost any thing, he should soon have prize-money enough to make amends. In a word, Mr. Collins, not being able to help himself, was obliged to submit; and for three months they forced him to work before the mast. In the end, however, they were taken by the Spaniards; and Mr. Collins and the rest of the crew were then on their way to England.

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There was now nothing to prevent my going to England; and a ship being to set sail for Europe in eight or ten days, Mr. Collins and I determined to embark. As soon as we returned home, I went to my master, and told him my resolution he did not dissuade me from it: chiefly, I suppose, because it gave him an opportunity of getting the little office I held for a nephew of his, who was lately come to live with him, to whom the same day I delivered up my trust. And here the providence of God was no less remarkable to me than in other particulars of my life; for on the very same night, eight or ten pirates, who were in the prison, watched the occasion, while the young man was locking up the wards, to seize him and take the keys from him, leaving him for dead; and, before the alarm was sufficiently given, five of them made their escape, having, as it was supposed, got off the coast by means of piratical boats, which kept continually hovering about.

On the 18th of November, 1712, having made all my little preparations, I sent my trunk aboard the Nostra Senora, a merchant-ship, bound for Cadiz, Michael Deronza, master. The vessel was to sail that evening, and lay in the road, about three miles from the town. About seven o'clock in the evening, I being then sitting with Signor Gasper, my old friend and master, in the portico of the house, a lad came up, and said, the boat had been waiting half an hour for me at the port, and that my companion, Mr. Collins, was already on board. I ran to the house for my bundle, and only staying to take leave of one or two of the family, made what haste I could to the quay; but, when I arrived, I found the boat had already put off, leaving word, that I should overtake them at a little bay, about a mile beyond the town. The dusk was coming on. I ran along the shore; and, as I imagined, soon had

a sight of the boat, to which I hallooed as loud as I was able; they ansywered and immediately put about to take me in: but they had scarcely got fifty yards from land, when, on looking round for my friend Collins, I missed him; and then it was that I found I had made a mistake, and, instead of getting on board my own boat, which I now saw a considerable way a-head, I had got into a boat belonging to one of the pirates. I attempted to leap overboard, and should easily have swam ashore; but I was prevented by one of the crew, who gave me a stroke on the head, which immediately laid me senseless; and I found afterwards, they mistook me for one of their own men, whom they had sent to purchase something in the town.

A more infernal crew than these pirates, breathed not upon the face of the earth. Their whole lives were a scene of rapine and murder, which when they had not an opportunity of committing upon wretches that fell into their power, during their piratical pursuits, they committed on one another. During the time I remained with them, which was upwards of three years and three quarters, there was no less than eleven assassinations among themselves. There was an uninhabited island, about twelve leagues west of the Gulph of Mexico, which these villains called Swallow Island, from the great number of these birds which harboured upon it. Here they had a fortification; and the place being rendered almost inaccessible by rocks, except at one little inlet, just large enough to admit a single vessel, and here they defied the Spanish power.

Their captain was one Bryan Walsh, an Irishman, whom I cannot help calling a bloody and execrable villain, though God Almighty put it into his heart to be a very good friend to me. When I was brought into the ship, and immediately after, into the captain's cabin, the first person that accosted me was one of the fellows that had broken out of prison, and had formerly been under my care. He knew me directly; and, without any more ado, drawing his hanger, aimed a stroke at me, which falling upon my neck, entered deep into the flesh, and must infallibly have put an end to my life, had not the captain prevented it, by raising his cane between him and me, which broke the force of the blow. From this moment, he seemed to take me under his protection. At his request, I gave him a history of my life, which astonished him greatly; but, notwithstanding, I pleaded hard to be set on shore again, he absolutely refused; and, in spite of all my entreaties to the contrary, brought me to the island and fortification already mentioned, where, finding I could read and write, qualifications he wanted himself, he thought I might be of use to him.

I have already said, that with these people I remained upwards of three years on land I acted as store-keeper; and, at sea, as a sort of purser to the ship. It is to be observed, that there was always a sufficient number of men left to man the fort, which was so situated as effectually to prevent the approach of an- enemy. Indeed, the office of store-keeper was a place of great trust. You would hardly credit me, if I was to attempt to tell you the immense riches these robbers had amassed together. One article alone will be sufficient to give you an idea of it. Under one shed, I myself reckoned one thousand eight hundred bales of English goods; and I may safely declare, that, in other merchandize of almost every kind, they fell nothing behind; and upon an average, there could not be less in their coffers than two hundred thousand pounds sterling in specie, besides a great quantity of gold in bars. The continual terror that was on my mind while I remained with these people, is not to be imagined; but to give you a detail of my manner of life, while

I endured this worst of bondage, would be tedious, because it had no variety, and shocking, as I was forced to enter into all their horrid schemes. I shall only tell you, that, in one of our cruizes, having met with a Jamaica ship, we hoisted out our black colours, and, having boarded her, because she made some resistance, and killed one of our men, the captain ordered that the whole of the crew should be massacred; which wicked command was executed upon the master, five seamen, and a boy, in a manner, before the cruel monster's eyes; then taking the cargo out, which proved to be rum and sugar, we scuttled the ship, and returned to our fortification.

But, to see how the Avenger of wicked deeds makes the fruits of our crimes our punishment, this cargo of rum, which was of a kind not many degrees short of aquafortis, was drunk by the men with such a furor, that, in little more than three days, out of our complement of eighteen men, seven absolutely lost their lives by it, among whom was the captain,

I cannot but confess I had some attachment to this man, because he always appeared particularly attached to me; when, therefore, I saw him lie senseless on the floor, overgorged with this infernal liquor, I used every endeavour to recover him, and so far succeeded, as to bring him to his senses; but the quantity he had drunk had enflamed his bowels to a degree not to be assuaged by any lenitives that it was in my power to procure him. He was seized with intermitting convulsions, which the next day carried him off; but about four hours before he died, he called me, in presence of all the men, who stood about him in the cabin, and desiring me to sit down, with pen and ink, to draw his will, he left me sole heir to his share of the booty, signing his mark to the paper; which paper, through a series of unheard of misfortunes, I have preserved in my custody ever since.

We buried the captain the next day; and, on inspection and partition of the treasure, I found myself worth considerably more than forty thousand pounds sterling. The persons now remaining of our company, were Joseph Wright, Andrew Van Hooten, a Dutchman, James Winter, and myself, the four principals, besides four common men, to whom we assigned four thousand pounds a-piece, which we gave to each of them in dollars; nor did I observe any discontent among them on account of the bequest the captain had made me.

All my thoughts were immediately bent on getting off the island to some of the English settlements. I plainly perceived that my old companions wanted to be again at their old practices: but one day, thinking on the subject of another cruise, I represented the danger and uncomfortable situation we were all in; that we had each of us a very ample fortune to support us in any part of the world; it was therefore my advice, that we should immediately put our treasure on board, with as much of the merchandize as we could conveniently carry off, and make the best our way to Jamaica, where there was no doubt but we should be well received.

They agreed to the proposal with more alacrity than I thought they would. We fell immediately to work, and, in two days, were prepared to sail. But, though we put a considerable quantity of bale goods on board, the quantity still in the warehouses was astonishing. I warned the fellows of their rapacity, and the danger of too deeply loading the ship, but they would not give over till she could hold no more; and then the treasure, packed in chests, each man's share separate to himself, we put in the cabin.

We weighed anchor on the 3rd of August, and for three days we had excellent weather; but the fourth a storm began to threaten, and the symptoms

still increasing, by midnight such a war was raised between heaven and earth, as to that hour I never was witness to. About three o'clock in the morning, we were obliged to heave the ship to under her bare poles; and the sea ran so exceedingly high, that we could venture to keep no lights aboard, though the night was so dark, that we could scarce see one another at a quarter of a yard distance: the wind still increasing, we sprung the main mast about six feet from the deck, that nothing could save it. We now began to feel the consequence of too deeply lading the vessel. The first things we threw overboard were our guns; and, as our case became more and more desperate, every thing followed them, not excepting our chests of treasure. Thus I was once more reduced to my original state of poverty. As day-light appeared, the storm abated. We then, as well as we were able, erected jury-masts; and in about four hours managed, with the greatest difficulty, to get the vessel again under sail.

I was now standing behind the man at the wheel, leaning against the mizen-mast, returning God thanks in my own mind for our amazing escape, when the boatswain came up to me, and said, "Damme, Master Gwinnett, you have brought us all into a pretty hole here; if it had not been for you, we should not have taken this trip, and lost the substance we have been working for so many years; but you lop too, I assure you." I asked him what he meant; he said he would let me see; upon which he and two or three others of them that came behind him, seizing me by the nape of the neck, and the waistband of the breeches, forced me over the rails of the quarter-deck, and dropped me into the sea.

The shock of the fall, and the amaze I was in from so unexpected an incident, almost bereaved me of my senses. I endeavoured, however, to keep myself above water as well as I could, though I had no manner of hopes of saving my life. My first attempt was to swim after the ship; but finding that impracticable, I turned about, and I believe might have swam about three quarters of an hour, when, being very faint and weak, I began to put up my last prayer to God, and determined to commit myself to the bottom of the deep, but at that instant, turning my head a little aside, I saw, at a small distance from me, a body, which at first I took for a barrel, but, good Lord! what was my joy and astonishment, when coming near it, I perceived it to be one of our own boats, which had been washed overboard the night before; and, to complete my joy, the oars were lashed to the seat. Almost spent as I was, I made shift to get into it; and here I saw myself freed in a miraculous manner from the fury of the waves; but at the same time, I found myself in an open boat, at least sixty leagues from land, without a compass, or any kind of nourishment whatsoever, unless I might count such some tobacco I had in a box in one of my waistcoat pockets; and I believe in my conscience, it afforded a nourishment that, in a great measure, helped to preserve me.

It was a very great blessing for me, that moderate weather followed the tempest, by which means I was enabled to keep the boat tolerably steady. I could not be less than thirty hours in this situation, when I was taken up by a Spanish carrack; but I can hardly reckon that among fortunate accidents; for the same day that I entered the ship, one of the men, while I was asleep, hanging up my clothes among the shrouds to dry, in doing it, emptied my pockets, and finding several papers relative to the pirates' affairs, as soon as they arrived at Port Royal, whither they were bound, they seized me as one