into that berth which I looked upon as my right; while I was offered a commission, but no employment; unlike the admirable temper of the ancient and trusty blade which he had given me, my own temper was not so enduring-I did two foolish things: I refused the commission, abandoning the service altogether, and I insulted Mr. JackAss. He was compelled to challenge me; we fought, and he went to sea with the own-brother of the bullet which had given Squire Hickory his quietus, lodged in a part of his body that effectually prevented his sitting down for at least a couple of months. I was now without employment, and without pecuniary resources, save the scanty pittance which my father was able to allow me, and a couple of hundred pounds, for which I had sold all chances of prize-money to a Jew at Portsmouth. I hastened to that receptacle of all the unfortunate, London-concealed myself in an obscure lodging-and lounged day by day from the house of one professing patron to that of another-enduring all the miseries of hope deferred. Some months passed in this way, when, at length, the event occurred which brought me again upon the waters, and has led to my present comfortable retirement. I was returning from the house of a gentleman, who, after having absolutely promised me the command of a South Sea whaler, had that morning appointed the illegitimate son of Benjamin Richborough, Esq., M.P. for the borough of Purchase-seat; and while walking slowly along Fleet-street, towards my wretched apartments, in one of the dingy streets which lead from the Strand to the river, ruminating over my mishap, and praying most heartily for a reform in Parliament, I was accosted by a dark complexioned West Indianlooking person-with, "you have served in the navy, Sir?" At another time I should probably have, after the fashion of my country, answered with a "What the devil is that to you?" but as poor Curran used to say, nothing improves a man's manners so effectually as misfortune and I was steeped in it to the lips. I answered with the meekness of an afflicted spirit, in the affirmative. Then, Sir, said he, if, as I think, you want employment, and are, as I am informed, inclined to risk much for the sake of gaining much, I can serve you. So, thought I, I am, I suppose, to take command of some smuggler, or hoist the " Jolly Rover" at once, and sail " upon the account," like Morgan and Blackbeard of old; but, at all events, let me hear what this customer has to say. I invited him to walk with me to my lodgings; and when I had seated him in the only trust-worthy chair my little parlour afforded, and myself on an ancient tea-chest, he began his communication: his tale was short, but full of fearful interest. He was the younger son of an English gentleman of some property, and had received, on his father's death, which took place when he was just of age, a small sum of money, as his entire portion of worldly wealth. A situation in the West Indies was offered to him; and having married a girl of great beauty, but no fortune, the daughter of the curate of his parish, and to whom he had been long attached, he, within a month after his marriage, embarked with his wife and her sister for Jamaica, bringing with him all he possessedpart in cash, part as a venture in goods. They had arrived within a couple of days sail of their destination, when the captain, on coming

upon deck in the morning, discovered something in the aspect of a large wicked-looking schooner, which had for some time been gradually edging down upon them, that looked to him any thing but inviting. To attempt to run would have been useless, for the Picaroon had evidently the heels of them, and, accordingly, they prepared to fight. Before they could clear their guns, the Buccaneer laid them on board, and threw forty or fifty ruffians on their decks, who commenced an indiscriminate slaughter. Mr. Selby, for so I shall call my new acquaintance, placed himself by the companion, and, with a blunderbuss in his hands, two case of pistols in his belt, and a cutlass hanging by the lanyard, to his wrist, threatened destruction to all who should approach him, unless quarter was promised to himself, and freedom from insult to the females. Three of the ruffians rushed on him at once, but fell by the discharge of the blunderbuss; two more were killed, and a third badly wounded by his pistols; and the pirate captain himself, who, seeing his boldest waver had engaged him, received the point of the cutlass through the fleshy point of his sword-arm, above the elbow; but at the same moment poor Selby was prostrated by a blow from behind, which completely stunned him for several minutes. Recovering, he found himself on the deck of the pirate, placed half sitting against the carriage of the long eighteen, which occupied the space between her masts; near him were seated the two ladies, with their female attendants-and, as he soon learned, as yet unharmed.

The captors having rifled the ship and murdered the rest of the crew, had set it on fire, reserving Selby and his companions for a fate, to which instant death would have been the height of mercy. No insult was, however, offered, for that day or the next. On the third evening they reached the retreat of the pirates-a species of village situate on the bounds of one of those almost unexplored lagoons with which the Musquito shore abounds. On the next morning, the scene of havoc began. It was such as I cannot describe-suffice it to say, that the extremity of insult and pollution was heaped upon the unhappy females, and upon my informant, who was compelled to be a fettered and helpless witness of the whole. For hours the scene of abomination was continued, and the unhappy females were then released from misery by murder. For him the pirates proposed a death by means the most cruel. They first flogged him with the branches of prickly shrubs till his body was one continued wound; and then laying him bound in the bottom of an old canoe, on a layer of the same thorny plants, they towed him a mile or two to sea, and left him to perish; but he was reserved, as he said, for vengeance. The next morning, at day break, he found himself close alongside a small trader bound for Jamaica. They took him on board, applied to his body such rude ointments as they had at hand-of which, to say the truth, lamp oil formed the most plentiful ingredient-and finally landed him at Kingston. Still, of course, suffering much; but, animated by a determined thirst for vengeance, which, as he described it to me, ministered to all the ailments of his body more effectually than the exertions of the ablest Surgeons which the Island contained, he recovered, to the astonishment of all, and almost to

their disappointment. He should, they maintained, not have survived such treatment; and the ladies, in particular, were loud in their vituperation of the unfeeling monster. He heard them, and smiled in the bitterness of his heart. With an absorption apparently the most complete, he flung himself into the duties of his office, and applied to the accumulation of wealth;-he hoarded every farthing-he lived, as one of our Irish sailors described him when we were in Jamaica, "on half nothing;" he lent upon extravagant usury, and at the end of eight or ten years, he returned to England, master of upwards of two hundred thousand pounds. His first step was to seek the family of his murdered wife: he found her only surviving relative, a brother, struggling to support a large and interesting family upon the miserable pittance of a Welsh curate. He made over to him at once half of his enormous wealth, and then laid himself down in good earnest to the work of vengeance. Even while engaged in amassing his fortune, he had never lost sight for a moment of the pirate horde :— by means which appeared almost miraculous, he had ascertained their minutest proceedings; he had obtained charts of the various entrances to the lagoon-had a most accurate map of their village, and plans of their most private and securest retreats; and finally, had even a muster-roll of the gang, containing the names of each amongst them, with the length of his service. From this it appeared that the leaders were still the same who had so cruelly wronged him, and that though many recruits had joined the band, but half a dozen of the ancient cut-throats had disappeared. The bodies of the murdered ladies had, as he informed me, been buried by one of the party less brutal than the rest, and the spot was accurately marked upon the map which he exhibited to me. He had now just returned from near Southampton, where he had had the keel of a splendid cutter laid down by the most celebrated builder of the day, and had come to London to seek a captain and crew, when, on stepping from one of the stages in Fleetstreet, chance threw me in his way :-he recognized me instantly. On one of the few occasions when he permitted himself to mingle in society, he had dined in company with my ancient commander and dear friend, poor O'Cutlass-had heard him speak of his Irish officers, and particularly of me, as a brother Kerry-man, and one who, as he, poor fellow, phrased it, was fit "to face the devil." The very next morning, Selby had come down to the landing-place-had procured an idle King's pilot to point out to him the officers of the different men-of-war as they landed, and, as he stated, was at length perfectly satisfied by and with my appearance. The mark of poor Hickory's bullet in my cheek looked to him more lovely than the softest of dimples; and the trace of the Frenchman's cutlass across my forehead did more for my fortune, than ever the coronet of a spendthrift Peer has done for his. On his statement I also recollected having been pointed out the celebrated miser, Selby, as regarding me as if, in the cockney phrase, "he'd have buyed me," and we instantly became old acquaintances. His object in seeking me was soon explained.He had watched the Buccaneers-he had even prevented their destruction by any of the numerous men-of war on the station, in order that the delicious morsel of revenge might be secured to him simply

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by his own resources; and he now came to offer me the command of his vessel, the choice of my own crew, and the certainty, in case of success, of an independence for myself, if surviving; or, should I fall, for any person I might choose to appoint. This, to a nearly desperate man, was not an offer to be lightly rejected. Half an hour completed our bargain; I dined with him at the Clarendon, and the next evening saw us in the builder's yard at Southampton. I was allowed a 66 carte blanche" for my crew and appointments; and, to shorten a long tale, six months beheld me captain of the finest cutter then afloat, named " The Revenge," and mounting 14 twelve-pounder carronades and a long eighteen on a pivot, and, with an hundred as fine young fellows as ever smelt powder, on her deck; we were found in every respect in the first style; the accommodations of our meanest foremast-man were such as many a "reefer" must have envied ; and before we broke ground, Selby had expended fully twenty-five thousand pounds in the equipment of his vessel. The most extravagant wages were paid to the men, and to the two old master's mates whom I had procured to serve as the second and third officers under me—and finally, having first beaten every thing of her class, or up to an hundred tons over her burthen, the Revenge slipped her anchor on the first of March, 1814, on her crusade of vengeance long deferred. During the period of our equipment, Selby had been one of the gayest of mortals; his extreme affability-the readiness with which he listened to all their little wants and wishes, and the willingness with which he conceded them, had endeared him to the men, who, being for the greater part Irish, were especially taken with a kindness to which they had been but little habituated. His officers pronounced him the best fellow in the world. They were promised, at once, any rate of pay they chose to demand; their comforts were attended to with the most scrupulous exactness, and their table was such, as, to use their own expression, "the King might have dined at." Between him and me the most perfect harmony subsisted. I had entered into his feelings-I had become, not merely the instrument of his revenge, but the partaker of his most fervent aspirations for its completion; and while others saw in the gaiety of his manner, only the heartless levity of a worn-out man of the worldupon every thing else, and enjoying a new excitement, I traced in it the fierce joy of a powerful mind, in having at last within its reach the means of vengeance for the cruellest of wrongs: but from the moment of our sailing his manner totally altered-he became silent and abstracted-spoke not ten words in as many hours, but would pace the deck for entire days-now attentively watching the sailsnow halting to listen earnestly as the log was hove, and bending to catch the number of knots we gave her, scarcely taking sufficient food to support nature, and sleeping on deck under the lee of a guncarriage. The fever of expectation had become, as he told me, too strong, and nothing but the severest discipline could have preserved him from insanity. Our passage was short, and having delayed a few days at Jamaica to take in fresh provisions and water, we sailed finally on the cruise which had been the great object of our voyage. I had explained to each man as he joined us what our destination

was, and each had entered heartily into our purpose. During the passage we had kept the people almost constantly employed at exercising the great guns, firing at a mark with musket and pistol, or playing single stick. In order to perfect them in the use of the sword, they had almost, without an exception, been man-of-war or cutter's men; and the extravagant wages which Selby paid (over six pounds a month to an ordinary seaman,) gave us the choice of the market. At Jamaica, Selby went ashore alone on the day on which we sailed, and returned in about an hour with a little miserable looking negro, who, he informed me, was to act as our pilot. "Sambo Jack," as he called himself, looked, as it struck me, not very much inclined to the voyage, and fearful of a trick, I determined to watch him. It was fortunate I did so, for that very afternoon, long before we cleared the extremity of the Island, I observed him watching eagerly with his glass, a speck which seemed coming from on shore, at a considerable distance a-head, right athwart our forefoot. Having looked intently at it for some minutes, he lowered his glass, and stole a look full of suspicion around him. Affecting merely to watch the sleeping sails, I kept an eye on his motions, and muttering to himself, "Me do dem now, dam old Massa Selby," he slipped below. I instantly turned my glass on the object, which I perceived was a small canoe, with one negro, and a white man of rather trucculent appearance seated in it, and then calling my first officer to me, I sent him below to watch old Sambo's motions, with a strict charge not to allow himself to be seen. The little canoe was now within less than a quarter of a mile of us on our weather bow, when the old scoundrel, stealing up the companion-way, approached the side, and seizing hold of the weather-runner, swung himself upon the bulwark, and was about slipping into the sea, muttering, as he did so, "Dere you go, devil, Massa Selby," when I seized him, flung him on his back on the deck, and setting my foot on his breast, directed the officer of the watch to put her before the wind. "Throw off the main sheet there--up with your helm-let draw fore and gib sheets-so, belay all," were rapidly uttered, and in half the time it takes in description, we were running head of the wind, broad off to sea, leaving" Massa Sambo's" friends to expect him in vain. When we had run about a mile, I took my foot off and allowed him to rise, and had just asked him what the devil he meant, when M'Carthy, the first officer, came from below, bringing in his hand a long, slender cotton bag, about the thickness of one's middle finger, and something over a fathom in length, tipped at one end with a piece of slow match, which had evidently been but just extinguished. "Here's a proper old scoundrel, Sir," cried he; "when I went below I found the powder-hatch open, and just as I was about to make inquiries, this own brother to Old Nick came stealing up the hatchway; fortunately he did not see me, and I saw him wind this neat article from round his black carcase, lower one end, with a weight to it, into, as I found, one of the powder-barrels which he had unheaded, and then closing the hatch, leaving only just space for the damned thing to lie along the deck; he struck a light and set the match on fire. I let him alone, by your directions, and he then walked up the companion-way as gaily as if he had done the finest