izes, to depart in her, she being bound for that island.

After this cruise they went into a small island, and cleaned, and spent
their Christmas ashore, drinking and carousing as long as they had any
liquor left, and then went to sea again for more. They succeeded but too
well, though they took no extraordinary prize for above two months,
except a ship laden with convicts from Newgate, bound for the
plantations, which in a few days was retaken, with all her cargo, by an
English man-of-war that was stationed in those seas.

Rackam stood towards the island of Bermuda, and took a ship bound to
England from Carolina, and a small pink from New England, both of which
he brought to the Bahama Islands, where, with the pitch, tar and stores
they cleaned again, and refitted their own vessel; but staying too long
in that neighborhood, Captain Rogers, who was Governor of Providence,
hearing of these ships being taken, sent out a sloop well manned and
armed, which retook both the prizes, though in the mean while the pirate
had the good fortune to escape.

From hence they sailed to the back of Cuba, where Rackam kept a little
kind of a family, at which place they stayed a considerable time, living
ashore with their Delilahs, till their money and provisions were
expended, and they concluded it time to look out for more. They repaired
their vessel, and were making ready to put to sea, when a guarda de
costa came in with a small English sloop, which she had taken as an
interloper on the coast. The Spanish guard-ship attacked the pirate, but
Rackam being close in behind a little island, she could do but little
execution where she lay; the Dons therefore warped into the channel that
evening, in order to make sure of her the next morning. Rackam finding
his case desperate, and that there was hardly any possibility of
escaping, resolved to attempt the following enterprise. The Spanish
prize lying for better security close into the land, between the little
island and the Main, our desperado took his crew into the boat with
their cutlasses, rounded the little island, and fell aboard their prize
silently in the dead of the night without being discovered, telling the
Spaniards that were aboard her, that if they spoke a word, or made the
least noise, they were all dead men; and so they became masters of her.
When this was done he slipped her cable, and drove out to sea. The
Spanish man-of-war was so intent upon their expected prize, that they