I was much put about that I could get no nearer to the king's town than
I then was, it being some seven or eight leagues away around the
northern end of the island. I was the more vexed that we could not well
come to it in boats, other than by a long reach around the cape to the
northward, which would increase the journey to wellnigh thirty miles.
Besides all this, I was further troubled upon learning from Captain
Kirby of the _Greenwich_ that the pirates had been very troublesome in
these waters for some time past. He said that having been ashore soon
after he had come to that place, in search of a convenient spot to take
in water, he had found fourteen pirates that had come in their canoes
from the Mayotta, where the pirate ship to which they belonged, viz.,
the _Indian Queen_, two hundred and fifty tons, twenty-eight guns, and
ninety men, commanded by Captain Oliver de la Bouche, bound from the
Guinea coast to the East Indies, had been bulged and lost.

I asked Captain Kirby what he had done with the rogues. He told me,
nothing at all, and that the less one had to do with such fellows the
better. At this I was vastly surprised, and that he had taken no steps
to put an end to such a nest of vile, wicked, and bloody-minded wretches
when he had it so clearly in his power to take fourteen of them at once;
more especially as he should have known that if they got away from that
place and to any of their companions they would bring the others not
only about his ears, but of every other craft that might be lying in the
harbor at the time. Something to this effect I said, whereat he flew
into a mighty huff, and said that if I had seen half the experience that
he had been through I would not be so free in my threats of doing this
or that to a set of wretches no better than so many devils from hell,
who would cut a man's throat without any scruples either of fear or
remorse.

To all this I made no rejoinder, for the pirates were far enough away by
this time, and I was willing to suppose that Captain Kirby had done
what he judged to be best in the matter. Yet the getting away of those
evil wretches brought more trouble upon me than had happened in all my
life before.

But, as was said before, I was in a pretty tub of pickle with all those
things; for I could not bring my ship to anchor in any reasonable
distance of the king's town, nor could I leave her and go on such a
journey as would take a day or more, lest the pirates sh