the terror and
sufferings of others, as Charles Adams?

From the evidence brought out in court, it appeared that Delano, late
master of the _William_ brig, belonged to New York, in the United States
of America. Though of most respectable parents, at an early age he had
taken to evil courses, and was at length compelled to leave his native
city for some notorious act of atrocity. His plausible manners,
however, enabled him after a time to get command of several merchantmen
in succession. One after another, they were cast away under very
suspicious circumstances. The underwriters suffered, and the owners
built larger and finer vessels, while he had evidently more money than
ever at command. It now appeared, by the evidence of one of the
prisoners who had sailed with him, that one at least he had purposely
cast away, for the purpose of obtaining the insurance, she being insured
for a far larger amount than she was worth. After this he got into the
employment of a highly respectable firm in Liverpool, and sailed in
command of a fine brig for the Mediterranean. Here was a good opening
for making an honest livelihood; but such a course did not suit the
taste of Delano. Several of his crew, brought up in the slave-trade, or
as smugglers, were ill-disposed men; others were weak, ignorant, and
unprincipled, and were easily gained by his persuasions to abet him in
his evil designs. Finding, after they had been some time at sea
together, that neither his mates nor his crew were likely to refuse
joining in any project he might suggest, he boldly proposed to them to
turn pirates; and not only to plunder any vessels they might fall in
with, whose crews were unable to offer resistance, but, by putting them
out of the way, to prevent all chance of detection. They waited,
however, till they got into the Mediterranean, and they there fell in
with a fine brig, out of London, laden with a valuable cargo. They
surprised and overpowered the crew, whom they confined below, while they
plundered her of everything valuable. Some of her crew had recognised
them. To let them live would certainly lead to their own detection; so
they scuttled the ship, and remained by her till she sunk beneath the
waves, with the hapless people they had plundered on board. Then they
went on their way rejoicing, and confident that no witnesses existed of
their crime. They knew not of the Eye above which had watched them;
they thought not of the avengin