ck, saying, "Stand there," beating me with the flat
side of a heavy cutlass until the blood ran through my shirt. During my
conversation with the commodore, finding all my entreaties unsuccessful,
and my strength much exhausted, I took a firm stand in the ring marked
out for me, hoping to receive a ball through the heart, fearing if I was
wounded I should be tortured to death to make sport for the demons.
Two of the pirates with loaded muskets took their stand and fired them
toward me, when I cast my eyes down toward my feet looking for blood,
thinking that I might have been wounded without feeling the pain. During
this time the man who had beat me before commenced beating me again,
pointing aft toward the cabin door, where I proceeded, followed by him,
beating me all the time: he forced me into the cabin, at the same time
giving me a severe blow over the head with his cutlass. When I entered I
found both the mate and sailor there whom I supposed had been murdered
and thrown overboard. The next person called out of the fore-castle was
Mr. Peck, a passenger, who was immediately asked where the money was; he
told them he knew of no more money on board. One man stood before him
with a musket and another with a cutlass, they knocked him down and beat
him for some time, took him by the hair and said they would kill him. He
was then ordered to set upon the bit of the windlass to be shot and
thrown overboard, as the captain and others had been. He took his
station by the windlass, when a musket was fired at him; he was then
driven into the cabin. They then called up the remainder of the men from
the fore-castle, one after the other, and beat and drove them into the
cabin also, except a Mr. Chollet, a young man, passenger, who escaped
beating. We were kept in the cabin some time, and after repeated threats
that they would kill us, were all driven into the fore-castle again.
They took out all our cargo, consisting of coffee, cocoa,
tortoise-shell, eight kedge anchors, all our provisions, except part of
a barrel of beef and about thirty pounds of bread. After they had taken
all the cargo, spare rigging, &c. of any value, they shifted all the
ballast in the hold of the vessel in search of money, and calling us on
deck, we were told to be off. After getting under weigh we proceeded but
slowly, having no other sails left but the two jibs and the main-sail.
We looked back with a great deal of anxiety, and saw the pirates seated
on the