ad to sell, they could not
be prevailed upon to pay their bills. A pirate is not the sort of a man
who generally cares to pay his bills. When he gets goods in any way, he
wants them charged to him, and if that charge includes the features of
robbery and murder, he will probably make no objection. But as for
paying good money for what is received, that is quite another thing.

That this was the state of feeling on the island of Tortuga was
discovered before very long by the French mercantile agents, who then
applied to the mother country for assistance in collecting the debts due
them, and a body of men, who might be called collectors, or deputy
sheriffs, was sent out to the island; but although these officers were
armed with pistols and swords, as well as with authority, they could do
nothing with the buccaneers, and after a time the work of endeavoring to
collect debts from pirates was given up. And as there was no profit in
carrying on business in this way, the mercantile agency was also given
up, and its officers were ordered to sell out everything they had on
hand, and come home. There was, therefore, a sale, for which cash
payments were demanded, and there was a great bargain day on the island
of Tortuga. Everything was disposed of,--the stock of merchandise on
hand, the tables, the desks, the stationery, the bookkeepers, the
clerks, and the errand boys. The living items of the stock on hand were
considered to be property just as if they had been any kind of
merchandise, and were sold as slaves.

Now poor John Esquemeling found himself in a sad condition. He was
bought by one of the French officials who had been left on the island,
and he described his new master as a veritable fiend. He was worked
hard, half fed, treated cruelly in many ways, and to add to his misery,
his master tantalized him by offering to set him free upon the payment
of a sum of money equal to about three hundred dollars. He might as well
have been asked to pay three thousand or three million dollars, for he
had not a penny in the world.

At last he was so fortunate as to fall sick, and his master, as
avaricious as he was cruel, fearing that this creature he owned might
die, and thus be an entire loss to him, sold him to a surgeon, very much
as one would sell a sick horse to a veterinary surgeon, on the principle
that he might make something out of the animal by curing him.

His new master treated Esquemeling very well, and after he had tak