a good ship and a twelve-month's
cargo. But when it came to using this connivance for private spite, the
thing was not to be endured.

In March my doubts became certainties. I had a parcel of gold coin
coming to me from New York in one of the coasting vessels--no great
sum, but more than I cared to lose. Presently I had news that the ship
was aground on a sandspit on Accomac, and had been plundered by a
pirate brigantine. I got a sloop and went down the river, and, sure
enough, I found the vessel newly refloated, and the captain, an old New
Hampshire fellow, in a great taking. Piracy there had been, but of a
queer kind, for not a farthing's worth had been touched except my
packet of gold. The skipper was honesty itself, and it was plain that
the pirate who had chased the ship aground and then come aboard to
plunder, had done it to do me hurt, and me alone.

All this made me feel pretty solemn. My uncle was a rich man, but no
firm could afford these repeated losses. I was the most unpopular
figure in Virginia, hated by many, despised by the genteel, whose only
friends were my own servants and a few poverty-stricken landward folk.
I had found out a good way of trade, but I had set a hornet's nest
buzzing about my ears, and was on the fair way to be extinguished. This
alliance between my rivals and the Free Companions was the last straw
to my burden. If the sea was to be shut to him, then a merchant might
as well put up his shutters.

It made me solemn, but also most mightily angry. If the stars in their
courses were going to fight against Andrew Garvald, they should find
him ready. I went to the Governor, but he gave me no comfort. Indeed,
he laughed at me, and bade me try the same weapon as my adversaries. I
left him, very wrathful, and after a night's sleep I began to see
reason in his words. Clearly the law of Virginia or of England would
give me no redress. I was an alien from the genteel world; why should I
not get the benefit of my ungentility? If my rivals went for their
weapons into dark places, I could surely do likewise. A line of Virgil
came into my head, which seemed to me to contain very good counsel:
"_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo_", which means that if
you cannot get Heaven on your side, you had better try for the Devil.

But how was I to get into touch with the Devil? And then I remembered
in a flash my meeting with the sea-captain on the Glasgow stairhead and
his promise to help me, I