they rose and took the riches away from their hapless
passengers. It has been believed by one treasure seeking expedition
after another, even to this day, that Captain Thompson of the British
trading brig, _Mary Dear_ received on board in the harbor of Lima as
much as twelve million dollars' worth of gold and silver, and that he
and his crew, after killing the Spanish owners, sailed north in the
Pacific and buried the booty on Cocos Island.

Captain Thompson somehow escaped and joined a famous pirate of that
time, Benito Bonito, who accumulated a large treasure which he also
buried on Cocos Island. The British Admiralty records show that Bonito
was overhauled in his turn by the frigate _Espiegle_ and that rather
than be hanged in chains, he very handsomely blew out his brains on his
own deck.

This same treasure of Lima, or part of it, furnished the foundation of
the story belonging to the volcanic islet of Trinidad in the South
Atlantic. One version of this is that the pirates who chose this
hiding-place had been the crew of a fast English schooner in the slave
trade. While at sea they disposed of their captain by the unpleasant
method of pinning him to the mainmast with a boarding pike through his
vitals. Then the black flag was hoisted and with a new skipper they
stood to the southward, finding a great amount of plunder in a
Portuguese ship which had on board a "Jew diamond dealer" among other
valuable items. After taking an East Indiaman, and other tempting
craft, they buried the total proceeds on the desolate, uninhabited
island of Trinidad, intending to return for it before the end of the
cruise.

Unfortunately, for the successful pirates, they ran afoul of a heavily
armed and manned merchant vessel which shot away their rudder, tumbled
their spars about their rascally ears, boarded them with great spirit
and determination, and clapped the shackles on the twenty gentlemen of
fortune who had survived the engagement. These were carried into
Havana and turned over to the Spanish authorities who gleefully hanged
nineteen, not twenty, mark you, for one had to make a marvelous escape
in order to hand down the secret of the treasure to posterity. This
survivor died in bed in England at a very great age, so the story runs,
and of course he had a chart to set the next generation to digging.

The earlier statements of this narrative may be cast aside as
worthless. The real, true pirate of Trinidad was not in th