elfe, whom they carried with them to Jamaica. not
being Suffered to Land any of their goods there, Sailed thence with
this Ship in Comp'y of our English Fleete, pretending they were bound
with her to the East Country,[5] putting our Master and myselfe on
shore at Jamaica.

[Footnote 2: Cartagena on the Spanish Main is meant; see below.]

[Footnote 3: St. Marc on the west coast of Haiti, then French.]

[Footnote 4: Middelburg in Zeeland.]

[Footnote 5: Baltic lands.]

Samuel Button deposed in Court that what is above written is the truth
and whole truth to his best knowledge. 11th of August 1681.

EDW RAWSON, Secret.

THE _CAMELION_.

_50. Agreement to Commit Piracy. June 30, 1683._[1]

[Footnote 1: This very curious document (for one does not expect to
find pirates agreeing in writing to pursue a course of piracy) is
found embedded in one of the indictments in the case of the
_Camelion_, in vol. I. of the wills in the office of the surrogate,
New York City, pp. 312-313 of the modern copy. Its presence among
wills requires a word of explanation. The governor of a royal colony
was usually chancellor, ordinary, and vice-admiral, and as such might
preside in the courts of chancery, probate, and admiralty--courts
whose common bond was that their jurisprudence was derived from the
civil (or Roman) law, and not from the common law. Most of his
judicial action was in testamentary cases. It was therefore not
unnatural that the few admiralty cases and cases of piracy tried in
these early days should be recorded in the same volume as the wills,
though distinguished by the simple process of turning the book end for
end and recording them at the back. In this case the record begins
with our document 51; but the present document, copied into one of the
indictments, is earlier in date. The substance of another pirates'
agreement (Roberts's company, 1720, see doc. no. 117) is given in
Charles Johnson, _General History of the Pyrates_, second ed., pp.
230-232; another (Phillips's company, 1727, see doc. no. 120 and note
10), _ibid._, verbatim, pp. 397-398.]

_June the 30th day, 1683._ Articles of Agreement between us abord of
the _Camillion_,[2] Nich. Clough Comander, that wee are to dispose of
all the goods thatt are abord amongst us, every man are to have his
full due and right share only the Commander is to have two shares and
a half a share for the Ship and home[3] the Captain please to take for
the Master under