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Updated: May 31, 2025
The table was laid for supper, with cold meat, and wine, and a profusion of silver things, all sparkling brightly; but it was in great disorder, wine spilt, and glasses broken, and dishes with meat upset, and knives, and forks, and spoons, scattered all about. She was evidently one of those London West Indiamen, on board of which I knew there was much splendour and great comfort.
Previous to this order many homeward-bound West Indiamen arrived at Castle Harbor to load with this fruit for the English market. Whaling was claimed as an exclusive privilege, and was conducted for the sole benefit of the proprietors. Numerous attempts were made to boil sugar, but the company directed the Governor to prevent it, as it would require too much wood for fuel.
Although the conjectures of Forster, that she was one of the many foreign West Indiamen which had met with a similar fate during that tempestuous winter, was probably correct; still no clue could be gathered by which the parentage of the little girl could be ascertained, The linen was indeed marked with initials; but this circumstance offered but a faint prospect of discovery.
Agreeing with the United States to waive all discriminating duties between the ports of the two countries this was as much as she was at that time willing to yield. She still insisted upon regulating the trade of her West Indies and Canada. American East Indiamen were to be limited to direct voyages and could not bring cargoes to Europe.
We were in sight of several sail, most of them were Indiamen, some outward bound from England, and some on their way home from the East. A few smaller craft we saw, brigs and a barque or two, and, as they carried English colours, we concluded they were traders to the Cape, or Algoa Bay.
The sight of the brig, and the flurry about the wharves, where several Indiamen were discharging cargoes or making ready for sea, confirmed me in my resolution to try the ocean once more. Indeed I began to be heartily ashamed of having seriously entertained the idea of quietly settling down among "the land-lubbers on shore," and felt that the sooner I retrieved my error the better.
John Ozanne folded the bill methodically and stowed it safely away in his pocket-book. "It'd be a fortune if we caught him full," he said thoughtfully. "They say he takes no prizes. Just helps himself to what he wants like a highwayman, and then sheers off and looks out for another. Rare pickings he must have had among some of those fat East Indiamen.
We might as well say here, as anywhere, that we are well aware that the representation given by us of the pirate's palace and cavern, will be looked upon by many as unnatural and improbable, but when they consider that the bucaniers of that period were very numerous, and consisted of men of almost every variety of genius, which must, even in its times of relaxation, be employed about something, they will cease, perhaps, to wonder that the ingenuity of such men should be exerted in building convenient, and even elegant structures for their accommodation, and their extensive means of enriching them with ornaments the most costly, with which the numerous Indiamen they captured were freighted, will not be farther questioned.
Numerous boats, too, were plying to and fro filled with naval and military officers, captains of Indiamen, sailors, lascars, negroes, and Frenchmen, some on business, some on pleasure, but all seeming to be in a hurry. I looked out with no little curiosity for any craft which might answer the description of our late antagonist, the Mignonne.
She was well aware that she could easily proceed to India from the Cape in one of the Indiamen that so frequently touched at that port, and so, on the whole, she felt tolerably easy in her new position, and set to work, with her usual tact, to make herself agreeable to the Captain and her fellow travellers.
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