Sierra Leone river disgorges with a large mouth, the starboard side of which draughts into little bays, safe and convenient for cleaning and watering; what still made it preferable to the pirates is that the traders settled here are naturally their friends. There are about thirty Englishmen in all, men who in some part of their lives have been either privateering, buccaneering, or pirating, and still retain and love the riots and humours common to that sort of life. They live very friendly with the natives, and have many of them of both sexes to be their gromettas, or servants. The men are faithful and the women so obedient that they are very ready to prostitute themselves to whomsoever their masters shall command them. The Royal African Company has a fort on a small island called Bence Island, but it is of little use, besides keeping their slaves, the distance making it incapable of giving any molestation to their starboard shore. Here lives at this place an old fellow who goes by the name of Crackers, who was formerly a noted buccaneer, and while he followed the calling robbed and plundered many a man; he keeps the best house in the place, has two or three guns before his door, with which he salutes his friends, the pirates, when they put in, and lives a jovial life with them all the while they are there.
Here follows a list of the rest of those lawless merchants and their servants who carry on a private trade with the interlopers, to the great prejudice of the Royal African Company, who, with extraordinary industry and expense, have made and maintain settlements without any consideration from those who, without such settlements and forts, would soon be under an incapacity of pursuing any such private trade. Wherefore it is to be hoped proper means will be taken to root out a pernicious set of people who have all their lives supported themselves by the labours of other men.
Two of these fellows entered with Roberts’s crew, and continued with them till the destruction of the company.
A List of the White Men now living on the high land of Sierra Leone, and the craft they occupy:—
John Leadstone, three boats and a periagoe; his man, Tom; his man, John Brown. Alexander Middleton, one long-boat; his man, Charles Hawkins. John Pierce, William Mead, partners, one long-boat; their man, John Vernon. David Chatmers, one long-boat. John Chatmers, one long-boat. Richard Richardson, one long-boat. Norton, Richard Warren, Robert Glynn, partners, two long-boats and two small boats; his man, John Franks. William Waits, and one young man. John Bonnerman. John England, one long-boat. Robert Samples, one long-boat. William Presgrove, Harry Presgrove, Davis Presgrove, Mitchel Presgrove, Richard Lamb, one sloop, two long-boats, a small boat, and periagoe. With Roquis Rodrigus, a Portuguese. George Bishop. Peter Brown. John Jones, one long-boat; his Irish young man. At Rio Pungo, Benjamin Gun. At Kidham, George Yeats. At Gallyneas, Richard Lemmons.
The harbour is so convenient for wooding and watering that it occasions many of our trading ships, especially those of Bristol, to call in there with large cargoes of beer, cider, and strong liquors, which they exchange with these private traders for slaves and teeth, purchased by them at the Rio Nune’s and other places to the northward, so that here was what they call good living.
Hither Roberts came the end of June, 1721, and had intelligence that the Swallow and Weymouth, two men-of-war, of fifty guns each, had left that river about a month before and designed to return about Christmas; so that the pirates could indulge themselves with all the satisfaction in the world, in that they knew they were not only secure whilst there, but that in going down the coast after the men-of-war they should always be able to get such intelligence of their rendezvous as would serve to make their expedition safe. So after six weeks’ stay, the ships being cleaned and fitted, and the men weary of whoring and drinking, they bethought themselves of business, and went to sea the beginning of August, taking their progress down the whole coast as low as Jaquin, plundering every ship they met of what was valuable in her, and sometimes to be more mischievously wicked, would throw what they did not want overboard, accumulating cruelty to theft.
In this range they exchanged their old French ship for a fine frigate-built ship called the Onslow, belonging to the Royal African Company, Captain Gee, commander, which happened to lie at Sestos, to get water and necessaries for the company. A great many of Captain Gee’s men were ashore when Roberts’s bore down, and so the ship consequently surprised into his hands, though had they been all on board it was not likely the case would have been otherwise, the sailors, most of them, voluntarily joining the pirates, and encouraging the same disposition in the soldiers (who were going passengers with them to Cape Corso Castle), whose ears being constantly tickled with the feats and gallantry of those fellows, made them fancy that to go was only being bound on a voyage of knight errantry (to relieve the distressed and gather up fame) and so they likewise offered themselves. But here the pirates were at a stand; they entertained so contemptible a notion of landmen that they put them off with refusals for some time, till at length, being wearied with solicitations and pitying a parcel of stout fellows, which they said were going to starve upon a little canky and plantane, they accepted of them, and allowed them a quarter share, as it was then termed, out of charity.
There was a clergyman on board the Onslow, sent from England to be chaplain of Cape Corso Castle. Some of the pirates were for keeping him, alleging merrily that their ship wanted a chaplain. Accordingly they offered him a share to take on with them, promising he should do nothing for his money but make punch and say prayers; yet, however brutish they might be in other things, they bore so great a respect to his order that they resolved not to force him against his inclinations; and the parson, having no relish for this sort of life, excused himself from accepting the honour they designed him; they were satisfied, and generous enough to deliver him back everything he owned to be his. The parson laid hold of this favourable disposition of the pirates, and laid claim to several things belonging to others, which were also given up, to his great satisfaction; in fine, they kept nothing which belonged to the Church except three Prayer-books and a bottle-screw.
The pirates kept the Onslow for their own use, and gave Captain Gee the French ship, and then fell to making such alterations as might fit her for a sea-rover, pulling down her bulkheads and making her flush, so that she became, in all respects, as complete a ship for their purpose as any they could have found; they continued to her the name of the Royal Fortune and mounted her with forty guns.