“You are a beastly pirate!” said an official. “You cannot purchase anything here for your nefarious business.”
“I am a privateer!” answered Wright, with anger.
“A privateer looks just the same to me as a pirate,” sarcastically sneered the official. And Captain Fortunatus had to look elsewhere for provisions.
As he cruised along, a big, French cruiser of thirty-eight guns chased the little Saint George as if to gobble her up alive.
“Boys! We shall now have some fun!” said Captain Wright. “I can sail faster than this Frenchy. Just watch me!”
So, when the great beast of a French vessel came lumbering by, Wright played with her like a cat with a mouse; sailed around her in circles; shot guns at her rigging—just to aggravate the men from the sunny land—and then dipped his ensign and went careening away as if nothing had happened. No wonder that the French hated and despised this valiant mariner! Wouldn’t you have done so if you had been a Frenchman?
Thus Captain Fortunatus Wright continued upon his privateering, his fighting, and his cruising; bearing terror to his enemies but satisfaction to his friends. His name was as well known among those who sailed the Mediterranean as was that of the great Napoleon in later years, and it was just as cordially hated by those who opposed him. “The Ogre from Leghorn” was one of his titles, while some applied to him the choice epithet of “The Red Demon from Italy.” At any rate this did not seem to worry the veteran sea-dog, who continued to take prizes and make money until the year 1757. Then he disappears from history, for the body of brave, resolute, stubborn, and valiant Captain Fortunatus Wright mysteriously and suddenly vanished from this earth.
What was his end?
Perhaps he perished while boarding the deck of some craft which was manned by men as gallant as his own. Perhaps he fell while stemming the advance of a crew of wild Frenchmen, eager for his blood and remembering the many victories which he had won over their countrymen. Perhaps, in the wild, wind-tossed wastes of the Mediterranean, his vessel—unable to cope with the elements—was hurled upon some jagged rock and sunk in the sobbing waters of the frothing sea. Perhaps he was captured, hurried to some dark prison, and died in one of those many dungeons which disgrace the cities of the Italian coast. Perhaps he was hanged for privateering.
At any rate, nothing is known of the last days of this dauntless navigator save what can be gathered from an old grave in St. Peter’s churchyard, in Liverpool.