EDWARD ENGLAND
TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS
(1690?-about 1725)
“If England wuz but wind an’ paint,
How we’d hate him.
But he ain’t.”
—Log of the Royal James.
HIT him with a bottle, he deserves it, th’ brute!”
The man who spoke was a thick-set sailor of some forty-five summers, with a swarthy skin, a brownish mat of hair, a hard visage, and a cut across one eye. He stood upon the deck of a good-sized brig, which was drowsily lolling along the coast of Africa.
“Yes, he treated us like dogs aboard th’ Cuttlefish. Here, give me a shot at ’im.”
Thus cried another sailor—a toughish customer also—and, as his voice rang out, a dozen more came running to the spot.
Cringing before the evil gaze of the seamen stood the Captain of a Bristol merchantman—the Cadogan—which lay a boat’s length away, upon the glassy surface of a rocking sea.
Again rang out the harsh tones of him who had first spoken.
“Ah, Captain Skinner, it is you, eh? You are the very person I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and I shall pay you in your own coin.”