So all made ready for a trans-Atlantic voyage.
But Captain England was in error when he said that he was sailing for fields which had never before been touched. Two other piratical vessels: the Revenge and the Flying King, had been cruising off the coast of Brazil, just before his advent. Fighting in partnership, they had taken two Portuguese schooners, and were making off with them, when a Portuguese man-o’-warsman came booming along under full canvas. She was an unwelcome guest.
Setting all sail the two pirates had attempted to get away and the Revenge succeeded in doing so. Two days later a typhoon struck her and she was soon swinging bottom upwards, with the kittiwakes shrieking over her barnacled keel.
But the revengeful man-o’-warsman ploughed relentlessly after the Flying King, which could not fly quite fast enough, this time, and—in despair—was run, bows on, upon the shore, where the crew scrambled to the sand in a desperate endeavor to get away. The sailors from the man-o’-warsman were speedy; they shot twelve of the buccaneers, took the rest prisoners (there were seventy in all) and hanged thirty-eight to the yard-arm. News of this came to Captain England when he neared the tropic coast of Brazil.
“It’s all in a life-time,” said he. “If I’m captured, of course I’ll swing. But, meanwhile, I hope to have a good life.”
Not many days afterwards he heard the welcome sound of:
“Sail ho! Off the port bow!”
And raising the glass to his eye discovered two fat, prosperous-looking merchant ships, slipping quietly along like an old maid fresh from market.
“Slap on all sail and give chase!” was bellowed out in stentorian tones, and the Royal James was soon fairly boiling along with every stitch aloft, which she could carry.
As she neared the merchantmen, the names came plainly to view: the Peterborough of Bristol, and the Victory of Liverpool, but a shot screamed across the bowsprit of the latter and victory was turned into defeat. A white flag was fluttering at her mainmast in a moment, for the Captain had no stomach for a fight.