Our master soon understood what they were, and came down into the cabin to me to let me know it. I was much surprised, you may be sure, at the danger, but my poor wife took from me all the concern for myself to take care of her, for she was frighted to that degree that I thought we should not have been able to keep life in her.
While we were thus under the first hurry and surprise of the thing, suddenly another noise from the deck called us up to look out, and that was, “Land! land!” The master and I—for by this time I had got out of my cabin—run upon the deck, and there we saw the state of our case very plain. The two rogues that stood after us laid on all the canvas they could carry, and crowded after us amain, but at the distance, as I have said, of about six leagues, rather more than less. On the other hand, the land discovered lay about nine leagues right ahead, so that if the pirates could get of us, so as to sail three feet for our two, it was evident they would be up with us before we could make the island. If not, we should escape them and get in; but even then we had no great hope to do any more than to run the ship ashore to save our lives, and so, stranding our vessel, spoil both sloop and cargo.
When we were making this calculation our master came in cheerfully, and told me he had crowded on more sail, and found the sloop carried it very well, and that he did not find the rogues gained much upon us, and that especially if one of them did not, that was the sloop, he found he could go away from the brigantine as he pleased. Thus we gave them what they call a stern chase, and they worked hard to come up with us till towards noon, when on a sudden they both stood away and gave us over, to our great satisfaction you may be sure.
We did not, it seems, so easily see the occasion of our deliverance as the pirate did; for while we went spooning away large with the wind for one of the islands, with those two spurs in our heels, that is, with the two thieves at our sterns, there lay an English man-of-war in the road of Nevis, which was the same island from whence they espied the pirates, but the land lying between, we could not see them.
As the man-of-war discovered them she immediately slipped her cable and put herself under sail in chase of the rogues; and they as soon perceived her, and being windward, put themselves upon a wind to escape her; and thus we were delivered, and in half-an-hour more we knew who was our deliverer, seeing the man-of-war stretch ahead clear of the island, and stand directly after the pirates, who now crowded from us as fast as they crowded after us before; and thus we got safe into Antigua, after the terrible apprehension we had been in of being taken. Our apprehensions of being taken now were much more than they would have been on board a loaden ship from or to London, where the most they ordinarily do is to rifle the ship, take what is valuable and portable, and let her go. But ours being but a sloop, and all our loading being good provisions, such as they wanted, to be sure, for their ship’s store, they would certainly have carried us away, ship and all, taken out the cargo and the men, and perhaps have set the sloop on fire; so that, as to our cargo of gold, it had been inevitably lost, and we hurried away, nobody knows where, and used as such barbarous fellows are wont to use innocent people as fall into their hands.
But we were now out of their hands, and had the satisfaction a few days after to hear that the man-of-war pursued them so close, notwithstanding they changed their course in the night, that the next day they were obliged to separate and shift for themselves; so the man-of-war took one of them, namely, the brigantine, and carried her into Jamaica, but the other, viz., the sloop, made her escape.
Being arrived here, we presently disposed of our cargo, and at a tolerable good price; and now the question was, what I should do next. I looked upon myself to be safe here from the fears I had been under of being discovered as a rebel, and so indeed I was; but having been now absent five months, and having sent the ship back with a cargo of rum and molasses, which I knew was wanting in my plantations, I received the same vessel back in return loaden, as at first, with provisions.
With this cargo my wife received a packet from London from the person whom she had employed, as above, to solicit a pardon, who very honestly wrote to her that he would not be so unjust to her friend, whoever he was, as to put him to any expense for a private solicitation; for that he was very well assured that his Majesty had resolved, from his own native disposition to acts of clemency and mercy to his subjects, to grant a general pardon, with some few exceptions to persons extraordinary, and he hoped her friend was none of the extraordinary persons to be excepted.
This was a kind of life from the dead to us both, and it was resolved that my wife should go back in the sloop directly to Virginia, where she should wait the good news from England, and should send me an account of it as soon as she received it.
Accordingly she went back, and came safe with the sloop and cargo to our plantation, from whence, after above four months’ more expectation, behold the sloop came to me again, but empty and gutted of all her cargo, except about a hundred sacks of unground malt, which the pirates, not knowing how to brew, knew not what to do with, and so had left in her. However, to my infinite satisfaction, there was a packet of letters from my wife, with another to her from England, as well one from her friend as one from my own correspondent; both of them inti mating that the king had signed an act of grace, that is to say, a general free pardon, and sent me copies of the act, wherein it was manifest that I was fully included.