Now, while the man spoke, I observed my brother gave a start and looked earnestly upon him; and, after he ceased, the Captain desired he would come aboard into the ship, but that the rest should stay in the boat. The rest, however, began to cry out against that.
“What! you won’t treat us, Cap’n?” cries one, and “Let us see what liquor you brought from England,” cries another, and “Why, you skinflint shark,” quoth another, “if you drink not with us, we’ll broach your fat hull!”
Hereupon these unruly rascals made to swarm the ship’s side, and what the event of it had been I know not; but, on a sudden, a gun was shot off aboard the Admiral, which put a period to their brawling. They immediately fell quiet; and the coxswain said: “Cap’n Morgan’s in haste, and I reckon we’d best be in haste also. Keep you still in the boat, while I go get the victuals. You’ll not drink rumbo this bout!”
So he came up to us into the ship; and my brother took him into his cabin, shutting the door after, so that I know not what passed between them.
But when they came out, they talked very familiarly together; and, passing near me, I heard my brother say:
“Is Jolly Peter still with you?” whence I apprehended my brother had old acquaintance with these people. As to what they were, I doubted not, and now do know, they were nothing but a swarm of pirates. On board those fifteen vessels, indeed, was embarked the army of Captain Henry Morgan, a name soon to become so notorious and so dreadful. They were going to Maracaibo.
When such commodities as the pirates wanted had been laded into their boat (the jars of wine having been taken aboard the ship in the interim), that spokesman did very affectionately take leave of my brother, and returned into the boat. So they cast off and pulled away, singing a ribald song to keep the time.
After parting from the pirates, we hauled our wind and tacked in for the western shore of Hispaniola, to re-victual the ship and fill our water. Thereby, in the dusk of the evening, we hit a little bay, and came to an anchor within a mile from the shore, and lay there all night.
In the morning, so soon as it was light, I got up, and went on deck to view the landfall. Indeed, I was much inquisitive to behold this Island of Hispaniola; for a poor crooked mutilated man that lived in the village at home, had given me an account thereof, acquainting me with its varied fruitfulness and spacious and beautiful prospects, and with the curious customs of the hunters and planters there. He, when a boy, had been kidnapped, and transported into slavery on the plantations in the Isle of St. Christopher of the Caribbee Islands. There his master was one Bettesa, who did even excel in cruelty among a sort of people incredibly cruel to their slaves and servants, and used him with such barbarity as reduced his body to that miserable plight aforesaid. But at last, escaping from the clutches of this inhuman monster, he came to Hispaniola; where, after many days of hiding and wandering up and down the country, he fell in with a certain rich Spaniard, who proved his benefactor. For this generous-spirited man not only clothed and cared for that poor fugitive, but did also defray the charges of his passage to England on a ship that was departing thither; and, moreover, he gave him, in Spanish notes, a bounty sufficient to his support for the rest of his days.
Having mounted the poop, I looked very eagerly towards the land.