"Why, sir," says he, very civilly, "she has been here three weeks, and no more. To tell you the truth, she was a French pirate, though I said nothing of that matter to Sir Bartlemy to add to his prejudice. But she is a good ship, and was taken by some honest Englishmen trading in spices."
"And what was the name of their ship who took this?" I asked.
"That I cannot tell you," he replies, "for their ship was so disabled in the fight that they had to abandon her and come home in this."
"Do you know these men or their captain?"
"No, sir, for they were of Hull; but I believe the captain's name was Adams, for I heard of him yesterday."
"In what respect?"
"It was in this wise. He bought a new ship of a brother broker here—the French vessel being not to his taste, nor big enough for his purpose—and sailed it hence to fit out and victual at Hull, where his crew would fain see their friends; and to Hull we thought he had gone. But my friend having necessity to go to St. Ives, in Cornwall, did there see this very ship, and Captain Adams with his men ashore, all drunk as any fiddlers; which amazed him, so that he spoke of it as a thing not to be understood."
But I understood this well enough, and therefore I laid the whole matter before my uncle, and would have had him go with me to St. Ives, where I doubted not but we should find Captain Adams to be Rodrigues, and so lay him and his rascally crew by the heels, besides seizing his ship for our redress.
But my uncle would not agree to this.
"For," says he, "in the first place, it is a tedious business to stir the Admiralty to our profit, and in that time this Rodrigues—curse his bones!—may get wind of our intent and slip through our fingers; and, secondly, I hold it best not to stir up a sleeping dog, but to get on while one is safe. Added to which, every moment's delay is as much as a year of suffering to Harry."