[103] A full account of this outrage was afterwards printed in the Boston News-Letter of April 30, 1722.

[104] New England Courant, June 18, 1722.

[105] These Articles are similar to Captain Lowther’s with some additions.

[106] Boston News-Letter, Sept 17, 1722.

[107] American Weekly Mercury, May 9, 1723.

[108] See Chapter XIV.

CHAPTER XI
Captain Roberts’ Account of what Happened on Low’s Ship

Captain George Roberts sailed from London in September, 1721, mate of the ship “King Sagamore,” twenty-two guns, Capt. Andrew Scott, commander, bound for the Barbadoes and Virginia where he was to take command of a sloop and buy a cargo to slave with on the coast of Guinea. After various delays he reached the Cape Verde islands in the sloop “Margaret,” “sixty ton of cask,” and at Curisal Road, on the island of St. Nicholas, was taken by the pirate fleet of which Capt. Ned Low was commodore. Captain Roberts afterwards recounted his adventures in a volume published[109] in London, from which the following account is taken.

“When I came on board the Rose Pink, the Company welcomed me on board, and said, They were sorry for my Loss; but told me, I must go to pay my Respects to the Captain, who was in the Cabbin, and waited for me. I was ushered in by an Officer, who, I think, was their Gunner, and who, by his Deportment, acted as though he had been Master of the Ceremonies; tho’ I do not remember to have heard of such an Officer or Office mentioned among them, neither do I know whether they are always so formal on Board their Commodore, at the first Reception of their captivated Masters of Vessels. When I came into the Cabbin, the Officer who conducted me thither, after paying his Respects to the Commodore, told him, That I was the Master of the Sloop which they had taken the Day before, and then withdrew out of the Cabbin, leaving us two alone.

“Captain Loe, with the usual Compliment, welcomed me on board, and told me, He was very sorry for my Loss, and that it was not his Desire to meet with any of his Country-men, but rather with Foreigners, excepting some few that he wanted to chastise for their Rogueishness, as he call’d it: But however, says he, since Fortune has ordered it so, that you have fallen into our Hands, I would have you to be of good Cheer, and not to be cast down. I told him, That I also was very sorry, that it was my Chance to fall into their Way; but still encouraged myself in the Hopes, that I was in the Hands of Gentlemen of Honour and Generosity; it being still in their Power whether to make this their Capture of me, a Misfortune or not. He said, It did not lie in his particular Power; for he was but one Man, and all Business of this Nature, must be done in Publick, and by a Majority of Votes by the whole Company; and though neither he, nor, he believed, any of the Company, desired to meet with any of their own Nation (except some few Persons for the Reasons before-mention’d) yet when they did, it could not well be avoided, but that they must take as their own what Providence sent them: And as they were Gentlemen, who entirely depended upon Fortune, they durst not be so ungrateful to her, as to refuse any Thing which she put into their Way; for if they should despise any of her Favours, tho’ never so mean, they might offend her, and thereby cause her to withdraw her Hand from them; and so, perhaps, they might perish for want of those Things, which in their rash Folly they slighted. He then, in a very obliging Tone, desired me to sit down, he himself all this Time not once moving from his Seat, which was one of the great Guns, though there were Chairs enough in the Cabbin; but I suppose, he thought he should not appear so martial, or Hero-like, if he sat on a Chair, as he did on a great Gun.