A Middy of the King: A Romance of the Old British Navy - Harry Collingwood

It was six bells of the first watch when I reached the Berwick Castle, by which time the land-breeze was piping up strong; and as soon as the boat was hoisted to the davits we filled away for Port Royal, where we arrived in due course, and landed our prisoners, to the number of twenty-three. Three weeks later they underwent their trial for piracy on the high seas, and, the evidence against them being overwhelming, they were all hanged at Gallows Point a fortnight after their conviction.

As for me and my crew, we obtained full and even generous recognition for our exploit, the merchants of the various West Indian islands combining together to present me with an exceedingly handsome service of plate, and to subscribe to a purse the contents of which was to be divided pro rata among the other officers and men of the expedition. The Admiral was good enough to express unbounded satisfaction at what he was pleased to term “the unusual skill and discretion” with which the task of exterminating a most formidable nest of pirates had been carried out; and he took considerable pains to afford me an early opportunity, not only to undergo the formalities of a court-martial for the loss of the Wasp, but also to pass my examination. Immediately after this latter event he presented me with my commission to a crack frigate; and in her I subsequently saw much exciting service, lasting up to the short-lived peace of Amiens, toward the end of the year 1801, by which time I had attained to the rank of post-captain. But although many of my subsequent experiences as an officer of the British Royal Navy were sufficiently strange and exciting, it was never again my lot to cross swords with a pirate; for “pirating” became an occupation to be shunned, so far as the West Indian waters were concerned, for several years after the memorable example made by the British Government in the inexorable hunting down and destruction of the notorious Garcia, the pirate of Hayti, and his formidable band.