This informant farther saith That he had heard upon Madagascar, That a little before his arrivall there That 14 of the Pyrates (belonging to Captain Tew, Captain Rayner, and Captain Mason and Captain Coats or some of them)[17] had by consent divided themselves into two sevens, to fight for what they had (thinking they had not made a voyage sufficient for so many) and that one of the said Sevens were all killed, and five of the other, so that the two which survived enjoyed the whole Booty. And this Informant further saith, that he hath heard and believeth, that not only the ship Resolution to which he formerly belonged, but also the Mocha Friggat,[18] which run away out of the service of the East India Company, the Charles and Mary, and severall other ships manned by English and other European Nations, were about nine months since, when he came from Madagascar, and still are playing the Pyrates in the Streights of Mallaca, in the Red Sea and other Parts in the East Indies.
Samuell Perkins.
Juratus coram me[19]
Ra. Marshall.
[1] Public Record Office, C.O. 323:2, no. 131. It is endorsed "Copy of a Deposition of Samuel Perkins relating to Pirates in the East Indies Communicated to the Board [of Trade] by Mr. Secretary Vernon" (secretary of state). Samuel Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts, had been one of that town's contingent in King Philip's War, and died in Ipswich, an old man, in 1738.
[2] Mulatto.
[3] Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast.
[4] Sokotra.
[5] Rajpur, a few miles south of Bombay.
[6] See paragraph 10 in Capt. Adam Baldridge's deposition, [no. 68], infra.
[7] Further south, on the Canara coast.