In the Bay of Honduras Low boarded a Spanish sloop of six guns and seventy men, that had that morning captured five English vessels. Finding out this from the prisoners in the hold, these butchers proceeded to destroy the whole crew, plunging among them with pole-axes, swords, and pistols. Some leaped into the hold and others into the sea. Twelve escaped to shore: the rest were knocked on the head in the water. While the pirates were carousing on land, one wounded wretch, fainting with his wounds, came to them and begged in God's name for quarter, upon which a brutal sailor replied, he would give him good quarters, and, forcing him down on his knees, ran the muzzle of his gun down his throat, and shot him. They then burnt the vessel, and forced the English prisoners to return to New York, and not to Jamaica.
Hating all men of New England, Low cut off the ears of a gentleman of that nation, and tied burning matches between the fingers of some other prisoners. The crew of a whaler he whipped naked about the deck, and made the master eat his own ears with pepper and salt.
On one occasion, the captain of a Virginian vessel refusing to pledge him in a bowl of punch, he cocked a pistol and compelled him to drain the whole quart. Off South Carolina, his consort was taken by a cruiser, but Low basely deserting him, escaped, and off Newfoundland took eighteen ships, and in July, 1723, he fitted up a prize called the Merry Christmas, with thirty-four guns, and assumed the title of admiral, hoisting a black flag, with the figure of death in red. At St. Michael he cut out of the road a London vessel of fourteen guns, which the men refused to defend. The ears of the captain Low cut off, for daring to attempt resistance, and giving him a boat to escape in, burnt his ship.
He then visited the Canaries, Cape de Verd Islands, and lastly, the coast of Guinea. At Sierra Leone he captured the Delight, of twelve guns, which he supplied with sixteen guns, and sixty men, appointing Spriggs, his quartermaster, as captain, who two days after deserted him, and sailed for the West Indies.
Of the end of this detestable monster we know nothing, but if there is any truth in old adages, he could not have well perished by a mere storm.
The best account of a pirate's life extant is to be found in Captain Roberts's Narrative of the Loss of his Vessel in 1721, preserved in Astley's amusing Collection of Voyages, four dusty quartos, that contain a mine of "auld warld" information.
This Captain Roberts, it appears, contracted with some London merchants to go to Virginia, to fit out a sloop, named the Dolphin, with a cargo "to slave with" on the coast of Guinea, and then to return to trade at Barbadoes. Arriving at that island, in 1722, he was discharged, and upon that bought the Margaret sloop, and started again for the African coast. At Curisal he turned up to procure a supply of wood and water, and the next morning after his arrival, it being calm as day broke, he looked out and espied three sail of ships off the bay, and making one of them plain with his glass, observed that she was full built and loaded, and supposed that she and her companions wanted water, as they first brought to, then edged away without making any signals.
As soon as the day broke clean and they made his ship, one of them stood right in towards her, and as the sun rose and the wind freshened, tacked more to the eastward. As she drew nigher, Roberts found her by his glass to be a schooner full of hands, all in white shirts; and when he saw a whole tier of great guns grinning through the port-holes, he began to suspect mischief. But it was now too late to escape, as it held calm within the bay, and the three ships came crowding in as fast as the wind, flaunting out an English ensign, jack, and pendant. Roberts then hoisted his ensign. The first of the three that arrived had 8 guns, 6 patereroes, 70 men, and stretching ahead hailed him. Roberts said he was of London, and came from Barbadoes. They answered, with a curse, that they knew that, and made him send a boat on board.
The pirate captain, John Lopez, a Portuguese, who passed himself off as John Russel, an Englishman, from the north country, asked them where their captain was. They pointed him out Roberts, walking the deck. He instantly called out, "You dog, you son of a gun, you speckled shirt dog!" for Roberts had just turned out, wore a speckled Holland shirt, and was slipshod, without stockings. Roberts, afraid if he showed contempt by continued silence they would put a ball through him, thought it best to answer, and cried "Holloa!" upon which Russel said, "You dog you, why did you not come aboard with the boat? I'll drub you within an inch of your life, and that inch too."