Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/158

146 We do not know what John Coxon did for the next few months. He probably cruised along the Main, taking what he could, and lying up, among the Mulatas Islands, when weary of the sea. He was at anchor at one of the Mulatas Islands in May 1681, when Dampier arrived there, after his tramp across the Isthmus. He was then in very good fettle, and did not want hands. With him were several other buccaneers, French, Dutch, and English, who were planning a "concerted piece," or buccaneer orchestral effect, which should startle the Spaniards extremely. However, it came on to blow; the ships were separated; the great scheme came to nothing; and Coxon disappears again, under storm-staysails, for the best part of a year. In June or July 1682, he turned up at the Bahama Group, at the office of the Governor of New Providence. He explained that he wanted a commission to enable him "to make war on the Spaniards of Cuba, St. Augustine, and others"; which commission (to his great surprise) was promptly granted. He recruited at New Providence, by the simple method of inviting defaulting debtors to come aboard. Then he