Page:A general history of the pyrates, from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time (1724).djvu/260

 burnt or unk, as the Carriage or Characters of the Maters dipleaed them.

Notwithtanding the uccesful Adventures of this Crew, yet it was with great Difficulty they could be kept together, under any kind of Regulation; for being almot always mad or drunk, their Behaviour produced infinite Diorders, every Man being in his own Imagination a Captain, a Prince, or a King. When Roberts aw there was no managing of uch a Company of wild ungovernable Brutes, by gentle means, nor to keep them from drinking to exces, the Caue of all their Diturbances, he put on a rougher Deportment, and a more mageterial Carriage towards them, correcting whom he thought fit; and if any eemed to reent his Uage, he told them,

About 400 Leagues from the Coat of Africa, the Brigantine who had hitherto lived with them, in all amicable Correpondence, thought fit to take the Opportunity of a dark Night, and leave the Commadore, which leads me back to the Relation of an Accident that happened at one of the Ilands of the Wet-Indies, where they water’d before they undertook this Voyage, which had like to have thrown their Government (uch as it was) off the Hinges, and was partly the Occaion of the Separation: The Story is as follows.

Captain Roberts having been inulted by one of the drunken Crew, (whoe Name I have forgot,) he, in the Heat of his Paion killed the Fellow on the Spot, which was reented by a great many others, put particularly one Jones, a brisk active young Man, who died lately in the Marhalea, and was his Mes-Mate. This Jones was at that Time ahore a watering the Ship, but as oon as he came on Board, was told that Captain Roberts had killed his