Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/216

 survivors were taken as prisoners and imprisoned in Dartmoor, among them being Charles Gibbs. When prisoners were exchanged, he returned to Boston, Captain Lawrence having fallen in the engagement.

For a time Gibbs now abandoned the sea and set up in business, but he was unable to lead a respectable life ashore, so back he went to sea, this time on board a privateer belonging to Buenos Ayres; but a quarrel arising between the officers of the one part and the crew regarding the division of prize-money, there ensued a mutiny. The mutineers won the victory and took possession of the ship. They proceeded to the coast of Florida, landed some of the ship's company, and thence sailed to the West Indies to perform their piratical exploits, and in a short time had captured more than twenty ships and murdered about four hundred human beings, Havannah being used as the port where they could conveniently dispose of their plunder. It is difficult to speak of a man like Charles Gibbs in cold blood. He was not a mere pirate, but a blackguard and murderer of the vilest type. Of him it may be said in very truth that with his death the world lost nothing, but was the gainer. A pirate who in the heat of the moment, when he is being violently opposed by another, kills his aggressor, is a criminal whom we can understand though not acquit. But a human fiend who, for no particular reason, unnecessarily sheds blood and bereaves women of husbands and children of fathers, is a devil incarnate. Such was Gibbs.

In the year 1819 he departed from Havannah and returned to the United States, his accumulated wealth, as a result of so many piracies, amounting to about £6000. After passing some time in New York and Boston he sailed for England on the Emerald, but in 1826 was back again in the United States. Hearing of the war between Brazil