Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/438

 and from the shore offered so many temptations for plunder, it is easy to conceive how audacious these marauders would become, unrestrained by police or any hazard of apprehension, and emboldened by the strength of their own desperate and organized gangs. Well-authenticated instances have been adduced of river-pirates cutting bags of cotton and other merchandise from the quarters of ships on their first arrival, and even of their weighing anchors, and getting clear off with these heavy articles, together with the cables and everything portable upon the deck. One instance in particular is recorded, where an American and a Guernsey ship were plundered in this manner by the actual removal both of anchors and cables, the robbery being, in fact, completed in the view of the masters of the vessels, who were only alarmed in time to reach the deck and ascertain the fact from the pirates themselves; who, as they rowed from the vessels with their cumbrous booty, wished the astonished masters a very "good morning."

The night-plunderers were sometimes denominated "light horsemen;" and they generally carried on their depredations through the connivance of the revenue officers. For a licence to commit plunder, by opening packages of sugar, coffee, and other produce during several hours in the night, no less than from twenty to thirty guineas were usually paid to the mate and the revenue officers, who almost invariably went to bed while the robbery was perpetrated, affecting ignorance of the whole transaction.

Most of these infamous proceedings were carried