Page:Intrepid & daring adventures of sixteen British seamen.pdf/5

5 them to purchase one better fitted tor their purpose. Having taken a few additional hands partnership, they soon put a deck upon her, and otherwise rigged her out in tolerable style. They next collected a quantity of old arms, consisting of muskets, pistols, cutlasses, boarding-pikes, and two small swivels, which they mounted on the boat’s timber-heads; but they were to trust chiefly to boarding, they took on board no cannon—their bark, indeed, was, from its diminutive size, utterly unfit for this grand instrument of war. Altogether, their outfit and the object of it seemed somewhat of a burlesque upon ordinary privateering; but they were good-humoured fellows, and of a joke, and their own masters, so they did not mind the mirth and harmless ridicule which their armament excited.

Thus equipped, and having stowed on board several bales of dry jerk beef, with some other necessary articles of provision, they put to sea, determined to make the most of every thing they should meet with. The crew consisted of sixteen hands, commanded by one Mackay, a Scotsman, who had a short time before resigned the office of steward in a South-Sea whaler, and who had originally projected this ad-like scheme. They had only one course to follow,—for the trade wind, which blows a considerable part of the year constantly