Page:Life and unparalleled adventures of Ambrose Gwinnett.pdf/17

 AMBROSE GWINNETT. 17 bout three miles from the town. About seven clock in the evening, being then sitting with Signor Jasper, my old friend and master, in the portico of his puse, a lad came up, and said that a boat had been paiting half an hour for me at the port, and that my, companion, Mr Collins, was already on board. Iran to the house for my small bundle, and only stayed take leave of one or two of the family. I made hat haste I could to the quay; but, when I arrived, found the boat had put off, leaving word that I could overtake them at a little bay about a mile yond the town. The dusk was coming on. I ran png the shore, and, as I imagined, soon had sight the boat, to which I hallooed as loud as I was le; they answered, and immediately put about to ke me in. But we had seareely got fifty yards om land, when, on looking about for my friend, Mr Sllins, I missed him; and then it was I found I id made a mistake, and, instead of getting on board y own boat, which was now a considerable way head, I got into a boat belonging to some of the rates. I attempted to leap overboard, and could sily have swam ashore, but was prevented by one the crew, who gave me a stroke on the head, which immediately laid me senseless; and I found derwards that they mistook me for one of their own en, who had been purchasing goods in the town. A more infernal crew than these pirates never pathed upon the face of the earth. Their whole es was a scene of rapine and murder, which, if they od no opportunity of committing upon the wretches mat fell into their clutches during their piratical pur- ts, they committed on one another. During the The I remained with them, nearly four years, there are no less than eleven assassinations amongst them- ves. There was an uninhabited island in the Gulf Mexico which those villains called Swallow Island, un the great number of those birds which harbour on it. Here they had a fortification ; and the place