Page:Life and unparalleled voyages and adventures of Ambrose Gwinnett (1).pdf/13

 I had contracted a sort of intimacy, and he not only took me into his house as soon as my countrymen were gone, but, in a short time, he procured me a salary from the governor for being his deputy.

Indeed, at this particular time, the office, was by no means agreeable. The coast had long been infested with pirates, the most desperate gang of villains that can he imagined, and there was scarcely a month passed that one or other of their vessels did not fall into the governor’s hands, and the crew as constantly put under my care. Once I very narrowly escaped being knocked on the head by one of the ruffians, and having the keys wrested from me,; at another time I was shot at. It is true, in both cases, the persons suffered for their attempt, and in the last case a little too cruelly, for the fellow who let off the carbine was not only put to the torture to confess his accomplices, but afterwards broken upon the wheel, where he was left to expire, the most shocking spectacle I ever beheld.

I had been in my office about three months, when a ship arrived from Port-Royal, another Spanish settlement on the coast, with nine English prisoners on board. I was standing in the street as they were coming up from the port with a guard of soldiers to the governor’s house. On looking in the face of one of the prisoners, it immediately occurred to me that I had formerly been acquainted with him. I could not then stop them to speak together; but, in an hour after, they were all brought down to the prison, there to be lodged till the governor had signified his further pleasure.

As soon as the poor creatures found that I was an Englishman, they were extremely happy, even in their distressing situation; though, indeed, they were treated with lenity enough, and were only sent to the prison until a suitable lodging could he provided for them, they having been, in the course of the war, made prisoners by the Spaniards as well as