After some days the captain of the Speaker came on shore, and was received with a great deal of civility by the heads of the pirates, having agreed before to make satisfaction. In a day or two after, he was invited by them to eat a barbecued shoat, which invitation he accepted. After dinner, Capt. Bowen, who was, I have already said, a prisoner on board the French pirate, but now become one of the fraternity, and master of the grab, went out, and returned with a case of pistols in his hand, and told the captain of the Speaker, whose name I won’t mention, that he was his prisoner. He asked, upon what account? Bowen answered, “they wanted a ship, his was a good one, and they were resolved to have her, to make amends for the damage he had done them.”
In the mean while his boat’s crew, and the rest of his men ashore, were told by others of the pirates, who were drinking with them, that they were also prisoners: some of them answered, _Zound’, we don’t trouble our heads what we are, let’s have t’other bowl of punch_.
A watch word was given, and no boat to be admitted on board the ship. This word, which was for that night, _Coventry_, was known to them. At 8 o’clock they manned the twelve-oared boat, and the one they found at Mayotta, with 24 men, and set out for the ship. When they were put off, the captain of the Speaker desired them to come back as he wanted to speak with them. Capt. Booth asked what he wanted! He said, “they could never take his ship.” “Then,” said Booth, “we’ll die in or along side of her.”—“But,” replied the captain, “if you will go with safety, don’t board on the larboard side for there is a gun out of the steerage loaded with partridge, which will clear the decks.” They thanked him, and proceeded.
When they were near the ship they were hailed, and the answer was, _the Coventry_. “All well,” said the mate, “get the lights over the side;” but spying the second boat, he asked what boat that was? One answered, it was a raft of water; another that it was a boat of beef; this disagreement in the answers made the mate suspicious, who cried out—_Pirates, take to your arms my lads_, and immediately clapped a match to a gun, which, as the priming was before wet by the treachery of Hugh Man, only fizzed. They boarded in the instant, and made themselves masters of her, without the loss of a man on either side.