In a very drunken and quarrelsome condition, the pirates worked the _Trinity_ round the Horn, and so home to Barbadoes. They did not dare to land there, for one of the King's frigates, H.M.S. _Richmond_, was lying at Bridgetown, and the pirates "feared lest the said frigate should seize us." They bore away to Antigua, where Ringrose, and "thirteen more," shipped themselves for England. They landed at Dartmouth on the 26th of March 1682. A few more of the company went ashore at Antigua, and scattered to different haunts. Sharp and a number of pirates landed at Nevis, from whence they shipped for London. The ship the _Trinity_ was left to seven of the gang who had diced away all their money. What became of her is not known.
Sharp and a number of his men were arrested in London, and tried for piracy, but the Spanish Ambassador, who brought the charge, was without evidence and could not obtain convictions. They pleaded that "the Spaniards fired at us first," and that they had acted only in self-defence, so they 'scaped hanging, though Sharp admits that they "were very near it." Three more of the crew were laid by the heels at Jamaica, and one of these was "wheedled into an open confession," and condemned, and hanged. "The other two stood it out, and escaped for want of witnesses."
Of the four men so often quoted in this narrative, only one, so far as we know, died a violent death. This was Basil Ringrose, who was shot at Santa Pecaque a few years later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and Sharp died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for many years after the _Trinity_ dropped her anchor off Antigua.
They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to preserve life, "but rather to squander it away"; to fling it, like so much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If they lived riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die for what they believed to be worth doing. We think them terrible. Life itself is terrible. But life was not terrible to them; for they were comrades; and comrades and brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who "live at home at ease" may condemn them. They are free to do so. The old buccaneers were happier than they. The buccaneers had comrades, and the strength to live their own lives. They may laugh at those who, lacking that strength, would condemn them with the hate of impotence.
