Not long after their settlement at Madagascar, they took a cruise, in which they captured two Indian vessels and a Dutchman.  They exchanged the latter for one of their own, and directed their course again to Madagascar.  Several of their hands were sent on shore with tents and ammunition, to kill such beasts and venison as the island afforded.  They also formed the resolution to go in search of Avery’s crew, which they knew had settled upon the island; but as their residence was upon the other side of the island, the loss of time and labour was the only fruit of their search.

They tarried here but a very short time, then steered their course to Johanna, and coming out of that harbor, fell in with two English vessels and an Ostend ship, all Indiamen, which, after a most desperate action, they captured.  The particulars of this extraordinary action are related in the following letter from Captain Mackra.

“Bombay, November 16th, 1720.

“We arrived on the 25th of July last, in company with the Greenwich, at Johanna, an island not far from Madagascar.  Putting in there to refresh our men, we found fourteen pirates who came in their canoes from the Mayotta, where the pirate ship to which they belonged, viz. the Indian Queen, two hundred and fifty tons, twenty-eight guns, and ninety men, commanded by Captain Oliver de la Bouche, bound from the Guinea coast to the East Indies, had been bulged and lost.  They said they left the captain and forty of their men building a new vessel, to proceed on their wicked designs.  Captain Kirby and I concluding that it might be of great service to the East India Company to destroy such a nest of rogues, were ready to sail for that purpose on the 17th of August, about eight o’clock in the morning, when we discovered two pirates standing into the bay Johanna, one of thirty-four, and the other of thirty-six guns.  I immediately went on board the Greenwich, where they seemed very diligent in preparation for an engagement, and I left Captain Kirby with mutual promises of standing by each other.  I then unmoored, got under sail, and brought two boats a-head to row me close to the Greenwich; but he being open to a valley and a breeze, made the best of his way from me; which an Ostender in our company, of twenty-two guns, seeing, did the same, though the captain had promised heartily to engage with us, and I believe would have been as good as his word, if Captain Kirby had kept his.  About half an hour after twelve, I called several times to the Greenwich to bear down to our assistance, and fired a shot at him, but to no purpose; for though we did not doubt but he would join us, because, when he got about a league from us he brought his ship to and looked on, yet both he and the Ostender basely deserted us, and left us engaged with barbarous and inhuman enemies, with their black and bloody flags hanging over us, without the least appearance of ever escaping, but to be cut to