manner naked, not having had time to bring with us either a shirt or a pair of shoes, except what we had on.  Having obtained leave to go on board the pirates with a promise of safety, several of the chief of them knew me, and some of them had sailed with me, which I found to be of great advantage; because, notwithstanding their promise, some of them would have cut me to pieces, and all that would not enter with them, had it not been for their chief captain, Edward England, and some others whom I knew.  They talked of burning one of their ships, which we had so entirely disabled as to be no farther useful to them, and to fit the Cassandra in her room; but in the end I managed the affair so well, that they made me a present of the said shattered ship, which was Dutch built, and called the Fancy; her burden was about three hundred tons.  I procured also a hundred and twenty-nine bales of the Company’s cloth, though they would not give me a rag of my own clothes.

“They sailed the 3rd of September; and I, with jury-masts, and such old sails as they left me, made a shift to do the like on the 8th, together with forty-three of my ship’s crew, including two passengers and twelve soldiers; having no more than five tuns of water aboard.  After a passage of forty-eight days, I arrived here on the 26th of October, almost naked and starved, having been reduced to a pint of water a-day, and almost in despair of ever seeing land, by reason of the calms we met with between the coast of Arabia and Malabar.

“We had in all thirteen men killed and twenty-four wounded; and we were told that we destroyed about ninety or a hundred of the pirates.  When they left us, they were about three hundred whites, and eighty blacks, on both ships.  I am persuaded, had our consort the Greenwich done his duty, we had destroyed both of them, and got two hundred thousand pounds for our owners and selves; whereas the loss of the Cassandra may justly be imputed to his deserting us.  I have delivered all the bales that were given me into the Company’s warehouse, for which the governor and council have ordered me a reward.  Our governor, Mr. Boon, who is extremely kind and civil to me, had ordered me home with the packet; but Captain Harvey, who had a prior promise, being come in with the fleet, goes in my room.  The governor had promised me a country voyage to help to make up my losses, and would have me stay and accompany him to England next year.”

Captain Mackra was certainly in imminent danger, in trusting himself and his men on board the pirate ship, and unquestionably nothing but the desperate circumstances in which he was placed could have justified so hazardous a step.  The honor and influence of Captain England, however, protected him and his men from the fury of the crew, who would willingly have wreaked their vengeance upon them.