But what was very surprising, was the conviction of the nine men that came aboard the sloop on the same day she was taken.  They were tried at an adjournment of the court on the 24th of January, the magistracy waiting all that time, it is supposed, for evidence to prove the piratical intention of going aboard the said sloop; for it seems there was no act or piracy committed by them, as appeared by the witnesses against them, two Frenchmen, taken by Rackam off the island of Hispaniola, who merely deposed that the prisoners came on board without any compulsion.

The court considered the prisoners’ cases, and the majority of the commissioners being of opinion that they were all guilty of the piracy and felony they were charged with, viz. the going over with a piratical intent to John Rackam, &c. then notorious pirates, and by them known to be so, they all received sentence of death, and were executed on the 17th of February at Gallows Point at Port Royal.

  Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat,
  In former days within the vale. 
  Flapped in the bay the pirate’s sheet,
  Curses were on the gale;
  Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men,
  Pirate and wreckers kept their revels there.

  THE BUCCANEER.

THE LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF ANNE BONNEY.

This female pirate was a native of Cork.  Her father was an attorney, and, by his activity in business, rose to considerable respectability in that place.  Anne was the fruit of an unlawful connexion with his own servant maid, with whom he afterwards eloped to America, leaving his own affectionate and lawful wife.  He settled at Carolina, and for some time followed his own profession; but soon commenced merchant, and was so successful as to purchase a considerable plantation.  There he lived with his servant in the character of his wife; but she dying, his daughter Anne superintended the domestic affairs of her father.

During her residence with her parent she was supposed to have a considerable fortune, and was accordingly addressed by young men of respectable situations in life.  It happened with Anne, however, as with many others of her youth and sex, that her feelings, and not her interest, determined her choice of a husband.  She married a young sailor without a shilling.  The avaricious father was so enraged, that, deaf to the feelings of a parent, he turned his own child out of doors.  Upon this cruel usage, and the disappointment of her fortune, Anne and her husband sailed for the island of Providence, in the hope of gaining employment.

Acting a part very different from that of Mary Read, Anne’s affections were soon estranged from her husband by Captain Rackam; and eloping with him, she went to sea in men’s clothes.  Proving with child, the captain put her on shore, and entrusted her to the care of some friends until her recovery, when she again accompanied him in his expeditions.