Havana was the resort of these pirates to dispose of their plunder; and Gibbs sauntered about this place with impunity and was acquainted in all the out of the way and bye places of that hot bed of pirates the Regla.  He and his comrades even lodged in the very houses with many of the American officers who were sent out to take them.  He was acquainted with many of the officers and was apprised of all their intended movements before they left the harbor.  On one occasion, the American ship Caroline, was captured by two of their piratical vessels off Cape Antonio.  They were busily engaged in landing the cargo, when the British sloop-of-war, Jearus, hove in sight and sent her barges to attack them.  The pirates defended themselves for some time behind a small four gun battery which they had erected, but in the end were forced to abandon their own vessel and the prize and fly to the mountains for safety.  The Jearus found here twelve vessels burnt to the water’s edge, and it was satisfactorily ascertained that their crews, amounting to one hundred and fifty persons had been murdered.  The crews, if it was thought not necessary otherways to dispose of them were sent adrift in their boats, and frequently without any thing on which they could subsist a single day; nor were all so fortunate thus to escape.  “Dead men can tell no tales,” was a common saying among them; and as soon as a ship’s crew were taken, a short consultation was held; and if it was the opinion of a majority that it would be better to take life than to spare it, a single nod or wink from the captain was sufficient; regardless of age or sex, all entreaties for mercy were then made in vain; they possessed not the tender feelings, to be operated upon by the shrieks and expiring groans of the devoted victims! there was a strife among them, who with his own hands could despatch the greatest number, and in the shortest period of time.

Without any other motives than to gratify their hellish propensities (in their intoxicated moments), blood was not unfrequently and unnecessarily shed, and many widows and orphans probably made, when the lives of the unfortunate victims might have been spared, and without the most distant prospect of any evil consequences (as regarded themselves), resulting therefrom.

Gibbs states that sometime in the course of the year 1819, he left Havana and came to the United States, bringing with him about $30,000.  He passed several weeks in the city of New York, and then went to Boston, whence he took passage for Liverpool in the ship Emerald.  Before he sailed, however, he has squandered a large part of his money by dissipation and gambling.  He remained in Liverpool a few months, and then returned to Boston.  His residence in Liverpool at that time is satisfactorily ascertained from another source besides his own confession.  A female now in New York was well acquainted with him there, where, she says, he lived like a gentleman, with apparently abundant