Which brings us to a most picturesque page of New York history.

I wonder what there is about privateering that attracts even the most law-abiding imagination.  This ancient, more than half dishonourable, profession has an unholy glamour about it and there are few respectable callings that so appeal to the colour-loving fancy.  Not that privateering was quite the same as piracy, but it came so close a second that the honest rogues who plied the two trades must often have been in danger of getting their perquisites and obligations somewhat merged.  It would have taken a very sharp judicial mind, or a singularly stout personal conscience, to make the distinctions between them in sundry and fairly numerous cases.

Wilson says: 

“In these troublous and not over-squeamish times, when commerce was other than the peaceful pursuit it has since become, a promising venture in privateering was often preferred to slower if safer sources of profit by the strong-stomached merchants and mariners of New York....  News that piracy under the guise of privateering was winked at by the New York authorities spread quickly among the captains serving under the black flag.”

Now there never was a lustier freebooter of the high seas than Capt.  Thomas Randall, known familiarly as “Cap’n Tom,” commander of the privateering ship Fox, and numerous other vessels.  This boat, a brigantine, was well named, for she was quick and sly and yet could fight on occasion.  Many a rich haul he made in her in 1748, and many a hairbreadth escape shaved the impudent bow of her on those jolly, nefarious voyages of hers.  One of her biggest captures was the French ship L’Amazone.  In 1757 he took out the De Lancey, a brigantine, with fourteen guns, and made some more sensational captures.  He is said to have plied a coastwise trade for the most part from New York to New Orleans, but, to quote Mr. Henry once more, “The Captain went wherever the Spanish flag covered the largest amount of gold.”  At all events he amassed a prodigious fortune even for a privateer.  In 1758 he withdrew from active service himself, but still sent out privateering vessels.  Some of them he lost.  The De Lancey was captured, and so was the Saucy Sally—­the latter by the British ship Experiment.  The De Lancey however made some excellent hauls first.  Peter Johnson, a seaman, made a will in 1757, leaving to a friend all debts, dues and “prize money which may become payable by the cruise of the De Lancey, Captain Randall commanding.”  The luckless De Lancey was taken by the Dutch off Curacoa and the crew imprisoned.  Perhaps poor Johnson was one of them.

In spite of occasional ill-luck these were good days for the Captain, because the law, never over scrupulous, allowed him especial license, the country being at war.  Never was there a better era for adventurers, never a time when fortunes were to be sought under more favourable stars!