But sailing down to the West Indies, probably in order to fit out his ships with guns, arms, and ammunition before beginning a naval campaign, his fleet was overtaken by a terrible storm, and in order to save the vessels they were obliged to throw overboard a great many of the heavier goods they had captured at Marblehead, and when at last they found shelter in the harbor of a small island, they were glad that they had escaped with their lives.

The grasping and rapacious Low was not now in a condition to proceed to any rendezvous of pirates where he might purchase the arms and supplies he needed.  A great part of his valuable plunder had gone to the bottom of the sea, and he was therefore obliged to content himself with operations upon a comparatively small scale.

How small and contemptible this scale was it is scarcely possible for an ordinary civilized being to comprehend, but the soul of this ignoble pirate was capable of extraordinary baseness.

When he had repaired the damage to his ships, Low sailed out from the island, and before long he fell in with a wrecked vessel which had lost all its masts in a great storm, and was totally disabled, floating about wherever the winds chose to blow it.  The poor fellows on board greatly needed succor, and there is no doubt that when they saw the approach of sails their hopes rose high, and even if they had known what sort of ships they were which were making their way toward them, they would scarcely have suspected that the commander of these goodly vessels was such an utterly despicable scoundrel as he proved to be.

Instead of giving any sort of aid to the poor shipwrecked crew, Low and his men set to work to plunder their vessel, and they took from it a thousand pounds in money, and everything of value which they could find on board.  Having thus stripped the unfortunate wreck, they departed, leaving the captain and crew of the disabled vessel to perish by storm or starvation, unless some other vessel, manned by human beings and not pitiless beasts, should pass their way and save them.

Low now commenced a long series of piratical depredations.  He captured many merchantmen, he committed the vilest cruelties upon his victims, and in every way proved himself to be one of the meanest and most black-hearted pirates of whom we have any account.  It is not necessary to relate his various dastardly performances.  They were all very much of the same order, and none of them possessed any peculiar interest; his existence is referred to in these pages because he was one of the most noted and successful pirates of his time, and also because his career indicated how entirely different was the character of the buccaneers of previous days from that of the pirates who in the eighteenth century infested our coast.  The first might have been compared to bold and dashing highwaymen, who at least showed courage and daring; but the others resembled sneak thieves, always seeking to commit a crime if they could do it in safety, but never willing to risk their cowardly necks in any danger.