n, as they called it, they gave to Captain Wise and his
mate twenty-four cerons of wax, and to his men who were four in number,
two cerons of wax each. Thus they pretended honesty, and to make
reparation of damages by giving them the goods which they had robbed the
Dutch merchants of, whose super-cargo they had murdered.

The day before the division of the spoil they saw a large ship to
windward, which at first put them into some surprise, for she came
bearing down directly upon them, and they thought she had been a
Portuguese man-of-war, but they found soon after that it was a merchant
ship, had French colours and bound home, as they supposed from the West
Indies; and so it was, for they afterwards learned that she was laden at
Martinico and bound for Rochelle.

The Frenchmen not fearing them came on large to the wind, being a ship
of much greater force than Gow's ship, carrying thirty-two guns and
eighty men, besides a great many passengers. However, Gow at first made
as if he would lie by for them, but seeing plainly what a ship it was,
and that they should have their hands full of her, he began to consider;
and calling his men together upon the deck, told them what was in his
mind, viz., that the Frenchman was apparently superior in force in every
way; that they were but ill-manned, and had a great many prisoners on
board, and that some of their own people were not very well to be
trusted; that six of their best hands were on board the prize; and that
all they had left were not sufficient to ply their guns and stand by the
sails, and that therefore as they were under no necessity to engage, so
he thought it would be next to madness to think of it.

The generality of the men were of Gow's mind, and agreed to decline the
fight, but Williams, his lieutenant, strenuously opposed it; and being
not to be appeased by all that Gow could say to him, or any one else,
flew out into a rage at Gow, upbraiding him with being a coward, and not
fit to command a ship of force. The truth is, Gow's reasoning was good,
and the thing was just, considering their own condition; but Williams
was a fellow incapable of any solid thinking, had a kind of savage,
brutal courage, but nothing of true bravery in him, and this made him
the most desperate and outrageous villain in the world, and the most
cruel and inhuman to those whose disaster it was to fall into his hands,
as had frequently appeared in his usage of the prisoners under his power