as an act of barbarity at
which my heart ever recoiled, and against which I always protested.
With the property I always insisted we ought to be satisfied,
without the destruction of the lives of such who were probably the
fathers of families, and who had never offended us. But our gang was
as you may suppose chiefly composed of and governed by men without
principle, who appeared to delight in the shedding of blood, and
whose only excuse has been that by acting with too much humanity in
sparing life, they might thereby be exposed and themselves arraigned
to answer for their crimes at an earthly tribunal. You can have no
conception, madam (continued he), of the immense property that has
been piratically captured, and of the number of lives that have been
destroyed by this gang alone, and all without the loss of a single
one on our part until yesterday, when by an unexpected circumstance
our number has been reduced as you see from thirty-five to four!
This island has not been our constant abiding place, but the bodies
of such as have suffered here have always been conveyed a
considerable distance from the shore, and thrown into the sea, where
they were probably devoured by the sharks, as not a single one has
ever been known afterward to drift on our shores. The property
captured has not been long retained on this island, but shipped to a
neighboring port, where we have an agent to dispose of it.

"Of the great number of vessels captured by us (continued he) you
are the first and only female that has been so unfortunate as to
fall into our hands--and from the moment that I first saw you in our
power (well knowing the brutal disposition of him whom we
acknowledged our chief) I trembled for your safety, and viewed you
as one deprived perhaps of the protection of a husband or brother,
to become the victim of an unpitying wretch, whose pretended regard
for your sex, and his repeated promises of protection, were
hypocritical--a mere mask to lull your fears until he could effect
your ruin. His hellish designs, agreeable to his own declarations,
would have been carried into effect the very morning that he last
visited you, had not an all-wise Providence interfered to save
you--and so sensible am I that the unexpected circumstance of his
capture, as well as that of the most of our gang, as desp