vate to the utmost that
good understanding which has for long happily existed.

After the conclusion of the war, the Caribbean Sea was infested by a
number of piratical vessels manned by blacks and desperate characters of
all nations, which committed great havoc among the British merchantmen.
Though several were from time to time captured, the pirates still
continued their depredations. Bad as they were, some proved themselves
not altogether destitute of humanity. On one occasion a small vessel,
tender to his majesty's frigate _Tyne_, commanded by Lieutenant Hobson,
with a crew of 20 men, was surprised and captured by a powerful
piratical craft. The pirates were, according to their usual custom,
about to hang their prisoners; but seized with compunction, or dreading
the consequences of their intended crime, they spared their lives, and
allowed them to return to their ship. As it happened, the very men who
had acted so humane a part were shortly afterwards captured, and the
circumstance not being taken into consideration in their favour, they
were hanged at Jamaica. At this time, a desperate character, named
Cayatano Aragonez, commanded a schooner called the _Zaragonaza_, of 120
tons, carrying a long swivel 18-pounder, 4 long 9-pounders, and 8
swivels, with a crew of between 70 and 80 men. Hearing of the way his
friends had been treated, looking upon it as an ungenerous act, he vowed
to take fearful revenge on all the English he could capture. Summoning
his men, he bound them under an oath never to spare an Englishman's
life, and in the event of being captured, to blow up themselves and
their enemies. Some time before, they had taken a black man, a native
of Jamaica, who had been compelled to act as their cook. In order
thoroughly to commit his crew, Aragonez resolved on the sacrifice of the
hapless negro. In vain he pleaded for mercy; he was hauled out to the
end of the spritsail-yard, when the miscreants commenced firing at him
from the deck, and thus tortured him for twenty minutes before death put
an end to his sufferings. Sir Charles Rowley, commander-in-chief in the
West Indies, having determined to put a stop to the exploits of the
pirates, despatched the _Tyne_, under the command of Captain Walcott,
accompanied by the sloop of war _Thracian_, to look out for and destroy
them. Their chief places of rendezvous were known to be among the
numerous keys or sandy islets off the coast of Cuba. Captain Walcot