dispatches from merchants here in
Kingston, as well as Bristol, Liverpool, and London; underwriters; and
the Admiralty at home, all drawing my attention to the fact that of
late--that is to say, during the last three or four months--certain
ships, both outward and homeward bound, have failed to arrive at their
destinations. It is suggested that, since during that period there has
been no weather bad enough to explain and account for the loss of these
well-found ships, their failure to arrive may possibly be due to the
presence of a pirate, or pirates, operating somewhere among the islands,
or perhaps in the waters of the western Atlantic. A very considerable
amount of exceedingly valuable property has thus mysteriously
disappeared, and strong representations have been made to Whitehall that
vigorous measures should be taken to solve the mystery, with the result
that I have been ordered to investigate. These orders arrived about a
week ago, but up to the present I have been quite unable to obey them,
for the very good and sufficient reason that every ship at my disposal
is needed for work even more important than the hunting down of hitherto
merely supposititious pirates. Your adventure, however, with the
Indiaman and her mysterious pursuer, goes to prove that there actually
is a pirate at work, and I must take immediate steps to put a stop to
his activity.

"And this brings me to my most serious difficulty. I have no vessel
available for the service excepting your schooner, and no officer,
except yourself, whom I can place in command of her. You must not feel
hurt, young gentleman, if I say that, under ordinary circumstances, I
should as soon think of attempting to fly as of confiding so difficult
and dangerous a service to a mere midshipman. But what the commodore
has written concerning you, supplemented by what I heard last night from
your own lips, encourages me to hope and to believe that, young as you
are, you may yet prove worthy of the confidence that I have decided to
repose in you. You appear to be one of those rare young men who carry
an old head upon young shoulders; you have proved yourself capable of
thinking for yourself, and of possessing the courage to act upon your
own responsibility; you exhibited very sound judgment and resource in
that affair of the _Indian Queen_, and also in the affair of the
Indiaman, which you certainly saved from capture. I am therefore going
to take upon myself the re