did not accept
what the agents of the packet offered, fate took the matter into its
own hands and rewarded him not unsubstantially. Blueskin was taken to
England in the Scorpion. But he never came to trial. While in Newgate
he hanged himself to the cell window with his own stockings. The news
of his end was brought to Lewes in the early autumn and Squire Hall
took immediate measures to have the five hundred pounds of his father's
legacy duly transferred to Hiram.

In November Hiram married the pirate's widow.

Chapter VII. CAPTAIN SCARFIELD

PREFACE

The author of this narrative cannot recall that, in any history of the
famous pirates, he has ever read a detailed and sufficient account
of the life and death of Capt. John Scarfield. Doubtless some data
concerning his death and the destruction of his schooner might be
gathered from the report of Lieutenant Mainwaring, now filed in the
archives of the Navy Department, out beyond such bald and bloodless
narrative the author knows of nothing, unless it be the little chap-book
history published by Isaiah Thomas in Newburyport about the year
1821-22, entitled, "A True History of the Life and Death of Captain Jack
Scarfield." This lack of particularity in the history of one so notable
in his profession it is the design of the present narrative in a measure
to supply, and, if the author has seen fit to cast it in the form of a
fictional story, it is only that it may make more easy reading for those
who see fit to follow the tale from this to its conclusion.

I

ELEAZER COOPER, or Captain Cooper, as was his better-known title in
Philadelphia, was a prominent member of the Society of Friends. He was
an overseer of the meeting and an occasional speaker upon particular
occasions. When at home from one of his many voyages he never failed to
occupy his seat in the meeting both on First Day and Fifth Day, and he
was regarded by his fellow townsmen as a model of business integrity and
of domestic responsibility.

More incidental to this history, however, it is to be narrated that
Captain Cooper was one of those trading skippers who carried their own
merchandise in their own vessels which they sailed themselves, and on
whose decks they did their own bartering. His vessel was a swift, large
schooner, the Eliza Cooper, of Philadelphia, named for his wife. His
cruising grounds were the West India Islands, and his merchandise
was flour and corn meal ground at the Brandywin