consider.'

"Pris.: 'But, I hope, your Lordship will hear some reason.'

"Judge: 'D'ye hear how the Scoundrel prates?... What have we to do with
the Reason?... I'd have you to know, Raskal, we don't sit here to hear
Reason ... we go according to Law.... Is our Dinner ready?'

"Attor. Gen.: 'Yes, my Lord.'

"Judge: 'Then heark'ee you Raskal at the Bar; hear me, Sirrah, hear me....
You must suffer, for three reasons; first, because it is not fit I should
sit here as Judge, and no Body be hanged.... Secondly, you must be hanged,
because you have a damn'd hanging Look.... And thirdly, you must be
hanged, because I am hungry; for, know, Sirrah, that 'tis a Custom, that
whenever the Judge's Dinner is ready before the Tryal is over, the
Prisoner is to be hanged of Course.... There's Law for you, ye Dog.... So
take him away Gaoler.'"

In August, 1722, the pirates sailed out from their hiding-place and
waylaid the ship which was returning to Jamaica with the answer to the
petition, but to their disappointment heard that no notice had been taken
of their round-robin by the Government at home.

No time was lost in returning to their old ways, for the very next day
both pirate ships left their hiding-place and sailed out on the "grand
account."

But now their luck deserted them, for the _Morning Star_ was run aground
on a reef by gross neglect on the part of the officers and wrecked. Most
of the crew escaped on to an island, where Captain Anstis found them next
day, and no sooner had he taken aboard Captain Fenn, Phillips, the
carpenter, and a few others, than all of a sudden down upon them came two
men-of-war, the _Hector_ and the _Adventure_, so that Anstis had barely
time to cut his cables and get away to sea, hotly pursued by the
_Adventure_. The latter, in a stiff breeze, was slowly gaining on the
brigantine when all of a sudden the wind dropped, the pirates got out the
sweeps, and thus managed, for the time being, to escape. In the meantime
the _Hector_ took prisoner the forty pirates remaining on the island.

Anstis soon got to work again, and captured several prizes. He then sailed
to the Island of Tobago to clean and refit his ship. Just when all the
guns and stores had been landed and the ship heeled, as ill-luck would
have it, the _Winchester_, man-of-war, put into the bay; and the pirates
had barely time to set their ship on fire and to escape into the woods.
Anstis had by now lost all authority over his discont