not till nearly dawn that the breeze came off the land, when we
saw the brig stealing out, followed by the man-of-war schooner. The
latter, by the bye, was a magnificent vessel, one of the largest
schooners I have come across, requiring the numerous crew she carried to
handle her enormous canvas. We at once made sail and followed them into
Saint Jago, which is about thirty miles west of Guantimo. We there
found that the Spanish captain had actually brought the brig to trial as
a pirate, though, as he well knew, there was not the slightest proof
that she was one. As the trial was likely to last some weeks, or, at
all events, till we were out of the port, Hemming considered that it
would be useless to remain, so we sailed again, and were on our passage
round to Havannah when we sighted you."

Such was Adair's account of his adventure.

A breeze soon afterwards springing up, the _Plantagenet_ proceeded on to
her destination, while the corvette and brig, with the prizes, continued
their course to Jamaica. It was not till the return of the
_Plantagenet_ to Port Royal, that Jack heard of the full rascality of
the Spanish captain. On the arrival of the frigate at Havannah Captain
Hemming laid a complaint before the Admiralty Court for the adjudication
of slavers. He then discovered that the brig belonged to Pepe, or, as
he was now called, Don Matteo, who had bribed the Spanish captain to
keep by his vessel and to pretend to have captured her should an English
man-of-war appear. On the acquittal of the brig for piracy at Saint
Jago, the Spanish captain who had pledged his honour on the subject
escorted her through the windward passage as far as seventy degrees of
longitude, when she was out of the range of West India cruisers. Jack
afterwards heard an account of her from a friend on the African station.
She had then really become a pirate. She used to watch for the slavers
after they had run the gauntlet of the British cruisers, and would then
capture them, take their slaves out, and give them her cargo of coloured
cottons in exchange. When she did not manage to fall in with slavers
she occasionally took a run in on her own account, and her captain being
well informed of the movements of the blockading squadron, she
invariably managed to pick up a fresh cargo and get clear off again.
Being, however, in no ways particular, if she had no cargo of coloured
cloths, she would sink the slavers she took, with their crews,