Brown. May 6, 1717._[1]

[Footnote 1: Suffolk Court Files, no. 11945, paper 5; a fragment.]

The Substance of the Examinations of John Brown, etc. Taken by order
of His Excellency the Governour on Munday the 6th of May 1717.

John Brown being interrogated saith, that he was born in the Island of
Jamaica, is 25 years old and unmarried. About a year agoe he belonged
to a Ship commanded by Captain Kingston, which in her voyage with
Logwood to Holland was taken to the Leeward of the Havana by two
Piratical Sloops, one commanded by Hornygold[2] and the other by a
Frenchman called Leboose,[3] each having 70 men on board. The pirats
kept the Ship about 8 or 10 daies, and then having taken out off her
what they thought proper delivered her back to some of the men, who
belonged to her. Leboose kept the Examinate on board his Sloop about 4
months, the English Sloop under Hornigolds command keeping company
with them all that time. Off Cape Corante[4] they took two Spanish
Briganteens without any resistance, laden with cocoa from Ma[l]aca.
The Spaniards, not coming up to the pirats demand about the ransom,
were put ashoar and their Briganteens burn'd. They sailled next to the
Isle of Pines, where meeting with three or four English Sloops empty,
they made use of them in cleaning their own, and gave them back. From
thence they sailled in the latter end of May to Hispaniola, where they
tarried about 3 months. The Examinate then left Leboose and went on
board the Sloop commanded formerly by Hornygold, but at that time by
one Bellamy, who upon a difference arising amongst the English Pirats
because Hornygold refused to take and plunder English Vessels, was
chosen by a great majority their Captain, and Hornygold departed with
26 hands in a Prize Sloop, Bellamy having then on board about 90 men,
most of them English. Bellamy and Leboose sailled to the Virgin
Islands and took several small fishing boats, and off St. Croix a
French Ship laden with flower and fish from Canada, and having taken
out some of the flower gave back the Ship. Plying to the Windward the
morning they made Saba[5] they spy'd two Ships, which they chased and
came up with, the one was commanded by Captain Richards,[6] the other
by Capt. Tosor, both bound to the bay. Having plunder'd the Ships and
taken out some young men, they dismist the rest and Tosors Ship and
made a man of War of Richards's, which they put under the command of
Bellamy, and appointed Paull William