Buccaneers and Pirates


ships and cargoes fell to them in the wide spaces between New
England and the Lesser Antilles. Next year, 1723, Low came
back to the bay in March, and met a sloop which he boarded
and took. This was a Spaniard of 6 guns and 70 men who
had that morning seized five English sloops and a pink, and
brought their six masters away as prisoners for the ransom of
the logwood which the Spaniards deemed stolen. On rifling
the Spanish vessel the six captains and some English mer-
chandise were found in the hold. Low was consulted, and he
without further investigation ordered the whole company
killed. His men fell pell-mell to execution with their swords,
cutlasses, axes, and pistols. Some Spaniards jumped into the
hold to avoid the massacre, some leaped overboard to swim
ashore. But Low ordered the canoe to be manned for pur-
suit. One Spaniard knelt on the beach as he emerged from
the sta, and begged to be spared for God's sake, but the pirate
put the muzzle of his gun into this man's mouth and pulled
the trigger. About a dozen of the 70 men escaped to the other
cayes for the pirates were holding their sports and pastimes
on one only. At their leisure they set fire to the Spanish ship,
forced away the carpenter from the pink, and restored the six
masters to their respective vessels, on the clearest understand-
ing that they were not to steer for Jamaica, where the men of
war sought intelligence, but to New York.
 For two years Low now terrorized the Atlantic from New-
foundland to the Azores, from Brazil to Mexico, up and
down the Caribbean. He took a French vessel, transferred
the crew with the exception of the cook whom he declared
to be "a greasy fellow who would fry well," and tied him to
the main mast and set fire to the ship. The captain of a Por-
tuguese vessel which fell in with him put his 11,000 moidores
in a sack and hung it in the sea from a rope in the cabin win-
dow. When he saw that capture was inevitable he cut the
rope and dropped the treasure into the sea. Low heard of it.
He slashed off the captain's lips and ears with a cutlass,
broiled and peppered them, and made the mate of the cap-