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My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we
had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away
West and North of the Mosquito coast. At Belize there had been
great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more
pirates than enough in those Caribbean Seas), and as they got the
better of our English cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks
and shallows, and taking the land when they were hotly pressed, the
governor of Belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp
look-out for them along shore. Now, there was an armed sloop came
once a-year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with all
manner of necessaries, to eat, and to drink, and to wear, and to use
in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched
at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks.
The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been
given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so called,
was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver-mine over on
the mainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a safe and
convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annually
fetched away by the sloop. It was brought down from the mine to the
coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly Indians and
guarded by white men; from thence it was conveyed over to Silver-Store,
when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country;
from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed sloop once
a-year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica, it went, of
course, all over the world.
How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four-and-twenty
marines under command of a lieutenant--that officer's name
was Linderwood--had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-Store,
in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chase of
the Pirates. The Island was considered a good post of observation
against the pirates, both by land and sea; neither the pirate ship
nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so
much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I
was one. It included a corporal and a sergeant. Charker was
corporal, and the sergeant's name was Drooce. He was the most
tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty's service.
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