The trader, being badly wounded, died while they were dragging him to
the boat; and his wife, being wounded also, died in half an hour after she
was on board the ship. Resistance having been made to these violent
proceedings, some of the sailors were wounded, and one was killed. Some
weeks after this affray, a chieftain of the name of Quarmo went on board
the same vessel to borrow some cutlasses and muskets. He was going, he
said, into the country to make war; and the captain should have half of his
booty. So well understood were the practices of the trade, that his request
was granted. Quarmo, however, and his associates, finding things favourable
to their design, suddenly seized the captain, threw him overboard, hauled
him into their canoe, and dragged him to the shore; where another party of
the natives, lying in ambush, seized such of the crew as were absent from
the ship. But how did these savages behave, when they had these different
persons in their power? Did they not instantly retaliate by murdering them
all? No--they only obliged the captain to give an order on the vessel to
pay his debts. This fact came out only two months ago in a trial in the
court of common pleas--not in a trial for piracy and murder--but in the
trial of a civil suit, instituted by some of the poor sailors, to whom the
owners refused their wages, because the natives, on account of the
villanous conduct of their captain, had kept them from their vessel by
detaining them as prisoners on shore.
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