The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1903-10-07
A SPANISH PIRATE.
a Thr ling Sea Tale Of the Long ago
by M. Quad.
CRUELTY OF FREEBooTERs,
Who Fed Their Victims to the Sharks
Alive or After They Had
Been Most Cruelty
Murdered.
Murdered.

Been Most Cruelty
Murdered.
One afternoon in the year 1905, as
the Jane Snow, Of Newbryport, bound
for the West lndes, had sighted Porto
Rico, a pirate brig appeared to wind
ward. She had been so often described
that there was no mistaking her. She
was a Spanish craft familiarly known
as the Black Devil.
Josiah Marsh was skipper Of the
Snow, and his crew numbered twelve
! men. AS be had no guns aboard, and
as the Graf was slow sailer, be ord
cred out the long boat and everybody
got into her, and the Snow was aban-
doned. The pirates chased the long
boat for couple OF hours, but as the
wind was light they could not come
up with her.
Then they returned to pick up the
Snow. She was loaded with slaves
aud lumber, and there was little or
nothing aboard of her the fellows
could make use of. They dared not
set fire to her, and the holes bored in
her bottom only water-logged her. A
cat and a parrot were left aboard, and
revenge the pirates tortured the
cat to death and hung the parrot to
! one Of the beams Of the cabin.
AS the long boat, with josiah Marsh
and his crew aboard, ran down
through the Mona passage, they met
the British frigate Courier, and gave
her the news. They had left the pi-
rate craft forty miles behind them,
but the Englishman was prompt to 60
in search. The Americans asked that
they might be taken aboard and serve
until the Black Devil was destroyed
and their request was complied with.
In spirit Of brayado the pirate
captain had entered her capture on
F, the log, and had added that be should
cruise for week between Porto Rico
and Bal bados. Accident had changed
his plans, however. AS his craft lay
! alongside the Snow their rigging be-
came entangled, and the Black Devil
+; had her foretopnast sprung. She
came to anchor under the lea Of one
; of the Virgin islands, to repair dam
ages, and had just got all autanto
/ when the Courier hove in sight.
The EngliShman knew that be must
disguise his ship II be wished to get
near the Spanlard. AS he e~took up
the pursuit, be began to overhaul his
tophammer, and after a few hours the
smart frigate looked as slovenly as
+; any merchantmen afJat. The pirate
let herself be overhauled to within q
/; mile before she flew the black flag,
and as the emblem foated to the mast
i head she fred the first gun. She
mounted twelve guns and had crew
! of lls men. The frigate mounted
twenty-four guns and had a crew OF
:; lao.
It was not many minutes before the
pirate found that he had been tricked.
! He would then have got away, but
the breeze fell and he was under the
guns of the Courier. The only thing
to the credit Of the Black Devil was
f; the fight she made against superior
force. Capture meant the halter,
and for four long hours the pirates
stood to their work. At the end Of
that time they had lost eighty men,
half their guns were dismOunted, and
the brig had been hulled so often that
there was five feet Of water in her
hold. She was still fighting when the
frigate ran her aboard and poured
fifty men on her decks. In ten min
utes they had possession.
Little Of value was found aboard
the brig, as she had just returned TO
her cruising ground, but many OF the
articles removed aIe to te found in
the British Museum today. She was
regularly fitted out with stock Of
implements Of torture. Between decks
there was a large cauldron set in
brickwork, and close by stock Of
seven barrels Of oil. She had thumb
screws by the dozen, spiked boots, the
racks and benches used in the Inqni-
sition, and indeed nothing was lack
ing in the torture line.
Only twenty-eight men OF the pi-
! rates crew lived to be taken prison.
ers. Among them was her fourth or
fifth captain, whose name Was Alva-
rez. He was man Of thirty, and a
greater 6end never lived. He was the
last man to give in, and was 50 severe
ly wounded that for some Gays it was
a question whether he would live or
die.
The brig was so badly knocked
about that she foundered, and the
! frigate landed the pirates in Jamaica
! for trial. They we're staggering,
] boasting, defiant lot Not one Of
! them would turn Kings evidence, nor
did any fear death.
In cold blood, and knowing they
| would be used against them, the cap
tain, mate and several of the crew
made statements which held them up
as veritable devils. The captain had
only engaged in two captures, and
j both vessels we're English. One had a
crew of fifteen, and the other Of
eighteen men. He boasted that every
man had been tortured to death, and
that some Of them had lived six hours
after their torture had commenced.
He said that with his own hand be
had cut off the ears, toes and fingers
Of merchant captain, and then
spiked him down on his own deck with
no less 1ijau fourteen shipnails.. .e-ye1.<9s
The mate had been with the brig
from the outset Of her career. It