Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1904-01-27
4 SPANISH PIRATE
tcopyright. 1908. BY c. B. Lewis. ]

i 1OE 5InC vest udu GtSIlGQ GkSILO
Rico, a pirate brig appeared to wind
ward She had been SO often described
that there was no mistaxing her. She
was Spanish craft Familiarity known
as the Black Devil.
Josiah Marsh was skipper of the
men. As he had no guns aboard and
| as the craft was a slow sailer he order
ed out the longboat, and everybody got
| into her, and the Snow was abandoned.
! The pirates chased the IOngboat for a
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
and 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 bot
tom only waterlogged her. A cat and
a parrot were left aboard, and in re-
venge the pirates tortured the cat to
death and hung the parrot TO one of the
beams of the cabin.
As the Iongboat, 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 pirate craft forty
miles behind them, but the Englishman
was prompt to go in search. Tie Amer
leans asked that they might be taken
aboard and serve until the Black Devil
was destroyed, and their request was
complied with.
In spirit of bravado the pirate cap
tain had entered her capture on the log
and had added that he should cruise
for a week between Porto Rico and
Barbados. Accident had changed his
plans, however. As his craft lay along
side the Snow their rigging became en-
tangled, and the Black Devil had her
fore topmast sprung. She came to an
Choir under the lee of one of the Virgin
islands to repair damages and had just
got all autanto when the Courier hove
in sight.
The Englishman knew that he must
disguise his ship if he wished to get
near the Spaniard. As he took up the
pursuit he began to overhaul his top
hamper, and after a few hours the
smart frigate looked as slovenly as any
merchantmen afloat. The pirate let
herself be overhauled to within a mile
before she flew the black flag, and as
the emblem fioated to the masthead she
fired the first gun. She mounted twelve
guns and had a crew of lis men. The
frigate mounted twenty-four guns and
a crew of 40.
1t 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 the fight |
she made against superior force. Cap |
ture meant the halter, and for four
long hours the pirates stood up 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 minutes they had pos
session.
Little of value was found aboard the
brig, as she had just returned to her
cruising ground. but many of the ar
ticles removed are to be found in the
British museum today. She was regu-
larly fitted out with a stock of imple-
mems of torture Between decks there
was q large caIdro1 set in brickwork
and close by stock of seven barrels
of oil. She had thumbscrews by the
dozen. spiked boots, the racks and
benches used in the inquisition, and in
deed nothing was lacking in the tor
ture line
On.y twenty-eight men of the pirates
crew lived to be taken prisoners.
Among them was her fourth or fifth
captain, whose name was Alvarez. He
was a man of thirty, and a greater
fend never lived. He was the last
man to give in and was so severely
wounded that for some days 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 were a staggering. Boosting, de-
faint 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
A1dOS SldeSll6lltS Will IGlO liiGlI UP
as veritable devils The captain had
only engaged in two captures, and both
vessels were 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 commenced. He said that with
his own hand he had cut, off the ears,
toes and fingers of a merchant captain
and then spiked him down on his own
deck with no less than fourteen ship
nails.