Jon Hagadorn

As for To himself, he with a few others and a short time went off to Rhode Island, from whence he made his peace.

Thus we have accounted for the company our pirates met with here.

It must be observed that the natives of Madagascar are a kind of negroes.

They differ from those in Guinea in their hair, which is long, and their complexion is not so good a jet.

They have innumerable little princes among them, who are continually making war upon one another.

Their prisoners are their slaves, and they either sell them or put them to death as they please.

When our pirates first settled amongst them, their alliance was much quartered by these princes, so they sometimes joined one, sometimes another.

But wheresoever they sided, they were sure to be victorious, for the negroes here had no firearms, nor did they understand their use."

so that at length these pirates became so terrible to the negroes that if two or three of them were only seen on one side when they were going to engage, the opposite side would fly without striking a blow.

By these means they not only became feared, but powerful.

All the prisoners of war they took to be their slaves.

They married the most beautiful of the Negro women, not one or two, but as many as they liked, so that every one of them had as great a seraglio as the great signor at Constantinople.

Their slaves they employed in planting rice, in fishing, hunting, and similar endeavors, besides which they had abundance of others who lived, as it were, under their protection,

and to be secure from the disturbances or attacks of their powerful neighbors, these seemed to pay them a willing homage.

Now they began to divide from one another, each living with his own wives, slaves, and dependents, like a separate prince.

And as power and plenty naturally beget contention, they sometimes quarreled with one another, and attacked each other at the head of their several armies.

And in these civil wars, many of them were killed, but an accident happened, which obliged them to unite again for their common safety."

It must be observed that these sudden great men had used their power like tyrants, for they grew wanted in cruelty, and nothing was more common than upon the slightest displeasure to cause one of their dependents to be tied to a tree and shot through the heart, let the crime be what it would, whether little or great.

This was always the punishment.

wherefore the negroes conspired together to rid themselves of these destroyers, all in one night.