LEAVES FROM A LOG. 5J9 



having been informed by Wilson previous to my arrival that the latter 

 had formerly been on board a man-of-war, the drogher captain re- 

 quested that he and three of his sailors should convey him to the 

 grave. I, of course, granted his request. "It is trne," said he, 

 musing, "that he destroyed himself; but your old nurse says he was 

 rnad, in consequence of having a bit of silver let into his head." 



His funeral took place the next morning. Being Sunday, all the 

 negroes that could walk (about two hundred in number) attended. 

 They were dressed decently, and behaved orderly ; several of my 

 neighbours, free persons of colour, also followed. The coffin was 

 borne by the seamen from the overseer's house down to the burying- 

 ground, beside the sea. The negroes walked in regular procession, 

 singing a pleasing hymn, which, although not originally adapted to 

 the occasion of an interment, had a solemn, religious effect. On a 

 small rising, under an immensely high palmiste tree, which for miles 

 along the coast served as a landmark for the mariner, is the pirate's 

 grave a grave well suited to his stormy life ; here were his remains 

 deposited. I was too indisposed to quit the house, and there being 

 no clergyman in the quarter, the overseer read the church service ; 

 after which the earth closed upon him for ever. The Bermudian 

 captain, who had contrived to procure some twenty muskets, 

 caused three volleys to be fired over the grave ; the loud report 

 resounded along the shore, and its echoes seemed to be answered by 

 the long waving of the surf, which, on the western coast of Trinidad, 

 breaks with tremendous force; the sea-birds started at the loud 

 volley, and flew towards the Spanish main. 



Little now remains to be told. Fitz-Allen did not return until 

 after the funeral, and I succeeded in keeping him in ignorance as to 

 whom the supposed Thomas Wilson was. Shortly after this, con- 

 trary to my advice, he went home in the packet. His passage, I 

 learned, was agreeable, considering the time of the year (September) ; 

 but when performing that unpleasant part of a voyage from the West 

 Indies, crossing the Newfoundland Banks, he met with the misty, 

 damp, and bleak weather usually found in that latitude ; he in con- 

 sequence took a severe cold, which by the time he reached the Lizard 

 turned into a confirmed consumption. His physicians advised him 

 immediately to recross the Atlantic. His business hindered him 

 from doing so, and a few months after, the summer coming on, he en- 

 joyed the warm weather, and entertained hopes of recovery from his 

 malady for it is strange that the victims of consumption seldom 

 despair of being cured. But ere he had been twelve months in Engr 

 land " he was gathered to his fathers !" He died resigned and 

 happy. This I heard from the clergyman who attended him in his 

 last sickness, and whom Albert Fitz-Allen desired to write to me. 



A young man of colour, who was a fellow passenger with me up 

 the Orinoco, was shortly after in the Danish island of St. Thomas. 

 He went to see the execution of a number of pirates, amongst whom 

 he recognized the captain of the brigantine, " der Meerschaumer," 

 the Dutchman, the little Portuguese, and another whose country he 

 knew not, but remembered seeing at Old Guiana. The latter free- 

 booter suffered the dreadful penalty of the law in a state of stupefac- 



