338 CAPTAIN CABTWKIGHT'S 



on the eighth took a passage in the mail coach to 

 Blaudford; from whence I went that night to 

 Poole in a chaise, and arrived at Mr. Lester's 

 house at eight o'clock. He had heard of me from 

 Mr. Guy, but, the letter which I wrote to him from 

 Brixham having not yet appeared, he had con- 

 cluded that we were cast away on Sunday last, 

 and that all hands had perished. I continued at 

 Poole till the sixteenth, when I went to Wim- 

 bourn; the next evening I set out for London in 

 the Poole mail coach, and arrived there at nine 

 o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth. 



Soon after my arrival in London, I made appli- 

 cation to my assignees for restitution of the goods 

 which they had attached; yet although I very 

 clearly convinced them, that they were the prop- 

 erty of Mr. Collingham and myself, and had been 

 honestly obtained, and that Noble and Pinson 

 could not possibly have any claim on them, they 

 refused to restore them. I threatened them with 

 law; and they proposed arbitration; to which I 

 consented. But they afterwards found a pretence 

 for refusing to sign the bonds, which forced me 

 to assign my part (only one hogshead of oil) to 

 Mr. Collingham, and then, as his agent, to serve 

 William Pinson with a copy of a writ. My as- 

 signees defended the action; they put the trial 

 off twice, and attempted to do it a third time ; but 

 I frustrated their intentions; and when the cause 

 came to a hearing, the great Erskine ^ himself was 

 obliged to declare that he had not a word to say 



* Baron Erskine, 1750 to 1823, famous jurist and forensic orator. 



