126 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



One of the privateers met her on the way, and not- 

 withstanding her destination, seized the ship and 

 cargo at once, and brought the prize to the road of 

 Sinamary, through the double fear of her being caught 

 by the English frigates on the way to Cayenne, and 

 of being compelled to give the lion's share to her 

 rapacious governor. 



The capture was a prodigious event in the dreary 

 calendar of Sinamary. The commandant found that 

 there were no less than 40,000 bottles of the French 

 and Spanish vintages on board, and revelled in a long 

 prospect of drunkenness. The soldiers and negroes 

 found themselves more pleasantly employed in drag- 

 ging the cargo on shore than in working in the fort 

 or the fields. All was brawling and drinking, activity 

 and bustle. In the midst of this tumult, the Ameri- 

 can captain, Tilly, paid a visit to the prisoners. The 

 first glance of their hideous condition naturally struck 

 him with astonishment, the exiles say, made him 

 burst into tears ; but the French weep on all occa- 

 sions, and Jonathan is not yet so far fallen from the 

 manliness of his English ancestry as to play the 

 sentimentalist with such facility. The captain did 

 what was worth all the theatrical sorrows of all 

 weepers of the land of melodrame : he determined 

 to assist them to the best of his power, reduced as 

 it was. 



To their surprise, he told them privately, " that to 

 assist them had been the express object of his voyage, 



