Note 50 — COSTLY SHIPWRECKS.

A strange use was made of this coin by Sir John Kempthorne. He was attacked by a large Spanish ship of war, and fought till all his ammunition was spent: “Then,” says Campbell in his “Lives,” “remembering that he had several large bags of pieces of eight on board, he thought they might better serve to annoy than enrich the enemy, and, therefore, ordered his men to load their guns with silver, which did such execution on the Spanish rigging, that, if his own ship had not been disabled by a lucky shot, he had in all probability got clear.”