Note 6 — LA PAIX.

For Captain Passenger's own account, see Cal. St. P. Col., 1700, p. 311. Governor Nicholson accompanied him in person, aboard the Shoreham. During most of the fight the two ships were within pistol-shot of each other. Finally the pirate, with all masts and sails shattered, drifted aground. Then, having laid a train to thirty barrels of gunpowder, he threatened to blow the ship up, and the governor, to save the lives of the forty or fifty English prisoners, gave quarter, promising to refer the pirates to the king's mercy if they should surrender quietly. So 111 of them were sent to England in the Essex Prize and the fleet of merchantmen convoyed by her, June 9. The trial was of three who were brought in without having been included in the surrender. It was held, in accordance with the Virginian act, by a commission of oyer and terminer, appointed by the governor. All three of them were hanged, although "One of them, Cornelius Frank, said, Must I be hanged that can speake all Languages"? Another curious passage in the trial deserves to be quoted: "Mr. Atty. Gen. Did the Pyrates talk of blowing their Shipp up? Ed. Ashfeild. Yes, they did, and went to prayers upon it." Nor less the picture, in the evidence of either this or an adjoining trial, of the pirate captain "with a gold chain around his neck, and a gold Tooth-picker hanging from it"—nouveau riche!