Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/152

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
140
A MAINSAIL HAUL

to £20 a man, in "money and broken plate"; though Coxon's share came to rather more. He brought away with him the Governor and the Bishop of the city, both of whom he held to ransom. There must have been something charming in him, for when he came to Port Royal to surrender to the Government (and to pay his tenths and fifteenths), the "good old man" (the Bishop) expressed himself "exceedingly satisfied" with his treatment. He expressed himself thus to Sir Thomas Lynch, who had come aboard to inquire after him, and to make him more comfortable, and to treat for his release. When he spoke, the entire buccaneer crew was lying on the deck blind drunk, and perhaps few bishops would have shown such charitable broadmindedness in such a situation, and at such a time.

The ransoms of the Bishop and the Governor were duly paid, and Coxon found himself rich enough to take advantage of an Act of Oblivion. For nearly two years he lived honestly in Jamaica; but (as he confessed) he then "grew weary" of being honest (probably he ran short of money), so that he put to sea again in command of a small