ment but told him he might try, if he wished. Meanwhile he continued to sound Captain Roope and others of the pirates, for signs of disaffection.
He did not feel himself strong enough to attack the ships; but by March 1609, he had engaged four of the pirates—Trevor, Roope, a man called Drake, and Peter Jacobson, the sailing master—to deliver ship and goods to his Majesty, when called upon. On the night of the 20th March, he went aboard her with a guard. The traitors handed over the ship, as they had promised, and though Jennings, or some faithful hand, destroyed the Earl's right arm, the struggle was soon over, and the sea-hawk was safely caged in one of the Earl's gaols.
Jennings' ship was not worth very much. Most of her men left her, and put to sea in the prize, directly her captain had been taken. The Earl overhauled her as soon as he could. He wrote how "the Comodities aboard is butt ordinairie, and a lytell sugers wh is so blacke as yt is worth but lytell in this land." She is very chargeable, he says, lying in the best road in the river. She could not be careened, as she was "to weke," and she
