service, he very abruptly left it by taking, what is vulgarly called, a
'French leave' of the Vixen and her officers, whilst that vessel was
taking in provisions and water at the island of Madagascar. Here,
Rowland, at the age of eighteen, soon fell in with a gang of American
and English bucaniers, who, some years previous to that time, had
pitched upon this island as a convenient rendezvous to which they might
be easily able to repair for recruits and recreation after having, (as
they often did,) successfully robbed the rich homeward bound East
Indiamen, for whom they usually laid in wait near the pitch of the Cape
of Good Hope.

It required but very little persuasion on the part of the pirates to
induce one to join them, whose spirit was congenial with theirs, so he
very soon became one of the most active and daring of their number.
Courage, cunning and cruelty were considered by them to be the most
important qualifications of a bona-fide bucanier, and they soon found
that these were possessed by Rowland, in a most superlative degree, and
this added to the influence of his talents and early education, caused
him to rise rapidly to a station of command among them. As it was his
motto 'to make hay while the sun shines,' he sailed as soon as possible
from Madagascar, from which he had not been absent but twenty days when
he fell in with and captured a Spanish Galleon, bound from Genoa to
Lisbon, laden with a large amount of gold and silver ornaments, which
was the property of the church, and was under the care of a number of
ecclesiastics who had taken passage in the unfortunate vessel.

There were a number of other passengers on board, amongst whom was Don
Fernando Herrera, who was accompanied by his daughter a beautiful
Castilian maiden, then about seventeen years of age, who doated upon her
father with all the fondness of a pure and filial affection.