carbuncles and rubies and pieces of eight--the treasure store of
those lawless pirates who infest the seas, having no colour of war
or teaching of civilisation to atone for their horrid deeds.

I discovered also, by an omission in the chart, that this was not
the Island wot of by the good and aged Devonshire divine--and so we
eased our consciences of accounting for the treasure to him. We
then sailed away, arriving after many years' absence at the Port of
Bristol in Merrie England, where I took leave of the "Jolly Roger,"
that being the name of my ship; it was a strange conceit of seamen
in after years ever to call the device of my FLAG--to wit, a skull
and bones made in the sign of a Cross--by the NAME my ship bore,
and if I have only corrected the misuse of history by lying knaves,
I shall be content with this writing. But alas! such are the
uncertainties of time; I found my good Lord of Southampton dead and
most of his friends beheaded, and the blessed King James of
Scotland--if I mistake not, for these also be the uncertainties of
time--on the throne. In due time I married Mistress Marian
Straitways. I might have told more of trifling, and how she fared,
poor wench! in mine absence, even to the following of me in another
ship, in a shipboy's disguise, and how I rescued her from a
scheming Pagan villain; but, as a plain, blunt man, I am no hand at
the weaving of puling love tales and such trifling diversions for
lovesick mayds and their puny gallants--having only consideration
for men and their deeds, which I have here set down bluntly and
even at mine advanced years am ready to maintain with the hand that
set it down.