of Columbus. Even the savage Indian, not content with lurking in
ambush, went afloat to wreak mischief, and the records of the
First Church of Salem contain this quaint entry under date of
July 25, 1677: "The Lord having given a Commission to the Indians
to take no less than 13 of the Fishing Ketches of Salem and
Captivate the men . . . it struck a great consternation into all
the people here. The Pastor moved on the Lord's Day, and the
whole people readily consented, to keep the Lecture Day following
as a Fast Day, which was accordingly done . . . . The Lord was
pleased to send in some of the Ketches on the Fast Day which was
looked on as a gracious smile of Providence. Also there had been
19 wounded men sent into Salem a little while before; also a
Ketch sent out from Salem as a man-of-war to recover the rest of
the Ketches. The Lord give them Good Success."

To encounter a pirate craft was an episode almost commonplace and
often more sordid than picturesque. Many of these sea rogues were
thieves with small stomach for cutlasses and slaughter. They were
of the sort that overtook Captain John Shattuck sailing home from
Jamaica in 1718 when he reported his capture by one Captain
Charles Vain, "a Pyrat" of 12 guns and 120 men who took him to
Crooked Island, plundered him of various articles, stripped the
brig, abused the crew, and finally let him go. In the same year
the seamen of the Hopewell related that near Hispaniola they met
with pirates who robbed and ill-treated them and carried off
their mate because they had no navigator.

Ned Low, a gentleman rover of considerable notoriety, stooped to
filch the stores and gear from a fleet of fourteen poor fishermen
of Cape Sable. He had a sense of dramatic values, however, and