Preface. xi

in English, Carcaud produces some clearances which have a suspicious
look. Mulkere then goes back to his schooner and sends a boat to the
brig for Carcaud and his papers, and he comes on board with them.
Finding them as unintelligible on the schooner as they had been on the
brig, Mulkere sends a boat to the latter for " two outlandish men " to
act as interpreters. When the boat reaches the brig, the whole brig's
crew jump in and row off to the schooner. Mulkere seeing the brig
thus deserted, asks Carcaud to send back some of his men to take
charge of her, but this they all refuse to do, saying that she is now in
Mulkere's custody. While matters are under discussion, Mulkere ob-
serves that the brig is drifting to the shore, so sends five of his men
in a boat to take charge of her.

Some angry wrangling follows, ending in Mulkere's threat to put
Carcaud and his men in irons, upon which the latter rise and seize the
schooner, apparently without resistance, gag the captain and tie him
to the pump, and tie the others in various convenient places. Next
they search Mulkere's chest, from which they take his papers and a
bag of money. They then signal the brig to come up, and when she is
near, all jump into the schooner's boat and row off to her, leaving
Mulkere and his crew bound and gagged. When on board the brig
they stand up the Bay, taking with them the schooner's five men and
her boat. Late at night they put these men into their boat, and they,
after a day's rowing, rejoined their own vessel.

Other witnesses vary in details but agree in the general facts.

On the other hand, the captain and others of the brig attempted to
justify their proceedings, but not to the satisfaction of the Council,
who ordered their arrest on a charge of piracy.

The letters to Gov. Sharpe, printed in this volume, should have been
included in the Sharpe Correspondence, and would have been so in-
cluded had they been in our possession when those volumes were
published. We owe their discovery to Col. Oswald Tilghman, for-
merly Secretary of State, who informed us of their existence in the files
of that department, and at our request, the present Secretary, N.
Winslow Williams, Esq., kindly made search for them and transmitted
them to the Society. To both these gentlemen our thanks are here
tendered.

As this correspondence was not of sufficient bulk to justify separate
publication, we have appended it to this volume of the Council Journal,
covering the same period.