of a fair Character, was forc’d into their Service, and took the firſt Opportunity to get from them, and therefore receiv’d a Pardon; but Walter Kennedy being a notorious Offender, was executed the 19th of July, 1721, at Execution Dock.
The reſt of the Pyrates who were left in the Ship Rover, ſtaid not long behind, for they went aſhore to one of the Weſt-India Iſlands; what became of them afterwards, I can’t tell, but the Ship was found at Sea by a Sloop belonging to St. Chriſtophers, and carried into that Iſland with only nine Negroes aboard.
Thus we ſee what a diſaſtrous Fate ever attends the Wicked, and how rarely they eſcape the Puniſhment due to their Crimes, who, abandon’d to ſuch a profligate Life, rob, ſpoil, and prey upon Mankind, contrary to the Light and Law of Nature, as well as the Law of God. It might have been hoped, that the Examples of theſe Deaths, would have been as Marks to the Remainder of this Gang, how to ſhun the Rocks their Companions had ſplit on; that they would have ſurrendered to Mercy, or divided themſelves, for ever from ſuch Purſuits, as in the End they might be ſure would ſubject them to the ſame Law and Puniſhment, which they muſt be conſcious they now equally deſerved; impending Law, which never let them ſleep well, unleſs when drunk. But all the Uſe that was made of it here, was to commend the Juſtice of the Court, that condemn’d Kennedy, for he was a ſad Dog
(they ſaid) and deſerved the Fate he met with.
But to go back to Roberts, whom we left on the Coaſt of Caiana, in a grievous Paſſion at what Kennedy and the Crew had done; and who was now projecting new Adventures with his ſmall Company in the Sloop; but finding hitherto they had been but as a Rope of Sand, they formed a Set of Articles, to be ſigned and ſworn to, for the better
