in tolerable good Condition, having a Veſſel newly cleaned, with Proviſions, &c. they ſtood off to Sea, and ſo miſſed the Phœnix, who expected them to be ſtill on the Coaſt.
About ſix Weeks afterwards they returned, having taken both a Sloop and a Brigantine, among the Bahama Iſlands; the former they ſunk, and the other they let go: The Sloop belonged to New-York, and they thought the ſinking of her good Policy, to prevent her returning to tell Tales at Home.
Worley had by this Time encreaſed his Company to about five and twenty Men, had ſix Guns mounted, and ſmall Arms as many as were neceſſary for them, and ſeem’d to be in a good thriving ſort of a Way. He made a black Enſign, with a white Death’s Head in the Middle of it, and other Colours ſuitable to it. They all ſigned Articles, and bound themſelves under a ſolemn Oath, to take no Quarters, but to ſtand by one another to the laſt Man, which was raſhly fulfill’d a little afterwards.
For going into an Inlet in North-Carolina, to clean, the Governor received Information of it, and fitted out two Sloops, one of eight Guns, and the other with ſix, and about ſeventy Men between them. Worley had clean’d his Sloop, and ſail’d before the Carolina Sloops reached the Place, and ſteered to the Northward; but the Sloops juſt mentioned, purſuing the ſame Courſe, came in ſight of Worley, as he was cruiſing off the Capes of Virginia, and being in the Offin, he ſtood in as ſoon as he ſaw the Sloops, intending thereby to have cut them off from James River; for he verily believed they had been bound thither, not imagining, in the leaſt, they were in Purſuit of him.
The two Sloops ſtanding towards the Capes at the ſame Time, and Worley hoiſting of his black Flag, the Inhabitants of James Town were inthe
