When they put Williams on board the Bristol-man, and he was told what directions they gave with him, he began to relent, and made all the intercession he could to Captain Gow for pardon, or at least not to be put on board the ship, knowing that if he was carried to Lisbon, he should meet with his due from the Portuguese, if not from the English; for it seems he had been concerned in some villainies among the Portuguese before he came on board the George galley.  What they were he did not confess, nor indeed did his own ship’s crew trouble themselves to examine him about it.  He had been wicked enough among them, and it was sufficient to make them use him as they did.  It was more to be wondered, indeed, that they did not cut him to pieces upon the spot and throw him into the sea, half on one side of the ship, and half on the other, for there was scarce a man in the ship but on one occasion or other had some apprehensions of him, and might be said to go in danger of his life from him.  But they chose to shift their hands of him this bloodless way, so they double fettered him and brought him up.  When they brought him among the men, he begged they would throw him into the sea and drown him; then entreated for his life with a meanness which made them despise him, and with tears, so that one time they began to relent.  But then the devilish temper of the fellow over-ruled it again, so at last they resolved to let him go, and did accordingly put him on board, and gave him many a hearty curse at parting, wishing him a good voyage to the gallows, which was made good afterwards, though in such company as they little thought of at that time.  The Bristol captain was very just to him, for according to their orders, as soon as they came to Lisbon, they put him on board the Argyle, one of His Majesty’s ships, Captain Bowles commander, then lying in the Tagus, and bound home for England, who accordingly brought him home.  Though, as it happened, Heaven brought the captain and the rest of the crew so quickly to an end of their villainies that they all came home time enough to be hanged with their lieutenant.

But to return to Gow and his crew.  Having thus dismissed the Bristol-man, and cleared his hands of most of his prisoners, with the same wicked generosity he gave the Bristol captain thirteen cerons of beeswax, as a gratuity for his trouble and charge with the prisoners, and in recompense, as he called it, for the goods he had taken from him, and so they parted.

This was the last prize they took, not only on the coast of Portugal, but anywhere else, for Gow, who, to give him his due, was a fellow of council and had a great presence of mind in cases of exigence, considered that as soon as the Bristol ship came into the river of Lisbon, they would certainly give an account of them, as well of their strength, and of their station in which they cruised, and that consequently the English men-of-war (of which there are generally some in that