“His first move was to send one of the apprentices secretly to the skipper’s cabin for the ship’s papers, and having obtained them he weighted them with a lump of iron and, after exhibiting them to the captain, calmly pitched the lot overboard. Our skipper almost went mad. He danced with rage like a bear at a show, all the hands laughing at him. Well, after that the mutineers took possession of the craft, clapped us all three in our cabins, and then broached the rum and other spirits we had aboard. Sails were reefed, and we lay to for nearly a week while the whole crew were roaring drunk. Then a little bad weather sobered them, and they ran in shore. Within sight of land a boat was lowered, into which they placed us, tossing some of our belongings after us, and then sent us adrift. Fortunately they had given us a pair of oars, and we rowed ashore. It was a tropical country, we found, and as we beached the boat we saw that the brig had altered her course, and was steering straight out across the Atlantic. The natives proved friendly, and after some wanderings in the forests we were guided by a black boy to the English settlement of Cape Coast Castle. Before the Governor we related our experiences, and after some weeks were sent home to London.
“That was my first acquaintance with Black Bennett, the most brutal of all skippers.”
“She was found about three years afterwards aground and abandoned a few miles south of Rio. According to the report to the Board of Trade there were evidences that Black Bennett and his men had run her as a pirate, making havoc with the Brazilian coasting trade, but as nothing was seen of him in England the authorities were powerless. Next he was heard of in New York, where he shipped under an assumed name on a German steamer bound for Sydney. The German skipper was pleased at shipping a whole crowd of tough English sailors, but before he had got half-way across the Atlantic he had a very rude awakening. The new hands were none other than Black Bennett and his men, and they made fine sport of that Hamburg steamer. There was some powder-play that time, and more than one on both sides went to Davy Jones. But in the end Bennett took command, set the Germans adrift near Mauritius, and then, steering back to Buenos Ayres, they unshipped the cargo and eventually sold it. Afterwards Bennett and his crew steamed away to Australia, and there became engaged in the Kanaka labour trade—a kind of genteel slave-trade. Five years ago, when my owners made Leghorn a final port of discharge on account of the cheapness of Italian hands and the fact that they don’t get drunk, Bennett tried to ship with me, intending, no doubt, to play his tricks with the _Thrush_. Fortunately I recognized him, told Mr. Carmichael, the British Consul, and the result was that he made himself scarce out of Leghorn pretty quickly. Oh, yes,” added Seal, “Black Bennett is an ingenious rogue, I can tell you.”