The second day after Rogers sailed out of the harbor he was discovered by Roberts, who, knowing nothing of their design, gave them chase. The Barbadoes ships kept an easy sail till the pirates came up with them, and then Roberts gave them a gun, expecting they would have immediately struck to his piratical flag; but instead thereof, he was forced to receive the fire of a broadside, with three huzzas at the same time, so that an engagement ensued; but Roberts, being hardly put to it, was obliged to crowd all the sail the sloop would bear to get off. The galley, sailing pretty well, kept company for a long while, keeping a constant fire, which galled the pirate; however, at length, by throwing over their guns and other heavy goods, and thereby lightening the vessel, they, with much ado, got clear; but Roberts could never endure a Barbadoes man afterwards, and when any ships belonging to that island fell in his way, he was more particularly severe to them than others.
Captain Roberts sailed in the sloop to the island of Dominico, where he watered and got provisions of the inhabitants, to whom he gave goods in exchange. At this place he met with thirteen Englishmen, who had been set ashore by a French Guard de la Coste, belonging to Martinico, taken out of two New England ships that had been seized as prizes by the said French sloop. The men willingly entered with the pirates, and it proved a seasonable recruiting.
They stayed not long here, though they had immediate occasion for cleaning their sloop, but did not think this a proper place; and herein they judged right, for the touching at this island had like to have been their destruction, because they, having resolved to go away to the Granada Islands for the aforesaid purpose, by some accident it came to be known to the French colony, who, sending word to the governor of Martinico, he equipped and manned two sloops to go in quest of them. The pirates sailed directly for the Granadilloes, and hall'd into a lagoon at Corvocoo, where they cleaned with unusual dispatch, staying but a little above a week, by which expedition they missed of the Martinico sloops only a few hours, Roberts sailing overnight and the French arriving the next morning. This was a fortunate escape, especially considering that it was not from any fears of their being discovered that they made so much haste from the island, but, as they had the impudence themselves to own, for the want of wine and women.