He was so great a loss to good society."




THE LIFE, CAREER AND DEATH OF CAPTAIN THOMAS WHITE.


He was born at Plymouth, where his mother kept a public house. She took
great care of his education, and when he was grown up, as he had an
inclination to the sea, procured him the king's letter. After he had
served some years on board a man-of-war, he went to Barbadoes, where he
married, got into the merchant service, and designed to settle in the
island. He had the command of the Marygold brigantine given him, in
which he made two successful voyages to Guinea and back to Barbadoes. In
his third, he had the misfortune to be taken by a French pirate, as were
several other English ships, the masters and inferior officers of which
they detained, being in want of good artists. The brigantine belonging
to White, they kept for their own use, and sunk the vessel they before
sailed in; but meeting with a ship on the Guinea coast more fit for
their purpose, they went on board her and burnt the brigantine.

It is not my business here to give an account of this French pirate, any
farther than Capt. White's story obliges me, though I beg leave to take
notice of their barbarity to the English prisoners, for they would set
them up as a butt or mark to shoot at; several of whom were thus
murdered in cold blood, by way of diversion.

White was marked out for a sacrifice by one of these villains, who, for
what reason I know not, had sworn his death, which he escaped thus. One