"₤200 in Gold, besides Victuals," if, between them, they could capture the French privateer La Trompeuse, commanded by their whilom friend, Captain Peter Paine.
Virtue so fervent as that of John Coxon soon burns itself out. The pure flame which forced eleven mutineers into the sea in November 1682, was but a smoke and a memory a year later. In a letter dated November 1683, we find the curt entry, "Coxon is again in rebellion"; while another, of March 1684, describes him as cruising off the Terra Firme. Then a vagrant impulse to virtue drove him back to Jamaica, where he found a surety, and some honest employment, which kept him ashore, but only for a little while. In January 1686, he returned to Jamaica from another piratical raid, the details of which are missing. He claimed on this occasion to be weary of piracy; but the authorities were more weary than he, so he was laid by the heels, and sent for trial at St. Jago de la Vega, "where there will be few sympathizers among the jury." Those who are to be tried in a place where there will be few sympathizers among the jury, have every incentive to
