THE PIRATE. BY THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY,» «IVANHOE,» ETC. AT THE ENGLISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN, GERMAN, AND SPANISH LIBRARY, N° 18, RUE VIVIENNE. 1826. ADVERTISEMENT. THE purpose of the following Narrative is to give a detailed and accurate account of certain remarkable incidents which took place in the Orkney Islands, concerning which, the more imperfect traditions and mutilated records of the country only tell us the following erroneous particulars : In the month of January 1724-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearing twenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by John Gow, or Goffe, or Smith, came to the Orkney Islands, and was discovered to be a pirate, by various acts of insolence and villany committed by the crew. These were for some time submitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands not possessing arms nor means of resistance; and so bold was the captain of these banditti, that he not only came ashore, and gave dancing parties in the village of Stromness, but, before his real character was discovered, engaged the affec VOL. I. a tions and received the troth-plight of a young lady, possessed of some property. A patriotic individual, James Fea, younger, of Clestron, formed the plan of securing the buccaneer, which he effected by a mixture of courage and address, in consequence chiefly of Gow's vessel having gone on shore near the harbour of Calfsound, on the Island of Eda, not far distant from a house then inhabited by Mr Fea. In the various stratagems by which Mr Fea contrived finally, at the peril of his life, they being well armed and desperate, to make the whole pirates his prisoners, he was much aided by Mr James Laing, the grandfather of the late Malcolm Laing, Esq. the acute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the 17th century. Gow, and others of his crew, suffered, by sentence of the High Court of Admiralty, the punishment their crimes had long deserved. He conducted himself with great audacity when before the Court; and, from an account of the matter, by an eye-witness, seems to have been subjected to some unusual severities, in order to compel him to plead. The words are these: «John Gow would not plead, for which he was brought to the bar, and the Judge ordered that his thumbs should be squeezed by two men, |