During this voyage, poor man, he was captured and carried into port by a French privateer.

On the suggestion that he might ransom his vessel on payment of four thousand livres, he departed for Boston in hope of finding the money, leaving behind three of his sailors as hostages.
Cash in hand for the ransom, the long-suffering Captain Michael Driver turned southward again, now in the schooner Mary, and he flew a flag of truce to indicate his errand.

This meant nothing to the ruffian who commanded the English privateer Revenge.

He violently seized the innocent Mary and sent her into New Providence.

Here Captain Driver made lawful protest before the authorities, and was set at liberty with vessel and cargo--an act of justice quite unusual in the Admiralty Court of the Bahamas.
Unmolested, the harassed skipper managed to gain Cape Francois and rescue his three seamen and his schooner in exchange for the ransom money.