There was apparently but little discipline on board, but a great deal of disputation and a continual jabbering.

A ruffianly-looking fellow, with a swarthy complexion and big black whiskers, who proved to be the commander, beckoned Captain Moncrieff to the quarter-deck, where he examined the schooner's papers and various letters, all of which proved, beyond a doubt, that the schooner was an American vessel, bound to a Patriot port on the Spanish Main.
Fortunately for us our captor was a Patriot privateer, and our little vessel, under no pretext, could be regarded as a prize.

If we had been bound to a port on the Spanish Main where the inhabitants had not thrown off their allegiance to the king or if the privateer had been a Spaniard, the case would have been different, and the pilot-boat would have been taken possession of and confiscated to the benefit of the captors, probably without trial.

In those days other nations, following the example of France and England, trampled on the great principles of international law so far as our insulted country was concerned.
As the privateersmen could not take our vessel without avowing themselves pirates, they reluctantly limited themselves to plunder.

An officer and half a dozen men, armed with pistols and cutlasses, were despatched in our boat to the schooner, which they thoroughly examined from stem to stern.