I believe that you are right, and that he is nothing better than a pirate.

He shall be given over to the justices when we get to Havant.' I thought that our passenger's coolness deserted him for a moment, and that a look of annoyance passed over his face.
'Wait a bit!' he said; 'your name, I gather is Clarke, and your home is Havant.

Are you a kinsman of Joseph Clarke, the old Roundhead of that town ?' 'He is my father,' I answered.
'Hark to that, now!' he cried, with a throb of laughter; 'I have a trick of falling on my feet.

Look at this, lad! Look at this!' He drew a packet of letters from his inside pocket, wrapped in a bit of tarred cloth, and opening it he picked one out and placed it upon my knee.
'Read!' said he, pointing at it with his long thin finger.
It was inscribed in large plain characters, 'To Joseph Clarke, leather merchant of Havant, by the hand of Master Decimus Saxon, part-owner of the ship _Providence_, from Amsterdam to Portsmouth.' At each side it was sealed with a massive red seal, and was additionally secured with a broad band of silk.
'I have three-and-twenty of them to deliver in the neighbourhood,' he remarked.

'That shows what folk think of Decimus Saxon.