Men of this type were not merely willing to risk their lives in a criminal calling, but were quite as ready to fight for their property as to try to save it by flight.

The slavers soon began to carry heavy guns, and with desperate crews were no mean antagonists for a man-of-war.
Many of the vessels that had been built for privateers were in the trade, ready to fight a cruiser or rob a smaller slaver, as chance offered.

We read of some carrying as many as twenty guns, and in that sea classic, "Tom Cringle's Log," there is a story--obviously founded on fact--of a fight between a British sloop-of-war and a slaver that gives a vivid idea of the desperation with which the outlaws could fight.

But sometimes the odds were hopeless, and the slaver could not hope to escape by force of arms or by flight.

Then the sternness of the law, together with a foolish rule concerning the evidence necessary to convict, resulted in the murder of the slaves, not by ones or twos, but by scores, and even hundreds, at a time.