It would have been easy enough for him to get away from the town by himself, but this would have been of no use to him unless he obtained some sort of a vessel, and some men to help him navigate it.

So he proposed to the slaves that they should steal a small boat belonging to the master of one of them, and in this, under cover of the night, the little party safely left Campeachy and set sail for Tortuga, which, as we have told, was then the headquarters of the buccaneers, and "the common place of refuge of all sorts or wickedness, and the seminary, as it were, of all manner of pirates.".