The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been
given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so called, was,
that the English colony owned and worked a silver-mine over on the
mainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a safe and convenient
place to store their silver in, until it was annually fetched away by the
sloop. It was brought down from the mine to the coast on the backs of
mules, attended by friendly Indians and guarded by white men; from thence
it was conveyed over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the
canoes of that country; from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by
the armed sloop once a-year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica,
it went, of course, all over the world.
How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four-and-twenty
marines under command of a lieutenant--that officer's name was
Linderwood--had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-Store, in
aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chase of the Pirates. The
Island was considered a good post of observation against the pirates,
both by land and sea; neither the pirate ship nor yet her boats had been
seen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the
reinforcement was sent.
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