At Length, I One Afternoon Missed All The People, Except Mr Adamson The Surgeon, Mr Hendric The Agent, My Son, And Mr Dodd, Lieutenant Of Marines, Which Last Feigned Lunacy, For Some Reason Best Known To Himself.

I learnt at night that they had been all day assembled at the great tree, in deep consultation, and

Had framed a new set of regulations and articles, by which the owners in England were excluded from any share in what we might take for the future, divested me of all authority as captain, and regulated themselves according to the Jamaica discipline.[269] Even the chief officers, among the rest, had concurred in electing one Morphew to be their champion and speaker, who addressed the assembly to the following purport: "That they were now their own masters, and servants to none: and as Mr Shelvocke, their former captain, took upon him still to command, he ought to be informed, that whoever was now to be their commander, must be so through their own courtesy. However, that Mr Shelvocke might have the first offer of the command, if the majority thought fit, but not otherwise. That Mr Shelvocke carried himself too lofty and arbitrarily for the command of a privateer, and ought to have continued in men-of-war, where the people were obliged to bear all hardships quietly, whether right or wrong."

[Footnote 269: This expression is not explained, but seems to have been, according to the model of the Buccaneers, all prizes to be divided among the captors.

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