Traders Rumors: Pirates at New Orleans

Ah, there yea be!

Pull up a form and buy me a pot o' porter and i'll tell yea wha' makes me dreary and me pate a' bandaged.

T'were the 13th last, I was out of Tampa with some iron findings fo' the yard, bound to New Orleans to recover the lees of a consignment (she'll only hold 140 tunn ye'now) o' fir for some spars and tar.

Getting in proved nay'se difficult as the "Laird" is muckle weal spry. But as I was a'tippin a few pots, and haggling for some kippers, it seems that the whole of the mouths went over to a battle.

Now nay checking me charts a'fore casting off, I have learned is a good way to see Ald Nick, and fey me I just drifted down to the head of the passes till I made my hoist. We didn't e'en ha' the haulyard made and belayed before we was run down by a corsair xybec!

Aye! RUN DOWN, as not as in chased, but full well run into! When we all ha' disentangle out of the port scuppers, there they were a settin', not the 400 paces a'tween us!

Now well an 'a, the helms over hard to get us on the wind while I put a glass to the slovenly spawn of a twa'penny stand-up. I'll admit I dain't catch his name, sumthin' spelt queer, and all I could make of his ensign was F.A.G.G? and something else, I'll nay say wat I think I were. But wat I did espy was 26 mouths of iron and 210 piles of cobbie dung. Four times our weight of metal and men! By the time we were full and by, all faked down, we're showing 're heels to the 26th lvl ewe-buggering doyltie and I could see him flogging his dung eating hammock mates and wormy ship, to press her on.

Then the Bo'sun gie a hail fo'ward, and so wan-chancie were we, as I kened the hard was coming up fast. Dammie! I should h'ae gandered at the chart sooner! I would h'ae traded a lee shore and a full gale off Kyntre for where I was standing. "'Zounds!" cry I, "Load star! We'll only get this one at him."

Wear or tack? Wear! as there was no room to tack! A quick broadsides as the helm goes down. Then, woe is I! We touch and the grateing of sand! We slow too much! The xybec turns and runs us aboard!

Frantically we cut the grapples and slide aside her, trying to work free and gain the offing. We give them another of langrange and they cut us up aloft. A second of langrange, an now there nay so many o' them, but we ha' another aloft and she' fair a' crippled.

Now board'ns a given, and the lad were all stand up for it. They come over the foredeck, the big doxie-get at their head. Well now, I ha' a fine brace of Doune-made, a fu'st o' I gave the rover one and followed with an on-hand point. Well now the bully-boy nay like how this wa' a'gaing and he takes off like a coney! By my muither's rood he did twa full circuits o' the deck!

Aye! An' twere a bloody trick! The faster he did flee, the more my lads just stood and would n'a take direction. They just stood a' gawky as the other flea farmers swarmed us!

I awoke on the deck, with the Lord of Bute aground by the levee. All the haulyards and gun tackyle had been cut. The cargo of fir and iron was gone also. We made our way back to New Orleans and refit, then slipped out later that night........And that my friend......is why you are buying this pint!