Captain Sharkey, of the twenty-gun pirate barque, Happy Delivery, had passed down the coast, and had littered it with gutted vessels and with murdered men.

From the Bahamas to the Main his coal-black barque, with the ambiguous name, had been freighted with death and many things which are worse than death.

When Captain Sharkey has a boat he can get a smack, when he has a smack he can get a brig, when he has a brig he can get a barque, and when he has a barque he'll soon have a full-rigged ship of his ownso make haste into London town, or I may be coming back, after all, for the Morning Star." Captain Scarrow heard the key turn in the lock as they left the cabin.

When Captain Sharkey has a boat he can get a smack, when he has a smack he can get a brig, when he has a brig he can get a barque, and when he has a barque he'll soon have a full-rigged ship of his ownso make haste into London town, or I may be coming back, after all, for the Morning Star." Captain Scarrow heard the key turn in the lock as they left the cabin.

There was one pirate, however, who never crossed even the skirts of civilisation, and that was the sinister Sharkey, of the barque Happy Delivery.

In the latter case the barque would come round to some pre-arranged spot to pick him up, and take on board what he had shot.

"You have heard that Sharkey's barque, the Happy Delivery, came from this very port of Kingston?"

There were many seamen in the port who knew the lines and rig of the pirate barque, and not one of them could see the slightest difference in this counterfeit.

The avenging barque sped across the Caribbean Sea, and, at the sight of that patched topsail, the little craft which they met flew left and right like frightened trout in a pool.

Their boat and oars had been hauled up among the bushes, so they launched it and pulled out to the barque.

From hour to hour he heard the swish of the water, and knew that the barque must be driving with all set in front of the trade wind.

Such was the breed of Ned Low, of Gow the Scotchman, and of the infamous Sharkey, whose coal-black barque, the Happy Delivery, was known from the Newfoundland Banks to the mouths of the Orinoco as the dark forerunner of misery and of death.

Sometimes it was from some schooner which had seen a great flame upon the horizon, and approaching to offer help to the burning ship, had fled away at the sight of the sleek, black barque, lurking like a wolf near a mangled sheep.

For a long time the barque and the brig never met, which was the more singular as the Ruffling Harry was for ever looking in at Sharkey's resorts; but at last one day, when she was passing down the inlet of Coxon's Hole, at the east end of Cuba, with the intention of careening, there was the Happy Delivery, with her blocks and tackle-falls already rigged for the same purpose.

From without came the low lapping of the tide, and from over the water a sailor's chanty from the barque.

Again there came the burst of voices from the deck of the barque.

The long, sleek, black barque, the sweep of white sand, and the fringe of nodding feathery palm trees sprang into dazzling light and back into darkness again.

But we could not be surprised at that, for there had been times during the last three days when it was a question whether our own barque would ever see land again.

We were not more than a hundred yards from her when we swung our foreyard aback, and there we were, the barque and the brig, ducking and bowing like two clowns in a dance.

It was but a little distance, but it took some time to traverse, and so heavy was the roll that often when we were in the trough of the sea, we could not see either the barque which we had left or the brig which we were approaching.

Hail the barque and tell them to send the other quarter-boat to help us to get the stuff aboard.

When she was full I sent her back to the barque, and then Allardyce and I, with the carpenter and one seaman, shifted the striped box, which was the only thing left, to our boat, and lowered it over, balancing it upon the two middle thwarts, for it was so heavy that it would have given the boat a dangerous tilt had we placed it at either end.

On the 12th of August, 1855, Gregory's party left Moreton Bay in the barque Monarch, attended by the schooner Tom Tough.

The usual official delays occurred, and the expedition did not leave Fremantle, in the barque Dolphin, until 23rd April, 1861, nearly two months later than had been arranged.

Dr. Young says that her original name was the Earl of Pembroke, but Sir Evan Macgregor wrote to Mr. Waddington in 1888 that she was purchased "under the name of the Endeavour, and was entered as a barque."