about Avery. From whom could he have obtained the story? Possibly a part of it from the pirates who obtained their pardon from William III, but not as to the end of John Avery.
The story as told in (c) is quite different. According to Adrian van Broeck, Avery did not desert the Consort, the Duchess, nor the sloops, but all together went to Madagascar and settled there. In that settlement, his wife, the daughter of the Mogul, bore him a son, and died of a broken heart.
The second in command was a M. de Sales, who after a while, impatient at being second, organized a revolt among the Frenchmen who were there, captives from a French vessel taken by the pirates. As soon as the watch-bell sounded they were to seize the principal fort, and not spare any man, woman, or child. One of de Sales' crew, named Picard, betrayed the plot to a Cornishman named Richardson, who told it to Avery, and precautions were taken to surround the French on parade, and make all prisoners. Avery had every man impaled who had been engaged in the conspiracy.
Avery was anxious to obtain his pardon, and wrote a letter to Captain Pitt, Governor of Fort St. George, near Madras, which he was to transmit to England, but the East India Company would not present it to the Government.
Avery next attacked and destroyed Fort Ste. Marie of the French East India Company on the north of Madagascar.
Adrian van Broeck managed to make his escape from the settlement on board an East India Company vessel; and with that the narrative abruptly terminates.
The two narratives are irreconcilable, and where the truth lies is impossible to determine. It is conceivable
