The _Gentleman's Magazine_ for June, 1772, contained a
letter from Canton, dated November 19, 1771, giving a full account of
the pirate's arrival there with his mutineers and women refugees. The
Bishop Le Bon of Macao writes, September 24, 1771: "Out of his
equipage, there remain no more than eight men in health. All the rest
are confined to their beds. For two months they suffered hunger and
thirst." Captain King of Cook's staff writes of Kamchatka: "We were
informed that an exiled Polish officer named Beniowski had seized upon
a galliott, lying at the entrance of the harbor, and had forced on
board a number of Russian sailors, sufficient to navigate her; that he
had put on shore a part of the crew . . . among the rest, Ismyloff."
In Paris he met and interested Benjamin Franklin. Hyacinth de
Magellan, a descendant of the great discoverer, advanced Benyowsky
money for the Madagascar filibustering expedition. So did certain
merchants of Baltimore in 1785. On leaving England, Benyowsky gave his
memoirs to Magellan, who passed their editing over to William Nicholson
of the Royal Society, by {129} whom they were given to the world in
1790.
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