The fame which he had enjoyed before this, great as it already was,
is dwarfed into insignificance by the fame that followed. It was
a fame such as no buccaneer - not even Morgan - has ever boasted,
before or since.
In Tortuga, during the months he spent there refitting the three
ships he had captured from the fleet that had gone out to destroy
him, he found himself almost an object of worship in the eyes of
the wild Brethren of the Coast, all of whom now clamoured for the
honour of serving under him. It placed him in the rare position
of being able to pick and choose the crews for his augmented fleet,
and he chose fastidiously. When next he sailed away it was with a
fleet of five fine ships in which went something over a thousand
men. Thus you behold him not merely famous, but really formidable.
The three captured Spanish vessels he had renamed with a certain
scholarly humour the Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, a grimly jocular
manner of conveying to the world that he made them the arbiters of
the fate of any Spaniards he should henceforth encounter upon the
seas.
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