4 Chapter 4

After leaving the governors mansion the next morning with Elizabeth and just as importantly the letter of marque, I escorted Elizabeth to my shiny new looking, 20 gun fluyt, it was a fairly heavily armed ship for the time, for a merchant ship, could carry a large amount of cargo and should be useful as a privateer.

I was still kind of just playing things by ear at this point, I had a night to think on things a little more, to plan out an immediate future. There isn't much I want to change about the things that happened in the movies, other than me getting rich of course.

There's not much I need to do with the whole black pearl and it's creepy undead crew except sweep in and save the commodore and Elizabeth if that's still her fate.

I'm fairly sure I shouldn't get attached to the crew of the ship as it seems, especially considering the movies, a lot of people tend to die in boarding actions. I'm not particularly interested in dying that way. It's one of the reason I plan to sail with a larger crew than I normally would for simply sailing and crewing the ship, I figured an extra 20-30 men should be useful for boarding actions and taking prizes, especially with me sniping them before we even get close.

With those thoughts out of mind my mind traveled back to my companion for the day, Elizabeth. I would try to help her if the time ever actually came, unless we became more than friends, then I would most certainly help her, as like any other treasure, she would be mine.

"So what do you think of her Elizabeth?" I ask her as we arrive at the gangplank.

After a moments consideration "she looks like a good ship, though I don't know much about such, she also looks fast!" She said almost wistfully at the end.

Hmm maybe she already has a desire to sail the seas? It's possible I suppose. "Well maybe one day you will find out how fast she is in the future? Though only if your father will allow it of course."

She sighed at that though she also smiled "of course, Alex."

With that, the tour of the ship began though there wasn't much to see and thankfully most of the crew was still gone.

Mostly just showed her the main deck, the cargo hold, also a portioned off area for real treasure, and then the captains quarters. It was fairly spacious, having a double size fold down bed that could be raised if I needed room. A small wooden desk for my documents as well as a chest in the corner with most of my belongings including my rather large bag of gold pounds

"It's not exactly a luxury mansion" I told her with a grin. "But it gets the job done well enough."

And with that so ends the tour of my ship.

"So you really wouldn't mind having women on your ship when you sail? Don't sailors tend to be superstitious about such things?" She asked innocently. Too innocently?

"It's true that many sailors tend to believe stupid things, but you yourself made the voyage with us without issue so why believe in such nonsense? I have seen and heard of far more things to be worried about than having a woman on a ship or crewing a ship." I was somewhat amused by her line of thought and was curious what she was actually thinking.

"Hmmm how interesting" she murmured just loud enough to be heard. "Alright Alex, escort a lady home?"

I just laughed and bowed, "why of course miss Swann!"

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And with that, it was time to meet with my quartermaster to come up with articles for which to sail under, something I didn't even consider until he brought it up. He seems to catch the details which is useful and a typically good sign for a quartermaster, or whoever sent him as crew was generous to me.

Once we had those settled, which was fairly strait forward, he would oversee the crew signing or making their mark, as privateers, he would also try to sign on another 30 sailors for boarding actions since we were more than merchantmen now.

Other than that I also bought dozens of muskets, quite a few for me, and the rest for the crew who didn't have one. I already had 8 pistols but I bought 2 more that can simply be used quickly and discarded. I wanted to end engagements as quickly as possible. I would also assign 2 people specifically to reload the rifles for me as I am a bit lazy but whatever I am captain so I can get away with it!