The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

THE CAVES OF THE PIRATES.

A letter from an officer on board the United States' schooner Greyhound, after stating the defeat of the Pirates at Cape Cruz, gives the following description of the caves of these freebooters:

A cave, in which was found various articles of plunder, female dresses, and some human bones, the history of which, could it be known, would doubtless chill one's blood with horror. It enters at the base of a perpendicular cliff directly under the position the pirates occupied, running in a horizontal direction about 150 feet, from 6 to 7 feet high, and about the same breadth, so intensely dark within that we were obliged to light several candles before we could discern objects in the deep recesses and windings of the rocks. A large tree of lignum vitae grows at the entrance. Casting a deep shade around, adding a still greater gloom to the appearance of this romantick spot. Several other caves are near the same place, one of which enters on the top of the cliffs, which we descended into by ropes to the perpendicular distance of fifty or sixty feet, and finding room below capable of containing nearly 100 persons: all have traces of having been occupied. In some caves, articles of clothing were found, supposed to have been thrown in by the pirates in their retreat. Innumerable quantities of land crabs inhabit the caves, and which have the power of crawling along the sides and roof with the ease of a fly. They retreated before us, collected in the extremity of the caves in such quantities as to fill up large fissures in the rocks.