Sailing boldly into the harbor, he hoisted the dreadful black flag, and then, standing on his quarter-deck with his speaking-trumpet, he shouted to each vessel as he passed it that if it did not surrender he would board it and give no quarter to captain or crew.

Of course there was nothing else for the peaceful sailors to do but to submit, and so this greedy pirate took possession of each vessel in turn and stripped it of everything of value he cared to take away.
But he did not confine himself to stealing the goods on board these merchantmen.

As he preferred to command several vessels instead of one, he took possession of some of the best of the ships and compelled as many of their men as he thought he would need to enter his service.
Then, as one of the captured vessels was larger and better than his brigantine, he took it for his own ship, and at the head of the little pirate fleet he bid farewell to Marblehead and started out on a grand cruise against the commerce of our coast.
It is wonderful how rapidly this man Low succeeded in his business enterprises.

Beginning with a little vessel with a dozen unarmed men, he found himself in a very short time at the head of what was perhaps the largest piratical force in American waters.

What might have happened if Nature had not taken a hand in this game it is not difficult to imagine, for our seaboard towns, especially those of the South, would have been an easy prey to Low and his fleet.
But sailing down to the West Indies, probably in order to fit out his ships with guns, arms, and ammunition before beginning a naval campaign, his fleet was overtaken by a terrible storm, and in order to save the vessels they were obliged to throw overboard a great many of the heavier goods they had captured at Marblehead, and when at last they found shelter in the harbor of a small island, they were glad that they had escaped with their lives.
The grasping and rapacious Low was not now in a condition to proceed to any rendezvous of pirates where he might purchase the arms and supplies he needed.