He even ventured to land in Northumberland, and burned many houses before the trainbands could be collected to oppose him.

The prizes which he carried back into his native port were estimated at about a hundred thousand pounds sterling.

[322] About the same time a younger adventurer, destined to equal or surpass Bart, Du Guay Trouin, was entrusted with the command of a small armed vessel.

The intrepid boy,--for he was not yet twenty years old,--entered the estuary of the Shannon, sacked a mansion in the county of Clare, and did not reimbark till a detachment from the garrison of Limerick marched against him.

[323] While our trade was interrupted and our shores menaced by these rovers, some calamities which no human prudence could have averted increased the public ill humour.