The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Monarchs of the Main, Volume III (of 3), by Walter Thornbury

"One foot on sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never."
Much Ado about Nothing.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1855.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

As a young French Officer joins De Graff, at St. Domingo—Cruises round Carthagena—Crosses the Isthmus—Hardships—Joins the Buccaneer Fleet—Grogniet, the French Captain—Previous history of his Life—Fight with Greek mercenaries on the island—Take La Seppa—Engagement off Panama—Take Puebla Nueva—Separate from English—Capture Leon—Sack Chiriquita—Burn Granada—Storm Villia—Surprised by river ambuscade—Treachery of Greek spy—Capture vessels—Behead Spanish prisoners—Letter of Spanish President—Burning of the Savannahs—Quarrel between French and English—Attack on Quayaquilla—Love adventure of De Lussan—Retreat of French Buccaneers by land over the Isthmus of Darien—Passage from North to South Pacific—Great danger—Pass between the mountains—Daring stratagem of De Lussan—Escape—The river of the torrents—Rafts—Arrives at St. Domingo 1

Sieur de Montauban—Cruises on the coast of Guinea—Captures English man-of-war—Escape from explosion—Life with the negro king—Laurence de Graff—His victories—Enters the French service—Treachery—Buccaneersiv join in French expedition and take Carthagena—Buccaneer marksmen—Robbed of spoil—Return and retake the city—Capture by English and Dutch fleets, 1698—Buccaneers wrecked with D'Estrees—Grammont takes Santiago—Captures Maracaibo, Gibraltar, and Torilla—Lands at Cumana—Enters the French service—Lost in a farewell cruise 105

Peace of Ryswick—Attempts to settle the Buccaneers as planters—They turn pirates—Blackbeard and Paul Jones—Last expedition to the Darien mines, 1702 157

Laws and dress—Government—Blackbeard—His enormities—Captain Avery and the great Mogul—Davis—Lowther—Low—Roberts—Major Bonnet—Captain Gow—The Guinea coast—Narratives of pirate prisoners—Sequel 163

MONARCHS OF THE MAIN.

CHAPTER I.
RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.

For the cruises of Grogniet we are indebted to the pages of Ravenau de Lussan,2 a young soldier, as brave and as sagacious as Xenophon.

On the 22nd of November, 1684, Ravenau de Lussan departed from Petit Guaves with a crew of 120 adventurers, on board of a prize lately taken near Carthagena by Captain Laurence de Graff. Their intention was to join themselves to a Buccaneer fleet then cruising near Havannah. They had hitherto acted as convoy to the Lieutenant-General and the Intendant of the French colonies, who were afraid of being attacked by the Spanish piraguas. Soon after descrying the mainland, they were hailed by a French tartane, who, not believing that they were of his own nation, or had a commission from the Count of Tholouse, the Lord High Admiral of France, gave them two guns and commanded them to strike. The Buccaneers, thinking they had met a Spaniard, knocked out the head of two barrels of powder, intending to burn themselves and blow up the vessel, rather than be cruelly tortured and hung at the yard-arm with their commissions round their necks. A signal, however, discovered3 the mistake, and they were soon after joined by the vessels they sought. One of these was the Mutinous, formerly the Peace, commanded by Captain Michael Landresson, and carried fifty guns. The other was the Neptune, formerly the St. Francis, and carried forty-four guns. They had both been Spanish armadillas, had sallied out of Carthagena to take Captain De Graff, Michael, Quet, and Le Sage, and were themselves captured before the very walls. The four other boats belonged to Rose Vigneron, La Garde, and an "English traitor from Jamaica." They were then watching for the patache of Margarita, and a squadron of Spanish ships.

At Curaçoa they sent a boat ashore to ask leave to land and remast Laurence de Graff's vessel that had suffered in a hurricane, but were refused, although they showed their commission, and the men who landed were required to leave their swords at the gate. At Santa Cruz they saluted the fort, and the governor, finding 200 of them roaming about the town, commanded them by4 drum-beat to return to their ships, offering them two shallops for two pieces of eight a man to take them to their ships, but refusing to let them walk through the island. They found the reason of this was that Michael and Laurence's ships had lately taken 200,000 pieces of eight in two Dutch ships near the Havannah. This the freebooters did not touch, being at peace with Holland, but the sailors had stolen it and laid it to the French.

Arriving at Cape La Vella, they placed fifteen sentinels to watch for the patache, and sent a boat to the La Hache river to obtain prisoners, but, in spite of various stratagems, failed in the attempt. A dispute now arose among the crews, who were weary of waiting for the patache, such disputes invariably breaking out in all seasons of misfortune, when union was more than usually necessary.

Laurence de Graff, whom they accused of fraud, sailed at once for St. Domingo, followed by eighty-seven men in the prize, and Ravenau accompanied Captain Rose and Captain Michael to Carthagena, where they captured5 seven piraguas laden with maize. From the prisoners they heard that two galleons lay in the port, that the fleet was at Porto Bello, and that some ships were about to set out. Soon after this, finding themselves separated from Captain Rose and Michael, Ravenau determined to cross over the continent and get into the South Sea, as he heard a previous expedition some months before had done.

Near Cape Matance a remarkable adventure happened. A Spanish soldier, belonging to the galleons, who had been taken in one of the maize vessels, although treated with every kindness, attempted to drown himself by throwing himself into the sea; his body, however, floated on its back, although he did all he could to drown, till at last, refusing the tackle thrown him from very compassion, he turned himself upon his face, and sank to the bottom. On landing at Golden Island and fixing a flag to warn the Indians, they saw a pennon hoisted upon the shore, and discovered it to belong to three of Captain Grogniet's men, who had refused to6 follow the expedition, which had just started for the South Sea. Some Indians soon after brought them letters left for the first freebooters who should land, announcing that Grogniet and 170 men had gone into the South Sea, and that 115 Englishmen had preceded them. Soon after Michael and Rose, pursuing a Spanish vessel from Santiago to Carthagena, came in to water, and many of the crew resolved to join their march. 118 men left Michael, and the whole sixty-four of Rose's crew, reimbursing the owners, burnt their vessel and joined them. Ravenau's ship was left in the care of Captain Michael, and the united 264 men now encamped on shore.

On Sunday, March 1st, 1685, after recommending themselves to the Almighty's protection, the expedition set out under the command of Captains Rose, Picard, and Desmarais, with two Indian guides and forty Indian porters.

The country proved so rugged that they could only travel three leagues a day; it was full of mountains, precipices, and impenetrable7 forests. Great rains fell, and increased the hardship of the journey, and the weight of their arms and ammunition clogged them in ascending the precipices. On descending into the plain, which, though pathless, appeared smooth and level, they found they had to cross the same river forty-four times in the space of only two leagues, and this upon dangerous and slippery rocks. Arriving next day at an Indian caravansery, they remained some time shooting deer, monkeys, and wild hogs, flame-coloured birds, wild pheasants, and partridges that abounded in the woods. At length, after six days of painful and wearisome travel, the Buccaneers reached the Bocca del Chica river, that empties itself in the South Sea. Here, guided by the Indians, they fell to work making canoes, and bartered knives, needles, and hatchets, with the savages, for maize, potatoes, and bananas. Though well assured that their march had been impossible but for the friendliness of these savages, they still kept on their guard, fearing treachery. "They had," says Ravenau, with a pious sigh of pity, "no sign8 of religion or of the knowledge of God amongst them, holding that they have communion with the devil," and, indeed, as he declares, after spending solitary nights in the woods, often foretelling events to the Frenchmen, that came true to the minutest detail.

Just as they had finished making their canoes, Lussan heard that the English expedition, under Captain Townley, had captured two provision vessels from Lima, and soon after one of Grogniet's men, who had been lost while hunting, joined them. Hearing that Grogniet awaited them at King's Islands, before he attacked the Peru fleet, they started on the 1st of April in fourteen canoes, with twenty oars a piece, and with a score of Indian guides, who were sanguine of plunder. On the fourth they halted for stragglers, and mended their canoes, much injured by the rocks and flats of the river. In some places they were even forced to carry their boats, or to drag them over fallen trees that blocked the deeper parts by the flood. Several men died, and many were seized with painful9 diseases, produced by hard food and immersion in the water. They were now reduced to a handful of raw maize a day.

From some Indians sent forward to meet them, they heard that provisions awaited them at some distance, and that 1000 Spaniards had prepared an ambuscade on the river's banks. This, however, they avoided, by stirring only at dark, and then without noise. Surprised one night by the tide, the canoes were driven swiftly down the river, and some of them upset against a snag; the men were saved, but the arms and ammunition were lost. On approaching the Indian ambuscade at Lestocada, they placed their canoes one in the other, and telling the sentinels that they were Indian boats, bringing salt into the South Sea, escaped unhurt. On the 12th it grew so dark that the rowers could hardly see each other, and the heavy rain filled the boat so dangerously as to require two men to bale perpetually. At midnight they entered shouting into the South Sea, and found the provisions awaiting them at Bocca Chica, together with two barks to10 bring them to the fleet. Resting for a day or two, they repaired to the King's Islands to await the ships. These mountainous islands were the stronghold of Maroon negroes.

On the 22nd, Easter Day, the fleet arrived. It consisted of ten vessels, Captain David's frigate of thirty-six guns, Captain Samms, vice-admiral, with sixteen guns, Captain Townley, with two ships; Captain Grogniet, Captain Brandy, and Captain Peter Henry had also each a vessel, and the two small barks were commanded by quartermasters. Except Grogniet, who was a Frenchman, and David, who was a Fleming, the rest were all Englishmen. Their total force amounted to the number of 1100.

Of the different vessels, Ravenau gives the following laudatory account. The admiral's belonged to the English, who, at St. Domingo, had surprised a long bark, commanded by Captain Tristan, a Frenchman, while waiting for a wind. They took next a Dutch ship, and, changing vessels, went and made several prizes on the coast of Guinea, and, at Castres capturing a vessel from Hamburg,11 joined this expedition. They were, Ravenau declared, little better than pirates, attacking even, their own countrymen, which no true Buccaneer ever did. They had, a short time before, been chastised by a frigate, who, giving them a broadside and a volley of small shot, killed their captain and twenty men.

The vice-admiral's was a vessel they had forced to join them, and had lately taken a ship called the Sainte Rose, laden with corn and wine, bound from Truxillo to Panama, and this vessel Davis gave to the French. The others were all prizes captured in the South seas.

The holy alliance soon after took an advice boat that was carrying letters from Madrid to Panama, and despatches from the viceroy of Peru; but both the captain and pilot were bound by an oath rather to die than deliver up their packets or divulge any secret, and had thrown overboard the rolls as well as a casket of jewels. On the same evening 500 men, in twenty-two canoes, embarked to take La Seppa, a small town seven leagues to windward, of Panama. The next day, early in the12 morning, two armed piraguas, manned with Spanish mercenaries, seeing some of the Buccaneer canoes and forty-six men approaching them, ran ashore on an island in the bay and prepared to defend themselves. These troops were composed of all nations, and had been sent to defend this coast. One of the "Greek" boats split on the beach. The other the Buccaneers took, but the fugitives, planting their flag of defiance on a rising ground, fought desperately, and compelled the freebooters to land on another part of the island and take them in the rear. After an hour's conflict they fled into the woods, leaving thirty-five men dead round their colours and two prisoners.

The attack upon La Seppa proved a failure, for the Sea Rovers had to row two leagues up a river, where they were soon discovered by the sentinels. Yet for all this they fell furiously on, and took it with the loss of only one man; but the booty proved inconsiderable.

The fleet now anchored at the beautiful islands called the Gardens of Panama. All13 the rich merchants of the city had pleasure-houses here surrounded by rich orchards and arbours of jessamine, and watered by rills and streams. The hungry sailors revelled in the fruits, and reaped plentiful harvests of maize and rice, which Ravenau says "the Spaniards, I believe, did not sow with an intention they should enjoy."

On the 8th of May they passed the old and new towns of Panama in bravado with colours and streamers flying, anchored at Tavoga, another island of pleasure. Having caulked their ships, they sent out a long bark as a scout, and arranged a plan of attacking the Spanish fleet. Davis and Grogniet were to board the admiral; Samms and Brandy the vice-admiral; and Henry and Townley the patache; while the armed piraguas would hover about and keep off the enemy's fire-ships. The next day they put ashore forty prisoners at Tavoga; and the same day, the sound of cannon, which they could not account for, announced the unobserved arrival of the Spanish fleet at Panama. The whole Buccaneer squadron, expecting a battle soon, took the14 usual oath that they would not wrong one another to the value of a piece of eight, if God was pleased to give them the victory over the Spaniard.

They had scarcely discovered from a Spanish prisoner that the fleet had actually arrived, and was careening and remanning before they ventured out, when Captain Grogniet, raising his flag seven times, gave notice to make quickly ready. The Buccaneers doubled the point of the island where they had anchored, and saw seven great vessels bearing down upon them with a bloody flag to the stern and a royal one at their masts. The Frenchmen, mad with joy at the prospect of such prizes, and thinking them already their own, threw their hats into the sea for joy. It was now noon. The rest of the day was spent by both fleets in trying to obtain the weather-gauge, and at sunset they exchanged a broadside. In the night a floating lanthorn deceived the Buccaneers, and in the morning they found themselves all still to leeward, with the exception of two vessels which had no guns. Although terribly mauled by the15 Spanish shot, the English admiral and vice-admiral resolved to die fighting rather than let one vessel be taken, although both being good sailors they might have at once saved themselves. The Spaniards, refusing to board, battered them safely at a distance, and prevented Grogniet from joining them, while Peter Henry's ship, having received more than 120 cannon shot, sheered off and was taken by two piraguas.

The long bark, sorely handled, was deserted by her crew, who threw their guns overboard and left the Spanish prisoners to shift for themselves. These wretches attempted to rejoin their countrymen; but the Spanish admiral, mistaking them for enemies, sank them with his cannon.

Peter Henry's vessel reached the isle of St. John de Cueblo, twenty-four leagues from Panama, with five feet of water in the hold, and having repaired, rejoined his fleet in about a fortnight. They found that Captain Davis had been hard plied, having received two shots in his rudder, and six of his men were wounded, but only one killed. Captain16 Samms had been no less put to it. His poop was half swept off, and he had received several shots between wind and water. He had had three men wounded, and his mate had had his head carried off by a cannon ball. The smaller vessels had lost no men, but had a few wounded. The Spanish admiral, they found, had carried 56 guns, the vice-admiral 40, the patache 28, and the conserve 18. The fire-ships had also been mounted with cannon to conceal their real purpose. On considering the disparity of force, and the little loss his companions received, Ravenau seems to have no doubt that if they could have intercepted the Spaniards before they entered Panama, and could have got the weather-gauge of them, he should have returned through the straits with wealth enough to have lived all his life at ease, and have escaped three more years of danger and fatigue.

Not the least discouraged by this repulse, the freebooters landed 300 men, from five canoes, to surprise the town of Puebla Nueva. Rowing two leagues up a very17 fine river, they captured one sentinel, but another escaped and gave the alarm. They found the place deserted, but took a ship on their way back.

A quarrel broke out here between the French and the English. The latter, superior in numbers, would have taken Grogniet's ship away, and given it to Townley, had not the Frenchmen put on a determined front. Refusing to acknowledge this assumption of dominion, 130 of them banded themselves apart, and Grogniet's crew made them altogether 330 in number.

"Besides national animosity, one of the chief reasons," says Lussan, "that made us disagree was their impiety against our religion, for they made no scruple when they got into a church to cut down the arms of a crucifix with their sabres, or to shoot them down with their fusils and pistols, bruising and maiming the images of the saints with the same weapons, in derision to the adoration we Frenchmen paid unto them. And it was chiefly from these horrid disorders that the Spaniards equally hated us all, as we18 came to understand by divers of their letters that fell into our hands." We have no doubt at all that, but for these "horrible disorders," the Spaniards would have considered the death of their children and the loss of their money as real compliments.

Returning to the isle of St. John, both nations in separate encampments began to cut down acajou trees to hollow into canoes in place of those they had lost in the fight.

These trees were so large that one trunk would hold eighty men. Afraid of the English, the Frenchmen placed a sentinel in a high tree on the sea-shore, to watch both the camps, and also to give the signal if any Spanish vessel approached. A Buccaneer ship putting into the harbour, they discovered it to be commanded by Captain Willnett. Forty of his crew left him, and joined the English, but eleven Frenchmen remained with Grogniet. This vessel had just captured a corn ship near Sansonnat, and hearing of other brothers being on the south coast, had set out in search of them. The Frenchmen were now very short of food, having19 little powder, and not daring to waste it upon deer and monkeys when Spaniards were at hand, for in fifteen days the Englishmen had eaten or driven away all the turtle. They were reduced to an allowance of two turtle for 330 men in forty-eight hours. Many of the men wandering into the woods ate poisonous fruits. Others were bitten by serpents, and died enduring terrible pains, ignorant of the fruit which is an antidote to such wounds. Several were devoured by crocodiles.

While in this strait, the English sent a quartermaster to ask the French to join in an expedition against the town of Leon, being too weak by themselves. The wounded vanity of the French contended with their hunger. They knew that the English had plenty of provisions, brought in Willnett's ship, and thirty men, weary of fasting, left Grogniet and joined Davis. But Ravenau's party having but one ship asked for another, in order that they might keep together, and this being refused, broke off the treaty.

As soon as the Leon party had embarked, the French, commanded by Captain Grogniet,20 also started with 120 men in five canoes, leaving 200 in the island to build more canoes, and join them on the continent. Coming on the mainland to a cattle station, and afterwards to a sugar plantation, they took several prisoners whom they found ignorant of the disjunction of the French and English. Sending back a canoe with provisions to the island, they landed again about forty leagues to leeward of Panama, and at cock-crowing surprised a Spanish estantia, and took fifty prisoners, including a young man and woman of rank who promised ransom. These they carried to the island Ignuana, and received the money after a fortnight's delay.

On their return to St. John's they found that 100 men had been to Puebla Nueva, and taken the place, although discovered by the sentinels, and had remained there two days in spite of continual attacks. The commander of the place had come with a trumpet to speak to them, and inquired why, being English, they fought under French colours. But they, not satisfying his curiosity, fiercely21 told him to be gone from whence he came. Eight of them, having strayed from the main body, had been bravely set on by 150 Spaniards, who killed two of them, but, with all the advantage they had of numbers, could not hinder the other six from recovering the main guard, who fought and retreated with extraordinary vigour.

Once more reunited, these restless Norsemen started to the mainland in six canoes, 140 in number, to visit the sugar plantation near St. Jago, where they had been before. Two men were sent to the cattle station to obtain the ransom of the master, whom they kept prisoner, and others visited the sugar works in search of some cauldrons, which they needed; and, fired at hearing the governor of St. Jago, with 800 men, had visited the place since their departure, they sent to dare him to meet them.

Careening their ships and taking in water and wood, they would at once have sailed away, but were detained by eighteen days' rain, during which time the sun did not once appear. This part of the South Sea was proverbial22 for continual rains, and was called by the Spaniards "The Droppings." "These rains," Ravenau says, "not only rotted their sails, but produced dysentery among the men, and bred worms, half a finger long and as thick as a quill, between their skin and their flesh." Soon after leaving the island they were nearly cast away in a dreadful storm, and were compelled to repair their shattered sails with shirts and drawers, wherewith they were already very indifferently provided.

At Realegua, where there was a volcano burning, they landed 100 men in four canoes, and obtained some prisoners by surprising a hatto. They found the English had already taken Leon and burnt Realegua. In spite of Spanish reinforcements from eight neighbouring towns, they stayed at Leon three whole days, and challenged the Spaniards to meet them in the Race savannah. But the Spaniards replied, they were not yet all come together; "which means," says our friend Ravenau, "that they were not yet six to one." While here, one of their quartermasters, a Catalonian by birth, fled to the23 Spaniards, and compelled the French to abandon a design on the town of Granada. At Realegua six men tried to swim ashore to fill some water casks, in spite of the Spaniards on the beach, and one of them was drowned in the attempt. They landed at the port, and found the churches and houses and three entrenchments half burnt. Surprising the sentinels of Leon, they discovered that in spite of a garrison of 2000 men, the inhabitants, hearing the Buccaneers had landed, were hiding their treasure. They soon after put to flight a detachment of horse, and took the captain prisoner.

A few days after this 150 men left the vessels to take a small town of Puebla Vieja, near Realegua, which they found still deserted. It had become the custom now among the Spaniards, when the freebooters had frequently taken the same place, for the prelate to excommunicate it, and henceforward not even to bury their dead there. Discovered by the sentinel, the Buccaneers found the enemy entrenched in the church of Puebla, and about 150 horse in the market-place.24 A few discharges drove the horsemen away, and the defenders of the church fled through a door in the vestry. Staying a day and a-half in the captured town, the freebooters carried away all the provisions they could find on horses and on their own backs, taking with them a Spanish gentleman who promised ransom. The next day a Spanish officer brought a letter signed by the vicar-general of the province, written by order of the general of Costa Rica, declaring that France and Spain were at peace and leagued to fight the infidel, and offering them a passage to the North Sea in his Catholic Majesty's galleons. To this they returned a threatening answer, and, putting thirty prisoners ashore, proceeded to careen their ships, the Spaniards lighting fires along the coast as they departed.

An expedition, with fifty men in three canoes, against the town of Esparso failed, but the hungry men killed and ate the horses of the sentinels whom they took prisoners, for they had now tasted hardly anything for four days. At Caldaria they visited a25 bananery, and loaded their canoes with the fruit, and at Point Borica stored their boats with cocoa-nuts, which Ravenau takes care to describe as nuts unknown in Europe. Laden with gold, but nevertheless, like Midas, starving for want of food, they landed sixty men in three canoes and took some prisoners at a hatto which they surrounded, but finding they were very near Chiriquita, and a garrison of 600 men, retreated to their ships, forcing their way through 400 horse who reviled them, and challenged them to revisit the town, which they took care soon after to do.

On the 5th of January, 1686, they started 230 men in eight canoes to revisit this place, going ashore at night without a guide, and marched till daylight without being discovered. On the 7th they hid all day in a wood, and as night approached again pushed forward, the 8th they spent also hid in a covert, and then found they had gone ashore on the wrong side of the river. Fatigued as they were, they waited till night, and then, returning to26 their canoes, crossed the river. Surprising the watch, they found the Spaniards, even on the former alarm, had removed all their treasure. On the 9th, they reached Chiriquita two hours before day, and found the inhabitants asleep. The townsmen had been two days disputing with one another about the watches, and the Buccaneers ridiculed them by telling them they had come to spare them the trouble. The soldiers they discovered playing in the court of guard, and they found a small frigate ashore at the mouth of the river.

About noon, five of the Buccaneers, straggling into the suburbs to plunder a house and obtain prisoners, were set upon by an ambuscade of 120 men. Finding no hope of escape, rather than be taken alive they resolved to sell their lives dearly, and back to back fought the enemy for an hour and a-half, when only two remained capable of resistance. The main body, who thought they had been simply firing at a mark, came to their relief, upon which the enemy at once fled. Of this skirmish, at27 which Lussan was present, he says—"This succour coming in so seasonably, did infallibly save our lives; for the enemy having already killed us two men and disabled another, it was impossible we should hold out against such a shower of bullets as were poured in upon us from all sides; and so I may truly say I escaped a scouring, and that without receiving as much as one wound, but by a visible hand of protection from heaven. The Spaniards left thirty men dead upon the spot; and thus we defended ourselves as desperate men, and, to say all in a word, like freebooters."

The Buccaneers having burnt all the houses in the town, fearing a night attack, retreated into the great church, exchanging a shot now and then with the enemy. This town was built on the savannahs, and surrounded by hattoes, its chief trade being in tallow and leather. The men rested here till the tenth, rejoicing in plenty of provision after nearly four days' fast. They then removed their prisoners to an island in the river, where the Spaniards could only approach28 them openly in a fleet of shallops. The enemy, driven out of an ambuscade, sent to demand the prisoners, saying they would recover them or perish in the attempt; but grew pacified when Grogniet declared they should all be put to death if a single bullet was fired. Driving off a guard of 100 men, they also plundered the stranded vessel, and discovered by the letters that the admiral of the Peru fleet had lately been lost with his 400 men, by his vessel being struck by a thunderbolt. On the sixteenth, obtaining a ransom for their prisoners, they returned to the island of St. John.

The Spaniards, from fear of the freebooters, having put a stop to their navigation, no ships were to be captured, and having no sails, and their ship being useless without them, the French began to cut down trees and build piraguas. On the 27th they descried seven sail at sea, and put out five canoes to reconnoitre, suspecting it was the vanguard of the Peruvian fleet. Soon after discerning twelve piraguas and three long barks coasting in the distance, they29 retreated to their docks in the river, and ran their bark ashore to render it useless to the Spaniards, placing an ambuscade of 150 men along the banks. The enemy, suspecting a trick, disregarded the two canoes that were sent to draw them into the snare, but commenced to furiously cannonade the grounded ship, which contained nothing but a poor cat, and then, perceiving her empty, bravely boarded and burnt her for the sake of the iron work, and soon afterwards sailed away. They learnt afterwards that the Chiriquita prisoners had reported that they had fortified the island, and the fleet had been sent to land field-pieces and demolish the works. This alarm of the Spaniards had been encouraged by the Buccaneers having purposely asked at Chiriquita for masons, and obliged the prisoners to give bricks as part of the ransom.

On the 14th of March, they left the island of St. John, in two barks, a half galley of forty oars, ten large piraguas, and ten smaller canoes, built of mapou wood. Taking a review of their men, fourteen of30 whom had died in February, they found they had lost thirty since the departure of the English. To prepare for a long-planned attack on Granada, a half galley and four canoes were despatched to get provisions at Puebla Nueva. Entering the river by moonlight, the Buccaneers approached within pistol shot of a small frigate, a long bark, and a piragua, which they supposed to be their old English allies, but were received by a splashing volley of great and small shot that killed twenty men. The ships were, in fact, a detachment of the Spanish fleet left to guard some provision ships lading for Panama. Quickly recovering from their surprise, the adventurers, though without cannon, fought them stiffly for two hours, killing every man that appeared in the shrouds, and bringing down one by one the grenadiers from the main-top. But as soon as the moon went down, the Buccaneers sheered off with four dead men and thirty-three wounded, waiting for daylight to have their revenge. In the mean time, the enemy had retired under cover of an entrenchment,31 to which the country people, attracted during the night by the firing, had crowded in arms; against these odds, the Buccaneers were unwillingly compelled to retire, and soon rejoined their canoes at St. Peter's.

Landing at a town ten leagues leeward of Chiriquita, they obtained no provisions, and had, with the loss of two men, to force their way through an ambuscade of 500 Spaniards. Rejoining their barks they spent some days in hunting in the Bay of Boca del Toro, and obtaining nourishing food for the wounded men. Their next enterprise was against the town of Lesparso, which they found abandoned. While lying in the bay they were joined by Captain Townley and five canoes, who, with his 115 men, begged to be allowed to join in the expedition against Granada. Remembering the old imperious dealing of the English, the French at first, to frighten them, boarded their canoes, and offered to take them away. "Then," says Lussan, "we let the captain know we were honester men than he (a curious dispute),32 and that though we had the upper hand, yet we would not take the advantage of revenging the injuries they had done us, and that we would put him and all his men in possession of what we had taken from them four or five hours before." The men were then assembled in a bananery island, in the bay, and an account taken of their supply of powder, for fear any should expend it in hunting. Orders were also enacted that any brother found guilty of cowardice, violence, drunkenness, disobedience, theft, or straggling from the main body, should lose his share of the booty of Granada.

On the 25th the French and English departed in piraguas and canoes, 345 men, and landed on a flat shore, following a good guide, who led them for two days through a wood. They were, however, seen by some fishermen, who alarmed the town, which had already received intelligence of their march from Lesparso. Great fatigue obliged them to rest on the evening of the 9th at a sugar plantation belonging to a knight of St. James, whom they were too tired to pursue.

On the 10th they saw two ships on the distant lake of Nicaragua, carrying off all the wealth of the town to a neighbouring island. From a prisoner they learnt that the inhabitants were strongly entrenched in the market-place, guarded by fourteen pieces of cannon and six patereroes, and that six troops of horse were waiting to attack them in the rear.

This information, which would have damped the courage of any but Buccaneers, drove them only the faster to the charge. At two in the afternoon they entered the town, over the dead bodies of a party that had awaited them in ambuscade, and sent a party to reconnoitre the fort. The skirmishers, after a few shots, returned, and reported that there were three streets leading to the fort, so they all resolved to concentrate in one of these.

Lussan describes the scene, of which he was an eye-witness, too graphically to need curtailing. "After we had exhorted one another," he says, "to fall on bravely, we advanced at a good round pace towards the said fortification. As soon as the defendants34 saw us within a good cannon-shot of them, they fired furiously upon us; but observing that at every discharge of their great guns, we saluted them down to the ground, in order to let their shot fly over us, they bethought themselves of false priming them, to the end we might raise our bodies, after the sham was over, and so to be really surprised with their true firing. As soon as we discovered this stratagem, we ranged ourselves along the houses, and having got upon a little ascent, which was a garden plot, we fired upon them from thence so openly for an hour and a-half that they were obliged to quit their ground, which our hardy boys, who were got to the foot of their walls, contributed yet more than the other by pouring in hand-grenades incessantly upon them, so that at last they betook themselves to the great church or tower, but they wounded us some men. As soon as our people, who had got upon the said eminence, perceived that the enemy fled, they called to us to jump over the walls, which we had no sooner done than they followed us, and thus it was that we35 made ourselves masters of the town, from whence they fled, after having lost a great many men. We had on our side but four men killed and eight wounded, which in truth was very cheap. When we got into the fort we found it to be a place capable of containing 6,000 fighting men; it was encompassed with a wall the same as our prisoners gave us an account of. It was pierced with many holes, to do execution upon the assailants, and was well stored with arms. That part of it which looked towards the street, through which we attacked it, was defended by two pieces of cannon and four patereroes, to say nothing of several other places made to open in the wall through which they thrust instruments made on purpose to break the legs of those who should be adventurous enough to come near it; but these, by the help of our grenadiers, we rendered useless to them. After we had sung Te Deum in the great church, and set four sentinels in the tower, we fixed our court of guard in the strong-built houses that are also enclosed within the place of arms, and there36 gathered all the ammunition we could get, and then we went to visit the houses, wherein we found nothing but a few goods and some provision, which we carried into our court of guard."

The next evening 150 men were despatched to a distant sugar plantation, to capture some ladies of rank and treasure; but on the next day a monk came to treat about the ransom they would require to spare the town. Unluckily the Spaniards had captured a Buccaneer straggler, who told them that his companions never meant to burn the place, but intended to stop there some months, and return into the North Sea, by the lake of Nicaragua. The freebooters, being refused the ransom, set fire to the houses in revenge. Had the French indeed had but canoes to capture the two ships in the island and secure the treasure, they would undoubtedly have carried out this plan. To a handful of hungry men, without food and without ships, even the gardens of Granada appeared hateful.

On leaving the town the Buccaneers took with them one piece of cannon and four patereroes,37 drawn by oxen, having to fight their way for twenty leagues to the shore over the savannah, surrounded by 2,500 Spaniards thirsting for their blood. In every place the enemy fled at the first discharge of their pieces. From a prisoner they learnt that a million and a-half pieces of eight, kept for ransom, was buried in the wall of the fort, but the men felt no disposition to return. They were soon obliged to leave their cannon behind, the oxen choked with the dust, worn out with the heat, and dying of thirst; but the patereroes were still dragged on by the mules. At the little village of Massaya, near the lake, they were received with open arms by the Indians, who only entreated them not to burn their huts.

All the water in the village had been tainted by the Spaniards, but the natives brought them as much as they needed. While they lay here a Spanish monk came to them to obtain the release of a priest who had been taken armed and with pockets filled with poisoned bullets. They refused to surrender him but in exchange for one of their38 own men. The next day, passing from the forest into a plain, they were attacked by 500 men, drawn up upon an ascent, and commanded by their Spanish deserter. Each party displayed bloody flags, but the vanguard beat them with wonderful bravery, and took fifty horses. The enemy fled, leaving their arms and the wounded, and turned out to be auxiliaries from Leon. In three days more they reached the beach, and, resting several days to salt provisions, sailed to Realegua, where they collected provisions and 100 horses. They then burnt down the borough of Ginandego, in spite of 200 soldiers and an entrenchment, because the inhabitants had defied them to come. Even here they were, however, much straitened for provision, the corregidor of Leon having desired all men to burn the provisions wherever the Buccaneers landed.

The same day at noon the sentinels rang the alarm bell in the steeple, and gave notice that 800 men from Leon were advancing across the savannah to fight them. The men, bustling out of their houses, marched at once,39 150 in number, under their red colours, and drove off the enemy after a few shots.

There now arose a dissension in the Flibustier councils. 148 Frenchmen and all the English, headed by Captain Townley, determined to go up before Panama to see if the navigation had yet been resumed. 148 Frenchmen, under Captain Grogniet, resolved to go lower westward and winter upon an island, waiting for some abatement of the rains and southerly winds. The barks, canoes, and provisions were then divided, and the chirurgeons brought in the accounts of the wounded and crippled. There were found to be four men crippled and six hurt: to the latter were given 600 pieces of eight a man, and to the former 1000, being exactly all the money then in store.

Ravenau joined the Panama division, which, touching again at their old quarters on the island of St. John, took off a prisoner who had made his escape when they were last there, and proceeded to land and capture the town of Villia with 160 men. Marching with great rapidity they reached the town40 an hour after sunrise, and surprising the inhabitants at mass, took 300 prisoners. They then attempted to capture three barks lying in the river, but the Spanish sailors sank one and destroyed the rigging of the other two. Gathering together all the merchandise of the town left by the fleet, the invaders found it to amount to a million and a-half, valued at 15,000 pieces of eight in good silver. Much treasure was, however, buried, the Spaniards submitting to death rather than confess their hiding-places.

The next day a party of fourscore men were sent to drive the pack horses to the river side to load the booty in two Spanish canoes. They despaired of obtaining any ransom for the town, as the alcalde major had sent to them to say that the only ransom he should give was powder and ball, whereof he had a great deal at their service; that as to the prisoners, he should entrust them to the hands of God, and that his people were getting ready as fast as they could, to have the honour of seeing them. Upon receiving this daring answer, the Buccaneers,41 in a rage, fired the town and marched to the river. As the Spanish ambuscades prevented the boats coming up to meet them, the adventurers put nine men on board the boats, the men marching by their side to guard them from attack. On the other side, unknown to them and hidden by the trees, marched 900 Spaniards. When they had proceeded about a league, an impassable thicket compelled them to make a diversion of some 200 paces, an accident which involved the loss of the whole plunder of Villia.

Before they left the boats, the captain ordered the crews to stop a little higher up, where the three Spanish barks lay, and endeavour to bring them away. On arriving there they were surprised by an ambuscade, and as they defended themselves against the Spaniards, the current drove them on beyond the three barks and far from the main body. Seeing them now helpless, the enemy discharged sixty musket shots at them, and killed four men and wounded one. The rest, abandoning the canoes, swam to the other side of42 the river, while a dozen Indians wading in brought the boat to the Spaniards; cutting off the head of a wounded man and setting it on a pole by the shore.

The Buccaneers who did not hear the firing, were astonished on returning to the river to see no canoes, and while waiting for them to come up, for they supposed they were behind, the rowers, who had escaped, broke breathless through the thicket, and told their story. Luckily in their flight through the wood they had discovered the rudders and sails of the three barks, in which the Buccaneers at once embarked, and sent fifty-six men on shore to recover the fittings, agreeing that each should fire three guns as a signal. Soon after they had landed, the report of about 500 guns was heard, but before they could reach the enemy the Spaniards had fled. Going ashore the next day, they found the two canoes dashed to pieces, and the bodies of the dead much mutilated—the head of one set upon a pole, and the body of another burnt in the fire. These objects so enraged the Buccaneers,43 that they instantly cut off four of their prisoners' heads, and set them on poles in the same place. Their own dead they carried with them to bury by the sea-side—the fitting burial-place for seamen. Three times they had to land to break through ambuscades at the river's mouth, in the last attack losing three men. With a Spaniard who came on board, they agreed for a ransom of 10,000 pieces of eight, but threatened to kill all the prisoners if the money was not brought in within two days. Upon the stubborn alcalde seizing the hostages who were sent ashore to obtain money to release their wives, the Buccaneers cut off the heads of two prisoners and sent them to the town, declaring that if no ransom was paid, they would serve the rest the same, and having put the women on an island, would come and capture the alcalde. The same evening came in a promise to pay all the ransoms, and to bring besides, every day while they stayed, ten oxen, twenty sheep, and 200 lbs. of meal. For a Buccaneer's fire-arms which the enemy pretended to have lost (for the44 Spaniards were fond of French arms), they paid 400 pieces of eight. They also bought one of the captured barks for 600 pieces of eight and 100 lbs. of nails, of which the adventurers stood in great need, but her tackle and anchors were not surrendered. They obtained also a Flibustier passport that the bark should not be retaken, although her cargo might be confiscated. Having then obtained a parting present of 100 salted beeves, from this long-suffering place the French set sail. Afraid to land on the continent, which was guarded by 4,000 men, they abstained, till, nearly dying with thirst, they made a descent with 200 sailors, driving off the Spaniards, whom they found lying on the grass about 100 paces from the sea.

Lussan says they saw "we were a people who would hazard all for a small matter."

Landing at midnight at a small island near Cape Pin, they were discovered by the pearl divers, but still contrived to capture a ship at daybreak. From their prisoners they heard that the Spaniards had lately defeated45 a party of thirty-six, French and English, from Peru, who were attempting to pass into the North Sea by the river Bocca del Chica. Two parties of English, forty each, on their way into the South Sea, had also been massacred all but four, who were prisoners at Panama. To balance these ill omens, tidings of prizes reached the Buccaneers on every hand. A bark was lying in the Bocca del Chica river, waiting for 800 lbs. of gold from the mines to bring to Panama. Two ships laden with meal and money for the garrison of Lima were also expected; and from a prisoner (a spy, it afterwards appeared), captured at the King's Islands, they learnt that two merchant barks and a piragua with sixty Indians lay in the river of Seppa, besides a frigate and scout galley under the guns of Panama.

Much in want of vessels, and not suspecting the prisoner, four canoes were sent at once to cut out the barks of Panama, the "Greek" soldier going with them readily as a guide. They arrived two hours before daylight, and the moon shining very bright46 they waited for a cloud to obscure it, seeing, as they thought, the anticipated prize lying near with her sails loose. By mere chance, the adventurers, to waste no time, pursued a vessel just leaving the port, thinking it was the scout galley, and took it without a shot. Upon examination, the captain confessed their guide was the commander of a Greek piragua, and had been promised a large reward by the governor of Panama to betray them into his hands. The ship they saw was a mere sham of boards and sails, built upon firm land, only a pistol shot from the port. They supposed that the Buccaneers, eager to take her, would row up, and so drive their canoes far on shore, and hoped to overpower them before they got off. The Greek captain being at once identified as a spy, was, says Ringrose, "sent to that world where he had designed to send us." The fleet then proceeded to take the islands of Ottoqua and Tavoga, losing two men in the Greek's second ambuscade at Seppa, but capturing in their way a bark from Nata laden with provisions, after a few discharges of musketry,47 the Spanish captain swimming to shore. From Tavoga they sent a message to the governor of Panama, to say that if he did not at once surrender his five English and French captives, they would at once put to death fifty Spanish prisoners.

They then anchored again at the King's Islands, and sent a galley and four canoes up the Bocca Chica river to see if the Indians were at peace with Spain or not, and to destroy an ambuscade of 100 Spaniards, who they heard were lying in wait on the banks for thirty freebooters, on their way from the South to the North Pacific. Carried swiftly up the river by the current, the guide, compelling them to row faster just before daybreak, brought them, much to their astonishment, at a bend of the river, opposite the camp fires of the enemy. The guide being hailed, replied they were from Panama; and being asked the name of the commander, hesitated about a fitting title, and received a volley in return. The Buccaneers driving off the enemy with two patereroes, passed them quickly, and, anchoring out of reach, waited48 for the ebb tide to return. Putting all their men under deck, the adventurers returned about an hour before daylight, saluting them with four paterero shots as they passed, and receiving no injury in return. The next day, taking a small Indian vessel, the Buccaneers landed lower down the river, intending to take the Spanish entrenchment in the rear; but seeing the enemy putting out a piragua to attack their galley, they returned in great haste and landed opposite the Spanish court of guard, killing a great many men and driving out the rest. They also shot an Indian, who, mistaking them for Spaniards, followed them and reviled them as they were re-embarking. The prisoners told them that the neighbouring town of Terrible was prepared for their coming. A letter to the camp-master of Terrible was found in the entrenchment. It concluded thus: "I have sent you 300 men to defeat these enemies of God and goodness; be sure to keep upon your watch; be afraid of being surprised, and your men will infallibly be gainers in defeating of them." The prisoners also put them on their49 guard as to many ambuscades and secret dangers. Having burnt the guard-house, and carried off the piragua with some pounds of gold-dust, the Buccaneers departed, dismissing the Indians to propitiate the nation who had received commission from the President of Panama to arm canoes against them. While descending the river, having put some Spanish prisoners on deck to deceive the Indians, some natives came and brought gold-dust to them, taking them for friends. A few days after this, forty Spanish prisoners put ashore at the King's Islands, met accidentally with some canoes, and escaped to Panama.

The French were now again surprised as they had been before, three of the enemy's vessels approaching under cover of an island. By venturing a dangerous passage between the island of Tavaguilla and a rock the Buccaneers at last obtained the weather-gauge. The fight lasted till noon, and the Spaniards were driven off in all attempts at boarding. Throwing grenades into the biggest ship, one of them set fire to some loose powder and burnt a50 great many men; and during this confusion, the adventurers boarded the enemy, who rallied in the stern, and made a vigorous resistance, but at last begged for quarter. The second was also at the same time carried and taken. The third, a kind of galley, pursued by three Buccaneer vessels, ran ashore and staved to pieces, few of the crew escaping, not more than a dozen, Ringrose thinks. In the frigate eighty men were killed and wounded out of 120 on board. The second ship had only eighteen unhurt out of eighty. All the officers were killed and wounded, and the captain received no less than five musket shots. He was the soldier that had received five wounds resisting them at Puebla Nueva, and he had also planned the ambuscade at Villia.

While busily employed in splicing the rigging and throwing the dead overboard, two more sail were seen bearing down from Panama. The English instantly put up Spanish colours to allure them, and placed the French and English beneath them. As the foe drew near, they received a volley, and, firing hurriedly, at once fled to the frigate which51 they supposed still theirs. The frigate replied by some grenades, which sent one to the bottom, and the piragua boarded the other, and, finding four packs of halters on board, put all the crew to death in revenge. They had been directed to spare none but the Buccaneer surgeons, and to send troops of horse to cut off all that escaped in canoes. On the very next day they took a shallop from Panama which the president had sent to pull up an anchor that the adventurers had left in the bay. Only one Buccaneer was killed in the fight, but Captain Townley and twenty men were wounded, and most of these died, for the Spaniards poisoned their bullets. They now sent a prisoner to the president, demanding his five captives and medicines for the use of his own people. The messenger was also told to complain heavily of the massacre of the three parties at Darien.

To these remonstrances the officer sent the following answer: "Gentlemen, I wonder that you, who should understand how to make war, should require those men of me that are in our custody. Your rashness hath52 something contrary to the civility wherewith you ought to treat those people that were in your power. If you do not use them well, God will perhaps be on our side." To this they returned a threat of beheading all their prisoners without mercy; and having done this, sailed at once to the isles of Pericòs, fearing the Spanish fire-ships. The Bishop of Panama, who, they knew, had stirred up the president to war, sent a letter, entreating them to show mercy, saying the president had the king's orders to restore no prisoners, and that the Englishmen, having turned Roman Catholics, did not wish to leave Panama.

Upon this the Buccaneers sent the president twenty Spaniards' heads in a canoe, threatening to kill all the rest, if the prisoners were not restored by the next day. Very early the next morning came the prisoners, four Englishmen and one Frenchman, with medicines for the wounded, the president leaving to their honour to give as many men as they chose in exchange. They at once sent a dozen of the most wounded on shore, accusing53 the president of being the murderer of the twenty they had killed, and threatening the death of the rest, unless 20,000 pieces of eight were paid for their ransom. The Spaniards at first tried to make it only 6000; but when the Buccaneers hung out their main flag, fired a gun, and prepared to enter the port, they hung out a white flag at a bastion, and promised the money shortly. The next day a Knight of Malta came in a bark with the money, and received the prisoners. While staying at Ottoqua to victual their ships, the Spaniards landed at night and murdered their Indian guides. The day after the French chased a provision vessel to the very guns of Panama, when the garrison hoisted the Burgundian flag on the bastion, and by mistake fired upon their own vessel, which the Buccaneers took. Putting nineteen prisoners on shore, they again attempted to surprise Villia, but failed, finding all the people in arms, and a reinforcement of 600 men newly come from Panama. They next took the town of St. Lorenzo, and surprising it at twilight, burnt it. They learned the54 Spaniards had orders to drive away the cattle from the sea-shore, to lay ambuscades, and to obtain from women intelligence of the Buccaneers' movements. A dreadful storm which overtook the fleet in the Bay of Bocca del Toro induced Lussan, with a naïve philanthropy, to tell his readers: "If you would enter into it with safety, you must keep the whip of your rudder to starboard, because it is dangerous to keep to the east side." While here the same writer gives us the following trait of Flibustier manners:—"On the 25th, being Christmas-day, after we had, according to custom, said our prayers in the night, one of our quartermasters being gone ashore in order to take care about our eating some victuals (for our ships being careening all our provisions were then put out), one of our prisoners, who served us as cook, stabbed him with a knife in six several places, wherewith crying out, he was presently relieved, and the assassin punished with death."

On the 1st of January, 1687, leaving their ships in the bay of Caldaira, the Buccaneers55 embarked 200 men in canoes and crossed to the island of La Cagna.

Their treacherous guide, under the pretence of hiding them in a covert, led them into a marsh, where the mud, in the soundest places, rose above their middles; five men sinking up to their chins were dragged out with ropes tied to the mangrove branches. The men, anxious for escape, lifted up their guide to the top of a tree, to discover by the moonlight where sound land commenced. But he, once at liberty, skipped like a monkey from tree to tree, railing at them and deriding their helplessness. They spent the whole night in marching a hundred paces round this marsh, and groped out at daybreak, bedaubed from head to toe, with their fire-arms loaded with mud. "When we were in a condition," says Lussan, "to reflect a little upon ourselves, and that we saw 200 men in the same habit, all so curiously equipped, there was not one of us who forgot not his toil to laugh at the posture he found both himself and the rest in. Inveighing against their guide, they returned to their canoes,56 and proceeded two leagues up a river to an entrenchment, where they found the remains of two vessels the Spaniards had some time before burnt, at the approach of Betsharp, an English freebooter. Guided by the barking of dogs, they surprised the borough of Santa Catalina, and, mounting sixty men on horses, entered Nicoya and drove out the enemy, carrying off the governor's plate and movables. They found here some letters from the President of Panama, describing the doings of "these new Turks," how they had landed at places where the sea was so high that no sentinels had been placed, and passed through the woods like wild beasts. The letters stated how much the Spaniards had been astonished by the Buccaneer mode of attack—"briskly falling on, singing, dancing, as if they had been going to a feast;" they were described also as "those enemies of God and His saints who profane His churches and destroy His servants." In one battle, it says, being blocked up, "they became as mad dogs. Whenever these irreligious men set their57 feet on land they always win the victory."

Landing at Caldaira the sentinels set fire to the savannahs, through which they marched to Lesparso, and towards Carthage, but retired, hearing of 400 men and an entrenchment. Hiding five men in the grass, they captured a Spanish trooper, who had reviled them, and putting him to the rack, laughing at his grimaces of pain, heard that Grogniet was in the neighbourhood, and soon after they heard cannons fired off, and were joined by him in three canoes.

He now told them his adventures at Napalla. Three sailors, corrupted by the Spaniards, who had taken them prisoners, persuaded him on his return to visit a gold mine, fourteen leagues from the sea-shore. They luckily got there before the ambuscade, and took some prisoners and a few pounds of gold, but 450 lbs. weight had been removed an hour before. At their return they found the traitors and prisoners all escaped. He then landed at Puebla Vieja and attacked an ambuscade and entrenchment of 300 men. Half of these fled, half were made58 prisoners, and their three colours taken, the freebooters losing only three men. Eighty-five of his men then determined to visit California, and he and his sixty men to return to Panama. Grogniet now consented to join in the French expedition, and, after taking Queaquilla, to force a way to the North Sea. They landed and burnt Nicoya a third time, and Lussan treats us here with an amusing piece of Buccaneer superstition. He says, "though we were forced to chastise the Spaniards in this manner, we showed ourselves very exact in the preservation of the churches, into which we carried the pictures and images of the saints which we found in particular houses, that they might not be exposed to the rage and burning of the English, who were not much pleased with these sorts of precautions; they being men that took more satisfaction and pleasure to see one church burnt than all the houses of America put together. But as it was our turn now to be the stronger party, they durst do nothing that derogated from that respect we bore to all those things." On59 their return the French had to force their way through burning savannahs, but got safe to their ships, putting next day forty prisoners on shore who were too chargeable to keep.

A new division now arose between the English and French, and the former insisting on the first prize taken, the two parties again separated, Grogniet staying with the former: making in all 142 men, Ravenau's party being 162, in a frigate and long bark. Both vessels now tried to outsail each other and reach Queaquilla first, but the French, soon finding the English beat them in speed, resolved to accompany them, for they had so little food as to be obliged to eat only once in every forty-eight hours, and but for rain water would have died of thirst. Off Santa Helena, they gave chase to a ship, and found it to be a prize laden with wine and corn, lately taken by Captain David's men, for they had been making descents along the coast, at Pisca had beaten off 800 men from Lima, and had also taken a great many ships, which they pillaged and let go. Having got to the value of 5000 pieces of eight a man,60 they sailed for Magellan, and on the way many of the men lost all they had by gaming. Those who had won joined Willnett, and returned to the North Sea; but the losers, sixty English and twenty French, joined David, and determined to remain and get more spoil in the South. Henry and Samms had gone to the East Indies. The eight men of David's crew who commanded the prize joined them against Queaquilla. Furling their sails to prevent being seen, they anchored off the White Cape, and at ten in the morning embarked 260 men in their canoes. On the 15th they reached, at sunset, the rocky island of Santa Clara, and on the 16th rested all day, weak from long fasting, in the island of La Puna, escaping any detection from the forty sentinels. The 17th they spent on the same island, and arranged the attack. Captain Picard and fifty men led the forlorn hope, another captain and eighty grenadiers formed a reserve. Captain Grogniet and the main body were to make themselves masters of the town and port, and the English captain, George Hewit,61 with fifty men, were to attack the smaller fort; while 1000 pieces of eight were promised to the first ensign who should plant the colours on the great fort. They left their covert in the evening, and hoped to reach the town by dawn, but only having three hours of favourable tide, had to remain all day at the island, and at night rowing out, were overtaken after all by the light, when a sentinel seeing them, set a cottage on fire and alarmed his companions. Marching across a wood to the fire, they killed two of the Spaniards and captured a boy. Remaining in covert all day, they thought themselves undiscovered, because the town had not answered the fire signal, and at night they rowed up the river, the rapid current carrying them four leagues in two hours. All the 19th they spent under cover of an island in the river, and at night went up with the current, not rowing for fear of alarming the sentinels. They attempted in vain to put in beyond the town, on the side least guarded, but the tide going out forced them to land two hours before day, within cannon shot of the town,62 where they could discern the lights burning, for the Spaniards burnt lamps all night. They landed in a marshy place, and had to cut a path through the bushes with their sabres. They soon met with a sentinel, and were discovered by one of the men left to guard the canoes striking a light, against orders, to light his pipe. The sentinel, knowing that this was punishable by death among his countrymen, suspected enemies and discharged a paterero, which the fort answered by a discharge of all their cannon. The Buccaneers, overtaken by a storm, entered a large house near to light the matches of their grenades and wait for day, the enemy firing incessantly in defiance. On the 20th, at daybreak, they marched out in order, with drums beating and colours, and found 700 men waiting for them behind a wall, four feet and a-half high, and a ditch. Killing many of the Buccaneers at the onset, the enemy ventured to sally out, sword in hand, and were at once put to flight. In spite of the bridge being broken down, the pursuers crossed the ditch, and, getting to the foot of63 the wall, threw in grenades, and drove the enemy to their houses. Driven also from this, they fled to a redoubt in the Place d'Armes, and from thence, after an hour's fighting, to a third fort, the largest of all. Here they defended themselves a long time, firing continually at their enemies, who could not see them for the smoke. From these palisadoes they again sallied, and wounded several Buccaneers and took one prisoner. They at last retreated with great loss.

The Flibustiers, weary with eleven hours' fighting, and finding their powder nearly spent, grew desperate; but, redoubling their efforts, with some loss made themselves masters of the place, having nine men killed and a dozen wounded. Parties were then sent out to pursue the fugitives, and a garrison having been put in the great fort, the Roman Catholic part of the band went to sing Te Deum in the great church.

Basil Hall describes Guayaquil as having on the one side a great marsh, and on the other a great river, while the country, for nearly 100 miles, is a continued level swamp,64 thickly covered with trees. The river is broad and deep, but full of shoals and strange turnings, the woods growing close to the water's edge, stand close, dark, and still, like two vast black walls; while along the banks the land-breeze blows hot, and breathes death, decay, and putrefaction.

The town was walled, and the forts built on an eminence. The houses were built of boards and reared on piles, on account of the frequent inundations. The chief trade of the place was cocoa.

The Buccaneers took 700 prisoners, including the governor and his family. He himself was wounded, as were most of his officers, who fought better than all the 5,000 men of the place. The place was stored with merchandise, precious stones, silver plate, and 70,000 pieces of eight. Upwards of three millions more had been hidden while the fort was taking. As soon as the canoes had come up, they were sent in pursuit of the treasure, but it was too late. They captured, however, 22,000 pieces of eight, and a vermilion gilt eagle, weighing65 66 lbs., that had served as the tabernacle for some church. It was of rare workmanship, and the eyes were formed of two great "rocks of emeralds." There were fourteen barks in the port—the galleys they had fought at Puebla Nueva, and two royal ships unfinished on the stocks. As a ransom for all these things, the governor promised a million pieces of eight in gold, and 400 sacks of corn, requiring the vicar-general to be released to go to Quito and procure it.

The women of the town, who were very pretty, had been assured by their confessors that the Buccaneers were monsters and cannibals, and had conceived a horror and aversion to them. "They could not be dispossessed thereof," says Lussan, "till they came to know us better. But then I can boldly say that they entertained quite different sentiments of our persons, and have given us frequent instances of so violent a passion as proceeded sometimes even to a degree of folly." As a proof of the calumnies circulated against the ruthless conquerors, Lussan tells us the following:—"It is not from a chance66 story," he continues, "that I came to know the impressions wrought in these women that we were men that would eat them; for the next day after the taking of the town, a young gentlewoman that waited upon the governor of the place, happened to fall into my hands. As I was carrying her away to the place where the rest of the prisoners were kept, and to that end made her walk before me, she turned back, and, with tears in her eyes, told me, in her own language—'Senor, pur l'amor di Dios ne mi como'—that is, 'Pray, sir, for the love of God, do not eat me;' whereupon I asked her who had told her that we were wont to eat people? She answered, 'The fathers,' who had also assured them that we had not human shape, but that we resembled monkeys."

On the 21st, part of the town was accidentally burnt down by some of the men lighting a fire in a house, and leaving it unextinguished when they returned at night to the court of guard. Afraid that it would reach the place where they had stored their67 powder and merchandise, the French removed all the plunder to their vessels, and carried the prisoners to the fort; but not till all this was done endeavouring to save the town, a third part of which was, by this time, destroyed. Afraid the Spaniards might now refuse to pay the ransom, they charged them with the offence, threatening to send some fifty prisoners' heads if they did not pay them what they had lost by the fire. The enemy, surprised at this, attributed the incendiarism to traitors, and promised satisfaction. The stench of the 900 dead carcases, still lying unburied up and down the town, now producing a pestilence, the Buccaneers dismounted and spiked the cannon, and carried off the 500 prisoners to their ships, anchoring at Puna. Captain Grogniet died of his wounds soon after this removal. The Spaniards obtaining four days' further respite, and then still further delaying the ransom, the adventurers made the prisoners throw dice for their lives, and cutting off the heads of four, sent them to Queaquilla, threatening further deaths. They were now joined68 by Captain David and a prize he had lately taken. He was planning a descent on Paita, to obtain refreshments for some men wounded in a fight with a Spanish ship, the Catalina, off Lima. They fought for two days, David's men, being drunk, constantly getting to leeward, and failing twenty times in an attempt to board. The Spaniards, gaining courage from these failures, hoisted the bloody flag; but the third day, David, getting sober, got his tackle and rigging in good order, got properly to windward, and bore down with determination. The enemy in terror ran ashore, and went to pieces in two hours. Two men were saved by a canoe, and said that their captain had had his thigh shot off by a cannon ball. David's ship, wanting refitting, was employed to cruise in the bay to prevent surprises from the Spaniards. By a letter taken from a courier, they found that the people of Queaquilla were only endeavouring to obtain time.

The Buccaneers spent thirty days on the island of La Puna, living on the luxurious69 food brought from Queaquilla, and employing the prisoners with lutes, theorbos, harps, and guitars, to delight them by perpetual concerts and serenades. Lussan says, "Some of our men grew very familiar with our women prisoners, who, without offering them any violence, were not sparing of their favours, and made appear, as I have already remarked, that after they came once to know us, they did not retain all the aversion for us that had been inculcated into them when we were strangers unto them. All our people were so charmed with this way of living that they forgot their past miseries, and thought no more of danger from the Spaniards than if they had been in the middle of Paris."

Ravenau also treats us with his own personal love adventure, which we insert as a curious illustration of the vicissitudes of a South Sea adventurer's life. "Amongst the rest," he says, "myself had one pretty adventure. Among the other prisoners we had a young gentlewoman, lately become a widow of the treasurer of the town, who was slain70 when it was taken. Now this woman appeared so far comforted for her loss, out of an hard-heartedness they have in this country one for another, that she proposed to hide me and herself in some corner of the island till our people were gone, and that then she would bring me to Queaquilla to marry her, that she would procure me her husband's office, and vest me in his estate, which was very great. When I had returned her thanks for such obliging offers, I gave her to understand that I was afraid her interest had not the mastery over the Spaniards' resentments; and that the wounds they had received from us were yet too fresh and green for them easily to forget them. She went about to cure me of my suspicion, by procuring secretly, from the governor and chief officers, promises under their hands how kindly I should be used by them. I confess I was not a little perplexed herewith, and such pressing testimonies of goodwill and friendship towards me brought me, after a little consultation with myself, into such a quandary, that I did not know which side to71 close with; nay, I felt myself, at length, much inclined to close with the offers made me, and I had two powerful reasons to induce me thereunto, one of which was the miserable and languishing life we lead in those places, where we were in perpetual hazard of losing it, which I should be freed from by an advantageous offer of a pretty woman and a considerable settlement: the other proceeded from the despair I was in of ever being able to return into my own country, for want of ships fit for that purpose. But when I began to reflect upon these things with a little more leisure and consideration, and that I resolved with myself how little trust was to be given to the promises and faith of so perfidious as well as vindictive a nation as the Spaniards, and more especially towards men in our circumstances, by whom they had been so ill-used, this second reflection carried it against the first, and even all the advantages offered me by this lady. But however the matter was, I was resolved, in spite of the grief and tears of this pretty woman, to prefer the continuance72 of my troubles (with a ray of hope of seeing France again), before the perpetual suspicion I should have had of some treachery designed against me. Thus I rejected her proposals, but so as to assure her I should retain, even as long as I lived, a lively remembrance of her affections and good inclinations towards me."

After some negotiation with a priest, the people of Queaquilla brought in twenty-four sacks of meal, and 20,000 pieces of eight in gold. On their refusing more than 22,000 pieces of eight more for ransom, a council was held to decide upon putting all the prisoners to death, but at last, Ravenau being in the majority, decided to spare them. They then took fifty of the richest prisoners with them to the point of St. Helena, and surrendered the rest on 22,000 more being paid.

While at La Puna, the Buccaneers sallied out to attack two Spanish armadillas, but not having any piraguas to tow them to the windward, could only cannonade at a distance. The French vessels were much shattered, but no man killed. The next day73 they came to close fight, both sides using small arms and great guns, but no Buccaneer was killed. The Spaniards lost many men, and the blood ran out of their scupper holes, but they still cried at parting, "A la manana, la partida"—(to-morrow, again.) The next night the Buccaneers unrigged and sank one of their prizes, and fitted out another, manning her with twenty Frenchmen, who wanted to leave David. The same night four Spaniards seized one of the prizes, and escaped to Queaquilla. Being now within half cannon shot, the rival vessels pounded each other all day; the French had their tackle spoiled, and sails riven, and the frigate received five cannon-shot in the foremast, and three in the mainmast, but had not one man killed or wounded. The next day the Spaniards hoisted Burgundian colours, and poured in volleys of musket-shot, but neither party boarded. The ensuing day the Buccaneer musketry was so destructive, that the Spaniards closed their port-holes and bore up to the wind. That day the French received sixty shots in their sides,74 two-thirds between wind and water, the rigging was torn, and Ravenau and another man were wounded. At night the Spaniards failed in an attempt to board. We spent this night at anchor, says Lussan, to stop our cannons' mouths, which otherwise might have sent us into the deep. To his astonishment, the next morning the armadillas had fled. During these successive days' fighting, the governor and officers of Queaquilla had been brought on deck to witness the defeat of their countrymen.

They then set their prisoners ashore and divided the plunder, the whole amounting to 500,000 pieces of eight, or 15,000,000 livres, and in shares to 400 pieces of eight a man. The uncoined gold and the precious stones being of uncertain value were sold by auction, that those who had silver and had won in gambling might buy. All who expected an overland expedition were anxious for jewels, as more portable and less heavy than silver. They sought now in their descent for nothing but gold and jewels, quite disregarding silver as a mean metal and heavy to carry. They75 even left many things in Queaquilla, and neglected to send a canoe for the 100 caons of coined silver (11,000 pieces of eight in all) which had been sent to the opposite river side. Taking advantage of their indifference, Spanish thieves mixed with the Buccaneers, and pillaged their own countrymen. They landed at Point Mangla, and surprised a watch of fifteen Spanish soldiers who had been placed to guard a river abounding in emeralds. A few days after they took a vessel from Panama going to Porto Bello to buy negroes off the point of Harina. The French fleet was next attacked by a Spanish galley and two piraguas. From a prisoner they heard of 300 Frenchmen, who had defeated 600 Spaniards and killed their leader in the savannahs. While careening in the bay of Mapalla they were joined by these men, who proved to be part of Grogniet's men, who had left their companions on the coast of Acapulco, refusing to go further towards California.

The adventurers next landed in the Bay of Tecoantepequa, and dispersing a body of 300 Spaniards, drawn up upon an eminence,76 marched inland towards the town, sleeping all night in the open air. Nothing but hunger and despair could have induced this attack. The town was intersected by a great and very rapid river, encompassed by eight suburbs, and defended by 3000 men. The Buccaneers forded the river, the water up to their middles, and after an hour's fighting forced the Spaniards from their entrenchment. In two hours these men, enraged with hunger, took the place by hand-to-hand fighting, and eighty sailors then dislodged the enemy from the abbey of St. Francis, whose terraces commanded the town. Finding the river overflowing and no ransom coming, the Buccaneers departed the next day, and landing at Vatulco, took the old governor of Merida prisoner, and obtained some provisions. They also landed at Muemeluna and victualled, the Spaniards having strong entrenchments, but making little resistance. They found upon the shore the musket and dead body of a sailor of a frigate that had attempted to land a month before. The Spaniards had not seen the body, or they77 would have cut in pieces or burnt it, as they were in the habit of even digging up the Buccaneers buried on their shores. At Sansonnat they landed in the face of 600 Spaniards to fill their water-casks, being faint from thirst. One of the men, more impatient than the rest, and goaded by four days' drought, swam ashore and was drowned, without any being able to help him.

They now held serious councils about the return by land. The prisoners declared their best way was by Segovia, where they would only meet 5000 or 6000 Spaniards, and that the way was easy for the sick and wounded. The French determined to land and obtain more certain information, and this was one of the most daring of their adventures. They landed seventy men, and marched two days without meeting anybody, upon which eighteen, less weary than the rest, tramped on and soon got into a high road. Capturing three horsemen, they learnt that they were but a quarter of a league distant from Chiloteca, a little town with about 400 white inhabitants, besides negroes, Indians,78 and mulattoes, who were not aware of their approach. Afraid to waste time in running back after their companions, they entered the town, frightened the Spaniards, and took the Teniente and fifty others prisoners. Had there not been horses ready mounted, on which they made their escape, the enemy would, every man, have submitted to be bound, being overcome with a panic fear, and believing the enemy very numerous. They learned from the prisoners that the Panama galley lay waiting for them at Caldaira, and the St. Lorenzo, with thirty guns, at Realegua. They also said that 600 men would be in the town by the next day. The Spaniards now began to rally, and compelled the Buccaneers to entrench themselves in the church. The prisoners, seeing them hurry in, and thinking them hard pressed, ran to a pile of arms and prepared to make a resistance; but the Buccaneers, retreating to the doors, fired at the crowd till only four men and their wives were left alive. They then mounted horses and retreated, carrying off four prisoners of each sex, and firing at a herald who tried to79 parley. Joining their companions, whom they found resting at a hatto, they made a stand and drove back 600 Spaniards.

The statements of the prisoners increased their fears of the overland route, but determining rather to die sword in hand than to pine away with hunger, they at once resolved upon their design. Running all the vessels ashore but the galley and piraguas, which would take them from the island to the mainland, leaving no other means of escape to the timorous, they formed four companies of seventy men, choosing ten men from each as a forlorn hope, to be relieved every morning. Those who were lamed were to have, as formerly, 1000 pieces of eight, the horses were to be kept for the crippled and wounded. The stragglers who were wounded were to have no reward, whilst violence, cowardice, and drunkenness were to be punished. While maturing their plans, a Spanish vessel approached, and anchoring, began to fire at the grounded vessels, and soon put them out of a condition to sail. Afraid of losing their piraguas, the Buccaneers80 sent their prisoners and baggage to some flats behind the island. The next day, the Frenchmen, sheltering themselves behind the rocks that ran out to the sea, kept the vessel at a distance; but now afraid of total destruction, the Buccaneers sent 100 men to the continent at night to secure horses, and wait for them at a certain port. On the next day, the Spanish ship took fire, and put out to sea to extinguish the flames. The next day the Buccaneers escaped by a stratagem. Having spent the whole night in hammering the vessel, as if careening, to prevent all suspicion of their departure, they charged all their guns, grenades, and four pieces of cannon, and tied to them pieces of lighted matches of various lengths, in order to keep up an alarm throughout the night. In the twilight they departed as secretly as they could, the prisoners carrying the surgeons' medicines, the carpenters' tools, and the wounded men.

On the 1st of January, 1688, the Buccaneers arrived on the continent. On the evening of the same day the men joined them81 with sixty-eight horses and several prisoners, all of whom dissuaded them in vain from attempting to go by Segovia, where the Spaniards were fully alarmed. The men, nothing deterred, packed up each his charge, and thrust their silver and ammunition into bags. Those who had too much to carry, gave it to those who had lost theirs by gaming, promising them half "in case it should please God to bring them safe to the North Sea." Ravenau de Lussan tells us his charge was lighter but not less valuable than the others, as he had converted 30,000 pieces of eight into pearls and precious stones. "But as the best part of this," he says, "was the product of luck I had at play, some of those who had been losers, as well in playing against me as others, becoming much discontented at their losses, plotted together to the number of seventeen or eighteen, to murder those who were richest amongst us. I was so happy as to be timely advertised of it by some friends, which did not a little disquiet my mind, for it was a very difficult task for a man, during so long a journey, to be able82 to secure himself from being surprised by those who were continually in the same company, and with whom we must eat, drink, and sleep, and who could cut off whom they pleased of us in the conflicts they might have with the Spaniards, by shooting us in the hurry." To frustrate this scheme, Ravenau therefore divided his treasure among several men, and by this means removed a weight both from his mind and body.

On the 2nd of January, after having said prayers and sunk their boats, the Buccaneers set out, resting at noon at a hatto. On the 4th they lay on a mountain plateau, the Spaniards visible on their flanks and rear. On the 5th the barricades began, and on the 6th, at an estantia, they found the following letter lying on a bed in the hall: "We are very glad that you have made choice of our province for your passage homewards, but are sorry you are not better laden with silver; however, if you have occasion for mules we will send them to you. We hope to have the French General Grogniet very quickly in our power, so we will leave you83 to judge what will become of his soldiers."

On the 7th the vanguard drove off an ambuscade, and lay that evening in a hatto. The Spaniards burnt all the provisions in the way, and set fire to the savannahs to windward, stifling the French horses with smoke and scaring them with the blaze. While their march was thus retarded and they waited for the fire to burn out, the enemy threw up intrenchments and erected barricades of trees. On the 8th the French set fire to a house at a sugar plantation, and, hiding till the Spaniards came to put it out, captured a prisoner, who told them that 300 auxiliaries were on the march to meet them. "These 300 men," says Lussan, "were our continual guard, for they gave us morning and evening the diversion of their trumpets, but it was like the music of the enchanted palace of Psyche, who heard it without seeing the musicians, for ours marched on each side of us, in places so covered with pine trees that it was impossible to perceive them."

During this march the Buccaneers never encamped but upon high ground, or in the84 open savannah, for fear of being hemmed in.

The advanced guard was now strengthened by forty men, who discharged their muskets at the entries and avenues of woods, to dislodge the ambuscades, but they did not shoot when the plain was open and free from wood; although the Spaniards, who were lying on their bellies on each side of them, opened their fire and killed two stragglers. On the 10th they repulsed an ambuscade and captured some horses. On the 11th they dispersed another ambuscade, and entered Segovia, but all the provisions had been burnt, and the Spaniards fired upon them from among the pine trees that grew on the hills around the town. Fortunately at this spot, where the old guides grew uncertain of the way, they captured a new prisoner, who led them twenty leagues to the river they were in search of.

The road now grew wilder, and dangers thickened around them. They had to creep with great danger to the tops of great mountains, or to bury themselves in narrow and dark valleys. The cold grew intense, and85 the fogs lasted for some hours after daybreak. In the plains no chill was felt, but the same heat that prevailed on the mountains after noon. "But," says Lussan, "the hopes of getting once more into our native country made us endure patiently all these toils, and served as so many wings to carry us."

On the 12th, they ascended several mountains, and had incredible trouble to clear the road of the Spanish barricades, and all night long the enemy fired into their camp. On the 18th, an hour before sunrise, they ascended an eminence which seemed advantageous for an encampment, and saw on the edge of an eminence, separated from them by a narrow valley, what they believed to be cattle feeding.

Rejoiced at the prospect of food, forty men were sent to reconnoitre. They returned with the dismal intelligence that the supposed oxen were really troopers' horses ready saddled, and that the mountain on which they stood was encircled by three intrenchments, rising one above another, commanding a stream that ran through the valley. They86 had no other way but this to pass, and there was no possibility of avoiding it. They added, that one of the Spaniards had seen them, and shook his naked cutlass at them from a distance. Every man's heart fell at this news, and their pining appetite sickened at the loss of its expected meal. There was no time for delay, for the Spaniards from the adjacent provinces were gathering in their rear, and if any time was lost they must be surrounded and overpowered by numbers. Ravenau de Lussan, the Xenophon of this retreat, did not attempt to conceal the extent of the danger. He confesses himself that they were hard put to it, and that escape would have seemed impossible to any other men but to those who had been hitherto successful in almost every undertaking. He addressed his companions, and artfully persuaded them to agree to his plans, by first elaborating the extent of their difficulties. He said that 10,000 men could not force their way through such intrenchments, guarded by so many men as the Spaniards had, judging from the number of their horses. Nor87 could they pass by the side of it, with all their horses and baggage, seeing that the path could only be entered in single file. Except the road, all was a thick, pathless forest, full of quagmires, and encumbered by fallen trees; and even if these impediments were passed, the Spaniards would have still to be fought with. The Buccaneers agreed to these as truisms, but cried out that it was to no purpose to talk of difficulties so apparent, without proposing some method of surmounting them, and suggesting some means for its execution. Upon this hint De Lussan spoke. He proposed to cross those woods, precipices, mountains, and rocks, how inaccessible soever they seemed, and gaining the weather-gauge of the enemy, take them at once in the rear, suddenly and unexpectedly. The success of this plan he would answer for at the peril of his life. The prisoners, horses, and baggage he resolved to leave guarded by eighty men, to keep off the 300 Spaniards who hovered around them at day and at night, encamped at a musket-shot distance. These eighty men could answer for four times as many88 Spaniards. After some deliberation, De Lussan's plan was agreed to, and the execution at once resolved upon. Examining the mountain carefully with the keen eyes of both hunters and sailors, they could see a road winding along the side of the mountain, above the highest intrenchment. This they could only trace here and there by light spots visible between the trees, but once across this they were safe. Full of hope, and with every faculty aroused, some of the men were sent to a spot higher than the main body, to cover another party who had on previous occasions proved themselves ingenious and expert, and who were sent to pick out the safest and most direct spots by which they could get in the rear of the enemy before day broke. As soon as these scouts returned the men made ready for their departure, leaving their baggage guarded by eighty men. To prevent suspicion, the officer in command had orders to make every sentinel he set or relieved in the night-time fire his fusil and to beat his drum at the usual hour. He was told that if God gave them the victory they would send a89 party to bring him off, but that if an hour after all firing ceased they saw no messenger, they were to provide for their own safety.

The immediate narrative of this wonderful escape we give in De Lussan's own words:—"Things being thus disposed," he says, "we said our prayers as low as we could, that the Spaniards might not hear us, from whom we were separated but by the valley. At the same time, we set forward to the number of 200 men by moonlight, it being now an hour within night; and about one more after our departure we heard the Spaniards also at their prayers, who, knowing we were encamped very near them, fired about 600 muskets in the air to frighten us. Besides, they also made a discharge at all the responses of the litany which they sang. We still pursued our march, and spent the whole night (in going down and then getting up) to advance half a-quarter of a league, which was the distance between them and us, through a country, as I have already said, so full of rocks, mountains, woods, and frightful precipices, that our posteriors and90 knees were of more use to us than our legs, it being impossible for us to travel thither otherwise. On the 14th, by break of day, as we got over the most dangerous parts of this passage, and had already seized upon a considerable ascent of the mountain by clambering up in great silence, and leaving the Spaniards' retrenchments to our left, we saw their party that went the rounds, who, thanks to the fogs, did not discover us. As soon as they were gone by, we went directly to the place where we saw them, and found it to be exactly the road we were minded to seize on. When we had made a halt for about half an hour to take breath, and that we had a little daylight to facilitate our march, we followed this road by the voice of the Spaniards, who were at their morning prayers, and we were but just beginning our march, when, unfortunately, we met with two out-sentinels, on whom we were forced to fire, and this gave the Spaniards notice, who thought of nothing less than to see us come down from above them upon their intrenchments, since they91 expected us no other way than from below; so that those who had the guard thereof, and were in number about 500 men, finding themselves on the outside, when they thought they had been within, and consequently open without any covert, took the alarm so hot, that falling all on them at the same time, we made them quit the place in a moment, and make their escape by the favour of the fog."

The sequel is soon told. The defenders of the two first lines of wall drew up outside the lowermost, the Buccaneers firing at them for an hour under cover of the first intrenchment. But finding they gave no ground, and thinking the fog interfered with the aim, the French rushed forward and fell upon them with the butt ends of their muskets, till they fled headlong down the narrow road. Here they got entangled in their own impediments, and the Buccaneers, commanding the road from the redoubt, killed an enemy at every shot. Weary at last of running and killing, the French returned to the intrenchments and drove off the 50092 Spaniards, who had now rallied, and were attacking the garrison. The pursuit ceased only from the fatigue of the conquerors and their weariness of slaughter. The Spaniards neither gave nor took quarter, and were saved in spite of themselves. De Lussan says, either from pride or a natural fierceness of temper, the Spanish soldiers, before an engagement, frequently took an oath to their commander neither to give nor receive quarter. The Buccaneers, struck with compassion at the quantity of blood running into the rivulet, spared the survivors, and returned a second time into the intrenchment with only one man killed and two wounded. The Spaniards lost their general, a brave old Walloon officer, who had given them the plan of their intrenchment. It was only at the solicitation of another commander that the rounds had been set, and the sentinels placed at the top of the mountain. The general had consented, but said there was no danger if the French were only men. It would take them eight days to climb up, and if they were devils, no intrenchment93 could keep them out. In his pocket were found letters from the Governor of Costa Rica, who had intended to send him 8000 men, but the Walloon asked for only 1500. He advised him to take care of his soldiers, as no glory could be gained by such a victory. The letter concluded thus:—"Take good measures, for those devils have a cunning and subtlety that is not in use amongst us. When you find them advance within the shot of your arquebuses, let not your men fire but by twenties, to the end your firing may not be in vain; and when you find them weakened, raise a shout to frighten them, and fall on with your swords, while Don Rodrigo attacks them in the rear. I hope God will favour our designs, since they are no other than for his glory, and the destruction of these new sort of Turks. Hearten up your men, though they may have enough of that according to your example they shall be rewarded in heaven, and if they get the better, they will have gold and silver enough wherewith these thieves are laden."

Having sung a Te Deum of thankfulness94 to God, Ravenau de Lussan mounted sixty men upon horseback, as he words it, "to give notice to our other people of the success the Almighty was pleased to give us." They found them about to attack the 300 Spaniards, who seeing the night-march the main body had made, and believing them defeated at the intrenchments, had sent an officer to parley with the residue. He told them that the 1500 Spaniards were lying ready to surround their troops, but promised them good terms if they surrendered; saying that, by the intercessions of the almoner, and for the honour of the holy sacrament and glorious Virgin, they had spared all the prisoners they had hitherto taken. The Buccaneers, somewhat intimidated at these threats, took heart when they saw their companions coming, and returned the following fierce answer: "Though you had force enough to destroy two-thirds of our number, we should not fail to fight with the remaining part; yea, though there were but one man of us left, he should fight against you all. When we put ashore and left the South Sea, we all resolved to95 pass through your country or die in the attempt; and though there were as many Spaniards as there are blades of grass in the savannah, we should not be afraid, but would go on and go where we will in spite of your teeth." The officer at Ravenau's arrival was just being dismissed, and seeing the new allies were booted and mounted on Spanish horses, he shrugged up his shoulders and rode back as fast as he could to his comrades, who were not more than a musket-shot off upon a small eminence commanding the camp, to tell them the news. As soon almost as he could get to them, the Buccaneers advanced with pistols and cutlasses, and without firing fell on them and cut many to pieces before they could mount, but let the rest go, detaining their horses. They then, with the loss of one killed and two maimed, rejoined the main body at the intrenchments.

The enemy now lit a fire upon the top of a neighbouring mountain to collect the scattered troops, in order to defend an intrenchment six leagues distant; but the Buccaneers lying in wait cut off their passage, then hamstringing96 900 horses, took 900 others to kill and salt when they arrived at the river. On the 15th they passed the intrenchment unfinished and undefended, and on the 16th day came very joyfully to the long desired river. Immediately they entered into the woods that covered the banks, and fell to work in good earnest to cut down trees and build "piperies," or rafts. These were made of four or five trunks of the mahot trees, a light buoyant wood, which they first barked and then bound together with parasite creepers, which were tough and of great length. Two men, generally standing upright, guided each of these frail barks, the decks sunk two or three feet under water. They were built purposely narrow, to be able to thread the rocky passes of the river even then in sight. These rafts were dragged to the river-side and then launched, the boatmen having furnished themselves with long poles to push them off the rocks, against which they were sure the current would drive them. De Lussan, who never exaggerates a danger, cannot find words to express the terrors of97 this stream. "It springs," he says, "in the mountains of Segovia, and discharges itself into the North Sea at Cape Gracias à Dios, after having run a long way, in a most rapid manner, across a vast number of rocks of a prodigious bigness, and by the most frightful precipices that can be thought of, besides a great many falls of water, to the number of at least a hundred of all sorts, which it is impossible for a man to look on without trembling, and making the head of the most fearless to turn round, when he sees and hears the waters fall from such a height into those tremendous whirlpools."

To this dangerous river and its merciless falls, these way-worn men trusted themselves on frail rafts, and sank up to their middles in water. Sometimes they were hurried, in spite of all their resistance, into boiling pools, where they were buried with their rafts in the darkness beneath the foam, at others drifted under rocks and against fallen trees. Some tied themselves to their barks. "As for those great falls," says Lussan, "they had, to our good fortunes, at their entrances and goings out,98 great basins of still water, which gave us the opportunity to get upon the banks of the river, and draw our piperies ashore to take off those things we had laid on them, which were as wet as we were. These we carried with us, leaping from rock to rock, till we came to the end of the fall, from whence one of us afterwards returned to put our pipery into the water, and let her swim along to him who waited for her below. But if he failed to catch hold (by swimming) of those pieces of wood before they got out of the basin below, the violence of the stream would carry them away to rights, and the men were necessitated to go and pick out trees to make another."

The rafts at first went all together for the sake of mutual assistance; but at the end of three days, finding this dangerous, Ravenau de Lussan advised their going in a line apart, so that, if any were carried against the rocks, they might get off before the next pipery arrived, which at first occasioned many disasters. De Lussan, being himself cast away, found much safety in this plan; for, uncording99 his raft, he straddled upon one piece and his companion upon another, and floated down, till, reaching a place less rapid, they got on land and reconstructed the raft. By his advice, those who went first put up flags at the end of long poles, to give notice on which side to land, not to signal the falls, for their roar could be clearly heard a league off.

During all these dangers the men lived on the bananas that they found growing by the river side, some of which the Indians had sown, and others floated down and self-planted during the inundations. The horse-flesh they had brought the water had spoiled, compelling them to throw it away after two days; and although game abounded on the land, they could kill none, for their arms were continually wet and their ammunition all damaged.

It was at this crisis the conspirators we have before mentioned chose to carry out their cruel plot. Hiding behind some rocks, they killed and plundered five Englishmen, who were known to be rich. Lussan whose raft came last of all, and followed the English float,100 found their bodies, and thanked God he had given others his treasure to carry. When the Buccaneers were all met together, lower down the river, Lussan told them of the murder, of which they had not heard, but the murderers were seen no more. On the 20th of February the river grew wider, slower, and deeper, the falls ceased, but the stream was encumbered with trees and bamboos, drifted together by the floods. These snags frequently overturned the rafts, but the water being, though deeper, much slower, none were drowned. Some leagues further, the stream became gentle and free from all impediment, and they determined for the next sixty leagues to the sea to build canoes. Dividing themselves into parties of sixty men, they landed and cut down mapou trees, and, working with wonderful diligence, built four canoes by the first of March. Leaving 140 men still working, 120 embarked, eager for home, ease, and rest. The English, too impatient to make canoes, had long since reached the sea-shore in their piperies. They here met a Jamaica boat lying at anchor,101 and attempted to persuade the captain to return, and obtain leave for them to land, as they had no commission. The captain refused to go without receiving £6000 in advance, which they could not afford, as many of them had lost all by the upsetting of the piperies. The sailors, therefore, resolved to remain with the friendly Mosquito Indians, who dwelt about the mouth of this river, and to whom they had often brought trinkets from Jamaica. The English, unable to buy the boat, determined to send word to the French, hoping to get to St. Domingo by their aid. Two Mosquito Indians were despatched in a canoe, forty leagues up the river, to bring down forty Frenchmen, as the vessel was small and short of provision, and could not hold more. But, in spite of all this, 120, instead of forty, hurried down to get on board, waiting five days for the ship that had gone to the Isle of Pearls. Great was the delight of the French to pass Cape Gracias à Dios, and enter the North Sea.

The Mulattoes that lived on this cape, Lussan says, were descended from the crew102 of a negro vessel, lost on a shoal. They slept in holes dug in the sand, to avoid the mosquitoes, which stung them till they appeared like lepers. Lussan speaks much of the fiery darts of this mischievous insect. He says, "It is no small pain to be attacked with them, for, besides that they caused us to lose our rest at night, it was then that we were forced to go naked for want of shirts, when the troublesomeness of these animals made us run into despair and such a rage as set us beside ourselves." At last the longed-for vessel arrived, and, regardless of lots that had been drawn, fifty of the more vigilant, including Lussan, crowded in, one on the top of the other, and instantly weighed anchor, engaging the master for forty pieces of eight a head to take them to St. Domingo, afraid of venturing to Jamaica. At Cuba they landed, and surprising some hunters, compelled them to sell them food, uncertain whether France and Spain were at war or peace.

On the 4th of April they rode at anchor at Petit Guaves, hoping to hear news from France. De Lussan relates a curious instance103 here of the effect of habit and instinctive imagination. "There were some of our people," he says, "so infatuated with the long miseries we had suffered, that they thought of nothing else but the Spaniards, insomuch that, when from the deck they saw some horsemen riding along the sea-side, they flew to arms to fire upon them, as imagining they were enemies, though we assured them we were now come among those of our own nation." De Lussan, at once going on shore, demanded of Mons. Dumas, the King's lieutenant, in the Governor Mons. de Cussy's absence, indemnity and protection, by favour of an amnesty granted by the French king to those who, in remote places, had continued to make war on the Spaniards, not hearing of the peace that had been concluded between the two nations.

De Lussan relates with much unpretending pathos the feelings of himself and his Ulyssean friends upon once more landing in a friendly country. "When we all were got ashore," he says, "to a people that spoke French, we could not forbear shedding tears for joy that,104 after we had run so many hazards, dangers, and perils, it had pleased the Almighty Maker of the earth and seas to grant a deliverance, and bring us back to those of our own nation, that at length we may return without any more ado to our own country; whereunto I cannot but further add, that, for my own part, I had so little hopes of ever getting back, that I could not, for the space of fifteen days, take my return for any other than an illusion, and it proceeded so far with me, that I shunned sleep, for fear when I awaked I should find myself again in those countries out of which I was now safely delivered."

From the preface to De Lussan's book, we learn that he returned to Dieppe, with letters of introduction from De Cussy, the Governor of Tortuga and St. Domingo, to Mons. de Lubert, Treasurer-General of Marine in France. Of the end of this brave man we know nothing. He had many requisites for a great general.

CHAPTER II.
THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS.

Of all the motley characters of Buccaneer history, Montauban appears one of the most extraordinary. His friends describe him to have been as prudent as he was brave, blunt and sincere, relating his own adventures with a free and generous air that convinced the106 hearer of their truth, and at last consenting to write his story, not from ostentation, but from the simple desire of giving a French minister of state a narrative of his campaigns. He is interesting to us as the latest known Buccaneer, and in strict parlance he can scarcely be classed as a Buccaneer at all, attacking the English as he did more than the Spanish, and not confining his cruises to the Spanish main.

He begins his book with great naïveté thus: "Since I have so often felt the malignant influence of those stars that preside over the seas, and by an adverse fortune lost all that wealth which with so much care and trouble I had amassed together, I should take no manner of pleasure in this place to call to mind the misfortunes that befel me before the conclusion of the last campaign, had not a desire of serving still both the public and particular persons, as well as to let his majesty know the affection and weddedness I have always had for his service, made me take pen in hand to give Mons. de Phelipeaux an account of such observations as I107 have made; wherein he may also find with what eagerness I have penetrated to the remotest colonies of our enemies, in order to destroy them and ruin their trade. I was not willing to swell up this relation with an account of all the voyages I have made, and all the particular adventures that have befallen me on the coasts of New Spain, Carthagena, Mexico, Florida, and Cape Verd, which last place I had been at twenty years ago, having begun to use the seas at the age of sixteen." He goes on to say that he will not stop to relate how, in 1691, in a ship called the Machine, he ravaged the coasts of New Guinea, and, entering the great Serelion, took a fort from the English and split twenty-four pieces of cannon, but will confine himself simply to his last voyage; "Some information," he says, "having been given thereof, by the noise made in France and elsewhere of the burning my ship, and the terrible crack it made in the air."

In the year 1694, having ravaged the coast of Caracca, he went towards St. Croix, to watch for some merchant ships and a108 fleet expected from Barbadoes and Nevis, bound for England. Sailing towards the Bermudas, expecting good booty, he saw them coming towards him without any apprehension of danger. He at once attacked the convoy (The Wolf), and took her and two merchant ships laden with sugar, the rest escaping during the fight. Returning with his prizes to France, he captured an English ship of sixteen guns from Spain and bound for England, which surrendered after a short fight. This last vessel he took to Rochelle and sold it, the Admiralty declaring it good prize; the last he took to Bordeaux and sold to the merchants. Here abandoning themselves to pleasure after a long abstinence, many of his men deserted him, and he supplied their place with youths from the town, who soon became as expert as veterans. "I made it," he says, "my continual care and business to teach my men to shoot, and my so frequent exercising of them rendered them in a short time as capable of shooting and handling their arms as the oldest sea freebooters, or the best fowlers by land."

Re-victualling his ship, that carried only thirty-four guns, he left Bordeaux in February, 1695, to cruise on the coast of Guinea. From the Azores he passed the Canary Islands, and sailed for fourteen days in sight of Teneriffe, in hopes of meeting some Dutch vessels, that after all escaped him, and at the Cape de Verd Islands he pursued two English interlopers of thirty guns each, who left behind in the roads their anchors and shallops. He then went in search of a Dutch guard-ship, of thirty-four guns, along the neighbouring coast. Decoying the foe by showing Dutch colours, he waited till he got within cannon shot, hoisting the French flag, gave her a signal to strike, and then exchanged broadsides. They fought from early morning till four in the afternoon, without Montauban being able to get the weather-gauge, or approach near enough to use his chief arms—his fusils. Taking advantage of a favourable wind, the Dutchman then anchored under the fort of the Cape of Three-points, where two other Dutch men-of-war lay, one of fourteen and the other of twenty-eight110 guns. Thinking the three vessels had leagued to fight him, Montauban anchored within a league of the shore, hoping to provoke them out by continued insults, but the guard-ship, already much mauled, would not move. This vessel, he found afterwards, had driven away a French flute. At Cape St. John he took with little difficulty an English ship of twenty guns, carrying 350 negroes, and much wax and elephants' teeth. The English captain had killed some of his blacks in a mutiny, and others had escaped in the shallop, which they stole. At Prince's Isle he took a small Bradenburg caper (a pirate), mounted with eight pieces of cannon, and carrying sixty men. He then put into port to careen, and sent his prize to St. Domingo to be condemned and sold, putting the Sieur de Nave and a crew on board, but the ship was taken by some English men-of-war before Little Goara. To keep his men employed during the careening, Montauban fitted up the caper, and with ninety men cruised for six weeks without success, and, then putting into the Isle of St. Thomas, trucked the prize for111 provisions, and started for the coasts of Angola, hearing that three English men-of-war and a fire-ship were fitting out against him at Guinea. On his way he chased a Dutch interloper, laden with 150 pounds of gold dust, but she ran ashore on the Isle of St. Omer and fell to pieces.

When approaching the coasts of Angola, and not far from the port of Cabinda, he saw an English vessel of fifty-four guns bearing down upon him. To decoy her Montauban hung out Dutch colours, while the English fired guns, as a signal of friendship. The Frenchman, pretending to wait, sailed slow, as if heavy laden or encumbered for want of sails and men. "We kept in this manner," writes the privateersman, "from break of day till ten in the forenoon. He gave me a gun from time to time without ball, to assure me of what he was, but finding at last I did not answer him on my part in the same manner, he gave me one again with ball, which made me presently put up French colours, and answer him with another. Hereupon the English captain, without any more ado, gave112 me two broadsides, which I received without returning him one again, though he had killed me seven men; for I was in hopes, if I could have got something nearer to him, to put him out of condition ever to get away from me. I endeavoured to come within a fusil shot of him and was desirous to give him an opportunity to show his courage in boarding me, since I could not so well do the same by him, as being to the leeward. At last being come by degrees nearer, and finding him within the reach of my fusils, which for that end I kept concealed upon the deck from his sight, they were discharged upon him, and my men continued to make so great a fire with them, that the enemy on their part began quickly to flag. In the mean time, as their ship's crew consisted of above 300 men and that they saw their cannon could not do their work for them, they resolved to board us, which they did with a great shout and terrible threatenings of giving no quarter, if we did not surrender. Their grappling-irons failing to catch the stern of my ship, made theirs run in such a manner, that their stern113 ran upon my boltsprit and broke it. Having observed my enemy thus encumbered, my men plied them briskly with their small shot, and made so terrible a fire upon them for an hour and a-half, that being unable to resist any longer, and having lost a great many men, they left the sport and ran down between decks, and I saw them presently after make signals with their hats of crying out for quarter. I caused my men therefore to give over their firing, and commanded the English to embark in their shallops and come on board of me, while I made some of my crew at the same time leap into the enemy's ship and seize her, and so prevent any surprise from them. I already rejoiced within myself for the taking of such a considerable prize, and so much the more in that I hoped that after having taken this vessel, that was the guard-ship of Angola, and the largest the English had in those seas, I should find myself in a condition still to take better prizes, and attack any man-of-war I should meet with. My ship's crew were also as joyful as myself, and did the work they were engaged114 in with a great deal of pleasure; but the enemy's powder suddenly taking fire, by the means of a match the captain had left burning on purpose, as hoping he might escape with his two shallops, blew both the ships into the air, and made the most horrible crack that was ever heard. It is impossible to set forth this horrid spectacle to the life; the spectators themselves were the actors of this bloody scene, not knowing whether they saw it or not, and not being able to judge of that which themselves felt. Wherefore leaving the reader to imagine the horror which the blowing up of two ships above 200 fathoms into the air must work in us, where there was formed as it were a mountain of water, fire, wreck of the ships, cordages, cannon, men, and a most horrible clap made, what with the cannon that went off in the air, and the waves of the sea that were tossed up thither, to which we may add the cracking of masts and boards, the rending of the sails and ropes, the cries of men, and the breaking of bones—I say, leaving these things to the imagination of the reader, I shall only take115 notice of what befell myself, and by what good fortune it was that I escaped.

"When the fire first began I was upon the fore-deck of my own ship, where I gave the necessary orders. Now I was carried up on part of the said deck so high, that I fancy it was the height alone prevented my being involved in the wreck of the ships, where I must infallibly have perished, and been cut into a thousand pieces. I fell back into the sea (you may be sure giddy-headed enough), and continued a long time under water, without being able to get up to the surface of it. At last falling into a debate with the water, as a person who was afraid of being drowned, I got upon the face of it, and laid hold of a broken piece of a mast that I found near. I called to some of my men whom I saw swimming round about me, and exhorted them to take courage, hoping we might yet save our lives, if we could light upon any one of our shallops. But what afflicted me more than my very misfortune, was to see two half bodies, who had still somewhat of life remaining in them, from time to time mount116 up to the face of the water, and leave the place where they remained all dyed with blood. It was also much the same thing to see round about a vast number of members and scattered parts of men's bodies, and most of them spitted upon splinters of wood. At last one of my men, having met with a whole shallop among all the wreck, that swam up and down upon the water, came to tell me that we must endeavour to stop some holes therein, and to take out the canoe that lay on board her.

"We got, to the number of fifteen or sixteen of us who had escaped, near unto this shallop, every man upon his piece of wood, and took the pains to loosen our canoe, which at length we effected. We went all on board her, and after we had got in saved our chief gunner, who in the fight had had his leg broke. We took up three or four oars, or pieces of board, which served us to that purpose, and when we had done that we sought out for somewhat to make a sail and a little mast, and, having fitted up all things as well as we possibly could, committed ourselves to the117 Divine Providence, who alone could give us life and deliverance. As soon as I had done working I found myself all over besmeared with blood, that ran from a wound I had received on my head at the time of my fall. We made some lint out of my handkerchief, and a fillet to bind it withal out of my shirt, after I had first washed the wound with urine. The same thing was done to the rest that had been wounded, and our shallop in the meanwhile sailed along without our knowing where we were going, and, what was still more sad, without victuals, and we had already spent three days without either eating or drinking. One of our men, being greatly afflicted with hunger and thirst at the same time, drank so much salt water that he died of it." Most of the men vomited continually, Montauban's body swelled, and he was finally cured of his dropsy by a quartan-ague. All his hair and one side of his face and body were burnt with powder, and he bled as "bombardiers do at sea," at the nose, ears, and mouth.

But this was no time, he says manfully,118 for a consultation of physicians, while they were dying of hunger, so leaving the English, they forced their way over the bar of Carthersna, an adverse wind preventing their landing at the port of Cabinda. Here they found some oysters sticking to the trees that grew round a pond, and opening them with their clasp knives, which they lent, Montauban says, "charitably and readily to each other," they made a lusty meal.

Having spent two days there, they divided into three small companies, and went up the country, but could find no houses, and see nothing but herds of buffaloes that fled from them. On reaching Cape Corsa they found negroes assembled to furnish ships with wood and water in exchange for brandy, knives, and hatchets.

Montauban, who had often traded in these parts, knew several of the natives, and tried to make them believe he was the man he represented; but disfigured as he was by his late misfortune, they considered him an impostor. In their own language he told119 them he was dying of famine, but could get nothing but a few bananas to eat.

He then desired them to carry him and his men to Prince Thomas, the son to the king of that country, upon whom he had conferred many favours. But the Prince refused to recognize him, till he showed him the scar of a wound in his thigh which he had once seen when they bathed together. On seeing this the Prince rose and embraced him; commanded victuals to be given to his men; expressed his sorrow for their misfortunes; and quartered them among his negro lords. Montauban he kept at his own expense, and made him eat at his own table. In a few days he took him some leagues up the country in a canoe, to see the king his father, who ruled over a village of 300 huts among the marshes. The high priest was just dead, and during the funeral ceremonies, lasting for seven days, Montauban was regaled with elephant's flesh. The king he found surrounded by women, and guarded by negroes armed with lances and fusils. Flags, trumpets, and120 drums preceded this monarch of a realm of hunters, who was himself clothed in a robe of white and blue striped cotton. The black prince shook the French captain by the hand, being the first man whose hand he had ever thus honoured. He asked many questions about his brother of France, and when he heard that he sometimes waged war with England and Holland singlehanded, and sometimes with Germany and Spain, the king expressed himself pleased, and, calling for palm wine, said he would drink the French king's health, and as he drank the drums and trumpets sounded, just as they do in Hamlet, and the negro guard discharged their pieces. Prince Thomas then asked the name of the French king who was so powerful, and being told it was Louis le Grand, declared he would give that name to his son, who was about to be baptised, and that Montauban should be godfather. He also expressed his hope that at some future voyage Montauban would carry the child to France, and present him to the brother monarch, and have him brought up in that country. "Assure121 him," said the same prince, "that I am his friend, and that if he has occasion for my service, I will go myself into France, with all the lances and fusils belonging to the king my father." The king said, if need were he would go himself in person. At this generous promise the guard discharged their muskets frantically, and the men and women shouted their admiration. The drums and trumpets went to it again, and the spearmen ran from one side to the other, uttering horrible cries, sounding like pain, but expressive of joy. Then the glasses went round faster, and the ceremony concluded by the negro king presenting Montauban with two cakes of wax. The white men now rose in public estimation. Whenever they stirred out, they were followed by crowds of negroes bringing presents of fruits and buffalo flesh, never having seen a white face before, and generally supposing the devil to be of that colour. Sable philosophers begged to be allowed to scrape their skin with knives, till the king issued an edict forbidding any one, under pain, scraping or rubbing the strangers.

The baptism passed off with great éclat. There being no priest in the town who knew how to baptize, or remembered the words of the service, a priest was procured from a Portuguese ship lying at the Cape. The freebooter speaks with much unction of his sponsorship. "I did it with so much the more pleasure," quoth he, "in that I was helping to make a Christian and sanctify a soul."

A few days after this ceremony, which afforded so much satisfaction to Montauban's tender conscience, he determined to embark on board an English ship lying at the Cape; but the black king would not have him trust himself into the hands of his enemies, and soon after he set sail in a Portuguese vessel that arrived to barter iron, arms, and brandy, for ivory, wax, and negroes. Two of his men, who had strayed up the country, he left behind. The Portuguese captain turned out to be an old friend, and took him at once to St. Thomas's, and here he stayed a month, the governor of the island showing him a thousand civilities. He then embarked123 on board an English vessel, with whose captain he contracted an intimate friendship, in spite of the governor's warnings. He gave up his own cabin to Montauban, to use our adventurer's own words, "with all the pleasure and diversion he could think of, for the solacing of my spirits under the afflictions I had from time to time endured."

A tedious sail of three months brought them to Barbadoes. During this time, his provisions running short, the English captain began to regret having taken up his French passengers, and reduced their daily allowance by three-fourths. On arriving at the port, Colonel Russel blamed the captain for having brought such visitors, and forbade him under pain of death to land; but some Jewish physicians declaring that he must die if he did not, the governor consented, keeping a strict watch upon the sick man, and telling him to understand that he and his fellows were prisoners of war. Montauban replied that he had only embarked on the faith of the English captain, on whose friendship he relied. He promised, if liberty were granted,124 them, he would be ever mindful of the favour, and would either pay the colonel a ransom, or restore at a future time any prisoners belonging to the island.

"No," replied the governor, "I will have neither your ransom nor your prisoners, and you are too brave a man for me to have no compassion upon your many misfortunes. I desire, on the contrary, that you will accept of these forty pistoles, which I present you with to supply your present occasions." A vessel soon after arrived from Martinique, and Montauban went on board with two of his men, all that could be collected. The English governor, when he thanked him at parting, prayed him to be kind to any English that fell into his hands, and lamented the war regulations that compelled him to severity.

On arriving at Port Royal, at Martinique, Mons. de Blenac, the governor, who was then dying, made him stay at his house, and relate every day his adventure with the English vessel. In the same breath, Montauban praises De Blenac's wisdom, justice, integrity, and knowledge of all the125 coasts and heights of land in America. In a few days the freebooter embarked in the Virgin for Bordeaux, and we lose sight of his stalwart figure and scarred face among the bustling eager crowds that fill the streets of that busy seaport. We have a shrewd suspicion that Sieur de Montauban did not die in a bed, but with his face to the foe and his back on a bloody plank. There is something delightfully sincere and naïve in the sort of out-loud thinking with which he concludes his simple "yarn."

"I do not know whether I have bid the sea adieu, so much has my last misfortune terrified me, or whether I shall go out again to be revenged on the English, who have done me so much mischief, or go and traverse the seas with a design to get me a little wealth, or rest quiet and eat up what my relations have left me. There is a strange inclination in men to undertake voyages, as there is to gaming; whatever misfortunes befall them, they do not believe they will be always unhappy, and therefore will play on. Thus it is as to the sea, whatever accidents126 befall us, we are in hopes to find a favourable opportunity to make us amends for all our losses. I believe, whoever reads this account will find it a hard task to give me counsel thereupon, or to take the same himself."

Laurence de Graff, our next hero, was a Dutchman by birth, and served first in the service of Spain as a sailor and a gunner. He soon became remarkable as a good shot, and renowned for his address and bravery, his bearing being equally attractive and commanding. Going to America, he carried these talents to the best market, and, being taken prisoner by the corsairs, became a Buccaneer, and soon rose to independent command. His name grew so terrible to the Spaniards, that the monks used to pray God in their prayers to deliver them from "Lorençillo," and the whole brotherhood used his name as a war-cry to strike terror. Vessels struck their flag when they heard that shout, and the horsemen fled before it through the savannah. Knowing that the Spaniards would not forgive him the injuries he had inflicted on them, De Graff never fought without strewing powder on the deck, or having a gunner127 with a lighted match ready to blow up the powder magazine at the first signal. On one occasion the people of Carthagena, knowing that he was sailing near the port in a single small vessel, despatched two frigates to bring him bound to land. Lorençillo, believing himself lost, had already given orders to blow up the vessel, when, making a last desperate effort, he captured both of his enemies. These men were never so formidable as when surrounded by an overwhelming force. On another occasion the admiral and vice-admiral of the galleon fleet had orders to take him at all risks, which they should easily have done, as each of their vessels carried sixty guns. Finding it impossible to escape, Laurence animated his crew, and told them that in victory lay their only hope of life. The gunner was placed as usual ready beside the magazine, and then running boldly between the two vessels, De Graff poured in a volley of musketry and killed forty-eight Spaniards. The action still continued, when a French shot carried away the mainmast of the largest galleon, and her consort, afraid to board, left Lorençillo the conqueror. The128 report of this victory produced a great sensation both at Paris and Madrid. The French sent the conqueror letters of naturalization and a pardon for the death of Van Horn, and the court of Spain issued orders to cut off the head of their recreant admiral.

At another time Laurence was cruising near Carthagena, in company with the French captains, Michel Jonqué, Le Sage, and Breac. The Spaniards, thinking to catch him alone, sent out two thirty-six gun ships and a small craft of six guns, which overtook him in a bay to leeward of the city. Surprised to see him well guarded, they endeavoured to escape, but Laurence attacked them, and after an eight hours' action, having killed 400 Spaniards, took the admiral's ship, Jonqué's capturing its companion. Laurence's prize, however, was soon after driven ashore, and the prisoners escaped.

Captain Laurence is at this time described as a tall, fair man, with light hair and moustachios. He was fond of music, and kept a band of violins and trumpets on board his ship.129 On one occasion landing in Jamaica, the French levelled the three intrenchments, spiked the cannon, burnt a town, and retreated to their ships—carrying off 3000 negroes, and much indigo and merchandise. The island was saved by the fact of the inhabitants of one corner having fortified all their houses, and turned each into an inaccessible and unscalable fort. In the attack of one of these alone Captain Le Sage and fifty men were killed. The English say that there were 7000 fugitive negroes in the mountains, anxious to join the French, and to escape to St. Domingo, but the French, taking them for enemies, fled at their approach.

Afraid of retaliation, Hispaniola now prepared for defence. Le Sieur de Graff commanded at Cape François, and was to lay ambuscades and throw up intrenchments, and dispute every inch with the Spaniards or the English. If the enemy was too strong he was ordered to spike his cannon, blow up his powder, and fall back to Port de Paix. In 1695 the Spaniards and English landed with 6000 men. Contrary to all expectation, De130 Graff, perhaps too old for service, wasted eight days in reconnoitring, and abandoned post after post. His men lost all courage when they saw his irresolution. His lieutenant, Le Chevalier de Leon, also deserted his guns without a blow, De Graff merely remarking that it was only twenty-eight cannon lost. A succession of disasters followed, and nothing but climate and the quarrels of the allies saved the desolated colony.

In 1686, De Graff was made major in the French army, and henceforward fought with more or less fidelity for the country that had ennobled him. Not long after this event, the termination of all his glory, being a widower, he married Anne Dieu le Veut, a French lady of indomitable spirit. She was one of those French women brought over by the governor, M. D'Ogeron, to marry to the hunters of Hispaniola. "They grew," says Charlevoix, "perfect Atalantas, and joined in the chase, using the musket and sabre with the best." From such Amazonian mould came some of the Buccaneer chiefs. One day before her marriage, this heroine having131 received some insult from her husband, drew out a pistol and forced him to unsay what he had uttered. Full of admiration at her courage, and thinking such an Amazon worthy of a hero's bed, he married her. Both she and her children were taken prisoners by the English, and not released for a long time after the peace. De Graff's first wife was Petroline de Guzman, a Spanish lady.

At the time De Graff's brevet arrived, he was on a reef near Carthagena, having been wrecked while pursuing a bark in a vessel of forty-eight guns and 400 men. With his canoe the wrecked men took the ship, and landing in Darien, lost twenty-five adventurers in an Indian ambuscade. His two prizes he sent to St. Domingo, but his crew obliged him to continue privateering till the letters from De Cussy recalled him. One of the chief reasons why this honour had been bestowed on him was, that, by his great credit with the adventurers, he might draw them to settle on land.

About this time, the Spaniards surprised Petit Guaves, and war commenced. Only the132 year before, the same nation had seized Breac, the Flibustier captain, and hung him, with nine or ten of his men. Soon after this, a Spanish officer, whom De Graff, now commandant at the Isle à la Vache, had delivered from some English corsairs, informed him that a Spanish galleon full of treasure was lying wrecked at the Seranillas Islands, but this prize he was obliged to relinquish to the English.

De Graff now became remarkable for his firmness and justice. He encouraged colonization, settled differences between English and French Buccaneers, and prohibited all privateering. His name was still so terrible, that on one occasion 2000 Spaniards attacking Hispaniola retreated when they heard that the old chief commanded the militia of the island.

The Flibustiers were found bad colonists: the French could manage to keep them at a fortified post when a Spanish invasion was expected, but the instant the enemy retreated, the sea grew dark with Buccaneer vessels, eager for prizes. Indocile and desperate,133 they seduced all the youth of Hispaniola from their plantations. At one time the French governor seems to have resolved on their total destruction, but their usefulness as light troops saved them. The descents on Jamaica in search of slaves by the French Buccaneers grew soon so numerous, that the English island became known as "little Guinea."

In 1692, a French adventurer named Daviot, with 290 men, landed and pillaged the north of Jamaica. His vessel being driven out to sea by a storm, his men were compelled to remain fifteen days exposed to incessant attacks from their enemies. While waiting for the vessel's return, the dreadful earthquake happened that swallowed 11,000 souls, and destroyed Port Royal. The Flibustiers, alarmed at the rocking of the earth, embarked 115 sailors and forty prisoners in canoes, but the sea was as convulsed as the land, and they lost all but sixty men, and were driven again on shore. Attacked when he again put out to sea by two English vessels, Daviot beat them off with a loss of134 seventy-six men, only two of his own being killed. Boarded by the English a second time, his vessel blew up, and he surrendered with twenty-one of his crew. Soon after this, three French vessels, manned with Buccaneers, took an English guarda costa of forty guns, killing eighteen men.

In 1694, De Graff commanded in a Buccaneer invasion of Jamaica, sailing to that island with fourteen vessels and 550 men. He forced the English intrenchments in spite of 1400 musketeers and twelve guns, slew 360 of the defenders, and captured nine ships, losing himself only twenty-two men. He then drove off 260 troopers from Spanish Town, after two hours' combat. The next day De Graff despatched troops to carry off cattle.

In 1696, a process was instituted against De Graff, whom M. Du Casse suspected of intrigues with Spain. The evidence, M. Charlevoix thinks, showed only his extreme fear of falling into the hands of the enemy. It is certain that the Spanish had offered to make him a vice-admiral, but he would not135 trust their sincerity. The English despised him for this supposed treachery, and when he proposed to the governor of Jamaica to retreat to that island, if he could give him employment, the governor replied, that he had already betrayed three nations, and would not stick at betraying a fourth.

The Spaniards regarded him with fear till his death, and never forgave him the injury he had done them. "During the next war between France and Spain," says Charlevoix, "the Marquis of Cöelogon arriving at Havannah with a French squadron that he commanded in the Mexican Gulf, having De Graff on board, all the town ran to the shore at the news, to see the famous Lorençillo that had so long been the terror of the West Indies, but the Marquis would not let him land for fear of danger."

Deprived of his command, De Graff was appointed captain of a light frigate. This situation suited him better than land service, for which he showed no genius, and he was frequently employed on board the French squadrons, no man knowing better the navigation136 of the North Pacific. Of his death we know nothing, but it is supposed he lived to a good age.

One of the most important enterprises ever attempted by the French Buccaneers, in conjunction with the French government, was the capture of Carthagena in 1697. The fleet of M. de Poincy consisted of eighteen vessels, besides ten Flibustier craft, carrying 700 adventurers, in addition to his own 4658 men and two companies of negroes. The Buccaneer captains were Montjoy, Godefroy, Blanc, Galet, Pierre, Pays, Sales, Macary, and Colong. Their vessels were named Le Pontchartrain, La Ville de Glamma, La Serpente, La Gracieuse, La Pembrock, Le Cerf Volant, La Mutine, Le Brigantin, Le Jersé, and L'Anglais. The whole force mustered 6500 men. The adventurers at first refused to embark till a fit share of the booty was promised to them, being accustomed to be deprived of their rights by the French officers. Enraged at not being treated as equals, and finding one of their men imprisoned at Petit Guaves, they invested the fort, and were only appeased137 by ready concessions. The first scheme of the expedition was to seek the galleons; but this was abandoned, though it appeared afterwards that at that very time they were lying at Porto Bello richer than they had been for fifty years, and laden with 50,000,000 crowns. The second plan was to attack Vera Cruz, and the last to sail to Carthagena.

That most graphic and vigorous of writers, Michael Scott, describes Carthagena as situated on a group of sandy islands, surrounded by shallow water. A little behind the town, on a gentle acclivity, is the citadel of Fort St. Felipe, and on the ship-like hill beyond it the convent of the Popa, projecting like a poop-lantern in the high stern of a ship.

Arrived at that city, the French galliot bombarded the whole night; and as this was the first bomb ship ever seen in the West Indies, the splintering of shells produced a great terror in the citizens. Two days after the fleet anchored before Bocca Chica. This fort contained thirty-three guns; had four bastions, and was defended by a dry fosse cut in the rocks. The ramparts138 were bomb proof and the walls shot proof. Under the fire of the St. Louis, the galliot, and two bomb vessels, the troops landed and advanced without opposition within a quarter of a league of the fort. By the advice of the Buccaneers, accustomed to such marches, 3000 men crossed through a wood by a path so difficult that only one man could pass at a time, and, unobserved, took possession of the road leading from Carthagena to the fort, fortifying themselves on both sides, and cutting off the communication between the fort and the city, taking some negroes prisoners, and losing a few men from the shots of the enemy.

The next morning, at daybreak, the adventurers, finding some boats on the beach, pursued and captured a Spanish piragua containing several monks of high rank. One of the priests in vain was sent with a flag of truce and a drummer and trumpeter to summon the governor to surrender. The negroes clearing the road, a battery of guns and mortars opened upon the fort, and the Buccaneer sharp-shooters shot down the enemy's139 gunners, driving back some half galleys that attempted to bring reinforcements. The Buccaneers, pursuing the boats, found shelter under the covered way, and killed every man who showed himself on the batteries of the fort. The governor, who saw the adventurers rushing, as he thought, madly to destruction, began to lament that he had employed such people. Warned that if left alone "the brothers" would give a good account of the place, he scornfully laughed and ordered up reinforcements. Thinking the Flibustiers had only run under the covered way for shelter, he pursued a few who really did turn tail with his cane, and attempted in vain to drive them to the assault. By this time the freebooters had won the drawbridge, and, displaying their colours on the edge of the ditch, demanded means for the escalade. Thirty ladders were placed, and the assault had already commenced, when the Spaniards hung out the white flag, and, shouting "Viva el rey!" flung their arms and hats into the ditch. The gate being opened, 100 of the garrison were confined in the chapel; 200140 others were found wounded. The governor, handing the keys of the fortress to M. de Poincy, said: "I deliver into your hands the keys of all the Spanish Indies." About forty adventurers were killed, and as many wounded, in this attack.

The next day the fleet entered the harbour, and the Spaniards burned all their vessels to prevent capture. The governor still refusing to surrender, saying he wanted neither men, arms, nor courage, the adventurers embarked to attack the convent of Nuestra Senhora de la Popa, and to occupy the heights. M. du Casse being wounded in the thigh, the Flibustiers refused to march under the command of M. Galifet, to whom they had a dislike; and on his striking one of them, the man took him by the cravat. The mutineer was instantly tied to a tree and sentenced to be shot, but pardoned at M. Galifet's intercession. M. de Poincy, going on board Captain Pierre's ship, seized him and ordered him to execution, and the revolt then ceased, De Poincy threatening to decimate them on the next outbreak.

The convent stood on a mountain shaped like the poop of a ship, about a gunshot from Carthagena. It had been abandoned by the monks, who had stripped it of every valuable.

The army then marched by sunset to the fort Santa Cruz, suffering much from thirst. The fort mounted sixty guns, was surrounded by a wet ditch, and on the land side accessible only through a morass, but it surrendered without firing a shot. The adventurers then pushed on to within a gunshot of Fort St. Lazarus, which commanded the suburbs on the other side of the city. The French defiled round the fort, while some of their grenadiers carried on a pretended conference with the fort. The next day roads were cut through a hill, and the army were placed within pistol shot of the walls, concealed by an eminence that covered them from the enemy's fire. The Spaniards, losing their commander, abandoned the place in disorder, and their fort, St. Lazarus, being within musket shot of Gezemanie (the suburbs), they opened a fire of ten guns upon the captured batteries, the Buccaneer musketry clearing the142 streets. Thirty men were killed in trying to turn a chapel into a redoubt, and the camp removed behind St. Lazarus, De Poincy having been wounded in the breast.

The three next days several breaching batteries were completed, and the galliot and mortars bombarded the city all night. In three days more, the breach was pronounced practicable, and the storming commenced. M. du Casse, although wounded, led the grenadiers, and M. Macharais the adventurers, who set the army an example of daring. Planks were laid over the broken drawbridge, and the troops passed over, under a tremendous fire from the bastion of St. Catherine, one man only being able to cross at a time. The breach and batteries were lined with Spanish lancers, who flung their spears, nine feet long, a distance of twelve or fifteen yards. The French had 250 men killed and wounded, and many officers fell. Vice-admiral the Count de Cöetlogon was mortally hurt; the commander-in-chief's nephew, le Chevalier de Poincy, a young midshipman,143 had his knee broken, and many were wounded in pursuing the Spaniards to the city.

The French gave no quarter, putting to the sword 200 Spaniards who had thrown themselves into a church. The governor, who had ordered his servants to carry him in his easy chair to the breach to animate his men, fled into Carthagena. The army now advanced to the bridge which led from Gezemanie to the city, and repulsed two sorties of the enemy.

The French threw up intrenchments and erected batteries to breach the walls. Two days were spent in these preparations and in dressing the wounded. There were still great difficulties to encounter. Armies of Indians were approaching. The Spanish garrison had six months' provision and eighty guns mounted on their ramparts. The next day, Carthagena, terrified at the fate of Gezemanie, surrendered. The conditions were, that the churches should not be plundered, that those who chose might leave the city unmolested, and that the inhabitants should144 surrender half their money on pain of losing all. The governor and troops were to depart with the honours of war. The merchants were to surrender their account books to the French commander. The adventurers instantly occupied the bastions and gate, and the other troops seized the ramparts. The governor, having marched out with 700 men, M. de Poincy proceeded to the cathedral to hear the Te Deum, and then repaired to his lodgings at the house where the royal treasure was deposited.

At first the soldiers and sailors were forbidden to enter any house on pain of death, and the admiral's carpenter being caught plundering, and confessing his guilt, had his head cut off on the spot. But a change soon took place. The governor, assembling the heads of religious houses, informed them that the treaty did not spare any convent that had money. Many days were spent in receiving and weighing the crowns. De Poincy declared, that before his arrival the monks had fled with 120 mules laden with gold, and he had obtained barely nine million pieces.145 Other accounts say he obtained forty million livres, i.e., twenty millions without including merchandise. Every officer had 100,000 crowns, besides his general share of the spoil, before he allowed his soldiers to enter a house. Charlevoix confesses, that the honour the French won by their bravery they lost by their cruelty. The capitulation was broken, churches were profaned, church plate stolen, images broken, virgins violated on the very altars, the monks tortured, and the sick in the hospitals left to starve, or resort to the horrors of cannibalism. Notwithstanding the inhabitants brought in their money, some to the amount of 400,000 dollars, a general search was made throughout the town, and much gold found. A few of the inhabitants hired guards of adventurers, but, in general, these men also turned plunderers, the officers only attempting to keep up appearances.

Anxious to get the adventurers out of the way while he collected the spoil, De Poincy spread a report that 10,000 Indians were approaching, and sent the Flibustiers to146 drive them back. After plundering the country for four leagues, they returned with fifty prisoners, a drove of cattle, and 4000 crowns. During the siege, they had been employed in skirmishing, cutting off supplies, and foraging, and were accustomed to laugh at the sailors, who dragged the guns and called them "white negroes."

Disease breaking out, and carrying off 800 men in six weeks, De Poincy embarked his plunder, and prepared to sail. Eighty-six guns he carried off, and destroyed St. Lazarus and Bocca Chica. The Buccaneers, calling out loudly for their share, received only 40,000 crowns. The men instantly shouted—"Brothers, we do wrong to take anything of this dog, our share is left at Carthagena." This proposal was received with a ferocious gaiety, and they all swore never to return to St. Domingo. They derided M. du Casse's promises to get them justice from the French king, and fired at those vessels that would not follow them. The people of Carthagena shuddered to see them return. Shutting up all the men in the147 cathedral, they promised to depart on receiving five millions as a ransom. In one day a million crowns were brought, but, this being still inadequate, they broke open the very tombs, and goaded the citizens to the torture, firing off guns, and pretending to put men to death in the neighbouring rooms. Two men, guilty of cruelty, their leaders hanged. Each man received about 1,000 crowns; and having spent four days in collecting and dividing the gold and silver, they appointed the Isle à la Vache as a rendezvous to divide the slaves and merchandise.

The retribution was at hand. They had not sailed thirty leagues when they fell in with the combined English and Dutch fleets. Le Christ, with 250 men, and more than a million crowns, was taken by the Dutch, Le Cerf Volant by the English, a third was driven on shore and burnt near St. Domingo, a fourth, running on land near Carthagena, was taken, and her crew employed in rebuilding the fortifications they had destroyed. Of De Poincy's plunder, 120,000 livres were148 carried off by an English foray on Petit Guaves. Admiral Neville, who failed to overtake the French deep-laden and weakly manned fleet, died of a broken heart at Virginia.

Du Casse was rewarded with the cross of St. Louis for his services, and orders arrived from France to distribute 1,400,000 of De Poincy's spoil among the freebooters, very little of which, however, reached them. A curse, says Charlevoix, rested on the whole enterprise.

In 1698, a French fleet, under the command of Count d'Estrees, on its way to attack the Dutch island of Curaçoa, was lost on the Aves Islands, a small cluster of rocks surrounded by breakers. Attracted by the distress-guns fired by the first ship that ran aground, its companions, believing that it had been attacked by the enemy, hurried pell-mell to its assistance, and, blinded by the fog, ran one by one on destruction. Eighteen of them were lost. Of this disaster, Dampier, who visited the island about a year afterwards, gives a very interesting149 account. The Buccaneer part of the crew (for the Buccaneers took an active part in these wars), quite accustomed to such chances, scrambled to shore, and proceeded to save all they could from the wreck; but a few of them, breaking into the stores of a stranded vessel, floated with her out to sea, drinking and cursing on the poop, and holding up their flasks, shouting and laughing to the drowning men around them. Every soul of them perished.

Several Flibustier vessels were lost at the same time, about 800 Buccaneers having joined the expedition at Tortuga. About 300 of these perished with the wrecks. Dampier describes the islands as strewn with shreds of sail, broken spars, masts, and rigging. For some years, in consequence, the Aves became the resort of Buccaneer captains, who careened and refitted here, employing their crews in diving for plate, and in attempts to recover guns and anchors.

To console themselves for this failure, M. de Poincy led 800 Buccaneers to attack Santiago, first touching at Tortuga for reinforcements.150 They landed unseen, taking advantage of a bright moonlight night. The vanguard wound their way round the base of a mountain that barred their approach to the town, and, instead of advancing, worked round till they met their rearguard, whom they mistook for the enemy, and furiously attacked. They discovered their mistake at last by their mutual cries of "Tue, tue." But it was now late; all hopes of surprise were over; the Spaniards, alarmed, put themselves on their defence, and at daybreak drove back the freebooters to their ships with an irresistible force of 4000 men. Another party, more successful, plundered Port au Prince, St. Thomas's, and Truxillo on the mainland.

Grammont, during this time, had been left behind on the Aves Islands, to collect all that was valuable from the wreck, and to careen the surviving vessels. Having completed this, and finding himself short of provisions, and the season being favourable for an excursion to the Gulf of Venezuela, Grammont decided upon a visit to Maracaibo.151 Arriving at the fort of the bar, mounted with twelve guns and garrisoned by seventy men, he commenced an attack. The French had opened a trench, had already pushed it within cannon shot, and were preparing the ladders to scale, when the governor surrendered on condition of obtaining the honours of war. Passing on to the town, Grammont found it abandoned. Gibraltar also made little resistance. From the lake he carried off three vessels, and also took a prize of value, cannonading it with his guns, and at the same time boarding it with a swarm of canoes. Being now master of the whole lake, he visited all the places where his prisoners told him he was likely to find gold hidden, defeating the Spaniards wherever he met them.

Then, collecting all his scattered plunderers, Grammont prepared to attack Torilla, making a detour of forty-five leagues in order to take it by surprise. Arriving near the town, the Buccaneers came to the banks of a rapid river, with only one ford, which they had the good fortune to find, crossing152 over under shelter of a hot fire that the rearguard kept up upon the Spaniards, who lay intrenched upon the opposite bank. The moment they had crossed, their enemies fled, and Torilla was their own. The prize, however, proved not worth the winning, for the town was abandoned, and the treasure hid. The Buccaneer rule, indeed, was that no place was worth sacking which was taken without a blow, as the Spaniards always fought best when they had most to fight for. The Buccaneers departed with little booty; their 700 men having taken three towns, and conquered a province, with the loss of only seventy men, and these chiefly by illness.

In 1680 Grammont made another expedition to the coast of Cumana. Having collected twenty-five piraguas, he ascertained from some prisoners that there were three armed vessels anchored under the forts of Gonaire, and these he determined to cut out. He embarked all his 180 men in a single bark, and left orders for the others to sail up to Gonaire at a given signal. He landed with a few men at night, and surprised four watchmen,153 who, however, had still time left to fire, and alarm the town, before they could be overpowered. Gonaire leaped instantly from its sleep. The bells rang backward; the guns fired; the musketeers hurried to the market-place; doors were barred; and the women and children fled in tears to the altars. Grammont, doubling his speed, arrived at the east gate, his drums beating, trumpets sounding, and colours flying. Although it was defended by twelve guns, he took it with the hot fierceness of a Cæsar, pushed on at once to a fort about a hundred yards distant, and commenced a vigorous attack. At the head of his crew he entered the embrasures, killing twenty-six out of its thirty-eight defenders. Planting his colours on the wall, the men shouted "Vive le Roi!" with such unanimity and fierceness that at the very sound the whole garrison of the neighbouring fort at once surrendered, and forty-two men instantly laid down their arms. These successes were obtained with only forty-seven men—a mere handful being able to keep up in the rapid and headlong charge.154 Grammont, rallying his men, then placed garrisons in the forts, razed the embrasures, spiked the cannon, and then proceeded to intrench himself in a strong position. The next day he entered the town, making several vigorous sorties on the enemy, who now began to gather in round him on all sides. Being informed that 2000 men were advancing to meet him from Caragua, he gave orders for embarkation, the Buccaneers seldom fighting when no booty was to be obtained. Remaining last upon the shore to cover the retreat of his men, withstanding for nearly twenty-four hours the onslaught of 300 Spaniards, he was at last dangerously wounded in the throat, and one of his officers had his shoulder broken.

Grammont took with him the Governor of Gonaire, and 150 other prisoners, the usual resource of the Buccaneers when a town either furnished no booty, or gave them no time to collect it. This daring enterprise was achieved with the loss of only eight men. On his way home to be cured of a wound which his vexation and impatience155 had rendered dangerous, he was wrecked near Petit Guaves, and his own vessel and his prize both lost.

About the next adventure of this chivalrous corsair some doubts are thrown, although it is related boastingly by Charlevoix, who says: "He then took an English vessel of thirty guns, which had defied the Governor of Tortuga, and beaten off a Buccaneer bark. This ship, armed with fifty guns, and navigated by a crew of 300 men, Grammont is reported to have boarded, killing every Englishman on board but the captain, whom he reserved to carry in triumph to shore."

Grammont was born in Paris of a good family. His mother being left a widow, her daughter was courted by an officer who treated Grammont, then a student, as a rude boy. They fought, and the lover received three mortal stabs. Obtaining the dying man's pardon, the young duellist entered the marines, eventually commanded a privateer frigate, and took, near Martinique, a Dutch flute, containing 400,000 livres. Having spent all this in gaiety at St. Domingo,156 the young captain turned Buccaneer. Charlevoix notices his manners and address, which were as fascinating as those of De Graff. The writer describes "Sa bonne grâce, ses manières honnêtes, et je ne sçais quoi d'aimable qui gagnoit les cœurs."

We have described already his surprise of Maracaibo, and his expedition to Vera Cruz. His expedition to Campeachy was against the wish of the French Governor of St. Domingo. On their way home he quarrelled and separated from De Graff. "With all the talent that can raise man to command, he had," says Charlevoix, "all the vices of a corsair. He drank hard, and abandoned himself to debauchery, with a total disregard of religion."

In 1686 Grammont, at the recommendation of M. de Cussy, Governor of St. Domingo, was made Lieutenant de Roi, Cussy intending to make him Protector of the south coast. But Grammont, elated at his new title, and anxious to show that he deserved it, armed a ship, manned by 180 Buccaneers, to make a last cruise against the Spaniards, and was heard of no more.

CHAPTER III.
FALL OF THE FLOATING EMPIRE.

The English were the first to attempt to put down Buccaneering, but the last to succeed in doing it. When the freebooters had served their purpose, the English government would have thrown them by as a soldier would his broken sword. In 1655, after Morgan returned from Panama, Lord John Vaughan, the new governor of Jamaica, had strict orders to enforce the treaty concluded with Spain in the previous year, but to proclaim pardon, indemnity, and grants of land to all Buccaneers who would turn planters. By royal158 proclamation, all cruising against Spain was forbidden under severe penalties. To avoid this irksome imprisonment to a plot of sugar canes, many of the English freebooters joined their brethren at Tortuga, or turned cow-killers and logwood cutters in the Bay of Campeachy. In the next year the war broke out between England and Holland, and many fitted out privateers.

The unwise restrictions of France, and home interference with colonial administration, once more fostered "the people of the coast." Annoying prohibitions and vexatious monopolies drove the planters to sea.

In 1690 a royal proclamation granted pardon to all English Buccaneers who should surrender themselves. The French Flibustiers continued to flourish during the war which followed the accession of William III. to the throne of England.

In 1698 the knell of the brotherhood was finally rung by the joy bells that announced the peace of Ryswick. The English and Dutch made great complaints to the Governor of St. Domingo of the French Flibustiers, and159 demanded compensation, which was granted. A colony was established at the Isle à la Vache in hopes of carrying on a trade with New Spain, by orders of the French king the church plate brought from Carthagena was returned, and Buccaneering prohibited.

The government advised that force should be resorted to to induce those Flibustiers to turn planters who were not willing to avail themselves of the amnesty. Those who had settled in Jamaica, seeing in 1702 a new war likely to break out between England and France, and determined not to take arms against their own country, passed over to the mainland, and settled in Bocca Toro. As soon as the war broke out, however, a great many French Buccaneers, persecuted at St. Domingo, joined the English under Benbow. In 1704, M. Auger, a new governor, coming to St. Domingo, and seeing the false step his predecessors had taken, recalled the Flibustiers, and made peace with the Bocca Toro Indians. M. d'Herville led 1500 of them to the Havannah, and died there. He held the Buccaneers of Hispaniola far beyond those of160 Martinique, and, had he lived, would have united them all under his flag.

In 1707 Le Comte de Choiseul Beaupré, the new governor, attempted to revive Buccaneering as the only hope of saving French commerce in the Indies, the English privateers carrying off every merchant ship that approached the shores of St. Domingo. The French government approved of all his plans, and gave him unlimited power to carry them out. He issued an amnesty to all Flibustiers who had settled among the Indians of Sambres and Bocca Toro. The greater part of those who had joined the English returned; and those who had joined in the last expedition against Carthagena received their pay. The Brothers were restored to all their ancient privileges. The Count intended to guard the coast with frigates while his smaller vessels harassed Jamaica, but in the midst of these immature projects he was killed, in 1710, in a sea engagement.

The Buccaneers, gathered from every part, now turned planters. Thus, says Charlevoix, ended the "Flibuste de Saint Domingue," which only required discipline and leaders of161 ambition to have conquered both North and South America. Undisciplined and tumultuous as it has been, without order, plan, forethought, or subordination, it has still been the astonishment of the whole world, and has done deeds which posterity will not believe.

Attachment to old habits and difficulty in finding employment made many turn pirates. Proscribed now by all nations, with no excuse for plunder, and with no safe place of refuge, they sailed over the world, enemies to all they met. Many frequented the Guinea coast, others cruised off the coast of India, and New Providence island, one of the Bahama group, was now the only sanctuary. Here the memorable Blackbeard, Martel, and his associates, were at last hunted down, about 1717.

The last achievement related of the Flibustiers is in 1702, when a party of Englishmen having a commission from the Governor of Jamaica, landed on the Isthmus of Darien, near the Samballas isles, and were joined by some old Flibustiers who had settled there, and 300 friendly Indians. With these allies162 they marched to the mines, drove out the Spaniards according to Dampier's plan, and took seventy negroes. They kept these slaves at work twenty-one days, but obtained, after all, only eighty pounds' weight of gold.

CHAPTER IV.
THE PIRATES OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND THE KINGS OF MADAGASCAR.

The last refugee Buccaneers turned pirates, and settled in the island of New Providence.

The African coast, and not the main, was now their cruising ground, and Madagascar was their new Tortuga. They no longer warred merely against the Spaniard—their hands were raised against the world. Their cruelty was no longer the cruelty of retaliation,164 but arose from a thirst of blood, never to be slaked, and still unquenchable. There was no longer honour among the bands, and they grew as cowardly as they were ferocious. Flocks of trading vessels were scuttled, but no town attacked. We waste time even to detail their guilt, and only append the terrible catalogue as a finis to our narrative.

The following articles, signed by Roberts's crew, may furnish a fair example of the ordinary rules drawn up by pirate captains:—

"Every man has a vote in affairs of moment, and an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized; which he may use at pleasure, unless a scarcity make it necessary for the good of all to vote a retrenchment.

"Every man shall be called fairly in turn by list on board the prizes, and, over and above their proper share, shall be allowed a change of clothes. Any man who defrauds the company to the value of a dollar in plate, jewels, or money, shall be165 marooned. If the robbery is by a messmate, the thief shall have his ears and nose slit, and be set on shore at the place the ship touches at.

"The lights and candles to be put out at eight o'clock at night. If any of the crew, after that hour, still remain inclined for drinking, they are to do it on the open deck.

"Every man shall keep his piece, pistols, and cutlass clean, and fit for service.

"No woman to be allowed on board. Any man who seduces a woman, and brings her to sea disguised, shall suffer death.

"Any one deserting the ship, or leaving his quarters during an engagement, shall be either marooned or put to death.

"No man shall strike another on board, but the disputants shall settle their quarrel on shore with sword or pistol.

"No man shall talk of breaking up the company till we get each £100. Every man166 losing a limb, or becoming a cripple in the service, shall have 800 dollars, and for lesser hurts proportional recompence.

"The captain and quartermaster shall receive two shares of every prize. The master, boatswain, and gunner one share and a-half, and all other officers one and a-quarter.

"The musicians to rest on Sundays, but on no other days without special favour."

"He that shall be found guilty of taking up any unlawful weapon on board a prize so as to strike a comrade, shall be tried by the captain and company, and receive due punishment.

"If any gold, jewels, or silver, to the value of a piece of eight, be found on board a prize, and the finder do not deliver it to the quartermaster within twenty-four hours, he shall be put to his trial.

"Any one found guilty of defrauding167 another to the value of a shilling, shall be tried.

"He that sees a sail first, to have the best pistols or small arms on board of her."

One of the most cruel of their punishments was "sweating," an ingenuity probably invented by the London rakes and "scourers" of Charles the Second's reign. They first stuck up lighted candles circularly round the mizenmast, between decks, and within this circle admitted the prisoners one by one. Outside the candles stood the pirates armed with penknives, tucks, forks, and compasses, and the musicians playing a lively dance, they drove the prisoner round, pricking him as he passed. This could seldom be borne more than ten minutes, at the end of which time the wretch, maddened with fear and pain, generally fell senseless.

Their diversions were as strange as their cruelties. On one occasion some pirates captured a ship laden with horses, going from Rhode Island to St. Christopher's. The168 sailors mounted these beasts, and rode them backwards and forwards, full gallop, along the decks, cursing and shouting till the animals grew maddened. When two or three of these rough riders were thrown, they leaped up and fell on the crew with their sabres, declaring that they would kill them for not bringing boots and spurs, without which no man could ride.

In dress the pirates were fantastic and extravagant. Their favourite ornament was a broad sash slung across the breast and fastened on the shoulder and hip with coloured ribbons. In this they slung three and four pairs of pistols, for which, at the sales at the mast, they would often give £40 a-pair. Gold-laced cocked hats were conspicuous features of their costume.

For small offences, too insignificant for a jury, the quartermaster was the arbitrator. If they disobeyed his command, except in time of battle, when the captain was supreme, were quarrelsome or mutinous, misused prisoners, or plundered when plundering should cease, or were negligent of169 their arms, as the master he might cudgel or whip them. He was, in fact, the manager of all duels, and the trustee of the whole company, returning to the owners what he chose (except gold and silver), and confiscating whatever he thought advisable. The quartermaster was, in fact, their magistrate, the captain their king.

The captain had always the great cabin to himself, and was often voted parcels of plate and china. Any sailor, however, might use his punch-bowl, enter his room, swear at him, and seize his food, without his daring to find fault, or contest his rights. The captain was generally chosen for being "pistol proof," and in some cases had as privy council a certain number of the elder sailors, who were called "lords."

The captain's power was uncontrollable in time of chase or battle: he might then strike, stab, or shoot anybody who disobeyed his orders. The fate of the prisoner depended much upon the captain, who was oftener inclined to mercy than his crew.

Their flags were generally intended to170 strike terror. Roberts's was a black silk flag, with a white skeleton upon it, with an hour-glass in one hand, and cross-bones in the other, underneath a dart, and a heart dripping blood. The pennon bore a man with a flaming sword in one hand, standing on two skulls, one inscribed A.B.H. (a Barbadian's head), and the other, A.M.H. (a Martiniquian's head).

Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard, was born in Bristol, and at a seaport town all daring youths turn sailors. He soon became distinguished for daring and courage, but did not obtain any command till 1716, when a Captain Benjamin Hornigold gave him the command of a sloop, and became his partner in piracy, till he surrendered.

In the spring of 1717, the pair sailed from their haunt in New Providence towards the Spanish main, and taking by the way a shallop from the Havannah, laden with flour, supplied their own vessels. From a ship of Bermuda they obtained wine, and from a craft of Madeira they got considerable plunder.

Careening on the Virginian coast, they171 returned to the West Indies, and capturing a large French Guinea-man, bound for Martinique, Teach went aboard as captain, and started for a cruise. Hornigold, returning to New Providence, surrendered to proclamation, and gave himself up to Governor Rogers.

Blackbeard had in the mean time mounted his prize with forty guns, and christened her the Queen Anne's Revenge. Cruising off St. Vincent, he captured the Great Allan, and having plundered her, and set the men on shore, fired the ship, and let her drift to sea.

A few days after, Teach was attacked by the Scarborough man-of-war, who, finding him well manned, retired to Barbadoes, after a cannonade of some hours. On his way to the mainland, Teach was joined by Major Bonnet, a gentleman planter, turned pirate, who joined with him, commanding a sloop of ten guns. Finding he knew nothing of naval affairs, Teach soon deposed him, and took him on board his own ship, on pretext of relieving him from the fatigues and cares of such a post, wishing him, as he said, to live easy and do no duty.

While taking in water near the Bay of Honduras, they surprised a sloop from Jamaica, which surrendered without a blow, striking sail at the first terror of the black flag. The men they took on board Teach's vessel, and manned it for their own use.

At Honduras they found a ship and four sloops, some from Jamaica, and some from Boston. The Americans deserted one vessel, and escaped on shore, and the pirates burnt it in revenge. The other vessel they also burnt, because some pirate had been lately hung at Boston. The three sloops they allowed to depart.

Taking turtles at the Grand Caiman's islands, they sailed to the Havannah, and from the Bahamas went to Carolina, capturing a brigantine and two sloops. For six days they lay off the bar of Charlestown, taking many vessels, and a brigantine laden with negroes. The people of Carolina, who had not long before been visited by the pirate Vane, were dumb with terror. No vessel dared put out, and the trade of the place stood still. To add to these misfortunes, a173 long and expensive war with the natives, only just concluded, had much impoverished the colony.

Teach detained all the ships and prisoners, and being in want of medicines, sent a boat's crew of men ashore, with one of the prisoners, to ask the governor to supply him with the drugs. The pirates were insolent in their demands, and, swearing horribly, vowed, if any violence was offered to them, that their captain would murder all the prisoners, send their heads to the governor, and then fire the vessels and slip cable. These rude ambassadors swaggered through the streets, insulting the inhabitants, who longed to seize them, but dared not, for fear of endangering the town. The governor did not deliberate long, for one of his brother magistrates was in the murderer's hands, and at once sent on board a chest, worth about £400, which the pirates returned with in triumph. Blackbeard then released the prisoners, having first taken about £1500 out of the ships, besides provisions.

From the bar of Charlestown the kingly174 villains sailed to North Carolina, where Teach broke up the partnership, objecting to any division of money, preferring all the risk and all the profit. Running into an inlet to clean, he purposely grounded his ship, and Hands, another captain, coming to his assistance, ran ashore by his side. He then with forty men took possession of the third vessel, and marooned seventeen other men upon a sandy island, about a league from the main, where neither herb grew nor bird visited. Here they would have perished, had not Major Bonnet taken them off two days after.

Teach then surrendered himself, with twenty of his men, to the Governor of North Carolina, and received certificates and pardons from him, having soon crept into his favour. Through the governor's permission, the Queen Anne's Revenge, though avowedly the property of English merchants, was forfeited by an Admiralty Court, as a Spaniard, and declared the property of Teach. Before setting out again to sea Blackbeard married his fourteenth wife, twelve more being still alive.175 The governor, who seems to have been half a pirate, and wholly a rogue, performed the ceremony.

In June, 1718, he steered towards Bermudas, and meeting several English vessels, plundered them of provisions. He also captured two French vessels, one of which was loaded with sugar and cocoa, and bound to Martinico. The loaded vessel he brought home, and the governor, calling a court, condemned it as a derelict, and divided the plunder with Teach, receiving sixty hogsheads of sugar as his dividend, and his secretary twenty. For fear the vessel might still be claimed, Teach declared it was leaky, and burnt her to the water's edge.

He now spent three or four months in the river, lying at anchor in the coves, or sailing from inlet to inlet, bartering his plunder with any ship he met, giving presents to the friendly, and ransacking those who resisted. His nights he spent in revelries with the planters, to whom he made presents of rum and sugar, sometimes, when he grew moody, laying them under contribution, and even176 bullying his confederate, the villainous governor.

The plundered sloops, finding no justice could be obtained in Carolina, determined with great secresy to send a deputation to the Governor of Virginia, and to solicit a man-of-war to destroy the pirates.

The governor instantly complied with their request. The next Sunday a proclamation was read in every church and chapel in Virginia, and by the sheriffs at their country houses. For Blackbeard's head £100 was offered, if brought in within the year, for his lieutenant's £20, for inferior officers £10, and for the common sailors £10. The Pearl and Lime, men-of-war, lying in St. James's river, manned a couple of small sloops, supplied by the governor. They had no guns mounted, but were well supplied with small arms and ammunition. The command was given to Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of the Pearl, a man of courage and resolution.

On the 7th of November the Lieutenant sailed from Picquetan, and on the evening of the 21st reached the mouth of the Ollereco177 inlet, and sighted the pirates. Great secresy was observed: all boats and vessels met going up the river were stopped to prevent Blackbeard knowing of their approach. But the governor contrived to put him on his guard, and sent back four of his men, whom he found lounging about the town.

Blackbeard, frequently alarmed by such reports, gave no credit to the messenger, till he saw the sloops. He instantly cleared his decks, having only twenty-five of his forty men on board. Having prepared for battle with all the coolness of an old desperado, he spent the night in drinking with the master of a trading sloop, who seemed to be in his pay.

Maynard, finding the place shoal and the channel intricate, dropped anchor, knowing there was no reaching the pirate that night. The next morning early he weighed, sent his boat ahead to sound, and, coming within gunshot of Teach, received his fire. The lieutenant then, boldly hoisting the king's colours, made at him with all speed of sail and oar, part of his men keeping up a discharge of small arms. Teach then cut178 cable and made a running fight, discharging his big guns. In a little time the pirate ran aground, and the royal vessel drawing more water anchored within half a gunshot. The lieutenant then threw his ballast overboard, staved all his water, and then weighed and stood in for the enemy.

Blackbeard, loudly cursing, hailed him. "D—— you villains, who are you? From whence come you?" The lieutenant replied, "You see by our colours we are no pirates." Teach bade him send a boat on board that he might know who he was. Maynard answered that he could not spare his boat, but would soon board with his sloop. Whereupon Blackbeard, drinking to him, cried, "Devil seize my soul if I give you quarter or take any." Maynard at once replied, "He should neither give nor take quarter."

The sloops being scarcely a foot high in the waist, the men were exposed as they toiled at the sweeps. Hitherto few on either179 side had fallen. Suddenly Blackbeard poured in a broadside of grape, and killed twenty men on board one ship and nine on board the other; his vessel then fell broadside to the shore to keep its one side protected, and the disabled sloop fell astern. The Virginia men still kept to their oars, however exposed, because otherwise, there being no wind, the pirate would certainly have escaped.

Maynard finding his own sloop had way, and would soon be on board, ordered his men all down below, for fear of another broadside, which would have been his total destruction. He himself was the only man that kept the deck, even the man at the helm lying down snug; the men in the hold were ordered to get their pistols and cutlasses ready for close fighting, and to come up the companion at a moment's signal. Two ladders were placed in the hatchway ready for the word. As they boarded, Teach's men threw in grenades made of case-bottles, filled with powder, shot, and slugs, and fired with a quick match. Blackbeard, seeing no one on board, cried out, "They are all knocked on the head180 except three or four, and therefore I will jump on board and cut to pieces those that are still alive."

Under smoke of one of the fire-pots he leaped over the sloop's bows, followed by fourteen men. For a moment he was not heard, during the explosion, nor seen for the smoke. Directly the air cleared Maynard gave the signal, and his men, rising in an instant, attacked the pirates with a rush and a cheer.

Blackbeard and the lieutenant fired the first pistols at each other, and then engaged with sabres till the lieutenant's broke. Stepping back to cock his pistol, Blackbeard was in the act of cutting him down, when one of Maynard's men gave the pirate a terrible gash in the throat, and the lieutenant escaped with a small cut over his fingers.

They were now hotly engaged, Blackbeard and his fourteen men—the lieutenant and his twelve. The sea grew red round the vessel. The ball from Maynard's first pistol shot Blackbeard in the body, but he stood his ground, and fought with fury till he received181 twenty cuts and five more shot. Having already fired several pistols (for he wore many in his sash), he fell dead as he was cocking another. Eight of his fourteen companions having now fallen, the rest, much wounded, leaped overboard and called for quarter, which was granted till the gibbet could be got ready.

The other vessel now coming up attacked the rest of the pirates, and compelled them to surrender. So ended a man that in a good cause had proved a Leonidas.

With great guns the lieutenant might have destroyed him with less loss, but no large vessel would have got up the river, so shallow, that, small as it was, the sloop grounded a hundred times. The very broadside, although destructive, saved the lives of the survivors, for Blackbeard, expecting to be boarded, had placed a daring fellow, a negro named Cæsar, in the powder room, with orders to blow it up at a given signal. It was with great difficulty that two prisoners in the hold dissuaded him from the deed when he heard of his captain's death.

The lieutenant cutting off Blackbeard's head, hung it at his boltsprit end, and sailed into Bath Town to get relief for his wounded men. In rummaging the sloop, the connivance of the governor was detected; the secretary, falling sick with fear, died in a few days, and the governor was compelled to refund the hogsheads.

When the wounded men began to recover, the lieutenant sailed back into James's river, with the black head still hanging from the spar, and bringing fifteen prisoners, thirteen of whom were hung.

Of the two survivors, one was an unlucky fellow captured only the night before the engagement, who had received no less than seventy wounds, but was cured of them all and recovered. The other was the master of the pirate sloop, who had been shot by Blackbeard, and put on shore at Bath Town. His wound he received in the following way: One night, drinking in the cabin with the mate, a pilot, and another sailor, Blackbeard, without any provocation, drew out a small pair of pistols and cocked them under the table.183 The sailor, perceiving this, said nothing, but got up and went on deck. The pistols being ready, Blackbeard blew out the candle, and, crossing his hands under the table, discharged the pistols. The master fell shot through the knee, lamed for life, the other bullet hit no one. Being asked the meaning of this cruelty, Blackbeard answered, by swearing that if he did not kill one of them now and then, they would forget who he was.

This man was about to be executed, when a ship arrived from England with a proclamation prolonging the time of pardon to those who would surrender. He pleaded this, was released, and ended his days as a beggar in London.

It is a singular fact that many of Blackbeard's captors themselves eventually turned pirates.

Teach derived his nickname from his long black beard, which he twisted with ribbons into small tails, and turned about his ears. This beard was more terrible to America than a comet, say his historians. In time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three184 brace of pistols hanging to it in holsters like bandoliers. He then stuck lighted matches under his hat, and this, with his natural fierce and wild eyes, gave him the aspect of a demon.

His frolics were truly satanic, and only madness can furnish us with any excuse for such crimes. Pre-eminent in wickedness, he was constantly resorting to artifices to maintain that pre-eminence. One day at sea, when flushed with drink, "Come," said he, "let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it." He then, with two or three others, went down into the hold, and, closing up all the hatches, lighted some pots of brimstone, and continued till the men, nearly suffocated, cried for air and pushed up the hatches. Blackbeard triumphed in having held out longest.

The night before he was killed, as he was drinking, one of his men asked him, if anything should happen to him, if his wife knew where he had buried his money. He answered that nobody but himself and the devil knew185 where it was, and the longest liver should have all.

These blasphemies had filled the crew with superstitious fears, and perhaps unnerved their arms in the last struggle. The survivors declared that, once upon a cruise, a man was found on board more than the crew, sometimes below and sometimes above. No one knew whence he came and who he was, but believed him to be the devil, as he disappeared shortly before their great ship was cast away.

In Blackbeard's journal were found many entries illustrating the fear and misery of a pirate's life. For instance—

"3rd June, all rum out; our company somewhat sober; rogues a plotting; great talk of separation; so I looked sharp for a prize. 5th June, took one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, d—— hot; then all things went well again."

Some sugar, cocoa, indigo, and cotton were found on board the pirate sloops, and some in a tent on the shore. This, with the sloop, sold186 for £2500. The whole was divided amongst the crews of the Lime and Pearl, the brave captors getting no more than their dividend, and that very tardily paid, as such things usually are by English governments.

Captain England began life as mate of a Jamaica sloop, and being taken by a pirate named Winter, before Providence was turned into a freebooter fortress, became master of a piratical vessel. He soon became remarkable for his courage and generosity.

When Providence was taken by the English, England sailed to the African coast, a hot place, but not too hot for him, like the shores of the main. He here took several ships, among others the Cadogan, bound from Bristol to Sierra Leone—Skinner, master. Some of England's crew had formerly served in this ship, and, having proved mutinous, had been mulcted of their wages and sent on board a man of war, from whence deserting to a West Indian sloop, they were taken by pirates, and eventually joined England and started for a cruise.

As soon as Skinner struck to the black flag,187 he was ordered on board the pirate. The first person he saw was his old boatswain, who addressed him with a sneer of suppressed hatred. "Ah, Captain Skinner," said he, "is that you? the very man I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and will pay you now in your own coin."

The brave seaman trembled, for he knew his fate, and shuddered as an ox does when it smells the blood of a slaughter-house. The boatswain, instantly shouting to his companions, bound the captain fast to the windlass. They then, amidst roars of cruel laughter, pelted him with glass bottles till he was cut and gashed in a dreadful manner. After this, they whipped him round the deck till they were weary, in spite of his prayers and entreaties. At last, vowing that he should have an easy death, as he had been a good master to his men, they shot him through the head. England then plundered the vessel and gave it to the mate and the crew of murderers, and they sailed with it till they reached death's door, and the port whose name is terrible.

Taking soon after a ship called the Pearl, England fitted her up for his own use, and re-christened her the Royal James. With her they took several vessels of various nations at the Azores and Cape de Verd Islands.

In 1719 the rovers returned to Africa, and, beginning at the river Gambia, sailed all down the torrid coast as far as Cape Corso. In this trip they captured the Eagle Pink, six guns, the Charlotte, eight guns, the Sarah, four guns, the Wentworth, twelve guns, the Buck, two guns, the Castanet, four guns, the Mercury, four guns, the Coward, two guns, and the Elizabeth and Catherine, six guns. Three of these vessels they let go, and four they burnt. Two they fitted up as pirates, and calling them the Queen Anne's Revenge and the Flying King, many of the prisoners joined their bands.

These two ships sailed to the West Indies, and careening, started for Brazil, taking several Portuguese vessels, but were finally driven off by a Portuguese man-of-war. The Revenge escaped, but soon after went down at sea; the Flying King ran ashore;189 twelve of the seventy men were killed, and the rest taken prisoners. Thirty-two English, three Dutch, and two Frenchmen of these were at once hung.

But to return to England. In going down the coast, he captured two more vessels, and detained one, releasing the other. Two other ships, seeing them coming, got safe under the guns of Cape Corso castle. The pirates, turning their last prize into a fire-ship, resolved to destroy both the fugitives, but, the castle firing hotly upon them, they retreated, and at Whydah road found Captain la Bouche, another pirate, had forestalled their market.

Here England fitted up a Bristol galley for his own use, calling it the Victory. Committing many insolences on shore, the negroes rose upon them and compelled them to retire to their ship, when they had fired one village, and killed many of the natives.

They now put it to the vote what voyage to take, and, deciding for the East Indies, arrived at Madagascar (1720), and, taking in water and provisions, sailed for the coast of190 Malabar, in the Mogul's territory. They took several Indian vessels, and one Dutch, which they exchanged for one of their own, and then returned to Madagascar. England now sent some men on shore, with tents, powder, and shot, to kill hogs, and procure venison, but they searched in vain for Avery's men.

Cleaning their ships, they then set sail for Panama, falling in with two English ships, and one Dutch, all Indiamen. Fourteen of La Bouche's crew boarded the Englishmen in canoes, declaring that they belonged to the Indian Queen, twenty-eight guns, which had been lost on that coast, and that their captain, with forty men, was building a new vessel. The two English captains, Mackra and Reily, were about to sink and destroy these castaways, when England's two vessels, of thirty-four and thirty-eight guns, stood in to the bay. In spite of all promises of aid, the Ostender and Kirby deserted Mackra, a breeze admitting of their escape, while the pirate's black and bloody flags were still flaunting the air. Mackra, undaunted by their desertion,191 fought desperately for three hours, beating off one of the pirates, striking her between wind and water, and shooting away their oars, when they put out their sweeps and tried to board. Mackra being wounded in the head, and most of his officers killed, ran ashore, and England following, ran also aground, and failed in boarding. The engagement then commenced with fresh vigour, and, had Kirby come up, the pirates would have been driven off. England, obtaining three boats full of fresh men, was now in the ascendant, and soon after Kirby stood out to sea, leaving his companion in the very jaws of death. Mackra, seeing death inevitable, lowered the boats and escaped to land, under cover of the smoke, and the pirate, soon after boarding, cut three of their wounded men in pieces. The survivors fled to Kingstown, a place twenty-five miles distant.

England offered 10,000 dollars for Mackra's head, but the king and chief people being in his interest, and a report being spread of his death, he remained safe for ten days, then obtaining a safe conduct from the pirate,192 Mackra had an interview with their chief. England and some men who had once sailed with Mackra protected him from those who would have cut him to pieces, with all who would not turn rovers. Finding that they talked of burning their own ships, and refitting the English prize, Mackra prevailed on them to give him the shattered ship, the Fancy, of Dutch build, and 300 tons burden, and also to return 129 bales of the Company's cloth.

Fitting up jury masts, Mackra sailed for Bombay, with forty-five sailors, two passengers, and twelve soldiers, arriving after much suffering, and a passage of forty-three days, frequently becalmed between Arabia and Malabar. In the engagement he had thirteen men killed and twenty-four wounded, and killed nearly a hundred of the pirates. If Kirby had proved staunch, he might have destroyed them both, and secured £100,000 of booty. Opposed to him were 300 whites and eighty blacks. We are happy to record that this brave fellow was well rewarded, and honoured with fresh command.

Nothing but despair could have driven Mackra, he said in his published account, to throw himself upon the pirates' mercy, still wounded and bleeding as they were. He did not either seem to know how friendly the Guiana people were to the English, so much so, that there was a proverb, "A Guiana man and an Englishman are all one."

When he first came on board, England took him aside and told him that his interest was declining among his crew, that they were provoked at his opposition to their cruelty, and that he should not be able to protect him. He advised him, therefore, to win over Captain Taylor, a man who had become a favourite amongst them by his superiority in wickedness. Mackra tried to soften this wretch with a bowl of punch, and the pirates were in a tumult whether to kill him or no, when a sailor, stuck round with pistols, came stumping upon a wooden leg up the quarterdeck and asked for Captain Mackra, swearing and vapouring, and twirling a tremendous pair of whiskers. The captain, expecting he was his executioner, called out his name.194 To his delight, the bravo seized him by the hand, and, shaking it violently, swore he was d——d glad to see him. "Show me the man," cries he, "that dares offer to hurt Captain Mackra, for I'll stand by him; he's an honest fellow, and I know him well."

This put an end to the dispute. Taylor consented to give the ship, and fell asleep on the deck. Mackra put off instantly, by England's advice, lest the monster should awake and change his mind.

This clemency soon led to England's deposition, and on a rumour that Mackra was fitting out a force against them, he was marooned with three more on the island of Mauritius, and making a boat of drift wood, escaped to Madagascar.

The pirate, detaining some of Mackra's men, set sail for the Indies. Seeing two ships which they supposed to be English, they commanded one of their prisoners to show them the Company's private signals, or they would cut him in pound pieces. On approaching, they proved to be Moorish ships from Muscat, loaded with horses. They195 rifled the ships and put the officers to the torture, and left them without sails and with the masts cut through.

The next day they fell in with the Bombay fleet of eight vessels and 100 men, despatched to attack Angria, a Malabar chief. Afraid to show their fear, the pirates attacked the fleet and destroyed two laggers, torturing the crew and sending them adrift. The commodore of the fleet would not fight the pirates without orders, which so enraged the governor of Bombay, that he appointed Mackra the commander, and enjoined him to pursue and engage England wherever he met him.

Some time after this, the same fleet, aided by the Viceroy of Goa, landed 10,000 men at Calabar, Angria's stronghold, but were compelled to retreat.

The next day between Goa and Carwar the pirates drove two grabs under the guns of India-diva castle, and would have taken the island but for the delay. At Carwar they took a ship, and sent in a prisoner to demand water and provisions, for which they196 offered to surrender their prize. Failing in this they sailed for the Laccadeva islands, and landing at Melinda, violated the women, destroyed the cocoa trees, and burnt the churches. At Tellechery they heard of Mackra's expedition, and cursed his ingratitude. Some wished to hang the dogs who were left, but the majority agreed to keep them alive to show their contempt and revenge.

At Calicut they attempted to take a large Moorish ship in the roads, but were prevented by some guns mounted on the shore. One of Mackra's men they obliged to tend the braces on the booms amid all the fire. When he refused, they threatened to shoot him or loaded him with blows. His old tormentor, Captain Taylor, being gouty, could not hold a cudgel. Some interceded for him, but Taylor declared if he was let go he would disclose all their plans.

They next arrived at Cochin, and, sending on shore a fishing boat with a letter, ran into the road, saluting the fort. At night boats came off with provisions and liquor. The197 governor sent a boat full of arrack and sixty bales of sugar, and received in return a present of a table clock, and a gold watch for his daughter. The boatmen they paid some £7000, and threw them handfuls of ducatoons to scramble for. The fiscal brought out cloths and piece goods for sale, but the fort opened fire when they chased a vessel under its shelter. They were soon after chased by five tall ships, supposed to be Mackra's, but escaped. Their Christmas for three days they spent in a carouse, using the greater part of their fresh provisions, so that in their voyage to the Mauritius they were reduced to a bottle of water and two pounds of beef a day for ten men.

Fitting up at Mauritius, they sailed again in two months, leaving this inscription on one of the walls: "Left this place the 5th of April, to go to Madagascar for limes." At the island of Mascarius they fell upon a great prize, finding the Viceroy of Goa in a Portuguese ship of seventy guns, lying dismasted on the shore. Of diamonds alone she had a cargo worth four millions of dollars. The viceroy coming198 calmly on board, taking them for English, was captured with all his officers, and ransomed for 2000 dollars. To the leeward of the island they found an Ostend vessel, which they sent to Madagascar to prepare masts for the prize, and followed soon after with a cargo of 2000 Mozambique negroes. When they reached Madagascar they found that the Dutch crew had made the pirates drunk, and sailed back to Mozambique, and from thence to Goa with the governor.

They now divided their plunder, most of them receiving forty-two small diamonds as their share. The madman, who obtained one large one, broke it in a mortar, swearing he had got now a better share than any of them, for he had forty-three sparks.

Some of the pirates now gave up their wild life and settled in matelotage at Madagascar, on the tontine principle of the longest liver inheriting all.

The two prizes were then burnt, and Taylor sailed for Cochin to sell his diamonds to the Dutch, and thence to the Red and China Seas, to avoid the English men-of-war.

The pirates, about this time, had 11 sail and 1500 men in the Indian seas, but soon separated for the coast of Brazil and Guinea, or to settle and fortify themselves at Madagascar, Mauritius, Johanna, and Mohilla. A pirate named Condin, in a ship called the Dragon, took a vessel from Mocha with thirteen lacs of rupees (130,000 half-crowns), and burning the ship settled at Madagascar. The commander of the English fleet, still in pursuit of these pirates, attempted to prevail on England to serve him as spy and pilot, but in vain.

Taylor, resolving to sail to the Indies, but hearing of the four men-of-war, started for the African main, and put into Delagoa, destroying a small fort of six guns. This fort belonged to the Dutch East India Company, but its 150 men had been deserted, and left to pine away and starve; sixteen turned pirates, but the rest, being Dutch, were left to die. They stayed in this den of fever three months, and having careened, paid the Dutch with bales of muslins and chintzes.

Some now left, and returned to settle in Madagascar. The rest sailed for the West Indies, and, escaping the fangs of two English men-of-war, surrendered themselves to the Governor of Porto Bello. Eight of them afterwards passed to Jamaica as shipwrecked sailors, and shipped for England. Captain Taylor entered the Spanish service, and commanded the man-of-war that afterwards attacked the English logwood-cutters in the bay of Honduras, and caused the Spanish war.

Captain Avery was a more remarkable man than England, and his ambition of a wider kind. He was a native of Plymouth, and served as mate of a merchant vessel in several voyages. Before the peace of Ryswick, the French of Martinique carried on a smuggling trade with the natives of Peru, in spite of the Spanish guarda costas. The Spaniards, finding their vessels too weak for the French, hired two Bristol vessels of thirty guns and 220 men, which were to sail first to Corunna or the Groine, and from thence to the main.

Of one of these ships, the Duke, Gibson was commander, and Avery first mate. Avery, planning with the boldest and most turbulent of the crew, plotted to run away with the vessels, and turn pirates on the Indian coasts.

The captain, a man much addicted to drink, had gone to bed, when sixteen conspirators from the other vessel, the Duchess, came on board and joined the company. Their watchword was, "Is your drunken boatswain on board?" Securing the hatches, they slipped their cable and put to sea, without any disorder, although surrounded by vessels. A Dutch frigate of forty guns refused to interrupt their progress, although offered a reward.

The captain, awoke by the motion of the ship and the noise of working the tackle, rang his bell, and Avery and two others entered the cabin. The captain, frightened and thinking the ship had broken from her anchors, asked, "What was the matter?" Avery replied coolly, "Nothing." The captain answered, "Something has happened202 to the ship; does she drive? what weather is it?" "No, no," said Avery, "we're at sea with a fair wind and good weather." "At sea?" said the captain, "how can that be?" Upon which Avery told him to get up and put on his clothes, and he could tell him a secret, for he (Avery) was captain, and that was his cabin, and that he was on his way to Madagascar to make his fortune and that of all the brave fellows who were with him.

Avery then bade the captain not to be afraid, for if he was sober and minded his business, he might in time make him one of his lieutenants. At his request, however, he sent him on shore with six others.

On reaching Madagascar they found two sloops lying at anchor, which the men had run away with from the West Indies, and who, taking his vessel for a frigate, fled into the woods and posted themselves in a strong place with sentinels. Discovering their mistake, after some cautious parleying, they united together and sailed for the Arabian coast. Near the river Indus they espied a203 sail and gave chase, believing they had caught a Dutch East Indian ship, but found it to be one of the Great Mogul's vessels, carrying his daughter with pilgrims and offerings to Mecca. The sloops boarded her on either side, and she at once struck her colours. The Indian ship was loaded with treasure, the slaves and attendants richly clad and covered with jewels, and all having vessels of gold and silver, and large sums of money to defray their expenses in the land journey.

Taking all the treasure, they let the princess go, and the ship put back for India. The Mogul, on learning it, threatened to drive the English from India with fire and sword, but the Company contrived to pacify him by promising to deliver up to him the pirate ship and her crew.

The rumours of this adventure occasioned a report at Wapping that Jack Avery had married the Great Mogul's daughter, founded an empire, and purchased a fleet.

Avery, having secured his prize, determined to return to Madagascar, build a fort and magazine where he could leave a garrison204 to overawe the natives when he was absent on a cruise. A fresh scheme suggesting itself, he resolved to plunder his friends the sloops, and return to New Providence. He began by sending a boat on board each of his allies, desiring their captain to come and attend a general council. At this meeting he represented to them that if they were separated in a storm they must be taken, and the treasure would then be lost to the rest. He therefore proposed, as his ship was so strong that it could hold its own against any vessel they could meet with on those seas, to put the treasure on board in his care, in a chest sealed with three seals, and that a rendezvous should be appointed in case of separation. The two captains at once agreed to the proposal as manifestly for the common good.

That day and the next the weather was fair, and they all kept company. In the mean time Avery persuaded his men to abscond with the plunder, and escape to some country where they might spend the rest of their days in splendour and luxury. Taking205 advantage of a dark night, they steered a new course, and by morning had lost sight of the outwitted sloops.

Avery now resolved to steer for America, change his name, purchase a settlement, and die in peace and charity with all the world—a calm, rich Christian. They first visited New Providence, afraid that they might be detected in New England as the deserters from the Groine expedition. Avery, pretending that his vessel was a privateer that had missed her mark and was sold by the owners, disposed of her to good advantage, and bought a sloop.

In this vessel he touched at several parts of the American coast, giving his men their dividends, and allowing those who chose to leave the ship. The greater part of the diamonds he had concealed at the first plunder of the vessel. Some of his men settled at Boston; but he, afraid of selling his diamonds in New England, betook himself with a few companions to Ireland, putting into one of the northern ports, and avoiding St. George's Channel. The sailors now dispersed.206 Some went to Dublin, and some to Cork, to obtain pardons from King William.

Avery, still afraid of being apprehended as a pirate if he offered his diamonds for sale, passed over to England, and sent for some Bristol friends to Bideford. They agreed, for a commission, to put the stones into the hands of Bristol merchants who, being men of wealth and credit, would not be suspected. The merchants, after some negotiation, visited him at Bideford, and, after many protestations of honour and integrity, received several packets of diamonds and some vessels of gold to dispose of. They gave him some money for his present necessities and departed. Changing his name Avery continued to live at Bideford, visited by those relations to whom he confided his secret. The merchants, after many letters and much importunity, sent him small supplies of money, scarce sufficient to pay his debts and buy him bread. Weary of this life, he ventured over privately to Bristol, and to his dismay, when he desired them to come to an account with him, they threatened207 to proclaim him as a pirate, for men who had been robbed by him could be found on the 'Change, in the docks, or in any street.

Afraid of their threats (for he never showed much personal courage), or detected by some sailor, he fled to Ireland, and from thence again solicited the merchants, but in vain, for a supply. In a short time reduced to beggary, he resolved to throw himself upon their throats, and obtain money or revenge, and, working his passage on board a trading vessel to Plymouth, travelled on foot to Bideford. In a few days he fell sick and died, and was buried at the expense of the parish.

To return to the deserted crews of the sloops. They, believing the separation an accident, sailed at once to the rendezvous, and then discovering the cheat, and having no more fresh provisions, resolved to establish themselves on land. They therefore made tents of their sails, and unloaded their vessels. On shore they were joined by the crew of a privateer which had been despatched by the government of Bermuda to take the208 French factory of Goree, in the river Gambia, and had turned pirates by the way, Captain Tew, their captain, capturing a large Arabian vessel in the strait of Babelmandel, in spite of its crew and 300 soldiers. By this prize his men gained £3000 a-piece, and but for the cowardice and mutiny of the quartermaster and some others would have captured five other ships. This leading to a quarrel, the band left off pirating, and retired to Madagascar. Captain Tew sailed to Rhode Island, and obtained a pardon.

The pirates lived at Madagascar like little princes, each with his harem, and with large retinues of slaves, whom they employed in fishing, hunting, and planting rice. The English sided with some of the negro princes in their wars, and struck such terror in their adversaries by their fire-arms, that whole armies fled at the sight of two or three of the white faces. At first, these piratical chieftains waged war on each other, but at last, alarmed by a revolt of the negroes, united in strict union.

Before this they tied their slaves to trees,209 and shot them to death for the smallest offence; and at last the negroes, uniting in a general conspiracy, resolved to murder them all in one night. As they lived apart, this would undoubtedly have been done, had not one of their black concubines run nearly twenty miles in three hours to discover the plot. They instantly, upon this alarm, flocked together in arms, and compelled the advancing negroes to retire. This escape made them very cautious. They therefore fomented war between the native tribes, but henceforward remained neutral. All murderers and outlaws they took under their protection, and turned into body-guards, whilst the vanquished they defended. By this diplomacy, worthy of the most civilized people, they soon grew so powerful and numerous as to be compelled to branch out in colonies, parting into tribes, each with their wives and children.

They had now all the power and all the fears of despotism. Their houses were citadels, and every hut a fortress. They generally chose a place overgrown with wood, and situated near a spring or pool. Round210 this spot they raised a rampart, encircled by a fosse. This wall was straight and steep, could not be ascended without scaling ladders, and had but one entrance. The hut was so hidden that it might not be seen at a distance. The passage that led to it was intricate, labyrinthine, and narrow, so that only one person could walk it abreast, and the path wound round and round, with so many cross-paths, that any one uninitiated might search for hours and not find the cabin. All along the sides of the path, huge thorns peculiar to the island were stuck into the ground, with points uppermost, like chevaux-de-frise, sufficient to impale the assailant who ventured by night.

These men were found in this state by Captain Woods Rogers, when he visited Madagascar in the Delicia (40 guns), wishing to buy slaves, to sell to the Dutch of New Holland. The men he met had been twenty-five years on the island, and had not seen a ship for seven years. The petty kings of the bush were covered with untanned skins, and were savage wretches, overgrown211 with beard and hair. They bartered slaves for cloths, knives, saws, powder, and ball. They went aboard the Delicia and examined her with care, and, talking familiarly with the men, invited them on shore, intending to surprise the ship by night when there was a slender watch kept, having plenty of boats and arms. They wanted the men to surprise the captain, and clap those who resisted under hatches. At a given signal, the negroes were to row on board, and then all would start as pirates and roam round the world. The captain, observing the intimacy, would not suffer his men to even speak with the islanders, choosing an officer to negotiate with them for slaves.

These pirate kings were all foremast men, and could read no more than their chief secretaries could write. The chief prince of this Newgate paradise had been a Thames waterman, who had committed a murder on the river.

As even a few years since an old sailor at Minehead was known as the "King of Madagascar," we suppose divine right and212 hereditary succession still continue in that Eden of gaol-birds.

During the time of war the pirates diminished in number and turned privateersmen, but increased at the peace of Utrecht, when the disbanded privateersmen again turned thieves for want of excitement and some more honest employment.

About 1716, Captain Martel appeared as commander of a pirate sloop of eight guns and eighty men, that, cruising off Jamaica, captured a galley and another small vessel, from the former of which he plundered £1000. In their way to Cuba they took two more sloops, which they rummaged and let go, and off Cavena hoisted the black flag, and boarded a galley of twenty guns, called the John and Martha. Part of the men they put ashore and part enrolled in the crew.

The cargo of logwood and sugar they seized, and, taking down one of the ship's decks, mounted her with twenty-two guns and 100 men, and proceeded to cruise off the Leeward Islands, capturing a sloop, a brigantine,213 and a Newfoundland vessel of twenty guns.

They soon after plundered a Jamaica vessel, and two ships from Barbadoes, detaining all the best men, and from a Guinea galley they stole some gold dust, elephants' teeth, and forty slaves.

In 1717, they put into Santa Cruz to clean and refit with a small piratical fleet of five vessels, warping up a little creek, very shallow, but guarded by rocks and sands. They then erected a battery of four guns on the island, and another of two guns near the road, while a sloop with eight guns protected the mouth of the channel.

In November, 1716, the commander-in-chief of all the Leeward islands sent a sloop to Barbadoes for the Scarborough, of thirty guns and 140 men, to inform her of the pirate. The captain had just buried twenty men, and having forty sick could scarcely put out to sea. However, putting on a bold heart, he left his sick behind and beat up for recruits at all the islands he passed. At Antigua he took in twenty214 soldiers, at Nevis ten, and the same number at St. Christopher's.

Unable to find the pirate, he was on the point of putting back, when a boat from Santa Cruz informed him of a creek where he had seen a vessel enter. The Scarborough instantly sailed to the spot and discovered the pirates, but the pilot refused to enter. The pirates all this while fired red-hot shot from the shore; but at length the ship anchored alongside the reef and cannonaded the vessels and batteries. The sloop in the channel soon sank, and the larger vessel was much punished, but the Scarborough, fearing the reef, stood off and on for a day or two and blockaded the creek. The pirates, endeavouring to warp out and slip away, ran aground, and, seeing the Scarborough again standing in, fired the ship and ran ashore, leaving twenty negroes to perish. Nineteen escaped in a sloop, and the captain and twenty other negroes fled to the woods, where it is supposed they perished, as they were never heard of again.

Captain Charles Vane, our next Viking, is215 known as one of the men who helped to steal the silver which the Spaniards had fished up from their sunk galleons in the gulf of Florida.

When Captain Rogers with his two men-of-war conquered Providence, and pardoned all the pirates who submitted, Vane slipped his cable, fired a prize in the harbour, hoisted the black flag, and, firing a broadside at one of the men-of-war, sailed boldly away. Capturing a Barbadoes vessel, he manned it with twenty-five hands, and, unloading an interloper of its pieces of eight, careened at a key, and spent some time in a revel.

In the next cruise they captured some Spanish and New England vessels, and one laden with logwood. The crew of the latter they compelled to throw the lading overboard, intending to turn her into a pirate vessel, but in a fit of caprice suddenly let the men go and the ship with them. The prize captain, offended at Vane's arrogance, left him, and surrendered himself and 90 negroes to the governor of Charlestown, receiving a free pardon. Vane saluted the runaway with a216 broadside as he left, and lay wait for some time for him, but without success. Soon after this two armed sloops started in pursuit of Vane, and, failing in the capture, attacked and took another pirate vessel that was clearing at Cape Fear.

In an inlet to the northward Vane met Blackbeard, and saluted him, according to piratical etiquette, with a discharge of his shotted guns. Off Long Island he attacked a vessel that proved to be a French man-of-war, and gave chase; Vane was for flight, but many of the men, in spite of the enemy's weight of metal and being twice their force, were for boarding. A pirate captain in all cases but that of fighting was controlled by a majority, but in this case had an absolute power; Vane refused to fight, and escaped.

The next day Vane was branded by vote as a coward and deposed, and Rackham, his officer, elected captain. Vane and the minority were turned adrift in a sloop. Putting into the bay of Honduras, Vane captured another sloop, and fitted it up as a pirate vessel, and soon after captured two more. Vane was217 soon after shipwrecked on an island near Honduras, and most of his men drowned; he himself being supported by the turtle fishermen. While in this miserable state, a Jamaica vessel arrived, commanded by a Buccaneer, an old acquaintance, to whom he applied to help him. The man refused, declaring Vane would intrigue with his men, murder him, and run off as a pirate. On Vane expressing scruples about stealing a fisherman's boat from the beach, the Buccaneer declared that if he found him still there on his return he would take him to Jamaica and hang him.

Soon after his friend's departure a vessel put in for water, and, not knowing Vane to be a pirate, took him on board as a sailor. On leaving the bay the Buccaneer met them and came on board to dine. Passing to the cabin he spied Vane working in the hold, and asked the captain if he knew that that was Vane, the notorious pirate. The other then declared he would not have him, and the Buccaneer, sending his mate on board with at loaded pistol, seized Vane and took him218 to Jamaica, where he was soon after hung.

Rackham, after a cruise among the Caribbee islands, spent a Christmas on shore, and when the liquor was all gone put to sea. Their first prize was an ominous one, a ship laden with Newgate convicts bound for the plantations, which was soon after retaken by an English ship of war. Two others of his prizes were also recaptured while careening at the Bahama islands by Governor Rogers, of New Providence.

They then sailed to the back of Cuba, where Rackham had a settlement, and there spent their plunder in debauchery. As they were fitting out for sea, they were attacked by a Spanish guarda costa that had just captured an English interloper. Rackham being protected by an island, the Spaniards warped into the channel at dusk and waited for day. The pirates, roused to despair, boarded the Spanish prize with pistols and cutlasses in the dead of the night, and, threatening the crew with death if they spoke, captured her almost without a blow, and slipping the cable stood out to sea. When day broke the Spaniards219 opened a tremendous fire upon the deserted pirate vessel, but soon discovered their mistake.

1720 was spent in small cruises about Jamaica, their crew being still short; they then swept off some fishing boats from Harbour Island, and landing in Hispaniola, carried off some wild cattle and several French hunters.

He then captured several more vessels, and was joined by the crew of a sloop in Dry Harbour Bay. But their end was at hand. The governor of Jamaica despatched a sloop in pursuit of them, who found the pirates carousing with a boat's crew from Point Negril, and they were soon overpowered.

A fortnight after sentence of death was passed upon nine of them at a court of admiralty held at St. Jago de la Vega. Five of them were executed at Gallows Point in Port Royal, and the four others the day after at Kingston. Rackham and two more were afterwards taken down and hung in chains, one at Plumb Point, one at Busk-key, and the other at Gun-key. By the terrible Draconic220 laws of Jamaica, the nine boatmen from Port Negril were also hung by their side. After such justice, can we wonder at the crimes to which despair too often drove the pirates?

Among these "unfortunate brave," as Prior generously calls them, two female pirates are not to be forgotten. The first of these, Mary Reed, was the daughter of a sailor, whose wife having after his death given birth to an illegitimate girl, palmed it off as a boy, in order to excite the compassion of her husband's mother. Being reduced in circumstances she put the girl out as a foot-boy, but she soon after ran to sea, and entered on board a man-of-war. Quitting the sea service Mary Reed wintered over in Flanders and obtained a cadetship in a regiment of foot, behaving herself in many actions with a great deal of bravery, and finally entering a regiment of horse. Here she fell in love with a comrade, a young Fleming, whom she eventually married, and set up an eating-house at Beda, called "The Three Horse-shoes." Her husband dying, and the peace ruining221 her trade, Mary went into Holland, and joined a regiment quartered on a frontier town, but, finding preferment slow, she shipped herself on board a vessel bound for the West Indies.

The vessel was taken by English pirates, and the amazon, being the only English sailor, was detained. A pardon soon afterwards being issued, the crew surrendered themselves, but Mary Reed sailed for New Providence, and joined a privateer squadron fitting out there against the Spaniards. The crews, who were pardoned pirates, soon rose against their commander, and resumed their old trade, and Mary Reed among them. Abhorring the life of a pirate, she still was the first to board, and was as resolute as the bravest. By chance Anne Bonny, another disguised woman, being with the crew, discovered her sex, and soon after she fell in love with a sailor whom they took prisoner, and was eventually married to him. Her husband hated his new profession as much as herself, and they were about to quit it when they were both taken prisoners.

On one occasion Mary Reed, to prevent her husband fighting a duel, challenged his opponent to meet her on a sand island near which their ship lay, with sword and pistol, and killed him on the spot.

At the trial she declared that her life had been always pure, and that she had never intended to remain a pirate. When they were taken, only she and Anne Bonny kept the deck, calling to those in the hold to come up and fight like men, and when they refused firing at them, killing one and wounding several. In prison she said the fear of hanging had never driven her from piracy, for but for the dread of that there would be so many pirates that the trade would not be worth following.

Great compassion was evinced for her in the court, but she was still found guilty, though being near her pregnancy, her execution was respited. She might have been pardoned, but a violent fever coming on soon after her trial she died in prison.

Her companion, Anne Bonny, was the illegitimate daughter of a Cork attorney.223 Her father, disguising the child as a boy, pretended it was a relative's son, and bred it up for a clerk. Becoming ruined he emigrated to Carolina, and turning merchant bought a plantation. Upon her mother's death Anne Bonny succeeded to the housekeeping. She was of a fierce and ungovernable temper, and was reported to have stabbed an English servant with a case-knife. Marrying a penniless sailor, her father turned her out of doors, and she and her husband fled to New Providence, where he turned pirate. Here she was seduced by Captain Rackham, and ran with him to sea, dressed as a sailor, and accompanied him in many voyages. The day that Rackham was executed she was admitted to see him by special favour, but she only taunted him and said that she was sorry to see him there, but that if he had fought like a man he would not have been hung like a dog.

Becoming pregnant in prison she was reprieved, and, we believe, finally pardoned.

Captain Howel Davis, our next sea king, was a native of Milford, who, being taken224 prisoner by England, was appointed captain of the vessel of which he had been chief mate. At first, he declared he would rather be shot than turn pirate, but eventually accepted sealed orders from England, to be opened at a certain latitude. On opening them, he found they directed him to make the ship his own, and go and trade at Brazil. The crew, refusing to obey Davis, steered for Barbadoes, and put him in prison, but he was soon discharged.

Starting for New Providence, the pirates' nest, he found the island had just surrendered to Captain Woods Rogers. He here joined the ships fitting out for the Spanish trade, and at Martinique joined in a conspiracy, secured the masters, and started on a cruise against all the world. At a council of war, held over a bowl of punch, Davis was unanimously elected commander, and the articles he drew up were signed by all the crew.

They then sailed to Coxon's-hole, at the east end of Cuba, to clean, that being a narrow creek, where one ship could defend225 itself against a hundred, and, having no carpenter, they found some difficulty in careening. On the north side of Hispaniola, they fell in with a French ship of twelve guns, which they took, and sent twelve men on board to plunder, being now very short of provisions. They had scarcely leaped on deck before another French vessel of twenty-four guns and sixty men hove in sight. This vessel Davis proposed to attack, quite contrary to the wish of his crew, who were afraid of her size. When Davis approached, the Frenchmen bade him strike, but giving them a broadside, he said he should keep them in play till his consort arrived, when they should have but hard quarters. At this moment came up all the prisoners, having been dressed in white shirts, and forced on deck, and a dirty tarpaulin was hoisted for a black flag. The French captain, intimidated, instantly struck, and was at once, with ten of his hands, put in irons.

The guns, small arms, and powder in the small ship were then removed, and the prize crew sent on board the larger vessel. Part226 of the prisoners were put in the smaller and now defenceless bark. At the end of two days, finding the French prize a dull sailer, Davis restored her to the captain, minus her ammunition and cargo. The Frenchman, vexed at being so outwitted, would have destroyed himself had not his men prevented him.

Davis then visited the Cape de Verd islands, and left some of his men as settlers among the Portuguese. They also plundered many vessels at the Isle of May, obtained many fresh hands, and fitted one of their prizes with twenty-six guns, and called her the King James. At St. Jago the governor accused them of being pirates, and Davis resolved to resent the affront by surprising the fort by night. Going on shore well armed, they found the guard negligent, and took the place, losing only three men. The fugitives barricaded themselves in the governor's house, into which the pirates threw grenades. By daybreak the whole country was alarmed, and poured down upon them, but they, unwilling to stand a siege,227 dismounted the fort guns and fought their way to their ships.

Mustering their hands, and finding themselves still seventy strong, they proposed to follow Davis's advice, and attack Gambia castle, where a great deal of money was always kept, for they had now such an opinion of Davis's courage and prudence that they would have followed him anywhere.

Having come within sight of the place, he ordered all his men below but such as were absolutely necessary for the working of the vessel, that the people on shore might take her for a trader. He then ran close under the fort, anchored, and ordering out the boat, manned her with six plain-dressed men, himself as the master, and the rest attired as merchants. The men were instructed what to say.

At the landing-place they were received by a file of musqueteers, and led to the governor, who received them civilly. They said they were from Liverpool, bound to the river of Senegal to trade for gums and ivory, but being chased to Gambia by two French228 men-of-war, were willing to trade for slaves; their cargo, they said, being all iron and plate. The governor, promising them slaves, asked for a hamper of European liquor, and invited them to stay and dine. Davis himself refused to stay, but left his two companions.

On leaving he observed there was a sentry at the entrance, and a guard-house near, with the arms of the soldiers on duty thrown in one corner. Going on board he assured his men of success, desired them to keep sober, and when the castle flag struck to send twenty hands immediately ashore. He then seized a sloop that lay near, for fear the crew should discern their preparations.

He put two pairs of loaded pistols in his pocket, and made all his crew do the same, bidding them get into conversation with the guard, and when he fired a pistol through the governor's window, leap up and secure the piled arms.

While dinner was getting ready, the governor began to brew a bowl of punch, when Davis, at a whisper of the coxswain who had229 been reconnoitring the house, suddenly drew out a pistol, and, clapping it to the governor's breast, bade him surrender the fort and all his riches, or he was a dead man. The governor, taken by surprise, promised to be passive. They then shut the door, and loaded the arms in the hall, while Davis fired his piece through the window. The men, hearing this signal, cocked their pistols, got between the soldiers and the arms, and carried them off, locking up the men in the guard-room, and guarding it without. Then striking the flag, the rest of the crew tumbled on shore, and the fort was their own without the loss of a man. Davis at once harangued the soldiers, and persuaded many to join him, and those who resisted he sent on board the sloop, which he first unrigged. The rest of the day they spent in salutes—ship to castle and castle to ship, and the next day plundered. Much money had been lately sent away, so they found only £2,000 in bar gold, and many rich effects. They then dismounted the guns, and demolished the fortifications.

A French pirate of 14 guns, and sixty-four230 men, half French, half negroes, soon joined Davis, and they sailed down the coast together. They soon after met another pirate ship, of 24 guns, and spent several days in carousing. They then attacked in company the fort of Sierra Leone, and the garrison, after a stiff cannonade, surrendered the place and fled. Here they spent seven weeks careening; and, capturing a galley, La Bouce, the second captain, cut her half deck, and mounted her with 24 guns. They now sailed together, and appointed Davis commodore, but, like men of a trade, soon quarrelled, and parted company. Off Cape Apollonia Davis took several vessels, and off Cape Points Bay attacked a Dutch interloper, of 30 guns, and ninety men. After many hours' fighting the Dutchman surrendered to the black flag, having killed nine of Davis's men at one broadside. This vessel Davis called the Rover, fitted with 32 guns and 27 swivels, and, sailing to Anamaboe, captured several ships laden with ivory, gold dust, and negroes, saluting the231 fort, and then started for Prince's island, a Portuguese settlement near the same coast.

They here captured a Dutchman, a valuable prize, having the governor of Acra and £150,000, besides merchandise, on board, and recruited their force with thirty-five hands. The King James springing a leak, they deserted her and left her to sink. At the isle of Princes Davis passed himself off for an English man-of-war in search of pirates, and was received with great honours by the governor, who approved of his openly plundering a French vessel which he accused of piracy. A few days after Davis and fourteen of his men attempted to carry off the chief men's wives from a small village in which they lived, but failed in the attempt. But Davis had determined to plunder the island by means of the following stratagem. He resolved to present the governor with a dozen negroes in return for his civilities, and afterwards to invite him with the friars and chief men of the island to an entertainment on board his ship. He would then clap them in232 irons, and not release them under a ransom of £40,000.

This plot proved fatal to him. A Portuguese negro, swimming ashore at night, disclosed the whole. The governor dissembled and professed to fall into the snare. The next day Davis went himself on shore to bring the governor on board, and was invited to take some refreshment at the government house. He fell at once into the trap. A prepared ambuscade rose and fired a volley, killing every pirate but one, who, running to the boat, got safely to the ship. Davis, though shot through the bowels, rose, made a faint effort to run, drew out his pistols, fired at his pursuers, and fell dead.

Upon Davis's death, Bartholomew Roberts was at once chosen commander, in preference to many other of the lords or head seamen. The sailors said, that any captain who went beyond their laws should be deposed, but that they must have a man of courage and a good seaman to defend their commonwealth. One of the lords, whose father had suffered in Monmouth's rebellion, swore233 Roberts was a Papist. In spite of all, Roberts, who had been only taken prisoner six weeks before, was chosen commander. He told them that, "since he had dipped his hands in muddy water, and must needs be a pirate, he would rather be commander than mere seaman."

Their first thought was to avenge Davis's death, for he had been much beloved for his affability and good nature. Thirty men were landed, and attacked the fort in spite of the steep hill on which it was situated. The Portuguese deserted the walls, and the pirates destroyed the guns. Still unsatisfied, they would have burnt the town, had it not been protected by a thick wood, which furnished a cover to the enemy. They, however, mounted the French ship with twelve guns, running into shoal water, battered down several houses, and then sailed out of the harbour by the light of two ships to which they set fire. Having taken two more vessels and burnt one of them, they started by general consent for Brazil.

Cruising here for nine weeks and taking234 no prize, the pirates grew quite discouraged, and resolved to steer for the West Indies, but soon after fell in with forty-two sail of Portuguese ships laden for Lisbon, and lying off the bay of los Todos Santos, waiting for two men-of-war of seventy guns each for their convoy. Stealing amongst them, Roberts hid his men till he had closed upon the deepest of them, threatening to give no quarter if the master was not instantly sent on board. The Portuguese, alarmed at the sudden flourish of cutlasses, instantly came. Roberts told him they were gentlemen of fortune, and should put him to death if he did not tell them which was the richest vessel of the fleet. The trembler pointed out a ship of forty guns and 150 men, more force than Roberts could command; but Roberts, replying "They are only Portuguese," bore down at once upon it. Finding the enemy was aware of their being pirates, Roberts poured in a broadside, grappled, and boarded. The dispute was short and warm. Two of the pirates fell, and many of the Portuguese. By this time it was pretty235 well seen that a fox had got into the poultry-yard. Signals of top-gallant sheets were flying, and guns fired to bring up the convoy that still rode at anchor. Roberts, finding his prize sail heavy, waited for the first man-of-war, which, basely declining the duel, lingered for its consort till Roberts was out of sight. The prize proved exceedingly rich, being laden with sugar, skins, tobacco, and 4000 moidors, besides many gold chains and much jewellery. A diamond cross, which formed part of this spoil, they afterwards gave to the governor of Caiana. Elated with this spoil, they fixed on the Devil's Islands, in the Surinam river, as a place for a revel, and, arriving there, found the governor ready to barter.

Much in want of provision, Roberts threw himself, with forty men, into a prize sloop, in hopes of capturing a brigantine laden with provision from Rhode Island, which was then in sight, and was kept at sea by contrary winds for eight days. Their food ran short, and failing in securing the prize, they despatched their only boat to bring up the ship.

Landing at Dominica, Roberts took on board thirteen Englishmen, the crews of two New England vessels that had been seized by a French guarda costa. At this island they were nearly captured by a Martinique sloop, but contrived to escape to the Guadanillas. Sailing for Newfoundland they entered the harbour with their black colours flying, their drums beating, and trumpets sounding. The crews of twenty-two vessels fled on shore at their approach, and they proceeded to burn and sink all the shipping and destroy the fisheries and the houses of the planters. Mounting a Bristol galley that he found in the harbour with sixteen guns, Roberts destroyed nine sail of French ships, and carried off for his own use a vessel of twenty-six guns. From many other prizes they pressed men and got plunder. The passengers on board the Samuel, a rich London vessel, he tortured, threatening them with death if they did not disclose their money. His men tore up the hatches, and, entering the hold with axes and swords, cut and ripped open the bales and boxes. Everything portable237 they seized, the rest they threw overboard, amidst curses and discharges of guns and pistols. They carried off £9000 worth of goods, the sails, guns, and powder. They told the captain "They should accept of no act of grace. The king might be d—— with their act of grace for them: they weren't going to Hope Point to be hung up sun-drying like Kidd's and Braddish's company were; and if they were overpowered they would set fire to the powder, and go all merrily to hell together."

While debating whether to sink or burn the prize, they espied a sail, and left the Samuel tumultuously to give chase. It proved to be a Bristol vessel, and hating Bristol men because the Martinique sloops were commanded by one, he used him with barbarous cruelty.

Their provisions growing scarce, Roberts put into St. Christopher's, and, being refused succours, fired on the town and burnt two ships in the road. They then visited St. Bartholomew, where they were well received. Sailing for Guinea, weary of even debauchery, they captured a rich laden vessel from Martinique,238 and changed ships. By some extraordinary ignorance of navigation, Roberts, in trying to reach the Cape Verd islands, got to leeward of his port, and, obliged to go back again with the trade wind, returned to the West Indies, steering for Surinam, 700 leagues distant, with one hogshead of water for 124 souls.

Great suffering followed their pleasures in the islands of the Sirens; each man obtained only one mouthful of water in twenty-four hours. Many drank their urine or the brine and died fevered and mad; others wasted with fluxes. The rest had but an inch or two of bread in the day, and grew so feeble they could hardly reef and climb. They were all but dying, when they were suddenly brought into soundings, and at night anchored in seven fathoms water.

Thirsty in the sight of lakes and streams, and maddened with hunger, Roberts tore up the floor of the cabin, and, patching together a canoe with rope yarn, paddled to shore and procured water. After some days, the boat returned with the unpleasant intelligence239 that the lieutenant had absconded with the vessel.

This Lieutenant Kennedy's sail into Execution Dock we will give before we return to Roberts. Upon leaving Caiana Roberts's treacherous crew determined to abandon piracy. Their Portuguese prize they gave to the master of the prize sloop, a good-natured man, whose quiet philosophy under misfortune had astonished and pleased them. Off Barbadoes Kennedy took a Quaker's vessel from Virginia, the captain of which allowed no arms on board, and his equanimity so attracted the pirates that eight of them returned with him to Virginia. These men rewarded the sailors and gave £250 worth of gold dust and tobacco to the peaceful captain. At Maryland the treacherous Quaker surrendered his friends, who were all hung on the evidence of some Portuguese Jews whom they had brought from Brazil.

Off Jamaica Kennedy captured a flour vessel from Boston, in which himself and many others embarked. This Kennedy had been a pickpocket and a housebreaker, could240 neither read nor write, and had been only elected captain for his cruelty and courage.

His crew, at first afraid of his treachery, would have thrown him overboard, but relented, on his taking solemn oaths of fidelity. Of all these men only one knew anything of navigation, and he was so ignorant that, trying to reach Ireland, he ran them ashore on Scotland. Landing they passed at first for shipwrecked sailors; seven of them reached London in safety, the rest were seized at Edinburgh and hung, having attracted attention by rioting and drunken squandering. Two others were murdered on the road.

Kennedy turned robber, and some years after was arrested as a pirate by the mate of a ship he had plundered, turned king's evidence, but was hung in 1721.

We must now return to Roberts, whom we left swearing and vapouring on the coast of Newfoundland. He began by drawing up a code of laws and establishing stricter discipline, and then steered for the West Indies, capturing several vessels by the way, and was soon after pursued by a Bristol galley of241 twenty guns and eighty men, and a sloop of ten guns and forty men, despatched by the Governor of Barbadoes. Roberts, taking them for traders, attempted to board, but was driven off by a broadside, the king's men huzzaing as they fired. Roberts, crowding all sail, took to flight and escaped, after a galling pursuit, by dint of throwing overboard his guns and heavy goods. He was henceforward particularly severe to Barbadian vessels, so deeply established were the principles of justice and compensation in the mind of this great man.

In the morning, they saw land, but at a great distance, and dispatching a boat, it returned late at night with a load of water: they had reached Surinam. The worst blasphemer heard the words, and fell upon his knees to thank a God whom he had so often denied. They swore that the same Providence which had given them drink would bring them meat.

Taking provisions from several vessels, Roberts touched at Tobago, and then sailed to Martinique to revenge himself on the governor.242 Adopting the custom of the Dutch interlopers, he hoisted a jack and sailed in as if to trade. He was soon surrounded by a swarm of sloops and smacks; then sending all the crews on shore on board one vessel, minus their money, he fired twenty others. His new flag bore henceforward a representation of himself trampling on the skulls of a Barbadian and Martinique man. At Dominica he took several vessels, and several others at Guadaloupe, and then put into a key off Hispaniola to clean and refit.

While here, the captains of two piratical sloops visited him, having heard of his fame and achievements, to beg from him powder and arms. After several nights' revel, Roberts dismissed them, hoping "the Lord would prosper their handy works." Three of their men, who had long excited suspicion by their reserve and sobriety, deserted, but being recaptured were put upon their trial. The jury sat in the steerage, before a bowl of rum punch; the judge on the bench smoked a pipe. Sentence was243 already passed, when one of the jury, with a volley of oaths, swore Glashby (one of the prisoners) should not die. "He was as good a man as the best of them, and had never turned his back to a man in his life. Glashby was an honest fellow in spite of his misfortune, and he loved him. He hoped he would live and repent of what he had done; but d—— if he must die, he would die along with him," and as he spoke he handled a pair of loaded pistols, and presented them at two of the judges, who, thinking the argument good, at once acquitted Glashby. The rest, allowed to choose their executioners, were tied to the mast and shot.

Amply stocked with provision, they now sailed for Guinea to buy gold dust, and on their passage burnt and sank many vessels. Roberts, finding his crew mutinous and unmanageable, assumed a rude bearing, offering to fight on shore any one who was offended, with sword or pistol, for he neither feared nor valued any. On their way to Africa they were deserted by a prize, a brigantine,244 which they had manned. Roberts being insulted by a drunken sailor, killed him on the spot. His messmate returning from shore declared the captain deserved the same fate. Roberts hearing this stabbed him with his sword, but in spite of the wound the seaman threw him over a gun and gave him a beating. A general tumult ensued, which was appeased by the quartermaster, and the majority agreeing that the captain must be supported at all risks, the sailor received two lashes from every man on board as soon as he recovered from his wound. This man then conspired with the captain of the brigantine and his seventy hands, and agreed to desert Roberts, as they soon after did on the first opportunity.

Near the river of Senegal the pirates were chased by two French cruisers of ten and sixteen guns, who mistook him for one of those interlopers for whom they were on the look-out. The pair surrendered, however, with little resistance on the first shot of the Jolly Roger, and with these prizes they put into Sierra Leone. About thirty retired Buccaneers245 and pirates lived here, one of whom, who went by the name of Crackers, kept two cannon at his door to salute all pirate ships that arrived.

They found that the Swallow and Weymouth men-of-war, fifty guns, had just been there, and would not return till Christmas; so, after six weeks' debauch, they put out again to sea, plundering along the coast. They exchanged one of their vessels for a French frigate-built ship, pressing the sailors, and allowing some soldiers on board to sail with them for a quarter share.

They found an English chaplain on board, and wanted him to go with them to make punch and say prayers, but as he refused they let him go, detaining nothing of the property of the church but three prayer-books and a corkscrew. This ship they altered by pulling down the bulkheads and making her flush. They then christened her the Royal Fortune, and mounted her with forty guns.

They next proceeded to Calabar, where a shoal protected the harbour. Enraged at the negroes refusing to trade, they landed forty246 men under protection of the ships' fire, drove back a party of 2000 natives, and then burnt their town. Still unable to obtain provisions, they returned to Cape Apollonia. Here they took a vessel called the King Solomon, boarding her from the long boat in spite of a volley from the ship, the pirates shouting defiance. The captain would have resisted, but the boatswain made the men lay down their arms and cry for quarter. They then cut her cable, and rifled her of everything. They next cut the mast of a Dutch vessel, and strung the sausages they found on board round their necks, killing the fowls, and inviting the captain to drink from his own but, singing obscene French and Spanish songs from his Dutch prayer-book.

Going too near the land they alarmed the coast, and the English and Dutch factories spread signals of danger.

Entering Whydah with St. George's ensign and a black flag flying, eleven ships instantly surrendered without a blow; most of the crews being, in fact, ashore. Each captain ransomed his cargo for 8 lbs. of gold247 dust, upon which they gave him acquittals, signed with sham names, as "Whiffingpin" and "Tugmutton." One vessel full of slaves refusing to give any ransom, he set fire to it, and burnt eighty negroes who were chained in the hold; a few leaped overboard to avoid the flames, and were torn to pieces by the sharks that swarmed in the road.

Discovering from an intercepted letter that the Swallow was after him, Roberts put back to the island of Anna Bona, but the wind failing steered for Cape Lopez. The cruiser had lost 100 men from sickness in a three weeks' stay at Prince's island, and, unable to return to Sierra Leone, turned to Cape Corso, unknown to Roberts, who was ignorant of the causes that had led to their return. Receiving many calls for help, and finding the trade of the whole coast disturbed, the Swallow sailed for Whydah. The crew were impatient to attack the pirates, learning that they had an arms' chest full of gold, secured by three keys. Recruiting thirty volunteers, English and French, the Swallow reached the river Gaboon, and soon discovered the248 pirates, one of whom gave them chase, believing her a Portuguese sugar vessel, and the sugar for their punch now ran short.

The pirates were cursing the wind and the sails that kept them from so rich a prey, when the Ranger suddenly brought to and hauled up her lower ports, while the first broadside brought down their black flag. Hoisting it again, they flourished their cutlasses on the poop, but tried to escape. Some prepared to board, but, after two hours' firing, their maintop came down with a run, and they struck, having had ten men killed and twenty wounded. The Swallow did not lose one. The Ranger carried thirty-two guns, and was manned by sixteen Frenchmen, seventy-seven English, and ten negroes. Their black colours were thrown overboard. As the Swallow was sending a boat to board, an explosion was heard, and a smoke poured out of the great cabin. It appeared that half a dozen of the most desperate had fired some powder, but it was too little to do anything but burn them terribly.

The commander, a Welshman, had had his249 leg shot off, and had refused to allow himself to be carried below. The rest were gay and brisk, dressed in white shirts and silk waistcoats, and wearing watches.

An officer said to a man whom he saw with a silver whistle at his belt—"I presume you are boatswain of this ship." "Then you presume wrong," said the pirate, "for I am boatswain of the Royal Fortune—Captain Roberts, commander." "Then, Mr. Boatswain, you'll be hanged," said the officer. "That is as your Honour pleases," said the man, turning away.

The officer asking about the explosion, he swore "they are all mad and bewitched, for I have lost a good hat by it." He had been blown out of the cabin gallery into the sea. "But what signifies a hat, friend?" said the officer. "Not much," he answered.

As the sailors stripped off his shoes and stockings, the officer asked him if all Robert's crew were as likely men as himself? He answered, "There are 120 of them as clever fellows as ever trod shoe-leather; would I were with them." "No250 doubt on't," said the officer. "It's naked truth," said the man laughing, as he looked down at his bare feet.

The officer then approached another man, black and scorched, who sat sullenly alone in a corner. He asked him how it happened. "Why," said he, "John Morris fired a pistol into the powder, and if he had not done it I would." The officer said he was a surgeon, and offered to dress his wounds, which he bore without a groan. He swore it should not be done and he would tear off the dressing, so he was then overpowered and bandaged. At night he grew delirious and raved about "brave Roberts," who would soon release him. The men then lashed him down to the forecastle, as he resisted with such violence to his burnt sore flesh that he died next day of mortification. The other pirates they fettered, and sent the shattered ship, scarcely worth preserving, into port.

The next day Roberts appeared in sight with a prize, and his men ran to tell him of the cruizer as he was dining in the cabin with the prisoner captain. Roberts declared251 the vessel was his own returning, or nothing but a Portuguese or French slave ship, and laughed at the cowards who feared danger, offering to strike the most apprehensive. As soon as he discovered his mistake he slipped his cable, got under sail, and ordered his men to arms, declaring it was "a bite."

He appeared on deck dressed in crimson damask, with a red feather in his cocked hat, a gold chain and diamond cross round his neck, a sword in his hand, and two pairs of pistols hanging pirate-fashion from a silk sling over his shoulders. His orders were given in a loud voice and with unhesitating boldness. Informed by a deserter that the Swallow sailed best upon a wind, he resolved to go before it, if disabled to run ashore and escape among the negroes, or if, as many of his men were drunk, everything else failed, to board and blow up both vessels.

Exchanging a broadside he made all sail he could crowd, but steering ill was taken aback and overtaken. At this critical moment a grapeshot struck him on the throat, and he sat calmly down on the tackle of a gun and252 died. The man at the helm running to his assistance, and not seeing a wound, thought his heart had failed him, and bade him stand up and fight it out like a man, and remember the Jolly Roger. Discovering his mistake the rough sailor burst into tears, and prayed the next shot might strike him. The pirates then threw their captain overboard, with all his arms and ornaments, as he had often requested in his life.

When Roberts fell the men deserted their quarters and fell into a torpor, till their mainmast being shot away compelled them to surrender. Some of the crew lit matches and tried to blow up the magazine, but the rest prevented them. The black flag, crushed under the fallen mast, they had no time to destroy.

The Royal Fortune was found to have forty guns and 157 men, forty-five of them being negroes. Only three were killed in the action, and the Swallow did not lose a man. She had upwards of £2000 of gold dust in her. From the other vessel the same quantity was embezzled by an English captain,253 who sailed away before the Swallow arrived.

The prisoners were mutinous under restraint, and cursed and upbraided each other for the folly that had brought them into that trap. For fear of an outbreak they were manacled and shackled in the gun-room, which was strongly barricaded, and officers with pistol and cutlass placed to guard it night and day.

The pirates laughed at the short commons, and swore they should be too light to hang. Those who read and prayed were sneered at by the others. "Give me hell," said one blasphemer; "it is a merrier place than heaven, and at my entrance I'll give Roberts a salute of thirteen guns." The whole of the prisoners made a formal complaint against "the wretch with a prayer-book," as a common disturber.

A few of the more violent conspired, having loosened their shackles, to rise, kill the officers, and run away with the ship. A mulatto boy who attended them, conveyed messages from one to the other, but the very evening of the outbreak two prisoners heard254 the whispers, and warned the officers. They were then treated rougher, and heavier chains put on.

The negroes and surgeon on board the other ship also contrived a conspiracy, the surgeon knowing a little of the Ashantee language. They were betrayed by a traitor, all re-chained, and brought to Cape Corso castle to be tried. Here they grew chapfallen, forgot to jest, and begged for good books. Some joined in prayers, and others sang psalms. Brawny, sunburnt, scarred men were seen spelling out hymns, and, through the blood-red haze of a thousand crimes, trying with moistened eyes to look back to calm Sunday evenings when fond mothers had first taught them the words of long since forgotten prayers.

When the ropes were fitting only one appeared dejected, and he had been ill with a flux. A surgeon of the place was charitable enough to offer himself as chaplain, and represented to them the urgent need of repentance and the tender forgiveness of a Saviour. They hardly listened to him, but some begged255 caps of the soldiers, for the sun was burning on their bare heads. Others asked for a single draught of water. When they were pressed to speak of religion, they burst into curses, and imprecated vengeance on their judge and jury, saying they were hung as poor rogues, but many worse escaped because they were rich.

He then implored them to be in charity with all the world, and asked their names and ages. They said, "What is that to you? we suffer the law, and shall give no account but to God." One cursed a woman in the crowd for coming to see him hung, and another laughed at their tying his hands behind him, "for he had seen many a good fellow hung, but never that done before." A third said, the sooner the better, so he might get out of pain.

Nine others showed much penitence. One obtained a short reprieve, and devoted it to prayer, singing the thirty-first Psalm at the foot of the gallows. Another (the deserter) exhorted the seamen to a good life, and sang a psalm. The next instant a gun was fired,256 and he swung from the fore-yard-arm. Bunce, the youngest of them all, made a pathetic speech, and begged forgiveness of God and all mankind. Seeing the gallows standing on a rock above the sea, he took a last look at the element which he had so often braved, and saying, he stood "as a beacon on a rock to warn mariners of danger," was turned off by the hangman.

Captain Worly, the next adventurer, embarked in an open boat, with eight other men, from New York in 1718, captured a shallop up the Delaware river, and soon took many other vessels, pursuing an English cruiser from Sandy Hook. He had now twenty-five men and six guns, and his crew had taken an oath to receive no quarter. While careening in an inlet in North Carolina he was attacked by two government sloops. These cruisers boarded him on either side, and the pirates fought so desperately that only the captain and another man were taken prisoners, and being much wounded were hung the next day for fear they should die, and the law not have its due.

Captain George Lowther was originally second mate on board a vessel carrying soldiers to a fort of the Royal African Company's on the river Gambia, the very one that had been destroyed by Davis. Captain Massey, who commanded these men, offended at the arrogance of the merchants, plotted with Lowther, who had been ill-treated by his captain, to run away with the vessel. They then started as pirates—their vessel, the Delivery, having fifty men and sixteen guns. The worthy partners soon quarrelled, Massey knowing nothing of the sea and Lowther nothing of the land. Massey wished to land with thirty men and attack the French in Hispaniola, but Lowther refused his consent; and when Lowther resolved to scuttle a ship, Massey interposed in its behalf. Massey, soon after this, being put on board a prize with ten malcontents, gave himself up at Jamaica, and was sent to cruise in search of his old partner. Massey wrote to the African Company, and prayed to be forgiven, or at least shot as a soldier, and not hung as a pirate. He then came to258 London, gave himself up, and was soon after hung.

Off Hispaniola Lowther captured two vessels—one of them a Spaniard, the crew of which, in consideration of their being also pirates, and having just boarded an English ship, were drifted off in their own launch, but the English sailors were enrolled in their own crew. They then put into a key, cleaned, and spent some time in revelry. Starting again about Christmas, at the Grand Caimanes they met with a small pirate vessel, commanded by a captain named Low, who now became Lowther's lieutenant. The old ship they sank, and soon after attacked a Boston vessel, the Greyhound, which, though only 200 tons, refused to bring to in answer to Lowther's gun, and held out for an hour before she struck her ensign, seeing resistance hopeless. The pirates whipped, beat, and cut these men cruelly, and at last set fire to their vessel, and left them to burn and perish. They soon after burnt and sank several New England sloops; a vessel of Jamaica they generously sent back to her259 master, and two other vessels they fitted up for their own use, mounting one with eight carriage and ten swivel guns.

With this little fleet, Admiral Lowther, in the Happy Delivery, went to the gulf of Matique to careen, carrying ashore all their sails and stores, and putting them in tents on the beach. While the ships, however, were on the keel, and the men busy heaving, scrubbing, and tallowing, they were attacked by a large body of the natives. Burning the Happy Delivery, their largest ship, and leaving all their stores behind, they then turned one sloop adrift, and all embarked in the other, the Ranger. This disaster, and the shortness of provisions, soon produced mutiny and mutual recrimination.

In May 1721 they went to the West Indies, capturing a brigantine, which they plundered and sank, and then started for New England. Low and Lowther always quarrelling, at last parted, Low taking forty-four hands in the brigantine, and leaving the same number in the sloop to Lowther. The latter for some time captured nothing but260 fishing vessels, and a New England ship with a cargo of sugar from Barbadoes. Off the coast of South Carolina, being pursued by an English vessel that he had imprudently attacked, he was driven on shore in his attempts to escape. The English captain, in attempting to board, was shot, and his mate declined the combat. The pirate sloop soon put again to sea, but much shattered, and with many of the crew killed and wounded. The winter Low spent in repairing, in an inlet of North Carolina, where his men pitched tents, and lived on the wild cattle they shot in the woods, while in very cold nights they slept on board the ship.

After a cruise round Newfoundland the pirates sailed for the West Indies, and put into a creek in the island of Blanco, not far from Tortuga, to careen. Here they were attacked by the Eagle sloop of Barbadoes, belonging to the South Sea Company. She fired a gun first to make Lowther show his colours, and then boarded. Lowther and twelve of his crew made their escape out of a cabin window after their vessel had struck.261 The master of the Eagle, with twenty-five men, spent five days in search of the fugitives, and, capturing eight only of them, returned to Cumana.

The Spanish governor applauding the Eagle condemned the sloop, and sent a small vessel with twenty-five hands to scour the patches of lignum vitæ trees that covered the low level island, and took four pirates, but Lowther and three men and a boy still escaped. It is supposed he then destroyed himself, as he was found soon after by some sailors dead, beside a bush, with a burst pistol by his side. Of his companions nine were hung at St. Christopher's, two pardoned, and five acquitted; four the Spaniards condemned to slavery for life, three to the galleys, and the others to the Castle of Arraria.

Captain Spriggs was another of this same gang, having been quartermaster to Lowther. In 1723 Spriggs, with eighteen men, sailed by night from the coast of Guinea, in the Delight (a man-of-war) taken by Low, for they had quarrelled as to the punishment of a pirate who had murdered another. Low262 was for mercy and Spriggs for the yard-arm.

They then chose Spriggs captain, hoisted the black flag, and fired all their guns to honour his inauguration. In their voyage to the West Indies they plundered a Portuguese bark, tortured the crew, set them adrift in a boat with a small quantity of provisions, and then burnt the vessel. The crew of a Barbadoes sloop they cut and beat for refusing to serve with them, and turned them off like the Portuguese. They next rummaged a logwood ship from Jamaica, cut the cable, broke the windows, destroyed the cabins, and when the mate refused to go with them, every man in the vessel gave him ten lashes, which they called "writing his discharge" in red letters flaring on his back. George the Second's birthday they spent in roaring out healths, shouting, and drinking, expecting that there would be an amnesty at his accession, and vowing, if they were excepted, to murder every Englishman they met. They next gave chase to a vessel (supposed to be a Spaniard), till the crew made a lamentable cry for quarter, and263 they discovered it was the logwood vessel they had turned off three days before, not worth a penny. Enraged at this, fifteen of them flew at the captain and cut him down, though his mate, who had joined the pirates, interceded for his life. It being midnight, and nearly all, as usual at such an hour, drunk, it was unanimously agreed to make a bonfire of the Jamaica ship. They then called the bleeding captain down into the cabin to supper, and made him, with a sword and pistol at his breast, eat a dish of candles, treating all the crew in the same way. Twenty days afterwards they landed the captain and a passenger on a desert island in the Bay of Honduras, giving them powder, ball, and one musket. Here they supported life for fifteen days, till two marooned sailors coming in a canoe paddled them to another island, where they got food and water. Espying a sloop at sea, they made a great smoke and were taken off after nineteen days' more suffering. Spriggs, while laying wait to take his revenge on the Eagle, was pursued by a French man-of-war264 from Martinique, and then went to Newfoundland to obtain more men and attack Captain Harris, who had lately taken another pirate vessel. Of their future fate we hear nothing. Let us hope they sailed on till they reached Gallows Point and there anchored.

John Gow was one of the crew of an Amsterdam galley, who in 1724, in a voyage to Barbary, plotted to murder the captain and seize the vessel. Having first cut his throat they tried to throw him overboard, but as he grappled with them Gow and the second mate and gunner shot him through the body. They then murdered the chief mate and the clerk, who was asleep in his hammock; the latter, handing the key of his chest, begged for time to say his prayers, but a sailor shot him as he knelt, with a pistol that burst as he fired.

The murders being over, one of the red-handed men came on deck, and, striking a gun with his cutlass, cried "You are welcome, Captain Gow, to your new command." Gow then swore that if any whispered together or refused to obey orders, they should265 go the same way as those that had just gone. They plundered a French fruit vessel and some others, but were soon after stranded on the Orkney coast, where they had intended to clean, were apprehended by a gentleman named Fea, and brought up to London.

Gow obstinately refusing to plead, his thumbs were tied with whipcord till they broke. As he still remained silent he was ordered by the Draconic law of those days to be pressed to death. When the preparations were completed Gow's courage failed him, he sullenly pleaded not guilty, and was soon after, with nine of his crew at the same time, executed.

Captain Weaver, of the Good Fortune, brigantine, which had taken some sixty sail off the banks of Newfoundland, on his return from thence came to Bristol, and passed himself off as a sailor who had escaped from pirates, walking openly about the town. Here he was met by a captain whom he had once plundered, and who invited him to share a bottle in a neighbouring tavern, telling him he had been a great sufferer by the loss of266 his ship, but that for four hogsheads of sugar he would never mention the affair again. Unable to obtain this compensation he arrested Weaver, who was soon after hung.

Captain Edward Low, our last commodore, was originally a London thief, the head of a gang of Westminster boys, and a gambler among the footmen in the lobby of the House of Commons. One of his brothers was the first thief who stole wigs by dressing as a porter, and carrying a boy on his head in a covered basket. He ended his days at Tyburn.

Low was originally a logwood cutter at Honduras, but quarrelling with his captain, and attempting his life, put off to sea with twelve companions, and taking a sloop, hoisted a black flag, and declared war against the world. Of his adventures with Lowther we have already made mention. In May, 1722, while off Rhode Island, the governor ordered a drum to beat up for volunteers, and fitted out two sloops with 140 men to pursue him, but Low contrived to escape, and soon after running into Port Rosemary, seized thirteen vessels at one stroke, arming a schooner of ten guns267 for his own use, putting eighty men on board, and calling her the Fancy. He was soon after beaten off by two armed sloops from Boston. Low waiting too long for his consort, a brigantine, to come up, in steering for the Leeward Islands, they were overtaken by a dreadful storm, the same which drowned 400 people at Jamaica, and nearly destroyed the town of Port Royal. The pirates escaped by dint of throwing over all their plunder and six of their guns, and put into one of the Caribbees to refit, buying provisions of the natives. In this storm it was that forty sail of ships were cast away in Port Royal harbour.

Once refitted, Low sailed into St. Michael's road, and took seven sail, threatening with present death all who dared to resist. Being without water, he sent to the governor demanding some, and declaring that if none were sent he would burn all his prizes. On the governor's compliance he released six, and fitted up the seventh for himself. Another one they burnt. The crews they compelled to join them, all but one French cook, who268 was so fat that they said he would fry well. They then bound him to the mast, and allowed him to burn with the ship. The crew of another galley they cruelly cut and mangled, and two Portuguese friars they tied up to the yard-arm, pulling them up and down till they were dead. A Portuguese passenger looking sorrowfully on at these brutalities, one of the pirates cried out that he did not like his looks, and cut open his belly with his cutlass, so that he fell down dead. Another of the men, cutting at a prisoner, slashed Low across the upper lip, so as to lay the teeth bare. The surgeon was called to stitch up the wound, but the medical man being drunk, Low cursed him for his bungling. He replied by striking Low a blow in the mouth that broke the stitches, telling him to sew up his chops himself.

Off Madeira, they seized a fishing boat, and obtained water by a threat of hanging the fishermen. While careening at the Cape Verd Islands, after making many prizes, Low sent a sloop to St. Michael's in search of269 two vessels, but his crew were seized and condemned to slavery for life.

In careening his other ship, it was lost, and Low had now to fall back on his old schooner, the Fancy, which he sailed in with a hundred men. Proceeding to the West Indies, they captured, after some resistance, a rich Portuguese vessel called the Nostra Signora de Victoria, bound home from Bahia. Several of the crew they tortured till they confessed that during the chase their captain had hung a bag of 11,000 moidors out of the cabin window, and when the ship was taken dropped it into the sea. The pirates, in a fury at this, cut off his lips, broiled them before his face, and then murdered him and thirty-two of his crew. In the next month they seized four vessels, burning all those from New England.

In the Bay of Honduras Low boarded a Spanish sloop of six guns and seventy men, that had that morning captured five English vessels. Finding out this from the prisoners in the hold, these butchers proceeded to destroy the whole crew, plunging among270 them with pole-axes, swords, and pistols. Some leaped into the hold and others into the sea. Twelve escaped to shore: the rest were knocked on the head in the water. While the pirates were carousing on land, one wounded wretch, fainting with his wounds, came to them and begged in God's name for quarter, upon which a brutal sailor replied, he would give him good quarters, and, forcing him down on his knees, ran the muzzle of his gun down his throat, and shot him. They then burnt the vessel, and forced the English prisoners to return to New York, and not to Jamaica.

Hating all men of New England, Low cut off the ears of a gentleman of that nation, and tied burning matches between the fingers of some other prisoners. The crew of a whaler he whipped naked about the deck, and made the master eat his own ears with pepper and salt.

On one occasion, the captain of a Virginian vessel refusing to pledge him in a bowl of punch, he cocked a pistol and compelled him to drain the whole quart. Off South Carolina,271 his consort was taken by a cruiser, but Low basely deserting him, escaped, and off Newfoundland took eighteen ships, and in July, 1723, he fitted up a prize called the Merry Christmas, with thirty-four guns, and assumed the title of admiral, hoisting a black flag, with the figure of death in red. At St. Michael he cut out of the road a London vessel of fourteen guns, which the men refused to defend. The ears of the captain Low cut off, for daring to attempt resistance, and giving him a boat to escape in, burnt his ship.

He then visited the Canaries, Cape de Verd Islands, and lastly, the coast of Guinea. At Sierra Leone he captured the Delight, of twelve guns, which he supplied with sixteen guns, and sixty men, appointing Spriggs, his quartermaster, as captain, who two days after deserted him, and sailed for the West Indies.

Of the end of this detestable monster we know nothing, but if there is any truth in old adages, he could not have well perished by a mere storm.

The best account of a pirate's life extant is to be found in Captain Roberts's Narrative of the Loss of his Vessel in 1721, preserved in Astley's amusing Collection of Voyages, four dusty quartos, that contain a mine of "auld warld" information.

This Captain Roberts, it appears, contracted with some London merchants to go to Virginia, to fit out a sloop, named the Dolphin, with a cargo "to slave with" on the coast of Guinea, and then to return to trade at Barbadoes. Arriving at that island, in 1722, he was discharged, and upon that bought the Margaret sloop, and started again for the African coast. At Curisal he turned up to procure a supply of wood and water, and the next morning after his arrival, it being calm as day broke, he looked out and espied three sail of ships off the bay, and making one of them plain with his glass, observed that she was full built and loaded, and supposed that she and her companions wanted water, as they first brought to, then edged away without making any signals.

As soon as the day broke clean and they273 made his ship, one of them stood right in towards her, and as the sun rose and the wind freshened, tacked more to the eastward. As she drew nigher, Roberts found her by his glass to be a schooner full of hands, all in white shirts; and when he saw a whole tier of great guns grinning through the port-holes, he began to suspect mischief. But it was now too late to escape, as it held calm within the bay, and the three ships came crowding in as fast as the wind, flaunting out an English ensign, jack, and pendant. Roberts then hoisted his ensign. The first of the three that arrived had 8 guns, 6 patereroes, 70 men, and stretching ahead hailed him. Roberts said he was of London, and came from Barbadoes. They answered, with a curse, that they knew that, and made him send a boat on board.

The pirate captain, John Lopez, a Portuguese, who passed himself off as John Russel, an Englishman, from the north country, asked them where their captain was. They pointed him out Roberts, walking the deck. He instantly called out, "You dog, you son274 of a gun, you speckled shirt dog!" for Roberts had just turned out, wore a speckled Holland shirt, and was slipshod, without stockings. Roberts, afraid if he showed contempt by continued silence they would put a ball through him, thought it best to answer, and cried "Holloa!" upon which Russel said, "You dog you, why did you not come aboard with the boat? I'll drub you within an inch of your life, and that inch too."

Roberts meekly replied that only the boat being commanded aboard, he did not think he had been wanted, but if they would please to send the boat, he would wait upon him. "Ay, you dog you," said the Portuguese, "I'll teach you better manners." Upon this eight of the pirates boarded, and took possession of the ship, and as soon as Roberts came alongside, the pirate began again to threaten to drub him for daring to affront him; and when he declared he meant no offence, cried out, "D—n you, you dog, don't stand there to chatter, come aboard," and stood with a cutlass ready drawn to receive him. While still hesitating, the gunner,275 who wore a gold-laced hat, looked over the side, and said, "Come up, master, you shan't be abused." When he got up, the pirate raised his sabre as if to cut him down, asking what a dog deserved for not coming aboard when the boat was first sent. Roberts replied, if he had done amiss, it was through ignorance, as he did not know what they were. "Curse you," said the pirate, "who do you think we are?" Roberts now trembled for fear, for having once been captured by pirates at Newfoundland, he knew—one wrong word and the knife was at his throat. After a short pause, he said, "I believed you were gentlemen of fortune belonging to the sea." At this the Portuguese, a little pacified, said, "You lie, we are pirates."

After vapouring for some time, the pirate asked, in a sneering tone, why Roberts had not put on his clothes to visit gentlemen. Roberts replied, that he did not know of the visit when he dressed, and, besides, came in such a fright on account of their threats, that he had very little thought or stomach to change clothes, still, if it would please them276 to grant him the liberty, he would go and put on better clothes, hoping it was not yet too late. "D—n you," said the pirate, "yes, it is too late; what clothes you took you shall keep, but your sloop and what is in her is ours." Roberts said, he perceived it was, but hoped, as he lay at their mercy, they would be so generous as to take only what they had occasion for and leave him the rest.

The Portuguese said, "that was a company business, and he could say nothing about that yet." He then bade him give an account of his cargo and money, and of everything aboard his sloop, for if upon rummaging they found the least article concealed, they would burn the vessel and him in her. The pirates standing by also begged him to make a full discovery of all money, arms, and ammunition, which were the chief things they sought after, for it was their way to punish liars and concealers very severely. Roberts then drew up an account from memory, and asked to see his ship's papers that he might complete it. Russel277 said, "No, he would take care of the papers, and if anything was found missing in the inventory he must look out for squalls." During this time the pirates were rummaging the sloop, but found nothing but a ring and a pair of silver buckles not inserted in the list.

During the capture a Portuguese priest and six black fishermen, taken on board at the Isle of Sal, who had been sent on shore, escaped to the hills. Russel, seeing them, told Roberts that he had captured the fishing sloop to which the fugitives belonged, but one of his gang had run away with it, carrying off £800 in cash, in addition. Russel then slipped cable and made Roberts pilot them to Paraghisi, in company with their other vessel, the Rose Pink, of thirty-six guns, commanded by Edmund Loe, their commodore. At Paraghisi they landed thirty-five men and captured the fugitive priest, five negroes, and the old governor's son. Russel on his return was received with great ceremony by his commander, the gunner acting as master of the ceremonies and presenting Roberts.

Captain Loe welcomed him aboard with the usual compliments, "It's not my desire, captain," he said, "to meet with any of my countrymen (but rather foreigners), excepting some few whom I want to chastise for their roguishness; but, however, since fortune has ordered it so that you have fallen into our hands, I would have you be of good cheer and not cast down."

Roberts replied, "I am very sorry, sir, that I chanced to fall in your way, but I feel I am still in the hands of gentlemen of honour and generosity, in whose power it is still to make my capture no misfortune."

Loe said, "It does not lie singly in my breast, for all business of this nature is determined by a majority of votes in the whole company, and though neither I nor, I believe, any of the rest desire to meet with any of our nation, yet when we do it cannot well be avoided to take as our own what Providence sends us; and, as we are gentlemen who depend entirely on fortune, we durst not be so ungrateful to her as to despise any of her favours, however mean,279 for fear that she might withdraw her hand and leave us to perish for lack of those very things we had slighted."

After this philosophical utterance, the great man, who sat astride on a great gun, and not, like other potentates, in a chair of state, without moving from his place, begged Roberts, with much condescension, to make himself at home, requesting to know what he would drink. The broken-spirited man, still trembling for his life, replied, "He did not care then much for drinking, but out of a sense of the honour they did him in asking he would drink anything he chose." Loe told him "Not to be cast down, it was the fortune of war: d——, sir, care killed the cat, and fretting thinned the blood and was d—— bad for the health. To please the company he should be brisk and cheerful and he would soon have better fortune."

He then rang the bell and bade one of the valets de cabin bring in a bowl of punch. This was brought and mixed in a rich silver bowl holding two gallons. He then called for some wine, and two bottles of claret being280 brought, Roberts sipped at the claret while Loe drained the bowl with his usual philosophy and contentment. As he grew warm with the fragrant draught, he told Roberts that he was a d——d good fellow, and he would do him all the favours he could, but wished he had had the good fortune to have been captured ten days earlier, when they had taken two Portuguese outward bound Brazilmen, laden with cloth, woollens, hats, silk, and iron, for he believed he could have prevailed on his company to have loaded Roberts's ship. "But now unfortunately," he added, as he put down the empty bowl, "they had no goods at all, having flung all the Brazil stuffs into David Jones's locker (the sea). He did not know, however, but he might meet Roberts again (such things did come round), and then if it lay in his way he would make Roberts a return for his loss, for he might depend on his readiness to serve him as far as his power or interest could reach." To this outburst of sympathy Roberts replied by bowing and sipping his unrelished glass of claret.

While they were talking word was brought that Quartermaster-General Russel had arrived with the prisoners, and the commodore, ordering the empty bowl to be removed, bade them come in. Russel, the chief officers, and the prisoners then crowded into the cabin, and to the question of "How goes the game?" Russel gave an account of his expedition. On landing they had at once seized two blacks, who had been sent by the governor as heralds, and used them as guides. Though the road was uneven and rocky they reached the town, twelve miles distant, that night, surprising the governor and priest. Russel told them, that hearing they had great stores of dollars hoarded up, he had come to share it with them, as it was one rule of his trade to keep money moving and circulation brisk. The priest said they had none, and the island was barren and uncultivated. Russel said he had only two senses, seeing and feeling, which could convince him the information was false. The priest then lit a number of consecrated wax-candles, and allowed them to search. They found, however, nothing but282 twenty dollars, which he did not think worth taking. The men then lay down to sleep, keeping their arms loaded and their pistols slung, and setting a watch. The next morning he carried the prisoners to the boats.

Upon this tame conclusion, Loe, who had been sitting patient and quiet as a judge, started up and said, interrupting Russel, "Zounds! what satisfaction is this to me or the company? We did not want these black fools, d——n them! No, we wanted their money, and if they had none, they might have stayed ashore or gone to the devil."

Russel, nettled at this rebuke, replied fiercely, "I have as much interest in getting the money as any of the company, and did as much to find it: I don't believe there was more than we saw, and that wouldn't have been sixpence a head, a trifle not worth having our name called in question for. For my part, I am for something that is worth taking, and if I can't light on such, I never will give the world occasion to say that I am a poor sneaking rogue and mean-spirited fellow. No, I will rob for something of283 value, or not at all, especially among these people, where, if our company breaks, we may look for a place of refuge; and I boldly affirm that it is a fool's act to draw on us their odium by such peddling thefts, that would be by all men accounted a narrow-souled, beggarly action, and would be cursed to all futurity by this fraternity, who might suffer for its effects."

Captain Loe, abashed by the murmur of approval that followed this speech, said, "it was all very true, and carried a deal of reason with it, that he was satisfied with Russel's judgment and courage in the affair; but come," says he, "let us do nothing rashly"—and filling a bumper, drank to Russel, wishing Roberts better success in his next voyage.

Russel then went on shore again, and, finding the priest had escaped to the mountains, told the governor, an old negro, that he should burn the town to ashes if he was not brought in in three hours' time. The governor said the thing was impossible, that he lay at their mercy, and hoped he284 would not destroy the innocent for the guilty. Russel declared the doom should not be deferred, but promised the priest should not be killed if he surrendered himself. While parties of blacks were on the hunt, Russel ordered an ox to be roasted for his men, and a pipe of wine to be broached; and on the priest being captured, treated all the natives at their Christian minister's expense, leaving him to extract it from them again in tithes.

The priest and governor, when they heard they were to be taken on board, to assure Loe of their poverty, prayed not to be detained as slaves. Russel told them he was a Catholic, and no harm should be done them. They were soon afterwards released. Loe then ordered a hammock for Roberts, till his own and ship's fate were decreed by the company, telling him generously, in language rather metaphorical than strictly accurate, that everything in the ship was at his command, and begging him not to vary his usual course of hours, drinking, or company. Next morning about eight, as Roberts was pacing unemployed and melancholy on the deck,285 three pirates came up to him, and said that they had once sailed with him on board the Susannah, in 1718. They expressed sorrow for his ill luck, and promised to do something for him. They said they had fifty pieces of white linens, and eight of silk, and that when the company had agreed to restore him his ship, they would make interest to load it. Then looking about as if wishing to tell him a secret, and seeing the deck clear, which it seldom was in pirate vessels, with much concern they informed him that if he did not take abundance of care, he would be forced to stay with them, for their mate had found that he knew the coast of Brazil, whither they were bound after they had scoured that of Guinea, and they would take him as pilot. Then enjoining him to secresy (for their lives depended upon it), they said they had been in close consultation as to his fate, and had almost agreed to take him as a forced prisoner. They had praised him as kind to his men, and a good paymaster, and, knowing the pirate law that no married man could be forced to join their ships, swore at a286 hazard that he was married, and had four children. His mate had turned informer, but he was as yet ignorant of their articles, which they never showed till they were signed. His only chance of escape was to keep up to their story. Russel, one of the council, had been in favour of breaking through the law in this special case, and keeping Roberts at all events till they could catch another guide, but Loe was opposed to it, telling them it would be an ill precedent and of bad consequence, for that if once they took the liberty of breaking their articles and oath, nothing would be sure. They added that most of the company being of Loe's opinion, Russel was vexed and determined if possible to break the articles.

Soon after they were gone, Loe came on deck, and bidding him good morrow, with many compliments, ordered the flag, the signal for consultation, to be hoisted. This they called "the green trumpeter," and was a green silk flag, with the figure of a trumpeter in yellow, and hoisted on the mizen peak.287 Upon this all came on board to breakfast, crowding both cabin and steerage.

After breakfast Loe asked Roberts, as if casually, if he was married and had children. The latter answered he had five and perhaps six, for one was on the stocks when he came away. He then asked him, if he had left them well provided for. Roberts replied, he had left his wife in such indifferent circumstances, having met with recent misfortunes, that the greater part of his substance was in that ship and cargo, and if that failed they would want even for bread.

"It must and shall be, by——" replied Russel; "'Self-preservation is the first law of nature,' and 'Necessity knows no law,' says the adage."

The rest of the company then declared it was a pity, and ought to be seriously weighed and put to the vote. Loe said, indeed it ought, and that there was no time like the present to determine the matter. The rest all cried, "Ay, it is best to end it now." Loe then ordered all hands upon deck, and bade Roberts stay in the cabin.

In about two hours (awful hours for Roberts, to sit listening for shouts or cries), Loe came down, and asked him how he did. Russel said, with a frown, "Master, your sloop is very leaky."

"Leaky," said Russel, "I don't know what you could do with her if we gave her you, for all your hands now belong to us." Russel then continued to taunt him for his want of cargo and provision, as if to give a keener edge to his misery.

At last, "Come, come," said Loe, "let us toss the bowl about, and call a fresh course."

They then proceeded to carouse and talk of their past transactions at Newfoundland,289 the Western Islands, the Canaries, &c., and at dinner tore their food one from the other, thinking such ferocity looked martial.

Next morning one of the three men contrived to speak to Roberts, and apologized for his caution, as they had an article making it death to hold any secret correspondence with a prisoner. He then informed him that his own mate was his great enemy, and seemed likely to turn rogue and enter with them, leaving him only a boy and a child to manage the sloop. Both he and his companions heartily wished to join him, but found it would be death even to mention it, as they had an article that any of the company advising or merely speaking of separation should be shot to death by the quartermaster's order, without even court-martial. Russel had been Roberts' friend till the mate had told him of his captain's knowledge of Brazil, and had even planned a gathering for him nearly equal in value to what they had taken, for it was a custom in pirate vessels to keep a spare stock of linen, silk, gold lace, and clothes, to give to any prisoner whom they took a liking to or had290 known before. Loe was his friend, the sailor assured him, but that he could do little against Russel, who had really more power and sway than anyone else.

Some time after this man left him, Captain Loe turned out, and, passing the usual compliments, sent for some rum, and discoursed on many indifferent subjects. Upon all of these Roberts was obliged to appear interested, dreading this sea-despot's displeasure. Perhaps a button-holder, like this Trunnion, never had so attentive an auditor, or so hearty an applauder of anecdotes, good or bad.

About ten o'clock Russel, the evil genius, came on board, and accosted Roberts in an agreeable manner, trying to conciliate him into consenting to his proposal. He said, he had been considering Roberts's scheme, and did not see how he could carry it through. He believed Roberts was a man of understanding, but in this case was directed by sheer desperation rather than reason. For his part he did not think it would stand with the credit or reputation of the company to put it into his power to throw himself wilfully291 away, as he seemed determined to do. Wishing him indeed well, he had been thinking all night upon a scheme which, without exposing him to danger, would turn out more to his advantage than anything he could expect by getting the sloop. (Here Roberts's eye brightened.) He had resolved to sink or burn the sloop, and detain Roberts as a prisoner, all the company promising to give him the first prize they took, or to allow him to join their crew. This would be the making of him, and enable him to soon leave off sea, and live ashore if he were so inclined.

Roberts thanked him, but said he thought he should gather no advantage from such a plan, for he could not dispose of a ship or cargo without a lawful power to sell, and if the owners heard of it, he should be either obliged to make restitution, or be thrown into prison, and run the hazard of his own life.

Russel replied that his objections were frivolous, and could easily be evaded. To avoid detection, they would make him a bill292 of sale, and give him powers in writing that would answer any inquiry. As for the owners, they would take care from the ship's writings, which they always first seized, to let him know who were the owners of the cargo, and where they lived. These writings should be made in a false name, which Roberts could assume till all were sold.

Roberts said there was abundant address in his contrivance and much plausibility in the whole. But were he even sure that all would turn out well, he had a still stronger motive than any he had yet mentioned, and that was his dread of the continual sting and accusation of his conscience. He then with more courage than he had hitherto shown, began to expatiate on the duty of restitution, and tried to awaken his hearers to some sense of the sin of piracy.

Many said, with a laugh, he would do well to preach a sermon, and would make a good chaplain. Others shouted that they wanted no preaching there. "Pirates had no god but money, no saviour but their muskets." A few approved of what he said, and declared293 that if a little goodness, or at least rude humanity, was in practice among them, their reputation would be a little better both with God and man.

A short silence followed, which captain Russel broke by employing some Jesuitical sophistry, to persuade Roberts that it would be no sin for him merely to accept what they had stolen, since he had no hand in the theft, and was their constrained prisoner. "Suppose," he said, "we should still resolve to sink or burn your sloop, unless you will accept of her. Now, where I pray, is the owner's property when the ship is sunk or burnt. I think the impossibility of his ever having her again cuts it off to all intents and purposes, and our power was the same, notwithstanding our giving her to you, if we had thought fit to make use of it."

Loe and the rest here burst out laughing, declared it was as good as a play to hear the two argue, and that Roberts was a match for Russel, though few could generally stand up to him in a fight with mere words.

Roberts not allowing this praise to over-balance294 his prudence, would not drive Russel further, seeing him vexed at their applause. He merely said that he knew he was absolutely in their power to dispose of as they pleased, but that having hitherto been treated so generously by them, he could not doubt of their future goodness to him. That if they would please to give him his sloop again, it was all he requested at their hands, and that, he doubted not, by his honest endeavours he should be able to retrieve his present loss.

Upon this Captain Loe said, "Gentlemen, the master, I must needs say, has spoke nothing but what I think is very reasonable, and I think he ought to have his sloop. What do you say, gentlemen?" The majority cried out with one voice, "Ay, ay, by G—— let the poor man have his sloop again, and go in God's name and seek a living in her for his family."

In the evening Russel insisted on treating Roberts on board his own schooner before his departure. All passed off well till after supper, when a bowl of punch and half295 a dozen of claret were put on the table. The captain first took a bumper, wishing success to the undertaking, and this toast passed round, Roberts not daring to refuse to drink. The next health was, "Prosperity to our trade." The third, "Health to the King of France." Russel then proposed "The King of England's health," and all drank it, some repeating his words, others saying, "the aforesaid health." Just before it came to Roberts, Russel poured two bottles of claret into the punch, and his prisoner disliking this mixture, begged to pledge the health in a bumper of claret.

At this heresy, Russel, who had laid his trap, flew into a passion, "D——" he said, "you shall drink in your turn a full bumper of that sort of liquor the company does." "Well then, gentlemen," said Roberts, "rather than have words, I will drink, though it is in a manner poison to me." "Curse you," said Russel; "if it be in a manner or out of a manner, or really rank poison, you shall drink as much and as often as anyone here, unless you fall down dead, dead."

Then Roberts, dreading a quarrel with his old enemy, took the glass, which held about three-quarters of a pint, and filling a bumper, said, "The aforesaid health." "What health is that?" said Russel. "Why," answered Roberts, "the health you have all drank—the King of England's health." "Who is king of England?" said Russel. "In my opinion," said Roberts, "he that wears the crown is certainly king of England." "Well," argued his opponent, "and who is that?" Upon his saying King George, he swore at him, and said the English had no king. Roberts replied, laughing, "He wondered he should begin and drink a health to a person who was not in being." At this quip, Russel drew a pistol from his sash, and would have shot his unoffending enemy dead, had not the gunner snatched it out of his hand. At this Russel, who was a Roman Catholic and a Jacobite, grew still more maddened, and fired another at Roberts, saying, "The Pretender is the only lawful king." The master striking down the barrel, the pistol went off without doing mischief.

High words then arose between Russel and the gunner, and the latter, addressing the company, said, "Well, gentlemen, if you have a mind to maintain these laws, made, established, and sworn to by us all, as I think we are obligated by the strongest ties of reason and self-interest to do, I assure you my opinion is that we ought to secure John Russel, so as to prevent his breaking our constitution."

When Russel attempted, still in a passion, to defend his conduct, the gunner declared, "That no man's life should be taken away in cold blood till the company, under whose care he was, had so decreed it." Then accusing him of hating Roberts, merely because he had been prevented from breaking the articles by detaining him, he left the spot.

Russel's arms were next taken away, and Roberts, being guarded during the night, was sent to the commodore in the morning, there being a law among them to receive no boats aboard after nine o'clock at night.

About four in the afternoon Russel came to Loe, with Spriggs, the commander of the298 other ship, and told him that Roberts's mate was willing to join them as a volunteer. Loe said, in that case Roberts would have no one but a child to help him; and he thought, in reason, they could not give him less than the mate and two boys.

Russel said he could not help that, "the mate was a brisk lusty young fellow, and had been upon the account before. He had declared he would not go in the sloop unless forced; that when he first came to Barbadoes his resolve had been to ship himself on board the first pirate he met with." Loe replied, "That to give the master a vessel without men was only putting him to a lingering death, and they had better knock him on the head at once."

Russel replied, "as for that they might do as they pleased; he spoke for the good of the company and according to articles, and he should like to see or hear the man who dared to gainsay it. He was quartermaster, and by the authority of that office should at once enter the mate, and had a pistol and a brace of bullets for any who opposed him." Loe299 said he would not argue against law and custom, but he thought if they kept the mate they should substitute another man.

Russel said, with an oath, grinding his teeth, "No, the sloop's men were enrolled already in his books, and he should rub no names out." Then turning to Roberts, he added, "The company, master, has decreed you your sloop, and you shall have her; you shall have your two boys, that's all: but you shall have neither provisions nor anything else more than she has now. And, as I hear some of the company design to make a gathering for you, that also I forbid, by the authority of my office, because we are not certain but we may have occasion ourselves for those very things before we get more. And I swear by all that's good and bad, if I know anything that's carried or left on board the sloop against my order, or without my knowledge, I will set her on fire that very instant, and you with her."

After a little more dispute and feeble and intimidated resistance to this violence, Russel's stern resolution and heartless villany300 carried the day, and about dusk they parted, each to his own ship, several professing kindness to Roberts, but none giving him anything. When Russel was ready, he sent Roberts into his boat, and bringing him to his own ship, ordered supper for him, and bottles, and pipes and tobacco, being set on the table, he invited Roberts and his officers into his cabin.

His revenge was now accomplished and the wretch, now resolved to make Roberts taste the tortures of death, by anticipation, addressed him with a sneer worthy of the applause of hell.

"Captain Roberts," he said, "you are very welcome, and I pray you eat and drink heartily, for you have as tedious a voyage to go through as Elijah in his forty days' journey to Horeb, and, as far as I know, without a miracle, it must be only by the strength of what you now eat, for you shall have neither eatables nor drinkables with you in the sloop." Roberts replied, "I hope not so," but Russel answered he would find it certainly true.

Roberts then said, that rather than be put301 on board the sloop in that manner, when there was no possibility of escaping but by a miracle, he should be glad to be sent ashore on some island off the coast of Guinea, or even to tarry on board till an opportunity occurred to land where he pleased, for he would yield to anything else they should think fit to do with him, except entering into their service.

Russel answered with an oath, the usual prelude of a pirate's harangue, that it had been once in his power to have been his own friend, but as he chose to slight their proffered favours, and had made that choice, he must now take it, as all apologies were too late; and he thought he had proved himself a better friend than Roberts could have expected, since he had caused him to have more differences with his company than he had ever had before.

Roberts pleaded the innocence of his intentions, and intreated Russel and all the gentlemen present to consider him an object rather of pity than vengeance. But his tormentor, more inexorable than a headsman,302 said: "All your whining arguments, you dog, are now too late. You not only refused our commiseration when it was offered, but ungratefully despised it. Your lot is cast, and you have nothing to do but to go through your chance with a good face. Fill your belly with victuals and good drink, and strengthen yourself for three days or so, or have some brandy and die drunk, and be happy. This is your last meal in this world, so fail not to make the most of it. Yet, perhaps, such a conscientious man as you pretend to be may have a miracle worked for you, but for my own part I don't believe God himself, if there is one, could help you. I pity the boys, and have a great mind, Roberts, to keep them on board, and let the miracle be worked on you alone."

The master and governor said they heard the boys were willing to take their chance with the master, let it be what it would. "Nay, then," said Russel, "it is fit the young devils should, and I suppose the master has made them as religious and conscientious as himself. However, master," he cried,303 "eat and drink heartily; this is your last supper, as the priests call it, and don't try to change your allotted fate, or it may provoke us to treat you worse."

"Gentlemen," said Roberts, with a resignation that would have touched any other man, "I have done; you can do no more than God is pleased to permit you, and I own for that reason I ought to take it patiently. God forgive you." "Well, well," said Russel, "if it is done by God's permission, you need not fear He will permit any harm to befall one of his peculiar elect."

About ten at night, in order that darkness might add to his dismay, some of Russel's partisans brought the sloop's boat. In answer to an inquiry as to whether they had cleared the vessel as he had ordered, they replied with an oath, "Ay, ay, she has nothing on board except ballast and water." "Zounds," said Russel, stamping on the deck, "did I not bid you stave all the casks that had water in them?" "So we have," was the reply; "the water we mean is salt water leaked in, and now above the ballast,304 for we have not pumped her, we don't know when." He asked if they had brought away the sails. They said they had, all but the mainsail that was bent, for the other old mainsail was so rotten it was only fit to cut up for parcelling, and was so torn it could not be brought to, and was past mending.

"Zounds," said Russel, "we must have it, for I want it to make us a mainsail. The same miraculous Power that brings the rogue provisions will bring him sails."

"No, no!" replied Russel, "but he expects miracles to be wrought for him, or he would never have chosen what he has."

"But I doubt," cried another, "if he be such a mighty conjuror, for if he was, how the devil was it that he did not conjure himself clear of us?"

"Ay," said a fourth, "now we have all305 his conjuration books over board, I doubt he'll be hard put to it."

The gunner alone seemed to retain any trace of humanity, he bade Russel take care he had not this to answer for some day when he would be sorry for it. "Howsum-dever," he said, "you've got the company's assent, I can't tell how, and, therefore, I shall say no more, only that I, and I believe most of the gentlemen came here to get money, but not to kill, except in fight, much less in cold blood, or for private revenge. And I tell you, Jack Russel, if ever such cases as these be any more practised, my endeavours will be to leave this company as soon as convenient."

Russel made no answer, but ordered his men to fetch the mainsail from the sloop. He then gave Roberts an old worm-eaten musket, a damp cartridge, and two half pounds of tobacco "as a parting present." His victim was then conducted with great ceremony over the side into his own boat, and put on board with his two boys.

As their boat was putting away, Roberts306 thought he heard his mate's voice, so he called to him and said, "Arthur! what, are you going to leave me?" A voice replied, for it was pitch dark, "Ay." "What!" said Roberts, "do you do it voluntarily, or are you forced?" He answered faintly, "I am forced, I think!" Roberts answered "Very well." The mate then called out and asked Roberts, if he ever had an opportunity, to write and give his brother an account of him. Roberts asked where he lived, and the mate replied at Carlingford, in Ireland. Now this mate the captain had picked up at Barbadoes, a naked shipwrecked man, who had served in a New England sloop. He had bought him clothes and instruments, and treated him with sympathy and kindness. He was a rigid Presbyterian, a great arguer on theological points, and a loud inveigher against the Church of England. Although he had never before been heard to utter an oath, as soon as Russel persuaded him to join the pirate crew, he became constantly drunk, and outdid them all in blasphemy and wickedness, but he had told his new companions so307 much of Roberts's kindness, that but for Russel they would not have allowed him to join them.

Next morning Roberts proceeded to rummage the sloop, and sweeping out the bread lockers, he found about his hat crown full of biscuit crumbs, some broken pipes, and a few screws of tobacco. They had left his fore-staff, but took his bedding, although they generally lay upon deck, or against a gun carriage. In the hold, the more merciful had left ten gallons of rum in one hogshead, and thirty pounds of rice in another, with three pints of water and a little flour, together with some needles and twine, sufficient to repair his rotten sails. A day or two afterwards they caught a shark, which they boiled for several dinners, using the shark's liver, melted, for oil. He soon after reached Curisal, obtained a negro crew, was wrecked, built a boat, and was eventually taken home by an English ship.

Scarcely less interesting than this narrative of Roberts is that of Captain William Snelgrave, who was engaged in the slave308 trade on the Guinea coast in 1738. Having escaped one of the dreaded Salee rovers, he was taken at Sierra Leone by Captain Cocklyn of the Rising Sun, a pirate commanding three vessels and a gang of eighty men. He had been marooned by a man named Moody, but had gradually collected men, and captured, in a short time, ten English vessels. Moody's crew, soon after Cocklyn's departure, disliking their captain's cruelty, put him and twelve more in an open boat, which they had taken from the Spaniards off the Canary Islands, and chose a Frenchman named Le Bouce as their commander, who instantly put back and joined Cocklyn, whom they liked because he was fierce and brutal, being resolved to have no more gentlemanlike captains like Moody.

The next day Davis, the pirate, arrived with 150 well disciplined men, the black flag flying at his mast head.

The evening Snelgrave entered the river, he observed a suspicious smoke on land, but his mate said it was only travellers roasting oysters, and it appeared afterwards that he was309 a traitor. On standing in for the river's mouth, the pirate vessels appeared in sight. Towards dusk he heard a boat approaching, so he ordered twenty men to get ready their firearms and cutlasses. Lanterns being brought and the boat hailed, the pirates fired a volley at the ship, being then within pistol shot distance, a daring act for twelve men, who were attacking a ship of sixteen guns and forty-five men.

When they began to near, the captain called out to fire from the steerage port-holes. This not being done, he went below, and found his people staring at each other, and declaring they could not find the arm chest. The pirates instantly boarded, fired down the steerage, shooting a sailor in the loins, and throwing hand grenades amongst them. On their calling for "mercy," the quartermaster, who always headed the pirate boarders, came down from the quarterdeck and inquired for the captain, asking how he dared to fire. On Snelgrave saying it was his duty to defend his ship, the quartermaster presented a pistol at his breast, but he parried310 it, and the bullet passed under his arm. The wretch then struck him on the head with the butt end, bringing him on his knees. On his getting up and running to the quarterdeck, the pirate boatswain made a blow at his head with his broad sword, swearing no quarter should be offered to any captain who dared to defend his vessel. The blow missed him, but the blade cut an inch deep in the quarterdeck rail, and there broke. The pirate's pistols being all unloaded, he then struck at him with the butt end of one of them till the crew cried out for his life, and said they had never sailed with a better man. One of the crew, however, had his chin cut off; another fell for dead on the deck. The quartermaster who came up, told him he should be cut to pieces if his men did not recover the pirate's boat that had run adrift. On recovering this, he took him by the hand, and declared his life was safe if none of his crew complained of him. The pirate then fired several vollies for joy at their recovery, but forgetting to hail their companions, were fired on by the other ships. When Snelgrave311 questioned the quartermaster why he did not use his speaking trumpet, he asked him angrily whether he was afraid of going to the devil by a great shot, "for that he hoped to be sent to hell by a cannon ball some time or other."

The pirates now prepared for dinner by cramming geese, turkeys, fowls, and ducks, all unpicked, into the furnace, with some Westphalia hams, and a large sow in pig, which they only bowelled, leaving the hair on. Soon after this, a sailor came to Snelgrave to ask him what o'clock it was, and on the captain's presenting him with his watch, laid it on the deck, and kicked it about, saying it would make a good football. One of the pirates then caught it up, and said it should go into the common chest, and be sold at the mast.

Snelgrave was soon after carried on board the pirate ship. The commander told him he was sorry for the bad usage he had met with, but it was the fortune of war, and that if he did not answer truly every question he would be cut into even ounces, but312 that if he told the truth they would make it the best voyage he had ever taken. One of them asked if his ship sailed well on wind, and on his saying, "Very well," Cocklyn threw up his hat, saying she would make a brave pirate man-of-war. A tall fellow, with four pistols in his belt, and a broadsword in his hand, then came up and claimed him as an old schoolfellow, and told him secretly that he was a forced man, having been mate in a Bristol vessel lately captured, and was obliged to go armed. He told him also that at night, when the pirates drank hard, was the time of most danger for prisoners.

A bowl of punch was then ordered, and the men, going into the great cabin, sat on the floor cross-legged, for want of seats, drinking the Pretender's health by the name of "King James the Third." At midnight they gave Snelgrave a hammock, and his old schoolfellow kept guard over him with a drawn sword, but he could not sleep for the songs and cursing. About two o'clock the pirate boatswain came on board, and hearing Snelgrave was asleep, declared he would slice313 his liver for daring to fire at the boat, and refusing to give up his watch. Griffin threatened to cleave him if he came nearer, and struck at him with his sword. In the morning, when all were sober, the sentinel complained of the boatswain for infringing the pirate law, "that no ill usage be offered to prisoners when quarter has once been given." The crew proposed the offender should be whipped, but Snelgrave prudently begged him off. Soon after, his own first mate came to tell him that, being badly off and having a scolding wife, he had joined the pirates. He found out afterwards that he had hid the arm-chest, and dissuaded the men from resistance.

The pirate then began to rummage the vessel, and, not caring for anything but money, threw overboard, before night, about £4000 worth of Indian bales. They broke up his escritoires, and destroyed his chests of books, swearing there was "jaw work enough for a whole nation." Against all religious books they exercised a strict censorship, for fear of any of the crew being314 roused to qualms of conscience, or taking a dislike to the profession. The wine too began to be passed freely round, and the pirates grew merciful, and good-humouredly made up a bundle of clothes for the prisoners. At this moment one of Davis's crew, a pert young fellow of 18, broke open a chest for plunder, and on the quartermaster complaining, replied "that they were all equal, and he thought he was in the right." The quartermaster then struck at him with his sword, and pursued him into Davis's cabin, where he thrust at him, and ran him through the hand, wounding the captain as well. Davis vowed revenge, saying that if his man had offended, no one had a right to punish him, and especially in his presence. He then instantly went on board his own ship, and bore down upon Cocklyn, who finally consented to make the quartermaster beg pardon for his fault.

Snelgrave was sitting in the cabin with the carpenter and three or four other pirates, when the boatswain came down very drunk, and beginning to abuse him was turned out315 of the place. Soon after a puff of wind put out the candle, and the boatswain returning, declared Snelgrave had put it out, with the design of going into the powder-room and blowing up the ship; and in spite of the carpenter declaring it was done by accident, he drew a pistol and swore he would blow out the dog's brains. In rising to blow in the candle Snelgrave and the carpenter had, unknown to the boatswain, changed places. The pistol flashing in the pan, the carpenter saw by the light that he must have been shot if it had gone off, and in a rage ran in the dark to the boatswain, wrenched the pistol from his hand and beat him till he was nearly dead. The noise alarmed the ship, and the disturber was carried off to bed.

The next morning Davis's crew came on board to divide the wines and liquors. They hoisted on deck a great many half hogsheads of claret and French brandy, knocked out their heads and dipped out cans and bowls full, throwing them at each other, and washing the decks with what was left. The bottles they took no trouble to mark, but "nicked"316 them, as they called it, by striking off their necks with a cutlass, spilling the contents of about one in every three. The eatables were wasted in the same way. Three drunken pirates coming into the cabin, and tumbling over Snelgrave's bundles of clothes, threw three of the four overboard. A fourth pirate, more sober than the rest, opened the remaining bundle, and taking out a black suit and a wig, put them on and strutted on deck, throwing them over in an hour when the crew had drenched him with claret. When Snelgrave mildly expostulated with him on this robbery, he struck him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, whispering at the same time a caution never to dispute the will of a pirate for fear he might get his skull split for his impudence.

When night came on, Snelgrave had nothing left of four bundles of clothes but a hat and a wig, and these were soon after put on by a drunken man, who staggered into the cabin, saying he was "one of the most respectable merchants on the African coast." As he was leaving the room, a sailor came in317 and beat him severely for taking what he had no right to, and thinking he was one of the crew. The interposer then comforted Snelgrave, and promised to recover what he had lost, while others of the crew brought him food.

Next day, Davis, ordering all the crews on the quarter-deck, made a speech in Snelgrave's behalf, persuading them to give him a ship and several thousand pounds' worth of miscellaneous plunder. One of the men proposed they should take him with them down the Guinea coast, and if they took a Portuguese vessel, to give him a cargo of slaves. Down the coast he might sell his goods for gold dust, and then, sailing for St. Thomas's, sell his ship and the slaves to the Danes, and return to London a rich man. Snelgrave demurring to this, they grew angry, thinking their gift would have been legal, but Davis kindly said, "I know this man and can easily guess his thoughts, he thinks he would lose his reputation. Now, I am for allowing everybody to go to the devil in their own way, so beg you to give him the318 remains of his own cargo and let him do as he thinks fit."

This they granted, but of his own adventure not more than £50 worth was now left. The sailors had taken rolls of fine Holland and opened them to lie down in on the deck. Then when the others came and flung buckets of claret over them, they flung the stained parcels overboard. In loading, the pirates always dropped the bales over, if they were not passed as quickly as they expected. The Irish beef they threw away, Cocklyn saying Snelgrave had horsebeans enough to last his crew six months.

Soon after this the brutal quartermaster fell sick of a fever, and sent to Snelgrave to beg his forgiveness, for having attempted to shoot him. He said he had been a wicked wretch, and that his conscience tormented him, for he feared he should roll in hell fire. When Snelgrave preached repentance he declared his heart was hardened, but he would try, and he ordered Snelgrave to take any necessaries he wanted from his chest, but died that night in terrible agonies and cursing319 God. This so affected many of the new recruits that they begged Snelgrave to get them off, and promised not to be guilty of murder or other cruelty. In the cabin the pirates found some proclamations, and being unable to read asked the prisoner to do it for them. He then read His Majesty's proclamation for a pardon to all pirates that should surrender themselves at any of the British plantations by the 1st of July, 1719. The next was the declaration of war against Spain. When they heard the latter, some said they wished they had known it before they left the West Indies, as they might have turned privateersmen, and have enriched themselves. Snelgrave told them it was not yet too late, there being still three months left of the term prescribed. But when they heard the rewards offered for the apprehension of pirates, a Buccaneer who had been guilty of murder, treated the proclamation with contempt, and tore it in pieces. Amongst other men that consulted Snelgrave was a sailor named Curtis, who, being sick, walked about the deck wrapped320 in a silk gown. He had sailed with Snelgrave's father. Among other spoil the three pirate captains had found a box with three second-hand embroidered coats, which they seized and put on. The longest falling to Cocklyn's share, who was a short man, it reached to his ankles, but Le Bouce and Davis refused to change with him, saying that as he was going on shore where the negro ladies knew nothing of white men's fashions, it did not matter, and moreover, as his coat was scarlet embroidered with silver, he would be the bravest of them all.

These clothes being taken contrary to law, and without the quartermaster's leave, the crew were offended, declaring that if they suffered such things, the captains would assume a new power, and soon take whatever they liked. The next morning when their captains returned, the coats were taken from them, and put into the common chest; and it having been reported that Snelgrave had advised the costume, many of the men turned against him, one of them threatening to cut him to pieces. A sailor who stood near told Snelgrave321 not to be frightened at the man's threat, for he always spoke in that way, and advised him to call him "captain" when he came on board, for the fellow had once been commander of a pirate sloop, did not like the post of quartermaster, and loved to be called by his old title. On entering the ship, Snelgrave said softly to him, "Captain Williams, pray hear me on the point you are so offended about." Upon this Williams gave him a playful blow on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, and said "I have not the heart to hurt thee." He then explained the affair, drank a glass of wine with him, and they were friends ever after. The pirates next captured a French ship that they had at first taken for a forty-gun ship in pursuit of them. The men drunk and newly levied, might at this time have easily been cut off, and the hundred sail of ships they afterwards destroyed saved. When some of the men cried out that they had never seen a gun fired in anger, Cocklyn caned them, telling them they should soon learn to smell gunpowder. The French captain they hung at the yard-arm322 for not striking at their first shot. When they had pulled him up and down several times till he was almost dead, Le Bouce interfered for his countryman, protesting he would sail no longer with such barbarous villains. They then gave him the French ship, first destroying her cargo, cutting her masts by the board, and running her on shore, as old and useless.

Snelgrave's ship being now fitted up by the pirates, he was invited to its christening. The officers stood round the great cabin, holding bumpers of punch in their hands; and on Captain Cocklyn saying, "God bless the Wyndham galley," they drank the liquor, broke their glasses, and the guns thundered a broadside.

The new ship being galley built with only two flush decks, the powder-room scuttle was in the chief cabin, and at that time stood open. One of the guns blowing at the touch-hole, set fire to some cartouch boxes that held small arm cartridges, the shot of which flew about, filling the room with smoke. When it was over, Davis remarked on the great323 danger they had been in, the scuttle having been all the time open, and 20,000 lb. weight of powder lying under. Cocklyn replied with a curse, "I wish it had taken fire, for it would have been a noble blast to have gone to hell with."

The next day the pirate captains invited Snelgrave to dinner, and during supper a trumpeter and other musicians, who had been taken from various prizes, played and sang. About the middle of supper there was a sudden cry of fire, and a sailor boy, running in, with a pale face, said the main hatchway was on fire. The crew were then nearly drunk, and many of them leaped into the boats, leaving the officers and the fifty prisoners. On Snelgrave remarking to Davis the danger they were in, being left without a boat, Davis fired a great gun at the fugitives, and brought them back. The gunner then put wet blankets on the bulk head of the powder-room, and so saved it from destruction. This immense store of powder had been collected from various prizes, as being an article in great request with the negroes. Snelgrave took324 one of the quarterdeck gratings and lowered it over the ship's side with a rope, in case he should be obliged to leave the ship, and all this time the drunken sailors were standing on the quarterdeck, to the horror of the prisoners, shouting, "Hurrah for a quick passage to hell!"

About ten o'clock the master, a brisk and courageous man, who, with fifteen more, had spared no pains to conquer the flames, came up miserably burnt, and calling for a surgeon, declared the danger was now all over. The fire had arisen from the carelessness of a negro, who being sent to pump out some rum, held his candle so near the bung-hole of the hogshead that a spark caught the spirit. This soon fired another tub, and both their heads flew off with the report of a cannon; but though there were twenty casks of rum, and as many of pitch and tar in the store, all the rest escaped.

Before morning, the gunner's mate having spoken in favour of Snelgrave's conduct during the fire, the crew sent for him to attend the sale of his effects on board the Wyndham galley.325 Some promised to be kind to him; and the captain offered to buy his watch. As they were talking, a mate, half drunk, proposed that Snelgrave should be kept as a pilot till they left the coast, but Davis caned him off the quarter deck.

Two days after this the pirates took a small vessel belonging to the African Company. Snelgrave's first mate then told them that he had been once very badly served by this company, and begged that they would burn the vessel in revenge. This was about to be ordered when Stubbs, a quick-witted sailor, stood up and said, "Pray, gentlemen, hold, and I will prove to you that the burning of this ship will only advance the company's interests. The vessel has been out two years; is old, crazy, and worm-eaten; her stores are worth little, and her cargo consists only of red wood and pepper, the loss of which will not harm the company, who will save the men's wages, which will be three times the value of the cargo." This convinced the crew, who at once spared the vessel, and returned her to the captain.

A few days afterwards, Snelgrave's things were sold at the mast, many of the men returning him their purchases, his old school-fellow in particular begging hard on his behalf. When the fiercer men observed the great heap of things he had collected, they swore the dog was insatiable, and said it would be a good deed to throw them overboard. Hearing this, Snelgrave loaded his canoe, and, by the advice of his friends, returned to shore. Soon after he left, his watch was put up for sale, and run to £100 in order to vex Davis, who, however, bought it at that enormous price. One of the sailors, enraged at this, tried the case on a touch-stone, and, seeing it looked copperish from the alloy in the gold, swore it was bad metal. They then declared Snelgrave was a greater rogue than any of them, since he had cheated them all. Russel laughed at this, and then vowed to whip him when he came next. Upon the advice of his friends, Snelgrave hid in the woods till the pirates left the river, and soon after returned with several other ruined men to England.

Of the Madagascar Pirates some scanty record in Hamilton's Account of the East Indies, published in 1726. He mentions the fact that the pirates had totally destroyed the English slave trade in that island, in spite of several squadrons of men-of-war sent against them. To use the author's own rather ambiguous words, "A single ship, commanded by one Millar, did more than all the chargeable fleets could do, for, with a cargo of strong ale and brandy, which he carried to sell them in 1704, he killed about 500 of them by carousing, though they took his ship and cargo as a present from him, and his men entered, most of them, into the society of the pirates." Commodore Littleton lent them blocks and tackle-falls to careen, and, for some secret reasons, released some of their number.

The author concludes in the following manner: "Madagascar is environed with islands and dangerous shoals both of rocks and sand. St. Mary's, on the east side, is the place which the pirates first chose for their asylum, having a good harbour to defend328 them from the weather, though in going in there are some difficulties. But hearing the squadrons of English ships were come in quest of them, they removed to the main island for more security, and there they have made themselves free denizens by marriage." And the author is of opinion it will be no easy matter to dispossess them. In 1722 Mr. Matthews went in search of them, but found they had deserted St. Mary's Island, leaving behind them some marks of their robberies, for in some places he found pepper strewed a foot thick on the ground. The commodore went, with his squadron, over into the main island, but the pirates had carried their ships into rivers or creeks, out of danger of the men-of-war, and to burn them with their boats would have been impracticable, since they could have easily distressed the crews from the woods. The commodore had some discourse with several of them, but they stood on their guard, ready to defend themselves in case any violence had been offered them.

The 11th and 12th of William III., and329 the 8th George I., are both statutes against piracy, and are indications of the years in which their ravages were peculiarly felt. By the first, any natural-born subject committing an act of hostility against any of his Majesty's subjects, under colour of a commission from any foreign power, could be tried for piracy. And further, any commander betraying his trust, and running away with the ship, or yielding it up voluntarily to a pirate, or any one confining his captain to prevent him fighting, was adjudged a pirate, felon, and robber, and was sentenced to death.

Commanders or seamen wounded, or their widows slain in piratical engagements, were entitled to a bounty not exceeding one-fiftieth part of the value of the cargo, and wounded men received the pension of Greenwich Hospital. If the commander behaved cowardly, he was to forfeit all his wages, and suffer six months' imprisonment.

Such are a few of the facts connected with the almost unrecorded and uncertain history330 of the pirates of New Providence and Madagascar, the most loathsome wretches that perhaps, since Cain, have ever washed their hands in human blood. Ferocious yet often cowardly, they were subtle and cruel, with none of the frequent generosity of outlaws, and little of the enterprise of the military adventurers. Long ago have their bones crumbled from the dark gibbets on the lonely sand islands of the Pacific, and they remain without monument or record, except in prison chronicles and forgotten voyages. We have reviewed their history simply as the natural sequel of our annals, and as an illustration of the character of the English seaman in its most brutal and satanic aspect.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES.
BUCCANEER WRITERS.

John (Joseph?) Esquemeling's [1] Bucaniers of America; or, an Account of the most Remarkable Assaults committed on the Coasts of the West Indies by the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga; with the Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan. Translated into English from the Dutch, with a Portrait of Sir H. Morgan, a Map and Plates, with a Table. 4to. London. 1684.

—— De Americanische Zee Roovers. 4to. Amsterdam. 1678.

—— Hisp. 12mo. Col. Ag. 1682.

—— Eng. 12mo. London. 1684.

—— 4to. Col. Ag. 1684.

—— 12mo. 4 vols. Maps and Plates. Trevoux.

(Augmentée de l'Histoire des Pirates Anglais depuis leur Etablissement dans l'Isle de Providence jusqu'au Presént.): 1775.

Œxmelin, Alexandre Olivier—Histoire des Avanturiers qui se sont signalés dans les Indes Occidentales depuis Vingt Ans. Traduite de l'Anglais par le Sr. de Frontignières; avec un Traité de la Chambre de Comptes établie dans les Indes par les Espagnols, traduit de l'Espagnol; le tout enriché des Cartes et des Figures, avec des Tables. 2 vols. 12mo. Paris. 1688.

JESUIT HISTORIANS.

Pierre François Xavier Charlevoix—Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole, ou de St. Domingue, écrite sur des Mémoires Manuscrits du P. Jean Baptiste le Tertre, Jésuite Missionaire à St. Domingue, et sur les Pièces Originales qui se conservent au Dépôt de la Marine; avec des Cartes, des Plans, et des Tables. 2 vols. 4to. Paris. 1730-31.

Piratas de la America y Luz à la Defensa de las Costas de Indias Occidentales. Traducida del Flamenco en Espanol, por el Doctor Buena Maison, Medico Practico en la Amplissima y Magnifica Ciudad de Amsterdam Dala à Luz esta Tercera Edicion, D.M.G.R. Madrid. 4to. 1763. 12mo. 1682. 4to. 1684.

Jean Baptiste du Tertre, missionaire apostolique dans les Antilles—Histoires des Antilles Habitées par les François; avec des Figures. 4 vols. 4to. Paris. 1667-71.

Jean Baptiste Labat, Dominicain Parisien, professeur des Philosophies à Nanci, etc.—Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amérique. 8 vols. 12mo. Paris. 1742.

Captain William Dampier's Voyage Round the World. Illustrated with Maps and Plates. 4 vols. in 3. 8vo. London. 1703-9.

Lionel Wafer's Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America. 8vo. London, 1699. 8vo. London, 1704.

Captain James Burney's Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. 3 vols. 4to. 1803-13-17.

Captain T. Southey's Chronological History of the West Indies. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1817.

LIST OF BUCCANEER CHIEFS,

Just Published, Illustrated with Portraits,
THE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES,
COMPLETING THE WORK, OF THE
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT & CABINETS OF GEORGE III.
FROM ORIGINAL FAMILY DOCUMENTS.
BY THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM & CHANDOS, K.G.

Among the principal important and interesting subjects of these volumes (comprising the period from 1800 to 1810) are the following:—The Union of Great Britain and Ireland—The Catholic Question—The retirement from office of Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville—The Addington Administration—The Peace of Amiens—The connection of the Prince of Wales with the Opposition—The Coalition of Pitt, Fox, and Grenville—The Downfall of the Addington Ministry—The conduct of the Princess of Wales—Nelson in the Baltic and at Trafalgar—The Administration of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox—The Abolition of the Slave Trade—The Walcheren Expedition—The Enquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York—The Convention of Cintra—The Expeditions to Portugal and Spain—The Quarrel of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning—The Malady of George III.—Proceedings for the establishment of the Regency. The Volumes also comprise the Private Correspondence of Lord Grenville, when, Secretary of State and First Lord of the Treasury—of the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, when President of the Board of Control and First Lord of the Admiralty—of the Duke of Wellington, during his early Campaigns in the Peninsula; with numerous confidential communications from George III., the Prince of Wales, Lords Castlereagh, Elgin, Hobart, Camden, Essex, Carysfort, Melville, Howick, Wellesley, Fitzwilliam, Temple, Buckingham, Mr. Fox, Mr. Wyndham, &c. &c.

N.B.—A FEW COPIES OF THE FIRST AND SECOND VOLUMES OF THIS WORK MAY STILL BE HAD.

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Monarchs of the Main; Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers. Volume 3 (of 3)

E-text prepared by Adam Buchbinder, Rory OConor,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
from scanned images of public domain material
generously made available by
the Google Books Library Project
(http://books.google.com/)

THE
MONARCHS OF THE MAIN;
OR,
ADVENTURES OF THE BUCCANEERS.

BY
GEORGE W. THORNBURY, ESQ.

VOL. III.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

MONARCHS OF THE MAIN.

CHAPTER I.
RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.

CHAPTER II.
THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS.

CHAPTER III.
FALL OF THE FLOATING EMPIRE.

CHAPTER IV.
THE PIRATES OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND THE KINGS OF MADAGASCAR.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES.
BUCCANEER WRITERS.

JESUIT HISTORIANS.

LIST OF BUCCANEER CHIEFS,

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Monarchs of the Main; Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers. Volume 3 (of 3)

E-text prepared by Adam Buchbinder, Rory OConor, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from scanned images of public domain material generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com/)

THE MONARCHS OF THE MAIN; OR, ADVENTURES OF THE BUCCANEERS.

BY GEORGE W. THORNBURY, ESQ.

VOL. III.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

MONARCHS OF THE MAIN.

CHAPTER I. RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.

CHAPTER II. THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS.

CHAPTER III. FALL OF THE FLOATING EMPIRE.

CHAPTER IV. THE PIRATES OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND THE KINGS OF MADAGASCAR.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES. BUCCANEER WRITERS.

JESUIT HISTORIANS.

LIST OF BUCCANEER CHIEFS,

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

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THE
MONARCHS OF THE MAIN;
OR,
ADVENTURES OF THE BUCCANEERS.

BY
GEORGE W. THORNBURY, ESQ.

CHAPTER I.
RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.

CHAPTER II.
THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS.

CHAPTER III.
FALL OF THE FLOATING EMPIRE.

CHAPTER IV.
THE PIRATES OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND THE KINGS OF MADAGASCAR.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES.
BUCCANEER WRITERS.