On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien

On 23rd April 1680, "that day being dedicated to St George, our Patron of England," the canoas arrived off Panama. "We came," says Ringrose, "before sunrise within view of the c...

While they were waiting for the pinnaces Drake had the ships set in order, the arms scoured, and everything made ready for the next adventure. He had taken Nombre de Dios so eas...

Some months later Henry Morgan found his pirates in all the miseries of poverty. They had wasted all their silver dollars, and longed for something "to expend anew in wine" befo...

William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had a taste for roving, went to the West Indies for the first time in 1674, about three years after the sack of Panama. He was "then ab...

In 1492, when Columbus landed on Hayti, he found there about 1,000,000 Indians, of a gentle refinement of manners, living peaceably under their kings or caciques. They were "fai...

"On the tenth day, betimes in the morning," while the black and white monkeys were at their dawn song, or early screaming, the pirates fell in for the march, with their red flag...

It was a melancholy home-coming. The men had little more than ten pounds apiece to spend in jollity. The merchants who enjoyed their custom were of those kinds least anxious to...

When the Spanish prize had been warped to her berth at Slaughter Island, Drake called his men together, with the chiefs of the Maroons, to a solemn council of war about the fire...

Throughout the years of buccaneering, the buccaneers often put to sea in canoas and periaguas,[15] just as Drake put to sea in his three pinnaces. Life in an open boat is far fr...

At "about Ten a Clock" in the morning of 17th April 1681, the mutineers went over the side into their "Lanch and Canoas, designing for the River Santa Maria, in the Gulf of St M...

As soon as the town was in his hands, Drake set guards on the bridge across the Chagres and at the gate by which he had entered the town. He gave orders to the Maroons that they...

Francis Drake, the first Englishman to make himself "redoubtable to the Spaniards" on the Spanish Main, was born near Tavistock about the year 1545. He was sent to sea, as a lad...

Cannon were in use in Europe, it is thought, in the eleventh century; for the art of making gunpowder came westward, from China, much earlier than people have supposed. It is ce...

As soon as an ancient ship of war was fitted for the sea, with her guns on board, and mounted, her sails bent, her stores and powder in the hold, her water filled, her ballast t...

It may now have been ten o'clock at night, and we may reckon that the boats were still four or five miles from the town, the lights of which, if any burned, must have been plain...

In engaging an enemy's ship at sea the custom was to display the colours from the poop, and to hang streamers or pennons from the yardarms.[30] The spritsail would then be furle...

By comparing Sir Richard Hawkins' "Observations" and Sir W. Monson's "Tracts" with Nicolas Boteler's "Dialogical Discourses," we find that the duties of ship's officers changed...

When the retreating force had gone about two leagues, they discovered that a Frenchman was missing from the ranks. He had not been hurt in the fight; but there was no time to se...

The John Oxenham, or Oxnam, who followed Drake to Nombre de Dios, and stood with him that sunny day watching the blue Pacific from the tree-top, was a Devonshire gentleman from...

Until the reign of Henry VIII. the shipping of these islands was of two kinds. There were longships, propelled, for the most part, by oars, and used generally as warships; and t...