Part 5

But if he did no more pirating himself, he set fire to the buccaneers of Tortuga, who told themselves that what Pierre le Grand had done they could do. If they had but ships! They were going to set up in “business” that required good craft, and there they were with only canoes. Well, canoes would do to get them where they could find suitable ships, and, pushing off day after day, the buccaneers cruised about Hispaniola and the neighbourhood, seizing small Spanish vessels carrying tobacco and hides. These they took back to Tortuga, disposed of the cargoes profitably, fitted out the vessels, and set out to sea again, now to seek larger ships; with the result that, in a couple of years, a score of buccaneer ships were sailing the seas proudly, taking toll of the Spaniards for having stopped their peaceful livelihood.

Of these earlier buccaneers we must mention another Peter--Pierre François. Like Peter the Great, his forerunner, he had been cruising about a long time without a satisfactory prize turning up; and as away at Tortuga were a number of men--whom we, in these modern days, call “duns”--waiting for him to settle up various little accounts, he thought it behoved him, for his creditors’ sake, to garner a harvest that was worth while.

So, standing out from the neighbourhood of Hispaniola, Pierre François ventured farther afield. Away down at Ranceiras, near the River Plate, there was a fine rich bank of pearl, to which year after year the Spaniards sent about a dozen large ships a-pearling, each squadron having a man-o’-war to protect it.

Pierre François felt he would like to have some of the pearls which other men had obtained. When he came up with the fleet, he found the warship, the _Capitana_, of twenty-four guns and a couple of hundred men, lying half a league away from the rest of the vessels; and, well versed in the ways of the wily Spaniard, he knew that the man-o’-war would be certain to hold the greater part of the harvest of the sea. Wherefore, of course, Pierre decided that nothing less than the _Capitana_ would pay him for the trip down the coast.

But first he must put himself in the way of being strong enough to take the war vessel, and to this end he resolved to capture one of the other ships to begin with. Pretending that his ship was a Spanish craft, he pulled down his sails, rowed close to the shore till he reached the pearl-bank, and then promptly boarded the _Vice-Admiral_, of eight guns and threescore men.

“Surrender!” yelled the buccaneers.

“Never!” cried the Spaniards, and fell to fighting stubbornly; and then did what they said they wouldn’t do--they surrendered.

So far so good. Pierre was elated. But he did want that man-o’-war!

First he sank his own vessel, which was in a pretty bad way. Then he hoisted the Spanish flag on his prize and sailed away. The captain of the _Capitana_, fearing that one of his convoy was running off with treasure--those Spaniards never trusted each other!--set sail after the runaway. Pierre let him come, and then, when within hailing distance, made his prisoners yell: “_Victoria! Victoria!_ We have taken the thieves!”

Whereupon the _Capitana_, believing that everything was all right, hove to, drew off, and disappeared in the darkness, promising to send to fetch the prisoners away in the morning.

During the night François decided to slip away. Perhaps he didn’t like the look of the _Capitana_ after all; perhaps he was satisfied with his haul. He should have been, for it contained pearls of the value of 100,000 gold pieces of eight, and a large store of provisions. But he had come to the end of his lucky lode, for the _Capitana_, having, apparently, grown suspicious, suddenly hoisted sail and followed in pursuit. Pierre hoped to be able to show a clean pair of heels before daylight came. But Dame Fate played him a nasty trick; the wind fell, and left him becalmed. And when dawn broke he saw that the _Capitana_, becalmed also, lay within sight, waiting for the wind to freshen.

Evening came, and with it a breeze; and instantly Pierre hoisted all sail and stood away, with the _Capitana_ in hot pursuit. Then Pierre found he had made a mistake; the ship was unable to bear the burden of so much sail as he had hoisted, and the fickle wind, bursting upon him, brought his mainsail down with a rush.

That did it! The _Capitana_ sped through the water towards the _Vice-Admiral_, and, coming within range, sent a few shots hurtling at her, expecting to see her haul down the flag. Instead of which Pierre, resolved to fight in the hope of coming out best, opened out with his eight guns, and pounded away for all he was worth. He took the precaution first of clapping his prisoners in the hold and nailing down the hatches. And then, with but twenty-two men fit to fight--the rest were either killed or wounded--he prepared to give battle. For hours they fought, bravely and well; but all in vain. The man-o’-war was too much for them, and at last Pierre signified his willingness to surrender--on conditions. These were that they shouldn’t be made slaves, nor be made to work on the plantations. The Spaniards agreed; and within a short time François and his men were on board the Spanish vessel--prisoners.

They were taken to Carthagena, where the Spaniards broke their word, and made the prisoners slaves for three years, after which they were sent to Spain.

Bartholomew Portugues, another of the early buccaneers, sailing off Cuba in a small vessel of three guns and thirty men, fell to chasing a big Spaniard of twenty big guns and seventy men. The Spaniards showed fight, and beat Bartholomew off with losses he could ill afford. But, determined to succeed or die, the buccaneer brought his vessel back again, and, getting alongside, led his crew aboard the Spanish ship. All fighting like demons, in the end they captured it, and found themselves in possession of a vessel worth having, with a treasure on board of 120,000 lbs. of cocoa and 75,000 crowns.

Joyful over their good fortune, the buccaneers bethought themselves of returning to Jamaica, whence they had set out; but, as they were now but twenty all told, they did not know how to keep their prisoners. They solved that problem by bundling them into a small boat and turning them adrift, after which they hoisted sail and set off to Cuba to repair, as the wind was not favourable for Jamaica.

All would have gone well had they not fallen in with three large ships bound for Havannah, which, becoming suspicious, gave chase, and, as they were much faster vessels than the new-found prize of the buccaneers, they quickly overhauled it, battered at it with their guns, and before long had made the captors captives, with whom they set sail for Campechy.

Portugues had a reputation that was not warranted to make him loved in Campechy, and when he arrived there men lifted up their voices and cried:

“Behold, this is Bartholomew Portugues, the biggest scoundrel in the world, who has done more harm to Spanish trade than all the other pirates put together.” And in due course the governor, in the name of the King of Spain, sent soldiers, who took the buccaneer to another ship, where he was clapped into irons to await the morning--and the gallows, which were promptly erected. Bartholomew, made aware of the preparations being made in his honour, considered it necessary to do something on his own account for his safety. So in the night he freed himself from his shackles, and, being ingenious and a non-swimmer, fashioned strange water-wings, in the shape of a couple of leathern jars he found in his cabin. Then, having waited till silence on the ship told him that everyone was asleep--excepting, he surmised, the sentry at his door--he resolved to make a bid for freedom. The sentry he stabbed with a knife he had concealed, and then slipped over the ship’s side, clambered down the mainchains into the sea, and, supported by his jars, made his way to shore.

Into the woods he darted, and for three days hid there, on a diet of wild herbs, listening to the sounds of baying bloodhounds and angry citizens seeking him high and low. Fortunately for the buccaneer, his place of concealment was in a hollow tree partly covered by water, which put the bloodhounds off the scent.

In due course the searchers became convinced that the pirate had eluded them, and gave up the search, and Bartholomew decided it was safe to venture forth. He wanted to get to Gulfo Triste, 160 miles away, and thither he bent his steps. It was a long way and a weary way, and a hungry and thirsty way, too, for he had no provisions and little water. He came to rivers that he must cross, and he had no boats. He found a board with a few old nails in it, and out of these he fashioned crude knives, with which he laboriously cut down branches of trees, and made a raft by which to cross the rivers. Sometimes the rivers were fordable, but were filled with alligators. At these he flung stones to scare them away, and then sallied forth across the stream. Once a mangrove swamp lay between him and the place where he would fain go. There was no road; only the swamp, that would swallow him up if he put foot upon it. He solved the problem of progress by swinging from bough to bough of the mangrove, travelling for miles in that way. Truly, Bartholomew was a hardy traveller!

Thus for a whole fortnight the buccaneer kept on his lonely way, and at last reached Gulfo Triste, where he found what he had hoped would be there--a buccaneer ship, careening.

The pirates were friends of his, and he poured into their attentive ears the story of his adventures and misadventures. They listened even more attentively when he told them that, if they would help him, he would put in their way a ship that would enable them to brave any vessel that the Spanish Dons might send out against them; besides which it contained goodly treasures.

“Give me a boat and thirty men,” he said, “and I will go back to Campechy and bring back the ship that took me prisoner.”

His friends gave the boat and the men, and Bartholomew set out, hugging the coast, and eight days later came to Campechy. Then, under the cover of darkness, he put his boat alongside the great vessel, scrambled up her side, and prepared to rush. The sentry challenged him. Bartholomew, in Spanish, murmured soothingly that they were part of the crew returning, after an evening ashore, with smuggled goods, and the sentry kept quiet. He was quieter still soon, for a knife-thrust laid him low.

Then, with a rush, the buccaneers fell upon the watch, overpowered them, cut the cable and set the vessel adrift; after which they ran below. The sleeping crew awoke in a great fright, and, with pistols at their heads, were compelled to surrender.

The ship was won!

Bartholomew, however, seemed dogged by hard luck, for while he was making his way past the Isle of Pines, bound for Jamaica, a great storm burst upon him, and drove his prize upon the rocks, where she held fast until she was broken to pieces.

The ship was lost!

The buccaneers, however, succeeded in escaping to Jamaica in a canoe, from where, according to Esquemeling, the chronicler of the dark deeds of the bold pirates, “it was not long before Bartholomew Portugues went on new adventures, but was never fortunate afterwards.”

MORGAN: BUCCANEER AND GOVERNOR

Tales of the Remarkable Exploits of the Greatest Buccaneer

Before telling the story of the buccaneer who became Governor of Jamaica, we must mention the change which had taken place in the methods of the buccaneers. From being mere rovers of the sea, bent on taking toll of shipping, they had developed into a brotherhood which made bold attempts on cities. The Spaniards, weary of their depredations and finding that they could not cope with them, had reduced the amount of shipping, so that the buccaneers had to turn to more profitable fields of enterprise. Hence, says Esquemeling, “the pirates finding not so many ships at sea as before, began to gather into greater companies, and land upon the Spanish dominions, ruining whole cities, towns and villages; and withal pillaging, burning, and carrying away as much as they could find possible.”

And now to Captain Henry Morgan, the most famous of the buccaneers. He was a Welshman, who, after various little “affairs,” found himself in command of a pirate vessel, with which he was successful. Later, he allied himself with Mansvelt, a notorious buccaneer, and after the death of that worthy, Morgan was appointed to the command of the Brethren of the Coast.

At the head of his band of rogues, he captured the towns of Port au Prince, Cuba, and Porto Bello, Panama--both after stiff fights--and from the latter he extracted a heavy ransom, was cheeky to the governor of Panama, after he had waylaid and beaten an expedition sent out to wipe him off the Spanish main, and promised the governor that he would come later and sack his city for him!

Then he turned his attention to Maracaibo.

First of all, he held a review of his force; it consisted of eight ships and five hundred men, quite a formidable little army. With these he sailed, and in due course arrived off Maracaibo. The buccaneers held off till night came, sailing in under cover of the darkness until they arrived near the bar. The Spaniards, sighting the strange vessels, were taking no risks, and opened fire immediately, pounding away at the pirates as they put out their boats and manned them, ready to sweep in and land. Of course, Morgan’s ships gave the Spaniards as much as they received, and during the day a fine little fight was kept up. Then night came again; and Morgan, meaning to take advantage of it, swooped in, to find that the Spaniards in the fort had bolted precipitately when night fell.

They had taken the precaution, however, of setting a fuse train to a barrel of gunpowder, sufficient to hurl the fort and the buccaneers into the Great Unknown. Fortunately, Morgan’s men, scouring about for such a likely thing, hit upon it in about a quarter of an hour, and soon destroyed the fuse.

That done, the fort was ransacked and demolished. Next day, free from hindrance of the fort, the eight pirate ships passed into the harbour, and went on to Maracaibo. The water, however, being too shallow to allow of the ships passing up, the buccaneers took to small boats and canoes, and in this way made their way to the town. Landing, they immediately rushed Fort De la Barra, only to find that it was deserted; the Spaniards here had fled like their comrades farther down, as also had the people in the town, with the exception of a few old folk.

Truly, Morgan was having an easy time.

Searching the town to make sure that there were no soldiers hidden in the houses to open fire upon them as they passed through the streets, and finding none, the buccaneers dispersed about the city, some taking up their abode in the church, for nothing was held sacred to these terrible scourgers of the sea and sackers of cities.

Although Morgan captured a number of fugitives and a good deal of booty, he realised that there was nothing much to be gained from Maracaibo, and decided to assault Gibraltar. First he sent a batch of prisoners to the city, to warn the inhabitants that they must surrender, or else they would receive no quarter; and almost immediately followed them with his ships. Gibraltar, however, was determined not to surrender at the behest of a scoundrelly buccaneer, and Morgan was met by a terrific cannonading.

Nothing daunted, the buccaneers accepted their welcome philosophically, counting it but the bitters before the sweets. Early next morning, they landed and marched on the town, taking the safe route through the woods, the Spaniards in the fort little expecting them to come by that way. However, the dons, aware of the reputation of Morgan, had followed the example of their compatriots at Maracaibo and had fled, leaving only one old man to receive the buccaneers. They had taken all the munitions of war, all the treasure, and as much of their goods as they could cope with, and they had spiked all the guns.

There were a number of murderous and cruel incidents connected with the prisoners they succeeded in taking later on. From one of these unfortunate men they learned of a certain river where there was a richly laden ship and four boats filled with treasure; he also told them that he knew where the governor of Gibraltar was hidden.

This was good news. Morgan went off with a large force to capture the governor, and sent another body of men to take the ship and the boats. Morgan was unsuccessful in capturing the governor, who had heard of his coming and had taken up a strong position on a mountain; so that the buccaneer had to forgo the pleasure of capturing him, and, moreover, had to make a perilous retreat, owing to the fact that the rains had come and the ground was swampy--sometimes, indeed, the men had to wade waist deep. Many female prisoners and children died of exposure; some of the buccaneers died also, and all their powder was wet and useless, so that, if the Spaniards had had the gumption of mice, they would have fallen upon Morgan and utterly routed him. But they hadn’t; and they didn’t.

Morgan, therefore, arrived safely back at Gibraltar, where two days later his other men turned up, bringing the four boats and some prisoners, but little treasure. The Spaniards had taken it out of the ship and the boats.

Having held Gibraltar for five weeks, and having committed all sorts of cruelties to extract treasure from the prisoners taken, Morgan decided that it was time to be moving. He first of all sent prisoners into the woods to collect a ransom for the city, failing which the place would be burnt out. The searchers came back minus ransom; they could not find anyone who would give them money, they said. Morgan was furious; but the inhabitants begged him to allow them time, offering to give themselves up as hostages. Morgan, who was anxious to get back to Maracaibo before the Spaniards had had time to refortify it, agreed to this, and eventually sailed away, taking a goodly treasure with him and all the slaves he had captured.

Reaching Maracaibo, he found that the Spaniards had not yet come back, but learned from an old man that three Spanish men-o’-war were lying at the entrance to the river, waiting for him, and that the fort had been repaired. Here was a pretty pass! Safety lay in getting out, and three battleships were hovering about!

Morgan, however, like the bold adventurer he was, refused to regard himself as caught. He sent a messenger to the admiral of the Spanish ships, Don Alonzo del Campo d’Espinosa, with an ultimatum!

“Ransom of 20,000 pieces of eight for Maracaibo, or I’ll burn the city!” was the trend of that ultimatum; as though Morgan were master of the situation.

The messenger came back, bringing a letter from d’Espinosa, informing Morgan that, seeing his commission was to secure the buccaneers, and as he had a good backing of ships, besides the repaired fort, he would see Morgan to the deuce before he took any notice of the latter’s ultimatum. He made one concession, however; that if Morgan would refund all he had taken, and quit the Spanish Main for England, he would allow him to pass freely. Otherwise, the Spaniards would give fight, and put every buccaneer to the sword.

Morgan read the letter, said a few strong things about Spaniards in general and d’Espinosa in particular, and then called a council of his men in the market-place of Maracaibo, and was gratified to know that they would all stand by him in a vigorous offensive against the Spaniards. One of them propounded a scheme for destroying the Spanish vessels. Fireships! That was the suggestion.

Notwithstanding their determination to fight, the buccaneers had another try at corrupting d’Espinosa. They sent saying that they would compromise by doing no damage to the town, or exact ransom from it; and that they would release half the slaves taken, all other prisoners, and forgo any ransom from Gibraltar, if the Spaniards would allow them to pass through unmolested. D’Espinosa, of course, refused the terms, and gave the buccaneers two days to fall into line with his own suggestion. He would have done better if he had attacked them out of hand, for Morgan immediately began to put himself in fighting form. He secured his prisoners, had all arms prepared, and then fixed up a fireship. She was drenched with tar and brimstone, logs of wood were placed upright on her decks, surmounted by hats, to resemble men; dummy cannons were fixed in her portholes and on her decks.

All being ready, they went down the river to seek the Spaniards, the fireship leading the way. At night they came within sight of the enemy, dropped anchor, determined to fight all night if the Spaniards attacked. But morning came, and the foe had not opened the battle, so Morgan opened it instead. He sent the fireship ahead; she grappled the admiral’s ship, and almost simultaneously burst into flame. Instantly there was confusion on the Spanish ship, which tried to cut herself free. But in vain; the flames caught her rigging and canvas, even her timber, so that within a very short time the stern of the ship was ablaze, the forepart sank, and the great ship perished. Meanwhile, the other Spaniards were horror-stricken; one ship ran for the shelter of the fort--anywhere to get away from such a fate; the Spaniards sank her themselves rather than that she should fall to the foe. The third ship was attacked by the buccaneers and captured; and Morgan knew that his bold plan had been successful.

The buccaneers, gladdened at their victory, landed, with the intention of assaulting the fort; but, finding it well armed and manned, and they themselves having only small pieces with them, thought discretion the better part of valour for the time, though they had a little fight with the Spaniards, just for fun, which cost them thirty men dead and as many wounded. The Dons, fearing another attack both by land and sea, entrenched themselves during the night; but Morgan was not intending to assault them again, but rather to find a way out, for the fort still stood between him and escape. First of all he left one ship near the scene of the fight, to watch the vessels which had been burnt, and which he heard contained a large treasure. Then he returned with the prize to Maracaibo, where he refitted her, and then went back to his other ships near the fort.

Master of the situation, he now sent to the governor demanding the ransom--now 30,000 pieces of eight and 500 cows; otherwise, the city should be burnt in eight days. In two days the cows were forthcoming, and 20,000 pieces of eight, the ransom finally agreed upon. Meanwhile, the governor was working hard at getting the fort in a thorough state of repair, so that he might dispute the passage of the pirates as they tried to force their way through. Having salted all the meat supplied him, Morgan asked the governor to allow him free passage. It was refused. The buccaneer replied by threatening to hang his prisoners in the rigging, so that they should be shot by the fort guns as the vessels swung past. The governor refused to budge, even when the prisoners made a frantic appeal to him.

“All right,” was Morgan’s answer. “If he will not let me pass, then I’ll find a way without him.”

The vessel which he had left near the burnt ship had been successful in getting many pieces of eight out of her, and a large quantity of plate and molten gold.