Part 2

Both the buccaneers and the pirates had their favourite haunts and places of rendezvous. These had to be within easy sailing distance of one or more regular trade routes, and at the same time had to be in some quiet spot unlikely to be visited by strange craft, and, besides being sheltered from storms, must have a suitable beach on which their vessels could be careened and the hulls scraped of barnacles and weeds. The greatest stronghold of the buccaneers was at Tortuga, or Turtle Island, a small island lying off the west coast of Hispaniola. Here in their most piping days flourished a buccaneer republic, where the seamen made their own laws and cultivated the land for sugar-cane and yams. Occasionally the Spaniards or the French, without any warning, would swoop down on the settlement and break up the small republic, but sooner or later the buccaneers would be back once again in possession.

The favourite and most flourishing headquarters of the West India pirates was at New Providence Island in the Bahama Islands, occupied to-day by the flourishing town of Nassau, now the headquarters of those worthy descendants of the pirates, the bootleggers, who from the old port carry on their exciting and profitable smuggling of whisky into the United States.

The numerous bays and islands lying off the coast of South Carolina were very popular with the free booters in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; while Port Royal, in Jamaica, was noted from early days as the port from which the most famous buccaneers sailed for the Spanish Main, and to which they returned with their plunder.

The French filibusters and pirates mostly used the Virgin Islands, while the Dutch patronized their own islands of Curaçao, Saba, and St. Eustatius. But the buccaneers did not allow the chance of nationality to divide them, for Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Dutchmen, all "brethren of the coast," sailed together and plundered the Spaniard in open and equal friendship.

An entirely different group of pirates arose in the South Seas, with their headquarters in Madagascar. Here the pirates went farther towards forming a permanent society than at any other time during their history, with the exception of the Barbary corsairs, who had their strongly fortified settlements for many years at Algiers, Tunis, and Sallee.

The origin of the buccaneers is interesting, and I cannot do better than quote the opening chapter of Clark Russell's "Life of William Dampier," in the English Men of Action Series, published by Messrs. Macmillan in 1889. He writes:

"In or about the middle of the seventeenth century, the Island of San Domingo, or Hispaniola as it was then called, was haunted and overrun by a singular community of savage, surly, fierce, and filthy men. They were chiefly composed of French colonists, whose ranks had from time to time been enlarged by liberal contributions from the slums and alleys of more than one European city and town. These people went dressed in shirts and pantaloons of coarse linen cloth, which they steeped in the blood of the animals they slaughtered. They wore round caps, boots of hogskin drawn over their naked feet, and belts of raw hide, in which they stuck their sabres and knives. They also armed themselves with firelocks, which threw a couple of balls, each weighing two ounces. The places where they dried and salted their meat were called _boucans_, and from this term they came to be styled bucaniers, or buccaneers, as we spell it. They were hunters by trade, and savages in their habits. They chased and slaughtered horned cattle and trafficked with the flesh, and their favourite food was raw marrow from the bones of the beasts which they shot. They ate and slept on the ground, their table was a stone, their bolster the trunk of a tree, and their roof the hot and sparkling heavens of the Antilles."

The Spaniards, who were jealous of any other nation than their own having a foothold in America, determined to get rid of these wild but hitherto harmless buccaneers. This they accomplished, and in time drove the cattle-hunters out of Hispaniola; and to make sure that the unwelcome visitors should not return, they exterminated all the wild cattle. This was the worst mistake the Spaniards could have made, for these wild men had to look for other means of supporting themselves, and they joined the freebooters and thus began the great period of piracy which was the cause of the ultimate breaking-up of the Spanish power in the West Indies.

Of the life on board buccaneer and pirate ships a somewhat hazy and incomplete picture reaches us. The crews were usually large compared with the number of men carried in other ships, and a state of crowded discomfort must have been the result, especially in some crazy old vessel cruising in the tropics or rounding the Horn in winter. Of the relationship between the sea-rovers and the fair sex it would be best, perhaps, to draw a discreet veil. The pirates and the buccaneers looked upon women simply as the spoils of war, and were as profligate with these as with the rest of their plunder. I do not know if I am disclosing a secret when I mention that my friend Mr. Hyatt Verrill, who is an authority on the subject of the lives of the pirates, is about to publish a book devoted to the love affairs of these gentry. I confess to looking forward with pleasure and a certain degree of trepidation to reading his book and to seeing how he will deal with so delicate a subject.

We know that Sir Henry Morgan was married and provided for his widow in his will.

Captain Kidd, wife, and child, resided in New York, in the utmost conjugal happiness and respectability, but then Kidd was a martyr and no pirate.

Captain Rackam, the dashing "Calico Jack," ran away to sea with the woman pirate, Mrs. Anne Bonny, and they lived together happily on board ship and on land, as did Captain and Mrs. Cobham. The only other pirate I know of who took a "wife" to sea with him was Captain Pease, who flourished in a half-hearted way--half-hearted in the piratical, but not the matrimonial sense--in the middle of the nineteenth century.

A certain settler in New Zealand in the "early days" describes a visit he paid to Captain Pease and his family on board that pirate's handy little schooner, lying at anchor in a quiet cove at that island.

On stepping aboard, the guest was warmly welcomed by a short, red-faced man, bald of head and rotund in figure, of about fifty-five years of age. His appearance suggested a successful grocer rather than a pirate. On the deck were seated two ladies, one nearing middle age, the other young and undoubtedly pretty. At the feet of these ladies sprawled several small children. Captain Pease proceeded to introduce his guest to these as Mrs. Pease No. 1 and Mrs. Pease No. 2. The ladies continued their sewing while a conversation took place on various subjects. Presently, taking out his watch, the pirate turned to the younger lady, observing that it was nearing teatime. Mrs. Pease No. 2, laying down her sewing, went to the cabin, from which the rattle of teacups and the hiss of a boiling kettle were soon heard. Tea being announced as ready, the party entered the cabin, Mrs. Pease senior taking the place at the head of the table and pouring out the tea while the younger Mrs. Pease very prettily handed round the cups and bread and butter, the guest particularly noticing with what respect and thoughtfulness she looked after the wants of the elder Mrs. Pease.

As a pirate Captain Pease was second or even third rate, confining his daring to seizing small unarmed native craft, or robbing the stores of lonely white traders on out-of-the-way atolls. But as a married man he showed himself to be a master; matrimony was his strong suit, domesticity his trump card. He gave one valuable hint to his guest, which was this: "Never take more than two wives with you on a voyage, _and choose 'em with care_."

One is apt to disassociate serious matrimony, and still less responsible paternity, with the calling of piracy, but with Captain Pease this was far from being the case. Every one of his wives--for he had others on shore--contributed her mite, or two, to the growing family, and the Captain really could not say which of his offspring he was most proud of. It seems at first strange that a man of Captain Pease's appearance, figure, and settled habits, almost humdrum, should have been such an undoubted success with the ladies; but that he was a success there can be no doubt. Perhaps his calling had a good deal to do with this attraction he had for them.

Before bringing this Preface to a conclusion, there is one other aspect of piracy upon which I will touch.

Death, portrayed by a skeleton, was the device on the flag beneath which they fought; and a skeleton was for ever threatening to emerge from its cupboard aboard every pirate vessel.

The end of most of the pirates and a large proportion of the buccaneers was a sudden and violent one, and few of them died in their beds. Many were killed in battle, numbers of them were drowned. Not a few drank themselves to death with strong Jamaica rum, while many of the buccaneers died of malaria and yellow fever contracted in the jungles of Central America, and most of the pirates who survived these perils lived only to be hanged.

It is recorded of a certain ex-prizefighter and pirate, Dennis McCarthy, who was about to be hanged at New Providence Island in 1718, that, as he stood on the gallows, all bedecked with coloured ribbons, as became a boxer, he told his admiring audience that his friends had often, in joke, told him he would die in his shoes; and so, to prove them liars, he kicked off his shoes amongst the crowd, and so died without them.

The trial of a pirate was usually a rough and ready business, and the culprit seldom received the benefit of any doubt that might exist.

If he made any defence at all, it was usually to plead that he had been forced to join the pirates against his wish, and that he had long been waiting for an opportunity to escape.

Once condemned to death, and the date of execution decided, the prisoner, if at Newgate, was handed over to the good offices of the prison Ordinary; or, if in New England, to such vigorous apostles of Christianity as the Rev. Cotton or the Rev. Increase Mather. The former of these two famous theologians was pastor of the North Church in Boston, and the author of a very rare work published in 1695, called "An History of Some Criminals Executed in This Land." Cotton Mather preached many a "hanging" sermon to condemned pirates, a few of which can still be read. One of these, preached in 1704, is called "A Brief Discourse occasioned by a Tragical Spectacle of a Number of Miserables under Sentence of Death for Piracy."

The Reverend Doctor made a speciality of these "hanging" sermons, and was a thorough master of his subject, as is shown by the following passage taken from the above "Brief Discourse":

"The Privateering Stroke so easily degenerates into the Piratical; and the Privateering Trade is usually carried on with an Unchristian Temper, and proves an Inlet unto so much Debauchery and Iniquity."

On the Sunday previous to an execution the condemned pirates were taken to church to listen to a sermon while they were "exhibited" to the crowded and gaping congregation. On the day of the execution a procession was formed, which marched from the gaol to the gallows.

At the head was carried a silver oar, the emblem from very early days of a pirate execution. Arrived at the gibbet, the prisoner, who always dressed himself in his, or someone else's, best clothes, would doff his hat and make a speech.

Sometimes the bolder spirits would speak in a defiant and unrepentant way; but most of them professed a deep repentance for their sins and warned their listeners to guard against the temptation of drink and avarice. After the prisoner's death the bodies of the more notorious pirates were taken down and hanged in chains at some prominent spot where ships passed, in order to be a warning to any mariners who had piratical leanings.

The number of pirates or buccaneers who died in their beds must have been very small, particularly amongst the former; and I have been able to trace but a single example of a tombstone marking the burial-place of a pirate. This is, or was until recently, to be found in the graveyard at Dartmouth, and records the resting-place of the late Captain Thomas Goldsmith, who commanded the _Snap Dragon_, of Dartmouth, in which vessel he amassed much riches during the reign of Queen Anne, and died, apparently not regretted, in 1714. Engraved upon his headstone are the following lines:

Men that are virtuous serve the Lord; And the Devil's by his friends ador'd; And as they merit get a place Amidst the bless'd or hellish race; Pray then ye learned clergy show Where can this brute, Tom Goldsmith, go? Whose life was one continual evil Striving to cheat God, Man and Devil.

THE PIRATES' WHO'S WHO

AISA. Barbary corsair.

A famous Mediterranean pirate, and one of Dragut's admirals in the sixteenth century.

ALCANTRA, CAPTAIN MANSEL.

A Spaniard. Commanded a pirate brig, the _Macrinarian_. Committed many outrages. Took the Liverpool packet _Topaz_, from Calcutta to Boston, in 1829, near St. Helena, murdering the whole crew. In the same year he took the _Candace_, from Marblehead, and plundered her. The supercargo of the _Candace_ was an amateur actor, and had on board a priest's black gown and broad brimmed hat. These he put on and sat in his cabin pretending to tell his beads. On the pirates coming to rob him, they all crossed themselves and left him, so that he alone of the whole company was not robbed.

ALEXANDER, JOHN.

A Scotch buccaneer; one of Captain Sharp's crew. Drowned on May 9th, 1681. Captain Sharp, with a party of twenty-four men, had landed on the Island of Chiva, off the coast of Peru, and taken several prisoners, amongst whom was a shipwright and his man, who were actually at work building two great ships for the Spaniards. Sharp, thinking these men would be very useful to him, took them away, with all their tools and a quantity of ironwork, in a dory, to convey them off to his ship. But the dory, being overladen, sank, and Alexander was drowned. On the evening of May 12th his body was found; which they took up, and next day "threw him overboard, giving him three French vollies for his customary ceremony."

ALI BASHA.

Of Algiers. Barbary corsair.

Conquered the Kingdom of Tunis in the sixteenth century, and captured many Maltese galleys. He brought the development of organized piracy to its greatest perfection.

In 1571 Ali Basha commanded a fleet of no fewer than 250 Moslem galleys in the battle of Lepanto, when he was severely defeated, but escaped with his life.

ALLESTON, CAPTAIN.

Commanded a vessel of eighteen tons, no guns, and a crew of twenty-four. In March, 1679, sailed in company with eight other vessels, under command of Captain Harris, to the Coast of Darien, and marched on foot across the isthmus, on his way attacking and sacking Santa Maria.

AMAND or ANNAND, ALEXANDER.

Of Jamaica.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Hanged on November 8th, 1718, at White Point, Charleston, South Carolina, and buried in the marsh below low-water mark.

AMEER, IBRAHIM.

An admiral of an Arabian fleet of Red Sea pirates. In 1816 he captured four British merchant vessels on their way to Surat.

ANDRESON, CAPTAIN CORNELIUS.

A Dutch pirate. Sailed from Boston in 1674 with Captain Roderigo to plunder English ships along the coast of Maine, in a vessel called the _Penobscot Shallop_.

Tried at Cambridge, Massachusetts, sentenced to death, but later on pardoned. Afterwards fought very bravely for the English colonists against the Indians.

ANDROEAS, CAPTAIN.

A Chief or Captain of the Darien Indians, who in 1679 conducted the buccaneers under Coxon and Harris across the isthmus to attack Santa Maria and afterwards to make an attempt on Panama.

Captain Androeas had a great esteem for the English, partly because the buccaneers were kind to the Indians, and partly because of the Indians' fear and hatred of the Spaniards. He afterwards led back a party of malcontents under Captain Coxon from the Pacific side of the isthmus.

ANGORA, Sultan of Timor.

Refusing to allow the East India Company to station garrisons on Timor, he was driven out of the whole of his island except the chief town, also called Angora.

Deciding to take revenge, he turned pirate and went to sea in command of a small fleet of five well-armed prows and several galleys. His first prize was a packet brig carrying despatches from Calcutta to the English General before Angora. Captain Hastings, the commander, a near relation of Warren Hastings, and a gallant officer, had thrown the despatches overboard, for which he was hanged, while the crew were sent to prison at Angora and afterwards poisoned. His next prize was an East Indian ship, the _Edward_, Captain Harford, the crew of which were also poisoned. Cruising off Bombay he defeated a vessel sent out by the Government to attack him. After taking other English vessels, Angora met with a richly laden ship from Burmah, a country whose sovereign he was on friendly terms with, but the Sultan-pirate took this ship and drowned every soul on board except one woman, who, owing to her great beauty, he kept for himself. His next victim was a well-armed Malay praam, which he captured after a severe fight. The crew he shackled and threw overboard, while he burnt the vessel. Paying another visit to Bombay, he caught the garrison unprepared, blew up the fort, and sailed off with some sheep, cows, and pigs. A few days later the pirate seized an English packet, _St. George_, and after he had tortured to death the captain, the terrified crew joined his service. Returning to Timor with his plunder, he was surprised by the arrival off the port of H.M.S. _Victorious_, seventy-four guns, which had been sent to take him. Slipping out of harbour unobserved in the night in his fastest sailing praam, he escaped to Trincomalee in Ceylon, where the East India Company decided to allow him to remain undisturbed.

ANGRIA.

Brother of a famous pirate, Angora, Sultan of Timor. When the Sultan retired from practice to the Island of Ceylon he gave his brother his praam, a fast vessel armed with thirty-eight guns.

Angria's brother Angora had been dethroned from the Island of Timor by the English Government, and this had prevented the former from all hope of succeeding as Sultan. Owing to this, Angria, a very vindictive man, nursed against the English Government a very real grievance. Declaring himself Sultan of another smaller island, Little Timor, he sailed out to look for spoil. His first victim was the _Elphinston_, which he took some eighty miles off Bombay. Putting the crew of forty-seven men into an open boat, without water, and with scarcely room to move, he left them. It was in the hottest month of the year, and only twenty-eight of them reached Bombay alive.

Angria, being broad-minded on the subject of his new profession, did not limit himself to taking only English vessels, for meeting with two Chinese junks, laden with spices and riches, he plundered them both, and tying the crew back to back threw them into the sea to drown. One of the Chinamen, while watching his companions being drowned, managed to get a hand free from his ropes, and, taking his dagger, stabbed Angria, but, missing his heart, only wounded him in the shoulder. To punish him the pirate had the skin cut off his back and then had him beaten with canes. Then lashing him firmly down to a raft he was thrown overboard. After drifting about for three days and nights he was picked up, still alive, by a fishing-boat and carried to Bombay, where, fully recovered, he lived the rest of his days.

Angria continued his activities for three years, during which space he was said to have murdered in cold blood over 500 Englishmen. He was eventually chased by Commander Jones in H.M.S. _Asia_, sixty-four guns, into Timor, and after a close siege of the town for twelve months, Angria was shot by one of the mob while haranguing them from a balcony.

After Commander Jones's death his widow built a tower at Shooter's Hill, by Woolwich Common, to perpetuate the memory of her husband who had rid the Indian Ocean of the tyrant Angria.

The following lines are from the pen of Robert Bloomfield, and allude to this monument:

Yon far-famed monumental tower Records the achievements of the brave, And Angria's subjugated power, Who plunder'd on the Eastern Wave.

ANSTIS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.

The first mention of the name of this notorious pirate occurs in the year 1718, when we hear of him shipping himself at Providence in a sloop called the _Buck_ in company with five other rascals who were conspiring together to seize the vessel and with her go "a-pyrating."

Of these five, one was Howel Davis, who was afterwards killed in an affair at the Island of Princes; another, Denman Topping, who was killed in the taking of a rich Portuguese ship on the coast of Brazil; a third, Walter Kennedy, was eventually hanged at Execution Dock, while the two others, who escaped the usual end of pirates--that is, by hanging, shooting, or drowning in saltwater or rum--disappeared into respectable obscurity in employment of some sort in the City of London.

This party of six conspirators was the nucleus of a very powerful combination of pirates, which eventually came under the command of the famous Captain Roberts.

Anstis's pirate career began as did most others. They cruised about amongst the West India Islands, seizing and plundering all merchant ships they chanced upon, and, if we are to believe some of the stories that were circulated at the time of their treatment of their prisoners, they appear to have been an even rougher lot of scoundrels than was usual.

Before long they seized a very stout ship, the _Morning Star_, bound from Guinea to Carolina, and fitted her up with thirty-two cannons taken from another prize; manned her with a crew of one hundred men, and put Captain John Fenn in command. Anstis, as the elder officer, could have had command of this newer and larger ship, but he was so in love with his own vessel, the _Good Fortune_, which was an excellent sailer, that he preferred to remain in her.

The party now had two stout ships, but, as so often happened, trouble began to ferment amongst the crew. A large number of these had been more or less forced to "go a-pyrating," and were anxious to avoid the consequences, so they decided to send a round-robin--that is, a petition--signed by all with their names in a circle so that no rogue could be held to be more prominent than any other, to ask for the King's pardon.

This round-robin was addressed to "his most sacred Majesty George, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith," etc.

This petition was sent to England by a merchant vessel then sailing from Jamaica, while the crews hid their ships amongst the mangrove swamps of a small uninhabited island off the coast of Cuba. Here they waited for nine months for an answer to their petition to the King, living on turtle, fish, rice, and, of course, rum _ad lib._ as long as it lasted.

To pass the time various diversions were instigated, particularly dancing--a pastime in great favour amongst pirates. We have a most amusing account left us of a mock court of justice held by them to try one another of piracy, and he who was on one day tried as the prisoner would next day take his turn at being Judge.

This shows a grim sense of humour, as most of those who took part in these mock trials were certain to end their careers before a real trial unless they came to a sudden and violent end beforehand.