THE LURE OF COCOS ISLAND
It will be recalled that Lord Bellomont, in writing to his government
of the seizure of Kidd and his treasure, made mention of "a Pirate
committed who goes by the name of Captain Davis, that came passenger
with Kidd from Madagascar. I suppose him to be that Captain Davis that
Dampier and Wafer speak of in their printed relations of Voyages, for
an extraordinary stout[1] man; but let him be as stout as he will, here
he is a prisoner, and shall be forthcoming upon the order I receive
from England concerning him."
If Bellomont was right in this surmise, then he had swept into his
drag-net one of the most famous and successful buccaneers of the
seventeenth century, a man who must have regarded the alleged misdeeds
of Kidd as much ado about nothing. Very likely it was this same
Captain Edward Davis who may have been at the East Indies on some
lawful business of his own, but he had no cause for anxiety at being
captured by Bellomont as a suspicious character. He had honorably
retired in 1688 from his trade of looting Spanish galleons and treasure
towns, in which year the king's pardon was offered all buccaneers who
would quit that way of life and claim the benefit of the proclamation.
It is known that he was afterwards in England, where he dwelt in
quietness and security. William Dampier mentions him always with
peculiar respect. "Though a buccaneer, he was a man of much sterling
worth, being an excellent commander, courageous, never rash, and endued
in a superior degree with prudence, moderation, and steadiness,
qualities in which the buccaneers generally have been most deficient.
His character is not stained with acts of cruelty; on the contrary,
wherever he commanded, he restrained the ferocity of his companions.
It is no small testimony to his abilities that the whole of the
buccaneers in the South Sea during his time, in every enterprise
wherein he bore part, voluntarily placed themselves under his guidance,
and paid him obedience as their leader; and no symptom occurs of their
having at any time wavered in this respect or shown inclination to set
up a rival authority.[2]
During the Kidd proceedings, the Crown officers made out no case
against Edward Davis, and he appears at the trial only as a witness in
Kidd's behalf. He testified in corroboration of the fact that Kidd had
brought home the two French passes taken out of his captures, and his
experienced mind was quick to recognize the importance of the documents
as a sound defense against the charges of piracy.
Curiously enough, the name of Captain Edward Davis has since been
linked with a buried treasure story, that of Cocos Island in the
Pacific. Certain it is that he and his comrades took great spoils
along the Spanish coasts of South America and the Isthmus, and that he
used Cocos Island as a convenient base for careening ship and
recuperating the health of his hard-fighting, careless crew. Wafer has
given the following description of this popular resort for treasure
seekers of modern times:
"The middle of Cocos Island is a steep hill, surrounded with a plain
declining to the sea. This plain is thick set with cocoanut trees; but
what contributes greatly to the pleasure of the place is that a great
many springs of clear and sweet water, rising to the top of the hill,
are there gathered as in a deep large basin or pond, and the water
having no channel, it overflows the verge of its basin in several
places, and runs trickling down in pleasant streams. In some places of
its overflowing, the rocky side of the hill being more perpendicular
and hanging over the plain beneath, the water pours down in a cataract,
so as to leave a dry space under the spout, and form a kind of arch of
water. The freshness which the falling water gives the air in this hot
climate makes this a delightful place.
"We did not spare the cocoa-nuts. One day, some of our men being
minded to make themselves merry went ashore and cut down a great many
cocoa-nut trees, from which they gathered the fruit, and drew about
twenty gallons of the milk. They then sat down and drank healths to
the King and Queen, and drank an excessive quantity; yet it did not end
in drunkenness; but this liquor so chilled and benumbed their nerves
that they could neither go nor stand. Nor could they return on board
without the help of those who had not been partakers of the frolic, nor
did they recover under four or five days' time."[3]
Captain Edward Davis had found this delectable islet during a
singularly adventurous voyage. The English buccaneers and the French
_filibustiers_ who had long cruised in the West Indies, were driven
from their haunts by the vigorous activity of the European governments,
and in 1683 an expedition was organized to go pirating against the
Spaniards in the Pacific, or the "South Sea." Dampier was of this
number, also Captain John Cook, Captain Edward Davis, and Lionel Wafer
who wrote the journal of the voyage. The scheme was hatched on the
coast of Hispaniola, and after taking two prizes, French vessels, to
Virginia to be sold, the company seventy strong, and most of them old
hands at this game, stood out from the Chesapeake in an eighteen-gun
ship called the _Revenge_.
Off the coast of Guinea they found a large Danish ship which better
suited their purpose, wherefore she was carried by boarding. They
christened her the _Batchelor's Delight_, and abandoned their old
vessel which was burned, "that she might tell no tales." In February
of 1684, they rounded Cape Horn and made for the island of Juan
Fernandez, which several of the company had previously visited with
Watling. Then sailing northward, the ship visited the Galapagos
Islands to catch turtle, and bore away for Cocos which was missed
because of adverse winds and faulty navigation. On this stretch of the
voyage, the _Batchelor's Delight_ passed what was known as the Isle of
Plate, or Drake's Island, in latitude 2 min. 42 sec. S., which has an
alluring lost treasure story of its own. Says Esquemeling:
"This island received its name from Sir Francis Drake and his famous
actions, for here it is reported by tradition that he made the dividend
or sharing of that quantity of plate which he took in the Armada of
this sea, distributing it to each man of his company by whole bowls
full. The Spaniards affirm to this day that he took at that time
twelve score tons of plate, and sixteen bowls of coined money a man,
his number being then forty-five men in all. Insomuch that they were
forced to heave much of it overboard, because his ship could not carry
it all. Hence was this island called by the Spaniards themselves the
Isle of Plate, from this great dividend, and by us Drake's Isle."[4]
The mainland of South America, or New Spain, was sighted near Cape
Blanco, where Captain John Cook died, and Edward Davis, then
quartermaster, was elected commander. He cruised for some time along
the coast, learning among other interesting news that at Point Saint
Elena, "many years before a rich Spanish ship was driven ashore for
want of wind to work her, that immediately after she struck she heeled
off to seaward and sank in seven or eight fathoms of water, and that no
one ever attempted to fish for her because there falls in here a great
high sea."[5]
In the bay of Guayaquil, on the coast of Peru, Davis and Swan, who had
joined him in a small ship called the _Cygnet_, captured four vessels,
three of which had cargoes of negroes. Most of them were let go, to
the great disappointment of Dampier who was filled with a mighty scheme
of treasure finding which he outlined in these words:
"Never was put into the hands of men a greater opportunity to enrich
themselves. We had 1000 negroes, all lusty young men and women, and we
had 200 tons of flour stored up at the Galapagos Islands. With these
negroes we might have gone and settled at Santa Maria on the Isthmus of
Darien, and have employed them in getting gold out of the mines there.
All the Indians living in that neighborhood were mortal enemies to the
Spaniards, were flushed by successes against them, and for several
years had been fast friends of the privateers. Add to which, we should
have had the North Sea open to us, and in a short time should have
received assistance from all parts of the West Indies. Many thousands
of buccaneers from Jamaica and the French islands would have flocked to
us; and we should have been an overmatch for all the force the
Spaniards could have brought out of Peru against us."
Soon after this, the little squadron blockaded the Bay of Panama for
several weeks, plundering whatever shipping came their way. There they
were joined by two hundred Frenchmen and eighty Englishmen, old
buccaneers who had crossed the Isthmus of Darien to have a fling in the
South Seas. Presently another party of two hundred and sixty-four sea
rovers under French command were added to the fleet, besides a strong
force of Englishmen led by one Townley. Davis was made
commander-in-chief of this formidable combination of ten ships and nine
hundred and sixty men, of which the flagship was the _Batchelor's
Delight_. They laid in wait for the annual treasure fleet sent by the
Viceroy of Peru to Panama and found it, but were beaten off because
Davis' confederates lacked his eagerness for fighting at close quarters.
Turning his attention to the mainland, Davis sacked and burned the city
of Leon on the lake of Nicaragua. There one of the free-booters killed
"was a stout, grey-headed old man of the name of Swan, aged about
eighty-four years, who had served under Cromwell, and had ever since
made privateering or buccaneering his occupation. This veteran would
not be dissuaded from going on the enterprise against Leon; but his
strength failed in the march, and after being left on the road he was
found by the Spaniards, who endeavored to make him their prisoner; but
he refused to surrender, and fired his musket amongst them, having in
reserve a pistol still charged; on which he was shot dead."[6]
After this, the force scattered in small bands to plunder on their own
account, Davis keeping together the best of the men whom he took to
Cocos Island where a considerable stay was made. Thence he ravaged the
coast of Peru, capturing many vessels and taking many towns. With
booty amounting to five thousand pieces of eight for every man, Davis
sailed to Juan Fernandez to refit, intending to proceed from there to
the West Indies, but before the ships and men were ready for the long
voyage around Cape Horn, many of the buccaneers had lost all their gold
at dice, and they could not endure to quit the South Sea empty handed.
Their luckier comrades sailed for the West Indies with Captain Knight,
while they chose to remain and try their fortune afresh with Captain
Davis, in the _Batchelor's Delight_. They soon fell in with a large
party of French and English buccaneers who had formerly cruised with
them, and were now engaged in trying to take the rich city of
Guayaquil. They were making sorry business of it, however, and in sore
need of such a capable leader as Davis. He finished the task with
neatness and dispatch and shared in the gorgeous plunder of gold and
silver and jewels, reckoned by one of the Frenchmen in his account of
the episode at fifteen hundred thousand livres.
Davis was now satisfied to leave the Pacific, but whether he went first
to Cocos Island to bury any treasure, history saith not, although
tradition roundly affirms that he did. That he and many of his fellow
buccaneers frequently resorted to the Galapagos group, as well as
tarrying at Cocos, is a matter of record. Of the former islands,
Captain Colnet who touched there in 1793, wrote:[7]
"This isle appears to have been a favorite resort of the buccaneers as
we found seats made by them of stone and earth, and a considerable
number of broken jars scattered about, and some whole, in which the
Peruvian wine and liquors of the country are preserved. We also found
daggers, nails and other implements. The watering-place of the
buccaneers was at this time entirely dried up, and there was only found
a small rivulet between two hills, running into the sea, the
northernmost of which hills forms the south point of Fresh Water Bay.
There is plenty of wood, but that near the shore is not large enough
for other use than firewood."
The buccaneers of other voyages than these may have landed at Cocos
Island to leave their treasure. Heaven knows they found plenty of it
in those waters. There was Captain Bartholomew Sharp, for example,
with whom Dampier had sailed several years before. He took a Guayaquil
ship called the _San Pedro_ off Panama, and aboard her found nearly
forty thousand pieces of eight, besides silver, silver bars and ingots
of gold, and a little later captured the tall galleon _Rosario_, the
richest prize ever boarded by the buccaneers. She had many chests of
pieces of eight, and a quantity of wine and brandy. Down in her hold,
bar upon bar, "were 700 pigs of plate," rough silver from the mines,
not yet made ready for the Lima mint. The pirates thought this crude
silver was tin, and so left it where it lay, in the hold of the
_Rosario_, "which we turned away loose into the sea,"[8] with the
precious stuff aboard her. One pig of the seven hundred was taken
aboard the _Trinity_ of Captain Sharp "to make bullets of." About
two-thirds of it was "melted and squandered," but a fragment remained
when the ship touched at Antigua, homeward bound, and was given to a
"Bristol man" in exchange for a drink of rum. He sold it in England
for seventy-five pounds sterling.
"Thus," says Basil Ringrose, "we parted with the richest booty we got
on the whole voyage." Captain Bartholomew Sharp may have been thinking
of something else than the cargo of silver, for aboard the _Rosario_
was a woman, "the beautifullest Creature that his Eyes had ever
beheld," while Ringrose calls her "the most beautiful woman that I ever
saw in the South Seas."
Of these wild crews that flung away their lives and their treasure to
enrich romance and tradition, it has been said:
"They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little
farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to
preserve life, but rather to squander it away; to fling it, like so
much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If
they lived riotously, let it be urged in their favor that at least they
lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die for what they
believed to be worth doing. We think them terrible. Life itself is
terrible. But life was not terrible to them, for they were comrades;
and comrades and brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who
live at home at ease may condemn them. The old buccaneers were happier
than they. The buccaneers had comrades and the strength to lead their
own lives."[9]
This stout old breed had long since vanished when Cocos Island once
more became the theater of buried treasure legend. The versions of
this latter story agree in the essential particular that it was Captain
Thompson of the merchant brig _Mary Dear_ who stole the twelve million
dollars' worth of plate, jewels, and gold coin which had been entrusted
to him by the Spanish residents of Lima in 1820, and buried them on
Cocos Island. Then, after he had joined the crew of the pirate, Benito
Bonito, and somehow managed to escape alive when that enterprising
gentleman came to grief, he tried to return to Cocos Island to recover
the fabulous treasure.
The account of his later wanderings and adventures, as handed down in
its most trustworthy form, has been the inspiration of several modern
treasure-seeking expeditions. It is related that a native of
Newfoundland, Keating by name, while sailing from England in 1844, met
a man of middle age, "handsome in appearance and having about him
something of an air of mystery which had an attraction of its own."
This was, of course, none other than Captain Thompson of the _Mary
Dear_. He became friendly with Keating and when they landed at
Newfoundland, the latter asked him to accept the hospitality of his
home. The stranger, who appeared anxious to avoid public notice,
remained for some time with Keating, and wishing to make some return
for his kindness, at length confided that he was one of the two
survivors of Benito Bonito's crew, and possessed a secret which would
make them immensely rich. If Keating could persuade one of the
merchants of Newfoundland to fit out a vessel, they would sail to the
Pacific and fetch home enough treasure to buy the whole island.
Keating believed the strange tale and passed it on to a ship-owner who
agreed to furnish a vessel provided one Captain Bogue should go in
command of the expedition. While preparations were under way, Thompson
was inconsiderate enough to die, but it goes without saying that he
left a map carefully marked with crosses and bearings. Keating and
Bogue set sail with this precious document, and after a long and
tedious voyage into the Pacific, they cast anchor off Cocos Island.
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[Illustration: Treasure-seekers digging on Cocos Island.]
Christian Cruse, the hermit treasure-seeker of Cocos Island.
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There the brace of adventurers were rowed ashore, leaving the vessel in
charge of the mate. Captain Thompson's directions were found to be
accurate, and a cave was discovered and in it a dazzling store of
treasure to make an honest sailor-man rub his eyes and stagger in his
tracks. Keating and Bogue decided that the secret must be withheld
from the crew at all hazards, but their excitement betrayed them and
all hands clamored that they must be given shares of the booty.
Keating protested that a division should not be made until they had
returned to their home port and the owner of the ship had been given
the greater part which belonged to him by rights.
A mutiny flared up, and the mate and the men went ashore, leaving
Keating and Bogue marooned on board, but the search was bootless for
lack of directions. They returned to the ship in a very savage temper
indeed and swore to kill the two leaders unless they should tell them
how to find the cave. Promising to show the way on the morrow, Keating
and Bogue slipped ashore in a whale-boat that night, planning to take
all the treasure they could carry and hoping to find opportunity to
secrete it on shipboard.
This program was spoiled by a tragedy. While trying to get back to the
ship through the heavy surf that roared on the beach, the boat was
upset. Bogue, heavily ballasted with treasure, went to the bottom like
a plummet and was seen no more. Keating clung to the water-logged boat
which was caught in a current and carried to sea. Two days later he
was picked up, exhausted almost unto death, by a Spanish schooner which
put him ashore on the coast of Costa Rica. Thence he made his way
overland to the Atlantic, and worked his passage home to Newfoundland
in a trading vessel. His ship returned with never a doubloon among the
mutinous crew.
This experience seemed to have snuffed out the ardor of Keating for
treasure-seeking, and it was as much as twenty years later that he
confided the tale to a townsman named Nicholas Fitzgerald. They talked
about fitting out another ship, but Keating up and died in the midst of
the scheming. He had married a very young wife, and she set great
store by the chart and directions preserved as a heritage from Captain
Thompson. In 1894 she struck a partnership with a Captain Hackett and
they organized an expedition which sailed for Cocos Island in a small
brig called the _Aurora_. This adventure amounted to nothing. There
was dissension on board, the voyage was longer than expected,
provisions fell short, and the _Aurora_ jogged homeward without
sighting the treasure island.
Meanwhile other explorers had been busy. A German, Von Bremer, spent
several thousand dollars in excavating and tunneling, but found no
reward. The tales of treasure also fired the brain of a remarkable
person named Gissler, who took up his solitary residence on Cocos
Island more than twenty years ago where he has since reigned with the
title and authority of governor of the same, by virtue of a commission
duly signed, sealed, and delivered by the republic of Costa Rica. As a
persistent and industrious treasure-hunter, this tropical hermit is
unique.
He was visited in 1896 by Captain Shrapnel of H.M.S. _Haughty_ who had
heard the stories of Thompson and Benito Bonito along the coastwise
ports. By way of giving his blue-jackets something to do, he landed a
party three hundred strong on Cocos Island whose landscape they vainly
blasted and otherwise disarranged for several days, but without
success. The Admiralty lacked imagination and reprimanded Captain
Shrapnel for his enterprising break in the dull routine of duty. It
was decreed that no more naval vessels were to touch at Cocos Island on
any pretext whatever.
This by no means discouraged Captain Shrapnel who waited until it was
permissible for him to apply for leave of absence. In England he found
gentlemen adventurers sufficient to finance an expedition which sailed
in the _Lytton_ in 1903. Of this party was Hervey de Montmorency,
whose account of the venture includes the following information:
"On the ninth of August, at four o'clock in the morning, every
treasure-seeker was on deck straining his eyes to penetrate the mist
and darkness; then as the sun rose, the gray mass on the horizon turned
to green, and Cocos Island, with its lofty wooded peak, its abrupt,
cliff-like shores, its innumerable cascades of sparkling water, was
displayed to eager and admiring eyes.
"The anchor was dropped in the little bay, and at the splash, flocks of
birds rose screaming and circling overhead. The sandy beach on which
the seekers landed is strewn with boulders, on each of which is carved
the name and business of some vessel which has called at Cocos. Some
of the dates carry one back to Nelson's time; and all sorts of ships
seem to have visited the lonely little island, while many a boulder
testified to blighted hopes and fruitless errands after treasure.
"Captain Shrapnel's party set to work with the highest expectation. No
previous expedition had been so well furnished with clues. Once on the
right track, it seemed impossible that they should fail. They searched
for ten days, encouraged now by the finding of the broken arm of a
battered cross brought from some Peruvian church, again by a glimpse
into what promised falsely to be a treasure cave; but all blasting,
digging, and damming of streams proved useless. Captain Shrapnel at
last called a council of war, and declared his opinion that the search
was hopeless; landslips, previous excavations, and the torrential rains
of this tropical region had so entirely altered the face of the island
that clues and directions were of little avail, nor did their agreement
with the owners of the _Lytton_ permit of a longer stay on Cocos.
"We did not leave the island, however, without paying a visit to its
governor, Gissler, whose little settlement is on Wafer Bay. Rounding
the headland from Chatham Bay, we came into the quiet little nook where
he has made his home, and he at once waded out in the surf to greet the
visitors,--a tall, bronzed man, with a long, gray heard reaching below
his waist, and deep-set eyes which gazed with obvious suspicion.
Gissler had learned to distrust the coming of strangers, who have paid
small regard to his rights, pillaging his crops, killing his livestock,
and even making free with his home.
"Reassured by Captain Shrapnel's party that he had nothing to fear from
them, he invited them to his house and clearing, and told them of his
long and lonely hunt for the pirate's treasure. When he first went to
live on Cocos, he found many traces of the freebooters. There were
traces of their old camps, with thirty-two stone steps leading to a
cave, old fire-places, rusty pots and arms, and empty bottles to mark
the scene of their carousing. He had found only one gold coin, a
doubloon of the time of Charles III of Spain, bearing the date of 1788."
In 1901, a company was formed in Vancouver, with a capital of $10,000,
to fit out an expedition for Cocos Island. Gissler got wind of this
project and formally addressed the government of Costa Rica in these
written words:
"Allow me to inform you that no company with any such intent would have
the right to land on Cocos Island, as I hold a concession from the
authorities of Costa Rica in regard to the said treasure, in which
concession the Costa Rica government has an interest. Certainly
anything that might be undertaken by such a company from Vancouver
would amount to naught without my consent."
This protest was paid due heed, but two years later, an Englishman,
Claude Robert Guiness, persuaded the officials of Costa Rica to listen
kindly to his plea, and he was granted the right to explore the island
for two years. Gissler stood by his guns, drew up a list of
grievances, and sailed for the mainland in a small boat to assert his
rights to his kingdom. At that time, a wealthy British naval officer,
Lord Fitzwilliam, was bound out to Cocos Island in his own steam yacht
with a costly equipment of machinery and a heavy crew to find the
treasure. He found poor Gissler in a Costa Rican port, became
interested in his wrongs, and promptly supported his claims. An
English nobleman with surplus wealth is a person to wield influence in
the councils of a Central American republic and Gissler was pacified
and given a renewal of his documentary rights as governor and
population of Cocos Island.
Lord Fitzwilliam took him on board the yacht and in this dignified
fashion Gissler returned to this kingdom. He earned his passage by
telling his own version of the treasure, as he had culled and revised
it from various sources, and his bill of particulars was something to
gloat over, including as it did such dazzling bits of narrative as this:
"Besides the treasure buried by Captain Thompson, there was vast wealth
left on Cocos by Benito Bonito himself. He captured a treasure galleon
off the coast of Peru and took two other vessels laden with riches sent
out from Mexico at the outbreak of the revolution against the
Spaniards. On Cocos he buried three hundred thousand pounds' weight of
silver and silver dollars, in a sandstone cave in the side of the
mountain. Then he laid kegs of powder on top of the cave and blew away
the face of the cliff. In another excavation he placed gold bricks,
733 of them, four by three inches in size, and two inches thick, and
273 gold-hilted swords, inlaid with jewels. On a bit of land in the
little river, he buried several iron kettles filled with gold coin."
Lord Fitzwilliam and his yacht arrived at Cocos in December of 1904,
and the party of laborers fell to with prodigious zest. While they
were making the dirt fly, another English expedition, commanded by
Arnold Gray, hove in sight, and proceeded to begin excavating at
inconveniently close range. In fact, both parties were cocksure that
the lost cave was located in one spot beneath a great mass of debris
that had tumbled down from the overhanging height. The inevitable
result was that a pretty quarrel arose. Neither force would yield its
ground. Inasmuch as both were using dynamite rather lavishly, treasure
hunting became as dangerous as war. When the rival expeditions were
not dodging the rocks that were sent hurtling by the blasting, they
were using bad language, the one accusing the other of effacing its
landmarks and playing hob with its clues.
The climax was a pitched battle in which heads were broken and
considerable blood spilt. It is almost needless to observe that no
treasure was found. Lord Fitzwilliam sailed home in his yacht and
found that the news of his escapade had aroused the displeasure of the
naval authorities, after which he lost all zest for finding buried
treasure.
Since then, hardly a year has passed but an expedition or two for Cocos
Island has been in the wind. In 1906, a company organized in Seattle
issued an elaborate printed prospectus, offering shares in a venture to
sail in a retired pilot schooner, and recounting all the old tales of
Captain Thompson, Benito Bonito, and Keating. At about the same time,
a wealthy woman of Boston, after a summer visit to Newfoundland, was
seized with enthusiasm for a romantic speculation and talked of finding
a ship and crew. San Francisco has beheld more than one schooner slide
out through the Golden Gate in quest of Cocos Island.
To enumerate these ventures and describe them in detail would make a
tiresome catalogue of the names of vessels and adventurous men with the
treasure bee in their bonnets. Charts and genuine information are no
longer necessary to one of these expeditions. Cocos Island is under
such a spell as has set a multitude to digging for the treasure of
Captain Kidd. The gold is there, this is taken for granted, and no
questions are asked. The island was long a haunt of buccaneers and
pirates, this much is certain, and who ever heard of a true pirate of
romance who knew his business that did not employ his spare time in
"a-burying of his treasure?"
[1] Strong, or robust.
[2] _History of the Buccaneers of America_, by Captain James Burney
(1816).
[3] _Voyage and Description_, etc., by Lionel Wafer, London (1699).
[4] "The Buccaneers of America," by John Esquemeling (Published, 1684).
[5] Dampier. To search for this wreck with a view to recover the
treasure in her was one of the objects of an expedition from England to
the South Sea a few years later than the voyage of Davis.
[6] "History of the Buccaneers of America," by Captain James Burney
(1816).
[7] Colnet's "Voyage to the Pacific."
[8] Esquemeling.
[9] "On the Spanish Main," by John Masefield.