_The End of Lolonois’s Career._
The Pirates’ Perfidy.--Capture of a Spanish Ship.--Misery of the
Pirates.--Desertion of Vauclin.--The Shipwreck.--Life upon the
Island.--Expedition to Nicaragua.--Its utter Failure.--Ferocity
of the Indians.--Exploring the River.--The Retreat.--Coasting to
Darien.--Capture and Death of Lolonois.--Fate of the Remnants.
Lolonois waited patiently the two hours which he had agreed to grant
the inhabitants to vacate the place. He then entered the town, and, in
perfidious disregard of the spirit of his engagement, dispatched armed
bands to pursue the fugitives, and not only rob them of everything in
their possession, but also to bring them all back as prisoners.
This was done. But the thieves were much disappointed in the amount
of plunder they found, San Pedro was by no means a wealthy place. The
inhabitants gained a comfortable but frugal living, mainly by raising
indigo.
The pirates, in their great disappointment, supposed, as usual, that
much treasure had been concealed. They therefore put their captives to
the torture, to force them to point out the places of concealment.
Though many died under the terrible infliction, no discoveries were
made. The pirates, in revenge, laid the town in ashes. In this
fruitless expedition they lost about one hundred men in killed and
wounded, endured great suffering, and inflicted inconceivable misery
upon their brother man.
About one hundred and fifty miles southwest of San Pedro was the rich
old Spanish town of Guatemala, capital of the capacious province of
that name. Lolonois, in his frenzied state of mind, was determined
to send back to the ship for reënforcements, and then to march upon
Guatemala. But his piratic crew refused to accede to so insane a
proposal.
For eighteen days these marauders lingered around San Pedro, before
they applied the torch. They then, leaving only ruins and misery behind
them, returned to the fleet. Those left there had employed their time
in robbing the Indians, burning their huts, and inflicting all manner
of evil upon their families. Some of these captives on the coast
informed them that about sixty miles west, at the mouth of the great
river of Guatemala, called Montagua, there was a large Spanish ship,
which had recently arrived from Spain.
As soon as Lolonois arrived, several boats filled with pirates,
thoroughly armed, were sent to capture the ship. The Indians had
informed the inmates of the ship of the presence of the pirates.
Anticipating a visit, they had made such preparations as they could to
repel them. The ship mounted forty-two guns, was well supplied with
small arms, and had a select crew of one hundred and thirty fighting
men.
The pirates, after opening fire upon the ship for some time, from one
of their vessels with twenty-two heavy guns, sent four boats, each
carrying about forty men, to clamber over the bulwarks of the ship,
cutlass in hand, at four points. In this assault they were much aided
by a dense fog, which, blending with the smoke of the powder, had
settled down so heavily as to conceal the approach of the boats.
The crew were sailors. The pirates were veteran soldiers. The conflict
was like that between well-trained regulars and raw militia. Very
soon the pirates were masters of the ship, and the deck was covered
with the dead and the dying. But again these wretched plunderers
were disappointed. The vessel had been almost entirely unladen. Its
remaining cargo consisted of twenty thousand reams of paper and one
hundred tons of iron bars. Neither of these were of any use to the
pirates. The ship, however, with its great guns, its small arms, and
its abundance of ammunition, was deemed a great acquisition. But God
so ordered it that even this capture proved a calamity rather than an
aid to the enterprises of Lolonois.
The desperate leader of this piratic gang called a general council,
and insisted upon the march across the country to Guatemala. It was
a stormy session. The general discontent was expressed in curses and
oaths, and bitter recriminations. Nearly one-fourth of their number
had perished. They had endured almost intolerable sufferings. As yet
they had accomplished nothing in the way of enriching themselves. And
now they were urged to embark on a desperate enterprise, where they
certainly would be exposed to the greatest hardships, and where all
would probably perish.
These men had embarked from Tortuga, with the expectation that dollars
and doubloons would be gathered by shovelfuls. They were now poor,
hungry, mutinous, angry with each other, and the prospect before them
was discouraging in the extreme. All thoughts of ravaging Nicaragua,
in their present state of despondency and with the great diminution of
their numbers, were relinquished.
Moses Vauclin had charge of the splendid ship recently captured. His
ship was a swift sailer. With one or two officers conspiring with him,
and his crew of nearly one hundred and fifty men gained over, they
decided to run away and cruise on their own account. In the night
they silently raised their anchors, took advantage of a fresh breeze,
and, before the morning’s dawn, disappeared beyond the horizon. When
Lolonois awoke and found that he was thus deserted, the madman paced
his deck in a frenzy of impotent rage.
The fugitives could not endure the idea of returning penniless to
Tortuga, where they would thus become the laughing-stock of the whole
community. The wind favored them. They ran along the coast of Honduras
and Nicaragua to the south, until they reached the province of Costa
Rica. In their desperation, being resolved to accomplish something,
they landed and attacked and sacked the poor little town of Veruguas,
killing many of the inhabitants. The furniture in the huts of these
poor people was of no value to them. They gained only the pitiful sum
of about forty dollars’ worth of gold, which the slaves had washed out
from the mud of the rivers.
This region was low and unhealthy. The Spanish grandees, who owned
the mines and cultivated them by the compulsory labor of slaves, had
their residences in the more healthy region of Nata, at the distance
of several leagues. The Spaniards began to gather in large numbers to
repel the invaders. The pirates, alarmed, fled to their ship, and
returned to Tortuga. Here they disbanded, and we learn no more of the
fate of this portion of Lolonois’s army. Each one, doubtless, found his
way, through crime and misery, to death and to the judgment-seat of
Christ.
Lolonois was left at Port Cavallo, with but about two hundred men. He
was almost destitute of food; most of his ammunition was consumed;
many were sick from the insalubrity of the climate, and all were
dissatisfied, clamorous, and angry.
Lolonois remained for some time in the Bay of Honduras. Esquemeling
writes: “His ship was too great to get out at the time of the reflux of
those seas, which the smaller vessels could more easily do.”
Every day he sent his boats ashore for food. The fruit of the region
was soon all consumed, and they fed on the flesh of parrots and
monkeys. Slowly working their way along the coast by the night breeze,
they found the days generally calm. Casting anchor in the morning, they
sought provisions in fishing and hunting. At length they rounded the
extreme eastern point of Honduras, at Cape Gracios à Dios. Just beyond,
a group of islands called the Pearl Islands, hove in sight.
The indomitable Lolonois was still determined to ravage a portion of
the rich province of Nicaragua. It was his plan to anchor his vessels
at the mouth of the river St. John, by which the great inland sea
called Lake Nicaragua empties its waters into the ocean, and then to
ascend the majestic stream in his armed boats. While sailing among the
islands in an almost unknown sea, he ran his ship upon a sandbank. All
his efforts to float the ship again were in vain. With infinite labor
he took out the heavy guns and the iron; but the ship had sunk too deep
in the sand to be moved.
Finding his ship thus hopelessly wrecked, he decided to break her to
pieces, and with her planks and nails to construct a large and strong
boat with which he could ascend the river. The crew all landed upon
an island, built themselves huts in the Indian fashion, and, with
a reckless disregard of misfortune, commenced building their boat.
Expecting that it might be necessary to spend some time there, they dug
gardens and planted peas and other vegetables.
The island upon which they were was large, and was inhabited by a
very fierce tribe of Indians. But their clubs and lances armed with
crocodiles’ teeth were but impotent weapons, when met by the muskets,
the pistols, and the sabres of the pirates. The Indians had doubtless
heard of the atrocities committed by these rovers over seas and land,
for they fled precipitally at their approach, and taking to their
canoes, actually abandoned the island.
The vegetables which the pirates sowed grew rapidly. It was six months
before their large boat, or rather small vessel, was completed. In the
mean time they raised quite large crops of beans, wheat, potatoes, and
bananas. It is strange that this experience did not teach them that
they could much more easily and happily gain a living by honest than by
dishonest means. But still they clung to the misery of piracy, with its
crime, its cruelty, and its wild revelry.
When the vessel was finished, Lolonois took one-half of his company,
or about one hundred men, in this vessel and a ship which remained to
him, and sailed for the mouth of St. John’s River. The other half were
left behind. As nothing was said about the other smaller vessels of
the fleet, it is probable that they all had been lost in the various
casualties of their voyage, or had escaped with Vauclin. It was known
that the Indians on the river had very large boats, formed by hollowing
out the trunk of a gigantic tree. These boats, ingeniously made, and
the result of almost incredible labor, would accommodate forty or fifty
warriors. It was Lolonois’s intention to rob the Indians of some of
their boats, send them back to the island for the pirates who were
left behind, and then, with his whole party, to ascend the river in an
invincible fleet.
Lolonois set sail, and in a short time reached the mouth of the St.
John’s River. But the Indians, who had fled from the island, had spread
the news, all along the coast, of the arrival of the terrible pirates.
Spaniards and Indians were thus influenced to combine to meet them
wherever they might land. Their progress in building their vessel had
been carefully watched by spies, who effectually concealed themselves
from sight.
As Lolonois and his party entered the river they expected to take
the inhabitants by surprise, and had not the slightest idea of
being surprised themselves. But their vessel had been watched as it
approached. There was a pleasant sheltered cove surrounded by the
luxuriant and magnificent growth of the tropics. It could not be
doubted that this spot would be selected for their landing-place.
Nature had decked it with the charms of Eden. Here a well-armed band of
Spaniards and Indians posted themselves in ambuscade. Palm-trees and
cocoanut-trees rose gracefully around them. Golden oranges and lemons
hung profusely from orchards which God had planted and cultivated.
Birds of every variety of brilliant plumage flitted from bough to
bough. All the sights and sounds of nature seemed to say that God
had made this for a happy world; that his children might live here in
fraternal love, surrounded by abundance.
The pirates cast anchor in the lovely cove, where the glittering sand
could be seen fathoms deep, beneath the water of crystal clearness.
They had several small boats. All were impatient to reach the land.
Scarcely had their boats touched the beach, and the men were clustered
together in landing, when the Eden-like scene of peace and loveliness,
was changed into an earth-like scene of noise and tumult and smoke and
groans and blood.
There was a sudden discharge of musketry from the surrounding thickets
within half gun-shot. The Spaniards had armed the Indians and taught
them to take unerring aim. Both Spaniards and savages united in
the most hideous yells to appal the pirates with an idea of their
superior numbers. Rapidly the unseen foe continued the discharge of
the murderous bullets. Scarcely a minute elapsed ere many were dead,
weltering in their blood. Others were severely wounded. And still the
pitiless storm of leaden hail swept through the group, crashing bones
and tearing nerves, and still the yells of the invisible assailants
resounded through the forest. There was not a breath of air. The
sulphurous smoke settled down, half concealing the awful spectacle of
blood and death.
Even the demoniac pirates were so panic-stricken that they dared not by
a charge rush into the very jaws of destruction. Every instant their
comrades were dropping. There was no time for thought. Those not yet
struck leaped into the boats and pushed from the shore, leaving the
dying and the dead in the water and upon the sand. Still the pelting
storm pursued them till they were beyond gun-shot reach.
Lolonois, the greatest villain of them all, escaped unharmed. Did God
preserve him that he might drain to the dregs the cup of mental and
bodily misery which he had so often presented to the lips of others? In
view of what he had yet to endure, he might indeed have deemed it one
of the richest of mercies had a bullet pierced heart or brain, and laid
him instantly with the dead.
The wretch had sufficient intelligence to perceive that he was ruined.
There was no longer any hope of ravaging Nicaragua. His provisions
were exhausted. He had no doubt that the whole coast was armed against
them. As by lightning-bolts he had lost nearly one-half of his crews.
Desponding, starving, he divided his company into two bands, to sail
where they could, to save themselves from perishing by hunger.
Lolonois, with thirty or forty men ran along the coast toward South
America, till they reached the region of Carthagena. They were few and
feeble, and feared to land. The atrocities committed by the pirates
were everywhere known. Upon every league of the coast either the
Spaniards or the Indians were watching for their approach, ready to
give the general alarm, and to summon all who could be rallied to repel
them.
Their water-casks were empty. They must obtain fresh water or perish of
thirst. Having passed the Gulf of Darien, he ventured to land, taking
his whole force with him. It so chanced, or Providence so ordered
it, that he landed on the territory of one of the fiercest tribes
of Indians known in all that region. They were called Bravos. The
Spaniards had never been able to subdue them. These fierce and cunning
savages surrounded the pirates and shot down or captured the whole
band. Still not a bullet struck Lolonois. He was reserved for another
doom. Most of the captured pirates were burned alive. But the savages
thought that too merciful a death for the leader of the band.
They bound him to a tree. Hour after hour, according to their custom,
they tortured him, being careful to prolong his sufferings by not
piercing any vital point. Every device of savage ingenuity was resorted
to, which might extort agony from his quivering nerves. There was no
one to pity. Even humanity says he merited it all. At last the savages,
howling in frenzied merriment around him, and raising new shouts
whenever they could force from him new shrieks of agony, weary with
the demoniac pastime, hewed off one of his arms and threw it into the
fire. They then hewed off the other and committed it to the flames. The
same was done with his legs. Then his head was cut off, and with his
memberless body was consumed to ashes. Such was the earthly life, and
such the earthly death of Francis Lolonois. We say the _earthly_ life.
There is another life. There is a second death. Lolonois still lives in
the spirit-land. What is his character there?
The pirates who remained upon the island, weary of waiting for the
boats, were quite in despair. But one morning their eyes were cheered
by the sight of a very large ship passing near by. Their signals were
seen and the ship hove to. It proved to be a pirate bound for the sack
of Carthagena. The captain was delighted to add a hundred desperate
fellows to his gang. The pirates, who had now been ten months upon the
island, and were in a state of great despondency, destitution, and
suffering, were as glad as such wicked men could be in this escape from
their miseries, and this new opportunity to renew their ravages.
There were several Carthagenas in the various provinces of the New
World. The one they were to attack was in Honduras, on the river
Segoria, which empties into Cape Gracios à Dios. Their plan was to
cast anchor in the mouth of the river, and ascend the stream in boats.
The piratic captain was greatly elated, for he had now at his command
between five and six hundred men.
They reached the mouth of the river in safety. A few men were left in
charge of the ship. Over five hundred were crowded into the boats.
There was no space for storing provisions; neither was it thought
necessary. It was supposed that an ample supply of food would be
found in the villages on the river banks. But the Indians transmitted
intelligence with almost the rapidity of telegraphic dispatches. From
village to village the tidings ran.
The Indians, conscious of their inability to contend with the
well-armed pirates, fled. They took with them all the food they could.
The rest they destroyed. The invaders found themselves reduced almost
to starvation. They ate roots and herbs, and even the leaves of the
trees. A blazing tropical sun poured its rays down upon their crowded
open boats, blistering their skin with the intense heat. Sickness came,
with languor, pain, wretchedness. Their own crimes were chastising them
with scorpion lashes.
There was but misery in those boats, with universal discontent and
oaths and fightings. In their despair they landed, five hundred
maddened, starving men, hating themselves and hating each other.
They hoped that at a little distance back from the river they might
find some villages which had not been abandoned. In this they were
disappointed. The natives watched them closely, and fled before them.
They commenced a retreat back to the ship. Many died. Many fell by the
wayside and were captured by the savages. The Indians pursued them,
watching every opportunity to strike a blow. They were too weak to
resist. They could scarcely wield a paddle or lift a musket. Their
starvation and misery was so great that they resolved to kill and
devour the first Indian they could meet. But this kind of game kept
beyond the reach of their balls. They ate their shoes, their leather
belts, even the sheaths of their swords.
At length a skeleton band reached the ship. There was but little food
there. Still they spread their sails, and disappeared. We hear of them
no more.