JOHN OXENHAM
The voyage--His pinnace--Into the South Sea--Disaster--His unhappy
end
The John Oxenham, or Oxnam, who followed Drake to Nombre de Dios, and
stood with him that sunny day watching the blue Pacific from the
tree-top, was a Devonshire gentleman from South Tawton. He was of good
family and well to do. He may, perhaps, have given money towards the
fitting out of Drake's squadron. It is at least certain that he held in
that voyage a position of authority considerably greater than that of
"soldier, mariner, and cook"--the rates assigned to him by Sir Richard
Hawkins. On his return from the Nombre de Dios raid, he disappears, and
it is uncertain whether he followed Drake to Ireland, or settled down at
home in Devonshire. He did not forget the oath he had sworn to his old
Captain, to follow him to the South Sea in God's good time. But after
waiting a year or two, and finding that Drake was not ready to attempt
that adventure, he determined to go at his own charge, with such men as
he could find. He was well known in the little Devon seaports as a bold
sailor and fiery sea-captain. He was "a fine figure of a man," and the
glory of Drake's raid was partly his. He was looked upon as one of the
chief men in that foray. He had, therefore, little difficulty in getting
recruits for a new voyage to the Main.
In the year 1574 he set sail from Plymouth in a fine ship of 140 tons,
with a crew of seventy men and boys. He made a fair passage to the
Main, and anchored in Drake's old anchorage--either that of the secret
haven, in the Gulf of Darien, or that farther west, among the Catives.
Here he went ashore, and made friends with the Maroons, some of whom, no
doubt, were old acquaintances, still gay with beads or iron-work which
he had given them two years before. They told him that the treasure
trains "from Panama to Nombre de Dios" were now strongly guarded by
Spanish soldiers, so that he might not hope to win such a golden booty
as Drake had won, by holding up a recua on the march. Oxenham,
therefore, determined "to do that which never any man before
enterprised"--by leaving his ship, marching over the watershed, building
a pinnace in the woods, and going for a cruise on the South Sea. He
dragged his ship far into the haven, struck her topmasts, and left her
among the trees, beached on the mud, and covered with green boughs so as
to be hidden from view. Her great guns were swung ashore, and buried,
and the graves of them strewn with leaves and brushwood. He then armed
his men with their calivers and their sacks of victual, "and so went
with the Negroes," dragging with them two small guns, probably
quick-firing guns, mounted on staves of wood or iron. Hawkins says that
he left four or five men behind him as shipkeepers. After a march of
"about twelve leagues into the maine-land" the Maroons brought him to a
river "that goeth to the South Sea." Here the party halted, and built
themselves little huts of boughs to live in while they made themselves a
ship.
They cut down some trees here, and built themselves a pinnace "which was
five and fortie foot by the keele." They seem to have brought their
sails and tackling with them, but had they not done so they could have
made shift with the rough Indian cloth and the fibrous, easily twisted
bark of the maho-tree. Having built this little ship, they went aboard
of her, and dropped downstream to the Pacific--the first English crew,
but not the first Englishman, to sail those waters. Six negroes came
with them to act as guides. As soon as they had sailed out of the
river's mouth, they made for the Pearl Islands, or Islands of the King,
"which is five and twentie leagues from Panama." Here they lay very
close, in some snug inlet hidden from the sea. Some of them went inland
to a rocky cliff, to watch the seas for ships coming northward from Peru
with treasure from the gold and silver mines. The islands are in the
fairway between Panama and Lima, but ten days passed before the watchers
saw a sail, and cried out to those in the boat. "There came a small
Barke by, which came from Peru, from a place called Quito"; and the
pinnace dashed alongside of her, and carried her by the sword, before
her sailors learned what was the matter. She was laden with "sixtie
thousand pezos of golde, and much victuals." John Oxenham took her
lading, and kept the barque by him, while he stayed on at the islands.
At the end of six days, another "barke" came by, from Lima, "in whiche
he tooke an hundred thousand pezos of silver in barres." This was
plunder enough to "make" any voyage, and with this John Oxenham was
content. Before he sailed away, however, he marched upon one or two of
the Pearl fisheries, where he found a few pearls. He then sailed
northward to the river's mouth taking his prizes with him, with all the
prisoners.
At the river's mouth he very foolishly "sent away the two prizes that
hee tooke"--a piece of clemency which knotted the rope under his ear. He
then sailed up the river, helping his pinnace by poles, oars, and warps,
but making slow progress.
Before he reached this river, the negroes of the Pearl Islands sent word
to the Governor of Panama that English pirates had been in those seas
plundering their fisheries. "Within two days" the Governor despatched
four galleys, "with negroes to rowe," and twenty-five musketeers in each
galley, under the Captain John de Ortega, to search the Pearl Islands
very thoroughly for those robbers. They reached the islands, learned in
which direction the pirate ships had gone, and rowed away north to
overtake them. As they came near the land, they fell in with the two
prizes, the men of which were able to tell them how the pirates had gone
up the river but a few days before.
John de Ortega came to the river's mouth with his four galleys, and
"knew not which way to take, because there were three partitions in the
river, to goe up in." He decided at last to go up the greatest, and was
actually rowing towards it, when "he saw comming down a lesser river
many feathers of hennes, which the Englishmen had pulled to eate." These
drifting feathers, thrown overboard so carelessly, decided the Spanish
captain. He turned up the lesser river "where he saw the feathers," and
bade his negroes give way heartily. Four days later, he saw the English
pinnace drawn up on the river-bank "upon the sands," guarded by six of
her crew. The musketeers at once fired a volley, which killed one of the
Englishmen, and sent the other five scattering to the cover of the
woods. There was nothing in the pinnace but bread and meat. All the gold
pezoes and the bars of silver had been landed.
The presence of the boat guard warned the Spanish captain that the main
body of the pirates was near at hand. He determined to land eighty of
his musketeers to search those woods before returning home. "Hee had not
gone half a league" before he found one of the native huts, thatched
with palm leaves, in which were "all the Englishmen's goods and the gold
and silver also." The Englishmen were lying about the hut, many of them
unarmed, with no sentry keeping a lookout for them. Taken by surprise as
they were, they ran away into the woods, leaving all things in the hands
of the Spaniards. The Spaniards carried the treasure back to the
galleys, and rowed slowly down the river "without following the
Englishmen any further."
It appeared later, that Oxenham had ordered his men to carry the gold
and silver from the place where they had hauled the pinnace ashore, to
the place where the ship was hidden. To this the mariners joyfully
assented, "for hee promised to give them part of it besides their
wages." Unfortunately, they wished this "part of it" paid to them at
once, before they shifted an ingot--a want which seemed to reflect upon
John Oxenham's honour. He was naturally very angry "because they would
not take his word" to pay them something handsome when he reached home.
He was a choleric sea-captain, and began, very naturally, to damn them
for their insolence. "He fell out with them, and they with him," says
Hakluyt. One of them, stung by his Captain's curses, "would have killed
the Captaine" there and then, with his caliver,[2] or sailor's knife.
This last act was too much. Oxenham gave them a few final curses, and
told them that, if such were their temper, they should not so much as
touch a quoit of the treasure, but that he would get Maroons to carry
it. He then left them, and went alone into the forest to find Maroons
for the porterage. As he came back towards the camp, with a gang of
negroes, he met the five survivors of the boat guard "and the rest also
which ran from the house," all very penitent and sorry now that the
mischief had been done. They told him of the loss of the treasure, and
looked to him for guidance and advice, promising a better behaviour in
the future. Oxenham told them that if they helped him to recover the
treasure, they should have half of it, "if they got it from the
Spaniards." "The Negroes promised to help him with their bows and
arrows," and with this addition to their force they set off down the
river-bank in pursuit.
[Footnote 2: _Caliver_, a light, hand musket. A musket without a crutch,
or rest.]
After three days' travelling, they came upon the Spaniards, in camp, on
the bank of the river, apparently in some strong position, sheltered
with trees. Oxenham at once fell on "with great fury," exposing himself
and his men to the bullets of the musketeers. The Spaniards were used to
woodland fighting. Each musketeer retired behind a tree, and fired from
behind it, without showing more than his head and shoulders, and then
but for a moment. The Englishmen charged up the slope to the muzzles of
the guns, but were repulsed with loss, losing eleven men killed and five
men taken alive. The number of wounded is not stated. The negroes, who
were less active in the charge, lost only five men. The Spaniards loss
was two killed "and five sore hurt." The English were beaten off the
ground, and routed. They made no attempt to rally, and did not fall on a
second time.
The Spanish captain asked his prisoners why they had not crossed the
isthmus to their ship in the days before the pursuit began. To this the
prisoners answered with the tale of their mutinies, adding that their
Captain would not stay longer in those parts now that his company had
been routed. The Spaniards then buried their dead, retired on board
their galleys, and rowed home to Panama, taking with them their
prisoners and the English pinnace. When they arrived in that city, the
prisoners were tortured till they confessed where their ship was hidden.
Advice was then sent to Nombre de Dios, where four pinnaces were at once
equipped to seek out the secret haven. They soon found the ship, "and
brought her to Nombre de Dios," where her guns and buried stores were
divided among the King's ships employed in the work of the coast. While
this search for the ship was being made, the Viceroy of Peru sent out
150 musketeers to destroy the "fiftie English men" remaining alive.
These troops, conducted by Maroons, soon found the English in a camp by
the river, "making of certaine Canoas to goe into the North Sea, and
there to take some Bark or other." Many of them were sick and ill, "and
were taken." The rest escaped into the forest, where they tried to make
some arrangement with the negroes. The negroes, it seems, were angry
with Oxenham for his failure to keep his word to them. They had agreed
to help him on condition that they might have all the Spanish prisoners
to torture "to feed their insatiable revenges." Oxenham had released his
prisoners, as we have seen, and the Maroons had been disappointed of
their dish of roasted Spaniards' hearts. They were naturally very angry,
and told John Oxenham, when he came to them for help, that his
misfortunes were entirely due to his own folly. Had he kept his word,
they said, he would have reached his ship without suffering these
reverses. After a few days, being weary of keeping so many foreigners,
they betrayed the English sailors to the Spaniards. "They were brought
to Panama," to the justice of that city, who asked John Oxenham "whether
hee had the Queene's licence, or the licence of any other Prince or
Lord, for his attempt." To this John Oxenham answered that he had no
licence saving his sword. He was then condemned to death with the rest
of his company, with the exception of two (or five) ships' boys. After a
night or two in Panama prison, within sound of the surf of the Pacific,
the mariners were led out, and shot. Oxenham and the master and the
pilot were sent to Lima, where they were hanged as pirates in the
square of the city. A force of musketeers was then sent into the
interior, to reduce the Maroons "which had assisted those English men."
The punitive force "executed great justice," till "the Negroes grew wise
and wary," after which there was no more justice to be done. The ships'
boys, who were spared, were probably sold as slaves in Lima, or Panama.
They probably lived in those towns for the rest of their lives, and may
have become good Catholics, and wealthy, after due probation under the
whip.
Sir Richard Hawkins, who was in Panama in 1593, and who may have heard a
Spanish version of the history, tells us that aboard the treasure ship
taken by Oxenham were "two peeces of speciall estimation: the one a
table of massie gold, with emralds ... a present to the King; the other
a lady of singular beautie." According to Sir Richard, John Oxenham fell
in love with this lady, and it was through her prayers that he released
the other prisoners. He is said to have "kept the lady" when he turned
the other prisoners away. The lady's "sonne, or a nephew," who was among
those thus discharged, made every effort to redeem his mother (or aunt).
He prayed so vehemently and "with such diligence," to the Governor at
Panama, that the four galleys were granted to him "within few howers."
The story is not corroborated; but Oxenham was very human, and Spanish
beauty, like other beauty, is worth sinning for.
A year or two later, Captain Andrew Barker of Bristol, while cruising
off the Main, captured a Spanish frigate "between Chagre and Veragua."
On board of her, pointing through the port-holes, were four cast-iron
guns which had been aboard John Oxenham's ship. They were brought to
England, and left in the Scilly Islands, A.D. 1576.
_Note._--The story of John Oxenham is taken from "Purchas his
Pilgrimes," vol. iv. (the original large 4to edition); and from
Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 526. Another version of the tale is given in
Sir R. Hawkins' "Observations." He is also mentioned in Hakluyt's
account of Andrew Barker.