BUCCANEER CUSTOMS
Mansvelt and Morgan--Morgan's raid on Cuba--Puerto del Principe
Throughout the years of buccaneering, the buccaneers often put to sea in
canoas and periaguas,[15] just as Drake put to sea in his three
pinnaces. Life in an open boat is far from pleasant, but men who passed
their leisure cutting logwood at Campeachy, or hoeing tobacco in
Jamaica, or toiling over gramma grass under a hot sun after cattle, were
not disposed to make the worst of things. They would sit contentedly
upon the oar bench, rowing with a long, slow stroke for hours together
without showing signs of fatigue. Nearly all of them were men of more
than ordinary strength, and all of them were well accustomed to the
climate. When they had rowed their canoa to the Main they were able to
take it easy till a ship came by from one of the Spanish ports. If she
seemed a reasonable prey, without too many guns, and not too high
charged, or high built, the privateers would load their muskets, and row
down to engage her. The best shots were sent into the bows, and excused
from rowing, lest the exercise should cause their hands to tremble. A
clever man was put to the steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden
to sing out whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It was in
action, and in action only, that the captain had command over his men.
The steersman endeavoured to keep the masts of the quarry in a line,
and to approach her from astern. The marksmen from the bows kept up a
continual fire at the vessel's helmsmen, if they could be seen, and at
any gun-ports which happened to be open. If the helmsmen could not be
seen from the sea, the canoas aimed to row in upon the vessel's
quarters, where they could wedge up the rudder with wooden chocks or
wedges. They then laid her aboard over the quarter, or by the after
chains, and carried her with their knives and pistols. The first man to
get aboard received some gift of money at the division of the spoil.
[Footnote 15: Dampier and Exquemeling.]
When the prize was taken, the prisoners were questioned, and despoiled.
Often, indeed, they were stripped stark naked, and granted the privilege
of seeing their finery on a pirate's back. Each buccaneer had the right
to take a shift of clothes out of each prize captured. The cargo was
then rummaged, and the state of the ship looked to, with an eye to using
her as a cruiser. As a rule, the prisoners were put ashore on the first
opportunity, but some buccaneers had a way of selling their captives
into slavery. If the ship were old, leaky, valueless, in ballast, or
with a cargo useless to the rovers, she was either robbed of her guns,
and turned adrift with her crew, or run ashore in some snug cove, where
she could be burnt for the sake of the iron-work. If the cargo were of
value, and, as a rule, the ships they took had some rich thing aboard
them, they sailed her to one of the Dutch, French, or English
settlements, where they sold her freight for what they could get--some
tenth or twentieth of its value. If the ship were a good one, in good
condition, well found, swift, and not of too great draught (for they
preferred to sail in small ships), they took her for their cruiser as
soon as they had emptied out her freight. They sponged and loaded her
guns, brought their stores aboard her, laid their mats upon her deck,
secured the boats astern, and sailed away in search of other plunder.
They kept little discipline aboard their ships. What work had to be done
they did, but works of supererogation they despised and rejected as a
shade unholy. The night watches were partly orgies. While some slept,
the others fired guns and drank to the health of their fellows. By the
light of the binnacle, or by the light of the slush lamps in the cabin,
the rovers played a hand at cards, or diced each other at "seven and
eleven," using a pannikin as dice-box. While the gamblers cut and
shuffled, and the dice rattled in the tin, the musical sang songs, the
fiddlers set their music chuckling, and the sea-boots stamped approval.
The cunning dancers showed their science in the moonlight, avoiding the
sleepers if they could. In this jolly fashion were the nights made
short. In the daytime, the gambling continued with little intermission;
nor had the captain any authority to stop it. One captain, in the
histories, was so bold as to throw the dice and cards overboard, but, as
a rule, the captain of a buccaneer cruiser was chosen as an artist, or
navigator, or as a lucky fighter. He was not expected to spoil sport.
The continual gambling nearly always led to fights and quarrels. The
lucky dicers often won so much that the unlucky had to part with all
their booty. Sometimes a few men would win all the plunder of the
cruise, much to the disgust of the majority, who clamoured for a
redivision of the spoil. If two buccaneers got into a quarrel they
fought it out on shore at the first opportunity, using knives, swords,
or pistols, according to taste. The usual way of fighting was with
pistols, the combatants standing back to back, at a distance of ten or
twelve paces, and turning round to fire at the word of command. If both
shots missed, the question was decided with cutlasses, the man who drew
first blood being declared the winner. If a man were proved to be a
coward he was either tied to the mast, and shot, or mutilated, and sent
ashore. No cruise came to an end until the company declared themselves
satisfied with the amount of plunder taken. The question, like all other
important questions, was debated round the mast, and decided by vote.
At the conclusion of a successful cruise, they sailed for Port Royal,
with the ship full of treasure, such as vicuna wool, packets of pearls
from the Hatch, jars of civet or of ambergris, boxes of "marmalett" and
spices, casks of strong drink, bales of silk, sacks of chocolate and
vanilla, and rolls of green cloth and pale blue cotton which the Indians
had woven in Peru, in some sandy village near the sea, in sight of the
pelicans and the penguins. In addition to all these things, they usually
had a number of the personal possessions of those they had taken on the
seas. Lying in the chests for subsequent division were swords,
silver-mounted pistols, daggers chased and inlaid, watches from Spain,
necklaces of uncut jewels, rings and bangles, heavy carved furniture,
"cases of bottles" of delicately cut green glass, containing cordials
distilled of precious mints, with packets of emeralds from Brazil,
bezoar stones from Patagonia, paintings from Spain, and medicinal gums
from Nicaragua. All these things were divided by lot at the main-mast as
soon as the anchor held. As the ship, or ships, neared port, her men
hung colours out--any colours they could find--to make their vessel gay.
A cup of drink was taken as they sailed slowly home to moorings, and as
they drank they fired off the cannon, "bullets and all," again and yet
again, rejoicing as the bullets struck the water. Up in the bay, the
ships in the harbour answered with salutes of cannon; flags were dipped
and hoisted in salute; and so the anchor dropped in some safe reach, and
the division of the spoil began.
[Illustration: OLD PORT ROYAL]
After the division of the spoil in the beautiful Port Royal harbour,
in sight of the palm-trees and the fort with the colours flying, the
buccaneers packed their gear, and dropped over the side into a boat.
They were pulled ashore by some grinning black man with a scarlet scarf
about his head and the brand of a hot iron on his shoulders. At the
jetty end, where the Indians lounged at their tobacco and the
fishermen's canoas rocked, the sunburnt pirates put ashore. Among the
noisy company which always gathers on a pier they met with their
companions. A sort of Roman triumph followed, as the "happily returned"
lounged swaggeringly towards the taverns. Eager hands helped them to
carry in their plunder. In a few minutes the gang was entering the
tavern, the long, cool room with barrels round the walls, where there
were benches and a table and an old blind fiddler jerking his elbow at a
jig. Noisily the party ranged about the table, and sat themselves upon
the benches, while the drawers, or potboys, in their shirts, drew near
to take the orders. I wonder if the reader has ever heard a sailor in
the like circumstance, five minutes after he has touched his pay,
address a company of parasites in an inn with the question: "What's it
going to be?"
After the settlement of Jamaica by the English, the buccaneers became
more enterprising. One buccaneer captain, the most remarkable of all of
them, a man named Mansvelt, probably a Dutchman from Curaçoa, attempted
to found a pirate settlement upon the island of Santa Katalina, or Old
Providence. Mansvelt was a fortunate sea-captain, with considerable
charm of manner. He was popular with the buccaneers, and had a name
among them, for he was the first of them to cross the isthmus and to
sail the South Sea. His South-Sea cruise had come to little, for
provisions ran short, and his company had been too small to attempt a
Spanish town. He had, therefore, retreated to the North Sea to his
ships, and had then gone cruising northward along the Nicaragua coast
as far as the Blewfields River. From this point he stood away to the
island of Santa Katalina, or Old Providence--an island about six miles
long, with an excellent harbour, which, he thought, might easily be
fortified. A smaller island lies directly to the north of it, separated
from it by a narrow channel of the sea. Twenty years before his visit it
had been the haunt of an old captain of the name of Blewfields, who had
made it his base while his men went logwood cutting on the mainland.
Blewfields was now dead, either of rum or war, and the Spaniards had
settled there, and had built themselves a fort or castle to command the
harbour. Having examined the place, Mansvelt sailed away to Jamaica to
equip a fleet to take it. He saw that the golden times which the
buccaneers were then enjoying could not last for ever, and that their
occupation might be wrecked by a single ill-considered treaty, dated
from St James's or the Court of France. He thought that the islands
should be seized as a general rendezvous for folk of that way of life.
With a little trouble the harbour could be made impregnable. The land
was good, and suited for the growing of maize or tobacco--the two
products most in demand among them. The islands were near the Main,
being only thirty-five leagues from the Chagres River, the stream from
which the golden harvest floated from the cities of the south. They were
close to the coast of Nicaragua, where the logwood grew in clumps,
waiting for the axes of the lumbermen. With the islands in their hands,
the buccaneers could drive the Spaniards off the isthmus--or so Mansvelt
thought. It would at anyrate have been an easy matter for them to have
wrecked the trade routes from Panama to Porto Bello, and from Porto
Bello to Vera Cruz.
While Mansvelt lay at Port Royal, scraping and tallowing his ships,
getting beef salted and boucanned, and drumming up his men from the
taverns, a Welshman, of the name of Henry Morgan, came sailing up to
moorings with half-a-dozen captured merchantmen. But a few weeks before,
he had come home from a cruise with a little money in his pockets. He
had clubbed together with some shipmates, and had purchased a small ship
with the common fund. She was but meanly equipped, yet her first cruise
to the westward, on the coast of Campeachy, was singularly lucky.
Mansvelt at once saw his opportunity to win recruits. A captain so
fortunate as Morgan would be sure to attract followers, for the
buccaneers asked that their captains should be valorous and lucky. For
other qualities, such as prudence and forethought, they did not
particularly care. Mansvelt at once went aboard Morgan's ship to drink a
cup of sack with him in the cabin. He asked him to act as vice-admiral
to the fleet he was then equipping for Santa Katalina. To this Henry
Morgan very readily consented, for he judged that a great company would
be able to achieve great things. In a few days, the two set sail
together from Port Royal, with a fleet of fifteen ships, manned by 500
buccaneers, many of whom were French and Dutch.
As soon as they arrived at Santa Katalina, they anchored, and sent their
men ashore with some heavy guns. The Spanish garrison was strong, and
the fortress well situated, but in a few days they forced it to
surrender. They then crossed by a bridge of boats to the lesser island
to the north, where they ravaged the plantations for fresh supplies.
Having blown up all the fortifications save the castle, they sent the
Spanish prisoners aboard the ships. They then chose out 100 trusty men
to keep the island for them. They left these on the island, under the
command of a Frenchman of the name of Le Sieur Simon. They also left
the Spanish slaves behind, to work the plantations, and to grow maize
and sweet potatoes for the future victualling of the fleet. Mansvelt
then sailed away towards Porto Bello, near which city he put his
prisoners ashore. He cruised to the eastward for some weeks, snapping up
provision ships and little trading vessels; but he learned that the
Governor of Panama, a determined and very gallant soldier, was fitting
out an army to encounter him, should he attempt to land. The news may
have been false, but it showed the buccaneers that they were known to be
upon the coast, and that their raid up "the river of Colla" to "rob and
pillage" the little town of Nata, on the Bay of Panama, would be
fruitless. The Spanish residents of little towns like Nata buried all
their gold and silver, and then fled into the woods when rumours of the
pirates came to them. To attack such a town some weeks after the
townsfolk had received warning of their intentions would have been worse
than useless.
Mansvelt, therefore, returned to Santa Katalina to see how the colony
had prospered while he had been at sea. He found that Le Sieur Simon had
put the harbour "in a very good posture of defence," having built a
couple of batteries to command the anchorage. In these he had mounted
his cannon upon platforms of plank, with due munitions of cannon-balls
and powder. On the little island to the north he had laid out
plantations of maize, sweet potatoes, plantains, and tobacco. The
first-fruits of these green fields were now ripe, and "sufficient to
revictual the whole fleet with provisions and fruits."
Mansvelt was so well satisfied with the prospects of the colony that he
determined to hurry back to Jamaica to beg recruits and recognition from
the English Governor. The islands had belonged to English subjects in
the past, and of right belonged to England still. However, the Jamaican
Governor disliked the scheme. He feared that by lending his support he
would incur the wrath of the English Government, while he could not
weaken his position in Jamaica by sending soldiers from his garrison.
Mansvelt, "seeing the unwillingness" of this un-English Governor, at
once made sail for Tortuga, where he hoped the French might be less
squeamish. He dropped anchor, in the channel between Tortuga and
Hispaniola early in the summer of 1665. He seems to have gone ashore to
see the French authorities. Perhaps he drank too strong a punch of rum
and sugar--a drink very prejudicial in such a climate to one not used to
it. Perhaps he took the yellow fever, or the coast cramp; the fact
cannot now be known. At any rate he sickened, and died there, "before he
could accomplish his desires"--"all things hereby remaining in
suspense." One account, based on the hearsay of a sea-captain, says that
Mansvelt was taken by the Spaniards, and brought to Porto Bello, and
there put to death by the troops.
Le Sieur Simon remained at his post, hoeing his tobacco plants, and
sending detachments to the Main to kill manatee, or to cut logwood. He
looked out anxiously for Mansvelt's ships, for he had not men enough to
stand a siege, and greatly feared that the Spaniards would attack him.
While he stayed in this perplexity, wondering why he did not hear from
Mansvelt, he received a letter from Don John Perez de Guzman, the
Spanish captain-general, who bade him "surrender the island to his
Catholic Majesty," on pain of severe punishment. To this Le Sieur Simon
made no answer, for he hoped that Mansvelt's fleet would soon be in
those waters to deliver him from danger. Don John, who was a very
energetic captain-general, determined to retake the place. He left his
residence at Panama, and crossed the isthmus to Porto Bello, where he
found a ship, called the _St Vincent_, "that belonged to the Company of
the Negroes" (the Isthmian company of slavers), lying at anchor, waiting
for a freight. We are told that she was a good ship, "well mounted with
guns." He provisioned her for the sea, and manned her with about 400
men, mostly soldiers from the Porto Bello forts. Among the company were
seven master gunners and "twelve Indians very dexterous at shooting with
bows and arrows." The city of Cartagena furnished other ships and men,
bringing the squadron to a total of four vessels and 500 men-at-arms.
With this force the Spanish commander arrived off Santa Katalina, coming
to anchor in the port there on the evening of a windy day, the 10th of
August 1665. As they dropped anchor they displayed their colours. As
soon as the yellow silk blew clear, Le Sieur Simon discharged "three
guns with bullets" at the ships, "the which were soon answered in the
same coin." The Spaniard then sent a boat ashore to summon the garrison,
threatening death to all if the summons were refused. To this Le Sieur
Simon replied that the island was a possession of the English Crown,
"and that, instead of surrendering it, they preferred to lose their
lives." As more than a fourth of the little garrison was at that time
hunting on the Main, or at sea, the answer was heroic. Three days later,
some negroes swam off to the ships to tell the Spaniards of the
garrison's weakness. After two more days of council, the boats were
lowered from the ships, and manned with soldiers. The guns on the
gun-decks were loaded, and trained. The drums beat to quarters both on
the ships and in the batteries. Under the cover of the warship's guns,
the boats shoved off towards the landing-place, receiving a furious fire
from the buccaneers. The "weather was very calm and clear," so that the
smoke from the guns did not blow away fast enough to allow the
buccaneers to aim at the boats. The landing force formed into three
parties, two of which attacked the flanks, and the third the centre.
The battle was very furious, though the buccaneers were outnumbered and
had no chance of victory. They ran short of cannon-balls before they
surrendered, but they made shift for a time with small shot and scraps
of iron, "also the organs of the church," of which they fired
"threescore pipes" at a shot. The fighting lasted most of the day, for
it was not to the advantage of the Spaniards to come to push of pike.
Towards sunset the buccaneers were beaten from their guns. They fought
in the open for a few minutes, round "the gate called Costadura," but
the Spaniards surrounded them, and they were forced to lay down their
arms. The Spanish colours were set up, and two poor Spaniards who had
joined the buccaneers were shot to death upon the Plaza. The English
prisoners were sent aboard the ships, and carried into Porto Bello,
where they were put to the building of a fortress--the Iron Castle, a
place of great strength, which later on the English blew to pieces. Some
of the men were sent to Panama "to work in the castle of St Jerome"--a
wonderful, great castle, which was burned at the sack of Panama almost
before the mortar dried.
While the guns were roaring over Santa Katalina, as Le Sieur Simon
rammed his cannon full of organ pipes, Henry Morgan was in lodgings at
Port Royal, greatly troubled at the news of Mansvelt's death. He was
busily engaged at the time with letters to the merchants of New England.
He was endeavouring to get their help towards the fortification of the
island he had helped to capture. "His principal intent," writes one who
did not love the man, "was to consecrate it as a refuge and sanctuary to
the Pirates of those parts," making it "a convenient receptacle or store
house of their preys and robberies." It is pleasant to speculate as to
the reasons he urged to the devout New England Puritans. He must have
chuckled to himself, and shared many a laugh with his clerk, to think
that perhaps a Levite, or a Man of God, a deacon, or an elder, would
untie the purse-strings of the sealed if he did but agonise about the
Spanish Inquisition with sufficient earthquake and eclipse. He heard of
the loss of the island before the answers came to him, and the news, of
course, "put him upon new designs," though he did not abandon the scheme
in its entirety. He had his little fleet at anchor in the harbour,
gradually fitting for the sea, and his own ship was ready. Having
received his commission from the Governor, he gave his captains orders
to meet him on the Cuban coast, at one of the many inlets affording safe
anchorage. Here, after several weeks of cruising, he was joined by "a
fleet of twelve sail," some of them of several hundred tons. These were
manned by 700 fighting men, part French, part English.
At the council of war aboard the admiral's ship, it was suggested that
so large a company should venture on Havana, which city, they thought,
might easily be taken, "especially if they could but take a few of the
ecclesiastics." Some of the pirates had been prisoners in the Havana,
and knew that a town of 30,000 inhabitants would hardly yield to 700
men, however desperate. "Nothing of consequence could be done there,"
they pronounced, even with ecclesiastics, "unless with fifteen hundred
men." One of the pirates then suggested the town of Puerto del Principe,
an inland town surrounded by tobacco fields, at some distance from the
sea. It did a thriving trade with the Havana; and he who suggested that
it should be sacked, affirmed upon his honour, like Boult over Maria,
that it never yet "was sacked by any Pirates." Towards this virginal
rich town the buccaneers proceeded, keeping close along the coast until
they made the anchorage of Santa Maria. Here they dropped anchor for the
night.
When the men were making merry over the punch, as they cleaned their
arms, and packed their satchels, a Spanish prisoner "who had overheard
their discourse, while they thought he did not understand the English
tongue," slipped through a port-hole to the sea, and swam ashore. By
some miracle he escaped the ground sharks, and contrived to get to
Puerto del Principe some hours before the pirates left their ships. The
Governor of the town, to whom he told his story, at once raised all his
forces, "both freemen and slaves," to prejudice the enemy when he
attacked. The forest ways were blocked with timber baulks, and several
ambuscades were laid, with cannon in them, "to play upon them on their
march." In all, he raised and armed 800 men, whom he disposed in order,
either in the jungle at the ambuscades or in a wide expanse of grass
which surrounded the town.
In due course Morgan sent his men ashore, and marched them through the
wood towards the town. They found the woodland trackways blocked by the
timber baulks, so they made a detour, hacking paths for themselves with
their machetes, until they got clear of the wood. When they got out of
the jungle they found themselves on an immense green field, covered with
thick grass, which bowed and shivered in the wind. A few pale cattle
grazed here and there on the savannah; a few birds piped and twittered
in the sunshine. In front of them, at some little distance, was the town
they had come to pillage. It lay open to them--a cluster of houses, none
of them very large, with warehouses and tobacco drying-rooms and
churches with bells in them. Outside the town, some of them lying down,
some standing so as to get a view of the enemy, were the planters and
townsfolk, with their pikes and muskets, waiting for the battle to
begin. Right in the pirates' front was a troop of horsemen armed with
lances, swords, and pistols, drawn up in very good order, and ready to
advance. The pirates on their coming from the wood formed into a
semicircle or half-moon shape, the bow outwards, the horns curving to
prevent the cavalry from taking them in flank. They had drums and
colours in their ranks. The drums beat out a bravery, the colours were
displayed. The men halted for a moment to get their breath and to
reprime their guns. Then they advanced slowly, to the drubbing of the
drums, just as the Spanish horsemen trotted forward. As the Spaniards
sounded the charge, the buccaneers fired a volley of bullets at them,
which brought a number of cavaliers out of their saddles. Those horsemen
who escaped the bullets dashed down upon the line, and fired their
pistols at close quarters, afterwards wheeling round, and galloping back
to reform. They charged again and again, "like valiant and courageous
soldiers," but at every charge the pirates stood firm, and withered them
with file-firing. As they retired after each rush, the marksmen in the
ranks picked them off one by one, killing the Governor, in his plumed
hat, and strewing the grass with corpses. They also manoeuvred during
this skirmish so as to cut off the horsemen from the town. After four
hours of battle the cavalry were broken and defeated, and in no heart to
fight further. They made a last charge on their blown horses, but their
ranks went to pieces at the muzzles of the pirates' guns. They broke
towards the cover of the woods, but the pirates charged them as they
ran, and cut them down without pity. Then the drums beat out a bravery,
and the pirates rushed the town in the face of a smart fire. The
Spaniards fought in the streets, while some fired from the roofs and
upper windows. So hot was the tussle that the pirates had to fight from
house to house. The townsmen did not cease their fire, till the pirates
were gathering wood to burn the town, in despair of taking it.
[Illustration: PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE]
As soon as the firing ceased, the townsfolk were driven to the
churches, and there imprisoned under sentinels. Afterwards the pirates
"searched the whole country round about the town, bringing in day by day
many goods and prisoners, with much provision." The wine and spirits of
the townsfolk were set on tap, and "with this they fell to banqueting
among themselves, and making great cheer after their customary way."
They feasted so merrily that they forgot their prisoners, "whereby the
greatest part perished." Those who did not perish were examined in the
Plaza, "to make them confess where they had hidden their goods." Those
who would not tell where they had buried their gold were tortured very
barbarously by burning matches, twisted cords, or lighted palm leaves.
Finally, the starving wretches were ordered to find ransoms, "else they
should be all transported to Jamaica" to be sold as slaves. The town was
also laid under a heavy contribution, without which, they said, "they
would turn every house into ashes."
It happened that, at this juncture, some buccaneers, who were raiding in
the woods, made prisoner a negro carrying letters from the Governor of
the Havana. The letters were written to the citizens, telling them to
delay the payment of their ransoms as long as possible, for that he was
fitting out some soldiers to relieve them. The letters warned Henry
Morgan that he had better be away with the treasure he had found. He
gave order for the plunder to be sent aboard in the carts of the
townsfolk. He then called up the prisoners, and told them very sharply
that their ransoms must be paid the next day, "forasmuch as he would not
wait one moment longer, but reduce the whole town to ashes, in case they
failed to perform the sum he demanded." As it was plainly impossible for
the townsfolk to produce their ransoms at this short notice he
graciously relieved their misery by adding that he would be contented
with 500 beeves, "together with sufficient salt wherewith to salt
them." He insisted that the cattle should be ready for him by the next
morning, and that the Spaniards should deliver them upon the beach,
where they could be shifted to the ships without delay. Having made
these terms, he marched his men away towards the sea, taking with him
six of the principal prisoners "as pledges of what he intended." Early
the next morning the beach of Santa Maria bay was thronged with cattle
in charge of negroes and planters. Some of the oxen had been yoked to
carts to bring the necessary salt. The Spaniards delivered the ransom,
and demanded the six hostages. Morgan was by this time in some anxiety
for his position. He was eager to set sail before the Havana ships came
round the headland, with their guns run out, and matches lit, and all
things ready for a fight. He refused to release the prisoners until the
vaqueros "had helped his men to kill and salt the beeves." The work of
killing and salting was performed "in great haste," lest the Havana
ships should come upon them before the beef was shipped. The hides were
left upon the sands, there being no time to dry them before sailing. A
Spanish cowboy can kill, skin, and cut up a steer in a few minutes. The
buccaneers were probably no whit less skilful. By noon the work was
done. The beach of Santa Maria was strewn with mangled remnants, over
which the seagulls quarrelled. But before Morgan could proceed to sea,
he had to quell an uproar which was setting the French and English by
the ears. The parties had not come to blows, but the French were
clamouring for vengeance with drawn weapons. A French sailor, who was
working on the beach, killing and pickling the meat, had been plundered
by an Englishman, who "took away the marrowbones he had taken out of the
ox." Marrow, "toute chaude," was a favourite dish among these people.
The Frenchman could not brook an insult of a kind as hurtful to his
dinner as to his sense of honour. He challenged the thief to single
combat: swords the weapon, the time then. The buccaneers knocked off
their butcher's work to see the fight. As the poor Frenchman turned his
back to make him ready, his adversary stabbed him from behind, running
him quite through, so that "he suddenly fell dead upon the place."
Instantly the beach was in an uproar. The Frenchmen pressed upon the
English to attack the murderer and to avenge the death of their fellow.
There had been bad blood between the parties ever since they mustered at
the quays before the raid began. The quarrel now raging was an excuse to
both sides. Morgan walked between the angry groups, telling them to put
up their swords. At a word from him, the murderer was seized, set in
irons, and sent aboard an English ship. Morgan then seems to have made a
little speech to pacify the rioters, telling the French that the man
should be hanged ("hanged immediately," as they said of Admiral Byng) as
soon as the ships had anchored in Port Royal bay. To the English, he
said that the criminal was worthy of punishment, "for although it was
permitted him to challenge his adversary, yet it was not lawful to kill
him treacherously, as he did." After a good deal of muttering, the
mutineers returned aboard their ships, carrying with them the last of
the newly salted beef. The hostages were freed, a gun was fired from the
admiral's ship, and the fleet hove up their anchors, and sailed away
from Cuba, to some small sandy quay with a spring of water in it, where
the division of the plunder could be made. The plunder was heaped
together in a single pile. It was valued by the captains, who knew by
long experience what such goods would fetch in the Jamaican towns.
To the "resentment and grief" of all the 700 men these valuers could not
bring the total up to 50,000 pieces of eight--say £12,000--"in money and
goods." All hands were disgusted at "such a small booty, which was not
sufficient to pay their debts at Jamaica." Some cursed their fortune;
others cursed their captain. It does not seem to have occurred to them
to blame themselves for talking business before their Spanish prisoners.
Morgan told them to "think upon some other enterprize," for the ships
were fit to keep the sea, and well provisioned. It would be an easy
matter, he told them, to attack some town upon the Main "before they
returned home," so that they should have a little money for the taverns,
to buy them rum with, at the end of the cruise. But the French were
still sore about the murder of their man: they raised objections to
every scheme the English buccaneers proposed. Each proposition was
received contemptuously, with angry bickerings and mutterings. At last
the French captains intimated that they desired to part company. Captain
Morgan endeavoured to dissuade them from this resolution by using every
flattery his adroit nature could suggest. Finding that they would not
listen to him, even though he swore by his honour that the murderer,
then in chains, should be hanged as soon as they reached home, he
brought out wine and glasses, and drank to their good fortune. The booty
was then shared up among the adventurers. The Frenchmen got their shares
aboard, and set sail for Tortuga to the sound of a salute of guns. The
English held on for Port Royal, in great "resentment and grief." When
they arrived there they caused the murderer to be hanged upon a gallows,
which, we are told, "was all the satisfaction the French Pirates could
expect."
_Note._--If we may believe Morgan's statement to Sir T. Modyford,
then Governor of Jamaica, he brought with him from Cuba reliable
evidence that the Spaniards were planning an attack upon that colony
(see State Papers: West Indies and Colonial Series). If the
statements of his prisoners were correct, the subsequent piratical
raid upon the Main had some justification. Had the Spaniards matured
their plans, and pushed the attack home, it is probable that we
should have lost our West Indian possessions.
_Authorities._--A. O. Exquemeling: "Bucaniers of America," eds.
1684-5 and 1699. Cal. State Papers: "West Indies."