Most of us, as boys, have envied the buccaneers. The greatest of all
boys, Canon Kingsley, once wrote a pleasing and regretful poem in which
the Last Buccaneer represents himself as a kind of picturesque
philanthropist:--
"There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout,
All furnished well with small arms, and cannons round about;
And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free,
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.
Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and
gold,
Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old;
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,
Who flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone."
The buccaneer is "a gallant sailor," according to Kingsley's poem--a
Robin Hood of the waters, who preys only on the wicked rich, or the cruel
and Popish Spaniard, and the extortionate shipowner. For his own part,
when he is not rescuing poor Indians, the buccaneer lives mainly "for
climate and the affections":--
"Oh, sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze,
A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees,
With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar
Of the breakers on the reef outside that never touched the shore."
This is delightfully idyllic, like the lives of the Tahitian shepherds in
the Anti-Jacobin--the shepherds whose occupation was a sinecure, as there
were no sheep in Tahiti.
Yet the vocation was not really so touchingly chivalrous as the poet
would have us deem. One Joseph Esquemeling, himself a buccaneer, has
written the history and described the exploits of his companions in plain
prose, warning eager youths that "pieces-of-eight do not grow on every
tree," as many raw recruits have believed. Mr. Esquemeling's account of
these matters may be purchased, with a great deal else that is
instructive and entertaining, in "The History of the Buccaneers in
America." My edition (of 1810) is a dumpy little book, in very small
type, and quite a crowd of publishers took part in the venture. The
older editions are difficult to procure if your pockets are not stuffed
with pieces-of-eight. You do not often find even this volume, but "when
found make a note of," and you have a reply to Canon Kingsley.
A charitable old Scotch lady, who heard our ghostly foe evil spoken of,
remarked that, "If we were all as diligent and conscientious as the
Devil, it would be better for us." Now, the buccaneers were certainly
models of diligence and conscientiousness in their own industry, which
was to torture people till they gave up their goods, and then to run them
through the body, and spend the spoils over drink and dice. Except
Dampier, who was a clever man, but a poor buccaneer (Mr. Clark Russell
has written his life), they were the most hideously ruthless miscreants
that ever disgraced the earth and the sea. But their courage and
endurance were no less notable than their greed and cruelty, so that a
moral can be squeezed even out of these abandoned miscreants. The
soldiers and sailors who made their way within gunshot of Khartoum,
overcoming thirst, hunger, heat, the desert, and the gallant children of
the desert, did not fight, march, and suffer more bravely than the
scoundrels who sacked Mairaibo and burned Panama. Their good qualities
were no less astounding and exemplary than their almost incredible
wickedness. They did not lie about in hammocks much, listening to the
landward wind among the woods--the true buccaneers. To tell the truth,
most of them had no particular cause to love the human species. They
were often Europeans who had been sold into slavery on the West Indian
plantations, where they learned lessons of cruelty by suffering it. Thus
Mr. Joseph Esquemeling, our historian, was beaten, tortured, and nearly
starved to death in Tortuga, "so I determined, not knowing how to get any
living, to enter into the order of the pirates or robbers of the sea."
The poor Indians of the isles, much pitied by Kingsley's buccaneer, had a
habit of sticking their prisoners all over with thorns, wrapped in oily
cotton, whereto they then set fire. "These cruelties many Christians
have seen while they lived among these barbarians." Mr. Esquemeling was
to see, and inflict, plenty of this kind of torment, which was not out of
the way nor unusual. One planter alone had killed over a hundred of his
servants--"the English did the same with theirs."
A buccaneer voyage began in stealing a ship, collecting desperadoes, and
torturing the local herdsmen till they gave up their masters' flocks,
which were salted as provisions. Articles of service were then drawn up,
on the principle "no prey, no pay." The spoils, when taken, were loyally
divided as a rule, though Captain Morgan, of Wales, made no more scruple
about robbing his crew than about barbecuing a Spanish priest. "They are
very civil and charitable to each other, so that if any one wants what
another has, with great willingness they give it to one another." In
other matters they did not in the least resemble the early Christians. A
fellow nick-named The Portuguese may be taken as our first example of
their commendable qualities.
With a small ship of four guns he had taken a great one of twenty guns,
with 70,000 pieces-of-eight . . . He himself, however, was presently
captured by a larger vessel, and imprisoned on board. Being carelessly
watched, he escaped on two earthen jars (for he could not swim), reached
the woods in Campechy, and walked for a hundred and twenty miles through
the bush. His only food was a few shell-fish, and by way of a knife he
had a large nail, which he whetted to an edge on a stone. Having made a
kind of raft, he struck a river, and paddled to Golpho Triste, where he
found congenial pirates. With twenty of these, and a boat, he returned
to Campechy, where he had been a prisoner, and actually captured the
large ship in which he had lain captive! Bad luck pursued him, however:
his prize was lost in a storm; he reached Jamaica in a canoe, and never
afterwards was concerned as leader in any affair of distinction. Not
even Odysseus had more resource, nor was more long-enduring; but Fortune
was The Portuguese's foe.
Braziliano, another buccaneer, served as a pirate before the mast, and
"was beloved and respected by all." Being raised to command, he took a
plate ship; but this success was of indifferent service to his otherwise
amiable character. "He would often appear foolish and brutish when in
drink," and has been known to roast Spaniards alive on wooden spits "for
not showing him hog yards where he might steal swine." One can hardly
suppose that Kingsley would have regretted _this_ buccaneer, even if he
had been the last, which unluckily he was not. His habit of sitting in
the street beside a barrel of beer, and shooting all passers-by who would
not drink with him, provoked remark, and was an act detestable to all
friends of temperance principles.
Francois L'Olonnois, from southern France, had been kidnapped, and sold
as a slave in the Caribbee Islands. Recovering his freedom, he plundered
the Spanish, says my buccaneer author, "till his unfortunate death." With
two canoes he captured a ship which had been sent after him, carrying ten
guns and a hangman for his express benefit. This hangman, much to the
fellow's chagrin, L'Olonnois put to death like the rest of his prisoners.
His great achievements were in the Gulf of Venezuela or Bay of Maracaibo.
The gulf is a strong place; the mouth, no wider than a gun-shot, is
guarded by two islands. Far up the inlet is Maracaibo, a town of three
thousand people, fortified and surrounded by woods. Yet farther up is
the town of Gibraltar. To attack these was a desperate enterprise; but
L'Olonnois stole past the forts, and frightened the townsfolk into the
woods. As a rule the Spaniards made the poorest resistance; there were
examples of courage, but none of conduct. With strong forts, heavy guns,
many men, provisions, and ammunition, they quailed before the desperate
valour of the pirates. The towns were sacked, the fugitives hunted out
in the woods, and the most abominable tortures were applied to make them
betray their friends and reveal their treasures. When they were silent,
or had no treasures to declare, they were hacked, twisted, burned, and
starved to death.
Such were the manners of L'Olonnois; and Captain Morgan, of Wales, was
even more ruthless.
Gibraltar was well fortified and strengthened after Maracaibo fell; new
batteries were raised, the way through the woods was barricaded, and no
fewer than eight hundred men were under arms to resist a small pirate
force, exhausted by debauch, and having its retreat cut off by the forts
at the mouth of the great salt-water loch. But L'Olonnois did not
blench: he told the men that audacity was their one hope, also that he
would pistol the first who gave ground. The men cheered
enthusiastically, and a party of three hundred and fifty landed. The
barricaded way they could not force, and in a newly cut path they met a
strong battery which fired grape. But L'Olonnois was invincible. He
tried that old trick which rarely fails, a sham retreat, and this lured
the Spaniards from their earthwork on the path. The pirates then turned,
sword in hand, slew two hundred of the enemy, and captured eight guns.
The town yielded, the people fled to the woods, and then began the wonted
sport of torturing the prisoners. Maracaibo they ransomed afresh,
obtained a pilot, passed the forts with ease, and returned after sacking
a small province. On a dividend being declared, they parted 260,000
pieces-of-eight among the band, and spent the pillage in a revel of three
weeks.
L'Olonnois "got great repute" by this conduct, but I rejoice to add that
in a raid on Nicaragua he "miserably perished," and met what Mr.
Esquemeling calls "his unfortunate death." For L'Olonnois was really an
ungentlemanly character. He would hack a Spaniard to pieces, tear out
his heart, and "gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous wolf, saying to
the rest, 'I will serve you all alike if you show me not another way'"
(to a town which he designed attacking). In Nicaragua he was taken by
the Indians, who, being entirely on the Spanish side, tore him to pieces
and burned him. Thus we really must not be deluded by the professions of
Mr. Kingsley's sentimental buccaneer, with his pity for "the Indian folk
of old."
Except Denis Scott, a worthy bandit in his day, Captain Henry Morgan is
the first renowned British buccaneer. He was a young Welshman, who,
after having been sold as a slave in Barbadoes, became a sailor of
fortune. With about four hundred men he assailed Puerto Bello. "If our
number is small," he said, "our hearts are great," and so he assailed the
third city and place of arms which Spain then possessed in the West
Indies. The entrance of the harbour was protected by two strong castles,
judged as "almost impregnable," while Morgan had no artillery of any
avail against fortresses. Morgan had the luck to capture a Spanish
soldier, whom he compelled to parley with the garrison of the castle.
This he stormed and blew up, massacring all its defenders, while with its
guns he disarmed the sister fortress. When all but defeated in a new
assault, the sight of the English colours animated him afresh. He made
the captive monks and nuns carry the scaling ladders; in this unwonted
exploit the poor religious folk lost many of their numbers. The wall was
mounted, the soldiers were defeated, though the Governor fought like a
Spaniard of the old school, slew many pirates with his own hand, and
pistolled some of his own men for cowardice. He died at his post,
refusing quarter, and falling like a gentleman of Spain. Morgan, too,
was not wanting in fortitude: he extorted 100,000 pieces-of-eight from
the Governor of Panama, and sent him a pistol as a sample of the gun
wherewith he took so great a city. He added that he would return and
take this pistol out of Panama; nor was he less good than his word. In
Cuba he divided 250,000 pieces-of-eight, and a great booty in other
treasure. A few weeks saw it all in the hands of the tavern-keepers and
women of the place.
Morgan's next performance was a new sack of Maracaibo, now much stronger
than L'Olonnois had found it. After the most appalling cruelties, not
fit to be told, he returned, passing the castles at the mouth of the port
by an ingenious stratagem. Running boatload after boatload of men to the
land side, he brought them back by stealth, leading the garrison to
expect an attack from that quarter. The guns were massed to landward,
and no sooner was this done than Morgan sailed up through the channel
with but little loss. Why the Spaniards did not close the passage with a
boom does not appear. Probably they were glad to be quit of Morgan on
any terms.
A great Spanish fleet he routed by the ingenious employment of a fire-
ship. In a later expedition a strong place was taken by a curious
accident. One of the buccaneers was shot through the body with an arrow.
He drew it out, wrapped it in cotton, fired it from his musket, and so
set light to a roof and burned the town.
His raid on Panama was extraordinary for the endurance of his men. For
days they lived on the leather of bottles and belts. "Some, who were
never out of their mothers' kitchens, may ask how these pirates could eat
and digest these pieces of leather, so hard and dry? Whom I answer--that
could they once experience what hunger, or rather famine is, they would
find the way, as the pirates did." It was at the close of this march
that the Indians drove wild bulls among them; but they cared very little
for these new allies of the Spaniards: beef, in any form, was only too
welcome.
Morgan burned the fair cedar houses of Panama, but lost the plate ship
with all the gold and silver out of the churches. How he tortured a poor
wretch who chanced to wear a pair of taffety trousers belonging to his
master, with a small silver key hanging out, it is better not to repeat.
The men only got two hundred pieces-of-eight each, after all their toil,
for their Welshman was indeed a thief, and bilked his crews, no less than
he plundered the Spaniards, without remorse. Finally, he sneaked away
from the fleet with a ship or two; and it is to be feared that Captain
Morgan made rather a good thing by dint of his incredible cruelty and
villainy.
And so we leave Mr. Esquemeling, whom Captain Morgan also deserted; for
who would linger long when there is not even honour among thieves?
Alluring as the pirate's profession is, we must not forget that it had a
seamy side, and was by no means all rum and pieces-of-eight. And there
is something repulsive to a generous nature in roasting men because they
will not show you where to steal hogs.