THE ROARING DAYS OF PIRACY
In Bristowe I left Poll ashore,
Well stocked wi’ togs an’ gold,
And off I goes to sea for more,
A piratin’ so bold.
An’ wounded in the arm I got,
An’ then a pretty blow;
Come home to find Poll’s flowed away,
Yo, ho, with the rum below!
It was in the early part of the eighteenth century, two hundred
years ago, when the merchant voyager ran as great a risk of being
taken by pirates as he did of suffering shipwreck. Within a brief
period flourished most of the picturesque scoundrels who have some
claim to distinction. Blackbeard terrified the Atlantic coast from
Boston to Charleston until a cutlass cut him down in 1717. He was a
most satisfactory figure of a theatrical pirate, always strutting in
the center of the stage, and many others who came later were mere
imitations. Robert Louis Stevenson was able to imagine nothing better
than Blackbeard’s true sea-journal, written with his own wicked hand,
which contained such fascinating entries as this:
Such a day, rum all out;--our company somewhat sober;--a
damned confusion amongst us! Rogues a-plotting--great talk of
separation--so I look sharp for a prize. Took one with a great deal
of liquor on board;--so kept the company drunk, damned drunk, then
all things went well again.
Captain Avery was plundering the treasure-laden galleons of the Great
Mogul off the coast of Madagascar in 1718, and was reported to have
stolen a daughter of that magnificent potentate as his bride, while
“his adventures were the subject of general conversation in Europe.”
The flamboyant career of Captain Bartholomew Roberts began in 1719,
that “tall, dark man” whose favorite toast was “Damnation to him who
lives to wear a halter,” and who always wore in action a rich crimson
damask waistcoat and breeches, a red feather in his hat, a gold chain
and diamond cross around his neck, a sword in his hand, and two pairs
of pistols hanging at the ends of a silk sling flung over his shoulder.
In this same year Captain Ned England was taking his pick of the
colonial merchantmen which were earning a respectable livelihood in the
slave-trade of the Guinea coast. He displayed his merry and ingenious
spirit by ordering his crew to pelt to death with broken rum-bottles
a captured shipmaster whose face and manners displeased him. Mary
Read, the successful woman pirate, was then in the full tide of her
exploits and notably demonstrated that a woman had a right to lead her
own life. When her crew presumed to argue with her, she pistoled them
with her own fair hand, and neatly killed in a duel a rash gentleman
pirate who had been foolish enough to threaten her lover. When asked
why she preferred a vocation so hazardous, Mary Read replied that “as
to hanging, she thought it no great hardship, for were it not for that
every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so infest the seas and men
of courage would starve.”
It was in the same period that the bold Captain John Quelch of
Marblehead stretched hemp, with five of his comrades, and a Salem poet
was inspired to write:
Ye pirates who against God’s laws did fight,
Have all been taken which is very right.
Some of them were old and others young
And on the flats of Boston they were hung.
In 1724 two notorious sea-rovers, Nutt and Phillip, were cruising
off Cape Ann within sight of Salem harbor’s mouth. They took a sloop
commanded by one Andrew Harraden, and thereby caught a Tartar. Harraden
and his sailors erupted from the hold into which they had been flung,
killed Nutt and Phillip and their officers, tossed the rest of the
rascals down below, and sailed into Boston Harbor, where their cargo
of pirates speedily furnished another entertainment for the populace
that trooped to the row of gibbets on the flats of the town. The
old sea-chronicles of New England are filled with episodes of these
misfortunes, encounters, and escapes until the marvel grows that the
seamen of those quaint brigs, ketches, and scows could be persuaded to
set out from port at all. The appalling risk became a habit, no doubt,
just as the people of to-day dare to use the modern highway on which
automobiles slay many more victims than ever the pirates made to walk
the plank.
The experience of an unlucky master mariner in that era of the
best-known and most successful pirates may serve to convey a
realization of the gamble with fortune which overshadowed every trading
voyage when the perils of the deep were so cruel and so manifold.
And it is easy to comprehend why the bills of lading included this
petition, “And so God send the good sloop to her desired port in
safety. Amen.”
In the year of 1718 the _Bird_ galley sailed from England in command
of Captain Snelgrave to find a cargo of slaves on the coast of Sierra
Leone. The galley, as sailors then used the term, was a small,
square-rigged vessel not unlike a brig, although properly the name
belonged to craft propelled by oars as well as sails; but seamen in all
ages have had a confusing habit of mixing the various classifications
of vessels. It was nothing against the character of Captain Snelgrave
that he was bound out to the Gold Coast in the rum and nigger trade.
The ship-chandlers of Liverpool made special displays in their windows
of handcuffs, leg-shackles, iron collars, short and long chains, and
furnaces and copper kettles designed for slave-ships. The English
Missionary Society owned a plantation and worked it with slaves. In
America the New England colonies took the lead in the slave-trade,
and the enterprising lads of the coastwise ports sought berths in the
forecastles of the African traders because of the chance of profit
and promotion. It was not held to the discredit of John Paul Jones
that he learned seamanship before the mast in the slaver _King George_
before he hoisted the first naval ensign of the United States above the
quarter-deck of an American man-of-war.
No sooner had the _Bird_ galley dropped anchor in the river of Sierra
Leone than three pirate ships came bowling in with a fair breeze. They
had been operating together and had already captured ten English
vessels. Captain Snelgrave eyed these unpleasant visitors with
suspicion, but hoped they might be on the same errand as himself. At
eight o’clock in the evening, however, he heard the measured thump of
oars and descried the shadow of an approaching boat. The first mate
was ordered to muster and arm twenty men on deck in readiness to repel
boarders. The second mate hailed the boat and was answered; “The ship
_Two Friends_ of Barbadoes, Captain Elliott.” This failed to satisfy
the master of the _Bird_ galley, and he shouted to the boat to sheer
off and keep clear.
A volley of musket-balls was the reply from the boat, and the first
mate of the _Bird_ was told to return the fire. His men stood idle,
however, and it transpired that he cherished secret ambitions of
being a pirate himself and had won over several of the crew. This was
extremely embarrassing for Captain Snelgrave, who was compelled to
witness the marauders scramble unresisted up the side of his vessel.
The leader of the pirates was in a particularly nasty temper because
the mate had been ordered to open fire, and he poked a pistol into the
captain’s face and pulled trigger. As quick as he was courageous, the
skipper knocked the weapon aside, and was promptly felled with the butt
of it. Dodging along the deck, the pirate boatswain swung at him with
a broadsword and missed his mark, the blade biting deep into the oaken
rail.
There was a grain of spunk left in the crew of the _Bird_, and they
rushed upon the evil boatswain before he could kill the captain. For
this behavior they were mercilessly slashed with cutlasses, kicked
and cursed, and then trussed in a row. With a touch of ferocious
whimsicality the pirate chief declared that he would let Captain
Snelgrave be tried by his own crew. If they had any complaints to make
of him as a shipmaster, he would be swung to a yard, and they should
haul the rope. He must have been a just and humane man, for not a
sailor voiced a grudge, and the ruffians appeared to forget all about
murder. After firing volleys to let their ships know that a prize had
been captured, they turned with tremendous enthusiasm to the business
of guzzling and feasting.
The captive sailors were released, and told to dress all the hens,
ducks, and geese that were in the coops on deck; but no sooner were
the heads chopped off than these childish blackguards refused to have
supper delayed. The _Bird_ carried a huge furnace, or oven, contrived
for cooking the food of the five hundred slaves which were expected
aboard. Into a roaring fire the pirates flung the hens, ducks, and
geese, feathers and all, and hauled them out as soon as they were
singed and scorched. The same culinary method was employed for half a
dozen Westphalia hams and a sow with a dozen little pigs. A few finicky
pirates commanded the ship’s cook, under pain of death, to boil the
meat in the great copper caldrons designed for the slaves’ porridge.
The prodigious banquet made these unmannerly guests feel in better
humor, and they even told their surgeon to dress the wounds of the
_Bird’s_ sailors. They amused themselves by playing foot-ball with
Captain Snelgrave’s excellent gold watch, and drank themselves into a
state of boisterous joviality. The old record puts it mildly, to say
the least, in affirming that “the captain’s situation was by no means
an agreeable one, even under these circumstances, as ferocious men are
generally capricious. He now fared very hard, enduring great fatigue
with patience, and submitting resignedly to the Almighty will.”
Before the wild night ended he was taken aboard the pirates’ flagship,
where he was questioned by a sort of commodore or commander-in-chief
of the squadron. His name was Cocklyn, and he had ambitions to conduct
operations on a scale even larger. He wanted to win over the _Bird’s_
crew and to fly his black pennant from her, as his talk disclosed, and
this was why the lives of her company had been spared. Now occurred
one of those romantic incidents which the novelist would hesitate to
invent as stretching the probabilities, but in these ancient narratives
of the sea things were set down as they actually happened. This is how
the story was written in 1724:
Soon after the captain was on board the pirate ship, a tall man,
well armed, came up to him and told him his name was Jack Griffin,
one of his old school-fellows. Upon Captain Snelgrave appearing not
to recollect him, he mentioned many pranks of their youth together.
He said he was forced into the pirate service while chief mate
of a British vessel and was later compelled to act as master of
one of the pirate ships. His crew he described as most atrocious
miscreants. This Jack Griffin, a bold and ready man, promised to
watch over the captain’s safety, as the pirates would soon be worse
intoxicated with the liquors on board their prize.
Griffin now obtained a bowl of punch and led the way to the
cabin, where a carpet was spread to sit upon, as the pirate ship
was always kept clear for action. They sat down cross-legged,
and Cocklyn, the chief captain, drank Snelgrave’s health, saying
his crew had spoken well of him. A hammock was slung for Captain
Snelgrave at night, by the intercession of Griffin, but the pirates
lay rough, as they styled it, because their vessel, as already
observed, was always cleared for action.
Griffin, true to his promise of guarding his old school-fellow
while asleep, kept near the captain’s hammock, sword in hand, to
protect him from insults. Towards morning, while the pirates were
carousing on deck, the boatswain came toward the hammock in a
state of intoxication, swearing that he would slice the captain for
ordering the crew to fire, dragged him from his hammock, and would,
no doubt, have executed his savage threat if it had not been for
Griffin who, as the boatswain pressed forward to stab the sleeping
Captain Snelgrave, cut at the fellow with his sword and after a
sharp struggle succeeded in beating him off. At length the wretches
fell asleep and the captain was no longer molested. Griffin next
day complained of the boatswain’s conduct and he was threatened
with a whipping. However, Captain Snelgrave wisely pleaded for him,
by saying he was in liquor.
Shielded from harm by this lawless, but devoted, old school-mate of
his, the master of the _Bird_ galley was in no great danger of being
sliced by some impulsive pirate who was careless with a cutlass. His
perfidious first mate and ten of the sailors now signed on as pirates
and assisted the others in ransacking Captain Snelgrave’s unfortunate
ship. Such merchandise as did not happen to please their fancy was
pitched overboard, and they saved little more than the provisions, the
clothing, and the gold coin. They were like a gang of hoodlums on a
lark, and wanton destruction was their very stupid idea of a pastime.
This wild carnival went on for several days. Barrels of claret and
brandy were hoisted on deck, the heads knocked in, and the drink baled
out with cans and buckets until the roisterers could hold not another
swallow. Then they doused one another with buckets of claret and good
French brandy as they ran roaring around the deck.
Bottled liquors were opened by whacking off the necks with cutlasses.
They pelted one another with cheeses, and emptied the tubs of butter
to slide in. One of these sportive pirates dressed himself in the
captain’s shore-going black suit and his best hat and wig, strutted
among his comrades until they drenched him with claret, and then
chucked the wardrobe overboard. You will be gratified to learn that
“this man, named Kennedy, ended his career in Execution Dock.”
Of the two other pirate ships then in the river of Sierra Leone one
was British and the other French. The English commander was one of
the brave and resourceful sea-rogues of his era, a fighting seaman
in whom survived the spirit of those desperate adventurers of the
seventeenth century who followed Morgan to Panama and hunted the
stately Spanish galleons with Hawkins and Dampier in the waters of the
Pacific. This was the famous Captain Davis, who would sooner storm
a fort or take a town at the head of a landing party than to loot a
helpless merchantman. He had attempted to combine forces with these
other pirates at Sierra Leone and had been formally elected admiral in
a council of war. But he found reason to suspect the good faith of his
associates, whereupon he summoned them into his cabin and told them to
their faces:
“Hear ye, you Cocklyn and La Boise” (the French captain), I find
that by strengthening you I have put a rod into your hands to whip
myself, but I am able to deal with you both. However, since we met
in love let us part in love, for I find that three of a trade can
never agree long together.
Captain Davis was getting ready for a cruise on his own account,
with the design of attacking the garrison of one of the Portuguese
settlements on the African coast, but he found time to interest himself
in the affairs of poor Captain Snelgrave of the _Bird_ galley. It may
have been a spark of genuine manliness and sportsmanship, or dislike
of the slippery Cocklyn, but at any rate Captain Davis interceded in
his own high-handed manner and told the rascals to give the plundered
_Bird_ back to her master and to treat him decently.
This altered the situation. Captain Davis was the king wolf of the
pack, and his bite was much worse than his bark. Cocklyn and La Boise
were disposed to resent this interference and hung back a little, at
which the black flag was run up to the masthead of Captain Davis’s
formidable ship, and the gun-ports were dropped with a clatter to show
a crew, disciplined and sober, with matches lighted, and handspikes
and tackles ready.
Very promptly the _Bird_ galley was restored to Captain Snelgrave,
but before going to sea Captain Davis was rowed ashore for a farewell
chat with a friend of his named Glynn. This man was living at Sierra
Leone for reasons unknown, probably in trade of some kind, and the
only information concerning him is that “although he had suffered
from pirates, he was on good terms with them and yet kept his hands
free from their guilt.” He must have been a two-fisted person with a
backbone of steel, for Captain Davis was satisfied to intrust to his
care the broken fortunes of the master of the _Bird_ galley.
Soon after the tall ship of Captain Davis was wafted seaward with
the breeze that drew off the land, the pirates twain, Cocklyn and La
Boise, were invited to dinner at the house of Captain Glynn. The other
guest was Captain Snelgrave, who discovered that the wind had suddenly
shifted in his favor and he was treated with the most distinguished
cordiality and respect. Fresh clothing was offered him, and he enjoyed
the luxury of one of Captain Glynn’s clean shirts. It was explained
that the _Bird_ was uncommonly well adapted for fitting out as a pirate
ship because she had flush decks for mounting guns and was sharply
molded for fast sailing. Cocklyn and La Boise politely suggested
that they keep her for their own use and give to Captain Snelgrave a
merchant vessel of larger tonnage which had been recently captured. By
way of making amends for their rudeness, they would be delighted to
replace his ruined cargo with merchandise taken from other prizes, and
he could take his pick of the stuff.
This was a delicate problem for Captain Snelgrave to decide. The
ethical codes of the pirates were so much more unconventional than his
own that they failed to see why he should hesitate to sail home to
England in a stolen ship with a cargo of looted merchandise. Tactfully,
but firmly, he declined the offer, at which they hopefully suggested
that he might change his mind and, anyhow, they would do their best to
straighten things out for him. It was a pleasant little dinner party,
but it is plausible to infer that the thought of the absent Captain
Davis hung over it like a grim shadow.
Next day the abandoned merchantman which had been offered to Captain
Snelgrave was towed alongside the _Bird_ galley, and all of his cargo
that had escaped destruction was transferred by his own crew. There was
a good deal of it, after all, for it had consisted largely of salted
provisions and bolts of cloth for the slave market, and the wanton
pirates had tired of the game before they got into the lower holds.
Captain Snelgrave moved ashore and found a comfortable refuge in the
house of Captain Glynn.
Retribution now overtook that truculent pirate, the boatswain, who had
first attempted to blow out the brains of Captain Snelgrave and then to
slice him in his hammock. He fell very ill of tropical fever and rum,
and realizing that he had come to the end of his cable, he sent for the
skipper and implored forgiveness. It is solemnly recorded that “this
man fell into a delirium the same night and died before the morning,
cursing God his maker in such a frightful manner that it affected
several of the pirates who were yet novices in that mode of life, and
they came privately, in consequence, to obtain Captain Snelgrave’s
advice how they should get out of their evil course. A proclamation of
pardon had been issued to all pirates who surrendered before July 1,
1719, and the captain advised them to embrace the pardon so tendered.”
Still refusing to accept the gift of a purloined ship, the captain
persuaded the pirates to remove all his cargo ashore, which they
cheerfully did and built a shelter to cover it. Then they busied
themselves at the task of arming the _Bird_ for their own wicked use,
and were amazingly sober and industrious for as much as a fortnight.
When they were ready to put the ship into commission, Captain Snelgrave
was invited aboard to a jollification in his own cabin. There was a
certain etiquette to be followed, it seemed, and the observance was
punctilious. Toasts were drunk to a lucky cruise, and every man smashed
his glass upon the table or floor. The ship was renamed the _Windham
Galley_, and they all trooped out on deck and waved their hats and
huzzaed when the Jolly Roger broke out of stops and showed aloft like a
sinister blot against the clean sky from the mast which had displayed
the British ensign. The new batteries were fired in salute, with a
great noise and clouds of gunpowder smoke, and then, of course, all
hands proceeded to get most earnestly drunk though they laid no violent
hands upon Captain Snelgrave.
The ships were still in the harbor when the redoubtable Captain Davis
came sailing in from his voyage. It had been shorter than expected, for
rich booty was overtaken at sea, and he delayed the adventure with the
Portuguese fort until he could dispose of his profits and refit. First,
he had laid alongside two English and one Scotch ship and lifted out of
them such goods as attracted his fancy, permitting them to proceed. A
few days later the lookout aloft sighted a sail and, in the words of
the record, “it may be proper to inform our readers that, according to
the laws of pirates, the man who first discovers a sail is entitled to
the best pair of pistols in the ship and such is the honor attached to
these that a pair of them has been known to sell for thirty pounds.”
Captain Davis chased this tempting ship until she drove ashore and the
terrified crew took to the jungle. She proved to be a gorgeous prize, a
heavily armed packet, “having on board the Governor of Acra, with all
his substance, going to Holland. There was in her money to the amount
of fifteen thousand pounds, besides a large quantity of merchant goods
and other valuable articles.” This ship had the men and guns to have
stood up to it and given Captain Davis a battle royal, but the sight of
his evil flag, and perhaps his own bloody repute, made cowards of them.
It was quite otherwise with another Dutchman overhauled soon after
this. These stolid seamen had the proverbial tenacity of their race,
and they scorned the notion of hauling down colors at the sight of a
scurvy pirate. To the insolent summons they replied with a broadside
and killed nine surprised pirates, who were smelling brimstone in
another world before they realized how it happened.
Excessively annoyed, Captain Davis closed in, and soon found that he
had a hard nut to crack. With thirty guns and ninety men the Dutchman
stood him off, and they fought a stubbornly heroic sea action that
lasted from one o’clock at noon until after daylight next morning,
occasionally hauling off for rest and repairs and tackling each other
again, hammer and tongs. Finally the Dutchman had to strike, for he was
outfought by men better drilled and practised. Captain Davis respected
their valor, and there was no mention of making them walk the plank.
The fifty survivors were taken aboard his own ship to save their lives,
for their own ship was so smashed and splintered that she sank soon
after.
Reaching Sierra Leone, Captain Davis invited Captain Snelgrave aboard
for supper in order to learn how affairs had been going with him. At
the end of a successful cruise, the cutthroats had to be handled with
a loose rein. They expected a grand carouse as a matter of course,
and such a leader as Captain Davis was wise enough to close his eyes
until he was ready to put the screws on again and prepare for another
adventure. Most of the ship’s company were properly drunk when the
alarm of fire was shouted. A lighted lantern had been overturned among
the rum-casks, and the flames were running into the hold. Amid the
shouting and confusion, the sober men tumbled into boats and pulled for
the shore. The fire was eating straight toward the magazine, in which
were stowed thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder.
One pirate, who was both astonishingly brave and sober, dropped through
a hatchway, groped through the smoke, and yelled that unless they
fetched him blankets and buckets of water the ship would blow up.
Captain Snelgrave gathered all the rugs and blankets he could find and
rushed below to join the fellow. Other men rallied when led by Captain
Davis, and formed a bucket brigade to douse the blankets and stuff them
against the bulkhead of the magazine. It was a ticklish situation,
taking it by and large,
for the night was dark, the crew drunk, and no hope of mastering
the fire seemed to remain. To spring into the water was certain
death, from the sharks hovering around the vessel. Having
accomplished all that he was able, Captain Snelgrave snatched up a
quarter-boat grating and lowered it with a rope, hoping to float
away upon that, as several persons had gone off with the boats.
While the captain was thus meditating his escape he heard a shout
from the main-deck, “_Now for a brave blast to go to hell with._”
On which some of the newly entered pirates near him, believing the
ship must blow up in a few minutes, lamented their entering on that
vile course of life, with bitter exclamations against the hardened
offenders on the main-deck who dared to blaspheme in such an hour
as this.
Fifty of the crew crawled out upon the bowsprit and sprit-sail yard,
where they clung and hoped to be blown clear of the general upheaval.
They handsomely deserved extermination, but a dozen gallant volunteers
still toiled and suffered in the hold, and at length they smothered the
fire before it ate into the magazine. All of them were terribly burned,
and it is fair to assume that Captain Davis awarded them an extra share
of the plunder when it was distributed. One of the heroes of the crisis
was Captain Snelgrave, or so the pirates admiringly agreed, and they
were more than ever anxious to befriend him. They would have been glad
to serve under him, but he had no taste for piracy and declined the
honor when a vote was passed around the tubs of grog that he go as a
sailing master until he had gained experience and was ready to command
a crew of gentlemen of fortune.
Disappointed in this, they used their gold to buy back for him a
considerable amount of his cargo, which had been divided or sold
ashore, and presented him with some of the merchandise allotted to
them from the ships lately captured by Captain Davis. There were worse
pirates on the high seas than this collection of gallows-birds in the
harbor of Sierra Leone, and merchant mariners much less admirable than
this London slave-trader, Captain Snelgrave. Thanks to the exertions
of the solicitous pirates, he gathered together sufficient possessions
to retrieve the voyage from complete disaster, and the stuff was saved
from harm in the rough warehouse ashore, where the kindly Captain Glynn
was a vigilant guardian.
The pirates were now ready to depart on their disreputable business,
Cocklyn and La Boise sailing in company, while Captain Davis ranged off
alone. This time he carried out his purpose of raiding the Portuguese
colony, the military governor of which received warning from a coasting
vessel and accordingly strengthened his defenses and armed every
able-bodied man. Captain Davis led his pirates from their boats and
stormed the fort under a heavy fire.
The Portuguese governor was a fighting man himself and he gave as good
as he took. The pirates gained the parapet and set the wooden buildings
afire with hand grenades, but while the issue wavered, Captain Davis
fell, a pistol-ball in his stomach. In a hand-to-hand conflict his
pirates were driven back to the beach, carrying their dying captain
with them. Defeated, they left their dead and wounded and fled in
the boats, while in the last gasp Captain Davis discharged both his
pistols at the enemy. “And those on board the ship, who expected to
hoist in treasure, had to receive naught but their wounded comrades and
dead commander.”
Captain Snelgrave, left free to work out his own plans, loaded his
cargo into one of the vessels which the pirates had abandoned in the
river. He was shrewd enough to know that he could not be accused of
receiving a stolen ship, for maritime usage now protected him. He was
taking possession of a derelict and sailing her home, where he could
make terms of sale or salvage with her rightful owners. And so he
mustered as many of his crew as had not been lured away by the pirates,
and said good-by to his loyal friend Captain Glynn, and took on board
six other masters of ships who were stranded at Sierra Leone because
they had been unlucky enough to fall in with Cocklyn and La Boise and
Captain Davis. On August 1, in the year 1719, Captain Snelgrave dropped
anchor in the port of Bristol and trudged ashore to find a pleasant
haven in a tavern and tell his troubles to other sun-browned skippers
who knew the Guinea coast and the hazards of the slave-trade.
A different kind of fortune was that of Captain George Roberts, who
sailed from Virginia for the Guinea coast in the year of 1721. Pirates
overtook his sloop off the Cape Verd Islands, and at first treated him
rather good-humoredly, as he was a man of spirit and could hold his
own when the bottle was passed. The pirate captain took a fancy to him
and had a mind to let him resume his voyage, but unluckily the health
of the “Old Pretender,” James III, was proposed at table, and Captain
Roberts, who was no Jacobite, roundly refused to drink such a damnable
toast. He did not purpose to bend his sentiments to suit the fancy of
any pirates that ever sailed unhung. One of them was for shooting him
through the head, but to the others it seemed more entertaining to put
him aboard his own vessel without provisions, water, or sails, and to
kidnap his crew as well, and let him drift out to sea. Captain Roberts
listened to the discussion and had nothing more to say. He would drink
the health of a king of his own choosing if it cost him his skin, and
that was the end of it.
The old chronicler who preserved the tale of this stubborn sea-dog took
occasion to moralize in this fashion:
That men of the most abandoned characters should so far forget what
humanity is due their fellow men, as to expose any one to almost
certain destruction, merely on account of a foolish toast, may
excite the astonishment of the reflecting; nor perhaps shall we
wonder much less at the romantic resolution of Captain Roberts who
braved death rather than submit to an insignificant form.
In the dead of night the sloop was cast off, and the pirates even
pilfered all the candles to make matters as uncomfortable as possible.
Two boys of the sloop’s crew had been left on board, one of them an
infant of eight years, and it may have accorded with the piratical
style of humor to call this a complement. The eight-year-old urchin was
perhaps a cabin-boy; no other information is vouchsafed concerning him.
At any rate, he must have turned to like a little man, for he took the
wheel while the captain and the elder boy pumped to clear the leaky
vessel of water. Fairly confident that she would stay afloat, they took
stock at daylight, and found that the pirates had overlooked a few
crumbs of bread, ten gallons of rum, a little rice, and some flour,
with a two-gallon jug of water. They were unable to kindle a fire
because the jocular pirates had carried off the flint and steel, and so
they lived on raw flour and rice and drank rum after the water gave out.
Three days’ hard labor sufficed to patch up a sail that pulled the
sloop along when the wind blew hard enough. Rain fell and gave them
a little more water before they died of thirst. A shark was caught
when the food had all been eaten and they lived for three weeks before
sighting land again. This was the Isle of St. Anthony, in the Cape Verd
group, and the elder boy begged to be allowed to go ashore in the boat
and look for water.
He pulled away after sunset and, with the anchor down, Captain Roberts
dragged himself into the cabin and was instantly asleep. Rousing out
at midnight, there was no sign of the boat and, to his dismay, he
discovered that the sloop had drifted almost out of sight of land with
a strong night wind. His crew now consisted of the eight-year-old mite
of a sailor lad, but they swung on the pump together and tugged at
the windlass until the anchor was hove short. They tended the rag of
sail, and a kindly breeze slowly wafted them back toward the island
until they were able to drop the mud-hook in a sandy bay with a good
holding-ground. Captain Roberts was a stalwart man, and hats off to his
eight-year-old crew!
The other boy who had rowed ashore was anxiously looking for the
vessel, and he appeared aboard with a gang of negroes whom he had hired
to work her into the nearest port. They brought food and water with
them, and affairs seemed to have taken an auspicious turn, but during
the first night out the sail split from top to bottom. There was no
other canvas to set, and the negroes promptly tumbled into the boat
and made for the island. The voyage appealed to their simple intellects
as very much of a failure. Captain Roberts sighed, and resumed the
interminable task of finding a haven for his helpless sloop. His two
boys did what they could, but they were completely worn out and unable
to help rig up another sail of bits of awning, tarpaulins, and so on,
and bend it to the spars.
Captain Roberts was inclined to believe that he had played his last
card, but one is quite unable to fancy him as regretting his quixotic
refusal to join a party of Jacobite pirates in toasting the Pretender.
When another day came, he was grimly hanging to the tiller and trying
to keep the sloop’s head in the direction of land when he heard a
commotion in the hold. One of the lads plucked up courage to peer over
the hatch-coaming, and in the gloom he descried three negroes in a
very bad temper who were holding their heads in their hands. Ordered
on deck, they anxiously rolled their eyes, and explained that they had
found the puncheon of rum soon after coming on board and had guzzled it
so earnestly that they sneaked below to sleep it off. Their comrades
had deserted the ship in the darkness, and Captain Roberts, assuming
that all hands were quitting him, had not counted them.
Here was a crew provided by a sort of unholy miracle, and they were
ready to help take the ship to port to save their own perfectly
worthless lives. They managed to carry her close to a harbor called
St. John’s, and one of the black rascals declared that he was an able
pilot; but when the vessel drew close to the rocks he lost his courage
and dived overboard, whereupon his comrades followed him, and all swam
ashore like fishes. The afflicted Captain Roberts let go his anchor
and waited through the night, after which other natives came off to
the sloop and brought fresh provisions and water. It seemed as if
their troubles might be nearing an end, but a storm blew next day, and
the sloop went upon the rocks. Captain Roberts and the two lads were
rescued by the kindly natives, who swam out through the raging surf,
but the sloop was soon dashed to pieces. She deserved to win a happier
fortune.
The voyage to the Guinea coast was ruined, and Captain Roberts had no
money to back another venture; but he set about building a boat from
the wreck of his sloop, and made such a success of it that with the
two lads and three negro sailors he was soon doing a brisk trade from
island to island. Having accumulated some cash, he decided to return to
London, where he arrived after an absence of four years.