1652-1681
DAMPIER'S EARLY LIFE—CAMPECHÉ—HE JOINS THE BUCCANEERS
There is an account of Dampier's early life written by himself in
the second volume of his Travels. I do not know that anything is to
be added to what he there tells us. A man should be accepted as an
authority on his own career when it comes to a question of dates and
adventures. The interest of this sailor's life really begins with his
own account of his first voyage round the world; and though he is a
very conspicuous figure in English maritime history, the position he
occupies scarcely demands the curious and minute inquiry into those
parts of his career on which he is silent that we should bestow on the
life of a great genius.
William Dampier was born at East Coker in the year 1652. His parents
intended him for a commercial life, but the idea of shopkeeping was
little likely to suit the genius of a lad who was a rover in heart
whilst he was still in petticoats; and on the death of his father and
mother his friends, finding him bent upon an ocean life, bound him
apprentice to the master of a ship belonging to Weymouth. This was in
or about the year 1669. With this captain he made a short voyage to
France, and afterwards proceeded to Newfoundland in the same ship,
being then, as he tells us, about eighteen years of age. The bitter
cold of Newfoundland proved too much for his seafaring resolutions,
and, procuring the cancellation of his indentures, he went home to his
friends. But the old instinct was not to be curbed. Being in London
some time after his return from the Newfoundland voyage, he heard of
an outward-bound East Indiaman named the _John and Martha_, the master
of which was one Earning. The idea of what he calls a “warm voyage”
suited him. He offered himself as a foremast hand and was accepted. The
voyage was to Bantam, and he was away rather longer than a year, during
which time he says he kept no journal, though he enlarged his knowledge
of navigation. The outbreak of the Dutch war seems to have determined
him to stay at home, and he spent the summer of the year 1672 at his
brother's house in Somersetshire. He soon grew weary of the shore,
and enlisted on board the _Royal Prince_, commanded by the famous Sir
Edward Spragge,[6] under whom he served during a part of the year 1673.
He fought in two engagements, and then falling sick a day or two before
the action in which Sir Edward lost his life (August 11th), he was sent
on board the hospital ship, whence he was removed to Harwich. Here he
lingered for a great while in suffering, and at last, to recover his
health, went to his brother's house. As he gained strength so did his
longing for the sea increase upon him. His inclination was soon to be
humoured, for there lived near his brother one Colonel Hellier, who,
taking a fancy to Dampier, offered him the management of a plantation
of his in Jamaica under a person named Whalley; for which place he
started in the _Content_ of London, Captain Kent master, he being then
twenty-two years old. Lest he should be kidnapped and sold as a servant
on his arrival, he agreed with Captain Kent to work his passage out as
a seaman. They sailed in the beginning of the year 1674, but the date
of their arrival at Jamaica is not given.
His life on that island is not of much interest. He lived with Whalley
for about six months, and then agreed with one Captain Heming to
manage his plantation on the north side of the island; but repenting
his resolution, he took passage on board a sloop bound to Port Royal.
He made several coasting voyages in this way, by which he tells us he
became intimately acquainted with all the ports and bays of Jamaica,
the products and manufactures of the island, and the like. In this
sort of life he spent six or seven months, and then shipped himself
aboard one Captain Hudsel, who was bound to the Bay of Campeché to
load logwood. They sailed from Port Royal in August 1675; their cargo
to purchase logwood was rum and sugar. There were about two hundred
and fifty men engaged in cutting the wood, and these fellows gladly
exchanged the timber for drink. They were nearly all Englishmen, and on
the vessel dropping anchor, numbers of them flocked aboard clamorous
for liquor. “We were but 6 Men and a Boy in the Ship,” says Dampier,
“and all little enough to entertain them: for besides what Rum we sold
by the Gallon or Ferkin, we sold it made into Punch, wherewith they
grew Frolicksom.” It was customary in those times to shoot off guns
when healths were drunk, but in Dampier's craft there was nothing but
small-arms, “and therefore,” he says, “the noise was not very great
at a distance, but on Board the Vessels we were loud enough till all
our Liquor was spent.” Dampier was well entertained by these fellows
ashore. They hospitably received him in their wretched huts, and
regaled him with pork and peas and beef and dough-boys. He thought
this logwood-cutting business so profitable, and the life so free and
pleasant, that he secretly made up his mind to return to Campeché
after his arrival at Jamaica. Having filled up with wood, they sailed
in the latter end of September, and not very long afterwards narrowly
escaped being wrecked on the Alacran Reef, a number of low, sandy
islands situated about twenty-five leagues from the coast of Yucatan.
The vessel was a ketch, the weather very dirty. Dampier was at the
helm, or whipstaff as the tiller was called, and describes the vessel
as plunging and labouring heavily: “Not going ahead,” he says, “but
tumbling like an egg-shell in the sea.” In spite of their being in
the midst of a dangerous navigation, the crew, finding the weather
improving, lay down upon the deck and fell asleep. The stout build of
the round-bowed craft saved her, otherwise it is highly improbable that
anything more would ever have been heard of William Dampier.
Young as he was, his powers of observation, the accuracy of his memory,
and what I may call the sagacity of his inquisitiveness, are forcibly
illustrated in this passage of his account of his early life. Even
while his little ship is bumping ashore, and all hands are running
about thinking their last moment arrived, Dampier is taking a careful
view of the sandy islands, observing the several depths of water,
remarking the various channels, and mentally noting the best places
in which to drop anchor. He has a hundred things to tell us about the
rats and sea-fowl he saw there, of the devotion of the booby to its
young, of the sharks, sword-fish, and “nurses,” of the seals, and
the Spaniard's way of making oil of their fat. In this little voyage
Dampier and his mates suffered a very great deal of hardship. They ran
short of provisions, and must have starved but for two barrels of beef
which had formed a portion of their cargo for purposes of trucking, but
which proved so rotten that nobody would buy them. Of this beef they
boiled every day two pieces; their peas were consumed and their flour
almost gone, and in order to swallow the beef they were forced to cut
it into small bits after it was cooked, and then to boil it afresh
in water thickened with a little flour. This savoury broth they ate
with spoons. Speaking of this trip Dampier says: “I think never any
Vessel before nor since made such traverses in coming out of the _Bay_
as we did; having first blundered over the _Alcrany Riff_, and then
visited those islands; from thence fell in among the _Colorado Shoals_,
afterwards made a trip to _Grand Caymanes_; and lastly visited _Pines_,
tho' to no purpose. In all these Rambles we got as much experience as
if we had been sent out on a design.”
They were thirteen weeks on their way, and eventually anchored at
Nigril. Here occurred an incident curiously illustrative of the customs
and habits of nautical men in the good old times. Their vessel was
visited by Captain Rawlings, commander of a small New England craft,
and one Mr. John Hooker, a logwood-cutter. These men were invited into
the cabin, and a great bowl of punch was brewed to regale them as
well as their entertainers. Dampier says there might be six quarts in
it. Mr. Hooker, being drunk to by Captain Rawlings, lifted the bowl
to his lips, and pausing a moment to say that he was under an oath
to drink but three draughts of strong liquor a day, he swallowed the
whole without a breath: “And so,” adds Dampier, “making himself drunk,
disappointed us of our expectations till we made another bowl.” Six
quarts equal twenty-four glasses. Probably no bigger drink than this is
on record! But those were days when men mixed gunpowder with brandy,
and honestly believed themselves the stouter-hearted for the dose.
On the vessel's arrival at Port Royal the crew were discharged.
Dampier, whose hankering was after the logwood trade, embarked as
passenger on board a vessel bound to Campeché, and sailed about the
middle of February 1676. He went fully provided for the toilsome
work—that is to say, with hatchets, axes, a kind of long knives which
he calls “macheats,” saws, wedges, materials for a house, or, as he
terms it, a pavilion to sleep in, a gun, ammunition, and so forth. His
account of the origin and growth of the business he had now entered
upon is interesting. The Spaniards had long known the value of the
logwood, and used to cut it down near a river about thirty miles from
Campeché, whence they loaded their ships with it. The English, after
possessing themselves of Jamaica, whilst cruising about in the Gulf,
frequently encountered many vessels freighted with this wood; but being
ignorant of the value of such cargoes, they either burnt or sent the
ships adrift, preserving only the nails and iron-work. At last one
Captain James, having captured a big vessel full of wood, navigated
her to England with the intention of fitting her out as a privateer. He
valued his prize's cargo so lightly that on the way home he consumed a
portion of it as fuel. On his arrival he, to his great surprise, was
offered a large sum for the remainder. This being noised about started
the trade amongst the English. Of course the Spaniards opposed the
cutting down of the trees, and sent soldiers to protect their property;
but the English speedily learnt to recognise the timber as it grew,
and, hunting for it elsewhere, met with large forests, and so without
regard to the Spaniards they settled down to the trade and did pretty
well at it. The work previous to the arrival of Dampier employed nearly
three hundred men who had originally been privateersmen and gained a
living by plundering the Spaniards, but who, on peace being made with
Spain, lost their occupation and were driven to logwood-cutting by
hunger. But their tastes as pirates remained tenacious, and perhaps by
way of keeping their hand in, they formed into little troops, attacked
and plundered the adjacent Indian towns, brought away the women and
sent the men to Jamaica to be sold as slaves. Dampier further informs
us that these privateersmen had not “forgot their old drinking bouts,”
but would “still spend thirty or forty pounds at a sitting on board
the ships that came hither from Jamaica, carousing and firing off guns
three and four days together.” Eventually their evil habits led to
their ruin, for the Spaniards finding them nearly continually drunk,
fell upon them one by one, seizing them chiefly in their huts, where
they lay stupefied with liquor, and carried them to prison or to a
servitude harder than slavery. Logwood was then worth fourteen or
fifteen pounds a ton. The toil must have been great, for some of the
trees were upwards of six feet round, and the labourer had to cut them
into logs small enough to enable a man to carry a bundle of them.
Dampier speaks also of the bloodwood which fetched thirty pounds a
ton, but he does not tell us that he dealt with it. He speedily found
employment amongst the logwood-cutters. On his arrival he met with six
men who had one hundred tons of the wood ready cut, but not yet removed
to the creek side. These fellows offered Dampier pay at the rate of a
ton of the wood per month to help them to transport what they had cut
to the water. The work was laborious. They had not only to transport
the heavy timber, but to make a road to enable them to convey it to the
place of shipment. They devoted five days a week to this work, and on
Saturdays employed themselves in killing cattle for food. During one of
these hunting excursions Dampier came very near to perishing through
losing his way. He started out alone with a musket on his shoulder,
intending to kill a bullock on his own account, and wandered so far
into the woods that he lost himself. After much roaming he sat down to
wait till the sun should decline, that he might know by the course it
took how to direct his steps. The wild pines appeased his craving for
drink, otherwise he must have perished of thirst. At sunset he started
afresh, but the night, coming down dark, forced him to stop. He lay on
the grass at some distance from the woods, in the hope that the breeze
of wind that was blowing would keep the mosquitoes from him; “but in
vain,” says he, “for in less than an Hour's time I was so persecuted,
that though I endeavoured to keep them off by fanning myself with
boughs and shifting my Quarters 3 or 4 times; yet still they haunted me
so that I could get no Sleep.” At daybreak he struck onwards, and after
walking a considerable distance, to his great joy saw a pole with a hat
upon it, and a little farther on another. These were to let him know
that his companions understood that he was lost, and that at sunrise
they would be out seeking him. So he sat down to wait for them; for
though by water the distance to the settlement was only nine miles, the
road by land was impracticable by reason of the dense growths coming
down to the very side of the creek where Dampier sat waiting. Within
half an hour after his arrival at the poles with the hats upon them,
“his Consorts came,” he says, “bringing every Man his Bottle of Water,
and his Gun, both to hunt for Game and to give me notice by Firing
that I might hear them; but I have known several Men lost in the like
manner and never heard of afterwards.” At the expiration of the month's
agreement he received his ton of logwood, and was made free of the
little colony of cutters. Some of the men, quitting the timber-cutting,
went over to Beef Island to kill bullocks for their hides, but Dampier
remained behind with a few others to cut more logwood. He worked
laboriously, but his career in this line of business was ended not
long afterwards by the most violent storm “that,” he says, “was ever
known in those Parts.” He has described this storm in his _Discourse
of Winds_. He there says: “The Flood still increased and ran faster
up the Creek than ever I saw it do in the greatest Spring Tide, which
was somewhat strange, because the wind was at South, which is right off
the Shore on this Coast. Neither did the Rain anything abate, and by 10
a Clock in the Morning the Banks of the Creeks were all overflowing.
About 12 at Noon we brought our Canao to the side of our Hut and
fastened it to the Stump of a Tree that stood by it; that being the
only refuge that we could now expect; for the Land a little way within
the Banks of the Creek is much lower than where we were: so that there
was no walking through the Woods because of the Water. Besides the
Trees were torn up by the Roots and tumbled so strangely across each
other that it was almost impossible to pass through them.” Their huts
were demolished, their provisions ruined. It was in vain to stay, so
the four men who formed Dampier's party embarked in their canoe and
rowed over to One-Bush-Key, about sixteen miles from the creek. There
had been four ships riding off that key when the storm began, but
only one remained, and from her they could obtain no refreshment of
any kind, though they were liberal in their offers of money. So they
steered away for Beef Island, and on approaching it observed a ship
blown ashore amongst the trees with her flag flying over the branches.
Her people were in her, and Dampier and his companions were kindly
received by them. Whilst on Beef Island he was nearly devoured by an
alligator. He and his comrades started to kill a bullock. In passing
through a small savannah they detected the presence of an alligator by
the strong, peculiar scent which the huge reptile throws upon the air,
and on a sudden Dampier stumbled against the beast and fell over it. He
shouted for help, but his comrades took to their heels. He succeeded
in regaining his legs, then stumbled and fell over the animal a second
time; “and a third time also,” he says, “expecting still when I fell
down to be devoured.” He contrived to escape at last, but he was so
terrified that he tells us he never cared for going through the water
again so long as he was in the Bay.
Much of his narrative here is devoted to accurate and well-written
descriptions of the character of the country, and of its animals,
reptiles, and the like. There is an amusing quaintness in some of his
little pictures, as, for instance: “The Squash is a four-footed Beast,
bigger than a Cat: Its Head is much like a Foxes; with short Ears and a
long Nose. It has pretty short Legs and sharp Claws; by which it will
run up trees like a Cat. The skin is covered with short, fine Yellowish
Hair. The flesh is good, sweet, wholesome Meat. We commonly skin and
roast it; and then we call it pig; and I think it eats as well. It
feeds on nothing but good Fruit; therefore we find them most among the
Sapadillo-Trees. This Creature never rambles very far: and being taken
young, will become as tame as a Dog; and be as roguish as a Monkey.”
The minuteness of his observation is exhibited in a high degree in his
account of the beasts, birds, and fish of Campeché and the district. He
uses no learned terms. A child might get to know more from him about
the thing he describes than from a dozen pages of modern writing on
the subject supplemented even by illustrations. It was wonderland to
him, as it had been to other plain and sagacious sailors before him.
His accounts remind us again and again of the exquisitely naïve but
admirably faithful descriptions of beasts and fish by the navigators
whose voyages are found in the collections of Hackluyt and Purchas.
It is not very long after he had quitted Campeché that we find him
associating with privateers, and becoming one of their number. He
writes of this in a half-apologetic manner, complaining of failure
through a violent storm and of a futile cruise lasting for several
months, and talks of having been driven at last to seek subsistence
by turning pirate. There is no hint in his previous narrative of any
leanings this way. Probably thoughts of the golden chances of the rover
might have been put into his head by chats with the logwood-cutters.
The Spaniard had long been the freebooter's quarry. His carracks and
galleons, laden almost to their ways with the treasure of New Spain,
had handsomely lined the pockets of the marauding rogues, and such
was the value of the booty that scores of them might have set up as
fine gentlemen in their own country on their shares but for their
trick of squandering in a night what they had taken months to gain at
the hazard of their lives. The temptation was too much for Dampier;
besides, he was already seasoned to hardships of even a severer kind
than was promised by a life of piracy. For, as we have seen, he had
out-weathered the bitter cold of Newfoundland, he had worked as a
common sailor before the mast, he had served against the Dutch, he had
knocked about in Mexican waters in a vessel as commodious and seaworthy
as a Thames barge, and he was now fresh from the severe discipline of
the logwood trade. His associates consisted of sixty men, who were
divided between two vessels. Their first step was to attack the fort of
Alvarado, in which enterprise they lost ten or eleven of their company.
The inhabitants, who had plenty of boats and canoes, carried away
their money and effects before the fort yielded, and as it was too dark
to pursue them, the buccaneers were satisfied to rest quietly during
the night. Next morning they were surprised by the sight of seven ships
which had been sent from Vera Cruz. They got under-weigh and cleared
for action. But they had no heart to fight; which is intelligible
enough when we learn that the Spanish admiral's ship mounted ten guns
and carried a hundred men; that another had four guns and eighty men;
the rest sixty or seventy men apiece, well armed, whilst the bulwarks
of the ships were protected with bulls' hides breast-high. Fortunately
for them, the Spaniards had no mind to fight either. Some shots were
exchanged, and presently the Spanish squadron edged away towards the
shore, “and we,” says Dampier, “glad of the deliverance, went away
to the eastward.” How long he remained with the pirates he does not
say. Apparently he could not find his account with them. He left
them to return to the logwood trade, at which he continued for about
twelve more months. He then tells us that he resolved to pay a visit
to England with a design of returning again to wood-cutting, which
no doubt was proving profitable to him, and accordingly set sail for
Jamaica in April 1678. After remaining for a short time at that island
he embarked for England, and arrived at the beginning of August.
He did not remain long at home. In the beginning of the year 1679 he
sailed for Jamaica in a vessel named the _Loyal Merchant_. He shipped
as a passenger, intending when he arrived at Jamaica to proceed to the
Bay of Campeché, and there pursue the employment of logwood-cutting.
But on his arrival at Port Royal in Jamaica in April 1679, after a
good deal of consideration, he made up his mind to delay or abandon
his wood-cutting scheme, for he tells us that he remained in that
island for the rest of the year in expectation of some other business.
Whatever his hopes were they could not have been greatly disappointed,
for we read of him as having, whilst in Jamaica, purchased a small
estate in Dorsetshire from a person whose title to it he was well
assured of. He was then, it now being about Christmas, 1679, about
to sail again for England, when a Mr. Hobby persuaded him to venture
on a short trading voyage to what was then termed the country of the
Mosquitoes, a little nation which he describes as composed of not
more than a hundred men inhabiting the mainland between Honduras and
Nicaragua. Dampier consented; he and Mr. Hobby set out, and presently
dropped anchor in a bay at the west end of Jamaica, where they found a
number of privateersmen, including Captains Coxon, Sawkins, and Sharp.
These men were maturing the scheme of an expedition of so tempting a
character that the whole of Mr. Hobby's men quitted him and went over
to the pirates. Dampier stayed with his companion for three or four
days, and then joined the pirates also. What became of Mr. Hobby he
does not say. There is here a shamefacedness in his avowal not hard to
distinguish. Perhaps as he sits writing this narrative he wonders at
the irresolution he exhibited, and his curious caprices of decision.
He starts for Jamaica to cut logwood at Campeché; on his arrival he
changes his mind and prepares for his return; he is then diverted from
his intention by Mr. Hobby, with whom he embarks on a well-considered
adventure, which he relinquishes to become pirate before his
associate's ship has fairly got away from Jamaica! It is these sudden
changes of front, however, and the unexpected turns of fortune which
they produced, which keeps Dampier's narrative sweet with fresh and
ever-flowing interest.
His adventures from the date of his leaving Mr. Hobby down to the month
of April 1681 he dismisses in a couple of pages. Ringrose, however, has
written very fully of the expedition in which Dampier apparently served
as a foremast hand, and to the pages of his work it is necessary to
turn to obtain the information which Dampier omits.[7] The fleet of the
privateers consisted of nine vessels; the largest of them, commanded
by Captain Harris, was of the burden of one hundred and fifty tons,
mounted twenty-five guns, and carried one hundred and seven men; whilst
the smallest, commanded by Captain Macket, was of fourteen tons, her
crew consisting of twenty men. They sailed on March 23rd, 1679, for the
province of Darien, their designs being, as Ringrose candidly admits,
to pillage and plunder in those parts. But they do not appear to have
arrived off the coast until April 1680, this being the date given by
Ringrose, who says that there they landed three hundred and thirty-one
men, leaving a party of sailors behind them to guard their ships. They
marched in companies; Captain Bartholomew Sharp's (in whose troop, I
take it, was Dampier) carried a red flag, with a bunch of white and
green ribands; Captain Richard Sawkins's company exhibited a red flag
striped with yellow; the third and fourth, commanded by Captain Peter
Harris, bore two cream-coloured flags; the fifth and sixth a red flag
each; and the seventh a red colour with yellow stripes, and a hand and
sword thereon by way of a device. “All or most of them,” adds Ringrose,
“were armed with Fuzee, Pistol, and Hanger.” This is a description that
brings the picture before us. We see these troops of sailors carrying
banners, dressed as merchant seamen always were, and still are, in
twenty different costumes, lurching along under the broiling equatorial
sun, through forests, rivers, and bogs, trusting to luck for a drink of
water, and with no better victuals than cakes of bread (four to a man),
called by Ringrose “dough-boys,” a name that survives to this day,
animated to the support of the most extraordinary fatigues, the most
venomous country, and the deadliest climate in the world, by dreams of
more gold than they would be able to carry away with them.
But the whole undertaking was a failure. They attacked and took the
town of Santa Maria, and found the place to consist of a few houses
built of cane, with not so much as the value of a single ducat anywhere
to be met with. Their disappointment was rendered the keener by the
news that three days before their arrival several hundred-weight of
gold had been sent away to Panama in one of those ships which were
commonly despatched two or three times a year from that city to convey
the treasure brought to Santa Maria from the mountains. Their ill-luck,
however, hardened them in their resolution to attack Panama. The
city was a sort of New Jerusalem to the imaginations of these men,
who thought of it as half-formed of storehouses filled to their roofs
with plate, jewels, and gold. They stayed two days at Santa Maria,
and then on April 17th, 1680, embarked in thirty-five canoes and a
periagua, and rowed down the river in quest of the South Sea, upon
which, as Ringrose puts it, Panama is seated. Their adventures were
many; their hardships and distresses such as rendered their energy and
fortitude phenomenal even amongst a community who were incomparably
gifted with these qualities. Ringrose, whose narrative I follow, was
wrecked in the river by the oversetting of his canoe, and came very
near to perishing along with a number of his comrades. He fell into
the hands of some Spaniards, with whom, as they understood neither
English nor French, whilst he was equally ignorant of their tongue,
he was obliged to converse in Latin!—a language in which, I suspect,
not many mariners of to-day could communicate their distresses. He
and his shipmates narrowly escaped torture and a miserable death, and
eventually recovering their canoe, they started afresh on their voyage,
and were fortunate enough next morning to fall in with the rest of the
buccaneers, who had anchored during the night in a deep bay.
Trifling as these incidents are, it is proper to relate them as
examples of the life and experiences of Dampier during this period of
his career. Unfortunately, until one opens his own books one does not
know where to look for him. In whose troop he marched, in whose canoe
he sat, in what special adventures he was concerned, whether he was
favoured for his intelligence above the others by the commanders of
the expedition, cannot be ascertained. When Ringrose wrote, Dampier
was still a mere privateersman, a foremast hand, a man without
individuality enough to arrest the attention of the sturdy, plain, and
honest historian of the voyage in which they both took part. Indeed,
there is no reason to suppose that Dampier at this time was regarded by
his fellows as better than the humblest of the shaggy, sun-blackened
men who, with fuzees on their shoulders and pistols in their girdles,
tramped in little troops through the swamps and creeks and over the
swelling lands of the Isthmus, or who in their deep and narrow canoes
floated silent and grim upon the hot and creeping river in search of
the unexpectant Don and his almost fabulous wealth.
Dampier introduces a curious story in connection with Panama and the
South Seas in his first volume. He says that when he was on board
Captain Coxon's ship, there being three or four privateers in company,
they captured a despatch boat bound to Cartagena from Porto Bello. They
opened many of the letters, and were struck by observing that several
of the merchants who wrote from Old Spain exhorted their correspondents
at Panama to bear in mind a certain prophecy that had been current
in Madrid and other centres for some months past, the tenor of which
was—_That there would be English privateers that year in the West
Indies, who would make such great discoveries as to open a door into
the South Seas_. This door, Dampier says, was the passage overland to
Darien through the country of the Indians, a people who had quarrelled
with the Spaniards and professed a friendship for the English. At all
events, these Indians had been for some time inviting the privateers
to march across their territory and fall upon the Spaniards in the
South Seas. Hence when the letters came into their hands they grew
disposed to entertain the Indians' proposal in good earnest, and
finally made those attempts to which I have referred in quoting from
the pages of Ringrose. The cause of the friendship between the English
buccaneers and the Darien Indians is a story of some interest. About
fifteen years before Dampier crossed the Isthmus a certain Captain
Wright, who was cruising in those waters, met with a young Indian lad
paddling about in a canoe. He took him aboard his ship, clothed him,
and, with the idea of making an Englishman of him, gave him the name of
John Gret. Some Mosquito Indians, however, begged the boy from Captain
Wright, who gave him to them. They carried him into their own country,
and by and by he married a wife from among them. Through the agency
of this John Gret, who always preserved an affection for the English,
a friendship was established between the buccaneers and the Indians.
Presents were made on each side, and a certain secret signal was
concerted whereby the Indians might recognise their English friends.
It happened that there was a Frenchman among one of the buccaneering
captain's crew. He was artful enough to commit this signal, whatever
it was, to memory, and on his arrival at Petit Guavres he communicated
what he knew to his countrymen there, and represented the facility with
which the South Seas might be entered now that he had the secret of
winning over the Indians to help him. On this one hundred and twenty
Frenchmen formed themselves into a troop, with the buccaneer, whom
Dampier calls Mr. la Sound, as their captain, and marched against
Cheapo, an attempt that proved unsuccessful, though the simple Indians,
believing them to be English, gave them all the assistance that was in
their power. “From such small beginnings,” adds Dampier, “arose those
great stirs that have been since made in the South Seas, viz.: from the
Letters we took and from the Friendship contracted with these Indians
by means of John Gret. Yet this Friendship had like to have been
stifled in its Infancy; for within few months after an English trading
Sloop came on this Coast from Jamaica, and John Gret, who by this time
had advanced himself as a Grandee amongst these Indians, together with
5 or 6 more of that quality, went off to the Sloop in their long Gowns,
as the custom is for such to wear among them. Being received aboard,
they expected to find everything friendly, and John Gret talkt to them
in English; but these English Men having no knowledge at all of what
had happened, endeavoured to make them Slaves (as is commonly done),
for upon carrying them to Jamaica they could have sold them for 10 or
12 Pound apiece. But John Gret and the rest perceiving this, leapt
all overboard, and were by the others killed every one of them in the
Water. The Indians on Shoar never came to the knowledge of it; if they
had it would have endangered our Correspondence.”
On April 23rd the buccaneers entered the Bay of Panama, and the city,
offering a fair and lovely prospect, as Dampier afterwards tells
us, lay full in their view. The old town that had been sacked and
burnt by Henry Morgan in 1670 lay four miles to the eastward of the
new city; but amongst those now suburban ruins the cathedral rose
stately and splendid, and Ringrose, enraptured by the sight, vows
that the building viewed from the sea might compare in majesty with
St. Paul's. The Panama at which Dampier gazed was almost new, built
of brick and stone, with eight churches amongst the houses, most of
them unfinished. Many of the edifices were three stories high. A
strong wall circled the place, crowned with seaward-pointing cannon,
and these defences were backed by a garrison of three hundred of the
king's soldiers, whilst the city itself supplemented that force by
a contribution of eleven hundred militiamen. Such was the Panama of
which our handful of audacious buccaneers were coolly proposing the
sacking, and doubtless the burning. It seems, however, that when they
arrived most of the soldiers were absent, and Ringrose tells us that
had they attempted the town at once instead of attacking the ships in
the bay, they must have made an easy conquest. The desperate energy,
the hot and furious courage, of an earlier race of pirates were wanting
in them. They lingered long enough to enable the city to render its
capture impracticable, and then, feigning a sentimental interest in the
condition of the Indians, they despatched word to the Governor that if
he would suffer the natives to enjoy their own “power and liberty,”
and send to the buccaneers five hundred pieces of eight for each man,
and one thousand pieces of eight for each commander, they would desist
from further hostilities. A civil message was returned, and they were
also asked from whom they received their commission; to which Captain
Sawkins responded in a style which he may have borrowed from the
tragedies of Nathaniel Lee: “That as yet all his company were not come
together; but that when they were come up, we would come and visit
him at Panama, and bring our commissions on the muzzles of our guns,
at which time he should read them as plain as the flame of gunpowder
could make them.” All this was mere windy, hectoring talk, and nothing
followed it. The buccaneers were growing mutinous with famine, and as
it was clear there was nothing to be done with Panama, Captain Sawkins,
who was chief in command, gave orders to weigh anchor, and the pirates
sailed away without a ducat's worth of satisfaction for the prodigious
hardships they had endured.
Whilst they lay at anchor before Caboa the two chief commanders,
Sawkins and Sharp, went ashore with sixty or seventy men to attack
Puebla Nueva. Ringrose dates this attempt May 22nd, 1680. The
inhabitants were prepared, and the only issue of a sharp engagement was
the death of Captain Sawkins and the loss of several of his people.
This defeat led to a mutiny among the buccaneers. Eventually Captain
Sharp, who was now chief in command, called the men together and
proposed to them to remain in the South Sea and then go home by way
of the Horn, adding that he would guarantee that every man who stayed
with him should be worth a thousand pounds by the time he arrived in
England. This scheme of cruising in the South Sea against the Spaniards
had been Sawkins's fixed project, and he was so great a favourite
that had he lived it is probable the whole of the crew would have
accompanied him; but Sharp did not enjoy the general confidence of his
people, and a number of the men sullenly and obstinately refused to
linger any longer in these waters. Ringrose was amongst those who were
weary of the hazardous and unremunerative adventures of the buccaneers,
and would have been glad to leave the ship. Had he done so there would
have been no record of this voyage of Dampier; but he was wise enough
to fear the Indians and to dread the sufferings of an overland journey
in the rainy season. He therefore resolved to remain with Captain
Sharp, amongst whose adherents was William Dampier. Sixty-three of
the men left them, and then on Sunday, June 6th, 1680, Captain Sharp
and his people steered away to the southward with the intention of
plundering Arica.
On approaching the coast they found the bay guarded by numerous parties
of horsemen, whilst the tops of the hills were also lined with men.
They withdrew without firing a gun. Better luck, however, befell them
on October 29th at Hilo. This place they took without difficulty, and
found it stored with quantities of pitch, tar, wine, oil, and flour.
The sacking of Hilo was a sort of holiday jaunt for the freebooters,
who feasted delightfully on olives, lemons, and limes; on cakes, on
flagons of cool wines, on great strawberries, and sweetmeats and other
delicacies. As they marched up the valley the Spaniards accompanied
their progress upon the hill-tops, and rolled great stones down upon
them, but no man was hurt; whilst to the explosion of a single musket
every visible Spanish head was instantly ducked out of sight. Much
that strikes one as marvellous in the achievements of the buccaneers
in the South Sea vanishes when one thinks of the abject cowardice of
the American Spaniards. Had their troops been composed of priests
and old women, they could not have fled with livelier hysterical
nimbleness from the sight of the English colours. The picture is
humiliating, though it is not wanting in the ridiculous. All through
the buccaneering annals, as in Anson's and the voyages of others, one
is incessantly meeting with this sort of thing:—A boat filled with
armed privateersmen approaches the beach. A numerous party of horsemen,
bristling with sabres, lances, and muskets, stand as in a posture to
dispute their landing. But as the boat draws near the horsemen retreat,
and in no very good order, back to behind the town as the seamen spring
ashore. They are finally seen on the summit of a hill in company with
several troops of foot soldiers, who, whilst their bands play and their
banners proudly flutter, gaze downwards at the twenty or thirty sailors
who are firing the houses of their town and lurching seawards with
sacks of silver on their backs.
Ringrose calls a halt at the “Isle of Plate,” as he writes it, to tell
us a little story: “This Island received its Name from Sir _Francis
Drake_, and his famous Actions. For it is reported that he here made
the Dividend of that vast quantity of Plate which he took in the
_Armada_ of this sea, distributing it to each Man of his Company by
whole Bowls full. The _Spaniards_ affirm to this Day that he took at
that Time twelvescore Tons of Plate, and sixteen bowls of coined Money
a Man; his number being then forty-five Men in all; insomuch that they
were forced to heave much of it overboard, because his ship could not
carry it all. Hence this Island was called by the _Spaniards_ the _Isle
of Plate_, from this great Dividend, and by us _Drake's Isle_.”
Traditions of this kind were very nicely calculated to keep the
buccaneering heart high. Our genial freebooter has also another yarn
to spin in connection with this coast. He says that in the time of
Oliver Cromwell the merchants of Lima fitted out a ship armed with
seventy brass guns, with a treasure in her hold of no less than thirty
millions of dollars, “all which vast sum of money,” he says, “was given
by the merchants of Lima, and sent as a present to our Gracious King
(or rather his father) who now reigneth, to supply him in his exile
and distress, but that this great and rich ship was lost by keeping
along the shore in the Bay of Manta above mentioned or thereabouts. The
truth whereof is much to be questioned.” Be his stories true or false,
however, it is pleasant to sail in the company of an old seaman who
has an anecdote to fit every bay or headland of the coast along which
he jogs. Unhappily Ringrose, who begins very well, drifts fast into
the unsuggestive trick of “loggings,” telling us in twenty pages at a
stretch that on Monday the sun rose at such and such an hour, that on
Tuesday it blew a fresh gale, that on Wednesday there was a ring round
the moon, that on Thursday they had made thirty leagues in twenty-four
hours, and so forth. It is by comparing the best of the early mariners'
narratives with Dampier's that one remarks his eminent superiority as a
writer, observer, and describer.
As they sailed down the American seaboard they captured a few small
vessels, but their booty was inconsiderable. On December 3rd, 1680,
they attacked the city of La Serena. They routed the Spaniards, who, in
flying, carried away the best of their goods and jewels. An offer of
ransom was made, and the price fixed was ninety-five thousand pieces
of eight. It was soon rendered plain, however, that the enemy had no
intention of paying, whereupon the buccaneers fired every house in
the town to the end that the whole place might be reduced to ashes.
Before the ship sailed she was very nearly burnt by a curious Spanish
stratagem. A horse's hide was blown out with wind to the condition of a
bladder. A man got upon it and silently paddled himself under the stern
of the privateer, between whose rudder and sternpost he crammed a mass
of oakum, brimstone, and other combustible matter. This done, he softly
fired it with a match and sneaked away ashore. The buccaneers observing
the dark mass on the water, concluded it to be a dead horse, and gave
it no particular heed. On a sudden the alarm of fire was raised; the
rudder was seen to be burning and the ship was full of smoke. After
some trouble the flames were extinguished, and then suspecting some
stratagem in the object they had previously lightly glanced at, they
sent the boat ashore, where the puffed-out hide was found with a match
burning at both ends of it.
By Christmas Day they were at anchor off the Island of Juan Fernandez.
It is noteworthy that Ringrose, in his journal under date of January
3rd, says that their pilot told them that many years ago a ship was
cast away upon this island and only one man saved, who lived alone
upon it for over five years before any vessel came that way to carry
him off. It is curious that none of the biographers of Defoe should
refer to this statement in dealing with the inspirations of the great
writer's masterpiece. Whilst lying at this island there was trouble
amongst the men, which resulted in Captain Sharp being deposed. A
number of the crew wanted to go home at once; others were for remaining
in those seas until they had got more money. A man named John Watling,
an old privateer and a seaman of experience, was chosen in the room of
Sharp. It was shortly after this that the buccaneers were alarmed by
the unexpected apparition of three men-of-war. They instantly slipped
their cables and stood out to sea, leaving behind them in their hurry
that famous Mosquito Indian, of whom it is uncertain whether it was to
his or to Selkirk's adventures that Defoe owed the idea of Robinson
Crusoe. The vessels which surprised them were large and heavily armed,
one of them being eight hundred and another six hundred tons. They
hoisted the “bloody flag,” as it was called, meaning that no quarter
would be given. The buccaneers did the same, but they were in truth
very unwilling to fight. Watling, indeed, either could not or would not
dissemble his fears. Fortunately the Spaniards proved thorough cowards.
Despite the bluster of their no-quarter signal flying at the masthead,
they never offered to approach the privateer, which, glad enough to
escape, next day stood away north-east for Arica.
I will not charge Watling with cowardice, but he exhibits a quality
of timidity sufficiently accentuated to account for a very cruel
disposition. Of this man, who had manifested many signs of alarm
at sight of the Spanish ships-of-war, a black act of wickedness is
recorded a few days later. Amongst the prisoners on board was an
old white-haired Spaniard. Watling questioned him about Arica, and
believing that he lied in his answers ordered him to be shot. The
former commander, Captain Sharp, vehemently opposed the execution of
this cruel sentence, but finding his appeal disregarded he plunged
his hands in water and, washing them, exclaimed, “Gentlemen, I am
clear of the blood of this old man, and I will warrant you a hot day
for this piece of cruelty whenever we come to fight at Arica.” The
prophecy was fulfilled. On January 13th, 1680, the buccaneers were off
that town, and ninety-two men going ashore attacked the place with
incredible fury. We read of them filling every street in the city with
dead bodies. In a short time Captain Watling was shot through the
heart, whilst there were slain besides two quartermasters and so many
of the men that further efforts were rendered hopeless. The survivors
appealed to Captain Sharp to lead them out of their difficulties and
get them back to the ship. The enemy surrounded them, they were in
great disorder, and there was no one to command them. Sharp, bitterly
resenting their behaviour to him, which had led to his being supplanted
by Watling, hesitated. “But,” says Ringrose, “at our earnest request
and petition he took up the command-in-chief again, and began to
distribute his orders for our safety.” They succeeded in fighting their
way to the beach, and got on board at ten o'clock at night, after a
desperate battle that had lasted the whole day. On putting to sea again
there was much mutinous growling, and when off the Island of Plata,
on April 17th, 1681, the quarrels rose to such a pitch that there was
nothing for it but separation. The trouble lay in a number of the men,
now that Watling was dead, desiring the reappointment of Sharp. This
was warmly opposed by others. The matter was put to the vote, and the
Sharpites proving the more numerous, the dissentients agreed to leave
them—the arrangement being that the majority should keep the ship,
whilst the others should take the long-boat and canoes and return by
way of the Isthmus, or seek their fortunes as they chose in other
directions. The out-voted party numbered forty-seven men, one of whom
was William Dampier.