1708-1711
THE VOYAGE WITH WOODES ROGERS[24]
Dampier probably obtained the next berth we find him filling through
the influence of Woodes Rogers. There is no doubt that it was owing
to Dampier's influence and representations that the expedition under
Rogers was equipped and despatched. Harris tells us that he addressed
himself to the merchants of Bristol, who listened to his proposals
with patience and interest. At all events his experience would enable
him to submit to them that his own, and indeed the failures of others,
were owing, not to the voyage being a dangerous or difficult one, not
to the courage nor to the superior strength of the enemy, not to any
lack of the right kind of qualities amongst the crews, but simply to
those undertakings having been badly organised at the start, unwisely
officered, and injudiciously conducted. The Bristol merchants fully
agreed with him, and illustrated the spirit of their concurrence by
fitting out two ships and refusing him any post of command. He and
Rogers had long been acquainted, as may be gathered from several
passages in his voyages. There is little question that it was Dampier's
reputation which procured him his appointment as pilot to his friend;
but I take it that Rogers warmly supported Dampier's solicitations,
and that the advocacy of the chief commander proved powerful enough
to neutralise, or at least to qualify, the prejudice which our hero's
misfortunes as a freebooter and his half-heartedness as an explorer had
excited against him.
As a pilot there was no man then living better qualified. He had
spent long months of his life in the South Seas, and his knowledge of
Indian and Pacific waters was varied and extensive. His name was also
formidable to the Spaniards, a detail of considerable moment in the
catalogue of privateering merits. His dignity could suffer nothing by
his acceptance of the post of pilot to the expedition. Many sea-words
have changed their old signification, and when we now talk of a pilot
we think of a man whose business it is to navigate ships through short
spaces of dangerous waters. There were of course pilots of this kind in
Dampier's day. But in addition there were mariners selected for their
knowledge of distant parts to accompany ships in voyages round the
world, or to the ports of remote nations. The post was an honourable
one; the pilot stood alone; he had not indeed the captain's general
powers, but his duties were attended with many privileges, and he was
looked up to as a person of authority and distinction. It was such a
position then as Dampier would have been willing to accept even though
he had earned the value of an estate by his last voyage.
The expedition was promoted, as has already been said, by a number of
Bristol merchants. Twenty-two names are given as representing only a
portion of this very large committee of adventurers. The chief command
was entrusted to Captain Woodes Rogers, a man who had suffered much
from the French, and who was eager to repair as well as to avenge his
injuries by reprisals. He had long been known as an intelligent officer
and an excellent seaman. He had also a name as a disciplinarian,
and he was further remarkable for the swiftness and sagacity of his
decisions in moments of difficulty and peril. In point of literary
merit his book is worthy to rank with Shelvocke's narrative, though the
form and spirit of both are manifestly inspired by Dampier's volumes.
The captain next in command was Stephen Courtney, who was also a
member of the committee and the holder of a considerable share in the
speculation. Rogers's second captain, or chief mate as he would now be
called, was Thomas Dover, a physician by profession, who in his old age
wrote a work called _Dr. Dover's Last Legacy to his Country_, in which
he so effectually recommended the use of quicksilver that “ladies as
well as gentlemen of rank and fortune bespangled the floors and carpets
with this metal, and scattered their diamonds wherever they went to
dance or to play.”[25] It is strange to hear of a doctor of medicine
going as lieutenant of a buccaneering craft; but it is stranger yet to
read that Dover's bad temper was the cause of his being chosen. Yet his
chief recommendation lay in his violent tongue, which, it was argued,
would effectually prevent him from winning adherents, so that there
was no chance of his weakening the expedition by heading or creating
a party![26] The captain under Courtney was Edward Cooke, a person of
talent and observation and of no small literary ability, whose hatred
of the French was only equalled by Rogers.
The venture was thoroughly matured before it was launched. Stringent
rules and regulations serving as articles of war were drawn up and
signed by the promoters, who called the document “The Constitution.”
The experiences as well as the advice of Dampier may be traced in these
rules. It was required that in case of death, sickness, or desertion,
a council should be called of all the officers of the ships, that the
person selected should be the unanimous choice, and that all attacks
by sea or land should first be generally debated by the whole body of
officers. In case of the votes for and against being equal, Captain
Dover, as President of the Council, was to have the “double-voice.”
The manifest object of these articles was to stop the bickerings which
commonly attended the undertakings of the privateers, and which were
often the cause of their failures and defeats, by importing the general
voice into every decision. The ships were the _Duke_, of three hundred
tons, thirty guns, and one hundred and seventy men, with Rogers and
Dover as first and second captains; and the _Dutchess_, of two hundred
and seventy tons, twenty-six guns, and one hundred and fifty-one
men, whose first and second in command were Courtney and Cooke. Both
vessels were commissioned by Prince George of Denmark to cruise on the
coasts of Peru and Mexico against the Queen's enemies, the French and
Spaniards.
Dampier was on board Woodes Rogers: the story of the expedition,
therefore, must be followed to its conclusion, though, unfortunately,
our hero has no longer an individuality. His name indeed occasionally
occurs, but he vanishes as a figure, and we are merely conscious as we
follow the narrative that we are in his company, and that though he is
lost to view he is sharing in the exploits and dangers, in the hopes
and fears, of the crowd of resolute men whom he pilots.
The two ships set sail from Bristol, or rather from Kingroad, at the
mouth of the river Avon, on Monday, August 1st, 1708, and arrived at
Cork on the 9th in company with several other ships which had sailed
under the convoy of a man-of-war called the _Hastings_. Until the
27th they were busy in thoroughly preparing the ships for the voyage.
Here also they received a number of men to take the place of others
who had been brought from Bristol, but who, even in the short trip
across the St. George's Channel, had proved themselves worthless as
sailors. When they weighed on the morning of the 28th their crews were
unusually strong. Rogers says that he doubled the number of officers as
a provision against mutinies, and also that there might be plenty of
qualified persons to take command in case of death. The _Duke_ indeed
was so full of men that she was obliged to leave a portion of the
boatswain's stores behind to make room for the people. The proverbial
qualities of the sailor show humorously at the outset of this voyage.
All hands knew that they were to sail immediately, yet we read that
“they were continually marrying whilst we staid at Cork.” An instance
is given of a Dane whom a Roman Catholic priest had united in holy
wedlock to an Irishwoman. Neither understood the other's tongue, and
they were forced to hire an interpreter before they could tell each
other how fond they were. The inconvenience of unintelligibility,
however, did not cool their fervour; on the contrary, it was noticed
that this Dane and his Irish wife were more affected by their parting
than any of the other couples, “And,” says the narrative, “the Fellow
continued melancholy for several Days after we were at Sea. The rest
understanding each other, drank their Cans of Flip till the last
Minute, concluded with a Health to our good Voyages and their happy
Meeting, and then parted unconcerned.” The number of sailors in both
ships when they weighed was three hundred and thirty-three, one-third
of whom were foreigners. Many of them were by trade tinkers, tailors,
haymakers, pedlars, and fiddlers; there were also a negro and ten boys.
Rogers was glad at the start to sail under convoy of a man-of-war.
The holds of both the _Duke_ and the _Dutchess_ were flush to the
hatches with provisions; the 'tween-decks were crowded with cables,
with bags of bread, and casks of water; so that it would have been
impossible to engage an enemy without throwing a large quantity of the
stores overboard. There were one hundred and eighty-two men aboard the
_Duke_ and one hundred and fifty-one aboard the _Dutchess_, and the
crowding, when the tonnage of the ships is thought of side by side
with their choked holds and 'tween-decks, must have rendered life at
the start intolerable to the privateersmen. Despite their condition,
however, they agreed to the proposal of the captain of the man-of-war
that they should cruise a few days off Cape Finisterre; the crews of
the vessels were thereupon mustered, and the nature and intention of
the expedition explained to them, in order that such of the men as
should show themselves discontented might be sent home as mutineers in
the _Hastings_. All professed themselves satisfied with the exception
of “one poor Fellow,” says Rogers, “who was to have been Tything-man
that year, and was apprehensive his Wife would be obliged to pay 40
Shillings for his Default. But when he saw everybody else easy, and
strong hopes of plunder, he likewise grew quiet by degrees, and drank
as heartily as anybody to the good Success of the Voyage.” Yet, despite
the assurances of the men, a mutiny happened whilst Rogers was on
board a Swedish vessel he had chased, whose papers exempted her. The
ringleaders were the boatswain and three of the inferior officers. Ten
of the men were put in irons, and a sailor seized to the “jeers” (as
the tackles were called which hoisted and lowered the fore and main
yards) and punished by the usual process of whipping and pickling. The
outbreak was so serious that all the officers went armed, not knowing
what was next to happen. After some further trouble and much anxiety
the mutiny was quelled, but it needed all Rogers's valuable qualities
as a commander to deal with it.
I do not doubt, had Dampier been in charge, that the disturbance would
have ended in the ruin of the voyage. Of the unruliness of the crews of
that day, hundreds of examples may be gathered from the contemporary
records. The seaman of Dampier's age was undeniably a lion-hearted
man, incomparably intrepid in his conflicts whether with the elements
or with the enemies of his country; but it is equally true that most
of his characteristics were those of the savage. He was a ruffian in
his behaviour, he was a brute in his tastes, he conversed in a dialect
that was almost wholly formed of oaths, and he pursued his calling in
a skin soaked with the liquor that was served out to him by the gallon
at the time. The average merchant-sailor of the last century has been
sketched by Fielding in his _Voyage to Lisbon_. “It is difficult,” he
says, “I think, to assign a satisfactory reason why sailors in general
should of all others think themselves entirely discharged from the
common bands of humanity, and should seem to glory in the language
and behaviour of savages! They see more of the world, and have most
of them a more erudite education, than is the portion of landmen of
their degree.... Is it that they think true courage (for they are the
bravest fellows upon earth) inconsistent with all the gentleness of
a humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order springs up
in minds but little cultivated at the same time, and from the same
principles, with the contempt of danger and death? Is it——? In short,
it is so.” Happily we may now say it _was_ so! But the reason is not
hard to find. _Roderick Random_ is a full and satisfying reply to
Fielding's interrogatory. The sailor of that day was a brute because
his life was that of a brute. He was for long months at a time absent
from every possible refining influence. He was fed on provisions such
as a dog would recoil from. His sea-parlour was a black, wet hole,
filled with vermin and loathsome with bad smells. His punishments
were beyond expression inhuman; he was whipped until his back became
a bloody mass, into which brine was rubbed that his sufferings might
be rendered more exquisite. He was hoisted to a yard-arm, then dropped
suddenly into the water and hauled violently under the ship's keel, and
this was repeated until he was nearly drowned. He was lashed half-naked
to the mast, and so left to stand for a period often running into days,
insulted by his shipmates, and exposed to the scorching heat or the
frosty sting of the parallels in which the ship happened to be; he
was loaded with irons and immured for weeks in a dark and poisonous
forepeak, whose only tenants besides himself were the huge rats of
the vessel's hold. It was not, then, that the sailor regarded himself
discharged, as Fielding suggests, from the common bands of humanity; he
knew nothing of humanity, whether during his brief and roaring orgies
ashore or during his long and bitter servitude upon the high seas. The
traditions of those days still linger, and the sailor of our own times
suffers to a certain extent from prejudices which were excited and
perpetuated by the bold and reckless savages of the age of Dampier and,
later on, of Fielding. But I am speaking of the average merchantman;
it is readily conceivable that the buccaneer or privateersman should
have gone far beyond him. He recognised no restrictions save those
which were absolutely essential to his safety at sea; his profession
of piracy rendered him insensible to cruelty by familiarising him with
many of the most violent forms of it; he slept like a wild animal upon
the hard deck, with a rug for his cover and nothing else between him
and the stars. Dampier grimly says in his chapter on the winds: “'Tis
usual with Seamen in those parts to sleep on the Deck, especially
for Privateers; among whom I made these Observations. In Privateers,
especially when we are at an Anchor, the Deck is spread with Mats
to lye on each Night. Every Man has one, some two; and this, with a
Pillow for the Head and a Rug for a Covering, is all the Bedding that
is necessary for Men of that Employ.” For one day the freebooter might
feast on the fifty delicacies of a plundered ship, and for weeks his
food would be so coarse and innutritious as to fill his eyes with the
fires of famine and pale his cheek to the haggardness of the corpse. It
needed exceptional and extraordinary powers of command to control such
wretches. The qualities of the men in charge of Rogers and Courtney
are significantly expressed by their early mutiny. Many of them were
seasoned buccaneers—ruffians whom not even the common hope could keep
straight. Fortunately for his employers, Rogers knew how to handle them.
On the 18th the two vessels captured a small Spanish ship which they
carried to Teneriffe. There were some male and female passengers on
board, and she was laden with what would now be called a general cargo.
The English merchants, to whom possibly a portion of this cargo was
consigned, objected to the capture, and represented that they would be
in danger if the bark were not restored. The agent of the privateers,
a man named Vanbrugh, went ashore and was detained, and it came very
near to Rogers and Courtney bombarding the town of Oratava. When
the inhabitants saw the vessels standing in with tompions out and
all hands at quarters, they offered to satisfy the demands of the
buccaneers, who thereupon sold the prize for four hundred and fifty
dollars and then made haste to sail away, very glad of the chance to
once more “mind their own concerns,” as Rogers puts it. On the last
day of September they dropped anchor in the harbour of St. Vincent,
one of the Cape de Verde Islands. Scarcely were they arrived when
fresh disturbances arose amongst the men. The mutiny originated in
altercations touching the distribution of plunder, and with the hope
of terminating these incessant and perilous brawls, the commanders
went to work to frame such articles as they believed would inspire
the seamen with confidence in the intentions of their superiors. The
paper they drew up is preserved, and it is of interest as illustrating
a form of marine life that for generations has been as extinct as the
ships in which the privateersmen sailed. First of all it was settled
that the plunder taken on board any prize by either ship should be
equally divided between the companies of both ships. Any man concealing
booty exceeding the value of a dollar during twenty-four hours after
the capture of a prize was to be severely punished, and to lose his
share of the plunder. Article the fourth provided that “If any prize
be taken by boarding, then whatsoever is taken shall be every man's
own as follows: viz. a Sailor 10 pounds, any Officer below a Carpenter
20 pounds, a Mate, Gunner, Boatswain, and Carpenter 40 pounds, a
Lieutenant or Master 80 pounds, and the Captains 100 pounds each,
above the gratuity promised by the owners to such as shall signalise
themselves.” It was further agreed that twenty pieces of eight should
be given to him who first saw a prize of good value. Another article
provided that every man on board, after the capture of a prize, should
be searched by persons appointed for that purpose. This agreement was
signed by the officers and men of both ships, and was perhaps the best,
if indeed it was not the only, expedient that Rogers could have hit
upon for silencing the constant mutinous growlings of the rapacious
rogues under his command, unavailing as it subsequently proved.
They weighed on October 8th and steered for the coast of Brazil. In
spite of thoughtfully-framed articles, handsome concessions on the
part of the captains, and the taut discipline of the quarter-deck,
the spirit of mutiny continued strong. The men were too numerous; the
ship's work made demands upon only a portion of them at a time; the
crew had therefore plenty of leisure, which they employed in haranguing
one another into insubordination. As an example of the difficulty of
dealing with these men, it is related that a fellow named Page, who
was second mate of the _Dutchess_, was ordered on board the _Duke_
to exchange posts with a man similarly rated. Captain Cooke was
sent to fetch him; Page refused to come; a dispute followed, fists
were doubled up and the men fell to blows. They managed at last to
convey the mutinous mate to the _Duke_, but before they had time to
charge him with his offence, he sprang into the sea and started to
swim back to his ship. He was recaptured, lifted over the side and
punished—probably spread-eagled and man-handled, after the old fashion.
Disturbances of this kind were not calculated to gild the prospects of
the sober-headed. In the _Dutchess_ they had eight of the ringleaders
of a party (who had proposed to run away with the ship) under hatches
in irons. There were repeated attempts to desert after the vessels
had come to an anchor on November 18th off the coast of Brazil. Two
sailors escaped into the woods, but were so terrified by the sight of
a number of monkeys and baboons which they mistook for tigers, that
they plunged into the water to the depth of their waists, and stood
bawling for help until a boat was sent to fetch them aboard. One thinks
of Dampier, hot-tempered and prone to despondency, talking with his
friend Rogers about the troublesome posture of the crew, expressing
many doubts as to the practicability of the voyage, and perhaps
suggesting adventures remote from the prescription of the Bristol
merchants. An incident peculiar to the old piratical life steals out
in this part of the story. Early one morning the people who were on
the look-out on the quarter-deck sighted a canoe gliding silently and
shadow-like shorewards. It was hailed and ordered to come aboard; but
no other answer was returned than the swifter plying of the oars. The
pinnace and yawl were manned and sent in pursuit, and on approaching
the canoe one of them fired into it to bring it to. It held on bravely
nevertheless, but was captured as its stem smote the beach. One of
her people was a friar, who with quivering knees instantly owned to
possessing a little store of gold, obtained, as the rough sailors
surmised, “by his trade of confessing the ignorant.” The father was
very politely treated, but he did not seem to value the attention paid
him by Captain Rogers. What he wanted was his gold, which there is no
reason whatever to suppose he ever received. He talked of obtaining
justice in Portugal or England, and was answered by the hurricane
shout to the forecastle to get the ship under-weigh.
The vessels were now fairly bound for the passage of the Horn. The
crew, who in the torrid zone growled continuously and piratically in
their gizzards, were no sooner in the high latitudes than they grew
reasonable. It was the summer season in that hemisphere, but Dampier
carried them so far south that all hands nearly perished of cold. At
least a third of the people of both ships were down with sickness; and
they barely escaped a languishing and miserable end by the good fortune
of prosperous winds, which blew them swiftly northwards under more
temperate heights. It was necessary to make land speedily for the sake
of the men's health, and Juan Fernandez was fixed upon. They steered
for the island, but the charts differed and they could not find it.
Dampier was as much at a loss as the rest, and wondered at not being
able to hit it, telling how often he had been there, and how he carried
a most accurate map of the island about with him in his head. In order
to find it they were forced to sail in sight of the coast of Chili,
so as to obtain “a departure,” and then stretch away west upon the
parallel of it, or thereabouts. They fell in with it at last, but not
until after much fruitless scouring of the seas.
The name of Dampier is intimately associated with the passage that now
follows. There is nothing, perhaps, in what may be termed the romantic
chapters of the maritime annals more picturesque and impressive than
the discovery by the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_ of Alexander Selkirk on the
island of Juan Fernandez. The accentuation the story obtained from
the genius of Defoe makes it immortal. But even as a mere anecdote,
without better skill brought to bear upon it than is found in the
plain relations of Rogers and Cooke, its interest is so remarkable,
it is so brimful of fascinating inspiration, that of all sea-stories
it bids fair to be the longest remembered. Indeed it must be said
that a great number of people, otherwise pretty well informed, are
familiar with the name of Dampier only in connection with the strange,
surprising adventures of Mr. Alexander Selkirk. The narrative belongs
peculiarly to Dampier's experiences. Selkirk was mate of the _Cinque
Ports_ when her captain, Stradling, was Dampier's consort, and he was
still that ship's mate when Stradling quarrelled with Dampier at King's
Island in the Bay of Panama. The tale is related by Woodes Rogers and
by Cooke,[27]—an old-world tale indeed, which every schoolboy has by
heart; yet I cannot satisfy myself that its omission on the score of
triteness only would be desirable in a volume that professes to recount
the most striking passages in the naval career of William Dampier.
Cooke's version is fuller than Rogers's—that is to say, he wrote two
accounts of it, his reference to it in his first volume being deemed
meagre and unsatisfactory by the public, who had been set agape by the
wonderful yarn; but Rogers's narrative is the better written; besides,
as Dampier is aboard the _Duke_, it is proper to allow his captain to
speak. The full story is much too long for quotation at large in these
pages; I therefore select the following as amongst the most striking
passages. They were off the island on February 1st, 1709, and sent the
pinnace ashore with Captain Dover in charge.
“As soon as it was dark, we saw a Light ashore. Our Boat was then about
a League from the Island, and bore away for the Ships as soon as she
saw the Lights: We put our Lights aboard for the Boat, tho' some were
of Opinion the Lights we saw were our Boat's Lights: But as Night came
on it appeared too large for that. We fired our Quarterdeck Gun and
several Musquets, shewing Lights in our Mizen and Fore Shrouds, that
our Boat might find us whilst we were in the Lee of the Island: ...
All this Stir and Apprehension arose, as we afterwards found, from one
poor naked Man who passed in our Imagination, at present, for a Spanish
Garrison, a Body of Frenchmen, or a Crew of Pirates.”
Next day they sent their yawl ashore, and as this boat did not return,
they despatched the pinnace to Seek her. Rogers then continues:
“Immediately our Pinnace returned from the Shore and brought abundance
of Crayfish with a Man cloathed in Goat-skins, who looked wilder than
the first Owners of them. He had been on the Island Four Years and Four
Months, being left there by Captain Stradling in the _Cinque Ports_;
his Name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotsman who had been Master of the
_Cinque Ports_, a Ship that came here last with Captain Dampier, who
told me that this was the best man in her, and I immediately agreed
with him to be a Mate on board our Ship: 'Twas he that made the Fire
last Night when he saw our Ships, which he judged to be English....
The reason of his being left here was a Difference between him and his
Captain; which, together with the Ship's being leaky, made him willing
rather to stay here, than go along with him at first; and when he was
at last willing to go the Captain would not receive him.... He had with
him his Cloaths and Bedding, with a Firelock, some Powder, Bullets, and
Tobacco, a Hatchet, a Knife, a Kettle, a Bible, some Practical Pieces,
and his Mathematical Instruments and Books. He diverted and provided
for himself as well as he could; but for the first eight Months had
much ado to bear up against Melancholy and the Terror of being left
alone in such a Place. He built two Huts with Pimento-trees, covered
them with long Grass, and lined them with the Skins of Goats, which he
killed with his Gun as he wanted, so long as his Powder lasted, which
was but a Pound; and that being almost spent, he got Fire by rubbing
two Sticks of Pimento Wood together upon his Knee. In the lesser Hut,
at some Distance from the other, he dressed his Victuals; and in the
larger he slept, and employed himself in Reading, singing Psalms,
and Praying, so that he said he was a better Christian while in this
Solitude than ever he was before, or than he was afraid he should ever
be again. At first he never eat anything till Hunger constrained him,
partly for Grief and partly for want of Bread and Salt: Nor did he go
to Bed till he could watch no longer; the Pimento Wood, which burnt
very clear, served him both for Fire and Candle, and refreshed him
with its fragrant Smell.... By the Favour of Providence and Vigour of
his Youth, being now but thirty Years old, he came at last to conquer
all the Inconveniences of his Solitude and to be very easy. When his
Cloaths were out he made himself a Coat and a Cap of Goat-skins, which
he stitched together with little Thongs of the same that he cut with
his Knife. He had no other Needle but a Nail; and when his Knife was
worn to the Back he made others as well as he could of some Iron Hoops
that were left ashore, which he beat thin, and ground upon Stones.
Having some Linen Cloth by him, he sewed him some Shirts with a Nail,
and stitched them with the Worsted of his old Stockings, which he
pulled out on purpose. He had his last Shirt on when we found him in
the Island. At his first coming on board us he had so much forgot his
Language for want of Use that we could scarce understand him; for he
seemed to speak his Words by halves. We offered him a Dram; but he
would not touch it, having drank nothing but Water since his being
there; and it was some Time before he could relish our Victuals.”
It is easy to imagine the interest with which Dampier would listen to
the recital of his old associate's strange adventures. Cooke tells
us that Selkirk had conceived “irreconcilable aversion to an officer
on board the _Cinque Ports_, who, he was informed, was on board the
_Duke_, but not being a principal in command, he was prevailed upon
to waive that circumstance and accompany Captain Dampier, for whom he
had a friendship.” Whoever the person may have been, the Scotchman's
dislike of him was bitter, and it was to Dampier's persuasions that
Rogers owed the services of a man who proved of the utmost use to him
whilst lying at the island by enabling him to supply the ships with
fresh provisions and by facilitating the business of taking in wood and
water. It is observable that Rogers styled Selkirk the governor of the
island, a half-humorous and half-pathetic fancy (when one thinks of
the desperate loneliness of the unhappy man), which Defoe afterwards
adopted when making Robinson Crusoe speak of his possessions and
territories, his castles and his dependents.
The vessels arrived, as we have seen, on February 1st, and by the 3rd a
smith's forge had been conveyed ashore, the coopers were hard at work,
and there were tents, or “pavilions,” erected for the commanders and
the sick. But it was their business not to lose time, for they had long
before—that is to say, when they were at the Canaries—heard that five
large French ships were coming to search for them in the South Sea; so
that very quickly, all the sick men happily recovering rapidly with
the exception of two who died, they had refitted their ships, taken in
wood and water, and boiled down and stowed away about eighty gallons of
sea-lions' oil to use for the lamps, that they might save the candles.
This done they set sail, after holding a consultation, which resulted
in further regulations for the preservation of discipline; and on May
15th captured a little vessel of sixteen tons, whose master furnished
them with the reassuring news that seven French ships, which had been
cruising off this part of the coast for some time, had six months
previously gone away for the Horn, and it was added they were not
likely to return. There was other news besides of a kind to make their
mouths water, particularly that the widow of the deceased Viceroy of
Peru would shortly embark for Acapulco with her family and the whole
of her fortune, and probably break her journey at Payta. They were
also told that some months previously a ship had sailed from Payta for
Acapulco with two hundred thousand pieces of eight on board, together
with a rich cargo of liquors and flour. More useful information was
conveyed in the statement that a certain Señor Morel was waiting in
a stout ship filled with dry goods for a vessel expected from Panama
richly laden, with a bishop aboard, and that both craft would put to
sea together. The idea of a bishop was commonly associated in the
buccaneering mind with visions of the sacred splendours of the altar
and the fruits of long years dedicated to painful hoarding. So it was
straightway resolved by Rogers and his people to start for a cruise off
Payta, meanwhile exercising all possible precaution against discovery
lest larger designs should be spoilt.
A few days after they had come to this determination Captain Rogers
and Captain Dover fell out. Rogers says that Dover charged him with
insolence; Captain Cooke, on the other hand, takes Dover's part in
his story of this passage. Difficulties of this kind were incessantly
occurring amongst the buccaneers, and on the eve, too, very often of
the execution of big projects. The quarrel, however, is not dwelt
upon at length; probably the disputants quickly saw the wisdom of
calling a truce that they might attend to the serious business of
what is grandiloquently termed “the conquest of Guayaquil.” The great
undertaking was settled thus: Dover was to command a company of seventy
marines, Rogers another company of seventy-one officers and sailors,
Courtney a third company of seventy-three men, and Dampier was to
have charge of the artillery, with a reserve force of twenty-two
seamen. Meanwhile Cooke was to command the _Dutchess_ with forty-two
men, and Captain Robert Fry the _Duke_ with forty men; bringing up
the whole force to a total of three hundred and twenty. In addition
there were blacks, Indians, and prisoners, to the number of two
hundred and sixty-six; forming an army of five hundred and eighty-six
people for the captains and officers to look after. The appetites
of the buccaneers were shrewdly sharpened by the understanding that
bedding, wearing apparel, gold rings, buttons, buckles, gold or silver
crucifixes, watches, liquors, and provisions, should be reckoned fair
plunder to be equally divided; but money, women's earrings, loose
diamonds, pearls, and precious stones, were to be held as belonging to
the merchants. On the 15th there was a smart engagement between the
privateersmen's boats and a Spanish ship, in which Rogers lost his
brother, who was second lieutenant on board the _Duke_. The vessel was
captured, and proved to be the craft in which the bishop had sailed;
but he had gone ashore at Point St. Helena, leaving the ship to carry
his property to Lima. She had seventy blacks and a number of passengers
on board. The lading consisted of bale goods, and a considerable
quantity of pearls were found in her. Captain Cooke took charge, and
the prisoners were divided between the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_.
The little bark of sixteen tons which they had taken some time
previously they named the _Beginning_, and on April 21st in the morning
she was sent to cruise close inshore to see all clear for the landing
of the men. The report she brought was that there was a vessel riding
close under the point whose crew, on sighting the _Beginning_, had
hurried ashore and vanished. On this the privateersmen rowed towards
the town of Guayaquil. The night drew down dark; the men pulled
stealthily with muffled oars; an hour before midnight they saw a light
suddenly spring up in the town, towards which they continued to row
very softly until they were within a mile of it; when on a sudden they
were brought to a halt by hearing a sentinel call to another and talk
to him. Concluding they were discovered, the buccaneers pulled across
the river, and lay still and very quiet, waiting and watching. In a
few minutes the whole town flashed out into lights, the resonant notes
of a great alarm-bell swang through the soft wind, several volleys of
musketry were discharged, and a large fire was kindled on the hill to
let the town know that the enemy was in the river. The officers in
charge of the boats, confounded by this unexpected discovery of their
presence, fell to a hot argument and grew so angry that their voices
were heard ashore. The Spaniards, who could not understand them, sent
post-haste for an Englishman who was then living in the town, and
brought him, very secretly, close to the boats that he might interpret
what was said. But before he arrived the privateersmen had concluded
their arguments.[28] They remained all night in the river, and next day
contented themselves with capturing a number of vessels, and receiving
the governor under a flag of truce to treat with him about the ransom
of the town and ships. But nothing came of the interview; and at
four o'clock in the afternoon, on April 23d, the whole force of the
buccaneers landed and attacked the place. The Spaniards fired a single
volley and fled; the English pressed forward and seized the enemy's
cannon, from which every gunner had run saving one, an Irishman, who
gallantly stuck to his post until he dropped mortally wounded. The
seamen marched through both towns—the Spaniards flying pell-mell before
them firing the houses as they tramped forwards, and leaving gangs of
men behind them to guard the churches. There was a thick wood on the
right of the place, and all night long the enemy continued to fire
from among the trees at the English sentries, but without injuring a
man. From time to time bodies of horse and foot showed themselves,
but only to wheel about and fly to the first musket levelled at them.
Meanwhile a party of twenty-two men went in the _Dutchess's_ pinnace
up the river, and sacked every house they came across. The enemy was
easily kept at bay, and the buccaneers had no trouble in sending booty
and provisions in quantities to their ships. In due course messengers,
flourishing flags of truce, came to talk about ransoming the town,
and after much discussion, the offer of thirty thousand dollars was
accepted, of which twenty-five thousand were paid.
The depredations of the buccaneers had been indeed serious enough to
threaten the townspeople with absolute ruin if the sacking was not
speedily arrested. Scarcely had they withdrawn from Guayaquil when
they took a ship full of meal, sugar, and other commodities, making
the fourteenth prize they had captured in those seas! The town itself
handsomely repaid the labour and danger of assaulting it; about twelve
hundred pounds' worth of plate and jewellery, many bales of valuable
dry goods, and a great store of merchandise of all kinds, exclusive
of wines, waggon-loads of cocoa, several ships on the stocks, and two
freshly-launched vessels of four hundred tons each, valued at eighty
thousand crowns. But for their approach having been discovered they
might have found even a handsomer account than this in the capture of
the place, for it afterwards came to their ears that the inhabitants
in their flight carried away with them money, plate, and jewels to
the value of two hundred thousand pieces of eight. Indeed the unhappy
Spaniards seem to have been plundered on all sides, for in going the
rounds the privateersmen took a number of negroes and Indians laden
with goods, which they promptly confessed were stolen, “and we were
afterwards informed that in the Hurry the Inhabitants had given Plate
and Money to Blacks to carry out of the Town, and could never hear of
it after.”
On May 11th we find Rogers, Dampier, and their companions running
before a strong gale of wind for the Galapagos Islands. A number of the
crew were prostrated with a malignant fever contracted at Guayaquil,
where, about a month before the buccaneers' arrival, there had raged
an epidemic disease of which ten or twelve persons perished every day;
until the floors of the churches being filled with bodies, the people
dug a great hole close to one of the structures where sailors had been
stationed as guards. In this hole lay a pile of putrefied corpses, and
the seamen only quitted their posts to return to their ships poisoned.
On the 18th they were off a couple of large islands, and sent boats to
seek for fresh water. The errand was fruitless, though the searchers
went three or four miles into the country in their hunt. Their business
now was to go where fresh water was to be had, for of the two crews
there were no less than one hundred and twenty men down with fever;
Captain Courtney was dangerously ill, and Captain Dover was devoting
his leisure to prescribing for him. So they made sail for Gorgona,
capturing a few vessels as they proceeded, and, anchoring on June 13th,
at once distributed their sick amongst the prizes, and set to work
to careen and repair the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_. By the 28th they had
restored their provisions and mounted their guns, having in fourteen
days caulked, rigged, discharged, and reloaded their ships; a smart
piece of work that greatly astonished the Spanish prisoners, who said
that their people usually took a couple of months to careen a vessel at
ports where every necessary appliance for this business was to be had.
The unhappy captives indeed, whilst watching or assisting the English,
would scarcely marvel at their triumphs by land and sea when they
observed their ceaseless and vigilant activity,—how, without regard to
the climate, they worked from the break of day till darkness stopped
their hands, and how, with swift and unerring judgment, they devised
expedients for the remedying of difficulties which in the eyes of
their astonished prisoners appeared at the time to be insurmountable.
“The Natives of Old Spain,” says Rogers, “are accounted but ordinary
Mariners; but here they are much worse, all the Prizes we took being
rather cobbled than fitted out for the Sea; so that had they such
Weather as we often meet with in the European Seas in Winter, they
could scarce ever reach a Port again as they are fitted; but they
Sail here Hundreds of Leagues.” Admissions of this kind are as good
as saying that seizures in the South Sea went, as achievements, but a
very little way beyond the mere act of hailing a ship and bidding her
strike. The boldness of the English buccaneers is not very conspicuous
in such encounters. Most of the vessels they took were navigated by
crews of yellow, nervous men, utterly worthless as seamen, with neither
heart nor muscle as combatants; whilst the cabins were crowded with
priests, women, and sea-sick merchants, who increased the disorder
caused by the appearance of a privateer by lamentations and tears, by
wild appeals to the saints, and passionate adjurations to the shivering
crew. The capture of such craft was as easy as catching flies. The
qualities of the English South Seamen of those days must be sought
in the records of their assaults on land, their boarding of tall and
powerfully armed galleons, their murderous resistance to the attacks of
ships-of-state of great tonnage crowded with soldiers and sailors and
carrying ten guns to the Rover's one.
Whilst Rogers and his people were at Gorgona they equipped one of their
prizes named the _Havre de Grace_ as a third ship to act with the
_Duke_ and _Dutchess_. She was called the _Marquis_, and Captain Cooke
took command of her. The business of fitting her out as a war vessel
occupied them from June 29th to July 9th, and when she was finished
they made a holiday of it, sitting down to a hearty meal and drinking
the Queen's health with loud huzzas, and then the health of the owners
with more huzzas, and then their own healths until their eyes danced in
their heads. Spite of the general joy, however, the _Marquis_ proved
something of a failure, for Cooke says that her masts were new and
too heavy for her, and that being badly stowed she was exceedingly
tender, by which is meant that she heeled or lay over unduly to light
pressures, and scarcely made headway when on a wind, “so that the
_Duke_ and _Dutchess_ were fain to spare a great deal of sail for me
to keep up with them.” Before lifting their anchors the commanders
and officers of the ships met together to value the plunder in order
to divide it. One kind of commodities they appraised at four hundred
pounds; the silver-hilted swords, buckles, snuff-boxes, buttons, and
silver plate at seven hundred and forty-three pounds fifteen shillings,
taking the piece of eight at four shillings and sixpence. By this
time there were upwards of eighty thousand pounds' worth of property
and treasure on board destined for the owners. Dampier, we may well
suppose, shared in the high hopes and good spirits of his shipmates.
This was the only promising privateering expedition he had ever been
engaged in, and if their luck continued he might reasonably flatter
himself with the belief that he would even yet snatch an independency
out of the reluctant maw of the sea. They had rid themselves of their
prisoners by sending them away in some of the prizes. The female
captives spoke well of the treatment they had received, and ingenuously
confessed that they had met with far more courtesy and civility than
their own countrymen would have extended to persons in their condition.
The honourable and humane behaviour of the English buccaneers towards
their female prisoners became a tradition, which was perpetuated and
confirmed by the wise policy of Commodore Anson.[29]
They sailed on August 11th, and nothing noteworthy happened till
September 6th, on which date we find Dampier dining with Captain
Rogers on board the _Duke_ in company with Cooke and Courtney. Cooke
complained bitterly of the crankness of his ship the _Marquis_, and
objected to the evolutions of the other vessels which obliged him to
tack. They were bound to the Galapagos, and he affirmed that they could
have made the islands without beating to windward. Dampier said, No;
he knew where those islands were, and had described them in one of his
voyages; and he asserted that they were now to the westward of them.
The others agreed with Cooke, but Dampier was pilot, and was therefore
suffered to have his way. They were right and he was wrong; but an
error of a hundred miles or so was reckoned a very trifling blunder in
those hearty, plodding times. A curious old sea-picture is suggested
by this discussion in the cabin of the _Duke_. The rough bulkheads,
the low upper deck, the quaint lanthorn swinging over the table from
a beam, and indicating by its oscillations the ponderous rolling of
the tall, squab, round-bowed fabric; the privateersmen sitting round
the table attired in the wild and picturesque apparel of the early
South Seamen—these are features to bring the scene in clear outlines
before the eye of the imagination. One beholds them poring upon their
old-fashioned charts, pointing to the singular configurations of the
mainland and islands with hairy hands, and disputing with little
anxiety on a difference between easting and westing measuring as many
leagues as the space from the Lizard to the Western Islands. Indeed the
real flavour and charm of the buccaneer's life are not to be expressed
by any mere method of historical treatment. The hand of the artist is
wanted, with imagination vigorous and discerning enough to strictly
correspond with the traditionary truth.
On their arrival at the Galapagos they took in a good supply of turtle,
many of which were upwards of four hundred pounds in weight. Rogers
writes of the turtle as if he had never seen it before. “I do not,” he
says, “affect giving Relations of strange Creatures, so frequently done
by others; but where an uncommon Creature falls in my Way I cannot omit
it.” This is how the captain describes the “uncommon creature.”
“The Creatures are the ugliest in Nature; the Shell, not unlike the Top
of an old Hackney-coach, as black as Jet; and so is the outside Skin,
but shriveled and very rough. The Legs and Neck are long and about the
Bigness of a Man's Wrist; and they have Clubbed Feet as big as one's
Fist, shaped much like those of an Elephant, with five Nails on the
Forefeet and but Four behind, and the Head little, and Visage small
like Snakes; and look very old and black. When at first surprised they
shrink their Head, Neck, and Legs, under their Shell.”
This is the kind of simplicity that makes the perusal of the old
voyages wonderfully refreshing and delightful. The old fellows looked
at life with the eyes of a child but with the intelligence of a man;
and so it happens that their representations combine a most perfect and
fascinating simplicity with the highest possible qualities of acuteness
and sagacity.
On October 1st the ships were off the Mexican coast. When the form
of the land grew visible Dampier told Rogers that it was hereabouts
he attacked the Manila ship in the _St. George_. He might have been
right, but Rogers does not speak as if he thought so, for he says:
“Captain Dampier indeed had been here, but it was a long time ago,
and therefore he seemed to know but little of the Matter; yet when
he came to land in Places he recollected them very readily.” They
suffered much from scarcity of fresh water, and sent the pinnace to
explore some islands—the Tres Marias—lying off Cape Corrientes. On one
of them they found a human skull, which was supposed to have belonged
to an Indian who, with another poor wretch of his own race, had been
left there by Captain Swan some twenty-three years before. Dampier of
course well remembered the circumstance; he had been with Swan in the
_Cygnet_ at the time, and could recollect that provisions being scarce
they had left the unhappy Indians to make, as Rogers says, a miserable
end on a desert Island. To judge, however, from the refreshments these
uninhabited spots yielded, the Indians could not have perished from
starvation. The buccaneers met with hares, turtle-doves, pigeons, and
parrots, on all of which they fared sumptuously. The sick thrived,
and the general health of the crews was never better. On November 1st
they were in view of the high coast of California. It was much about
the date when Sir Thomas Candish had taken the Manila ship, and,
strangely enough, their keels ploughed the very tract of water in
which that remarkable feat had been achieved. The memory, aged to us,
but lacking nothing of its old lustre, was to those men comparatively
recent, and the recollection was one to animate them with great hopes
and stern resolves. They were indeed bent now on the adventure whose
successful issue had loaded Candish's ship with treasure. They were
on the look-out for the galleon, and that nothing might be omitted
to render fortune propitious, they again put in force the rules
which had formerly been laid down for cruising, established fresh
regulations, and made clear every dubious item in their programme of
proceedings and plunder. It was this galleon that was to make their
fortunes; she it was also that formed the grand hope of the Bristol
committee of merchant adventurers; and the design of capturing her was
the mainspring of the whole expedition. After a consultation it was
agreed that they should dispose themselves thus: the _Marquis_ was to
keep off the land at a distance of from six to nine leagues at least;
the _Duke_ was to cruise at a range that would cover forty-five miles;
and the _Dutchess_ was to occupy the waters between her consorts.
There were, of course, false alarms; as, for instance, on the 28th the
_Marquis_ fired a gun, which was promptly answered by the _Dutchess_,
on which the _Duke_ hauled her wind for the coast. It then turned out
that the _Marquis_ had mistaken the _Duke_ for the Manila ship, and
fired as a signal for the _Dutchess_ to chase. They had to wait a
long time before the vessel they wanted hove in sight. It was now a
month later than the usual time of her appearance in this part of the
sea where she was being waited for, and the anxiety of the buccaneers
was increased by their inability to obtain any intelligence of her.
Provisions were again scarce, and even on short allowance there was
barely bread enough to last for seventy days,—a serious matter in the
face of the inevitable run later on to the Ladrone Islands, which
promised to occupy fifty days at the very least. This most unfortunate
dearth of stores, coupled with the growing dejection and mutinous
sulkiness of the men, determined Rogers and his brother commanders to
give themselves another week's chance, and then, if the galleon did
not appear, to sail away to the Indies.
In order to save time the _Dutchess_ was despatched to a convenient
bay to take in water and wood, etc., that as one ship obtained these
stores another might take her place, thus always leaving two on the
look-out. By the 4th she had taken in what was necessary, and the
_Marquis_ replaced her to refit. Until December 21st nothing happened;
then on the morning of that day, when the _Duke_ was in the act of
shifting her helm for the place where the _Marquis_ was refitting, the
look-out man aloft hailing the deck, shouted that he saw a sail bearing
west about twenty miles distant. The English ensign was immediately
hoisted, and in a few minutes both the _Duke_ and the _Dutchess_ were
standing towards the stranger; but on a sudden it fell stark calm, and
as conjecture was hopeless and expectation insupportable, the pinnace
was manned and sent to see what she could make of the distant ship. In
reading Rogers's account, you find your sympathies curiously enlisted
on behalf of those two stagnated buccaneering vessels, and witness
with but little effort of imagination the crowds of weather-darkened,
fiery-eyed men, some in the rigging, some at the masthead, some leaning
in impetuous pose against the rail, staring their very hearts out under
the sharp of their hands at the cotton-white outline, glimmering like
the tip of a sea-bird's pinion on the edge of the distant gleaming
horizon, whence the swell rolls in folds of oil to the wet and flashing
sides of the ships; the officers on the quarter-deck peering their
hardest through the lean and unsatisfying perspective-glasses of those
days; Dampier and Rogers together rehearsing their intentions and
recalling their experiences in voices subdued by excitement; above all,
the old, worn, but gallant _Duke_ wearily dipping her faded, blistered
bends to the swing of the breathless sea, making in anticipation of the
withering roar of her ordnance, now grinning mutely along her sides, a
little thunder of her own with the beating of her dark and well-patched
canvas against the huge tops and massive cross-trees of her swaying
masts. “All the rest of the Day,” says Rogers, “we had very little
Wind, so that we made no great Way; and the Boat not returning, kept
us in a languishing Condition, not being able to determine whether
the Sail was our Consort, the _Marquis_, or the _Acapulco_ Ship. Our
Pinnace was still in Sight, and we had nothing to do but to watch her
Motions: We could see that she made towards the _Dutchess's_ Pinnace,
which rowed to meet her. They lay together some time, and then the
_Dutchess's_ Pinnace went back to their Ship which gave us great
Hopes.” An officer was sent to the _Dutchess_ to ascertain what the
stranger was, and to concert measures, if she should prove an enemy,
for engaging her. When he was gone Rogers hoisted the French colours
and fired a gun; the strange vessel answered, which satisfied them
that she was not the _Marquis_. It is manifest from this that these
privateersmen had no private code of signals amongst them. Indeed
detection seems to have been entirely a matter of the exhibition of the
national bunting, in which there was just the same sort of deception
then as there was in later years, and as there ever will be. Shortly
after the ship had responded, the officer returned with the report
that she was the Manila galleon. The statement fired the spirits of
the crew; they hove all their melancholy reflections on the shortness
of their provisions overboard, and could think of nothing but the
figures they would make when they arrived home with the vast treasure
out yonder, stowed snugly away under their hatches. “Every moment,”
says Rogers, “seemed an hour till we came up with her.” It was arranged
that the two pinnaces should stick to her skirts all night and burn
flares, that their own and the position of the chase might be known;
and it was further settled that if the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_ were so
fortunate as to come up with her together they were to board her at
once: a resolution which Dampier, recalling his experiences in the _St.
George_, was pretty sure to strengthen by his advice.
At dawn the chase was upon the weather-bow of the _Duke_, about three
miles away, and the _Dutchess_ within a couple of miles to leeward of
her. Rogers threw his sweeps over and rowed his ship for above an hour;
a light breeze then sprang up and softly blew the vessel towards the
enemy. There was no liquor in the ship, nothing to fortify the spirits
in the shape of a dram; so a large kettle of chocolate was boiled and
served out to the crew, who, when they had emptied their pannikins,
went to prayers. But whilst they were in the midst of their devotions
they were interrupted by a broadside from the Spaniards. It is not
often that one reads of the English buccaneers going to prayers before
falling to their business of slaughtering and plundering. Perhaps they
had learnt to despise this kind of ceremony from the behaviour of the
French freebooters, who were wont to sing Te Deum and force captive
priests to celebrate Mass in the cathedrals and churches which they
had despoiled. If the Spaniards saw Rogers's privateersmen on their
knees, something of irony might have been intended by their manner
of cutting short their worship and supplications. The Don was fully
prepared; his guns loaded, his little army of men at stations, and
casks of gunpowder hanging at his yard-arms ready to fall and explode
when the attempt should be made to board. The action began at eight
o'clock, and the _Duke_ for some time fought the galleon single-handed.
The conflict was a brief one. The Spaniards had no stomach, and after
Rogers had poured in a few broadsides the enemy “struck her colours
two-thirds down.” His flag was thus flying when the _Dutchess_ came
up and fired five guns at the big ship along with a volley of small
shot. It was mere waste of powder; the galleon had already submitted
and was silent. The victory, it must be admitted, was cheaply earned,
yet there is little doubt that such was the temper of the buccaneers
they would have fought to the last man for this golden prize. She was
a large vessel named _Nostra Seniora de la Incarnacion Disenginao_,
mounting twenty guns and twenty swivels, and carrying one hundred
and ninety-three men, of whom nine were killed and several wounded.
The fight lasted three glasses, that is three hours. Rogers was shot
through the left cheek; the bullet destroyed the greater part of his
upper jaw, and some of his teeth were found upon the deck where he
fell. He was obliged to give his orders in writing to hinder the flow
of blood, and to escape the agony of attempting to articulate. Only
one man besides himself was wounded. Having repaired the trifling
damage they had sustained, they steered for the harbour where the
_Marquis_ lay, and anchored. They found their consort fully equipped
and ready to sail, and her people in good spirits and eager for
action. At night a consultation was held respecting the disposal of
the hostages, and as a second Manila ship was daily expected, they
debated plans for capturing her. After some talk it was agreed that
the hostages should be set at liberty; but the discussion about the
expected galleon ended in something like a quarrel. Rogers, speaking
in the heat of the moment, had censured Courtney for not having shown
the promptitude that was necessary in attacking the _Nostra Seniora_.
This Courtney of course resented as a reflection upon his honour. When,
then, Rogers proposed to cruise in the _Dutchess_ for the coming Manila
ship, Courtney insisted upon making the search in the _Marquis_. The
question was put to the vote, Rogers's proposal overruled, and his
people obliged, to their great mortification, to remain in the harbour.
This incident is related so obscurely both by Cooke and Rogers that I
confess I do not fully understand it. The _Duke_ was in good condition,
and why the three instead of the two ships did not start on a cruise
which, as the sequel proves, demanded even more than their united
strength, is a riddle I am unable to solve.
On Christmas Day the _Dutchess_ and the _Marquis_ put to sea, and
when they were gone Rogers posted two sentinels on the top of a hill
that he might instantly be apprised of a third sail heaving in sight.
Before twenty-four hours had elapsed the signal was made, and in
hot haste Rogers started to the assistance of his consorts, though
the stout-hearted sailor was in no condition for further adventures
just then. He was indeed so weak from loss of blood that he could
scarcely stand. His head and throat were swollen, and the effort to
speak caused him excruciating pain; but he turned a deaf ear to the
entreaties of the officers and surgeons that he would remain in harbour
on board the prize. The galleon was in sight at daybreak, and by noon
the _Marquis_ had succeeded in bringing her to an engagement. The wind
was light, and it was almost impossible to manœuvre the vessels; so
that though the _Dutchess_ and the _Marquis_ continued at intervals to
fire at the Manila ship until dusk, the _Duke_ even at midnight was
still at a considerable distance from the enemy. When the day broke
the wind shifted, and Rogers was able to bring his guns to bear. The
fighting was now severe, and continued so for four hours; the galleon
was hotly defended, though her people lay so concealed in their close
quarters that the privateersmen could scarcely make any use of their
small arms. It was only when a head appeared or a port was opened that
they found a mark for their muskets. The eagerness of the buccaneers
defeated their seamanship. Their vessels were repeatedly falling foul
of one another and throwing the crews into disorder. The guns of the
_Marquis_ were so small that her firing was to little or no purpose.
At last it came to Rogers signalling to Courtney and Cooke to come
on board him with other officers; and then every man telling of the
injuries his ship had sustained, and all admitting that it would
jeopardise too many lives to board or attempt to board the lofty
galleon, it was resolved to let her go—that is to say, they agreed to
keep her company till night, and then in the darkness to lose her, and
make the best of their way back to the prize they had already secured.
In sober truth the enemy had proved too many for them. The _Duke's_
mainmast was so wounded that Rogers expected every moment to see it go
by the board. Her rigging, too, was so shattered by shot that she had
to sheer off in order to knot and splice, being scarcely manageable.
The _Dutchess_ also had her foremast badly wounded, her sails were in
rags, and the ends of her standing rigging were trailing overboard.
Further, there were not above one hundred and twenty men in all three
ships fit for boarding, “and those but weak,” says Rogers, “having
been very short of Provisions;” and that nothing might be wanting to
complete the list of the reasons of their failure, their ammunition was
very nearly expended. Rogers was again wounded, this time in his left
foot. In the _Dutchess_ they had twenty men killed and disabled. The
_Marquis_, on the other hand, came off without the loss of a single
person. The galleon was a handsome ship, very large, carrying the flag
of the admiral of Manila. She was making the voyage for the first time.
Her name was the _Vigonia_; she was pierced for sixty guns, forty of
which were mounted, along with an equal number of brass swivels. Her
crew numbered over four hundred and fifty men, and there were many
passengers besides. It was supposed that she was worth ten millions
of dollars; but it is doubtful whether, even if the buccaneers had
succeeded in boarding, they would have taken her, for Rogers says:
“After my Return into Europe I met in Holland with a Sailor who had
been on board the large Ship when we engaged her; and he let us into
the Secret that there was no taking her; for the Gunner kept constantly
in the Powder-room, declaring that he had taken the Sacrament to blow
the Ship up if we boarded her; which made the Men, as may be supposed,
exceedingly resolute in her defence. I was the more ready to credit
what this Man told me because he gave as regular and circumstantial
account of the Engagement as I could have done from my Journal.”[30]
On the first day of the new year, 1710, they were again in harbour
alongside their great prize; and now being anxious to leave these
seas, they put their prisoners on board one of the smaller captures
with water and provisions enough to last them for a voyage to
Acapulco, and then addressed themselves to the urgent business of
repairing and making all ready for their departure. They renamed the
galleon the _Batchelor_, and a quarrel arose touching the appointment
of a commander for her, a post regarded by them all as of dignity
and importance. Captain Dover, asserting his claims as a merchant
adventurer, and representing the considerable sum of money he had
risked in this expedition, demanded the berth. Rogers and others,
among whom, no doubt, would be Dampier, objected that Dover knew
nothing whatever of navigation, and voted for Cooke. Finally, at the
cost of many high words and much strong feeling, it was decided at a
full council that Captain Fry and Captain Stretton should have entire
control of the navigation of the _Batchelor_ under Captain Dover,
Alexander Selkirk to be the master and Joseph Smith the chief mate. The
island of Guam was then fixed upon as a rendezvous, and on January 10th
the buccaneers weighed for a run to the East Indies.
They were when they started in no very enviable condition. Their stores
were scanty; their live stock consisted of four hens; and of wine or
spirits they had barely the contents of a dozen bottles. The rations
were limited to a pound and a half of flour and a small piece of meat
for a mess of five men, with three pints of water a man on twenty-four
hours for drink and cooking. Rogers was ill with his wounds, and many
of the crew were sick and weak and unfit to do the work of the ship.
Hunger drove the men into robbery. A few days after they sailed some
pieces of pork were missed. Fortunately, in the interests of justice,
the thieves were discovered, and punished by every man of the watch
giving them a stroke of the cat-o'-nine-tails.
What follows now is little more than a journal of the voyage, rendered
for the most part tedious by description and by the introduction of
incidents of little or no interest. Dampier's name seldom occurs; when
it is mentioned it is always in reference to something that helps
to accentuate characteristics noticeable in his own account of his
adventures. For instance, in April, when they were off a point of land
which they took to be the north-east point of Celebes, the vessel was
proving very leaky; which, added to the general ignorance of the ship's
situation, filled the crew with melancholy and irritation. “Captain
Dampier,” says Rogers, “discouraged us very much: He had been twice
here, and therefore what he said among the Seamen passed without
Dispute, and he laid it down as a thing certain that if we could not
reach Ternate or find the Island of Tula it was impossible for us to
get any Refreshment, there being nothing to be met with on the Coast
of New Guiney.” It had been thus with Dampier whilst buccaneering off
the New Holland shore; thus had it been with him too when hunting for
water on the sand-hills of the Western Australian seaboard, his foot on
the margin of a vast region of earth which he had neither temper nor
heart to explore, though he had travelled many thousands of miles in a
crazy ship and with a troublesome crew for no other purpose. This trick
of discouraging the people he led, or was one of, is the secret of his
failure as a commander and explorer. Rogers, a bolder and more hopeful,
and certainly in many respects an equally sagacious man, was not likely
to feel grateful for Dampier's melancholy shakes of the head, and his
gloomy, prognosticating countenance; but his own experiences left him
nothing to say, for though the ships spent the best part of the month
of May off the coast of New Guinea, all that Rogers could observe that
seemed to him worth mentioning was, “It is most certain these Islands,
which are scattered through the Streights, and few or none of which are
peopled, would all of them bear Spice, and afford immense Riches to
this Nation, if they were settled.”
They were in great distress whilst they were in these seas. The men
mutinously resented the wise reduction in the quantity of the food
served out to them; and to save serious disturbance Rogers was forced
to return to the old scale. They sighted land, but did not know what
it was, nor could Dampier help them. Having searched for Borou, an
island of the Indian Archipelago, they resolved to steer to Batavia,
touching at Bouton for provisions. Accordingly they stood away to the
south-west before a strong gale of wind at east. But their progress
was obstructed by some small islands, into one of which they must
have run in the dead of night had the weather not cleared suddenly
and discovered it to them. It was not until Tuesday, June 17th, 1710,
that they arrived at Batavia. At sight of the town the crews were so
rejoiced that they could do nothing but hug and shake one another
by the hand, and bless their stars and question if there was such a
paradise in all the world; “And this,” says Rogers, “because they had
Arrack for Eight Pence a Gallon, and Sugar at a Penny a Pound.”
The ships were in a deplorable condition, particularly the _Marquis_,
which was so rotten with worms and wear that it became necessary to
hire another craft to carry her lading. They sailed from Batavia on
October 14th, and proceeded direct to the Cape of Good Hope, where
they arrived without misadventure and without any incident occurring
in the passage that is worth repeating. Shortly after they had entered
Table Bay twelve sail of Dutch ships came in, which, with the English
vessels then at anchor, made altogether twenty-three ships riding in
the spacious and beautiful haven. The picture is about one hundred
and seventy years old, and it is difficult to realise that the ocean
traffic of those dim times to the Indies by way of the Cape should
have been considerable enough to crowd the spacious surface of the
waters on whose margin stand the ivory-white structures of Cape Town.
Retrospect is often corrective. We have a right to compliment ourselves
upon what we have done and are doing; but it does not seem to me that
our marine achievements can be compared as illustrations of human skill
and determination with the examples of the adventurous genius of an
age when the greater portion of the antipodean world lay in darkness;
when navigation was little better than guesswork; when the art of
shipbuilding was crude, rude, and primitive; when there was nothing
but the heavens to consult for weather; when the tyranny of the winds
was only to be dominated by a kind of perseverance that must be ranked
among the lost qualities of human nature. Despite these conditions the
early mariner crowded the oceans with fabrics laden with the produce of
the known continents, and rolled stubbornly to his hundred ports, often
in suffering and often in distress indeed; yet on the whole freer, in
his valiant ignorance, from disaster than is the sailor of the current
hour. There is no longer need for ships to halt and bait at Table Bay.
The propeller thrashes them to their destination with the punctuality
of the railway-train; or they are wafted by pyramids of canvas—the
graceful and elegant result of centuries of experiment—on a journey to
New Zealand or Japan, which they complete in less time than the old
seafarer took to find his way from the English Channel to Madeira.
But the very existence of the facilities of the engine-room, of the
nimbleness of the clipper-moulded keel, of the capacity of the towering
and exquisitely-calculated heights of cloths to snatch a desired power
of propulsion from the teeth of the antagonistic gale, is, I take it,
an admission of our own weakness when we contrast the ocean-machinery
with which science has dowered us with the contrivances with which
the early seamen triumphed over the forces of Nature and created new
worlds as heritages for a self-complacent posterity. Those twenty-three
ships at anchor in Table Bay, surveyed by the eyes of Dampier and his
toil-worn comrades, make but a little part of a great marine pageant;
yet it is a detail to constrain the gaze. Fancy reconstructs them; they
cease to be visionary; they float before us as substantial fabrics,
brave with pennons and the glitter of brass guns and the gay raiment of
their time. They illustrate the most strenuous of all the periods of
the world's maritime life; for the infancy of navigation was over, and
it had already put on the proportions of a youthful giant, the impulse
of whose unripened vitality was urging it to extraordinary efforts.
Before the ships under Rogers sailed, six more vessels entered the bay,
along with several English Indiamen and a large Portuguese carrack from
Brazil; and when the hour of departure came the homeward-bound (in
all, English and Dutch, numbering twenty-five) rolled stately under
swelling canvas out of Table Bay,—a spectacle that, remote as it is,
and visible only to the gaze of fancy, cannot but stir the imagination
when one thinks of the floating castles, with their swelling sails and
their brilliant streamers, as the van of the ever-growing procession
that was in time to whiten the remotest seas, and crowd the harbours
of countries of which some were then without the impress of a European
foot.
The ships progressed merrily. They touched at St. Helena, and seven
days later at Ascension, and after a passage of three months from the
Cape of Good Hope dropped anchor in the Texel. Rogers and his brother
commanders had now to act with much circumspection; they were informed
by letters from their owners that the English East India Company,
jealous of their success, had appointed a secret committee to inspect
their charter as to privileges; they were also enjoined to exercise
the utmost caution in respect of the Dutch East India Company, and
strict orders were issued that no officer or sailor should on any
pretence whatever be suffered to take any goods on shore, or purchase
the least trifle from any stranger who visited the ships. They remained
in Holland until September 30th, 1711, then sailed from the Texel
under convoy of four of Her Britannic Majesty's ships, and on October
14th the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_ arrived off Erith, at which place the
_Batchelor_ had come to an anchor some short time before. Thus ended
one of the most memorable of all the voyages ever undertaken by the
English buccaneers. The cargo and treasure obtained by this expedition
were valued at between three and four hundred thousand pounds, and
Cooke tells us that, after allowing for all deductions, such as cost of
convoy, agency, lawsuits, and thefts, the net profits amounted to one
hundred and seventy thousand pounds.