JAMAICA AND ITS PIRATE GOVERNOR
Kingston, the successor of Port Royal, is so well known and has so
often been described that little need be said of it. It is not
particularly attractive; it has no outstanding architectural beauties
and no great historical interest, and is an unbearably hot and glaring
town. Since the great earthquake and fire of 1907 it has been even less
attractive than before, for many of its ruined buildings have never
been rebuilt, tumble-down walls, blackened timbers, and weed-filled
spaces are seen on every hand, reminding one of unsightly ulcers on an
otherwise healthy body.
But as the chief port and largest city, as well as the capital of the
island, Kingston is of importance, and is a busy, bustling little place
with huge docks, a wealth of shipping, innumerable shops, and at least
one first-class hotel, the Myrtle Bank, which is, of course, run by the
Fruit Company.
Compared with other Caribbean ports, Kingston is modern, and owing to
repeated catastrophes in the way of fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes
there is little of the original town left and there is nothing foreign,
quaint, or Old-Worldly about it. But within easy access are many very
attractive and interesting points. There are the Hope and Castleton
Gardens, the Blue Mountains, and countless charming spots in the hills.
Jamaica can boast innumerable excellent automobile roads, and
well-equipped railway trains are ready to carry visitors across the
island to the huge Hotel Titchfield at Port Antonio (also the Fruit
Company’s), to Anotta Bay, Montego Bay, et cetera, while delightful
short trips may be taken by motor-car to Gordon Town, Newcastle, Old
Harbour, and Spanish Town, all of which may also be reached by
trolley-cars if desired.
At the foot of the Blue Mountains—which always seem to have a sort of
lure, like the mysterious mountains of childhood’s fairy tales—is the
Constant Springs Hotel, amid charming surroundings. Gordon Town, beside
the Hope River and nearly one thousand feet above the sea, is a
favorite place of residence, while Newcastle, nearly four thousand feet
in the air and in the midst of magnificent mountain scenery, looks
superciliously from its heights upon Kingston on its green plain
bounded by the sea and the lofty hills, with the thin golden strip of
sand connecting the mainland with Port Royal like (as one enthusiast
has put it) the eye at the tip of a peacock’s feather.
In point of scenery Jamaica has nothing to be ashamed of, for while the
island cannot boast active volcanoes, mountain-crater lakes, geysers,
or some of the other features of the smaller Antilles, it possesses
several magnificent cataracts. The most noted is Roaring River Falls, a
beautiful cascade one hundred and fifty feet in height and two hundred
feet wide, a roaring, tumbling cataract in a wonderful setting of
luxuriant tropical jungle.
Much nearer Kingston is the Cane River Fall, in whose deep gorge the
air is deliciously cool even on the hottest days. At the upper end of
the cañon the falls plunge over a lofty ledge into a deep bowl of rock
rimmed with giant ferns, and here one may pass behind the veil of water
to a cave famed in Jamaica’s history.
Within this cavern, so tradition says, once dwelt a desperate and
notorious brigand known as Three-fingered Jack. For a long time the
triple-fingered outlaw had things pretty much his own way. He was a
sort of tropical Jesse James, in fact, and piled up a comfortable
little fortune in his lair back of the falls. But at last he “met his
meta,” as the blacks say, and was killed in a desperate hand-to-hand
conflict with a Maroon. In order to prove his victory the Maroon
amputated the outlaw’s hand with the three digits and brought the
gruesome trophy to the authorities, who, as a reward for having
destroyed the bandit, settled one hundred dollars a year for life on
the Maroon. No doubt the half-savage black was sorry that every cascade
did not hide the den of an outlaw, for fighting was the favorite
pastime of the Maroons, and to put an end to a man in a good scrap must
have seemed a very easy way of earning a handsome annuity.
Another natural wonder which the Jamaicans boast of is the Stone or
Natural Bridge across the Rio de Oro, where the cañon walls, through
which the stream flows, meet in an arch sixty feet above the water and
are capped by an enormous slab of rock.
Perhaps the nearest and most worth-while point of interest is the old
capital of the island, Spanish Town. Owing to Jamaica’s having been so
long a colony of Spain there are many Spanish names remaining there,
and the memory of the old Dons’ ownership is kept fresh by Rio Cobre,
Rio Nuevo, Rio de Oro, Sabana la Mar, and so on. But—probably because
the euphonious Spanish names were too difficult for Anglo-Saxon
tongues—certain places have had their original names so twisted or
altered that they are scarcely recognizable. Thus Bog Walk is merely a
corruption of Boca de Agua, and has no connection with either a bog or
walking; and the once stately Santiago de la Vega has been dubbed
Spanish Town for so long that no one remembers its real name.
Aside from its name, Spanish Town has nothing Castilian about it. One
may seek in vain for crumbling battlements and quaint lantern-like
sentry-boxes, massive buildings with arched portals leading to
flower-filled patios, embrasured windows with iron grilles or jutting
balconies. It is, instead, more like a country village in England, or
an old colonial town in New England, with white-painted,
green-shuttered houses, grass-lined street and lanes, neat gardens, and
a sleepy, quiet air as though it thoroughly enjoyed the delightful
occupation of dozing in the sun beside the Rio Cobre with not a worry
in the world.
But, after the fashion of every self-respecting Spanish city, it boasts
a plaza (which is rather more like a village green) with an open market
flanked by the old buildings of the days when it was the capital. On
one side is the old House of Assembly. Across the drowsy street is the
King’s House, of red brick with white trimmings, like the typical
court-house of a New England village. Near by is the Rodney Monument,
and beyond, on the outskirts of the town, is the sole remaining relic
of Spanish occupancy,—the oldest church in Jamaica and paradoxically
called the English Cathedral. Mellow with age, the bricks have faded to
a soft coral pink. Above—no doubt erected by the British, for the Dons
were not given to such things—rises a lofty white steeple. Within, the
old church is literally floored with tombs, in which rest the bones of
many of the most notable personages of Jamaica’s past. Some of the
tombs are beautifully wrought works of art by Bacon; others are ornate
with escutcheons and coats of arms, and not a few are exceedingly
quaint and amusing. For example, we may read upon the slab that marks
the grave of an officer who came to take the island from the Dons,
along with Penn and Venables, that the occupant of the tomb “died amid
great applause,” while another, we are informed, “came to an untimely
end by just cause.” After reading that epitaph one feels very much as
one does after being asked, “How old is Ann?” or “Why does a mouse?”
and one is inordinately curious to know what that “just cause” might
have been.
And speaking of that young officer who “died amid great applause,” a
word or two about that remarkable pair with whom he threw his lot, Penn
and Venables, may be of interest. Oddly enough, the two warriors who
took Jamaica from Spain and turned it over to Britain are always
referred to as though they had been partners in some business
enterprise,—“Penn and Venables,”—and never as Admiral Penn and General
Venables. Why such an ill-assorted pair were selected by Cromwell to
undertake the conquest of the West Indies will ever remain a mystery.
Venables was an ardent fisherman, who much preferred writing essays on
the sportsmanlike taking of trout and salmon to fighting, and in spare
moments he wrote a book known as “The Experienced Angler.” No doubt he
was an experienced angler, but he was neither an experienced nor a
brave warrior. In the first brush with the Spaniards at Santo Domingo
he was disgracefully repulsed by a handful of negro and Spanish
irregulars, although he had seven thousand men under him. And when the
strangely assorted pair of commanders reached Jamaica the
angler-general declined to land his troops until all fighting was over;
and according to the historian, “he continued to walk the deck, wrapped
in his cloak with his hat over his eyes looking as if he had been
studying physic more than the general of an army.”
In sharp contrast to this curious warrior was Penn, a jolly, rotund,
blond man who looked far more like a good-natured village parson than a
tough old sea-dog, but who nevertheless showed his mettle and proved
himself a worthy upholder of Britain’s traditions of the sea. Attacking
the old Passage Fort at Jamaica with a small party of his sailors in a
tiny galley, the cherubic-faced Penn led the assault in person and,
storming the defenses, at one stroke took Jamaica. As a reward for his
success he was promptly arrested and thrown into prison in the Tower on
his arrival in England, the charge being that he had returned without
leave; and as a companion in his troubles the morose and faint-hearted
Venables was incarcerated along with him. Penn was soon released,
however, leaving his erstwhile partner to his meditations on angling
and other matters and no doubt pacing back and forth in his narrow cell
much as he had done on his ship off Jamaica.
Another hero of Jamaica, whose body lies in the old Parish Church at
Kingston, is Admiral John Benbow. Above his grave is a black stone slab
bearing a coat of arms and the following inscription:
Here lyeth Interred the
Body of John Benbow
Esq Admiral of the White
A true Pattern of English
Courage who Lost his life
In Defence of His Queene
And Country November ye 4th
1702 In the 52nd year of
His Age by a wound of his Legg
Receuid in an Engagement
with Monsr Du Casse Being
Much Lamented.
Not only did the “wound in his legg” mark the end of one of the most
glorious and heroic battles against overwhelming odds in the annals of
the British Navy, but it was also the sequel to one of the most
disgraceful episodes in British maritime history. Perhaps that last
line on old Benbow’s gravestone has a double meaning, for if ever there
was an engagement which should have been “much lamented” it was that
with “Monsr Du Casse.”
The British fleet of seven ships, carrying over three hundred and fifty
guns, sailed from Port Royal and met the French fleet of five large and
four small vessels off Santa Marta on August 21, 1702. From the first
it was a running fight, and had the British ships stood together it
would soon have been over, but the British captains held aloof, and
refused to come within range of the enemy despite the admiral’s urgent
orders. As a result, old Benbow in the Breda carried on a single-handed
battle with the enemy for four days, hanging on the heels of the French
and pouring broadside after broadside at them, until his spars were
carried away, his bulwarks shattered, his sails in ribbons, his ship
riddled with shot, and the bulk of his men wounded or killed. Each
night the doughty old admiral would work feverishly to repair damages
and keep the Breda from sinking, and as soon as day dawned would begin
pounding away again at the French. On the morning of the 23d, a chain
shot smashed Benbow’s right leg, but as soon as he recovered
consciousness he ordered his bed carried to the quarter-deck, and
there, mortally wounded, he continued to direct the hopeless battle.
But the odds were overwhelming; no single ship of seventy guns could
hope to vanquish the entire French fleet, and when at last the
indomitable admiral saw that his ship had barely enough rigging left to
carry her to port he regretfully gave orders to withdraw. Shattered and
torn, a veritable wreck, the Breda turned and headed for Jamaica with
her tattered British ensign flying defiantly from her splintered
masthead; the wounded admiral shaking his fists at his craven fellow
officers, whose ships slunk below the horizon, homeward bound, and,
despite his loss of blood and the fact that he was almost blind from
shock, volubly cursing the French, while over his head was still flying
the orders for a general attack to which the other ships had failed to
respond.
Upon his arrival in Kingston, Benbow’s leg was amputated, but gangrene
had set in, and after a long and lingering illness, and suffering
agonies, the gallant admiral passed away on November 4th, over two
months after being wounded.
No doubt the failure to obey orders, on the part of the British
commanders, was partly due to personal animosity, for Benbow was a
surly and unlikeable man, noted for his rough and bullying attitude and
cordially hated by his subordinates. But notwithstanding his
peculiarities he was indisputably brave, and it is a satisfaction to
know that the British captains—Kirkby, Constable, and Wade—were
court-martialed, and that Kirkby and Wade were convicted and shot and
Constable was cashiered and imprisoned and died in confinement. Of the
others, Vincent was suspended, Hudson died before the trial was held,
and only Walton of the Ruby, who had taken part in the early stage of
the battle, was exonerated.
But Penn and Venables, Benbow and Rodney and all the others are of
little interest and pale into insignificance as far as Jamaica’s
history is concerned beside that most remarkable and strange character,
Sir Henry Morgan, the pirate chieftain who was knighted and who as
lieutenant-governor ruled Jamaica with an iron hand.
Much has been written of Morgan, in history and in fiction, and his
exploits have become so well known, his unprincipled ruthlessness such
a byword, and his cruelties so notorious that we always think of him as
having scourged the Caribbean and the Spanish Main for years. But as a
matter of fact this most famous buccaneer’s entire career spanned but a
scant five years, and all his most notable deeds were performed within
a space of two years. As in the case of all the noted pirate leaders,
his career of bloodshed and robbery was meteoric. It is hard to realize
that he rose from nothing to be the greatest buccaneer chieftain of his
day, performed feats which had never before and have never since been
equaled for sheer bravery and daredevil recklessness, was knighted,
became the ruler of Jamaica, and dropped out of sight all within five
years.
Morgan was a Welshman, the son of a well-to-do farmer. Finding farm
life irksome, he decided to set forth in search of adventure and
succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Reaching Bristol, he shipped on a
vessel bound for Barbados, where, almost as soon as he arrived, he was
sold as a servant or virtually a slave. Little is known of his life in
Barbados, or whether he escaped or worked out his serfdom, for we next
hear of him in Jamaica, where, still seeking excitement, he joined a
buccaneer’s ship. He was an apt pupil, and, what was unusual among the
pirates, a thrifty soul, and after his third or fourth trip as a
buccaneer he had accumulated enough cash to buy a share in a ship with
a few chosen comrades.
His fellows unanimously elected him as captain and, with a crew
selected carefully from the hordes of pirates who infested Port Royal,
Morgan sailed for Campeche. From the very first he was marvelously
successful, and upon his return from Campeche he threw in his lot with
Mansvelt, a hoary old rascal who was then preparing an expedition to
the Main.
Mansvelt, recognizing the spirit and promising possibilities of the new
accession to the buccaneers’ ranks, selected Morgan as his
vice-admiral, and with fifteen ships and over five hundred men the
pirate fleet set sail on a glorious program of pillage and murder.
Their first blow was struck at Old Providence Island (then known as St.
Catherine), which Mansvelt planned to transform into a pirate kingdom
of his own. With little loss the pirates took the island, established a
garrison of their own men, and sailed for Costa Rica and the coast of
Panama, where they pillaged and destroyed to their hearts’ content,
until finally driven off by the Spanish troops sent by the Governor of
Panama.
Returning to Jamaica, Mansvelt laid before the governor of Jamaica his
plans for establishing a buccaneer stronghold at Old Providence, and
asked for men and ships as well as supplies. Oddly enough, his
Excellency failed to fall in with the old pirate’s plans, and Mansvelt,
realizing he had bitten off a bigger slice than he could swallow by
himself, sailed for Tortuga. Here, as Esquemelling says, “death
suddenly surprised him and put a period to his wicked life,” and Morgan
found himself sole chieftain of the pirate fleet.
In the meantime the governor of Jamaica had thought matters over, and,
Mansvelt being gone, he despatched a ship-load of men and women to Old
Providence. The governor’s underhand actions were, however, brought to
naught, owing to the fact that the island had again been taken by the
Spaniards, and the British ship and its people fell into their hands.
Morgan had not abandoned his predecessor’s dreams of a buccaneer
stronghold so near the Spanish Main, and had written to merchants in
Virginia and New England, asking for cash and supplies to enable him to
fortify and colonize the island. But before a response was received his
plans were frustrated by the Dons’ again regaining possession of St.
Catherine.
Morgan then turned his attention to other places. He sailed for Cuba,
where with twelve ships and seven hundred men he prepared to sack the
interior city of Puerto Principe. The Spaniards, having been warned, by
an escaped prisoner of the pirates, of Morgan’s approach, had secreted
the greater part of their valuables and had prepared for defense. As
usual, however, despite the brave resistance of the Spanish, the town
fell easily to the buccaneers, and Morgan at once began to put into
practice the cruelties and inhuman behavior for which he became
notorious. Shutting the people into the churches, and leaving them
without food or water—“much to their discomfort and inconvenience,” as
the historian naïvely informs us—Morgan and his men made merry,
punctuating their feasting and drinking by torturing the Dons and
striving by unspeakable cruelties to compel them to reveal their
hiding-places for their money. At last, finding all their inhumanities
in vain, the buccaneers withdrew after obtaining a big herd of cattle
which they accepted in lieu of a ransom for the town. Compelling the
prisoners to drive these cattle overland to the port, and then forcing
the unfortunates to kill and dress the beeves, Morgan at last departed
from Cuba’s shores.
It was while the cattle were being slaughtered that an incident
occurred which showed strikingly the curious combination of honor and
rascality which went to form Morgan’s make-up. One of the French
pirates was cutting up a carcass when an English buccaneer robbed him
of the marrow-bones. In the dispute that arose the Englishman
challenged the other to a duel, but treacherously wounded the French
pirate in the back before he had time to draw his weapon. This murder
seemed about to start a revolt of the French members of the expedition
against the British, but Morgan at once ordered the treacherous
Englishman to be manacled, and carried him to Jamaica in chains and had
him hanged at Port Royal for his offense.
Much to the pirates’ disgust, the total receipts from the sack of
Puerto Principe amounted to barely fifty thousand pieces of eight,—not
enough to pay their debts in Jamaica,—and the French members of the
company, still indignant at the murder of one of their number and
disappointed at the insignificance of the loot, withdrew, and hied
themselves to Tortuga.
The success of this first great victory of Morgan as an independent
pirate chieftain brought hundreds of men clamoring to join him, and
within a short time he again sailed away with nine ships and nearly
five hundred men bent on what was the most daring exploit of pirate
history up to that time. This was nothing less than an attack on the
supposedly impregnable fortress at Porto Bello. It met with phenomenal
success, and the pirates found themselves the richer by over a quarter
of a million dollars in ready cash, aside from vast quantities of
merchandise.
By this victory, Morgan was raised to the pinnacle of fame as a pirate
chieftain. Flushed with success, he set forth with a large fleet and a
veritable army of pirates to undertake the sack of Maracaibo. Again
fortune favored, and Morgan, exhibiting marvelous strategic ability,
not only took the town but managed to destroy the Spanish fleet which
had sought to block his escape, returning to Jamaica with nearly half a
million dollars’ worth of loot.
Up to this time Morgan had been really within the pale of the law; for,
Spain and England being at war, he and his men, as well as the other
buccaneers, were regarded as legitimate privateers. But soon after his
sack of Maracaibo peace between the nations was declared, and Morgan,
foreseeing that Jamaica might become unpleasant for him and his
fellows, withdrew to Tortuga, where he planned his most famous exploit,
the attack on Panama.
Upon his return from this astoundingly daring and successful expedition
Morgan was promptly arrested when he reached Jamaica, and in company
with the governor (who had favored the pirates) was sent to England for
trial. By his wonderful personality, specious arguments, and probably a
wise distribution of a part of his loot where it would do the most
good, the redoubtable Harry managed to escape the penalties of the law
provided for pirates and was looked upon as a hero rather than a
malefactor. Indeed, instead of being hanged in chains, Morgan was
knighted, and sent back to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor. No doubt the
king believed that it took a pirate to catch a pirate, and realized
that Sir Henry was unprincipled enough to turn traitor to his former
associates as long as the government paid him well.
In this his Majesty was not mistaken, for Morgan ruled the island with
an iron hand. On his return from Panama he had cheated his men, and had
made way with the greater portion of the booty, leaving his fellows to
shift for themselves. When, later, these deserted rascals made their
way to Jamaica they denounced his treachery in no measured terms. As a
result, Morgan was as unpopular among the buccaneers as he had formerly
been popular. But it did little good for the disgruntled pirates to
rail and threaten reprisals when the object of their venom was the
ruler of Jamaica. Morgan had it in his power to make short shrift of
the pirates, and despite the fact that they had served under him and
had stood by his side in many a desperate battle, Sir Henry hanged them
out of hand, often without trial of any sort, until Jamaica became so
hot for the lieutenant-governor’s one-time associates that the majority
betook themselves to Tortuga and rejoined their former French partners.
Morgan, however, was as crooked as a governor as he had been when a
pirate; and the fact that he was a Sir altered his character not one
jot. He had never believed in letting his one hand know what the other
was doing, and while he publicly hanged pirates in chains he secretly
furnished cash and outfits for his brother and a few chosen friends to
go a-pirating. Rumors of this leaked out; Morgan’s severities became so
onerous that even the law-abiding inhabitants of the island rebelled,
and as a result, he was recalled. Virtually nothing is known of his
life after his recall; there is a deal of confusion as to where he
lived or how he died, and not a monument, a tablet, or an inscription
in Jamaica keeps green the memory or the deeds of Sir Henry Morgan,
pirate, governor, and villain.