THE MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON
“Gosh, I’m glad the Spaniards fooled Morgan and got most of their
things away!” exclaimed Jack. “What became of the treasure, Dad; did
they bring it back after Morgan left?”
“No one knows what became of the bulk of it,” replied his father. “One
or two of the ships were never heard from. They were probably wrecked
or perhaps their crews mutinied and made off with the valuables. One
vessel was driven ashore on the coasts of Darien and the treasure went
down with it. The priceless cargoes of others were buried in
out-of-the-way spots and no one has ever discovered them as far as
known, while a few of the ships returned after the buccaneers had gone.
Of course the town was in ruins and, realizing that the situation was
too exposed, the Dons moved a few miles to the west and built the
present city of Panama, using the stones and bricks from the ruins in
making the more important buildings. And here let me tell you a little
story—a most romantic and fascinating tale that throws some light on
the question of what became of the treasures the Spaniards saved from
Morgan’s clutches.
“In the old city the richest and most famed church was that of San
José. Like all the churches, it received its tithe or share of all gold
and riches passing through Panama, but the brothers who owned San José
saw fit to use their share to fashion a huge altar of beaten gold, a
marvelous, glorious structure unequalled in all the world and which
became famed far and wide. Indeed it is said that it was mainly the
stories of the golden altar of San José and the heavily jeweled
vestments and images in the church that led Morgan to sack the town.
When word of the taking of San Lorenzo reached Panama, the priests of
San José church hurriedly removed the far-famed altar piecemeal and
loading it onto a ship sailed away. Months later, when the new city was
being built, the priests returned and busied themselves in building a
new San José church near the harbor shores in the new city. But they
were evidently no longer rich. The church was a tiny, obscure,
unattractive affair half hidden among other buildings, as it still
stands to-day, at the corner of Avenue A and 8th Street in Panama City.
And within the church, in place of the wonderful altar of beaten gold,
they erected a plain white altar—the poorest of all among the churches
in the city. Time went on. There were slave uprisings, fires,
rebellions against Spain and insurrections. The country was turbulent
and unsettled, but the brothers of San José church had nothing to tempt
robbers, bandits or revolutionists and they and their little stucco
church were left in peace. Even the fires that swept the town and
destroyed many of the larger churches spared the little affair on
Avenue A. Then came the Americans and the Canal; Panama won her
independence, Uncle Sam sanitized the city, established law and order,
and bloody, unsettled days were a thing of the past.
“Then for days the priests of San José church busied themselves with
mysterious doings behind closed doors and at last, lo and behold, where
the white altar had stood, once more gleamed the ancient altar of gold!
Through all the years the friars had guarded their secret well. Under
its coating of white paint the famed altar had been hidden with never a
suspicion of its existence and now that it was safe the white paint had
been cleaned off and once more the glorious altar of precious metal
glowed and scintillated in the sunlight pouring upon it through the
stained glass windows. It is one of the sights of Panama of to-day, but
few know of its existence, still fewer know of its history and in the
little church on a back street few tourists realize that there stands
the most wonderful and the only real treasure salvaged from the ancient
city destroyed by the buccaneers.
“And now, boys, let us go back to Morgan and follow his career after he
returned to Jamaica from the looting of Panama. While he had been away,
peace between Spain and England had been declared, and the King of
England, hearing that Jamaica’s Governor encouraged the buccaneers and
even shared in their raids, appointed a new governor and ordered the
old one to appear before the Crown and explain his behavior. Thus, when
Morgan arrived at Jamaica, he found himself declared a pirate and
placed under arrest along with the ex-governor. And with his
discredited official friend the buccaneer chieftain was transported to
England to stand trial for piracy.
“No one knows exactly what arguments Morgan used or how he managed it;
but he was a glib talker, a man of great personal magnetism and,
moreover, had vast riches at his disposal, and doubtless he employed
all these resources to the best of his ability. At any rate, instead of
being hung as he richly deserved, he was knighted by the king, was
appointed Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica and sent back to the island
with instructions to suppress piracy. Maybe the King had method in his
madness and thought that if it took a thief to catch a thief it would
be well to have a pirate to catch pirates. And in this he was not
mistaken. Morgan, having already won the enmity of his former comrades
and being discredited as a buccaneer, turned upon the corsairs, and
with all the cruelty and unscrupulousness he had exhibited when
attacking the Dons, he hunted down the buccaneers, hanged them without
trial and sent expeditions out to destroy them. But he was such an
utterly unprincipled and dastardly wretch that he could not play fair
even as a reformed buccaneer. While destroying buccaneers with one hand
he was aiding them with the other and secretly was providing funds and
help for his brother and a few chosen friends in their piratical
ventures. Owing to rumors of this and complaints of his tyrannical
rule, the King at last recalled him and Morgan, sailing from Jamaica,
passed into oblivion. Very little is known of what became of him. Some
claim he settled down in England and lived quietly upon the proceeds of
his robberies; others say he settled in the West Indies, and there is
even a rumor that he was assassinated by one of his old shipmates.
Whatever his end, he died unknown, unhonored, hated for a traitor, a
most atrocious scallawag; after a meteoric career of but five years and
the only buccaneer who was ever made a ‘Sir.’
“Now for a change, let me tell you of a buccaneer who found the
Spaniards more than a match for him and met his Waterloo at the hands
of the Dons. This was no less a personage than the Governor of Tortuga,
Monsieur Bertram Ogeron. After Morgan’s raid on Panama, in 1673 to be
exact, war broke out between the French and Dutch, and this gave an
excuse to the French buccaneers of Tortuga to attack their former
friends of the Dutch West Indies. Governor Ogeron, who was quite a
famed buccaneer, built and fitted out a large armed vessel which he
named the Ogeron in honor of himself and, manning it with five hundred
buccaneers, prepared to swoop down on the island of Curaçao. But when
nearing Porto Rico and sailing through the Mona Passage between that
island and Santo Domingo, a violent storm drove his ship upon the
Guadanillas rocks, completely destroying it. Fortunately, or perhaps
unfortunately as it turned out, all the men escaped in boats to the
main island of Porto Rico. Almost at once they were discovered by the
Spaniards who recognized them as French buccaneers, and the castaways
being unarmed and helpless they were immediately made prisoners.
Although the French begged for mercy and quarter, the atrocities they
had committed in the past were still fresh in their captors’ minds and,
finding buccaneers at their mercy, they proceeded to wreak vengeance.
In a short time they had tortured and killed the majority of the
captives and then, securely binding those left alive, they started to
drive them across the island to San Juan as slaves. Throughout all
this, Ogeron had remained unknown to the Dons, pretending to be a
half-witted fool, and his men, to all the Dons’ queries, insisted that
their commander had been drowned. Thinking him a poor demented fellow
the Spaniards left him free and obtained no little amusement from his
crazy capers and insane behavior. Indeed, they found him so diverting
that they treated him with kindness, fed him from their own meals,
while the other buccaneers were given barely enough to sustain life,
and allowed him full liberty. Also among the buccaneers was another
favored man, a surgeon, who was also left free in order that he might
use his services for the Dons’ benefit, and the two at once plotted to
escape and, returning to Tortuga, bring an expedition to Porto Rico to
rescue their fellows. Watching their chance, they took to the woods and
made towards the coast. This they reached safely, but found themselves
almost as badly off as before, for there was not a scrap of food to eat
and no chance of getting shelter or making their way to Tortuga. But
they were resourceful men and, wandering along the shore, they
succeeded in capturing a number of fish in the shoal water. Then, by
rubbing sticks together, they obtained fire, roasted the fish and the
next day proceeded to cut down trees with the intention of making a
raft. Fortunately they had brought along a small hatchet, their only
tool and weapon, and with this they undertook their herculean job. They
were thus busily at work when, to their delight, they saw a canoe
approaching and, hiding in the bushes, they watched it as it drew
towards the beach and discovered that it contained two men,—poor
fishermen,—a Spaniard and a mulatto. Picking up several calabashes, the
mulatto stepped from the little craft and started up the beach,
evidently intent on securing water. Stealing stealthily after him the
buccaneers, to quote Esquemeling’s words, ‘assaulted him and,
discharging a great blow on his head with the hatchet, they soon
deprived him of life.’ Hearing his cries, the Spaniard started to
escape, but was quickly overtaken and butchered. Then, securing a
plentiful supply of water in the dead man’s calabashes, they set sail
and a few days later arrived safely at a buccaneers’ lair in Samaná
Bay, Santo Domingo.
“Here Ogeron told his story, gathered together all the buccaneers he
could find and with a number of ships and several hundred men started
on his voyage of rescue and vengeance. The Dons, however, saw his fleet
approaching and prepared to give the buccaneers a warm welcome.
Unsuspecting, the buccaneers fell into an ambuscade, great numbers were
killed and the survivors who did not manage to escape to their ships,
were made prisoners. Ogeron himself escaped and shamed and beaten
returned to Tortuga, abandoning all hopes of rescuing his unfortunate
comrades. In the meantime, the Dons slaughtered the wounded Frenchmen,
cut off a few heads and limbs of the corpses to prove to their first
prisoners the fate of their friends who had attempted their rescue, and
drove the poor fellows on towards the capital. Here in San Juan they
were put to work at building the massive fortress of San Cristóbal
while a few were transported to Havana as laborers on the
fortifications there. But the Dons took no chances with them. Although
but a handful of half-starved, shackled slaves yet the buccaneers’
reputation was such that the Spaniards kept them constantly under
guard, confining them in separate cells at night, for, to once more
quote Esquemeling’s quaint phraseology, ‘the Spaniards had had divers
proofs of their enterprises on other occasions which afforded them
sufficient cause to use them after this manner.’
“And to make assurance doubly sure, each time a ship sailed for Spain
parties of the prisoners were placed on board, transported to Europe
and set at liberty. The buccaneers, however, had an almost uncanny
faculty of getting together, even when widely separated, and ere long
all the prisoners had met in France and were soon back in their old
haunt at Tortuga ready for another foray. But they had had enough of
Ogeron as a leader and joining Le Sieur Maintenon sailed for Trinidad
which they sacked and ransomed for ten thousand pieces of eight and
then set forth for the conquest of Caracas. Here, once more, they met
defeat, for while they took the port of La Guaira they were
ignominiously beaten back on the awful trail over the mountains to
Caracas. Many were killed, more were made prisoners and only a handful
of survivors escaped and returned, broken and penniless, to Tortuga.”
“Well, I’m glad the Dons did beat them,” declared Fred. “Seems to me
the buccaneers had it their own way too often.”
“Yes, that is true,” assented Mr. Bickford, “but you must bear in mind
that only the successes of the buccaneers were recorded as a general
thing. No doubt they were defeated repeatedly and nothing said of the
matter, and if the Spaniards’ story were told it might read very
differently. Now that I have told you of Morgan, of the ruthless
buccaneers, such as Portugues, L’Ollonois and their kind, let me tell
you of the most remarkable expedition ever undertaken by the
buccaneers; a trip without a parallel in history and which, for sheer
daredevil bravery, indomitable courage, splendid seamanship and
wonderful adventures is worthy of a place in the history of the
greatest navigators and discoverers of the world. Moreover, this ‘most
dangerous voyage,’ as the buccaneer historian calls it, was of real
value to the world, as it resulted in scientific discoveries and data,
in geographical knowledge and facts about the Indians which otherwise
might never have been recorded.”
“It seems funny to think of buccaneers being interested in science or
geography or such things,” said Jack, as his father searched through a
volume for the chapter he desired. “How did it happen, Dad?”
“One of the members of the expedition was a man named Dampier,” replied
his father. “He was the son of an English farmer and at seventeen was
apprenticed as a boy aboard a merchant ship sailing to the West Indies.
Deserting the ship, he tried his fortunes as a logwood cutter, but
finding this held little chance for either riches or excitement, he
joined the buccaneers. But Dampier was at heart a naturalist and an
author. He was fond of study, was a keen observer and wherever he went
he invariably wrote notes recording all he had seen and made excellent
maps and sketches. One would hardly expect the career of a buccaneer to
favor literary work and yet Dampier managed to write an excellent book
while on a buccaneer ship. Often he would be obliged to drop pen and
paper in the middle of a chapter in order to help his comrades battle
with a Spanish ship or take a town, but he kept it up with fanatical
persistence, carried his manuscript and his writing materials with him
wherever he went and left most valuable records. What a queer picture
he must have presented as he sat on a gun carriage busily jotting down
notes on natural history or making sketches of the rugged wooded shores
of some buccaneers’ lair, which he always speaks of as ‘a particular
draught of my own composure,’ while, beside his ink horn, was his
loaded pistol and his trusty cutlass ready for any emergency. His copy
he kept in a joint of bamboo, which, he says, ‘I stopt at both ends,
closing it with Wax so as to keep out any water. In this way I
preserved my Journal and other writings from being wet, tho’ I was
often forced to swim.’
“And along with the author-naturalist, Dampier, was many another odd
character. There was Foster, who spent his hours between battles
composing sentimental poetry and who wrote ‘Soneyettes of Love’ aboard
a buccaneer ship; Richard Jobson, a divinity student and chemist, who
carried along with his sword and pistols a well-thumbed Greek Testament
which he translated aloud for the edification of his piratical mates,
and, lastly, Ringrose, the pilot and navigator, whose carefully kept
log has given us the true history of this ‘most dangerous voyage and
bold assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp.’”