THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” OF CAPTAIN SHARP
“Say, that beat anything that Morgan did!” exclaimed Jack. “And yet, I
never even heard of Sharp or Sawkins and the rest.”
“Very true,” replied his father. “Many of the most remarkable deeds and
adventures of the buccaneers and many of the most noted leaders have
been practically forgotten. Fiction has kept alive such men as Morgan,
while others, who were far more worthy of being perpetuated, are
unknown to the world at large. As I said before, Sharp and his men
outdid every other buccaneer and yet not one person in a thousand ever
heard of them or the ‘most dangerous voyage.’”
“But it seems to me they were really pirates,” said Fred. “They knew
the war was over and it was a low, mean trick to tell the Indians to
kill the prisoners after the Spaniards had treated them so well.”
“Of course they were pirates,” agreed his uncle. “As I told you in the
beginning, the buccaneers were pirates—even though pirates were not
always buccaneers—and the buccaneers freely admitted the fact. Indeed,
Esquemeling, Ringrose and the other chroniclers always wrote of
themselves and their fellows as pirates. And as far as letting the
Indians butcher the captives was concerned, you must remember that
Ringrose’s party were the ones who received the favors from the Dons
and he was merely a pilot or navigator and had no say in regard to the
orders given by the captains. Moreover, the ‘reasons he could not dive
into’ were perhaps sufficient to warrant the leaders’ orders. But to
return to the doings of the buccaneers after their defeat at Puebla
Nueva. Sawkins was liked and respected by all the men; he was brave,
courteous, fair and, for a buccaneer, very honorable, and when he was
killed and Bartholomew Sharp was given command of the expedition many
men refused to continue with the latter. They had joined the venture
under Sawkins, they did not care to be under any one else and they
disliked Sharp. Moreover, the new commander announced that it was his
intention to fit the Blessed Trinity as a buccaneer ship, to cruise
along the west coast of South America, ravishing the Spanish towns, and
to return to the Caribbean by sailing through the Straits of Magellan
and completely circumnavigating South America. Even the hardy and
daredevil buccaneers were amazed at this. It was a venture fraught with
the greatest hazard, a voyage such as no buccaneer had ever undertaken,
and there were those who openly expressed the opinion that Sharp must
have gone mad to think of it.
“And there is little wonder that they thought him insane. Imagine a
lone ship—and a half-burned, far from seaworthy galleon at that—going
pirating in the Pacific where every town, every man, every ship was an
enemy; where there was not a friendly harbor in which to lie; where
Spanish warships were numerous; where there was no buccaneers’ lair in
which to refit or provision and secure men, and where the buccaneers
were completely cut off, separated by thousands of miles, from their
own countrymen. And then, even if the ship and its crew survived, think
of the thousands of perils to be faced at every turn in attempting to
navigate the almost unknown Antarctic seas and to round South America
and sail for thousands of miles across the Atlantic to the West Indies.
It was a scheme so wild, so dangerous and so unheard of that nearly
one-third of the men refused to stand by Sharp, and nearly seventy men
declared their intention of braving the perils and hardships of a
return march through the jungles of Darien rather than attempt the
voyage. Among these deserters was Dampier; Wafer, the surgeon; Jobson
of the Greek Testament, and others. Ringrose himself freely admits in
his ‘log’ that he was minded to accompany them and would have done so
had he not been more afraid of the jungle and the Indians than of the
proposed voyage. It is fortunate for us that he stuck to the ship, for
otherwise we would have no record of that marvelous cruise.
“And the deserters had anything but an easy time of it, and often, ere
they reached the Caribbean and their own ships, they heartily wished
that they had remained with Captain Sharp.
“Bad as the crossing had been before, it was now a thousand times
worse. It was the height of the rainy season; it poured incessantly day
and night; the forest was little more than a vast morass and the rivers
were swollen, raging torrents. The Indians refused to guide the men,
owing partly to the weather conditions and partly as they were
disgusted at having been cheated out of their revenge on the Dons and
the joy of butchering them, and the buccaneers were in a sad plight. In
vain they offered beads, cloth, hatchets and similar articles of trade
for guides. They were in despair until one of the men, evidently
familiar with women’s ways, dug a sky-blue petticoat from among his
loot and slipped it quickly over the head of the chief’s wife. His ruse
worked like a charm. The wife added her arguments to those of the
buccaneers, and the chief, throwing up his hands in despair, agreed to
lead the buccaneers across the Isthmus. But even with their Indian
guide their plight was pitiable. They plunged through deep swamps,
fought their way through wicked, thorn-covered jungles, hacked and
hewed a pathway through the forest, swam swollen rivers, were drenched
with rain, infested with ticks, tortured by mosquitoes and almost
starved. For days at a time they could not light a fire; they had no
shelters; the clothes were torn from their bodies; their sodden shoes
fell from their blistered, bleeding feet. Sometimes a whole day’s labor
would result in less than two miles of progress and their best time was
but five or six miles a day. For twenty-three days they endured every
hardship and torture, traveling one hundred and ten miles and losing
their way a hundred times despite their Indian guide. On the morning of
the eighth day they reached a river so wide and swift none dared to
attempt it, and after a deal of argument it was decided to choose a man
by lot to swim the torrent with a line. The lot fell upon one George
Gayney. Unfortunately for him he was an avaricious fellow and insisted
on carrying his share of loot—three hundred pieces of eight—in a bag
lashed to his back. When midway across he was whirled about by the
current, he became entangled in the rope and was carried under and
drowned. But another took his place, the rope was gotten across and,
half-drowned, the party reached the opposite bank. A few days later
they found poor Gayney’s body with the bag of coins still lashed to his
back, but so miserable and spent were the men that they did not even
bother to secure the silver but left the corpse there upon the river’s
bank, money and all. Another unfortunate was the surgeon, Wafer. By an
accidental discharge of some powder he received a serious wound in the
leg and, unable to walk, was left with some Indians to recover. While
convalescing he used his skill for the Indians’ benefit, and the
redmen, impressed by what they considered magic, treated him like a
god. To show their gratitude and esteem they stripped him of his ragged
garments, painted him from head to foot with every color of the rainbow
and enthroned him in a regal hut. But Wafer had no mind to pass his
remaining days as an Indian witch doctor or medicine man. Watching his
opportunity he stole away, and garbed only in his coat of paint,
sneaked off through the forest towards the coast. Months later, after
untold hardships, he came in sight of the sea, and, without thinking of
his appearance, rushed toward a party of buccaneers who fortunately
were at hand nearby. For an instant the buccaneers gaped in amazement,
utterly at a loss to understand who the nude, gorgeously painted
creature was, and not until he shouted to them in English did they
realize that it was the long-lost surgeon, Wafer. Never had buccaneer
appeared before in such guise; they roared with laughter, and many were
the rude jests and coarse jokes passed at the doctor’s expense. But
poor Jobson, the divinity student, was less fortunate. He too had been
overcome and left behind, and while he eventually managed to rejoin his
comrades he was too far spent to recover and a few days later he died,
his Greek Testament still clasped in his hand. But aside from Gayney
and Jobson no lives were lost, and a few days after reaching the
Caribbean shores the buccaneers were rescued by a French buccaneer,
Captain Tristian, along with the loot they had carried throughout their
awful journey, and Dampier’s ‘joyente of bamboo’ which the
naturalist-buccaneer had preserved unharmed and within which was the
closely written journal wherein he had daily set down every event of
interest or note.
“Meanwhile, back at Coiba Island, Sharp and his companions were
preparing for their momentous undertaking. Stripping the other vessels
of all fittings and arms, Sharp scuttled and burned them and proceeded
to equip the Blessed Trinity for a pirate ship. Her high and ornately
gilded poop was in the way, and with axes and hatchets the buccaneers
hacked and chopped away the galleries and moldings, knocked off a tier
or two of cabins and, hastily boarding it up, mounted guns with their
grim muzzles protruding from what once had been the stained glass
windows. Ports were cut in bulwarks and topsides, the decks were
stripped of all unnecessary gear, the rigging was overhauled, and the
ship with the holy name was ready for her most unholy work. At Coiba
they laid in a supply of turtles, salted deer meat, and water, and on
the afternoon of June 6, 1679, they sailed forth from Coiba Island on
their marvelous voyage.
“It is not necessary to relate in detail all that took place
thereafter. They cruised along the coast, captured all the ships they
saw and either sunk them or, cutting away all but one mast, filled them
with their prisoners and set them adrift to sink or sail as the fates
decreed. Sharp at times showed intense cruelty, and whenever priests
were taken he ordered them butchered out of hand and often tossed them
overboard while still living. Ringrose says, ‘Such cruelties, though I
abhorred very much in my heart, yet here was I forced to hold my tongue
as having no authority to oversway them.’ And they captured many a
town, too. Arica, Hilo, Coquimbo, La Serena, were attacked, sacked and
burned; but the buccaneers often came near to destruction also. Only by
luck did they escape, and at La Serena the Dons, under cover of
darkness, swam to the Trinity on inflated hides, placed combustibles
and explosives between the rudder and the stern post of the ship and
fired them. Just in time the buccaneers discovered the source of the
blaze and prevented the loss of ship and all within her. Fearing their
numerous prisoners would plot successfully against them, the
buccaneers, after this, set all the Dons ashore and, finding it
necessary to refit, sailed to Juan Fernandez island.
“It was now December, and the buccaneers spent a wild and riotous
Christmas upon the isle, firing salutes, building bonfires, singing and
shouting, drinking and carousing; frightening the seals and the birds
with their wild cries, startling the goats with their ribald laughter;
gambling and making merry, for which we can scarcely blame them, for it
was the first holiday they had had since leaving Coiba, five months
before.
“And here at Juan Fernandez dissensions among the men once more arose.
Some were for going home at once; others wished to remain longer, while
all declared they would sail no longer under Sharp for the
reason—incredible as it may seem—that he had failed to observe the
Sabbath! So here on Juan Fernandez the ungodly pirates deposed their
commander because he was not sufficiently religious and in his stead
elected a hoary old buccaneer named John Watling. Sharp, naturally
resenting this, was quickly silenced by being cast, willynilly, into
the hold, where he had ample chance to think over his wicked past and
moralize on the psychology of men who would slit a friar’s throat one
moment and clamor for prayers and divine services the next.
“Under their new captain the Sabbath was rigorously observed, and
Ringrose writes, speaking of the first Sunday under Watling’s command,
‘This day was the first Sunday that ever we kept by command and consent
since the loss and death of our valiant commander, Captain Sawkins. Our
generous-hearted commander threw the dice overboard, finding them in
use on the said day.’
“Under Watling, the Trinity sailed to Iquique and there captured
several prisoners, among them an aged Indian from whom they sought to
obtain information of Arica, which they planned to raid the second
time. Evidently, from what transpired, Captain Sharp had seen the error
of his ways and had made up his mind to be a most moral pirate in
future. Having been released from the hold, he was on deck when the
Indian prisoner was questioned, and he protested most vehemently
against Watling’s orders to shoot the prisoner because, so the
buccaneers imagined, he had not told them the truth. Finding his pleas
for the Indian in vain, Sharp dipped his hands in a basin of water and
dramatically declared, ‘Gentlemen, I am clear of the blood of this old
man. And I will warrant you a hot day for this piece of cruelty
whenever we come to fight at Arica.’
“And verily did the buccaneers learn to their sorrow how they had
misjudged the Indian and how true was Sharp’s prophecy, for Arica had
been strongly fortified and garrisoned, just as the captive had
related; the buccaneers were ignominiously defeated with heavy loss;
Captain Watling and a number of other officers were killed, and the
beaten and decimated buccaneers clamored loudly for Bartholomew Sharp
once more to take command. Sharp, however, refused at first to listen
to them, having had enough of their fickle natures, but finding that,
unless he or some one took charge immediately all would be destroyed,
he at last consented, and after severe fighting managed to get the
survivors to their ship, although the surgeons were left behind. In
fact the buccaneers had the closest shave of all their lives at Arica.
Not only were they beaten back, killed and wounded by scores, and
forced to retreat to the outlying country in disorder, but the Dons
were on the point of destroying their boats when they were rallied by
Sharp, and only by a sharp hand-to-hand struggle did the English
succeed in recovering them. Now, however, the men looked upon Sharp
with reverence and awe, for not only had he saved their lives, but with
the superstition of sailors, they remembered his prophecy, believed he
had occult power and cursed the late Watling right and left for having
destroyed the Indian prisoner and disregarded Sharp’s warning.
“The buccaneers were now greatly reduced in numbers. They had lost
twenty-eight killed and eighteen desperately wounded, as well as about
a dozen who had fallen into the Spaniards’ hands, and of the original
one hundred and forty men who had set sail on the wild adventure in the
Trinity a bare seventy now remained who were in condition to work or
fight. But lack of men did not trouble Sharp in the least. Heading
northward, they ravished city after city, leaving a trail of blood and
smoke behind them, and at last put into the Gulf of Nicoya, battered,
weatherbeaten and vastly in need of repairs to both themselves and
their ship. But when off San Miguel dissensions had once more arisen,
and forty-seven more of the men deserted and headed overland across
Darien as had those who had gone before. Their experiences were much
the same as those others, although as the rainy season had not come on
they were more fortunate, but they had many narrow escapes and many
adventures nevertheless.
“With his forces now reduced to less than fifty men Sharp put into the
Gulf, took prizes of the ships there, raided the villages and by good
luck succeeded in making prisoners of some shipwrights and carpenters
who were engaged in building ships for the Spaniards. These artizans he
impressed into his service and at once proceeded to put the battered
Blessed Trinity into condition for the long and dangerous voyage around
South America and up the Atlantic to the Antilles. For, despite losses,
desertions and all, Sharp and the remaining buccaneers were determined
to carry out their original plans. They had now been in the Pacific for
over a year, carrying terror far and wide, swooping upon every town or
village they could find, capturing vessels and ever managing to escape
in their shot-torn, dingy old galleon, and now Sharp planned to make
her as staunch and seaworthy as possible with the materials and labor
at his command. With almost superhuman efforts the deck was taken up
and relaid, new planking was put in her shattered sides, the masts were
all shortened and the ship was rerigged and refitted from truck to
water line. Then Sharp graciously thanked his captive carpenters and
presented them with a vessel he had captured as a reward for their
services. Then, freeing all the prisoners and most of the slaves they
had taken, the buccaneers set sail for the Gulf of Dulce, where the
ship was careened and cleaned, it having been impossible to do this at
Nicoya. The condition that the craft was in can be imagined as she had
not been cleaned, either outside or in, since she had fallen into the
buccaneers’ hands—and the Lord only knows when before that. Ringrose
states that, ‘when we came to cleanse her hold both myself and several
others were struck blind with the filth and nastiness of it.’
“But at last it was done and the Trinity sailed forth from the Gulf of
Dulce and started on her long deferred voyage to the distant Caribbean.
And as they sailed, many a rich prize fell to those upon the one-time
galleon. Within ten days after starting, a ship was taken with over
forty thousand pieces of eight and, by a strange coincidence, this
proved to be the same ship from which they had won so much treasure and
wine in Panama harbor over a year before. Ship after ship they took,
but ever freeing all prisoners and turning them loose in the vessels
after they had been looted, for Sharp had no mind to burden himself
with hungry mouths which were of no use to him. Down the coast they
sailed, avoiding conflicts ashore,—although, truth to tell, there was
little to be got after having raided the coast twice within the
twelvemonth,—until finally, leaving the last settlements and inhabited
lands astern, they bore through cold and stormy seas towards the tip of
the continent. They stopped in at Tierra del Fuego, found and mapped
uncharted, storm-lashed isles, hunted penguins and seals, and battered
by mountainous waves, buffeted by ice-laden gales, crept ever farther
south, searching for the entrance to the Strait of Magellan.
“And remember that they had only the crudest instruments with which to
navigate, only a rough quadrant for finding their latitude, and no
means whatever, save dead reckoning, for determining their longitude.
Their ship, despite their efforts to put it in seaworthy shape, was
leaky, strained and filled with patched shot holes, and they were in
one of the stormiest parts of the world in the wildest season of the
year. Often their sails were torn to ribbons or carried away, the ship
was sheathed in ice, and after tedious beating through storm and sleet
for days they would be driven back in a night farther than they had
gained in a week. Let me quote a few passages from Ringrose’s log and
you will get a better idea of what that handful of grim buccaneers in
the Blessed Trinity underwent. Here, for example, under date of
November 10th, he says, ‘Day being come the wind increased and at noon
blew our mainsail to pieces. Hereupon we were forced to lower the yard
and unbend the sail, lying under mizzen. But that too gave way and all
the rest of the day we lay a hull in dark weather, foggy and windy,
with a huge sea that oftentime rolled over us.’ The next day he
reports, ‘All last night we had furious weather with seas higher and
higher.’ On November 16th the fore shrouds gave way; for several days
hereafter it was ‘so foggy we could not see the stem from the stern’;
they narrowly escaped running into icebergs and, to make matters worse,
their provisions had run low and the men were on the most scanty
rations. Several of the crew were frostbitten; others were so benumbed
with the intense cold they could not stand, and at last they realized
that they could not find the sought-for Straits and that there was
nothing for it but to stand on to the eastward through uncharted polar
seas in the hopes of rounding Cape Horn.
“Day after day they kept on, bending on new sails as fast as they were
carried away; splicing and repairing rigging as it parted; half
starved, numb with cold, often unable to secure a sight to learn where
they were, but ever grimly heading east and north and blindly plunging
into the long, green, storm-swept seas.
“And at last they found they were making northing, the tempests were
less severe, the weather was appreciably warmer, and they realized,
with heartfelt joy, that they had rounded the Cape and actually were in
the Atlantic. By the 7th of December they were well north of Cape
Horn—off the mouth of Rio de la Plata, in fact—but they had sighted no
land since leaving Tierra del Fuego and had not the least idea how many
scores or hundreds of miles they might be from either the South
American or the African coast.
“Now the awful struggles the ship had undergone began to tell, and she
sprang more leaks, until the men, on less than quarter rations, were
compelled to toil day and night at the pumps. Yet they were cheered,
for the weather was constantly becoming warmer and fairer, and though
several men died from the result of frost bites and exposure, the
others took heart. But it was maddening for them to see porpoises,
dolphins, bonitos and sea birds about their ship and yet be unable to
obtain them to eke out their perilously low supply of food. The fish
would not take the hook, the birds gave them no chance to shoot, and
the haggard, dull-eyed, tattered men watched with hungry eyes the
bountiful supply of food quite beyond their reach.
“Since leaving the tropics in the Pacific not a mouthful of meat, save
a few oily penguins and a seal or two, had passed their lips. The only
meat upon the ship was a sow which had been taken aboard as a suckling
pig in the far-off Gulf of Nicoya, and on Christmas Day this was
slaughtered for the men’s dinner. Starvation was staring them in the
face, but on January 5th they captured a hundred-and-twenty-pound
albicore and great was the rejoicing. Two days later they took an even
larger one, and now they discovered that their water casks had sprung
leaks and that only a few pannikins of the precious liquid remained.
Only a quart a day was allowed to a man, and sweltering under the
equatorial sun, baffled with light winds and calms, the men’s plight
was pitiable. In order to keep afloat they toiled ceaselessly at the
pumps, falling exhausted on the sizzling decks, cursing and moaning,
crying for water, and several dying raving mad.
“But now they were well north of the equator. Somewhere ahead, Ringrose
felt sure, were the Caribbean isles they longed to see, and Captain
Sharp offered a reward to the first man to sight land.
“On the 28th of January the glad cry came ringing from the masthead
and, straining their eyes, the half dead men saw the faint and hazy
outline of land upon the horizon. Then cheer after cheer rose from
those thirst-cracked throats, the men forgot their troubles, their
hunger, their ceaseless toil, for all recognized the welcome bit of
earth as the island of Barbados.
“Marvelous indeed had been Ringrose’s navigation. Had he been equipped
with a modern sextant, with the latest nautical almanacs and the most
perfect chronometer, he could not have done better. By sheer dead
reckoning for his longitude, and by his crude instruments to find his
latitude, he had won within ten miles of the goal for which he had
made—truly an almost incredible piece of seamanship.
“Weather-beaten, patched, her rigging frayed and spliced; her masts
awry, her sails mended and discolored, with gaping holes in her
bulwarks, with the charred marks of fire still upon her hacked-off poop
and with her crew more like ghosts than living men, the Blessed Trinity
headed for Bridgetown with the frayed and faded British ensign at her
peak and Sharp’s red banner with its green and white ribbons at her
masthead.
“But the homesick, sea-weary buccaneers were not to set foot upon the
green shores of Barbados, for within the bay lay a British frigate.
Sharp realized that, in the eyes of the law, he and his men were
pirates, and so, with clanging pumps, the Trinity swept by the island,
while the wondering folk ashore gazed in amazement at this strange
ship, this vision that, gaunt and gray and battered, slipped by like a
wraith, and to their superstitious minds savored of the Flying
Dutchman. But the buccaneers’ ‘most dangerous voyage’ was almost at an
end. At Antigua, two days later, Ringrose and thirteen of the men went
ashore and secured passage on the Lisbon Merchant for England, while
Sharp and the others sailed to Nevis. There the ‘great sea artist and
admirable captain,’ as Ringrose calls him, presented his men with the
ship and sailed for Bristol.
“Thus ended that most memorable voyage, that venture which had taken
the buccaneers across Darien, up and down the length of South America
twice, and around Cape Horn and back to the Antilles in a captured
Spanish galleon. Two years had passed since they had plunged into the
jungles of Darien; two years without sight of fellow countrymen or news
of home; two years in enemies’ seas and enemies’ country, and welcome
indeed was the sight of the verdant British islands and of Englishmen
once more.”
“What became of Captain Sharp and Ringrose?” asked Jack. “Gosh, that
was a wonderful voyage. It ought to be more famous than Morgan’s.”
“Sharp and a number of his men were tried for piracy when they arrived
in England,” replied Mr. Bickford. “But they were acquitted. The
specific charge brought against them was the taking of the San Rosario
and the killing of her captain, but it was proved that the Spaniards
fired the first shot and the men were freed on a plea of self-defense.
Their fellows, who after Sharp’s departure made their way to Jamaica,
were less fortunate. Two of the three were acquitted, but the third
pleaded guilty and was hanged. Ringrose himself settled down for a
well-earned, quiet life, but the love of the sea and the call of
adventure was too great. In 1683 he joined with his old comrades Wafer,
Dampier and Swan and went back to the Pacific, piloting the ship Cygnet
around Cape Horn. He was killed a few years later in a battle with the
Dons on the west coast of Central America, but that is another story.”
“But, Dad, you didn’t tell us how much loot they got in all that time,”
complained Jack.
“It’s not recorded,” replied his father. “Owing to the long voyage the
treasure was divided up after every raid or prize. But the greatest
treasure they took they threw away.”
“How on earth was that?” asked Fred.
His uncle chuckled. “I often think what a bitter pill it must have been
for Sharp and the others to swallow,” replied Mr. Bickford. “The San
Rosario—the ship for the taking of which the men were tried—had very
little treasure aboard her, apparently. She was laden with huge ingots
of what the buccaneers supposed was tin and this was thrown overboard,
one of the buccaneers retaining a single ingot as a keepsake. Imagine
the chagrin of the men when, during their trial, they learned that the
supposed tin was solid silver! They had cast into the sea, as
worthless, more riches than they had won on their entire venture!”