bote att Anchor, wheir we sent our man of warr Cannoe ashore to buy
some provissionns. when thay came in thay found itt called
Falmouth.[104] wee Supplied our selves hear with one or two dayes
provission. one capt. Burroughs, understanding we wear in want, came
on borde of us and after went away with one Cook, our Master, to the
governor of Antigua[105] for liberty to come in. we next morning had
the mate of a Shipp which lay att the olde rode to carry us as close
in as he could for which he was very well sattisfied. wee could not
have any permission to come in, neither any deniall, but after some
commanders of March't-men came on borde and desierd our Capt. to goe
for England, he was easy perswaided, thay telling him twould be the
makeing of him; so he came on the deck and bid Every man shift for
himself, for he would goe for England himself; upon which every man
packt upp whatt he had, some for olde England, some for Jamaica, other
for New Engl. everyone tooke his way, onely 7 men abord that had lost
their Voyage,[106] so the capt. and Company thoug[ht] good to give
them the shipp and what was in her. thay thought good to goe downe to
their commission Port, Petit guavos,[107] but the Shipp was so crewell
leakey, that thay hardly have the Patience to keepe her above water to
St. Thomases,[108] haveing but 7 hands on borde, and a shipp giveing
chace to them so that thay loosed all their saile, and was much putt
to itt for the hands, but comein a brest of St. Thomases saw the
Harbor very Plaine, and to be sure we went into a small Harbor a mile
to leeward of the Fort. we wear tolde att Antegua that thiss was a
free Port for Eight years, which we found to be so.[109] the governor
gave us Liberty to come in, and the next day sent out hands to bring
us in to the right harbor, under Commd. of the forte. the next day our
cable brake and she drave ashore; but not being willing to loose her,
gott her off with one Anchor and cable off, and one end of a cable
ashore, and so gott her into the Soft woose,[110] because wee would
not be att the charge of Negro's and to pumpe her. thus the good shipp
_Trinity_, which was Built in the South Seas, ended her Voyage, and
through the Blessing of god brought us amounge our Cuntry men againe,
and thiss being what I can think on att present, being the true
actions of our Voyage as near as I can Remember, my Jornall being
detained att St. Thomases and lost.[111] The Lord be praised for all
his mercyes to us. _Finis._
[Footnote 7: Cassava.]
[Footnote 8: Wafer, pp. 153-154, who lived four months among these
Indians, describes their method of making "corn drink." "It tastes
like sour small Beer, yet 'tis very intoxicating."]
[Footnote 9: The river was that which is now called Chucunaque.]
[Footnote 10: Some affluent of the Chucanaque.]
[Footnote 11: Cartridge.]
[Footnote 12: Still so called. It lies some 15 or 20 miles north of
the gold mines of Cana ("the richest Gold-Mines ever yet found in
America", says Dampier) and from the Cerro Pirre, whence Balboa first
looked at the Pacific, "Silent upon a peak in Darien."]
[Footnote 13: The Tuira, into which the Chucunaque flows at this
point.]
[Footnote 14: Calabash, gourd.]
[Footnote 15: Isla Iguana?]
[Footnote 16: Isla Maje?]
[Footnote 17: Now the Pearl Islands, in the gulf of Panama, southeast
of the city.]
[Footnote 18: Perico, Naos, and Flamenco, three little islands lying
in front of Panama.]
[Footnote 19: Sp. for soldiers.]
[Footnote 20: Don Jacinto de Barahona, high admiral of the South Sea.]
[Footnote 21: Don Francisco de Peralta. The escape of his vessel from
Morgan's men in 1671, bearing the chief treasures, is recounted in
Exquemelin, pt. III., ch. VI. He was put ashore, later, at Coquimbo.]
[Footnote 22: _I.e._, flag-ship. It was probably the same ship, _La
Santissima Trinidad_, of 400 tons, in which Peralta had made his
escape nine years before.]
[Footnote 23: Capt. John Coxon.]
[Footnote 24: Error for April 26, 1688.]
[Footnote 25: Lima. The 50,000 pieces of eight (dollars, pieces of
eight reals) mentioned below were a consignment for expenses, sent to
the governor of Panama by the viceroy of Peru, Archbishop Don Melchor
de Linan. So we learn from an account of this whole raid along the
South American coast, given by him in an official report, printed in
_Memorial de los Vireyes del Peru_ (Lima, 1859), I. 328-335.]
[Footnote 26: Guayaquil, in an attempt at phonetic spelling.]
[Footnote 27: In modern phrase, southwest by west.]
[Footnote 28: Coiba or Quibo is a large island off the south coast of
the isthmus, about 150 miles west of Panama.]
[Footnote 29: Rio Santa Lucia. The town is the present Remedios.]
[Footnote 30: Mestizo, halfbreed, Spanish and Indian.]
[Footnote 31: According to Ringrose, the ring came from the bishop,
the challenge from the governor.]
[Footnote 32: The Isla de Plata (Island of Silver) lies a few miles
off the coast of Ecuador, in 1 deg. 10' S. lat. The Galapagos lie not 100
but more than 200 leagues off the coast.]
[Footnote 33: Gorgona, off the Colombian coast.]
[Footnote 34: _I.e._, when the ship had been careened she remained so
fixed in that position that the men could not, by the breadth of one
of her planks, get her keel where they could work on it.]
[Footnote 35: In other words, there was a tide of twelve feet.]
[Footnote 36: End.]
[Footnote 37: Isla del Gallo, in Tumaco bay.]
[Footnote 38: _Cape_ San Francisco (about 50' N. lat.) not an island;
but Ringrose, p. 58, says, "At first this Cape appeared like unto two
several Islands".]
[Footnote 39: This is no doubt legendary. Isla de la Plata means Isle
of Silver.]
[Footnote 40: Nearer 1 deg. 12' S.]
[Footnote 41: Arica, a Peruvian town now occupied by Chile.]
[Footnote 42: Guayaquil, in Ecuador.]
[Footnote 43: Punta Santa Elena, 2 deg. 10' S.]
[Footnote 44: Leagues.]
[Footnote 45: Armadilla, a small armed vessel.]
[Footnote 46: At Quito, probably. The viceroy-archbishop, _op. cit._,
p. 332, calls the man Carlos Alem (Charles Allen, Charles Hall?).
Besides the viceroy's circumstantial account of this fight at the
Barbacoas, there is one in Dionisio de Alcedo's _Aviso Historico_
[_Piraterias y Agresiones de los Ingleses_] (Madrid, 1883), p. 158.]
[Footnote 47: Payta, Peru, in 5 deg. S. lat.]
[Footnote 48: Punta Aguja, 5 deg. 57' S. lat.]
[Footnote 49: Nearer 18 deg. 30'.]
[Footnote 50: Ilo. It was late in October, not early.]
[Footnote 51: Mora de Sama.]
[Footnote 52: Pedereros, small cannon.]
[Footnote 53: Magellan. The temporary capture of Ilo is omitted.]
[Footnote 54: Coquimbo, Chile, in 30 deg. S. lat. Ringrose, pp. 107, 111,
gives plans of the town and the harbor.]
[Footnote 55: Excepting.]
[Footnote 56: Juan Fernandez. A Spanish pilot of that name discovered
the islands in 1563. Our buccaneers sighted them on Christmas eve,
1680.]
[Footnote 57: The eastern is called Mas-a-tierra ("nearer the land"),
the western Mas-a-fuera ("farther out"). The distance between is about
100 miles.]
[Footnote 58: John Watkins. The new pirate chief had severe principles
as to the Sabbath. "Sunday January the ninth [1681, three days after
his election], this day was the first Sunday that ever we kept by
command and common consent since the loss and death of our valiant
Commander Captain Sawkins. This generous spirited man [Sawkins] threw
the dice over board, finding them in use on the said day." Ringrose,
p. 121. The Spanish accounts call the new captain Juan Guarlen.]
[Footnote 59: This was a Mosquito Indian named William. A precursor of
Alexander Selkirk, he lived alone upon the island for more than three
years, till in March, 1684, when Capt. Edward Davis, in the
_Batchellor's Delight_, in his voyage from the Chesapeake, touched at
the island. William Dampier and several others of Captain Sharp's crew
were now with Davis. They bethought them of William, and found and
rescued him. Dampier, _New Voyage_, I. 84-87, describes the
Crusoe-like expedients by which the ingenious William maintained
himself. He was not the first precursor of Selkirk on the island, for
Ringrose, p. 119, says that the pilot of their ship told this present
crew of buccaneers "that many years ago a certain ship was cast away
upon this Island, and onely one man saved, who lived alone upon the
Island five years before any ship came this way to carry him off."
Several of Davis's men lived there three years, 1687-1690. Selkirk's
stay was in 1704-1709.]
[Footnote 60: Iquique.]
[Footnote 61: Barros Arana, _Historia Jeneral de Chile_, V. 204-205,
points out the impossibility of such numbers.]
[Footnote 62: Sp. _lingua_, language.]
[Footnote 63: In better Spanish, "Valientes soldados, buen valientes
soldados", _i.e._ "Valiant soldiers, very valiant soldiers".]
[Footnote 64: Ilo, between Islay and Arica.]
[Footnote 65: Choros bay must be meant. The present Obispo lies too
far north, and was not named till 1709.]
[Footnote 66: Ringrose identifies this bay and river with the bay and
river of Loa, on the Chilean coast, the bay in 21 deg. 28' S. lat. That
Drake landed there, in his voyage around the world, in January, 1579,
we know from the narrative of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (Mrs.
Nuttall's _New Light on Drake_, p. 80), but the story of the chapel is
of course legendary.]
[Footnote 67: Water-barrels, Middle Dutch _bommekijn_, a little
barrel.]
[Footnote 68: Truxillo, in Peru. The islands may have been the Lobos.]
[Footnote 69: Monte Christi, in Ecuador. The secession occurred on
April 17, 1681. Dampier and Wafer were in the seceding party, which
made its way to the isthmus of Darien and so across to the Caribbean
and home, or to Virginia.]
[Footnote 70: Isla de Canos, in Coronada Bay, off the coast of Costa
Rica, and some 300 miles west of Panama.]
[Footnote 71: Golfo Dulce, where the coast of Costa Rica begins.]
[Footnote 72: The gulf of Nicoy lies near the western end of the Costa
Rican coast. The island was Chira.]
[Footnote 73: It does not appear that there was in Costa Rica at that
time any town of such name or size.]
[Footnote 74: Under this strange name is disguised Jacobus Marques, a
Dutchman skilled in many languages. _The Voyages and Adventures of
Capt. Barth. Sharp_, p. 80, says that he "left behind him 2200 _ps._
8/8 [pieces of eight, dollars] besides Jewels and Goods". "Copas" is
for Jacobus.]
[Footnote 75: Barcalongas. See document 44, note 25.]
[Footnote 76: Colors, flags.]
[Footnote 77: Prizes or booty.]
[Footnote 78: Cabo Pasado would seem to be indicated, but that is in
20' S.]
[Footnote 79: Don Melchor de Navarra y Rocaful, duke of La Palata,
prince of Massa, viceroy of Peru from 1681 to 1689. He did not arrive
in Lima till November. His predecessor the archbishop took great
precautions for his protection against these pirates. _Memorias de los
Vireyes_, I. 336-337.]
[Footnote 80: The ship was the _Rosario_, the last considerable prize
taken by these buccaneers. See document 46. The story of the 700 pigs
of pewter is told in a much more romantic form by Ringrose, p. 80, and
by the author of _The Voyages and Adventures of Capt. Barth. Sharp_,
p. 80. According to them, the pigs were thought to be of tin, and only
one of them was saved, the rest being left in the prize when she was
turned adrift. Later, when Sharp's men reached the West Indies, a
shrewd trader there, perceiving this remaining pig to be silver, took
it off their hands, and then sold it for a round sum; whereupon deep
chagrin fell upon the pirates, who had duped themselves by abandoning
a rich cargo of silver. It will however be observed in document 46
that Simon Calderon, mariner, of the _Rosario_, speaks of the pigs as
pigs of tin. A mass of sea-charts taken from the _Rosario_ is
now--either the originals or copies by Hacke--in the British Museum,
Sloane MSS., 45.]
[Footnote 81: About 4 deg. 18' S. lat., at the beginning of the Peruvian
coast.]
[Footnote 82: _I.e._, they sailed up into the wind. So strong a wind
blows up the coast, that the best way to sail from Peru to southern
Chile is first to sail westward far out into the Pacific. It was Juan
Fernandez who discovered this course.]
[Footnote 83: Fetched.]
[Footnote 84: Distances, in degrees on the horizon, between east or
west and the rising point of a star. By amplitudes, east and west
could be fixed when the variation of the compass from true north and
south was doubtful.]
[Footnote 85: Furled. Courses are the lower sails. 50 deg. S. lat. is the
latitude of the gulf of Trinidad. To the island by which they anchored
a little farther south, as described below, they gave the name of Duke
of York Island, after their king's brother James; this name it still
bears.]
[Footnote 86: Limpets.]
[Footnote 87: But all observers of the Patagonian Indians, from
Pigafetta, Magellan's companion, to recent times, describe them as
having little hair on the face, and accustomed to remove that little.
Ringrose, p. 183, gives the same report as our writer.]
[Footnote 88: These rocky inlets lie between 52 deg. and 53 deg. S. lat., the
four Evangelistas just to the north of the western entrance into the
Strait of Magellan, the twelve Apostolos just to the south of it.]
[Footnote 89: Tierra del Fuego. By "Streights of Maria" the writer
means the Strait of Le Maire, outside Tierra del Fuego, and between it
and Staten Island--a strait discovered by Schouten and Le Maire in
1616, when they also discovered and named Cape Hoorn (Horn).]
[Footnote 90: He means Bartolome and Gonzalo Nodal, who, under orders
from the king of Spain to follow up the discoveries of Schouten and Le
Maire, made in 1619 the first circumnavigation of Tierra del Fuego,
sailing southward, westward past Cape Horn, northward, then eastward
through the Strait of Magellan. The book referred to as possessed by
the buccaneers is the _Relacion del Viaje que ... hizieron los
Capitanes Bartolome Garcia de Nodal y Goncalo de Nodal hermanos_
(Madrid, 1621), of which a translation was printed by the Hakluyt
Society in 1911, in Sir Clements Markham's _Early Spanish Voyages to
the Strait of Magellan_.]
[Footnote 91: _Relacion del Viaje_, p. 48; Markham, p. 256.]
[Footnote 92: The date is wrong, and there is no such cape.]
[Footnote 93: Cape Horn is in 55 deg. 59' S. lat.]
[Footnote 94: Under date of November 17, 1681, the _Voyages and
Adventures of Capt. Barth. Sharp_ says, p. 103, "We find by this
observation, and our last 24 hours run, that we have been further
Southerly by almost two Degrees, than our computation by dead
reckoning makes out, and by many Degrees, than ever any others have
sailed in that Sea, that have yet been heard of: for we were at about
60 Degrees South Latitude".]
[Footnote 95: Probably it was icebergs they saw. The Nodal brothers'
_Relacion_, which they seem to have been following, mentions, p. 37
vo. (p. 245 of Markham), northeast of Cape Horn, "three islands which
are very like the Berlings"; but these are the Barnevelt Islands, in
about 55 deg. 20' S. lat. The original Berlengas are a group of rocky
islands, well known to navigators, off the coast of Portugal.]
[Footnote 96: Error for 24 deg. S., apparently.]
[Footnote 97: Cape Sao Thome, one of the southeast capes of Brazil.]
[Footnote 98: An east cape of Brazil, Cape Sao Augustinho.]
[Footnote 99: 13 deg. 5' _north_ latitude.]
[Footnote 100: Navigators of that time could determine latitudes
almost as accurately as it is now done, but they had very imperfect
means of determining longitudes. These pirates, of course, had no
chronometer. The best they could do was to keep account each day of
the courses and estimated distances that they sailed, to reduce this
to numbers of miles eastward and westward in different latitudes
(their "eastings" and "westings"), measured from their last known
position, Duke of York Island, and from these computations to deduce
their probable longitude. It appears from Ringrose's fuller statements
that they were several hundred miles out of their reckoning when they
sighted Barbados.]
[Footnote 101: January 28, 1682, according to the other accounts.]
[Footnote 102: Speight's Bay, on the northwest coast of the island.
Bridgetown, where the chief harbor or roadstead lies, is at the
southwest, and H.M.S. _Richmond_, which the pirates rightly viewed
with apprehension, lay there; she had gone out to Barbados in 1680.]
[Footnote 103: Deseada, or Desirade.]
[Footnote 104: Falmouth is on the south side of the island of
Antigua.]
[Footnote 105: Lt.-Col. Sir William Stapleton, governor-in-chief of
the Leeward Islands 1672-1686. The pirates sent a valuable jewel to
his wife, but he caused her to return it. As to those who sailed for
England, as related below, (Sharp himself included), "W.D." reports,
pp. 83-84, "Here several of us were put into Prison and Tryed for our
Lives, at the Suit of Don Pedro de Ronquillo, the Spanish Embassador,
for committing Piracy and Robberies in the South Sea; but we were
acquitted by a Jury after a fair Tryal, they wanting Witnesses to
prove what they intended.... One chief Article against us, was the
taking of the _Rosario_, and killing the Captain thereof, and another
man: But it was proved the Spaniards fired at us first".]
[Footnote 106: _I.e._, they had gambled away all their share of the
plunder.]
[Footnote 107: Petit Goave in Haiti.]
[Footnote 108: The Danish island lately acquired by the United States.
The harbor and fort referred to are those of Charlotte Amalia, the
latter completed in 1680. The small harbor a mile to westward was
Gregerie Bay.]
[Footnote 109: The allusion is apparently to the mandate of the Danish
West India Company, February 22, 1675, described in Westergaard, _The
Danish West Indies under Company Rule_, pp. 43-44. The governor, next
mentioned, was Nicholas Esmit [Schmidt?], a Holsteiner. On St. Thomas
as a refuge of buccaneers, neutral to Spanish-English-French warfare
and jurisdiction, see _ibid._, pp. 47-58. Professor Westergaard, p.
48, quotes from a letter of Governor Esmit, May 17, 1682, in the
Danish archives at Copenhagen, regarding our seven remaining pirates:
"There arrived here February 8 a ship of unknown origin, some two
hundred tons in size, without guns, passport, or letters, and with
seven men, French, English, and German. On being questioned they
replied that they had gone out of Espaniola from the harbor of Petit
Guava with two hundred men and a French commission to cruise on the
Spaniards.... [Summary of adventures on the Isthmus and in the South
Sea.] I bought what little cacao they had; the rest of their plunder
they brought ashore and divided among our people. The ship was no
longer usable. I have decided not to confiscate it, in order to avoid
any unfriendliness with sea-robbers. The inhabitants of St. Thomas
have decided that the said seven men shall remain among them". Later,
Captain Sharp himself came and spent his last years at St. Thomas.]
[Footnote 110: Ooze.]
[Footnote 111: This sentence sounds as if our narrator, himself one of
the seven, had finally reached England or Jamaica. If so, he was more
fortunate than some of the others; see the next document.]
_46. Sir Henry Morgan to Sir Leoline Jenkins. March 8, 1682._[1]
[Footnote 1: Public Record Office, C.O. 1:48, no. 37. The writer,
lieutenant-governor of Jamaica from 1674 to 1688, and at the time of
writing acting governor, was the same Henry Morgan who in earlier
years had been the most famous of buccaneers, capturing Portobello in
1668, Maracaibo in 1669, Panama itself in 1671--wonderful exploits,
carried out with great bravery and cruelty. Now he is governor, holds
piracy in abhorrence, and is determined to suppress it! It must be
remembered, however, that his own exploits were carried out under
commissions from proper authority, and legally were not piracy. His
correspondent, Sir Leoline Jenkins, for twenty years judge of the High
Court of Admiralty, and at this time also secretary of state, was one
of the most learned admiralty lawyers England ever produced. Morgan's
view of his own competence as admiralty judge in his colony is given
with engaging frankness in a contemporary letter: "The office of Judge
Admiral was not given me for my understanding of the business better
than others, nor for the profitableness thereof, for I left the
schools too young to be a great proficient either in that or other
laws, and have been much more used to the pike than to the book; and
as for the profit, there is no porter in this town but can get more
money in the time than I made by this trial. But I was truly put in to
maintain the honour of the Court for His Majesty's service." _Cal. St.
Pap., Col._, 1677-1680, p. li.]
_May it Please your Honour_
Since I in obedience to his Majesties commands caused the Three
Pyrates to be executed, The whole party which these two last yeares
have molested the Spaniards in the South Seas are by the help of a
Spanish Pilote come about to the windward Islands; Sixteen whereof are
gone for England with Bartholemew Sharpe their Leader, the rest are at
Antegoe and the Neighboring Islands, excepting four that are come
hither, one whereof surrenderd himself to me, the other three I with
much difficulty found out and apprehended my self, they have since
been found guilty and condemned. he that surrendred himself is like as
informer to obtain the favour of the Court. one of the condemned is
proved a bloody and Notorious villain and fitt to make an exemple of,
the other two as being represented to me fitt objects of mercy by the
Judges, I will not proceed against till his Majesties further
commands; and am heartely glad the Opinion of the Court is soe
favorable, I much abhorring bloodshed and being greatly dissatisfyed
that in my Short Government soe many necessities have layn upon me of
punishing Criminels with death. The passage of these people is
extraordinarily remarkable, for in litle more then four monthes they
came from Coquimbo in Peru five degrees South Latitude, to Barbados in
thirteen North.
Our Logwoodmen have lately had eight of their Vessels taken from them
and their people carried away prisoners, their usage appears by the
inclosed Petition. I am informed that in the Havana, Merida and Mexico
many of his Majesties Subjects are prisoners and the Spanish Pylott
that brought the People about (who is here) tells me That Sir John
Narborow's Lieutenant and nine or ten others are at Lima in Perua.[2]
they are all great objects of mercy and Compassion, therefore I hope
your Honour will not bee unmindful of them....[3]
HEN. MORGAN.
ST. JAGO DE LA VEGA
this 8th of March 1681-2.
[Footnote 2: Sir John Narbrough (1640-1688), afterward a celebrated
admiral, had in 1669-1671 voyaged to the South Sea, as a young
lieutenant, in command of the _Sweepstakes_; in Valdivia bay the
Spaniards had seized two of his officers, and, it seems, still
detained them.]
[Footnote 3: The rest of the letter relates to quite other matters.]
_47. Deposition of Simon Calderon. 1682._[1]
[Footnote 1: Public Record Office, C.O. 1:50, no. 139.]
Relation of the South Sea men.
Simon Calderon, Natural de Santiago de Chile, Marinero de profession,
yendo del callado a Panama en el Navio llamado el _Rosario_, cargado
de Vinos, aguardientes, estano en Barras, y cantidad de Patacas, con
beynte y quatro Hombres pasageros y todo, encontraron en la punta de
Cabo passado como a la mitad del Camino, al navio de la _Trinidad_ y
le estimaron como de Espagnoles, pero luego que reconocieron ser de
Piratas, procuraron ganarle el Barlavento, lo qual ganaron los
Piratas, y luego empezaron a tirar mosquetarias, y de las primeras
tres cargas mataron al Capitan del _Rosario_, que se llamaba Juan
Lopez, y hizieron otras y apresaron el navio y sacaron con las favas
todo lo que les parecio necessario del Vino y aguardientes y toda la
plata y demas que havia de valor, y dieron tormento a dos Espagnoles
para que descubriessen si havia mas plata y curtaron velas y Jarzias,
menos la mayor, y alargaron el Navio con la gente menos cinco o seys,
que trageron consigo y entre ellos el declarante.