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THE MONARCHS OF THE MAIN;
Or,
Adventures of the Buccaneers.
by
GEORGE W. THORNBURY, ESQ.
"One foot on sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never."
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. III.
London:
Hurst and Blackett, Publishers,
Successors to Henry Colburn,
13, Great Marlborough Street.
1855.
London: Sercombe and Jack, 16 Great Windmill Street.
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER I.--RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.
As a young French Officer joins De Graff, at St. Domingo--Cruises round
Carthagena--Crosses the Isthmus--Hardships--Joins the Buccaneer
Fleet--Grogniet, the French Captain--Previous history of his Life--Fight
with Greek mercenaries on the island--Take La Seppa--Engagement off
Panama--Take Puebla Nueva--Separate from English--Capture Leon--Sack
Chiriquita--Burn Granada--Storm Villia--Surprised by river
ambuscade--Treachery of Greek spy--Capture vessels--Behead Spanish
prisoners--Letter of Spanish President--Burning of the
Savannahs--Quarrel between French and English--Attack on
Quayaquilla--Love adventure of De Lussan--Retreat of French Buccaneers
by land over the Isthmus of Darien--Passage from North to South
Pacific--Great danger--Pass between the mountains--Daring stratagem of
De Lussan--Escape--The river of the torrents--Rafts--Arrives at St.
Domingo 1
CHAPTER II.--THE LAST OF THE BROTHERHOOD.
Sieur de Montauban--Cruises on the coast of Guinea--Captures English
man-of-war--Escape from explosion--Life with the negro king--Laurence de
Graff--His victories--Enters the French service--Treachery--Buccaneers
join in French expedition and take Carthagena--Buccaneer
marksmen--Robbed of spoil--Return and retake the city--Capture by
English and Dutch fleets, 1698--Buccaneers wrecked with
D'Estrees--Grammont takes Santiago--Captures Maracaibo, Gibraltar, and
Torilla--Lands at Cumana--Enters the French service--Lost in a farewell
cruise 105
CHAPTER III.--DESTRUCTION OF THE FLOATING EMPIRE.
Peace of Ryswick--Attempts to settle the Buccaneers as planters--They
turn pirates--Blackbeard and Paul Jones--Last expedition to the Darien
mines, 1702 157
CHAPTER IV.--THE PIRATES OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND THE KINGS OF MADAGASCAR.
Laws and dress--Government--Blackbeard--His enormities--Captain Avery
and the great Mogul--Davis--Lowther--Low--Roberts--Major Bonnet--Captain
Gow--The Guinea coast--Narratives of pirate prisoners--Sequel 163
List of Authorities.
Buccaneer Chiefs.
MONARCHS OF THE MAIN.
CHAPTER I.
RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.
Joins De Graff--Cruises round Carthagena--Crosses the
Isthmus--Hardships--Joins Buccaneer fleet--Grogniet--Previous
history of the vessels--Fight with Greek mercenaries--Take La
Seppa--Engagement off Panama--Take Puebla Nueva--Separate from
English--Take Leon--Take Chiriquita--Take Granada--Capture
Villia--Surprised by ambuscade--Treachery of Greek spy--Capture
vessels--Behead prisoners--Burn the savannahs--Quarrel between
French and English--Take Guayaquil--Love adventure of De
Lussan--Retreat by land from North to South Pacific--Daring
stratagem of De Lussan--Escape--River and torrents--Rafts--Arrive at
St. Domingo.
For the cruises of Grogniet we are indebted to the pages of Ravenau de
Lussan, a young soldier, as brave and as sagacious as Xenophon.
On the 22nd of November, 1684, Ravenau de Lussan departed from Petit
Guaves with a crew of 120 adventurers, on board of a prize lately taken
near Carthagena by Captain Laurence de Graff. Their intention was to
join themselves to a Buccaneer fleet then cruising near Havannah. They
had hitherto acted as convoy to the Lieutenant-General and the Intendant
of the French colonies, who were afraid of being attacked by the Spanish
piraguas. Soon after descrying the mainland, they were hailed by a
French tartane, who, not believing that they were of his own nation, or
had a commission from the Count of Tholouse, the Lord High Admiral of
France, gave them two guns and commanded them to strike. The Buccaneers,
thinking they had met a Spaniard, knocked out the head of two barrels of
powder, intending to burn themselves and blow up the vessel, rather than
be cruelly tortured and hung at the yard-arm with their commissions
round their necks. A signal, however, discovered the mistake, and they
were soon after joined by the vessels they sought. One of these was the
_Mutinous_, formerly the _Peace_, commanded by Captain Michael
Landresson, and carried fifty guns. The other was the _Neptune_,
formerly the _St. Francis_, and carried forty-four guns. They had both
been Spanish armadillas, had sallied out of Carthagena to take Captain
De Graff, Michael, Quet, and Le Sage, and were themselves captured
before the very walls. The four other boats belonged to Rose Vigneron,
La Garde, and an "English traitor from Jamaica." They were then watching
for the patache of Margarita, and a squadron of Spanish ships.
At Curacoa they sent a boat ashore to ask leave to land and remast
Laurence de Graff's vessel that had suffered in a hurricane, but were
refused, although they showed their commission, and the men who landed
were required to leave their swords at the gate. At Santa Cruz they
saluted the fort, and the governor, finding 200 of them roaming about
the town, commanded them by drum-beat to return to their ships,
offering them two shallops for two pieces of eight a man to take them to
their ships, but refusing to let them walk through the island. They
found the reason of this was that Michael and Laurence's ships had
lately taken 200,000 pieces of eight in two Dutch ships near the
Havannah. This the freebooters did not touch, being at peace with
Holland, but the sailors had stolen it and laid it to the French.
Arriving at Cape La Vella, they placed fifteen sentinels to watch for
the patache, and sent a boat to the La Hache river to obtain prisoners,
but, in spite of various stratagems, failed in the attempt. A dispute
now arose among the crews, who were weary of waiting for the patache,
such disputes invariably breaking out in all seasons of misfortune, when
union was more than usually necessary.
Laurence de Graff, whom they accused of fraud, sailed at once for St.
Domingo, followed by eighty-seven men in the prize, and Ravenau
accompanied Captain Rose and Captain Michael to Carthagena, where they
captured seven piraguas laden with maize. From the prisoners they heard
that two galleons lay in the port, that the fleet was at Porto Bello,
and that some ships were about to set out. Soon after this, finding
themselves separated from Captain Rose and Michael, Ravenau determined
to cross over the continent and get into the South Sea, as he heard a
previous expedition some months before had done.
Near Cape Matance a remarkable adventure happened. A Spanish soldier,
belonging to the galleons, who had been taken in one of the maize
vessels, although treated with every kindness, attempted to drown
himself by throwing himself into the sea; his body, however, floated on
its back, although he did all he could to drown, till at last, refusing
the tackle thrown him from very compassion, he turned himself upon his
face, and sank to the bottom. On landing at Golden Island and fixing a
flag to warn the Indians, they saw a pennon hoisted upon the shore, and
discovered it to belong to three of Captain Grogniet's men, who had
refused to follow the expedition, which had just started for the South
Sea. Some Indians soon after brought them letters left for the first
freebooters who should land, announcing that Grogniet and 170 men had
gone into the South Sea, and that 115 Englishmen had preceded them. Soon
after Michael and Rose, pursuing a Spanish vessel from Santiago to
Carthagena, came in to water, and many of the crew resolved to join
their march. 118 men left Michael, and the whole sixty-four of Rose's
crew, reimbursing the owners, burnt their vessel and joined them.
Ravenau's ship was left in the care of Captain Michael, and the united
264 men now encamped on shore.
On Sunday, March 1st, 1685, after recommending themselves to the
Almighty's protection, the expedition set out under the command of
Captains Rose, Picard, and Desmarais, with two Indian guides and forty
Indian porters.
The country proved so rugged that they could only travel three leagues a
day; it was full of mountains, precipices, and impenetrable forests.
Great rains fell, and increased the hardship of the journey, and the
weight of their arms and ammunition clogged them in ascending the
precipices. On descending into the plain, which, though pathless,
appeared smooth and level, they found they had to cross the same river
forty-four times in the space of only two leagues, and this upon
dangerous and slippery rocks. Arriving next day at an Indian
caravansery, they remained some time shooting deer, monkeys, and wild
hogs, flame-coloured birds, wild pheasants, and partridges that abounded
in the woods. At length, after six days of painful and wearisome travel,
the Buccaneers reached the Bocca del Chica river, that empties itself in
the South Sea. Here, guided by the Indians, they fell to work making
canoes, and bartered knives, needles, and hatchets, with the savages,
for maize, potatoes, and bananas. Though well assured that their march
had been impossible but for the friendliness of these savages, they
still kept on their guard, fearing treachery. "They had," says Ravenau,
with a pious sigh of pity, "no sign of religion or of the knowledge of
God amongst them, holding that they have communion with the devil," and,
indeed, as he declares, after spending solitary nights in the woods,
often foretelling events to the Frenchmen, that came true to the
minutest detail.
Just as they had finished making their canoes, Lussan heard that the
English expedition, under Captain Townley, had captured two provision
vessels from Lima, and soon after one of Grogniet's men, who had been
lost while hunting, joined them. Hearing that Grogniet awaited them at
King's Islands, before he attacked the Peru fleet, they started on the
1st of April in fourteen canoes, with twenty oars a piece, and with a
score of Indian guides, who were sanguine of plunder. On the fourth they
halted for stragglers, and mended their canoes, much injured by the
rocks and flats of the river. In some places they were even forced to
carry their boats, or to drag them over fallen trees that blocked the
deeper parts by the flood. Several men died, and many were seized with
painful diseases, produced by hard food and immersion in the water.
They were now reduced to a handful of raw maize a day.
From some Indians sent forward to meet them, they heard that provisions
awaited them at some distance, and that 1000 Spaniards had prepared an
ambuscade on the river's banks. This, however, they avoided, by stirring
only at dark, and then without noise. Surprised one night by the tide,
the canoes were driven swiftly down the river, and some of them upset
against a snag; the men were saved, but the arms and ammunition were
lost. On approaching the Indian ambuscade at Lestocada, they placed
their canoes one in the other, and telling the sentinels that they were
Indian boats, bringing salt into the South Sea, escaped unhurt. On the
12th it grew so dark that the rowers could hardly see each other, and
the heavy rain filled the boat so dangerously as to require two men to
bale perpetually. At midnight they entered shouting into the South Sea,
and found the provisions awaiting them at Bocca Chica, together with two
barks to bring them to the fleet. Resting for a day or two, they
repaired to the King's Islands to await the ships. These mountainous
islands were the stronghold of Maroon negroes.
On the 22nd, Easter Day, the fleet arrived. It consisted of ten vessels,
Captain David's frigate of thirty-six guns, Captain Samms, vice-admiral,
with sixteen guns, Captain Townley, with two ships; Captain Grogniet,
Captain Brandy, and Captain Peter Henry had also each a vessel, and the
two small barks were commanded by quartermasters. Except Grogniet, who
was a Frenchman, and David, who was a Fleming, the rest were all
Englishmen. Their total force amounted to the number of 1100.
Of the different vessels, Ravenau gives the following laudatory account.
The admiral's belonged to the English, who, at St. Domingo, had
surprised a long bark, commanded by Captain Tristan, a Frenchman, while
waiting for a wind. They took next a Dutch ship, and, changing vessels,
went and made several prizes on the coast of Guinea, and, at Castres
capturing a vessel from Hamburg, joined this expedition. They were,
Ravenau declared, little better than pirates, attacking even, their own
countrymen, which no true Buccaneer ever did. They had, a short time
before, been chastised by a frigate, who, giving them a broadside and a
volley of small shot, killed their captain and twenty men.
The vice-admiral's was a vessel they had forced to join them, and had
lately taken a ship called the _Sainte Rose_, laden with corn and wine,
bound from Truxillo to Panama, and this vessel Davis gave to the French.
The others were all prizes captured in the South seas.
The holy alliance soon after took an advice boat that was carrying
letters from Madrid to Panama, and despatches from the viceroy of Peru;
but both the captain and pilot were bound by an oath rather to die than
deliver up their packets or divulge any secret, and had thrown overboard
the rolls as well as a casket of jewels. On the same evening 500 men, in
twenty-two canoes, embarked to take La Seppa, a small town seven leagues
to windward, of Panama. The next day, early in the morning, two armed
piraguas, manned with Spanish mercenaries, seeing some of the Buccaneer
canoes and forty-six men approaching them, ran ashore on an island in
the bay and prepared to defend themselves. These troops were composed of
all nations, and had been sent to defend this coast. One of the "Greek"
boats split on the beach. The other the Buccaneers took, but the
fugitives, planting their flag of defiance on a rising ground, fought
desperately, and compelled the freebooters to land on another part of
the island and take them in the rear. After an hour's conflict they fled
into the woods, leaving thirty-five men dead round their colours and two
prisoners.
The attack upon La Seppa proved a failure, for the Sea Rovers had to row
two leagues up a river, where they were soon discovered by the
sentinels. Yet for all this they fell furiously on, and took it with the
loss of only one man; but the booty proved inconsiderable.
The fleet now anchored at the beautiful islands called the Gardens of
Panama. All the rich merchants of the city had pleasure-houses here
surrounded by rich orchards and arbours of jessamine, and watered by
rills and streams. The hungry sailors revelled in the fruits, and reaped
plentiful harvests of maize and rice, which Ravenau says "the Spaniards,
I believe, did not sow with an intention they should enjoy."
On the 8th of May they passed the old and new towns of Panama in bravado
with colours and streamers flying, anchored at Tavoga, another island of
pleasure. Having caulked their ships, they sent out a long bark as a
scout, and arranged a plan of attacking the Spanish fleet. Davis and
Grogniet were to board the admiral; Samms and Brandy the vice-admiral;
and Henry and Townley the patache; while the armed piraguas would hover
about and keep off the enemy's fire-ships. The next day they put ashore
forty prisoners at Tavoga; and the same day, the sound of cannon, which
they could not account for, announced the unobserved arrival of the
Spanish fleet at Panama. The whole Buccaneer squadron, expecting a
battle soon, took the usual oath that they would not wrong one another
to the value of a piece of eight, if God was pleased to give them the
victory over the Spaniard.
They had scarcely discovered from a Spanish prisoner that the fleet had
actually arrived, and was careening and remanning before they ventured
out, when Captain Grogniet, raising his flag seven times, gave notice to
make quickly ready. The Buccaneers doubled the point of the island where
they had anchored, and saw seven great vessels bearing down upon them
with a bloody flag to the stern and a royal one at their masts. The
Frenchmen, mad with joy at the prospect of such prizes, and thinking
them already their own, threw their hats into the sea for joy. It was
now noon. The rest of the day was spent by both fleets in trying to
obtain the weather-gauge, and at sunset they exchanged a broadside. In
the night a floating lanthorn deceived the Buccaneers, and in the
morning they found themselves all still to leeward, with the exception
of two vessels which had no guns. Although terribly mauled by the
Spanish shot, the English admiral and vice-admiral resolved to die
fighting rather than let one vessel be taken, although both being good
sailors they might have at once saved themselves. The Spaniards,
refusing to board, battered them safely at a distance, and prevented
Grogniet from joining them, while Peter Henry's ship, having received
more than 120 cannon shot, sheered off and was taken by two piraguas.
The long bark, sorely handled, was deserted by her crew, who threw their
guns overboard and left the Spanish prisoners to shift for themselves.
These wretches attempted to rejoin their countrymen; but the Spanish
admiral, mistaking them for enemies, sank them with his cannon.
Peter Henry's vessel reached the isle of St. John de Cueblo, twenty-four
leagues from Panama, with five feet of water in the hold, and having
repaired, rejoined his fleet in about a fortnight. They found that
Captain Davis had been hard plied, having received two shots in his
rudder, and six of his men were wounded, but only one killed. Captain
Samms had been no less put to it. His poop was half swept off, and he
had received several shots between wind and water. He had had three men
wounded, and his mate had had his head carried off by a cannon ball. The
smaller vessels had lost no men, but had a few wounded. The Spanish
admiral, they found, had carried 56 guns, the vice-admiral 40, the
patache 28, and the conserve 18. The fire-ships had also been mounted
with cannon to conceal their real purpose. On considering the disparity
of force, and the little loss his companions received, Ravenau seems to
have no doubt that if they could have intercepted the Spaniards before
they entered Panama, and could have got the weather-gauge of them, he
should have returned through the straits with wealth enough to have
lived all his life at ease, and have escaped three more years of danger
and fatigue.
Not the least discouraged by this repulse, the freebooters landed 300
men, from five canoes, to surprise the town of Puebla Nueva. Rowing two
leagues up a very fine river, they captured one sentinel, but another
escaped and gave the alarm. They found the place deserted, but took a
ship on their way back.
A quarrel broke out here between the French and the English. The latter,
superior in numbers, would have taken Grogniet's ship away, and given it
to Townley, had not the Frenchmen put on a determined front. Refusing to
acknowledge this assumption of dominion, 130 of them banded themselves
apart, and Grogniet's crew made them altogether 330 in number.
"Besides national animosity, one of the chief reasons," says Lussan,
"that made us disagree was their impiety against our religion, for they
made no scruple when they got into a church to cut down the arms of a
crucifix with their sabres, or to shoot them down with their fusils and
pistols, bruising and maiming the images of the saints with the same
weapons, in derision to the adoration we Frenchmen paid unto them. And
it was chiefly from these horrid disorders that the Spaniards equally
hated us all, as we came to understand by divers of their letters that
fell into our hands." We have no doubt at all that, but for these
"horrible disorders," the Spaniards would have considered the death of
their children and the loss of their money as real compliments.
Returning to the isle of St. John, both nations in separate encampments
began to cut down acajou trees to hollow into canoes in place of those
they had lost in the fight.
These trees were so large that one trunk would hold eighty men. Afraid
of the English, the Frenchmen placed a sentinel in a high tree on the
sea-shore, to watch both the camps, and also to give the signal if any
Spanish vessel approached. A Buccaneer ship putting into the harbour,
they discovered it to be commanded by Captain Willnett. Forty of his
crew left him, and joined the English, but eleven Frenchmen remained
with Grogniet. This vessel had just captured a corn ship near Sansonnat,
and hearing of other brothers being on the south coast, had set out in
search of them. The Frenchmen were now very short of food, having
little powder, and not daring to waste it upon deer and monkeys when
Spaniards were at hand, for in fifteen days the Englishmen had eaten or
driven away all the turtle. They were reduced to an allowance of two
turtle for 330 men in forty-eight hours. Many of the men wandering into
the woods ate poisonous fruits. Others were bitten by serpents, and died
enduring terrible pains, ignorant of the fruit which is an antidote to
such wounds. Several were devoured by crocodiles.
While in this strait, the English sent a quartermaster to ask the French
to join in an expedition against the town of Leon, being too weak by
themselves. The wounded vanity of the French contended with their
hunger. They knew that the English had plenty of provisions, brought in
Willnett's ship, and thirty men, weary of fasting, left Grogniet and
joined Davis. But Ravenau's party having but one ship asked for another,
in order that they might keep together, and this being refused, broke
off the treaty.
As soon as the Leon party had embarked, the French, commanded by Captain
Grogniet, also started with 120 men in five canoes, leaving 200 in the
island to build more canoes, and join them on the continent. Coming on
the mainland to a cattle station, and afterwards to a sugar plantation,
they took several prisoners whom they found ignorant of the disjunction
of the French and English. Sending back a canoe with provisions to the
island, they landed again about forty leagues to leeward of Panama, and
at cock-crowing surprised a Spanish estantia, and took fifty prisoners,
including a young man and woman of rank who promised ransom. These they
carried to the island Ignuana, and received the money after a
fortnight's delay.
On their return to St. John's they found that 100 men had been to Puebla
Nueva, and taken the place, although discovered by the sentinels, and
had remained there two days in spite of continual attacks. The commander
of the place had come with a trumpet to speak to them, and inquired why,
being English, they fought under French colours. But they, not
satisfying his curiosity, fiercely told him to be gone from whence he
came. Eight of them, having strayed from the main body, had been bravely
set on by 150 Spaniards, who killed two of them, but, with all the
advantage they had of numbers, could not hinder the other six from
recovering the main guard, who fought and retreated with extraordinary
vigour.
Once more reunited, these restless Norsemen started to the mainland in
six canoes, 140 in number, to visit the sugar plantation near St. Jago,
where they had been before. Two men were sent to the cattle station to
obtain the ransom of the master, whom they kept prisoner, and others
visited the sugar works in search of some cauldrons, which they needed;
and, fired at hearing the governor of St. Jago, with 800 men, had
visited the place since their departure, they sent to dare him to meet
them.
Careening their ships and taking in water and wood, they would at once
have sailed away, but were detained by eighteen days' rain, during which
time the sun did not once appear. This part of the South Sea was
proverbial for continual rains, and was called by the Spaniards "The
Droppings." "These rains," Ravenau says, "not only rotted their sails,
but produced dysentery among the men, and bred worms, half a finger long
and as thick as a quill, between their skin and their flesh." Soon after
leaving the island they were nearly cast away in a dreadful storm, and
were compelled to repair their shattered sails with shirts and drawers,
wherewith they were already very indifferently provided.
At Realegua, where there was a volcano burning, they landed 100 men in
four canoes, and obtained some prisoners by surprising a hatto. They
found the English had already taken Leon and burnt Realegua. In spite of
Spanish reinforcements from eight neighbouring towns, they stayed at
Leon three whole days, and challenged the Spaniards to meet them in the
Race savannah. But the Spaniards replied, they were not yet all come
together; "which means," says our friend Ravenau, "that they were not
yet six to one." While here, one of their quartermasters, a Catalonian
by birth, fled to the Spaniards, and compelled the French to abandon a
design on the town of Granada. At Realegua six men tried to swim ashore
to fill some water casks, in spite of the Spaniards on the beach, and
one of them was drowned in the attempt. They landed at the port, and
found the churches and houses and three entrenchments half burnt.
Surprising the sentinels of Leon, they discovered that in spite of a
garrison of 2000 men, the inhabitants, hearing the Buccaneers had
landed, were hiding their treasure. They soon after put to flight a
detachment of horse, and took the captain prisoner.
A few days after this 150 men left the vessels to take a small town of
Puebla Vieja, near Realegua, which they found still deserted. It had
become the custom now among the Spaniards, when the freebooters had
frequently taken the same place, for the prelate to excommunicate it,
and henceforward not even to bury their dead there. Discovered by the
sentinel, the Buccaneers found the enemy entrenched in the church of
Puebla, and about 150 horse in the market-place. A few discharges drove
the horsemen away, and the defenders of the church fled through a door
in the vestry. Staying a day and a-half in the captured town, the
freebooters carried away all the provisions they could find on horses
and on their own backs, taking with them a Spanish gentleman who
promised ransom. The next day a Spanish officer brought a letter signed
by the vicar-general of the province, written by order of the general of
Costa Rica, declaring that France and Spain were at peace and leagued to
fight the infidel, and offering them a passage to the North Sea in his
Catholic Majesty's galleons. To this they returned a threatening answer,
and, putting thirty prisoners ashore, proceeded to careen their ships,
the Spaniards lighting fires along the coast as they departed.
An expedition, with fifty men in three canoes, against the town of
Esparso failed, but the hungry men killed and ate the horses of the
sentinels whom they took prisoners, for they had now tasted hardly
anything for four days. At Caldaria they visited a bananery, and loaded
their canoes with the fruit, and at Point Borica stored their boats with
cocoa-nuts, which Ravenau takes care to describe as nuts unknown in
Europe. Laden with gold, but nevertheless, like Midas, starving for want
of food, they landed sixty men in three canoes and took some prisoners
at a hatto which they surrounded, but finding they were very near
Chiriquita, and a garrison of 600 men, retreated to their ships, forcing
their way through 400 horse who reviled them, and challenged them to
revisit the town, which they took care soon after to do.
On the 5th of January, 1686, they started 230 men in eight canoes to
revisit this place, going ashore at night without a guide, and marched
till daylight without being discovered. On the 7th they hid all day in a
wood, and as night approached again pushed forward, the 8th they spent
also hid in a covert, and then found they had gone ashore on the wrong
side of the river. Fatigued as they were, they waited till night, and
then, returning to their canoes, crossed the river. Surprising the
watch, they found the Spaniards, even on the former alarm, had removed
all their treasure. On the 9th, they reached Chiriquita two hours before
day, and found the inhabitants asleep. The townsmen had been two days
disputing with one another about the watches, and the Buccaneers
ridiculed them by telling them they had come to spare them the trouble.
The soldiers they discovered playing in the court of guard, and they
found a small frigate ashore at the mouth of the river.
About noon, five of the Buccaneers, straggling into the suburbs to
plunder a house and obtain prisoners, were set upon by an ambuscade of
120 men. Finding no hope of escape, rather than be taken alive they
resolved to sell their lives dearly, and back to back fought the enemy
for an hour and a-half, when only two remained capable of resistance.
The main body, who thought they had been simply firing at a mark, came
to their relief, upon which the enemy at once fled. Of this skirmish,
at which Lussan was present, he says--"This succour coming in so
seasonably, did infallibly save our lives; for the enemy having already
killed us two men and disabled another, it was impossible we should hold
out against such a shower of bullets as were poured in upon us from all
sides; and so I may truly say I escaped a scouring, and that without
receiving as much as one wound, but by a visible hand of protection from
heaven. The Spaniards left thirty men dead upon the spot; and thus we
defended ourselves as desperate men, and, to say all in a word, like
freebooters."
The Buccaneers having burnt all the houses in the town, fearing a night
attack, retreated into the great church, exchanging a shot now and then
with the enemy. This town was built on the savannahs, and surrounded by
hattoes, its chief trade being in tallow and leather. The men rested
here till the tenth, rejoicing in plenty of provision after nearly four
days' fast. They then removed their prisoners to an island in the river,
where the Spaniards could only approach them openly in a fleet of
shallops. The enemy, driven out of an ambuscade, sent to demand the
prisoners, saying they would recover them or perish in the attempt; but
grew pacified when Grogniet declared they should all be put to death if
a single bullet was fired. Driving off a guard of 100 men, they also
plundered the stranded vessel, and discovered by the letters that the
admiral of the Peru fleet had lately been lost with his 400 men, by his
vessel being struck by a thunderbolt. On the sixteenth, obtaining a
ransom for their prisoners, they returned to the island of St. John.
The Spaniards, from fear of the freebooters, having put a stop to their
navigation, no ships were to be captured, and having no sails, and their
ship being useless without them, the French began to cut down trees and
build piraguas. On the 27th they descried seven sail at sea, and put out
five canoes to reconnoitre, suspecting it was the vanguard of the
Peruvian fleet. Soon after discerning twelve piraguas and three long
barks coasting in the distance, they retreated to their docks in the
river, and ran their bark ashore to render it useless to the Spaniards,
placing an ambuscade of 150 men along the banks. The enemy, suspecting a
trick, disregarded the two canoes that were sent to draw them into the
snare, but commenced to furiously cannonade the grounded ship, which
contained nothing but a poor cat, and then, perceiving her empty,
bravely boarded and burnt her for the sake of the iron work, and soon
afterwards sailed away. They learnt afterwards that the Chiriquita
prisoners had reported that they had fortified the island, and the fleet
had been sent to land field-pieces and demolish the works. This alarm of
the Spaniards had been encouraged by the Buccaneers having purposely
asked at Chiriquita for masons, and obliged the prisoners to give bricks
as part of the ransom.
On the 14th of March, they left the island of St. John, in two barks, a
half galley of forty oars, ten large piraguas, and ten smaller canoes,
built of mapou wood. Taking a review of their men, fourteen of whom had
died in February, they found they had lost thirty since the departure of
the English. To prepare for a long-planned attack on Granada, a half
galley and four canoes were despatched to get provisions at Puebla
Nueva. Entering the river by moonlight, the Buccaneers approached within
pistol shot of a small frigate, a long bark, and a piragua, which they
supposed to be their old English allies, but were received by a
splashing volley of great and small shot that killed twenty men. The
ships were, in fact, a detachment of the Spanish fleet left to guard
some provision ships lading for Panama. Quickly recovering from their
surprise, the adventurers, though without cannon, fought them stiffly
for two hours, killing every man that appeared in the shrouds, and
bringing down one by one the grenadiers from the main-top. But as soon
as the moon went down, the Buccaneers sheered off with four dead men and
thirty-three wounded, waiting for daylight to have their revenge. In the
mean time, the enemy had retired under cover of an entrenchment, to
which the country people, attracted during the night by the firing, had
crowded in arms; against these odds, the Buccaneers were unwillingly
compelled to retire, and soon rejoined their canoes at St. Peter's.
Landing at a town ten leagues leeward of Chiriquita, they obtained no
provisions, and had, with the loss of two men, to force their way
through an ambuscade of 500 Spaniards. Rejoining their barks they spent
some days in hunting in the Bay of Boca del Toro, and obtaining
nourishing food for the wounded men. Their next enterprise was against
the town of Lesparso, which they found abandoned. While lying in the bay
they were joined by Captain Townley and five canoes, who, with his 115
men, begged to be allowed to join in the expedition against Granada.
Remembering the old imperious dealing of the English, the French at
first, to frighten them, boarded their canoes, and offered to take them
away. "Then," says Lussan, "we let the captain know we were _honester_
men than he (a curious dispute), and that though we had the upper hand,
yet we would not take the advantage of revenging the injuries they had
done us, and that we would put him and all his men in possession of what
we had taken from them four or five hours before." The men were then
assembled in a bananery island, in the bay, and an account taken of
their supply of powder, for fear any should expend it in hunting. Orders
were also enacted that any brother found guilty of cowardice, violence,
drunkenness, disobedience, theft, or straggling from the main body,
should lose his share of the booty of Granada.
On the 25th the French and English departed in piraguas and canoes, 345
men, and landed on a flat shore, following a good guide, who led them
for two days through a wood. They were, however, seen by some fishermen,
who alarmed the town, which had already received intelligence of their
march from Lesparso. Great fatigue obliged them to rest on the evening
of the 9th at a sugar plantation belonging to a knight of St. James,
whom they were too tired to pursue.
On the 10th they saw two ships on the distant lake of Nicaragua,
carrying off all the wealth of the town to a neighbouring island. From a
prisoner they learnt that the inhabitants were strongly entrenched in
the market-place, guarded by fourteen pieces of cannon and six
patereroes, and that six troops of horse were waiting to attack them in
the rear.
This information, which would have damped the courage of any but
Buccaneers, drove them only the faster to the charge. At two in the
afternoon they entered the town, over the dead bodies of a party that
had awaited them in ambuscade, and sent a party to reconnoitre the fort.
The skirmishers, after a few shots, returned, and reported that there
were three streets leading to the fort, so they all resolved to
concentrate in one of these.
Lussan describes the scene, of which he was an eye-witness, too
graphically to need curtailing. "After we had exhorted one another," he
says, "to fall on bravely, we advanced at a good round pace towards the
said fortification. As soon as the defendants saw us within a good
cannon-shot of them, they fired furiously upon us; but observing that at
every discharge of their great guns, we saluted them down to the ground,
in order to let their shot fly over us, they bethought themselves of
false priming them, to the end we might raise our bodies, after the sham
was over, and so to be really surprised with their true firing. As soon
as we discovered this stratagem, we ranged ourselves along the houses,
and having got upon a little ascent, which was a garden plot, we fired
upon them from thence so openly for an hour and a-half that they were
obliged to quit their ground, which our hardy boys, who were got to the
foot of their walls, contributed yet more than the other by pouring in
hand-grenades incessantly upon them, so that at last they betook
themselves to the great church or tower, but they wounded us some men.
As soon as our people, who had got upon the said eminence, perceived
that the enemy fled, they called to us to jump over the walls, which we
had no sooner done than they followed us, and thus it was that we made
ourselves masters of the town, from whence they fled, after having lost
a great many men. We had on our side but four men killed and eight
wounded, which in truth was very cheap. When we got into the fort we
found it to be a place capable of containing 6,000 fighting men; it was
encompassed with a wall the same as our prisoners gave us an account of.
It was pierced with many holes, to do execution upon the assailants, and
was well stored with arms. That part of it which looked towards the
street, through which we attacked it, was defended by two pieces of
cannon and four patereroes, to say nothing of several other places made
to open in the wall through which they thrust instruments made on
purpose to break the legs of those who should be adventurous enough to
come near it; but these, by the help of our grenadiers, we rendered
useless to them. After we had sung _Te Deum_ in the great church, and
set four sentinels in the tower, we fixed our court of guard in the
strong-built houses that are also enclosed within the place of arms, and
there gathered all the ammunition we could get, and then we went to
visit the houses, wherein we found nothing but a few goods and some
provision, which we carried into our court of guard."
The next evening 150 men were despatched to a distant sugar plantation,
to capture some ladies of rank and treasure; but on the next day a monk
came to treat about the ransom they would require to spare the town.
Unluckily the Spaniards had captured a Buccaneer straggler, who told
them that his companions never meant to burn the place, but intended to
stop there some months, and return into the North Sea, by the lake of
Nicaragua. The freebooters, being refused the ransom, set fire to the
houses in revenge. Had the French indeed had but canoes to capture the
two ships in the island and secure the treasure, they would undoubtedly
have carried out this plan. To a handful of hungry men, without food and
without ships, even the gardens of Granada appeared hateful.
On leaving the town the Buccaneers took with them one piece of cannon
and four patereroes, drawn by oxen, having to fight their way for
twenty leagues to the shore over the savannah, surrounded by 2,500
Spaniards thirsting for their blood. In every place the enemy fled at
the first discharge of their pieces. From a prisoner they learnt that a
million and a-half pieces of eight, kept for ransom, was buried in the
wall of the fort, but the men felt no disposition to return. They were
soon obliged to leave their cannon behind, the oxen choked with the
dust, worn out with the heat, and dying of thirst; but the patereroes
were still dragged on by the mules. At the little village of Massaya,
near the lake, they were received with open arms by the Indians, who
only entreated them not to burn their huts.
All the water in the village had been tainted by the Spaniards, but the
natives brought them as much as they needed. While they lay here a
Spanish monk came to them to obtain the release of a priest who had been
taken armed and with pockets filled with poisoned bullets. They refused
to surrender him but in exchange for one of their own men. The next
day, passing from the forest into a plain, they were attacked by 500
men, drawn up upon an ascent, and commanded by their Spanish deserter.
Each party displayed bloody flags, but the vanguard beat them with
wonderful bravery, and took fifty horses. The enemy fled, leaving their
arms and the wounded, and turned out to be auxiliaries from Leon. In
three days more they reached the beach, and, resting several days to
salt provisions, sailed to Realegua, where they collected provisions and
100 horses. They then burnt down the borough of Ginandego, in spite of
200 soldiers and an entrenchment, because the inhabitants had defied
them to come. Even here they were, however, much straitened for
provision, the corregidor of Leon having desired all men to burn the
provisions wherever the Buccaneers landed.
The same day at noon the sentinels rang the alarm bell in the steeple,
and gave notice that 800 men from Leon were advancing across the
savannah to fight them. The men, bustling out of their houses, marched
at once, 150 in number, under their red colours, and drove off the
enemy after a few shots.
There now arose a dissension in the Flibustier councils. 148 Frenchmen
and all the English, headed by Captain Townley, determined to go up
before Panama to see if the navigation had yet been resumed. 148
Frenchmen, under Captain Grogniet, resolved to go lower westward and
winter upon an island, waiting for some abatement of the rains and
southerly winds. The barks, canoes, and provisions were then divided,
and the chirurgeons brought in the accounts of the wounded and crippled.
There were found to be four men crippled and six hurt: to the latter
were given 600 pieces of eight a man, and to the former 1000, being
exactly all the money then in store.
Ravenau joined the Panama division, which, touching again at their old
quarters on the island of St. John, took off a prisoner who had made his
escape when they were last there, and proceeded to land and capture the
town of Villia with 160 men. Marching with great rapidity they reached
the town an hour after sunrise, and surprising the inhabitants at mass,
took 300 prisoners. They then attempted to capture three barks lying in
the river, but the Spanish sailors sank one and destroyed the rigging of
the other two. Gathering together all the merchandise of the town left
by the fleet, the invaders found it to amount to a million and a-half,
valued at 15,000 pieces of eight in good silver. Much treasure was,
however, buried, the Spaniards submitting to death rather than confess
their hiding-places.
The next day a party of fourscore men were sent to drive the pack horses
to the river side to load the booty in two Spanish canoes. They
despaired of obtaining any ransom for the town, as the alcalde major had
sent to them to say that the only ransom he should give was powder and
ball, whereof he had a great deal at their service; that as to the
prisoners, he should entrust them to the hands of God, and that his
people were getting ready as fast as they could, to have the honour of
seeing them. Upon receiving this daring answer, the Buccaneers, in a
rage, fired the town and marched to the river. As the Spanish ambuscades
prevented the boats coming up to meet them, the adventurers put nine men
on board the boats, the men marching by their side to guard them from
attack. On the other side, unknown to them and hidden by the trees,
marched 900 Spaniards. When they had proceeded about a league, an
impassable thicket compelled them to make a diversion of some 200 paces,
an accident which involved the loss of the whole plunder of Villia.
Before they left the boats, the captain ordered the crews to stop a
little higher up, where the three Spanish barks lay, and endeavour to
bring them away. On arriving there they were surprised by an ambuscade,
and as they defended themselves against the Spaniards, the current drove
them on beyond the three barks and far from the main body. Seeing them
now helpless, the enemy discharged sixty musket shots at them, and
killed four men and wounded one. The rest, abandoning the canoes, swam
to the other side of the river, while a dozen Indians wading in brought
the boat to the Spaniards; cutting off the head of a wounded man and
setting it on a pole by the shore.
The Buccaneers who did not hear the firing, were astonished on returning
to the river to see no canoes, and while waiting for them to come up,
for they supposed they were behind, the rowers, who had escaped, broke
breathless through the thicket, and told their story. Luckily in their
flight through the wood they had discovered the rudders and sails of the
three barks, in which the Buccaneers at once embarked, and sent
fifty-six men on shore to recover the fittings, agreeing that each
should fire three guns as a signal. Soon after they had landed, the
report of about 500 guns was heard, but before they could reach the
enemy the Spaniards had fled. Going ashore the next day, they found the
two canoes dashed to pieces, and the bodies of the dead much
mutilated--the head of one set upon a pole, and the body of another
burnt in the fire. These objects so enraged the Buccaneers, that they
instantly cut off four of their prisoners' heads, and set them on poles
in the same place. Their own dead they carried with them to bury by the
sea-side--the fitting burial-place for seamen. Three times they had to
land to break through ambuscades at the river's mouth, in the last
attack losing three men. With a Spaniard who came on board, they agreed
for a ransom of 10,000 pieces of eight, but threatened to kill all the
prisoners if the money was not brought in within two days. Upon the
stubborn alcalde seizing the hostages who were sent ashore to obtain
money to release their wives, the Buccaneers cut off the heads of two
prisoners and sent them to the town, declaring that if no ransom was
paid, they would serve the rest the same, and having put the women on an
island, would come and capture the alcalde. The same evening came in a
promise to pay all the ransoms, and to bring besides, every day while
they stayed, ten oxen, twenty sheep, and 200 lbs. of meal. For a
Buccaneer's fire-arms which the enemy pretended to have lost (for the
Spaniards were fond of French arms), they paid 400 pieces of eight. They
also bought one of the captured barks for 600 pieces of eight and 100
lbs. of nails, of which the adventurers stood in great need, but her
tackle and anchors were not surrendered. They obtained also a Flibustier
passport that the bark should not be retaken, although her cargo might
be confiscated. Having then obtained a parting present of 100 salted
beeves, from this long-suffering place the French set sail. Afraid to
land on the continent, which was guarded by 4,000 men, they abstained,
till, nearly dying with thirst, they made a descent with 200 sailors,
driving off the Spaniards, whom they found lying on the grass about 100
paces from the sea.
Lussan says they saw "we were a people who would hazard all for a small
matter."
Landing at midnight at a small island near Cape Pin, they were
discovered by the pearl divers, but still contrived to capture a ship at
daybreak. From their prisoners they heard that the Spaniards had lately
defeated a party of thirty-six, French and English, from Peru, who were
attempting to pass into the North Sea by the river Bocca del Chica. Two
parties of English, forty each, on their way into the South Sea, had
also been massacred all but four, who were prisoners at Panama. To
balance these ill omens, tidings of prizes reached the Buccaneers on
every hand. A bark was lying in the Bocca del Chica river, waiting for
800 lbs. of gold from the mines to bring to Panama. Two ships laden with
meal and money for the garrison of Lima were also expected; and from a
prisoner (a spy, it afterwards appeared), captured at the King's
Islands, they learnt that two merchant barks and a piragua with sixty
Indians lay in the river of Seppa, besides a frigate and scout galley
under the guns of Panama.
Much in want of vessels, and not suspecting the prisoner, four canoes
were sent at once to cut out the barks of Panama, the "Greek" soldier
going with them readily as a guide. They arrived two hours before
daylight, and the moon shining very bright they waited for a cloud to
obscure it, seeing, as they thought, the anticipated prize lying near
with her sails loose. By mere chance, the adventurers, to waste no time,
pursued a vessel just leaving the port, thinking it was the scout
galley, and took it without a shot. Upon examination, the captain
confessed their guide was the commander of a Greek piragua, and had been
promised a large reward by the governor of Panama to betray them into
his hands. The ship they saw was a mere sham of boards and sails, built
upon firm land, only a pistol shot from the port. They supposed that the
Buccaneers, eager to take her, would row up, and so drive their canoes
far on shore, and hoped to overpower them before they got off. The Greek
captain being at once identified as a spy, was, says Ringrose, "sent to
that world where he had designed to send us." The fleet then proceeded
to take the islands of Ottoqua and Tavoga, losing two men in the Greek's
second ambuscade at Seppa, but capturing in their way a bark from Nata
laden with provisions, after a few discharges of musketry, the Spanish
captain swimming to shore. From Tavoga they sent a message to the
governor of Panama, to say that if he did not at once surrender his five
English and French captives, they would at once put to death fifty
Spanish prisoners.
They then anchored again at the King's Islands, and sent a galley and
four canoes up the Bocca Chica river to see if the Indians were at peace
with Spain or not, and to destroy an ambuscade of 100 Spaniards, who
they heard were lying in wait on the banks for thirty freebooters, on
their way from the South to the North Pacific. Carried swiftly up the
river by the current, the guide, compelling them to row faster just
before daybreak, brought them, much to their astonishment, at a bend of
the river, opposite the camp fires of the enemy. The guide being hailed,
replied they were from Panama; and being asked the name of the
commander, hesitated about a fitting title, and received a volley in
return. The Buccaneers driving off the enemy with two patereroes, passed
them quickly, and, anchoring out of reach, waited for the ebb tide to
return. Putting all their men under deck, the adventurers returned about
an hour before daylight, saluting them with four paterero shots as they
passed, and receiving no injury in return. The next day, taking a small
Indian vessel, the Buccaneers landed lower down the river, intending to
take the Spanish entrenchment in the rear; but seeing the enemy putting
out a piragua to attack their galley, they returned in great haste and
landed opposite the Spanish court of guard, killing a great many men and
driving out the rest. They also shot an Indian, who, mistaking them for
Spaniards, followed them and reviled them as they were re-embarking. The
prisoners told them that the neighbouring town of Terrible was prepared
for their coming. A letter to the camp-master of Terrible was found in
the entrenchment. It concluded thus: "I have sent you 300 men to defeat
these enemies of God and goodness; be sure to keep upon your watch; be
afraid of being surprised, and your men will infallibly be gainers in
defeating of them." The prisoners also put them on their guard as to
many ambuscades and secret dangers. Having burnt the guard-house, and
carried off the piragua with some pounds of gold-dust, the Buccaneers
departed, dismissing the Indians to propitiate the nation who had
received commission from the President of Panama to arm canoes against
them. While descending the river, having put some Spanish prisoners on
deck to deceive the Indians, some natives came and brought gold-dust to
them, taking them for friends. A few days after this, forty Spanish
prisoners put ashore at the King's Islands, met accidentally with some
canoes, and escaped to Panama.
The French were now again surprised as they had been before, three of
the enemy's vessels approaching under cover of an island. By venturing a
dangerous passage between the island of Tavaguilla and a rock the
Buccaneers at last obtained the weather-gauge. The fight lasted till
noon, and the Spaniards were driven off in all attempts at boarding.
Throwing grenades into the biggest ship, one of them set fire to some
loose powder and burnt a great many men; and during this confusion, the
adventurers boarded the enemy, who rallied in the stern, and made a
vigorous resistance, but at last begged for quarter. The second was also
at the same time carried and taken. The third, a kind of galley, pursued
by three Buccaneer vessels, ran ashore and staved to pieces, few of the
crew escaping, not more than a dozen, Ringrose thinks. In the frigate
eighty men were killed and wounded out of 120 on board. The second ship
had only eighteen unhurt out of eighty. All the officers were killed and
wounded, and the captain received no less than five musket shots. He was
the soldier that had received five wounds resisting them at Puebla
Nueva, and he had also planned the ambuscade at Villia.
While busily employed in splicing the rigging and throwing the dead
overboard, two more sail were seen bearing down from Panama. The English
instantly put up Spanish colours to allure them, and placed the French
and English beneath them. As the foe drew near, they received a volley,
and, firing hurriedly, at once fled to the frigate which they supposed
still theirs. The frigate replied by some grenades, which sent one to
the bottom, and the piragua boarded the other, and, finding four packs
of halters on board, put all the crew to death in revenge. They had been
directed to spare none but the Buccaneer surgeons, and to send troops of
horse to cut off all that escaped in canoes. On the very next day they
took a shallop from Panama which the president had sent to pull up an
anchor that the adventurers had left in the bay. Only one Buccaneer was
killed in the fight, but Captain Townley and twenty men were wounded,
and most of these died, for the Spaniards poisoned their bullets. They
now sent a prisoner to the president, demanding his five captives and
medicines for the use of his own people. The messenger was also told to
complain heavily of the massacre of the three parties at Darien.
To these remonstrances the officer sent the following answer:
"Gentlemen, I wonder that you, who should understand how to make war,
should require those men of me that are in our custody. Your rashness
hath something contrary to the civility wherewith you ought to treat
those people that were in your power. If you do not use them well, God
will perhaps be on our side." To this they returned a threat of
beheading all their prisoners without mercy; and having done this,
sailed at once to the isles of Pericos, fearing the Spanish fire-ships.
The Bishop of Panama, who, they knew, had stirred up the president to
war, sent a letter, entreating them to show mercy, saying the president
had the king's orders to restore no prisoners, and that the Englishmen,
having turned Roman Catholics, did not wish to leave Panama.
Upon this the Buccaneers sent the president twenty Spaniards' heads in a
canoe, threatening to kill all the rest, if the prisoners were not
restored by the next day. Very early the next morning came the
prisoners, four Englishmen and one Frenchman, with medicines for the
wounded, the president leaving to their honour to give as many men as
they chose in exchange. They at once sent a dozen of the most wounded on
shore, accusing the president of being the murderer of the twenty they
had killed, and threatening the death of the rest, unless 20,000 pieces
of eight were paid for their ransom. The Spaniards at first tried to
make it only 6000; but when the Buccaneers hung out their main flag,
fired a gun, and prepared to enter the port, they hung out a white flag
at a bastion, and promised the money shortly. The next day a Knight of
Malta came in a bark with the money, and received the prisoners. While
staying at Ottoqua to victual their ships, the Spaniards landed at night
and murdered their Indian guides. The day after the French chased a
provision vessel to the very guns of Panama, when the garrison hoisted
the Burgundian flag on the bastion, and by mistake fired upon their own
vessel, which the Buccaneers took. Putting nineteen prisoners on shore,
they again attempted to surprise Villia, but failed, finding all the
people in arms, and a reinforcement of 600 men newly come from Panama.
They next took the town of St. Lorenzo, and surprising it at twilight,
burnt it. They learned the Spaniards had orders to drive away the
cattle from the sea-shore, to lay ambuscades, and to obtain from women
intelligence of the Buccaneers' movements. A dreadful storm which
overtook the fleet in the Bay of Bocca del Toro induced Lussan, with a
naive philanthropy, to tell his readers: "If you would enter into it
with safety, you must keep the whip of your rudder to starboard, because
it is dangerous to keep to the east side." While here the same writer
gives us the following trait of Flibustier manners:--"On the 25th, being
Christmas-day, after we had, according to custom, said our prayers in
the night, one of our quartermasters being gone ashore in order to take
care about our eating some victuals (for our ships being careening all
our provisions were then put out), one of our prisoners, who served us
as cook, stabbed him with a knife in six several places, wherewith
crying out, he was presently relieved, and the assassin punished with
death."
On the 1st of January, 1687, leaving their ships in the bay of Caldaira,
the Buccaneers embarked 200 men in canoes and crossed to the island of
La Cagna.
Their treacherous guide, under the pretence of hiding them in a covert,
led them into a marsh, where the mud, in the soundest places, rose above
their middles; five men sinking up to their chins were dragged out with
ropes tied to the mangrove branches. The men, anxious for escape, lifted
up their guide to the top of a tree, to discover by the moonlight where
sound land commenced. But he, once at liberty, skipped like a monkey
from tree to tree, railing at them and deriding their helplessness. They
spent the whole night in marching a hundred paces round this marsh, and
groped out at daybreak, bedaubed from head to toe, with their fire-arms
loaded with mud. "When we were in a condition," says Lussan, "to reflect
a little upon ourselves, and that we saw 200 men in the same habit, all
so curiously equipped, there was not one of us who forgot not his toil
to laugh at the posture he found both himself and the rest in.
Inveighing against their guide, they returned to their canoes, and
proceeded two leagues up a river to an entrenchment, where they found
the remains of two vessels the Spaniards had some time before burnt, at
the approach of Betsharp, an English freebooter. Guided by the barking
of dogs, they surprised the borough of Santa Catalina, and, mounting
sixty men on horses, entered Nicoya and drove out the enemy, carrying
off the governor's plate and movables. They found here some letters from
the President of Panama, describing the doings of "these new Turks," how
they had landed at places where the sea was so high that no sentinels
had been placed, and passed through the woods like wild beasts. The
letters stated how much the Spaniards had been astonished by the
Buccaneer mode of attack--"briskly falling on, singing, dancing, as if
they had been going to a feast;" they were described also as "those
enemies of God and His saints who profane His churches and destroy His
servants." In one battle, it says, being blocked up, "they became as mad
dogs. Whenever these irreligious men set their feet on land they always
win the victory."
Landing at Caldaira the sentinels set fire to the savannahs, through
which they marched to Lesparso, and towards Carthage, but retired,
hearing of 400 men and an entrenchment. Hiding five men in the grass,
they captured a Spanish trooper, who had reviled them, and putting him
to the rack, laughing at his grimaces of pain, heard that Grogniet was
in the neighbourhood, and soon after they heard cannons fired off, and
were joined by him in three canoes.
He now told them his adventures at Napalla. Three sailors, corrupted by
the Spaniards, who had taken them prisoners, persuaded him on his return
to visit a gold mine, fourteen leagues from the sea-shore. They luckily
got there before the ambuscade, and took some prisoners and a few pounds
of gold, but 450 lbs. weight had been removed an hour before. At their
return they found the traitors and prisoners all escaped. He then landed
at Puebla Vieja and attacked an ambuscade and entrenchment of 300 men.
Half of these fled, half were made prisoners, and their three colours
taken, the freebooters losing only three men. Eighty-five of his men
then determined to visit California, and he and his sixty men to return
to Panama. Grogniet now consented to join in the French expedition, and,
after taking Queaquilla, to force a way to the North Sea. They landed
and burnt Nicoya a third time, and Lussan treats us here with an amusing
piece of Buccaneer superstition. He says, "though we were _forced_ to
chastise the Spaniards in this manner, we showed ourselves very exact in
the preservation of the churches, into which we carried the pictures and
images of the saints which we found in particular houses, that they
might not be exposed to the rage and burning of the English, who were
not much pleased with these sorts of precautions; they being men that
took more satisfaction and pleasure to see one church burnt than all the
houses of America put together. But as it was our turn now to be the
stronger party, they durst do nothing that derogated from that respect
we bore to all those things." On their return the French had to force
their way through burning savannahs, but got safe to their ships,
putting next day forty prisoners on shore who were too chargeable to
keep.
A new division now arose between the English and French, and the former
insisting on the first prize taken, the two parties again separated,
Grogniet staying with the former: making in all 142 men, Ravenau's party
being 162, in a frigate and long bark. Both vessels now tried to outsail
each other and reach Queaquilla first, but the French, soon finding the
English beat them in speed, resolved to accompany them, for they had so
little food as to be obliged to eat only once in every forty-eight
hours, and but for rain water would have died of thirst. Off Santa
Helena, they gave chase to a ship, and found it to be a prize laden with
wine and corn, lately taken by Captain David's men, for they had been
making descents along the coast, at Pisca had beaten off 800 men from
Lima, and had also taken a great many ships, which they pillaged and let
go. Having got to the value of 5000 pieces of eight a man, they sailed
for Magellan, and on the way many of the men lost all they had by
gaming. Those who had won joined Willnett, and returned to the North
Sea; but the losers, sixty English and twenty French, joined David, and
determined to remain and get more spoil in the South. Henry and Samms
had gone to the East Indies. The eight men of David's crew who commanded
the prize joined them against Queaquilla. Furling their sails to prevent
being seen, they anchored off the White Cape, and at ten in the morning
embarked 260 men in their canoes. On the 15th they reached, at sunset,
the rocky island of Santa Clara, and on the 16th rested all day, weak
from long fasting, in the island of La Puna, escaping any detection from
the forty sentinels. The 17th they spent on the same island, and
arranged the attack. Captain Picard and fifty men led the forlorn hope,
another captain and eighty grenadiers formed a reserve. Captain Grogniet
and the main body were to make themselves masters of the town and port,
and the English captain, George Hewit, with fifty men, were to attack
the smaller fort; while 1000 pieces of eight were promised to the first
ensign who should plant the colours on the great fort. They left their
covert in the evening, and hoped to reach the town by dawn, but only
having three hours of favourable tide, had to remain all day at the
island, and at night rowing out, were overtaken after all by the light,
when a sentinel seeing them, set a cottage on fire and alarmed his
companions. Marching across a wood to the fire, they killed two of the
Spaniards and captured a boy. Remaining in covert all day, they thought
themselves undiscovered, because the town had not answered the fire
signal, and at night they rowed up the river, the rapid current carrying
them four leagues in two hours. All the 19th they spent under cover of
an island in the river, and at night went up with the current, not
rowing for fear of alarming the sentinels. They attempted in vain to put
in beyond the town, on the side least guarded, but the tide going out
forced them to land two hours before day, within cannon shot of the
town, where they could discern the lights burning, for the Spaniards
burnt lamps all night. They landed in a marshy place, and had to cut a
path through the bushes with their sabres. They soon met with a
sentinel, and were discovered by one of the men left to guard the canoes
striking a light, against orders, to light his pipe. The sentinel,
knowing that this was punishable by death among his countrymen,
suspected enemies and discharged a paterero, which the fort answered by
a discharge of all their cannon. The Buccaneers, overtaken by a storm,
entered a large house near to light the matches of their grenades and
wait for day, the enemy firing incessantly in defiance. On the 20th, at
daybreak, they marched out in order, with drums beating and colours, and
found 700 men waiting for them behind a wall, four feet and a-half high,
and a ditch. Killing many of the Buccaneers at the onset, the enemy
ventured to sally out, sword in hand, and were at once put to flight. In
spite of the bridge being broken down, the pursuers crossed the ditch,
and, getting to the foot of the wall, threw in grenades, and drove the
enemy to their houses. Driven also from this, they fled to a redoubt in
the Place d'Armes, and from thence, after an hour's fighting, to a third
fort, the largest of all. Here they defended themselves a long time,
firing continually at their enemies, who could not see them for the
smoke. From these palisadoes they again sallied, and wounded several
Buccaneers and took one prisoner. They at last retreated with great
loss.
The Flibustiers, weary with eleven hours' fighting, and finding their
powder nearly spent, grew desperate; but, redoubling their efforts, with
some loss made themselves masters of the place, having nine men killed
and a dozen wounded. Parties were then sent out to pursue the fugitives,
and a garrison having been put in the great fort, the Roman Catholic
part of the band went to sing _Te Deum_ in the great church.
Basil Hall describes Guayaquil as having on the one side a great marsh,
and on the other a great river, while the country, for nearly 100 miles,
is a continued level swamp, thickly covered with trees. The river is
broad and deep, but full of shoals and strange turnings, the woods
growing close to the water's edge, stand close, dark, and still, like
two vast black walls; while along the banks the land-breeze blows hot,
and breathes death, decay, and putrefaction.
The town was walled, and the forts built on an eminence. The houses were
built of boards and reared on piles, on account of the frequent
inundations. The chief trade of the place was cocoa.
The Buccaneers took 700 prisoners, including the governor and his
family. He himself was wounded, as were most of his officers, who fought
better than all the 5,000 men of the place. The place was stored with
merchandise, precious stones, silver plate, and 70,000 pieces of eight.
Upwards of three millions more had been hidden while the fort was
taking. As soon as the canoes had come up, they were sent in pursuit of
the treasure, but it was too late. They captured, however, 22,000 pieces
of eight, and a vermilion gilt eagle, weighing 66 lbs., that had served
as the tabernacle for some church. It was of rare workmanship, and the
eyes were formed of two great "rocks of emeralds." There were fourteen
barks in the port--the galleys they had fought at Puebla Nueva, and two
royal ships unfinished on the stocks. As a ransom for all these things,
the governor promised a million pieces of eight in gold, and 400 sacks
of corn, requiring the vicar-general to be released to go to Quito and
procure it.
The women of the town, who were very pretty, had been assured by their
confessors that the Buccaneers were monsters and cannibals, and had
conceived a horror and aversion to them. "They could not be dispossessed
thereof," says Lussan, "till they came to know us better. But then I can
boldly say that they entertained quite different sentiments of our
persons, and have given us frequent instances of so violent a passion as
proceeded sometimes even to a degree of folly." As a proof of the
calumnies circulated against the ruthless conquerors, Lussan tells us
the following:--"It is not from a chance story," he continues, "that I
came to know the impressions wrought in these women that we were men
that would eat them; for the next day after the taking of the town, a
young gentlewoman that waited upon the governor of the place, happened
to fall into my hands. As I was carrying her away to the place where the
rest of the prisoners were kept, and to that end made her walk before
me, she turned back, and, with tears in her eyes, told me, in her own
language--'Senor, pur l'amor di Dios ne mi como'--that is, 'Pray, sir,
for the love of God, do not eat me;' whereupon I asked her who had told
her that we were wont to eat people? She answered, 'The fathers,' who
had also assured them that we had not human shape, but that we resembled
monkeys."
On the 21st, part of the town was accidentally burnt down by some of the
men lighting a fire in a house, and leaving it unextinguished when they
returned at night to the court of guard. Afraid that it would reach the
place where they had stored their powder and merchandise, the French
removed all the plunder to their vessels, and carried the prisoners to
the fort; but not till all this was done endeavouring to save the town,
a third part of which was, by this time, destroyed. Afraid the Spaniards
might now refuse to pay the ransom, they charged them with the offence,
threatening to send some fifty prisoners' heads if they did not pay them
what they had lost by the fire. The enemy, surprised at this, attributed
the incendiarism to traitors, and promised satisfaction. The stench of
the 900 dead carcases, still lying unburied up and down the town, now
producing a pestilence, the Buccaneers dismounted and spiked the cannon,
and carried off the 500 prisoners to their ships, anchoring at Puna.
Captain Grogniet died of his wounds soon after this removal. The
Spaniards obtaining four days' further respite, and then still further
delaying the ransom, the adventurers made the prisoners throw dice for
their lives, and cutting off the heads of four, sent them to Queaquilla,
threatening further deaths. They were now joined by Captain David and a
prize he had lately taken. He was planning a descent on Paita, to obtain
refreshments for some men wounded in a fight with a Spanish ship, the
Catalina, off Lima. They fought for two days, David's men, being drunk,
constantly getting to leeward, and failing twenty times in an attempt to
board. The Spaniards, gaining courage from these failures, hoisted the
bloody flag; but the third day, David, getting sober, got his tackle and
rigging in good order, got properly to windward, and bore down with
determination. The enemy in terror ran ashore, and went to pieces in two
hours. Two men were saved by a canoe, and said that their captain had
had his thigh shot off by a cannon ball. David's ship, wanting
refitting, was employed to cruise in the bay to prevent surprises from
the Spaniards. By a letter taken from a courier, they found that the
people of Queaquilla were only endeavouring to obtain time.
The Buccaneers spent thirty days on the island of La Puna, living on the
luxurious food brought from Queaquilla, and employing the prisoners
with lutes, theorbos, harps, and guitars, to delight them by perpetual
concerts and serenades. Lussan says, "Some of our men grew very familiar
with our women prisoners, who, without offering them any violence, were
not sparing of their favours, and made appear, as I have already
remarked, that after they came once to know us, they did not retain all
the aversion for us that had been inculcated into them when we were
strangers unto them. All our people were so charmed with this way of
living that they forgot their past miseries, and thought no more of
danger from the Spaniards than if they had been in the middle of Paris."
Ravenau also treats us with his own personal love adventure, which we
insert as a curious illustration of the vicissitudes of a South Sea
adventurer's life. "Amongst the rest," he says, "myself had one pretty
adventure. Among the other prisoners we had a young gentlewoman, lately
become a widow of the treasurer of the town, who was slain when it was
taken. Now this woman appeared so far comforted for her loss, out of an
hard-heartedness they have in this country one for another, that she
proposed to hide me and herself in some corner of the island till our
people were gone, and that then she would bring me to Queaquilla to
marry her, that she would procure me her husband's office, and vest me
in his estate, which was very great. When I had returned her thanks for
such obliging offers, I gave her to understand that I was afraid her
interest had not the mastery over the Spaniards' resentments; and that
the wounds they had received from us were yet too fresh and green for
them easily to forget them. She went about to cure me of my suspicion,
by procuring secretly, from the governor and chief officers, promises
under their hands how kindly I should be used by them. I confess I was
not a little perplexed herewith, and such pressing testimonies of
goodwill and friendship towards me brought me, after a little
consultation with myself, into such a quandary, that I did not know
which side to close with; nay, I felt myself, at length, much inclined
to close with the offers made me, and I had two powerful reasons to
induce me thereunto, one of which was the miserable and languishing life
we lead in those places, where we were in perpetual hazard of losing it,
which I should be freed from by an advantageous offer of a pretty woman
and a considerable settlement: the other proceeded from the despair I
was in of ever being able to return into my own country, for want of
ships fit for that purpose. But when I began to reflect upon these
things with a little more leisure and consideration, and that I resolved
with myself how little trust was to be given to the promises and faith
of so perfidious as well as vindictive a nation as the Spaniards, and
more especially towards men in our circumstances, by whom they had been
so ill-used, this second reflection carried it against the first, and
even all the advantages offered me by this lady. But however the matter
was, I was resolved, in spite of the grief and tears of this pretty
woman, to prefer the continuance of my troubles (with a ray of hope of
seeing France again), before the perpetual suspicion I should have had
of some treachery designed against me. Thus I rejected her proposals,
but so as to assure her I should retain, even as long as I lived, a
lively remembrance of her affections and good inclinations towards me."
After some negotiation with a priest, the people of Queaquilla brought
in twenty-four sacks of meal, and 20,000 pieces of eight in gold. On
their refusing more than 22,000 pieces of eight more for ransom, a
council was held to decide upon putting all the prisoners to death, but
at last, Ravenau being in the majority, decided to spare them. They then
took fifty of the richest prisoners with them to the point of St.
Helena, and surrendered the rest on 22,000 more being paid.
While at La Puna, the Buccaneers sallied out to attack two Spanish
armadillas, but not having any piraguas to tow them to the windward,
could only cannonade at a distance. The French vessels were much
shattered, but no man killed. The next day they came to close fight,
both sides using small arms and great guns, but no Buccaneer was killed.
The Spaniards lost many men, and the blood ran out of their scupper
holes, but they still cried at parting, "A la manana, la
partida"--(to-morrow, again.) The next night the Buccaneers unrigged and
sank one of their prizes, and fitted out another, manning her with
twenty Frenchmen, who wanted to leave David. The same night four
Spaniards seized one of the prizes, and escaped to Queaquilla. Being now
within half cannon shot, the rival vessels pounded each other all day;
the French had their tackle spoiled, and sails riven, and the frigate
received five cannon-shot in the foremast, and three in the mainmast,
but had not one man killed or wounded. The next day the Spaniards
hoisted Burgundian colours, and poured in volleys of musket-shot, but
neither party boarded. The ensuing day the Buccaneer musketry was so
destructive, that the Spaniards closed their port-holes and bore up to
the wind. That day the French received sixty shots in their sides,
two-thirds between wind and water, the rigging was torn, and Ravenau and
another man were wounded. At night the Spaniards failed in an attempt to
board. We spent this night at anchor, says Lussan, to stop our cannons'
mouths, which otherwise might have sent us into the deep. To his
astonishment, the next morning the armadillas had fled. During these
successive days' fighting, the governor and officers of Queaquilla had
been brought on deck to witness the defeat of their countrymen.
They then set their prisoners ashore and divided the plunder, the whole
amounting to 500,000 pieces of eight, or 15,000,000 livres, and in
shares to 400 pieces of eight a man. The uncoined gold and the precious
stones being of uncertain value were sold by auction, that those who had
silver and had won in gambling might buy. All who expected an overland
expedition were anxious for jewels, as more portable and less heavy than
silver. They sought now in their descent for nothing but gold and
jewels, quite disregarding silver as a mean metal and heavy to carry.
They even left many things in Queaquilla, and neglected to send a canoe
for the 100 caons of coined silver (11,000 pieces of eight in all) which
had been sent to the opposite river side. Taking advantage of their
indifference, Spanish thieves mixed with the Buccaneers, and pillaged
their own countrymen. They landed at Point Mangla, and surprised a watch
of fifteen Spanish soldiers who had been placed to guard a river
abounding in emeralds. A few days after they took a vessel from Panama
going to Porto Bello to buy negroes off the point of Harina. The French
fleet was next attacked by a Spanish galley and two piraguas. From a
prisoner they heard of 300 Frenchmen, who had defeated 600 Spaniards and
killed their leader in the savannahs. While careening in the bay of
Mapalla they were joined by these men, who proved to be part of
Grogniet's men, who had left their companions on the coast of Acapulco,
refusing to go further towards California.
The adventurers next landed in the Bay of Tecoantepequa, and dispersing
a body of 300 Spaniards, drawn up upon an eminence, marched inland
towards the town, sleeping all night in the open air. Nothing but hunger
and despair could have induced this attack. The town was intersected by
a great and very rapid river, encompassed by eight suburbs, and defended
by 3000 men. The Buccaneers forded the river, the water up to their
middles, and after an hour's fighting forced the Spaniards from their
entrenchment. In two hours these men, enraged with hunger, took the
place by hand-to-hand fighting, and eighty sailors then dislodged the
enemy from the abbey of St. Francis, whose terraces commanded the town.
Finding the river overflowing and no ransom coming, the Buccaneers
departed the next day, and landing at Vatulco, took the old governor of
Merida prisoner, and obtained some provisions. They also landed at
Muemeluna and victualled, the Spaniards having strong entrenchments, but
making little resistance. They found upon the shore the musket and dead
body of a sailor of a frigate that had attempted to land a month before.
The Spaniards had not seen the body, or they would have cut in pieces
or burnt it, as they were in the habit of even digging up the Buccaneers
buried on their shores. At Sansonnat they landed in the face of 600
Spaniards to fill their water-casks, being faint from thirst. One of the
men, more impatient than the rest, and goaded by four days' drought,
swam ashore and was drowned, without any being able to help him.
They now held serious councils about the return by land. The prisoners
declared their best way was by Segovia, where they would _only_ meet
5000 or 6000 Spaniards, and that the way was easy for the sick and
wounded. The French determined to land and obtain more certain
information, and this was one of the most daring of their adventures.
They landed seventy men, and marched two days without meeting anybody,
upon which eighteen, less weary than the rest, tramped on and soon got
into a high road. Capturing three horsemen, they learnt that they were
but a quarter of a league distant from Chiloteca, a little town with
about 400 white inhabitants, besides negroes, Indians, and mulattoes,
who were not aware of their approach. Afraid to waste time in running
back after their companions, they entered the town, frightened the
Spaniards, and took the Teniente and fifty others prisoners. Had there
not been horses ready mounted, on which they made their escape, the
enemy would, every man, have submitted to be bound, being overcome with
a panic fear, and believing the enemy very numerous. They learned from
the prisoners that the Panama galley lay waiting for them at Caldaira,
and the _St. Lorenzo_, with thirty guns, at Realegua. They also said
that 600 men would be in the town by the next day. The Spaniards now
began to rally, and compelled the Buccaneers to entrench themselves in
the church. The prisoners, seeing them hurry in, and thinking them hard
pressed, ran to a pile of arms and prepared to make a resistance; but
the Buccaneers, retreating to the doors, fired at the crowd till only
four men and their wives were left alive. They then mounted horses and
retreated, carrying off four prisoners of each sex, and firing at a
herald who tried to parley. Joining their companions, whom they found
resting at a hatto, they made a stand and drove back 600 Spaniards.
The statements of the prisoners increased their fears of the overland
route, but determining rather to die sword in hand than to pine away
with hunger, they at once resolved upon their design. Running all the
vessels ashore but the galley and piraguas, which would take them from
the island to the mainland, leaving no other means of escape to the
timorous, they formed four companies of seventy men, choosing ten men
from each as a forlorn hope, to be relieved every morning. Those who
were lamed were to have, as formerly, 1000 pieces of eight, the horses
were to be kept for the crippled and wounded. The stragglers who were
wounded were to have no reward, whilst violence, cowardice, and
drunkenness were to be punished. While maturing their plans, a Spanish
vessel approached, and anchoring, began to fire at the grounded vessels,
and soon put them out of a condition to sail. Afraid of losing their
piraguas, the Buccaneers sent their prisoners and baggage to some flats
behind the island. The next day, the Frenchmen, sheltering themselves
behind the rocks that ran out to the sea, kept the vessel at a distance;
but now afraid of total destruction, the Buccaneers sent 100 men to the
continent at night to secure horses, and wait for them at a certain
port. On the next day, the Spanish ship took fire, and put out to sea to
extinguish the flames. The next day the Buccaneers escaped by a
stratagem. Having spent the whole night in hammering the vessel, as if
careening, to prevent all suspicion of their departure, they charged all
their guns, grenades, and four pieces of cannon, and tied to them pieces
of lighted matches of various lengths, in order to keep up an alarm
throughout the night. In the twilight they departed as secretly as they
could, the prisoners carrying the surgeons' medicines, the carpenters'
tools, and the wounded men.
On the 1st of January, 1688, the Buccaneers arrived on the continent. On
the evening of the same day the men joined them with sixty-eight horses
and several prisoners, all of whom dissuaded them in vain from
attempting to go by Segovia, where the Spaniards were fully alarmed. The
men, nothing deterred, packed up each his charge, and thrust their
silver and ammunition into bags. Those who had too much to carry, gave
it to those who had lost theirs by gaming, promising them half "in case
it should please God to bring them safe to the North Sea." Ravenau de
Lussan tells us his charge was lighter but not less valuable than the
others, as he had converted 30,000 pieces of eight into pearls and
precious stones. "But as the best part of this," he says, "was the
product of luck I had at play, some of those who had been losers, as
well in playing against me as others, becoming much discontented at
their losses, plotted together to the number of seventeen or eighteen,
to murder those who were richest amongst us. I was so happy as to be
timely advertised of it by some friends, which did not a little disquiet
my mind, for it was a very difficult task for a man, during so long a
journey, to be able to secure himself from being surprised by those who
were continually in the same company, and with whom we must eat, drink,
and sleep, and who could cut off whom they pleased of us in the
conflicts they might have with the Spaniards, by shooting us in the
hurry." To frustrate this scheme, Ravenau therefore divided his treasure
among several men, and by this means removed a weight both from his mind
and body.
On the 2nd of January, after having said prayers and sunk their boats,
the Buccaneers set out, resting at noon at a hatto. On the 4th they lay
on a mountain plateau, the Spaniards visible on their flanks and rear.
On the 5th the barricades began, and on the 6th, at an estantia, they
found the following letter lying on a bed in the hall: "We are very glad
that you have made choice of our province for your passage homewards,
but are sorry you are not better laden with silver; however, if you have
occasion for mules we will send them to you. We hope to have the French
General Grogniet very quickly in our power, so we will leave you to
judge what will become of his soldiers."
On the 7th the vanguard drove off an ambuscade, and lay that evening in
a hatto. The Spaniards burnt all the provisions in the way, and set fire
to the savannahs to windward, stifling the French horses with smoke and
scaring them with the blaze. While their march was thus retarded and
they waited for the fire to burn out, the enemy threw up intrenchments
and erected barricades of trees. On the 8th the French set fire to a
house at a sugar plantation, and, hiding till the Spaniards came to put
it out, captured a prisoner, who told them that 300 auxiliaries were on
the march to meet them. "These 300 men," says Lussan, "were our
continual guard, for they gave us morning and evening the diversion of
their trumpets, but it was like the _music of the enchanted palace of
Psyche_, who heard it without seeing the musicians, for ours marched on
each side of us, in places so covered with pine trees that it was
impossible to perceive them."
During this march the Buccaneers never encamped but upon high ground, or
in the open savannah, for fear of being hemmed in.
The advanced guard was now strengthened by forty men, who discharged
their muskets at the entries and avenues of woods, to dislodge the
ambuscades, but they did not shoot when the plain was open and free from
wood; although the Spaniards, who were lying on their bellies on each
side of them, opened their fire and killed two stragglers. On the 10th
they repulsed an ambuscade and captured some horses. On the 11th they
dispersed another ambuscade, and entered Segovia, but all the provisions
had been burnt, and the Spaniards fired upon them from among the pine
trees that grew on the hills around the town. Fortunately at this spot,
where the old guides grew uncertain of the way, they captured a new
prisoner, who led them twenty leagues to the river they were in search
of.
The road now grew wilder, and dangers thickened around them. They had to
creep with great danger to the tops of great mountains, or to bury
themselves in narrow and dark valleys. The cold grew intense, and the
fogs lasted for some hours after daybreak. In the plains no chill was
felt, but the same heat that prevailed on the mountains after noon.
"But," says Lussan, "the hopes of getting once more into our native
country made us endure patiently all these toils, and served as so many
wings to carry us."
On the 12th, they ascended several mountains, and had incredible trouble
to clear the road of the Spanish barricades, and all night long the
enemy fired into their camp. On the 18th, an hour before sunrise, they
ascended an eminence which seemed advantageous for an encampment, and
saw on the edge of an eminence, separated from them by a narrow valley,
what they believed to be cattle feeding.
Rejoiced at the prospect of food, forty men were sent to reconnoitre.
They returned with the dismal intelligence that the supposed oxen were
really troopers' horses ready saddled, and that the mountain on which
they stood was encircled by three intrenchments, rising one above
another, commanding a stream that ran through the valley. They had no
other way but this to pass, and there was no possibility of avoiding it.
They added, that one of the Spaniards had seen them, and shook his naked
cutlass at them from a distance. Every man's heart fell at this news,
and their pining appetite sickened at the loss of its expected meal.
There was no time for delay, for the Spaniards from the adjacent
provinces were gathering in their rear, and if any time was lost they
must be surrounded and overpowered by numbers. Ravenau de Lussan, the
Xenophon of this retreat, did not attempt to conceal the extent of the
danger. He confesses himself that they were hard put to it, and that
escape would have seemed impossible to any other men but to those who
had been hitherto successful in almost every undertaking. He addressed
his companions, and artfully persuaded them to agree to his plans, by
first elaborating the extent of their difficulties. He said that 10,000
men could not force their way through such intrenchments, guarded by so
many men as the Spaniards had, judging from the number of their horses.
Nor could they pass by the side of it, with all their horses and
baggage, seeing that the path could only be entered in single file.
Except the road, all was a thick, pathless forest, full of quagmires,
and encumbered by fallen trees; and even if these impediments were
passed, the Spaniards would have still to be fought with. The Buccaneers
agreed to these as truisms, but cried out that it was to no purpose to
talk of difficulties so apparent, without proposing some method of
surmounting them, and suggesting some means for its execution. Upon this
hint De Lussan spoke. He proposed to cross those woods, precipices,
mountains, and rocks, how inaccessible soever they seemed, and gaining
the weather-gauge of the enemy, take them at once in the rear, suddenly
and unexpectedly. The success of this plan he would answer for at the
peril of his life. The prisoners, horses, and baggage he resolved to
leave guarded by eighty men, to keep off the 300 Spaniards who hovered
around them at day and at night, encamped at a musket-shot distance.
These eighty men could answer for four times as many Spaniards. After
some deliberation, De Lussan's plan was agreed to, and the execution at
once resolved upon. Examining the mountain carefully with the keen eyes
of both hunters and sailors, they could see a road winding along the
side of the mountain, above the highest intrenchment. This they could
only trace here and there by light spots visible between the trees, but
once across this they were safe. Full of hope, and with every faculty
aroused, some of the men were sent to a spot higher than the main body,
to cover another party who had on previous occasions proved themselves
ingenious and expert, and who were sent to pick out the safest and most
direct spots by which they could get in the rear of the enemy before day
broke. As soon as these scouts returned the men made ready for their
departure, leaving their baggage guarded by eighty men. To prevent
suspicion, the officer in command had orders to make every sentinel he
set or relieved in the night-time fire his fusil and to beat his drum at
the usual hour. He was told that if God gave them the victory they would
send a party to bring him off, but that if an hour after all firing
ceased they saw no messenger, they were to provide for their own safety.
The immediate narrative of this wonderful escape we give in De Lussan's
own words:--"Things being thus disposed," he says, "we said our prayers
as low as we could, that the Spaniards might not hear us, from whom we
were separated but by the valley. At the same time, we set forward to
the number of 200 men by moonlight, it being now an hour within night;
and about one more after our departure we heard the Spaniards also at
their prayers, who, knowing we were encamped very near them, fired about
600 muskets in the air to frighten us. Besides, they also made a
discharge at all the responses of the litany which they sang. We still
pursued our march, and spent the whole night (in going down and then
getting up) to advance half a-quarter of a league, which was the
distance between them and us, through a country, as I have already said,
so full of rocks, mountains, woods, and frightful precipices, that our
posteriors and knees were of more use to us than our legs, it being
impossible for us to travel thither otherwise. On the 14th, by break of
day, as we got over the most dangerous parts of this passage, and had
already seized upon a considerable ascent of the mountain by clambering
up in great silence, and leaving the Spaniards' retrenchments to our
left, we saw their party that went the rounds, who, thanks to the fogs,
did not discover us. As soon as they were gone by, we went directly to
the place where we saw them, and found it to be exactly the road we were
minded to seize on. When we had made a halt for about half an hour to
take breath, and that we had a little daylight to facilitate our march,
we followed this road by the voice of the Spaniards, who were at their
morning prayers, and we were but just beginning our march, when,
unfortunately, we met with two out-sentinels, on whom we were forced to
fire, and this gave the Spaniards notice, who thought of nothing less
than to see us come down from above them upon their intrenchments, since
they expected us no other way than from below; so that those who had
the guard thereof, and were in number about 500 men, finding themselves
on the outside, when they thought they had been within, and consequently
open without any covert, took the alarm so hot, that falling all on them
at the same time, we made them quit the place in a moment, and make
their escape by the favour of the fog."
The sequel is soon told. The defenders of the two first lines of wall
drew up outside the lowermost, the Buccaneers firing at them for an hour
under cover of the first intrenchment. But finding they gave no ground,
and thinking the fog interfered with the aim, the French rushed forward
and fell upon them with the butt ends of their muskets, till they fled
headlong down the narrow road. Here they got entangled in their own
impediments, and the Buccaneers, commanding the road from the redoubt,
killed an enemy at every shot. Weary at last of running and killing, the
French returned to the intrenchments and drove off the 500 Spaniards,
who had now rallied, and were attacking the garrison. The pursuit ceased
only from the fatigue of the conquerors and their weariness of
slaughter. The Spaniards neither gave nor took quarter, and were saved
in spite of themselves. De Lussan says, either from pride or a natural
fierceness of temper, the Spanish soldiers, before an engagement,
frequently took an oath to their commander neither to give nor receive
quarter. The Buccaneers, struck with compassion at the quantity of blood
running into the rivulet, spared the survivors, and returned a second
time into the intrenchment with only one man killed and two wounded. The
Spaniards lost their general, a brave old Walloon officer, who had given
them the plan of their intrenchment. It was only at the solicitation of
another commander that the rounds had been set, and the sentinels placed
at the top of the mountain. The general had consented, but said there
was no danger if the French were only men. It would take them eight days
to climb up, and if they were devils, no intrenchment could keep them
out. In his pocket were found letters from the Governor of Costa Rica,
who had intended to send him 8000 men, but the Walloon asked for only
1500. He advised him to take care of his soldiers, as no glory could be
gained by such a victory. The letter concluded thus:--"Take good
measures, for those devils have a cunning and subtlety that is not in
use amongst us. When you find them advance within the shot of your
arquebuses, let not your men fire but by twenties, to the end your
firing may not be in vain; and when you find them weakened, raise a
shout to frighten them, and fall on with your swords, while Don Rodrigo
attacks them in the rear. I hope God will favour our designs, since they
are no other than for his glory, and the destruction of these new sort
of Turks. Hearten up your men, though they may have enough of that
according to your example they shall be rewarded in heaven, and if they
get the better, they will have gold and silver enough wherewith these
thieves are laden."
Having sung a _Te Deum_ of thankfulness to God, Ravenau de Lussan
mounted sixty men upon horseback, as he words it, "to give notice to our
other people of the success the Almighty was pleased to give us." They
found them about to attack the 300 Spaniards, who seeing the night-march
the main body had made, and believing them defeated at the
intrenchments, had sent an officer to parley with the residue. He told
them that the 1500 Spaniards were lying ready to surround their troops,
but promised them good terms if they surrendered; saying that, by the
intercessions of the almoner, and for the honour of the holy sacrament
and glorious Virgin, they had spared all the prisoners they had hitherto
taken. The Buccaneers, somewhat intimidated at these threats, took heart
when they saw their companions coming, and returned the following fierce
answer: "Though you had force enough to destroy two-thirds of our
number, we should not fail to fight with the remaining part; yea, though
there were but one man of us left, he should fight against you all. When
we put ashore and left the South Sea, we all resolved to pass through
your country or die in the attempt; and though there were as many
Spaniards as there are blades of grass in the savannah, we should not be
afraid, but would go on and go where we will in spite of your teeth."
The officer at Ravenau's arrival was just being dismissed, and seeing
the new allies were booted and mounted on Spanish horses, he shrugged up
his shoulders and rode back as fast as he could to his comrades, who
were not more than a musket-shot off upon a small eminence commanding
the camp, to tell them the news. As soon almost as he could get to them,
the Buccaneers advanced with pistols and cutlasses, and without firing
fell on them and cut many to pieces before they could mount, but let the
rest go, detaining their horses. They then, with the loss of one killed
and two maimed, rejoined the main body at the intrenchments.
The enemy now lit a fire upon the top of a neighbouring mountain to
collect the scattered troops, in order to defend an intrenchment six
leagues distant; but the Buccaneers lying in wait cut off their passage,
then hamstringing 900 horses, took 900 others to kill and salt when
they arrived at the river. On the 15th they passed the intrenchment
unfinished and undefended, and on the 16th day came very joyfully to the
long desired river. Immediately they entered into the woods that covered
the banks, and fell to work in good earnest to cut down trees and build
"piperies," or rafts. These were made of four or five trunks of the
mahot trees, a light buoyant wood, which they first barked and then
bound together with parasite creepers, which were tough and of great
length. Two men, generally standing upright, guided each of these frail
barks, the decks sunk two or three feet under water. They were built
purposely narrow, to be able to thread the rocky passes of the river
even then in sight. These rafts were dragged to the river-side and then
launched, the boatmen having furnished themselves with long poles to
push them off the rocks, against which they were sure the current would
drive them. De Lussan, who never exaggerates a danger, cannot find words
to express the terrors of this stream. "It springs," he says, "in the
mountains of Segovia, and discharges itself into the North Sea at Cape
Gracias a Dios, after having run a long way, in a most rapid manner,
across a vast number of rocks of a prodigious bigness, and by the most
frightful precipices that can be thought of, besides a great many falls
of water, to the number of at least a hundred of all sorts, which it is
impossible for a man to look on without trembling, and making the head
of the most fearless to turn round, when he sees and hears the waters
fall from such a height into those tremendous whirlpools."
To this dangerous river and its merciless falls, these way-worn men
trusted themselves on frail rafts, and sank up to their middles in
water. Sometimes they were hurried, in spite of all their resistance,
into boiling pools, where they were buried with their rafts in the
darkness beneath the foam, at others drifted under rocks and against
fallen trees. Some tied themselves to their barks. "As for those great
falls," says Lussan, "they had, to our good fortunes, at their entrances
and goings out, great basins of still water, which gave us the
opportunity to get upon the banks of the river, and draw our piperies
ashore to take off those things we had laid on them, which were as wet
as we were. These we carried with us, leaping from rock to rock, till we
came to the end of the fall, from whence one of us afterwards returned
to put our pipery into the water, and let her swim along to him who
waited for her below. But if he failed to catch hold (by swimming) of
those pieces of wood before they got out of the basin below, the
violence of the stream would carry them away to rights, and the men were
necessitated to go and pick out trees to make another."
The rafts at first went all together for the sake of mutual assistance;
but at the end of three days, finding this dangerous, Ravenau de Lussan
advised their going in a line apart, so that, if any were carried
against the rocks, they might get off before the next pipery arrived,
which at first occasioned many disasters. De Lussan, being himself cast
away, found much safety in this plan; for, uncording his raft, he
straddled upon one piece and his companion upon another, and floated
down, till, reaching a place less rapid, they got on land and
reconstructed the raft. By his advice, those who went first put up flags
at the end of long poles, to give notice on which side to land, not to
signal the falls, for their roar could be clearly heard a league off.
During all these dangers the men lived on the bananas that they found
growing by the river side, some of which the Indians had sown, and
others floated down and self-planted during the inundations. The
horse-flesh they had brought the water had spoiled, compelling them to
throw it away after two days; and although game abounded on the land,
they could kill none, for their arms were continually wet and their
ammunition all damaged.
It was at this crisis the conspirators we have before mentioned chose to
carry out their cruel plot. Hiding behind some rocks, they killed and
plundered five Englishmen, who were known to be rich. Lussan whose raft
came last of all, and followed the English float, found their bodies,
and thanked God he had given others his treasure to carry. When the
Buccaneers were all met together, lower down the river, Lussan told them
of the murder, of which they had not heard, but the murderers were seen
no more. On the 20th of February the river grew wider, slower, and
deeper, the falls ceased, but the stream was encumbered with trees and
bamboos, drifted together by the floods. These snags frequently
overturned the rafts, but the water being, though deeper, much slower,
none were drowned. Some leagues further, the stream became gentle and
free from all impediment, and they determined for the next sixty leagues
to the sea to build canoes. Dividing themselves into parties of sixty
men, they landed and cut down mapou trees, and, working with wonderful
diligence, built four canoes by the first of March. Leaving 140 men
still working, 120 embarked, eager for home, ease, and rest. The
English, too impatient to make canoes, had long since reached the
sea-shore in their piperies. They here met a Jamaica boat lying at
anchor, and attempted to persuade the captain to return, and obtain
leave for them to land, as they had no commission. The captain refused
to go without receiving L6000 in advance, which they could not afford,
as many of them had lost all by the upsetting of the piperies. The
sailors, therefore, resolved to remain with the friendly Mosquito
Indians, who dwelt about the mouth of this river, and to whom they had
often brought trinkets from Jamaica. The English, unable to buy the
boat, determined to send word to the French, hoping to get to St.
Domingo by their aid. Two Mosquito Indians were despatched in a canoe,
forty leagues up the river, to bring down forty Frenchmen, as the vessel
was small and short of provision, and could not hold more. But, in spite
of all this, 120, instead of forty, hurried down to get on board,
waiting five days for the ship that had gone to the Isle of Pearls.
Great was the delight of the French to pass Cape Gracias a Dios, and
enter the North Sea.
The Mulattoes that lived on this cape, Lussan says, were descended from
the crew of a negro vessel, lost on a shoal. They slept in holes dug in
the sand, to avoid the mosquitoes, which stung them till they appeared
like lepers. Lussan speaks much of the fiery darts of this mischievous
insect. He says, "It is no small pain to be attacked with them, for,
besides that they caused us to lose our rest at night, it was then that
we were forced to go naked for want of shirts, when the troublesomeness
of these animals made us run into despair and such a rage as set us
beside ourselves." At last the longed-for vessel arrived, and,
regardless of lots that had been drawn, fifty of the more vigilant,
including Lussan, crowded in, one on the top of the other, and instantly
weighed anchor, engaging the master for forty pieces of eight a head to
take them to St. Domingo, afraid of venturing to Jamaica. At Cuba they
landed, and surprising some hunters, compelled them to sell them food,
uncertain whether France and Spain were at war or peace.
On the 4th of April they rode at anchor at Petit Guaves, hoping to hear
news from France. De Lussan relates a curious instance here of the
effect of habit and instinctive imagination. "There were some of our
people," he says, "so infatuated with the long miseries we had suffered,
that they thought of nothing else but the Spaniards, insomuch that, when
from the deck they saw some horsemen riding along the sea-side, they
flew to arms to fire upon them, as imagining they were enemies, though
we assured them we were now come among those of our own nation." De
Lussan, at once going on shore, demanded of Mons. Dumas, the King's
lieutenant, in the Governor Mons. de Cussy's absence, indemnity and
protection, by favour of an amnesty granted by the French king to those
who, in remote places, had continued to make war on the Spaniards, not
hearing of the peace that had been concluded between the two nations.
De Lussan relates with much unpretending pathos the feelings of himself
and his Ulyssean friends upon once more landing in a friendly country.
"When we all were got ashore," he says, "to a people that spoke French,
we could not forbear shedding tears for joy that, after we had run so
many hazards, dangers, and perils, it had pleased the Almighty Maker of
the earth and seas to grant a deliverance, and bring us back to those of
our own nation, that at length we may return without any more ado to our
own country; whereunto I cannot but further add, that, for my own part,
I had so little hopes of ever getting back, that I could not, for the
space of fifteen days, take my return for any other than an illusion,
and it proceeded so far with me, that I shunned sleep, for fear when I
awaked I should find myself again in those countries out of which I was
now safely delivered."
From the preface to De Lussan's book, we learn that he returned to
Dieppe, with letters of introduction from De Cussy, the Governor of
Tortuga and St. Domingo, to Mons. de Lubert, Treasurer-General of Marine
in France. Of the end of this brave man we know nothing. He had many
requisites for a great general.