The Monarchs of the Main Volume Iii Part 2

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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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 s.e.x, 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 ash.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 pa.s.s, and there was no possibility of avoiding it.

They added, that one of the Spaniards had seen them, and shook his naked cutla.s.s at them from a distance. Every man's heart fell at this news, and their pining appet.i.te 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 pa.s.s 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 enc.u.mbered by fallen trees; and even if these impediments were pa.s.sed, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage, 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 b.u.t.t 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 compa.s.sion at the quant.i.ty 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 ash.o.r.e and left the South Sea, we all resolved to pa.s.s through your country or die in the attempt; and though there were as many Spaniards as there are blades of gra.s.s 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 cutla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sage, then hamstringing 900 horses, took 900 others to kill and salt when they arrived at the river. On the 15th they pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.ses 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 ash.o.r.e 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 a.s.sistance; 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 G.o.d 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 enc.u.mbered 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-sh.o.r.e 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 6000 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 s.h.i.+p that had gone to the Isle of Pearls.

Great was the delight of the French to pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+rts, 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 Pet.i.t 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 hors.e.m.e.n riding along the sea-side, they flew to arms to fire upon them, as imagining they were enemies, though we a.s.sured them we were now come among those of our own nation." De Lussan, at once going on sh.o.r.e, 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 ash.o.r.e," 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS.

Sieur de Montauban--Wonderful escape from an explosion--Life in Africa--Laurence de Graff--His victories--Enters French service--Treachery--Buccaneers join in French expedition and take Carthagena--Buccaneer sharpshooters--Treachery of French--Buccaneers return and retake the city--Captured in return by English and Dutch fleets--1698--Buccaneers wrecked with French--Grammont takes Santiago--Sacks Maracaibo, Gibraltar, and Torilla--Lands at c.u.mana--Enters French service--Lost in his last cruise.

Of all the motley characters of Buccaneer history, Montauban appears one of the most extraordinary. His friends describe him to have been as prudent as he was brave, blunt and sincere, relating his own adventures with a free and generous air that convinced the hearer of their truth, and at last consenting to write his story, not from ostentation, but from the simple desire of giving a French minister of state a narrative of his campaigns. He is interesting to us as the latest known Buccaneer, and in strict parlance he can scarcely be cla.s.sed as a Buccaneer at all, attacking the English as he did more than the Spanish, and not confining his cruises to the Spanish main.

He begins his book with great _navete_ thus: "Since I have so often felt the malignant influence of those stars that preside over the seas, and by an adverse fortune lost all that wealth which with so much care and trouble I had ama.s.sed together, I should take no manner of pleasure in this place to call to mind the misfortunes that befel me before the conclusion of the last campaign, had not a desire of serving still both the public and particular persons, as well as to let his majesty know the affection and weddedness I have always had for his service, made me take pen in hand to give Mons. de Phelipeaux an account of such observations as I have made; wherein he may also find with what eagerness I have penetrated to the remotest colonies of our enemies, in order to destroy them and ruin their trade. I was not willing to swell up this relation with an account of all the voyages I have made, and all the particular adventures that have befallen me on the coasts of New Spain, Carthagena, Mexico, Florida, and Cape Verd, which last place I had been at twenty years ago, having begun to use the seas at the age of sixteen." He goes on to say that he will not stop to relate how, in 1691, in a s.h.i.+p called the _Machine_, he ravaged the coasts of New Guinea, and, entering the great Serelion, took a fort from the English and split twenty-four pieces of cannon, but will confine himself simply to his last voyage; "Some information," he says, "having been given thereof, by the noise made in France and elsewhere of the burning my s.h.i.+p, and the terrible crack it made in the air."

In the year 1694, having ravaged the coast of Caracca, he went towards St. Croix, to watch for some merchant s.h.i.+ps and a fleet expected from Barbadoes and Nevis, bound for England. Sailing towards the Bermudas, expecting good booty, he saw them coming towards him without any apprehension of danger. He at once attacked the convoy (_The Wolf_), and took her and two merchant s.h.i.+ps laden with sugar, the rest escaping during the fight. Returning with his prizes to France, he captured an English s.h.i.+p of sixteen guns from Spain and bound for England, which surrendered after a short fight. This last vessel he took to Roch.e.l.le and sold it, the Admiralty declaring it good prize; the last he took to Bordeaux and sold to the merchants. Here abandoning themselves to pleasure after a long abstinence, many of his men deserted him, and he supplied their place with youths from the town, who soon became as expert as veterans. "I made it," he says, "my continual care and business to teach my men to shoot, and my so frequent exercising of them rendered them in a short time as capable of shooting and handling their arms as the oldest sea freebooters, or the best fowlers by land."

Re-victualling his s.h.i.+p, that carried only thirty-four guns, he left Bordeaux in February, 1695, to cruise on the coast of Guinea. From the Azores he pa.s.sed the Canary Islands, and sailed for fourteen days in sight of Teneriffe, in hopes of meeting some Dutch vessels, that after all escaped him, and at the Cape de Verd Islands he pursued two English interlopers of thirty guns each, who left behind in the roads their anchors and shallops. He then went in search of a Dutch guard-s.h.i.+p, of thirty-four guns, along the neighbouring coast. Decoying the foe by showing Dutch colours, he waited till he got within cannon shot, hoisting the French flag, gave her a signal to strike, and then exchanged broadsides. They fought from early morning till four in the afternoon, without Montauban being able to get the weather-gauge, or approach near enough to use his chief arms--his fusils. Taking advantage of a favourable wind, the Dutchman then anch.o.r.ed under the fort of the Cape of Three-points, where two other Dutch men-of-war lay, one of fourteen and the other of twenty-eight guns. Thinking the three vessels had leagued to fight him, Montauban anch.o.r.ed within a league of the sh.o.r.e, hoping to provoke them out by continued insults, but the guard-s.h.i.+p, already much mauled, would not move. This vessel, he found afterwards, had driven away a French flute. At Cape St. John he took with little difficulty an English s.h.i.+p of twenty guns, carrying 350 negroes, and much wax and elephants' teeth. The English captain had killed some of his blacks in a mutiny, and others had escaped in the shallop, which they stole. At Prince's Isle he took a small Bradenburg caper (a pirate), mounted with eight pieces of cannon, and carrying sixty men. He then put into port to careen, and sent his prize to St.

Domingo to be condemned and sold, putting the Sieur de Nave and a crew on board, but the s.h.i.+p was taken by some English men-of-war before Little Goara. To keep his men employed during the careening, Montauban fitted up the caper, and with ninety men cruised for six weeks without success, and, then putting into the Isle of St. Thomas, trucked the prize for provisions, and started for the coasts of Angola, hearing that three English men-of-war and a fire-s.h.i.+p were fitting out against him at Guinea. On his way he chased a Dutch interloper, laden with 150 pounds of gold dust, but she ran ash.o.r.e on the Isle of St. Omer and fell to pieces.

When approaching the coasts of Angola, and not far from the port of Cabinda, he saw an English vessel of fifty-four guns bearing down upon him. To decoy her Montauban hung out Dutch colours, while the English fired guns, as a signal of friends.h.i.+p. The Frenchman, pretending to wait, sailed slow, as if heavy laden or enc.u.mbered for want of sails and men. "We kept in this manner," writes the privateersman, "from break of day till ten in the forenoon. He gave me a gun from time to time without ball, to a.s.sure me of what he was, but finding at last I did not answer him on my part in the same manner, he gave me one again with ball, which made me presently put up French colours, and answer him with another.

Hereupon the English captain, without any more ado, gave me two broadsides, which I received without returning him one again, though he had killed me seven men; for I was in hopes, if I could have got something nearer to him, to put him out of condition ever to get away from me. I endeavoured to come within a fusil shot of him and was desirous to give him an opportunity to show his courage in boarding me, since I could not so well do the same by him, as being to the leeward.

At last being come by degrees nearer, and finding him within the reach of my fusils, which for that end I kept concealed upon the deck from his sight, they were discharged upon him, and my men continued to make so great a fire with them, that the enemy on their part began quickly to flag. In the mean time, as their s.h.i.+p's crew consisted of above 300 men and that they saw their cannon could not do their work for them, they resolved to board us, which they did with a great shout and terrible threatenings of giving no quarter, if we did not surrender. Their grappling-irons failing to catch the stern of my s.h.i.+p, made theirs run in such a manner, that their stern ran upon my boltsprit and broke it.

Having observed my enemy thus enc.u.mbered, my men plied them briskly with their small shot, and made so terrible a fire upon them for an hour and a-half, that being unable to resist any longer, and having lost a great many men, they left the sport and ran down between decks, and I saw them presently after make signals with their hats of crying out for quarter.

I caused my men therefore to give over their firing, and commanded the English to embark in their shallops and come on board of me, while I made some of my crew at the same time leap into the enemy's s.h.i.+p and seize her, and so prevent any surprise from them. I already rejoiced within myself for the taking of such a considerable prize, and so much the more in that I hoped that after having taken this vessel, that was the guard-s.h.i.+p of Angola, and the largest the English had in those seas, I should find myself in a condition still to take better prizes, and attack any man-of-war I should meet with. My s.h.i.+p's crew were also as joyful as myself, and did the work they were engaged in with a great deal of pleasure; but the enemy's powder suddenly taking fire, by the means of a match the captain had left burning on purpose, as hoping he might escape with his two shallops, blew both the s.h.i.+ps into the air, _and made the most horrible crack that was ever heard_. It is impossible to set forth this horrid spectacle to the life; the spectators themselves were the actors of this b.l.o.o.d.y scene, _not knowing whether they saw it or not_, and not being able to judge of that which themselves felt. Wherefore leaving the reader to imagine the horror which the blowing up of two s.h.i.+ps above 200 fathoms into the air must work in us, where there was formed as it were a mountain of water, fire, wreck of the s.h.i.+ps, cordages, cannon, men, and a most horrible clap made, what with the cannon that went off in the air, and the waves of the sea that were tossed up thither, to which we may add the cracking of masts and boards, the rending of the sails and ropes, the cries of men, and the breaking of bones--I say, leaving these things to the imagination of the reader, I shall only take notice of what befell myself, and by what good fortune it was that I escaped.

"When the fire first began I was upon the fore-deck of my own s.h.i.+p, where I gave the necessary orders. Now I was carried up on part of the said deck so high, that I fancy it was the height alone prevented my being involved in the wreck of the s.h.i.+ps, where I must infallibly have perished, and been cut into a thousand pieces. I fell back into the sea (_you may be sure giddy-headed enough_), and continued a long time under water, without being able to get up to the surface of it. At last falling into a debate with the water, as a person who was afraid of being drowned, I got upon the face of it, and laid hold of a broken piece of a mast that I found near. I called to some of my men whom I saw swimming round about me, and exhorted them to take courage, hoping we might yet save our lives, if we could light upon any one of our shallops. But what afflicted me more than my very misfortune, was to see two half bodies, who had still somewhat of life remaining in them, from time to time mount up to the face of the water, and leave the place where they remained all dyed with blood. It was also much the same thing to see round about a vast number of members and scattered parts of men's bodies, and most of them spitted upon splinters of wood. At last one of my men, having met with a whole shallop among all the wreck, that swam up and down upon the water, came to tell me that we must endeavour to stop some holes therein, and to take out the canoe that lay on board her.

"We got, to the number of fifteen or sixteen of us who had escaped, near unto this shallop, every man upon his piece of wood, and took the pains to loosen our canoe, which at length we effected. We went all on board her, and after we had got in saved our chief gunner, who in the fight had had his leg broke. We took up three or four oars, or pieces of board, which served us to that purpose, and when we had done that we sought out for somewhat to make a sail and a little mast, and, having fitted up all things as well as we possibly could, committed ourselves to the Divine Providence, who alone could give us life and deliverance.

As soon as I had done working I found myself all over besmeared with blood, that ran from a wound I had received on my head at the time of my fall. We made some lint out of my handkerchief, and a fillet to bind it withal out of my s.h.i.+rt, after I had first washed the wound with urine.

The same thing was done to the rest that had been wounded, and our shallop in the meanwhile sailed along without our knowing where we were going, and, what was still more sad, without victuals, and we had already spent three days without either eating or drinking. One of our men, being greatly afflicted with hunger and thirst at the same time, drank so much salt water that he died of it." Most of the men vomited continually, Montauban's body swelled, and he was finally cured of his dropsy by a quartan-ague. All his hair and one side of his face and body were burnt with powder, and he bled as "bombardiers do at sea," at the nose, ears, and mouth.

But this was no time, he says manfully, for a consultation of physicians, while they were dying of hunger, so leaving the English, they forced their way over the bar of Carthersna, an adverse wind preventing their landing at the port of Cabinda. Here they found some oysters sticking to the trees that grew round a pond, and opening them with their clasp knives, which they lent, Montauban says, "charitably and readily to each other," they made a l.u.s.ty meal.

Having spent two days there, they divided into three small companies, and went up the country, but could find no houses, and see nothing but herds of buffaloes that fled from them. On reaching Cape Corsa they found negroes a.s.sembled to furnish s.h.i.+ps with wood and water in exchange for brandy, knives, and hatchets.

Montauban, who had often traded in these parts, knew several of the natives, and tried to make them believe he was the man he represented; but disfigured as he was by his late misfortune, they considered him an impostor. In their own language he told them he was dying of famine, but could get nothing but a few bananas to eat.

He then desired them to carry him and his men to Prince Thomas, the son to the king of that country, upon whom he had conferred many favours.

But the Prince refused to recognize him, till he showed him the scar of a wound in his thigh which he had once seen when they bathed together.

On seeing this the Prince rose and embraced him; commanded victuals to be given to his men; expressed his sorrow for their misfortunes; and quartered them among his negro lords. Montauban he kept at his own expense, and made him eat at his own table. In a few days he took him some leagues up the country in a canoe, to see the king his father, who ruled over a village of 300 huts among the marshes. The high priest was just dead, and during the funeral ceremonies, lasting for seven days, Montauban was regaled with elephant's flesh. The king he found surrounded by women, and guarded by negroes armed with lances and fusils. Flags, trumpets, and drums preceded this monarch of a realm of hunters, who was himself clothed in a robe of white and blue striped cotton. The black prince shook the French captain by the hand, being the first man whose hand he had ever thus honoured. He asked many questions about his brother of France, and when he heard that he sometimes waged war with England and Holland singlehanded, and sometimes with Germany and Spain, the king expressed himself pleased, and, calling for palm wine, said he would drink the French king's health, and as he drank the drums and trumpets sounded, just as they do in Hamlet, and the negro guard discharged their pieces. Prince Thomas then asked the name of the French king who was so powerful, and being told it was Louis le Grand, declared he would give that name to his son, who was about to be baptised, and that Montauban should be G.o.dfather. He also expressed his hope that at some future voyage Montauban would carry the child to France, and present him to the brother monarch, and have him brought up in that country. "a.s.sure him," said the same prince, "that I am his friend, and that if he has occasion for my service, I will go myself into France, with all the lances and fusils belonging to the king my father." The king said, if need were he would go himself in person. At this generous promise the guard discharged their muskets frantically, and the men and women shouted their admiration. The drums and trumpets went to it again, and the spearmen ran from one side to the other, uttering horrible cries, sounding like pain, but expressive of joy. Then the gla.s.ses went round faster, and the ceremony concluded by the negro king presenting Montauban with two cakes of wax. The white men now rose in public estimation. Whenever they stirred out, they were followed by crowds of negroes bringing presents of fruits and buffalo flesh, never having seen a white face before, and generally supposing the devil to be of that colour. Sable philosophers begged to be allowed to sc.r.a.pe their skin with knives, till the king issued an edict forbidding any one, under pain, sc.r.a.ping or rubbing the strangers.

The baptism pa.s.sed off with great _eclat_. There being no priest in the town who knew how to baptize, or remembered the words of the service, a priest was procured from a Portuguese s.h.i.+p lying at the Cape. The freebooter speaks with much unction of his sponsors.h.i.+p. "I did it with so much the more pleasure," quoth he, "in that I was helping to make a Christian and sanctify a soul."