The Monarchs of the Main Volume I Part 5

PETER THE GREAT, THE FIRST BUCCANEER.

Plunder of Segovia--Pierre-le-Grand--Pierre Francois--Barthelemy Portugues--His Escapes--Roche, the Brazilian--Fanatical hatred of Spaniards--Wrecks and Adventures.

The date of the first organized Buccaneer expedition is uncertain. We only know that about the year 1654, a large party of Buccaneers, French and English, joined in an expedition to the continent. They ascended, in canoes, a river on the Mosquito Sh.o.r.e, a small distance on the south side of Cape Gracias a Dios, and after labouring for a month against a strong stream, full of torrents, left their boats and marched to the town of Nueva Segovia, which they plundered, and then returned down the river.

It is difficult to trace the exact beginning of the Flibustiers, or, as they were soon called, the Buccaneers. According to most writers, the first successful adventurer known at Tortuga was Pierre-le-Grand (Peter the Great). He was a native of Dieppe, and his greatest enterprise was the capture of the vice-admiral of the Spanish _flota_, while lying off Cape Tiburon, on the west side of Hispaniola. This he accomplished in a canoe with only twenty-eight companions. Setting out by the Carycos he surprised his unwieldy antagonist in the channel of Bahama, which the Spaniards had hitherto pa.s.sed in perfect security. He had been now a long time at sea without obtaining any prize worth taking, his provisions were all but exhausted, and his men, in danger of starving, were almost reduced to despair. While hanging over the gunwale, listless and discontented, the Buccaneers suddenly spied a large vessel of the Spanish fleet, separated from the rest and fast approaching them. They instantly sailed towards her to ascertain her strength, and though they found it to be vastly superior to theirs, partly from despair and partly from cupidity they resolved at once to take it or die in the attempt. It was but to die a little quicker if they failed, and the blood in their veins might as well be shed in a moment as slowly stagnate with famine.

If they did not conquer they would die, but if they did not attack, and escaped notice, they would also perish, and by the most painful and lingering of deaths. Being now come so near that flight was impossible, they took a solemn oath to their captain to stand by him to the last, and neither to flinch nor skulk, partly hoping that the enemy was insufficiently armed, and that they might still master her. It was in the dusk of the evening, and the coming darkness facilitated their boarding, and concealed the disadvantage of numbers. While they got their arms ready they ordered their chirurgeon to bore a hole in the sides of the boat, in order that the utter hopelessness of their situation might impel them to more daring self-devotion, that they might be forced to attack more vigorously and board more quickly. But their courage needed no such incitement. With no other arms than a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, they immediately climbed up the sides of the Spaniard and made their way pell-mell to the state cabin.

There they found the captain and his officers playing at cards. Setting a pistol to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they commanded them to deliver up the s.h.i.+p.

The Spaniards, surprised to hear the Buccaneers below, not having seen them board, and seeing no boat by which they could have arrived (for the surgeon had now sunk it, and rejoined his friends through a porthole), cried out, in an agony of superst.i.tious fear, "Jesu, bless us, these are devils!" thinking the men had fallen from the clouds, or had been shaken from some shooting star. In the mean time Peter's kinsfolk fought their way into the gunroom, seized the arms, killed a few sailors who s.n.a.t.c.hed up swords, and drove the rest under hatches.

That very morning some of the Spanish sailors had told their captain that a pirate boat was gaining upon them, but when he came up to see, and beheld so small a craft, he laughed at their fears of a mere c.o.c.kle sh.e.l.l, and went down again, despising any vessel, though it were as big and strong as their own. Upon a second alarm, late in the day, when his lieutenant asked him if he should not get a cannon or two ready, he grew angry, and replied, "No, no, rig the crane out, and hoist the boat aboard." Peter, having taken this rich prize, detained as many of the Spanish seamen as he needed, and put the rest on sh.o.r.e in Hispaniola, which was close at hand. The vessel was full of provisions and great riches, and Pierre steered at once for France, never returning to resume a career so well begun.

The news of this capture set Tortuga in an uproar. The planters and hunters of Hispaniola burned to follow up a profession so glorious and so profitable. It had been discovered now that a man's fortune could be made by one single scheme of daring and enterprise. Not being able to purchase or hire boats at Tortuga, they set forth in their canoes to seek them elsewhere. Some began cruising about Cape de Alvarez, carrying off small Spanish vessels that carried hides and tobacco to the Havannah. Returning with their prizes to Tortuga, they started again for Campeachy or New Spain, where they captured richer vessels of greater burden. In less than a month they had brought into harbour two plate vessels, bound from Campeachy to the Caraccas, and two other s.h.i.+ps of great size. In two years no less than twenty Buccaneer vessels were equipped at Tortuga, and the Spaniards, finding their losses increase and transport becoming precarious, despatched two large men-of-war to defend the coast.

The next scourge of the Spaniard in these seas was Pierre Francois, a native of Dunkirk, whose combinative, far-seeing genius and dauntless heart soon raised him above the level of the mere footpads of the ocean.

His little brigantine, with a picked crew of twenty-six men--hunters by sea and land--cruised generally about the Cape de la Vela, waiting for merchant s.h.i.+ps on their way from Maracaibo to Campeachy. Pierre had now been a long time afloat and taken no prize, the usual prelude to great enterprises amongst these men, who defied all dangers and all enemies.

The provisions were running short, the boat was leaky, the captain moody and silent, and the crew half mutinous. To return empty-handed to Tortuga was to be a b.u.t.t for every sneerer, a victim to unrelenting creditors; to the men beggary, to Pierre a loss of fame and all future promotion. But, there being a perfect equality in these boats, the crews seldom rose in open rebellion; and as every one had a voice in the proposal of a scheme, there was no one to rail at if the scheme failed.

At last, amid this suspense, more tedious than a tropic calm, one more daring or more far-seeing than the rest stood up and suggested a visit to the pearl-fis.h.i.+ngs at the Riviere de la Hache. History, always drowsy at critical periods, does not say if Francois was the proposer of this scheme or not. We may be sure he was a st.u.r.dy seconder, and that the plan was carried amid wild cheering and waving of hats and guns and swords enough to scare the sharks floating hungrily round the boat, and frighten the glittering flying-fish back into the sea. These Rancheria fis.h.i.+ngs were at a rich bank of pearl to which the people of Carthagena sent annually twelve vessels, with a man-of-war convoy, generally a Spanish armadilla with a crew of 200 men, and carrying twenty-four pieces of cannon. Every vessel had two or three Negro slaves on board, who dived for the pearls. These men seldom lived long, and were frequently ruptured by the exertion of holding breath a quarter of an hour below the waves. The time for diving was from October till May, when the north winds were lulled and the sea calm.

The large vessel was called the _Capitana_, and to this the proceeds of the day were brought every night, to prevent any risk of fraud or theft.

Rather than return unsuccessful, Pierre resolved to swoop down upon this guarded covey, and carry off the s.h.i.+p of war in the sight of all the fleet; a feat as dangerous as the abduction of an Irish heiress on the brink of marriage. He found the fis.h.i.+ng boats riding at anchor at the mouth of the River de la Hache, and the man-of-war scarcely half a league distant. In the morning he approached them, and they, seeing him hovering at a distance like a kite above a farmyard, ran under shelter of their guardian's guns, like chickens under the hen's wing. Keeping still at a distance, they supposed he was afraid to approach, and soon allowed their fears to subside. The captain of the armadilla, however, took the precaution of sending three armed men on board each boat, believing the pearls the object of the Buccaneer, and left his own vessel almost defenceless. The hour had come. Furling his sails, Pierre rowed along the coast, feigning himself a Spanish vessel from Maracaibo, and when near the pearl bank, suddenly attacked the vice-admiral with eight guns and sixty men, and commanded him to surrender. The Spaniards, although surprised, made a good defence, but at last surrendered after half an-hour's hand-to-hand fight, before the almost unmanned armadilla could approach to render a.s.sistance. Pierre now sank his own boat, which had only been kept afloat by incessant working at the pumps. Many men would have rested satisfied with such a prize, but Pierre knew no Capua, and "thought naught done while aught remained to do." He at once resolved, by a stratagem, to capture the armadilla, and then the whole fleet would be his own. The night being very dark, and the wind high and favourable, he weighed anchor, forcing the prisoners to help his own crew. The man-of-war, seeing one of its fleet sailing, followed, fearing that the sailors were absconding with the pearls. As soon as it approached, Pierre made all the Spaniards, on pain of instant death, shout out "_Victoria, victoria!_ we have taken the ladrones," upon which the man-of-war drew off, promising to send for the prisoners in the morning. Laughing in his sleeve, Pierre gave orders for hoisting all sail, and stood away for the open sea, putting forth all his strength to get out of sight by daybreak. But the blood of the murdered Spaniards, yet hot upon the deck, was crying to heaven against him, and he was pursued. He had not got a league before the wind fell, and his s.h.i.+p lay like a log on the water, just within sight of his pursuers, who kept a long way off, burning with impatience and shame, and fretting like hounds in leash when the boar breaks out. About evening the wind rose, after much invocatory whistling, many prayers, many curses. Pierre, ignorant of the power of his prize, and what canvas she could bear, hoisted at random every st.i.tch of sail and ran for his life, pursued by the armadilla, wrathful, white-winged, and swift. Like many a fleet runner, Pierre stumbled in his very eagerness for speed. He overloaded his vessel with sail. The wind grew higher, and howled like an avenging spirit, and his mainmast fell with the crash of a thunder-split oak. But Pierre held firm; he threw his prisoners into the hold, nailed down the hatches, and, trusting to night to escape, stood boldly at bay. He despaired of meeting force by force, having only twenty-two sound men, the rest being, before long, either killed or wounded. All in vain; the great bird of prey bore down upon him like a hawk upon a throstle, gaining, gaining every moment. Pierre defended himself courageously, and at last surrendered on condition. The Spanish captain agreed that the Buccaneers should not be employed in carrying, building-stones for three or four years like mere negroes, but should be set safe on dry land. As yet, the deep animosity of the two races had not sprung up. The prize they so nearly bore off contained above 100,000 pieces of eight in pearls, besides provisions and goods. At first the captain would have put them all to the sword, but his crew persuaded him to keep his word.

The Frenchmen were then thrust down with curses into the same dark hold from whence the imprisoned Spaniards were now released; so "the whirligig of time brings about its revenge." When the crestfallen Buccaneers were brought before the governor of Carthagena, an outcry arose among the populace that the robbers should all be hung, to atone for an alfarez whom they had killed, and who, they said, was worth the whole French nation put together. The governor, however, though he did not put them to death, ungenerously broke the terms of his agreement, and compelled his prisoners to work at the fortifications of St.

Francisco, in his own island. After about three years of this painful slavery, amid the jeers and contumely of the very negroes, they were sent to Spain, and from thence escaping one by one to France, made their way back to the Spanish main, more eager than ever to revenge their wrongs at the hands of a nation whose riches furnished a ready means of expiation, and whose cowardice rendered them incapable of frequent retaliation.

The third hero on our stage, equally bold and no less memorable, was Barthelemy Portugues, a native of Portugal, as his name implied.

Roused by the rumours of adventures which insured gold and glory, Barthelemy (no saint, and certainly more ready to flay others than to submit to flaying) sought out a small vessel at Jamaica, and fitted it up at his own expense. As only his most remarkable enterprises are recorded it is probable, from his having money, that he was already known as a successful Flibustier. This boat he armed with four three-pounders, and embarked with a crew of thirty men. Leaving Kingston with a good wind at his back, he set sail to cruise off Cape de Corriente, which he knew was the high road where he should meet vessels coming from the Caraccas or Carthagena, on their way to Campeachy, New Spain, or the Havannah. He had not been long beating about the Cape--a point rounded with as much care by a Spanish merchantman, afraid of Buccaneers, as Cape St. Vincent was by the European captain, dreading the Salee rovers--before a great vessel, bound from Maracaibo and Carthagena to the Havannah, hove in sight. It had a crew of seventy men, and carried twenty guns, and many pa.s.sengers and marines. The Flibustiers, thinking a Spaniard so well armed and manned to be more than their match, held one of their republican councils round the mast, and refused to attack unless the captain wished. He decided that no opportunity should be lost, for that nothing in any part of the world could be won without risk. They instantly gave chase to the vessel that quietly awaited their approach, as astonished at the attack as a swallow would be if it were pursued by a gnat. Receiving one flaming broadside, noisy but harmless, the half-stripped rovers instantly threw themselves on board, but were repulsed by the Spaniards, who were numerous, hopeful, and brave. Returning to their vessel and throwing down their cutla.s.s for the musket, they kept up a close fire of small arms for five hours without ceasing. Every gunner and every reefer was picked off, the decks were red, the return fire grew slack as the defence grew weaker, and the foe's proud courage cooled; the Buccaneers again threw themselves on board, and made themselves masters of the s.h.i.+p, with the loss of only ten men and four wounded. They had now only fifteen men left to navigate a vessel containing nearly forty prisoners. This number was all that were left alive, and of these many were maimed with shot wounds or gashed with sword cuts. The conquerors' first act was to throw the dead overboard, officer and sailor, just as they fell, stripping off the jewels and ransacking pockets for the dead men's doubloons. The living Spaniards, wounded and dying, they drove into one small boat, and gave them their liberty, afraid to keep them as prisoners and unwilling to shed their blood. They then set to work to splice the rigging and piece the sails, and lastly, to rummage for the plunder. They found the value of their prize to be 75,000 crowns, besides 120,000 pounds of cocoa, worth about 5000 additional. Having refitted the shattered vessel, they would have sailed round the island of Jamaica, but a contrary wind and current obliged them to steer to Cape St. Anthony, the west extremity of Cuba, where they landed and took in water, of which they were in great want.

They had scarcely hoisted sail to resume their course, probably intending to return to port to sell their spoil before starting afresh, when they unexpectedly fell upon three large vessels coming from New Spain to the Havannah, who gave chase, as certain of victory as three greyhounds bounding after a single hare. The Flibustiers, heavy laden with plunder, and unable to make way, were almost instantly retaken, falling as easy a prey as a gorged wolf does to the hunter. In a few hours the Buccaneers were under hatches, stripped of even their very clothes, and counting the moments before execution--the Puritan doling out his hymns, the Catholic muttering his Miserere, and the rude Cow-killer vowing vengeance if he could but escape. Two evenings after a storm arose and separated the leash of armed merchantmen.

The vessel containing the luckless Portugues arrived first at St.

Francisco, Campeachy. Barthelemy, who spoke Spanish, had been well treated by the captain, who did not know what a prize he had taken. The news of the capture soon ran through the town, the captain became a public man, the bells rang, the people flocked to see the caged lions, and the princ.i.p.al merchants of the place crowded to congratulate him on his success. Among the curious and timid visitors was one who recognised Barthelemy, in spite of all his oaths and denials, and demanded his surrender. No hate can match the hate of injured avarice and frustrated cupidity. "This is Barthelemy the Portuguese," he told every one, "the most wicked rascal in the world, and who has done more harm to Spanish commerce than all the other pirates put together." He ran everywhere and declared they had at last got hold of the man so famous for the many insolences, robberies, and murders he had committed on their coast, and by whose cruel hands many of their kinsmen had perished. The captain, rather distrustful--somewhat favourable to Barthelemy, perhaps, considering him as a brother seaman, worth any ten land-lubbers, and annoyed at the arrogance of the merchant's demand--refused to surrender the Portuguese, or to send him on sh.o.r.e.

The enraged merchant upon this proceeded to the governor, who, listening to his complaint, sent to demand the Buccaneers in the king's name. He was instantly arrested, spite of the captain's entreaties, and placed on board another vessel, heavily ironed, for fear he should escape, as he had done on a former occasion. A gibbet was erected, and the next day it was resolved to lead him at once from his cabin to the place of execution, without the hypocritical and useless ceremony of even a prejudged trial. For some time Portugues remained uncertain of his fate, till a Spanish sailor (for he seems to have had the power of winning friends) told him that the gibbet was already putting together, and the rope was ready noosed. In that delay was his safety; that very night he resolved to escape, or perish by a quicker or less disgraceful death. No doubt, with that strange mixture of religion remaining in the minds of most Buccaneers, he prayed to G.o.d or the saints to aid him.

He soon freed himself from his irons. Discovering in his cabin two of those large earthen jars in which wine was brought from Spain to the Indies, he closed over the orifices, and hung them to his side with cords, being probably unable to swim, and the distance too far to the sh.o.r.e. Finding that he could not elude the vigilance of the sleepless sentinel that paced at his door, he stabbed him with a knife he had secretly purchased, and let himself noiselessly down, from the mainchains into the water, floating to land without the splash that a swimmer would have made in still water. Once on land he concealed himself in a wood, prepared to bear any danger, and glad at heart to endure starvation rather than suffer a public and shameful death. He was too cunning to set off at once on a route that would be explored, but hid himself among trees half covered with water, in order to prevent the possibility of his being tracked by the maroon bloodhounds--a common stratagem with the moss-troopers, who found the sound of running water drown the noise of their movements and the murmur of their breathing, and destroy all traces of their track. Bruce and Wallace had long before escaped by the artifice that now saved a robber and a murderer. His must have been anxious nights, varied by the shouts of negroes, the deep bay of the dogs, the oaths of the Spaniards, the discharge of fire-arms, the toll of the alarm bell, the glare of beacons; and the flash of torches.

For these three days he lived on yams and other roots growing around him. From a tree in which he sometimes harboured he had the satisfaction of seeing his pursuers search the wood in vain, and finally relinquish the pursuit.

Believing that the danger had now in some degree decreased, the lion-hearted sailor determined to push for the Golpho Triste, forty leagues distant, where he hoped to find a Buccaneer s.h.i.+p careening. He arrived there after fourteen days of incredible endurance. He started in the evening from the seash.o.r.e, within sight of the lit-up town where a black gibbet was still standing bodingly against the sky. His forced marches were full of terrible dangers and perils. He had no provisions with him, and nothing but a small calabash of water hung at his side.

Hunger and thirst strode beside him, the wild beast glared in his path, the Spanish voices seemed to pursue him. His subsistence was the raw sh.e.l.l-fish that he found washed among the rocks upon the sh.o.r.e, fresh or putrid he had no time to consider. He had streams to ford, dark with caymans, and he had to traverse woods where the jaguars howled. Whenever he came to a stream unusually dark, deep, and dangerous, and where no ford was visible (for he could not swim), he threw in large stones as he waded to scare away the crocodiles that lurked round the shallows. In one spot he travelled five or six leagues swinging like a sloth from bough to bough of a pathless wood of mangroves, never once setting foot upon the ground. His day's progress was often scarcely perceptible. At one river more than usually deep he found an old plank, which had drifted ash.o.r.e when the seaman was washed off, and from this he obtained some large rusty nails. Extracting these nails, he sharpened them on a stone with great labour, and used them to cut down some branches of trees, which he joined together with osiers and pliable twigs, and slowly constructed a raft. Hunger, thirst, heat, and fear beset him round; and the voice of the sea, always on his right hand, came to him like the hungry howl of death. In these fourteen nights he must have literally tasted death, and antic.i.p.ated the horrors of h.e.l.l.

"Fortune favors the brave." He found a Buccaneer vessel in the gulf, and he was saved. The crew were old companions of his, newly arrived from Jamaica and from England. He related to them his adversities and his misfortunes. All listened eagerly to adventures that might to-morrow be their own. He thought alone of revenge, and told them that if they chose he would give them a s.h.i.+p worth a whole fleet of their canoes. He desired their help. He only asked for one boat and thirty men. With these he promised to return to Campeachy and capture the vessel that had taken him but fourteen days before. They soon granted his request, the boat was at once equipped, and he sailed along the coast, pa.s.sing for a smuggler bringing contraband goods. In eight days he arrived at Campeachy, undauntedly and without noise boarding the vessel at midnight. They were challenged by the sentinel. Barthelemy, who spoke good Spanish, replied, in a low voice, "We are part of the crew returning with goods from land, on which no duty has been paid." The sentinel, hoping for a share, or at least some hush-money, did not repeat the question. Allowing him no time to detect the trick, they stabbed him, and, rus.h.i.+ng forward, overpowered the watch. Cutting the cable, they surprised the sleepers in their cabins, and, weighing anchor, soon compelled the Spaniards, by a resolute attack, to surrender; and, setting sail from the port, rejoined their exulting comrades, unpursued by any vessel. Great was the joy of the adventurers in becoming possessors of so brave a s.h.i.+p. Portugues was now again rich and powerful, though but lately a condemned prisoner in the very vessel upon whose deck he now stood the lord of all. With this cargo of rich merchandise Barthelemy intended to achieve enterprises, for though the Spaniards' plate had been all disembarked at Campeachy, the booty was still large. But let no hunter halloo till he is out of the wood, and no sailor laugh till he gets into port. While he was making his voyage to Jamaica, and already counting his profits as certain, a terrible storm arose off the isle of Pinos, on the south of Cuba, which drove his prize against the Jardine rocks, where she went to pieces. Portugues and his companions escaped in a canoe to Jamaica, and before long started on new adventures. What eventually became of him we know not, but we are told that "he was never fortunate after." Whether he swung on the Campeachy gibbet after all, became a prey to the Darien man-eater, was pierced by the Greek bullet, or was devoured by the sea, long expecting its victim, we shall never know. He sails away from Kingston with colours flying, and wanders away into unknown deeps.

Of this wild man's end nothing was ever known. He was living at Jamaica when Esquemeling left for England. His bones, perhaps, still whiten on some Indian bay, with the sea moaning around that nameless dust for ever--doomed to destroy man, but lamenting the very desolation it occasions.

This Roche Braziliano (or Roc, the Brazilian, as the English adventurers called him,) was born at Groninghen, in East Friezeland; and his own name being forgotten, he was called the Brazilian, because his parents had been Dutch settlers in the Brazils. Roche was taught the Indian and Portuguese languages at an early age, and, when the latter nation retook the Brazils, removed with his parents to the French Antilles, where he learned French. Disliking the nation, he pa.s.sed into Jamaica. Here he learned to speak English, and, settling among our more congenial race, became attached to the country of his adoption. But he had lingered too long in the desert to have much taste for even Goshen. He had already acquired the Arab's love for wandering, and poverty combined to lead him into an adventurer's s.h.i.+p. Into this mode of life all restless talent and love of enterprise was now driven.

After only three voyages, Roche became commander of a brig whose crew had mutinied from their captain and offered him the command. In a few days, this almost untried man had the good fortune to capture a large vessel coming from New Spain with a great quant.i.ty of plate on board. On his arrival in Jamaica, Roc became at once the acknowledged leader of all the Vikinger of the Spanish main--their first sailor, their hero, and their model. He soon grew so terrible that the Spanish mothers used his name as a hushword to their children.

Roc is described as having a stalwart and vigorous body. He was of ordinary height, but stout and muscular. His face was wide and short, his cheek-bones prominent, and his eyebrows bushy and of unusual size.

He was skilful in the use of all Indian and Catholic (Spanish) arms, a good hunter, a good fisherman, and a good shot--as skilful a pilot as he was a brave soldier. He generally carried a naked sabre resting on his arm, and made no scruple of cutting down any of his crew who were idle, mutinous, or cowardly. He was much dreaded even in Jamaica, and particularly when drunk, says his candid biographer. At those times he would frequently run a-muck through the streets, beating and wounding any one he met, especially if they dared to oppose or resist him. In his sober moments he was esteemed and feared, but he too often abandoned himself to every sort of debauchery.

In Roc we see the first indication of a new phase of Buccaneering life--_a fanatical hatred of the Spaniard_. The sailor, at first a mere privateersman at sea, and a hunter on sh.o.r.e, was now a legal robber, with a spice of the crusader: a chivalrous Vendetta feeling had become superadded to the mere love of booty. A thirst for gold had proved irresistible: what would it be now when it became heightened by a thirst for blood?

To the Spaniards Roc was always very barbarous and cruel, out of an inveterate hatred to that nation. He seldom gave them quarter, and treated them with untiring ferocity. He taxed his invention for new modes of torture, revenging upon them by a rather indirect mode of retaliation the wrongs inflicted upon his parents by the Portuguese. He is said to have even roasted alive some of his prisoners on wooden spits, like boucaned boars, because they refused to disclose the hog-yards where he might victual his s.h.i.+ps. By the Spaniards he was reported to be really an apostate outlaw of their own nation, this being the only way in which they could account for his needless and useless cruelties.

On one occasion, as he was cruising on the coast of Campeachy, a dismal tempest, says the chronicler, "surprised him so violently" that his s.h.i.+p was wrecked, himself and his crew only escaping with their muskets, a little powder, and a few bullets, much more useful, however, than gold on such a coast. They reached sh.o.r.e not far from Golpho Triste, the scene of Barthelemy's escape. Roc was not the man to be cast down by an accident no more regarded by true adventurers than the upsetting of a coach by an ordinary traveller. Getting ash.o.r.e in a canoe, he determined to march quickly along the coast, and repair to the gulf, a well-known haunt of the members of their craft. Roc bade his men be of good heart, and he would bring them safe out of every danger, and, giving them hope, the promise was already half accomplished. Getting on the main road, they proceeded on their march through a hostile country, with the air of men who had conquered the whole Indies. They had already reached a desert track, and were grown fatigued, hungry, and thirsty, when some Indians gave the alarm, and the Spaniards were soon down upon them, to the number of one hundred well-armed and well-mounted hors.e.m.e.n, while the Buccaneers were but thirty men.

As soon as Roc saw the enemy, the Brazilian cried out, "Courage, _mes freres_, we are hungry now, but, Caramba, you shall soon have a dinner if you follow me," and then, perceiving the imminent danger, he encouraged his men, telling them they were better soldiers than the Spaniards, and that they ought rather to die fighting under their arms as became men of courage, than to surrender, and have their lives pressed out by the extremest torments. Seeing their commander's courage, the wrecked men resolved to attack, instead of waiting tamely for the enemy's approach, and, facing the Spaniards, they at once discharged their guns so dexterously, that they killed a horseman with almost every shot. After an hour's hot fighting, the Spaniards fled. The adventurers lost only two men, two more being lamed. Stripping the dead, they took from them every valuable, and despatched the wounded with the b.u.t.t-end of their muskets. They then feasted on the wine and brandy they found in their knapsacks, or at their saddle bows, and declared themselves ready to attack as many again; and having finished their meal, they mounted on the stray horses, and proceeded on their march.

The victors had not gone more than two days' journey before they caught sight of a well-manned Spanish vessel, lying off the sh.o.r.e beneath. It had come to protect the boats which landed the men who cut the Campeachy dyewood. Roc saw that the poultry-yard knew nothing of the kite that was hovering near. He instantly concealed his band, and went with six comerades into a thicket near the beach to watch. Here they pa.s.sed the night. At daybreak the Spaniards, pulling to sh.o.r.e in their canoe, were received in a courteous but unexpected manner by the Buccaneers. Roc instantly summoned his men, boarded and took the vessel. The little man-of-war contained little plate, but, what was of equal use, two hundred weight of salt, with which he salted down a few of the horses which he killed. The remaining horses he gave to his Spanish prisoners, telling them laughingly, that the beasts were worth more than the vessel, and that once on their backs on dry land no rascal need fear drowning.

A Buccaneer's first thought on obtaining one prize was to gain another as soon as possible. Roc had still twenty-six man by him, and a good vessel to move in. He soon took a s.h.i.+p, bound to Maracaibo from New Spain, laden with merchandise and money designed to buy a cargo of cocoa-nuts. With this they repaired to Jamaica, letting the vessel scorch in harbour till their money was all gone. Having spent all, Braziliano put out to sea again, impatient of poverty and resolved to trust to fortune, for he was her favourite child. He sailed for the rendezvous at Campeachy, and after fifteen days started in a canoe to hover round the port, beating about like a hawk in search of prey.

He was soon after captured and taken with his men before a Spanish governor, who cast them into a dungeon, intending to hang them every one. But fortune only hid her smiles for a moment, and had not deserted him. Roc, as subtle as he was intrepid, had not yet exhausted his wiles.

He was at bay and the dogs were gathered round, but they had not yet got him by the throat. He made friends with the slave who brought him food, and promised to give him money to buy his freedom if he would aid his scheme. He did not wish to compromise the slave: he only wished him to be the bearer of a letter to the governor. The slave told the governor that he had been put on sh.o.r.e in the bay by some Buccaneers and had been ordered to deliver the letter. The letter was an angry threat, supposed to be indited by the captain of a French vessel lying in the offing. It advised the governor "to have a care how he used those persons he had in his custody, for in case he should do them any harm, they did swear unto him, they would never give quarter unto any person of the Spanish nation that should fall into their hands." The governor, lifting up his eyes and twisting his moustachios at the threat, was intimidated, and became anxious to get rid as soon as possible of such dangerous prisoners, for Campeachy had already been taken once by the adventurers, and he feared what mischief the companions who visited Spanish towns might do. He began now to treat his prisoners with greater kindness, and on the first opportunity sent for them, and, exacting a simple oath that they would abandon piracy, s.h.i.+pped them on board the galleon fleet bound for Spain.

Roc, with his usual versatility, soon made himself so much beloved that the Spanish captain offered to take him as a sailor, and he accepted the offer. During this single voyage to Spain he made a sum of no less than 500 crowns by selling the officers fish that he struck in the Indian manner with arrows and harpoons from the main-chains. His comerades, whom he never forgot, were treated with consideration on his account.

On his arrival in Spain, Roc, in spite of his oath, which had been exacted by fear of death, and therefore absolvable by any priest, lost no time in getting back to Jamaica, where he arrived without a vessel to call his own, but in other respects in better circ.u.mstances than when he left. He joined himself at once to two French adventurers.

The chief of these, named Tributor, was an old Buccaneer of great experience. They determined to land upon the peninsula of Yucatan, in hopes of taking the town of Merida. Roc, who had been there before as a prisoner, and had doubtless proposed the scheme, served as guide, but some Indians got upon their trail and alarmed the Spaniards, who fortified the place and prepared for an attack. On the Buccaneers'

arrival they found the town well garrisoned and defended, and while they were still debating whether to advance or retreat, the question was abruptly decided for them by a body of the enemy's hors.e.m.e.n who fell upon their rear, cut half of them to pieces, and made the rest prisoners. The wily Roc, never taken much by surprise, contrived to escape, but old Tributor and his men were all captured. Oexmelin expresses his wonder at Roc's escape, because he had always held it vile cowardliness to allow another man to strike before himself. "Hitherto he had been the last to yield, even when he was overborne by enemies, and had been heard to say that he preferred death to dishonour." _Nemo mortalium_, &c.

CHAPTER V.

LOLONNOIS THE CRUEL.

Lolonnois--His stratagem--His cruelty--His partner, Michael le Basque--Takes Maracaibo--Tortures the citizens--Sacks the town--Takes Gibraltar--Attempt on Merida--Famine and pestilence--Division of spoil--Takes St. Pedro--Burns Veragua--Wrecked in Honduras--Attacked by Indians--Killed and eaten by the savages.

The Spanish s.h.i.+ps now decreased in number, merchants relinquis.h.i.+ng a trade so uncertain and perilous. The consequence of this was that the Buccaneers, finding their sea cruises grow less profitable, began to venture upon the mainland, and attack towns and even cities.

The first Buccaneer who distinguished himself in this wider field of action was Francis Lolonnois. He was born among the sands of Olonne, in Poictou, and drew his _nom de guerre_ from that wild and fitting birthplace. He quitted France in early life, and embarked at Roch.e.l.le as an _engage_ for the Caribbean Islands, where he served the customary slavery of three years. Having heard much during this servitude of the hunters of Hispaniola, he sailed for that island as soon as his apprentices.h.i.+p had expired, and he was again a free adventurer. He first bound himself as a valet to a hunter, and finally became himself a Buccaneer, having now pa.s.sed through all the usual experiences of a young West Indian colonist. Spending some time upon the savannahs, he became restless and tired of sh.o.r.e, and desirous of enlisting as a freebooter under the red flag. Repairing to Tortuga, the head-quarters of Flibustier enterprise, he enrolled himself among the rovers of the sea, with whom he made many voyages as simple mariner or companion. From the first day he trod plank he is said to have shown himself destined to attain high distinction, surpa.s.sing all the "Brothers" in adroitness, agility, and daring.

In these floating republics talent soon rose to the surface. Lolonnois was elected master of a vessel, with which he took many prizes, but at last lost everything by a storm which wrecked his s.h.i.+p, drowned his men, sank his cargo, and cast him bleeding and naked upon a savage sh.o.r.e. His courage and conduct, however, had won the admiration of the Governor of Tortuga, M. de la Place, whose island he had enriched by the frequent sale of prizes, and who launched him again in a new s.h.i.+p to encounter once more all the fury of the sea, the hurricane, and the Spaniard.

Fortune was at first favourable to him, and he acquired great riches.

His name became so dreaded by the Indians and the Spaniards that they chose rather to die or drown than surrender to one who never knew the word mercy. He never learned how to chain fortune to his mast, and was soon a second time wrecked at Campeachy. The men were all saved, but on reaching land were pursued and killed by the Spaniards. Lolonnois, himself severely wounded, saved his life by a stratagem. Mixing the sand of the sh.o.r.e with the blood flowing from his wounds, he smeared his face and body, and hid himself dexterously under a heap of dead, remaining there till the Spaniards had carried off one or two of his less severely wounded companions into Campeachy. As soon as they were gone he arose with a grim smile from his lurking place among the slain, and betook himself to the woods. He then washed his now stiffened wounds in a river, and bound up his gashes as he could. As soon as they were healed (the flesh of these men soon healed), he put on the dress of a slain Spaniard, and made his way boldly into the neighbouring city. In the suburbs he entered into conversation with some slaves he met, whom he bribed by an offer of freedom if they would obey him and follow his guidance.

They listened to his proposal, and, stealing their master's canoe, brought it to the sea-sh.o.r.e, where Lolonnois lay concealed. But before this the disguised Buccaneer had gone rambling fearlessly through the enemy's town, witnessing the rejoicings made at his own supposed death; for his companions, who were kept close prisoners in a dungeon, had been asked what had become of their captain, to which they had always replied that he was dead, upon which the Spaniards lit up bonfires in their open squares, thanking G.o.d for their deliverance from so cruel a pirate.

The flames of these fires were red upon the bay when Lolonnois and the slaves pushed off their canoe and made haste to escape. They reached Tortuga in safety, and Lolonnois kept his promise, and set the slaves at liberty--although, if he had been base and worthless enough, he could have refitted his boat with the profits of their sale. He now thought only of revenging himself on the Spaniards for their cruelty in murdering the survivors of a wreck. He spent whole days in considering how he could capture a vessel and restore himself to his former reputation for skill and fortune. By some extraordinary plan, Esquemeling--who writes always with affected horror of the men amongst whom he lived--says, with "craft and subtlety," he soon obtained a third s.h.i.+p, with a crew of twenty-one men and a surgeon. Being well provided with arms and necessaries--how provided by a penniless man it is impossible to guess--he resolved to visit De Los Cayos, a village on the south side of Cuba, where he knew vessels from the Havannah pa.s.sed to the port of Boca de Estera, where they purchase tobacco, sugar, and hides, coming generally in small boats, for the sea ran very shallow. At this place meat was also obtained to victual the Spanish fleets.

Here Lolonnois was very sanguine of booty, but some fishermen's boats, observing him, alarmed the town. One of these canoes they captured, and, placing in it a crew of eleven men, proceeded to coast about the Bayes du Nord. The Buccaneers kept at some distance from each other, in hopes of sooner surrounding their prey, for each of their crews was strong enough to capture any merchant vessel that had not more than fifteen or sixteen unarmed men on board. They remained some months beating off and on Cuba, but caught nothing, although this was the very height of the commercial season. After a long delay of wonder and vexation, they learned the cause of their failure from the crew of a fis.h.i.+ng-boat which they captured, who told them that the people of Cayos would not venture to sea because they knew that they were there. It would be dangerous for them to remain, they added, for the chief merchants of the port had instantly despatched a "vessel overland" to the Governor of Havannah, telling him that Lolonnois had come in two canoes to destroy them, and begging him to send and destroy the "ladrones." The governor could with difficulty at first be persuaded to listen to the pet.i.tion, because he had just received letters from Campeachy bidding him rejoice at the death of that pirate; but, aroused by the continued importunities of his angry pet.i.tioners, he at last sent a s.h.i.+p to their relief.

This s.h.i.+p carried ten guns, and had a crew of ninety young, vigorous, and well-armed men, to whom he gave at parting an express command that they should not return into his presence without having first destroyed those pirates. He sent with them a negro hangman, desiring him to kill on the spot all they should take, except Lolonnois, the captain, who was to be brought alive in triumph to the Havannah. The s.h.i.+p had scarcely arrived at Cayos when the pirate, advertised of its approach, came to seek it at its moorings in the river Estera. Lolonnois cried out, when he saw it loom in the distance, "Courage, mes camarades! courage, mes bons freres! we shall soon be well mounted." Capturing some fishermen busy with their nets, he forced them at night to show him the entrance of the port.