INTRODUCTION
Why did men go a-pirating, or “on the account” as the pirates called it? The sailors said it was few ships and many men, hard work and small pay, long voyages, bad food and cruel commanders. “Hard ships make hard men.” “Many sailed but few returned.” “No kind words on deep water.” “No law off soundings.” “We live hard and die hard and go to Hell afterwards.” These are some of the sea sayings that have come down to us from long ago, and they go to prove that the narrow channel of sailor men was narrow indeed and full of rocks and shoals which could only be cleared by very careful steering.
The sea was ever a hard calling, especially in the days of which this work treats. The men before the mast were little better than slaves: “Growl you may but go you must” was the saying. Small pay (which they “earned like horses and spent like asses”), scanty food and often stinking water with generally hard usage turned many an honest sailorman into a desperate pirate.
Sea captains thought it good policy to keep their men as “busy as the Devil in a gale of wind” to prevent them doing a job o’ work for that Gentleman with the long tail, who, it was said, took especial interest in the doings of “those who go down to the sea in ships.” “Six days shalt thou labour as hard as thou art able, the seventh, holy-stone the main deck and chip the chain cable.” Capt. Thomas Phillips wrote in 1693, that “nothing grates upon the seamen more than pinching their bellies, or treating them with cruel or reproachful words.”
One can easily imagine a group of hard-bitten men sheltering under the lee of the long boat on a dirty night; wet, cold and tired; listening with hungry interest to the yarns of an “old stander” who had been “on the account,” telling of the time he sailed with Bart Sharp or “Long Ben” Avery; picturing with many a brave oath, that other channel, the broad one, straight, with smooth water, pieces-of-eight to port, dollars and doubloons to starboard, snug harbors in tropic isles, dusky maids, punch, tobacco and grub in plenty, laced coats and chains of gold.
There is another side to the picture, not so pleasant, to be sure, but easily dimmed by a noggin of rum or a swig or two of flip. ’Tis naught, after all, but the yard-arm of a man-of-war with a man on the end of a tricing line with his flippers seized to his sides; and on a seashore, a wooden erection with a something hanging—something that looks uncommonly like a sailorman, watching, with wry face, the ebbing and flowing of the tide. But there’s nothing in the picture to make one of the right sort go about ship. Better a short choking sensation than a long starving in merchants’ employ or scurvy rotting for a pay ticket on board a king’s ship.
Capt. Charles Johnson tells us in his book on pirates, that one “Mary Read, a female pirate, being asked by her captain, before he knew she was a woman, why she followed a life so full of danger and at last to the certainty of being hanged, replied: as to the hanging she thought it no great hardship, for were it not for that every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so infest the seas that men of courage would starve. That if it was put to her choice she would not have the punishment less than death, the fear of which kept dastardly rogues honest; that many of those who were now cheating the widows and orphans and oppressing their poor neighbors who had no money to obtain justice, would then rob at sea and the ocean would be as crowded with rogues as the land, so that no merchant would venture out and the trade in a little time would not be worth following.”
There is an old saying that “Peace makes pirates.” The lawless scamps—“sweepings of Hell and Hackney”—who manned the privateers were especially prone to go a-pirateering in times of peace. They could not or would not settle down to steady work and small pay or be bound by laws and conventions. They loved roving and loot too well. Better to hang a sun-drying than to live with “a southerly wind in the shot locker.” It was but a step, after all, and that a short one, if half be true that has been written of privateers by men of regular navies. But perhaps they were a little prejudiced. Many rich prizes were taken by the private ships of war, often robbing the regulars of the chance of filling their pockets. Those who manned the King’s ships, like all others that used the seas, suffered from loot hunger and to satisfy the same would often sail very close to the wind, so close, in fact, that several of the King’s captains were caught flat aback and made a stern board towards the rocks. Some cleared by discharging their golden ballast, others, by the wind of influence.
Coasters and fishermen were not so apt to turn pirates. Their work was hard and risky; but fresh food, “full and plenty,” and shore influence kept them steady. They were not as a rule of such an adventurous type as deep-water seamen. Occasionally, however, some lusty young fisherman or coaster would go a-roving. Perhaps some maid had been unkind or too kind.
Some sailed under the “Jolly Roger” because they thought that he who dared, toiled and ventured, deserved as great a percentage of the profits as he who sat at home in personal safety and comfort and handled the pen. It was their only chance of getting even with the merchants and that chance a good one. Governments had little to spend on pirate chasing; besides, who could better stand a little cash-letting than the money-fat merchants. But well as they might have been able to stand it they roared so during the operation that governments were forced at last, Acts of Grace having failed, to send men-of-war to cruise against “the gentlemen of fortune following the sea.” They effected little. After one pirate-hunting squadron had returned unsuccessful, sailors’ yarns floated around that told of the commodore’s ship springing a leak out Madagascar way, and of great store of powder, shot and rum being landed to lighten her. The leak stopped as suddenly as it began and when the boats’ crews landed to bring off the powder, shot and rum, all had disappeared. The yarns went on to tell that when the commodore was taking a walk on shore, he found several small kegs stowed under a palm tree down by the water’s edge, and how heavy they were, and how carefully they were kept in the after cabin of the Commodore’s ship, and that the officers said they had nothing in ’em but honey; but Barney Brown, the boatswain’s mate, swore his Bible oath that he heard the clink of coin when a-rolling them along the deck.
There’s no doubt that many were worthy, but only Kidd was hanged.
The news of Captain Avery’s rich prize, the Mogul’s ship, with her cargo of wealth and beautiful women, including, it was said, one of the Great Mogul’s daughters, made many an old tarpaulin hitch up his breeches and turn his quid. The fame of the beauty of the fair captives was such that the mariners lost all their admiration for the Boston Kates and Wapping Pegs of the ports where sea-faring men mostly took their ease. “No! damme, no! Might as well ask a man to thirst for a sup of sour beer when good rum’s to be had.” So off they’d go a-pirating, hoping to capture something of the Miss Mogul sort with something to keep her on.
The Peace of Ryswick forced hundreds of West India privateers or buccaneers who had preyed on the Spaniards, to seek for purchase under the black flag in all seas and from all nations.
Spain’s jealous policy regarding trade with her over-sea subjects, and monopolies such as enjoyed by the East India Company, were resented by all free merchants. Ships were fitted out and loaded with suitable cargoes for the illegal trade. These interlopers were fast and well manned and armed to enable them to wrong the guarda costas.
With a fair whack of luck great gains were made; but some failed to get their whack; found shore officials suffering from honesty, a very uncommon disorder among them in those days and easily cured by most anything of value. But some of the patients required such enormous doses, that rather than give the medicine and by so doing make a broken voyage, the interlopers would throw the bones with Davy Jones. They had the ship, they had the guns, and many a willing hand and if they lacked black bunting there was store of black tarpaulin with artists of sufficient skill to paint “the Skull and Bones.” Hurrah for the “Jolly Roger”! A “gold chain or a wooden leg”! We’ll take what we can’t make!
When a prize was taken the pirate quartermaster would seek for recruits from among the prisoners. Every lad of them of spirit, impressed by the sight of such a bold swaggering crew rapping out their first-rate oaths and well ballasted with punch, with their bravery of laced hats, ribbons and pistols, was ready enough to square away for the broad channel.
Although many were willing, few volunteered to sign the pirate articles. The many wanted the plea of force, to let go, in case of getting on a lee shore in a law storm. It was a very light anchor, more like to drag than hold, but “better a kedge than nothing at all.” Landsmen, the pirates despised, nor pricked they the halt, lame or feeble.
The pirate wind was an ill wind, but it blew wonderful luck to those merchants who loaded ships to their scuppers with fiery Jamaica, red-hot brandy, gunpowder, small arms and cannon balls, and sent them off to trade with some negro king, ’twas said. On the voyage they would call at a lonely isle for wood and water and there they would meet other ships manned by the most open-fisted merchants ever known. No wrangling over a bale or two. Such bargains, the like of which never could have been made even with the most unsophisticated of dusky potentates. It was true, these merchants lacked the gravity of their kind; tossed the bowl about a good deal; and swore,—well, like pirates! And so home with a rich cargo.
With such a reputation for reckless daring, why, it may be asked, were the pirates not more successful when engaging ships of war? John Atkins, surgeon on board the “Swallow,” man-of-war, that took three pirate ships on the Guinea coast in 1722, tells the reason. “Discipline,” says the Doctor, “is an excellent path to victory; and courage, like a trade, is gained by an apprenticeship, when strictly kept up to rules and exercise. The pirates though singly fellows of courage, yet wanting such a tie of order and some director to unite that force, were a contemptible enemy. They neither killed or wounded a man in the taking; which ever must be the fate of such rabble.”
From whatever source the pirates sprang, they were, taking them by and large, brisk, courageous men, who were for making hasty estates at the expense of the public and ever athirst for the juice of the sunny isle, that magic fluid which helped them to forget that last pilot of many a good pirate,—the Man with the Silver Oar.
Ernest H. Pentecost.
A GENERAL
HISTORY
OF THE
Robberies and Murders
Of the most notorious
PYRATES,
AND ALSO
Their Policies, Discipline and Government,
From their first Rise and Settlement in the Island
of Providence, in 1717, to the present Year 1724.
WITH
The remarkable Actions and Adventures of the two Female
Pyrates, Mary Read and Anne Bonny.
To which is prefix’d
An ACCOUNT of the famous Captain Avery, and his Companions;
with the Manner of his Death in England.
The Whole digested into the following CHAPTERS;
Chap. I. Of Captain Avery.
II. The Rise of Pyrates.
III. Of Captain Martel.
IV. Of Captain Bonnet.
V. Of Captain Thatch.
VI. Of Captain Vane.
VII. Of Captain Rackam.
VIII. Of Captain England.
IX. Of Captain Davis.
X. Of Captain Roberts.
XI. Of Captain Worley.
XII. Of Captain Lowther.
XIII. Of Captain Low.
XIV. Of Captain Evans.
And their several Crews.
To which is added,
A short ABSTRACT of the Statute and Civil Law, in
Relation to Pyracy.
By Captain Charles Johnson.
LONDON, Printed for Ch. Rivington at the Bible and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, J. Lacy at the Ship near the Temple-Gate, and J. Stone next the Crown Coffee-house the back of Greys-Inn, 1724.
CHAPTER I
The Beginnings of English Piracy
“As in all lands where there are many people, there are some theeves, so in all Seas much frequented, there are some Pyrats.” So wrote Capt. John Smith, the one-time Admiral of New England, when commenting in 1630 on the “bad life, qualities and conditions of Pyrats,”[1] and this characterization remained true for many years after his day. Piracy was as old as the art of transportation by water and until suppressed by force in comparatively recent times it was a favorite trade among seamen when times were hard or temptations great.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) was characterized by a great development of the maritime power of England. This was the time when Drake and Hawkins and other great navigators fought with the ships of Spain and brought fame and fortune to English seamen. Much of the fighting at sea, however, was but little removed from freebooting and it is now difficult to judge what was legalized warfare and what was piratical capture. Notwithstanding the frequent opportunity for brave men to attack rich Spanish ships common piracy flourished and in 1563 there were over four hundred known pirates sailing the four seas.[2]
When James I (1603-1625) came to the throne he resolved to live at peace with all nations and so found little employment for a navy. In the first year of his reign he recalled all “letters of marque,” and two years later, by proclamation, forbade English seamen to seek employment in foreign ships. In consequence many poverty-stricken seamen became pirates, urged on by their necessities. “Some, because they became sleighted of those for whom they had got much wealth; some, for that they could not get their due; some, that had lived bravely, would not abase themselves to poverty; some vainly, only to get a name; others for revenge, covetousnesse, or as ill; and as they found themselves more and more oppressed, their passions increasing with discontent, made them turne Pirats.”[3]
By 1618, there were ten times as many pirates as there had been during the whole reign of Queen Bess. About the only voyage open to an English seaman at that time was the fishing venture of Newfoundland, which was toilsome in the extreme and full of exposure and hardship. The dirty carrying trade to Newcastle, for coals, while a good school for seamen, was despised and thought beneath the ability of an active man, and the long voyage to the East Indies was tedious and dangerous. As for the navy—berths were few and the food poor, the pay was small and the service a kind of slavery. Ordinary seamen received only ten shillings a month, which was raised to fifteen shillings when Charles I (1625-1649) became king. But even this small wage was subject to a deduction of six pence for the Chatham Chest founded in 1590 for the relief of injured and disabled seamen.
Peter Easton was one of the most notorious of the English pirates during the reign of James I. In 1611 he had forty vessels under his command. The next year he was on the Newfoundland coast with ten of his ships where he trimmed and repaired, appropriated provisions and munitions and took one hundred men to man his fleet.[4] On June 4, 1614, Henry Mainwaring, was at Newfoundland, with eight vessels in his fleet. Mainwaring became even better known than Easton and a few years later was pardoned and placed in command of a squadron and sent to the Barbary coast in an unsuccessful attempt to drive out the pirates located there. While he was on the Newfoundland coast he plundered the fishing fleet of carpenters and marines and the provisions and stores that he needed. Of every six seamen he took one. From a Portuguese ship he looted a good store of wine and a French ship supplied him with 10,000 fish. Some of the fishermen deserted their vessels and voluntarily went with him. In all he took four hundred men, many of whom were “perforstmen,”[5] and then sailed back across the Atlantic to continue his impartial plundering of the ships of Spain and other nations.
It was an easy matter for the English pirates to obtain bread, wine, cider and fish and all the necessaries for shipping on the Newfoundland coast as the fishermen were unarmed and moreover did not stand together. Not many pirates went there, however, as the voyage across the Atlantic was long and the prevailing winds apt to be westerly or northwesterly during the summer months. Notwithstanding, the fishing fleets suffered so much from these attacks that by 1622, men-of-war were sent out to convoy and remain on the station during the fishing season. In 1636, three hundred English fishing vessels were in the fleet that sailed for home under convoy.
The Irish coast was another favorite resort where pirates went to careen and obtain provisions from the country people. Broadhaven was a favorite rendezvous. The Irish coast not only was a good place to provision but also there “they had good store of English, Scottish and Irish wenches which resort unto them, and these are strong attractions to draw the common sort of them thither.”[6]
Mainwaring in his account of English piracy at this period, supplies an interesting description of their methods of attack.
“In their working they usually do thus: a little before day they take in all their sails, and lie a-hull, till they can make what ships are about them; and accordingly direct their course so as they may seem to such ships as they see to be Merchantmen bound upon their course. If they be a fleet, then they disperse themselves a little before day, some league or thereabouts asunder, and seeing no ships do most commonly clap close by a wind to seem as Plyers.[7] If any ships stand in after them, they heave out all the sail they can make, and hang out drags to hinder their going, so that the other that stand with them might imagine they were afraid and that they shall fetch them up. They keep their tops continually manned, and have signs to each other when to chase, when to give over, where to meet, and how to know each other, if they see each other afar off.
“In chase they seldom use any ordnance, but desire as soon as they can, to come a board and board; by which course he shall more dishearten the Merchant and spare his own Men. They commonly show such colours as are most proper to their ships, which are for the most part Flemish bottoms, if they can get them, in regard that generally they go well, are roomy ships, floaty[8] and of small charge.”
Mainwaring also comments on the ease with which successful pirates might obtain a pardon and of this he spoke with personal knowledge of how it was done, writing, “if they can get £1000 or two, they doubt not but to find friends to get their Pardons for them. They have also a conceit that there must needs be wars with Spain within a few years, and then they think they shall have a general Pardon.”
Capt. John Smith in his “True Travels,” relates that the pirates prospered exceedingly and became a serious menace to trade so that “they grew hatefull to all Christian Princes.” Their increase in number finally induced them to establish a rendezvous on the Barbary coast in Northern Africa.[9] Ward, Bishop and Easton, all Englishmen, were among the first to go there, and were soon joined by others,—Jennings, Harris and Thompson and some who were hanged, at last, at Wapping on the Thames. The Mediterranean was the center of a rich commerce and these outlawed seamen banded together in small fleets, plundered impartially the vessels of Genoa, Malta, England or Holland. Success brought on indolence and the riotous, debauched life they led after a time deprived them of leaders of spirit, so that the Moors began to dominate their operations.[10] Some pirates were enslaved, others became renegades and accepted the Mohammedan faith and all, at last, became merged into the Barbary corsair and for nearly two centuries sailed out of ports in Algiers and Tunis and were the terror of mariners, not only about the Strait of Gibraltar but for some distance up and down the Atlantic coast,—robbing, enslaving or exacting tribute from all so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. Another group of rovers made their home port at Sallee harbor, on the west coast of Morocco. The “Salley rovers” were a great danger to vessels engaged in the Guinea trade.
From this it will be seen that piracy in European waters, in the early years of the seventeenth century, had its origin in a lack of legitimate employment for seamen. This condition was brought about by a period of peace and aggravated by an imperfectly developed maritime commerce that could not be quickly increased in order to find occupation for idle men. “I could wish Merchants, Gentlemen, and all setters forth of ships,” concludes Captain Smith, “not to bee sparing of a competent pay, nor true payment; for neither souldiers nor Sea-men can live without meanes, but necessity will force them to steale; and when they are once entered into that trade, they are hardly reclaimed.”
Another contributing factor, that later helped to supply suitable material for piratical ventures, may be found in the character of the shifting population of the American colonies. In all frontier settlements, in all parts of the world and at all times, there exist irresponsible and lawless elements sloughed off by more perfectly controlled governments. This was true in the early days of the seaport towns along the Atlantic coast. Prisoners of war, poor debtors, criminals from the gaols and young men and boys kidnapped in the streets of English towns, were shipped across the Atlantic and sold to planters and tradesmen for a term of years under conditions closely approaching servitude. It became a trade to furnish the plantations with servile labor drawn from the off-scourings of the mother country. Even the English government took a hand and in 1661 “a committee was appointed to consider the best means of furnishing labor to the plantations by authorizing contractors to transport criminals, beggars, and vagrants. Runaway apprentices, faithless husbands and wives, fugitive thieves and murderers were thus enabled to escape beyond the reach of civil or criminal justice.”[11] Once landed in the colonies and having tasted the hardships of forced labor, a roving disposition was soon awakened and runaway servants were almost as common as blackbirds. Numbers of these men joined marauding expeditions and eventually became pirates of the usual type.
Undoubtedly privateering was the principal training school that taught adventurous men to accept a roving commission not only against Spaniards but against men of all nations. Like pirates, the privateersmen lived on spoil and while legally restricted in their attacks to the vessels of an enemy nation it was easy sometimes to overlook the color of a flag if an honest living was not at hand and one was far from home. In fact, it has been said that “privateers in time of war are a nursery for pirates against a peace.” A stirring description of an attack on a Spanish ship is given in the “Accidence for all Young Seamen,” published in London in 1626, and written by Capt. John Smith, the “Admiral of New England.” It may well serve as an account of what took place at that time on nearly every privately armed vessel attacking an enemy.
“A sail, how stands she, to windward or leeward, set him by the Compass. He stands right a-head. Out with all your sails, a steady man at the helm, sit close to keep her steady. He holds his own. Ho, we gather on him. Out goeth his flag and pennants or streamers, also his Colours, his waist-cloths and top armings, he furls and slings his main sail, in goes his sprit sail and mizzen, he makes ready his close fights fore and after. Well, we shall reach him by and by.
“Is all ready? Yea, yea. Every man to his charge. Dowse your top sail, salute him for the sea. Hail him! Whence your ship? Of Spain. Whence is yours? Of England. Are you Merchants or Men of War? We are of the Sea. He waves us to leeward for the King of Spain, and keeps his luff. Give him a chase piece, a broadside, and run a-head, make ready to tack about. Give him your stern pieces. Be yare at helm, hail him with a noise of Trumpets.
“We are shot through and through, and between wind and water. Try the pump. Master, let us breathe and refresh a little. Sling a man overboard to stop the leak. Done, done. Is all ready again? Yea, yea. Bear up close with him. With all your great and small shot charge him. Board him on his weather quarter. Lash fast your grapplins and shear off, then run stem line the mid ships. Board and board, or thwart the hawse. We are foul on each other.
“The ship’s on fire. Cut anything to get clear, and smother the fire with wet cloths. We are clear, and the fire is out. God be thanked!
“The day is spent, let us consult. Surgeon look to the wounded. Wind up the slain, with each a piece or bullet at his head and feet. Give three pieces for their funeral.
“Swabber make clean the ship. Purser record their names. Watch be vigilent to keep your berth to windward; and that we loose him not in the night. Gunners sponge your Ordnances. Carpenters about your leaks. Boatswain and the rest, repair the sails and shrouds. Cook see you observe your directions about the morning watch. Boy. Hulloa, Master, Hulloa. Is the kettle boiling. Yea, yea.
“Boatswain call up the men to Breakfast; Boy fetch my cellar of Bottles. A health to you all fore and aft, courage my hearts for a fresh charge. Master lay him aboard luff for luff. Midshipmen see the tops and yards well manned with stones and brass balls, to enter them in the shrouds. Sound Drums and Trumpets, and St. George for England.
“They hang out a flag of truce. Stand in with him, hail him amain, abaft or take in his flag. Strike their sails and come aboard, with the Captain, Purser, and Gunner, with your Commission, Cocket, or bills of loading.
“Out goes their Boat. They are launched from the ship’s side. Entertain them with a general cry, God save the Captain, and all the Company, with the Trumpets sounding. Examine them in particular; and then conclude your conditions with feasting, freedom, or punishment as you find occasion.”
During the middle years of the seventeenth century the West India waters were covered with privateers commissioned to prey upon Spanish commerce. Not only did the home government issue these commissions but every colonial governor as well, so that thousands of men were out of employment when a peace was declared. Merchants then took advantage of such conditions and poorly paid and poorly fed their seamen and this bred discontent and made willing volunteers when the first pirate vessel was encountered.
Not infrequently it was difficult to separate privateering from piracy. John Quelch, who was hanged in Boston for piracy, in 1704, preyed upon Portuguese commerce as he supposed in safety and not until he returned to Marblehead did he learn of the treaty of peace that made him a pirate. In 1653, Thomas Harding captured a rich prize sailing from Barbadoes and in consequence was tried in Boston for piracy, but saved his neck when he was able to prove that the vessel was Dutch and not Spanish. In 1692, the Governor and Council of Connecticut were informed that “a catch and 2 small sloops, with about 30 or 40 privateers or rather pirates,” were anchored off East Hampton, Long Island, and had sold a ketch to Mr. Hutchinson of Boston and bought a sloop of Captain Hubbard, also of Boston.
Newport, R. I., sent out many privateers. In 1702 it was reported that nearly all of the able-bodied men on the Island were away privateering. The town also profited frequently from the visits of known pirates, as in 1688, when Peterson, in a “barkalonga” of ten guns and seventy men, refitted at Newport and no bill could be obtained against him from the grand jury as they were neighbors and friends of many of the men on board. Two Salem ketches also traded with him and a master of one brought into “Martin’s Vineyard,” a prize that Peterson “the pirate, had taken in the West Indies.”[12] Andrew Belcher, a well-known Boston merchant and master of the ship “Swan,” paid Peterson £57, in money and provisions, for hides and elephants’ teeth taken from his plunder.
The ill-defined connection between privateering and piracy was fully recognized in those days and characterized publicly by the clergy. In 1704 when Rev. Cotton Mather preached his “Brief Discourse occasioned by a Tragical Spectacle in a Number of Miserables under Sentence of Death for Piracy,” he remarked that “the Privateering Stroke so easily degenerates into the Piratical; and the Privateering Trade is usually carried on with an Unchristian Temper, and proves an Inlet unto so much Debauchery and Iniquity.”
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which peace was made between England and Spain, was signed in 1668, but the colonial authorities were so little concerned by the depredations of the English privateers on Spanish commerce in the West Indies that their commissions were not revoked until 1672 and even then, for a time, the doings of the adventurous, privately armed vessels were not scrutinized too closely.
The Peace of Ryswick in 1697 put an end to most of the privateering in the West Indies and sixteen years later England’s wars with France, over the Spanish succession, lasting for nearly a half-century, ended with the treaty of peace signed at Utrecht. By its terms Great Britain received Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and the right to send African slaves to America. While the notable battles of this war had been fought on land yet, in many respects, it had been a conflict between naval powers and the peace released a great many men who found themselves unable to obtain employment in the merchant shipping. This was particularly true in the West Indies where the colonial governors had commissioned a large number of privateers. When adventurous spirits have been privately employed under a commission to sail the seas and plunder the ships of another nation, it is but a step forward to continue that fine work without a commission after the war is over. To the mind of the needy seaman there was very little distinction between the lawfulness of one and the unlawfulness of the other.
MAP OF THE WEST INDIES ABOUT 1720, SHOWING “THE TRACTS OF THE GALLIONS”
From Herman Moll’s “Atlas Minor,” London, 1732, in the Harvard College Library
Another training school for pirate ships also existed among the buccaneers who flourished in the West Indies during the last half of the seventeenth century. Spain at that time claimed sovereignty over all the lands lying in or about the Caribbean Sea, a territory which she looked upon as a great preserve over which to exercise absolute control and from which to extract the wealth of the mines. Manufactures were forbidden and commerce with other nations was not permitted. Clothing and supplies of all kinds, wines, oil, and even some kinds of provisions must be purchased from merchants in distant Spain. No foreigner might land under pain of death and no foreign ship was permitted to anchor in any of their harbors. Twice each year a splendid fleet left Spain, bound for Mexico and the Isthmus of Panama, laden with all kinds of merchandise required by Spanish-America. On the arrival of the galleons a great fair was held where the traders met and for forty days Porto Bello, the city of the deadly climate, was thronged by the merchants of Peru, cargadores and sailors from the ships, negroes and native Indians.
By the year 1630, small settlements had been established by the English on the islands of Bermuda, St. Christopher, Tortuga and the Barbadoes, and Frenchmen were on Hispaniola; but before many years St. Christopher and Tortuga were ravaged by Spanish fleets, the women and children murdered and all able-bodied men condemned to slavery in the mines. The limitations of English navigation laws at this time were crowding the home ports with unemployed seamen; some took to begging on the high roads, but the more adventurous found their way to the West Indies where twice each year journeyed the fleet of great ships laden with gold and silver from the mines of Mexico and Peru, pearls from Margarita and precious gems gathered from two continents. Here, too, came the scum of Europe and on the island of Tortuga a settlement grew that was frequented by lawless vagabonds coming from everywhere who lived variously by hunting, planting and piracy.
The name “buccaneer,” afterwards applied to these rovers, was derived from the hunters who smoked the flesh of the wild cattle that they killed, over a “boucane” or wood fire. Two centuries and a half later, the French half-breeds canoeing in the Canadian backlands spoke of “la boucane” when they lighted their camp fires. The hunters went to the mainland in large parties and killed the wild cattle for their hides. “After the hunt was over” writes Esquemeling,[13] the historian of the buccaneers, “they commonly sail to Tortuga to provide themselves with guns, powder and shot, and necessaries for another expedition; the rest of their gains they spend prodigally, giving themselves to all manner of vice and debauchery, particularly to drunkenness, which they practiced mostly with brandy.” The tavern keepers and the hangers-on of both sexes, watched for the return of the buccaneers, “even as at Amsterdam, they do for the arrival of the East India fleet.”
It was a Frenchman, known among his associates as “Peter the Great,” who first played the uproarious game of piracy on the Spanish fleet. With only twenty-eight men he cruised off the coast of Hispaniola in an open boat at the time of year when the galleons passed on their homeward voyage. On sighting the fleet he followed during the night and notwithstanding the fact that the Vice-Admiral had been told of the suspicious craft, so confident was he of the strength of his ship that she was allowed to straggle from the convoy. When the boatload of desperadoes ran alongside they scuttled their craft and boarded the Spaniard yelling like demons. They were dressed in their usual manner, in shirts soaked in the blood of wild cattle, leather breeches and moccasins of rawhide, and the Vice-Admiral, sitting in his cabin playing cards, may well have imagined, as in fact he cried out—“The ship is invaded by devils.”
After the news of the rich capture reached Tortuga, many of the buccaneers turned to piracy and in a few years the Spanish seas were infested with small fleets of pirate vessels which obeyed fixed laws and were governed by a single chief. Desperate men in every European port came out to join them and in time many thousand men recognized the command of the great captains of the “Brethren of the Coast,” as they styled themselves. Before the end of the first year that followed the capture of the Spanish galleon, twenty large vessels had been taken, two great plate ships had been cut out of the harbor of Campeachy and a trade in looted merchandize had sprung up between Tortuga and Europe that soon made the piratical settlement one of the richest in America.
The “Brethren of the Coast” established among themselves a code of laws the larger number of which related to captured booty. All offences against these laws were severely punished, the commonest penalty being “marooning” which consisted of landing the offender on an uninhabited key or island with only a small supply of food. The most desperate might well shrink from such an end. The invariable practice required that everything should be held in common and at the last be divided into shares according to a fixed ratio. The captain drew the largest number, of course, and the sailing master, carpenter and surgeon came next. There was also a tariff by which to indemnify those who were mutilated while fighting. For a right arm, six hundred Spanish pieces of eight were awarded or a corresponding value in slaves. The left arm was worth only five hundred pieces of eight, and a leg was of equal value. An eye was worth one hundred and a finger the same. The booty brought into the pirate rendezvous at Tortuga was enormous. Frequently pirates would land bringing in five or six thousand pieces of eight per man and a single vessel once brought in loot amounting to 260,000 pieces. Huge sums were gambled away in a single night and drunken buccaneers would sometimes buy pipes of wine and force every passer-by to drink or fight.
The success of the buccaneers before long paralyzed Spanish commerce and fewer ships were sent to the American colonies so that the “Brethren,” then numbering several thousands, began to plan attacks upon land. The first Spanish settlement assaulted was Campeachy, on the coast of Yucatan. An Englishman named Lewis Scot led this attack which resulted in much loot and the almost entire destruction of the city. Another Englishman named Davis took Nicaragua and plundered the churches of vast quantities of plate and jewels. L’Olonnais, a Frenchman, with eight vessels filled with men, fell upon Maracaibo and after much hard fighting brought away 260,000 pieces of eight and a great amount of jewels and plate. “But,” writes Esquemeling, “in three weeks they had scarce any money left, having spent it all in things of little value, or lost it at play. The taverns and stews, according to the custom of the pirates, got the greatest part.”
Capt. Henry Morgan, the leader of the expedition against Panama, achieved the greatest fame among all these lawless chieftains. Charles II knighted him and made him governor of Jamaica, where he turned upon his late companions and waged a bitter warfare. An early exploit of Morgan was the taking of Puerto Velo, one of the strongest fortresses in New Spain. Surprising the sentry at night he easily captured the outer defences. The prisoners were placed in a room with several barrels of gunpowder and as they were blown into the air the buccaneers assaulted the citadel. The cloisters had been seized and the priests and nuns were forced to climb the scaling ladders before the men, “the religious men and women ceasing not to cry to the governor and beg him to deliver the castle, and so save both his and their lives,” writes Esquemeling. The castle surrendered at last, though “with great loss of the said religious people.” The loot amounted to over 250,000 pieces of eight and much other spoil which was soon squandered at Port Royal, a pirate town in Jamaica that supplied almost unlimited resources for debauchery.
SIR HENRY MORGAN, THE BUCCANEER, BEFORE PANAMA
From an engraving in Johnson’s “General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Pyrates,” etc., London, 1734, in the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Harvard College Library]
The capture of Panama took place in 1671. Morgan’s fleet sailed from Jamaica and with only twelve hundred men he crossed the Isthmus. The Spaniards learned of his coming and carried away or destroyed all food stuffs along the route so that when the buccaneers came in sight of the South Sea, after a nine days’ march, they were nearly famished and in desperate straits. A few days’ rest put them in condition again and with many revengeful oaths they fell upon the defences of the city with irresistible fury. No quarter was given on either side. Soon Panama was in flames. It was four weeks before the fires at last were extinguished and over two hundred great warehouses, seven thousand houses, huge stables that sheltered the horses and mules that transported the golden ingots of the King of Spain, and many other buildings were entirely destroyed. The plunder was immense. On the way back a dispute broke out and when Morgan reached the ships he scuttled all but one and set sail with only his chosen followers. Such treachery was unforgivable and he never afterward led the “Brethren of the Coast.”
Morgan became governor of Jamaica with strict orders to enforce the treaty concluded between England and Spain and relentlessly persecuted those of his late associates who neglected to accept the royal pardon which provided grants of lands to all buccaneers who would abandon the sea and become planters. By proclamation all cruising against Spain was forbidden under severe penalties. Many of the English filibusters accepted the pardon while others became logwood cutters in the Bay of Honduras or raised a black flag and preyed upon the ships of every nation.
The pirate commonwealth at Port Royal was abandoned and such Englishmen as continued to rove joined their French brethren who frequented the island of Tortuga, or crossed the Isthmus and preyed upon the Spanish towns in Peru and the shipping of the Great South Sea. They also captured immense booty at Acapulco where the Spanish ships landed the riches of the Philippines. The peace of Ryswick in 1697 settled the disputes between France and Spain and also sounded the knell of the French filibusters. Before long the buccaneers were absorbed in the population of the various islands in the West Indies and the Spanish galleons again sailed peacefully through the tropic seas.
Another strong influence that led to insecurity on the high seas and eventually to outright piracy was the operation of the English Navigation Acts. European nations were in agreement that the possession of colonies meant the exclusive control of their trade and manufactures. Lord Chatham wrote, “The British Colonists in North America have no right to manufacture so much as a nail for a horse shoe,” and Lord Sheffield went further and said, “The only use of American Colonies, is the monopoly of their consumption, and the carriage of their produce.”[14]
English merchants naturally wished to sell at high prices and to buy colonial raw materials as low as possible and as they were unable to supply a market for all that was produced, the colonies were at a disadvantage in both buying and selling. By the Acts of Navigation certain “enumerated articles” could be marketed only in England. Lumber, salt provisions, grain, rum and other non-enumerated articles might be sold within certain limits but must be transported in English or plantation built vessels of which the owners and three-fourths of the mariners were British subjects. Freight rates also advanced as other nations, notably the Dutch, had previously enjoyed a good share of the carrying trade.
The first Navigation Act was passed in 1647. It was renewed and its provisions enlarged in 1651, 1660, 1663 and later. Before long it was found that these attempts to monopolize the colonial markets resulted in a natural resistance and smuggling began and also an extensive trade with privateers and pirates who brought into all the smaller ports of New England captured merchandise that was sold at prices below the usual market values. Matters went from bad to worse and servants of the Crown frequently combined with the colonists to evade the obnoxious laws. Even the royal governors connived at what was going on. This was particularly true in the colonies south of New England. Colonel Fletcher, the governor of New York, commissioned numerous privateers and received a fee, the equivalent of one hundred dollars per man. These vessels when well away from local jurisdiction became pirates in earnest and ravaged the Red Sea and brought home rich cargoes of East India goods in which the members of the governor’s council obtained their share. Hore, a famous privateer and pirate, was very successful in this trade and Thomas Tew, another freebooter, divided his time between New York, Newport and the Madagascar coast. He was on the black list of the East India Company but Governor Fletcher entertained him at his table and when the Lords of Trade remonstrated, the artful governor replied that he wished to make Captain Tew a sober man and in particular “to reclaime him from a vile habit of swearing,”[15] and as for coming to his table, that was but a common hospitality.
In Rhode Island, the president and four assistants granted these commissions with the condition that the colony was to share in any captures. In 1649, Bluefield or Blauvelt, a Dutch privateersman, brought a prize into Newport, which the governor found was taken during a truce. But there was no man-of-war in the harbor to enforce the law and as the townsfolk wanted to buy the cargo and the sailors wanted the prize money, everybody was satisfied. At a later time Governor Bellomont of New York complained of the Admiralty Court at Newport as too “favourable” to piracies and in Queen Anne’s time, Connecticut and Rhode Island were both complained of because “Her Majesty’s and ye Lord High Admiral’s dues are sunk in condemning prizes.”[16]
At Stamford, Conn., a prominent citizen had a warehouse “close to the Sound,” where he received illicit goods and afterwards shipped them to Boston and other ports. The shore of eastern Long Island was haunted by smugglers and pirates. Sometimes the wind lay in the other quarter and a privateersman was adjudged a pirate and hanged. This happened in Boston in 1704 to John Quelch who had captured Portuguese vessels. But contemporaries say that officialdom was after a goodly share of the gold dust that he had brought in. Usually, however, the enterprising rover lived out his days in the character of a “rich privateer” and died respected by friends and neighbors.
There were pirates and pirates. Some were letters-of-marque and legitimate traders and enjoyed the protection of merchants and officials on shore, while others were outlaws. In 1690, Governor Bradstreet of the Massachusetts Colony was complaining of the great damage done to shipping by “French Privateers and Pirates,” and four years later, Frontenac, the governor of Canada, was asking for a frigate to cruise about the St. Lawrence against the New England “corsaires et filibusters.” There is no doubt these French privateers were a considerable menace to New England shipping and that there was need for privately armed vessels to protect the coast, a task not easy or desirable; so why should one scrutinize too closely semi-piratical captures made by so useful friends? In 1709, in mid-winter, a French privateer appeared off Cape Cod and Governor Dudley ordered Capt. Abraham Robinson of Gloucester, to man his sloop and sail in pursuit. It was not an inviting enterprise, especially at that season of the year, and when the drums went about the town beating up for volunteers, enlistments languished and the expedition was finally given up. The minister of the place afterwards wrote to the governor, making excuses saying “it made them quake to think of turning out of their warm beds and from good fires, and be thrust into a naked vessel, where they must lie on the cold, hard ballast, instead of beds, and without fire, excepting some few who might crowd into the cabin.”[17]
The agents sent over by the Lords of Trade and Plantations were unable to make progress against the flagrant evasions of the Navigation Acts. Randolph, who arrived in Boston in 1679, was the most active of these agents, and when he seized several vessels for irregular trading, the courts decided against him and “damages were given against his Majesty.”[18] He afterwards complained of those privateers that were fitting out for the Spanish West Indies and writes of Mr. Wharton of Boston, as “a great undertaker for pyratts and promoter of irregular trade.” “New England rogues and pitiful damned Scotch pedlars,” he termed those who opposed him. The pirates or privateers were supplied with provisions by vessels from the mainland and prize goods were taken in payment. Vessels were often fitted out at Rhode Island and manned in New York and Arabian gold was to be found in both colonies; “in fact, ’tis the most beneficiall trade, that to Madagascar with the pirates, that was ever heard of, and I believe there’s more got that way than by turning pirates and robbing.” So wrote the New York governor, and later, he again wrote to the Lords at Whitehall: “The temptation is soe great to the common seamen in that part of the world where the Moores have so many rich ships and the seamen have a humour more now than ever to turne pirates.”[19]
The profits of piracy and the irregular trade practiced at that time were large, indeed, and twenty-nine hundred per cent profit in illicit trade was not unusual, so there is little wonder that adventurous men took chances and honest letters-of-marque sometimes seized upon whatever crossed their course. The pirate, the privateer and the armed merchantman often blended the one into the other.