In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

However, like many another island of the Caribbean, St. Barts has seen better days. Back in the good old times Gustavia’s streets were almost literally paved with gold and its inhabitants fairly rolled in wealth. Here, as to few others of the Virgin Islands, flocked the buccaneers, for at St. Barts that most cruel and murderous of pirates, Montbars the “Exterminator,” established his headquarters. So great was the fear he and his fellows inspired in all that no nation or official dared move finger to molest him and his gang. Wild was the life that ebbed and flowed in St. Barts in Montbars’s day. Gustavia’s harbor swarmed with swift, long-sparred pirate craft; in the sheltered coves the buccaneers repaired and refitted their ships; under the palms along the beach their rude shelters of sail-cloth were raised, and here after many a long cruise and desperate battle they came to divide their loot and squander it.

What a scene they must have presented, what a picture of lawlessness, as, gathered in the shadows of the palms, with chests of plate, coffers of jewels, [[120]]and bales of satins, brocades, and velvets on the hard sand before them, they watched narrowly as their captains apportioned the treasures they had won by murder, rapine, and torture. And there too, upon the sand,—wild-eyed, disheveled, with blanched, tear-stained cheeks,—were their human loot, girls and women, wives and daughters of Spanish grandees, tenderly nurtured ladies torn shrieking from their murdered loved ones’ arms, to be auctioned off like cattle here on St. Barts’s shores,—souls to be bartered and gambled for, toys to amuse their black-hearted captors for a space ere being cast into the gutter or to the sharks. Surrounded by his brutish, blear-eyed crew, the pirate captain stood, a weather-beaten, mahogany-faced rascal, his long, ragged moustache and tangled mop of hair adding to his wild appearance, a cocked hat set rakishly upon his head, with bedraggled plume drooping upon his shoulder. His blood-stained ruffled shirt, open at the throat, revealed a hairy tattooed chest, and his long-skirted, gold-laced coat of crimson showed a round hole and a dark stain upon the breast, where some pirate’s bullet had ended the life of the garment’s former owner. His voluminous trousers of vivid blue, ending at the knees, exposed his stanchion-like legs clad in green silk stockings, while a heavy pair of Cordovan shoes [[121]]with huge silver buckles covered his feet. His arms crossed upon his chest, a cocked and loaded pistol grasped in each hand, with hawk-like, piercing eyes and a sardonic smile he watched his men growling, wrangling, and cursing over the portion of loot meted out to them by the one-eyed, scar-faced boatswain.

Dumping a chest of coins upon a sheet of tarry canvas, this fellow would count them out in piles, one for each man, and to every coin he tossed on the piles for the crew he would throw five upon that which formed the captain’s share. Pieces of eight crudely struck from silver bullion, dull-golden onzas, castellanos, doubloons, guineas, louis d’or, oddly shaped “cross money,” in turn were divided. Then came ingots of gold and bars of silver; altar-pieces and chalices; dishes of beaten gold, jeweled girdles, rings, and bracelets; necklaces of pearls and emeralds—a collection worth a king’s ransom. And these, after the glowering chieftain had taken his pick, were gambled for by the tossing of coins or with dice, for so varied and miscellaneous was the loot that to apportion the articles fairly was impossible. Last of all came the women; and then, as the great sun, in a sea of gold and blood, dipped below the horizon and the swift-falling tropic night wrapped the island in a mantle of black, torches [[122]]flared, ribald songs rang out over the waters of the tranquil harbor, blasphemies and drunken curses mingled with women’s screams, and debauchery held sway.

Such scenes, in the time of Montbars and his fellows, were of daily and nightly occurrence in St. Barts, and the island and its more peaceable and thrifty inhabitants waxed rich. But at last there came a reckoning. The nations, outraged by the effrontery of the pirates, joined forces to wipe them from the seas, and after many a gory battle the lairs of the buccaneers were cleaned up. Here and there a pirate ship still sailed the Caribbean and flew the black flag. On jungle-covered, out-of-the-way cays whose ownership had never been determined, the remnants of the Brethren still had secret retreats. From hiding-places among the reefs or landlocked coves those who survived dashed forth to murder and to pillage unsuspecting merchantmen, but the power of the buccaneers was broken. Like jackals they prowled about the Caribbean, and the Virgin Islands knew them no more.

Without the buccaneers, St. Barts continued to prosper. Within Gustavia’s harbor swift privateers took the place of pirate ships. From this safe retreat the Americans sailed forth to settle [[123]]scores with many a British merchantman,—and corvette, for that matter,—and while England strove to retain her revolting colonies in North America, and the United States was being born, vast stores of riches, brought by the privateers, accumulated in St. Barts.

But, though it was a neutral port and Sweden’s banner flew above the fort, the English had no compunctions about violating another nation’s rights, to benefit their own cause. Holding that might made right, Admiral Rodney swept down with his frigates upon Gustavia and sacked St. Barts of more than two million dollars’ worth of merchandise. Then, for a time, the island lived on the fruits of its past, but ever losing ground, ever falling behind, ever becoming poorer, ever getting shabbier and shabbier, until to-day one could scarcely find as many copper cents in St. Barts as the British found dollars.

And the worst of it is that the island, like many of its moribund neighbors, seems to hold no promise of a future. There seems to be no industry that can retrieve its fortunes, no possibility of making it pay, for it is handicapped by nature. It cannot compete with the larger, more fertile and prosperous islands (who themselves are always in debt); its town is tumbling about its people’s ears, and [[124]]there is a steady exodus of its inhabitants to more flourishing lands.

While St. Barts is most interesting historically, and was for so long a haven of the buccaneers and the headquarters of one of the most notorious and bloodthirsty of pirate chieftains, yet there are upon the island few if any reminders of the good old days. Of course, there are tales of hidden pirate treasure,—the natives even going so far as to assert that Montbars himself secreted vast sums in the caverns along St. Barts’s coast,—and a few years ago an earthen jug full of ancient coins was dug up on the outskirts of Gustavia. But, unfortunately for romance, the coins were not pieces of eight and doubloons, as all self-respecting pirate hoards should be, but Swedish and Dutch; and undoubtedly, instead of having been buried there by a thrifty buccaneer, they had been put away for the proverbial rainy day by some worthy and peaceable as well as foresighted citizen.

Even the old-fashioned, corroded cannon that one can find in nearly any of the islands seem totally lacking here, for so poverty-stricken and hard put to it have the people been that any such weighty pieces of metal have long since been taken from their resting-places and disposed of for junk, to eke out the resources of the natives. [[125]]

But we should have a warm spot in our hearts for the little island, despite its lack of interest or attractions and its threadbare present. Had it not been for St. Barts and certain of its neighbors, where our privateers could lie, and from which they could prey on British shipping and harass British men-of-war, the result of our ancestors’ brave efforts to throw off the British yoke might have been very different.