In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

Particularly interesting are the pieces of eight, the coins which are as much a part and parcel of any story of pirates or treasure as the black flag with its skull and cross-bones or the ear-ringed, fierce-whiskered buccaneer, for the piece of eight was the granddaddy of our own American dollar. Not only was it the basis for our standard “cart-wheel,” but our dollar sign, $, is merely an evolution of the ancient symbol for the piece of eight. This famous coin (which is still very common and is known as the “Spanish dollar”) was a silver [[249]]piece approximately the size of our dollar and with a value of four pesetas or eight reales, from which latter fact it received its name. Roughly, a real was worth twelve and a half cents, or one one hundredth of a doubloon, so that the approximate value of the piece of eight was one dollar; and a doubloon was worth twelve dollars and a half. The onza, or double doubloon of two hundred reales or one hundred pesetas, was equivalent to about twenty-five dollars although to-day the onza, weighing twenty-five grams, is worth intrinsically about seventeen dollars.

In addition to these coins of Spanish mintage there was a fractional currency of a very odd and interesting type known to-day as “cross money.” This consisted of slugs of various sizes cut from the pieces of eight and so hammered as to obliterate the lettering and inscriptions with the exception of the cross-like portion of the Spanish coat of arms. This served as a sort of hall-mark or guarantee that the coin was of sterling fineness, and at times, when the slug did not happen to have the desired portion of the shield upon its surface, a cross was stamped upon it by the priests, as proof that the bit of metal was from a piece of eight.

To this day these quaint and curious coins are still in use among the natives in some portions of [[250]]the interior of Panama, and while no two are alike in size or shape, yet they all have definite weights. The ancient pieces, dating from the days of the conquistadors and buccaneers, pass from hand to hand as reales and pesetas.

In the early days of the American colonies, virtually all the trade of the world was conducted on the basis of the Spanish piece of eight, and most accounts in America were kept in them. The ordinary symbol used in designating the coins was an eight with a line drawn through it, and on many old invoices and manifests we may find such entries as “10 sacks of coffee

60 required.” Later, when the new-born republic decided to coin its own silver, and melted down the old pieces of eight for bullion, the new coins were based on the Spanish piece of eight; and it was only natural that clerks and accountants should still use the old symbol, and by merely running another line through the figure eight the well-known dollar mark was evolved.

Moreover, the piece of eight, with the doubloons and onzas, paved the way for our metric monetary system, for the doubloon was one hundred reales and the piece of eight one hundred centavos, and the mere change in name from “piece of eight” to “dollar” caused no confusion or difficulties in accounting, as long as the metric system was adopted. [[251]]

Nevertheless, accountants must have had hard times of it in those days, and the buccaneers, when dividing their loot, must have found it no little task to compute the relative value of the cosmopolitan lot of coins they accumulated. We can picture them there under the palms on some tropic beach, waiting expectantly and impatiently, cursing and passing rough jokes, while one of the crew, who perchance spent his early days upon an office stool, seated upon a cask of rum, with a dirty scrap of paper and a scratchy quill is setting down lists of louis d’or, ducats, pounds sterling, pistoles, guilders, and Heaven knows what, and with a puzzled wrinkle on his scarred brow and chewing at his ragged mustache is striving to convert the heterogeneous loot into understandable terms.

Or perhaps, no clerkly corsair being available, the buccaneers took a shorter cut to the division of their spoils, and, weighing the gold and silver regardless of its origin or its minted value, divided the loot by pound or hundredweight like any other commodity. Such minor matters, apparently, were not of sufficient interest to the pirates’ chroniclers to be recorded; and moreover, in those days, almost any coin, provided it was of gold or silver, would pass freely in any seaport of the Antilles. No doubt the buccaneers were outrageously cheated by the [[252]]tradesmen and the keepers of bars and gambling-dens, more especially when it came to converting their bullion and jewels into ready cash or its equivalent. Esquemelling remarks on this, and states that gems and jewelry of priceless value were bartered for a song, the buccaneers being utterly ignorant of their worth. But these adventurers cared not a jot whether they were cheated or not as long as they had enough to keep themselves uproariously drunk and to gamble to their hearts’ content. To them money meant merely carousal, and it was not unusual for the rascals to spend several thousand pieces of eight in a few days.

Especially was this true in Port Royal, Jamaica, the richest and wickedest spot in the world, as it was called; the clearing-house of the buccaneers; their most noted headquarters, which undoubtedly harbored more execrable villains and more brave and reckless men than ever have been gathered together in one town before or since. And it was toward Port Royal the Vigilant was sailing through the night.