The buccaneers and marooners of America

by A. O. Exquemelin; Daniel Defoe

They found that the fear of their power could not secure them against a surprise, and the bravest man may be killed when he is asleep by one much his inferior in courage and strength; therefore, as their first security, they did all they could to foment war between the neighbouring negroes, remaining neuter themselves, by which means those who were overcome constantly fled to them for protection, otherwise they must be either killed or made slaves. They strengthened their party, and tied some to them by interest; when there was no war they contrived to spirit up private quarrels among them, and upon every little dispute or misunderstanding push on one side or other to revenge, instruct them how to attack or surprise their adversaries, and lend them loaded pistols or firelocks to dispatch them with, the consequence of which was that the murderer was forced to fly to them for the safety of his life with his wives, children, and kindred.

Such as these were fast friends, as their lives depended upon the safety of the protectors; for, as we observed before, our pirates were grown so terrible that none of their neighbours had resolution enough to attack them in an open war.

By such arts as these, in the space of a few years their body was greatly increased; they then began to separate themselves and remove at a greater distance from one another for the convenience of more ground, and were divided, like Jews, into tribes, each carrying with him his wives and children (of which by this time they had a large family), as also their quota of dependents and followers. And if power and command be the thing which distinguish a prince, these ruffians had all the marks of royalty about them; nay more, they had the very fears which commonly disturb tyrants, as may be seen by the extreme caution they took in fortifying the places where they dwelt.

In this plan of fortification they imitated one another. Their dwellings were rather citadels than houses; they made choice of a place overgrown with a wood, and situate near a water; they raised a rampart or high ditch round it, so straight and high that it was impossible to climb it, and especially by those who had not the use of scaling ladders; over this ditch there was one passage into the wood; the dwelling, which was a hut, was built in that part of the wood which the prince who inhabited it thought fit, but so covered that it could not be seen till you came to it; but the greatest cunning lay in the passage which led to the hut, which was so narrow that no more than one person could go abreast, and contrived in so intricate a manner that it was a perfect maze or labyrinth, it being round and round, with several little cross-ways, so that a person that was not well acquainted with the way might walk several hours round and cross these ways without being able to find the hut; moreover, all along the sides of these narrow paths certain large thorns which grew upon a tree in that country were struck into the ground with their points uppermost, and the path itself, being made crooked and serpentine, if a man should attempt to come near the hut at night he would certainly have stuck upon these thorns, though he had been provided with that clue which Ariadne gave to Theseus when he entered the cave of the Minotaur.

Thus tyrant-like they lived, fearing and feared by all; and in this situation they were found by Captain Woods Rogers when he went to Madagascar in the Delicia, a ship of forty guns, with a design of buying slaves, in order to sell to the Dutch at Batavia or New England. He happened to touch upon a part of the island where no ship had been seen for seven or eight years before, where he met with some of the pirates, at which time they had been upon the island above twenty-five years, having a large motley generation of children and grandchildren descended from them, there being about that time eleven of them remaining alive.

Upon their first seeing a ship of this force and burthen they supposed it to be a man-of-war sent to take them; they therefore lurked within their fastnesses; but when some from the ship came on shore without any show of hostility, and offering to trade with the negroes, they ventured to come out of their holes, attended like princes; and since they actually are kings de facto, which is a kind of a right, we ought to speak of them as such.

Having been so many years upon this island it may be imagined their clothes had long been worn out, so that their majesties were extremely out at the elbows; I cannot say they were ragged, since they had no clothes—they had nothing to cover them but the skins of beasts without any tanning, but with all their hair on, nor a shoe nor stocking, so they looked like the pictures of Hercules in the lion’s skin; and being overgrown with beard, and hair upon their bodies, they appeared the most savage figures that a man’s imagination can frame.

However, they soon got rigged, for they sold great numbers of those poor people under them for clothes, knives, saws, powder and ball, and many other things, and became so familiar that they went aboard the Delicia, and were observed to be very curious, examining the inside of the ship, and very familiar with the men, inviting them ashore. Their design in doing this, as they afterwards confessed, was to try if it was not practicable to surprise the ship in the night, which they judged very easy in case there was but a slender watch kept on board, they having boats and men enough at command; but it seems the captain was aware of them, and kept so strong a watch upon deck that they found it was in vain to make any attempt; wherefore, when some of the men went ashore they were for inveigling them and drawing them into a plot for seizing the captain, and securing the rest of the men under hatches when they should have the night-watch, promising a signal to come on board and join them, proposing, if they succeeded, to go a-pirating together, not doubting but with that ship they should be able to take anything they met on the sea. But the captain, observing an intimacy growing between them and some of his men, thought it could be for no good; he therefore broke it off in time, not suffering them so much as to talk together; and when he sent a boat on shore with an officer to treat with them about the sale of slaves, the crew remained on board the boat, and no man was suffered to talk with them but the person deputed by him for that purpose.

Before he sailed away, and they found that nothing was to be done, they confessed all the designs they had formed against him. Thus he left them as he found them, in a great deal of dirty state and royalty, but with fewer subjects than they had, having, as we observed, sold many of them; and if ambition be the darling passion of men, no doubt they were happy. One of these great princes had formerly been a waterman upon the Thames, where, having committed a murder, he fled to the West Indies, and was of the number of those who ran away with the sloops, the rest had been all foremast men, nor was there a man amongst them who could either read or write, and yet their Secretaries of State had no more learning than themselves. This is all the account we can give of these kingdoms of Madagascar, some of whom it is probable are reigning to this day.

THE END.