At this I could not avoid looking steadfastly at my Englishman; such phrases being little apt to fall from the lips of sailors. By the light of the lantern, I saw that he was a tall and stout old man, with something of great grandeur, as I thought, in his high brow and serene eyes. He could not have been much younger than sixty-five, but he was still a very strong great man, with a presence and bearing not like those of a wild sailor who has lived, as I may say, all his life with his hands in the tar-bucket. After some pause he went on to inform me, that besides himself there was no Englishman amongst the crew, and that he counted upon being safely put ashore at Tortugas, from whence he could get to Jamaica; for, as he said, he was not unknown to the hunters and privateers who frequented the former island. In reply to my entreaties, that he would endeavour to take me with him, he said it was not possible; for although the captain might consent, yet that many of the crew were greedy low fellows, who would not render up a maravedi of the profits, to which, by the articles of the voyage, it seems that they were all in some sort and in different proportions entitled.
‘But be thankful,’ said my comrade, ‘that you are not a Spaniard; for had you but a drop of the blood of that people in your veins, a speedy death would be the best fate you could hope for on board a ship commanded by Louis Montbars.’
‘Why,’ said I, ‘is he so inveterate against the people of Spain?’
‘I find,’ returned the Englishman, ‘that you do indeed know little of the adventurers of the West Indies, if you have never heard of one of the most noted captains of them all. He is a gentleman of good birth, of Languedoc in France. In his early manhood, having taken great interest in reading various relations of the barbarities committed by the Spaniards upon the ancient and inoffensive Indians, the inhabitants of the islands and the main discovered by Christopher Columbus and his coadjutors and successors, Montbars, being, like many in the South of France, a man of warm and fierce passions and feelings, made a solemn vow to God and the Virgin, that the whole of his future life should be devoted to the task of revenging upon every Spaniard who might be placed in his power the injuries received at the hands of their fathers, alike by the fierce Charibs of the islands, and the gentle Peruvians of the main. To this intent, he spent all his patrimony in fitting out a ship, in which he sailed to the West Indies, and speedily made his name so famous, and so terrible to the Spaniards, that they call him in their language, ‘The Exterminator,’ and know that they can hope for not one moment’s life after they come into his power. In general,’ pursued my informant, ‘he is grave, staid, and courteous, unless his mind run upon what I cannot but think the sort of bloody madness wherewith he is afflicted. And then, indeed, and more especially when in action with the Spaniards, he demeans himself more like a raging demon than a Christian man. He has lately had occasion to visit his native land, and I being also in Paris on my own business, and hearing that he proposed to set forth again, joined him as a mariner, but to be put ashore after the voyage at the island of Tortugas.’
This was the substance of our conversation that night After which the quartermaster came to me, and saying, he understood that I had been a fisherman in my youth, and so must needs know how to make nets; and that they were in want of some seine nets for use in the keys or small islands of the Indies, I might therefore, by making them, pay my passage. To this arrangement I very willingly acceded, and the next day had a hammock assigned to me, and set about my task of net-making, which was pleasant enough, pursued in fine weather upon the deck; although, indeed, my heart was heavy and sore with thinking of what was before me.
I soon discovered that my Englishman’s appellation, by which he was known, was Richard Wright, although that was not, indeed, as I afterwards found, his proper name. The crew were now reasonably kind to me, and the more so because Wright, whom they seemed to respect, took me in some sort under his protection, and upon the whole I found myself not ill off. The Captain mixed very familiarly with the men, as is common on board of privateers, and sometimes he would recite to them tales of the cruelties of the Spaniards to the Indians; how in Hispaniola the numbers of these latter were reduced in fifteen years from a million to sixty thousand; how the Spaniards worked them to a miserable death in the gold mines, or hunted them with blood-hounds through the mountains, feeding the dogs only upon the victims’ flesh; how the Spaniards would often kill these miserable people for mere diversion, or for wagers, or to keep their hands in, as they called it; and how many of these white savages had made a vow—ay, and kept it—that, for a certain time, they would destroy thirteen Indians every morning before breakfast, in honour of our Saviour and the twelve apostles! With such relations, and all of them I believe to be true, would Montbars seek to stir up the deadly wrath of the ship’s company against the Spaniards. But, in truth, this was a flame which required but little fanning, it being my opinion that had the Spaniards behaved like angels rather than demons, still the great body of ordinary Buccaneers would be content to treat them as the latter, so long as they possessed fair towns and rich mines ashore, and many treasure-ships and galleons at sea. Notwithstanding, however, it must be confessed that there never being a nation more proud, cruel, and arrogant than these Spanish—at least, in all that refers to their American dominions—so there never was a people more justly to be despoiled of their ill-gotten gains.
But these are considerations apart from my narrative. Our voyage was reasonably prosperous, the west wind having soon given place to more favourable breezes, and at length, but not until after many teasing calms, which delayed our progress, the first welcome farmings of the trade wind caught our sails, and we glided swiftly towards the setting sun, over the great heaving ocean swells and undulations, from whose shining sides flying fishes would leap briskly forth, and within which, the water being wondrously clear, we usually saw, on looking over the low bulwarks of the bark, swift dolphins, which swam round and round us, even when our ship was sailing three leagues an hour, and many smaller fishes, one individual of which, called by sailors a bonetta, about a foot long and of a reddish colour, swam for three days and three nights just before our cutwater, so that the men began, as it were, to know that fish, and used to feed it with crumbs from the end of the bowsprit.
About the 6th of June, the weather being then very hot, with light breezes, we crossed the line, as it is called, not of course the true equator or equinox, but the tropic of Cancer. This was, according to the custom of the sea, a great festival on board, those who had not passed that way before being obliged to submit to the ceremony of baptism, as they call it, which was performed after the manner then in use amongst French ships, as follows:—
The master’s mate dressed himself in a strange sort of garment, fashioned so as to be ridiculous and burlesque, and reaching to his heels, with a hat or cap made to match. In his right hand he held a great clumsy wooden sword; in his left a pot of ink. His face he had besmirched with soot, and he wore an uncouth necklace made of strings of blocks or pulleys, such as are used in the rigging for ropes to pass through. Thus accoutred, all the novices knelt down before him, while he favoured the shoulders of each with a smart slap of the sword, smearing also a great cross upon his brows, or sometimes over all his face with the ink. Immediately after, the novice was drenched with dozens of buckets of water, and the ceremony ended by his depositing his offering, as they call it, of a bottle of brandy, which must be placed in perfect silence at the foot of the mainmast. For myself, I underwent the mummery with the rest, and had, fortunately, sufficient in my pocket to contribute my bottle of brandy. One of the Hollanders on board told me that their mode of baptism was different; they either insisting upon a ransom, according to the station of the novice, or hoisting him to the main yard and from thence dropping him into the sea three several times. ‘If, however,’ said my informant, a simple man, ‘he be hoisted a fourth time in the name of the Prince of Orange, or of the master of the vessel, his honour is reckoned more than ordinary.’ In case of the ship—I speak still of the Hollanders—never having passed that place before, the captain is bound to give the mariners a small runlet of wine, which if he neglect to do, they maintain that they may cut the stem off the vessel. But in French and in Dutch ships, the profits accruing from the ceremony are kept by the master’s mate, and spent upon the arrival in port, in a general debauch by all the seamen.