Prince Rupert, the Buccaneer

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

So the Spaniard spoke on, and Master Laughan hearkened to the words with a sinking heart, and mightily regretted ever having yielded to those goadings which, in a moment of desperation, led to the Prince being first told about the fisheries. But Prince Rupert listened with appetite. He smiled pleasantly when he heard of the richness of the pearls in store, and his eye kindled as the Spaniard described with how great accuracy they were guarded; and when at the end of his narration the Spaniard said he hoped he had shown how impossible it was for even the bravest of men to overcome the defenders and ravish the store, the Prince laughed merrily, and said he had done just the reverse. "I am a man," quoth he, "that likes a kernel all the better, and hammers for it all the cleverer, when the nut is hard a-cracking."

"Yet I do not see how you can finger those pearls?" said the Spaniard.

"And I," said the Prince, "shall not tell my plans to you or any other living soul, amigo. Plans shared are easily spread, and plans spread are handily baulked."

Now, it is the custom of the buccaneers, when they sail on an expedition, that the scheme of campaign should be laid open and voted upon by all hands; and it says much for the influence that Prince Rupert gained on the rude men who formed his following and they consented that he should override this hard-and-fast rule. It was not, as most who read these memoirs will at once suppose, that they deferred to his exalted birth: in fact, the item of his being of princely rank rather warred against him in their eyes than otherwise. It was simply his influence as a man, and his obvious power of conducting affairs, which gave him this paramount weight; and these savage fellows, both French and English, who before had owned none as master save their own desires, were content to set Rupert over them with an absolute power of life and death. So a charter-party of rules was drawn up and sworn to with Bible oaths, and a scale was appointed by which all plunder was divided.

Meanwhile, the refitting of the pink was attended to with infinite patience and skill. Her bottom was breamed, as has been said, and scraped to the smoothness of glass, and then varnished over the yellow wood. The rigging, both standing and running, was overhauled and reset-up. The sails were all new bent, and the armament thoroughly attended to. The pink was a vessel with a fine turn of speed, and for his purpose Prince Rupert wanted this speed at its best. For, to be plain, he destined the vessel for a feint attack, and intended to leave her reliant for safety solely upon the nimbleness of her heels.

A dozen days were spent about this industry, and one by one recruits arrived from over the savannahs. And then the pink was warped out into the stream, and towed out of the creek by her boats to a good offing, and there, with a prayer and a psalm, committed to canvas and the care of God. Forty-three seasoned hunters formed her fighting crew, each with powder, bullets, buccaneering-piece, bayonet, and skinning-knives; and for her working, there remained fifteen Spaniards, one of whom, being skilled in the use of backstaff and other utensils of navigation, was appointed sailing-master, with promise of early enlargement. Then for the first time Prince Rupert made known the whole of his schemes, and the buccaneers, in a passion of enthusiasm, ran to the great guns of the pink, and fired off a shotted salute in his honour.

But, great as his influence was, in one matter Prince Rupert was without command. When once they were at sea, with the Spanish prisoners to work the pink, the buccaneers had no notions of restraint or discipline. They ate when and what they pleased, they drank whenever they were sober enough to swallow more. Twice they set the pink on fire, and but for miracles would have consumed her. The stores were few, and yet the waste was incredible. The fellows knew no moderation. They fought at times amongst themselves, they beat the Spanish prisoners, they diced incessantly, and throughout all the watches shouted sea-songs that were often mere ribaldry. When one through sheer exhaustion slept, the others yelled their choruses in his ears, and played their pranks upon his senseless body, till he was waking and with them again. In fine, they made that first part of the voyage one horrid unbroken carouse.

A term was put on the orgie by the failure of supplies. The pink reeked with the lees of stale drink, but there was no whole cask left unbroached. Of food there was scarcely a carcass remaining, and of water but two tepid leaking casks. But these indomitable men did not repine. They had had their frolic, and all that remained was to make the nip-gut time as short as might be. They crowded more canvas on the pink till the Spaniards shivered with fright, and set up preventer backstays to make the spars carry it. The vessel rushed through the seas with a roar of sound, and the savage men within her were rendered doubly savage by their hunger. But the situation fell handily with the Prince's plans. There was no question about succeeding now: starvation was the only alternative; and these desperate fellows had no appetite for more of that.

In these circumstances, then, the pink and her people came to the western horn of that bay where the Spaniards plied their pearl fishery, and running inshore with a light wind, dropped the stream anchor in five-fathom water. The boat was launched over-side, and in two journeys set thirty of the buccaneers upon the hot white beach, and with them Prince Rupert and Master Laughan. Then the boat rowed back again, was hoisted in-board, and the pink tripped her stream anchor, and once more got to sea.

Forest sprawled down to the rim of the beach, and the land party were quickly under its cover. Then one Watkin, a man of iron and a mighty shooter, took the lead, he being by consent the best woodsman amongst the buccaneers; Prince Rupert and his secretary followed; and the rest trailed on behind in Indian file.