Prince Rupert, the Buccaneer

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

Now, after the dividing up of the Spanish pearls amongst them, Prince Rupert could no longer retain command over his buccaneers. The cruise was over, and by their laws they were free to go where they liked and do what they listed. All their hearts were set upon one thing—a carousal in Tortuga.

This scheme in no wise suited the Prince. To begin with, he had acquired a vast dislike for that no-gentleman and very vile person, Monsieur D'Ogeron, the Governor of Tortuga; in the second place (as Master Laughan, his secretary, pointed out), he had no taste for impolite debauches and the company of those painted hussies who lived on the island and sponged on all laden buccaneers; and over all was his intense wish to earn money for the banished King at The Hague, which would in part excuse his unauthorised pawning of the King's fleet. So he took for himself the small brigantine, which otherwise would have been burned as useless, and remained at anchor in the little bay of Hispaniola, which was their rendezvous, whilst the pink with the buccaneers got under way for Tortuga, where these rude fellows had determined to fritter all their hard-got gains in one wild carouse.

The pink sailed away with whole rainbows of bunting displayed, drums beating, guns firing, horns braying, and every expression of good-will. The buccaneers who were not occupied in the making of these noises lined the bulwarks and shouted, and drank the Prince's toast, so long as voice or standing power remained to them. In deed, so ample was their good humour, that one even drank the toast of Master Stephen Laughan, who, being in truth a maid, was but slenderly popular amongst them, on account of displaying a reserve which, though natural, was beyond their comprehension. And so the slope of ocean swallowed them out of sight, still firing their cannon, and drinking, and flying their flags, as befitted men who feared none that sailed the seas, and were feared by all. Whereupon Prince Rupert and his secretary turned into the standing bed-places in the brigantine's small hutch of a cabin, and enjoyed the first sound sleep that had fallen to their lot during three long weeks.

There remained only with Prince Rupert and Master Laughan his faithful secretary, four black negro slaves, which last, having served as pearl divers to the Spaniards, and being very vilely entreated of them, were easily willing to give true service to the Prince during a short season, for the payment of their liberty when that service should be finished. But his Highness was a gentleman of large ideas, and having still some considerable time to occupy before his fleet should be restored to him, he proposed to improve the interval by sailing across to the Spanish Main, and putting to ransom there the great strong city of Caraccas, which lies amongst the mountains, and La Guayra, its roadstead port upon the coast.

At first sight it seems hard to conceive a more harebrained project. La Guayra was defended by forts and batteries; Caraccas, embowered in the coast mountains beyond, was a place of incredible strength. A navy and an army might well be defeated before either of them; and here was this paladin of a Prince proposing to advance against them in one small bark of fourteen tons' burden, with only one attendant of his own colour, and four black savages who were unreliable even as menial servants. But his Highness had method in his scheme: he was not going to make his attack as Prince Rupert Palatine, but as Prince Rupert's envoy, and his weapons were to be the talkings of the herald rather than the rude arms of a man-of-war. Moreover, he had heard much of the beauty and wit of Donna Clotilde, the Governor of Caraccas' niece, and was minded to inspect her charms with his own proper eyes. He said it was a weary long time since he had seen any woman with the faintest claim to gentility.

The Prince's secretary, that was a maid who loved him very dearly (though he, indeed, never discovered her sex), endeavoured hard to dissuade him from the adventure, pointing out the value of his Highness's noble life, and the grief that would overwhelm Europe if it were lost in these obscure seas of the New World; but the Prince merrily enough retorted that he had a-many times shown his ability to keep his life within its own proper carcass, and that it was a necessity for him to be up and doing.

"We cannot set King Charles back on his London throne, Stephen lad, by sitting here on our hunkers admiring the sea views," said he. "The Restoration is the purpose of my life at present, and should be the purpose of all those that wish to carry my esteem, which I know you do.

"Now we must get this brigantine victualled for the voyage, and that I leave to you and the blacks. There are no savannahs in this quarter of Hispaniola, and no wild cattle. But there are sea-cows in the water, and these you must cause the blacks to harpoon after their barbarous fashion, and then make shift to bucan the meat ashore as you have seen Simpson, and Watkin, and the other professed hunters do elsewhere.

"For myself, I go now up into the country to make a cache, buccaneer fashion, for the pearls we have already taken. If we return all sound from Caraccas, well and good; they will be here waiting for us. If not, I have sent a letter by the pink to await the fleet on its return, and so if aught happens to us or to the brigantine, the cavaliers can come and dig the treasure up, and carry it away for its appointed use."

"Can your Highness's secretary be of help in this matter?"