Bucaniers of America; or a true account of the ... assaults committed ... upon the coasts of the West Indies, by the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga ... especially the ... exploits of Sir Henry Morgan ... written originally in Dutch by J. Esquemeling ... now ... rendered into English. W. Crooke; London, 1684. 4º.
(Brit. Mus., 1198, a. 12 (or) 1197, h. 2.; G. 7198.)
The first English edition of Exquemelin was so well received that within three months a second was published, to which was added the account of a voyage by Captain Cook and a brief chapter on the exploits of Barth. Sharp in the Pacific Ocean. In the same year, moreover, there appeared an entirely different English version, with the object of vindicating the character of Morgan from the charges of brutality and lust which had appeared in the first translation and in the Dutch original. It was entitled:
The History of the Bucaniers; being an impartial relation of all the battels, sieges, and other most eminent assaults committed for several years upon the coasts of the West Indies by the pirates of Jamaica and Tortuga. More especially the unparalleled achievements of Sir Henry Morgan ... very much corrected from the errors of the original, by the relations of some English gentlemen, that then resided in those parts. Den Engelseman is een Duyvil voor een Mensch. London, printed for Thomas Malthus at the Sun in the Poultry. 1684.
(Brit. Mus., G. 13,674.)
The first edition of 1684 was reprinted with a new title-page in 1695, and again in 1699. The latter included, in addition to the text of Exquemelin, the journals of Basil Ringrose and Raveneau de Lussan, both describing voyages in the South Seas, and the voyage of the Sieur de Montauban to Guinea in 1695. This was the earliest of the composite histories of the buccaneers and became the model for the Dutch edition of 1700 and the French editions published at Trevoux in 1744 and 1775.
The first French translation of Exquemelin appeared two years after the English edition of 1684. It is entitled:
Histoire des Aventuriers qui se sont signalez dans les Indes contenant ce qu'ils ont fait de plus remarquable depuis vingt années. Avec la vie, les Moeurs, les Coutumes des Habitans de Saint Domingue et de la Tortuë et une Description exacte de ces lieux; ... Le tout enrichi de Cartes Geographiques et de Figures en Taille-douce. Par Alexandre Olivier Oexmelin. A Paris, chez Jacques Le Febre. MDCLXXXVI., 2 vols. 12º.
(Brit. Mus., 9555, aa. 4.)
This version may have been based on the Dutch original; although the only indication we have of this is the fact that the work includes at the end a description of the government and revenues of the Spanish Indies, a description which is found in none of the earlier editions of Exquemelin, except in the Dutch original of 1678. The French text, however, while following the outline of Exquemelin's narrative, is greatly altered and enlarged. The history of Tortuga and French Hispaniola is elaborated with details from another source, as are also the descriptions of the manners and customs of the cattle-hunters and the freebooters. Accounts of two other buccaneers, Montbars and Alexandre Bras-le-Fer, are inserted, but d'Ogeron's shipwreck on Porto Rico and the achievements of Admiral d'Estrees against the Dutch are omitted. In general the French editor, the Sieur de Frontignières, has re-cast the whole story. A similar French edition appeared in Paris in 1688, (Brit. Mus., 278, a. 13, 14.) and in 1713 a facsimile of this last was published at Brussels by Serstevens (Dampierre, p. 153). Sabin (op. cit., vi. 312) mentions an edition of 1699 in three volumes which included the journal of Raveneau de Lussan. In 1744, and again in 1775, another French edition was published in four volumes at Trevoux, to which was added the voyage of Montauban to the Guinea Coast, and the expeditions against Vera Cruz in 1683, Campeache in 1685, and Cartagena in 1697. The third volume contained the journal of R. de Lussan, and the fourth a translation of Johnson's "History of the Pirates." (Brit. Mus., 9555, aa. 1.) A similar edition appeared at Lyons in 1774, but I have had no opportunity of examining a copy. (Nouvelle Biographie Générale, tom. xxxviii. 544. The best bibliography of Exquemelin is in Sabin, op. cit., vi. 309.)