Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer: A Romance of the Spanish Main

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

Morgan was not to be caught napping that way. As he rushed down upon them there came into his head one of the most daring ideas that has ever flashed across a seaman's brain. Hastily summoning Braziliano he bade him take a dozen of his men, descend to the after magazine, procure two or three barrels of powder from the gunner, and stow them in the cabin under the poop-deck. He charged him to do it as quietly as possible and take only men for the purpose upon whom he could depend. While this was being done young Teach was also summoned from the forecastle, his place being taken by old Velsers, whose division in the battery was placed under the command of Raveneau. There was a whispered colloquy between the chieftain and his young subordinate, after which the latter nodded his head, ran below, and concealed himself in one of the staterooms under the quarter-deck. In a little space the Portuguese reappeared with his men and announced that they had completed their task; whereupon they were directed to return to their stations.

Meanwhile the crew had been recharging the battery and reloading the small arms. Morgan addressed to them a few words of hearty approval of their previous actions and predicted an easy victory over the two ships. The Spanish captain naturally supposed—and indeed the courses upon which the three ships were sailing if persisted in would have brought about the result—that the Mary Rose would pass along his larboard side, and the two vessels would engage in the formal manner of the period, yard-arm to yard-arm, until the galleon could get into action and so settle it in the purposed way. He intended, of course, if it could be brought about, to throw the masses of soldiers he was transporting home upon the English decks, and carry the frigate by boarding.

Again Morgan put Hornigold in charge of the manœuvering of the ship, and again that old worthy chose to handle the spokes himself. There was a brief conversation between them, and then the English captain ran forward on the forecastle. The ships were very near now. In a moment or two they would pass each other in parallel courses, though in opposite direction, and their broadsides would bear; but when the Mary Rose was about a cable's length from the Spanish frigate something happened.

The astonished Don heard a sharp command ring out from the approaching English ship, after which she made a wide sweep and came driving straight at him at a furious speed. The English captain intended to run him down! Here was to be no passage along his broadside. The other was upon him! The cutwater of the onrushing ship loomed up before him tremendously. Instantly all was confusion on the Spanish ship! The steersman lost his head, and without orders put his helm up sharply; some one cut the sheet of the after-sail on the huge lateen yard, and the frigate went whirling around on her heel like a top, in a violent and fatal, as well as vain, effort to get out of the road.

It was a most foolish manœuvre, for close at hand on the lee side of her the galleon came lumbering along. Her captain, too, had seen the peril, and had elected to meet it by tacking under his consort's stern. But he was too near, and the other ship fell off and was swept to leeward too rapidly. His own ship, cumbersome and unwieldy, as they always were, was slow in answering the helm. The frigate and galleon came together with a terrific crash. The shock carried away the foretopmast of the frigate, which fell across the head yards of the galleon. The two ships were instantly locked together. They swung drifting and helpless in the tossing waters.

Morgan had counted upon this very catastrophe. A twist of the helm, a touch of the braces, and the prow of the Mary Rose swung to windward. As her batteries bore she hurled their messengers of death into the crowded masses on the Spanish ships. Although dismayed by the collision, the gunners on the frigate made a spirited reply with a discharge which at such close range did much execution.

Unfortunately for her, the Mary Rose had rushed so close to the two entangled ships that it was impossible for her to escape hitting them. The English captain would have given anything if he could have gone free of the mass, for he could have passed under the stern of the two helpless ships, raked them, and probably would have had them at his mercy; but his dash at them had been an earnest one, and in order to carry out his plan successfully he had been forced to throw his ship right upon them. Therefore, though the helm was shifted and the braces hauled in an effort to get clear, and though the ship under Morgan's conning and Hornigold's steering was handled as few ships have ever been handled, and though it was one of the speediest and most weatherly of vessels, they could not entirely swing her clear. The stern of the frigate crashed against the stern of the nearest Spanish ship drifting frantically to leeward.

The Spanish captain, mortified and humiliated beyond expression by the mishap, instantly realized that this contact presented them with a possibility of retrieving themselves. Before the ships could be separated, grappling irons were thrown, and in a second the three were locked in a close embrace. Morgan had anticipated this situation also, although he had hoped to avoid it, and had prepared for it. As the two ships became fast the high poop and rail of the Spaniard were black with iron-capped men. They swarmed over on the lower poop and quarter-deck of the Mary Rose in a dense mass. Fortunately, the small arms on both sides had been discharged a moment before and there had been no time to reload. The remainder of the engagement to all intents and purposes would be fought with the cold steel.

Morgan had gained an advantage in throwing the two ships into collision, but he appeared to have lost it again because he had been unable to clear the wrecks himself. The advantage was now with the Spaniards, whose force outnumbered his own two or three to one. Surprising as it was to the old buccaneers and the bolder spirits among his crew, whose blood was up sufficiently to enable them to long for the onset, Morgan had run to the waist of the ship when he saw the inevitable collision and had called all hands from the poop and quarter. The Mary Rose was provided with an elevated quarter-deck and above that a high poop. Massing his men in the gangways just forward of the mainmast and on the forecastle itself, with the hardiest spirits in the front line and Morgan himself in advance of all sword in hand, the two parties contemplated each other for a little space before joining in the onset.

The poop and quarter-deck were crowded so thick with Spanish soldiers and sailors that room could scarcely be found for the increasing procession, for, anxious to be in at the death, the men of the galleon clinging to the frigate ran across and joined their comrades. Here were trained and veteran soldiers in overwhelming numbers, with the advantage of position in that they fought from above down, to oppose which Morgan had his motley crew behind him.