Tasman made a second voyage in 1644; but his journals and his track have been completely lost,—probably by design, as the Dutch did not make geographical researches in the interest of the world, but exclusively in that of the East India Company. By his second voyage he is believed to have determined the extent of the great Gulf of Carpentaria, which so profoundly indents the northern coast of New Holland. The portion of his discoveries relative to New Zealand and the Friendly Islands has been completed by Cook; that relative to Van Diemen's Land by d'Entrecasteaux, in his voyage in search of Lapérouse. The fragments which remain of Tasman's journals attest his reasoning powers, his nautical experience, and his unerring judgment. The Dutch never published his own account of his adventures, and the few extracts which have become public crept by accident and stealth into later works and journals of discovery. A Dutch writer thus alludes to the indifference manifested by his countrymen in regard to Tasman:—"We do not know when he was born, when he went to India, or when he returned. In our grand biographical dictionaries, where you will find every puerile detail respecting such and such musty savant, only known as a professor at some university or as a quarrelsome skirmisher of the Republic of Letters, there is no room, it seems, for the first navigator of his age." The English have proposed of late to substitute a name of their own for that of Van Diemen's Land; but the appellation of Tasmania is beginning, as we have said, for evident reasons of propriety to find a place upon modern charts and maps.
A BUCCANEER.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
PIRACY—ORIGIN OF THE BUCCANEERS—THEIR MANNER OF LIFE—DRESS—OCCUPATION—THE ISLAND OF TORTUGA THEIR HEAD-QUARTERS—THEIR RELIGIOUS SCRUPLES—MANNER OF DIVIDING SPOILS—THE EXTERMINATOR—THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH—EXPLOITS OF HENRY MORGAN—IMPOTENCE OF THE SPANIARDS—CAREER OF WILLIAM DAMPIER—HIS FIRST PIRATICAL CRUISE—ADVENTURES BY LAND AND SEA—DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANTAIN-TREE—LINGERING DEATHS BY POISON—REPROACHES OF CONSCIENCE—THE NEW-HOLLANDERS—DAMPIER'S DANGEROUS VOYAGE IN AN OPEN BOAT—PIRACY UPON THE AMERICAN COAST—WILLIAM KIDD SENT AGAINST THE PIRATES—HE TURNS PIRATE HIMSELF—HIS EXPLOITS, DETECTION, AND EXECUTION—HIS BURIED TREASURES—WRECK OF THE WHIDAH PIRATE-SHIP.
It is necessary to pause at this period in our review of the grand maritime expeditions which successively left the various seaports of the world, in order to refer to a practice which was now rendering commerce hazardous and the whole highway of the seas insecure,—piracy. Besides the numerous isolated adventurers who preyed upon the vessels of any and every nation which fell in their way, a powerful association or league of robbers, who infested particularly the West India Islands and the Caribbean Sea, and who bore the name of Buccaneers, became, during the century of which we are now speaking, the peculiar dread of Spanish ships. We shall describe this fraternity in some detail. The term buccaneer is a corruption of the French word boucanier, which in its turn was made from the Caribbean noun boucan, being the flesh of cattle dried and preserved in a peculiar manner. The French also called them flibustiers, this word being a corruption of the English word freebooters; and this French word has been still further tortured into "Filibusters,"—a term now applied to such Americans as desire violently to extend the area of freedom.
The buccaneers were principally natives of Great Britain and France, and first attract notice in the island of St. Domingo. The Spaniards would not allow any other nation than their own to trade in the West Indies, and pursued and murdered the English and French wherever they found them. Every foreigner discovered among the islands or on the coast of the American continent was treated as a smuggler and a robber; and it was not long before they became so, and organized themselves into an association capable of returning cruelty by cruelty. The Spaniards employed coast-guards to keep off interlopers, the commanders of which were instructed to massacre all their prisoners. This tended to produce a close alliance, offensive and defensive, among the mariners of all other nations, who in their turn made descents upon the coasts and ravaged the weaker Spanish towns and settlements. A permanent state of hostilities was thus established in the West Indies, independent of peace or war at home. After the failure of the mines of St. Domingo and its abandonment by the Spaniards, it was taken possession of, early in the sixteenth century, by a number of French wanderers who had been driven out of St. Christopher; and their numbers were soon augmented by adventurers from all quarters.
As they had neither wives nor children, they generally lived together by twos for mutual protection and assistance: when one died, the survivor inherited his property, unless a will was found bequeathing it to some relative in Europe. Bolts, locks, and all kinds of fastenings were prohibited among them, the maxim of "honor among thieves" being considered a more efficient safeguard. The dress of a buccaneer consisted of a shirt dipped in the blood of an animal just slain, a leathern girdle in which hung pistols and a short sabre, a hat with feathers,—but without a rim, except a fragment in guise of a visor to pull it on and off,—and shoes of untanned hide, without stockings. Each man had a heavy musket and usually a pack of twenty or thirty dogs. Their business was, at the outset, cattle-hunting; and they sold hides to the Dutch who resorted to the island to purchase them. They possessed servants and slaves, consisting of persons decoyed to the West Indies and induced to bind themselves for a certain number of years. They treated them with great severity. The following epigrammatic conversation is reported as having taken place between an apprentice and a buccaneer. "Master," said the servant, "God has forbidden the practice of working on the Sabbath: does he not say, 'Six days shalt thou labor; and on the seventh shalt thou rest'?" "But I say unto thee," returned the buccaneer, "six days shalt thou kill cattle; and on the seventh shalt thou carry their hides to the shore."