Buccaneers and pirates of our coasts

by Frank R. Stockton

During the time that preparations were going on for making examples of these impertinent pirates, who had dared to enter the port of Campeachy, Roc was racking his brains to find some method of getting out of the terrible scrape into which he had fallen. This was a branch of the business in which a capable pirate was obliged to be proficient; if he could not get himself out of scrapes, he could not expect to be successful. In this case there was no chance of cutting down sentinels, or jumping overboard with a couple of wine-jars for a life-preserver, or of doing any of those ordinary things which pirates were in the habit of doing when escaping from their captors. Roc and his men were in a dungeon on land, inside of a fortress, and if they escaped from this, they would find themselves unarmed in the midst of a body of Spanish soldiers. Their stout arms and their stout hearts were of no use to them now, and they were obliged to depend upon their wits if they had any. Roc had plenty of wit, and he used it well. There was a slave, probably not a negro nor a native, but most likely some European who had been made prisoner, who came in to bring him food and drink, and by the means of this man the pirate hoped to play a trick upon the Governor. He promised the slave that if he would help him,—and he told him it would be very easy to do so,—he would give him money enough to buy his freedom and to return to his friends, and this, of course, was a great inducement to the poor fellow, who may have been an Englishman or a Frenchman in good circumstances at home. The slave agreed to the proposals, and the first thing he did was to bring some writing-materials to Roc, who thereupon began the composition of a letter upon which he based all his hopes of life and freedom.

When he was coming into the bay, Roc had noticed a large French vessel that was lying at some distance from the town, and he wrote his letter as if it had come from the captain of this ship. In the character of this French captain he addressed his letter to the Governor of the town, and in it he stated that he had understood that certain Companions of the Coast, for whom he had great sympathy,—for the French and the buccaneers were always good friends,—had been captured by the Governor, who, he heard, had threatened to execute them. Then the French captain, by the hand of Roc, went on to say that if any harm should come to these brave men, who had been taken and imprisoned when they were doing no harm to anybody, he would swear, in his most solemn manner, that never, for the rest of his life, would he give quarter to any Spaniard who might fall into his hands, and he, moreover, threatened that any kind of vengeance which should become possible for the buccaneers and French united, to inflict upon the Spanish ships, or upon the town of Campeachy, should be taken as soon as possible after he should hear of any injury that might be inflicted upon the unfortunate men who were then lying imprisoned in the fortress.

When the slave came back to Roc, the letter was given to him with very particular directions as to what he was to do with it. He was to disguise himself as much as possible, so that he should not be recognized by the people of the place, and then in the night he was to make his way out of the town, and early in the morning he was to return as if he had been walking along the shore of the harbor, when he was to state that he had been put on shore from the French vessel in the offing, with a letter which he was to present to the Governor.

The slave performed his part of the business very well. The next day, wet and bedraggled, from making his way through the weeds and mud of the coast, he presented himself at the fortress with his letter, and when he was allowed to take it to the Governor, no one suspected that he was a person employed about the place. Having fulfilled his mission, he departed, and when seen again he was the same servant whose business it was to carry food to the prisoners.

The Governor read the letter with a disquieted mind; he knew that the French ship which was lying outside the harbor was a powerful vessel and he did not like French ships, anyway. The town had once been taken and very badly treated by a little fleet of French and English buccaneers, and he was very anxious that nothing of the kind should happen again. There was no great Spanish force in the harbor at that time, and he did not know how many buccaneering vessels might be able to gather together in the bay if it should become known that the great pirate Roc had been put to death in Campeachy. It was an unusual thing for a prisoner to have such powerful friends so near by, and the Governor took Roc's case into most earnest consideration. A few hours' reflection was sufficient to convince him that it would be very unsafe to tamper with such a dangerous prize as the pirate Roc, and he determined to get rid of him as soon as possible. He felt himself in the position of a man who has stolen a baby-bear, and who hears the roar of an approaching parent through the woods; to throw away the cub and walk off as though he had no idea there were any bears in that forest would be the inclination of a man so situated, and to get rid of the great pirate without provoking the vengeance of his friends was the natural inclination of the Governor.

Now Roc and his men were treated well, and having been brought before the Governor, were told that in consequence of their having committed no overt act of disorder they would be set at liberty and shipped to England, upon the single condition that they would abandon piracy and agree to become quiet citizens in whatever respectable vocation they might select.

To these terms Roc and his men agreed without argument. They declared that they would retire from the buccaneering business, and that nothing would suit them better than to return to the ways of civilization and virtue. There was a ship about to depart for Spain, and on this the Governor gave Roc and his men free passage to the other side of the ocean. There is no doubt that our buccaneers would have much preferred to have been put on board the French vessel; but as the Spanish Governor had started his prisoners on the road to reform, he did not wish to throw them into the way of temptation by allowing them to associate with such wicked companions as Frenchmen, and Roc made no suggestion of the kind, knowing very well how greatly astonished the French captain would be if the Governor were to communicate with him on the subject.

On the voyage to Spain Roc was on his good behavior, and he was a man who knew how to behave very well when it was absolutely necessary: no doubt there must have been many dull days on board ship when he would have been delighted to gamble, to get drunk, and to run "amuck" up and down the deck. But he carefully abstained from all these recreations, and showed himself to be such an able-bodied and willing sailor that the captain allowed him to serve as one of the crew. Roc knew how to do a great many things; not only could he murder and rob, but he knew how to turn an honest penny when there was no other way of filling his purse. He had learned among the Indians how to shoot fish with bow and arrows, and on this voyage across the Atlantic he occupied all his spare time in sitting in the rigging and shooting the fish which disported themselves about the vessel. These fish he sold to the officers, and we are told that in this way he earned no less than five hundred crowns, perhaps that many dollars. If this account is true, fish must have been very costly in those days, but it showed plainly that if Roc had desired to get into an honest business, he would have found fish-shooting a profitable occupation. In every way Roc behaved so well that for his sake all his men were treated kindly and allowed many privileges.

But when this party of reformed pirates reached Spain and were allowed to go where they pleased, they thought no more of the oaths they had taken to abandon piracy than they thought of the oaths which they had been in the habit of throwing right and left when they had been strolling about on the island of Jamaica. They had no ship, and not enough money to buy one, but as soon as they could manage it they sailed back to the West Indies, and eventually found themselves in Jamaica, as bold and as bloody buccaneers as ever they had been.