ANSON TAKING THE SPANISH GALLEON.
And she was indeed a prize. She had on board 35,682 ounces of virgin silver, 1,313,843 pieces of eight, besides some cochineal and other trifles, which hardly counted in comparison with the specie. She was a much larger vessel than the Centurion, and had five hundred and fifty men, and thirty-six large guns, besides twenty-eight pedreroes each carrying four-pound balls. During the action she had sixty-seven men killed, and eighty-four wounded; whilst the Centurion had only two killed, and seventeen wounded. Shortly after the galleon had struck, an officer came quietly to Anson, and told him the [pg 62]ship was on fire near the powder-room. The commodore showed no emotion, and gave orders to a few in regard to extinguishing it, which was happily done, without alarming the crew or informing the enemy. The galleon was constituted by Anson a post-ship in his Majesty’s navy, the command being given to his first lieutenant, Mr. Saumarez. All but the officers and wounded of the prisoners were kept in the hold of the Centurion, two guarded hatchways being left open. As the Spaniards were two to one of the English, every precaution was necessary, but otherwise they were treated as well as possible. Unfortunately their allowance of water was necessarily small, one pint per day, the crew only receiving a pint and a half; and although not one died on the passage to the river of Canton, they were reduced to ghastly skeletons when they were discharged. Anson refitted and sold the galleon to the merchants of Macao, and, with about £400,000 worth of Spanish treasure, sailed for England, where he arrived in safety. The damage done by him to Spain was probably three or four times that represented by the above amount. The great galleon was alone, with her cargo, valued at a million and a half dollars; whilst the destruction of Paita, and the minor Spanish prizes, with large parts of their cargoes, were serious losses to Spain.
CHAPTER IV.
The History of Ships and Shipping Interests (continued).
Progress of the American Colonies—Great Prevalence of Piracy—Numerous Captures and Executions—A Proclamation of Pardon—John Theach, or “Black Beard”—A Desperate Pirate—Hand-and-glove with the Governor of North Carolina—Pretends to accept the King’s Pardon—A Blind—His Defeat and Death—Unwise Legislation and consequent Irritation—The Stamp Act—The Tea Tax—Enormous Excitement—Tea-chests thrown into Boston Harbour—Determined Attitude of the American Colonists—The Boston Port Bill—Its Effects—Sympathy of all America—The final Rupture—England’s Wars to the end of the Century—Nelson and the Nile—Battle of Copenhagen.
During the early part of the eighteenth century, while Europe was distracted by war, the American colonies were, “by peaceful and undisturbed pursuits, laying the foundation of that prosperity which enabled them, before the close of the century, to demand and obtain their severance from the mother country, and their social and political independence.” So early as 1729, Philadelphia had 6,000 tons of shipping, and received in that year 6,208 emigrants from Great Britain. New York was then carrying on a large trade in grain and provisions with Spain and Portugal, besides forwarding considerable quantities of furs to England. New England was furnishing the finest spars and masts in the world, while that part of it which is now the State of Massachusetts had already 120,000 inhabitants, employing 40,000 tons of shipping, or about 600 vessels of all sizes. The fisheries were of great value, as much as a quarter of a million quintals of dried fish being annually exported to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean. Carolina was doing a magnificent business in the export of rice, Indian corn, and provisions of all kinds; in pitch, turpentine, and lumber.
But one serious evil caused the colonists great annoyance and loss—the prevalence of piracy. The State last named suffered far more than the rest. Commercial restrictions, unwisely imposed by Great Britain, gave rise to a large amount of smuggling, and from smuggling to piracy was an easy transition. “These gangs of naval robbers were likewise frequently recruited by British sailors, who had been trained to ferocity and injustice by the legalised piracy of the slave-trade.”[17] One Captain Quelch, the commander of a vessel which had committed numerous piracies, ventured to take shelter, with his crew, in Massachusetts in the year 1704. He was detected, tried, and hanged, with six of his accomplices, in Boston. In 1717 several vessels were captured on the coasts of New England by a noted pirate, Captain Bellamy, a man who carried matters with a high hand, having a vessel with twenty-three guns, and a crew of one hundred and thirty men. The vessel was wrecked shortly afterwards on Cape Cod, the captain and the whole of his crew, except six, perishing in the waves. The pitiful remainder gained the shore, their fate literally realising Defoe’s words—
“When what the sea would not, the gallows may;”
for they were immediately conveyed to Boston, tried, and executed. A number of pirates were about the same time hanged in Virginia. In consequence of the repeated complaints of British merchants regarding these freebooters, George I. issued a proclamation offering a pardon to all pirates who should surrender to any of the colonial governors within twelve months; and in 1718 dispatched a few ships of war under Captain Rogers, who, repairing to New Providence, then a perfect den of sea-thieves, took possession of the place, and nearly all the pirates there took the benefit of the royal proclamation. Steed Bennet and Richard Worley, two pirate chiefs who had fled from New Providence at the approach of Rogers, took possession of the mouth of Cape Fear River. They were captured by Governor Johnson and Captain Rhett; and Bennet, who was a man of good education, and had held the rank of major in the British army, was executed at Charlestown, with forty-one of his accomplices. North Carolina had been for a long time the haunt of one of the most desperate villains of his time, John Theach, generally known as “Black Beard,” from an enormous beard he wore, and which was adjusted, Grahame records, “with elaborate care in such an inhuman disposition as was calculated to excite both disgust and terror.... In battle, he has been represented with the look and demeanour of a fury; carrying three braces of pistols on holsters slung over his shoulders, and lighted matches under his hat, protruding over each of his ears. The authority and admiration which the pirate chiefs enjoyed among their fellows was proportioned to the audacity and extravagance of their outrages on humanity; and none in this respect ever challenged a rivalship with Theach.... Having frequently undertaken to personify a demon for the entertainment of his followers, he declared at length his purpose of gratifying them with an anticipated representation of hell; and in this attempt had nearly stifled the whole crew with the fumes of brimstone under the hatches of his vessel. In one of his ecstasies, whilst heated with liquor, and sitting in his cabin, he took a pistol in each hand, and, cocking them under the table, blew out the lights, and then with [pg 64]crossed hands fired on each side at his companions, one of whom received a shot that maimed him for life.” He was an early Mormon, for he had fourteen women whom he called his wives. His chief security had been the fact that Charles Eden, the governor, and Tobias Knight, the secretary of the province, shared in his plunder and protected him. As he was rich, and had been apprised of Rogers’ operations at New Providence, he judged it wise to accept the benefit of the king’s proclamation, and, with twenty of his men, pretended to surrender to Eden, who had been a receiver of goods or gold stolen by him.