The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer - Harry Collingwood

By this time Hubert Saint Leger had sufficiently recovered from his terrible injuries to be able to rise and dress without assistance, while all the other rescued English were doing well, their only desire now being to return home to their relatives and friends as soon as possible. Therefore, there now being nothing to longer detain them at Panama, on the day after the return of the dispatch boat and the formal surrender of the six Englishmen, George and his officers bade farewell to the city and its inhabitants, and weighed anchor for the south, glad enough to escape to the pure breezes of the sea once more.

The Cristobal Colon proved to be a somewhat dull sailer, nevertheless the adventurers made good progress down the western seaboard of South America, the voyage being wholly uneventful save for the usual experiences of mariners, and, missing the Straits of Magellan, the galleon rounded the Horn in the embrace of a blustering westerly gale, on the forty-third day after their departure from Panama, by which time all the invalids were perfectly recovered and not only fit but eager for duty. True, the weather which they encountered during the fortnight that they were in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn proved rather trying to all hands, accustomed as they had now become to the enervating climate of the tropics, but it was by this time early summer in the southern hemisphere, and although the air was keen it was also bracing, and Chichester, the surgeon, stoutly maintained that a taste of it was all that was needed to set everybody perfectly right.

Then followed the long weary drag up the eastern coast of South America, and everybody was rejoiced when, on a certain glorious morning of the last month of the year, they rounded the north-eastern angle of the continent—now known as Cape San Roque—and bore away to the westward for the creek where the Nonsuch still—as they hoped—lay securely hidden. And at this point in the voyage they were exceptionally favoured by the elements, for they accomplished their second passage of the Line without a minute’s delay from calms. On the last day of the year they sailed past Trinidad, joyfully recognising its lofty heights and its three distinct entrances to the gulf as they passed; and on the evening of January 15th, 1570, they entered the hidden harbour near Nombre, where they had left the Nonsuch, and found her apparently not a penny the worse for her five months’ sojourn there. For Lukabela, the Cimarrone chief, had so scrupulously fulfilled his promise to look after the ship that a party of twenty men had been camped on the beach for the past five months, and had every day visited her and thoroughly soused her deck and upper works with water.

Immediately upon the arrival of the Cristobal Colon in the cove, a messenger was dispatched to Lukabela with the news; and within a couple of hours he appeared on board to personally welcome his friends upon their return. George at once concluded an arrangement with the chief for the supply of a strong gang of men to assist in refitting the Nonsuch; and on the following day the work was energetically begun, and so strenuously carried forward that ten days later the vessel was ready for sea. All that now remained was to suitably reward the Cimarrones for their services, and this George did upon so lavish a scale that Lukabela there and then vowed to hold himself and his tribe henceforth at the service of any and every Englishman who might visit those waters. The Englishmen were then divided into two parties proportionate to the tonnage of the ships, George resuming the command of the Nonsuch, while he put Hubert—now completely recovered, and a strong, robust, handsome man once more—in command of the galleon. This made both ships very short-handed, but it was the only arrangement possible, for during their voyage round from Panama the cargo of the galleon had been overhauled, and found to be so enormously rich, and of such great bulk, that it was deemed unwise to entrust it and the rest of the treasure to a single ship; therefore on a certain glorious January morning all hands went to work to unmoor both ships, and by mid-day they were clear of the cove and heading north for the treasure island, which they reached five days later. But during that five days’ voyage it had become so clear to all that both ships must be thoroughly cleared of weed before the voyage across the Atlantic was undertaken, that they decided to careen them before proceeding further. This was accordingly done, the work occupying all hands for three months; but when it was done both craft were fit in every respect to battle with the spring gales which they knew awaited them.

Finally, they sailed from the treasure island on the fifth day of May, 1570, and working their way to the north-east between the islands of Cuba and San Domingo, hit the Gulf Stream, which swept them to windward as they struggled northward against the north-east trade-wind. This proved to be the most tedious and wearisome part of their passage; for upon clearing the trades they were fortunate enough to run into a succession of strong westerly winds, before which they went foaming and rolling across the Atlantic at a merry rate, arriving in Plymouth Sound within two hours of each other, on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh of July, 1570, to the joy of everybody concerned, after an absence from home of just over fifteen months.

The partition of the treasure was immediately proceeded with; and so enormous was its amount that even the lowest grade of mariner received sufficient to render him independent in a modest way for the remainder of his life, while as for George, he was—after old Simon Radlett, the owner of the Nonsuch—easily the richest man in all Plymouth, his share being sufficient not only for his own needs but also for those of his brother Hubert, with whom he insisted upon an equal division, despite the energetic and long-continued protests of the elder brother.

For a time there was a possibility that George’s exploits on the Spanish Main and at Panama might involve him in serious trouble with the Queen; indeed he and old Simon Radlett were summoned to London to give an account of themselves. Luckily, however, for them, the Catholics were at the moment making themselves obnoxious in the matter of conspiracies in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots, while Philip of Spain was also out of Elizabeth’s favour; consequently Her Majesty was just in the right mood to be favourably impressed by the straightforward story which George had to tell; and his account of the doings of the Inquisition at San Juan de Ulua, and the atrocities practised upon the galley-slave prisoners, as witnessed by himself, excited such lively sympathy in the Queen’s breast that, instead of sending them to the Tower, as they at one time more than half-expected, she knighted them both and sent them back to Plymouth happy in the full assurance of her most gracious favour.

The End.