The Log of a Privateersman

by Harry Collingwood

The fate of the Santa Theresa.

Upon rejoining Dumaresq, I learned from him that the pistol-shot fired in the cabin had attracted only the most casual and momentary notice of the few Frenchmen on deck; the majority of them, indeed, scarcely rousing themselves sufficiently to do more than merely turn their heads to send a single inquiring glance aft. This was good news, as, although the schooner was now to all intents and purposes our own, there were few enough of us to navigate her, and I was most anxious that those few should not be weakened by possible injuries in a struggle to secure full and complete possession. That full and complete possession, however, it was absolutely necessary to secure at once, if anything was to be done toward rescuing the unhappy Spaniards on board the fast-sinking Santa Theresa; so Dumaresq and I went forward and, by dint of a little good-humoured force, succeeded in persuading the remainder of the Frenchmen to go below, where we secured them without much difficulty. This done, we at once brought the schooner to the wind, and proceeded to beat up toward the Spanish ship, which we could just make out in the rapidly deepening dusk of the tropical evening. I carefully noted her bearing and distance; and then, Dumaresq taking the wheel, the rest of us went to work to make our prisoners permanently secure. Fortunately for us, Renouf’s foresight enabled us to do this very effectually, he having apparently recognised that circumstances might possibly arise rendering it important that he should possess the means to reduce a large number of men to absolute helplessness; for which purpose he had provided himself with an ample supply of irons, which now proved most useful to us. We lost no time in clapping these irons upon the hands and legs of the Frenchmen, thus rendering it impossible for them to give us the slightest trouble upon their recovery from their drunken debauch; and, having made all perfectly secure, our next business was to restore the cook and steward to sobriety, by subjecting them to a liberal douche of salt-water, and to set them to work to prepare us a meal, of which we began to feel that we stood in need.

The task of effectually securing the whole of our prisoners occupied a considerable amount of time; so that when it was at length completed to my satisfaction the night had long since fallen, and we had completely lost sight of the Spanish ship, although Dumaresq had kept his eye upon her as long as possible. We had brought the schooner to the wind on the starboard tack, in the first instance, and we held on upon this tack until I found, by means of a simple little diagram, drawn to scale upon a piece of paper, that we could fetch her on the next tack when we hove the schooner round. But my hopes of being able to rescue the Spaniards were fast fading away, for the wind had evinced a decided disposition to drop with the setting of the sun; and when we at length tacked to fetch the spot where we expected to find the Santa Theresa, the schooner was going through the water at a speed of barely four knots. And, according to my reckoning, the ship was just that distance from us; so that it would occupy us another hour to fetch her, and I was exceedingly doubtful whether she would remain afloat so long. Indeed, I greatly feared that she had foundered already, for the night, although dark, was clear. The stars were shining brilliantly from zenith to horizon, and it appeared to me that if she was still afloat we ought to be able to see the blur of her canvas against the sky. But although I searched the horizon from broad on the one bow to broad on the other, using for the purpose an exceptionally fine night-glass that I found in Renouf’s cabin, I was unable to make her out.

Once or twice, it is true, I thought I had caught her right ahead, but it unfortunately happened that the portion of sky in that quarter was bare of stars over a space very considerably larger than would have been covered by the ship’s canvas, and consequently I was without the assurance that would have been afforded me had the faint, dusky appearance that I took to be her sails alternately eclipsed and exposed a star. But I afterwards had reason to believe that I had really seen her, for when we had arrived within about a mile of the spot where I supposed her to be, a faint, wailing cry, as of people in the last extremity of despair, came pealing distinctly to us across the black water, and about a quarter of an hour later we suddenly found ourselves among a quantity of floating oars, buckets, hatches, and other articles that had undoubtedly belonged to the Spaniard. The presence of these articles proved conclusively that the unfortunate ship had gone down, and the cry that we had heard was doubtless the last despairing cry of her hapless, helpless passengers and crew. Thus to the crime of piracy Renouf had added the far worse one of wholesale murder, for Dumaresq asserted that, according to his estimate, the number of passengers and crew together on board the Santa Theresa could not have fallen much, if anything, short of a hundred. We immediately hove the schooner to, and Dumaresq, with my four English shipmates, at once shoved off in a boat to search among the wreckage for possible survivors, but not one was found; which is not to be wondered at, for it afterwards transpired that Renouf had driven the Spanish seamen below and battened them down, while he had lashed the officers and passengers hand and foot and locked them into the cabins the last thing before scuttling the ship!

We remained hove-to until past midnight, and then, having failed to find even so much as a floating body, sorrowfully filled away, and shaped a course for the West Indies, it being my intention to hand the whole crew over to the authorities upon a charge of piracy.

A few days later, as we were running down the trade-wind, shortly after mid-day, we sighted ahead a whole fleet of large ships steering pretty nearly the same course as ourselves. They were under royals, with studding-sails set on both sides, and despite the fact that they were so much bigger than ourselves, we overhauled them so rapidly that by sunset we had brought them hull-up, and had neared them so closely that we were not only able to identify them as line-of-battle ships, but, with the aid of Renouf’s splendid telescope, were able to read several of the names emblazoned upon their sterns. We made out such names as Argonauta, España, Pluton, Terrible, Bucentaure, San Rafael, and others, by means of which Dumaresq was able to identify some of them as ships that had been blockaded in the port of Toulon by Lord Nelson. Others were manifestly Spanish ships. Their names and appearance generally testified to that fact, and it therefore looked very much as though Vice-admiral Villeneuve had somehow contrived to evade the British fleet, and, having effected a junction with a Spanish fleet, was making the best of his way to the West Indies to work what damage might be within his power upon our colonies and our commerce in that quarter of the globe. There were twenty sail of them altogether. The fact that so formidable a fleet of our enemies was ranging the Atlantic and steering a course that would take them to some of the most valuable of Britain’s possessions in the western hemisphere was important news indeed; and I reconnoitred the fleet as closely as I dared, contriving, before the daylight faded, to ascertain the name, and approximately the power, of every ship. They did not deign to take the slightest notice of us, beyond firing a shot or two at us whenever we ventured within range. So when darkness set in I bore away to the southward sufficiently to give the flank ship a berth of about four miles, when I crowded sail upon the schooner and ran past them, dropping them out of sight before sunrise next morning.

Despite the fact that we were so short-handed, we continued to carry on, night and day, arriving at Port Royal on the morning of the eighth day after sighting the combined fleet.

My first task was to seek out the Admiral, whom I expected to find at his Pen on the slope of the hill at the back of the town of Kingston; so no sooner was our anchor down than I engaged a negro boatman to take me up the harbour. Arrived at Kingston, I procured a vehicle, and, driving to the Pen, was fortunate enough to catch the great man just as he was about to sit down to breakfast. The announcement that I was the bearer of important intelligence relating to the enemy secured my immediate admission to his presence, and, despite the fact that I was only a privateersman, the genial old seadog accorded me a hearty welcome, and insisted upon my sitting down to table with him directly he had elicited from me the fact that I had not yet broken my fast. He was, of course, profoundly interested in the intelligence that I was able to furnish him, relative to the presence of a combined French and Spanish fleet in the Atlantic, my information being the first that had reached him of the fact, and he was good enough to say that, in hastening to him with the news, I had rendered a service of the utmost importance to my country. Scarcely less interested was he in the narration of my adventures from the time of the abandonment of the Manilla to the moment of the capture of the Jean Bart. He complimented me highly upon my conduct throughout, and, while promising to immediately relieve me of the charge of my prisoners, incidentally expressed his regret that I had not selected the navy as my profession. I answered him that I was but an obscure individual, with no influence or patronage whatever at my command, and that, therefore, had I entered the navy, I should probably never have been allowed to rise in my profession, the influence and patronage which I lacked causing other and more fortunate ones to be promoted over my head. His reply was characteristic.

“Influence! patronage!” he exploded. “Ay, sir, you speak truly; there is too much of it altogether. It amounts to a very serious drawback and injury to the service in many ways. But, as for you, and men like you, you do not require either influence or patronage. You possess the best of all influence in this,” lightly touching the hilt of my sword, “and it is a thousand pities that greater facilities are not afforded to men of your kidney for entrance into the service. But perhaps the profits derivable from successful privateering outweigh your patriotism, and you would rather be as you are than become the wearer of His Majesty’s livery?”

“You are mistaken, sir,” answered I hotly. “To serve on His Majesty’s quarter-deck would be the height of my ambition, but I confess I prefer my present position, as commander of a privateer to that of a warrant-officer aboard a man-o’-war.”