After his repulse at Cartagena Vernon returned to Jamaica, where he was soon reënforced by four men-of-war and three thousand troops despatched from England. On the 9th of March 1742 he sailed for Portobello, intending to proceed thence to Panamá and capture that city. On arriving at the Isthmus he found that the rainy season had already set in; his men sickened, and a council of war being held it was resolved to return once more to Jamaica. Hence he was soon afterward ordered home, the remnant of his forces now mustering but a tenth part of the number that had been intrusted to his command. Thus in disaster ended an expedition sent to the conquest of an empire.
Notwithstanding the defeat of Vernon's expedition the settlements on the North Sea had been so frequently laid waste that after 1748 there was little intercourse between Spain and her colonies in Tierra Firme and South America except by way of Cape Horn. The despatch of fleets to the Isthmus was discontinued. Licenses were granted, however, to vessels called register ships, and in 1764 a monthly line of packets was established for intercommunication with Portobello and Cartagena. A few years later restrictions on trade were removed by international treaty; but long before the close of the eighteenth century the commerce of the Isthmus declined, and the road from Panamá to Portobello could no longer be called one of the chief commercial highways of the world. Agriculture and manufactures were neglected; the mines were exhausted; and the trade which had for more than two hundred years been the life-blood of Panamá existed no more.
CHAPTER XXXII.
MOSQUITIA, NICARAGUA, AND COSTA RICA
1701-1800.
The Sambos of Mosquitia—Their Territory—A Mosquito Chieftain Crowned King—Treaties between Spain and England—The British Occupy Mosquitia—Galvez Captures an English Settlement on the Black River—An Armament Despatched from Jamaica to Mosquitia—Surrender of the Spaniards—Colonists Ordered to Leave the Coast—The Governors of Nicaragua—The British Defeated at Fort San Cárlos—They Capture Fort San Juan—But are Compelled to Retreat—Church Matters—Missionary Expeditions to Talamanca—Affairs in Costa Rica.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION.
On the eastern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras there lived in the seventeenth century a people known among themselves as Misskitos, and called by the Spaniard Mosquitos, or more frequently sambos, the offspring probably of cimarrones and native women. They were ruled by an hereditary king, whose territory, when buccaneers first visited his domain, was of very limited extent, though the Mosquito language, which was identical with the one spoken by those of similar origin in the West Indies, spread in after years from Cape Honduras to the Desaguadero, and as far inland as Black River. They were a warlike race, and, as we shall see, could hold their own against the Spaniards. Their chief weapons were the bow and arrow, in the use of which it is said that the women were as expert as the men. The bow was of ironwood, often six feet in length, and strung with twisted bark. The arrow was of wood or reed, hardened in the fire, and tipped with fish-bone, flint, or teeth, poisoned in the juice of the manzanilla tree. They fought also with lances of cane, nine feet in length, and with javelins, clubs, and heavy sharp-pointed swords made of a poisonous wood. Their defensive armor was of plated reeds covered with tiger-skins and bedecked with feathers. Toward the close of the century the Mosquitos could put more than forty thousand warriors into the field; they selected as leader on each expedition the bravest and most experienced of their number.[XXXII‑1]
"The inner parts of the Mosqueto country are very barren," states an Englishman who was in those parts near the close of the seventeenth century and wrote his description about 1699, "but in the woods near the river sides, and by the great lagunes, are many sorts of fruits, wild beasts, and fowls, in plenty.... Plantains, and bananas, ... they have plentifully, in small plantations, in obscure parts of the woods, near the river sides.... Pine apples too ... they have enough of, and mammo, which last is a very sweet fruit ... and grows on middling low trees like apples. Saffadilla trees, which bear berries as big as sloes, of a yellowish colour, which are very pleasant to the taste and wholesome, of extraordinary virtue, ... are very frequent in their woods; as are likewise a sort of a pleasing plum tree, which grows very large, and is of a most delicious odour.... Great Indian wheat, or mais, they plant a little of to make drink with; and likewise some cocoa trees, ... but their laziness will not permit them to plant much of the last, because they can steal it ready gathered from the Spaniards, who have large plantations thereof at Carpenters river, not many leagues from them. Sugar-canes I have seen growing in old king Jeremy's plantation, much larger than I ever saw in Jamaica, but the Indians not knowing how to make sugar or rum, neglect them.... Pappaw trees which bear a sweet fruit, almost like a musk-melon in shape and taste ... are very plentiful. Cocoa-nut trees, cocoa-plums, and large grapes, growing on great trees, with large stones in them ... grow up and down near the water-sides. Monelo trees, whose fruit hangs down like french-beans, and are a very rich perfume when dried, and the best for chocolate, grow very plentiful on the banks of Black River, in this country. All the flesh that these people eat ... they get by hunting.... They have a small sort of fallow deer, like our English, with shorter horns, which haunt the inner sides of the woods, close to the Savanna.... The mountain cow, which the natives call Tilbu, is of the bigness of an English calf of a year old, having a snout like an elephant and not horned; they hide all day in muddy plashes, to escape the tigers, and in the night swim across the river to get food.... Warree and pickaree abound in great herds, and are two sorts of Indian wild hogs, having both their navels on their backs.[XXXII‑2] ... Some parts of this country are pretty well stocked with fowls.... A pretty large sort of fowl haunt their plantain walks, which the natives call quawmoes and the English corasaoes; they are a small sort of Indian turkey.... Wood pigeons ... and a sort of fat doves creeping commonly on the ground, are plentiful enough.... The woods are stocked with a variety of other fowls, most curiously painted, which are good for food.... In the fresh water rivers they have a sort of tortoise, called cushwaw, ... and on the coast abundance of large sea-tortoises.... They have great shoals of mullets, silver-fish, cat-fish, cavallies, sharks, nurses, snappers, growpers, some seal, stingrays, whiprays, and sea-devils.... Their best fish is the manatee, or sea-cow ... they are sometimes found straggling in the lagunes ... but are not suffered to increase, thro' the greediness of the Indian, who spares no pains when he hath a prospect of getting any."[XXXII‑3] Here, then, was a territory rich in natural resources, which, though discovered by Columbus in 1502, was left undisturbed by the Spaniards for some two centuries, the reason being chiefly that no gold was discovered there. The western or North American division of the coast of Central America, from Cape Gracias á Dios to the gulf of Urabá, was granted as we have seen to Diego de Nicuesa, whose disastrous expedition to Veragua has already been presented.[XXXII‑4] In 1576 the coast of Mosquitia was conveyed by royal cédula to the licentiate Diego García de Palacios, Captain Diego Lopez being appointed by the licentiate governor and captain-general of the province, and undertaking to attempt the conquest of the territory at his own risk.[XXXII‑5] But it does not appear that the captain took any action in the matter, and the natives, cimarrones and Mosquitos, were left undisturbed until the arrival of the buccaneers, who found in the intricate bays and winding rivers of Mosquitia, many places well adapted for the concealment of their light swift-sailing craft. The head-quarters of the freebooters were at Cape Gracias á Dios. Here they met to divide their booty and decide upon new expeditions; and, whenever opportunity offered, they darted thence like hawks upon the galleons that were freighted with the riches of Peru.
GREAT BRITAIN.
English settlements with which it was pretended that the buccaneers had no connection were established in this territory before 1670, and by the treaty of Madrid, signed at that date, the rights of Great Britain were recognized. The seventh article of this treaty stipulated that "the King of Great Britain his heirs and successors shall hold, and possess for ever, with full right of sovereign dominion, property and possession all lands, countries, islands, colonies and dominions whatever, situated in the West Indies, or in any part of America which the said King of Great Britain and his subjects do at this present hold and possess." In the same year an alliance, offensive and defensive, was made between Great Britain and Mosquitia.[XXXII‑6]
In 1687 one of the Mosquito chieftains was sent to Jamaica in order to place his native land under British protection. "But," says Sir Hans Sloane, "he escaped from his keepers, pulled off the clothes his friends had put on him, and climbed to the top of a tree." He was presently induced by promise of kind treatment to descend, whereupon he received a cocked hat and a piece of writing under the seal of the governor dubbing him king of Mosquitia.