Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers

by John S. C. Abbott

As soon as Lolonois arrived, several boats filled with pirates, thoroughly armed, were sent to capture the ship. The Indians had informed the inmates of the ship of the presence of the pirates. Anticipating a visit, they had made such preparations as they could to repel them. The ship mounted forty-two guns, was well supplied with small arms, and had a select crew of one hundred and thirty fighting men.

The pirates, after opening fire upon the ship for some time, from one of their vessels with twenty-two heavy guns, sent four boats, each carrying about forty men, to clamber over the bulwarks of the ship, cutlass in hand, at four points. In this assault they were much aided by a dense fog, which, blending with the smoke of the powder, had settled down so heavily as to conceal the approach of the boats.

The crew were sailors. The pirates were veteran soldiers. The conflict was like that between well-trained regulars and raw militia. Very soon the pirates were masters of the ship, and the deck was covered with the dead and the dying. But again these wretched plunderers were disappointed. The vessel had been almost entirely unladen. Its remaining cargo consisted of twenty thousand reams of paper and one hundred tons of iron bars. Neither of these were of any use to the pirates. The ship, however, with its great guns, its small arms, and its abundance of ammunition, was deemed a great acquisition. But God so ordered it that even this capture proved a calamity rather than an aid to the enterprises of Lolonois.

The desperate leader of this piratic gang called a general council, and insisted upon the march across the country to Guatemala. It was a stormy session. The general discontent was expressed in curses and oaths, and bitter recriminations. Nearly one-fourth of their number had perished. They had endured almost intolerable sufferings. As yet they had accomplished nothing in the way of enriching themselves. And now they were urged to embark on a desperate enterprise, where they certainly would be exposed to the greatest hardships, and where all would probably perish.

These men had embarked from Tortuga, with the expectation that dollars and doubloons would be gathered by shovelfuls. They were now poor, hungry, mutinous, angry with each other, and the prospect before them was discouraging in the extreme. All thoughts of ravaging Nicaragua, in their present state of despondency and with the great diminution of their numbers, were relinquished.

Moses Vauclin had charge of the splendid ship recently captured. His ship was a swift sailer. With one or two officers conspiring with him, and his crew of nearly one hundred and fifty men gained over, they decided to run away and cruise on their own account. In the night they silently raised their anchors, took advantage of a fresh breeze, and, before the morning’s dawn, disappeared beyond the horizon. When Lolonois awoke and found that he was thus deserted, the madman paced his deck in a frenzy of impotent rage.

The fugitives could not endure the idea of returning penniless to Tortuga, where they would thus become the laughing-stock of the whole community. The wind favored them. They ran along the coast of Honduras and Nicaragua to the south, until they reached the province of Costa Rica. In their desperation, being resolved to accomplish something, they landed and attacked and sacked the poor little town of Veruguas, killing many of the inhabitants. The furniture in the huts of these poor people was of no value to them. They gained only the pitiful sum of about forty dollars’ worth of gold, which the slaves had washed out from the mud of the rivers.

This region was low and unhealthy. The Spanish grandees, who owned the mines and cultivated them by the compulsory labor of slaves, had their residences in the more healthy region of Nata, at the distance of several leagues. The Spaniards began to gather in large numbers to repel the invaders. The pirates, alarmed, fled to their ship, and returned to Tortuga. Here they disbanded, and we learn no more of the fate of this portion of Lolonois’s army. Each one, doubtless, found his way, through crime and misery, to death and to the judgment-seat of Christ.

Lolonois was left at Port Cavallo, with but about two hundred men. He was almost destitute of food; most of his ammunition was consumed; many were sick from the insalubrity of the climate, and all were dissatisfied, clamorous, and angry.

Lolonois remained for some time in the Bay of Honduras. Esquemeling writes: “His ship was too great to get out at the time of the reflux of those seas, which the smaller vessels could more easily do.”