It is to be presumed that the devil fell heir to Blackbeard's treasure, inasmuch as Lieutenant Maynard and his men fairly cut the pirate and his crew to pieces. Turn we now from such marauders as this to that greater generation of buccaneers, so called, who harried the Spanish treasure fleets and towns in the West Indies and on the coasts of the Isthmus and South and Central America. During the period when Port Royal, Jamaica, was the headquarters and recruiting station for these picturesque cut-throats, and Sir Henry Morgan was their bright, particular star, there is the testimony of an eye-witness and participant to show that the blood-stained gold seldom tarried long enough with its owners to permit of burying it, and that they bothered their wicked heads very little about safeguarding the future.
Captain Bartholomew Roberts, that "tall, black man, nearly forty years old, whose favorite toast was 'Damnation to him who ever lives to wear a halter,'" was snuffed out in an action with a King's ship, and the manner of his life and melodramatic quality of his death suggest that he be mentioned herein as worthy of a place beside Blackbeard himself. Roberts has been overlooked by buried treasure legend, and this is odd, for he was a figure to inspire such tales. His flamboyant career opened in 1719 and was successful until the British man-of-war Swallow overhauled him on the African coast. His biographer, Captain Charles Johnson, writing while the episode was less than a decade old and when the facts were readily obtainable, left us this fine picture of the fight:
"Roberts himself made a gallant figure at the time of the engagement, being dressed in a rich crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a red feather in his hat, a gold chain round his neck, with a diamond cross hanging to it, a sword in his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulder (according to the fashion of the pirates). He is said to have given his orders with boldness and spirit; coming, according to what he had purposed, close to the man of war, received her fire, and then hoisted his black flag[[7]] and returned it; shooting away from her with all the sail he could pack.... But keeping his tacks down, either by the wind's shifting or ill steerage, or both, he was taken aback with his sails, and the Swallow came a second time very nigh to him. He had now perhaps finished the fight very desperately if Death, who took a swift passage in a grapeshot, had not interposed and struck him directly on the throat.
"He settled himself on the tackles of a gun, which one Stephenson from the helm, observing, ran to his assistance, and not perceiving him wounded, swore at him and bid him stand up like a man. But when he found his mistake, and that Captain Roberts was certainly dead, he gushed into tears and wished the next shot might be his lot. They presently threw him overboard, with his arms and ornaments on, according to the repeated requests he had made in his life."
There was no treasure for the stout-hearted scoundrels who were captured by the Swallow. They had diced with fortune and lost, and Execution Dock was waiting for them, but they are worth a passing acquaintance and it gives one a certain satisfaction to learn that "they were impudently merry, saying when they viewed their nakedness, 'That they had not one half penny left to give old Charon to ferry them over the Styx,' and at their thin commons they would observe that they fell away so fast that they should not have weight enough to hang them. Sutton used to be very profane, and he happening to be in the same irons with another prisoner who was more serious than ordinary and read and prayed often, as became his condition, this man Sutton used to swear and ask him, 'What he proposed by so much noise and devotion?' 'Heaven, I hope,' says the other. 'Heaven, you fool,' says Sutton, 'Did you ever hear of any pirate going thither? Give me Hell. It is a merrier place. I'll give Roberts a salute of thirteen guns at entrance.'"
After Morgan had sacked the rich city of Porto Bello, John Esquemeling wrote of the expedition:[[8]]
"With these (ships) he arrived in a few days at the Island of Cuba, where he sought out a place wherein with all quiet and repose he might make the dividend of the spoil they had got. They found in ready money two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides all other merchandises, as cloth, linen, silks, and other goods. With this rich booty they sailed again thence to their common place of rendezvous, Jamaica. Being arrived, they passed here some time in all sorts of vices and debauchery, according to their common manner of doing, spending with huge prodigality what others had gained with no small labor and toil."
"... Such of these Pirates are found who will spend two or three thousand pieces of eight in one night, not leaving themselves, peradventure, a good shirt to wear on their backs in the morning. My own master would buy, on like occasions, a whole pipe of wine, and placing it in the street, would force everyone that passed by to drink with him; threatening also to pistol them in case they would not do it. At other times, he would do the same with barrels of ale or beer. And, very often, with both his hands, he would throw these liquors about the streets and wet the clothes of such as walked by, without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel or not, were they men or women.
"Among themselves, and to each other, these Pirates are extremely liberal and free. If any one of them has lost his goods, which often happens in their manner of life, they freely give him, and make him partaker of what they have. In taverns and ale-houses they always have great credit; but in such houses at Jamaica they ought not to run very deep in debt, seeing the inhabitants of that island easily sell one another for debt. Thus it happened to my patron, or master, to be sold for a debt of a tavern wherein he had spent the greater part of his money. This man had, within the space of three months before, three thousand pieces of eight in ready cash, all which he wasted in that short space of time, and became as poor as I have told you."
The same free-handed and lurid manner of life prevailed on the little island of Tortuga, off the coast of Hayti, where the French and English buccaneers had a lawless kingdom of their own. In his account of the career of the infamous L'Ollonais, Esquemeling goes on to say: