From the preface to De Lussan's book, we learn that he returned to Dieppe, with letters of introduction from De Cussy, the Governor of Tortuga and St. Domingo, to Mons. de Lubert, Treasurer-General of Marine in France. Of the end of this brave man we know nothing. He had many requisites for a great general.
CHAPTER II.
THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS.
Sieur de Montauban—Wonderful escape from an explosion—Life in Africa—Laurence de Graff—His victories—Enters French service—Treachery—Buccaneers join in French expedition and take Carthagena—Buccaneer sharpshooters—Treachery of French—Buccaneers return and retake the city—Captured in return by English and Dutch fleets—1698—Buccaneers wrecked with French—Grammont takes Santiago—Sacks Maracaibo, Gibraltar, and Torilla—Lands at Cumana—Enters French service—Lost in his last cruise.
Of all the motley characters of Buccaneer history, Montauban appears one of the most extraordinary. His friends describe him to have been as prudent as he was brave, blunt and sincere, relating his own adventures with a free and generous air that convinced the hearer of their truth, and at last consenting to write his story, not from ostentation, but from the simple desire of giving a French minister of state a narrative of his campaigns. He is interesting to us as the latest known Buccaneer, and in strict parlance he can scarcely be classed as a Buccaneer at all, attacking the English as he did more than the Spanish, and not confining his cruises to the Spanish main.
He begins his book with great naïveté thus: "Since I have so often felt the malignant influence of those stars that preside over the seas, and by an adverse fortune lost all that wealth which with so much care and trouble I had amassed together, I should take no manner of pleasure in this place to call to mind the misfortunes that befel me before the conclusion of the last campaign, had not a desire of serving still both the public and particular persons, as well as to let his majesty know the affection and weddedness I have always had for his service, made me take pen in hand to give Mons. de Phelipeaux an account of such observations as I have made; wherein he may also find with what eagerness I have penetrated to the remotest colonies of our enemies, in order to destroy them and ruin their trade. I was not willing to swell up this relation with an account of all the voyages I have made, and all the particular adventures that have befallen me on the coasts of New Spain, Carthagena, Mexico, Florida, and Cape Verd, which last place I had been at twenty years ago, having begun to use the seas at the age of sixteen." He goes on to say that he will not stop to relate how, in 1691, in a ship called the Machine, he ravaged the coasts of New Guinea, and, entering the great Serelion, took a fort from the English and split twenty-four pieces of cannon, but will confine himself simply to his last voyage; "Some information," he says, "having been given thereof, by the noise made in France and elsewhere of the burning my ship, and the terrible crack it made in the air."
In the year 1694, having ravaged the coast of Caracca, he went towards St. Croix, to watch for some merchant ships and a fleet expected from Barbadoes and Nevis, bound for England. Sailing towards the Bermudas, expecting good booty, he saw them coming towards him without any apprehension of danger. He at once attacked the convoy (The Wolf), and took her and two merchant ships laden with sugar, the rest escaping during the fight. Returning with his prizes to France, he captured an English ship of sixteen guns from Spain and bound for England, which surrendered after a short fight. This last vessel he took to Rochelle and sold it, the Admiralty declaring it good prize; the last he took to Bordeaux and sold to the merchants. Here abandoning themselves to pleasure after a long abstinence, many of his men deserted him, and he supplied their place with youths from the town, who soon became as expert as veterans. "I made it," he says, "my continual care and business to teach my men to shoot, and my so frequent exercising of them rendered them in a short time as capable of shooting and handling their arms as the oldest sea freebooters, or the best fowlers by land."
Re-victualling his ship, that carried only thirty-four guns, he left Bordeaux in February, 1695, to cruise on the coast of Guinea. From the Azores he passed the Canary Islands, and sailed for fourteen days in sight of Teneriffe, in hopes of meeting some Dutch vessels, that after all escaped him, and at the Cape de Verd Islands he pursued two English interlopers of thirty guns each, who left behind in the roads their anchors and shallops. He then went in search of a Dutch guard-ship, of thirty-four guns, along the neighbouring coast. Decoying the foe by showing Dutch colours, he waited till he got within cannon shot, hoisting the French flag, gave her a signal to strike, and then exchanged broadsides. They fought from early morning till four in the afternoon, without Montauban being able to get the weather-gauge, or approach near enough to use his chief arms—his fusils. Taking advantage of a favourable wind, the Dutchman then anchored under the fort of the Cape of Three-points, where two other Dutch men-of-war lay, one of fourteen and the other of twenty-eight guns. Thinking the three vessels had leagued to fight him, Montauban anchored within a league of the shore, hoping to provoke them out by continued insults, but the guard-ship, already much mauled, would not move. This vessel, he found afterwards, had driven away a French flute. At Cape St. John he took with little difficulty an English ship of twenty guns, carrying 350 negroes, and much wax and elephants' teeth. The English captain had killed some of his blacks in a mutiny, and others had escaped in the shallop, which they stole. At Prince's Isle he took a small Bradenburg caper (a pirate), mounted with eight pieces of cannon, and carrying sixty men. He then put into port to careen, and sent his prize to St. Domingo to be condemned and sold, putting the Sieur de Nave and a crew on board, but the ship was taken by some English men-of-war before Little Goara. To keep his men employed during the careening, Montauban fitted up the caper, and with ninety men cruised for six weeks without success, and, then putting into the Isle of St. Thomas, trucked the prize for provisions, and started for the coasts of Angola, hearing that three English men-of-war and a fire-ship were fitting out against him at Guinea. On his way he chased a Dutch interloper, laden with 150 pounds of gold dust, but she ran ashore on the Isle of St. Omer and fell to pieces.