Transcriber's Notes
Obvious printing errors were repaired and noted by the use of a dashed underline in the text. Scrolling the mouse over such text will display the change that was made. Variation in hyphenation is as in the original text.
The List of Illustrations lists the original page numbers; however, for this etext the images have been moved to appropriate locations in the text.
ON THE SPANISH MAIN
OR, SOME ENGLISH FORAYS ON THE ISTHMUS OF DARIEN. WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE BUCCANEERS AND A SHORT ACCOUNT OF OLD-TIME SHIPS AND SAILORS
BY
JOHN MASEFIELD
WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published in 1906
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH.
TO
JACK B. YEATS
CONTENTS
[CHAPTER I]
PAGE
DRAKE'S VOYAGE TO THE WEST INDIES 1
His quarrel with the Spaniards—His preliminary raids—His landfall—The secret harbour
[CHAPTER II]
THE ATTACK ON NOMBRE DE DIOS 15
The treasure of the Indies—The Bastimentos—A Spanish herald
[CHAPTER III]
THE CRUISE OFF THE MAIN 26
The secret haven—The cruise of the pinnaces—Cartagena—Death of John Drake
[CHAPTER IV]
THE ROAD TO PANAMA 55
The Maroons—The native city—The great tree—Panama—The silver train—The failure—Venta Cruz
[CHAPTER V]
BACK TO THE MAIN BODY 74
The treasure train—The spoil—Captain Tetû hurt
[CHAPTER VI]
THE ADVENTURE OF THE RAFT 88
Drake's voyage to the Catives—Homeward bound—The interrupted sermon
[CHAPTER VII]
JOHN OXENHAM 98
The voyage—His pinnace—Into the South Sea—Disaster—His unhappy end
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE SPANISH RULE IN HISPANIOLA 106
Rise of the Buccaneers—The hunters of the wild bulls—Tortuga—Buccaneer politics—Buccaneer customs
[CHAPTER IX]
BUCCANEER CUSTOMS 129
Mansvelt and Morgan—Morgan's raid on Cuba—Puerto del Principe
[CHAPTER X]
THE SACK OF PORTO BELLO 148
The Gulf of Maracaibo—Morgan's escape from the Spaniards
[CHAPTER XI]
MORGAN'S GREAT RAID 168
Chagres castle—Across the isthmus—Sufferings of the Buccaneers—Venta Cruz—Old Panama
[CHAPTER XII]
THE SACK OF PANAMA 197
The burning of the city—Buccaneer excesses—An abortive mutiny—Home—Morgan's defection
[CHAPTER XIII]
CAPTAIN DAMPIER 218
Campeachy—Logwood cutting—The march to Santa Maria
[CHAPTER XIV]
THE BATTLE OF PERICO 245
Arica—The South Sea cruise
[CHAPTER XV]
ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 276
The way home—Sufferings and adventures
[CHAPTER XVI]
SHIPS AND RIGS 291
Pavesses—Top-arming—Banners—Boats
[CHAPTER XVII]
GUNS AND GUNNERS 298
Breech-loaders—Cartridges—Powder—The gunner's art
[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE SHIP'S COMPANY 311
Captain—Master—Lieutenant—Warrant officers—Duties and privileges
[CHAPTER XIX]
THE CHOOSING OF WATCHES 322
The petty tally—Food—Work—Punishments
[CHAPTER XX]
IN ACTION 334
[INDEX] 341
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
[CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER] Frontispiece
[CARTAGENA] 26
[CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR] 40
The ship in the foreground may be Drake's flagship, the Bonaventure
A pinnace beyond, to the left
[A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN] 114
A barbecue in right lower corner
[OLD PORT ROYAL] 132
[PORTO BELLO, CIRCA 1740, SHOWING THE SITUATION AND DEFENCES OF THE CITY] 150
[THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE "SPANISH ADMIRAL"] 164
Castle de la Barra in background
[THE ISTHMUS, SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE] 180
[NEW PANAMA] 195
[A GALLIASSE] 310
[THE "SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS"] 323
[MAP OF THE BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUNDS] 340
ON THE SPANISH MAIN
CHAPTER I
DRAKE'S VOYAGE TO THE WEST INDIES
His quarrel with the Spaniards—His preliminary raids—His landfall—The secret harbour
Francis Drake, the first Englishman to make himself "redoubtable to the Spaniards" on the Spanish Main, was born near Tavistock about the year 1545. He was sent to sea, as a lad, aboard a Channel coaster engaged in trade with the eastern counties, France and Zeeland. When he was eighteen years of age he joined his cousin, John Hawkins, then a great and wealthy merchant, engaged in the slave trade. Four years later he sailed with Hawkins on a memorable trading voyage to the Spanish Main. On this occasion he commanded a small vessel of fifty tons.
The voyage was unfortunate from the beginning, for the Spaniards had orders from their King to refuse to trade with any foreigners. Before the English could get rid of their freight the ships of their squadron were severely battered by a hurricane, so that they were forced to put into San Juan d'Ulloa, the port of Vera Cruz, to refit. While they lay there a Spanish fleet arrived, carrying a vast quantity of gold and silver for transhipment to Spain. It was not to Hawkins' advantage to allow this Spanish force to enter the haven, for he feared that they would treat him as a pirate if they had an opportunity to do so. However, the Spaniards came to terms with him, an agreement was signed by both parties, and the Spanish ships were allowed into the port. The next day the Spaniards treacherously attacked the English squadron, sank one of the ships at her moorings, killed many of the men, captured a number more, and drove the survivors to sea in Drake's ship the Judith, and a larger ship called the Minion. It was this treacherous attack (and, perhaps, some earlier treachery not recorded) which made Drake an implacable enemy of the Spaniards for the next twenty-eight years.
After the disaster at San Juan d'Ulloa, Drake endeavoured to obtain some recompense for the losses he had sustained. But "finding that no recompence could be recovered out of Spain by any of his own means, or by her Majesties letters; he used such helpes as he might by two severall Voyages into the West Indies." In the first of these two voyages, in 1570, he had two ships, the Dragon and the Swan. In the second, in 1571, he sailed in the Swan without company. The Swan was a small vessel of only five and twenty tons, but she was a "lucky" ship, and an incomparable sailer. We know little of these two voyages, though a Spanish letter (quoted by Mr Corbett) tells us of a Spanish ship he took; and Thomas Moone, Drake's coxswain, speaks of them as having been "rich and gainfull." Probably Drake employed a good deal of his time in preparing for a future raid, for when he ventured out in earnest in 1572 he showed himself singularly well acquainted with the town he attacked. The account from which we take our information expressly states that this is what he did. He went, it says, "to gaine such intelligences as might further him to get some amends for his losse. And having, in those two Voyages, gotten such certaine notice of the persons and places aymed at, as he thought requisite; and thereupon with good deliberation, resolved on a third Voyage, he accordingly prepared his Ships and Company ... as now followes further to be declared."
There can be little doubt that the two tentative voyages were highly profitable, for Drake was able to fit out his third expedition with a care and completeness almost unknown at that time. The ships were "richly furnished, with victuals and apparel for a whole year: and no lesse heedfully provided of all manner of Munition, Artillery, Artificers, stuffe and tooles, that were requisite for such a Man-of-war in such an attempt." He himself, as Admiral of the expedition, commanded the larger ship, the Pascha of Plymouth, of seventy tons. His younger brother, John Drake, sailed as captain of the Swan. In all there were seventy-three men and boys in the expedition; and we read that they were mostly young men—"the eldest ... fifty, all the rest under thirty." They were all volunteers—a fact that shows that Drake had gained a reputation for luck in these adventures. Forty-seven of the seventy-three sailed aboard the Pascha; while the Swan carried the remaining twenty-six, probably with some inconvenience. Carefully stowed away in the holds of the two vessels were "three dainty Pinnases, made in Plimouth, taken asunder all in pieces, to be set up as occasion served." This instance of Drake's forethought makes it very clear that the expedition had been planned with extreme care. The comfort of the men had been studied: witness the supply of "apparell." There was a doctor aboard, though he does not seem to have been "a great proficient" in his art; and the expedition was so unusually healthy that we feel convinced that Drake had some specific for the scurvy.
"On Whitsunday Eve, being the 24 of May, 1572," the two ships "set sayl from out of the Sound of Plimouth," with intent to land at Nombre de Dios (Name of God) a town on the northern coast of the Isthmus of Darien, at that time "the granary of the West Indies, wherein the golden harvest brought from Peru and Mexico to Panama was hoarded up till it could be conveyed into Spain." The wind was steady from the north-east the day they sailed, so that the watchers from the shore must soon have lost sight of them. No doubt the boats of all the ships in the Sound came off to give the adventurers a parting cheer, or, should they need it, a tow to sea. No doubt the two ships were very gay with colours and noisy with the firing of farewells. Then at last, as the sails began to draw, and the water began to bubble from the bows, the trumpeters sounded "A loath to depart," the anchor came to the cathead, and the boats splashed back to Plymouth, their crews jolly with the parting glasses.
The wind that swept the two ships out of port continued steady at north-east, "and gave us a very good passage," taking them within sight of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras, within twelve days of their leaving Plymouth. The wind continued fair when they stood to the westward, after sighting the Canaries, so that neither ship so much as shortened sail "untill 25 dayes after," when the men in the painted tops descried the high land of Guadaloupe. They stood to the south of Guadaloupe, as though to pass between that island and Dominica, but seeing some Indians busily fishing off a rocky island to the south of Dominica they determined to recruit there before proceeding farther. This island was probably Marygalante, a pleasant island full of trees, a sort of summer fishing ground for the Dominican Indians. There is good anchorage off many parts of it; and Drake anchored to the south, sending the men ashore to live in tents for their refreshment. They also watered their ships while lying at anchor "out of one of those goodly rivers which fall down off the mountain." Running water was always looked upon as less wholesome than spring water; and, perhaps, they burnt a bag of biscuit on the beach, and put the charcoal in the casks to destroy any possible infection. They saw no Indians on the island, though they came across "certain poore cottages built with Palmito boughs and branches," in which they supposed the Indians lodged when engaged upon their fishery. Having filled the casks, and stowed them aboard again, the ships weighed anchor, and sailed away south towards the mainland. On the fifth day, keeping well to seaward, thirty miles from the shore, to avoid discovery, they made the high land of Santa Martha on "the Terra Firma." Having made the landfall they sailed westward into the Gulf of Darien, and in six days more (during two of which the ships were becalmed) they came to a secret anchorage which Drake had discovered in his former voyage. He had named it Port Pheasant, "by reason of the great store of those goodly fowls which he and his Company did then dayly kill and feed on in that place." "It was a fine round Bay, of very safe harbour for all winds, lying between two high points, not past half a cable's length (or a hundred yards) over at the mouth, but within eight or ten cables' length every way, having ten or twelve fadome water, more or lesse, full of good fish, the soile also very fruitfull." Drake had been there "within a year and few days before," and had left the shore clear of tangle, with alleys and paths by which men might walk in the woods, after goodly fowls or otherwise; but a year of that steaming climate had spoiled his handiwork. The tangle of many-blossomed creepers and succulent green grasses had spread across the paths "as that we doubted at first whether this were the same place or no." We do not know where this romantic harbour lies, for the Gulf of Darien is still unsurveyed. We know only that it is somewhere nearly equidistant from Santiago de Tolu (to the east) and Nombre de Dios (to the west). Roughly speaking, it was 120 miles from either place, so that "there dwelt no Spaniards within thirty-five leagues." Before the anchors were down, and the sails furled Drake ordered out the boat, intending to go ashore. As they neared the landing-place they spied a smoke in the woods—a smoke too big to come from an Indian's fire. Drake ordered another boat to be manned with musketeers and bowmen, suspecting that the Spaniards had found the place, and that the landing would be disputed. On beaching the boats they discovered "evident markes" that a Plymouth ship, under the command of one John Garret, had been there but a day or two before. He had left a plate of lead, of the sort supplied to ships to nail across shot-holes, "nailed fast to a mighty great tree," some thirty feet in girth. On the lead a letter had been cut:
Captain Drake,
if you fortune to come to this Port, make hast away; for the Spanyards which you had with you here the last year, have bewrayed this place, and taken away all that you left here. I departed from hence this present 7 of July, 1572.
Your very loving friend,
John Garret.
The smoke was from a fire which Garret and his men had kindled in a great hollow tree, that was probably rotted into touchwood. It had smouldered for five days or more, sending up a thick smoke, to warn any coming to the harbour to proceed with caution.
The announcement that the place was known to the Spaniards did not weigh very heavily upon Drake; nor is it likely that he suffered much from the loss of his hidden stores, for nothing of any value could have been left in such a climate. He determined not to leave "before he had built his Pinnaces," and therefore, as soon as the ships were moored, he ordered the pieces to be brought ashore "for the Carpenters to set up." The rest of the company was set to the building of a fort upon the beach by the cutting down of trees, "and haling them together with great Pullies and halsers." The fort was built in the form of a pentagon, with a sort of sea-gate opening on the bay, for the easy launching of the pinnaces. This gate could be closed at night by the drawing of a log across the opening. They dug no trench, but cleared the ground instead, so that for twenty yards all round the stockhouse there was nothing to hinder a marksman or afford cover to an enemy. Beyond that twenty yards the forest closed in, with its wall of living greenery, with trees "of a marvellous height" tangled over with the brilliant blossoms of many creepers. The writer of the account seems to have been one of the building party that sweated the logs into position. "The wood of those trees," he writes, "is as heavie, or heavier, than Brasil or Lignum Vitæ, and is in colour white."
The very next day an English barque came sailing into the anchorage, with two prizes, in her wake—"a Spanish Carvell of Sivell," which had despatches aboard her for the Governor of Nombre de Dios, and a shallop with oars, picked up off Cape Blanco to the eastward. She was the property of Sir Edward Horsey, at that time Governor of the Isle of Wight, a gallant gentleman, who received "sweetmeats and Canarie wine" from French pirates plying in the Channel. Her captain was one James Rawse, or Rause; and she carried thirty men, some of whom had been with Drake the year before. Captain Rause, on hearing Drake's intentions, was eager "to joyne in consort with him." We may well imagine that Drake cared little for his company; but conditions were agreed upon, an agreement signed, and the two crews set to work together. Within seven days the pinnaces had been set up, and launched, and stored with all things necessary. Then early one morning (the 20th of July) the ships got their anchors, and hoisted sail for Nombre de Dios, arriving three days later at the Isles of Pines, a group of little islands covered with fir-trees, not far to the west of the mouth of the Gulf of Darien. At the Pine Islands they found two frigates of Nombre de Dios, "lading plank and timber from thence," the soft fir wood being greatly in demand on the mainland, where the trees were harder, and difficult to work. The wood was being handled by negroes, who gave Drake some intelligence of the state of affairs at the little town he intended to attack. They said that the town was in a state of siege, expecting to be attacked at any moment by the armies of the Cimmeroons, who had "neere surprised it" only six weeks before. The Cimmeroons were "a black people, which about eighty yeares past, fledd from the Spaniards their Masters, by reason of their cruelty, and are since growne to a nation, under two Kings of their owne: the one inhabiteth to the west, th'other to the East of the way from Nombre de Dios to Panama." They were much dreaded by the Spaniards, with whom they were at constant war. The late alarm had caused the Governor to send to Panama for troops, and "certaine souldiers" were expected daily to aid in the defence of the town.
Having gathered this intelligence Drake landed the negroes on the mainland, so that they might rejoin their countrymen if they wished to do so. In any case, by landing them so far from home he prevented them from giving information of his being in those waters. "For hee was loath to put the towne to too much charge (which hee knew they would willingly bestowe) in providing before hand, for his entertainment." But being anxious to avoid all possibility of discovery "he hastened his going thither, with as much speed and secrecy as possibly he could." It had taken him three days to get to the Isles of Pines from his secret harbour—a distance certainly not more than 120 miles. He now resolved to leave the three ships and the carvel—all four grown more or less foul-bottomed and slow—in the care of Captain Rause, with just sufficient men to work them. With the three dainty pinnaces and the oared shallop that Rause had taken, he hoped to make rather swifter progress than he had been making. He took with him in the four boats fifty-three of his own company and twenty of Captain Rause's men, arranging them in order according to the military text-book: "six Targets, six Firepikes, twelve Pikes, twenty-four Muskets and Callivers, sixteene Bowes, and six Partizans, two Drums, and two Trumpets"—making seventy-four men in all, the seventy-fourth being the commander, Drake. Having furnished the boats for the sea with his usual care Drake parted company, and sailed slowly to the westward, making about fifteen miles a day under oars and sails. Perhaps he sailed only at night, in order to avoid discovery and to rest his men. Early on the morning of the 28th July they landed "at the Island of Cativaas," or Catives, off the mouth of the St Francis River. Here Drake delivered them "their severall armes, which hitherto he had kept very faire and safe in good caske," so that neither the heavy dew nor the sea-water should rust them or wet the powder. He drilled them on the shore before the heat of the sun became too great, and after the drill he spoke to them "after his manner," declaring "the greatnes of the hope of good things that was there, the weaknesse of the towne being unwalled, and the hope he had of prevailing to recompence his wrongs ... especially ... as hee should be utterly undiscovered." In the afternoon, when the sun's strength was past, they set sail again, standing in close to the shore "that wee might not be descried of the watch-house." By sunset they were within two leagues of the point of the bay to the north-north-east of the town; and here they lowered their sails, and dropped anchor, "riding so untill it was darke night." When the night had fallen they stood in shore again, "with as much silence as wee could," till they were past the point of the harbour "under the high land," and "there wee stayed all silent, purposing to attempt the towne in the dawning of the day, after that wee had reposed ourselves for a while."
Nombre de Dios
Nombre de Dios was founded by Diego di Niqueza early in the sixteenth century, about the year 1510. It received its name from a remark the founder made on his first setting foot ashore: "Here we will found a settlement in the name of God." It was never a large place, for the bay lay exposed to the prevalent winds, being open to the north and north-east. There was fair holding ground; but the bay was shallow and full of rocks, and a northerly gale always raised such a sea that a ship was hardly safe with six anchors out. The district was very unhealthy, and the water found there was bad and in little quantity. There was, however, a spring of good water on an island at the mouth of the harbour. To the shoreward there were wooded hills, with marshy ground on their lower slopes, feeding a little river emptying to the north of the town. The houses came right down to the sea, and the trees right down to the houses, so that "tigers [i.e. jaguars] often came into the town," to carry away dogs, fowls, and children. Few ships lay there without burying a third of their hands; for the fever raged there, as it rages in some of the Brazilian ports at the present time. The place was also supposed to favour the spread of leprosy. The road to Panama entered the town at the south-east; and there was a gate at this point, though the town was never walled about. The city seems to have been built about a great central square, with straight streets crossing at right angles. Like Cartagena and Porto Bello, it was as dull as a city of the dead until the galleons came thither from Cartagena to take on board "the chests of gold and silver" received from the Governor of Panama and the golden lands to the south. When the galleons anchored, the merchants went ashore with their goods, and pitched sailcloth booths for them in the central square, and held a gallant fair till they were sold—most of the bartering being done by torchlight, in the cool of the night. Panama was distant some fifty-five miles; and the road thither was extremely bad, owing to the frequent heavy rains and the consequent flooding of the trackway. At the time of Drake's raid, there were in all some sixty wooden houses in the place, inhabited in the tiempo muerto, or dead time, by about thirty people. "The rest," we read, "doe goe to Panama after the fleet is gone." Those who stayed must have had a weary life of it, for there could have been nothing for them to do save to go a-fishing. The fever never left the place, and there was always the dread of the Cimmeroons. Out in the bay there was the steaming water, with a few rotten hulks waiting to be cast ashore, and two or three rocky islets sticking up for the sea to break against. There was nothing for an inhabitant to do except to fish, and nothing for him to see except the water, with the dripping green trees beside it, and, perhaps, an advice boat slipping past for Cartagena. Once a year an express came to the bay from Panama to say that the Peru fleet had arrived at that port. A letter was then sent to Cartagena or to San Juan d'Ulloa to order the great galleons there anchored to come to collect the treasure, and convey it into Spain. Before they dropped anchor in the Nombre de Dios bay that city was filled to overflowing by soldiers and merchants from Panama and the adjacent cities. Waggons of maize and cassava were dragged into the streets, with numbers of fowls and hogs. Lodgings rose in value, until a "middle chamber" could not be had for less than 1000 crowns. Desperate efforts were made to collect ballast for the supply ships. Then the treasure trains from Panama began to arrive. Soldiers marched in, escorting strings of mules carrying chests of gold and silver, goatskins filled with bezoar stones, and bales of vicuna wool. The town became musical with the bells of the mules' harness. Llamas spat and hissed at the street corners. The Plaza became a scene of gaiety and bustle. Folk arrived hourly by the muddy track from Panama. Ships dropped anchor hourly, ringing their bells and firing salutes of cannon. The grand fair then began, and the city would be populous and stirring till the galleons had cleared the harbour on the voyage to Spain. As soon as the fleet was gone the city emptied as rapidly as it had filled. The merchants and merry-makers vanished back to Panama, and the thirty odd wretched souls who stayed, began their dreary vigil until the next year, when the galleons returned. In 1584, on the report of Antonio Baptista, surveyor to the King of Spain, the trade was removed to Porto Bello, a beautiful bay, discovered and named by Columbus, lying some twenty miles farther to the west. It is a good harbour for all winds, and offers every convenience for the careening of vessels. The surveyor thought it in every way a superior harbour. "Neither," he writes, "will so many die there as there daily doe in Nombre de Dios." By the middle of the seventeenth century the ruins of the old town were barely discernible; but all traces of them have long since disappeared. Dampier (writing of the year 1682) says that: "I have lain ashore in the place where that City stood; but it is all overgrown with Wood; so as toe leave noe sign that any Town hath been there." A thick green cane brake has overgrown the Plaza. The battery has crumbled away. The church bell which made such a clatter has long since ceased to sound. The latest Admiralty Chart ignores the place.
The Cimmeroons frequently attacked the city while it was in occupation. Once they captured and destroyed it.
Drake visited the town a second time in 1595. It was then a "bigge" town, having large streets and "houses very hie, all built of timber," "one church very faire," and "a show in their shops of great store of merchandises that had been there."[1] There was a mill above the town, and a little watch-house "upon the top of another hill in the woods." To the east there was a fresh river "with houses, and all about it gardens." The native quarter was some miles away in the woods. Drake burned the town, a deed which caused the inhabitants to migrate to Porto Bello. It was at Nombre de Dios that Drake contracted the flux of which he died. The town witnessed his first triumph and final discomfiture.
Note.—The authorities for this and the following chapters are:
1. "Sir Francis Drake Reviv'd" (first published in 1626), by Philip Nichols, Preacher, helped, no doubt, by Drake himself and some of his company. 2. The scanty notice of the raid given in Hakluyt. 3. The story of Lopez Vaz, a Portuguese, also in Hakluyt.
For the description of Nombre de Dios I have trusted to the account of Drake's last voyage printed in Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 587. In the same collection there is a translation from a very interesting report by a Spanish commissioner to the King of Spain. This paper gives reasons for the transference of the town to Porto Bello. One or two Ruttiers, or Mariner's Guides, make mention of the port, and of these the best is given in Hakluyt. It is also mentioned (but very curtly) in Herrera's History, in Dampier's Voyages, and in the account left by Champlain after his short visit to Panama. I know of no plan or picture of the place. The drawing reproduced here, from Schenk's "Hecatompolis," is purely imaginary, however pretty. For my remarks on "Cruces," or Venta Cruz, I am indebted to friends who have lived many years in Panama, and to an interesting article in The Geographical Journal (December-July 1903, p. 325), by Colonel G. E. Church, M. Am. Soc. C.E.
CHAPTER II
THE ATTACK ON NOMBRE DE DIOS
The treasure of the Indies—The Bastimentos—A Spanish herald
It may now have been ten o'clock at night, and we may reckon that the boats were still four or five miles from the town, the lights of which, if any burned, must have been plainly visible to the south and south-south-west. To many of those who rocked there in the bay the coming tussle was to be the first engagement. The night wind may have seemed a little chilly, and the night and the strange town full of terrors. The men fell to talking in whispers, and the constraint and strangeness of it all, the noise of the clucking water, the cold of the night, and the thought of what the negro lumbermen had said, began to get upon their nerves. They talked of the strength of the town (and indeed, although it was an open bay, without good water, it had at that time much of the importance of Porto Bello, in the following century). They talked "especially" of the reported troop of soldiers from Panama, for Spanish infantry were the finest in the world, and the presence of a company in addition to the garrison would be enough to beat off the little band in the boats. Drake heard these conversations, and saw his young men getting out of hand, and "thought it best to put these conceits out of their heads." As the moon rose he persuaded them "that it was the day dawning"—a fiction made the more easy by the intervention of the high land between the watchers and the horizon. By the growing light the boats stole farther in, arriving "at the towne, a large hower sooner than first was purposed. For wee arrived there by three of the clock after midnight." It happened that a "ship of Spaine, of sixtie Tunnes, laden with Canary wines and other commodities" had but newly arrived in the bay, "and had not yet furld her sprit-saile." It was the custom for ships to discharge half of their cargoes at one of the islands in the bay, so as to draw less water when they ventured farther in. Perhaps this ship of Spain was about to discharge her butts and tierces. At any rate her men were on deck, and the light of the moon enabled them to see the four pinnaces, "an extraordinary number" in so small a port, rowing hard, "with many Oares," towards the landing. The Spaniards sent away their "Gundeloe," or small boat (gondola, as we should say), to warn the townsmen; but Drake edged a little to the west, cutting in between the boat and the shore, so as to force her "to goe to th'other side of the Bay." Drake's boats then got ashore upon the sands, not more than twenty yards from the houses, directly under a battery. There was no quay, and no sea-sentry save a single gunner, asleep among the guns, who fled as they clambered up the redoubt. Inside the little fort there were six great pieces of brass ordnance, some demi- some whole culverin, throwing shot of 10-18 lbs. weight for a distance of a mile. It did not take long to dismount these guns, and spike them, by beating soft metal nails into the touch-holes, and snapping them off flush with the orifice. But though the men worked quickly the gunner was quicker yet. He ran through the narrow streets, shouting the alarm, and the town woke up like one man, expecting that the Cimmeroons were on them from the woods. Someone ran to the church, and set the great bell swinging. The windows went up, and the doors slammed, as the townsfolk hurried to their weapons, and out into the streets. The place rang with cries and with the rapid beating of the drums, for the drummers ran about the streets beating vigorously to rouse out the soldiers. Drake made the battery harmless and set a guard of twelve men over the boats on the sand. He then marched hurriedly to the little hill commanding the bay, to the east of the houses; for he had heard some talk of a battery being placed there, "which might scour round about the town," and he wished to put it out of action before venturing upon the city. He left half his company, about thirty men, to keep the foot of the hill, and climbed to the summit, where he found a "very fit place prepared," but no guns in position. He returned to the company at the foot of the mount, and bade his brother, with John Oxnam, or Oxenham, a gallant captain, and sixteen men, "to go about, behind the King's Treasure House, and enter near the easter end of the Market Place." He himself with the rest would pass up the broad street into the market-place with sound of drum and trumpet. The firepikes, "divided half to the one, and half to the other company, served no less for fright to the enemy than light of our men, who by this means might discern every place very well as if it were near day." The drums beat up gallantly, the trumpets blew points of war, and the poor citizens, scared from their beds, and not yet sure of their enemy, stood shivering in the dawn, "marvelling what the matter might be." In a few moments the two companies were entering the Plaza, making a dreadful racket as they marched, to add to the confusion of the townsfolk, who thought them far stronger than they really were. The soldiers of the garrison, with some of the citizens, fell into some sort of order "at the south east end of the Market Place, near the Governor's House, and not far from the gate of the town." They chose this position because it secured them a retreat, in the event of a repulse, along the road to Panama. The western end of the Plaza had been hung with lines, from which lighted matches dangled, so that the enemy might think that troops were there, "whereas indeed there were not past two or three that taught these lines to dance," and even these ran away as soon as the firepikes displayed the fraud. The church bell was still ringing at the end of the Plaza, and the townsfolk were still crying out as they ran for Panama, when Drake's party stormed into the square from the road leading to the sea. As they hove in sight the Spanish troops gave them "a jolly hot volley of shot," aimed very low, so as to ricochet from the sand. Drake's men at once replied with a volley from their calivers and a flight of arrows, "fine roving shafts," which did great execution. Without waiting to reload they at once charged in upon the Spaniards, coming at once "to push of pike" and point and edge. The hurry of the surprise was such that the Spaniards had no side-arms, and when once the English had closed, their troops were powerless. As the parties met, the company under Oxenham came into the Plaza at the double, by the eastern road, with their trumpets blowing and the firepikes alight. The Spaniards made no further fight of it. They flung their weapons down, and fled along the forest road. For a little distance the cheering sailors followed them, catching their feet in muskets and linstocks, which the troops had flung away in their hurry.
Having dispersed the enemy, the men reformed in the Plaza, "where a tree groweth hard by the Cross." Some hands were detailed to stop the ringing of the alarm bell, which still clanged crazily in the belfry; but the church was securely fastened, and it was found impossible to stop the ringing without setting the place on fire, which Drake forbade. While the men were trying to get into the church, Drake forced two or three prisoners to show him the Governor's house, where the mule trains from Panama were unloaded. Only the silver was stored in that place; for the gold, pearls, and jewels, "being there once entered by the King's officer," were locked in a treasure-house, "very strongly built of lime and stone," at a little distance from the Cross, not far from the water-side. At the Governor's house they found the door wide open, and "a fair gennet ready saddled" waiting for the Governor to descend. A torch or candle was burning on the balcony, and by its light the adventurers saw "a huge heap of silver" in the open space beneath the dwelling-rooms. It was a pile of bars of silver, heaped against the wall in a mass that was roughly estimated to be seventy feet in length, ten feet across, and twelve feet high—each bar weighing about forty pounds. The men were for breaking their ranks in order to plunder the pile; but Drake bade them stand to their arms. The King's treasure-house, he said, contained more gold and pearls than they could take away; and presently, he said, they would break the place open, and see what lay within. He then marched his men back into the Plaza.
All this time the town was filled with confusion. Guns were being fired and folk were crying out in the streets. It was not yet light, and certain of the garrison, who had been quartered outside the city, ran to and fro with burning matches, shouting out "Que gente? Que gente?" The town at that time was very full of people, and this noise and confusion, and the sight of so many running figures, began to alarm the boat guard on the beach. One Diego, a negro, who had joined them on the sands, had told them that the garrison had been reinforced only eight days before by 150 Spanish soldiers.
This report, coupled with the anxiety of their position, seems to have put the boat party into a panic. They sent off messengers to Drake, saying that the pinnaces were "in danger to be taken," and that the force would be overwhelmed as soon as it grew light enough for the Spaniards to see the littleness of the band which had attacked them. Diego's words confirmed the statements of the lumbermen at the Isles of Pines. The men of Drake's party were young. They had never fought before. They had been on the rack, as it were, for several days. They were now quite out of hand, and something of their panic began to spread among the party on the Plaza. Before Drake could do more than despatch his brother, with John Oxenham, to reassure the guard, and see how matters stood, the situation became yet more complicated. "A mighty shower of rain, with a terrible storm of thunder and lightning," burst furiously upon them, making such a roaring that none could hear his own voice. As in all such storms, the rain came down in a torrent, hiding the town from view in a blinding downpour. The men ran for the shelter of "a certain shade or penthouse, at the western end of the King's Treasure House," but before they could gain the cover some of their bowstrings were wetted "and some of our match and powder hurt." As soon as the shelter had been reached, the bowstrings were shifted, the guns reprimed, and the match changed upon the linstocks. While the industrious were thus employed, a number of the hands began talking of the reports which had reached them from the boats. They were "muttering of the forces of the town," evidently anxious to be gone from thence, or at least stirring. Drake heard the muttered talk going up and down the shed, and promptly told the men that he had brought them to the mouth of the Treasure of the World, and that if they came away without it they might blame nobody but themselves.
At the end of a "long half-hour" the storm began to abate, and Drake felt that he must put an end to the panic. It was evidently dangerous to allow the men any "longer leisure to demur of those doubts," nor was it safe to give the enemy a chance of rallying. He stepped forward, bidding his brother, with John Oxenham and his party, to break open the King's treasure-house, while he, with the remainder of the hands, maintained the Plaza. "But as he stepped forward his strength and sight and speech failed him, and he began to faint for want of blood." He had been hit in the leg with a bullet at the first encounter, yet in the greatness of his heart he had not complained, although suffering considerable pain. He had seen that many of his men had "already gotten many good things" from the booths and houses in the Plaza, and he knew very well that these men would take the first opportunity to slink away down to the boats. He had, therefore, said nothing about his wound, nor was it light enough for his men to see that he was bleeding. On his fainting they noticed that the sand was bloody, "the blood having filled the very first prints which our footsteps made"—a sight which amazed and dismayed them, for they "thought it not credible" that a man should "spare so much blood and live." They gave him a cordial to drink, "wherewith he recovered himself," and bound his scarf about his leg "for the stopping of the blood." They then entreated him "to be content to go with them aboard," there to have his wound probed and dressed before adventuring farther. This did not satisfy Drake, for he knew very well that if the Spaniards rallied, the town would be lost, for it was "utterly impossible, at least very unlikely, that ever they should, for that time, return again, to recover the state in which they now were." He begged them to leave him where he was, and to get the treasure, for "it were more honourable for himself to jeopard his life for so great a benefit, than to leave off so high an enterprise unperformed." But to this the men would not listen. With Drake, their captain, alive "they might recover wealth sufficient" at any time, but with Drake dead "they should hardly be able to recover home." Those who had picked up a little booty in the raid were only too glad of an excuse to get to the boats, while those who were most eager to break the treasure-house, would not allow Drake to put his life in hazard. Drake, poor man, was spent with loss of blood, and could not reason with them, so that, "with force mingled with fair entreaty, they bare him aboard his pinnace, and so abandoned a most rich spoil for the present, only to preserve their Captain's life." It was just daybreak when they got to the boats, so that they were able to take stock of each other in the early morning light before shoving off from the beach. They had lost but one man, "a trumpeter," who was shot dead in the Plaza in the first assault, "his Trumpet still in his hand." Many were wounded, but the Captain's wound seems to have been the most serious. As they rowed out from the town the surgeons among them provided remedies and salves for the wounded. As they neared the open sea the men took the opportunity to attack "the aforesaid ship of wines," for "the more comfort of the company." They made her a prize with no great trouble, but before they got her clear of the haven they received a shot or two from the dismantled battery. One of the culverins which they had tumbled to the ground was remounted by some of the garrison, "so as they made a shot at us." The shot did not hit the mark, and the four boats, with their prize, got clear away to the Isle of Bastimentos, or Isle of Victuals, about a league to the westward of the harbour. They stayed there for the next two days, to cure the wounded men and to refresh themselves, "in the goodly gardens which we there found." The island was stocked with dainty roots and fruits, "besides great plenty of poultry," for it served the citizens as a farm and market-garden, "from which their fresh provisions were derived." Soon after they had come to anchor, and established themselves among the fruit-trees, a flag of truce came off from the Governor of the city. It was carried by a Spanish captain, who had come to Nombre de Dios with the company of troops from Panama. He was a handsome gentleman, of a delicate carriage and of an elaborate politeness. He was come, of course, as a spy, but he began with the assurance that he came "of mere good will," to see the heroes who had attempted the town with so small a party. At the first, he said, the townsfolk had thought them Frenchmen, from whom they looked for little mercy, but that afterwards, when the arrows had shown them that they were English, they had less fear, for they knew the humanity of that race. Although, he said, his curiosity to see such brave folk were sufficient warrant for his adventuring among them, he had also a commission from the Governor. That gentleman wished to know whether their captain was the same Captain Drake, of whom some of the townsfolk talked as being so kind to his prisoners. He then asked whether the arrows used in the battle in the Plaza had been poisoned, for many Spaniards had been wounded by them, and would fain know how to treat the wounds. Lastly he wished to know whether they were in need of victuals or other necessaries, pledging the Governor's word that he would do all he could to supply anything they wanted. The questions seem to us a little transparent, and so they seemed to Drake, but Drake was always a courteous and ceremonious gentleman. He replied that he was the Captain Drake they meant; that "it was never his manner to use poisoned arrows"; that the wounds could be cured by the usual methods; and that as for wants, the Isle of Bastimentos would supply him. He wanted nothing, he said, "but some of that special commodity which that country yielded." And, therefore, he advised the Governor "to hold open his eyes, for before he departed, if God lent him life and leave, he meant to reap some of their harvest, which they got out of the earth, and send into Spain to trouble all the earth." The answer seems to have nettled the Spanish spy, for he asked ("if he might, without offence, move such a question") why the English had left the town when 360 tons of silver, with gold to a far greater value, had been lying at their mercy. Drake showed him the "true cause" of his unwilling retreat to the pinnaces. The answer moved the Spaniard to remark that "the English had no less reason in departing, than courage in attempting,"—a remark made with a mental note that the townsfolk would be well advised to leave this Drake alone on his island, without sending boats out to attack him. Drake then entertained the spy to dinner, "with great favour and courteous entertainment, and such gifts as most contented him." As he made his way to his boat after dinner he vowed and protested that "he was never so much honoured of any in his life." He must have had a curious story for the Governor when he got ashore to the town.
As soon as the trumpets had sounded the departure of the flag of truce, Drake sent for Diego, the negro, who had joined the boat party in the morning. From Diego he learned many "intelligences of importance," none of them, perhaps, more grateful to Drake than the news that his name was highly honoured among the Maroons or Cimmeroons. Diego begged that Drake would give him an opportunity of treating with the chiefs of these savages, as by their help, he said, they "might have gold and silver enough." The matter was debated among the company, while Drake gave effect to another of his plans. Not more than thirty miles away along the coast was a certain river, "the River of Chagres," which trended in a south-easterly direction towards Panama across the isthmus. It was navigable to within six leagues of Panama, and at the point to which it was navigable there stood "a little town called Venta Cruz." When the road from Panama to Nombre de Dios was impracticable, owing to the rains, or the raids of the Maroons, the treasure was carried to Venta Cruz, and there shipped aboard swift vessels, built for oars and sails, which carried the precious stuff to Nombre de Dios. Drake had a mind to look into Venta Cruz to surprise some of the treasure on its way. He, therefore, sent away his brother, with two pinnaces and a steady man named Ellis Hixom, to examine the Chagres River, and to bring back a report of its fitness for boats such as theirs. Having seen them stand to the west, Drake ordered his men aboard early in the morning of the 31st July. The sweeps were shipped and the sails hoisted, and the pinnaces made off with their captured wine ship to rejoin Captain Rause at the Isles of Pines, or Port Plenty. They arrived at their haven on the evening of the 1st of August, after a sail of thirty-six hours. Captain Rause was angry that the raid had not been more successful, and felt that it was useless to stay longer in those seas, now that the Spaniards knew that they were on the coast. He waited till the pinnaces returned from Chagres River, as some of his hands were in them; but as soon as they arrived he parted company, after dissolving partnership with Drake. Drake seems to have been glad to see him go.
CHAPTER III
THE CRUISE OFF THE MAIN
The cruise of the pinnaces—Cartagena—The secret haven—Death of John Drake
While they were waiting for the pinnaces Drake had the ships set in order, the arms scoured, and everything made ready for the next adventure. He had taken Nombre de Dios so easily that he felt confident of treating Cartagena, the chiefest town in those waters, in the same way. On the 7th of August he set sail for Cartagena with his two ships and three pinnaces, making no attempt upon the mainland as he sailed, as he did not wish to be discovered. He met with calms and light airs on the passage, and did not arrive off Cartagena until the evening of the 13th August. He came to anchor in seven-fathom water between the islands of Charesha (which we cannot now identify) and St Barnards, now known as San Barnardo. As soon as the sails were furled, Drake manned his three pinnaces, and rowed about the island into the harbour of Cartagena, "where, at the very entry, he found a frigate at anchor." He hooked on to her chains, and boarded her, finding her an easy spoil, for she had been left in the care of "only one old man." They asked this old sailor where the rest of the company had gone. He answered that they were gone ashore in their gundeloe that evening, to fight about a mistress, adding that about two hours before, a pinnace had gone past under sail, with her oars out, and the men rowing furiously. Her men had hailed his vessel as they passed, asking whether any French or English men had been there. Upon answer that there had been none they bade him look to himself, and rowed on up the coast. Within an hour of their going past the harbour the city batteries had fired many cannon, as though some danger were toward. One of the old man's mates had then gone aloft "to descry what might be the cause." He had looked over the narrow neck of land which shuts the harbour from the sea, and had espied "divers frigates and small shipping bringing themselves within the Castle." This report showed Drake that he had been discovered, but the information did not greatly move him. He gathered from the old mariner that a great ship of Seville lay moored just round the next point, with her yards across, "being bound the next morning for St Domingo," or Hispaniola. Drake "took this old man into his pinnace to verify that which he had informed, and rowed towards this ship." As he drew near, the Spanish mariners hailed them, asking "whence the shallops came." Drake answered: "From Nombre de Dios." His answer set the Spaniards cursing and damning him for a heretic English buccaneer. "We gave no heed to their words," says the narrative, but hooked on to the chains and ports, on the starboard bow, starboard quarter, and port beam, and laid her aboard without further talk. It was something of a task to get on board, for the ship stood high in the water, being of 240 tons, (and as far as we can judge) in ballast. Having gained the ship's waist they tossed the gratings and hatch covers down into the lower decks. The Spaniards gave up the ship without fighting, and retired, with their weapons, to the hold. Two or three of their younger seamen went forward, and hid in the manger, where they were found as soon as the dark decks were lit by a lantern from the pinnaces. The raiders then cut the ship's cables, and towed her "without the island into the sound right afore the town," just beyond the shot of the citizens' great guns. As they towed her out, the town took the alarm, the bells were rung, thirty great cannon were fired, and the garrison, both horse and foot, well armed with calivers, marched down "to the very point of the wood," to impeach them "if they might" in their going out to sea. The next morning (Drake being still within the outer harbour) he captured two Spanish frigates "in which there were two, who called themselves King's Scrivanos [notaries] the one of Cartagena, the other of Veragua." The boats, which were sparsely manned, had been at Nombre de Dios at the time of the raid. They were now bound for Cartagena with double letters of advice, "to certify that Captain Drake had been at Nombre de Dios, and taken it; and had it not been that he was hurt with some blessed shot, by all likelihood he had sacked it. He was yet still upon the coast," ran the letter, "and they should therefore carefully prepare for him."
Sailing out of the haven (by the Boca Chica, or Little Mouth) Drake set his pinnaces ashore, and stood away to the San Barnardo Islands, to the south of the town, where he found "great store of fish" as a change of diet for his men. He then cruised up and down among the islands, considering what he should attempt. He had been discovered at the two chief cities on the Main, but he had not yet made his voyage (i.e. it had not yet paid expenses), and until he had met with the Maroons, and earned "a little comfortable dew of Heaven," he meant to stay upon the coast. He, therefore, planned to diminish his squadron, for with the two ships to keep it was difficult to man the pinnaces, and the pinnaces had proved peculiarly fitted for the work in hand. With one ship destroyed, and the other converted into a storeship, his movements would, he thought, be much less hampered; "but knowing the affection of his company, how loath they were to leave either of their ships, being both so good sailers and so well furnished; he purposed in himself some policy to make them most willing to effect what he intended." He, therefore, sent for Thomas Moone, who was carpenter aboard the Swan, and held a conference with him in the cabin. Having pledged him to secrecy, he gave him an order to scuttle that swift little ship in the middle of the second watch, or two in the morning. He was "to go down secretly into the well of the ship, and with a spike-gimlet to bore three holes, as near the keel as he could, and lay something against it [oakum or the like] that the force of the water entering, might make no great noise, nor be discovered by a boiling up." Thomas Moone "at the hearing hereof" was utterly dismayed, for to him the project seemed flat burglary as ever was committed. Why, he asked, should the Captain want to sink so good a ship, a ship both "new and strong," in which they had sailed together in two "rich and gainfull" voyages? If the Captain's brother (John Drake, who was master of the Swan) and the rest of the company (twenty-six hands in all) should catch him at such practices he thought verily they would heave him overboard. However, Drake promised that the matter should be kept secret "till all of them should be glad of it." On these terms Moone consented to scuttle the Swan that night.
The next morning, a little after daybreak, Drake called away his pinnace, "proposing to go a-fishing." Rowing down to the Swan he hailed her, asking his brother to go with him. John Drake was in his bunk at the time, and replied that "he would follow presently," or if it would please him to stay a very little he would attend him. Drake saw that the deed was done; for the Swan was slowly settling. He would not stay for his brother, but asked casually, "as making no great account of it," why their barque was so deep in the sea. John Drake thought little of the question, but sent a man down to the steward, who had charge of the hold, to inquire "whether there were any water in the ship, or what other cause might be?" The steward, "hastily stepping down at his usual scuttle," was wet to the waist before he reached the foot of the ladder. Very greatly scared he hurried out of the hold, "as if the water had followed him," crying out that the ship was full of water. John Drake at once called all hands to mend ship, sending some below to find the leak and the remainder to the pumps. The men turned to "very willingly," so that "there was no need to hasten them," and John Drake left them at their work while he reported the "strange chance" to his brother. He could not understand how it had happened. They had not pumped twice in six weeks before, and now they had six feet of water in the hold. He hoped his brother would give him "leave from attending him in fishing," as he wished to find the leak without delay. Drake offered to send the Pascha's men abroad to take a spell at the pumps, but this John Drake did not wish. He had men enough, he said; and he would like his brother to continue his fishing, so that they might have fresh fish for dinner. On getting back to the Swan he found that the pumps had gained very little on the leak, "yet such was their love to the bark, ... that they ceased not, but to the utmost of their strength laboured all that they might, till three in the afternoon." By that time the Pascha's men, helped by Drake himself, had taken turn about at the pump brakes, and the pumping had been carried on for eight or nine hours without ceasing. The pumping had freed her only about a foot and a half, and the leak was still undiscovered. The men were tired out, for the sun was now at his hottest, and Drake adds slyly that they "had now a less liking of her than before, and greater content to hear of some means for remedy." We gather from what follows, that when he asked them what they wished to do, they left it all to him. He, therefore, suggested that John Drake should go aboard the Pascha as her captain. He himself, he said, would shift into a pinnace; while the Swan should be set on fire, and abandoned as soon as her gear was taken out of her. The pinnaces came aboard the sinking ship, and the men pillaged her of all her stores. Powder, tar, and the like were scattered about her decks; and she was then set on fire, and watched until she sank. Thus "our Captain had his desire, and men enough for his pinnaces."
The next morning, the 16th August, the squadron bore away for the Gulf of Darien, to find some secret harbour where they might leave the ship at anchor, "not discoverable by the enemy," who thereby might imagine them quite departed from the coast. Drake intended to take two of the pinnaces along the Main as soon as they had hidden away the Pascha, for he was minded to go a cruise up the Rio Grande, or Magdalena River. In his absence John Drake was to take the third pinnace, with Diego, the negro, as a guide, to open up communications with the Cimmeroons. By the 21st of August they arrived in the Gulf; and Drake sought out a secret anchorage, far from any trade route, where the squadron might lie quietly till the fame of their being on the coast might cease. They found a place suited to their needs, and dropped their anchors in its secret channels, in "a fit and convenient road," where a sailor might take his ease over a rum bowl. Drake took his men ashore, and cleared a large plot of ground "both of trees and brakes" as a site for a little village, trimly thatched with palm leaves, which was built by Diego, the negro, after the Indian fashion, for the "more comfort of the company." The archers made themselves butts to shoot at, because they had "many that delighted in that exercise and wanted not a fletcher to keep the bows and arrows in order." The rest of the company, "every one as he liked best," disported merrily at bowls and quoits, fleeting the time carelessly as they did in the Golden Age. "For our Captain allowed one half of the company to pass their time thus, every other day interchangeable," the other half of the crew being put to the provision of fresh food and the necessary work aboard the vessels. Drake took especial interest in trying the powers of the pinnaces, trimming them in every conceivable way, so as to learn their capacity under any circumstance. The smiths set up their forge, "being furnished out of England with anvil, iron, and coals" (surely Drake never forgot anything), which stood the expedition "in great stead," for, no doubt, there was much iron-work that needed repair. The country swarmed with conies, hogs, deer, and fowl, so that the men lived upon fresh meat, or upon the fish in the creeks, "whereof there was great plenty." The woods were full of wholesome fruits, though, perhaps, the water of the neighbouring rivers was not quite all that could be wished. They stayed in this pleasant haven for fifteen days, at the end of which Drake took his two pinnaces, leaving John Drake behind in charge of the Pascha and the remaining pinnace, and sailed away along the coast to explore the Rio Grande. He kept the pinnaces far out at sea to avoid discovery, and landed on the 8th of September about six miles to the westward of the river's mouth, in order to obtain some fresh beef from the Indian cowherds. The district was then rich pasture-land, as rich as the modern pastures in Argentina. It was grazed over by vast herds of cattle, savage and swift, which the Spaniards placed in charge of Indian cowboys. When the beeves were slaughtered, their meat was dried into charqui, or "boucanned," over a slow fire, into which the hide was thrown. It was then sent down to Cartagena, for the provisioning of the galleons going home. The province (Nueva Reyna) was less pestilential than its westward neighbours. Sugar was grown there in the semi-marshy tracts near the river. Gold was to be found there in considerable quantities, and there were several pearl fisheries upon the coasts. The district was more populous than any part of Spanish America, for it was not only healthier, but more open, affording little cover for Maroons.
On landing, Drake met some Indians in charge of a herd of steers. They asked him in broken Spanish "What they would have." Drake gave them to understand that he wished to buy some fresh meat, upon which they picked out several cattle "with ease and so readily, as if they had a special commandment over them, whereas they would not abide us to come near them." The Indians have just that skill in handling cattle which the negroes have in handling mules. They did Drake this service willingly, "because our Captain, according to his custom, contented them for their pains with such things as they account greatly of." He left them in high good humour, promising him that if he came again he should have what he desired of them. Drake left the shore as soon as his pinnaces were laden with fresh meat, and sailed on up the coast till he reached the lesser, or western, mouth of the Rio Grande, "where we entered about three of the clock." The river runs with a great fierceness, so that the hands were able to draw fresh water "for their beverage" a mile and a half from the mouth. It was a current almost too fierce to row against in the hot sun, so that five hours' hard rowing only brought them six miles on their way upstream. They then moored the pinnaces to a great tree that grew on the bank. They ate their suppers in that place, hoping to pass a quiet evening, but with the darkness there came such a terrible thunderstorm "as made us not a little to marvel at," though Drake assured the younger men that in that country such storms soon passed. It wetted them to the bone, no doubt, but within three-quarters of an hour it had blown over and become calm. Immediately the rain had ceased, the air began to hum with many wings, and forth came "a kind of flies of that country, called mosquitoes, like our gnats," which bit them spitefully as they lay in the bottoms of the boats. It was much too hot to lie beneath a blanket, and the men did not know how to kindle a "smudge" of smouldering aromatic leaves. They had no pork fat nor paraffin to rub upon their hands and faces, according to the modern practice, and "the juice of lemons," which gave them a little relief, must have been a poor substitute. "We could not rest all that night," says the narrative. At daybreak the next morning they rowed away from that place, "rowing in the eddy" along the banks, where the current helped them. Where the eddy failed, as in swift and shallow places, they hauled the boats up with great labour by making a hawser fast to a tree ahead, and hauling up to it, as on a guess-warp. The work of rowing, or warping, was done by spells, watch and watch, "each company their half-hour glass," till about three in the afternoon, by which time they had come some fifteen miles. They passed two Indians who sat in a canoe a-fishing; but the Indians took them to be Spaniards, and Drake let them think so, for he did not wish to be discovered. About an hour later they espied "certain houses on the other side of the river," a mile or so from them, the river being very broad—so great, says the narrative, "that a man can scantly be discerned from side to side." A Spaniard, who had charge of those houses, espied them from the vantage of the bank, and promptly kindled a smoke "for a signal to turn that way," being lonely up there in the wilds, and anxious for news of the world. As they rowed across the current to him he waved to them "with his hat and his long hanging sleeves" to come ashore, but as soon as he perceived them to be foreigners he took to his heels, and fled from the river-side. The adventurers found that he was a sort of store or warehouse keeper, in charge of five houses "all full of white rusk, dried bacon, that country cheese (like Holland cheese in fashion—i.e. round—but far more delicate in taste, of which they send into Spain as special presents), many sorts of sweetmeats, and conserves; with great store of sugar: being provided to serve the fleet returning to Spain." As they loaded their pinnaces with these provisions they talked with a poor Indian woman, who told them that about thirty trading vessels were expected from Cartagena. The news caused them to use despatch in their lading, so that by nightfall they were embarked again, and rowing downstream against the wind. The Spaniards of Villa del Rey, a city some two miles inland from the storehouses, endeavoured to hinder their passage by marching their Indians to the bushes on the river-bank, and causing them to shoot their arrows as the boats rowed past. They did not do any damage to the adventurers, who rowed downstream a few miles, and then moored their boats for the night. Early the next morning they reached the mouth of the river, and here they hauled ashore to put the pinnaces in trim. The provisions were unloaded, and the boats thoroughly cleansed, after which the packages were stowed securely, so as to withstand the tossings of the seas. The squadron then proceeded to the westward, going out of their course for several miles in order to overhaul a Spanish barque. They "imagined she had some gold or treasure going for Spain," but on search in her hold they could find only sugar and hides. They, therefore, let her go, and stood off again for the secret harbour. The next day they took some five or six small frigates, bound from Santiago de Tolu to Cartagena, with ladings of "live hogs, hens, and maize, which we call Guinea wheat." They examined the crews of these ships for news "of their preparations for us," and then dismissed them, reserving only two of the half-dozen prizes "because they were so well stored with good victuals." Three days later they arrived at the hidden anchorage, which Drake called Port Plenty, because of abundance of "good victuals" that they took while lying there. Provision ships were passing continually, either to Nombre de Dios or Cartagena, with food for the citizens or for the victualling of the plate fleets. "So that if we had been two thousand, yea, three thousand, persons, we might with our pinnaces easily have provided them sufficient victuals of wine, meal, rusk, cassavi (a kind of bread made of a root called Yucca, whose juice is poison, but the substance good and wholesome), dried beef, dried fish, live sheep, live hogs, abundance of hens, besides the infinite store of dainty fresh fish, very easily to be taken every day." So much food was taken, that the company, under the direction of Diego, the negro, were forced to build "four several magazines or storehouses, some ten, some twenty leagues asunder," on the Main, or on the islands near it, for its storage. They intended to stay upon the coast until their voyage was "made," and, therefore, needed magazines of the kind for the future plenishing of their lazarettoes. We read that Diego, the negro, was of special service to them in the building of these houses, for, like all the Maroons, he was extremely skilful at the craft. They were probably huts of mud and wattle, thatched with palm leaves, "with a Sort of Door made of Macaw-Wood, and Bamboes." From these magazines Drake relieved two French ships "in extreme want"; while his men and their allies the Cimmeroons lived at free quarters all the time they stayed there.
While the Captain had been cruising up the Magdalena, his brother, John Drake, had been westward along the coast with Diego, "the Negro aforesaid," in his pinnace. Diego had landed on the coast to talk with "certain of the Cimmeroons," who exchanged hostages with Drake's party, and agreed upon a meeting-place at a little river midway between the Cabezas, or "Headlands," and the anchorage. Drake talked with these hostages as soon as he arrived from the seas. He found them two "very sensible men," most ready to help him against the common enemy. They told him that "their Nation conceited great joy of his arrivall"; for they had heard of Nombre de Dios and of his former raids upon the coast, and gladly welcomed the suggested alliance. Their chief and tribe, they said, were encamped near the aforementioned little river, the Rio Diego, to await Drake's decision. Having compared the talk of these men with the reports he had gathered from the Indian cowherds and Spanish prisoners, he consulted his brother (who had seen the Maroons at the Rio Diego camp), and asked "those of best service with him" what were fittest to be done. John Drake advised that the ships should proceed to the westward, to the Rio Diego, for near the mouth of that stream he had discovered a choice hiding-place. It could be reached by many channels, but only by the most careful pilotage, for the channels were full of rocks and shoals. The channels twisted sluggishly among a multitude of islands, which were gorgeous with rhododendron shrubs, and alive with butterflies, blue and scarlet, that sunned themselves, in blots of colour, upon the heavy green leaves. Among the blossomed branches there were parrots screaming, and the little hummingbirds, like flying jewels, darting from flower to flower. Up above them the great trees towered, shutting out the sight of the sea, so that a dozen ships might have lain in that place without being observed from the open water. The description of this hiding-place moved Drake to proceed thither at once with his two pinnaces, the two Maroons, and his brother John, giving orders for the ship to follow the next morning. The pinnaces arrived there the next day, and found the Cimmeroons encamped there, some of them at the river's mouth, the others "in a wood by the river's side." A solemn feast was prepared, at which the Maroons gave "good testimonies of their joy and good will" towards the adventurers. After the feast, the tribe marched away to the Rio Guana, intending to meet with another tribe, at that time camped among the hills. The pinnaces returned from Rio Diego, wondering why the ship had not arrived, and anxious for her safety. They found her, on the 16th September, in the place where they had left her, "but in far other state," for a tempest had set her on her side, and sorely spoiled her trim, so that it took two days to repair the damage done. A pinnace was then despatched to the Rio Diego anchorage, to go "amongst the shoals and sandy places, to sound out the channel." On the 19th of September the Pascha was warily piloted to moorings, "with much ado to recover the road among so many flats and shoals." Her berth was about five leagues from the Cativaas, or Catives, "betwixt an island and the Main"—the island being about half-a-mile from the shore, some three acres in extent, "flat, and very full of trees and bushes."
The anchors were hardly in the ground, when the friendly tribe of Cimmeroons appeared upon the shore, with several others whom they had met in the mountains. They were all fetched aboard, "to their great comfort and our content," and a council was held forthwith. Drake then asked the chiefs how they could help him to obtain some gold and silver. They replied that nothing could be done for another five months, because the autumn, the rainy season, was upon them, during which time no treasure would be moved from Panama. Had they known that he wanted gold, they said, they would have satisfied him, for they had taken a great store from the Spaniards in a foray, and had flung it into the rivers, which were now too high for them to hope to recover it by diving. He must, therefore, wait, they said, till the rains had ceased in the coming March, when they could attack a treasure train together. The answer was a little unexpected, but not unpleasant, for Drake was willing to remain on the coast for another year if need were. He at once resolved to build himself a fort upon the island, "for the planting of all our ordnance therein, and for our safeguard, if the enemy in all this time, should chance to come." The Cimmeroons cut down a number of Palmito boughs and branches, and soon had two large sheds built, both trim and watertight, for the housing of the company. The boats were then sent ashore to the Main to bring over timber for the building of the fortress. This stronghold was built in the shape of a triangle, with a deep ditch all round it.
The building was a full thirteen feet in height, built of tree boles from the Main, with earth from the trench to take the place of mortar. The ship's guns were hoisted out of the ship and rafted over to the fortress, and there mounted at the embrasures. For platforms for the guns they used the planks of one of the frigates captured near Cartagena. When the heavy work of lumber handling had been finished, but before the fort was ready for use, Drake took John Oxenham, with two of the pinnaces, upon a cruise to the east. He feared that a life of ease ashore would soon make his mariners discontented and eager to be home. It was, therefore, necessary to invent distractions for them. Instead of going at once towards his quarry he sailed along leisurely, close to the coast, stopping a night at one little island for a feast on a kind of bird like spur-kites, the flesh of which was very delicate. He stopped another night at another island, because "of a great kind of shellfish of a foot long," which the company called whelks. As soon as these delectable islands had been left astern, the pinnaces "hauled off into the sea," across the bright, sunny water, blue and flashing, gleaming with the silver arrows of the flying-fish, in order to make the Isles of San Barnardo. They chased two frigates ashore before they came to moorings, after which they scrubbed and trimmed their boats, spent a day fishing from the rocks, and set sail again for Santiago de Tolu. Here they landed in a garden, close to the city, to the delight of some Indians who were working there. After bargaining together for the garden stuff the Indians left their bows and arrows with the sailors while they ran to pluck "many sorts of dainty fruits and roots," such as the garden yielded. Drake paid for the green stuff, and had it taken aboard, after inquiring strictly as to the state of the country and the plate fleets. The company then rowed away for Cartagena, eating their "mellions and winter cherries" with a good appetite. They rowed through the Boca Chica, or Little Mouth, into the splendid harbour, where they set sail, "having the wind large," towards the inner haven and the city. They anchored "right over against the goodly Garden Island," where the fruit was a sore temptation to the seamen, who longed to rob the trees. Drake would not allow them to land, for he feared an ambush, and, indeed, a few hours later, as they passed by the point of the island, they were fired at from the orchards with "a volley of a hundred shot," one of which wounded a sailor. There was little to be done in the harbour, so they put to sea again. They took a barque the next morning about six miles from the port. She was a ship of fifty tons, laden with soap and sweetmeats, bound from St Domingo towards Cartagena. She was armed with "swords, targets and some small shot, besides four iron bases." Her captain and passengers had slipped ashore in the boat as soon as they had spied the pinnaces, but the captain's silken flag, woven in colours, with his coat-of-arms, had been left behind as a spoil. Having sent her company ashore, "saving a young Negro two or three years old, which we brought away," they sailed her into Cartagena harbour, with the pinnaces towing astern. They anchored at the mouth of the inner haven to await events. During the afternoon the Scrivano, or King's notary, aforementioned, rode down "to the point by the wood side" with a little troop of horsemen. The Scrivano displayed a flag of truce, and came aboard, to worry Drake with his oily lawyer's manner and elaborate, transparent lies. He promised to obtain fresh meat for him as a slight return for "his manifold favours, etc." but Drake saw that it was but a plot of the Governor's to keep him in the port till they could trap him. He thanked the supple liar, kept a good lookout throughout the night, and stood to sea as soon as the sun rose. He took two frigates the next day, just outside the harbour. They were small boats in ballast, one of twelve, one of fifty tons, bound for St Domingo. He brought them to anchor in a bravery, "within saker shot of the east Bulwark," and then dismissed their mariners ashore. On the 21st October, the morning after this adventure, the Spaniards sent a flag of truce to the headland at the mouth of the Boca Chica. Drake manned one of his pinnaces, and rowed ashore to see what they wanted. When about 200 yards from the point the Spaniards fled into the wood, as though afraid of the boat's guns—hoping, no doubt, that Drake would follow, and allow them to ambush him. Drake dropped his grapnel over the stern of the pinnace, and veered the boat ashore, little by little, till the bows grated on the sand. As she touched he leaped boldly ashore, in sight of the Spanish troops, "to declare that he durst set his foot a land." The Spaniards seem to have made a rush towards him, whereupon he got on board again, bade his men warp the boat out by the cable, and "rid awhile," some 100 yards from the shore, in the smooth green water, watching the fish finning past the weeds. Seeing that Drake was less foolish than they had hoped, the Spaniards came out upon the sands, at the edge of the wood, and bade one of their number take his clothes off, to swim to the boat with a message. The lad stripped, and swam off to the boat, "as with a Message from the Governor," asking them why they had come to the coast, and why they stayed there. Drake replied that he had come to trade, "for he had tin, pewter, cloth, and other merchandise that they needed," with which reply the youth swam back to the soldiers. After some talk upon the sands, the men-at-arms sent him back with an answer. "The King," they said, "had forbidden them to traffic with any foreign nation, for any commodities, except powder and shot; of which, if he had any store, they would be his merchants." Drake answered that he had come all the way from England to exchange his commodities for gold and silver, and had little will to return "without his errand." He told them that, in his opinion, they were "like to have little rest" if they would not traffic with him fairly in the way of business. He then gave the messenger "a fair shirt for a reward," and despatched him back to his masters. The lad rolled the shirt about his head in the Indian fashion, and swam back "very speedily," using, perhaps, the swift Indian stroke. He did not return that day, though Drake waited for him until sunset, when the pinnace pulled slowly back to the two frigates, "within saker shot [or three-quarters of a mile] of the east Bulwark." The adventurers lay there all that night, expecting to be attacked. The guns were loaded, and cartridges made ready, and a strict lookout was kept. At dawn they saw two sails running down towards them from the Boca Chica on a fresh easterly breeze. Drake manned his two pinnaces, leaving the frigates empty, expecting to have a fight for their possession. Before he came within gunshot of the Spaniards he had to use his oars, for the wind fell, thereby lessening the advantage the Spanish had. As the boats neared each other Drake's mariners "saw many heads peeping over board" along the gunwales of the enemy. They perceived then that the two ships had been manned to occupy Drake's attention, while another squadron made a dash from the town, "from the eastern Bulwark," to retake his two prizes. But Drake "prevented both their drifts." He bade John Oxenham remain there with the one pinnace, "to entertain these two Men of war," while he, with the other, rowed furiously back to the two prizes. Quick as he had been the Spaniards had been quicker. They had rowed out in a large canoe, which had made two trips, so that one frigate was now full of Spaniards, who had cut her cables, while the canoe towed her towards the batteries. As Drake ranged up alongside, the towline was cast adrift by the men in the canoe; while the gallants on the deck leaped overboard, to swim ashore, leaving their rapiers, guns, and powder flasks behind them. Drake watched them swim out of danger, and then set the larger ship on fire. The smaller of the two he scuttled where she lay, "giving them to understand by this, that we perceived their secret practices." As soon as the frigates were disposed of, the pinnace returned to John Oxenham, who was lying to by the two men-of-war, waiting for them to open fire. As the Captain's pinnace drew near, the wind shifted to the north, and blew freshly, so that both the English boats, being to shoreward of the enemy, were forced to run before it, into the harbour, "to the great joy of the Spaniards," who thought they were running away. Directly they were past the point, "and felt smooth water," they obtained the weather-gage, exchanged a few shots, and dropped their anchors, keeping well to windward of the enemy. The Spaniards also anchored; but as the wind freshened into "a norther" they thought it best to put ashore, and, therefore, retired to the town.
For the next four days it blew very hard from the west, with cold rain squalls, to the great discomfort of all hands, who could keep neither warm nor dry. On the fifth day (27th October) a frigate came in from the sea, and they at once attacked her, hoping to find shelter aboard her after the four days of wet and cold. The Spaniards ran her ashore on the point by the Boca Chica, "unhanging her rudder and taking away her sails, that she might not easily be carried away." However, the boats dashed alongside, intending to board her. As they came alongside, a company of horse and foot advanced on to the sands from the woods, opening fire on them as soon as they had formed. The pinnaces replied with their muskets and heavy guns, sending a shot "so near a brave cavalier" that the whole party retreated to the coverts. From the thick brush they were able to save the frigate from capture without danger to themselves; so Drake abandoned her, and set to sea again, in the teeth of the gale, intending to win to Las Serenas, some rocks six miles to sea, off which he thought he could anchor, with his masts down, until the weather moderated. But when he arrived off the rocks, a mighty sea was beating over them, so that he had to run back to Cartagena, where he remained six days, "notwithstanding the Spaniards grieved greatly at our abode there so long."
On the 2nd of November the Governor of Cartagena made a determined attempt to destroy him or drive him out to sea. He manned three vessels—"a great shallop, a fine gundeloe and a great canoe"—with Spanish musketeers and Indians with poisoned arrows. These attacked with no great spirit, for as soon as the pinnaces advanced they retreated, and presently "went ashore into the woods," from which an ambush "of some sixty shot" opened a smart fire. As the ambush began to blaze away from the bushes, Drake saw that two pinnaces and a frigate, manned with musketeers and archers, were warping towards him from the town, in the teeth of the wind. As this second line of battle neared the scene of action, the Spaniards left the ambush in the wood, and ran down the sands to the gundeloe and canoe, which they manned, and again thrust from the shore. Drake then stood away into the haven, out of shot of the shore guns, and cast anchor in the great open space, with the two pinnaces lying close together, one immediately ahead of the other. He rigged the sides of the pinnaces with bonnets, the narrow lengths of canvas which were laced to the feet of sails to give them greater spread. With these for his close-fights, or war-girdles, he waved to the Spaniards to attack. They rowed up cheering, all five boats of them, "assuring their fellows of the day." Had they pushed the attack home, the issue might have been different, but the sight of the close-fights frightened them. They lay on their oars "at caliver-shot distance," and opened a smart musketry fire, "spending powder apace," without pausing, for two or three hours. One man was wounded on Drake's side. The Spanish loss could not be told, but Drake's men could plainly see that the Spanish pinnaces had been shot through and through. One lucky shot went into a Spanish powder tub, which thereupon exploded. Drake at once weighed anchor, intending to run them down while they were in confusion. He had the wind of them, and would have been able to do this without difficulty, but they did not wait his coming. They got to their oars in a hurry, and rowed to their defence in the woods—the fight being at an end before the frigate could warp to windward into action.
Being weary of these continual fruitless tussles, "and because our victuals grew scant," Drake sailed from the port the following morning, in slightly better weather, hoping to get fresh provisions at the Rio Grande, where he had met with such abundance a few days before. The wind was still fresh from the west, so that he could not rejoin his ship nor reach one of his magazines. He took two days in sailing to the Magdalena, but when he arrived there he found the country stripped. "We found bare nothing, not so much as any people left," for the Spaniards had ordered everyone to retire to the hills, driving their cattle with them, "that we might not be relieved by them." The outlook was now serious, for there was very little food left, and that of most indifferent quality, much of it being spoiled by the rains and the salt water. On the day of their landfall they rowed hard for several hours to capture a frigate, but she was as bare of food as they. "She had neither meat nor money," and so "our great hope" was "converted into grief." Sailors get used to living upon short allowance. The men tightened their belts to stay their hunger, and splashed salt water on their chests to allay their thirst. They ran for Santa Martha, a little city to the east, where they hoped "to find some shipping in the road, or limpets on the rocks, or succour against the storm in that good harbour." They found no shipping there, however, and little succour against the storm. They anchored "under the western point, where is high land," but they could not venture in, for the town was strongly fortified (later raiders were less squeamish). The Spaniards had seen them come to moorings, and managed to send some thirty or forty musketeers among the rocks, within gunshot of them. These kept up a continual musket fire, which did bodily hurt to none, but proved a sad annoyance to sailors who were wearied and out of victuals. They found it impossible to reply to the musketry, for the rocks hid the musketeers from view. There was nothing for it but to "up kedge and cut," in the hope of finding some less troublous berth. As they worked across the Santa Martha bay the culverins in the city batteries opened fire. One shot "made a near escape," for it fell between the pinnaces as they lay together in "conference of what was best to be done."
The company were inclined to bring the cruise to an end, and begged that they might "put themselves a land, some place to the Eastward, to get victuals." They thought it would be better to trust to the courtesy of the country people than to keep the seas as they were, in the cold and heavy weather, with a couple of leaky, open boats. Drake disliked this advice, and recommended that they should run on for Rio de la Hacha, or even as far as Curaçoa, where they would be likely to meet with victual ships indifferently defended. The men aboard John Oxenham's pinnace answered that they would willingly follow him throughout the world, but they did not see, they said, how the pinnaces could stand such weather as they had had. Nor did they see how they were going to live with such little food aboard, for they had "only one gammon of bacon and thirty pounds of biscuit for eighteen men"—a bare two days' half allowance. Drake replied that they were better off than he was, "who had but one gammon of bacon and forty pounds of biscuit for his twenty-four men; and therefore [he went on] he doubted not but they would take such part as he did, and willingly depend upon God's Almighty providence, which never faileth them that trust in Him." He did not wait for any further talk, but hoisted his fore-sail and put his helm up for Curaçoa, knowing that the other pinnace would not refuse to follow him. With "sorrowful hearts in respect of the weak pinnace, yet desirous to follow their captain," the weary crew stood after him on the same course. They had not gone more than three leagues when, lo!—balm in Gilead—"a sail plying to the westward" under her foresail and main-sail. There was "great joy" in that hunger-bitten company, who promptly "vowed together, that we would have her, or else it should cost us dear." Coming up with her they found her to be a Spanish ship of more than ninety tons. Drake "waved amain" to her, the usual summons to surrender; but she "despised our summons," and at once opened fire on them, but without success, for the sea was running very high. The sea was too high for them to board her, so they set small storm-sails, and stood in chase, intending to "keep her company to her small content till fairer weather might lay the sea." They followed her for two hours, when "it pleased God" to send a great shower, which, of course, beat down the sea into "a reasonable calm," so that they could pepper her with their guns "and approach her at pleasure." She made but a slight resistance after that, and "in short time we had taken her; finding her laden with victuals well powdered [salted] and dried: which at that present we received as sent us of God's great mercy."
After a stormy night at sea, Drake sent Ellis Hixom, "who had then charge of his pinnace, to search out some harbour along the coast." Hixom soon discovered a little bay, where there was good holding ground, with sufficient depth of water to float the prize. They entered the new port, and dropped their anchors there, promising the Spaniards their clothes, as well as their liberty, if they would but bring them to a clear spring of water and a supply of fresh meat. The Spaniards, who knew the coast very well, soon brought them to an Indian village, where the natives "were clothed and governed by a Spaniard." They stayed there all the day, cutting wood for their fire, filling water casks, and storing the purchased meat. The Indians helped them with all their might, for Drake, following his custom, gave them "content and satisfaction" for the work they did for him. Towards night Drake called his men aboard, leaving the Spanish prisoners ashore, according to his promise, "to their great content." The wood, water casks, and sides of meat were duly stored, the anchors were brought to the bows, and the adventurers put to sea again towards the secret harbour. That day one of their men died from "a sickness which had begun to kindle among us, two or three days before." What the cause of this malady was "we knew not of certainty," but "we imputed it to the cold which our men had taken, lying without succour in the pinnaces." It may have been pleurisy, or pneumonia, or some low fever. The dead man was Charles Glub, "one of our Quarter Masters, a very tall man, and a right good mariner, taken away to the great grief of Captain and company"—a sufficiently beautiful epitaph for any man. "But howsoever it was," runs the touching account, "thus it pleased God to visit us, and yet in favour to restore unto health all the rest of our company that were touched with this disease, which were not a few."
The 15th of November broke bright and fine, though the wind still blew from the west. Drake ordered the Minion, the smaller of his two pinnaces, to part company, "to hasten away before him towards his ships at Port Diego ... to carry news of his coming, and to put all things in a readiness for our land journey if they heard anything of the Fleet's arrival." If they wanted wine, he said, they had better put in at San Barnardo, and empty some of the caches in the sand there, where they had buried many bottles. Seven days later Drake put in at San Barnardo for the same commodity, "finding but twelve botijos of wine of all the store we left, which had escaped the curious search of the enemy who had been there, for they were deep in the ground." Perhaps the crew of the Minion were the guilty ones. About the 27th of November the Captain's party arrived at Port Diego, where they found all things in good order, "but received very heavy news of the death of John Drake, our Captain's brother, and another young man called Richard Allen, which were both slain at one time [on the 9th October, the day Drake left the isle of shell-fish] as they attempted the boarding of a frigate." Drake had been deeply attached to this brother, whom he looked upon as a "young man of great hope." His death was a sore blow to him, all the more because it happened in his absence, when he could neither warn him of the risks he ran nor comfort him as he lay a-dying.
He had been in the pinnace, it seems, with a cargo of planks from the Spanish wreck, carrying the timber for the platform of the battery. It was a bright, sunny morning, and the men were rowing lazily towards the fort, "when they saw this frigate at sea." The men were in merry heart, and eager for a game at handystrokes. They were "very importunate on him, to give chase and set upon this frigate, which they deemed had been a fit booty for them." He told them that they "wanted weapons to assail"; that, for all they knew, the frigate might be full of men and guns; and that their boat was cumbered up with planks, required for his brother's service. These answers were not enough for them, and "still they urged him with words and supposals." "If you will needs," said he;—"Adventure. It shall never be said that I will be hindmost, neither shall you report to my brother that you lost your voyage by any cowardice you found in me." The men armed themselves as they could with stretchers from the boat, or anything that came to hand. They hove the planks overboard to make a clear fighting space, and "took them such poor weapons as they had: viz., a broken pointed rapier, one old visgee, and a rusty caliver. John Drake took the rapier and made a gauntlet of his pillow, Richard Allen the visgee, both standing at the head of the pinnace called Eion. Robert took the caliver, and so boarded." It was a gallant, mad attempt, but utterly hopeless from the first. The frigate was "armed round about with a close fight of hides," and "full of pikes and calivers, which were discharged in their faces, and deadly wounded those that were in the fore ship, John Drake in the belly, and Richard Allen in the head." Though they were both sorely hurt, they shoved the pinnace clear with their oars, and so left the frigate, and hurried home to their ship, where "within an hour after" this young man of great hope ended his days, "greatly lamented of all the company." He was buried in that place, with Richard Allen his shipmate, among the brilliant shrubs, over which the parrots chatter.
For the next four or five weeks the company remained at Fort Diego with the Maroons, their allies. They fared sumptuously every day on the food stored within the magazine; while "daily out of the woods" they took wild hogs, the "very good sort of a beast called warre," that Dampier ate, besides great store of turkeys, pheasants, and numberless guanas, "which make very good Broath." The men were in good health, and well contented; but a day or two after the New Year (January 1573) "half a score of our company fell down sick together, and the most of them died within two or three days." They did not know what the sickness was, nor do they leave us much information to enable us to diagnose it. They called it a calenture, or fever, and attributed it to "the sudden change from cold to heat, or by reason of brackish water which had been taken in by our pinnace, through the sloth of their men in the mouth of the river, not rowing further in where the water was good." We cannot wonder that they died from drinking the water of that sluggish tropical river, for in the rainy season such water is often poisonous to the fish in the sea some half-a-mile from the shore. It comes down from the hills thick with pestilential matter. It sweeps away the rotting leaves and branches, the dead and drowned animals, from the flooded woods and savannahs. "And I believe," says Dampier, "it receives a strong Tincture from the Roots of several Kind of Trees, Herbs, etc., and especially where there is any stagnancy of the Water, it soon corrupts; and possibly the Serpents and other poisonous Vermin and Insects may not a little contribute to its bad qualities." Whatever it was, the disease raged among the men with great violence—as many as thirty being down with it at the one time. Among those who died was Joseph Drake, another brother of the Captain, "who died in our Captain's arms." The many deaths caused something like a panic among the men, and Drake, in his distress, determined to hold a post-mortem upon his brother's corpse "that the cause [of the disease] might be the better discerned, and consequently remedied." The operation was performed by the surgeon, "who found his liver swollen, his heart as it were sodden, and his guts all fair." The corpse of one dead from yellow-fever displays very similar symptoms; and the muddy foreshore on which they were camped would, doubtless, swarm with the yellow-fever mosquito. The sick seem to have recovered swiftly—a trait observable in yellow-fever patients. This, says the narrative, "was the first and last experiment that our Captain made of anatomy in this voyage." The surgeon who made this examination "over-lived him not past four days"—a fact which very possibly saved the lives of half the company. He had had the sickness at its first beginning among them, but had recovered. He died, we are told, "of an overbold practice which he would needs make upon himself, by receiving an over-strong purgation of his own device, after which taken he never spake; nor his Boy recovered the health which he lost by tasting it, till he saw England." He seems to have taken the draught directly after the operation, as a remedy against infection from the corpse. The boy, who, perhaps, acted as assistant at the operation, may have thought it necessary to drink his master's heeltaps by way of safeguard.
While the company lay thus fever-stricken at the fort, the Maroons had been wandering abroad among the forest, ranging the country up and down "between Nombre de Dios and us, to learn what they might for us." During the last few days of January 1573 they came in with the news that the plate fleet "had certainly arrived in Nombre de Dios." On the 30th of January, therefore, Drake ordered the Lion, one of the three pinnaces, to proceed "to the seamost islands of the Cativaas," a few miles from the fort, to "descry the truth of the report" by observing whether many frigates were going towards Nombre de Dios from the east, as with provisions for the fleet. The Lion remained at sea for a few days, when she captured a frigate laden with "maize, hens, and pompions from Tolu." She had the Scrivano of Tolu aboard her, with eleven men and one woman. From these they learned that the fleet was certainly at Nombre de Dios, as the Indians had informed them. The prisoners were "used very courteously," and "diligently guarded from the deadly hatred of the Cimmeroons," who used every means in their power to obtain them from the English, so that "they might cut their throats to revenge their wrongs and injuries." Drake warned his allies not to touch them "or give them ill countenance"; but, feeling a little doubtful of their safety, he placed them aboard the Spanish prize, in charge of Ellis Hixom, and had the ship hauled ashore to the island, "which we termed Slaughter Island (because so many of our men died there)." He was about to start upon "his journey for Panama by land," and he could not follow his usual custom of letting his prisoners go free.
CHAPTER IV
THE ROAD TO PANAMA
The Maroons—The native city—The great tree—Panama—The silver train—The failure—Venta Cruz
When the Spanish prize had been warped to her berth at Slaughter Island, Drake called his men together, with the chiefs of the Maroons, to a solemn council of war about the fire. He then discussed with them, with his usual care, the equipment necessary for an undertaking of the kind in hand. He was going to cross the isthmus with them, those "20 leagues of death and misery," in order to surprise one of the recuas, or treasure trains, as it wandered north upon the road from Panama to Nombre de Dios. It was, as he says, "a great and long journey," through jungles, across swamps, and up precipitous crags. Any error in equipment would be paid for in blood. It was essential, therefore, that they should strictly debate "what kind of weapons, what store of victuals, and what manner of apparel" would be fittest for them. The Maroons "especially advised" him "to carry as great store of shoes as possibly he might, by reason of so many rivers with stone and gravel as they were to pass." This advice was followed by all hands, who provided themselves with a good store of boots and spare leather, thereby saving themselves from much annoyance from jiguas, or jiggers, and the venomous leeches of the swamps. The sickness had destroyed twenty-eight of the company. Three had died of wounds or in battle, and one had died from cold and exposure in the pinnace. Of the remaining forty-two Drake selected eighteen of the best. A number were still ill abed, and these he left behind in the care of Ellis Hixom and his little band of shipkeepers. The dried meat and biscuit were then packed carefully into bundles. The eighteen took their weapons, with such necessaries as they thought they might require. Drake called Hixom aside, and gave him "straight charge, in any case not to trust any messenger that should come in his name with any tokens, unless he brought his handwriting: which he knew could not be counterfeited by the Cimaroons or Spaniards." A last farewell was taken; thirty brawny Cimmeroons swung the packs upon their shoulders, shaking their javelins in salute. The shipkeepers sounded "A loath to depart," and dipped their colours. The forty-eight adventurers then formed into order, and marched away into the forest on their perilous journey.
Having such stalwart carriers, the English were able to march light, "not troubled with anything but our furniture." The Maroons carried "every one of them two sorts of arrows" in addition to the packs of victuals, for they had promised to provide fresh food upon the march for all the company. "Every day we were marching by sun-rising," says the narrative, taking the cool of the morning before the sun was hot. At "ten in the forenoon" a halt was called for dinner, which they ate in quiet "ever near some river." This halt lasted until after twelve. Then they marched again till four, at which time they sought out a river-bank for their camping ground. Often they slept in old huts built by the Indians "when they travelled through these woods," but more frequently the Maroons built them new ones, having a strange skill in that craft. Then they would light little fires of wood inside the huts, giving a clear red glow, with just sufficient smoke to keep away mosquitoes. They would sup pleasantly together there, snugly sheltered from the rain if any fell; warm if it were cold, as on the hills; and cool if it were hot, as in the jungle. When the Indians had lit their little "light Wood" candles these huts must have been delightful places, full of jolly talk and merry music. Outside, by the river-brink, the frogs would croak; and, perhaps, the adventurers heard "the shriekings of Snakes and other Insects," such as scared Lionel Wafer there about a century later. Those who ventured out into the night were perplexed by the innumerable multitude of fireflies that spangled the darkness with their golden sparks. In the mornings the brilliant blue and green macaws aroused them with their guttural cries "like Men who speak much in the Throat." The chicaly bird began his musical quick cuckoo cry, the corrosou tolled out his bell notes, the "waggish kinds of Monkeys" screamed and chattered in the branches, playing "a thousand antick Tricks." Then the sun came up in his splendour above the living wall of greenery, and the men buckled on their gear, and fell in for the road.
As they marched, they sometimes met with droves of peccary or warree. Then six Maroons would lay their burdens down, and make a slaughter of them, bringing away as much of the dainty wild pork as they could carry. Always they had an abundance of fresh fruit, such as "Mammeas" ("very wholesome and delicious"), "Guavas, Palmitos, Pinos, Oranges, Lemons and divers others." Then there were others which were eaten "first dry roasted," as "Plantains, Potatoes, and such like," besides bananas and the delicious sapadilloes. On one occasion "the Cimaroons found an otter, and prepared it to be drest: our Captain marvelling at it. Pedro, our chief Cimaroon, asked him, "Are you a man of war, and in want; and yet doubt whether this be meat, that hath blood? Herewithal [we read] our Captain rebuked himself secretly, that he had so slightly considered of it before."
After three days' wandering in the woods the Maroons brought them to a trim little Maroon town, which was built on the side of a hill by a pretty river. It was surrounded by "a dyke of eight feet broad, and a thick mud wall of ten feet high, sufficient to stop a sudden surpriser. It had one long and broad street, lying east and west, and two other cross streets of less breadth and length," containing in all some "five or six and fifty households." It was "kept so clean and sweet, that not only the houses, but the very streets were pleasant to behold"—a thing, doubtless, marvellous to one accustomed to an Elizabethan English town. "In this town we saw they lived very civilly and cleanly," for, as soon as the company marched in, the thirty carriers "washed themselves in the river and changed their apparel," which was "very fine and fitly made," after the Spanish cut. The clothes, by all accounts, were only worn on state occasions. They were long cotton gowns, either white or rusty black, "shap'd like our Carter's Frocks."
The town was thirty-five leagues from Nombre de Dios and forty-five from Panama. It had been surprised the year before Drake came there (1572) by 150 Spanish troops under "a gallant gentleman," who had been guided thither by a recreant Maroon. He attacked a little before the dawn, and cut down many women and children, but failed to prevent the escape of nearly all the men. In a little while they rallied, and attacked the Spaniards with great fury, killing their guide and four-fifths of their company. The wretched remnant straggled back as best they could "to return answer to them which sent them." The natives living there at the time of Drake's visit kept a continual watch some three miles from the town, to prevent a second surprise. Any Spaniards whom they met they "killed like beasts."
The adventurers passed a night in the town, and stayed until noon of the day following. The Maroons told them stories of their battles with the Spaniards, while Drake inquired into "their affection in religion." He learned that they had no kind of priests; "only they held the Cross in great reputation"—having, perhaps, learned so much of Christianity from the Spaniards. Drake seems to have done a little earnest missionary work, for he persuaded them "to leave their crosses, and to learn the Lord's Prayer, and to be instructed in some measure concerning God's true worship." After dinner on the 7th of February the company took to the roads again, refusing to take any of the countless recruits who offered their services. Four Maroons went on ahead to mark a trail by breaking branches or flinging a bunch of leaves upon the ground. After these four, marched twelve more Maroons as a sort of vanguard. Then came Drake with his men and the two Maroon chiefs. Another troop of twelve Maroons brought up the rear. The Maroons marched in strict silence, "which they also required us to keep," for it is the custom among nearly all savage folk to remain silent on the trail.
The way now led them through parts less swampy, and, therefore, less densely tangled over than those nearer the "North Sea." "All the way was through woods very cool and pleasant," says the narrative, "by reason of those goodly and high trees, that grow there so thick." They were mounting by slow degrees to the "ridge between the two seas," and the woodland was getting clear of undergrowth. As later buccaneers have noted, the upper land of the isthmus is wooded with vast trees, whose branches shut out the sun. Beneath these trees a man may walk with pleasure, or indeed ride, for there is hardly any undergrowth. The branches are so thick together that the lower ground receives no sunlight, and, therefore, little grows there. The heat of the sun is shut out, and "it is cooler travelling there ... in that hot region, than it is in ... England in the summer time." As the men began to ascend, the Maroons told them that not far away there grew a great tree about midway between the oceans, "from which we might at once discern the North Sea from whence we came, and the South Sea whither we were going." On the 11th of February, after four days of slow but steady climbing, they "came to the height of the desired hill, a very high hill, lying East and West, like a ridge between the two seas." It was ten o'clock in the forenoon, the hour at which the dinner halt was made. Pedro, the Maroon chief, now took Drake's hand, and "prayed him to follow him if he was desirous to see at once the two seas which he had so longed for." Drake followed Pedro to the hilltop, to the "goodly and great high Tree," of which the Maroons had spoken. He found that they had hacked out steps upon the bole, "to ascend up near unto the top," where they had built a pleasant little hut of branches thatched from the sun, "wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit." "South and north of this Tree" the Maroons had felled certain trees "that the prospect might be the clearer." At its base there was a number of strong houses "that had been built long before," perhaps by an older people than the Cimmeroons. The tree seems to have been a place of much resort among that people, as it lay in their paths across the isthmus, and towards the west.
Drake climbed the tree with Pedro to the little sunny bower at the top. A fresh breeze which was blowing, had blown away the mists and the heat haze, so that the whole isthmus lay exposed before him, in the golden sunlight. There to the north, like a bright blue jewel, was "the Atlantic Ocean whence now we came." There to the south, some thirty miles away, was "that sea of which he had heard such golden reports." He looked at the wonderful South Sea, and "besought Almighty God of His goodness, to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship, in that sea." The prayer was granted to him, for in five years' time he was off that very coast with such a spoil as no ship ever took before. Having glutted his eyes with the sight, Drake called up all his English followers, and "acquainted John Oxenham especially with this his petition and purpose, if it would please God to grant him that happiness." Oxenham answered fervently that "unless our Captain did beat him from his company, he would follow him, by God's grace." He fulfilled his vow a few months later, with disaster to himself and his associates.
"Thoroughly satisfied with the sight of the seas," the men descended to their dinner with excellent appetite. They then pushed on lightly as before, through continual forest, for another two days. On the 13th of February, when they had gained the west side of the Cheapo River, the forest broke away into little knots of trees green and goodly, which showed like islands in a rolling ocean of green grass. They were come to the famous savannahs, over which roamed herds of black cattle, swift and savage. Everywhere about them was the wiry stipa grass, and "a kind of grass with a stalk as big as a great wheaten reed, which hath a blade issuing from the top of it, on which though the cattle feed, yet it groweth every day higher, until the top be too high for an ox to reach." The inhabitants of the country were wont to burn the grass every year, but "after it is thus burnt" it "springeth up fresh like green corn" within three days. "Such," says the narrative, "is the great fruitfulness of the soil: by reason of the evenness of the day and the night, and the rich dews which fall every morning." As the raiders advanced along this glorious grass-land they sometimes caught sight of Panama. Whenever they topped a rise they could see the city, though very far away; and at last, "on the last day," they saw the ships riding in the road, with the blue Pacific trembling away into the sky beyond them. Now was the woodcock near the gin, and now the raiders had to watch their steps. There was no cover on those rolling sweeps of grass. They were within a day's journey of the city. The grass-land (as Drake gathered from his guides) was a favourite hunting-ground of the city poulterers, for there, as Drake puts it, "the Dames of Panama are wont to send forth hunters and fowlers, for taking of sundry dainty fowl, which the land yieldeth." Such a body of men as theirs might readily be detected by one of these sportsmen, and one such detection would surely ruin the attempt. They therefore, crept like snakes "out of all ordinary way," worming themselves through the grass-clumps till they came to a little river-bed, in which a trickle of water ran slowly across the sun-bleached pebbles. They were minded to reach a grove or wood about a league from Panama. The sun beat upon them fiercely, and it was necessary for them to travel in the heat of the day. In that open country the midday heat was intense, but they contrived to gain the shelter of the wood by three that afternoon. "This last day," says the narrative, "our Captain did behold and view the most of all that fair city, discerning the large street which lieth directly from the sea into the land, South and North."
Having gained the shelter of the wood, Drake chose out a Maroon "that had served a master in Panama" to venture into the city as a spy. He dressed the man "in such apparel as the Negroes of Panama do use to wear," and sent him off to the town an hour before night, "so that by the closing in of the evening he might be in the city." He gave the man strict charge to find out "the certain night, and the time of the night, when the carriers laded the Treasure from the King's Treasure House to Nombre de Dios." The first stage of the journey (from Panama to Venta Cruz) was always undertaken in the cool of the night, "because the country is all champion, and consequently by day very hot." From Venta Cruz to Nombre de Dios "they travel always by day and not by night, because all that way is full of woods and therefore very cool." Drake's plan was to waylay one of the treasure trains on the night journey towards Venta Cruz. The Maroon soon returned to the little wood where the men were lying. He had entered the town without trouble, and had met with some old companions, who had told him all he wished to know. A treasure train was to start that very night, for a great Spanish gentleman, the treasurer of Lima, "was intending to pass into Spain" in a swift advice ship which stayed for him at Nombre de Dios. "His daughter and family" were coming with him, "having fourteen mules in company, of which eight were laden with gold, and one with jewels." After this troop, two other recuas, "of fifty mules in each," would take the road, carrying victuals and wine for the fleet, "with some little quantity of silver."
As soon as the news had been conveyed to Drake, he marched his men away from Panama towards Venta Cruz, some four leagues' journey. He halted them about two leagues to the south of Venta Cruz, in a clump of tall grass, and then examined a Spanish prisoner whom his scouts had caught. Two of the Maroons, stealing forward along the line of march, had scented the acrid smoke of a burning match carried by some arquebusier. They had crept up "by scent of the said match," and had heard a sound of snoring coming from the grass by the roadside. A Spanish sentry had fallen asleep upon his post, "and being but one they fell upon him, stopped his mouth from crying, put out his match," and bound him so effectually "that they well near strangled him." He was in the pay of the King's treasurer, who had hired him, with others, to guard the treasure train upon its march from Venta Cruz. He had fallen asleep while waiting for the mules to arrive, as he knew that he would get no sleep until the company he marched with was safe in Nombre de Dios. He was in terror of his life, for he believed that he had fallen into the hands of the Maroons, from whom he might expect no mercy. When he learned that he was a prisoner to Francis Drake he plucked up courage, "and was bold to make two requests unto him." First, he asked that Drake would order the Maroons to spare his life, for he knew that they "hated the Spaniards, especially the soldiers, extremely," but a word from such a Captain would be enough to save him. The second request was also personal. He assured them, upon the faith of a soldier, that "they should have that night more gold, besides jewels, and pearls of great price, than all they could carry"; if not, he swore, let them deal with him as they would. But, he added, if the raiders are successful, "then it might please our Captain to give unto him, as much as might suffice for him and his mistress to live upon, as he had heard our Captain had done to divers others"—promising, in such a case, to make his name as famous as any of them which had received the like favour.
Being now "at the place appointed" Drake divided his men into two companies. With eight Englishmen and fifteen Cimmeroons he marched to some long grass about fifty paces from the road. He sent John Oxenham, with Pedro and the other company of men, to the other side of the road, at the same distance from it, but a little farther to the south, in order that, "as occasion served, the former company might take the foremost mules by the heads," while Oxenham's party did that service for those which followed. The arrangement also provided "that if we should have need to use our weapons that night, we might be sure not to endamage our fellows." Having reached their stations, the men lay down to wait, keeping as quiet as they could. In about an hour's time they heard the clanging of many mule bells, making a loud music, in the direction of Venta Cruz. Mules were returning from that town to Panama; for with the fleet at Nombre de Dios there was much business between the two seaports, and the mule trains were going and coming several times a day. As they listened, they heard more mule bells ringing far away on the road from Panama. The treasurer with his company was coming.
Now, Drake had given strict orders that no man should show himself, or as much as budge from his station, "but let all that came from Venta Cruz [which was nothing but merchandise] to pass quietly." Yet one of the men, probably one of Oxenham's men, of the name of Robert Pike, now disobeyed those orders. "Having drunken too much aqua-vitæ without water," he forgot himself. He rose from his place in the grass, "enticing a Cimaroon with him," and crept up close to the road, "with intent to have shown his forwardness on the foremost mules." Almost immediately a cavalier came trotting past from Venta Cruz upon a fine horse, with a little page running at the stirrup. As he trotted by, Robert Pike "rose up to see what he was." The Cimmeroon promptly pulled him down, and sat upon him; but his promptness came too late to save the situation. All the English had put their shirts over their other apparel, "that we might be sure to know our own men in the pell mell in the night." The Spanish cavalier had glanced in Robert Pike's direction, and had seen a figure rising from the grass "half all in white" and very conspicuous. He had heard of Drake's being on the coast, and at once came to the conclusion that that arch-pirate had found his way through the woods to reward himself for his disappointment at Nombre de Dios. He was evidently a man of great presence of mind. He put spurs to his horse, and galloped off down the road, partly to escape the danger, but partly also to warn the treasure train, the bells of which were now clanging loudly at a little distance from the ambuscade.
Drake heard the trotting horse's hoofs clatter out into a furious gallop. He suspected that he had been discovered, "but could not imagine by whose fault, neither did the time give him the leasure to search." It was a still night, and he had heard no noise, yet something had startled the cavalier. Earnestly hoping that the rider had been alarmed by the silence of the night and the well-known danger of the road, he lay down among the grass again to wait for the mules to come. The bells clanged nearer and nearer, till at last the mules were trotting past the ambush. The captains blew their whistles to the attack. The raiders rose from the grass-clumps with a cheer. There was a rush across the narrow trackway at the drivers, the mules were seized, and in a moment, two full recuas were in the raiders' hands.
So far all had gone merrily. The sailors turned to loot the mule packs, congratulating themselves upon their glorious good fortune. It must have been a strange scene to witness—the mules scared and savage, the jolly seamen laughing as they pulled the packs away, the Maroons grinning and chattering, and the harness and the bells jingling out a music to the night. As the packs were ripped open a mutter of disappointment began to sound among the ranks of the spoilers. Pack after pack was found to consist of merchandise—vicuna wool, or dried provender for the galleons. The amount of silver found amounted to a bare two horse loads. Gold there was none. The jewels of the King's treasurer were not to be discovered. The angry sailors turned upon the muleteers for an explanation. The chief muleteer, "a very sensible fellow," was taken to Drake, who soon learned from him the reason why the catch was so poor. The cavalier who had noticed Robert Pike was the saviour of the treasure. As soon as the figure half all in white had risen ghost-like by the road, he had galloped to the treasure mules to report what he had seen to the treasurer. The thing he had seen was vague, but it was yet too unusual to pass unnoticed. Drake, he said, was a person of devilish resource, and it was highly probable, he thought, that the pirates had come "in covert through the woods" to recoup themselves for their former disappointments. A white shirt was the usual uniform for men engaged in night attacks. No Maroon would wear such a thing in that locality, and, therefore, it would be well to let the food train pass ahead of the treasure. The loss of the food train would be a little matter, while it would surely show them whether an ambush lay in wait or not. The treasurer had accordingly drawn his company aside to allow the food mules to get ahead of him. As soon as the noise upon the road advised him that the enemy had made their spring, he withdrew quietly towards Panama. "Thus," says the narrative, "we were disappointed of a most rich booty: which is to be though God would not should be taken, for that, by all likelihood, it was well gotten by that Treasurer."
We are not told what happened to Robert Pike, but it is probable that he had a bad five minutes when the muleteer's story reached the sailors. It was bad enough to have marched all day under a broiling sun, and to lose a royal fortune at the end; but that was not all, nor nearly all: they were now discovered to the enemy, who lay in considerable force in their front and rear. They were wearied out with marching, yet they knew very well that unless they "shifted for themselves betimes" all the Spaniards of Panama would be upon them. They had a bare two or three hours' grace in which to secure themselves. They had marched four leagues that night, and by marching back those same four leagues they might win to cover by the morning. If they marched forward they might gain the forest in two leagues; but Venta Cruz lay in the road, and Venta Cruz was guarded day and night by a company of Spanish troops. To reach the forest by the latter road they would have to make a way with their swords, but with men so tired and out of heart it seemed the likelier route of the two. It was better, Drake thought, "to encounter his enemies while he had strength remaining, than to be encountered or chased when they should be worn out with weariness." He bade all hands to eat and drink from the provisions found upon the mules, and while they took their supper he told them what he had resolved to do. He called upon Pedro, the Maroon, by name, asking "whether he would give his hand not to forsake him." Pedro swore that he would rather die at his feet than desert him in such a pass—a vow which assured Drake of the loyalty of his allies. As soon as supper was over, he bade the men mount upon the mules, so that they might not weary themselves with marching. An hour's trot brought them to the woods within a mile of Venta Cruz, where they dismounted, and went afoot, after bidding the muleteers not to follow if they cared for whole skins. The road was here some ten or twelve feet broad, "so as two Recuas may pass one by another." It was paved with cobbles, which had been beaten into the mud by Indian slaves. On either side of it was the dense tropical forest, "as thick as our thickest hedges in England that are oftenest cut." Among the tangle, about half-a-mile from the town, the Spaniards had taken up a strong position. The town guard of musketeers had been reinforced by a number of friars from a religious house. They lay there, hidden in the jungle, blowing their matches to keep them burning clearly. Two Maroons, whom Drake had sent forward as scouts, crept back to him with the news that the enemy were there in force, for they had smelt the reek of the smouldering matches and heard the hushed noise of many men moving in the scrub. Drake gave orders that no man should fire till the Spaniards had given them a volley, for he thought they would first parley with him, "as indeed fell out." Soon afterwards, as the men neared the Spanish ambush, a Spanish captain rose from the road, and "cried out, Hoo!" Drake answered with, "Hallo!"—the sailor's reply to a hail. The Spaniard then put the query "Que gente?" to which Drake answered "Englishmen." The Spaniard, "in the name of the King of Spain his master," then charged him to surrender, passing his word as a gentleman soldier that the whole company should be treated courteously. Drake made a few quick steps towards the Spaniard, crying out that "for the honour of the Queen of England, his mistress, he must have passage that way." As he advanced, he fired his pistol towards him, in order to draw the Spanish fire. Immediately the thicket burst out into flame; for the ambush took the shot for a signal, and fired off their whole volley. Drake received several hail-shot in his body. Many of the men were wounded, and one man fell sorely hurt. As the volley crackled out its last few shots, Drake blew his whistle, as a signal to his men to fire. A volley of shot and arrows was fired into the thicket, and the company at once advanced, "with intent to come to handy strokes." As they stormed forward to the thicket, the Spaniards fled towards a position of greater strength. Drake called upon his men to double forward to prevent them. The Maroons at once rushed to the front, "with their arrows ready in their bows, and their manner of country dance or leap, singing Yó péhó! Yó péhó, and so got before us where they continued their leap and song after the manner of their own country wars." The Spaniards heard the war-cry ringing out behind them, and fell back rapidly upon the town. Near the town's end a party of them rallied, forming a sort of rearguard to cover the retreat. As they took up a position in the woods, the Maroons charged them upon both flanks, while the English rushed their centre. There was a mad moment of fighting in the scrub. A Maroon went down with a pike through the body; but he contrived to kill the pikeman before he died. Several Englishmen were hurt. The Spaniards' loss is not mentioned, but it was probably severe. They broke and fled before the fury of the attack, and the whole body of fighting men, "friars and all," were thrust back into the town by the raiders. As they ran, the raiders pressed them home, shouting and slaying. The gates were open. The Spanish never had another chance to rally, and the town was taken with a rush a very few minutes after the captain's challenge in the wood.
Venta Cruz
Venta Cruz, the modern Cruces, stood, and still stands, on the west or left bank of the Chagres River. It marks the highest point to which boats may penetrate from the North Sea. Right opposite the town the river broadens out to a considerable width, affording berths for a number of vessels of slight draught. At the time of Drake's raid it was a place of much importance. The land route from Panama to Nombre de Dios was, as we have said, boggy, dangerous, and pestilential. The freight charges for mule transport across the isthmus were excessive, ranging from twenty-five to thirty dollars of assayed silver for a mule load of 200 pounds weight—a charge which works out at nearly £70 a ton. Even in the dry season the roads were bad, and the mule trains were never safe from the Maroons. Many merchants, therefore, sent their goods to Venta Cruz in flat-bottomed boats of about fifteen tons. These would sail from Nombre de Dios to the mouth of the Chagres River, where they struck sail, and took to their sweeps. The current was not very violent except in the upper reaches, and the boats were generally able to gain Venta Cruz in a few days—in about three days in dry weather and about twelve in the rains. A towing-path was advocated at one time; but it does not seem to have been laid, though the river-banks are in many places flat and sandy, and free from the dense undergrowth of the tropics. As soon as the boats arrived at Venta Cruz they were dragged alongside the jetty on the river-bank, and their cargoes were transferred to some strong stone warehouses. In due course the goods were packed on mules, and driven away down the road to Panama, a distance of some fifteen or eighteen miles, which the mules would cover in about eight hours. The town at the time of Drake's raid contained about forty or fifty houses, some of them handsome stone structures decorated with carven work. The river-bank was covered with a great many warehouses, and there were several official buildings, handsome enough, for the Governor and the King's officers. There was a monastery full of friars, "where we found above a thousand bulls and pardons, newly sent from Rome." Perhaps there was also some sort of a barrack for the troops. The only church was the great church of the monastery. The town was not fortified, but the houses made a sort of hedge around it; and there were but two entrances—the one from the forest, by which Drake's party entered; the other leading over a pontoon bridge towards the hilly woods beyond the Chagres. Attached to the monastery, and tended by the monks and their servants, was a sort of sanatorium and lying-in hospital. Nombre de Dios was so unhealthy, so full of malaria and yellow fever, "that no Spaniard or white woman" could ever be delivered there without the loss of the child on the second or third day. It was the custom of the matrons of Nombre de Dios to proceed to Venta Cruz or to Panama to give birth to their children. The babes were left in the place where they were born, in the care of the friars, until they were five or six years old. They were then brought to Nombre de Dios, where "if they escaped sickness the first or second month, they commonly lived in it as healthily as in any other place." Life in Venta Cruz must have been far from pleasant. The Maroons were a continual menace, but the town was too well guarded, and too close to Panama, for them to put the place in serious danger. The inhabitants had to keep within the township; for the forest lay just beyond the houses, and lonely wanderers were certain to be stabbed by lurking Maroons or carried off by jaguars. In the season the mule trains were continually coming and going, either along the swampy track to Nombre de Dios or from Nombre de Dios to Panama. Boats came sleepily up the Chagres to drop their anchors by the jetty, with news from the Old World and the commodities which the New World did not yield. It must, then, have been one of the most eventful places in the uncomfortable isthmus; but no place can be very pleasant which has an annual rainfall of 120 inches and a mean annual temperature of about 80°. The country adjacent is indescribably beautiful; the river is clear and brilliant; the woods are gorgeous with many-coloured blossoms, and with birds and butterflies that gleam in green and blue among the leaves. During the rains the river sometimes rises forty feet in a night, and sweeps into the town with masses of rotting verdure from the hills. There is always fever in the place, but in the rainy season it is more virulent than in the dry. At present the town has few white inhabitants. The fair stone houses which Drake saw are long since gone, having been destroyed in one of the buccaneering raids a century later. The modern town is a mere collection of dirty huts, inhabited by negroes, half-breeds, and Indians.
CHAPTER V
BACK TO THE MAIN BODY
The treasure train—The spoil—Captain Tetû hurt
As soon as the town was in his hands, Drake set guards on the bridge across the Chagres and at the gate by which he had entered the town. He gave orders to the Maroons that they were not to molest women or unarmed men. He gave them free permission to take what they would from the stores and houses, and then went in person to comfort some gentlewomen "which had lately been delivered of children there." They were in terror of their lives, for they had heard the shouts and firing, and had thought that the Maroons were coming. They refused to listen to the various comforters whom Drake had sent to them, and "never ceased most earnestly entreating" that Drake himself would come to them. Drake succeeded in reassuring them that nothing "to the worth of a garter" would be taken from them. They then dried their tears, and were comforted.
The raiders stayed in the town about an hour and a half, during which time they succeeded in getting together a little comfortable dew of heaven—not gold, indeed, nor silver, but yet "good pillage." Drake allowed them this latitude so that they might not be cast down by the disappointment of the night. He gave orders, however, that no heavy loot should be carried from the town, because they had yet many miles to go, and were still in danger of attack. While the men were getting their spoils together, ready for marching, and eating a hasty breakfast in the early morning light, a sudden fusillade began at the Panama gate. Some ten or twelve cavaliers had galloped in from Panama, supposing that the pirates had left the town. They had come on confidently, right up to the muzzles of the sentries' muskets. They had then been met with a shattering volley, which killed and wounded half their number and sent the others scattering to the woods. Fearing that they were but a scouting party, and that a troop of horse might be following to support them, Drake gave the word to fall in for the road. The spoil, such as it was, was shouldered; Drake blew a blast upon his whistle; the men formed up into their accustomed marching order, and tramped away from Venta Cruz, across the Chagres bridge, just as the dawn set the parrots screeching and woke the monkeys to their morning song. They seem to have expected no pursuit; but Drake was not a man to run unnecessary risks. His men, including the Maroons, were "grown very valiant," yet they were granted no further chance to show their valour. Drake told them that they had now been "well near a fortnight" from the ship, with her company of sick and sorry sailors. He was anxious to rejoin her without delay, so the word was given to force the marching. He refused to visit the Indian villages, though the Maroons begged him earnestly to do so. His one wish was to rejoin Ellis Hixom. He "hustled" his little company without mercy, encouraging them "with such example and speech that the way seemed much shorter." He himself, we are told, "marched most cheerfully," telling his comrades of the golden spoils they would win before they sailed again for England. There was little ease on that march to the coast, for Drake would allow no one to leave the ranks. When provisions ran out they had to march on empty stomachs. There was no hunting of the peccary or the deer, as on the jolly progress westward. "We marched many days with hungry stomachs," says the narrative, and such was the hurry of the march that many of the men "fainted with sickness of weariness." Their clothes were hanging on their backs in shreds and tatters. Their boots had long since cracked and rotted. Many of them were marching with their feet wrapped up in rags. Many of them were so footsore they could scarcely put their feet upon the ground. Swaying, limping, utterly road-weary, they came tottering into a little village which the Maroons had built as a rest-house for them, about three leagues from the ship. They were quite exhausted. Their feet were bloody and swollen. The last stages had been marched with great bodily suffering, "all our men complaining of the tenderness of their feet." Drake complained also, "sometimes without cause, but sometimes with cause indeed; which made the rest to bear the burden the more easily." Some of the men were carried in by the Maroons. Indeed, the Maroons had saved the whole party from collapse, for they not only built them shelter huts at night, carried the weary, and found, or made, them a road to travel by, but they also bore the whole burden of the company's arms and necessaries. Their fellows who had stayed with Ellis Hixom had built the little town in the woods, for the refreshment of all hands, in case they should arrive worn out with marching. At sunset on the evening of Saturday, the 22nd of February, the weary crew arrived at the little town, to the great joy of the Maroons who kept watch and ward there. The tired men lay down to rest, while Drake "despatched a Cimaroon with a token and certain order to the Master."
The day had dawned before this messenger arrived upon the sands near which the ship was moored. He hailed her, crying out that he came with news, and immediately a boat pushed off, manned by men "which longed to hear of our Captain's speeding." As soon as he appeared before Ellis Hixom, he handed over Drake's golden toothpick, "which he said our Captain had sent for a token to Ellis Hixom, with charge to meet him at such a river." The sight of the golden toothpick was too much for Ellis Hixom. He knew it to be his Captain's property, but coming as it did, without a sign in writing, it convinced him that "something had befallen our Captain otherwise than well." The Maroon saw him staring "as amazed," and told him that it was dark when Drake had packed him off, so that no letter could be sent, "but yet with the point of his knife, he wrote something upon the toothpick, 'which,' he said, 'should be sufficient to gain credit to the messenger.'" Looking closely at the sliver of gold, Hixom saw a sentence scratched upon it: "By me, Francis Drake," which convinced him that the message was genuine. He at once called away one of the pinnaces, storing her with "what provision he could," and promptly set sail for the mouth of the Tortugos River, a few miles along the coast, to the west of where he lay, for there Drake intended to await him.
At about three o'clock that afternoon, Drake marched his men, or all who were fit to march, out of the forest to the sandy beach at the river's mouth. Half-an-hour later the tattered ragamuffins saw the pinnace running in to take them off, "which was unto us all a double rejoicing: first that we saw them, and next, so soon." The whole company stood up together on the beach to sing some of the psalms of thanksgiving—praising God "most heartily, for that we saw our pinnace and fellows again." To Ellis Hixom and his gang of shipkeepers the raiders appeared "as men strangely changed," though Drake was less changed than the others, in spite of the wound he got at Venta Cruz. The three weeks' march in that abominable country, and the last few days of "fasting and sore travail," would have been enough to "fore pine and waste" the very strongest, while "the grief we drew inwardly, for that we returned without that gold and treasure we hoped for, did no doubt show her print and footsteps in our faces." The next day the pinnace rowed "to another river in the bottom of the bay" to pick up the stragglers who had stayed to rest with the Maroons. The company was then reunited in the secret haven. Wonderful tales were told of the journey across the isthmus, of the South Sea, with its lovely city, and of the rush through the grass in the darkness, when the mule bells came clanging past, that night near Venta Cruz. The sick men recovering from their calentures "were thoroughly revived" by these tales. They importuned Drake to take them with him on the next foray; for Drake gave out that he meant not to leave off thus, but would once again attempt the same journey. In the general rejoicing and merry-making it is possible that Robert Pike remained aloof in the darkness of the 'tween decks, deprived of his allowance of aqua-vitæ.
Drake noted the eager spirit among his men, and determined to give it vent. He called them together to a consultation, at which they discussed what was best to be done until the mule trains again set forth from Panama. There was Veragua, "a rich town lying to the Westward, between Nombre de Dios and Nicaragua, where is the richest mine of fine gold that is on this North side." At Veragua also there were little rivers, in which "oftentimes they find pieces of gold as big as peas." Then, if Veragua were thought ill of, as too difficult, there were treasure ships to intercept as they wallowed home for Spain from Nombre de Dios. Or the men might keep themselves employed in capturing victual frigates for the stocking of the ship before they attacked another recua. This last scheme was flouted by many as unnecessary. They had food enough, they said, and what they lacked the country would supply, but the treasure, the comfortable dew of heaven, for which they had come so far, was the main thing, and to get that they were ready to venture on the galleons, soldiers or no soldiers. At this point the Maroons were called in to give their opinion. Most of them had served the Spaniards as slaves in one town or another of the Main. Several of them had worked under the whip of a wealthy Spaniard in Veragua, a creature of the name of Pezoro, who was "bad and cruel, not only to his slaves, but unto all men." This gentleman lived in a strong stone house at a little distance from the town. He had amassed a vast quantity of treasure, for he owned a gold mine, which he worked with 100 slaves. He lived with a guard of soldiers, but the Maroons felt confident that by attacking from the shore side of the house they could easily break in upon him. His gold was stored in his house "in certain great chests." If they succeeded in surprising the house, it would be an easy matter to make a spoil of the whole. Drake did not care for the scheme, as it involved a long march through the woods. He hesitated to put his men to so much labour, for he had now seen something of this woodland marching, and knew how desperate a toil it was. He thought that they would be better employed in gathering victuals and looking out for treasure transports. They might practise both crafts at the same time by separating into two companies. John Oxenham, in the Bear frigate, could sail "Eastwards towards Tolu, to see what store of victuals would come athwart his halse." In the meanwhile he would take the Minion pinnace to the west, to "lie off and on the Cabezas" in order to intercept any treasure transports coming from Veragua or Nicaragua to Nombre de Dios. Those of the Maroons who cared to stay aboard the Pascha were free to do so. The rest were dismissed "most courteously" with "gifts and favours" of the sorts most pleasing to them, such as knives, iron, coloured ribbons and cloth.
The companies were picked; the pinnaces received their stores; sails were bent and set, and the two boats sailed away to their stations. Off the Cabezas the Minion fell in with a frigate from Nicaragua "in which was some gold and a Genoese pilot." Drake treated this pilot in his usual liberal manner till he won him over to his interests. He had been in Veragua harbour, he said, but eight days before. He knew the channel perfectly, so that he could carry Drake in, at night if need were, at any state of the tide. The townsfolk, he said, were in a panic on account of Drake's presence in those seas; they were in such a state of terror that they could not decide upon a scheme to defend the town in case he attacked it. Signor Pezoro was thinking of removing himself to the South Seas. The harbour lay open to any enemy, for the only guns in the place were up at the town, about fifteen miles from the haven's mouth. If Drake made a sudden dash, he said, he would be able to cut out a frigate in the harbour. She was fitting for the sea there, and was very nearly ready to sail. She had aboard her "above a million of gold," which, with a little promptness and courage, might become the property of the raiders. On hearing of this golden booty, Drake thought of all that the Maroons had told him. He was minded to return to the anchorage, to fetch off some of those who had lived with Senor Pezoro, in order that he might have a check upon the pilot's statements, and a guide, if need were, to the city. The Genoese dissuaded him from this scheme, pointing out that a return to the ship would waste several days, during which the frigate might get away to sea. Drake, therefore, took the packets of gold from the Nicaraguan prize, and dismissed her "somewhat lighter to hasten her journey." He then got his oars out, and made all haste to the west, under a press of sail, "to get this harbour, and to enter it by night." He hoped to cut out the treasure ship and to have a look at the house of Senor Pezoro—two investments which would "make" the voyage if all went well. But as the boat drew near to the mouth of the harbour "we heard the report of two Chambers, and farther off, about a league within the bay, two others as it were answering them." The Spaniards had espied the boat, and had fired signal guns to warn the shipping and the town. The report of the guns called the Spaniards to arms—an exercise they were more ready to since the Governor of Panama had warned them to expect Drake. "The rich Gnuffe Pezoro," it was thought, had paid the cost of the sentries. "It was not God's will that we should enter at that time," says the narrative. The wind shifted opportunely to the westward; and Drake put his helm up, and ran away to the east, where he picked up the Bear, "according to appointment." Oxenham had had a very prosperous and pleasant cruise, for off Tolu he had come across a victual frigate "in which there were ten men [whom they set ashore], great store of maize, twenty-eight fat hogs, and two hundred hens." The lading was discharged into the Pascha on the 19th and 20th of March as a seasonable refreshment to the company. The frigate pleased Drake, for though she was small (not twenty tons, in fact) she was strong, new, and of a beautiful model. As soon as her cargo was out of her, he laid her on her side, and scraped and tallowed her "to make her a Man of war." He then fitted her with guns from the Pascha, and stored her with provisions for a cruise. The Spaniards taken in her had spoken of "two little galleys built in Nombre de Dios, to waft [tow] the Chagres Fleet to and fro." They were "not yet both launched," and the Chagres fleet lay waiting for them within the mouth of the Chagres River. Drake "purposed now to adventure for that Fleet." The day on which he made his plan was Easter Sunday, the 22nd March. "And to hearten his company" for that bold attempt "he feasted them that Easter Day with great cheer and cheerfulness" on the dainties taken from the Spaniards.
The next day, he manned "the new tallowed frigate of Tolu," and sailed away west (with Oxenham in the Bear in company) "towards the Cativaas," where they landed to refresh themselves. As they played about upon the sand, flinging pebbles at the land-crabs, they saw a sail to the westward coming down towards them. They at once repaired aboard, and made sail, and "plied towards" the stranger, thinking her to be a Spaniard. The stranger held on her course as though to run the raiders aboard, "till he perceived by our confidence that we were no Spaniards, and conjectured we were those Englishmen of whom he had heard long before." He bore up suddenly under the lee of the English ships, "and in token of amity shot off his lee ordnance"—a salute which Drake at once acknowledged by a similar discharge. As the ships neared each other, the stranger hailed Drake, saying that he was Captain Tetû, or Le Testu, a Frenchman of Newhaven (or Havre), in desperate want of water. He had been looking for Drake, he said, for the past five weeks, "and prayed our Captain to help him to some water, for that he had nothing but wine and cider aboard him, which had brought his men into great sickness"—gastritis or dysentery. Drake at once sent a boat aboard with a cask or two of drink, and some fresh meat, "willing him to follow us to the next port, where he should have both water and victuals."
As soon as they had brought their ships to anchor, the French captain sent Drake "a case of pistols, and a fair gilt scimitar (which had been the late King's of France) whom Monsieur Montgomery hurt in the eye." The Frenchman had received it from "Monsieur Strozze," or Strozzi, a famous general of banditti. Drake accepted the gift in the magnificent manner peculiar to him, sending the bearer back to Tetû with a chain of gold supporting a tablet of enamel. Having exchanged gifts, according to the custom of the sea, Captain Tetû came off to visit Drake. He was a Huguenot privateer, who had been in France at the time of the Massacre of St Bartholomew, the murder of Coligny, "and divers others murders." He had "thought those Frenchmen the happiest which were farthest from France," and had, therefore, put to sea to escape from persecution. He was now cruising off the Spanish Main, "a Man of war as we were." He had heard much of Drake's spoils upon the coast, and "desired to know" how he too might win a little Spanish gold. His ship was a fine craft of more than eighty tons, manned by seventy men and boys. He asked Drake to take him into partnership, so that they might share the next adventure.
The offer was not very welcome to Drake, for the French company was more than double the strength of the English. Drake had but thirty-one men left alive, and he regarded Tetû with a good deal of jealousy and a good deal of distrust. Yet with only thirty-one men he could hardly hope to succeed in any great adventure. If he joined with the French, he thought there would be danger of their appropriating most of the booty after using him and his men as their tools. The English sailors were of the same opinion; but it was at last decided that Tetû, with twenty picked hands, should be admitted to partnership, "to serve with our Captain for halves." It was something of a risk, but by admitting only twenty of the seventy men the risk was minimised. They were not enough to overpower Drake in case they wished to make away with all the booty, yet they made him sufficiently strong to attempt the schemes he had in hand. An agreement was, therefore, signed; a boat was sent to the secret anchorage to bring the Cimmeroons; and the three ships then sailed away to the east, to the magazines of food which Drake had stored some weeks before.
Here they lay at anchor for five or six days to enable the sick Frenchmen to get their health and strength after their weeks of misery. The Huguenot ship was revictualled from the magazines and then taken with the Bear into the secret haven. The third pinnace, the Lion, had been sunk a few days before, but the other two, the Eion and the Minion, with the new Tolu frigate, were set in order for the next adventure. Drake chose fifteen of his remaining thirty hands, and sent them down into the pinnaces with a few Maroons. The twenty Frenchmen joined him, under their captain, and the expedition then set sail for Rio Francisco, fifteen miles from Nombre de Dios. As they sailed, the Maroons gave out that the frigate was too deep a ship to cross the Rio Francisco bar, which had little water on it at that season of the year. They, therefore, sailed her back, and left her at the Cabezas, "manned with English and French, in the charge of Richard Doble," with strict orders not to venture out until the return of the pinnaces.
Putting her complement into the pinnaces, they again set sail for the mouth of the Francisco River. They crossed the bar without difficulty, and rowed their boats upstream. They landed some miles from the sea, leaving the pinnaces in charge of some Maroons. These had orders to leave the river, and hide themselves in the Cabezas, and to await the raiders at the landing-place, without fail, in four days' time.
As soon as Drake had landed, he ordered the company in the formation he had used on his march to Panama. He enjoined strict silence upon all, and gave the word to march. They set forward silently, through the cane-brakes and lush undergrowth, upon the long, seven leagues march to the town of Nombre de Dios. They marched all day uncomplainingly, so that at dusk they had crept to within a mile of the trackway, a little to the south of the town. They were now on some gently rising ground, with the swamps and Nombre de Dios at their feet. It made a good camping-ground; and there they passed the night of the 31st of March, resting and feasting "in great stillness, in a most convenient place." They were so close to the town that they could hear the church bells ringing and the clatter of the hammers in the bay, where the carpenters were at work upon the treasure ships. They were working there busily, beating in the rivets all night, in the coolness, to fit the ships for sea. Nearer to them, a little to the west, was the trackway, so that they could hear the mule trains going past to Panama with a great noise of ringing bells.
Early on the morning of the 1st of April they heard a great clang of bells among the woods. The mule trains were coming in from Venta Cruz—three mule trains according to the Cimmeroons, laden with "more gold and silver than all of us could bear away." The adventurers took their weapons, and crept through the scrub to the trackway "to hear the bells." In a few minutes, when each side of the track had been manned by the adventurers, the treasure trains trotted up with a great clang and clatter. There were three complete recuas, "one of 50 mules, the other two of 70 each, every of which carried 300 lbs. of silver; which in all amounted to near thirty tons." The trains were guarded by a half company of Spanish foot, "fifteen to each company." The soldiers marched by the side of the trains, blowing on their matches to keep the smouldering ends alight. As the leading mules came up with the head of the ambush Drake blew a blast upon his whistle. The raiders rose from their hiding-place, and fired a volley of shot and arrows at the troops. At the same moment tarry hands were laid upon the heads of the leading mules, so that "all the rest stayed and lay down as their manner is." The Spanish soldiers, taken by surprise, were yet a credit to their colours. They fell into confusion at the first assault, but immediately rallied. A brisk skirmish began, over the bodies of the mules, with sharp firing of muskets and arrows. Captain Tetû was hit in the belly with a charge of hail-shot; a Maroon was shot dead; and then the sailors cleared the road with a rush, driving the Spanish pell-mell towards the town. Then with feverish hands they cast adrift the mule packs "to ease some of the mules, which were heaviest loaden, of their carriage." They were among such wealth as few men have looked upon at the one time. How much they took will never now be known, but each man there had as much pure gold, in bars and quoits, as he could carry. They buried about fifteen tons of silver "partly in the burrows which the great land-crabs had made in the earth, and partly under old trees which were fallen thereabout, and partly in the sand and gravel of a river, "not very deep of water." Some of it, no doubt, remains there to this day.
In about two hours' time, they were ready to return to their pinnaces. They formed into order, and hurried away towards the woods, making as much haste as the weight of plunder would allow. As they gained the shelter of the forest they heard a troop of horse, with some arquebusiers, coming hurriedly to the rescue of the mules. They attempted no pursuit, for no Spaniard cared to enter the forest to attack a force in which Maroons were serving. The raiders were, therefore, able to get clear away into the jungle. All that day and the next day they hurried eastward through the scrub. They made a brief pause, as they tramped, to lay down Captain Tetû, whose wound prevented him from marching. He could go no farther, and begged that he might be left behind in the forest, "in hope that some rest would recover him better strength." Two French sailors stayed with him to protect him.
CHAPTER VI
THE ADVENTURE OF THE RAFT
Drake's voyage to the Catives—Homeward bound—The interrupted sermon
When the retreating force had gone about two leagues, they discovered that a Frenchman was missing from the ranks. He had not been hurt in the fight; but there was no time to search for him (as a matter of fact, he had drunk too much wine, and had lost himself in the woods), so again they pressed on to the pinnaces and safety. On the 3rd of April, utterly worn out with the hurry of the retreat, they came to the Francisco River. They were staggering under the weight of all their plunder, and, to complete their misery, they were wet to the skin with a rain-storm which had raged all night. To their horror they found no pinnaces awaiting them, but out at sea, not far from the coast, were seven Spanish pinnaces which had been beating up the inlets for them. These were now rowing as though directly from the rendezvous at the Cabezas, so that the draggled band upon the shore made no doubt that their pinnaces had been sunk, their friends killed or taken, and the retreat cut off.
Drake's chief fear, on seeing these Spanish boats, was that "they had compelled our men by torture to confess where his frigate and ships were." To the disheartened folk about him it seemed that all hope of returning home was now gone, for they made no doubt that the ships were by this time destroyed. Some of them flung down their gold in despair, while all felt something of the general panic. The Maroons recommended that the march should be made by land, "though it were sixteen days' journey," promising them that, if the ships were taken, they might sojourn among them in the forest as long as they wished. The sailors were in too great "distress and perplexity" to listen to counsel; but Drake had a genius for handling situations of the kind, and he now came forward to quell the uproar. The men were babbling and swearing in open mutiny, and the case demanded violent remedy. He called for silence, telling the mutineers that he was no whit better off than they were; that it was no time to give way to fear, but a time to keep a stiff upper lip, and play the man. He reminded them that, even if the Spaniards had taken the pinnaces, "which God forbid," "yet they must have time to search them, time to examine the mariners, time to execute their resolution after it is determined." "Before all these times be taken," he exclaimed angrily, "we may get to our ships if ye will." They might not hope to go by land, he said, for it would take too long, and the ways would be too foul. But why should they not go by water? There was the river at their feet, roaring down in full spate, tumbling the trunks of trees destroyed in last night's storm. Why in the world should they not make a raft of the trees, "and put ourselves to sea"? "I will be one," he concluded, "who will be the other?" The appeal went home to the sailors. An Englishman named John Smith at once came forward, with a couple of Frenchmen "who could swim very well." The Maroons formed into a line beside the river, and the tree trunks were caught and hauled ashore to form the body of the raft. The branches were trimmed with the hatchets they had brought to clear a path through the forest. The boles were fastened together with thongs stolen from the recua, and with the pliant bejuca growing all about them. The men worked merrily, convinced that Drake would find a way to bring the ship to them. As soon as the raft was built, a mast was stepped in her, on which a biscuit sack was hoisted for a sail. A young tree, working in a crutch, served them as a steering oar. The four men went aboard, a line was laid out to the bar, and the curious raft was hauled off into the sea. The last of the storm of the night before was still roaring up aloft. A high sea was running, and the wind blew strong from the west. Drake put his helm up, and stood off before it, crying out to the company that "if it pleased God, he should put his foot in safety aboard his frigate, he would, God willing, by one means or other get them all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies."
Those who have sailed on a raft in calm water will appreciate the courage of Drake's deed. The four men aboard her had to squat in several inches of salt water, holding on for their lives, while the green seas came racing over them "to the arm pits" at "every surge of the wave." The day was intensely hot in spite of the wind, and "what with the parching of the sun and what with the beating of the salt water, they had all of them their skins much fretted away." With blistered and cracking faces, parched with the heat and the salt, and shivering from the continual immersion, they sailed for six hours, making about a knot and a half an hour. When they had made their third league "God gave them the sight of two pinnaces" beating towards them under oars and sail, and making heavy weather of it. The sight of the boats was a great joy to the four sufferers on the raft. They edged towards them as best they could, crying out that all was safe, "so that there was no cause of fear." It was now twilight, and the wind, already fierce, was blowing up into a gale. In the failing light, with the spray sweeping into their eyes, the men aboard the pinnaces could not see the raft, nor could they make headway towards her with the wind as it was. As Drake watched, he saw them bear up for a cove to the lee of a point of land, where they could shelter for the night. He waited a few moments to see if they would put forth again, but soon saw that they had anchored. He then ran his raft ashore to windward of them, on the other side of the headland. He was very angry with the pinnaces' hands for their disobedience of orders. Had they done as he had commanded them, they would have been in the Francisco River the night before, and all the pains and danger of the raft would have been unnecessary. Drake, therefore, resolved to play a trick upon them. As soon as he landed, he set off running to the haven where the boats lay, followed by John Smith and the two Frenchmen—all running "in great haste," "as if they had been chased by the enemy." The hands in the pinnaces saw the four men hurrying towards them, and at once concluded that the Spaniards had destroyed the expedition, and that these four hunted wretches were the sole survivors. In an agony of suspense they got the four men into the boats, eagerly asking where the others were, and in what state. To these inquiries "he answered coldly, 'Well'"—an answer which convinced them that their mates were either dead or in the hands of the Spaniards. Drake watched their misery for a little while, and then being "willing to rid all doubts, and fill them with joy," he took from the bosom of his shirt "a quoit of gold," giving thanks to God that the voyage was at last "made." Some Frenchmen were in the boat, and to these he broke the news of Captain Tetû's wound and how he had been left behind in the forest, "and two of his company with him." He then bade the men to get the grapnels up, as he was determined to row to the Rio Francisco that night. After the anchors were raised, and the oars shipped, a few hours of desperate rowing brought them to the river's mouth, where the company had camped about a fire. By the dawn of the next day the whole expedition was embarked, and the pinnaces (their planking cracking with the weight of treasure) were running eastward with a fresh wind dead astern. They picked up the frigate that morning, and then stood on for the ships, under sail, with great joy. Soon they were lying safe at anchor in the shelter of the secret haven at Fort Diego. All the gold and silver were laid together in a heap, and there in the full view of all hands, French and English, Drake weighed it on the steward's meat scales, dividing it into two equal portions, to the satisfaction of everyone. The French took their portion aboard their ship as soon as it had been allotted to them. They then begged Drake for some more sea-stores, to fit them for the sea, and he gave them a quantity of provisions from his secret magazines. They then filled their water casks, and stood away to the west, to cruise for a few days off the Cabezas in the hope of obtaining news of Captain Tetû.
As soon as they had gone, Drake ordered his old ship, the Pascha, to be stripped of all things necessary for the fitting of the frigate, the Spanish prize. The long months at Port Diego had left her very foul, and it was easier to dismantle her than to fit her for the sea. While she was being stripped to equip the frigate, Drake organised another expedition to recover Captain Tetû and the buried silver. His men would not allow him to take a part in this final adventure, so Oxenham, and one Thomas Sherwell, were placed in command. Drake accompanied them as far as the Francisco River, taking an oar in one of the pinnaces which conveyed them. As they rowed lightly up the stream, the reeds were thrust aside, and one of Captain Tetû's two comrades came staggering out, and fell upon his knees. In a broken voice he thanked God that ever Drake was born to deliver him thus, after he had given up all hope.
He told them that he had been surprised by the Spaniards half-an-hour after he had taken up his post beside his wounded captain. As the Spaniards came upon them, he took to his heels, followed by his mate. He had been carrying a lot of pillage, but as he ran he threw it all away, including a box of jewels, which caught his mate's eye as it fell in the grass. "His fellow took it up, and burdened himself so sore that he could make no speed," so that the Spaniards soon overtook him, and carried him away with Captain Tetû. Having taken two of the three Frenchmen, the Spaniards were content to leave the chase, and the poor survivor had contrived to reach the Rio Francisco after several days of wandering in the woods. As for the silver which they had buried so carefully in the sands, "he thought that it was all gone ... for that ... there had been near two thousand Spaniards and Negroes there to dig and search for it." Notwithstanding this report, John Oxenham with a company of twenty-seven men, marched west to view the place. He found that the earth "every way a mile distant had been digged and turned up," for the Spaniards had put their captives to the torture to learn what had been done with the treasure. Most of it had been recovered by this means, "yet nevertheless, for all that narrow search," a little of the dew of heaven was still glimmering in the crab-holes. The company was able to rout out some quantity of refined gold, with thirteen bars of silver, weighing some forty pounds apiece. With this spoil upon their backs, they returned to the Rio Francisco, where the pinnaces took them off to the frigate.
Now that the voyage was made, it was "high time to think of homeward," before the Spaniards should fit out men-of-war against them. Drake was anxious to give the Pascha to the Spanish prisoners, as some compensation for their weeks of captivity. He could not part with her, however, till he had secured another vessel to act as tender, or victualler, to his little frigate. He determined to make a cast to the east, as far as the Rio Grande, to look for some suitable ship. The Huguenot privateer, which had been lying off the Cabezas, sailed eastward in his company, having abandoned Captain Tetû and his two shipmates to the mercies of the Spaniards. They stood along the coast together as far as the Isles of San Barnardo, where the French ship parted company. The Spanish plate fleet, with its guard of galleons, was riding at the entry to Cartagena, and the Frenchmen feared that by coming too near they might be taken. They, therefore, saluted Drake with guns and colours, and shaped their course for Hispaniola and home.
But Drake held on in his way in a bravery, determined to see the Rio Grande before returning home. He sailed past Cartagena almost within gunshot, "in the sight of all the Fleet, with a flag of St George in the main top of our frigate, with silk streamers and ancients down to the water, sailing forward with a large wind." Late that night they arrived off the mouth of the Rio Grande, where they shortened sail, "and lay off and on." At midnight the wind veered round to the eastward, so that the victuallers at anchor in the river were able to set sail for Cartagena. About two o'clock in the morning a frigate slipped over the bar under small sail, and ran past Drake towards the west. The English at once opened fire upon her with their shot and arrows, to which the Spaniards replied with their quick-firing guns. While the English gunners plied her with missiles a pinnace laid her aboard, at which the Spaniards leaped overboard and swam for the shore. The newly taken frigate proved to be some seven or eight tons larger than the one in which the English had come to the east. She was laden with maize, hens, and hogs, and a large quantity of honey from the wild bees of Nueva Reyna. As soon as the day dawned, the two frigates sailed away again to the Cabezas to prepare for the voyage home.
The prize's cargo was discharged upon the beach. Both frigates were then hove down, and the Spanish prisoners (taken some weeks before) were allowed to depart aboard the Pascha. The barnacles were scrubbed and burned off the frigates; their bends were resheathed and retallowed; the provisions were stowed in good trim; water casks were filled; and all things set in order for the voyage. The dainty pinnaces, which had done them such good service, and carried them so many weary miles, were then torn to pieces, and burned, "that the Cimaroons might have the iron-work." Lastly, Drake asked Pedro and three Maroon chiefs to go through both the frigates "to see what they liked." He wished them to choose themselves some farewell gifts, and promised them that they should have what they asked, unless it were essential to the safety of the vessels. We are not told the choice of the three Maroon chiefs, but we read that Pedro chose the "fair gilt scimitar," the gift of Captain Tetû, which had once belonged to Henri II. of France. Drake had not meant to part with it, but Pedro begged for it so prettily, through the mouth of one Francis Tucker, that Drake gave it him "with many good words," together with a quantity of silk and linen for the wives of those who had marched with him. They then bade adieu to the delighted Pedro and his fellows, for it was time to set sail for England. With a salute of guns and colours, with the trumpets sounding, and the ships' companies to give a cheer, the two little frigates slipped out of their harbour, and stood away under all sail for Cape St Antonio. They took a small barque laden with hides upon the way, but dismissed her as being useless to them after they had robbed her of her pump. At Cape St Antonio they salted and dried a number of turtles, as provisions for the voyage. Then they took their departure cheerfully towards the north, intending to call at Newfoundland to fill with water. The wind blew steadily from the south and west to blow them home, so that this scheme was abandoned. Abundant rain supplied their water casks, the wind held steady, the sun shone, and the blue miles slipped away. "Within twenty-three days" they passed "from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly," the two Spanish frigates being admirable sailers. With the silk streamers flying in a bravery the two ships sailed into Plymouth "on Sunday, about sermon time, August the 9th, 1573." There they dropped anchor to the thunder of the guns, to the great joy of all the townsfolk. "The news of our Captain's return ... did so speedily pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire and delight to see him, that very few or none remained with the Preacher, all hastening to see the evidence of God's love and blessing towards our Gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of our Captain's labour and success. Soli Deo Gloria."
We may take leave of him at this point, with the Plymouth bells ringing him a welcome and the worshippers flocking down to see him land.
Note.—"There were at the time," says the narrative, "belonging to Cartagena, Nombre de Dios, Rio Grande, Santa Marta, Rio de la Hacha, Venta Cruz, Veragua, Nicaragua, the Honduras, Jamaica, etc.; above 200 frigates; some of 120 tons, others but of 10 or 12 tons, but the most of 30 or 40 tons, which all had intercourse between Cartagena and Nombre de Dios. The most of which, during our abode in those parts, we took; and some of them twice or thrice each."
Most of these frigates were provision ships, but in all of them, no doubt, there was a certain amount of gold and silver, besides uncut jewels or pearls from the King's Islands. We do not know the amount of Drake's plunder, but with the spoil of all these frigates, added to the loot of the recua, it must have been very considerable. He may have made as much as £40,000, or more, or less. It is as well to put the estimate low.
CHAPTER VII
JOHN OXENHAM
The voyage—His pinnace—Into the South Sea—Disaster—His unhappy end
The John Oxenham, or Oxnam, who followed Drake to Nombre de Dios, and stood with him that sunny day watching the blue Pacific from the tree-top, was a Devonshire gentleman from South Tawton. He was of good family and well to do. He may, perhaps, have given money towards the fitting out of Drake's squadron. It is at least certain that he held in that voyage a position of authority considerably greater than that of "soldier, mariner, and cook"—the rates assigned to him by Sir Richard Hawkins. On his return from the Nombre de Dios raid, he disappears, and it is uncertain whether he followed Drake to Ireland, or settled down at home in Devonshire. He did not forget the oath he had sworn to his old Captain, to follow him to the South Sea in God's good time. But after waiting a year or two, and finding that Drake was not ready to attempt that adventure, he determined to go at his own charge, with such men as he could find. He was well known in the little Devon seaports as a bold sailor and fiery sea-captain. He was "a fine figure of a man," and the glory of Drake's raid was partly his. He was looked upon as one of the chief men in that foray. He had, therefore, little difficulty in getting recruits for a new voyage to the Main.
In the year 1574 he set sail from Plymouth in a fine ship of 140 tons, with a crew of seventy men and boys. He made a fair passage to the Main, and anchored in Drake's old anchorage—either that of the secret haven, in the Gulf of Darien, or that farther west, among the Catives. Here he went ashore, and made friends with the Maroons, some of whom, no doubt, were old acquaintances, still gay with beads or iron-work which he had given them two years before. They told him that the treasure trains "from Panama to Nombre de Dios" were now strongly guarded by Spanish soldiers, so that he might not hope to win such a golden booty as Drake had won, by holding up a recua on the march. Oxenham, therefore, determined "to do that which never any man before enterprised"—by leaving his ship, marching over the watershed, building a pinnace in the woods, and going for a cruise on the South Sea. He dragged his ship far into the haven, struck her topmasts, and left her among the trees, beached on the mud, and covered with green boughs so as to be hidden from view. Her great guns were swung ashore, and buried, and the graves of them strewn with leaves and brushwood. He then armed his men with their calivers and their sacks of victual, "and so went with the Negroes," dragging with them two small guns, probably quick-firing guns, mounted on staves of wood or iron. Hawkins says that he left four or five men behind him as shipkeepers. After a march of "about twelve leagues into the maine-land" the Maroons brought him to a river "that goeth to the South Sea." Here the party halted, and built themselves little huts of boughs to live in while they made themselves a ship.
They cut down some trees here, and built themselves a pinnace "which was five and fortie foot by the keele." They seem to have brought their sails and tackling with them, but had they not done so they could have made shift with the rough Indian cloth and the fibrous, easily twisted bark of the maho-tree. Having built this little ship, they went aboard of her, and dropped downstream to the Pacific—the first English crew, but not the first Englishman, to sail those waters. Six negroes came with them to act as guides. As soon as they had sailed out of the river's mouth, they made for the Pearl Islands, or Islands of the King, "which is five and twentie leagues from Panama." Here they lay very close, in some snug inlet hidden from the sea. Some of them went inland to a rocky cliff, to watch the seas for ships coming northward from Peru with treasure from the gold and silver mines. The islands are in the fairway between Panama and Lima, but ten days passed before the watchers saw a sail, and cried out to those in the boat. "There came a small Barke by, which came from Peru, from a place called Quito"; and the pinnace dashed alongside of her, and carried her by the sword, before her sailors learned what was the matter. She was laden with "sixtie thousand pezos of golde, and much victuals." John Oxenham took her lading, and kept the barque by him, while he stayed on at the islands. At the end of six days, another "barke" came by, from Lima, "in whiche he tooke an hundred thousand pezos of silver in barres." This was plunder enough to "make" any voyage, and with this John Oxenham was content. Before he sailed away, however, he marched upon one or two of the Pearl fisheries, where he found a few pearls. He then sailed northward to the river's mouth taking his prizes with him, with all the prisoners.
At the river's mouth he very foolishly "sent away the two prizes that hee tooke"—a piece of clemency which knotted the rope under his ear. He then sailed up the river, helping his pinnace by poles, oars, and warps, but making slow progress.
Before he reached this river, the negroes of the Pearl Islands sent word to the Governor of Panama that English pirates had been in those seas plundering their fisheries. "Within two days" the Governor despatched four galleys, "with negroes to rowe," and twenty-five musketeers in each galley, under the Captain John de Ortega, to search the Pearl Islands very thoroughly for those robbers. They reached the islands, learned in which direction the pirate ships had gone, and rowed away north to overtake them. As they came near the land, they fell in with the two prizes, the men of which were able to tell them how the pirates had gone up the river but a few days before.
John de Ortega came to the river's mouth with his four galleys, and "knew not which way to take, because there were three partitions in the river, to goe up in." He decided at last to go up the greatest, and was actually rowing towards it, when "he saw comming down a lesser river many feathers of hennes, which the Englishmen had pulled to eate." These drifting feathers, thrown overboard so carelessly, decided the Spanish captain. He turned up the lesser river "where he saw the feathers," and bade his negroes give way heartily. Four days later, he saw the English pinnace drawn up on the river-bank "upon the sands," guarded by six of her crew. The musketeers at once fired a volley, which killed one of the Englishmen, and sent the other five scattering to the cover of the woods. There was nothing in the pinnace but bread and meat. All the gold pezoes and the bars of silver had been landed.
The presence of the boat guard warned the Spanish captain that the main body of the pirates was near at hand. He determined to land eighty of his musketeers to search those woods before returning home. "Hee had not gone half a league" before he found one of the native huts, thatched with palm leaves, in which were "all the Englishmen's goods and the gold and silver also." The Englishmen were lying about the hut, many of them unarmed, with no sentry keeping a lookout for them. Taken by surprise as they were, they ran away into the woods, leaving all things in the hands of the Spaniards. The Spaniards carried the treasure back to the galleys, and rowed slowly down the river "without following the Englishmen any further."
It appeared later, that Oxenham had ordered his men to carry the gold and silver from the place where they had hauled the pinnace ashore, to the place where the ship was hidden. To this the mariners joyfully assented, "for hee promised to give them part of it besides their wages." Unfortunately, they wished this "part of it" paid to them at once, before they shifted an ingot—a want which seemed to reflect upon John Oxenham's honour. He was naturally very angry "because they would not take his word" to pay them something handsome when he reached home. He was a choleric sea-captain, and began, very naturally, to damn them for their insolence. "He fell out with them, and they with him," says Hakluyt. One of them, stung by his Captain's curses, "would have killed the Captaine" there and then, with his caliver,[2] or sailor's knife. This last act was too much. Oxenham gave them a few final curses, and told them that, if such were their temper, they should not so much as touch a quoit of the treasure, but that he would get Maroons to carry it. He then left them, and went alone into the forest to find Maroons for the porterage. As he came back towards the camp, with a gang of negroes, he met the five survivors of the boat guard "and the rest also which ran from the house," all very penitent and sorry now that the mischief had been done. They told him of the loss of the treasure, and looked to him for guidance and advice, promising a better behaviour in the future. Oxenham told them that if they helped him to recover the treasure, they should have half of it, "if they got it from the Spaniards." "The Negroes promised to help him with their bows and arrows," and with this addition to their force they set off down the river-bank in pursuit.
After three days' travelling, they came upon the Spaniards, in camp, on the bank of the river, apparently in some strong position, sheltered with trees. Oxenham at once fell on "with great fury," exposing himself and his men to the bullets of the musketeers. The Spaniards were used to woodland fighting. Each musketeer retired behind a tree, and fired from behind it, without showing more than his head and shoulders, and then but for a moment. The Englishmen charged up the slope to the muzzles of the guns, but were repulsed with loss, losing eleven men killed and five men taken alive. The number of wounded is not stated. The negroes, who were less active in the charge, lost only five men. The Spaniards loss was two killed "and five sore hurt." The English were beaten off the ground, and routed. They made no attempt to rally, and did not fall on a second time.
The Spanish captain asked his prisoners why they had not crossed the isthmus to their ship in the days before the pursuit began. To this the prisoners answered with the tale of their mutinies, adding that their Captain would not stay longer in those parts now that his company had been routed. The Spaniards then buried their dead, retired on board their galleys, and rowed home to Panama, taking with them their prisoners and the English pinnace. When they arrived in that city, the prisoners were tortured till they confessed where their ship was hidden. Advice was then sent to Nombre de Dios, where four pinnaces were at once equipped to seek out the secret haven. They soon found the ship, "and brought her to Nombre de Dios," where her guns and buried stores were divided among the King's ships employed in the work of the coast. While this search for the ship was being made, the Viceroy of Peru sent out 150 musketeers to destroy the "fiftie English men" remaining alive. These troops, conducted by Maroons, soon found the English in a camp by the river, "making of certaine Canoas to goe into the North Sea, and there to take some Bark or other." Many of them were sick and ill, "and were taken." The rest escaped into the forest, where they tried to make some arrangement with the negroes. The negroes, it seems, were angry with Oxenham for his failure to keep his word to them. They had agreed to help him on condition that they might have all the Spanish prisoners to torture "to feed their insatiable revenges." Oxenham had released his prisoners, as we have seen, and the Maroons had been disappointed of their dish of roasted Spaniards' hearts. They were naturally very angry, and told John Oxenham, when he came to them for help, that his misfortunes were entirely due to his own folly. Had he kept his word, they said, he would have reached his ship without suffering these reverses. After a few days, being weary of keeping so many foreigners, they betrayed the English sailors to the Spaniards. "They were brought to Panama," to the justice of that city, who asked John Oxenham "whether hee had the Queene's licence, or the licence of any other Prince or Lord, for his attempt." To this John Oxenham answered that he had no licence saving his sword. He was then condemned to death with the rest of his company, with the exception of two (or five) ships' boys. After a night or two in Panama prison, within sound of the surf of the Pacific, the mariners were led out, and shot. Oxenham and the master and the pilot were sent to Lima, where they were hanged as pirates in the square of the city. A force of musketeers was then sent into the interior, to reduce the Maroons "which had assisted those English men." The punitive force "executed great justice," till "the Negroes grew wise and wary," after which there was no more justice to be done. The ships' boys, who were spared, were probably sold as slaves in Lima, or Panama. They probably lived in those towns for the rest of their lives, and may have become good Catholics, and wealthy, after due probation under the whip.
Sir Richard Hawkins, who was in Panama in 1593, and who may have heard a Spanish version of the history, tells us that aboard the treasure ship taken by Oxenham were "two peeces of speciall estimation: the one a table of massie gold, with emralds ... a present to the King; the other a lady of singular beautie." According to Sir Richard, John Oxenham fell in love with this lady, and it was through her prayers that he released the other prisoners. He is said to have "kept the lady" when he turned the other prisoners away. The lady's "sonne, or a nephew," who was among those thus discharged, made every effort to redeem his mother (or aunt). He prayed so vehemently and "with such diligence," to the Governor at Panama, that the four galleys were granted to him "within few howers." The story is not corroborated; but Oxenham was very human, and Spanish beauty, like other beauty, is worth sinning for.
A year or two later, Captain Andrew Barker of Bristol, while cruising off the Main, captured a Spanish frigate "between Chagre and Veragua." On board of her, pointing through the port-holes, were four cast-iron guns which had been aboard John Oxenham's ship. They were brought to England, and left in the Scilly Islands, A.D. 1576.
Note.—The story of John Oxenham is taken from "Purchas his Pilgrimes," vol. iv. (the original large 4to edition); and from Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 526. Another version of the tale is given in Sir R. Hawkins' "Observations." He is also mentioned in Hakluyt's account of Andrew Barker.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SPANISH RULE IN HISPANIOLA
Rise of the buccaneers—The hunters of the wild bulls—Tortuga—Buccaneer politics—Buccaneer customs
In 1492, when Columbus landed on Hayti, he found there about 1,000,000 Indians, of a gentle refinement of manners, living peaceably under their kings or caciques. They were "faint-hearted creatures," "a barbarous sort of people, totally given to sensuality and a brutish custom of life, hating all manner of labour, and only inclined to run from place to place." The Spaniards killed many thousands of them, hunted a number with their bloodhounds, sent a number to work the gold-mines, and caused about a third of the population to commit suicide or die of famine. They discouraged sensuality and a distaste for work so zealously that within twenty years they had reduced the population to less than a twentieth part of its original 1,000,000 of souls. They then called the island Hispaniola, and built a city, on the south coast, as the capital. This city they called Nueva Ysabel, in honour of the Queen of Spain, but the name was soon changed to that of St Domingo.[3]
Those Indians who were not enslaved, retired to the inmost parts of the island, to the shelter of the thickest woods, where they maintained themselves by hunting. The swine and cattle, which had belonged to their fellows in their prosperous days, ran wild, and swarmed all over the island in incredible numbers. The dogs of the caciques also took to the woods, where they ranged in packs of two or three score, hunting the wild swine and the calves. The Spaniards seem to have left the interior of the island to the few survivors, as they had too few slaves to cultivate it. They settled themselves at St Domingo, and at various places upon the coast, such as Santiago and St John of Goave. They planted tobacco, sugar, chocolate, and ginger, and carried on a considerable trade with the cities on the Main and in the mother country.
Hayti, or Hispaniola, is in the fairway of ships coming from Europe towards the Main. It was at one time looked upon as the landfall to be made before proceeding west to Vera Cruz or south to Cartagena. The French, English, and Hollanders, who visited those seas "maugre the King of Spain's beard," discovered it at a very early date. They were not slow to recognise its many advantages. The Spanish, who fiercely resented the presence of any foreigners in a part of the world apportioned to Spain by the Pope, did all they could to destroy them whenever they had the opportunity. But the Spanish population in the Indies was small, and spread over a vast area, and restricted, by Government rules, to certain lines of action. They could not patrol the Indies with a number of guarda costas sufficient to exclude all foreign ships, nor could they set guards, in forts, at every estancia or anchorage in the vast coast-line of the islands. Nor could they enforce the Spanish law, which forbade the settlers to trade with the merchants of other countries. It often happened that a ship from France, Holland, or England arrived upon the coasts of Hispaniola, or some other Spanish colony, off some settlement without a garrison. The settlers in these out-of-the-way places were very glad to trade with such ships, for the freight they brought was cheaper and of better quality than that which paid duty to their King. The goods were landed, and paid for. The ships sent their crews ashore to fill fresh water or to reprovision, and then sailed home for Europe, to return the next year with new goods. On the St Domingo or Hispaniola coasts there are countless creeks and inlets, making good harbours, where these smuggling ships might anchor or careen. The land was well watered and densely wooded, so that casks could be filled, and firewood obtained, without difficulty on any part of the coast. Moreover, the herds of wild cattle and droves of wild boars enabled the ships to reprovision without cost. Before the end of the sixteenth century, it had become the custom for privateers to recruit upon the coast of Hispaniola, much as Drake recruited at Port Plenty. The ships used to sail or warp into some snug cove, where they could be laid upon the careen to allow their barnacles to be burned away. The crews then landed, and pitched themselves tents of sails upon the beach, while some of their number took their muskets, and went to kill the cattle in the woods. In that climate, meat does not keep for more than a few hours, and it often happened that the mariners had little salt to spare for the salting of their kill. They, therefore, cured the meat in a manner they had learned from the Carib Indians. The process will be described later on.
The Spanish guarda costas, which were swift small vessels like the frigates Drake captured on the Main, did all they could to suppress the illegal trafficking. Their captains had orders to take no prisoners, and every "interloper" who fell into their hands was either hanged, like Oxenham, or shot, like Oxenham's mariners. The huntsmen in the woods were sometimes fired at by parties of Spaniards from the towns. There was continual war between the Spaniards, the surviving natives, and the interlopers. But when the Massacre of St Bartholomew drove many Huguenots across the water to follow the fortunes of captains like Le Testu, and when the news of Drake's success at Nombre de Dios came to England, the interlopers began to swarm the seas in dangerous multitudes. Before 1580, the western coast of Hispaniola had become a sort of colony, to which the desperate and the adventurous came in companies. The ships used to lie at anchor in the creeks, while a number of the men from each ship went ashore to hunt cattle and wild boars. Many of the sailors found the life of the hunter passing pleasant. There were no watches to keep, no master to obey, no bad food to grumble at, and, better still, no work to do, save the pleasant work of shooting cattle for one's dinner. Many of them found the life so delightful that they did not care to leave it when the time came for their ships to sail for Europe. Men who had failed to win any booty on the "Terra Firma," and had no jolly drinking-bout to look for on the quays at home, were often glad to stay behind at the hunting till some more fortunate captain should put in in want of men. Shipwrecked men, men who were of little use at sea, men "who had disagreed with their commander," began to settle on the coast in little fellowships.[4] They set on foot a regular traffic with the ships which anchored there. They killed great quantities of meat, which they exchanged (to the ships' captains) for strong waters, muskets, powder and ball, woven stuffs, and iron-ware. After a time, they began to preserve the hides, "by pegging them out very tite on the Ground,"—a commodity of value, by which they made much money. The bones they did not seem to have utilised after they had split them for their marrow. The tallow and suet were sold to the ships—the one to grease the ships' bottoms when careened, the other as an article for export to the European countries. It was a wild life, full of merriment and danger. The Spaniards killed a number of them, both French and English, but the casualties on the Spanish side were probably a good deal the heavier. The huntsmen became more numerous. For all that the Spaniards could do, their settlements and factories grew larger. The life attracted people, in spite of all its perils, just as tunny fishing attracted the young gallant in Cervantes. A day of hunting in the woods, a night of jollity, with songs, over a cup of drink, among adventurous companions—qué cosa tan bonita! We cannot wonder that it had a fascination. If a few poor fellows in their leather coats lay out on the savannahs with Spanish bullets in their skulls, the rum went none the less merrily about the camp fires of those who got away.
In 1586, on New Year's Day to be exact, Sir Francis Drake arrived off Hispaniola with his fleet. He had a Greek pilot with him, who helped him up the roads to within gunshot of St Domingo. The old Spanish city was not prepared for battle, and the Governor made of it "a New Year's gift" to the valorous raiders. The town was sacked, and the squadron sailed away to pillage Cartagena and St Augustine. Drake's raid was so successful that privateers came swarming in his steps to plunder the weakened Spanish towns. They settled on the west and north-west coasts of Hispaniola, compelling any Spanish settlers whom they found to retire to the east and south. The French and English had now a firm foothold in the Indies. Without assistance from their respective Governments they had won the right to live there, "maugre the King of Spain's beard." In a few years' time, they had become so prosperous that the Governments of France and England resolved to plant a colony in the Caribbee Islands, or Lesser Antilles. They thought that such a colony would be of benefit to the earlier adventurers by giving them official recognition and protection. A royal colony of French and English was, therefore, established on the island of St Christopher, or St Kitts, one of the Caribbees, to the east of Hispaniola, in the year 1625. The island was divided between the two companies. They combined very amicably in a murderous attack upon the natives, and then fell to quarrelling about the possession of an island to the south.
As the Governments had foreseen, their action in establishing a colony upon St Kitts did much to stimulate the settlements in Hispaniola. The hunters went farther afield, for the cattle had gradually left the western coast for the interior. The anchorages by Cape Tiburon, or "Cape Shark," and Samana, were filled with ships, both privateers and traders, loading with hides and tallow or victualling for a raid upon the Main. The huntsmen and hidecurers, French and English, had grown wealthy. Many of them had slaves, in addition to other valuable property. Their growing wealth made them anxious to secure themselves from any sudden attack by land or sea.
At the north-west end of Hispaniola, separated from that island by a narrow strip of sea, there is a humpbacked little island, a few miles long, rather hilly in its centre, and very densely wooded. At a distance it resembles a swimming turtle, so that the adventurers on Hispaniola called it Tortuga, or Turtle Island. Later on, it was known as Petit Guaves. Between this Tortuga and the larger island there was an excellent anchorage for ships, which had been defended at one time by a Spanish garrison. The Spaniards had gone away, leaving the place unguarded. The wealthier settlers seized the island, built themselves factories and houses, and made it "their head-quarters, or place of general rendezvous." After they had settled there, they seem to have thought themselves secure.[5] In 1638 the Spaniards attacked the place, at a time when nearly all the men were absent at the hunting. They killed all they found upon the island, and stayed there some little time, hanging those who surrendered to them after the first encounter. Having massacred some 200 or 300 settlers, and destroyed as many buildings as they could, the Spaniards sailed away, thinking it unnecessary to leave a garrison behind them. In this they acted foolishly, for their atrocities stirred the interlopers to revenge themselves. A band of them returned to Tortuga, to the ruins which the Spaniards had left standing. Here they formed themselves into a corporate body, with the intention to attack the Spanish at the first opportunity. Here, too, for the first time, they elected a commander. It was at this crisis in their history that they began to be known as buccaneers, or people who practise the boucan, the native way of curing meat. It is now time to explain the meaning of the word and to give some account of the modes of life of the folk who brought it to our language.
The Carib Indians, and the kindred tribes on the Brazilian coast, had a peculiar way of curing meat for preservation. They used to build a wooden grille or grating, raised upon poles some two or three feet high, above their camp fires. This grating was called by the Indians barbecue. The meat to be preserved, were it ox, fish, wild boar, or human being, was then laid upon the grille. The fire underneath the grille was kept low, and fed with green sticks, and with the offal, hide, and bones of the slaughtered animal. This process was called boucanning, from an Indian word "boucan," which seems to have signified "dried meat" and "camp-fire." Buccaneer, in its original sense, meant one who practised the boucan.
Meat thus cured kept good for several months. It was of delicate flavour, "red as a rose," and of a tempting smell. It could be eaten without further cookery. Sometimes the meat was cut into pieces, and salted, before it was boucanned—a practice which made it keep a little longer than it would otherwise have done. Sometimes it was merely cut in strips, roughly rubbed with brine, and hung in the sun to dry into charqui, or jerked beef. The flesh of the wild hog made the most toothsome boucanned meat. It kept good a little longer than the beef, but it needed more careful treatment, as stowage in a damp lazaretto turned it bad at once. The hunters took especial care to kill none but the choicest wild boars for sea-store. Lean boars and sows were never killed. Many hunters, it seems, confined themselves to hunting boars, leaving the beeves as unworthy quarry.
When hunting, the buccaneers went on foot, in small parties of four or five. The country in which they hunted was densely wooded, so that they could not ride. Each huntsman carried a gun of a peculiar make, with a barrel four and a half feet long and a spade-shaped stock. The long barrel made the gun carry very true. For ramrods they carried three or four straight sticks of lance wood—a wood almost as hard as iron, and much more easily replaced. The balls used, weighed from one to two ounces apiece. The powder was of the very best make known. It was exported specially from Normandy—a country which sent out many buccaneers, whose phrases still linger in the Norman patois. For powder flask they used a hollow gourd, which was first dried in the sun. When it had dried to a fitting hardness it was covered with cuir-bouilli, or boiled leather, which made it watertight. A pointed stopper secured the mouth, and made a sort of handle to the whole, by which it could be secured to the strap which the hunter slung across his shoulders. Each hunter carried a light tent, made of linen or thin canvas. The tents rolled up into a narrow compass, like a bandolier, so that they could be carried without trouble. The woods were so thick that the leggings of the huntsmen had to be of special strength. They were made of bull or boar hide, the hair worn outwards.[6] Moccasins, or shoes for hunting, were made of dressed bull's hide. The clothes worn at sea or while out hunting were "uniformly slovenly." A big heavy hat, wide in the brim and running up into a peak, protected the wearer from sunstroke. A dirty linen shirt, which custom decreed should not be washed, was the usual wear. It tucked into a dirty pair of linen drawers or knickerbockers, which garments were always dyed a dull red in the blood of the beasts killed. A sailor's belt went round the waist, with a long machete or sheath-knife secured to it at the back. Such was the attire of a master hunter, buccaneer, or Brother of the Coast. Many of them had valets or servants sent out to them from France for a term of three years. These valets were treated with abominable cruelty, and put to all manner of bitter labour. A valet who had served his time was presented with a gun and powder, two shirts and a hat—an equipment which enabled him to enter business on his own account. Every hunting party was arranged on the system of share and share alike. The parties usually made their plans at the Tortuga taverns. They agreed with the sugar and tobacco planters to supply the plantations with meat in exchange for tobacco. They then loaded up their valets with hunters' necessaries, and sailed for Hispaniola. Often they remained in the woods for a year or two, sending their servants to the coast from time to time with loads of meat and hides. They hunted, as a rule, without dogs, though some sought out the whelps of the wild mastiffs and trained them to hunt the boars. They stalked their quarry carefully, and shot it from behind a tree. In the evenings they boucanned their kill, pegged out the hides as tightly as they could, smoked a pipe or two about the fire, and prepared a glorious meal of marrow, "toute chaude"—their favourite dish. After supper they pitched their little linen tents, smeared their faces with grease to keep away the insects, put some wood upon the fire, and retired to sleep, with little thought of the beauty of the fireflies. They slept to leeward of the fires, and as near to them as possible, so that the smoke might blow over them, and keep off the mosquitoes. They used to place wet tobacco leaf and the leaves of certain plants among the embers in order that the smoke might be more pungent.
When the hunt was over, the parties would return to the coast to dispose of all they carried home, and to receive all they had earned during their absence. It was a lucrative business, and two years' hunting in the woods brought to each hunter a considerable sum of money. As soon as they touched their cash, they retired to Tortuga, where they bought new guns, powder, bullets, small shot, knives, and axes "against another going out or hunting." When the new munitions had been paid for, the buccaneers knew exactly how much money they could spend in self-indulgence. Those who have seen a cowboy on a holiday, or a sailor newly home from the seas, will understand the nature of the "great liberality" these hunters practised on such occasions. One who saw a good deal of their way of life[7] has written that their chief vice, or debauchery, was that of drunkenness, "which they exercise for the most part with brandy. This they drink as liberally as the Spaniards do clear fountain water. Sometimes they buy together a pipe of wine; this they stave at the one end, and never cease drinking till they have made an end of it. Thus they celebrate the festivals of Bacchus so long as they have any money left." The island of Tortuga must have witnessed some strange scenes. We may picture a squalid little "cow town," with tropical vegetation growing up to the doors. A few rough bungalow houses, a few huts thatched with palm leaves, a few casks standing in the shade of pent roofs. To seaward a few ships of small tonnage lying at anchor. To landward hilly ground, broken into strips of tillage, where some wretches hoe tobacco under the lash. In the street, in the sunlight, lie a few savage dogs. At one of the houses, a buccaneer has just finished flogging his valet; he is now pouring lemon juice, mixed with salt and pepper, into the raw, red flesh. At another house, a gang of dirty men in dirty scarlet drawers are drinking turn about out of a pan of brandy. The reader may complete the sketch should he find it sufficiently attractive.
When the buccaneers elected their first captain, they had made but few determined forays against the Spaniards. The greater number of them were French cattle hunters dealing in boucanned meat, hides, and tallow. A few hunted wild boars; a few more planted tobacco of great excellence, with a little sugar, a little indigo, and a little manioc. Among the company were a number of wild Englishmen, of the stamp of Oxenham, who made Tortuga their base and pleasure-house, using it as a port from which to sally out to plunder Spanish ships. After a cruise, these pirates sometimes went ashore for a month or two of cattle hunting. Often enough, the French cattle hunters took their places on the ships. The sailors and huntsmen soon became amphibious, varying the life of the woods with that of a sailor, and sometimes relaxing after a cruise with a year's work in the tobacco fields. In 1638, when the Spanish made their raid, there were considerable numbers (certainly several hundreds) of men engaged in these three occupations. After the raid they increased in number rapidly; for after the raid they began to revenge themselves by systematic raids upon the Spaniards—a business which attracted hundreds of young men from France and England. After the raid, too, the French and English Governments began to treat the planters of the St Kitts colony unjustly, so that many poor men were forced to leave their plots of ground there. These men left the colonies to join the buccaneers at Tortuga, who soon became so numerous that they might have made an independent state had they but agreed among themselves. This they could not do, for the French had designs upon Tortuga. A French garrison was landed on the island, seemingly to protect the French planters from the English, but in reality to seize the place for the French crown. Another garrison encamped upon the coast of the larger island. The English were now in a position like that of the spar in the tale.[8] They could no longer follow the business of cattle hunting; they could no longer find an anchorage and a ready market at Tortuga. They were forced, therefore, to find some other rendezvous, where they could refit after a cruise upon the Main. They withdrew themselves more and more from the French buccaneers, though the two parties frequently combined in enterprises of danger and importance. They seem to have relinquished Tortuga without fighting. They were less attached to the place than the French. Their holdings were fewer, and they had but a minor share in the cattle hunting. But for many years to come they regarded the French buccaneers with suspicion, as doubtful allies. When they sailed away from Tortuga they sought out other haunts on islands partly settled by the English.
In 1655, when an English fleet under Penn and Venables came to the Indies to attack the Spaniards, a body of English buccaneers who had settled at Barbadoes came in their ships to join the colours. In all, 5000 of them mustered, but the service they performed was of poor quality. The combined force attacked St Domingo, and suffered a severe repulse. They then sailed for Jamaica, which they took without much difficulty. The buccaneers found Jamaica a place peculiarly suited to them: it swarmed with wild cattle; it had a good harbour; it lay conveniently for raids upon the Main. They began to settle there, at Port Royal, with the troops left there by Cromwell's orders. They planted tobacco and sugar, followed the boucan, and lived as they had lived in the past at Hispaniola. Whenever England was at war with Spain the Governor of the island gave them commissions to go privateering against the Spanish. A percentage of the spoil was always paid to the Governor, while the constant raiding on the Main prevented the Spaniards from attacking the new colony in force. The buccaneers were thus of great use to the Colonial Government. They brought in money to the Treasury and kept the Spanish troops engaged. The governors of the French islands acted in precisely the same way. They gave the French buccaneers every encouragement. When France was at peace with Spain they sent to Portugal ("which country was then at war with Spain") for Portuguese commissions, with which the buccaneer captains could go cruising. The English buccaneers often visited the French islands in order to obtain similar commissions. When England was at war with Spain the French came to Port Royal for commissions from the English Governor. It was not a very moral state of affairs; but the Colonial governors argued that the buccaneers were useful, that they brought in money, and that they could be disowned at any time should Spain make peace with all the interloping countries.
The buccaneers now began "to make themselves redoubtable to the Spaniards, and to spread riches and abundance in our Colonies." They raided Nueva Segovia, took a number of Spanish ships, and sacked Maracaibo and western Gibraltar. Their captains on these raids were Frenchmen and Portuguese. The spoils they took were enormous, for they tortured every prisoner they captured until he revealed to them where he had hidden his gold. They treated the Spaniards with every conceivable barbarity, nor were the Spaniards more merciful when the chance offered.
The buccaneers, French and English, had a number of peculiar customs or laws by which their strange society was held together. They seem to have had some definite religious beliefs, for we read of a French captain who shot a buccaneer "in the church" for irreverence at Mass. No buccaneer was allowed to hunt or to cure meat upon a Sunday. No crew put to sea upon a cruise without first going to church to ask a blessing on their enterprise. No crew got drunk, on the return to port after a successful trip, until thanks had been declared for the dew of heaven they had gathered. After a cruise, the men were expected to fling all their loot into a pile, from which the chiefs made their selection and division. Each buccaneer was called upon to hold up his right hand, and to swear that he had not concealed any portion of the spoil. If, after making oath, a man were found to have secreted anything, he was bundled overboard, or marooned when the ship next made the land. Each buccaneer had a mate or comrade, with whom he shared all things, and to whom his property devolved in the event of death.[9] In many cases the partnership lasted during life. A love for his partner was usually the only tender sentiment a buccaneer allowed himself.
When a number of buccaneers grew tired of plucking weeds[10] from the tobacco ground, and felt the allurement of the sea, and longed to go a-cruising, they used to send an Indian, or a negro slave, to their fellows up the coast, inviting them to come to drink a dram with them. A day was named for the rendezvous, and a store was cleared, or a tobacco drying-house prepared, or perhaps a tent of sails was pitched, for the place of meeting. Early on the morning fixed for the council, a barrel of brandy was rolled up for the refreshment of the guests, while the black slaves put some sweet potatoes in a net to boil for the gentlemen's breakfasts. Presently a canoa or periagua would come round the headland from the sea, under a single sail—the topgallant-sail of some sunk Spanish ship. In her would be some ten or a dozen men, of all countries, anxious for a cruise upon the Main. Some would be Englishmen from the tobacco fields on Sixteen-Mile Walk. One or two of them were broken Royalists, of gentle birth, with a memory in their hearts of English country houses. Others were Irishmen from Montserrat, the wretched Kernes deported after the storm of Tredah. Some were French hunters from the Hispaniola woods, with the tan upon their cheeks, and a habit of silence due to many lonely marches on the trail. The new-comers brought their arms with them: muskets with long single barrels, heavy pistols, machetes, or sword-like knives, and a cask or two of powder and ball. During the morning other parties drifted in. Hunters, and planters, and old, grizzled seamen came swaggering down the trackways to the place of meeting. Most of them were dressed in the dirty shirts and blood-stained drawers of the profession, but some there were who wore a scarlet cloak or a purple serape which had been stitched for a Spaniard on the Main. Among the party were generally some Indians from Campeachy—tall fellows of a blackish copper colour, with javelins in their hands for the spearing of fish. All of this company would gather in the council chamber, where a rich planter sat at a table with some paper scrolls in front of him.
As soon as sufficient men had come to muster, the planter[11] would begin proceedings by offering a certain sum of money towards the equipment of a roving squadron. The assembled buccaneers then asked him to what port he purposed cruising. He would suggest one or two, giving his reasons, perhaps bringing in an Indian with news of a gold mine on the Main, or of a treasure-house that might be sacked, or of a plate ship about to sail eastward. Among these suggestions one at least was certain to be plausible. Another buccaneer would then offer to lend a good canoa, with, perhaps, a cask or two of meat as sea-provision. Others would offer powder and ball, money to purchase brandy for the voyage, or roll tobacco for the solace of the men. Those who could offer nothing, but were eager to contribute and to bear a hand, would pledge themselves to pay a share of the expenses out of the profits of the cruise. When the president had written down the list of contributions he called upon the company to elect a captain. This was seldom a difficult matter, for some experienced sailor—a good fellow, brave as a lion, and fortunate in love and war—was sure to be among them. Having chosen the captain, the company elected sailing masters, gunners, chirurgeons (if they had them), and the other officers necessary to the economy of ships of war. They then discussed the "lays" or shares to be allotted to each man out of the general booty.
Those who lent the ships and bore the cost of the provisioning, were generally allotted one-third of all the plunder taken. The captain received three shares, sometimes six or seven shares, according to his fortune. The minor officers received two shares apiece. The men or common adventurers received each one share. No plunder was allotted until an allowance had been made for those who were wounded on the cruise. Compensation varied from time to time, but the scale most generally used was as follows[12]:—"For the loss of a right arm six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves; for the loss of a left arm five hundred pieces of eight, or five slaves; for a right leg five hundred pieces of eight, or five slaves; for a left leg four hundred pieces of eight, or four slaves; for an eye one hundred pieces of eight, or one slave; for a finger of the hand the same reward as for the eye."
In addition to this compensation, a wounded man received a crown a day (say three shillings) for two months after the division of the spoil. If the booty were too little to allow of the declaration of a dividend, the wounded were put ashore at the port of rendezvous, and the adventurers kept the seas until they had enough to bring them home.
In the years of buccaneer prosperity, when Port Royal was full of ruffians eager to go cruising, the proceedings may often have been less regular. A voyage was sometimes arranged in the taverns, where the gangs drank punch, or rumbo, a draught of rum and water (taken half-and-half, and sweetened with crude sugar) so long as their money lasted. If a gang had a ship, or the offer of a ship, and had but little silver left them from their last cruise, they would go aboard with their muskets, shot, and powder casks, trusting to fortune to obtain stores. Nearly every ship's company had a Mosquito Indian, or more than one, to act as guide ashore, in places where a native's woodcraft was essential to a white man's safety. At sea these Indians supplied the mariners with fish, for they were singularly skilful with the fish spear. When a gang of buccaneers put to sea without provisions, they generally steered to the feeding grounds of the sea-turtles, or to some place where the sea-cows, or manatees, were found.[13] Here the Indians were sent out in small canoas, with their spears and tortoise irons. The spears were not unlike our modern harpoons. The tortoise irons were short, heavy arrow heads, which penetrated the turtle's shell when rightly thrown. The heads were attached to a stick, and to a cord which they made of a fibrous bark. When the blow had gone home, the stick came adrift, leaving the iron in the wound, with the cord still fast to it. When the turtles had been hauled aboard, their flesh was salted with the brine taken from the natural salt-pans to be found among the islands. When a manatee was killed, the hide was stripped away, and hung to dry. It was then cut into thongs, and put to various uses. The buccaneers made grummets, or rings, of it, for use in their row boats instead of tholes or rowlocks. The meat of manatee, though extremely delicate, did not take salt so readily as that of turtles. Turtle was the stand-by of the hungry buccaneer when far from the Main or the Jamaican barbecues. In addition to the turtle they had a dish of fish whenever the Indians were so fortunate as to find a shoal, or when the private fishing lines, of which each sailor carried several, were successful. Two Mosquito Indians, it was said, could keep 100 men in fish with no other weapons than their spears and irons. In coasting along the Main, a buccaneer captain could always obtain sufficient food for his immediate need, for hardly any part of the coast was destitute of land-crabs, oysters, fruit, deer, peccary, or warree. But for a continued cruise with a large crew this hand-to-mouth supply was insufficient.
The buccaneers sometimes began a cruise by sailing to an estancia in Hispaniola, or on the Main, where they might supply their harness casks with flesh. They used to attack these estancias, or "hog-yards," at night. They began by capturing the swine or cattle-herds, and threatening them with death should they refuse to give them the meat they needed. Having chosen as many beeves or swine as seemed sufficient for their purpose, they kicked the herds for their pains, and put the meat in pickle.[14] They then visited some other Spanish house for a supply of rum or brandy, or a few hat-loads of sugar in the crude. Tobacco they stole from the drying-rooms of planters they disliked. Lemons, limes, and other anti-scorbutics they plucked from the trees, when fortune sent them to the coast. Flour they generally captured from the Spanish. They seldom were without a supply, for it is often mentioned as a marching ration—"a doughboy, or dumpling," boiled with fat, in a sort of heavy cake, a very portable and filling kind of victual. At sea their staple food was flesh—either boucanned meat or salted turtle. Their allowance, "twice a day to every one," was "as much as he can eat, without either weight or measure." Water and strong liquors were allowed (while they lasted) in the same liberal spirit. This reckless generosity was recklessly abused. Meat and drink, so easily provided, were always improvidently spent. Probably few buccaneer ships returned from a cruise with the hands on full allowance. The rule was "drunk and full, or dry and empty, to hell with bloody misers"—the proverb of the American merchant sailor of to-day. They knew no mean in anything. That which came easily might go lightly: there was more where that came from.
When the ship had been thus victualled the gang went aboard her to discuss where they should go "to seek their desperate fortunes." The preliminary agreement was put in writing, much as in the former case, allotting each man his due share of the expected spoil. We read that the carpenter who "careened, mended, and rigged the vessel" was generally allotted a fee of from twenty-five to forty pounds for his pains—a sum drawn from the common stock or "purchase" subsequently taken by the adventurers. For the surgeon "and his chest of medicaments" they provided a "competent salary" of from fifty to sixty pounds. Boys received half-a-share, "by reason that, when they take a better vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire to the prize which they have taken." All shares were allotted on the good old rule: "No prey, No pay," so that all had a keen incentive to bestir themselves. They were also "very civil and charitable to each other," observing "among themselves, very good orders." They sailed together like a company of brothers, or rather, since that were an imperfect simile, like a company of jolly comrades. Locks and keys were forbidden among them, as they are forbidden in ship's fo'c's'les to this day; for every man was expected to show that he put trust in his mates. A man caught thieving from his fellow was whipped about the ship by all hands with little whips of ropeyarn or of fibrous maho bark. His back was then pickled with some salt, after which he was discharged the company. If a man were in want of clothes, he had but to ask a shipmate to obtain all he required. They were not very curious in the rigging or cleansing of their ships; nor did they keep watch with any regularity. They set their Mosquito Indians in the tops to keep a good lookout; for the Indians were long-sighted folk, who could descry a ship at sea at a greater distance than a white man. They slept, as a rule, on "mats" upon the deck, in the open air. Few of them used hammocks, nor did they greatly care if the rain drenched them as they lay asleep.
After the raids of Morgan, the buccaneers seem to have been more humane to the Spaniards whom they captured. They treated them as Drake treated them, with all courtesy. They discovered that the cutting out of prisoners' hearts, and eating of them raw without salt, as had been the custom of one of the most famous buccaneers, was far less profitable than the priming of a prisoner with his own aqua-vitæ. The later buccaneers, such as Dampier, were singularly zealous in the collection of information of "the Towns within 20 leagues of the sea, on all the coast from Trinidado down to La Vera Cruz; and are able to give a near guess of the strength and riches of them." For, as Dampier says, "they make it their business to examine all Prisoners that fall into their hands, concerning the Country, Town, or City that they belong to; whether born there, or how long they have known it? how many families? whether most Spaniards? or whether the major part are not Copper-colour'd, as Mulattoes [people half white, half black], Mustesoes [mestizos, or people half white, half Indian. These are not the same as mustees, or octoroons], or Indians? whether rich, and what their riches do consist in? and what their chiefest manufactures? If fortified, how many Great Guns, and what number of small Arms? whether it is possible to come undescried on them? How many Look-outs or Centinels? for such the Spaniards always keep; and how the Look-outs are placed? Whether possible to avoid the Look-outs or take them? If any River or Creek comes near it, or where the best Landing? or numerous other such questions, which their curiosities lead them to demand. And if they have had any former discourse of such places from other Prisoners, they compare one with the other; then examine again, and enquire if he or any of them, are capable to be guides to conduct a party of men thither: if not, where and how any Prisoner may be taken that may do it, and from thence they afterwards lay their Schemes to prosecute whatever design they take in hand."
If, after such a careful questioning as that just mentioned, the rovers decided to attack a city on the Main at some little distance from the sea, they would debate among themselves the possibility of reaching the place by river. Nearly all the wealthy Spanish towns were on a river, if not on the sea; and though the rivers were unwholesome, and often rapid, it was easier to ascend them in boats than to march upon their banks through jungle. If on inquiry it were found that the suggested town stood on a navigable river, the privateers would proceed to some island, such as St Andreas, where they could cut down cedar-trees to make them boats. St Andreas, like many West Indian islands, was of a stony, sandy soil, very favourable to the growth of cedar-trees. Having arrived at such an island, the men went ashore to cut timber. They were generally good lumbermen, for many buccaneers would go to cut logwood in Campeachy when trade was slack. As soon as a cedar had been felled, the limbs were lopped away, and the outside rudely fashioned to the likeness of a boat. If they were making a periagua, they left the stern "flat"—that is, cut off sharply without modelling; if they were making a canoa, they pointed both ends, as a Red Indian points his birch-bark. The bottom of the boat in either case was made flat, for convenience in hauling over shoals or up rapids. The inside of the boat was hollowed out by fire, with the help of the Indians, who were very expert at the management of the flame. For oars they had paddles made of ash or cedar plank, spliced to the tough and straight-growing lance wood, or to the less tough, but equally straight, white mangrove. Thwarts they made of cedar plank. Tholes or grummets for the oars they twisted out of manatee hide. Having equipped their canoas or periaguas they secured them to the stern of their ship, and set sail towards their quarry.
Authorities.—Captain James Burney: "Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea"; "History of the Buccaneers." Père Charlevoix: "Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole"; "Histoire et description de la N. France." B. Edwards: "Historical Survey of the Island of San Domingo." Gage: "Histoire de l'Empire Mexicain"; "The English American." S. Hazard: "Santo Domingo, Past and Present." Justin: "Histoire Politique de l'Isle de Haïti." Cal. State Papers: "America and West Indies." Abbé Raynal: "History of the Settlements and Trades of the Europeans in the East and West Indies." A. O. Exquemeling: "History of the Buccaneers." A. de Herrera: "Description des Indes Occidentales (d'Espagnol)." J. de Acosta: "History of the Indies." Cieça de Leon: "Travels."
CHAPTER IX
BUCCANEER CUSTOMS
Mansvelt and Morgan—Morgan's raid on Cuba—Puerto del Principe