The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century Part 17

In 1699 an Act was pa.s.sed through Parliament of such severity as to drive many of the outlaws from American waters. It was largely a revival of the Act of 28, Henry VIII., was in force for seven years, and was twice renewed. The war of the Spanish Succession, moreover, gave many men of piratical inclinations an opportunity of sailing under lawful commissions as privateers against the French and Spaniards. In this long war, too, the French filibusters were especially numerous and active. In 1706 there were 1200 or 1300 who made their headquarters in Martinique alone.[533] While keeping the French islands supplied with provisions and merchandise captured in their prizes, they were a serious discouragement to English commerce in those regions, especially to the trade with the North American colonies. Occasionally they threatened the coasts of Virginia and New England, and some combined with their West Indian cruises a foray along the coasts of Guinea and into the Red Sea.

These corsairs were not all commissioned privateers, however, for some of them seized French s.h.i.+pping with as little compunction as English or Dutch. Especially after the Treaty of Utrecht there was a recrudescence of piracy both in the West Indies and in the East, and it was ten years or more thereafter before the freebooters were finally suppressed.

Footnotes:

[Footnote 424: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 501, 552. _Cf._ also Nos.

197, 227.]

[Footnote 425: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 364-366, 431, 668.]

[Footnote 426: Ibid., Nos. 476, 609, 668. Paine was sent from Jamaica under arrest to Governor de Cussy in 1684, and thence was s.h.i.+pped on a frigate to France. (Bibl. Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9325, f. 334.)]

[Footnote 427: Ibid., Nos. 668, 769, 963.]

[Footnote 428: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 769, 963, 993.]

[Footnote 429: Ibid., Nos. 1065, 1313.]

[Footnote 430: Ibid., No. 1313.]

[Footnote 431: Ibid., Nos. 1190, 1216.]

[Footnote 432: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, No. 1173.]

[Footnote 433: Ibid., Nos. 1168, 1190, 1223, 1344; _cf._ also Nos. 1381, 1464, 1803.

In June 1684 we learn that "Hamlin, captain of La Trompeuse, got into a s.h.i.+p of thirty-six guns on the coast of the Main last month, with sixty of his old crew and as many new men. They call themselves pirates, and their s.h.i.+p La Nouvelle Trompeuse, and talk of their old station at Isle de Vaches." (Ibid., No. 1759.)]

[Footnote 434: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 777, 1188, 1189, 1223, 1376, 1471-1474, 1504, 1535, 1537, 1731.]

[Footnote 435: Ibid., Nos. 1222, 1223, 1676, 1678, 1686, 1909; _cf._ also Nos. 1382, 1547, 1665.]

[Footnote 436: Ibid., Nos. 552, 599, 668, 712.

c.o.xon continued to vacillate between submission to the Governor of Jamaica and open rebellion. In October 1682 he was sent by Sir Thos.

Lynch with three vessels to the Gulf of Honduras to fetch away the English logwood-cutters. "His men plotted to take the s.h.i.+p and go privateering, but he valiently resisted, killed one or two with his own hand, forced eleven overboard, and brought three here (Port Royal) who were condemned last Friday." (Ibid., No. 769. Letter of Sir Thos. Lynch, 6th Nov. 1682.) A year later, in November 1683, he had again reverted to piracy (_ibid._, No. 1348), but in January 1686 surrendered to Lieut.-Governor Molesworth and was ordered to be arrested and tried at St. Jago de la Vega (_ibid._, 1685-88, No. 548). He probably in the meantime succeeded in escaping from the island, for in the following November he was reported to be cutting logwood in the Gulf of Campeache, and Molesworth was issuing a proclamation declaring him an outlaw (_ibid._, No. 965). He remained abroad until September 1688 when he again surrendered to the Governor of Jamaica (_ibid._, No. 1890), and again by some hook or crook obtained his freedom.]

[Footnote 437: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 660, 673.]

[Footnote 438: Ibid., Nos. 627, 769.]

[Footnote 439: He is not to be confused with the Peter Paine who brought "La Trompeuse" to Port Royal. Thomas Pain, a few months before he arrived in the Bahamas, had come in and submitted to Sir Thomas Lynch, and had been sent out again by the governor to cruise after pirates.

(C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 769, 1707.)]

[Footnote 440: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 1509, 1540, 1590, 1924, 1926.]

[Footnote 441: Ibid., Nos. 1927, 1938.]

[Footnote 442: Ibid., Nos. 1540, 1833.]

[Footnote 443: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. viii. p. 130. In 1684 there were between 2000 and 3000 filibusters who made their headquarters in French Hispaniola. They had seventeen vessels at sea with batteries ranging from four to fifty guns. (C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, No. 668; Bibl.

Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9325, f. 336.)]

[Footnote 444: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. viii. pp. 128-30.]

[Footnote 445: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 963, 998, 1065.]

[Footnote 446: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 709, 712.]

[Footnote 447: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, No. 1163; Charlevoix, liv. viii.

p. 133; Narrative contained in "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Barth, Sharpe and others in the South Sea." Lon. 1684.

Governor Lynch wrote in July 1683: "All the governors in America have known of this very design for four or five months." Duro, quoting from a Spanish MS. in the Coleccion Navarrete, t. x. No. 33, says that the booty at Vera Cruz amounted to more than three million reales de plata in jewels and merchandise, for which the invaders demanded a ransom of 150,000 pieces of eight. They also carried away, according to the account, 1300 slaves. (_Op. cit._, v. p. 271.) A real de plata was one-eighth of a peso or piece of eight.]

[Footnote 448: S.P. Spain, vol. 69, f. 339.]

[Footnote 449: Ibid., vol. 70, f. 57; C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, No. 1633.]

[Footnote 450: During de Franquesnay's short tenure of authority, Laurens, driven from Hispaniola by the stern measures of the governor against privateers, made it understood that he desired to enter the service of the Governor of Jamaica. The Privy Council empowered Lynch to treat with him, offering pardon and permission to settle on the island on giving security for his future good behaviour. But de Cussy arrived in the meantime, reversed the policy of de Franquesnay, received Laurens with all the honour due to a military hero, and endeavoured to engage him in the services of the government (Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv.

viii. pp. 141, 202; C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 1210, 1249, 1424, 1461, 1649, 1718 and 1839).]

[Footnote 451: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. viii. pp. 139-145; C.S.P.

Colon., 1685-88, No. 378.]

[Footnote 452: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. ix. pp. 197-99; Duro., _op.

cit._, v. pp. 273-74; C.S.P. Colon., 1685-88, Nos. 193, 339, 378, 778.]

[Footnote 453: According to Charlevoix, de Grammont was a native of Paris, entered the Royal Marine, and distinguished himself in several naval engagements. Finally he appeared in the West Indies as the commander of a frigate armed for privateering, and captured near Martinique a Dutch vessel worth 400,000 livres. He carried his prize to Hispaniola, where he lost at the gaming table and consumed in debauchery the whole value of his capture; and not daring to return to France he joined the buccaneers.]

[Footnote 454: "Laurens-Cornille Baldran, sieur de Graff, lieutenant du roi en l'isle de Saint Domingue, capitaine de fregate legere, chevalier de Saint Louis"--so he was styled after entering the service of the French king (Vaissiere, _op cit._, p. 70, note). According to Charlevoix he was a native of Holland, became a gunner in the Spanish navy, and for his skill and bravery was advanced to the post of commander of a vessel.

He was sent to American waters, captured by the buccaneers, and joined their ranks. Such was the terror inspired by his name throughout all the Spanish coasts that in the public prayers in the churches Heaven was invoked to s.h.i.+eld the inhabitants from his fury. Divorced from his first wife, whom he had married at Teneriffe in 1674, he was married again in March 1693 to a Norman or Breton woman named Marie-Anne Dieu-le-veult, the widow of one of the first inhabitants of Tortuga (_ibid._). The story goes that Marie-Anne, thinking one day that she had been grievously insulted by Laurens, went in search of the buccaneer, pistol in hand, to demand an apology for the outrage. De Graff, judging this Amazon to be worthy of him, turned about and married her (Ducere, _op.

cit._, p. 113, note). In October 1698 Laurens de Graff, in company with Iberville, sailed from Rochefort with two s.h.i.+ps, and in Mobile and at the mouths of the Mississippi laid the foundations of Louisiana (Duro, _op. cit._, v. p. 306). De Graff died in May 1704. _Cf._ also Bibl.

Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9325 f. 311.]

[Footnote 455: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 1958, 1962, 1964, 1991, 2000.

Dampier writes (1685) that "it hath been usual for many years past for the Governor of Pet.i.t Guaves to send blank Commissions to Sea by many of his Captains, with orders to dispose of them to whom they saw convenient.... I never read any of these French Commissions ... but I have learnt since that the Tenor of them is to give a Liberty to Fish, Fowl and Hunt. The Occasion of this is, that ... in time of Peace these Commissions are given as a Warrant to those of each side (i.e., French and Spanish in Hispaniola) to protect them from the adverse Party: But in effect the French do not restrain them to Hispaniola, but make them a pretence for a general ravage in any part of America, by Sea or Land."--Edition 1906, I. pp. 212-13.]

[Footnote 456: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 668, 769, 942, 948, 1281, 1562, 1759; _ibid._, 1685-88, No. 558.

In a memoir of MM. de St. Laurent and Begon to the French King in February 1684, they report that in the previous year some French filibusters discovered in a patache captured from the Spaniards a letter from the Governor of Jamaica exhorting the Spaniards to make war on the French in Hispaniola, and promising them vessels and other means for entirely destroying the colony. This letter caused a furious outburst of resentment among the French settlers against the English (_cf._ also C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, No. 1348). Shortly after, according to the memoir, an English s.h.i.+p of 30 guns appeared for several days cruising in the channel between Tortuga and Port de Paix. The sieur de Franquesnay, on sending to ask for an explanation of this conduct, received a curt reply to the effect that the sea was free to everyone. The French governor thereupon sent a barque with 30 filibusters to attack the Englishman, but the filibusters returned well beaten. In despair de Franquesnay asked Captain de Grammont, who had just returned from a cruise in a s.h.i.+p of 50 guns, to go out against the intruder. With 300 of the corsairs at his back de Grammont attacked the English frigate. The reception accorded by the latter was as vigorous as before, but the result was different, for de Grammont at once grappled with his antagonist, boarded her and put all the English except the captain to the sword.--Bibl. Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9325 f. 332.

No reference to this incident is found in the English colonial records.]

[Footnote 457: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, No. 963.]

[Footnote 458: Ibid., Nos. 1844, 1852.]

[Footnote 459: C.S.P. Colon., 1681-85, Nos. 1246, 1249, 1250, 1294, 1295, 1302, 1311, 1348, 1489, 1502, 1503, 1510, 1562, 1563, 1565.]