The Monarchs of the Main Volume I Part 4

To him who lost an eye, 100 piastres, or one slave.

For both eyes, 200 piastres, or two slaves.

For the loss of a finger, 100 piastres, or one slave. A Flibustier who had a limb crippled, received the same pay as if it was lost. A wound requiring an issue, was recompensed with 500 piastres, or five slaves.

These shares were all allotted before the general division. If a vessel was taken at sea, its cargo was divided among the whole fleet, but the crew first boarding it received 100 crowns, if its value exceeded 10,000 crowns, and for every 10,000 crowns' worth of cargo, 100 went to the men that boarded. The surgeon received 200 piastres, besides his share.

The Mosquito Indians were the helots of the Buccaneers; they employed them to catch fish, and their vessels had generally a small canoe, kept for their use, in which they might strike tortoise or manitee. These Indians used no oars, but a pair of broad-bladed paddles, which they held perpendicularly, grasping the staff with both hands and putting back the water by sheer strength, and with very quick, short strokes.

Two men generally went in the same boat, the one sitting in the stern, the other kneeling down in the head. They both paddled softly till they approached the spot where their prey lay; they then remained still, looking very warily about them, and the one at the head then rose up, with his striking-staff in his hand. This weapon was about eight feet long, almost as thick as a man's arm at the larger end, at which there was a hole into which the harpoon was put; at the other extremity was placed a piece of light (bob) wood, with a hole in it, through which the small end of the staff came. On this bob wood a line of ten or twelve fathoms was neatly wound--the end of the one line being fastened to the wood, and the other to the harpoon, the man keeping about a fathom of it loose in his hand. When he struck, the harpoon came off the shaft, and, as the wounded fish swam away, the line ran off from the reel. Although the bob and line were frequently dragged deep under water, and often caught round coral branches or sunk wreck, it generally rose to the surface of the water. The Indians struggled to recover the bob, which they were accustomed to do in about a quarter of an hour.

When the sea-cow grew tired and began to lie still, they drew in the line, and the monster, feeling the harpoon a second time, would often make a maddened rush at the canoe. It then became necessary that the steersman should be nimble in turning the head of the canoe the way his companion pointed, as he alone was able to see and feel the way the manitee was swimming. Directly the fish grew tired, they hauled in the line, which the vexed creature drew out again a dozen times with ferocious but impotent speed. When its strength grew quite exhausted, they would drag it up the side of their boat and knock it on the head, or, pulling it to the sh.o.r.e, made it fast while they went out to strike another. From the great size of a sea-cow it was always necessary to go to sh.o.r.e in order to get it safely into their boats; hauling it up in shoal water, they upset their canoes, and then rolling the fish in righted again with the weight. The Indians sometimes paddled one home, and towed the other after them. Dampierre says he knew two Indians, who every day for a week brought two manitee on board his s.h.i.+p, the least not weighing less than six hundred pounds, and yet in so small a canoe that three Englishmen could row it.

If the fishermen struck a sea-cow that had a calf they generally captured both--the mother carrying the young under her side fins, and always regarding their safety before her own; the young, moreover, would seldom desert their mother, and would follow the canoe in spite of noise and blows. The least sound startled the manitee, but the turtles required less care. These fish had certain islands near Cuba which they chose to lay their eggs in. At certain seasons they came from the gulf of Honduras in such vast mult.i.tudes, that s.h.i.+ps, which had lost their lat.i.tude, very often steered at night, following the sound of these clattering shoals. When they had been about a month in the Caribbean sea they grew fat, and the fis.h.i.+ng commenced. Salt turtle was the Buccaneers' healthiest food, and was supposed to free them from all the ailments of debauchery. The Indians struck the turtle with a short, sharp, triangular-headed iron, not more than an inch long, which fitted into a spear handle. The lance head was loose and had the usual line attached. Their lines they made of the fibrous bark of a tree, which they also used for their rigging.

The manitee, or sea-cow, was a favourite article of food with these wandering seamen. It was a monster as big as a horse, and as unwieldy as a walrus, with eyes not much larger than peas, and a head like a cow.

Its flesh was white, sweet, and wholesome. The tail of a young fish was a dainty, and a young sucking-calf, roasted, was an epicure's morsel.

The head and tail of older animals were tough, yet the belly was frequently eaten.

Dampierre speaks of his companions feasting on pork and peas, and beef and dough-boys, and this nautical coa.r.s.eness was generally found a.s.sociated with occasional tropical luxuriousness. In cases of necessity, wrecked sailors fed on sharks, which they first boiled and then squeezed dry, and stewed with pepper and vinegar. The oil of turtle they used instead of b.u.t.ter for their dumplings. The best turtle were said to be those that fed on land; those that lived on sea-weed, and not on gra.s.s, being yellow and rank. The larger fish needed two men to turn them on their backs. The Flibustiers also ate the iguanas, or large South American lizards. Vast flocks of doves were found in many of the islands, sometimes in such abundance that a sailor could knock down five or six dozen of an afternoon.

The Buccaneers' history is a singular example of how evil generates evil. The Spaniards destroyed the wild cattle, and the hunters turned freebooters. Spain discontinued trading to prevent piracy, and the adventurers, starved for want of gold, made descents upon the mainland.

The evil grew by degrees till the worm they had at first trod upon arose in their path an indestructible and devastating monster of a hundred heads. First single s.h.i.+ps, then fleets, were swept off by these locusts of the deep; first, islands were burnt, then villages sacked, and at last cities conquered. First the North and then the South Pacific were visited, till the whole coast from Panama to Cape Horn trembled at the very flutter of their flag. The first Flibustier, Lewis Scott, scared Campeachy with a few canoes. Grognet grappled the Lima fleet with a whole squadron of pirate craft. The Buccaneer spirit arose from revenge, and ended in robbery and murder. At first fierce but merciful, they grew rapacious, loathsome, and b.l.o.o.d.y. Their early chivalry forsook them--they sank into the enemies of G.o.d and all mankind, and the last refuse of them expired on the gallows of Jamaica, children of Cain, unpitied by any, their very courage despised, and their crimes detested.

At their culminating point, united under the sway of one great mind, they might have formed a large empire in South America, or conquered it as tributaries to France or England. Always thirsty for gold, they were often chivalrous, generous, intrepid, merciful, and disinterested.

A greater evil soon cured the lesser. The Spaniards, dreading robbery worse than death, ceased in a great measure to trade. The poorer merchants were ruined by the loss of a single cocoa vessel; the richer waited for the convoy of the plate fleets, or followed in the wake of the galleon, hoping to escape if she was captured, as the chickens do when the hen goes cackling up in the claws of the kite. For every four vessels that once sailed not more than one could be now seen. What with the war of France on Holland, and England on France, and all on Spain, there was little safety for the poor trader. Yet those who could risk a loss still made great profits. This cessation of trade was a poor remedy against the sea robber: it was to rob oneself instead of being robbed, to commit suicide for fear of murder. It was a remedy that saved life, but rendered life hateful. The Buccaneers, starving for want of prey, remained moodily in the rocky fastnesses of Tortuga, like famished eagles looking down on a country they have devastated. To accomplish greater feats they united in bodies, and made forays on the coast. They had before remained at the threshold--they now rushed headlong into the sanctuary, and they got _their_ bread, or rather other people's bread, by daring dashes and surprises of towns, leaving them only when wrapped in flames or swept by the pestilence that always followed in their train.

We may claim for our own nation the first pioneer in this new field of enterprise. Lewis Scott, an Englishman, led the way by sacking the town of St. Francisco, in Campeachy, and, compelling the inhabitants to pay a ransom, returned safely to Jamaica. Where the carcase is there will the eagles be gathered together, for no sooner had his sails grown small in the distance than Mansweld, another Buccaneer, made several successful descents upon the same luckless coast, unfortunate in its very fertility. He then equipped a fleet and attempted to return by the kingdom of New Granada to the South Sea, pa.s.sing the town of Carthagena.

This scheme failed in consequence of a dispute arising between the French and English crews, who were always quarrelling over their respective share of provisions; but in spite of this he took the island of St. Catherine, and attempted to found a Buccaneer state.

John Davis, a Dutchman, excelled both his predecessors in daring.

Cruising about Jamaica he became a scourge to all the Spanish mariners who ventured near the coasts of the Caraccas, or his favourite haunts, Carthagena and the Boca del Toro, where he lay wait for vessels bound to Nicaragua. One day he missed his shot, and having a long time traversed the sea and taken nothing--a failure which generally drove these brave men to some desperate expedient to repair their sinking fortunes--he resolved with ninety men to visit the lagoon of Nicaragua, and sack the town of Granada. An Indian from the sh.o.r.es of the lagoon promised to guide him safely and secretly; and his crew, with one voice, declared themselves ready to follow him wherever he led. By night he rowed thirty leagues up the river, to the entry of the lake, and concealed his s.h.i.+ps under the boughs of the trees that grew upon the banks; then putting eighty men in his three canoes he rowed on to the town, leaving ten sailors to guard the vessels. By day they hid under the trees; at night they pushed on towards the unsuspecting town, and reached it on the third midnight--taking it, as he had expected, without a blow and by surprise. To a sentinel's challenge they replied that they were fishermen returning home, and two of the crew, leaping on sh.o.r.e, ran their swords through the interrogator, to stop further questions which might have been less easily answered. Following their guide they reached a small covered way that led to the right of the town, while another Indian towed their canoes to a point to which they had agreed each man should bring his booty.

As soon as they arrived at the town they separated into small bands, and were led one by one to the houses of the richest inhabitants. Here they quietly knocked, and, being admitted as friends, seized the inmates by the throat and compelled them, on pain of death, to surrender all the money and jewels that they had. They then roused the sacristans of the princ.i.p.al churches, from whom they took the keys and carried off all the altar plate that could be beaten up or rendered portable. The pixes they stripped of their gems, gouged out the jewelled eyes of virgin idols, and hammered up the sacramental cups into convenient lumps of metal.

This quiet and undisturbed pillage had lasted for two hours without a struggle, when some servants, escaping from the adventurers, began to ring the alarm bells to warn the town, while a few of the already plundered citizens, breaking into the marketplace, filled the streets with uproar and affright. Davis, seeing that the inhabitants were beginning to rally from that panic which had alone secured his victory, commenced a retreat, as the enemy were now gathering in armed and threatening numbers. In a hollow square, with their booty in the centre, the Buccaneers fought their way to their boats, amid tumultuous war-cries and shouts of derision and exultation. In spite of their haste, they were prudent enough to carry with them some rich Spaniards, intending to exchange them for any of their own men they might lose in their retreat. On regaining their s.h.i.+ps they compelled these prisoners to send them as a ransom 500 cows, with which they revictualled their s.h.i.+ps for the pa.s.sage back to Jamaica. They had scarcely well weighed anchor before they saw 600 mounted Spaniards dash down to the sh.o.r.e in the hopes of arresting their retreat. A few broadsides were the parting greetings of these unwelcome visitors.

This expedition was accomplished in eight days. The booty consisted of coined money and bullion amounting to about 40,000 crowns. Esquemeling computes it at 4,000 pieces of eight, and in ready money, plate, and jewels to about 50,000 pieces of eight more.

Thus concluded this adventurous raid, in which a town forty leagues inland, and containing at least 800 well-armed defenders, was stormed and robbed by eighty resolute sailors. Davis reached Jamaica in safety with his plunder, which was soon put into wider circulation by the aid of the dice, the tavern keepers, and the courtesans. The money once expended, Davis was roused to fresh exertion. He a.s.sociated himself with two or three other captains, who, superst.i.tiously relying on his good fortune, chose him as admiral of a small flotilla of eight or nine armed gunboats. The less fortunate rewarded him with boundless confidence. His first excursion was to the town of St. Christopher, in Cuba, to wait for the fleet from New Spain, in hopes to cut off some rich unwieldy straggler. But the fleet contrived to escape his sentinels and pa.s.s untouched. Davis then sallied forth and sacked a small town named St.

Augustine of Florida, in spite of its castle and garrison of 100 men. He suffered little loss; but the inhabitants proved very poor, and the booty was small.

In making war against Spain, the hunters were mere privateersmen cruising against a national enemy; but in their endurance, patience, and energy, they stood alone. In their onset--rus.h.i.+ng, singing, and dancing through fire and flame--they resembled rather the old Ba.r.s.ekars or the first levies of Mohammed. But in one point they were very remarkable; that they did more, and were yet actuated by a lower motive. Almost devoid of religion, they fought with all the madness of fanaticism against a people themselves const.i.tutionally fanatic, but already enervated by climate, by sudden wealth, and a long experience of contaminating luxury. The galleons of Manilla were their final aim, as they gradually pa.s.sed from the devastated sh.o.r.es of South America to the Philippine Islands and the coasts of Guinea. They had been the instrument of Providence, and knew themselves so, to avenge the wrongs of the Indian upon the Spaniard; they were soon to become the first avengers of the Negro. Long years of plunder had made the Spaniard and the Creole as secretive as the Hindu. At the first intelligence of some terrified fisherman, the frightened townsman threw his pistoles into wells, or mortared them up in the wall of his fortresses. Laden mules were driven into the interior; the women fled to the nearest plantation; the old men barred themselves up in the church. Their first thought was always flight; their second, to turn and strike a blow for all they loved, valued, and revered.

The debauchery of the Buccaneers was as unequalled as their courage.

Oexmelin relates a story of an Englishman who gave 500 crowns to his mistress at a single revel. This man, who had earned 1,500 crowns by exposing himself to desperate dangers, was, within three months, sold for a term of three years to a planter, to discharge a tavern debt which he could not pay. A conqueror of Panama might be seen to-morrow driven by the overseer's whip among a gang of slaves, cutting sugar canes, or picking tobacco.

Another Buccaneer, a Frenchman, surnamed Vent-en-Panne, was so addicted to play that he lost everything but his s.h.i.+rt. Every pistole that he could earn he spent in this absorbing vice--so tempting to men, who longed for excitement, were indifferent to money, and daily risked their lives for the prospect of gain. On one occasion he lost 500 crowns, his whole share of some recent prize-money, besides 300 crowns which he had borrowed of a comerade who would now lend him no more. Determined to try his fortune again, he hired himself as servant at the very gambling-house where he had been ruined, and, by lighting pipes for the players and bringing them in wine, earned fifty crowns in two days. He staked this, and soon won 12,000 crowns. He then paid his debts and resolved to lose no more, s.h.i.+pping himself on board an English vessel that touched at Barbadoes. At Barbadoes he met a rich Jew who offered to play him. Unable to abstain, he sat down, and won 1,300 crowns and 100,000 lbs. of sugar already s.h.i.+pped for England, and, in addition to this, a large mill and sixty slaves. The Jew, begging him to stay and give him his revenge, ran and borrowed some money, and returned and took up the cards. The Buccaneer consented, more from love of play than generosity; and the Jew, putting down 1,500 jacobuses, won back 100 crowns, and finally all his antagonist's previous winnings--stripping him even to the very clothes he wore. The delighted winner allowed him for very shame to retain his clothes, and gave him money enough to return, disconsolate and beggared, to Tortuga. Becoming again a Buccaneer, he gained 6,000 or 7,000 crowns. M. D'Ogeron, the governor, treating him as a wayward child, taking away his money, sent him back to France with bills of exchange for the amount. Vent-en-Panne, now cured of his vice, took to merchandise; but, always unfortunate, was killed in his first voyage to the West Indies, his vessel being attacked by two Ostende frigates, of twenty-four or thirty guns each, which were eventually, however, driven off by the dead man's crew of only thirty Buccaneers.

When the pleasures of Tortuga or Jamaica had swallowed up all the hard-earned winnings of these men, they returned to sea, expending their last pistoles in powder and ball, and leaving heavy scores still unsettled with the cabaretiers. They then hastened to the quays, or small sandy islands off Cuba, to careen their vessels and to salt turtle. Sometimes they repaired to Honduras, where they had Indian wives; latterly, to the Galapagos isles, to the Boca del Toro, or the coast of Castilla del Oro.

Some Buccaneers, Esquemeling says, would spend 3,000 piastres in a night, not leaving themselves even a s.h.i.+rt in the morning. "My own master," he adds, "would buy a whole pipe of wine, and, placing it in the street, would force every one that pa.s.sed by to drink with him, threatening also to pistol them in case they would not do it. At other times he would do the same with barrels of ale or beer; and very often with both his hands he would throw these liquors about the street, and wet the clothes of such as walked by, without regard whether he spoiled their apparel or not, or whether they were men or women." Port Royal was a favourite scene for such carousals.

Even as late as 1694, Montauban gives us some idea of the wild debaucheries committed by the Buccaneers even at Bourdeaux. "My freebooters," he says, "who had not seen France for a long time, finding themselves now in a great city where pleasure and plenty reigned, were not backward to refresh themselves after the fatigues they had endured while so long absent from their native country. They spent a world of money here, and proved horribly extravagant. The merchants and their hosts made no scruple to advance them money, or lend them as much as they pleased, upon the reputation of their wealth and the noise there was throughout the city of the valuable prizes whereof they had a share.

All the nights they spent in such divertis.e.m.e.nts as pleased them best; and the days, in running up and down the town in masquerade, causing themselves to be carried in chairs with lighted flambeaux at noon--of which debauches some died, while four of my crew fairly deserted me."

This, it must be remembered, was at a time when buccaneering had sunk into privateering--the half-way house to mere piracy. The distinguis.h.i.+ng mark of the true Buccaneer was, that he attacked none but Spaniards.

Of the Buccaneers' estimation of religion, Charlevoix gives us some curious accounts. He says, "there remained no traces of it in their heart, but still, sometimes, from time to time, they appeared to meditate deeply. They never commenced a combat without first embracing each other, in sign of reconciliation. They would at such times strike themselves rudely on the breast, as if they wished to rouse some compunction in their hearts, and were not able. Once escaped from danger, they returned headlong to their debauchery, blasphemy, and brigandage. The Buccaneers, looking upon themselves as worthy fellows, regarded the Flibustiers as wretches, but in reality there was not much difference. The Buccaneers were, perhaps, the less vicious, but the Flibustiers preserved a little more of the externals of religion; _with the exception of a certain honour among them, and their abstinence from human flesh, few savages were more wicked, and a great number of them much less so_."

This pa.s.sage shows a very curious jealousy between the hunters and the corsairs, and a singular distinction as to religious feeling. Pere Labat, however, speaks of the Flibustiers as attending confession immediately after a sea-fight with most exemplary devotion. A more important distinction than that made by Charlevoix was that between the Protestant and Roman Catholic adventurers, the latter being as superst.i.tious as the former were irreverent. Ravenau de Lussan always speaks with horror of the blasphemy and irreligion of his English comerades, one of whom was an old trooper of Cromwell's; and Grognet's fleet eventually separated from the English s.h.i.+ps, on account of the latter crews lopping crucifixes with their sabres, and firing at images with their pistols. A Flibustier captain, named Daniel, shot one of his men in a Spanish church for behaving irreverently at ma.s.s; and Ringrose gives an instance of an English commander who threw the dice overboard, if he found his men gambling on a Sunday.

We find Ravenau de Lussan's troop singing a _Te Deum_ after victories, and Oexmelin tells us that prayers were said daily on board Flibustier s.h.i.+ps.

It is difficult to say from what cla.s.s of life either the Buccaneers or the Flibustiers sprang. The planters often became hunters, and the hunters sailors, and the reverse. Morgan was a Welsh farmer's son, who ran away to sea; Montauban, the son of a Gascon gentleman; D'Ogeron had been a captain in the French marines; Von Horn, a common sailor in an Ostende smack; Dampierre was a Somersets.h.i.+re yeoman, and Esquemeling a Dutch planter's apprentice. Charlevoix says, "few could bear for many years a life so hard and laborious, and the greater part only continued in it till they could gain enough to become planters. Many, continually wasting their money, never earned sufficient to buy a plantation; others grew so accustomed to the life, and so fond even of its hards.h.i.+ps and painful risks, that, though often heirs to good fortunes, they would not leave it to return to France."

The life of M. D'Ogeron, the governor of Tortuga, is an example of another cla.s.s of Buccaneers, and of the causes which led to the choice of such a profession. At fifteen, he was captain of a regiment of marines, and in 1656, joining a company intending to colonize the Matingo river, he embarked in a s.h.i.+p, fitted out at the expense of 17,000 livres. Disappointed in this bubble, he tried to settle at Martinique, but deceived by the governor, who withdrew a grant of land, he determined to settle with the Buccaneers of St. Domingo. Embarking in a ricketty vessel, he ran ash.o.r.e on Hispaniola, and lost all his merchandise and provisions. Giving his _engages_ their liberty, he joined the hunters, and became distinguished as well for courage as virtue. His goods sent from France were sold at a loss, and he returned to his native country a poor man. Collecting his remaining money, he hired _engages_, and loaded a vessel with wine and brandy. Finding the market glutted, he sold his cargo at a loss, and was cheated by his Jamaica agent. Returning again to France, he fitted out a third vessel, and finally settled as a planter in Hispaniola. At this juncture the French West India Company fixed their eyes upon him, and in 1665 made him governor of their colony.

Ravenau de Lussan ill.u.s.trates the motives that sometimes led the youth of the higher cla.s.ses to turn Buccaneers. He commences his book with true French vanity, by saying, that few children of Paris, which contains so many of the wonders of the world (ten out of the eight, we suppose), seek their fortune abroad. From a child he was seized with a pa.s.sionate disposition for travel, and would steal out of his father's house and play truant when he was yet scarce seven. He soon reached La Vilette and the suburbs, and by degrees learnt to lose sight of Paris.

With this pa.s.sion arose a desire for a military life. The noise of a drum in the street transported him with joy. He made a friend of an officer, and, offering him his sword, joined his company, and witnessed the siege of Conde, ending his campaign, still unwearied of his new form of life. He then became a cadet in a marine regiment. The captain drained him of all his money, and his father, at a great expense, bought him his discharge. Under the Count D'Avegeau he entered the French Guards, and fought at the siege of St. Guislain. Growing, on his return, weary of Paris, he embarked again on sea, having nothing but voyages in his head; the longest and most dangerous appearing to his imagination, he says, the most delightful. Travelling by land seemed to him long and difficult, and he once more chose the sea, deeming it only fit for a woman to remain at home ignorant of the world. His affectionate parents tried in vain to reason him out of this gadding humour, and finding him only grow firmer and more inflexible, they desisted.

Not caring whither he went, so he could get to sea, he embarked in 1697 from Dieppe for St. Domingo. Here he remained for five months _engage_ to a French planter, "more a Turk than a Frenchman." "But what misery,"

he says, "soever I have undergone with him, I freely forgive him, being resolved to forget his name, which I shall not mention in this place, because the laws of Christianity require that at my hand, though as to matters of charity he is not to expect much of that in me, since he, on his part, has been every way defective in the exercise thereof upon my account." But his patience at last worn out, and weary of cruelties that seemed endless, De Lussan applied to M. de Franquesnay, the king's lieutenant, who himself gave him shelter in his house for six months. He was now in debt, and thinking it "honest to pay his creditors," he joined the freebooters in order to satisfy them, not willing to apply again for money to his parents. "These borrowings from the Spaniards,"

he says, "have this advantage attending them, that there is no obligation to repay them," and there was war between the two crowns, so that he was a legal privateersman. Selecting a leader, De Lussan pitched on De Graff, as a brave corsair, who happened to be then at St. Domingo, eager to sail. Furnis.h.i.+ng himself with arms, at the expense of Franquesnay, he joined De Graff. "We were," he says, "in a few hours satisfied with each other, and became such friends as those are wont to be who are about to run the same risk of fortune, and apparently to die together." The 22nd of November, the day he sailed from Pet.i.t Guave, seemed the happiest of his life.

Dampierre mentions an old Buccaneer, who was slain at the taking of Leon. "He was," he says, "a stout, grey-headed old man, aged about eighty-four, who had served under Oliver Cromwell in the Irish rebellion; after which he was at Jamaica, and had followed privateering ever since. He would not accept the offer our men made him to tarry ash.o.r.e, but said he would venture as far as the best of them; but when surrounded by the Spaniards he refused "to take quarter, but discharged his gun amongst them, keeping a pistol still charged; so they shot him dead at a distance. His name was Swan (_rara avis_). He was a very merry, hearty old man, and always used to declare he would never take quarter."

When the adventurers were at sea, they lived together as a friendly brotherhood. Every morning at ten o'clock the s.h.i.+p's cook put the kettle on the fire to boil the salt beef for the crew, in fresh water if they had plenty, but if they ran short in brine; meal was boiled at the same time, and made into a thick porridge, which was mixed with the gravy and the fat of the meat. The whole was then served to the crew on large platters, seven men to a plate. If the captain or cook helped themselves to a larger share than their messmates, any of the republican crew had a right to change plates with them. But, notwithstanding this brotherly equality, and in spite of the captain being deposable by his crew, there was maintained at all moments of necessity the strictest discipline, and the most rigid subordination of rank. The crews had two meals a day.

They always said grace before meat: the French Catholics singing the canticles of Zecharias, the Magnificat, or the Miserere; the English reading a chapter from the New Testament, or singing a psalm.

Directly a vessel hove in sight, the Flibustiers gave chase. If it showed a Spanish flag, the guns were run out, and the decks cleared; the pikes lashed ready, and every man prepared his musket and powder, of which he alone was the guardian (and not the gunner), these articles being generally paid for from the common stock, unless provided by the captain.

They first fell on their knees at their quarters (each group round its gun), to pray G.o.d that they might obtain both victory and plunder. Then all lay down flat on the deck, except the few left to steer and navigate--proceeding to board as soon as their musketeers had silenced the enemy's fire. If victorious, they put their prisoners on sh.o.r.e, attended to the wounded, and took stock of the booty. A third part of the crew went on board the prize, and a prize captain was chosen by lot.

No excuse was allowed; and if illness prevented the man elected taking the office, his _matelot_, or companion, took his place.

On arriving at Tortuga, they paid a commission to the governor, and before dividing the spoil, rewarded the captain, the surgeons, and the wounded. The whole crew then threw into a common heap all they possessed above the value of five sous, and took an oath on the New Testament, holding up their right hands, that they had kept nothing back. Any one detected in perjury was marooned, and his share either given to the rest, to the heirs of the dead, or as a bequest to some chapel. The jewels and merchandise were sold, and they divided the produce.

"It was impossible," says Oexmelin, "to put any obstacle in the way of men who, animated simply by the hope of gain, were capable of such great enterprises, having _nothing but life_ to lose and all to win. It is true that they would not have persisted long in their expeditions if they had had neither boats nor provisions. For s.h.i.+ps they never wanted, because they were in the habit of going out in small canoes and capturing the largest and best provisioned vessels. For harbours they could never want, because everybody fled before them, and they had but to appear to be victorious." This intelligent and animated writer concludes his book by expressing an opinion that a firm and organized resistance by Spain at the outset might have stopped the subsequent mischief; but this opinion he afterwards qualifies in the following words, which, coming from such a writer so well acquainted with those of whom he writes, speaks volumes in favour of Buccaneer prowess: "Je dis _peut-etre_, car les aventuriers sont de terribles gens."

Charlevoix describes the first Flibustiers as going out in canoes with twenty-five or thirty men, without pilot or provisions, to capture pearl-fishers and surprise small cruisers. If they succeeded, they went to Tortuga, bought a vessel, and started 150 strong, going to Cuba to take in salt turtle, or to Port Margot or Bayaha for dried pork or beef--dividing all upon the _compagnon a bon lot_ principle. They always said public prayer before starting on an expedition, and returned solemn thanks to G.o.d for victory.

"They were," says a Jesuit writer, "at first so crowded in their boats that they had scarcely room to lie down; and, as they practised no economy in eating, they were always short of food. They were also night and day exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and yet loved so much the independence in which they lived, that no one murmured. Some sang when others wished to sleep, and all were by turns compelled to bear these inconveniences without complaint. But one may imagine men so little at their ease spared no pains to gain more comforts; that the sight of a larger and more convenient vessel gave them courage sufficient to capture it; and that hunger deprived them of all sense of the danger of procuring food. They attacked all they met without a thought, and boarded as soon as possible. A single volley would have sunk their vessels; but they were skilful in manoeuvre, their sailors were very active, and they presented to the enemy nothing but a prow full of fusiliers, who, firing through the portholes, struck the gunners with terror. Once on board, nothing could prevent them becoming masters of a s.h.i.+p, however numerous the crew. The Spaniards' blood grew cold when those whom they called, and looked upon as, demons came in sight, and they frequently surrendered at once in order to obtain quarter. If the prize was rich their lives were spared; but if the cargo proved poor, the Buccaneers often threw the crew into the sea in revenge."

Their favourite coasts were the Caraccas, Carthagena, Nicaragua, and Campeachy, where the ports were numerous and well frequented. Their best harbours at the Caraccas were c.u.mana, Canagote, Coro, and Maracaibo; at Carthagena, La Rancheria, St. Martha, and Portobello. Round Cuba they watched for vessels going from New Spain to Maracaibo. If going, they found them laden with silver; if returning, full of cocoa. The prizes to the Caraccas were laden with the lace and manufactures of Spain; those from Havannah, with leather, Campeachy wood, cocoa, tobacco, and Spanish coin.

The dress of the Buccaneer sailors must have varied with the changes of the age. Retaining their red s.h.i.+rts and leather sandals as the working dress of their brotherhood, we find them donning all the splendour rummaged from Spanish cabins, now wearing the plumed hat and laced sword-belt of Charles the Second's reign, and now the tufts of ribbons of the perfumed court of Louis Quatorze. Sprung from all nations and all ranks, some of them prided themselves upon the rough beard, bare feet, and belted s.h.i.+rt of the rudest seaman, while others, like Grammont and De Graff, flaunted in the richest costumes of their period. They must have pa.s.sed from the long cloak and loose ca.s.sock of the Stuart reign to the jack-boots and Dutch dress of William of Orange; from the laced and flowing Steenkirk to the fringed c.o.c.k-hat and deep-flapped waistcoat of Queen Anne. In the English translation of Esquemeling, Barthelemy Portugues, one of the earliest sea-rovers, is represented as having his long, lank hair parted in the centre and falling on his shoulders, and his moustachios long and rough. He wears a plain embroidered coat with a neck-band, and carries in his arms a short, broad sabre, unsheathed, as was the habit with many Buccaneer chiefs. Roche Braziliano appears in a plain hunter's s.h.i.+rt, the strings tying it at the neck being fastened in a bow. Lolonnois has the same s.h.i.+rt, showing at his neck and puffing through the openings of his sleeve, and he carries a naked broadsword with a sh.e.l.l guard. In the portrait of Sir Henry Morgan we see much more affectation of aristocratic dress. He has a rich coat of Charles the Second's period, a laced cravat tied in a fringed bow with long ends, and his broad sword-belt is stiff with gold lace. The hunter's s.h.i.+rt, however, still shows through the slashed sleeves.

CHAPTER IV.