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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: On the Spanish Main
+       Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
+
+Author: John Masefield
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19396]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE SPANISH MAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Frank van Drogen, Amy Cunningham and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Obvious printing errors were repaired; see the html version for details
+of these changes. Other variation in spelling and hyphenation is as in
+the original text.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER]
+
+
+
+
+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 Tetū 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_
+
+  NOMBRE DE DIOS                                                     12
+
+  CARTAGENA                                                          26
+
+  CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR                      40
+      The ship in the foreground may be Drake's flagship, the
+      _Bonaventure_
+
+  AN ELIZABETHAN WARSHIP                                             49
+      A pinnace beyond, to the left
+
+  SHIP AND FLYING-FISH                                               95
+
+  A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN                        114
+      A barbecue in right lower corner
+
+  OLD PORT ROYAL                                                    132
+
+  PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE                                               142
+
+  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
+
+  CHAGRES (CIRCA 1739)                                              173
+
+  THE ISTHMUS, SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE                     180
+
+  NEW PANAMA                                                        195
+
+  THE BATTLE OF PANAMA                                              200
+
+  SIR HENRY MORGAN                                                  210
+
+  A DESCRIPTION OF ARICA                                            266
+
+  A DESCRIPTION OF HILO                                             274
+
+  AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON                                            293
+
+  AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON                                            297
+
+  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
+Vitę, 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.
+
+[Illustration: NOMBRE DE DIOS]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This was eleven years after the royal mandate ordering the
+transference of the main trade of the place to Porto Bello. Perhaps the
+town retained much of the trade, in spite of the mandate, as the
+transference involved the making of a new mule track across the bogs and
+crags between Venta Cruz and Porto Bello. Such a track would have taken
+several years to lay.]
+
+    _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.
+
+[Illustration: CARTAGENA]
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR
+    THE SHIP IN THE FOREGROUND MAY BE DRAKE'S FLAGSHIP, THE
+    _BONAVENTURE_]
+
+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 Curaēoa, 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 Curaēoa, 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."
+
+[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN WAR-SHIP
+    A PINNACE BEYOND, TO THE LEFT]
+
+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-vitę 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 Tetū 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-vitę.
+
+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 Tetū, 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 Tetū with a chain of
+gold supporting a tablet of enamel. Having exchanged gifts, according to
+the custom of the sea, Captain Tetū 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 Tetū 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 Tetū, 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 Tetū 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 Tetū, 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 Tetū'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 Tetū.
+
+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 Tetū 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 Tetū'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 Tetū. 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 Tetū 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.
+
+[Illustration: SHIP AND FLYING FISH]
+
+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
+Tetū, 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.
+
+[Footnote 2: _Caliver_, a light, hand musket. A musket without a crutch,
+or rest.]
+
+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]
+
+[Footnote 3: See particularly Burney, Exquemeling, Edwards, and Hazard.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 4: See Exquemeling, Burney, and the Abbé Raynal.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 5: Burney.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 6: See Burney, and Exquemeling.]
+
+[Illustration: A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN
+    A BARBECUE IN RIGHT LOWER CORNER]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 7: Exquemeling.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 8: Precarious, and not at all permanent.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 9: Similar pacts of comradeship are made among merchant
+sailors to this day.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 10: Exquemeling gives many curious details of the life of
+these strange people. See the French edition of "Histoire des
+Avanturiers."]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 11: Exquemeling gives these details.]
+
+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."
+
+[Footnote 12: Exquemeling.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 13: Dampier.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 14: Exquemeling.]
+
+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-vitę. 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." Pčre 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 Haļti." 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." Cieēa de Leon: "Travels."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BUCCANEER CUSTOMS
+
+    Mansvelt and Morgan--Morgan's raid on Cuba--Puerto del Principe
+
+
+Throughout the years of buccaneering, the buccaneers often put to sea in
+canoas and periaguas,[15] just as Drake put to sea in his three
+pinnaces. Life in an open boat is far from pleasant, but men who passed
+their leisure cutting logwood at Campeachy, or hoeing tobacco in
+Jamaica, or toiling over gramma grass under a hot sun after cattle, were
+not disposed to make the worst of things. They would sit contentedly
+upon the oar bench, rowing with a long, slow stroke for hours together
+without showing signs of fatigue. Nearly all of them were men of more
+than ordinary strength, and all of them were well accustomed to the
+climate. When they had rowed their canoa to the Main they were able to
+take it easy till a ship came by from one of the Spanish ports. If she
+seemed a reasonable prey, without too many guns, and not too high
+charged, or high built, the privateers would load their muskets, and row
+down to engage her. The best shots were sent into the bows, and excused
+from rowing, lest the exercise should cause their hands to tremble. A
+clever man was put to the steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden
+to sing out whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It was in
+action, and in action only, that the captain had command over his men.
+The steersman endeavoured to keep the masts of the quarry in a line,
+and to approach her from astern. The marksmen from the bows kept up a
+continual fire at the vessel's helmsmen, if they could be seen, and at
+any gun-ports which happened to be open. If the helmsmen could not be
+seen from the sea, the canoas aimed to row in upon the vessel's
+quarters, where they could wedge up the rudder with wooden chocks or
+wedges. They then laid her aboard over the quarter, or by the after
+chains, and carried her with their knives and pistols. The first man to
+get aboard received some gift of money at the division of the spoil.
+
+[Footnote 15: Dampier and Exquemeling.]
+
+When the prize was taken, the prisoners were questioned, and despoiled.
+Often, indeed, they were stripped stark naked, and granted the privilege
+of seeing their finery on a pirate's back. Each buccaneer had the right
+to take a shift of clothes out of each prize captured. The cargo was
+then rummaged, and the state of the ship looked to, with an eye to using
+her as a cruiser. As a rule, the prisoners were put ashore on the first
+opportunity, but some buccaneers had a way of selling their captives
+into slavery. If the ship were old, leaky, valueless, in ballast, or
+with a cargo useless to the rovers, she was either robbed of her guns,
+and turned adrift with her crew, or run ashore in some snug cove, where
+she could be burnt for the sake of the iron-work. If the cargo were of
+value, and, as a rule, the ships they took had some rich thing aboard
+them, they sailed her to one of the Dutch, French, or English
+settlements, where they sold her freight for what they could get--some
+tenth or twentieth of its value. If the ship were a good one, in good
+condition, well found, swift, and not of too great draught (for they
+preferred to sail in small ships), they took her for their cruiser as
+soon as they had emptied out her freight. They sponged and loaded her
+guns, brought their stores aboard her, laid their mats upon her deck,
+secured the boats astern, and sailed away in search of other plunder.
+They kept little discipline aboard their ships. What work had to be done
+they did, but works of supererogation they despised and rejected as a
+shade unholy. The night watches were partly orgies. While some slept,
+the others fired guns and drank to the health of their fellows. By the
+light of the binnacle, or by the light of the slush lamps in the cabin,
+the rovers played a hand at cards, or diced each other at "seven and
+eleven," using a pannikin as dice-box. While the gamblers cut and
+shuffled, and the dice rattled in the tin, the musical sang songs, the
+fiddlers set their music chuckling, and the sea-boots stamped approval.
+The cunning dancers showed their science in the moonlight, avoiding the
+sleepers if they could. In this jolly fashion were the nights made
+short. In the daytime, the gambling continued with little intermission;
+nor had the captain any authority to stop it. One captain, in the
+histories, was so bold as to throw the dice and cards overboard, but, as
+a rule, the captain of a buccaneer cruiser was chosen as an artist, or
+navigator, or as a lucky fighter. He was not expected to spoil sport.
+The continual gambling nearly always led to fights and quarrels. The
+lucky dicers often won so much that the unlucky had to part with all
+their booty. Sometimes a few men would win all the plunder of the
+cruise, much to the disgust of the majority, who clamoured for a
+redivision of the spoil. If two buccaneers got into a quarrel they
+fought it out on shore at the first opportunity, using knives, swords,
+or pistols, according to taste. The usual way of fighting was with
+pistols, the combatants standing back to back, at a distance of ten or
+twelve paces, and turning round to fire at the word of command. If both
+shots missed, the question was decided with cutlasses, the man who drew
+first blood being declared the winner. If a man were proved to be a
+coward he was either tied to the mast, and shot, or mutilated, and sent
+ashore. No cruise came to an end until the company declared themselves
+satisfied with the amount of plunder taken. The question, like all other
+important questions, was debated round the mast, and decided by vote.
+
+At the conclusion of a successful cruise, they sailed for Port Royal,
+with the ship full of treasure, such as vicuna wool, packets of pearls
+from the Hatch, jars of civet or of ambergris, boxes of "marmalett" and
+spices, casks of strong drink, bales of silk, sacks of chocolate and
+vanilla, and rolls of green cloth and pale blue cotton which the Indians
+had woven in Peru, in some sandy village near the sea, in sight of the
+pelicans and the penguins. In addition to all these things, they usually
+had a number of the personal possessions of those they had taken on the
+seas. Lying in the chests for subsequent division were swords,
+silver-mounted pistols, daggers chased and inlaid, watches from Spain,
+necklaces of uncut jewels, rings and bangles, heavy carved furniture,
+"cases of bottles" of delicately cut green glass, containing cordials
+distilled of precious mints, with packets of emeralds from Brazil,
+bezoar stones from Patagonia, paintings from Spain, and medicinal gums
+from Nicaragua. All these things were divided by lot at the main-mast as
+soon as the anchor held. As the ship, or ships, neared port, her men
+hung colours out--any colours they could find--to make their vessel gay.
+A cup of drink was taken as they sailed slowly home to moorings, and as
+they drank they fired off the cannon, "bullets and all," again and yet
+again, rejoicing as the bullets struck the water. Up in the bay, the
+ships in the harbour answered with salutes of cannon; flags were dipped
+and hoisted in salute; and so the anchor dropped in some safe reach, and
+the division of the spoil began.
+
+[Illustration: OLD PORT ROYAL]
+
+After the division of the spoil in the beautiful Port Royal harbour,
+in sight of the palm-trees and the fort with the colours flying, the
+buccaneers packed their gear, and dropped over the side into a boat.
+They were pulled ashore by some grinning black man with a scarlet scarf
+about his head and the brand of a hot iron on his shoulders. At the
+jetty end, where the Indians lounged at their tobacco and the
+fishermen's canoas rocked, the sunburnt pirates put ashore. Among the
+noisy company which always gathers on a pier they met with their
+companions. A sort of Roman triumph followed, as the "happily returned"
+lounged swaggeringly towards the taverns. Eager hands helped them to
+carry in their plunder. In a few minutes the gang was entering the
+tavern, the long, cool room with barrels round the walls, where there
+were benches and a table and an old blind fiddler jerking his elbow at a
+jig. Noisily the party ranged about the table, and sat themselves upon
+the benches, while the drawers, or potboys, in their shirts, drew near
+to take the orders. I wonder if the reader has ever heard a sailor in
+the like circumstance, five minutes after he has touched his pay,
+address a company of parasites in an inn with the question: "What's it
+going to be?"
+
+After the settlement of Jamaica by the English, the buccaneers became
+more enterprising. One buccaneer captain, the most remarkable of all of
+them, a man named Mansvelt, probably a Dutchman from Curaēoa, attempted
+to found a pirate settlement upon the island of Santa Katalina, or Old
+Providence. Mansvelt was a fortunate sea-captain, with considerable
+charm of manner. He was popular with the buccaneers, and had a name
+among them, for he was the first of them to cross the isthmus and to
+sail the South Sea. His South-Sea cruise had come to little, for
+provisions ran short, and his company had been too small to attempt a
+Spanish town. He had, therefore, retreated to the North Sea to his
+ships, and had then gone cruising northward along the Nicaragua coast
+as far as the Blewfields River. From this point he stood away to the
+island of Santa Katalina, or Old Providence--an island about six miles
+long, with an excellent harbour, which, he thought, might easily be
+fortified. A smaller island lies directly to the north of it, separated
+from it by a narrow channel of the sea. Twenty years before his visit it
+had been the haunt of an old captain of the name of Blewfields, who had
+made it his base while his men went logwood cutting on the mainland.
+Blewfields was now dead, either of rum or war, and the Spaniards had
+settled there, and had built themselves a fort or castle to command the
+harbour. Having examined the place, Mansvelt sailed away to Jamaica to
+equip a fleet to take it. He saw that the golden times which the
+buccaneers were then enjoying could not last for ever, and that their
+occupation might be wrecked by a single ill-considered treaty, dated
+from St James's or the Court of France. He thought that the islands
+should be seized as a general rendezvous for folk of that way of life.
+With a little trouble the harbour could be made impregnable. The land
+was good, and suited for the growing of maize or tobacco--the two
+products most in demand among them. The islands were near the Main,
+being only thirty-five leagues from the Chagres River, the stream from
+which the golden harvest floated from the cities of the south. They were
+close to the coast of Nicaragua, where the logwood grew in clumps,
+waiting for the axes of the lumbermen. With the islands in their hands,
+the buccaneers could drive the Spaniards off the isthmus--or so Mansvelt
+thought. It would at anyrate have been an easy matter for them to have
+wrecked the trade routes from Panama to Porto Bello, and from Porto
+Bello to Vera Cruz.
+
+While Mansvelt lay at Port Royal, scraping and tallowing his ships,
+getting beef salted and boucanned, and drumming up his men from the
+taverns, a Welshman, of the name of Henry Morgan, came sailing up to
+moorings with half-a-dozen captured merchantmen. But a few weeks before,
+he had come home from a cruise with a little money in his pockets. He
+had clubbed together with some shipmates, and had purchased a small ship
+with the common fund. She was but meanly equipped, yet her first cruise
+to the westward, on the coast of Campeachy, was singularly lucky.
+Mansvelt at once saw his opportunity to win recruits. A captain so
+fortunate as Morgan would be sure to attract followers, for the
+buccaneers asked that their captains should be valorous and lucky. For
+other qualities, such as prudence and forethought, they did not
+particularly care. Mansvelt at once went aboard Morgan's ship to drink a
+cup of sack with him in the cabin. He asked him to act as vice-admiral
+to the fleet he was then equipping for Santa Katalina. To this Henry
+Morgan very readily consented, for he judged that a great company would
+be able to achieve great things. In a few days, the two set sail
+together from Port Royal, with a fleet of fifteen ships, manned by 500
+buccaneers, many of whom were French and Dutch.
+
+As soon as they arrived at Santa Katalina, they anchored, and sent their
+men ashore with some heavy guns. The Spanish garrison was strong, and
+the fortress well situated, but in a few days they forced it to
+surrender. They then crossed by a bridge of boats to the lesser island
+to the north, where they ravaged the plantations for fresh supplies.
+Having blown up all the fortifications save the castle, they sent the
+Spanish prisoners aboard the ships. They then chose out 100 trusty men
+to keep the island for them. They left these on the island, under the
+command of a Frenchman of the name of Le Sieur Simon. They also left
+the Spanish slaves behind, to work the plantations, and to grow maize
+and sweet potatoes for the future victualling of the fleet. Mansvelt
+then sailed away towards Porto Bello, near which city he put his
+prisoners ashore. He cruised to the eastward for some weeks, snapping up
+provision ships and little trading vessels; but he learned that the
+Governor of Panama, a determined and very gallant soldier, was fitting
+out an army to encounter him, should he attempt to land. The news may
+have been false, but it showed the buccaneers that they were known to be
+upon the coast, and that their raid up "the river of Colla" to "rob and
+pillage" the little town of Nata, on the Bay of Panama, would be
+fruitless. The Spanish residents of little towns like Nata buried all
+their gold and silver, and then fled into the woods when rumours of the
+pirates came to them. To attack such a town some weeks after the
+townsfolk had received warning of their intentions would have been worse
+than useless.
+
+Mansvelt, therefore, returned to Santa Katalina to see how the colony
+had prospered while he had been at sea. He found that Le Sieur Simon had
+put the harbour "in a very good posture of defence," having built a
+couple of batteries to command the anchorage. In these he had mounted
+his cannon upon platforms of plank, with due munitions of cannon-balls
+and powder. On the little island to the north he had laid out
+plantations of maize, sweet potatoes, plantains, and tobacco. The
+first-fruits of these green fields were now ripe, and "sufficient to
+revictual the whole fleet with provisions and fruits."
+
+Mansvelt was so well satisfied with the prospects of the colony that he
+determined to hurry back to Jamaica to beg recruits and recognition from
+the English Governor. The islands had belonged to English subjects in
+the past, and of right belonged to England still. However, the Jamaican
+Governor disliked the scheme. He feared that by lending his support he
+would incur the wrath of the English Government, while he could not
+weaken his position in Jamaica by sending soldiers from his garrison.
+Mansvelt, "seeing the unwillingness" of this un-English Governor, at
+once made sail for Tortuga, where he hoped the French might be less
+squeamish. He dropped anchor, in the channel between Tortuga and
+Hispaniola early in the summer of 1665. He seems to have gone ashore to
+see the French authorities. Perhaps he drank too strong a punch of rum
+and sugar--a drink very prejudicial in such a climate to one not used to
+it. Perhaps he took the yellow fever, or the coast cramp; the fact
+cannot now be known. At any rate he sickened, and died there, "before he
+could accomplish his desires"--"all things hereby remaining in
+suspense." One account, based on the hearsay of a sea-captain, says that
+Mansvelt was taken by the Spaniards, and brought to Porto Bello, and
+there put to death by the troops.
+
+Le Sieur Simon remained at his post, hoeing his tobacco plants, and
+sending detachments to the Main to kill manatee, or to cut logwood. He
+looked out anxiously for Mansvelt's ships, for he had not men enough to
+stand a siege, and greatly feared that the Spaniards would attack him.
+While he stayed in this perplexity, wondering why he did not hear from
+Mansvelt, he received a letter from Don John Perez de Guzman, the
+Spanish captain-general, who bade him "surrender the island to his
+Catholic Majesty," on pain of severe punishment. To this Le Sieur Simon
+made no answer, for he hoped that Mansvelt's fleet would soon be in
+those waters to deliver him from danger. Don John, who was a very
+energetic captain-general, determined to retake the place. He left his
+residence at Panama, and crossed the isthmus to Porto Bello, where he
+found a ship, called the _St Vincent_, "that belonged to the Company of
+the Negroes" (the Isthmian company of slavers), lying at anchor, waiting
+for a freight. We are told that she was a good ship, "well mounted with
+guns." He provisioned her for the sea, and manned her with about 400
+men, mostly soldiers from the Porto Bello forts. Among the company were
+seven master gunners and "twelve Indians very dexterous at shooting with
+bows and arrows." The city of Cartagena furnished other ships and men,
+bringing the squadron to a total of four vessels and 500 men-at-arms.
+With this force the Spanish commander arrived off Santa Katalina, coming
+to anchor in the port there on the evening of a windy day, the 10th of
+August 1665. As they dropped anchor they displayed their colours. As
+soon as the yellow silk blew clear, Le Sieur Simon discharged "three
+guns with bullets" at the ships, "the which were soon answered in the
+same coin." The Spaniard then sent a boat ashore to summon the garrison,
+threatening death to all if the summons were refused. To this Le Sieur
+Simon replied that the island was a possession of the English Crown,
+"and that, instead of surrendering it, they preferred to lose their
+lives." As more than a fourth of the little garrison was at that time
+hunting on the Main, or at sea, the answer was heroic. Three days later,
+some negroes swam off to the ships to tell the Spaniards of the
+garrison's weakness. After two more days of council, the boats were
+lowered from the ships, and manned with soldiers. The guns on the
+gun-decks were loaded, and trained. The drums beat to quarters both on
+the ships and in the batteries. Under the cover of the warship's guns,
+the boats shoved off towards the landing-place, receiving a furious fire
+from the buccaneers. The "weather was very calm and clear," so that the
+smoke from the guns did not blow away fast enough to allow the
+buccaneers to aim at the boats. The landing force formed into three
+parties, two of which attacked the flanks, and the third the centre.
+The battle was very furious, though the buccaneers were outnumbered and
+had no chance of victory. They ran short of cannon-balls before they
+surrendered, but they made shift for a time with small shot and scraps
+of iron, "also the organs of the church," of which they fired
+"threescore pipes" at a shot. The fighting lasted most of the day, for
+it was not to the advantage of the Spaniards to come to push of pike.
+Towards sunset the buccaneers were beaten from their guns. They fought
+in the open for a few minutes, round "the gate called Costadura," but
+the Spaniards surrounded them, and they were forced to lay down their
+arms. The Spanish colours were set up, and two poor Spaniards who had
+joined the buccaneers were shot to death upon the Plaza. The English
+prisoners were sent aboard the ships, and carried into Porto Bello,
+where they were put to the building of a fortress--the Iron Castle, a
+place of great strength, which later on the English blew to pieces. Some
+of the men were sent to Panama "to work in the castle of St Jerome"--a
+wonderful, great castle, which was burned at the sack of Panama almost
+before the mortar dried.
+
+While the guns were roaring over Santa Katalina, as Le Sieur Simon
+rammed his cannon full of organ pipes, Henry Morgan was in lodgings at
+Port Royal, greatly troubled at the news of Mansvelt's death. He was
+busily engaged at the time with letters to the merchants of New England.
+He was endeavouring to get their help towards the fortification of the
+island he had helped to capture. "His principal intent," writes one who
+did not love the man, "was to consecrate it as a refuge and sanctuary to
+the Pirates of those parts," making it "a convenient receptacle or store
+house of their preys and robberies." It is pleasant to speculate as to
+the reasons he urged to the devout New England Puritans. He must have
+chuckled to himself, and shared many a laugh with his clerk, to think
+that perhaps a Levite, or a Man of God, a deacon, or an elder, would
+untie the purse-strings of the sealed if he did but agonise about the
+Spanish Inquisition with sufficient earthquake and eclipse. He heard of
+the loss of the island before the answers came to him, and the news, of
+course, "put him upon new designs," though he did not abandon the scheme
+in its entirety. He had his little fleet at anchor in the harbour,
+gradually fitting for the sea, and his own ship was ready. Having
+received his commission from the Governor, he gave his captains orders
+to meet him on the Cuban coast, at one of the many inlets affording safe
+anchorage. Here, after several weeks of cruising, he was joined by "a
+fleet of twelve sail," some of them of several hundred tons. These were
+manned by 700 fighting men, part French, part English.
+
+At the council of war aboard the admiral's ship, it was suggested that
+so large a company should venture on Havana, which city, they thought,
+might easily be taken, "especially if they could but take a few of the
+ecclesiastics." Some of the pirates had been prisoners in the Havana,
+and knew that a town of 30,000 inhabitants would hardly yield to 700
+men, however desperate. "Nothing of consequence could be done there,"
+they pronounced, even with ecclesiastics, "unless with fifteen hundred
+men." One of the pirates then suggested the town of Puerto del Principe,
+an inland town surrounded by tobacco fields, at some distance from the
+sea. It did a thriving trade with the Havana; and he who suggested that
+it should be sacked, affirmed upon his honour, like Boult over Maria,
+that it never yet "was sacked by any Pirates." Towards this virginal
+rich town the buccaneers proceeded, keeping close along the coast until
+they made the anchorage of Santa Maria. Here they dropped anchor for the
+night.
+
+When the men were making merry over the punch, as they cleaned their
+arms, and packed their satchels, a Spanish prisoner "who had overheard
+their discourse, while they thought he did not understand the English
+tongue," slipped through a port-hole to the sea, and swam ashore. By
+some miracle he escaped the ground sharks, and contrived to get to
+Puerto del Principe some hours before the pirates left their ships. The
+Governor of the town, to whom he told his story, at once raised all his
+forces, "both freemen and slaves," to prejudice the enemy when he
+attacked. The forest ways were blocked with timber baulks, and several
+ambuscades were laid, with cannon in them, "to play upon them on their
+march." In all, he raised and armed 800 men, whom he disposed in order,
+either in the jungle at the ambuscades or in a wide expanse of grass
+which surrounded the town.
+
+In due course Morgan sent his men ashore, and marched them through the
+wood towards the town. They found the woodland trackways blocked by the
+timber baulks, so they made a detour, hacking paths for themselves with
+their machetes, until they got clear of the wood. When they got out of
+the jungle they found themselves on an immense green field, covered with
+thick grass, which bowed and shivered in the wind. A few pale cattle
+grazed here and there on the savannah; a few birds piped and twittered
+in the sunshine. In front of them, at some little distance, was the town
+they had come to pillage. It lay open to them--a cluster of houses, none
+of them very large, with warehouses and tobacco drying-rooms and
+churches with bells in them. Outside the town, some of them lying down,
+some standing so as to get a view of the enemy, were the planters and
+townsfolk, with their pikes and muskets, waiting for the battle to
+begin. Right in the pirates' front was a troop of horsemen armed with
+lances, swords, and pistols, drawn up in very good order, and ready to
+advance. The pirates on their coming from the wood formed into a
+semicircle or half-moon shape, the bow outwards, the horns curving to
+prevent the cavalry from taking them in flank. They had drums and
+colours in their ranks. The drums beat out a bravery, the colours were
+displayed. The men halted for a moment to get their breath and to
+reprime their guns. Then they advanced slowly, to the drubbing of the
+drums, just as the Spanish horsemen trotted forward. As the Spaniards
+sounded the charge, the buccaneers fired a volley of bullets at them,
+which brought a number of cavaliers out of their saddles. Those horsemen
+who escaped the bullets dashed down upon the line, and fired their
+pistols at close quarters, afterwards wheeling round, and galloping back
+to reform. They charged again and again, "like valiant and courageous
+soldiers," but at every charge the pirates stood firm, and withered them
+with file-firing. As they retired after each rush, the marksmen in the
+ranks picked them off one by one, killing the Governor, in his plumed
+hat, and strewing the grass with corpses. They also manoeuvred during
+this skirmish so as to cut off the horsemen from the town. After four
+hours of battle the cavalry were broken and defeated, and in no heart to
+fight further. They made a last charge on their blown horses, but their
+ranks went to pieces at the muzzles of the pirates' guns. They broke
+towards the cover of the woods, but the pirates charged them as they
+ran, and cut them down without pity. Then the drums beat out a bravery,
+and the pirates rushed the town in the face of a smart fire. The
+Spaniards fought in the streets, while some fired from the roofs and
+upper windows. So hot was the tussle that the pirates had to fight from
+house to house. The townsmen did not cease their fire, till the pirates
+were gathering wood to burn the town, in despair of taking it.
+
+[Illustration: PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE]
+
+As soon as the firing ceased, the townsfolk were driven to the
+churches, and there imprisoned under sentinels. Afterwards the pirates
+"searched the whole country round about the town, bringing in day by day
+many goods and prisoners, with much provision." The wine and spirits of
+the townsfolk were set on tap, and "with this they fell to banqueting
+among themselves, and making great cheer after their customary way."
+They feasted so merrily that they forgot their prisoners, "whereby the
+greatest part perished." Those who did not perish were examined in the
+Plaza, "to make them confess where they had hidden their goods." Those
+who would not tell where they had buried their gold were tortured very
+barbarously by burning matches, twisted cords, or lighted palm leaves.
+Finally, the starving wretches were ordered to find ransoms, "else they
+should be all transported to Jamaica" to be sold as slaves. The town was
+also laid under a heavy contribution, without which, they said, "they
+would turn every house into ashes."
+
+It happened that, at this juncture, some buccaneers, who were raiding in
+the woods, made prisoner a negro carrying letters from the Governor of
+the Havana. The letters were written to the citizens, telling them to
+delay the payment of their ransoms as long as possible, for that he was
+fitting out some soldiers to relieve them. The letters warned Henry
+Morgan that he had better be away with the treasure he had found. He
+gave order for the plunder to be sent aboard in the carts of the
+townsfolk. He then called up the prisoners, and told them very sharply
+that their ransoms must be paid the next day, "forasmuch as he would not
+wait one moment longer, but reduce the whole town to ashes, in case they
+failed to perform the sum he demanded." As it was plainly impossible for
+the townsfolk to produce their ransoms at this short notice he
+graciously relieved their misery by adding that he would be contented
+with 500 beeves, "together with sufficient salt wherewith to salt
+them." He insisted that the cattle should be ready for him by the next
+morning, and that the Spaniards should deliver them upon the beach,
+where they could be shifted to the ships without delay. Having made
+these terms, he marched his men away towards the sea, taking with him
+six of the principal prisoners "as pledges of what he intended." Early
+the next morning the beach of Santa Maria bay was thronged with cattle
+in charge of negroes and planters. Some of the oxen had been yoked to
+carts to bring the necessary salt. The Spaniards delivered the ransom,
+and demanded the six hostages. Morgan was by this time in some anxiety
+for his position. He was eager to set sail before the Havana ships came
+round the headland, with their guns run out, and matches lit, and all
+things ready for a fight. He refused to release the prisoners until the
+vaqueros "had helped his men to kill and salt the beeves." The work of
+killing and salting was performed "in great haste," lest the Havana
+ships should come upon them before the beef was shipped. The hides were
+left upon the sands, there being no time to dry them before sailing. A
+Spanish cowboy can kill, skin, and cut up a steer in a few minutes. The
+buccaneers were probably no whit less skilful. By noon the work was
+done. The beach of Santa Maria was strewn with mangled remnants, over
+which the seagulls quarrelled. But before Morgan could proceed to sea,
+he had to quell an uproar which was setting the French and English by
+the ears. The parties had not come to blows, but the French were
+clamouring for vengeance with drawn weapons. A French sailor, who was
+working on the beach, killing and pickling the meat, had been plundered
+by an Englishman, who "took away the marrowbones he had taken out of the
+ox." Marrow, "toute chaude," was a favourite dish among these people.
+The Frenchman could not brook an insult of a kind as hurtful to his
+dinner as to his sense of honour. He challenged the thief to single
+combat: swords the weapon, the time then. The buccaneers knocked off
+their butcher's work to see the fight. As the poor Frenchman turned his
+back to make him ready, his adversary stabbed him from behind, running
+him quite through, so that "he suddenly fell dead upon the place."
+Instantly the beach was in an uproar. The Frenchmen pressed upon the
+English to attack the murderer and to avenge the death of their fellow.
+There had been bad blood between the parties ever since they mustered at
+the quays before the raid began. The quarrel now raging was an excuse to
+both sides. Morgan walked between the angry groups, telling them to put
+up their swords. At a word from him, the murderer was seized, set in
+irons, and sent aboard an English ship. Morgan then seems to have made a
+little speech to pacify the rioters, telling the French that the man
+should be hanged ("hanged immediately," as they said of Admiral Byng) as
+soon as the ships had anchored in Port Royal bay. To the English, he
+said that the criminal was worthy of punishment, "for although it was
+permitted him to challenge his adversary, yet it was not lawful to kill
+him treacherously, as he did." After a good deal of muttering, the
+mutineers returned aboard their ships, carrying with them the last of
+the newly salted beef. The hostages were freed, a gun was fired from the
+admiral's ship, and the fleet hove up their anchors, and sailed away
+from Cuba, to some small sandy quay with a spring of water in it, where
+the division of the plunder could be made. The plunder was heaped
+together in a single pile. It was valued by the captains, who knew by
+long experience what such goods would fetch in the Jamaican towns.
+
+To the "resentment and grief" of all the 700 men these valuers could not
+bring the total up to 50,000 pieces of eight--say £12,000--"in money and
+goods." All hands were disgusted at "such a small booty, which was not
+sufficient to pay their debts at Jamaica." Some cursed their fortune;
+others cursed their captain. It does not seem to have occurred to them
+to blame themselves for talking business before their Spanish prisoners.
+Morgan told them to "think upon some other enterprize," for the ships
+were fit to keep the sea, and well provisioned. It would be an easy
+matter, he told them, to attack some town upon the Main "before they
+returned home," so that they should have a little money for the taverns,
+to buy them rum with, at the end of the cruise. But the French were
+still sore about the murder of their man: they raised objections to
+every scheme the English buccaneers proposed. Each proposition was
+received contemptuously, with angry bickerings and mutterings. At last
+the French captains intimated that they desired to part company. Captain
+Morgan endeavoured to dissuade them from this resolution by using every
+flattery his adroit nature could suggest. Finding that they would not
+listen to him, even though he swore by his honour that the murderer,
+then in chains, should be hanged as soon as they reached home, he
+brought out wine and glasses, and drank to their good fortune. The booty
+was then shared up among the adventurers. The Frenchmen got their shares
+aboard, and set sail for Tortuga to the sound of a salute of guns. The
+English held on for Port Royal, in great "resentment and grief." When
+they arrived there they caused the murderer to be hanged upon a gallows,
+which, we are told, "was all the satisfaction the French Pirates could
+expect."
+
+    _Note._--If we may believe Morgan's statement to Sir T. Modyford,
+    then Governor of Jamaica, he brought with him from Cuba reliable
+    evidence that the Spaniards were planning an attack upon that colony
+    (see State Papers: West Indies and Colonial Series). If the
+    statements of his prisoners were correct, the subsequent piratical
+    raid upon the Main had some justification. Had the Spaniards matured
+    their plans, and pushed the attack home, it is probable that we
+    should have lost our West Indian possessions.
+
+    _Authorities._--A. O. Exquemeling: "Bucaniers of America," eds.
+    1684-5 and 1699. Cal. State Papers: "West Indies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SACK OF PORTO BELLO
+
+    The Gulf of Maracaibo--Morgan's escape from the Spaniards
+
+
+It was a melancholy home-coming. The men had little more than ten pounds
+apiece to spend in jollity. The merchants who enjoyed their custom were
+of those kinds least anxious to give credit. The ten pounds were but
+sufficient to stimulate desire. They did not allow the jolly mariner to
+enjoy himself with any thoroughness. In a day or two, the buccaneers
+were at the end of their gold, and had to haunt the street corners,
+within scent of the rum casks, thinking sadly of the pleasant liquor
+they could not afford to drink. Henry Morgan took this occasion to
+recruit for a new enterprise. He went ashore among the drinking-houses,
+telling all he met of golden towns he meant to capture. He always
+"communicated vigour with his words," for, being a Welshman, he had a
+certain fervour of address, not necessarily sincere, which touched his
+simplest phrase with passion. In a day or two, after a little talk and a
+little treating, every disconsolate drunkard in the town was "persuaded
+by his reasons, that the sole execution of his orders, would be a
+certain means of obtaining great riches." This persuasion, the writer
+adds, "had such influence upon their minds, that with inimitable courage
+they all resolved to follow him." Even "a certain Pirate of Campeachy,"
+a shipowner of considerable repute, resolved to follow Morgan "to seek
+new fortunes and greater advantages than he had found before." The
+French might hold aloof, they all declared, but an Englishman was still
+the equal of a Spaniard; while after all a short life and a merry one
+was better than work ashore or being a parson. With this crude
+philosophy, they went aboard again to the decks they had so lately left.
+The Campeachy pirate brought in a ship or two, and some large canoas. In
+all they had a fleet of nine sail, manned by "four hundred and three
+score military men." With this force Captain Morgan sailed for Costa
+Rica.
+
+When they came within the sight of land, a council was called, to which
+the captains of the vessels went. Morgan told them that he meant to
+plunder Porto Bello by a night attack, "being resolved" to sack the
+place, "not the least corner escaping his diligence." He added that the
+scheme had been held secret, so that "it would not fail to succeed
+well." Besides, he thought it likely that a city of such strength would
+be unprepared for any sudden attack. The captains were staggered by this
+resolution, for they thought themselves too weak "to assault so strong
+and great a city." To this the plucky Welshman answered: "If our number
+is small, our hearts are great. And the fewer persons we are, the more
+union and better shares we shall have in the spoil." This answer, with
+the thought of "those vast riches they promised themselves," convinced
+the captains that the town could be attempted. It was a "dangerous
+voyage and bold assault" but Morgan had been lucky in the past, and the
+luck might still be with him. He knew the Porto Bello country, having
+been there with a party (perhaps Mansvelt's party) some years before. At
+any rate the ships would be at hand in the event of a repulse.
+
+It was something of a hazard, for the Spanish garrison was formed of all
+the desperate criminals the colonial police could catch. These men made
+excellent soldiers, for after a battle they were given the plunder of
+the men they had killed. Then Panama, with its great garrison, was
+perilously near at hand, being barely sixty miles away, or two days'
+journey. Lastly, the town was strongly fortified, with castles guarding
+it at all points. The garrison was comparatively small, mustering about
+three companies of foot. To these, however, the buccaneers had to add
+300 townsfolk capable of bearing arms. Following John Exquemeling's
+plan, we add a brief description of this famous town, to help the reader
+to form a mental picture of it.
+
+Porto Bello stands on the south-eastern side of a fine bay, "in the
+province of Costa Rica." At the time when Morgan captured it (in June
+1668) it was one of the strongest cities in the possession of the King
+of Spain. It was neglected until 1584, when a royal mandate caused the
+traders of Nombre de Dios to migrate thither. It then became the port of
+the galleons,[16] where the treasures of the south were shipped for
+Spain. The city which Morgan sacked was built upon a strip of level
+ground planted with fruit-trees, at a little distance from the sea, but
+within a few yards of the bay. The westward half of the town was very
+stately, being graced with fine stone churches and the residence of the
+lieutenant-general. Most of the merchants' dwellings (and of these there
+may have been 100) were built of cedar wood. Some were of stone, a thing
+unusual in the Indies, and some were partly stone, with wooden upper
+storeys. There was a fine stone convent peopled by Sisters of Mercy, and
+a dirty, ruinous old hospital for "the sick men belonging to the ships
+of war." On the shore there was a quay, backed by a long stone
+custom-house. The main street ran along the shore behind this
+custom-house, with cross-streets leading to the two great squares. The
+eastward half of the city, through which the road to Panama ran, was
+called Guinea; for there the slaves and negroes used to live, in huts
+and cottages of sugar-cane and palm leaves. There, too, was the slave
+mart, to which the cargoes of the Guinea ships were brought. A little
+river of clear water divided the two halves of the town. Another little
+river, bridged in two places, ran between the town and Castle Gloria.
+The place was strongly fortified. Ships entering the bay had to pass
+close to the "Iron Castle," built upon the western point. Directly they
+stood away towards the town they were exposed to the guns of Castle
+Gloria and Fort Jeronimo--the latter a strong castle built upon a
+sandbank off the Guinea town. The constant population was not large,
+though probably 300 white men lived there all the year round, in
+addition to the Spanish garrison. The native quarter was generally
+inhabited by several hundred negroes and mulattoes. When the galleons
+arrived there, and for some weeks before, the town was populous with
+merchants, who came across from Panama to buy and sell. Tents were
+pitched in the Grand Plaza, in front of the Governor's house, for the
+protection of perishable goods, like Jesuits'-bark. Gold and silver bars
+became as common to the sight as pebbles. Droves of mules came daily in
+from Panama, and ships arrived daily from all the seaports in the
+Indies. As soon as the galleons sailed for Spain, the city emptied as
+rapidly as it had filled. It was too unhealthy a place for white folk,
+who continued there "no longer than was needful to acquire a fortune."
+
+[Footnote 16: With reservations. See p. 13, _note_.]
+
+[Illustration: PORTO BELLO
+    CIRCA 1740. SHOWING THE SITUATION AND DEFENCES OF THE CITY]
+
+Indeed, Porto Bello was one of the most pestilential cities ever built,
+"by reason of the unhealthiness of the Air, occasioned by certain
+Vapours that exhale from the Mountains." It was excessively hot, for it
+lay (as it still lies) in a well, surrounded by hills, "without any
+intervals to admit the refreshing gales." It was less marshy than Nombre
+de Dios, but "the sea, when it ebbs, leaves a vast quantity of black,
+stinking mud, from whence there exhales an intolerable noisome vapour."
+At every fair-time "a kind of pestilential fever" raged, so that at
+least 400 folk were buried there annually during the five or six weeks
+of the market. The complaint may have been yellow fever; (perhaps the
+cholera), perhaps pernicious fever, aggravated by the dirty habits of
+the thousands then packed within the town. The mortality was especially
+heavy among the sailors who worked aboard the galleons, hoisting in or
+out the bales of merchandise. These mariners drank brandy very freely
+"to recruit their spirits," and in other ways exposed themselves to the
+infection. The drinking water of the place was "too fine and active for
+the stomachs of the inhabitants," who died of dysentery if they presumed
+to drink of it. The town smoked in a continual steam of heat, unrelieved
+even by the torrents of rain which fall there every day. The woods are
+infested with poisonous snakes, and abound in a sort of large toad or
+frog which crawls into the city after rains. The tigers "often make
+incursions into the street," as at Nombre de Dios, to carry off children
+and domestic animals. There was good fishing in the bay, and the land
+was fertile "beyond wonder," so that the cost of living there, in the
+_tiempo muerto_, was very small. There is a hill behind the town called
+the Capiro, about which the streamers of the clouds wreathe whenever
+rain is coming. The town was taken by Sir Francis Drake in 1595, by
+Captain Parker in 1601, by Morgan in 1668, by Coxon in 1679, and by
+Admiral Vernon in 1740.
+
+Having told his plans, the admiral bade his men make ready. During the
+afternoon he held towards the west of Porto Bello, at some distance from
+the land. The coast up to the Chagres River, and for some miles beyond,
+is low, so that there was not much risk of the ships being sighted from
+the shore. As it grew darker, he edged into the land, arriving "in the
+dusk of the evening" at a place called Puerto de Naos, or Port of
+Ships, a bay midway between Porto Bello and the Chagres, and about ten
+leagues from either place.
+
+They sailed westward up the coast for a little distance to a place
+called Puerto Pontin, where they anchored. Here the pirates got their
+boats out, and took to the oars, "leaving in the ships only a few men to
+keep them, and conduct them the next day to the port." By the light of
+lamps and battle lanterns the boats rowed on through the darkness, till
+at midnight they had came to a station called Estera longa Lemos, a
+river-mouth a few miles from Porto Bello, "where they all went on
+shore." After priming their muskets, they set forth towards the city,
+under the guidance of an English buccaneer, who had been a prisoner at
+Porto Bello but a little while before. When they were within a mile or
+two of the town, they sent this Englishmen with three or four companions
+to take a solitary sentry posted at the city outskirts. If they could
+not take him, they were to kill him, but without giving the alarm to the
+inhabitants. By creeping quietly behind him, the party took the sentry,
+"with such cunning that he had no time to give warning with his musket,
+or make any other noise." A knife point pressing on his spine, and a gag
+of wood across his tongue, warned him to attempt no outcry. Some
+rope-yarn was passed about his wrists, and in this condition he was
+dragged to Captain Morgan. As soon as he was in the admiral's presence,
+he was questioned as to the number of soldiers then in the forts, "with
+many other circumstances." It must have been a most uncomfortable trial,
+for "after every question, they made him a thousand menaces to kill him,
+in case he declared not the truth." When they had examined him to their
+satisfaction, they recommenced their march, "carrying always the said
+sentry bound before them." Another mile brought them to an outlying
+fortress, which was built apparently between Porto Bello and the sea,
+to protect the coast road and a few outlying plantations. It was not yet
+light, so the pirates crept about the fort unseen, "so that no person
+could get either in or out." When they had taken up their ground, Morgan
+bade the captured sentry hail the garrison, charging them to surrender
+on pain of being cut to pieces. The garrison at once ran to their
+weapons, and opened a fierce fire on the unseen enemy, thus giving
+warning to the city that the pirates were attacking. Before they could
+reload, the buccaneers, "the noble Sparks of Venus," stormed in among
+them, taking them in their confusion, hardly knowing what was toward.
+Morgan was furious that the Spaniards had not surrendered at discretion
+on his challenge. The pirates were flushed with the excitement of the
+charge. Someone proposed that they "should be as good as their words, in
+putting the Spaniards to the sword, thereby to strike a terror into the
+rest of the city." They hustled the Spanish soldiers "into one room,"
+officers and men together. The cellars of the fort were filled with
+powder barrels. Some ruffian took a handful of the powder, and spilled a
+train along the ground, telling his comrades to stand clear. His mates
+ran from the building applauding his device. In another moment the
+pirate blew upon his musket match to make the end red, and fired the
+train he had laid, "and blew up the whole castle into the air, with all
+the Spaniards that were within." "Much the better way of the two," says
+one of the chroniclers, who saw the explosion.
+
+"This being done," says the calm historian, "they pursued the course of
+their victory" into the town. By this time, the streets were thronged
+with shrieking townsfolk. Men ran hither and thither with their poor
+belongings. Many flung their gold and jewels into wells and cisterns, or
+stamped them underground, "to excuse their being totally robbed." The
+bells were set clanging in the belfries; while, to increase the
+confusion, the Governor rode into the streets, calling on the citizens
+to rally and stand firm. As the dreadful panic did not cease, he rode
+out of the mob to one of the castles (Castle Gloria), where the troops
+were under arms. It was now nearly daybreak, or light enough for them to
+see their enemy. As the pirates came in sight among the fruit-trees, the
+Governor trained his heavy guns upon them, and opened a smart fire. Some
+lesser castles, or the outlying works of Castle Gloria, which formed the
+outer defences of the town, followed his example; nor could the pirates
+silence them. One party of buccaneers crept round the fortifications to
+the town, where they attacked the monastery and the convent, breaking
+into both with little trouble, and capturing a number of monks and nuns.
+With these they retired to the pirates' lines.
+
+For several hours, the pirates got no farther, though the fire did not
+slacken on either side. The pirates lay among the scrub, hidden in the
+bushes, in little knots of two and three. They watched the castle
+embrasures after each discharge of cannon, for the Spaniards could not
+reload without exposing themselves as they sponged or rammed. Directly a
+Spaniard appeared, he was picked off from the bushes with such precision
+that they lost "one or two men every time they charged each gun anew."
+The losses on the English side were fully as severe; for, sheltered
+though they were, the buccaneers lost heavily. The lying still under a
+hot sun was galling to the pirates' temper. They made several attempts
+to storm, but failed in each attempt owing to the extreme gallantry of
+the defence. Towards noon they made a furious attack, carrying
+fireballs, or cans filled with powder and resin, in their hands
+"designing, if possible, to burn the doors of the castle." As they came
+beneath the walls, the Spaniards rolled down stones upon them, with
+"earthen pots full of powder" and iron shells filled full of chain-shot,
+"which forced them to desist from that attempt." Morgan's party was
+driven back with heavy loss. It seemed to Morgan at this crisis that the
+victory was with the Spanish. He wavered for some minutes, uncertain
+whether to call off his men. "Many faint and calm meditations came into
+his mind" seeing so many of his best hands dead and the Spanish fire
+still so furious. As he debated "he was suddenly animated to continue
+the assault, by seeing the English colours put forth at one of the
+lesser castles, then entered by his men." A few minutes later the
+conquerors came swaggering up to join him, "proclaiming victory with
+loud shouts of joy."
+
+Leaving his musketeers to fire at the Spanish gunners, Morgan turned
+aside to reconnoitre. Making the capture of the lesser fort his excuse,
+he sent a trumpet, with a white flag, to summon the main castle, where
+the Governor had flown the Spanish standard. While the herald was gone
+upon his errand, Morgan set some buccaneers to make a dozen scaling
+ladders, "so broad that three or four men at once might ascend by them."
+By the time they were finished, the trumpeter returned, bearing the
+Governor's answer that "he would never surrender himself alive." When
+the message had been given, Captain Morgan formed his soldiers into
+companies, and bade the monks and nuns whom he had taken, to place the
+ladders against the walls of the chief castle. He thought that the
+Spanish Governor would hardly shoot down these religious persons, even
+though they bore the ladders for the scaling parties. In this he was
+very much mistaken. The Governor was there to hold the castle for his
+Catholic Majesty, and, like "a brave and courageous soldier," he
+"refused not to use his utmost endeavours to destroy whoever came near
+the walls." As the wretched monks and nuns came tottering forward with
+the ladders, they begged of him, "by all the Saints of Heaven," to haul
+his colours down, to the saving of their lives. Behind them were the
+pirates, pricking them forward with their pikes and knives. In front of
+them were the cannon of their friends, so near that they could see the
+matches burning in the hands of the gunners. "They ceased not to cry to
+him," says the narrative; but they could not "prevail with the obstinacy
+and fierceness that had possessed the Governor's mind"--"the Governor
+valuing his honour before the lives of the Mass-mumblers." As they drew
+near to the walls, they quickened their steps, hoping, no doubt, to get
+below the cannon muzzles out of range. When they were but a few yards
+from the walls, the cannon fired at them, while the soldiers pelted them
+with a fiery hail of hand-grenades. "Many of the religious men and nuns
+were killed before they could fix the ladders"; in fact, the poor folk
+were butchered there in heaps, before the ladders caught against the
+parapet. Directly the ladders held, the pirates stormed up with a shout,
+in great swarms, like a ship's crew going aloft to make the sails fast.
+They had "fireballs in their hands and earthen pots full of powder,"
+which "they kindled and cast in among the Spaniards" from the summits of
+the walls. In the midst of the smoke and flame which filled the fort the
+Spanish Governor stood fighting gallantly. His wife and child were
+present in that house of death, among the blood and smell, trying to
+urge him to surrender. The men were running from their guns, and the
+hand-grenades were bursting all about him, but this Spanish Governor
+refused to leave his post. The buccaneers who came about him called upon
+him to surrender, but he answered that he would rather die like a brave
+soldier than be hanged as a coward for deserting his command, "so that
+they were enforc'd to kill him, nothwithstanding the cries of his Wife
+and Daughter."
+
+The sun was setting over Iron Castle before the firing came to an end
+with the capture of the Castle Gloria. The pirates used the last of the
+light for the securing of their many prisoners. They drove them to some
+dungeon in the castle, where they shut them up under a guard. The
+wounded "were put into a certain apartment by itself," without
+medicaments or doctors, "to the intent their own complaints might be the
+cure of their diseases." In the dungeons of the castle's lower battery
+they found eleven English prisoners chained hand and foot. They were the
+survivors of the garrison of Providence, which the Spaniards
+treacherously took two years before. Their backs were scarred with many
+floggings, for they had been forced to work like slaves at the laying of
+the quay piles in the hot sun, under Spanish overseers. They were
+released at once, and tenderly treated, nor were they denied a share of
+the plunder of the town.
+
+"Having finish'd this Jobb" the pirates sought out the "recreations of
+Heroick toil." "They fell to eating and drinking" of the provisions
+stored within the city, "committing in both these things all manner of
+debauchery and excess." They tapped the casks of wine and brandy, and
+"drank about" till they were roaring drunk. In this condition they ran
+about the town, like cowboys on a spree, "and never examined whether it
+were Adultery or Fornication which they committed." By midnight they
+were in such a state of drunken disorder that "if there had been found
+only fifty courageous men, they might easily have retaken the City, and
+killed the Pirats." The next day they gathered plunder, partly by
+routing through the houses, partly by torturing the townsfolk. They seem
+to have been no less brutal here than they had been in Cuba, though the
+Porto Bello houses yielded a more golden spoil than had been won at
+Puerto Principe. They racked one or two poor men until they died. Others
+they slowly cut to pieces, or treated to the punishment called
+"woolding," by which the eyes were forced from their sockets under the
+pressure of a twisted cord. Some were tortured with burning matches "and
+such like slight torments." A woman was roasted to death "upon a baking
+stone"--a sin for which one buccaneer ("as he lay sick") was
+subsequently sorry.
+
+While they were indulging these barbarities, they drank and swaggered
+and laid waste. They stayed within the town for fifteen days, sacking it
+utterly, to the last ryal. They were too drunk and too greedy to care
+much about the fever, which presently attacked them, and killed a
+number, as they lay in drunken stupor in the kennels. News of their riot
+being brought across the isthmus, the Governor of Panama resolved to
+send a troop of soldiers, to attempt to retake the city, but he had
+great difficulty in equipping a sufficient force. Before his men were
+fit to march, some messengers came in from the imprisoned townsfolk,
+bringing word from Captain Morgan that he wanted a ransom for the city,
+"or else he would by fire consume it to ashes." The pirate ships were by
+this time lying off the town, in Porto Bello bay. They were taking in
+fresh victuals for the passage home. The ransom asked was 100,000 pieces
+of eight, or £25,000. If it had not been paid the pirates could have put
+their threat in force without the slightest trouble. Morgan made all
+ready to ensure his retreat in the event of an attack from Panama. He
+placed an outpost of 100 "well-arm'd" men in a narrow part of the
+passage over the isthmus. All the plunder of the town was sent on board
+the ships. In this condition he awaited the answer of the President.
+
+As soon as that soldier had sufficient musketeers in arms, he marched
+them across the isthmus to relieve the city. They attempted the pass
+which Morgan had secured, but lost very heavily in the attempt. The
+buccaneers charged, and completely routed them, driving back the entire
+company along the road to Panama. The President had "to retire for that
+time," but he sent a blustering note to Captain Morgan, threatening him
+and his with death "when he should take them, as he hoped soon to do."
+To this Morgan replied that he would not deliver the castles till he had
+the money, and that if the money did not come, the castles should be
+blown to pieces, with the prisoners inside them. We are told that "the
+Governor of Panama perceived by this answer that no means would serve to
+mollify the hearts of the Pirates, nor reduce them to reason." He
+decided to let the townsfolk make what terms they could. In a few days
+more these wretched folk contrived to scrape together the required sum
+of money, which they paid over as their ransom.
+
+Before the expedition sailed away, a messenger arrived from Panama with
+a letter from the Governor to Captain Morgan. It made no attempt to
+mollify his heart nor to reduce him to reason, but it expressed a wonder
+at the pirates' success. He asked, as a special favour, that Captain
+Morgan would send him "some small patterns" of the arms with which the
+city had been taken. He thought it passing marvellous that a town so
+strongly fortified should have been won by men without great guns.
+Morgan treated the messenger to a cup of drink, and gave him a pistol
+and some leaden bullets "to carry back to the President, his Master."
+"He desired him to accept that pattern of the arms wherewith he had
+taken Porto Bello." He requested him to keep them for a twelvemonth,
+"after which time he promised to come to Panama and fetch them away."
+The Spaniard returned the gift to Captain Morgan, "giving him thanks for
+lending him such weapons as he needed not." He also sent a ring of gold,
+with the warning "not to give himself the trouble of coming to Panama,"
+for "he should not speed so well there" as he had sped at Porto Bello.
+
+"After these transactions" Captain Morgan loosed his top-sail, as a
+signal to unmoor. His ships were fully victualled for the voyage, and
+the loot was safely under hatches. As a precaution, he took with him the
+best brass cannon from the fortress. The iron guns were securely spiked
+with soft metal nails, which were snapped off flush with the
+touch-holes. The anchors were weighed to the music of the fiddlers, a
+salute of guns was fired, and the fleet stood out of Porto Bello bay
+along the wet, green coast, passing not very far from the fort which
+they had blown to pieces. In a few days' time they raised the Keys of
+Cuba, their favourite haven, where "with all quiet and repose" they made
+their dividend. "They found in ready money two hundred and fifty
+thousand pieces of eight, besides all other merchandises, as cloth,
+linen, silks and other goods." The spoil was amicably shared about the
+mast before a course was shaped for their "common rendezvous"--Port
+Royal.
+
+A godly person in Jamaica, writing at this juncture in some distress,
+expressed himself as follows:--"There is not now resident upon this
+place ten men to every [licensed] house that selleth strong liquors ...
+besides sugar and rum works that sell without license." When Captain
+Morgan's ships came flaunting into harbour, with their colours
+fluttering and the guns thundering salutes, there was a rustle and a
+stir in the heart of every publican. "All the Tavern doors stood open,
+as they do at London, on Sundays, in the afternoon." Within those tavern
+doors, "in all sorts of vices and debauchery," the pirates spent their
+plunder "with huge prodigality," not caring what might happen on the
+morrow.
+
+Shortly after the return from Porto Bello, Morgan organised another
+expedition with which he sailed into the Gulf of Maracaibo. His ships
+could not proceed far on account of the shallowness of the water, but by
+placing his men in the canoas he penetrated to the end of the Gulf. On
+the way he sacked Maracaibo, a town which had been sacked on two
+previous occasions--the last time by L'Ollonais only a couple of years
+before. Morgan's men tortured the inhabitants, according to their
+custom, either by "woolding" them or by placing burning matches between
+their toes. They then set sail for Gibraltar, a small town strongly
+fortified, at the south-east corner of the Gulf. The town was empty, for
+the inhabitants had fled into the hills with "all their goods and
+riches." But the pirates sent out search parties, who brought in many
+prisoners. These were examined, with the usual cruelties, being racked,
+pressed, hung up by the heels, burnt with palm leaves, tied to stakes,
+suspended by the thumbs and toes, flogged with rattans, or roasted at
+the camp fires. Some were crucified, and burnt between the fingers as
+they hung on the crosses; "others had their feet put into the fire."
+
+When they had extracted the last ryal from the sufferers they shipped
+themselves aboard some Spanish vessels lying in the port. They were
+probably cedar-built ships, of small tonnage, built at the Gibraltar
+yards. In these they sailed towards Maracaibo, where they found "a poor
+distressed old man, who was sick." This old man told them that the
+Castle de la Barra, which guarded the entrance to the Gulf, had been
+mounted with great guns and manned by a strong garrison. Outside the
+channel were three Spanish men-of-war with their guns run out and decks
+cleared for battle.
+
+The truth of these assertions was confirmed by a scouting party the same
+day. In order to gain a little time Morgan sent a Spaniard to the
+admiral of the men-of-war, demanding a ransom "for not putting Maracaibo
+to the flame." The answer reached him in a day or two, warning him to
+surrender all his plunder, and telling him that if he did not, he should
+be destroyed by the sword. There was no immediate cause for haste,
+because the Spanish admiral could not cross the sandbanks into the Gulf
+until he had obtained flat-bottomed boats from Caracas. Morgan read the
+letter to his men "in the market-place of Maracaibo," "both in French
+and English," and then asked them would they give up all their spoil,
+and pass unharmed, or fight for its possession. They agreed with one
+voice to fight, "to the very last drop of blood," rather than surrender
+the booty they had risked their skins to get. One of the men undertook
+to rig a fireship to destroy the Spanish admiral's flagship. He proposed
+to fill her decks with logs of wood "standing with hats and Montera
+caps," like gunners standing at their guns. At the port-holes they would
+place other wooden logs to resemble cannon. The ship should then hang
+out the English colours, the Jack or the red St George's cross, so that
+the enemy should deem her "one of our best men of war that goes to fight
+them." The scheme pleased everyone, but there was yet much anxiety among
+the pirates. Morgan sent another letter to the Spanish admiral, offering
+to spare Maracaibo without ransom; to release his prisoners, with one
+half of the captured slaves; and to send home the hostages he brought
+away from Gibraltar, if he might be granted leave to pass the entry. The
+Spaniard rejected all these terms, with a curt intimation that, if the
+pirates did not surrender within two more days, they should be compelled
+to do so at the sword's point.
+
+Morgan received the Spaniard's answer angrily, resolving to attempt the
+passage "without surrendering anything." He ordered his men to tie the
+slaves and prisoners, so that there should be no chance of their
+attempting to rise. They then rummaged Maracaibo for brimstone, pitch,
+and tar, with which to make their fireship. They strewed her deck with
+fireworks and with dried palm leaves soaked in tar. They cut her
+outworks down, so that the fire might more quickly spread to the enemy's
+ship at the moment of explosion. They broke open some new gun-ports, in
+which they placed small drums, "of which the negroes make use."
+"Finally, the decks were handsomely beset with many pieces of wood
+dressed up in the shape of men with hats or monteras, and likewise armed
+with swords, muskets, and bandoliers." The plunder was then divided
+among the other vessels of the squadron. A guard of musketeers was
+placed over the prisoners, and the pirates then set sail towards the
+passage. The fireship went in advance, with orders to fall foul of the
+_Spanish Admiral_, a ship of forty guns.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE SPANISH ADMIRAL
+    CASTLE DE LA BARRA IN BACKGROUND]
+
+When it grew dark they anchored for the night, with sentinels on each
+ship keeping vigilant watch. They were close to the entry, almost within
+shot of the Spaniards, and they half expected to be boarded in the
+darkness. At dawn they got their anchors, and set sail towards the
+Spaniards, who at once unmoored, and beat to quarters. In a few minutes
+the fireship ran into the man-of-war, "and grappled to her sides" with
+kedges thrown into her shrouds. The Spaniards left their guns, and
+strove to thrust her away, but the fire spread so rapidly that they
+could not do so. The flames caught the warship's sails, and ran along
+her sides with such fury that her men had hardly time to get away from
+her before she blew her bows out, and went to the bottom. The second
+ship made no attempt to engage: her crew ran her ashore, and deserted,
+leaving her bilged in shallow water. As the pirates rowed towards the
+wreck some of the deserters hurried back to fire her. The third ship
+struck her colours without fighting.
+
+Seeing their advantage a number of the pirates landed to attack the
+castle, where the shipwrecked Spaniards were rallying. A great skirmish
+followed, in which the pirates lost more men than had been lost at Porto
+Bello. They were driven off with heavy loss, though they continued to
+annoy the fort with musket fire till the evening. As it grew dark they
+returned to Maracaibo, leaving one of their ships to watch the fortress
+and to recover treasure from the sunken flagship. Morgan now wrote to
+the Spanish admiral, demanding a ransom for the town. The citizens were
+anxious to get rid of him at any cost, so they compounded with him,
+seeing that the admiral disdained to treat, for the sum of 20,000 pieces
+of eight and 500 cattle. The gold was paid, and the cattle duly counted
+over, killed, and salted; but Morgan did not purpose to release his
+prisoners until his ship was safely past the fort. He told the Maracaibo
+citizens that they would not be sent ashore until the danger of the
+passage was removed. With this word he again set sail to attempt to pass
+the narrows. He found his ship still anchored near the wreck, but in
+more prosperous sort than he had left her. Her men had brought up 15,000
+pieces of eight, with a lot of gold and silver plate, "as hilts of
+swords and other things," besides "great quantity of pieces of eight"
+which had "melted and run together" in the burning of the vessel.
+
+Morgan now made a last appeal to the Spanish admiral, telling him that
+he would hang his prisoners if the fortress fired on him as he sailed
+past. The Spanish admiral sent an answer to the prisoners, who had
+begged him to relent, informing them that he would do his duty, as he
+wished they had done theirs. Morgan heard the answer, and realised that
+he would have to use some stratagem to escape the threatened danger. He
+made a dividend of the plunder before he proceeded farther, for he
+feared that some of the fleet might never win to sea, and that the
+captains of those which escaped might be tempted to run away with their
+ships. The spoils amounted to 250,000 pieces of eight, as at Porto
+Bello, though in addition to this gold there were numbers of slaves and
+heaps of costly merchandise.
+
+When the booty had been shared he put in use his stratagem. He embarked
+his men in the canoas, and bade them row towards the shore "as if they
+designed to land." When they reached the shore they hid under the
+overhanging boughs "till they had laid themselves down along in the
+boats." Then one or two men rowed the boats back to the ships, with the
+crews concealed under the thwarts. The Spaniards in the fortress watched
+the going and returning of the boats. They could not see the stratagem,
+for the boats were too far distant, but they judged that the pirates
+were landing for a night attack. The boats plied to and from the shore
+at intervals during the day. The anxious Spaniards resolved to prepare
+for the assault by placing their great guns on the landward side of the
+fortress. They cleared away the scrub on that side, in order to give
+their gunners a clear view of the attacking force when the sun set. They
+posted sentries, and stood to their arms, expecting to be attacked.
+
+As soon as night had fallen the buccaneers weighed anchor. A bright moon
+was shining, and by the moonlight the ships steered seaward under bare
+poles. As they came abreast of the castle on the gentle current of the
+ebb, they loosed their sails to a fair wind blowing seaward. At the same
+moment, while the top-sails were yet slatting, Captain Morgan fired
+seven great guns "with bullets" as a last defiance. The Spaniards
+dragged their cannon across the fortress, "and began to fire very
+furiously," without much success. The wind freshened, and as the ships
+drew clear of the narrows they felt its force, and began to slip through
+the water. One or two shots took effect upon them before they drew out
+of range, but "the Pirates lost not many of their men, nor received any
+considerable damage in their ships." They hove to at a distance of a
+mile from the fort in order to send a boat in with a number of the
+prisoners. They then squared their yards, and stood away towards
+Jamaica, where they arrived safely, after very heavy weather, a few days
+later. Here they went ashore in their stolen velvets and silks to spend
+their silver dollars in the Port Royal rum shops. Some mates of theirs
+were ashore at that time after an unlucky cruise. It was their pleasure
+"to mock and jeer" these unsuccessful pirates, "often telling them: Let
+us see what money you brought from Comana, and if it be as good silver
+as that which we bring from Maracaibo."
+
+    _Note._--On his return from Maracaibo, Morgan gave out that he had
+    met with further information of an intended Spanish attack on
+    Jamaica. He may have made the claim to justify his actions on the
+    Main, which were considerably in excess of the commission Modyford
+    had given him. On the other hand, a Spanish attack may have been
+    preparing, as he stated; but the preparations could not have gone
+    far, for had the Spaniards been prepared for such an expedition
+    Morgan's Panama raid could never have succeeded.
+
+    _Authorities._--Exquemeling's "History of The Bucaniers of America";
+    Exquemeling's "History" (the Malthus edition), 1684. Cal. State
+    Papers: West Indian and Colonial Series.
+
+    For my account of Porto Bello I am indebted to various brief
+    accounts in Hakluyt, and to a book entitled "A Description of the
+    Spanish Islands," by a "Gentleman long resident in those parts." I
+    have also consulted the brief notices in Dampier's Voyages, Wafer's
+    Voyages, various gazetteers, and some maps and pamphlets relating to
+    Admiral Vernon's attack in 1739-40. There is a capital description
+    of the place as it was in its decadence, _circa_ 1820, in Michael
+    Scott's "Tom Cringle's Log."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MORGAN'S GREAT RAID
+
+    Chagres castle--Across the isthmus--Sufferings of the
+    buccaneers--Venta Cruz--Old Panama
+
+
+Some months later Henry Morgan found his pirates in all the miseries of
+poverty. They had wasted all their silver dollars, and longed for
+something "to expend anew in wine" before they were sold as slaves to
+pay their creditors. He thought that he would save them from their
+misery by going a new cruise. There was no need for him to drum up
+recruits in the rum shops, for his name was glorious throughout the
+Indies. He had but to mention that "he intended for the Main" to get
+more men than he could ship. He "assigned the south side of the Isle of
+Tortuga" for his rendezvous, and he sent out letters to the "ancient and
+expert Pirates" and to the planters and hunters in Hispaniola, asking
+them, in the American general's phrase, "to come and dip their spoons in
+a platter of glory." Long before the appointed day the rendezvous was
+crowded, for ships, canoas, and small boats came thronging to the
+anchorage with all the ruffians of the Indies. Many marched to the
+rendezvous across the breadth of Hispaniola "with no small
+difficulties." The muster brought together a grand variety of rascaldom,
+from Campeachy in the west to Trinidad in the east. Hunters, planters,
+logwood cutters, Indians, and half-breeds came flocking from their huts
+and inns to go upon the grand account. Lastly, Henry Morgan came in his
+fine Spanish ship, with the brass and iron guns. At the firing of a gun
+the assembled captains came on board to him for a pirates' council, over
+the punch-bowl, in the admiral's cabin.
+
+It was decided at this council to send a large party to the Main, to the
+de la Hacha River, "to assault a small village" of the name of La
+Rancheria--the chief granary in all the "Terra Firma." The pirates were
+to seize as much maize there as they could find--enough, if possible, to
+load the ships of the expedition. While they were away their fellows at
+Tortuga were to clean and rig the assembled ships to fit them for the
+coming cruise. Another large party was detailed to hunt in the woods for
+hogs and cattle.
+
+In about five weeks' time the ships returned from Rio de la Hacha, after
+much buffeting at sea. They brought with them a grain ship they had
+taken in the port, and several thousand sacks of corn which the
+Spaniards had paid them as "a ransom for not burning the town." They had
+also won a lot of silver, "with all other things they could rob"--such
+as pearls from the local pearl beds. The hunters had killed and salted
+an incredible quantity of beef and pork, the ships were scraped and
+tallowed, and nothing more was to be done save to divide the victuals
+among all the buccaneers. This division did not take much time. Within a
+couple of days the admiral loosed his top-sail. The pirates fired off
+their guns and hove their anchors up. They sailed out of Port Couillon
+with a fair wind, in a great bravery of flags, towards the rendezvous at
+Cape Tiburon, to the south-west of the island Hispaniola. When they
+reached Cape Tiburon, where there is a good anchorage, they brought
+aboard a store of oranges, to save them from the scurvy. While the men
+were busy in the orange groves Henry Morgan "gave letters patent, or
+commissions," to all his captains, "to act all manner of hostility
+against the Spanish nation." For this act he had the sealed authority
+of the Council of Jamaica. He was no longer a pirate or buccaneer, but
+an admiral leading a national enterprise. As we have said, he had heard,
+on the Main, of an intended Spanish attack upon Jamaica; indeed, it is
+probable that his capture of Porto Bello prevented the ripening of the
+project. There is no need to whitewash Morgan, but we may at least
+regard him at this juncture as the saviour of our West Indian colonies.
+After the serving out of these commissions, and their due sealing, the
+captains were required to sign the customary articles, allotting the
+shares of the prospective plunder. The articles allotted very liberal
+compensation to the wounded; they also expressly stated the reward to be
+given for bravery in battle. Fifty pieces of eight were allotted to him
+who should haul a Spanish colour down and hoist the English flag in its
+place. Surgeons received 200 pieces of eight "for their chests of
+medicaments." Carpenters received one half of that sum. Henry Morgan,
+the admiral of the fleet, was to receive one-hundredth part of all the
+plunder taken. His vice-admiral's share is not stated. As a stimulus to
+the pirates, it was published through the fleet that any captain and
+crew who ventured on, and took, a Spanish ship should receive a tenth
+part of her value as a reward to themselves for their bravery. When the
+contracts had been signed Morgan asked his captains which town they
+should attempt. They had thirty-seven ships, carrying at least 500
+cannon. They had 2000 musketeers, "besides mariners and boys," while
+they possessed "great quantity of ammunition, and fire balls, with other
+inventions of powder." With such an armament, he said, they could attack
+the proudest of the Spanish cities. They could sack La Vera Cruz, where
+the gold from Manila was put aboard the galleons, as they lay alongside
+the quays moored to the iron ring-bolts; or they could go eastward to
+the town of Cartagena to pillage our Lady's golden altar in the church
+there; or they could row up the Chagres River, and keep the promise
+Morgan had made to the Governor of Panama. The captains pronounced for
+Panama, but they added, as a rider, that it would be well to go to Santa
+Katalina to obtain guides. The Santa Katalina fort was still in the
+possession of the Spaniards, who now used it as a convict settlement,
+sending thither all the outlaws of the "Terra Firma." It would be well,
+they said, to visit Santa Katalina to select a few choice cut-throats to
+guide them over the isthmus. With this resolution they set sail for
+Santa Katalina, where they anchored on the fourth day, "before sunrise,"
+in a bay called the Aguada Grande.
+
+Some of the buccaneers had been there under Mansvelt, and these now
+acted as guides to the men who went ashore in the fighting party. A day
+of hard fighting followed, rather to the advantage of the Spaniards, for
+the pirates won none of the batteries, and had to sleep in the open,
+very wet and hungry. The next day Morgan threatened the garrison with
+death if they did not yield "within few hours." The Governor was not a
+very gallant man, like the Governor at Porto Bello. Perhaps he was
+afraid of his soldiers, the convicts from the "Terra Firma." At anyrate
+he consented to surrender, but he asked that the pirates would have the
+kindness to pretend to attack him, "for the saving of his honesty."
+Morgan agreed very gladly to this proposition, for he saw little chance
+of taking the fort by storm. When the night fell, he followed the
+Governor's direction, and began a furious bombardment, "but without
+bullets, or at least into the air." The castles answered in the like
+manner, burning a large quantity of powder. Then the pirates stormed
+into the castles in a dramatic way; while the Spaniards retreated to
+the church, and hung out the white flag.
+
+Early the next morning the pirates sacked the place, and made great
+havoc in the poultry-yards and cattle-pens. They pulled down a number of
+wooden houses to supply their camp fires. The guns they nailed or sent
+aboard. The powder they saved for their own use, but some proportion of
+it went to the destruction of the forts, which, with one exception, they
+blew up. For some days they stayed there, doing nothing but "roast and
+eat, and make good cheer," sending the Spaniards to the fields to rout
+out fresh provisions. While they lay there, Morgan asked "if any
+banditti were there from Panama," as he had not yet found his guides.
+Three scoundrels came before him, saying that they knew the road across
+the isthmus, and that they would act as guides if such action were made
+profitable. Morgan promised them "equal shares in all they should
+pillage and rob," and told them that they should come with him to
+Jamaica at the end of the cruise. These terms suited the three robbers
+very well. One of them, "a wicked fellow," "the greatest rogue, thief
+and assassin among them," who had deserved rather "to be broken alive
+upon a wheel than punished with serving in a garrison," was the
+spokesman of the trio. He was the Dubosc of that society, "and could
+domineer and command over them," "they not daring to refuse obedience."
+This truculent ruffian, with his oaths and his knives and his black
+moustachios, was elected head guide.
+
+After several days of ease upon the island Morgan sent a squadron to the
+Main, with 400 men, four ships, and a canoa, "to go and take the Castle
+of Chagre," at the entrance to the Chagres River. He would not send a
+larger company, though the fort was strong, for he feared "lest the
+Spaniards should be jealous of his designs upon Panama"--lest they
+should be warned, that is, by refugees from Chagres before he tried to
+cross the isthmus. Neither would he go himself, for he was still bent
+upon establishing a settlement at Santa Katalina. He chose out an old
+buccaneer, of the name of Brodely or Bradly, who had sailed with
+Mansvelt, to command the expedition. He was famous in his way this
+Captain Brodely, for he had been in all the raids, and had smelt a
+quantity of powder. He was as brave as a lion, resourceful as a sailor,
+and, for a buccaneer, most prudent. Ordering his men aboard, he sailed
+for the Chagres River, where, three days later, he arrived. He stood in
+towards the river's mouth; but the guns of the castle opened on him,
+making that anchorage impossible. But about a league from the castle
+there is a small bay, and here Captain Brodely brought his ships to
+anchor, and sent his men to their blankets, warning them to stand by for
+an early call.
+
+[Illustration: CHAGRES
+    CIRCA 1739]
+
+The castle of San Lorenzo, which guarded the Chagres River's mouth, was
+built on the right bank of that river, on a high hill of great
+steepness. The hill has two peaks, with a sort of natural ditch some
+thirty feet in depth between them. The castle was built upon the seaward
+peak, and a narrow drawbridge crossed the gully to the other summit,
+which was barren and open to the sight. The river swept round the
+northern side of the hill with considerable force. To the south the hill
+was precipitous, and of such "infinite asperity," that no man could
+climb it. To the east was the bridged gully connecting the garrison with
+the isthmus. To the west, in a crook of the land, was the little port of
+Chagres, where ships might anchor in seven or eight fathoms, "being very
+fit for small vessels." Not far from the foot of the hill, facing the
+river's mouth, there was a battery of eight great guns commanding the
+approach. A little way beneath were two more batteries, each with six
+great guns, to supplement the one above. A path led from these lower
+batteries to the protected harbour. A steep flight of stairs, "hewed out
+of the rock," allowed the soldiers to pass from the water to the summit
+of the castle. The defences at the top of the hill were reinforced with
+palisadoes. The keep, or inner castle, was hedged about with a double
+fence of plank--the fences being six or seven feet apart, and the
+interstices filled in with earth, like gabions. On one side of the
+castle were the storesheds for merchandise and ammunition. On the other,
+and within the palisadoes everywhere, were soldiers' huts, built of mud
+and wattle, thatched with palm leaves, "after the manner of the
+Indians." Lastly, as a sort of outer defence, a great submerged rock
+prevented boats from coming too near the seaward side.
+
+Early in the morning Captain Bradly turned his hands up by the
+boatswain's pipe, and bade them breakfast off their beef and parched
+corn. Maize and charqui were packed into knapsacks for the march, and
+the pirates rowed ashore to open the campaign. The ruffians from Santa
+Katalina took their stations at the head of the leading company, with
+trusty pirates just behind them ready to pistol them if they played
+false. In good spirits they set forth from the beach, marching in the
+cool of the morning before the sun had risen. The way led through
+mangrove swamps, where the men sank to their knees in rotting grasses or
+plunged to their waists in slime. Those who have seen a tropical swamp
+will know how fierce the toil was. They were marching in a dank world
+belonging to an earlier age than ours. They were in the age of the coal
+strata, among wet, green things, in a silence only broken by the sound
+of dropping or by the bellow of an alligator. They were there in the
+filth, in the heat haze, in a mist of miasma and mosquitoes. In all
+probability they were swearing at themselves for coming thither.
+
+At two o'clock in the afternoon the buccaneers pushed through a thicket
+of liane and green cane, and debouched quite suddenly upon the barren
+hilltop facing San Lorenzo Castle. As they formed up, they were met with
+a thundering volley, which threw them into some confusion. They
+retreated to the cover of the jungle to debate a plan of battle, greatly
+fearing that a fort so strongly placed would be impregnable without
+great guns to batter it. However, they were a reckless company, careless
+of their lives, and hot with the tramping through the swamp. Give it up
+they could not, for fear of the mockery of their mates. The desperate
+course was the one course open to them. They lit the fireballs, or
+grenades, they had carried through the marsh; they drew their swords,
+and "Come on!" they cried. "Have at all!" And forward they stormed,
+cursing as they ran. A company in reserve remained behind in cover,
+firing over the storming party with their muskets.
+
+As the pirates threw themselves into the gully, the walls of San Lorenzo
+burst into a flame of gun fire. The Spaniards fought their cannon
+furiously--as fast as they could fire and reload--while the musketeers
+picked off the leaders from the loopholes. "Come on, ye English dogs!"
+they cried. "Come on, ye heretics! ye cuckolds! Let your skulking mates
+behind there come on too! You'll not get to Panama this bout." "Come on"
+the pirates did, with great gallantry. They flung themselves down into
+the ditch, and stormed up the opposite slope to the wooden palings. Here
+they made a desperate attempt to scale, but the foothold was too
+precarious and the pales too high. In a few roaring minutes the attack
+was at an end: it had withered away before the Spanish fire. The
+buccaneers were retreating in knots of one or two, leaving some seventy
+of their number on the sun-bleached rocks of the gully.
+
+When they got back to the jungle they lay down to rest, and slept there
+quietly while the daylight lasted, though the Spaniards still sent shots
+in their direction. As soon as it was dark, they made another furious
+assault, flinging their fireballs against the palings in order to burst
+the planks apart. While they were struggling in the ditch, a pirate ran
+across the gully with his body bent, as is natural to a running man. As
+he ran, an arrow took him in the back, and pierced him through to the
+side. He paused a moment, drew the arrow from the wound, wrapped the
+shaft of it with cotton as a wad, and fired it back over the paling with
+his musket. The cotton he had used caught fire from the powder, and it
+chanced that this blazing shaft drove home into a palm thatch. In the
+hurry and confusion the flame was not noticed, though it spread rapidly
+across the huts till it reached some powder casks. There was a violent
+explosion just within the palisadoes, and stones and blazing sticks came
+rattling down about the Spaniards' ears. The inner castle roared up in a
+blaze, calling the Spaniards from their guns to quench the fire--no easy
+task so high above the water. While the guns were deserted, the pirates
+ran along the bottom of the ditch, thrusting their fireballs under the
+palisadoes, which now began to burn in many places. As the flames
+spread, the planking warped, and fell. The outer planks inclined
+slightly outward, like the futtocks of a ship, so that, when they
+weakened in the fire, the inner weight of earth broke them through. The
+pirates now stood back from the fort, in the long black shadows, to
+avoid the showers of earth--"great heaps of earth"--which were falling
+down into the ditch. Presently the slope from the bottom of the gully
+was piled with earth, so that the pirates could rush up to the breaches,
+and hurl their firepots across the broken woodwork. The San Lorenzo fort
+was now a spiring red flame of fire--a beacon to the ships at sea.
+Before midnight the wooden walls were burnt away to charcoal; the inner
+fort was on fire in many places; yet the Spaniards still held the
+earthen ramparts, casting down "many flaming pots," and calling on the
+English dogs to attack them. The pirates lay close in the shadows,
+picking off the Spaniards as they moved in the red firelight, so that
+many poor fellows came toppling into the gully from the mounds.
+
+When day dawned, the castle lay open to the pirates. The walls were all
+burnt, and fallen down, but in the breaches stood the Spanish soldiers,
+manning their guns as though the walls still protected them. The fight
+began as furiously as it had raged the day before. By noon most of the
+Spanish gunners had been shot down by the picked musketeers; while a
+storming party ran across the ditch, and rushed a breach. As the pirates
+gained the inside of the fort, the Spanish Governor charged home upon
+them with twenty-five soldiers armed with pikes, clubbed muskets,
+swords, or stones from the ruin. For some minutes these men mixed in a
+last desperate struggle; then the Spaniards were driven back by the
+increasing numbers of the enemy. Fighting hard, they retreated to the
+inner castle, cheered by their Governor, who still called on them to
+keep their flag aloft. The inner castle was a ruin, but the yellow flag
+still flew there, guarded by some sorely wounded soldiers and a couple
+of guns. Here the last stand was made, and here the gallant captain was
+hit by a bullet, "which pierced his skull into the brain." The little
+band of brave men now went to pieces before the rush of pirates. Some of
+them fell back, still fighting, to the wall, over which they flung
+themselves "into the sea," dying thus honourably rather than surrender.
+About thirty of them, "whereof scarce ten were not wounded," surrendered
+in the ruins of the inner fortress. These thirty hurt and weary men
+were the survivors of 314 who had stood to arms the day before. All the
+rest were dead, save "eight or nine," who had crept away by boat up the
+Chagres to take the news to Panama. No officer remained alive, nor was
+any powder left; the Spaniards were true soldiers. The pirates lost
+"above one hundred killed" and over seventy wounded, or rather more than
+half of the men engaged. While the few remaining Spaniards dug trenches
+in the sand for the burial of the many dead, the pirates questioned them
+as to their knowledge of Morgan's enterprise. They knew all about it,
+they said, for a deserter from the pirate ships which raided the Rio de
+la Hacha (for grain) had spoken of the scheme to the Governor at
+Cartagena. That captain had reinforced the Chagres garrison, and had
+sent a warning over the isthmus to the Governor at Panama. The Chagres
+was now well lined with ambuscades. Panama was full of soldiers, and the
+whole Spanish population was ready to take up arms to drive the pirates
+to their ships, so they knew what they might look to get in case they
+persisted in their plan. This information was sent to Henry Morgan at
+the Santa Katalina fort, with news of the reduction of the Chagres
+castle. Before he received it, Captain Joseph Bradly died in the castle,
+of a wound he had received in the fighting.
+
+When Morgan received the news that San Lorenzo had been stormed, he
+began to send aboard the meat, maize, and cassava he had collected in
+Santa Katalina. He had already blown the Spanish forts to pieces, with
+the one exception of the fort of St Teresa. He now took all the captured
+Spanish guns, and flung them into the sea, where they lie still, among
+the scarlet coral sprays. The Spanish town was then burnt, and the
+Spanish prisoners placed aboard the ships. It was Morgan's intention to
+return to the island after sacking Panama, and to leave there a strong
+garrison to hold it in the interests of the buccaneers. When he had made
+these preparations he weighed his anchors, and sailed for the Chagres
+River under the English colours.
+
+Eight days later they came sailing slowly up towards the river's mouth.
+Their joy was so great "when they saw the English colours upon the
+castle, that they minded not their way into the river," being gathered
+at the rum cask instead of at the lead, and calling healths instead of
+soundings. As a consequence, four ships of the fleet, including the
+admiral's flagship, ran foul of the ledge of rocks at the river's entry.
+Several men were drowned, but the goods and ships' stores were saved,
+though with some difficulty. As they got out warps to bring the ships
+off, the north wind freshened. In shallow water, such as that, a sea
+rises very quickly. In a few hours a regular "norther" had set in, and
+the ships beat to pieces on the ledge before the end of the day.
+
+As Morgan came ashore at the port, the guns were fired in salute, and
+the pirates lined the quay and the castle walls to give him a triumphant
+welcome. He examined the castle, questioned the lieutenants, and at once
+took steps to repair the damage done by the fire. The thirty survivors
+of the garrison and all the prisoners from Santa Katalina, were set to
+work to drive in new palisadoes in the place of those burnt in the
+attack. The huts were rethatched and the whole place reordered. There
+were some Spanish ships in the port whose crews had been pressed into
+the Spanish garrison at the time of the storm. They were comparatively
+small, of the kind known as chatas, or chatten, a sort of coast boat of
+slight draught, used for river work and for the conveyance of goods from
+the Chagres to the cities on the Main. They had iron and brass guns
+aboard them, which were hoisted out, and mounted in the fort. Captain
+Morgan then picked a garrison of 500 buccaneers to hold the fort, under
+a buccaneer named Norman. He placed 150 more in the ships in the
+anchorage, and embarked the remainder in flat-bottomed boats for the
+voyage up the Chagres.
+
+It was the dry season, so that the river, at times so turbulent, was
+dwindled to a tenth of its volume. In order that the hard work of
+hauling boats over shallows might not be made still harder, Morgan gave
+orders that the men should take but scanty stock of provisions. A few
+maize cobs and a strip or two of charqui was all the travelling store in
+the scrips his pilgrims carried. They hoped that they would find fresh
+food in the Spanish strongholds, or ambuscades, which guarded the
+passage over the isthmus.
+
+[Illustration: THE ISTHMUS
+    SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE]
+
+The company set sail from San Lorenzo on the morning of the 12th (one
+says the 18th) of January 1671. They numbered in all 1200 men, packed
+into thirty-two canoas and the five chatas they had taken in the port.
+His guides went on ahead in one of the chatas, with her guns aboard her
+and the matches lit, and one Robert Delander, a buccaneer captain, in
+command. The first day's sailing against a gentle current was pleasant
+enough. In spite of the heat and the overcrowding of the boats, they
+made six leagues between dawn and sunset, and anchored at a place called
+De los Bracos. Here a number of the pirates went ashore to sleep "and
+stretch their limbs, they being almost crippled with lying too much
+crowded in the boats." They also foraged up and down for food in the
+plantations; but the Spaniards had fled with all their stores. It was
+the first day of the journey over the isthmus, yet many of the men had
+already come to an end of their provisions. "The greatest part of them"
+ate nothing all day, nor enjoyed "any other refreshment" than a pipe of
+tobacco. The next day, "very early in the morning," before the sun
+rose, they shoved off from the mooring-place. They rowed all day,
+suffering much from the mosquitoes, but made little progress. The river
+was fallen very low, so that they were rowing or poling over a series of
+pools joined by shallow rapids. To each side of them were stretches of
+black, alluvial mud, already springing green with shrubs and
+water-plants. Every now and then, as they rowed on, on the dim,
+sluggish, silent, steaming river, they butted a sleeping alligator as he
+sunned in the shallows, or were stopped by a fallen tree, brought by the
+summer floods and left to rot there. At twilight, when the crying of the
+birds became more intense and the monkeys gathered to their screaming in
+the treetops, the boats drew up to the bank at a planter's station, or
+wayside shrine, known as Cruz de Juan Gallego. Here they went ashore to
+sleep, still gnawed with famine, and faint with the hard day's rowing.
+The guides told Henry Morgan that after another two leagues they might
+leave the boats, and push through the woods on foot.
+
+Early the next morning the admiral decided to leave the boats, for with
+his men so faint from hunger he thought it dangerous to tax them with a
+labour so severe as rowing. He left 160 men to protect the fleet, giving
+them the strictest orders to remain aboard. "No man," he commanded,
+"upon any pretext whatsoever, should dare to leave the boats and go
+ashore." The woods there were so dark and thick that a Spanish garrison
+might have lain within 100 yards of the fleet, and cut off any
+stragglers who landed. Having given his orders, he chose out a gang of
+macheteros, or men carrying the sharp sword-like machetes, to march
+ahead of the main body, to cut a trackway in the pulpy green stuff. They
+then set forward through the forest, over their ankles in swampy mud, up
+to their knees sometimes in rotting leaves, clambering over giant tree
+trunks, wading through stagnant brooks, staggering and slipping and
+swearing, faint with famine; a very desperate gang of cut-throats. As
+they marched, the things called garapatadas, or wood-ticks, of which
+some six sorts flourish there, dropped down upon them in scores, to add
+their burning bites to the venom of the mosquitoes. In a moist
+atmosphere of at least 90°, with heavy arms to carry, that march must
+have been terrible. Even the buccaneers, men hardened to the climate,
+could not endure it: they straggled back to the boats, and re-embarked.
+
+With a great deal of trouble the pirates dragged the boats "to a place
+farther up the river, called Cedro Bueno," where they halted for the
+stragglers, who drifted in during the evening. Here they went ashore to
+a wretched bivouac, to lie about the camp fires, with their belts drawn
+tight, chewing grass or aromatic leaves to allay their hunger. After
+Cedro Bueno the river narrowed, so that there was rather more water to
+float the canoas. The land, too, was less densely wooded, and easier for
+the men to march upon. On the fourth day "the greatest part of the
+Pirates marched by land, being led by one of the guides." Another guide
+led the rest of them in the canoas; two boats going ahead of the main
+fleet, one on each side of the river, to discover "the ambuscades of the
+Spaniards." The Spaniards had lined the river-banks at intervals with
+Indian spies, who were so "very dexterous" that they brought
+intelligence of the coming of the pirates "six hours at least before
+they came to any place." About noon on this day, as the boats neared
+Torna Cavallos, one of the guides cried out that he saw an ambuscade.
+"His voice caused infinite joy to all the Pirates," who made sure that
+the fastness would be well provisioned, and that at last they might
+"afford something to the ferment of their stomachs, which now was grown
+so sharp that it did gnaw their very bowels." The place was carried with
+a rush; but the redoubt was empty. The Spaniards had all fled away some
+hours before, when their spies had come in from down the river. There
+had been 500 Spaniards there standing to arms behind the barricade of
+tree trunks. They had marched away with all their gear, save only a few
+leather bags, "all empty," and a few crusts and bread crumbs "upon the
+ground where they had eaten." There were a few shelter huts, thatched
+with palm leaves, within the barricade. These the pirates tore to pieces
+in the fury of their disappointment. They fell upon the leather bags
+like hungry dogs quarrelling for a bone. They fought and wrangled for
+the scraps of leather, and ate them greedily, "with frequent gulps of
+water." Had they taken any Spaniards there "they would certainly in that
+occasion [or want] have roasted or boiled" them "to satisfy their
+famine."
+
+Somewhat relieved by the scraps of leather, they marched on along the
+river-bank to "another post called Torna Munni." Here they found a
+second wall of tree trunks, loopholed for musketry, "but as barren and
+desert as the former." They sought about in the woods for fruits or
+roots, but could find nothing--"the Spaniards having been so provident
+as not to leave behind them anywhere the least crumb of sustenance."
+There was nothing for them but "those pieces of leather, so hard and
+dry," a few of which had been saved "for supper" by the more provident.
+He who had a little scrap of hide, would slice it into strips, "and beat
+it between two stones, and rub it, often dipping it in the water of the
+river, to render it by these means supple and tender." Lastly, the hair
+was scraped off, and the piece "roasted or broiled" at the camp fire
+upon a spit of lance wood. "And being thus cooked they cut it into small
+morsels, and eat it," chewing each bit for several minutes as though
+loth to lose it, and helping it down "with frequent gulps of water."
+There was plenty of fish in the Chagres, but perhaps they had no lines.
+It seems strange, however, that they made no attempt to kill some of the
+myriads of birds and monkeys in the trees, or the edible snakes which
+swarm in the grass, or, as a last resource, the alligators in the river.
+
+Gaunt with hunger, they took the trail again after a night of misery at
+Torna Munni. The going was slightly better, but there was still the
+wood-ticks, the intense, damp heat, and the lust for food to fight
+against. About noon they staggered in to Barbacoas, now a station on the
+Isthmian Railway. There were a few huts at Barbacoas, for the place was
+of some small importance. A native swinging bridge, made of bejuco cane,
+was slung across the river there for the benefit of travellers going to
+Porto Bello. An ambush had been laid at Barbacoas, but the Spaniards had
+left the place, after sweeping it as bare as Torna Munni. The land was
+in tillage near the huts, but the plantations were barren. "They
+searched very narrowly, but could not find any person, animal or other
+thing that was capable of relieving their extreme and ravenous hunger."
+After a long search they chanced upon a sort of cupboard in the rocks,
+"in which they found two sacks of meal, wheat, and like things, with two
+great jars of wine, and certain fruits called Platanos," or large
+bananas. Morgan very firmly refused to allow the buccaneers to use this
+food. He reserved it strictly for those who were in greatest want,
+thereby saving a number of lives. The dying men were given a little meal
+and wine, and placed in the canoas, "and those commanded to land that
+were in them before." They then marched on "with greater courage than
+ever," till late into the night, when they lay down in a plundered bean
+patch.
+
+"On the sixth day" they were nearly at the end of their tether. They
+dragged along slowly, some in boats, some in the woods, halting every
+now and then in despair of going farther, and then staggering on again,
+careless if they lived or died. Their lips were scummy with a sort of
+green froth, caused by their eating grass and the leaves of trees. In
+this condition they came at noon to a plantation, "where they found a
+barn full of maize." They beat the door in in a few minutes, "and fell
+to eating of it dry," till they were gorged with it. There was enough
+for all, and plenty left to take away, so they distributed a great
+quantity, "giving to every man a good allowance." With their knapsacks
+full of corn cobs they marched on again, in happier case than they had
+been in for several days. They soon came to "an ambuscade of Indians,"
+but no Indians stayed within it to impeach their passage. On catching
+sight of the barricade many buccaneers flung away their corn cobs, with
+the merry improvidence of their kind, "with the sudden hopes they
+conceived of finding all things in abundance." But the larder was as
+bare as it had been in the other strongholds: it contained "neither
+Indians, nor victuals, nor anything else." On the other side of the
+river, however, there were many Indians, "a troop of a hundred," armed
+with bows, "who escaped away through the agility of their feet." Some of
+the pirates "leapt into the river" to attack these Indians, and to bring
+them into camp as prisoners. They did not speed in their attempt, but
+two or three of them were shot through the heart as they waded. Their
+corpses drifted downstream, to catch in the oars of the canoas, a
+horrible feast for the caymans. The others returned to their comrades on
+the right or northern bank of the river among the howls of the Indians:
+"Hey, you dogs, you, go on to the savannah; go on to the savannah, to
+find out what's in pickle for you."
+
+They could go no farther towards the savannah for that time, as they
+wished to cross the river, and did not care to do so, in the presence of
+an enemy, without due rest. They camped about big fires of wood,
+according to their custom, but they slept badly, for the hunger and toil
+had made them mutinous. The growling went up and down the camp till it
+came to Morgan's ears. Most of the pirates were disgusted with their
+admiral's "conduct," or leadership, and urged a speedy return to Port
+Royal. Others, no less disgusted, swore savagely that they would see the
+job through. Some, who had eaten more burnt leather than the others,
+"did laugh and joke at all their discourses," and so laid a last straw
+upon their burden. "In the meanwhile" the ruffian guide, "the rogue,
+thief, and assassin," who had merited to die upon a wheel, was a great
+comfort to them. "It would not be long," he kept saying, "before they
+met with folk, when they would come to their own, and forget these
+hungry times." So the night passed, round the red wood logs in the
+clearing, among the steaming jungle.
+
+Early in the morning of the seventh day they cleaned their arms, wiping
+away the rust and fungus which had grown upon them. "Every one
+discharged his pistol or musket, without bullet, to examine the security
+of their firelocks." They then loaded with ball, and crossed the river
+in the canoas. At midday they sighted Venta Cruz, the village, or little
+town, which Drake had taken. The smoke was going up to heaven from the
+Venta Cruz chimneys--a sight very cheering to these pirates. They had
+"great joy and hopes of finding people in the town ... and plenty of
+good cheer." They went on merrily, "making several arguments to one
+another [like the gravediggers in _Hamlet_] upon those external
+signs"--saying that there could be no smoke without a fire, and no fire
+in such a climate save to cook by, and that, therefore, Venta Cruz
+would be full of roast and boiled by the time they marched into its
+Plaza. Thus did they cheer the march and the heavy labour at the oars as
+far as the Venta Cruz jetty.
+
+As they entered Venta Cruz at the double, "all sweating and panting"
+with the hurry of their advance, they found the town deserted and in a
+blaze of fire. There was nothing eatable there, for the place had been
+swept clean, and then fired, by the retreating Spaniards. The only
+houses not alight were "the store-houses and stables belonging the
+King." These, being of stone, and Government property, had not been
+kindled. The storehouses and stables were, however, empty. Not a horse
+nor a mule nor an ass was in its stall. "They had not left behind them
+any beast whatsoever, either alive or dead." Venta Cruz was as
+profitless a booty as all the other stations. A few pariah dogs and cats
+were in the street, as was perhaps natural, even at that date, in a
+Central-American town. These were at once killed, and eaten half raw,
+"with great appetite." Before they were despatched, a pirate lighted on
+a treasure in a recess of the King's stables. He found there a stock of
+wine, some fifteen or sixteen jars, or demijohns, of good Peruvian wine,
+"and a leather sack full of bread." "But no sooner had they begun to
+drink of the said wine when they fell sick, almost every man." Several
+hundreds had had a cup or two of the drink, and these now judged
+themselves poisoned, and "irrecoverably lost." They were not poisoned,
+as it happened, but they had gone hungry for several days, living on
+"manifold sorts of trash." The sudden use of wine and bread caused a
+very natural sickness, such as comes to all who eat or drink greedily
+after a bout of starving. The sickness upset them for the day, so that
+the force remained there, at bivouac in the village, until the next
+morning. During the halt Morgan landed all his men ("though never so
+weak") from the canoas. He retained only one boat, which he hid, for
+use as an advice boat, "to carry intelligence" to those down the river.
+The rest of the canoas were sent downstream to the anchorage at Bueno
+Cedro, where the chatas lay moored under a guard. He gave strict orders
+to the rest of the pirates that they were not to leave the village save
+in companies of 100 together. "One party of English soldiers stickled
+not to contravene these commands, being tempted with the desire of
+finding victuals." While they straggled in the tilled ground outside
+Venta Cruz they were attacked "with great fury" by a number of Spaniards
+and Indians, "who snatched up" one of them, and carried him off. What
+was done to this one so snatched up we are not told. Probably he was
+tortured to give information of the pirates' strength, and then hanged
+up to a tree.
+
+On the eighth day, in the early morning, the sick men being recovered,
+Morgan thought they might proceed. He chose out an advance-guard of 200
+of the strongest of his men, and sent them forward, with their matches
+lighted, to clear the road. The road was a very narrow one, but paved
+with cobble stones, and easy to the feet after the quagmires of the
+previous week. The men went forward at a good pace, beating the thickets
+on each side of the road. When they had marched some seven or eight
+miles they were shot at from some Indian ambush. A shower of arrows fell
+among them, but they could not see a trace of the enemy, till the
+Indians, who had shot the arrows, broke from cover and ran to a second
+fastness. A few stood firm, about a chief or cacique, "with full design
+to fight and defend themselves." They fought very gallantly for a few
+moments; but the pirates stormed their poor defence, and pistolled the
+cacique, losing eight men killed and ten wounded before the Indians
+broke. Shortly after this skirmish, the advance-guard left the wood,
+coming to open, green grass-land "full of variegated meadows." On a hill
+at a little distance they saw a number of Indians gathered, watching
+their advance. They sent out a troop to capture some of these, but the
+Indians escaped again, "through the agility of their feet," to reappear
+a little later with their howls of scorn: "Hey, you dogs, you English
+dogs, you. Get on to the savannah, you dogs, you cuckolds. On to the
+savannah, and see what's coming to you." "While these things passed the
+ten pirates that were wounded were dressed and plastered up."
+
+In a little while the pirates seized a hilltop facing a ridge of hill
+which shut them from the sight of Panama. In the valley between the two
+hills was a thick little wood, where Morgan looked to find an ambush. He
+sent his advance-guard of 200 men to search the thicket. As they
+entered, some Spaniards and Indians entered from the opposite side, but
+no powder was burnt, for the Spaniards stole away by a bypath, "and were
+seen no more." That night a drenching shower of rain fell, blotting out
+the landscape in a roaring grey film. It sent the pirates running hither
+and thither to find some shelter "to preserve their arms from being
+wet." Nearly all the huts and houses in the district had been fired by
+the Indians, but the pirates found a few lonely shepherds' shealings,
+big enough to hold all the weapons of the army and a few of the men.
+Those who could not find a place among the muskets were constrained to
+lie shivering in the open, enduring much hardship, for the rain did not
+slacken till dawn.
+
+At daybreak Morgan ordered them to march "while the fresh air of the
+morning lasted"; for they were now in open country, on the green
+savannah, where they would have no treetops to screen them from the
+terrible sun. During their morning march they saw a troop of Spanish
+horse, armed with spears, watching the advance at a safe distance, and
+retiring as the pirates drew nearer. Shortly after this they topped a
+steep rise, and lo! the smoke of Panama, and the blue Pacific, with her
+sky-line trembling gently, and a ship under sail, with five boats, going
+towards some emerald specks of islands. The clouds were being blown
+across the sky. The sun was glorious over all that glorious picture,
+over all the pasture, so green and fresh from the rain. There were the
+snowy Andes in the distance, their peaks sharply notched on the clear
+sky. Directly below them, in all her beauty, was the royal city of
+Panama, only hidden from sight by a roll of green savannah.
+
+Just at the foot of the rise, in a wealth of fat pasture, were numbers
+of grazing cattle, horses, and asses--the droves of the citizens. The
+pirates crept down, and shot a number of these, "chiefly asses," which
+they promptly flayed, while some of their number gathered firewood. As
+soon as the fires were lit the meat was blackened in the flame, and then
+greedily swallowed in "convenient pieces or gobbets." "They more
+resembled cannibals than Europeans at this banquet," for the blood ran
+down the beards of many, so hungry were they for meat after the long
+agony of the march. What they could not eat they packed in their
+satchels. After a long midday rest they fell in again for the march,
+sending fifty men ahead to take prisoners "if possibly they could," for
+in all the nine days' tramp they had taken no one to give them
+information of the Spaniards' strength. Towards sunset they saw a troop
+of Spaniards spying on them, who hallooed at them, but at such a
+distance that they could not distinguish what was said. As the sun set
+"they came the first time within sight of the highest steeple of
+Panama."
+
+This was a stirring cordial to the way-weary men limping down the
+savannah. The sight of the sea was not more cheering to the Greeks than
+the sight of the great gilt weathercock, shifting on the spire, to these
+haggard ruffians with the blood not yet dry upon their beards. They
+flung their hats into the air, and danced and shouted. All their
+trumpets shouted a levity, their drums beat, and their colours were
+displayed. They camped there, with songs and laughter, in sight of that
+steeple, "waiting with impatience," like the French knights in the play,
+for the slowly coming dawn. Their drums and trumpets made a merry music
+to their singing, and they caroused so noisily that a troop of horsemen
+rode out from Panama to see what was the matter. "They came almost
+within musket-shot of the army, being preceded by a trumpet that sounded
+marvellously well." They rode up "almost within musket-shot," but made
+no attempt to draw the pirates' fire. They "hallooed aloud to the
+Pirates, and threatened them," with "Hey, ye dogs, we shall meet ye," in
+the manner of the Indians. Seven or eight of them stayed "hovering
+thereabouts," riding along the camp until the day broke, to watch the
+pirates' movements. As soon as their main body reached the town, and
+reported what they had seen, the Governor ordered the city guns to open
+on the pirates' camp. The biggest guns at once began a heavy fire, from
+which one or two spent balls rolled slowly to the outposts without doing
+any damage. At the same time, a strong party took up a position to the
+rear of the camp, as though to cut off the retreat.
+
+Morgan placed his sentries, and sent his men to supper. They feasted
+merrily on their "pieces of bulls' and horses' flesh," and then lay down
+on the grass to smoke a pipe of tobacco before turning in. That last
+night's camp was peaceful and beautiful: the men were fed and near their
+quarry, the sun had dried their wet clothes; the night was fine, the
+stars shone, the Panama guns were harmless. They slept "with great
+repose and huge satisfaction," careless of the chance of battle, and
+anxious for the fight to begin.
+
+
+PANAMA
+
+Old Panama, the chief Spanish city in South America, with the one
+exception of Cartagena, was built along the sea-beach, fronting the bay
+of Panama, between the rivers Gallinero and Matasnillos. It was founded
+between 1518 and 1520 by Pedrarias Davila, a poor adventurer, who came
+to the Spanish Indies to supersede Balboa, having at that time "nothing
+but a sword and buckler." Davila gave it the name of an Indian village
+then standing on the site. The name means "abounding in fish." It soon
+became the chief commercial city in those parts, for all the gold and
+silver and precious merchandise of Peru and Chili were collected there
+for transport to Porto Bello. At the time of Morgan's attack upon it, it
+contained some 7000 houses, with a number of huts and hovels for the
+slaves. The population, counting these latter, may have been as great as
+30,000. Many of the houses were of extreme beauty, being built of an
+aromatic rose wood, or "native cedar," ingeniously carved. Many were
+built of stone in a Moorish fashion, with projecting upper storeys. It
+had several stone monasteries and convents, and a great cathedral,
+dedicated to St Anastasius, which was the most glorious building in
+Spanish America. Its tower still stands as a landmark to sailors,
+visible many miles to sea. The stones of it are decorated with defaced
+carvings. Inside it, within the ruined walls, are palm and cedar trees,
+green and beautiful, over the roots of which swarm the scarlet-spotted
+coral snakes. The old town was never properly fortified. The isthmus
+was accounted a sufficient protection to it, and the defences were
+consequently weak. It was a town of merchants, who "thought only of
+becoming rich, and cared little for the public good." They lived a very
+stately life there, in houses hung with silk, stamped leather, and
+Spanish paintings, drinking Peruvian wines out of cups of gold and
+silver. The Genoese Company, a company of slavers trading with Guinea,
+had a "stately house" there, with a spacious slave market, where the
+blacks were sold over the morning glass. The Spanish King had some long
+stone stables in the town, tended by a number of slaves. Here the horses
+and mules for the recuas were stabled in long lines, like the stables of
+a cavalry barrack. Near these were the royal storehouses, built of
+stone, for the storage of the gold from the King's mines. There were
+also 200 merchants' warehouses, built in one storey, round which the
+slaves slept, under pent roofs.
+
+Outside the city was the beautiful green savannah, a rolling sea of
+grass, with islands of trees, cedar and palm, thickly tangled with the
+many-coloured bindweeds. To one side of it, an arm of the sea crept
+inland, to a small salt lagoon, which rippled at high tide, at the back
+of the city. The creek was bridged to allow the Porto Bello carriers to
+enter the town, and a small gatehouse or porter's lodge protected the
+way. The bridge is a neat stone arch, still standing. The streets ran
+east and west, "so that when the sun rises no one can walk in any of the
+streets, because there is no shade whatever; and this is felt very much
+as the heat is intense; and the sun is so prejudicial to health, that if
+a man is exposed to its rays for a few hours, he will be attacked with a
+fatal illness [pernicious fever], and this has happened to many." The
+port was bad for shipping, because of the great rise and fall of the
+tides. The bay is shallow, and ships could only come close in at high
+water. At low water the town looked out upon a strip of sand and a mile
+or more of very wet black mud. "At full moon, the waves frequently reach
+the houses and enter those on that side of the town." The roadstead
+afforded safe anchorage for the great ships coming up from Lima. Loading
+and unloading was performed by launches, at high water, on days when the
+surf was moderate. Small ships sailed close in at high tide, and beached
+themselves.
+
+To landward there were many gardens and farms, where the Spaniards had
+"planted many trees from Spain"--such as oranges, lemons, and figs.
+There were also plantain walks, and a great plenty of pines, guavas,
+onions, lettuces, and "alligator pears." Over the savannah roamed herds
+of fat cattle. On the seashore, "close to the houses of the city," were
+"quantities of very small mussels." The presence of these mussel beds
+determined the site of the town, "because the Spaniards felt themselves
+safe from hunger on account of these mussels."
+
+The town is all gone now, saving the cathedral tower, where the sweet
+Spanish bells once chimed, and the little stone bridge, worn by so many
+mules' hoofs. There is dense tropical forest over the site of it, though
+the foundations of several houses may be traced, and two or three walls
+still stand, with brilliant creepers covering up the carved work. It is
+not an easy place to reach, for it is some six miles from new Panama,
+and the way lies through such a tangle of creepers, over such swampy
+ground, poisonous with so many snakes, that it is little visited. It can
+be reached by sea on a fine day at high tide if the surf be not too
+boisterous. To landward of the present Panama there is a fine hill,
+called Mount Anēon. A little to the east of this there is a roll of high
+land, now a fruitful market-garden, or farm of orchards. This high land,
+some five or six miles from the ruins, is known as Buccaneers' Hill. It
+was from the summit of this high land that the pirates first saw the
+city steeple. Local tradition points out a few old Spanish guns of small
+size, brass and iron, at the near-by village of El Moro, as having been
+left by Morgan's men. At the island of Taboga, in the bay of Panama,
+they point with pride to a cave, the haunt of squid and crabs, as the
+hiding-place of Spanish treasure. In the blackness there, they say, are
+the golden sacramental vessels and jewelled vestments of the great
+church of St Anastasius. They were hidden there at the time of the raid,
+so effectually that they could never be recovered. We can learn of no
+other local tradition concerning the sack and burning.
+
+[Illustration: NEW PANAMA]
+
+What old Panama was like we do not know, for we can trace no picture of
+it. It was said to be the peer of Venice, "the painted city," at a time
+when Venice was yet the "incomparable Queene." It could hardly have been
+a second Venice, though its situation on that beautiful blue bay, with
+the Andes snowy in the distance, and the islands, like great green gems,
+to seaward, is lovely beyond words. It was filled with glorious houses,
+carved and scented, and beautiful with costly things. The merchants
+lived a languorous, luxurious life there, waited on by slaves, whom they
+could burn or torture at their pleasure. It was "the greatest mart for
+gold and silver in the whole world." There were pearl fisheries up and
+down the bay, yielding the finest of pearls; and "golden Potosi"--the
+tangible Eldorado, was not far off. The merchants of old Panama were,
+perhaps, as stately fellows and as sumptuous in their ways of life as
+any "on the Rialto." Their city is now a tangle of weeds and a heap of
+sun-cracked limestone; their market-place is a swamp; their haven is a
+stretch of surf-shaken mud, over which the pelicans go quarrelling for
+the bodies of fish.
+
+    _Authorities._--Exquemeling's "History"; "The Bucaniers of America."
+    Don Guzman's Account, printed in the "Voyages and Adventures of
+    Captain Bartholomew Sharp." Cal. State Papers: West Indies and
+    Colonial Series. "Present State of Jamaica," 1683. "New History of
+    Jamaica," 1740.
+
+    For my account of Chagres I am indebted to friends long resident on
+    the isthmus, and to Dampier's and Wafer's Voyages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SACK OF PANAMA
+
+    The burning of the city--Buccaneer excesses--An abortive
+    mutiny--Home--Morgan's defection
+
+
+"On the tenth day, betimes in the morning," while the black and white
+monkeys were at their dawn song, or early screaming, the pirates fell in
+for the march, with their red flags flying and the drums and trumpets
+making a battle music. They set out gallantly towards the city by the
+road they had followed from Venta Cruz. Before they came under fire, one
+of the guides advised Morgan to attack from another point. The
+Spaniards, he said, had placed their heavy guns in position along the
+probable line of their advance. Every clump of trees near the trackway
+would be filled with Spanish sharpshooters, while they might expect
+earth-works or trenches nearer to the city. He advised Morgan to make a
+circuit, so as to approach the city through the forest--over the ground
+on which new Panama was built, a year or two later. Morgan, therefore,
+turned rather to the west of the highway, through some tropical
+woodland, where the going was very irksome. As they left the woodland,
+after a march of several hours, they again entered the savannah, at a
+distance of about a mile and a half from the town. The ground here was
+in sweeping folds, so that they had a little hill to climb before the
+town lay open to them, at the edge of the sea, to the eastward of the
+salt lagoon. When they topped this rise they saw before them "the
+forces of the people of Panama, extended in battle array," between them
+and the quarry.
+
+The Spanish strength on this occasion, according to the narrative, was
+as follows:--400 horse, of the finest horsemen in the world; twenty-four
+companies of foot, each company mustering a full 100 men; and "sixty
+Indians and some negroes." These last were "to drive two thousand wild
+bulls and cause them to run over the English camp, and thus, by breaking
+their files, put them into a total disorder and confusion." Morgan gives
+the numbers as 2100 foot and 600 horse, with "two Droves of Cattel of
+1500 apiece," one for each flank or for the angles of the rear. The
+Spanish Governor, who had been "lately blooded 3 times for an
+Erysipelas," had not done as well as he could have wished in the
+preparation of an army of defence. He says that he had brought together
+1400 coloured men, armed with "Carbins, Harquebusses, and Fowling
+Pieces," the muskets having been lost at Chagres. He gives the number of
+cavalry as 200, "mounted on the same tired Horses which had brought them
+thither." He admits that there were "50 cow-keepers" and an
+advance-guard of 300 foot. He had also five field-guns "covered with
+leather." To these forces may be added the townsfolk capable of bearing
+arms. These were not very numerous, for most of the inhabitants, as we
+have seen, "thought only of getting rich and cared little for the public
+good." They were now, however, in a cold sweat of fear at the sight of
+the ragged battalion trooping down from the hilltop. They had dug
+trenches for themselves within the city and had raised batteries to
+sweep the important streets. They had also mounted cannon on the little
+stone fort, or watchman's lodge, at the town end of the bridge across
+the creek.
+
+The sight of so many troops drawn out in order "surprised" the pirates
+"with great fear." The droves of "wild bulls" pasturing on the savannah
+grass were new to their experience; the cavalry they had met before in
+Cuba and did not fear, nor did they reckon themselves much worse than
+the Spanish foot; but they saw that the Spaniards outnumbered them by
+more than two to one, and they recognised the advantage they had in
+having a defensible city to fall back upon. The buccaneers were worn
+with the long march, and in poor case for fighting. They halted at this
+point, while Morgan formed them into a tertia, or division of three
+battalions or troops, of which he commanded the right wing. The sight of
+so many Spaniards halted below them set them grumbling in the ranks.
+"Yea few or none there were but wished themselves at home, or at least
+free from the obligation of that Engagement." There was, however,
+nothing else for it. A "wavering condition of Mind" could not help them.
+They had no alternative but "to fight resolutely, or die." They might
+not look to get quarter "from an Enemy against whom they had committed
+so many Cruelties."
+
+Morgan formed his men in order, and sent out skirmishers to annoy the
+Spanish troops, and to draw them from their position. A few shots were
+exchanged; but the Spaniards were not to be tempted, nor was the ground
+over which the skirmishers advanced at all suitable for moving troops.
+Morgan, therefore, edged his men away to the left, to a little hill
+beyond a dry gut or water-course--a position which the Spaniards could
+not attack from more than one side owing to the nature of the ground,
+which was boggy. Before they could form upon the lower slopes of the
+hill the Spanish horse rode softly forward, shouting: "Viva el Rey!"
+("Long live the King"), with a great display of courage. "But the field
+being full of quaggs, and very soft under foot, they could not ply to
+and fro, and wheel about, as they desired." When they had come to a
+little beyond musket-shot "one Francisco Detarro," the colonel of the
+cavalry, called out to his troopers to charge home upon the English van.
+The horses at once broke into a gallop, and charged in "so furiously"
+that Morgan had to strengthen his ranks to receive them, "we having no
+Pikes" with which to gall the horses. As the men galloped forward, the
+line of buccaneers made ready to fire. Each musketeer put one knee to
+the ground, and touched off his piece, blasting the Spanish regiment
+almost out of action at the one discharge. The charge had been pressed
+so nearly home that the powder corns burnt the leading horses. Those who
+survived the shock of the volley swung off to the right to re-form,
+while the foot came on in their tracks "to try their Fortunes." They
+were received with such a terrible fire that they never came to
+handystrokes. They disputed the point for some hours, gradually falling
+into disorder as their losses became more and more heavy. The cavalry
+re-formed, and charged a second and a third time, with the result that
+after two hours' fighting "the Spanish Horse was ruined, and almost all
+killed." During the engagement of the foot, the Indians and negroes
+tried their stratagem of the bulls. They drove the herds round the
+flanking parties to the rear, and endeavoured to force them through the
+English lines. "But the greatest part of that wild cattle ran away,
+being frighted with the noise of the Battle. And some few, that broke
+through the English Companies, did no other harm than to tear the
+Colours in pieces; whereas the Buccaneers shooting them dead, left not
+one to Trouble them thereabouts."
+
+[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF PANAMA]
+
+Seeing the Spanish foot in some disorder, with many of their officers
+killed and few of the men firing, Morgan plied them with shot and sent
+his left wing forward as they fell back. The horse made one last gallant
+attempt to break the English line, but the attempt caused their
+complete destruction. At the same moment Morgan stormed down upon the
+foot with all his strength. The Spaniards fired "the Shot they had in
+their Muskets," and flung their weapons down, not caring to come to
+handystrokes. They ran "everyone which way he could run"--an utter rout
+of broken soldiers. The pirates were too fatigued to follow, but they
+picked them off as they ran till they were out of musket-shot.
+
+The buccaneers apparently then cleared away the stragglers, by
+pistolling them wherever they could find them. In this employment they
+beat through the shrubs by the sea, where many poor citizens had hidden
+themselves after the final routing of the troops. Some monks who were
+brought in to Captain Morgan were treated in the same manner, "for he,
+being deaf to their Cries, commanded them to be instantly pistolled,"
+which order was obeyed there and then. A captain or colonel of troops
+was soon afterwards taken, and held to ransom after a strict
+examination. He told Morgan that he might look to have great trouble in
+winning the city, for the streets were all dug about with trenches and
+mounted with heavy brass guns. He added that the main entrance to the
+place was strongly fortified, and protected by a half company of fifty
+men with eight brass demi-cannon.
+
+Morgan now bade his men rest themselves and take food before pushing on
+to the town. He held a review of his army before he marched, and found
+that he had lost heavily--perhaps 200 men--while the Spaniards had lost
+about three times that number. "The Pirates," we read, "were nothing
+discouraged, seeing their number so much diminished but rather filled
+with greater pride than before." The comparative heaviness of the
+Spanish loss must have been very comforting. After they had rested and
+eaten they set out towards the town, "plighting their Oaths to one
+another in general, they would fight till never a man were left alive."
+A few prisoners, who seemed rich enough to be held to ransom, were
+marched with them under a guard of musketeers.
+
+Long before they trod the streets of Panama, they were under fire from
+the batteries, "some of which were charged with small pieces of iron,
+and others with musket-bullets."
+
+They lost men at every step; but their ranks kept steady, and street by
+street the town was won. The main agony of the fight took place between
+two and three o'clock, in the heat of the day, when the last Spanish
+gunners were cut to pieces at their guns. After the last gun was taken,
+a few Spaniards fired from street corners or from upper windows, but
+these were promptly pistolled or knocked on the head. The town was in
+the hands of the pirates by the time the bells chimed three that
+afternoon.
+
+As Morgan rested with his captains in the Plaza, after the heat of the
+battle, word was brought to him that the city was on fire in several
+places. Many have supposed that the town was fired by his orders, or by
+some careless and drunken musketeer of his. It was not the buccaneer
+custom to fire cities before they had sacked them, nor is it in the
+least likely that Morgan would have burnt so glorious a town before he
+had offered it to ransom. The Spaniards have always charged Morgan with
+the crime, but it seems more probable that the Spanish Governor was the
+guilty one. It is yet more probable that the fire was accidental. Most
+of the Spanish houses were of wood, and at that season of the year the
+timber would have been of extreme dryness, so that a lighted wad or
+match end might have caused the conflagration. At the time when the fire
+was first noticed, the pirates were raging through the town in search of
+plunder. They may well have flung away their lighted matches to gather
+up the spoils they found, and thus set fire to the place unwittingly.
+
+Hearing that the town was burning, Morgan caused his trumpeters to sound
+the assembly in the Plaza. When the pirates mustered, Morgan at once
+told off men to quench the fire "by blowing up houses by gunpowder, and
+pulling down others to stop its progress." He ordered strong guards to
+patrol the streets and to stand sentry without the city. Lastly, he
+forbade any member of the army "to dare to drink or taste any wine,"
+giving out that it had all been poisoned beforehand by the Spaniards. He
+feared that his men would get drunk unless he frightened them by some
+such tale. With a drunken army rolling in the streets he could hardly
+hope to hold the town against an enemy so lightly beaten as the
+Spaniards. He also sent some sailors down to the beach to seize "a great
+boat which had stuck in the mud of the port."
+
+For all that the pirates could do, the fire spread rapidly, for the dry
+cedar beams burned furiously. The warehouses full of merchandise, such
+as silks, velvets, and fine linen, were not burned, but all the grand
+houses of the merchants, where the life had been so stately, were
+utterly gutted--all the Spanish pictures and coloured tapestries going
+up in a blaze. The splendid house of the Genoese, where so many black
+men had been bought and sold, was burned to the ground. The chief
+streets were ruined before midnight, and the fire was not wholly
+extinguished a month later when the pirates marched away. It continued
+to burn and smoulder long after they had gone.
+
+Having checked the riot among his army, Morgan sent a company of 150 men
+back to the garrison at the mouth of the Chagres with news of his
+success. Two other companies, of the same strength, he sent into the
+woods, "being all very stout soldiers and well-armed," giving them
+orders to bring in prisoners to hold to ransom. A third company was
+sent to sea under a Captain Searles to capture a Spanish galleon which
+had left the port, laden with gold and silver and the jewels of the
+churches, a day or two before. The rest of his men camped out of doors,
+in the green fields without the city, ready for any attack the Spaniards
+might make upon them. Search parties rummaged all day among the burning
+ruins, "especially in wells and cisterns," which yielded up many jewels
+and fine gold plates. The warehouses were sacked, and many pirates made
+themselves coats of silk and velvet to replace the rags they came in. It
+is probable that they committed many excesses in the heat of the first
+taking of the town, but one who was there has testified to the
+comparative gentleness of their comportment when "the heat of the blood"
+had cooled. "As to their women," he writes, "I know [not] or ever heard
+of anything offered beyond their wills; something I know was cruelly
+executed by Captain Collier [commander of one of the ships and one of
+the chief officers of the army] in killing a Frier in the field after
+quarter given; but for the Admiral he was noble enough to the vanquished
+enemy." In fact, the
+
+                        "Want of rest and victual
+    Had made them chaste--they ravished very little"
+
+--which matter must be laid to their credit.
+
+A day or two was passed by the pirates in rummaging among the ruins,
+eating and drinking, and watching the Spaniards as they moved in the
+savannahs. Troops of Spaniards prowled there under arms, looking at
+their burning houses and the grey smoke ever going upward. They did not
+attack the pirates; they did not even fire at them from a distance. They
+were broken men without a leader, only thankful to be allowed to watch
+their blazing city. A number of them submitted to the armed men sent out
+to bring in prisoners. A number lingered in the near-by forests in
+great misery, living on grass and alligator eggs, the latter tasting
+"like half-rotten musk"--a poor diet after "pheasants" and Peruvian
+wine.
+
+Morgan soon received word from Chagres castle that all was very well
+with the garrison. Captain Norman, who had remained in charge, under
+oath to keep the "bloody flag," or red pirates' banner, flying, "had
+sent forth to sea two boats, to exercise piracy." These had hoisted
+Spanish colours, and set to sea, meeting with a fine Spanish merchantman
+that very same day. They chased this ship into the Chagres River, where
+"the poor Spaniards" were caught in a snare under the guns of the fort.
+Her cargo "consisted in victuals and provisions, that were all eatable
+things," unlike the victuals given usually to sailors. Such a prize came
+very opportunely, for the castle stores were running out, while the
+ship's crew proved useful in the bitter work of earth carrying then
+going on daily on the ramparts for the repairing of the palisado.
+Hearing that the Chagres garrison was in such good case, and so well
+able to exercise piracy without further help, Admiral Morgan resolved to
+make a longer stay in the ruins of old Panama. He arranged "to send
+forth daily parties of two hundred men" to roam the countryside, beating
+the thickets for prisoners, and the prisoners for gold. These parties
+ranged the country very thoroughly, gathering "in a short time, a huge
+quantity of riches, and no less number of prisoners." These poor
+creatures were shut up under a guard, to be brought out one by one for
+examination. If they would not confess where they had hidden their gold,
+nor where the gold of their neighbours lay, the pirates used them as
+they had used their prisoners at Porto Bello. "Woolding," burning with
+palm leaves, and racking out the arm-joints, seem to have been the most
+popular tortures. Many who had no gold were brutally ill treated, and
+then thrust through with a lance.
+
+Among these diversions Admiral Morgan fell in love with a beautiful
+Spanish lady, who appears to have been something of a paragon. The story
+is not worth repeating, nor does it read quite sincerely, but it is very
+probably true. John Exquemeling, who had no great love for Morgan,
+declares that he was an eye-witness of the love-making, "and could never
+have judged such constancy of mind and virtuous chastity to be found in
+the world." The fiery Welshman did not win the lady, but we gather from
+the evidence that he could have had the satisfaction of Matthew Arnold's
+American, who consoled himself, in similar circumstances, with saying:
+"Well, I guess I lowered her moral tone some."
+
+During the first week of their stay in Panama, the ship they had sent to
+sea returned with a booty of three small coast boats. Captain Searles
+had sailed her over Panama Bay to the beautiful island of Taboga, in
+order to fill fresh water and rob the inhabitants. Here they took "the
+boatswain and most of the crew"[17] of the _Trinity_, a Spanish galleon,
+"on board which were the Friers and Nuns, with all the old gentlemen and
+Matrons of the Town, to the number of 1500 souls, besides an immense
+Treasure in Silver and Gold." This galleon had seven small guns and ten
+or twelve muskets for her whole defence. She was without provisions, and
+desperately short of water, and she had "no more sails than the
+uppermost sails of the mainmast." Her captain was "an old and stout
+Spaniard, a native of Andalusia, in Spain, named Don Francisco de
+Peralta." She was "very richly laden with all the King's Plate and great
+quantity of riches of gold, pearl, jewels, and other most precious
+goods, of all the best and richest merchants of Panama. On board of this
+galleon were also the religious women, belonging to the nunnery of the
+said city, who had embarked with them all the ornaments of their
+church, consisting in great quantity of gold, plate, and other things of
+great value." This most royal prize was even then slowly dipping past
+Taboga, with her sea-sick holy folk praying heartily for the return of
+the water casks. She could have made no possible defence against the
+pirates had they gone at once in pursuit of her. But this the pirates
+did not do. In the village at Taboga there was a wealthy merchant's
+summer-house, with a cellar full of "several sorts of rich wines." A
+bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or as a bibulous wit once
+said to the present writer: "A bottle now is worth a bath of it
+to-morrow." Captain Searles and his men chose to drink a quiet bowl in
+the cabin rather than go sail the blue seas after the golden galleon.
+They made a rare brew of punch, of which they drank "logwood-cutters'
+measure," or a gallon and a half a man. After this they knocked out
+their tobacco pipes, and slept very pleasantly till the morning. They
+woke "repenting of their negligence" and "totally wearied of the vices
+and debaucheries aforesaid." With eyes red with drink they blinked at
+the empty punch-bowls. Then with savage "morning-tempers" they damned
+each other for a lot of lunkheads, and put to sea (in one of the Taboga
+prizes) "to pursue the said galleon" with all speed. However, by this
+time Don Peralta, a most gallant and resourceful captain, had brought
+the golden _Trinity_ to a place of safety. Had she been taken, she would
+have yielded a spoil hardly smaller than that taken by Cavendish in the
+_Madre de Dios_ or that which Anson won in the Manila galleon. Several
+waggon loads of golden chalices and candlesticks, with ropes of pearls,
+bags of emeralds and bezoars, and bar upon bar of silver in the crude,
+were thus bartered away for a sup of punch and a drunken chorus in the
+cabin. Poor Captain Searles never prospered after. He went logwood
+cutting a year or two later, and as a logwood cutter he arrived at the
+Rio Summasenta, where he careened his ship at a sandy key, since known
+as Searles Key. He was killed a few days afterwards, "in the western
+lagune" there, "by one of his Company as they were cutting Logwood
+together." That was the end of Captain Searles.
+
+[Footnote 17: They had come ashore to get water.]
+
+Morgan was very angry when he heard of the escape of the galleon. He at
+once remanned the four prizes, and sent them out, with orders to scour
+the seas till they found her. They cruised for more than a week,
+examining every creek and inlet, beating up many a sluggish river, under
+many leafy branches, but finding no trace of the _Trinity_. They gave up
+the chase at last, and rested at Taboga, where, perhaps, some "rich
+wines" were still in bin. They found a Payta ship at anchor at Taboga,
+"laden with cloth, soap, sugar and biscuit, with twenty thousand pieces
+of eight in ready money." She was "a reasonable good ship," but the
+cargo, saving the money, was not much to their taste. They took the best
+of it, and loaded it aboard her longboat, making the Taboga negroes act
+as stevedores. They then set the negroes aboard the prize, and carried
+her home to Panama, "some thing better satisfied of their voyage, yet
+withal much discontented they could not meet with the galleon." It was
+at Taboga, it seems, that the lady who so inflamed Sir Henry was made
+prisoner.
+
+At the end of three weeks of "woolding" and rummaging, Admiral Morgan
+began to prepare for the journey home. He sent his men to look for mules
+and horses on which to carry the plunder to the hidden canoas in the
+river. He learned at this juncture that a number of the pirates intended
+to leave him "by taking a ship that was in the port," and going to "rob
+upon the South Sea." They had made all things ready, it seems, having
+hidden "great quantity of provisions," powder, bullets, and water
+casks, with which to store their ship. They had even packed the good
+brass guns of the city, "where with they designed not only to equip the
+said vessel but also to fortify themselves and raise batteries in some
+island or other, which might serve them for a place of refuge." The
+scheme was fascinating, and a very golden life they would have had of
+it, those lucky mutineers, had not some spoil-sport come sneaking
+privily to Morgan with a tale of what was toward. They might have seized
+Cocos Island or Juan Fernandez, or "some other island," such as one of
+the Enchanted, or Gallapagos, Islands, where the goddesses were thought
+to dwell. That would have been a happier life than cutting logwood, up
+to the knees in mud, in some drowned savannah of Campeachy.
+
+However, just as the wine-bowl spoiled the project of the galleon, so
+did the treachery of a lickspittle, surely one of the meanest of created
+things, put an end to the mutiny. Morgan was not there to colonise
+Pacific Oceans, but to sack Panama. He had no intention of losing half
+his army for an imperial idea. He promptly discouraged the scheme by
+burning all the boats in the roads. The ship or chata, which would have
+been the flagship of the mutineers, was dismasted, and the masts and
+rigging were added to the general bonfire. All the brass cannon they had
+taken were nailed and spiked. Wooden bars were driven down their muzzles
+as firmly as possible, and the wood was then watered to make it swell.
+There was then no more talk of going a-cruising to found republics.
+
+Morgan thought it wise to leave Panama as soon as possible, before a
+second heresy arose among his merry men. He had heard that the Governor
+of Panama was busily laying ambuscades "in the way by which he ought to
+pass at his return." He, therefore, picked out a strong company of men,
+including many of the mutineers, and sent them out into the woods to
+find out the truth of the matter. They found that the report was false,
+for a few Spanish prisoners, whom they captured, were able to tell them
+how the scheme had failed. The Governor, it was true, had planned to
+make "some opposition by the way," but none of the men remaining with
+him would consent to "undertake any such enterprize." With this news the
+troops marched back to Panama. While they were away, the poor prisoners
+made every effort to raise money for their ransoms, but many were unable
+to raise enough to satisfy their captors. Morgan had no wish to wait
+till they could gather more, for by this time, no doubt, he had
+satisfied himself that he had bled the country of all the gold it
+contained. Nor did he care to wait till the Spaniards had plucked up
+heart, and planted some musketeers along the banks of the Chagres. He
+had horses and mules enough to carry the enormous heaps of plunder to
+the river. It was plainly foolish to stay longer, for at any time a
+force might attack him (by sea) from Lima or (by land) from Porto Bello.
+He, therefore, gave the word for the army to prepare to march. He passed
+his last evening in Panama (as we suppose) with the female paragon from
+Taboga. The army had one last debauch over the punch-bowls round the
+camp fires, and then fell in to muster, thinking rapturously of the inns
+and brothels which waited for their custom at Port Royal.
+
+[Illustration: SIR HENRY MORGAN]
+
+"On the 24th of February, of the year 1671, Captain Morgan departed from
+the city of Panama, or rather from the place where the said city of
+Panama did stand; of the spoils whereof he carried with him one hundred
+and seventy-five beasts of carriage, laden with silver, gold and other
+precious things, besides six hundred prisoners more or less, between
+men, women, children and slaves." Thus they marched out of the ruined
+capital, over the green savannah, towards the river, where a halt was
+called to order the army for the march to Venta Cruz. A troop of picked
+marksmen was sent ahead to act as a scouting party; the rest of the
+company marched in hollow square, with the prisoners in the hollow. In
+this array they set forward towards Venta Cruz to the sound of drums and
+trumpets, amid "lamentations, cries, shrieks and doleful sighs" from the
+wretched women and children. Most of these poor creatures were fainting
+with thirst and hunger, for it had been Morgan's policy to starve them,
+in order "to excite them more earnestly to seek for money wherewith to
+ransom themselves." "Many of the women," says the narrative, "begged of
+Captain Morgan upon their knees, with infinite sighs and tears, he would
+permit them to return to Panama, there to live in company of their dear
+husbands and children, in little huts of straw which they would erect,
+seeing they had no houses until the rebuilding of the city. But his
+answer was: he came not thither to hear lamentations and cries, but
+rather to seek money. Therefore they ought to seek out for that in the
+first place, wherever it were to be had, and bring it to him, otherwise
+he would assuredly transport them all to such places whither they cared
+not to go." With this answer they had to remain content, as they lay in
+camp, under strict guard, on the banks of the Rio Grande.
+
+Early the next morning, "when the march began," "those lamentable cries
+and shrieks were renewed, in so much as it would have caused compassion
+in the hardest heart to hear them. But Captain Morgan, a man little
+given to mercy, was not moved therewith in the least." They marched in
+the same order as before, but on this day, we read, the Spaniards "were
+punched and thrust in their backs and sides, with the blunt end of [the
+pirates'] arms, to make them march the faster." The "beautiful and
+virtuous lady" "was led prisoner by herself, between two Pirates," both
+of whom, no doubt, wished the other dear charmer away. She, poor lady,
+was crying out that she had asked two monks to fetch her ransom from a
+certain hiding-place. They had taken the money, she cried, according to
+her instruction, but they had used it to ransom certain "of their own
+and particular friends." This evil deed "was discovered by a slave, who
+brought a letter to the said lady." In time, her words were reported to
+Captain Morgan, who held a court of inquiry there and then, to probe
+into the truth of the matter. The monks made no denial of the fact,
+"though under some frivolous excuses, of having diverted the money but
+for a day or two, within which time they expected more sums to repay
+it." The reply angered Morgan into releasing the poor woman, "detaining
+the said religious men as prisoners in her place," and "using them
+according to the deserts of their incompassionate intrigues." Probably
+they were forced to run the gauntlet between two rows of pirates armed
+with withes of bejuco.
+
+A day's hard marching brought them to the ruins of Venta Cruz, on the
+banks of the river, where the canoas lay waiting for them under a merry
+boat guard. The army rested at Venta Cruz for three days, while maize
+and rice were collected for the victualling of the boats. Many prisoners
+succeeded in raising their ransoms during this three days' halt. Those
+who failed, were carried down the river to San Lorenzo. On the 5th of
+March the plunder was safely shipped, the army went aboard the canoas,
+the prisoners (including some from Venta Cruz) were thrust into the
+bottoms of the boats, and the homeward voyage began. The two monks who
+had embezzled the lady's money escaped translation at this time, being
+ransomed by their friends before the sailing of the fleet. The canoas
+dropped down the river swiftly, with songs and cheers from the pirates,
+till they came to some opening in the woods, half way across the
+isthmus, where the banks were free enough from brush to allow them to
+camp. Here they mustered in order, as though for a review, each man in
+his place with his sword and firelock. Here Captain Morgan caused each
+man to raise his right hand, and to swear solemnly that he had concealed
+nothing privately, "even not so much as the value of sixpence." Captain
+Morgan, a Welshman by birth, "having had some experience that those lewd
+fellows would not much stickle to swear falsely in points of interest,
+commanded every one to be searched very strictly, both in their clothes
+and satchels and everywhere it might be presumed they had reserved
+anything. Yea, to the intent this order might not be ill-taken by his
+companions, he permitted himself to be searched, even to the very soles
+of his shoes." One man out of each company was chosen to act as searcher
+to his fellows, and a very strict search was made. "The French Pirates
+were not well satisfied with this new custom of searching," but there
+were not very many of them, and "they were forced to submit to it." When
+the search was over, they re-embarked, and soon afterwards the current
+caught them, and spun them down swiftly to the lion-like rock at the
+river's mouth. They came safely to moorings below San Lorenzo on the 9th
+of March. They found that most of the wounded they had left there had
+died of fever, but the rest of the garrison was in good case, having
+"exercised piracy" with profit all the time the army had been
+plundering. There was "joy, and a full punch-bowl," in the castle rooms
+that night.
+
+Morgan now sent his Santa Katalina prisoners to Porto Bello in "a great
+boat," demanding a ransom for Chagres castle, "threatening otherwise" to
+blast it to pieces. "Those of Porto Bello," who needed all their money
+to repair their own walls, replied that "They would not give one
+farthing towards the ransom of the said castle, and that the English
+might do with it as they pleased"--a sufficiently bold answer, which
+sealed the fate of San Lorenzo. When the answer came, the men were again
+mustered, and "the dividend was made of all the spoil they had purchased
+in that voyage." Each man received his due share, "or rather what part
+thereof Captain Morgan was pleased to give." There was general
+dissatisfaction with "his proceedings in this particular," and many
+shaggy ruffians "feared not to tell him openly" that he had "reserved
+the best jewels to himself." They "judged it impossible" that the share
+per man should be but a paltry 200 pieces of eight, or £50, after "so
+many valuable booties and robberies." Why, they said, it is less than we
+won at Porto Bello. Many swore fiercely that, if they had known how
+small the booty was to prove, they would have seen Henry Morgan in gaol
+before they 'listed. Why they did not tear him piecemeal, and heave him
+into the sea, must remain a mystery. They contented themselves with
+damning him to his face for a rogue and a thief, at the same time
+praying that a red-hot hell might be his everlasting portion. "But
+Captain Morgan," says the narrative, "was deaf to all these, and many
+other complaints of this kind, having designed in his mind to cheat them
+of as much as he could."
+
+Deaf though he was, and callous, he had a fine regard for his own skin.
+The oaths and curses which were shouted after him as he walked in the
+castle made him "to fear the consequence thereof." He "thought it unsafe
+to remain any longer time at Chagre," so he planned a master stroke to
+defeat his enemies. The castle guns were dismounted, and hoisted aboard
+his flagship. The castle walls were then blasted into pieces, the lower
+batteries thrown down, and the houses burnt. When these things had been
+done "he went secretly on board his own ship, without giving any notice
+of his departure to his companions, nor calling any council, as he used
+to do. Thus he set sail, and put out to sea, not bidding anybody adieu,
+being only followed by three or four vessels of the fleet." The captains
+of these ships, it was believed, had shared with him in the concealed
+plunder.
+
+There was great fury among the buccaneers when Morgan's escape was
+known. The French pirates were for putting to sea in pursuit, to blow
+his ships out of the water, but Morgan had been sufficiently astute to
+escape in the provision ships. The pirates left behind had not food
+enough to stock their ships, and could not put to sea till more had been
+gathered. While they cursed and raged at Chagres, Morgan sailed slowly
+to Port Royal, where he furled his sails, and dropped anchor, after a
+highly profitable cruise. The Governor received his percentage of the
+profits, and Morgan at once began to levy recruits for the settling of
+Santa Katalina.
+
+As for his men, they stayed for some days in considerable misery at San
+Lorenzo. They then set sail in companies, some for one place, some for
+another, hoping to find food enough to bring them home. Some went to the
+eastward, raiding the coast for food, and snapping up small coasting
+vessels. Some went to the bay of Campeachy to cut logwood and to drink
+rum punch. Others went along the Costa Rican coast to find turtle to
+salt for victuals, and to careen their barnacled and wormy ships. One
+strong company went to Cuba, where they sacked the Town of the Keys, and
+won a good booty. Most of them came home, in time, but to those who
+returned that home-coming was bitter.
+
+Shortly after Morgan's return to Jamaica, a new Governor arrived from
+England with orders to suppress the gangs of privateers. He had
+instructions to proclaim a general pardon for all those buccaneers who
+cared to take advantage of the proclamation within a given time. Those
+who wished to leave "their naughty way of life" were to be encouraged by
+grants of land (thirty-five acres apiece), so that they might not starve
+when they forsook piracy. But this generous offer was merely a lure or
+bait to bring the buccaneers to port, in order that the Governor might
+mulct them "the tenths and fifteenths of their booty as the dues of the
+Crown for granting them commissions." The news of the intended taxation
+spread abroad among the pirates. They heard, too, that in future they
+would find no rest in Port Royal; for this new Governor was earnest and
+diligent in his governorship. They, therefore, kept away from Port
+Royal, and made Tortuga their rendezvous, gradually allying themselves
+with the French buccaneers, who had their stronghold there. Some of
+them, who returned to Port Royal, were brought before the magistrate,
+and hanged as pirates. Their old captain, Henry Morgan, left his former
+way of life, and soon afterwards become Governor of Jamaica. He was so
+very zealous in "discouraging" the buccaneers that the profession
+gradually lost its standing. The best of its members took to logwood
+cutting or to planting; the worst kept the seas, like water-Ishmaelites,
+plundering the ships of all nations save their own. They haunted
+Tortuga, the keys of Cuba, the creeks and inlets of the coast, and the
+bays at the western end of Jamaica. They were able to do a great deal of
+mischief; for there were many of them, and the English Colonial
+governors could not spare many men-of-war to police the seas. Often the
+pirates combined and made descents upon the coast as in the past. Henry
+Morgan's defection did but drive them from their own pleasant haunt,
+Port Royal. The "free-trade" of buccaneering throve as it had always
+thriven. But about the time of Morgan's consulship we read of British
+men-of-war helping to discourage the trade, and thenceforward the
+buccaneers were without the support of the Colonial Government. Those
+who sailed the seas after Morgan's time were public enemies, sailing
+under the shadow of the gallows.
+
+    _Authorities._--W. Nelson: "Five Years at Panama." P. Mimande:
+    "Souvenirs d'un Echappé de Panama." A. Reclus: "Panama et Darien."
+    A. Radford: "Jottings on Panama." J. de Acosta: "Voyages." S. de
+    Champlain: "Narrative." Cieēa de Leon: "Travels." Exquemeling:
+    "Bucaniers of America." Don Perez de la Guzman: "Account of the Sack
+    of Panama."
+
+    I am also indebted to friends long resident in the present city of
+    Panama.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CAPTAIN DAMPIER
+
+    Campeachy--Logwood cutting--The march to Santa Maria
+
+
+William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had a taste for roving, went
+to the West Indies for the first time in 1674, about three years after
+the sack of Panama. He was "then about twenty-two years old," with
+several years of sea-service behind him. He had been to the north and to
+the east, and had smelt powder in a King's ship during the Dutch wars.
+He came to the West Indies to manage a plantation, working his way "as a
+Seaman" aboard the ship of one Captain Kent. Planting sugar or cocoa on
+Sixteen-Mile Walk in an island so full of jolly sinners proved to be but
+dull work. Dampier tried it for some weeks, and then slipped away to sea
+with a Port Royal trader, who plied about the coast, fetching the
+planters' goods to town, and carrying European things, such as cloth,
+iron, powder, or the like, to the planters' jetties along the coast.
+That was a more pleasant life, for it took the young man all round the
+island, to quiet plantings where old buccaneers were at work. These were
+kindly fellows, always ready for a yarn with the shipmen who brought
+their goods from Port Royal. They treated the young man well, giving him
+yams, plantains, and sweet potatoes, with leave to wander through their
+houses. "But after six or seven Months" Dampier "left that Employ," for
+he had heard strange tales of the logwood cutters in Campeachy Bay, and
+longed to see something of them. He, therefore, slipped aboard a small
+Jamaica vessel which was going to the bay "to load logwood," with two
+other ships in company. The cargo of his ship "was rum and sugar; a very
+good Commodity for the Log-wood Cutters, who were then about 250 Men,
+most English." When they anchored off One Bush Key, by the oyster banks
+and "low Mangrovy Land," these lumbermen came aboard for drink, buying
+rum by the gallon or firkin, besides some which had been brewed into
+punch. They stayed aboard, drinking, till the casks gave out, firing off
+their small-arms with every health, and making a dreadful racket in that
+still lagoon, where the silence was seldom so violently broken. The
+logwood began to come aboard a day or two later; and Dampier sometimes
+went ashore with the boat for it, on which occasions he visited the huts
+of the woodmen, and ate some merry meals with them, "with Pork and
+Pease, or Beef and Dough-boys," not to mention "Drams or Punch."
+
+On the voyage home he was chased by Spaniards, who "fired a Gun" at the
+ketch, but could not fetch her alongside.
+
+It was an easy life aboard that little ketch; for every morning they
+fished for their suppers, and at no time was any work done unless the
+ship was actually in peril of wreck. While they were lazying slowly
+eastward, "tumbling like an Egg-shell in the Sea," her captain ran her
+on the Alcranes, a collection of sandy little islands, where they stayed
+for some days before they found a passage out to sea. They spent the
+days in fishing, or flinging pebbles at the rats, or killing boobies,
+and then set sail again, arriving after some days' sailing, at the Isles
+of Pines.
+
+Here they landed to fill fresh water at the brooks, among the sprays of
+red mangrove, which grew thickly at the water's edge. They also took
+ashore their "two bad Fowling-pieces," with intent to kill a wild hog
+or cow, being then in want of food, for the ship's provisions had given
+out. They did not kill any meat for all their hunting, nor did they
+catch much fish. Their ill success tempted the sailors to make for the
+Cuban keys, where they thought they would find great abundance, "either
+Fish or Flesh." The Cuban keys were favourite haunts of the buccaneers,
+but it was dangerous for a small ship like the ketch to venture in among
+them. On Cape Corientes there was a Spanish garrison of forty soldiers,
+chiefly mulattoes and caribs, who owned a swift periagua, fitted with
+oars and sails. They kept sentinels always upon the Cape, and whenever a
+ship hove in sight they would "launch out," and seize her, and cut the
+throats of all on board, "for fear of telling Tales." Fear of this
+garrison, and the prudent suggestion of Dampier--that "it was as
+probable that we might get as little Food in the South Keys, as we did
+at Pines, where, though there was plenty of Beefs and Hogs, yet we could
+not to tell how to get any--" at last prevailed upon the seamen to try
+for Jamaica. They were without food of any kind, save a little flour
+from the bottoms of the casks, and two "Barrels of Beef," which they had
+taken west to sell, "but 'twas so bad that none would buy it." On a
+porridge of this meat, chopped up with mouldy flour, they contrived to
+keep alive, "jogging on" towards the east till they made Jamaica. They
+arrived off Blewfield's Point thirteen weeks after leaving Campeachy,
+and, as Dampier says: "I think never any vessel before nor since made
+such Traverses ... as we did.... We got as much Experience as if we had
+been sent out on a Design." However, they dropped their anchor "at
+Nigrill" "about three a Clock in the Afternoon," and sent in the boat
+for fruit and poultry. One or two sea-captains, whose ketches were at
+anchor there, came out to welcome the new arrival. In the little
+"Cabbin," where the lamp swung in gimbals, the sailors "were very busie,
+going to drink a Bowl of Punch, ... after our long Fatigue and Fasting."
+The thirsty sea-captains, bronzed by the sun, came stumping down the
+ladder to bear a hand. One captain, "Mr John Hooker," said that he was
+under "Oath to drink but three Draughts of Strong Liquor a Day." The
+bowl, which had not been touched, lay with him, with six quarts of good
+rum punch inside it. This Mr Hooker, "putting the Bowl to his Head,
+turn'd it off at one Draught"--he being under oath, and, doubtless,
+thirsty. "And so, making himself drunk, disappointed us of our
+Expectations, till we made another Bowl." Thus with good cheer did they
+recruit themselves in that hot climate after long sailing of the seas.
+
+Dampier passed the next few weeks in Port Royal, thinking of the jolly
+life at One Bush Key, and of the little huts, so snugly thatched, and of
+the camp fires, when the embers glowed so redly at night before the moon
+rose. The thought of the logwood cutters passing to and fro about those
+camp fires, to the brandy barrel or the smoking barbecue, was pleasant
+to him. He felt inclined "to spend some Time at the Logwood Trade," much
+as a young gentleman of that age would have spent "some Time" on the
+grand tour with a tutor. He had a little gold laid by, so that he was
+able to lay in a stock of necessaries for the trade--such as "Hatchets,
+Axes, Long Knives, Saws, Wedges, etc., a Pavillion to sleep in, a Gun
+with Powder and Shot, etc." When all was ready, he went aboard a New
+England ship, and sailed for Campeachy, where he settled "in the West
+Creek of the West Lagoon" with some old logwood cutters who knew the
+trade.
+
+Logwood cutting was then a very profitable business, for the wood
+fetched from £70 to £100 a ton in the European markets. The wood is very
+dense, and so heavy that it sinks in water. The work of cutting it, and
+bringing it to the ships, in the rough Campeachy country, where there
+were no roads, was very hard. The logwood cutters were, therefore, men
+of muscle, fond of violent work. Nearly all of them in Dampier's time
+were buccaneers who had lost their old trade. They were "sturdy, strong
+Fellows," able to carry "Burthens of three or four hundred Weight," and
+"contented to labour very hard." Their hands and arms were always dyed a
+fine scarlet with the continuous rubbing of the wood, and their clothes
+always smelt of the little yellow logwood flowers, which smell very
+sweet and strong, at most seasons of the year. The life lived by the
+lumbermen was wild, rough, and merry. They had each of them a tent, or a
+strongly thatched hut, to live in, and most of them had an Indian woman
+or a negress to cook their food. Some of them had white wives, which
+they bought at Jamaica for about thirty pounds apiece, or five pounds
+more than the cost of a black woman. As a rule, they lived close to the
+lips of the creeks, "for the benefit of the Sea-Breezes," in little
+villages of twenty or thirty together. They slept in hammocks, or in
+Indian cots, raised some three or four feet from the ground, to allow
+for any sudden flood which the heavy rains might raise. They cooked
+their food on a sort of barbecue strewn with earth. For chairs they used
+logs of wood or stout rails supported on crutches. On the Saturday in
+each week they left their saws and axes and tramped out into the woods
+to kill beef for the following week. In the wet seasons, when the
+savannahs were flooded, they hunted the cattle in canoas by rowing near
+to the higher grass-lands where the beasts were at graze. Sometimes a
+wounded steer would charge the canoa, and spill the huntsmen in the
+water, where the alligators nipped them. In the dry months, the hunters
+went on foot. When they killed a steer they cut the body into four,
+flung away the bones, and cut a big hole in each quarter. Each of the
+four men of the hunting party then thrust his head through the hole in
+one of the quarters, and put "it on like a Frock," and so trudged home.
+If the sun were hot, and the beef heavy, the wearer cut some off, and
+flung it away. This weekly hunting was "a Diversion pleasant enough"
+after the five days' hacking at the red wood near the lagoon-banks. The
+meat, when brought to camp, was boucanned or jerked--that is, dried
+crisp in the sun. A quarter of a steer a man was the week's meat
+allowance. If a man wanted fish or game, in addition, he had to obtain
+it for himself. This diet was supplemented by the local fruits, and by
+stores purchased from the ships--such as dried pease, or flour to make
+doughboys.
+
+Men who worked hard under a tropical sun, in woods sometimes flooded to
+a depth of two feet, could hardly be expected to take a pride in their
+personal appearance. One little vanity they had, and apparently one
+only--they were fond of perfumes. They used to kill the alligator for
+his musk-sacs, which they thought "as good civet as any in the world."
+Each logwood cutter carried a musk-sac in his hat to diffuse scent about
+him, "sweet as Arabian winds when fruits are ripe," wheresoever his
+business led him.
+
+The logwood cutters usually formed into little companies of from four to
+twelve men each. The actual "cutters" had less to do than the other
+members, for they merely felled the trees. Others sawed and hacked the
+tree trunks into logs. The boss, or chief man in the gang, then chipped
+away the white sappy rind surrounding the scarlet heart with its
+crystals of brilliant red. If the tree were very big (and some were six
+feet round) they split the bole by gunpowder. The red hearts alone were
+exported, as it is the scarlet crystal (which dries to a dull black
+after cutting) which gives the wood its value in dyeing. When the timber
+had been properly cut and trimmed it was dragged to the water's edge,
+and stacked there ready for the merchants. The chips burnt very well,
+"making a clear strong fire, and very lasting," in which the rovers used
+to harden "the Steels of their Fire Arms when they were faulty."
+
+When a ship arrived at One Bush Key the logwood cutters went aboard her
+for rum and sugar. It was the custom for the ship's captain to give them
+free drinks on the day of his arrival, "and every Man will pay honestly
+for what he drinks afterwards." If the captain did not set the rum punch
+flowing with sufficient liberality they would "pay him with their worst
+Wood," and "commonly" they "had a stock of such" ready for the niggard
+when he came. Often, indeed, they would give such a one a load of hollow
+logs "filled with dirt in the middle, and both ends plugg'd up with a
+piece of the same." But if the captain commanding were "true steel, an
+old bold blade, one of the old buccaneers, a hearty brave toss-pot, a
+trump, a true twopenny"--why, then, they would spend thirty or forty
+pounds apiece in a drinking bout aboard his ship, "carousing and firing
+of Guns three or four days together." They were a careless company,
+concerned rather in "the squandering of life away" than in its
+preservation. Drink and song, and the firing of guns, and a week's work
+chipping blood-wood, and then another drunkenness, was the story of
+their life there. Any "sober men" who came thither were soon "debauched"
+by "the old Standards," and took to "Wickedness" and "careless Rioting."
+Those who found the work too hard used to go hunting in the woods.
+Often enough they marched to the woods in companies, to sack the Indian
+villages, to bring away women for their solace, and men slaves to sell
+at Jamaica. They also robbed the Indians' huts of honey, cocoa, and
+maize, but then the Indians were "very melancholy and thoughtful" and
+plainly designed by God as game for logwood cutters.
+
+In the end the Spaniards fell upon the logwood men and carried them away
+to Mexico and Vera Cruz, sending some to the silver mines, and selling
+the others to tradesmen. As slaves they passed the next few years, till
+they escaped to the coast. One of those who escaped told how he saw a
+Captain Buckenham, once a famous man at those old drinking bouts, and
+owner of a sugar ship, working as a slave in the city of Mexico. "He saw
+Captain Buckenham, with a Log chained to his Leg, and a Basket at his
+Back, crying Bread about the Streets for a Baker his Master."
+
+In this society of logwood cutters Dampier served a brief
+apprenticeship. He must have heard many strange tales, and jolly songs,
+around the camp fires of his mates, but none of them, apparently, were
+fit to print. He went hunting cattle, and got himself "bushed," or
+marooned--that is, lost--and had a narrow escape from dying in the
+woods. He helped at the cutting and trimming of the red wood, and at the
+curing of the hides of the slaughtered steers. When ships arrived he
+took his sup of rum, and fired his pistol, with the best of them. Had he
+stayed there any length of time he would have become a master logwood
+merchant, and so "gotten an Estate"; but luck was against him.
+
+In June 1676, when he was recovering from a guinea-worm, a creature
+which nests in one's ankle, and causes great torment, a storm, or
+"South," reduced the logwood cutters of those parts to misery. The South
+was "long foretold," by the coming in of many sea-birds to the shore's
+shelter, but the lumbermen "believed it was a certain Token of the
+Arrival of Ships," and took no precautions against tempest. Two days
+later the wind broke upon them furiously, scattering their huts like
+scraps of paper. The creek began to rise "faster than I ever saw it do
+in the greatest Spring Tide," so that, by noon, the poor wretches,
+huddled as they were in a hut, without fire, were fain to make ready a
+canoa to save themselves from drowning. The trees in the woods were torn
+up by the roots, "and tumbled down strangely across each other." The
+ships in the creek were blown from their anchors. Two of them were
+driven off to sea, dipping their bows clean under, and making shocking
+weather of it. One of them was lost in the bay, being whelmed by a green
+sea.
+
+The storm destroyed all the tools and provisions of the lumbermen, and
+left Dampier destitute. His illness, with the poisonous worm in his leg,
+had kept him from work for some weeks, so that he had no cords of red
+wood ready cut, "as the old Standards had," to buy him new tools and new
+stores. Many of the men were in the same case, so they agreed with the
+captains of two pirate ketches which called at the creek at that time,
+to go a cruise to the west to seek their fortunes. They cruised up and
+down the bay "and made many Descents into the country," "where we got
+Indian Corn to eat with the Beef, and other Flesh, that we got by the
+way." They also attacked Alvarado, a little, protected city on the river
+of that name, but they lost heavily in the attack. Of the sixty pirates
+engaged, ten or eleven were killed or desperately wounded. The fort was
+not surrendered for four or five hours, by which time the citizens had
+put their treasure into boats, and rowed it upstream to safety. It was
+dark by the time the pirates won the fort, so that pursuit was out of
+the question. They rested there that night, and spent the next day
+foraging. They killed and salted a number of beeves, and routed out much
+salt fish and Indian corn, "as much as we could stow away." They also
+took a number of poultry, which the Spaniards were fattening in coops;
+and nearly a hundred tame parrots, "yellow and red," which "would prate
+very prettily." In short they heaped their decks with hen-coops,
+parrot-cages, quarters of beef, casks of salt fish, and baskets full of
+maize. In this state, the ships lay at anchor, with their men loafing on
+deck with their tobacco, bidding the "yellow and red" parrots to say
+"Damn," or "Pretty Polly," or other ribaldry. But before any parrot
+could have lost his Spanish accent, the pirates were called from their
+lessons by the sight of seven Spanish warships, under all sail, coming
+up to the river-bar from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their
+guns were run out, and they were not a mile away when the pirates first
+saw them. As it happened, the River Alvarado was full of water, so that
+these great vessels "could scarce stem the current." This piece of luck
+saved the pirates, for it gave them time to make sail, and to clear the
+bar before the Spaniards entered the river. As they dropped down the
+stream, they hove the clutter from the decks. Many a Pretty Polly there
+quenched her blasphemy in water, and many a lump of beef went to the mud
+to gorge the alligators. The litter was all overboard, and the men
+stripped to fight the guns, by the time the tide had swept them over the
+bar. At this moment they came within range of the Spanish flagship, the
+_Toro_, of ten guns and 100 men. She was to windward of them, and
+perilously close aboard, and her guns sent some cannon-balls into them,
+without doing any serious harm. Dampier was in the leading ship, which
+stood to the eastward, followed by her consort, as soon as she was over
+the bar. After her came the _Toro_, followed by a ship of four guns, and
+by five smaller vessels manned with musketeers, "and the Vessels
+barricadoed round with Bull-hides Breast high." The _Toro_ ranged up on
+the quarter of Dampier's ship, "designing to board" her. The pirates
+dragged their cannon aft, and fired at her repeatedly, "in hopes to have
+lamed either Mast or Yard." As they failed to carry away her spars, they
+waited till "she was shearing aboard," when they rammed the helm hard
+up, "gave her a good Volley," and wore ship. As soon as she was round on
+the other tack, she stood to the westward, passing down the Spanish line
+under a heavy fire. The _Toro_ held to her course, after the second
+pirate ship, with the six ships of the fleet following in her wake. The
+second pirate ship was much galled by the fleet's fire, and ran great
+risk of being taken. Dampier's ship held to the westward, till she was
+about a mile to windward of the other ships. She then tacked, and ran
+down to assist her consort, "who was hard put to it." As she ran down,
+she opened fire on the _Toro_, "who fell off, and shook her ears,"
+edging in to the shore, to escape, with her fleet after her. They made
+no fight of it, but tacked and hauled to the wind "and stood away for
+Alvarado." The pirates were very glad to see the last of them; "and we,
+glad of the Deliverance, went away to the Eastward." On the way, they
+visited all the sandy bays of the coast to look for "munjack," "a sort
+of Pitch or Bitumen which we find in Lumps." When corrected with oil or
+tallow this natural pitch served very well for the paying of the seams
+"both of Ships and Canoas."
+
+After this adventure, Dampier returned to the lumber camp, and passed
+about a year there, cutting wood. Then, for some reason, he determined
+to leave the Indies, and to visit England; and though he had planned to
+return to Campeachy, after he had been home, he never did so. It seems
+that he was afraid of living in that undefended place, among those
+drunken mates of his. They were at all times at the mercy of a Spanish
+man-of-war, and Dampier "always feared" that a Spanish prison would be
+his lot if he stayed there. It was the lot of his imprudent mates, "the
+old Standards," a few months after he had sailed for the Thames.
+
+After a short stay in England, Dampier sailed for Jamaica, with a
+general cargo. He sold his goods at Port Royal, but did not follow his
+original plan of buying rum and sugar, and going west as a logwood
+merchant. About Christmas 1679 he bought a small estate in Dorsetshire,
+"of one whose Title to it" he was "well assured of." He was ready to
+sail for England, to take charge of this estate, and to settle down as a
+farmer, when he met "one Mr Hobby," at a tavern, who asked him to go "a
+short trading voyage to the Country of the Moskito's." Dampier, who was
+a little short of gold at the moment, was very willing to fill his purse
+before sailing north. He therefore consented to go with Mr Hobby, whose
+ship was then ready for the sea. He "went on board Mr Hobby," and a fair
+wind blew them clear of Port Royal. A day or two of easy sailing brought
+them to Negril Bay, "at the West End of Jamaica," where Dampier had
+anchored before, when the valorous captain drained the punch-bowl. The
+bay was full of shipping, for Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharp, and other
+buccaneers, were lying there filling their water casks. They had the red
+wheft flying, for they were bound on the account, to raid the Main. The
+boats alongside them were full of meat and barrels. Mr Hobby's men did
+not wait to learn more than the fact that the ships were going cruising.
+They dumped their chests into the dinghy, and rowed aboard of them, and
+'listed themselves among the sunburnt ruffians who were hoisting out the
+water breakers. Dampier and Mr Hobby were left alone on their ship,
+within hearing of the buccaneers, who sang, and danced to the fiddle,
+and clinked the cannikin, till the moon had set. For three or four days
+they stayed there, hearing the merriment of the rovers, but at the end
+of the fourth day Dampier wearied of Mr Hobby, and joined the
+buccaneers, who were glad to have him.
+
+A day or two after Christmas 1679 they got their anchors and set sail.
+They shaped their course for Porto Bello, which had recovered something
+of its old wealth and beauty, in the years of peace it had enjoyed since
+Morgan sacked it. They landed 200 men to the eastward of the town, "at
+such a distance" that the march "occupied them three nights." During the
+day they lay in ambush in the woods. As they "came to the town" a negro
+saw them, and ran to set the bells ringing, to call out the troops. The
+buccaneers followed him so closely that the town was theirs before the
+troops could muster. They stayed there forty-eight hours gathering
+plunder, and then marched back to their ships staggering under a great
+weight of gold. They shared thirty or forty pounds a man from this raid.
+Afterwards they harried the coast, east and west, and made many rich
+captures. Sawkins, it seems, was particularly lucky, for he made a haul
+of 1000 chests of indigo. Warrants were out for all these pirates, and
+had they been taken they would most surely have been hanged.
+
+After these adventures, the squadron made for "a place called Boco del
+Toro," "an opening between two islands between Chagres and Veragua,"
+where "the general rendezvous of the fleet" had been arranged. The ships
+anchored here, with one or two new-comers, including a French ship
+commanded by a Captain Bournano, who had been raiding on the isthmus,
+"near the South Sea," but a few days before. At the council aboard
+Captain Sawkins' ship, it was given out, to all the assembled
+buccaneers, that the Spaniards had made peace with the Darien Indians.
+This was bad news; but Captain Bournano was able to assure the company
+"that since the conclusion of the said peace, they had been already
+tried, and found very faithful"; for they had been of service to him in
+his late foray. He added that they had offered to guide him "to a great
+and very rich place called Tocamora," and that he had promised to come
+to them "with more ships and men," in three months' time. The buccaneers
+thought that Tocamora, apart from the beauty of the name, appeared to
+promise gold, so they decided to go thither as soon as they had careened
+and refitted. Boca del Toro, the anchorage in which they lay, was full
+of "green tortoise" for ships short of food. There were handy creeks,
+among the islands, for the ships to careen in, when their hulls were
+foul. The pirates hauled their ships into the creeks, and there hove
+them down, while their Moskito allies speared the tortoise, and the
+manatee, along the coast, and afterwards salted the flesh for
+sea-provision.
+
+As soon as the squadron was ready, they mustered at Water Key, and set
+sail for Golden Island, where they meant to hold a final council. On the
+way to the eastward they put in at the Samballoes, or islands of San
+Blas, to fill fresh water, and to buy fruit from the Indians. When the
+anchors held, the Indians came aboard with fruit, venison, and native
+cloth, to exchange for edged iron tools, and red and green beads. They
+were tall men, smeared with black paint (the women used red, much as in
+Europe), and each Indian's nose was hung with a plate of gold or silver.
+Among the women were a few albinos, who were said to see better in the
+dark than in the light. "These Indians misliked our design for
+Tocamora," because the way thither was mountainous and barren and
+certain to be uninhabited. A force going thither would be sure to starve
+on the road, they said, but it would be an easy matter to march to
+Panama, as Drake had marched. New Panama was already a rich city, so
+that they would not "fail of making a good voyage by going thither."
+This advice of the Indians impressed the buccaneers. They determined to
+abandon the Tocamora project as too dangerous. Most of them were in
+favour of going to sack Panama. But Captain Bournano, and Captain Row,
+who commanded about a hundred Frenchmen between them, refused to take
+their men on "a long march by land." Perhaps they remembered how Morgan
+had treated the French buccaneers after his Panama raid, nine years
+before. They therefore remained at anchor when the squadron parted
+company. An Indian chief, Captain Andreas, came aboard the English
+flagship. The bloody colours were hoisted, and a gun fired in farewell.
+The English ships then loosed their top-sails and stood away for Golden
+Island, to an anchorage they knew of, where a final muster could be
+held. They dropped anchor there, "being in all seven sail," on 3rd April
+1680.
+
+Their strength at the Samballoes had been as follows:--
+
+                                  Tons    Guns    Men
+  Captain Coxon in a ship of       80       8      97
+  Captain Harris       "          150      25     107
+  Captain Sawkins      "           16       1      35
+  Captain Sharp        "           25       2      40
+  Captain Cook         "           35       0      43
+  Captain Alleston     "           18       0      24
+  Captain Macket       "           14       0      20
+
+but of these 366 buccaneers a few had remained behind with the
+Frenchmen.
+
+While they lay at Golden Island, the Indians brought them word of "a
+town called Santa Maria," on the Rio Santa Maria, near the Gulf of San
+Miguel, on the Pacific coast. It was a garrison town, with four
+companies of musketeers in its fort, for there were gold mines in the
+hills behind it. The gold caravans went from it, once a month in the
+dry seasons, to Panama. If the place failed to yield them a booty, the
+buccaneers were determined to attack new Panama. Had they done so they
+would probably have destroyed the place, for though the new city was
+something stronger than the old, the garrison was in the interior
+fighting the Indians. The design on Santa Maria was popular. On the
+matter being put to the vote it was carried without protest. The
+buccaneers passed the 4th of April in arranging details, and picking a
+party to protect the ships during their absence. They arranged that
+Captains Alleston and Macket, with about twenty-five or thirty seamen,
+should remain in the anchorage as a ship's guard. The remainder of the
+buccaneers, numbering 331 able-bodied men (seven of whom were French),
+were to march with the colours the next morning.
+
+On the 5th of April 1680, these 331 adventurers dropped across the
+channel from Golden Island, and landed on the isthmus, somewhere near
+Drake's old anchorage. Captain Bartholomew Sharp, of "the dangerous
+voyage and bold assaults," came first, with some Indian guides, one of
+whom helped the Captain, who was sick and faint with a fever. This
+vanguard "had a red flag, with a bunch of white and green ribbons." The
+second company, or main battle, was led by the admiral, Richard Sawkins,
+who "had a red flag striped with yellow." The third and fourth
+companies, which were under one captain (Captain Peter Harris), had two
+green flags. The fifth and sixth companies, under Captain John Coxon,
+"had each of them a red flag." A few of Alleston's and Macket's men
+carried arms under Coxon in these companies. The rear-guard was led by
+Captain Edmund Cook, "with red colours striped with yellow, with a hand
+and sword for his device." "All or most" of the men who landed, "were
+armed with a French fuzee" (or musket), a pistol and hanger, with two
+pounds of powder and "proportionable bullet." Each of them carried a
+scrip or satchel containing "three or four cakes of bread," or
+doughboys, weighing half-a-pound apiece, with some modicum of turtle
+flesh. "For drink the rivers afforded enough."
+
+Among the men who went ashore in that company were William Dampier, the
+author of the best books of voyages in the language; Lionel Wafer, the
+chirurgeon of the party, who wrote a description of the isthmus; Mr
+Basil Ringrose, who kept an intimate record of the foray; and Captain
+Bartholomew Sharp, who also kept a journal, but whose writings are less
+reliable than those of the other three. It is not often that three
+historians of such supreme merit as Dampier, Wafer, and Ringrose, are
+associated in a collaboration so charming, as a piratical raid. Wafer
+had been a surgeon in Port Royal, but Edmund Cook had shown him the
+delights of roving, and the cruise he had made to Cartagena had
+confirmed him in that way of life. Basil Ringrose had but lately arrived
+at the Indies, and it is not known what induced him to go buccaneering.
+He was a good cartographer, and had as strong a bent towards the
+description of natural phenomena, as Dampier had. He probably followed
+the pirates in order to see the world, and to get some money, and to
+extend his knowledge. Sharp had been a pirate for some years, and there
+was a warrant out for him at Jamaica for his share in the sack of Porto
+Bello. With Dampier's history the reader has been made acquainted.
+
+The Indians, under Captain Andreas, led the buccaneers from the
+landing-place "through a small skirt of wood," beyond which was a league
+of sandy beach. "After that, we went two leagues directly up a woody
+valley, where we saw here and there an old plantation, and had a very
+good path to march in." By dusk they had arrived at a river-bank,
+beneath which the water lay in pools, joined by trickles and little
+runlets, which babbled over sun-bleached pebbles. They built themselves
+huts in this place, about a great Indian hut which stood upon the
+river-bank. They slept there that night, "having nothing but the cold
+Earth for their Beds," in much discouragement "with the going back of
+some of the Men." The buccaneers who had been some weeks at sea, were
+not in marching trim, and it seems that the long day's tramp in the sun
+had sickened many of them. While they rested in their lodges, an Indian
+king, whom they called "Captain Antonio," came in to see them. He said
+that he had sent word to one of his tributaries, farther to the south,
+to prepare food and lodgings for the buccaneers "against their Arrival."
+As for himself, he wished very much that he could come with them to lead
+their guides, but unfortunately "his child lay very sick." However, it
+comforted him to think that the child would be dead by the next day, at
+latest, "and then he would most certainly follow and overtake" them. He
+warned the company not to lie in the grass, "for fear of monstrous
+adders"; and so bowed himself out of camp, and returned home. The kingly
+prayers seem to have been effectual, for Captain Antonio was in camp
+again by sunrise next morning, with no family tie to keep him from
+marching.
+
+As the men sluiced themselves in the river before taking to the road,
+they noticed that the pebbles shone "with sparks of gold" when broken
+across. They did not stay to wash the river-mud, for gold dust and
+golden pellets, but fell in for the march, and climbed from dawn till
+nearly dusk. They went over "a steep Mountain" which was parched and
+burnt and waterless. Four of the buccaneers refused to go farther than
+the foot of this hill, so they returned to the ships. The others, under
+the guidance of Antonio, contrived to cross the mountain "to an Hollow
+of Water," at which they drank very greedily. Six miles farther on they
+halted for the night, beside a stream. They slept there, "under the
+Canopy of Heaven," suffering much discomfort from some drenching
+showers. After some days of climbing, wading, and suffering, the army
+reached the house of King Golden Cap, an Indian king. The King came out
+to meet them in his robes, with a little reed crown on his head, lined
+with red silk, and covered with a thin plate of gold. He had a golden
+ring in his nose, and a white cotton frock over his shoulders. His queen
+wore a red blanket, and a blouse "like our old-fashioned striped
+hangings." This royal couple bade the army welcome, and ordered food to
+be brought for them. The buccaneers passed a couple of days in King
+Golden Cap's city, trading their coloured beads, and scraps of iron, for
+fresh fruit and meat. They found the Indians "very cunning" in
+bargaining, which means, we suppose, that they thought a twopenny
+whittle a poor return for a hog or a sack of maize.
+
+When the men had rested themselves, and had dried their muddy clothes,
+they set out again, with Captain Sawkins in the vanguard. As they
+marched out of the town "the King ordered us each man to have three
+plantains, with sugar-canes to suck, by way of a present." They
+breakfasted on these fruits, as they marched. The road led them "along a
+very bad Path" continually intersected by a river, which they had to
+wade some fifty or sixty times, to their great misery. They passed a few
+Indian huts on the way, and at each hut door stood an Indian to give "as
+we passed by, to every one of us, a ripe plantain, or some sweet
+cassava-root." Some of the Indians counted the army "by dropping a grain
+of corn for each man that passed before them," for without counters they
+could not reckon beyond twenty. The army had by this time been swelled
+by an Indian contingent, of about 150 men, "armed with Bows, Arrows and
+Lances." The Indians dropping their corn grains must have dropped
+nearly 500 before the last man passed them. That night, which was clear
+and fine, they rested in three large Indian huts, where King Golden
+Cap's men had stored up food and drink, and a number of canoas, for the
+voyage south. The river went brawling past their bivouac at a little
+distance, and some of the men caught fish, and broiled them in the coals
+for their suppers.
+
+At daylight next morning, while they were getting the canoas to the
+water, Captain Coxon had "some Words" with Captain Harris (of the green
+flags). The words ran into oaths, for the two men were surly with the
+discomforts of turning out. Coxon whipped up a gun and fired at Peter
+Harris, "which he was [naturally] ready to return." Sharp knocked his
+gun up before he could fire, "and brought him to be quiet; so that we
+proceeded on our Journey." They had no further opportunities for
+fighting, for Sawkins gave the word a moment later for seventy of the
+buccaneers to embark in the canoas. There were fourteen of these boats,
+all of them of small size. Sharp, Coxon, and Cook were placed in charge
+of them. Captain Harris was told off to travel with the land party, with
+Sawkins, King Golden Cap, and the other men. Don Andreas, with
+twenty-eight other Indians (two to a canoa) acted as boatmen, or pilots,
+to the flotilla.
+
+Basil Ringrose, who was one of the boat party, has told us of the
+miseries of the "glide down the stream." The river was low, and full of
+rotting tree trunks, so that "at the distance of almost every stone's
+cast," they had to leave the boats "and haul them over either sands or
+rocks, and at other times over trees." Sharp, who was of tougher fibre,
+merely says that they "paddled all Day down the Falls and Currents of
+the River, and at Night took up our Quarters upon a Green Bank by the
+Riverside, where we had Wild Fowl and Plantanes for Supper: But our Beds
+were made upon the cold Earth, and our Coverings were the Heavens, and
+green Trees we found there." The next day they went downstream again,
+over many more snags and shallows, which set them wading in the mud till
+their boots rotted off their feet. Ringrose was too tired to make a note
+in his journal, save that, that night, "a tiger" came out and looked at
+them as they sat round the camp fires. Sharp says that the labour "was a
+Pleasure," because "of that great Unity there was then amongst us," and
+because the men were eager "to see the fair South Sea." They lodged that
+night "upon a green Bank of the River," and ate "a good sort of a Wild
+Beast like unto our English Hog." The third day, according to Ringrose,
+was the worst day of all. The river was as full of snags as it had been
+higher up, but the last reach of it was clear water, so that they gained
+the rendezvous "about Four in the Afternoon." To their very great alarm
+they found that the land party had not arrived. They at once suspected
+that the Indians had set upon them treacherously, and cut them off in
+the woods. But Don Andreas sent out scouts "in Search of them," who
+returned "about an Hour before Sun-set," with "some of their Number,"
+and a message that the rest would join company in the morning.
+
+A little after daybreak the land force marched in, and pitched their
+huts near the river, "at a beachy point of land," perhaps the very one
+where Oxenham's pinnace had been beached. They passed the whole day
+there resting, and cleaning weapons, for they were now but "a Day and a
+Night's Journey" from the town they had planned to attack. Many more
+Indians joined them at this last camp of theirs, so that the army had
+little difficulty in obtaining enough canoas to carry them to Santa
+Maria. They set out early the next morning, in sixty-eight canoas, being
+in all "327 of us Englishmen, and 50 Indians." Until that day the canoas
+had been "poled" as a punt is poled, but now they cut oars and paddles
+"to make what speed we could." All that day they rowed, and late into
+the night, rowing "with all haste imaginable," and snapping up one or
+two passing Indian boats which were laden with plantains. It was after
+midnight, and about "Two Hours before Day Light," when they ran into a
+mud bank, about a mile from the town, and stepped ashore, upon a
+causeway of oars and paddles. They had to cut themselves a path through
+jungle, as soon as they had crossed the mud, for the town was walled
+about with tropical forest. They "lay still in the Woods, till the Light
+appeared," when they "heard the Spaniard discharge his Watch at his Fort
+by Beat of Drum, and a Volley of Shot." It was the Spanish way of
+changing guard, at daybreak. It was also the signal for the "Forlorn" of
+the buccaneers to march to the battle, under Sawkins. This company
+consisted of seventy buccaneers. As they debouched from the forest, upon
+open ground, the Spaniards caught sight of them and beat to arms. The
+men in the fort at once opened fire "very briskly," but the
+advance-guard ran in upon them, tore down some of the stockade, and
+"entered the fort incontinently." A moment or two of wild firing passed
+inside the palisades, and then the Spanish colours were dowsed. The
+buccaneers in this storm lost two men wounded, of the fifty who
+attacked. The Spanish loss was twenty-six killed, and sixteen wounded,
+out of 300 under arms. About fifty more, of the Spanish prisoners, were
+promptly killed by the Indians, who took them into the woods and stabbed
+them "to death" with their lances. It seems that one of that garrison, a
+man named Josef Gabriele, had raped King Golden Cap's daughter who was
+then with child by him. (Gabriele, as it chanced, was not speared, but
+saved to pilot the pirates to Panama.) This was the sole action of the
+Indians in that engagement. During the battle they lay "in a small
+hollow," "in great consternation" at "the noise of the guns."
+
+Though the buccaneers had taken the place easily, they had little cause
+for rejoicing. The town was "a little pitiful Place," with a few
+thatched huts, or "wild houses made of Cane," and "but one Church in
+it." The fort "was only Stockadoes," designed merely as a frontier post
+"to keep in subjection the Indians" or as a lodging for men employed in
+the gold mines. There was no more provision in store there than would
+serve their turn for a week. As for the gold, they had missed it by
+three days. Three hundredweight of gold had been sent to Panama while
+they were struggling downstream. News of their coming had been brought
+to the fort in time, and "all their treasure of gold," "that huge booty
+of gold" they had expected to win, had been shipped westward. Nor had
+they any prisoners to hold to ransom. The Governor, the town priest, and
+the chief citizens, had slipped out of the town in boats, and were now
+some miles away. Richard Sawkins manned a canoa, and went in chase of
+them, but they got clear off, to give advice to Panama that pirates were
+come across the isthmus. The only pillage they could find, after
+torturing their prisoners "severely," amounted to "twenty pounds' weight
+of gold, and a small quantity of silver." To this may be added a few
+personal belongings, such as weapons or trinkets, from the chests of the
+garrison.
+
+When the booty, such as it was, had been gathered, the captains held a
+meeting "to discuss what were best to be done." Some were for going to
+the South Sea, to cruise; but John Coxon, who had taken Porto Bello, and
+hated to be second to Sawkins, was for going back to the ships. The
+general vote was for going to Panama, "that city being the receptacle of
+all the plate, jewels, and gold that is dug out of the mines of all
+Potosi and Peru." However, they could not venture on Panama without
+Coxon, and Coxon's company; so they made Coxon their admiral, "Coxon
+seeming to be well satisfied." Before starting, they sent their booty
+back to Golden Island, under a guard of twelve men. Most of the Indians
+fell off at this time, for they had "got from us what knives, scissors,
+axes, needles and beads they could." Old King Golden Cap, and his son,
+were less mercenary, and stayed with the colours, being "resolved to go
+to Panama, out of the desire they had to see that place taken and
+sacked." They may have followed the buccaneers in order to kill the
+Spaniard who had raped the princess, for that worthy was still alive,
+under guard. He had promised to lead the pirates "even to the very
+bed-chamber door of the governor of Panama."
+
+With the vision of this bed-chamber door before them, the pirates
+embarked at Santa Maria "in thirty-five canoes" and a ship they had
+found at anchor in the river. As they "sailed, or rather rowed"
+downstream, with the ebb, the Spanish prisoners prayed to be taken
+aboard, lest the Indians should take them and torture them all to death.
+"We had much ado to find a sufficient number of boats for ourselves,"
+says Ringrose, for the Indians had carried many of the canoas away. Yet
+the terror of their situation so wrought upon the Spaniards that they
+climbed on to logs, or crude rafts, or into old canoas, "and by that
+means shifted so ... as to come along with us." The island Chepillo, off
+the mouth of the Cheapo River, had been named as the general rendezvous,
+but most of the buccaneers were to spend several miserable days before
+they anchored there. One canoa containing ten Frenchmen, was capsized,
+to the great peril of the Frenchmen, who lost all their weapons.
+Ringrose was separated from the company, drenched to the skin, half
+starved, and very nearly lynched by some Spaniards. His 19th of April
+was sufficiently stirring to have tired him of going a-roving till his
+death. He put out "wet and cold," at dawn; was shipwrecked at ten; saved
+the lives of five Spaniards at noon; "took a survey," or drew a sketch
+of the coast, an hour later; set sail again by four, was taken by the
+Spaniards and condemned to death at nine; was pardoned at ten; sent away
+"in God's name," "vaya ustad con Dios," at eleven; and was at sea again
+"wet and cold," by midnight. Sharp's party was the most fortunate, for
+as they entered the bay of Panama they came to an island "a very
+pleasant green Place," off which a barque of thirty tons came to anchor,
+"not long before it was dark." The island had a high hummock of land
+upon it with a little hut, and a stack for a bonfire, at the top. A
+watchman, an old man, lived in this hut, looking out over the sea for
+pirates, with orders to fire his beacon, to warn the men on the Main if
+a strange sail appeared. The pirates caught this watchman before the
+fire was lit. They learned from him that those at Panama had not yet
+heard of their coming. Shortly after they had captured the watchman, the
+little barque aforesaid, came to anchor, and furled her sails. Two of
+Sharp's canoas crept out, "under the shore," and laid her aboard "just
+as it began to be duskish." She proved to be a Panama boat, in use as a
+troop transport. She had just landed some soldiers on the Main, to quell
+some Indians, who had been raiding on the frontier. Her crew were
+negroes, Indians, and mulattoes. Most of the buccaneers, especially
+those in the small canoas, "endeavoured to get into" this ship, to
+stretch their legs, and to have the advantage of a shelter. More than
+130 contrived to stow themselves in her 'tween decks, under "that
+sea-artist, and valiant commander" (the words are probably his own)
+"Captain Bartholomew Sharp." They put to sea in her the next day,
+followed by the canoas. During the morning they took another small
+barque, in which Captain Harris placed thirty men, and hoisted the green
+flag. The wind fell calm after the skirmish, but the canoas rowed on to
+Chepillo, to the rendezvous, where they found provisions such as "two
+fat hogs," and some plantains, and a spring of water.
+
+A little after dawn, on the day following, while the ships were trying
+to make the anchorage, Captain Coxon, and Captain Sawkins, rowed out
+from Chepillo to board a barque which was going past the island under a
+press of sail. The wind was so light that the canoas overhauled her, but
+before they could hook to her chains "a young breeze, freshening at that
+instant," swept her clear of danger. Her men fired a volley into Coxon's
+boat, which the pirates returned. "They had for their Breakfast a small
+fight," says Sharp. One of the pirates--a Mr Bull--was killed with an
+iron slug. The Spaniards got clear away without any loss, "for the Wind
+blew both fresh and fair" for them. Three or four pirates were grazed
+with shot, and some bullets went through the canoas. The worst of the
+matter was that the Spaniards got safely to Panama, "to give
+intelligence of our coming."
+
+As they could no longer hope to take the city by surprise, "while the
+Governor was in his bed-chamber," they determined to give the citizens
+as little time for preparation as was possible. They were still twenty
+miles from Panama, but the canoas could pass those twenty miles in a few
+hours' easy rowing. They set out at four o'clock in the evening, after
+they had delivered their Spanish prisoners "for certain reasons" (which
+Ringrose "could not dive into") into the hands of the Indians. This act
+of barbarity was accompanied with the order that the Indians were "to
+fight, or rather to murder and slay the said prisoners upon the shore,
+and that in view of the whole fleet." However, the Spaniards rushed the
+Indians, broke through them, and got away to the woods with the loss of
+but one soldier.
+
+After they had watched the scuffle, the pirates rowed away merrily
+towards Panama, "though many showers of rain ceased not to fall."
+Sharp's vessel, with her crew of more than 130 men, made off for the
+Pearl Islands, ostensibly to fill fresh water, but really, no doubt, to
+rob the pearl fisheries. He found a woman (who was "very young and
+handsome"), and "a Case or two of Wines," at these islands, together
+with some poultry. He made a feast there, and stayed at anchor that
+night, and did not set sail again till noon of the day following, by
+which time the battle of Panama had been fought and won.
+
+    _Authorities._--Dampier's Voyages. Wafer's Voyages. Ringrose's
+    Journal. "The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain
+    Bartholomew Sharp"; "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+    Bartholomew Sharp" (four or five different editions). Ringrose's
+    MSS., Sharp's MSS., in the Sloane MSS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE BATTLE OF PERICO
+
+    Arica--The South Sea cruise
+
+
+On 23rd April 1680, "that day being dedicated to St George, our Patron
+of England," the canoas arrived off Panama. "We came," says Ringrose,
+"before sunrise within view of the city of Panama, which makes a
+pleasant show to the vessels that are at sea." They were within sight of
+the old cathedral church, "the beautiful building whereof" made a
+landmark for them, reminding one of the buccaneers "of St Paul's in
+London," a church at that time little more than a ruin. The new city was
+not quite finished, but the walls of it were built, and there were
+several splendid churches, with scaffolding about them, rising high,
+here and there, over the roofs of the houses. The townspeople were in a
+state of panic at the news of the pirates' coming. Many of them had fled
+into the savannahs; for it chanced that, at that time, many of the
+troops in garrison, were up the country, at war with a tribe of Indians.
+The best of the citizens, under Don Jacinto de Baronha, the admiral of
+those seas, had manned the ships in the bay. Old Don Peralta, who had
+saved the golden galleon ten years before, had 'listed a number of
+negroes, and manned one or two barques with them. With the troops still
+in barracks, and these volunteers and pressed men, they had manned, in
+all "five great ships, and three pretty big barks." Their force may have
+numbered 280 men. One account gives the number, definitely, as 228. The
+buccaneer force has been variously stated, but it appears certain that
+the canoas, and periaguas, which took part in the fight, contained only
+sixty-eight of their company. Sharp, as we have seen, had gone with his
+company to the Pearl Islands. The remaining 117 men were probably
+becalmed, in their barques and canoas, some miles from the vanguard.
+
+When the buccaneers caught sight of Panama, they were probably between
+that city and the islands of Perico and Tobagilla. They were in great
+disorder, and the men were utterly weary with the long night of rowing
+in the rain, with the wind ahead. They were strung out over several
+miles of sea, with five light canoas, containing six or seven men
+apiece, a mile or two in advance. After these came two lumbering
+periaguas, with sixteen men in each. King Golden Cap was in one of these
+latter. Dampier and Wafer were probably not engaged in this action.
+Ringrose was in the vanguard, in a small canoa.
+
+A few minutes after they had sighted the roofs of Panama, they made out
+the ships at anchor off the Isle of Perico. There were "five great ships
+and three pretty big barks," manned, as we have said, by soldiers,
+negroes, and citizens. The men aboard this fleet were in the rigging of
+their ships, keeping a strict lookout. As they caught sight of the
+pirates the three barques "instantly weighed anchor," and bore down to
+engage, under all the sail they could crowd. The great ships had not
+sufficient men to fight their guns. They remained at anchor; but their
+crews went aboard the barques, so that the decks of the three men-of-war
+must have been inconveniently crowded. The Spaniards were dead to
+windwind of the pirates, so that they merely squared their yards, and
+ran down the wind "designedly to show their valour." They had intended
+to run down the canoas, and to sail over them, for their captains had
+orders to give no quarter to the pirates, but to kill them, every man.
+"Such bloody commands as these," adds Ringrose piously, "do seldom or
+never prosper."
+
+It was now a little after sunrise. The wind was light but steady; the
+sea calm. As the Spaniards drew within range, the pirates rowed up into
+the wind's eye, and got to windward of them. Their pistols and muskets
+had not been wetted in the rain, for each buccaneer had provided himself
+with an oiled cover for his firearms, the mouth of which he stopped with
+wax whenever it rained. The Spanish ships ran past the three leading
+canoas, exchanging volleys at long range. They were formed in line of
+battle ahead, with a ship manned by mulattoes, or "Tawnymores," in the
+van. This ship ran between the fourth canoa, in which Ringrose was, and
+the fifth (to leeward of her) commanded by Sawkins. As she ran between
+the boats she fired two thundering broadsides, one from each battery,
+which wounded five buccaneers. "But he paid dear for his passage";
+because the buccaneers gave her a volley which killed half her sail
+trimmers, so that she was long in wearing round to repeat her fire. At
+this moment the two periaguas came into action, and got to windward with
+the rest of the pirates' fleet.
+
+While Ringrose's company were ramming the bullets down their gun
+muzzles, the Spanish admiral (in the second ship) engaged, "scarce
+giving us time to charge." She was a fleet ship, and had a good way on
+her, and her design was to pass between two canoas, and give to each a
+roaring hot broadside. As she ran down, so near that the buccaneers
+could look right into her, one of the pirates fired his musket at her
+helmsman, and shot him through the heart as he steered. The ship at once
+"broached-to," and lay with her sails flat aback, stopped dead. The five
+canoas, and one of the periaguas, got under her stern, and so plied her
+with shot that her decks were like shambles, running with blood and
+brains, five minutes after she came to the wind. Meanwhile Richard
+Sawkins ran his canoa--which was a mere sieve of cedar wood, owing to
+the broadside--alongside the second periagua, and took her steering oar.
+He ordered his men to give way heartily, for the third Spanish ship,
+under old Don Peralta, was now bearing down to relieve the admiral.
+Before she got near enough to blow the canoas out of water, Captain
+Sawkins ran her on board, and so swept her decks with shot that she went
+no farther. But "between him and Captain Sawkins, the dispute, or fight,
+was very hot, lying board on board together, and both giving and
+receiving death unto each other as fast as they could charge." Indeed,
+the fight, at this juncture, was extremely fierce. The two Spanish ships
+in action were surrounded with smoke and fire, the men "giving and
+receiving death" most gallantly. The third ship, with her sail trimmers
+dead, was to leeward, trying to get upon the other tack.
+
+After a time her sailors got her round, and reached to windward, to help
+the admiral, who was now being sorely battered. Ringrose, and Captain
+Springer, a famous pirate, "stood off to meet him," in two canoas, as
+"he made up directly towards the Admiral." Don Jacinto, they noticed, as
+they shoved off from his flagship, was standing on his quarter-deck,
+waving "with a handkerchief," to the captain of the Tawnymores' ship. He
+was signalling him to scatter the canoas astern of the flagship. It was
+a dangerous moment, and Ringrose plainly saw "how hard it would go with
+us if we should be beaten from the Admiral's stern." With the two canoas
+he ran down to engage, pouring in such fearful volleys of bullets that
+they covered the Spaniard's decks with corpses and dying men. "We killed
+so many of them, that the vessel had scarce men enough left alive, or
+unwounded, to carry her off. Had he not given us the helm, and made
+away from us, we had certainly been on board him." Her decks were
+littered with corpses, and she was literally running blood. The wind was
+now blowing fresh, and she contrived to put before it, and so ran out of
+action, a terrible sight for the Panama women.
+
+Having thus put the Tawnymores out of action, Ringrose and Springer
+hauled to the wind, and "came about again upon the Admiral, and all
+together gave a loud halloo." The cheer was answered by Sawkins' men,
+from the periagua, as they fired into the frigate's ports. Ringrose ran
+alongside the admiral, and crept "so close" under the vessel's stern,
+"that we wedged up the rudder." The admiral was shot, and killed, a
+moment later, as he brought aft a few musketeers to fire out of the
+stern ports. The ship's pilot, or sailing master, was killed by the same
+volley. As for the crew, the "stout Biscayners," "they were almost quite
+disabled and disheartened likewise, seeing what a bloody massacre we had
+made among them with our shot." Two-thirds of the crew were killed, "and
+many others wounded." The survivors cried out for quarter, which had
+been offered to them several times before, "and as stoutly denied until
+then." Captain Coxon thereupon swarmed up her sides, with a gang of
+pirates, helping up after him the valorous Peter Harris "who had been
+shot through both his legs, as he boldly adventured up along the side of
+the ship." The Biscayners were driven from their guns, disarmed, and
+thrust down on to the ballast, under a guard. All the wounded pirates
+were helped up to the deck and made comfortable. Then, in all haste, the
+unhurt men manned two canoas, and rowed off to help Captain Sawkins,
+"who now had been three times beaten from on board by Peralta."
+
+A very obstinate and bloody fight had been raging round the third
+man-of-war. Her sides were splintered with musket-balls. She was oozing
+blood from her scuppers, yet "the old and stout Spaniard" in command,
+was cheerily giving shot for shot. "Indeed, to give our enemies their
+due, no men in the world did ever act more bravely than these
+Spaniards."
+
+Ringrose's canoa was the first to second Captain Sawkins. She ran close
+in, "under Peralta's side," and poured in a blasting full volley through
+her after gun-ports. A scrap of blazing wad fell among the red-clay
+powder jars in the after magazine. Before she could fire a shot in
+answer, she blew up abaft. Ringrose from the canoa "saw his men blown
+up, that were abaft the mast, some of them falling on the deck, and
+others into the sea." But even this disaster did not daunt old Peralta.
+Like a gallant sea-captain, he slung a bowline round his waist, and went
+over the side, burnt as he was, to pick up the men who had been blown
+overboard. The pirates fired at him in the water, but the bullets missed
+him. He regained his ship, and the fight went on. While the old man was
+cheering the wounded to their guns, "another jar of powder took fire
+forward," blowing the gun's crews which were on the fo'c's'le into the
+sea. The forward half of the ship caught fire, and poured forth a volume
+of black smoke, in the midst of which Richard Sawkins boarded, and "took
+the ship." A few minutes later, Basil Ringrose went on board, to give
+what aid he could to the hurt. "And indeed," he says, "such a miserable
+sight I never saw in my life, for not one man there was found, but was
+either killed, desperately wounded, or horribly burnt with powder,
+insomuch that their black skins [the ship was manned with negroes] were
+turned white in several places, the powder having torn it from their
+flesh and bones." But if Peralta's ship was a charnel-house, the
+admiral's flagship was a reeking slaughter-pen. Of her eighty-six
+sailors, sixty-one had been killed. Of the remaining twenty-five, "only
+eight were able to bear arms, all the rest being desperately wounded,
+and by their wounds totally disabled to make any resistance, or defend
+themselves. Their blood ran down the decks in whole streams, and scarce
+one place in the ship was found that was free from blood." The loss on
+the Tawnymores' ship was never known, but there had been such "bloody
+massacre" aboard her, that two other barques, in Panama Roads, had been
+too scared to join battle, though they had got under sail to engage.
+According to Ringrose, the pirates lost eighteen men killed, and
+twenty-two men wounded, several of them severely. Sharp, who was not in
+the fight, gives the numbers as eleven killed, and thirty-four wounded.
+The battle began "about half an hour after sunrise." The last of the
+Spanish fire ceased a little before noon.
+
+Having taken the men-of-war, Captain Sawkins asked his prisoners how
+many men were aboard the galleons, in the Perico anchorage. Don Peralta,
+who was on deck, "much burnt in both his hands," and "sadly scalded," at
+once replied that "in the biggest alone there were three hundred and
+fifty men," while the others were manned in proportion to their tonnage.
+But one of his men "who lay a-dying upon the deck, contradicted him as
+he was speaking, and told Captain Sawkins there was not one man on board
+any of those ships that were in view." "This relation" was believed, "as
+proceeding from a dying man," and a few moments later it was proved to
+be true. The greatest of the galleons, "the Most Blessed _Trinity_,"
+perhaps the very ship in which Peralta had saved the treasures of the
+cathedral church, was found to be empty. Her lading of "wine, sugar, and
+sweetmeats, skins and soap" (or hides and tallow) was still in the hold,
+but the Spaniards had deserted her, after they had set her on fire,
+"made a hole in her, and loosened [perhaps cut adrift] her foresail."
+The pirates quenched the fire, stopped the leak, and placed their
+wounded men aboard her, "and thus constituted her for the time being our
+hospital." They lay at anchor, at Perico, for the rest of that day. On
+the 24th of April they seem to have been joined by a large company of
+those who had been to leeward at the time of the battle. Reinforced by
+these, to the strength of nearly 200 men, they weighed their anchors,
+set two of the prize galleons on fire with their freights of flour and
+iron, and removed their fleet to the roads of Panama. They anchored near
+the city, just out of heavy gunshot, in plain view of the citizens. They
+could see the famous stone walls, which had cost so much gold that the
+Spanish King, in his palace at Madrid, had asked his minister whether
+they could be seen from the palace windows. They marked the stately,
+great churches which were building. They saw the tower of St Anastasius
+in the distance, white and stately, like a blossom above the greenwood.
+They may even have seen the terrified people in the streets, following
+the banners of the church, and the priests in their black robes, to
+celebrate a solemn Mass and invocation. Very far away, in the green
+savannahs, they saw the herds of cattle straying between the clumps of
+trees.
+
+Late that night, long after it was dark, Captain Bartholomew Sharp
+joined company. He had been to Chepillo to look for them, and had found
+their fire "not yet out," and a few dead Spaniards, whom the Indians had
+killed, lying about the embers. He had been much concerned for the
+safety of the expedition, and was therefore very pleased to find that
+"through the Divine Assistance" the buccaneers had triumphed. At supper
+that night he talked with Don Peralta, who told him of some comets, "two
+strange Comets," which had perplexed the Quito merchants the year
+before. There was "good Store of Wine" aboard the _Trinity_ galleon,
+with which all hands "cheered up their Hearts for a While." Then, having
+set sentinels, they turned in for the night.
+
+The next day they buried Captain Peter Harris, "a brave and stout
+Soldier, and a valiant Englishman, born in the county of Kent, whose
+death [from gunshot wounds] we very much lamented." With him they buried
+another buccaneer who had been hurt in the fight. The other wounded men
+recovered. They would probably have landed to sack the town on this day,
+had not a quarrel broken out between some of the company and Captain
+Coxon. The question had been brought forward, whether the buccaneers
+should go cruising in the South Sea, in their prizes, or return,
+overland, to their ships at Golden Island. It was probably suggested, as
+another alternative, that they should land to sack the town. All the
+captains with one exception were for staying in the Pacific "to try
+their Fortunes." Captain Coxon, however, was for returning to Golden
+Island. He had been dissatisfied ever since the fight at Santa Maria. He
+had not distinguished himself particularly in the fight off Perico, and
+no doubt he felt jealous that the honours of that battle should have
+been won by Sawkins. Sawkins' men taunted him with "backwardness" in
+that engagement, and "stickled not to defame, or brand him with the note
+of cowardice." To this he answered that he would be very glad to leave
+that association, and that he would take one of the prizes, a ship of
+fifty tons, and a periagua, to carry his men up the Santa Maria River.
+Those who stayed, he added, might heal his wounded. That night he drew
+off his company, with several other men, in all about seventy hands.
+With them he carried "the best of our Doctors and Medicines," and the
+hearty ill will of the other buccaneers. Old King Golden Cap accompanied
+these deserters, leaving behind him his son and a nephew, desiring them
+to be "not less vigorous" than he had been in harrying the Spanish.
+Just before Coxon set sail, he asked Bartholomew Sharp to accompany him.
+But that proven soul "could not hear of so dirty and inhuman an Action
+without detestation." So Coxon sailed without ally, "which will not much
+redound to his Honour," leaving all his wounded on the deck of the
+captured galleon. The fleet, it may be added, had by this time returned
+to the anchorage at Perico.
+
+They lay there ten days in all, "debating what were best to be done." In
+that time they took a frigate laden with fowls. They took the poultry
+for their own use, and dismissed some of "the meanest of the prisoners"
+in the empty ship. They then shifted their anchorage to the island of
+Taboga, where there were a few houses, which some drunken pirates set on
+fire. While they lay at this island the merchants of Panama came off to
+them "and sold us what commodities we needed, buying also of us much of
+the goods we had taken in their own vessels." The pirates also sold them
+a number of negroes they had captured, receiving "two hundred pieces of
+eight for each negro we could spare." "And here we took likewise several
+barks that were laden with fowls." After Coxon's defection, Richard
+Sawkins was re-elected admiral, and continued in that command till his
+death some days later.
+
+Before they left Taboga, Captain Sharp went cruising to an island some
+miles distant to pick up some straggling drunkards who belonged to his
+ship. While he lay at anchor, in a dead calm, waiting for a breeze to
+blow, a great Spanish merchant ship hove in sight, bound from Lima (or
+Truxillo) to Panama. Sharp ran his canoas alongside, and bade her dowse
+her colours, at the same time sending a gang of pirates over her rail,
+to throw the crew under hatches. "He had no Arms to defend himself with,
+save only Rapiers," so her captain made no battle, but struck
+incontinently. She proved to be a very splendid prize, for in her hold
+were nearly 2000 jars of wine and brandy, 100 jars of good vinegar, and
+a quantity of powder and shot, "which came very luckily." In addition to
+these goods there were 51,000 pieces of eight, "247 pieces of eight a
+man," a pile of silver sent to pay the Panama soldiery; and a store of
+sweetmeats, such as Peru is still famous for. And there were "other
+Things," says Sharp, "that were very grateful to our dis-satisfied
+Minds." Some of the wine and brandy were sold to the Panama merchants a
+few days later, "to the value of three thousand Pieces of Eight." A day
+or two after this they snapped up two flour ships, from Paita. One of
+these was a pretty ship of a fine model, of about 100 tons. Sharp fitted
+her for himself, "for I liked her very well." The other flour ship was
+taken very gallantly, under a furious gunfire from Panama Castle. The
+buccaneers rowed in, with the cannon-balls flying over their heads. They
+got close alongside "under her Guns," and then towed her out of
+cannon-shot.
+
+They continued several days at Taboga, waiting for a Lima treasure ship,
+aboard which, the Spaniards told them, were £2500 in silver dollars.
+While they waited for this ship the Governor at Panama wrote to ask them
+why they had come into those seas. Captain Sawkins answered that they
+had come to help King Golden Cap, the King of Darien, the true lord of
+those lands, and that, since they had come so far, "there was no reason
+but that they should have some satisfaction." If the Governor would send
+them 500 pieces of eight for each man, and double that sum for each
+captain, and, further, undertake "not any farther to annoy the Indians,"
+why, then, the pirates would leave those seas, "and go away peaceably.
+If the Governor would not agree to these terms, he might look to
+suffer." A day or two later, Sawkins heard that the Bishop of Panama had
+been Bishop at Santa Martha (a little city on the Main), some years
+before, when he (Sawkins) helped to sack the place. He remembered the
+cleric favourably, and sent him "two loaves of sugar," as a sort of
+keepsake, or love-offering. "For a retaliation," the Bishop sent him a
+gold ring; which was very Christian in the Bishop, who must have lost on
+the exchange. The bearer of the gold ring, brought also an answer from
+the Governor, who desired to know who had signed the pirates'
+commissions. To this message Captain Sawkins sent back for answer: "That
+as yet all his company were not come together, but that when they were
+come up, we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our
+commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read
+them as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them."
+
+With this thrasonical challenge the pirates set sail for Otoque, another
+of the islands in the bay; for Taboga, though it was "an exceeding
+pleasant island," was by this time bare of meat. Before they left the
+place a Frenchman deserted from them, and gave a detailed account of
+their plans to the Spanish Governor. It blew very hard while they were
+at sea, and two barques parted company in the storm. One of them drove
+away to the eastward, and overtook John Coxon's company. The other was
+taken by the Spaniards.
+
+About the 20th or 21st of May, after several days of coasting, the ships
+dropped anchor on the north coast of the island of Quibo. From here some
+sixty men, under Captain Sawkins, set sail in Edmund Cook's ship, to
+attack Pueblo Nuevo, the New Town, situated on the banks of a river. At
+the river's mouth, which was broad, with sandy beaches, they embarked in
+canoas, and rowed upstream, under the pilotage of a negro, from dark
+till dawn. The French deserter had told the Spaniards of the intended
+attack, so that the canoas found great difficulty in getting upstream.
+Trees had been felled so as to fall across the river, and Indian spies
+had been placed here and there along the river-bank to warn the townsmen
+of the approach of the boats. A mile below the town the river had been
+made impassable, so here the pirates went ashore to wait till daybreak.
+When it grew light they marched forward, to attack the strong wooden
+breastworks which the Spaniards had built. Captain Sawkins was in
+advance, with about a dozen pirates. Captain Sharp followed at a little
+distance with some thirty more. As soon as Sawkins saw the stockades he
+fired his gun, and ran forward gallantly, to take the place by storm, in
+the face of a fierce fire. "Being a man that nothing upon Earth could
+terrifie" he actually reached the breastwork, and was shot dead there,
+as he hacked at the pales. Two other pirates were killed at his side,
+and five of the brave forlorn were badly hurt. "The remainder drew off,
+still skirmishing," and contrived to reach the canoas "in pretty good
+order," though they were followed by Spanish sharpshooters for some
+distance. Sharp took command of the boats and brought them off safely to
+the river's mouth, where they took a barque full of maize, before they
+arrived at their ship.
+
+Sawkins was "as valiant and courageous as any could be," "a valiant and
+generous-spirited man, and beloved above any other we ever had among us,
+which he well deserved." His death left the company without a captain,
+and many of the buccaneers, who had truly loved Richard Sawkins, were
+averse to serving under another commander. They were particularly averse
+to serving under Sharp, who took the chief command from the moment of
+Sawkins' death. At Quibo, where they lay at anchor, "their Mutiny" grew
+very high, nor did they stick at mere mutiny. They clamoured for a
+tarpaulin muster, or "full Councel," at which the question of "who
+should be chief" might be put to the vote. At the council, Sharp was
+elected "by a few hands," but many of the pirates refused to follow him
+on the cruise. He swore, indeed, that he would take them such a voyage
+as should bring them £1000 a man; but the oaths of Sharp were not good
+security, and the mutiny was not abated. Many of the buccaneers would
+have gone home with Coxon had it not been for Sawkins. These now
+clamoured to go so vehemently that Sharp was constrained to give them a
+ship with as much provision "as would serve for treble the number." The
+mutineers who left on this occasion were in number sixty-three. Twelve
+Indians, the last who remained among the pirates, went with them, to
+guide them over the isthmus. 146 men remained with Sharp. It is probable
+that many of these would have returned at this time, had it not been
+that "the Rains were now already up, and it would be hard passing so
+many Gullies, which of necessity would then be full of water." Ringrose,
+Wafer and Dampier remained among the faithful, but rather on this
+account, than for any love they bore their leader. The mutineers had
+hardly set sail, before Captain Cook came "a-Board" Sharp's flagship,
+finding "himselfe a-grieved." His company had kicked him out of his
+ship, swearing that they would not sail with such a one, so that he had
+determined "to rule over such unruly folk no longer." Sharp gave his
+command to a pirate named Cox, a New Englander, "who forced kindred, as
+was thought, upon Captain Sharp, out of old acquaintance, in this
+conjuncture of time, only to advance himself." Cox took with him Don
+Peralta, the stout old Andalusian, for the pirates were plying the
+captain "of the Money-Ship we took," to induce him to pilot them to
+Guayaquil "where we might lay down our Silver, and lade our vessels with
+Gold." They feared that an honest man, such as Peralta, "would hinder
+the endeavours" of this Captain Juan, and corrupt his kindly
+disposition.
+
+With these mutinies, quarrels, intrigues, and cabals did the buccaneers
+beguile their time. They stayed at Quibo until 6th June, filling their
+water casks, quarrelling, cutting wood, and eating turtle and red deer.
+They also ate huge oysters, so large "that we were forced to cut them
+into four pieces, each quarter being a large mouthful."
+
+On the 6th of June they set sail for the isle of Gorgona, off what is
+now Columbia, where they careened the _Trinity_, and took "down our
+Round House Coach and all the high carved work belonging to the stern of
+the ship; for when we took her from the Spaniards she was high as any
+Third Rate Ship in England." While they were at work upon her, Sharp
+changed his design of going for Guayaquil, as one of their prisoners, an
+old Moor, "who had long time sailed among the Spaniards," told him that
+there was gold at Arica, in such plenty that they would get there "£2000
+a man." He did not hurry to leave his careenage, though he must have
+known that each day he stayed there lessened his chance of booty. It was
+nearly August when he left Gorgona, and "from this Time forward to the
+17th of October there was Nothing occurr'd but bare Sailing." Now and
+then they ran short of water, or of food. One or two of their men died
+of fever, or of rum, or of sunstroke. Two or three were killed in
+capturing a small Spanish ship. The only other events recorded, are the
+falls of rain, the direction of the wind, the sight of "watersnakes of
+divers colours," and the joyful meeting with Captain Cox, whom they had
+lost sight of, while close in shore one evening. They called at "Sir
+Francis Drake's isle" to strike a few tortoises, and to shoot some
+goats. Captain Sharp we read, here "showed himself very ingenious" in
+spearing turtle, "he performing it as well as the tortoise strikers
+themselves."
+
+It was very hot at this little island. Many years before Drake had gone
+ashore there to make a dividend, and had emptied bowls of gold coins
+into the hats of his men, after the capture of the _Cacafuego_. Some of
+the pirates sounded the little anchorage with a greasy lead, in the
+hopes of bringing up the golden pieces which Drake had been unable to
+carry home, and had hove into the sea there. They got no gold, but the
+sun shone "so hot that it burnt the skin off the necks of our men," as
+they craned over the rail at their fishery.
+
+At the end of October they landed at the town of Hilo to fill fresh
+water. They took the town, and sacked its sugar refineries, which they
+burnt. They pillaged its pleasant orange groves, and carried away many
+sacks of limes and green figs "with many other fruits agreeable to the
+palate." Fruit, sugar, and excellent olive oil were the goods which Hilo
+yielded. They tried to force the Spaniards to bring them beef, but as
+the beef did not come, they wrecked the oil and sugar works, and set
+them blazing, and so marched down to their ships, skirmishing with the
+Spanish horse as they fell back. Among the spoil was the carcass of a
+mule (which made "a very good meal"), and a box of chocolate "so that
+now we had each morning a dish of that pleasant liquor," such as the
+grand English ladies drank.
+
+The next town attacked was La Serena, a town five miles from the present
+Coquimbo. They took the town, and found a little silver, but the
+citizens had had time to hide their gold. The pirates made a great feast
+of strawberries "as big as walnuts," in the "orchards of fruit" at this
+place, so that one of their company wrote that "'tis very delightful
+Living here." They could not get a ransom for the town, so they set it
+on fire. The Spaniards, in revenge, sent out an Indian, on an inflated
+horse hide, to the pirates' ship the _Trinity_. This Indian thrust some
+oakum and brimstone between the rudder and the sternpost, and "fired it
+with a match." The sternpost caught fire and sent up a prodigious black
+smoke, which warned the pirates that their ship was ablaze. They did not
+discover the trick for a few minutes, but by good fortune they found it
+out in time to save the vessel. They landed their prisoners shortly
+after the fire had been quenched "because we feared lest by the example
+of this stratagem they should plot our destruction in earnest." Old Don
+Peralta, who had lately been "very frantic," "through too much hardship
+and melancholy," was there set on shore, after his long captivity. Don
+Juan, the captain of the "Money-Ship," was landed with him. Perhaps the
+two fought together, on the point of honour, as soon as they had
+returned to swords and civilisation.
+
+From Coquimbo the pirates sailed for Juan Fernandez. On the way thither
+they buried William Cammock, one of their men, who had drunk too hard at
+La Serena "which produced in him a calenture or malignant fever, and a
+hiccough." "In the evening when the pale Magellan Clouds were showing we
+buried him in the sea, according to the usual custom of mariners, giving
+him three French vollies for his funeral."
+
+On Christmas Day they were beating up to moorings, with boats ahead,
+sounding out a channel for the ship. They did not neglect to keep the
+day holy, for "we gave in the morning early three vollies of shot for
+solemnization of that great festival." At dusk they anchored "in a
+stately bay that we found there," a bay of intensely blue water, through
+which the whiskered seals swam. The pirates filled fresh water, and
+killed a number of goats, with which the island swarmed. They also
+captured many goats alive, and tethered them about the decks of the
+_Trinity_, to the annoyance of all hands, a day or two later, when some
+flurries of wind drove them to sea, to search out a new anchorage.
+
+Shortly after New Year's Day 1681, "our unhappy Divisions, which had
+been long on Foot, began now to come to an Head to some Purpose." The
+men had been working at the caulking of their ship, with design to take
+her through the Straits of Magellan, and so home to the Indies. Many of
+the men wished to cruise the South Seas a little longer, while nearly
+all were averse to plying caulking irons, under a burning sun, for
+several hours a day. There was also a good deal of bitterness against
+Captain Sharp, who had made but a poor successor to brave Richard
+Sawkins. He had brought them none of the gold and silver he had promised
+them, and few of the men were "satisfied, either with his Courage or
+Behaviour." On the 6th January a gang of pirates "got privately ashoar
+together," and held a fo'c's'le council under the greenwood. They "held
+a Consult," says Sharp, "about turning me presently out, and put another
+in my Room." John Cox, the "true-hearted dissembling New-England Man,"
+whom Sharp "meerly for old Acquaintance-sake" had promoted to be
+captain, was "the Main Promoter of their Design." When the consult was
+over, the pirates came on board, clapped Mr Sharp in irons, put him down
+on the ballast, and voted an old pirate named John Watling, "a stout
+seaman," to be captain in his stead. One buccaneer says that "the true
+occasion of the grudge against Sharp was, that he had got by these
+adventures almost a thousand pounds, whereas many of our men were not
+worth a groat," having "lost all their money to their fellow Buccaneers
+at dice."
+
+Captain Edmund Cook, who had been turned out of his ship by his men, was
+this day put in irons on the confession of a shameless servant. The
+curious will find the details of the case on page 121, of the 1684
+edition of Ringrose's journal.
+
+John Watling began his captaincy in very godly sort, by ordering his
+disciples to keep holy the Sabbath day. Sunday, "January the ninth, was
+the first Sunday that ever we kept by command and common consent, since
+the loss and death of our valiant Commander Captain Sawkins." Sawkins
+had been strict in religious matters, and had once thrown the ship's
+dice overboard "finding them in use on the said day." Since Sawkins'
+death the company had grown notoriously lax, but it is pleasant to
+notice how soon they returned to their natural piety, under a godly
+leader. With Edmund Cook down on the ballast in irons, and William Cook
+talking of salvation in the galley, and old John Watling expounding the
+Gospel in the cabin, the galleon, "the Most Holy _Trinity_" must have
+seemed a foretaste of the New Jerusalem. The fiddler ceased such
+"prophane strophes" as "Abel Brown," "The Red-haired Man's Wife," and
+"Valentinian." He tuned his devout strings to songs of Zion. Nay the
+very boatswain could not pipe the cutter up but to a phrase of the
+Psalms.
+
+In this blessed state they washed their clothes in the brooks, hunted
+goats across the island, and burnt and tallowed their ship the
+_Trinity_. But on the 12th of January, one of their boats, which had
+been along the coast with some hunters, came rowing furiously into the
+harbour, "firing of Guns." They had espied three Spanish men-of-war some
+three or four miles to leeward, beating up to the island under a press
+of sail. The pirates were in great confusion, for most of them were
+ashore, "washing their clothes," or felling timber. Those on board, hove
+up one of their anchors, fired guns to call the rest aboard, hoisted
+their boats in, and slipped their second cable. They then stood to sea,
+hauling as close to the wind as she would lie. One of the Mosquito
+Indians, "one William," was left behind on the island, "at this sudden
+departure," and remained hidden there, living on fish and fruit, for
+many weary days. He was not the first man to be marooned there; nor was
+he to be the last.
+
+The three Spanish men-of-war were ships of good size, mounting some
+thirty guns among them. As the pirate ship beat out of the harbour,
+sheeting home her topgallant-sails, they "put out their bloody flags,"
+which the pirates imitated, "to shew them that we were not as yet
+daunted." They kept too close together for the pirates to run them
+aboard, but towards sunset their flagship had drawn ahead of the
+squadron. The pirates at once tacked about so as to engage her,
+intending to sweep her decks with bullets, and carry her by boarding.
+John Watling was not very willing to come to handystrokes, nor were the
+Spaniards anxious to give him the opportunity. No guns were fired, for
+the Spanish admiral wore ship, and so sailed away to the island, when he
+brought his squadron to anchor. The pirates called a council, and
+decided to give them the slip, having "outbraved them," and done as much
+as honour called for. They were not very pleased with John Watling, and
+many were clamouring for the cruise to end. It was decided that they
+should not attack the Spanish ships, but go off for the Main, to sack
+the town of Arica, where there was gold enough, so they had heard, to
+buy them each "a coach and horses." They therefore hauled to the wind
+again, and stood to the east, in very angry and mutinous spirit, until
+the 26th of January.
+
+On that day they landed at Yqueque, a mud-flat, or guano island, off a
+line of yellow sand-hills. They found a few Indian huts there, with
+scaffolds for the drying of fish, and many split and rotting mackerel
+waiting to be carried inland. There was a dirty stone chapel in the
+place, "stuck full of hides and sealskins." There was a great surf,
+green and mighty, bursting about the island with a continual roaring.
+There were pelicans fishing there, and a few Indians curing fish, and an
+abominable smell, and a boat, with a cask in her bows, which brought
+fresh water thither from thirty miles to the north. The teeth of the
+Indians were dyed a bright green by their chewing of the coca leaf, the
+drug which made their "beast-like" lives endurable. There was a silver
+mine on the mainland, near this fishing village, but the pirates did not
+land to plunder it. They merely took a few old Indian men, and some
+Spaniards, and carried them aboard the _Trinity_, where the godly John
+Watling examined them.
+
+The next day the examination continued; and the answers of one of the
+old men, "a Mestizo Indian," were judged to be false. "Finding him in
+many lies, as we thought, concerning Arica, our commander ordered him to
+be shot to death, which was accordingly done." This cold-blooded murder
+was committed much against the will of Captain Sharp, who "opposed it as
+much as he could." Indeed, when he found that his protests were useless,
+he took a basin of water (of which the ship was in sore need) and washed
+his hands, like a modern Pilate. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am clear of
+the blood of this old man; and I will warrant you a hot day for this
+piece of cruelty, whenever we come to fight at Arica." This proved to be
+"a true and certain prophesy." Sharp was an astrologer, and a believer
+in portents; but he does not tell us whether he had "erected any
+Figure," to discover what was to chance in the Arica raid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arica, the most northern port in Chile, has still a considerable
+importance. It is a pleasant town, fairly well watered, and therefore
+more green and cheerful than the nitrate ports. It is built at the foot
+of a hill (a famous battlefield) called the Morro. Low, yellow
+sand-hills ring it in, shutting it from the vast blue crags of the
+Andes, which rise up, splintered and snowy, to the east. The air there
+is of an intense clearness, and those who live there can see the Tacna
+churches, forty miles away. It is no longer the port it was, but it does
+a fair trade in salt and sulphur, and supplies the nitrate towns with
+fruit. When the pirates landed there it was a rich and prosperous city.
+It had a strong fort, mounting twelve brass guns, defended by four
+companies of troops from Lima. The city had a town guard of 300
+soldiers. There was also an arsenal full of firearms for the use of
+householders in the event of an attack. It was not exactly a walled
+town, like new Panama, but a light wooden palisade ran round it, while
+other palisades crossed each street. These defences had been thrown up
+when news had arrived of the pirates being in those seas. All the
+"plate, gold and jewels" of the townsfolk had been carefully hidden, and
+the place was in such a state of military vigilance and readiness that
+the pirates had no possible chance of taking it, or at least of holding
+it. When the pirates came upon it there were several ships in the bay,
+laden with commodities from the south of Chile.
+
+[Illustration: _A description of_ Arica]
+
+On the 28th of January, John Watling picked 100 men, and put off for the
+shore in boats and canoas, to attack the town. By the next day they had
+got close in shore, under the rocks by the San Vitor River's mouth.
+There they lay concealed till the night. At dawn of the 30th January
+1681, "the Martyrdom of our glorious King Charles the First," they were
+dipping off some rocks four miles to the south of Arica. Here ninety-two
+of the buccaneers landed, leaving a small boat guard, with strict
+instructions how to act. They were told that if the main body "made
+one smoke from the town," as by firing a heap of powder, one canoa was
+to put in to Arica; but that, if two smokes were fired, all the boats
+were to put in at once. Basil Ringrose was one of those who landed to
+take part in the fight. Dampier, it is almost certain, remained on board
+the _Trinity_, becalmed some miles from the shore. Wafer was in the
+canoas, with the boat guard, preparing salves for those wounded in the
+fight. The day seems to have been hot and sunny--it could scarcely have
+been otherwise--but those out at sea, on the galleon, could see the
+streamers of cloud wreathing about the Andes.
+
+At sunrise the buccaneers got ashore, amongst the rocks, and scrambled
+up a hill which gave them a sight of the city. From the summit they
+could look right down upon the streets, little more than a mile from
+them. It was too early for folk to be stirring, and the streets were
+deserted, save for the yellow pariahs, and one or two carrion birds. It
+was so still, in that little town, that the pirates thought they would
+surprise the place, as Drake had surprised Nombre de Dios. But while
+they were marching downhill, they saw three horsemen watching them from
+a lookout place, and presently the horsemen galloped off to raise the
+inhabitants. As they galloped away, John Watling chose out forty of the
+ninety-two, to attack the fort or castle which defended the city. This
+band of forty, among whom were Sharp and Ringrose, carried ten
+hand-grenades, in addition to their pistols and guns. The fort was on a
+hill above the town, and thither the storming party marched, while
+Watling's company pressed on into the streets. The action began a few
+minutes later with the guns of the fort firing on the storming party.
+Down in the town, almost at the same moment, the musketry opened in a
+long roaring roll which never slackened. Ringrose's party waited for no
+further signal, but at once engaged, running in under the guns and
+hurling their firepots through the embrasures. The grenades were damp,
+or badly filled, or had been too long charged. They did not burst or
+burn as they should have done, while the garrison inside the fort kept
+up so hot a fire, at close range, that nothing could be done there. The
+storming party fell back, without loss, and rallied for a fresh attack.
+They noticed then that Watling's men were getting no farther towards the
+town. They were halted in line, with their knees on the ground, firing
+on the breastworks, and receiving a terrible fire from the Spaniards.
+Five of the fifty-two men were down (three of them killed) and the case
+was growing serious. The storming party left the fort, and doubled
+downhill into the firing line, where they poured in volley after
+blasting volley, killing a Spaniard at each shot, making "a very
+desperate battle" of it, "our rage increasing with our wounds." No
+troops could stand such file-firing. The battle became "mere bloody
+massacre," and the Spaniards were beaten from their posts. Volley after
+volley shook them, for the pirates "filled every street in the city with
+dead bodies"; and at last ran in upon them, and clubbed them and cut
+them down, and penned them in as prisoners. But as the Spaniards under
+arms were at least twenty times as many as the pirates, there was no
+taking the city from them. They were beaten from post to post fighting
+like devils, but the pirates no sooner left a post they had taken, "than
+they came another way, and manned it again, with new forces and fresh
+men." The streets were heaped with corpses, yet the Spaniards came on,
+and came on again, till the sand of the roads was like red mud. At last
+they were fairly beaten from the chief parts of the town, and numbers of
+them were penned up as prisoners; more, in fact, than the pirates could
+guard. The battle paused for a while at this stage, and the pirates took
+advantage of the lull to get their wounded (perhaps a dozen men), into
+one of the churches to have their wounds dressed. As the doctors of the
+party began their work, John Watling sent a message to the fort,
+charging the garrison to surrender. The soldiers returned no answer, but
+continued to load their guns, being helped by the armed townsfolk, who
+now flocked to them in scores. The fort was full of musketeers when the
+pirates made their second attack a little after noon.
+
+At the second attack, John Watling took 100 of his prisoners, placed
+them in front of his storming party, and forced them forward, as a
+screen to his men, when he made his charge. The garrison shot down
+friend and foe indiscriminately, and repulsed the attack, and repulsed a
+second attack which followed a few minutes later. There was no taking
+the fort by storm, and the pirates had no great guns with which to
+batter it. They found, however, that one of the flat-roofed houses in
+the town, near the fort's outworks, commanded the interior. "We got upon
+the top of the house," says Ringrose, "and from there fired down into
+the fort, killing many of their men and wounding them at our ease and
+pleasure." While they were doing this, a number of the Lima soldiers
+joined the citizens, and fell, with great fury, upon the prisoners'
+guards in the town. They easily beat back the few guards, and retook the
+city. As soon as they had taken the town, they came swarming out to cut
+off the pirates from their retreat, and to hem them in between the fort
+and the sea. They were in such numbers that they were able to surround
+the pirates, who now began to lose men at every volley, and to look
+about them a little anxiously as they bit their cartridges. From every
+street in the town came Spanish musketeers at the double, swarm after
+swarm of them, perhaps a couple of thousand. The pirates left the fort,
+and turned to the main army, at the same time edging away towards the
+south, to the hospital, or church, where their wounded men were being
+dressed. As they moved away from the battlefield, firing as they
+retreated, old John Watling was shot in the liver with a bullet, and
+fell dead there, to go buccaneering no more. A moment later "both our
+quartermasters" fell, with half-a-dozen others, including the boatswain.
+All this time the cannon of the fort were pounding over them, and the
+round-shot were striking the ground all about, flinging the sand into
+their faces. What with the dust and the heat and the trouble of helping
+the many hurt, their condition was desperate. "So that now the enemy
+rallying against us, and beating us from place to place, we were in a
+very distracted condition, and in more likelihood to perish every man
+than escape the bloodiness of that day. Now we found the words of
+Captain Sharp to bear a true prophecy, being all very sensible that we
+had had a day too hot for us, after that cruel heat in killing and
+murdering in cold blood the old Mestizo Indian whom we had taken
+prisoner at Yqueque." In fact they were beaten and broken, and the fear
+of death was on them, and the Spaniards were ringing them round, and the
+firing was roaring from every point. They were a bloody, dusty, choking
+gang of desperates, "in great disorder," black with powder, their
+tongues hanging out with thirst. As they stood grouped together, cursing
+and firing, some of them asked Captain Sharp to take command, and get
+them out of that, seeing that Watling was dead, and no one there could
+give an order. To this request Sharp at last consented, and a retreat
+was begun, under cover of a fighting rear-guard, "and I hope," says
+Sharp, "it will not be esteemed a Vanity in me to say, that I was mighty
+Helpful to facilitate this Retreat." In the midst of a fearful racket
+of musketry, he fought the pirates through the soldiers to the church
+where the wounded lay. There was no time, nor was there any conveyance,
+for the wounded, and they were left lying there, all desperately hurt.
+The two surgeons could have been saved "but that they had been drinking
+while we assaulted the fort, and thus would not come with us when they
+were called." There was no time for a second call, for the Spaniards
+were closing in on them, and the firing was as fierce as ever. The men
+were so faint with hunger and thirst, the heat of battle, and the long
+day's marching, that Sharp feared he would never get them to the boats.
+A fierce rush of Spaniards beat them away from the hospital, and drove
+them out of the town "into the Savannas or open fields." The Spaniards
+gave a cheer and charged in to end the battle, but the pirates were a
+dogged lot, and not yet at the end of their strength. They got into a
+clump or cluster, with a few wounded men in the centre, to load the
+muskets, "resolving to die one by another" rather than to run. They
+stood firm, cursing and damning the Spaniards, telling them to come on,
+and calling them a lot of cowards. There were not fifty buccaneers fit
+to carry a musket, but the forty odd, unhurt men stood steadily, and
+poured in such withering volleys of shot, with such terrible precision,
+that the Spanish charge went to pieces. As the charge broke, the pirates
+plied them again, and made a "bloody massacre" of them, so that they ran
+to shelter like so many frightened rabbits. The forty-seven had beaten
+off twenty or thirty times their number, and had won themselves a
+passage home.
+
+There was no question of trying to retake the town. The men were in such
+misery that the march back to the boats taxed their strength to the
+breaking point. They set off over the savannah, in as good order as they
+could, with a wounded man, or two, in every rank of them. As they set
+forward, a company of horsemen rode out, and got upon their flanks "and
+fired at us all the way, though they would not come within reach of our
+guns; for their own reached farther than ours, and out-shot us more than
+one third." There was great danger of these horsemen cutting in, and
+destroying them, on the long open rolls of savannah, so Sharp gave the
+word, and the force shogged westward to the seashore, along which they
+trudged to the boats. The beach to the south of Arica runs along the
+coast, in a narrow strip, under cliffs and rocky ground, for several
+miles. The sand is strewn with boulders, so that the horsemen, though
+they followed the pirates, could make no concerted charge upon them.
+Some of them rode ahead of them and got above them on the cliff tops,
+from which they rolled down "great stones and whole rocks to destroy
+us." None of these stones did any harm to the pirates, for the cliffs
+were so rough and broken that the skipping boulders always flew wide of
+the mark. But though the pirates "escaped their malice for that time,"
+they were yet to run a terrible danger before getting clear away to sea.
+The Spaniards had been examining, or torturing, the wounded pirates, and
+the two drunken surgeons, left behind in the town. "These gave them our
+signs that we had left to our boats [_i.e._ revealed the signals by
+which the boats were to be called] so that they immediately blew up two
+smokes, which were perceived by the canoas." Had the pirates "not come
+at the instant" to the seaside, within hail of the boats, they would
+have been gone. Indeed they were already under sail, and beating slowly
+up to the northward, in answer to the signal. Thus, by a lucky chance,
+the whole company escaped destruction. They lost no time in putting from
+the shore, where they had met with "so very bad Entertainment." They
+"got on board about ten a Clock at night; having been involved in a
+continual and bloody fight ... all that day long." Of the ninety-two,
+who had landed that morning, twenty-eight had been left ashore, either
+dead, or as prisoners. Of the sixty-four who got to the canoas, eighteen
+were desperately wounded, and barely able to walk. Most of the others
+were slightly hurt, while all were too weary to do anything, save sleep
+or drink. Of the men left behind in the hospital the Spaniards spared
+the doctors only; "they being able to do them good service in that
+country." "But as to the wounded men," says Ringrose, "they were all
+knocked on the head," and so ended their roving, and came to port where
+drunken doctors could torture them no longer. The Ylo men denied this;
+and said that the seven pirates who did not die of their wounds were
+kept as slaves. The Spanish loss is not known, but it was certainly
+terrible. The Hilo, or Ylo people, some weeks later, said that seventy
+Spaniards had been killed and about 200 wounded.
+
+All the next day the pirates "plied to and fro in sight of the port,"
+hoping that the Spaniards would man the ships in the bay, and come out
+to fight. They reinstated Sharp in his command, for they had now
+"recollected a better Temper," though none of them, it seems, wished for
+any longer stay in the South Sea. The Arica fight had sickened them of
+the South Sea, while several of them (including Ringrose) became very
+ill from the exposure and toil of the battle. They beat to windward,
+cruising, when they found that the Spaniards would not put to sea to
+fight them. They met with dirty weather when they had reached the
+thirtieth parallel, and the foul weather, and their bad fortune made
+them resolve to leave those seas. At a fo'c's'le council held on the 3rd
+of March, they determined to put the helm up, and to return to the North
+Sea. They were short of water and short of food, "having only one cake
+of bread a day," or perhaps half-a-pound of "doughboy," for their
+"whack" or allowance. After a few days' running before the wind they
+came to "the port of Guasco," now Huasco, between Coquimbo and Caldera,
+a little town of sixty or eighty houses, with copper smeltries, a
+church, a river, and some sheep-runs. Sixty of the buccaneers went
+ashore here, that same evening, to get provisions, "and anything else
+that we could purchase." They passed the night in the church, or "in a
+churchyard," and in the morning took "120 sheep and fourscore goats,"
+about 200 bushels of corn "ready ground," some fowls, a fat hog, any
+quantity of fruit, peas, beans, etc., and a small stock of wine. These
+goods they conveyed aboard as being "fit for our Turn." The inhabitants
+had removed their gold and silver while the ship came to her anchor, "so
+that our booty here, besides provisions, was inconsiderable." They found
+the fat hog "very like our English pork," thereby illustrating the
+futility of travel; and so sailed away again "to seek greater matters."
+Before they left, they contrived to fill their water jars in the river,
+a piece of work which they found troublesome, owing to the height of the
+banks.
+
+[Illustration: _A Description of_ Hilo]
+
+From Huasco, where the famous white raisins grow, they sailed to Ylo,
+where they heard of their mates at Arica, and secured some wine, figs,
+sugar, and molasses, and some "fruits just ripe and fit for eating,"
+including "extraordinary good Oranges of the China sort" They then
+coasted slowly northward, till by Saturday, 16th April, they arrived off
+the island of Plate. Here their old bickerings broke out again, for many
+of the pirates were disgusted with Sharp, and eager to go home. Many of
+the others had recovered their spirits since the affair at Arica, and
+wished to stay in the South Seas, to cruise a little longer. Those who
+had fought at Arica would not allow Sharp to be deposed a second
+time, while those who had been shipkeepers on that occasion, were angry
+that he should have been re-elected. The two parties refused to be
+reconciled. They quarrelled angrily whenever they came on deck together,
+and the party spirit ran so high that the company of shipkeepers, the
+anti-Sharp faction, "the abler and more experienced men," at last
+refused to cruise any longer under Sharp's command. The fo'c's'le
+council decided that a poll should be taken, and "that which party
+soever, upon polling, should be found to have the majority, should keep
+the ship." The other party was to take the long boat and the canoas. The
+division was made, and "Captain Sharp's Party carried it." The night was
+spent in preparing the long boat and the canoas, and the next morning
+the boats set sail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ACROSS THE ISTHMUS
+
+    The way home--Sufferings and adventures
+
+
+At "about Ten a Clock" in the morning of 17th April 1681, the mutineers
+went over the side into their "Lanch and Canoas, designing for the River
+Santa Maria, in the Gulf of St Michael." "We were in number," says
+Dampier, who was of the party, "44 white Men who bore Arms, a _Spanish
+Indian_, who bore Arms also; and two _Moskito Indians_," who carried
+pistols and fish spears. Lionel Wafer "was of Mr Dampier's Side in that
+Matter," and acted as surgeon to the forty-seven, until he met with his
+accident. They embarked in the ship's launch or long boat, one canoa
+"and another Canoa which had been sawn asunder in the middle, in order
+to have made Bumkins, or Vessels for carrying water, if we had not
+separated from our Ship." This old canoa they contrived to patch
+together. For provisions they brought with them "so much Flower as we
+could well carry"; which "Flower" "we" had been industriously grinding
+for the last three days. In addition to the "Flower" they had "rubbed up
+20 or 30 pound of Chocolate with Sugar to sweeten it." And so provided,
+they hoisted their little sails and stood in for the shore. "The Sea
+Breeze came in strong" before they reached the land, so that they had to
+cut up an old dry hide to make a close-fight round the launch "to keep
+the Water out." They took a small timber barque the next morning, and
+went aboard her, and sailed her over to Gorgona, where they scrubbed
+her bottom. They learned from their prisoners that the Spaniards were
+on the alert, eagerly expecting them, and cruising the seas with fast
+advice boats to get a sight of them. Three warships lay at Panama, ready
+to hunt them whenever the cruisers brought news of their whereabouts. A
+day or two later, the pirates saw "two great ships," with many guns in
+their ports, slowly beating to the southward in search of their company.
+The heavy rain which was falling kept the small timber barque hidden,
+while the pirates took the precautions of striking sail, and rowing
+close in shore. "If they had seen and chased us," the pirates would have
+landed, trusting to the local Indians to make good their escape over the
+isthmus.
+
+After twelve days of sailing they anchored about twenty miles from the
+San Miguel Gulf, in order to clean their arms, and dry their clothes and
+powder, before proceeding up the river, by the way they had come. The
+next morning they set sail into the Gulf, and anchored off an island,
+intending to search the river's mouth for Spaniards before adventuring
+farther. As they had feared, a large Spanish man-of-war lay anchored at
+the river's mouth, "close by the shore," with her guns commanding the
+entrance. Some of her men could be seen upon the beach, by the door of a
+large tent, made of the ship's lower canvas. "When the Canoas came
+aboard with this News," says Dampier, "some of our Men were a little
+dis-heartned; but it was no more than I ever expected." An hour or two
+later they took one of the Spaniards from the ship and learned from him
+that the ship carried twelve great guns, and that three companies of
+men, with small arms, would join her during the next twenty-four hours.
+They learned also that the Indians of that district were friendly to the
+Spaniards. Plainly the pirates were in a dangerous position. "It was not
+convenient to stay longer there," says Dampier. They got aboard their
+ship without loss of time, and ran out of the river "with the Tide of
+Ebb," resolved to get ashore at the first handy creek they came to.
+
+Early the next morning they ran into "a small Creek within two Keys, or
+little Islands, and rowed up to the Head of the Creek, being about a
+Mile up, and there we landed May 1, 1681." The men flung their food and
+clothes ashore, and scuttled their little ship, so that she sank at her
+moorings. While they packed their "Snap-sacks" with flour, chocolate,
+canisters of powder, beads, and whittles for the Indians, their slaves
+"struck a plentiful Dish of Fish" for them, which they presently
+broiled, and ate for their breakfasts. Some of the men scouted on ahead
+for a mile or two, and then returned with the news that there were no
+immediate dangers in front of them. Some of the pirates were weak and
+sick, and "not well able to march." "We," therefore, "gave out, that if
+any Man faultred in the Journey over Land he must expect to be shot to
+death; for we knew that the Spaniards would soon be after us, and one
+Man falling into their hands might be the ruin of us all, by giving an
+account of our strength and condition: yet this would not deter 'em from
+going with us."
+
+At three that afternoon they set out into the jungle, steering a N.E.
+course "by our Pocket Compasses." The rain beat upon them all the rest
+of that day, and all the night long, a drenching and steady downpour,
+which swamped the "small Hutts" they contrived to patch together. In the
+morning they struck an old Indian trail, no broader than a horse-girth,
+running somewhat to the east. They followed it through the forest till
+they came to an Indian town, where the squaws gave them some corn-drink
+or miscelaw, and sold them a few fowls and "a sort of wild Hogs." They
+hired a guide at this village, "to guide us a day's march into the
+Countrey." "He was to have for his pains a Hatchet, and his Bargain was
+to bring us to a certain Indians habitation, who could speak Spanish."
+They paid faithfully for the food the Indians gave them, and shared "all
+sorts of our Provisions in common, because none should live better than
+others," and so stand a better chance of crossing the isthmus. When they
+started out, after a night's rest, one of the pirates, being already
+sick of the march, slipped away into the jungle, and was seen no more.
+
+They found the Spanish-speaking Indian in a bad mood. He swore that he
+knew no road to the North Sea, but that he could take them to Cheapo, or
+to Santa Maria, "which we knew to be Spanish Garrisons: either of them
+at least 20 miles out of our way." He was plainly unwilling to have any
+truck with them, for "his discourse," was in an angry tone, and he "gave
+very impertinent answers" to the questions put to him. "However we were
+forced to make a virtue of necessity, and humour him, for it was neither
+time nor place to be angry with the Indians; all our lives lying in
+their hand." The pirates were at their wits' end, for they lay but a few
+miles from the guard ship, and this surly chief could very well set the
+Spaniards on them. They tempted him with green and blue beads, with gold
+and silver, both in the crude and in coin, with beautiful steel axe
+heads, with machetes, "or long knives"; "but nothing would work on him."
+The pirates were beginning to despair, when one of them produced "a
+Sky-coloured Petticoat," and placed it about the person of the chief's
+favourite wife. How he had become possessed of such a thing, and whether
+it came from a Hilo beauty, and whether she gave it as a love token, on
+the ship's sailing, cannot now be known. It may have been an article
+brought expressly from Jamaica for the fascination of the Indians. But
+_honi soit qui mal y pense_. The truth of the matter will never be
+learned. It is sufficient that the man produced it in the very nick of
+time, and laid the blue tissue over the copper-coloured lady. She was so
+much pleased with it "that she immediately began to chatter to her
+Husband, and soon brought him into a better Humour." He relented at
+once, and said that he knew the trail to the North Sea, and that he
+would gladly guide them thither were a cut upon his foot healed. As he
+could not go himself he persuaded another Indian to guide them "2 Days
+march further for another Hatchet." He tried hard to induce the party to
+stay with him for the rest of the day as the rain was pouring down in
+torrents. "But our business required more haste, our Enemies lying so
+near us, for he told us that he could go from his house aboard the
+Guard-Ship in a Tides time; and this was the 4th day since they saw us.
+So we marched 3 Miles further and then built Hutts, where we stayed all
+Night," with the thatch dripping water on to them in a steady trickle.
+
+On taking to the road again, wet and starving as they were, they found
+themselves in a network of rivers, some thirty of which they had to
+wade, during the day's march. The heavy rain drenched them as they
+clambered along across the jungle. They had but a little handful of fire
+that night, so that they could not dry nor warm themselves. They
+crouched about the "funk of green-wood," shivering in the smoke, chewing
+bullets to alleviate their hunger. They slept there in great misery,
+careless of what happened to them. "The Spaniards were but seldom in our
+thoughts," says Dampier, for the pirates thought only of guides and
+food, and feared their own Indian servants more than the enemy. A watch
+of two pirates kept a guard all that night, with orders to shoot any
+Indian who showed a sign of treachery. They rose before it was light and
+pushed on into the woods, biting on the bullet, or the quid, to help
+them to forget their hunger. By ten o'clock they arrived at the house of
+a brisk young Indian, who had been a servant to the Bishop of Panama,
+the man who gave the gold ring to Sawkins. Here they had a feast of yams
+and sweet potatoes, boiled into a broth with monkey-meat, a great
+comfort to those who were weak and sickly. They built a great fire in
+one of the huts, at which they dried their clothes, now falling to
+pieces from the continual soakings. They also cleaned their rusty
+gun-locks, and dried their powder, talking cheerily together, about the
+fire, while the rain roared upon the thatch. They were close beside the
+Rio Congo "and thus far," says Dampier, the most intelligent man among
+them, "we might have come in our Canoa, if I could have persuaded them
+to it."
+
+As they sat in the hut, in the warmth of the blaze, that rainy May day,
+Lionel Wafer met with an accident. He was sitting on the ground, beside
+one of the pirates, who was drying his powder, little by little, half a
+pound at a time, in a great silver dish, part of the plunder of the
+cruise. "A careless Fellow passed by with his Pipe lighted," and dropped
+some burning crumb of tobacco on to the powder, which at once blew up.
+It scorched Wafer's knee very terribly, tearing off the flesh from the
+bone, and burning his leg from the knee to the thigh. Wafer, who was the
+surgeon of the party, had a bag full of salves and medicines. He managed
+to dress his wounds, and to pass a fairly comfortable night, "and being
+unwilling to be left behind by my Companions, I made hard shift to jog
+on, and bear them Company," when camp was broken at daybreak.
+
+Lame as he was, he kept up with his mates all that day, fording rivers
+"several times," and crossing country which would tax the strongest man,
+in good condition. "The last time we forded the River, it was so deep,
+that our tallest Men stood in the deepest place, and handed the sick,
+weak and short Men"; by which act of comradeship "we all got over safe."
+Two of the pirates, "Robert Spratlin and William Bowman," could get no
+farther, and were left behind at the river. Dampier notes that his
+"Joint of Bambo, which I stopt at both Ends, closing it with Wax, so as
+to keep out any Water," preserved his "Journal and other Writings from
+being wet," though he had often to swim for it.
+
+Drenched and tired, they pitched their huts by the river-bank, poor
+Wafer in torment from his knee, and the rest of them hungry and cold.
+They had hardly finished their huts, when the river came down in a great
+wall of water, some sudden flood, due to a cloud-burst higher up. The
+flood sucked away their huts, and forced them to run to higher ground.
+They passed that night "straggling in the Woods, some under one Tree,
+some under another," with the thunder roaring overhead, and the
+lightning making a livid brightness all about them. The rain fell in
+torrents, and the pirates were far too wretched to keep watch. "So our
+Slaves, taking Opportunity, went away in the Night; all but one, who was
+hid in some hole, and knew nothing of their design, or else fell
+asleep." Among these slaves was a black man, Lionel Wafer's assistant,
+who carried the salves and medicaments. He took these with him when he
+slunk away, nor did he forget the "Chirurgeon's Gun and all his Money."
+He left poor Wafer destitute there, in the forest, "depriv'd of
+wherewithal to dress my sore."
+
+In the morning, they found that the river had fallen, but not so much as
+they had hoped. It was still too deep to ford, and the current ran very
+swiftly, but Dampier and some other swimmers managed to swim across.
+They then endeavoured to get a line over, by which to ferry the men who
+could not swim, and the arms and powder they had left on the other
+bank. They decided to send a man back with a line, with instructions to
+pass the goods first, and then the men. "One George Gayny took the end
+of a Line and made it fast about his Neck, and left the other end
+ashore, and one Man stood by the Line, to clear it away to him." When
+Gayny was about half way across, the line, which was kinky with the wet,
+got entangled. The man who was lighting it out checked it a moment to
+take out the kink, or to clear it. The check threw Gayny on his back,
+"and he that had the Line in his hand," instead of slacking away, or
+hauling in, so as to bring Gayny ashore, "threw it all into the River
+after him, thinking he might recover himself." The stream was running
+down with great fierceness. Gayny had a bag of 300 dollars on his back,
+and this bag, with the weight of the line, dragged him under. He was
+carried down, and swept out of sight "and never seen more by us." "This
+put a period to that contrivance," adds Dampier grimly.
+
+As they had no wish to emulate poor Gayny, they sought about "for a Tree
+to fell across the River." They cut it down, as soon as they had found
+it, "and it reached clean over." The goods and pirates were then crossed
+in safety. All hands soon forgot poor Gayny, for they came across a
+plantain walk in a clearing, and made a good breakfast, and stripped it
+of every fruit. They dismissed their guide here, with the gift of an axe
+head, and hired an old Indian to guide them farther towards the North
+Sea. The next day they reckoned themselves out of danger, and set forth
+cheerily.
+
+For the last two days Wafer had been in anguish from his burnt knee. As
+the pirates made ready to leave their bivouac, on the tenth morning of
+the march, he declared that he could not "trudge it further through
+Rivers and Woods," with his knee as it was. Two other pirates who were
+broken with the going, declared that they, also, were too tired out to
+march. There was no talk, among the rest of the band, about shooting the
+weary ones, according to the order they had made at starting. Instead of
+"putting them out of their misery," they "took a very kind Leave,"
+giving the broken men such stores as they could spare, and telling them
+to keep in good heart, and follow on when they had rested.
+
+One of Wafer's comrades on this occasion was "Mr Richard Jopson, who had
+served an Apprenticeship to a Druggist in London. He was an ingenious
+Man, and a good Scholar; he had with him a Greek Testament which he
+frequently read, and would translate _extempore_ into _English_, to such
+of the Company as were dispos'd to hear him." The other weary man was
+John Hingson, a mariner. They watched their mates march away through the
+woods, and then turned back, sick at heart, to the shelter of the huts,
+where the Indians looked at them sulkily, and flung them green
+plantains, "as you would Bones to a Dog." One of the Indians made a mess
+of aromatic herbs and dressed Wafer's burn, so that, in three weeks'
+time, he could walk.
+
+Dampier's party marched on through jungle, wading across rivers, which
+took them up to the chest, staggering through swamps and bogs, and
+clambering over rotten tree trunks, and across thorn brakes. They were
+wet and wretched and half starved, for their general food was macaw
+berries. Sometimes they killed a monkey, once Dampier killed a turkey,
+and once they came to a plantain patch where "we fed plentifully on
+plantains, both ripe and green." Their clothes were rotted into shreds,
+their boots were fallen to pieces, their feet were blistered and raw,
+their legs were mere skinless ulcers from the constant soaking. Their
+faces were swelled and bloody from the bites of mosquitoes and
+wood-ticks. "Not a Man of us but wisht the Journey at an End." Those who
+have seen "Bad Lands," or what is called "timber," or what is called
+"bush," will know what the party looked like, when, on the twenty-second
+day, they saw the North Sea. The day after that they reached the Rio
+Conception, and drifted down to the sea in some canoas, to an Indian
+village, built on the beach "for the benefit of Trade with the
+Privateers." About nine miles away, the Indians told them, was a French
+privateer ship, under one Captain Tristian, lying at La Sounds Key. They
+stayed a night at the village, and then went aboard the French ship,
+which was careened in a creek, with a brushwood fire on her side,
+cleaning away her barnacles for a roving cruise. Here they parted with
+their Indian guides, not without sorrow, for it is not pleasant to say
+"So Long" to folk with whom one has struggled, and lived, and suffered.
+"We were resolved to reward them to their hearts' Content," said
+Dampier, much as a cowboy, at the end of the trail, will give sugar to
+his horse, as he bids him good-bye. The pirates spent their silver
+royally, buying red, blue and green beads, and knives, scissors, and
+looking-glasses, from the French pirates. They bought up the entire
+stock of the French ship, but even then they felt that they had not
+rewarded their guides sufficiently. They therefore subscribed a
+half-dollar piece each, in coin, as a sort of makeweight. With the toys,
+and the bags of silver, the delighted Indians passed back to the
+isthmus, where they told golden stories of the kind whites, so that the
+Indians of the Main could not do enough for Wafer, and for the four
+pirates left behind on the march.
+
+Dampier's party had marched in all 110 miles, over the most damnable and
+heart-breaking country which the mind of man can imagine. They had
+marched "heavy," with their guns and bags of dollars; and this in the
+rainy season. They had starved and suffered, and shivered and agonised,
+yet they had lost but two men, poor Gayny, who was drowned, and
+(apparently) one who had slipped away on the third day of the march.
+This man may have been the Spanish Indian. A note in Ringrose's
+narrative alludes to the capture of one of Dampier's party by the
+Spanish soldiers, and this may have been the man meant.
+
+Two days later, when the Indian guides had gone, and the privateer was
+fit for the sea, they set sail for "the rendezvous of the fleet," which
+had been fixed for Springers' Key "another of the Samballoes Isles."
+Perhaps the English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege of
+the guests, aboard ship, to the old anchor tune, with its mournful and
+lovely refrain--
+
+    "I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."
+
+The old band of never-strikes were outward bound on another foray.
+
+As for Wafer, and his two companions, they stayed with the Indians for
+some days, living on plantains (given very grudgingly), and wondering
+whether the Indians would kill them. The natives were kindly, as a rule,
+to the French and English, but it was now the rainy season, when they
+liked to stay in their huts, about their fires. The pirates "had in a
+Manner awed the Indian guides they took ... and made them go with them
+very much against their Wills." The Indians had resented this act of the
+pirates, and as days went by, and the guides did not return, they judged
+that the white men had killed them. They prepared "a great Pile of Wood
+to burn us," says Wafer, meaning to avenge their fellows, whom they "had
+supposed dead." But a friendly old chief dissuaded them from this act, a
+few hours before the intended execution.
+
+While the three were living thus, in doubt whether they would be
+speared, or held as slaves, or sold to the Spaniards, the two pirates,
+Spratlin and Bowman, who had been left behind at the Rio Congo, arrived
+at the village. They had had a terrible journey together, "among the
+wild Woods and Rivers," wandering without guides, and living on roots
+and plantains. On their way, they had come upon George Gayny "lying dead
+in a Creek where the Eddy had driven him ashore," "with the Rope twisted
+about him, and his Money at his Neck." They left the body where it lay,
+with its sack of silver dollars for which the poor man had come so far,
+and suffered so bitterly. They had no use for dollars at that time
+"being only in care how to work their way through a wild un-Known
+Country."
+
+After a time, the Indians helped the five men a two days' march on their
+journey, and then deserted them, leaving them to find the path by
+themselves, with no better guide than a pocket compass. While crossing a
+river by the bole of a fallen tree, the man Bowman "a weakly Man, a
+Taylor by Trade," slipped into the current, and was carried off, with
+"400 Pieces of Eight" in his satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny,
+for he contrived to get out. In time they reached the North Sea, and
+came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy of an Indian wizard.
+Here they found Dampier's sloop, and rejoined their comrades, to the
+great delight of all hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was
+painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part of an Hour,
+before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our Doctor." There was a great
+feast that night at La Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of
+small arms, and a grand ringing of bells in honour of the happy return.
+
+In spite of all they could do, poor Mr Jopson, or Cobson, only lived for
+three or four days after he reached the ship. "His Fatigues, and his
+Drenching in the Water" had been too much for the poor man. He lay
+"languishing" in his cot for a few days, babbling of the drugs of
+Bucklersbury, and thumbing his Greek Testament, and at last passed in
+his checks, quietly and sadly, and "died there at La Sounds Key." They
+buried the poor man in the sands, with very genuine sorrow, and then
+bade the Indians adieu, and gave their dead mate a volley of guns, and
+so set sail, with the colours at half-mast, for "the more Eastern Isles
+of the Samballoes."
+
+As for Captain Bartholomew Sharp, in the ship the _Trinity_, he
+continued to sail the South Seas with the seventy pirates left to him.
+Some days after Dampier's party sailed, he took a Guayaquil ship, called
+the _San Pedro_, which he had taken fourteen months before off Panama.
+Aboard her he found nearly 40,000 pieces of eight, besides silver bars,
+and ingots of gold. He also took a great ship called the _San Rosario_,
+the richest ship the buccaneers ever captured. She had many chests of
+pieces of eight aboard her, and a quantity of wine and brandy. Down in
+her hold, bar upon bar, "were 700 pigs of plate," rough silver from the
+mines, not yet fitted for the Lima mint. The pirates thought that this
+crude silver was tin, and so left it where it lay, in the hold of the
+_Rosario_ "which we turned away loose into the sea," with the stuff
+aboard her. One pig of the 700 was brought aboard the pirates "to make
+bullets of." About two-thirds of it was "melted and squandered," but
+some of it was left long afterwards, when the _Trinity_ touched at
+Antigua. Here they gave what was left to "a Bristol man," probably in
+exchange for a dram of rum. The Bristol man took it home to England "and
+sold it there for £75 sterling." "Thus," said Ringrose, "we parted with
+the richest booty we got in the whole voyage." Captain Bartholomew Sharp
+was responsible for the turning adrift of all this silver. Some of the
+pirates had asked leave to hoist it aboard the _Trinity_. But it chanced
+that, aboard the _Rosario_, was a Spanish lady, "the beautifullest
+Creature" that the "Eyes" of Captain Sharp ever beheld. The amorous
+captain was so inflamed by this beauty that he paid no attention to
+anything else.
+
+In a very drunken and quarrelsome condition, the pirates worked the
+_Trinity_ round the Horn, and so home to Barbadoes. They did not dare to
+land there, for one of the King's frigates, H.M.S. _Richmond_, was lying
+at Bridgetown, and the pirates "feared lest the said frigate should
+seize us." They bore away to Antigua, where Ringrose, and "thirteen
+more," shipped themselves for England. They landed at Dartmouth on the
+26th of March 1682. A few more of the company went ashore at Antigua,
+and scattered to different haunts. Sharp and a number of pirates landed
+at Nevis, from whence they shipped for London. The ship the _Trinity_
+was left to seven of the gang who had diced away all their money. What
+became of her is not known.
+
+Sharp and a number of his men were arrested in London, and tried for
+piracy, but the Spanish Ambassador, who brought the charge, was without
+evidence and could not obtain convictions. They pleaded that "the
+Spaniards fired at us first," and that they had acted only in
+self-defence, so they 'scaped hanging, though Sharp admits that they
+"were very near it." Three more of the crew were laid by the heels at
+Jamaica, and one of these was "wheedled into an open confession," and
+condemned, and hanged. "The other two stood it out, and escaped for want
+of witnesses."
+
+Of the four men so often quoted in this narrative, only one, so far as
+we know, died a violent death. This was Basil Ringrose, who was shot at
+Santa Pecaque a few years later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and
+Sharp died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for many
+years after the _Trinity_ dropped her anchor off Antigua.
+
+They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little
+farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to
+preserve life, "but rather to squander it away"; to fling it, like so
+much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If
+they lived riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they
+lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die for what they
+believed to be worth doing. We think them terrible. Life itself is
+terrible. But life was not terrible to them; for they were comrades; and
+comrades and brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who "live at
+home at ease" may condemn them. They are free to do so. The old
+buccaneers were happier than they. The buccaneers had comrades, and the
+strength to live their own lives. They may laugh at those who, lacking
+that strength, would condemn them with the hate of impotence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+SHIPS AND RIGS
+
+    Galleys--Dromonds--Galliasses--Pinnaces--Pavesses--Top-arming--
+    Banners--Boats
+
+
+Until the reign of Henry VIII. the shipping of these islands was of two
+kinds. There were longships, propelled, for the most part, by oars, and
+used generally as warships; and there were roundships, or dromonds,
+propelled by sails, and used as a rule for the carriage of freight. The
+dromond, in war-time, was sometimes converted into a warship, by the
+addition of fighting-castles fore and aft. The longship, in peace time,
+was no doubt used as a trader, as far as her shallow draught, and small
+beam, allowed.
+
+The longship, or galley, being, essentially, an oar vessel, had to
+fulfil certain simple conditions. She had to be light, or men might not
+row her. She had to be long, or she might not carry enough oarsmen to
+propel her with sufficient swiftness. Her lightness, and lack of
+draught, made it impossible for her to carry much provision; while the
+number of her oars made it necessary for her to carry a large crew of
+rowers, in addition to her soldiers and sail trimmers. It was therefore
+impossible for such a ship to keep the seas for any length of time, even
+had their build fitted them for the buffetings of the stormy home
+waters. For short cruises, coast work, rapid forays, and "shock
+tactics," she was admirable; but she could not stray far from a friendly
+port, nor put out in foul weather. The roundship, dromond, or cargo
+boat, was often little more than two beams long, and therefore far too
+slow to compete with ships of the galley type. She could stand heavy
+weather better than the galley, and she needed fewer hands, and could
+carry more provisions, but she was almost useless as a ship of war.
+
+In the reign of Henry VIII. the shipwrights of this country began to
+build ships which combined something of the strength, and capacity of
+the dromond, with the length and fineness of the galley. The ships they
+evolved were mainly dependent upon their sails, but they carried a bank
+of oars on each side, for use in light weather. The galley, or longship,
+had carried guns on a platform at the bows, pointing forward. But these
+new vessels carried guns in broadside, in addition to the bow-chasers.
+These broadside guns were at first mounted _en barbette_, pointing over
+the bulwarks. Early in the sixteenth century the port-hole, with a
+hinged lid, was invented, and the guns were then pointed through the
+ship's sides. As these ships carried more guns than the galleys, they
+were built more strongly, lest the shock of the explosions should shake
+them to pieces. They were strong enough to keep the seas in bad weather,
+yet they had enough of the galley build to enable them to sail fast when
+the oars were laid inboard. It is thought that they could have made as
+much as four or five knots an hour. These ships were known as
+galliasses,[18] and galleons, according to the proportions between their
+lengths and beams. The galleons were shorter in proportion to their
+breadth than the galliasses.[19] There was another kind of vessel, the
+pinnace, which had an even greater proportionate length than the
+galliasse. Of the three kinds, the galleon, being the shortest in
+proportion to her breadth, was the least fitted for oar propulsion.
+
+[Footnote 18: See Charnock's "Marine Architecture."]
+
+[Footnote 19: See Corbett's "Drake and the Tudor Navy."]
+
+[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON]
+
+During the reign of Elizabeth, the galleon, or great ship, and the
+galliasse, or cruiser, grew to gradual perfection, in the hands of our
+great sailors. If we look upon the galleon or great ship as the
+prototype of the ship of the line, and on the galliasse as the prototype
+of the frigate, and on the pinnace as the prototype of the sloop, or
+corvette, we shall not be far wrong. They were, of course, in many ways
+inferior to the ships which fought in the great French wars, two
+centuries later, but their general appearance was similar. The rig was
+different, but not markedly so, while the hulls of the ships presented
+many points of general likeness. The Elizabethan ships were, however,
+very much smaller than most of the rated ships in use in the eighteenth
+century.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLIASSE]
+
+The galleon, or great ship, at the end of the sixteenth century, was
+sometimes of as much as 900 tons. She was generally low in the waist,
+with a high square forecastle forward, a high quarter-deck, raised above
+the waist, just abaft the main-mast, and a poop above the quarter-deck,
+sloping upward to the taffrail. These high outerworks were shut off from
+the open waist (the space between the main-mast and the forecastle) by
+wooden bulkheads, which were pierced for small, quick-firing guns. Below
+the upper, or spar deck, she had a gun-deck, if not more than one, with
+guns on each side, and right aft. The galliasse was sometimes
+flush-decked, without poop and forecastle, and sometimes built with
+both, but she was never so "high charged" as the galleon. The pinnace
+was as the galliasse, though smaller.
+
+The galleon's waist was often without bulwarks, so that when she went
+into action it became necessary to give her sail trimmers, and spar-deck
+fighting men, some protection from the enemy's shot.[20] Sometimes this
+was done by the hauling up of waist-trees, or spars of rough untrimmed
+timber, to form a sort of wooden wall. Sometimes they rigged what was
+called a top-arming, or top armour, a strip of cloth like the "war
+girdle" of the Norse longships, across the unprotected space. This
+top-arming was of canvas some two bolts deep (3 feet 6 inches), gaily
+painted in designs of red, yellow, green, and white. It gave no
+protection against shot, but it prevented the enemy's gunners from
+taking aim at the deck, or from playing upon the hatchways with their
+murderers and pateraroes. It also kept out boarders, and was a fairly
+good shield to catch the arrows and crossbow bolts shot from the enemy's
+tops. Sometimes the top-arming was of scantling, or thin plank, in which
+case it was called a pavesse. Pavesses were very beautifully painted
+with armorial bearings, arranged in shields, a sort of reminiscence of
+the old Norse custom of hanging the ship's sides with shields. Another
+way was to mask the open space with a ranged hemp cable, which could be
+cleared away after the fight.
+
+[Footnote 20: See Sir W. Monson, "Naval Tracts," and Sir R. Hawkins,
+"Observations," etc.]
+
+The ships were rigged much as they were rigged two centuries later. The
+chief differences were in the rigging of the bowsprit and of the two
+after masts. Forward the ships had bowsprits, on which each set a
+spritsail, from a spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward,
+almost over the spring of the cutwater. Generally, but not always, it
+was made of a single tree (pine or fir). If it was what was known as "a
+made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, different trees,
+judiciously sawn, well seasoned, and then hooped together. Masts were
+pole-masts until early in the reign of Elizabeth, when a fixed topmast
+was added. By Drake's time they had learned that a movable topmast was
+more useful, and less dangerous for ships sailing in these waters. The
+caps and tops were made of elm wood. The sails on the foremast were
+foresail and foretop-sail, the latter much the smaller and less
+important of the two. They were set on wooden yards, the foreyard and
+foretopsail-yard, both of which could be sent on deck in foul weather.
+The main-mast was stepped a little abaft the beam, and carried three
+sails, the main-sail, the main topsail, and a third, the main
+topgallant-sail. This third sail did not set from a yard until many
+years after its introduction. It began life like a modern "moon-raker,"
+a triangular piece of canvas, setting from the truck, or summit of the
+topmast, to the yardarm of the main topsail-yard. Up above it, on a
+bending light pole, fluttered the great colours, a George's cross of
+scarlet on a ground of white. Abaft the main-mast were the mizzen,
+carrying one sail, on a lateen yard, one arm of which nearly touched the
+deck; and the bonaventure mizzen (which we now call the jigger) rigged
+in exactly the same way. Right aft, was a banner pole for the display of
+colours. These masts were stepped, stayed, and supported almost exactly
+as masts are rigged to-day, though where we use iron, and wire, they
+used wood and hemp. The shrouds of the fore and main masts led outboard,
+to "chains" or strong platforms projecting from the ship's sides. These
+"chains" were clamped to the ship's sides with rigid links of iron. The
+shrouds of the after masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On
+each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead, was a
+fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded over. It was a little
+platform, resting on battens, and in ancient times it was circular, with
+a diameter of perhaps six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it,
+inclining outboard, perhaps four feet in height. It was entered by a
+lubber's hole in the flooring, through which the shrouds passed. In each
+top was an arm chest containing Spanish darts, crossbows, longbows,
+arrows, bolts, and perhaps granadoes. When the ship went into battle a
+few picked marksmen were stationed in the tops with orders to search
+the enemy's decks with their missiles, particularly the afterparts,
+where the helmsman stood. In later days the tops were armed with light
+guns, of the sorts known as slings and fowlers; but top-fighting with
+firearms was dangerous, as the gunners carried lighted matches, and
+there was always a risk of sparks, from the match, or from the wads,
+setting fire to the sails. The running rigging was arranged much as
+running rigging is arranged to-day, though its quality, in those times,
+was probably worse than nowadays. The rope appears to have been very
+fickle stuff which carried away under slight provocation. The blocks
+were bad, for the sheaves were made of some comparatively soft wood,
+which swelled, when wet, and jammed. Lignum vitę was not used for
+block-sheaves until after the Dutch War in Cromwell's time. Iron blocks
+were in use in the time of Henry VIII. but only as fair-leads for chain
+topsail sheets, and as snatches for the boarding of the "takkes." The
+shrouds and stays, were of hawser stuff, extremely thick nine-stranded
+hemp; and all those parts exposed to chafing (as from a sail, or a rope)
+were either served, or neatly covered up with matting. The matting was
+made by the sailors, of rope, or white line, plaited curiously. When in
+its place it was neatly painted, or tarred, much as one may see it in
+Norwegian ships at the present day. The yardarms, and possibly the
+chains, were at one time fitted with heavy steel sickles, projecting
+outboard, which were kept sharp, so that, when running alongside an
+enemy, they might cut her rigging to pieces. These sickles were known as
+sheer-hooks. They were probably of little use, for they became obsolete
+before the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON]
+
+Most of the sails used in these old ships were woven in Portsmouth on
+hand-looms. The canvas was probably of good quality, as good perhaps as
+the modern stout No. 1, for hand-woven stuff is always tighter,
+tougher, better put together, than that woven by the big steam-loom.
+It was at one time the custom to decorate the sail, with a design of
+coloured cloth, cut out, as one cuts out a paper pattern, and stitched
+upon its face with sail twine. In the royal ships this design was of
+lions rampant, cut out of scarlet say. The custom of carrying such
+coloured canvas appears to have died out by the end of the sixteenth
+century. Perhaps flag signalling had come into vogue making it necessary
+to abandon anything that might tend to confuse the colours. About the
+same time we abandoned the custom of making our ships gay with little
+flags, of red and white linen, in guidons like those on a trooper's
+lance. All through the Tudor reigns our ships carried them, but for some
+reason the practice was allowed to die out. A last relic of it still
+flutters on blue water in the little ribbons of the wind-vane, on the
+weather side the poop, aboard sailing ships.
+
+The great ship carried three boats, which were stowed on chocks in the
+waist, just forward of the main-mast, one inside the other when not in
+use. The boats were, the long boat, a large, roomy boat with a movable
+mast; the cock, cog or cok boat, sometimes called the galley-watt; and
+the whale, or jolly boat, a sort of small balenger, with an iron-plated
+bow, which rowed fourteen oars. It was the custom to tow one or more of
+these boats astern, when at sea, except in foul weather, much as one may
+see a brig, or a topsail schooner, to-day, with a dinghy dragging
+astern. The boat's coxswain stayed in her as she towed, making her
+clean, fending her off, and looking out for any unfortunate who chanced
+to fall overboard.
+
+    _Authorities._--W. Charnock: "History of Marine Architecture."
+    Julian Corbett: "Drake and the Tudor Navy." A. Jal: "Archeologie
+    Navale"; "Glossaire Nautique." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir H.
+    Nicholas: "History of the Royal Navy." M. Oppenheim: "History of the
+    Administration of the Royal Navy"; "Naval Inventories of the Reign
+    of Henry VII."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GUNS AND GUNNERS
+
+    Breech-loaders--Cartridges--Powder--The gunner's art
+
+
+Cannon were in use in Europe, it is thought, in the eleventh century;
+for the art of making gunpowder came westward, from China, much earlier
+than people have supposed. It is certain that gunpowder was used "in
+missiles," before it was used to propel them. The earliest cannon were
+generally of forged iron built in strips secured by iron rings. They
+were loaded by movable chambers which fitted into the breech, and they
+were known as "crakys of war." We find them on English ships at the end
+of the fourteenth century, in two kinds, the one a cannon proper, the
+other an early version of the harquebus-a-croc. The cannon was a mere
+iron tube, of immense strength, bound with heavy iron rings. The rings
+were shrunken on to the tube in the ordinary way. The tube, when ready,
+was bolted down to a heavy squared beam of timber on the ship's deck. It
+was loaded by the insertion of the "gonne-chambre," an iron pan,
+containing the charge, which fitted into, and closed the breech. This
+gonne-chambre was wedged in firmly by a chock of elm wood beaten in with
+a mallet. Another block of wood, fixed in the deck behind it, kept it
+from flying out with any violence when the shot was fired. Cannon of
+this sort formed the main armament of ships until after the reign of
+Henry the Eighth. They fired stone cannon-balls, "pellettes of lead, and
+dyce of iron." Each gun had some half-dozen chambers, so that the
+firing from them may have been rapid, perhaps three rounds a minute. The
+powder was not kept loose in tubs, near the guns, but neatly folded in
+conical cartridges, made of canvas or paper (or flannel) which practice
+prevailed for many years. All ships of war carried "pycks for hewing
+stone-shott," though after 1490, "the iron shott callyd bowletts," and
+their leaden brothers, came into general use. The guns we have
+described, were generally two or four pounders, using from half-a-pound,
+to a pound and a quarter, of powder, at each discharge. The carriage, or
+bed, on which they lay, was usually fitted with wheels at the rear end
+only.
+
+The other early sea-cannon, which we have mentioned, were also
+breech-loading. They were mounted on a sort of iron wheel, at the summit
+of a stout wooden staff, fixed in the deck, or in the rails of the poop
+and forecastle. They were of small size, and revolved in strong iron
+pivot rings, so that the man firing them might turn them in any
+direction he wished. They were of especial service in sweeping the
+waist, the open spar-deck, between the breaks of poop and forecastle,
+when boarders were on board. They threw "base and bar-shot to murder
+near at hand"; but their usual ball was of stone, and for this reason
+they were called petrieroes, and petrieroes-a-braga. The
+harquebus-a-croc, a weapon almost exactly similar, threw small cross-bar
+shot "to cut Sails and Rigging." In Elizabethan times it was carried in
+the tops of fighting ships, and on the rails and gunwales of
+merchantmen.
+
+In the reign of Henry VIII., a ship called the _Mary Rose_, of 500 tons,
+took part in the battle with the French, in St Helens Roads, off
+Brading. It was a sultry summer day, almost windless, when the action
+began, and the _Mary Rose_ suffered much (being unable to stir) from the
+gun-fire of the French galleys. At noon, when a breeze sprang up, and
+the galleys drew off, the _Mary Rose_ sent her men to dinner. Her lower
+ports, which were cut too low down, were open, and the wind heeled her
+over, so that the sea rushed in to them. She sank in deep water, in a
+few moments, carrying with her her captain, and all the gay company on
+board. In 1836 some divers recovered a few of her cannon, of the kinds
+we have described, some of brass, some of iron. The iron guns had been
+painted red and black. Those of brass, in all probability, had been
+burnished, like so much gold. These relics may be seen by the curious,
+at Woolwich, in the Museum of Ordnance, to which they were presented by
+their salver.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth, cannon were much less primitive, for a great
+advance took place directly men learned the art of casting heavy guns.
+Until 1543, they had forged them; a painful process, necessarily limited
+to small pieces. After that year they cast them round a core, and by
+1588 they had evolved certain general types of ordnance which remained
+in use, in the British Navy, almost unchanged, until after the Crimean
+War. The Elizabethan breech-loaders, and their methods, have now been
+described, but a few words may be added with reference to the
+muzzle-loaders. The charge for these was contained in cartridges,
+covered with canvas, or "paper royall" (_i.e._ parchment), though the
+parchment used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps of it
+remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the weapon had to be
+"wormed," or scraped out, with an instrument like an edged corkscrew. A
+tampion, or wad, of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the
+cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball in place. When
+the gun was loaded the gunner filled the touch-hole with his priming
+powder, from a horn he carried in his belt, after thrusting a sharp
+wire, called the priming-iron, down the touch-hole, through the
+cartridge, so that the priming powder might have direct access to the
+powder of the charge. He then sprinkled a little train of powder along
+the gun, from the touch-hole to the base-ring, for if he applied the
+match directly to the touch-hole the force of the explosion was liable
+to blow his linstock from his hand. In any case the "huff" or "spit" of
+fire, from the touch-hole, burned little holes, like pock-marks, in the
+beams overhead. The match was applied smartly, with a sharp drawing back
+of the hand, the gunner stepping quickly aside to avoid the recoil. He
+stepped back, and stood, on the side of the gun opposite to that on
+which the cartridges were stored, so that there might be no chance of a
+spark from his match setting fire to the ammunition. Spare match, newly
+soaked in saltpetre water, lay coiled in a little tub beside the gun.
+The cartridges, contained in latten buckets, were placed in a barrel by
+the gun and covered over with a skin of leather. The heavy shot were
+arranged in shot racks, known as "gardens," and these were ready to the
+gunner's hand, with "cheeses" of tampions or wads. The wads were made of
+soft wood, oakum, hay, straw, or "other such like." The sponges and
+rammers were hooked to the beams above the gun ready for use. The
+rammers were of hard wood, shod with brass, "to save the Head from
+cleaving." The sponges were of soft fast wood, "As Aspe, Birch, Willow,
+or such like," and had heads covered with "rough Sheepes skinne wooll,"
+nailed to the staff with "Copper nayles." "Ladels," or powder shovels,
+for the loading of guns, were seldom used at sea.
+
+The guns were elevated or depressed by means of handspikes and quoins.
+Quoins were blocks of wood, square, and wedge-shaped, with ring-hooks
+screwed in them for the greater ease of handling. Two of the gun's crew
+raised the base of the cannon upon their handspikes, using the "steps"
+of the gun carriage as their fulcra. A third slid a quoin along the
+"bed" of the carriage, under the gun, to support it at the required
+height. The recoil of the gun on firing, was often very violent, but it
+was limited by the stout rope called the breeching, which ran round the
+base of the gun, from each side of the port-hole, and kept it from
+running back more than its own length. When it had recoiled it was in
+the position for sponging and loading, being kept from running out
+again, with the roll of the ship, by a train, or preventer tackle,
+hooked to a ring-bolt in amidships. In action, particularly in violent
+action, the guns became very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they
+recoiled with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching, or to
+leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass guns were more skittish than
+iron, but all guns needed a rest of two or three hours, if possible,
+after continual firing for more than eight hours at a time. To cool a
+gun in action, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot, John
+Roberts advises sponging "with spunges wet in ley and water, or water
+and vinegar, or with the coolest fresh or salt water, bathing and
+washing her both within and without." This process "if the Service is
+hot, as it was with us at Bargen" should be repeated, "every eighth or
+tenth shot." The powder in use for cannon was called Ordnance or
+Corne-powder. It was made in the following proportion. To every five
+pounds of refined saltpetre, one pound of good willow, or alder,
+charcoal, and one pound of fine yellow sulphur. The ingredients were
+braised together in a mortar, moistened with water distilled of orange
+rinds, or aqua-vitę, and finally dried and sifted. It was a bright,
+"tawny blewish colour" when well made. Fine powder, for muskets or
+priming seems to have had a greater proportion of saltpetre.
+
+The Naval Tracts of Sir W. Monson, contain a list of the sorts of cannon
+mounted in ships of the time of Queen Elizabeth. It is not exhaustive,
+but as Robert Norton and Sir Jonas Moore give similar lists, the curious
+may check the one with the other.
+
+                          Weight  Weight Weight Point             Length
+                    Bore    of      of     of   Blank  Random       in
+                          Cannon   Shot  Powder Range              Feet
+
+                    ins.    lb.     lb.   lb.   paces  paces
+  Cannon Royal or
+  Double Cannon      8½    8000     66     30     800   1930  M.L.    12
+  Cannon or
+  Whole Cannon       8     6000     60     27     770   2000   "      11
+  Cannon Serpentine  7     5500     53½    25     200   2000   "      10
+  Bastard Cannon     7     4500     41½    20     180   1800   "      10
+  Demi-Cannon        6½-7  4000     33½    18     170   1700   "      10
+  Cannon Petro or
+  Cannon Perier      6     4000     24½    14     160   1600   "       4
+  Culverin           5-5½  4500     17½    12     200   2500   "      13
+  Basilisk           5     4000     15     10     230   3000   "       4
+  Demi-Culverin      4     3400      9½     8     200   2500   "      11
+  Bastard Culverin   4     3000      7      5¾    170   1700   "      11
+  Saker              3½    1400      5½     5½    170   1700   " 9 or 10
+  Minion             3½    1000      4      4     170   1700   "       8
+  Falcon             2½     660      3      3     150   1500   "       7
+  Falconet           2      500      1½     1¼    150   1500   "       6½
+  Serpentine         1½     400       ¾      ¾    140   1400   "       4½
+  Rabinet            1      300       ½      ½    120   1000   "       2½
+
+To these may be added bases, port pieces, stock fowlers, slings, half
+slings, and three-quarter slings, breech-loading guns ranging from five
+and a half to one-inch bore.
+
+Other firearms in use in our ships at sea were the matchlock musket,
+firing a heavy double bullet, and the harquabuse[21] or arquebus, which
+fired a single bullet. The musket was a heavy weapon, and needed a rest,
+a forked staff, to support the barrel while the soldier aimed. This
+staff the musketeer lashed to his wrist, with a cord, so that he might
+drag it after him from place to place. The musket was fired with a
+match, which the soldier lit from a cumbrous pocket fire-carrier. The
+harquabuse was a lighter gun, which was fired without a rest, either by
+a wheel-lock (in which a cog-wheel, running on pyrites, caused sparks to
+ignite the powder), or by the match and touch-hole. Hand firearms were
+then common enough, and came to us from Italy, shortly after 1540. They
+were called Daggs. They were wheel-locks, wild in firing, short, heavy,
+and beautifully wrought. Sometimes they carried more than one barrel,
+and in some cases they were made revolving. They were most useful in a
+hand-to-hand encounter, as with footpads, or boarders; but they were
+useless at more than ten paces. A variation from them was the
+hand-cannon or blunderbuss, with a bell-muzzle, which threw rough slugs
+or nails. In Elizabethan ships the musketeers sometimes fired short,
+heavy, long-headed, pointed iron arrows from their muskets, a missile
+which flew very straight, and penetrated good steel armour. They had
+also an infinity of subtle fireworks, granadoes and the like, with which
+to set their opponents on fire. These they fired from the bombard
+pieces, or threw from the tops, or cage-works. Crossbows and longbows
+went to sea, with good store of Spanish bolts and arrows, until the end
+of Elizabeth's reign, though they were, perhaps, little used after 1590.
+The gunner had charge of them, and as, in a way, the gunner was a sort
+of second captain, sometimes taking command of the ship, we cannot do
+better than to quote from certain old books concerning his duties on
+board. Mr W. Bourne, the son of an eminent mathematician, has left a
+curious little book on "The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance," first
+published in London, in 1587, the year before the Armada. Its author, W.
+Bourne, was at one time a gunner of the bulwark at Gravesend. The art of
+shooting in great guns did not improve very much during the century
+following; nor did the guns change materially. The breech-loading,
+quick-firing guns fell out of use as the musket became more handy; but
+otherwise the province of the gunner changed hardly at all. It is not
+too much to say that gunners of Nelson's time, might have studied some
+of Bourne's book with profit.
+
+[Footnote 21: or caliver.]
+
+"As for gunners that do serve by the Sea, [they] must observe this order
+following. First that they do foresee that all their great Ordnannce be
+fast breeched, and foresee that all their geare be handsome and in a
+readinesse. & Furthermore that they be very circumspect about their
+Pouder in the time of service, and especially beware of their lint
+stockes & candels for feare of their Pouder, & their fireworks, & their
+Ducum [or priming powder], which is very daungerous, and much to be
+feared. Then furthermore, that you do keep your peeces as neer as you
+can, dry within, and also that you keep their tutch-holes cleane,
+without any kind of drosse falling into them."
+
+The gunners were also to know the "perfect dispart" of their pieces:
+that is they were to make a calculation which would enable them in
+sighting, to bring "the hollow of the peece," not the outer muzzle rim,
+"right against the marke." In the case of a breech-loader this could not
+be done by art, with any great exactness, "but any reasonable man (when
+he doth see the peece and the Chamber) may easily know what he must doe,
+as touching those matters." In fighting at sea, in anything like a
+storm, with green seas running, so that "the Shippes do both heave and
+set" the gunner was to choose a gun abaft the main-mast, on the lower
+orlop, "if the shippe may keepe the porte open," as in that part of the
+vessel the motion would be least apparent.
+
+"Then if you doe make a shotte at another Shippe, you must be sure to
+have a good helme-man, that can stirre [steer] steady, taking some marke
+of a Cloude that is above by the Horizon, or by the shadowe of the
+Sunne, or by your standing still, take some marke of the other shippe
+through some hole, or any such other like. Then he that giveth levell
+[takes aim] must observe this: first consider what disparte his piece
+must have, then lay the peece directly with that parte of the Shippe
+that he doth meane to shoote at: then if the Shippe bee under the lee
+side of your Shippe, shoote your peece in the comming downe of the
+Gayle, and the beginning of the other Ship to rise upon the Sea, as near
+as you can, for this cause, for when the other shippe is aloft upon the
+Sea, and shee under your Lee, the Gayle maketh her for to head, and then
+it is likest to do much good."
+
+The helmsman also was to have an eye to the enemy, to luff when she
+luffed, and "putte roomer," or sail large, when he saw her helmsman put
+the helm up. If the enemy made signs that she was about to lay the ship
+aboard, either by loosing more sail, or altering her course, the gunner
+had to remember certain things.
+
+"If the one doe meane to lay the other aboorde, then they do call up
+their company either for to enter or to defend: and first, if that they
+doe meane for to enter ... then marke where that you doe see anye
+Scottles for to come uppe at, as they will stande neere thereaboutes, to
+the intente for to be readie, for to come uppe under the Scottles: there
+give levell with your Fowlers, or Slinges, or Bases, for there you shall
+be sure to do moste good, then further more, if you doe meane for to
+enter him, then give level with your fowlers and Port peeces, where you
+doe see his chiefest fight of his Shippe is, and especially be sure to
+have them charged, and to shoote them off at the first boording of the
+Shippes, for then you shall be sure to speede. And furthermore, mark
+where his men have most recourse, then discharge your Fowlers and Bases.
+And furthermore for the annoyance of your enemie, if that at the
+boording that the Shippes lye therefore you may take away their
+steeradge with one of your great peeces, that is to shoote at his
+Rother, and furthermore at his mayne maste and so foorth."
+
+The ordering of cannon on board a ship was a matter which demanded a
+nice care. The gunner had to see that the carriages were so made as to
+allow the guns to lie in the middle of the port. The carriage wheels, or
+trocks, were not to be too high, for if they were too high they hindered
+the mariners, when they ran the cannon out in action (_Norton_, _Moore_,
+_Bourne_, _Monson_). Moreover, if the wheels were very large, and the
+ship were heeled over, the wheel rims would grind the ship's side
+continually, unless large skids were fitted to them. And if the wheels
+were large they gave a greater fierceness to the impetus of the recoil,
+when the piece was fired. The ports were to be rather "deepe uppe and
+downe" than broad in the traverse, and it was very necessary that the
+lower port-sill should not be too far from the deck, "for then the
+carriage muste bee made verye hygh, and that is verye evill" (_Bourne_).
+The short cannon were placed low down, at the ship's side, because short
+cannon were more easily run in, and secured, when the ports were closed,
+owing to the ship's heeling, or the rising of the sea. A short gun,
+projecting its muzzle through the port, was also less likely to catch
+the outboard tackling of the sails, such as "Sheetes and Tackes, or the
+Bolynes." And for these reasons any very long guns were placed astern,
+or far forward, as bow, or stern chasers. It was very necessary that the
+guns placed at the stern should be long guns, for the tall poops of the
+galleons overhung the sea considerably. If the gun, fired below the
+overhang, did not project beyond the woodwork, it was liable to "blowe
+up the Counter of the Shyppes Sterne," to the great detriment of gilt
+and paint. Some ships cut their stern ports down to the deck, and
+continued the deck outboard, by a projecting platform. The guns were run
+out on to this platform, so that the muzzles cleared the overhang. These
+platforms were the originals of the quarter-galleries, in which, some
+centuries later, the gold-laced admirals took the air (_Bourne_).
+
+Sir Jonas Moore, who published a translation of Moretti's book on
+artillery, in 1683, added to his chapters some matter relating to
+sea-gunners, from the French of Denis Furnier.
+
+"The Gunner, whom they call in the _Straights Captain_,
+_Master-Canoneer_, and in _Bretagne_ and _Spain_, and in other places
+_Connestable_, is one of the principal Officers in the Ship; it is he
+alone with the Captain who can command the Gunners. He ought to be a man
+of courage, experience, and vigilant, who knows the goodness of a Peece
+of Ordnance, the force of Powder, and who also knows how to mount a
+Peece of Ordnance upon its carriage, and to furnish it with Bolts,
+Plates, Hooks, Capsquares [to fit over the Trunnions on which the gun
+rested] Axletrees and Trucks, and that may not reverse too much; to
+order well its Cordage as Breeching [which stopped the recoil] and
+Tackling [by which it was run out or in]; to plant the Cannon to purpose
+in the middle of its Port; to know how to unclow[22] it [cast it loose
+for action], make ready his Cartridges, and to have them ready to pass
+from hand to hand through the Hatches, and to employ his most careful
+men in that affair; that he have care of all, that, he be ready
+everywhere to assist where necessity shall be; and take care that all be
+made to purpose.
+
+[Footnote 22: This word unclow may be a misprint for uncloy. To uncloy
+was to get rid of the spike, or soft metal nail, thrust into a piece's
+touch-hole by an enemy. It was done by oiling the spike all over, so as
+to make it "glib," and then blowing it out, from within, by a train of
+powder.]
+
+"He and his Companions [the gunner's mates] ought with their dark
+Lanthornes continually to see if the Guns play, and if the Rings in
+Ships do not shake." (That is, a strict watch was to be kept, at night,
+when at sea in stormy weather, to see that the cannon did not work or
+break loose, and that the ring-bolts remained firm in their places.)
+
+"If there be necessity of more Cordage, and to see that the Beds and
+Coins be firm and in good order; when the Ship comes to Anker, he
+furnisheth Cordage, and takes care that all his Companions take their
+turn [stand their watch] and quarters, that continually every evening
+they renew their priming Powder [a horn of fine dry powder poured into
+the touch-holes of loaded cannon, to communicate the fire to the
+charge], and all are obliged to visit their Cannon Powder every eight
+dayes, to see if it hath not receiv'd wet, although they be well stopped
+a top with Cork and Tallow; to see that the Powder-Room be kept neat and
+clean, and the Cartridges ranged in good order, each nature or Calibre
+by itself, and marked above in great Letters the weight of the Powder
+and nature of the Peece to which it belongs, and to put the same mark
+over the Port-hole of the Peece; that the Linstocks [_or forked staves
+of wood, about two and a half feet long, on which the match was
+carried_] be ready, and furnished with Match [_or cotton thread, boiled
+in ashes-lye and powder, and kept smouldering, with a red end, when in
+use_], and to have alwaies one lighted, and where the Cannoneer makes
+his Quarter to have two one above another below [_this last passage is a
+little obscure, but we take it to mean that at night, when the gunner
+slept in his cabin, a lighted match was to be beside him, but that in
+the gun-decks below and above his cabin (which was in the half-deck) lit
+matches were to be kept ready for immediate use, by those who kept
+watch_], that his Granadoes [_black clay, or thick glass bottles,
+filled with priming powder, and fired by a length of tow, well soaked in
+saltpetre water_] and Firepots [_balls of hard tar, sulphur-meal and
+rosin, kneaded together and fired by a priming of bruised powder_] be in
+readiness, and 3 or 400 Cartridges ready fill'd, Extrees [?] and Trucks
+[_wheels_] to turn often over the Powder Barrels that the Powder do not
+spoil; to have a care of Rings [_ring-bolts_] and of the Ports [he here
+means port-lids] that they have their Pins and small Rings."
+
+Sir William Monson adds that the gunner was to acquaint himself with the
+capacities of every known sort of firearm, likely to be used at sea. He
+also gives some professional hints for the guidance of gunners. He tells
+us (and Sir Richard Hawkins confirms him) that no sea-cannon ought to be
+more than seven or eight feet long; that they ought not to be
+taper-bored, nor honey-combed within the bore, and that English
+ordnance, the best in Europe, was sold in his day for twelve pounds a
+ton.
+
+In Boteler's time the gunner commanded a gang, or crew, who ate and
+slept in the gun-room, which seems in those days to have been the
+magazine. He had to keep a careful account of the expenditure of his
+munitions, and had orders "not to make any shot without the Knowledge
+and order of the captain."
+
+    _Authorities._--N. Boteler: "Six Dialogues." W. Bourne: "The Art of
+    Shooting in Great Ordnance"; "Regiment for the Sea"; "Mariner's
+    Guide." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir Jonas Moore. R. Norton:
+    "The Gunner." John Roberts: "Complete Cannoneer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SHIP'S COMPANY
+
+    Captain--Master--Lieutenant--Warrant officers--Duties and privileges
+
+
+By comparing Sir Richard Hawkins' "Observations" and Sir W. Monson's
+"Tracts" with Nicolas Boteler's "Dialogical Discourses," we find that
+the duties of ship's officers changed hardly at all from the time of the
+Armada to the death of James I. Indeed they changed hardly at all until
+the coming of the steamship. In modern sailing ships the duties of some
+of the supernumeraries are almost exactly as they were three centuries
+ago.
+
+The captain was the supreme head of the ship, empowered to displace any
+inferior officer except the master (_Monson_). He was not always
+competent to navigate (_ibid._), but as a rule he had sufficient science
+to check the master's calculations. He was expected to choose his own
+lieutenant (_ibid._), to keep a muster-book, and a careful account of
+the petty officer's stores (_Monson_ and _Sir Richard Hawkins_), and to
+punish any offences committed by his subordinates.
+
+A lieutenant seems to have been unknown in ships of war until the early
+seventeenth century. He ranked above the master, and acted as the
+captain's proxy, or ambassador, "upon any occasion of Service"
+(_Monson_). In battle he commanded on the forecastle, and in the forward
+half of the ship. He was restrained from meddling with the master's
+duties, lest "Mischiefs and factions" should ensue. Boteler adds that a
+lieutenant ought not to be "too fierce in his Way at first ... but to
+carry himself with Moderation and Respect to the Master Gunner,
+Boatswain, and the other Officers."
+
+The master was the ship's navigator, responsible for the performance of
+"the ordinary Labours in the ship." He took the height of the sun or
+stars "with his Astrolabe, Backstaff or Jacob's-staff" (_Boteler_). He
+saw that the watches were kept at work, and had authority to punish
+misdemeanants (_Monson_). Before he could hope for employment he had to
+go before the authorities at Trinity House, to show his "sufficiency" in
+the sea arts (_Monson_).
+
+The pilot, or coaster, was junior to the master; but when he was
+bringing the vessel into port, or over sands, or out of danger, the
+master had no authority to interfere with him (_Monson_). He was
+sometimes a permanent official, acting as junior navigator when the ship
+was out of soundings (_Hawkins_), but more generally he was employed
+temporarily, as at present, to bring a ship into or out of port
+(_Monson_ and _Boteler_).
+
+The ship's company was drilled by a sort of junior lieutenant
+(_Boteler_), known as the corporal, who was something between a
+master-at-arms and a captain of marines. He had charge of the small
+arms, and had to see to it that the bandoliers for the musketmen were
+always filled with dry cartridges, and that the muskets and "matches"
+were kept neat and ready for use in the armoury (_Monson_). He drilled
+the men in the use of their small arms, and also acted as muster master
+at the setting and relieving of the watch.
+
+The gunner, whose duties we have described at length, was privileged to
+alter the ship's course in action, and may even have taken command
+during a chase, or running fight. He was assisted by his mates, who
+commanded the various batteries while in action, and aimed and fired
+according to his directions.
+
+The boatswain, the chief seaman of the crew, was generally an old sailor
+who had been much at sea, and knew the whole art of seamanship. He had
+charge of all the sea-stores, and "all the Ropes belonging to the
+Rigging [more especially the fore-rigging], all her Cables, and Anchors;
+all her Sayls, all her Flags, Colours, and Pendants;[23] and so to stand
+answerable for them" (_Boteler_). He was captain of the long boat, which
+was stowed on the booms or spare spars between the fore and main masts.
+He had to keep her guns clean, her oars, mast, sails, stores, and water
+ready for use, and was at all times to command and steer her when she
+left the ship (_Hawkins_). He carried a silver whistle, or call, about
+his neck, which he piped in various measures before repeating the
+master's orders (_Monson_). The whistle had a ball at one end, and was
+made curved, like a letter S laid sideways. The boatswain, when he had
+summoned all hands to their duty, was expected to see that they worked
+well. He kept them quiet, and "at peace one with another," probably by
+knocking together the heads of those disposed to quarrel. Lastly, he was
+the ship's executioner, his mates acting as assistants, and at his
+hands, under the supervision of the marshal, the crew received their
+"red-checked shirts," and such bilboed solitude as the captain might
+direct.
+
+[Footnote 23: He had to hang out the ship's colours on going into action
+(_Monson_).]
+
+The coxswain was the commander of the captain's row barge which he had
+to keep clean, freshly painted and gilded, and fitted with the red and
+white flag--"and when either the Captain or any Person of Fashion is to
+use the Boat, or be carryed too and again from the Ship, he is to have
+the Boat trimmed with her Cushions and Carpet and himself is to be ready
+to steer her out of her Stern [in the narrow space behind the back board
+of the stern-sheets] and with his Whistle to chear up and direct his
+Gang of Rowers, and to keep them together when they are to wait: and
+this is the lowest Officer in a Ship, that is allowed to carry a
+Whistle" (_Boteler_). The coxswain had to stay in his barge when she
+towed astern at sea, and his office, therefore, was often very wretched,
+from the cold and wet. He had to see that his boat's crew were at all
+times clean in their persons, and dressed alike, in as fine a livery as
+could be managed (_Monson_). He was to choose them from the best men in
+the ship, from the "able and handsome men" (_Monson_). He had to
+instruct them to row together, and to accustom the port oarsmen to pull
+starboard from time to time. He also kept his command well caulked, and
+saw the chocks and skids secure when his boat was hoisted to the deck.
+
+The quartermasters and their mates had charge of the hold (_Monson_),
+and kept a sort of check upon the steward in his "delivery of the
+Victuals to the Cook, and in his pumping and drawing of the Beer"
+(_Boteler_). In far later times they seem to have been a rating of
+elderly and sober seamen who took the helm, two and two together, in
+addition to their other duties. In the Elizabethan ship they
+superintended the stowage of the ballast, and were in charge below, over
+the ballast shifters, when the ships were laid on their sides to be
+scraped and tallowed. They also had to keep a variety of fish hooks
+ready, in order to catch any fish, such as sharks or bonitos.
+
+The purser was expected to be "an able Clerk" (_Monson_) for he had to
+keep an account of all provisions received from the victualler. He kept
+the ship's muster-book, with some account of every man borne upon it. He
+made out passes, or pay-tickets for discharged men (_ibid._), and,
+according to _Boteler_, he was able "to purse up roundly for himself" by
+dishonest dealing. The purser (_Boteler_ says the cook) received 6d. a
+month from every seaman, for "Wooden Dishes, Cans, Candles, Lanthorns,
+and Candlesticks for the Hold" (_Monson_). It was also his office to
+superintend the steward, in the serving out of the provisions and other
+necessaries to the crew.
+
+The steward was the purser's deputy (_Monson_). He had to receive "the
+full Mass of Victual of all kinds," and see it well stowed in the hold,
+the heavy things below, the light things up above (_Boteler_). He had
+charge of all the candles, of which those old dark ships used a
+prodigious number. He kept the ship's biscuits or bread, in the
+bread-room, a sort of dark cabin below the gun-deck. He lived a life of
+comparative retirement, for there was a "several part in the Hold, which
+is called the Steward's room, where also he Sleeps and Eats"
+(_Boteler_). He weighed out the provisions for the crew, "to the several
+Messes in the Ship," and was cursed, no doubt, by every mariner, for a
+cheating rogue in league with the purser. Though Hawkins tells us that
+it was his duty "with discretion and good tearmes to give satisfaction
+to all."
+
+The cook did his office in a cook-room, or galley, placed in the
+forecastle or "in the Hatchway upon the first Orlope" (_Boteler_). The
+floor of the galley was not at that time paved with brick or stone, as
+in later days, and now. It was therefore very liable to take fire,
+especially in foul weather, when the red embers were shaken from the
+ash-box of the range. It was the cook's duty to take the provisions from
+the steward, both flesh and fish, and to cook them, by boiling, until
+they were taken from him (_Monson_). It was the cook's duty to steep the
+salt meat in water for some days before using, as the meat was thus
+rendered tender and fit for human food (_Smith_). He had the rich
+perquisite of the ship's fat, which went into his slush tubs, to bring
+him money from the candlemakers. The firewood he used was generally
+green, if not wet, so that when he lit his fire of a morning, he
+fumigated the fo'c's'le with bitter smoke. It was his duty to pour water
+on his fire as soon as the guns were cast loose for battle. Every day,
+for the saving of firewood, and for safety, he had to extinguish his
+fire directly the dinner had been cooked, nor was he allowed to relight
+it, "but in case of necessity, as ... when the Cockswain's Gang came wet
+aboard" (_Monson_). He would allow his cronies in the forenoons to dry
+their wet gear at his fire, and perhaps allow them, in exchange for a
+bite or sup, to cook any fish they caught, or heat a can of drink.
+
+Another supernumerary was the joiner, a rating only carried in the
+seventeenth century on great ships with much fancy work about the poop.
+He it was who repaired the gilt carvings in the stern-works, and made
+the bulkheads for the admiral's cabin. He was a decorator and
+beautifier, not unlike the modern painter, but he was to be ready at all
+times to knock up lockers for the crew, to make boxes and chests for the
+gunner, and bulkheads, of thin wood, to replace those broken by the
+seas. As a rule the work of the joiner was done by the carpenter, a much
+more important person, who commanded some ten or twelve junior workmen.
+The carpenter was trusted with the pumps, both hand and chain, and with
+the repairing of the woodwork throughout the vessel. He had to be
+super-excellent in his profession, for a wooden ship was certain to tax
+his powers. She was always out of repair, always leaking, always
+springing her spars. In the summer months, if she were not being
+battered by the sea, she was getting her timber split by cannon-shot. In
+the winter months, when laid up and dismantled in the dockyard, she was
+certain to need new planks, beams, inner fittings and spars (_Hawkins_).
+The carpenter had to do everything for her, often with grossly
+insufficient means, and it was of paramount importance that his
+work-room in the orlop should be fitted with an excellent tool chest. He
+had to provide the "spare Pieces of Timber wherewith to make Fishes, for
+to strengthen and succour the Masts." He had to superintend the purchase
+of a number of spare yards, already tapered, and bound with iron, to
+replace those that "should chance to be broken." He was to see these
+lashed to the ship's sides, within board, or stopped in the rigging
+(_Monson_ and _Boteler_). He had to have all manner of gudgeons for the
+rudder, every sort of nuts or washers for the pumps, and an infinity of
+oakum, sheet lead, soft wood, spare canvas, tallow, and the like, with
+which to stop leaks, or to caulk the seams. In his stores he took large
+quantities of lime, horse hair, alum, and thin felt with which to wash
+and sheathe the ship's bottom planking (_Monson_). The alum was often
+dissolved in water, and splashed over spars and sails, before a battle,
+as it was supposed to render them non-inflammable. It was his duty,
+moreover, to locate leaks, either by observing the indraught (which was
+a tedious way), or by placing his ear to a little earthen pot inverted
+against one of the planks in the hold. This little pot caused him to
+hear the water as it gurgled in, and by moving it to and fro he could
+locate the hole with considerable certainty (_Boteler_). He had to rig
+the pumps for the sailors, and to report to the captain the depth of
+water the ship made daily. The pumps were of two kinds, one exactly like
+that in use on shore, the other, of the same principle, though more
+powerful. The second kind was called the chain-pump, because "these
+Pumps have a Chain of Burs going in a Wheel." They were worked with long
+handles, called brakes (because they broke sailor's hearts), and some
+ten men might pump at one spell. The water was discharged on to the
+deck, which was slightly rounded, so that it ran to the ship's side,
+into a graved channel called the trough, or scuppers, from which it
+fell overboard through the scupper-holes, bored through the ship's side.
+These scupper-holes were bored by the carpenter. They slanted obliquely
+downwards and were closed outside by a hinged flap of leather, which
+opened to allow water to escape, and closed to prevent water from
+entering (_Maynwaring_). Each deck had a number of scupper-holes, but
+they were all of small size. There was nothing to take the place of the
+big swinging-ports fitted to modern iron sailing ships, to allow the
+green seas to run overboard.
+
+The cooper was another important supernumerary. He had to oversee the
+stowing of all the casks, and to make, or repair, or rehoop, such casks
+as had to be made or repaired. He had to have a special eye to the great
+water casks, that they did not leak; binding them securely with iron
+hoops, and stowing them with dunnage, so that they might not shift. He
+was put in charge of watering parties, to see the casks filled at the
+springs, to fit them, when full, with their bungs, and to superintend
+their embarkation and stowage (_Monson_ and _Boteler_).
+
+The trumpeter was an attendant upon the captain, and had to sound his
+silver trumpet when that great man entered or left the ship (_Monson_).
+"Also when you hale a ship, when you charge, board, or enter her; and
+the Poop is his place to stand or sit upon." If the ship carried a
+"noise," that is a band, "they are to attend him, if there be not, every
+one he doth teach to bear a part, the Captain is to encourage him, by
+increasing his Shares, or pay, and give the Master Trumpeter a reward."
+When a prince, or an admiral, came on board, the trumpeter put on a
+tabard, of brilliant colours, and hung his silver instrument with a
+heavy cloth of the same. He was to blow a blast from the time the
+visitor was sighted until his barge came within 100 fathoms of the ship.
+"At what time the Trumpets are to cease, and all such as carry Whistles
+are to Whistle his Welcome three several times." As the gilt and
+gorgeous row boat drew alongside, the trumpets sounded a point of
+welcome, and had then to stand about the cabin door, playing their best,
+while the great man ate his sweetmeats. As he rowed away again, the
+trumpeter, standing on the poop, blew out "A loath to depart," a sort of
+ancient "good-bye, fare you well," such as sailors sing nowadays as they
+get their anchors for home. In battle the trumpeter stood upon the poop,
+dressed in his glory, blowing brave blasts to hearten up the gunners. In
+hailing a friendly ship, in any meeting on the seas, it was customary to
+"salute with Whistles and Trumpets, and the Ship's Company give a
+general shout on both sides." When the anchor was weighed, the trumpeter
+sounded a merry music, to cheer the workers. At dinner each night he
+played in the great cabin, while the captain drank his wine. At the
+setting and discharging of the watch he had to sound a solemn point, for
+which duty he received an extra can of beer (_Monson_ and _Boteler_).
+
+The crew, or mariners, were divided into able seamen, ordinary seamen,
+grummets, or cabin-boys, ship-boys and swabbers. Swabbers were the
+weakest men of the crew; men, who were useless aloft, or at the guns,
+and therefore set to menial and dirty duties. They were the ship's
+scavengers, and had much uncleanly business to see to. Linschoten,
+describing a Portuguese ship's company, dismisses them with three
+contemptuous words, "the swabers pump"; but alas, that was but the first
+duty of your true swabber. Boteler, writing in the reign of James I.,
+gives him more than half-a-page, as follows:--
+
+"The Office of the Swabber is to see the Ship Kept neat and clean, and
+that as well in the great Cabbin as everywhere else betwixt the Decks;
+to which end he is, at the least once or twice a week, if not every day,
+to cause the Ship to be well washed within Board and without above
+Water, and especially about the Gunwalls [Gunwales or gunnels, over
+which the guns once pointed] and the Chains and for prevention of
+Infection, to burn sometimes Pitch, or the like wholsom perfumes,
+between the Decks: He is also to have a regard to every private Man's
+Sleeping-place; (to clean the cabins of the petty officers in the nether
+orlop), and to admonish them all in general [it being dangerous perhaps,
+in a poor swabber, to admonish in particular] to be cleanly and handsom,
+and to complain to the Captain, of all such as will be any way nastie
+and offensive that way. Surely, if this Swabber doth thoroughly take
+care to discharge this his charge I easily believe that he may have his
+hands full, and especially if there chance to be any number of Landmen
+aboard."
+
+Under the swabber there was a temporary rate known as the liar. He had
+to keep the ship clean "without board," in the head, chains, and
+elsewhere. He held his place but for a week. "He that is first taken
+with a Lie upon a _Monday_ morning, is proclaimed at the Main-Mast with
+a general Crie, _a Liar, a Liar, a Liar_, and for that week he is under
+the Swabber" (_Monson_).
+
+The able seamen, or oldest and most experienced hands, did duty about
+the decks and guns, in the setting up and preservation of the rigging,
+and in the trimming of the braces, sheets, and bowlines. The ordinary
+seamen, younkers, grummets, and ship-boys, did the work aloft, furled
+and loosed the sails, and did the ordinary, never-ceasing work of
+sailors. They stood "watch and watch" unless the weather made it
+necessary for all to be on deck, and frequently they passed four hours
+of each day in pumping the leakage from the well. They wore no uniform,
+but perhaps some captains gave a certain uniformity to the clothes of
+their crews by taking slop chests to sea, and selling clothes of similar
+patterns to the seamen. In the navy, where the crews were pressed, the
+clothes worn must have been of every known cut and fashion, though no
+doubt all the pressed men contrived to get tarred canvas coats before
+they had been many days aboard.
+
+The bodies and souls of the seamen were looked after; a chaplain being
+carried for the one, and a chirurgeon, or doctor, for the other. The
+chaplain had to read prayers twice or thrice daily, to the whole ship's
+company, who stood or knelt reverently as he read. He had to lead in the
+nightly psalms, to reprove all evil-doers, and to exhort the men to
+their duty. Especially was he to repress all blasphemy and swearing. He
+was to celebrate the Holy Communion whenever it was most convenient. He
+was to preach on Sunday, to visit the sick; and, in battle, to console
+the wounded. Admirals, and peers in command of ships, had the privilege
+of bringing to sea their own private chaplains.
+
+The chirurgeon had to bring on board his own instruments and medicines,
+and to keep them ready to hand in his cabin beneath the gun-deck, out of
+all possible reach of shot. He was expected to know his business, and to
+know the remedies for those ailments peculiar to the lands for which the
+ship intended. He had to produce a certificate from "able men of his
+profession," to show that he was fit to be employed. An assistant, or
+servant, was allowed him, and neither he, nor his servant did any duty
+outside the chirurgeon's province (_Monson_).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE CHOOSING OF WATCHES
+
+    The petty tally--Food--Work--Punishments
+
+
+As soon as an ancient ship of war was fitted for the sea, with her guns
+on board, and mounted, her sails bent, her stores and powder in the
+hold, her water filled, her ballast trimmed, and the hands aboard, some
+"steep-tubs" were placed in the chains for the steeping of the salt
+provisions, "till the salt be out though not the saltness." The anchor
+was then weighed to a note of music. The "weeping Rachells and
+mournefull Niobes" were set packing ashore. The colours were run up and
+a gun fired. The foresail was loosed. The cable rubbed down as it came
+aboard (so that it might not be faked into the tiers wet or dirty). The
+boat was hoisted inboard. The master "took his departure," by observing
+the bearing of some particular point of land, as the Mew Stone, the
+Start, the Lizard, etc. Every man was bidden to "say his private prayer
+for a bonne voyage." The anchor was catted and fished. Sails were set
+and trimmed. Ropes were coiled down clear for running, and the course
+laid by the master.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS
+    CIRCA 1630]
+
+The captain or master then ordered the boatswain "to call up the
+company," just as all hands are mustered on modern sailing ships at the
+beginning of a voyage. The master "being Chief of the Starboard Watch"
+would then look over the mariners for a likely man. Having made his
+choice he bade the man selected go over to the starboard side, while the
+commander of the port-watch made his choice. When all the men had
+been chosen, and the crew "divided into two parts," then each man was
+bidden to choose "his Mate, Consort or Comrade." The bedding
+arrangements of these old ships were very primitive. The officers had
+their bunks or hammocks in their cabins, but the men seem to have slept
+wherever and however they could. Some, no doubt had hammocks, but the
+greater number lay in their cloaks between the guns, on mattresses if
+they had them. A man shared his bed and bedding (if he had any) with his
+"Mate, Consort, or Comrade," so that the one bed and bedding served for
+the pair. One of the two friends was always on deck while the other
+slept. In some ships at the present time the forecastles are fitted with
+bunks for only half the number of seamen carried, so that the practice
+is not yet dead. The boatswain, with all "the Younkers or Common
+Sailors" then went forward of the main-mast to take up their quarters
+between decks. The captain, master's mates, gunners, carpenters,
+quartermasters, etc., lodged abaft the main-mast "in their severall
+Cabbins." The next thing to be done was the arrangement of the ship's
+company into messes, "four to a mess," after which the custom was to
+"give every messe a quarter Can of beere and a bisket of bread to stay
+their stomacks till the kettle be boiled." In the first dog-watch, from
+4 to 6 P.M., all hands went to prayers about the main-mast, and from
+their devotions to supper. At 6 P.M. the company met again to sing a
+psalm, and say their prayers, before the setting of the night watch;
+this psalm singing being the prototype of the modern sea-concert, or
+singsong. At 8 P.M. the first night watch began, lasting until midnight,
+during which four hours half the ship's company were free to sleep. At
+midnight the sleepers were called on deck, to relieve the watch. The
+watches were changed as soon as the muster had been called and a psalm
+sung, and a prayer offered. They alternated thus throughout the
+twenty-four hours, each watch having four hours below, after four hours
+on deck, unless "some flaw of winde come, some storm or gust, or some
+accident that requires the help of all hands." In these cases the whole
+ship's company remained on deck until the work was done, or until the
+master discharged the watch below.[24] The decks were washed down by the
+swabbers every morning, before the company went to breakfast. After
+breakfast the men went about their ordinary duties, cleaning the ship,
+mending rigging, or working at the thousand odd jobs the sailing of a
+ship entails. The tops were always manned by lookouts, who received some
+small reward if they spied a prize. The guns were sometimes exercised,
+and all hands trained to general quarters.
+
+[Footnote 24: See "The Sea-man's Grammar," by Captain John Smith.]
+
+A few captains made an effort to provide for the comfort of their men by
+laying in a supply of "bedding, linnen, arms[25] and apparel." In some
+cases they also provided what was called the petty tally, or store of
+medical comforts. "The Sea-man's Grammar" of Captain John Smith, from
+which we have been quoting, tells us that the petty tally contained:
+
+[Footnote 25: The men were expected to bring their own swords and
+knives.]
+
+"Fine wheat flower close and well-packed, Rice, Currants, Sugar, Prunes,
+Cynamon, Ginger, Pepper, Cloves, Green Ginger, Oil, Butter, Holland
+cheese or old Cheese, Wine-Vinegar, Canarie-Sack, Aqua-vitę, the best
+Wines, the best Waters, the juyce of Limons for the scurvy, white
+Bisket, Oatmeal, Gammons of Bacons, dried Neats tongues, Beef packed up
+in Vineger, Legs of Mutton minced and stewed, and close packed up, with
+tried Sewet or Butter in earthen Pots. To entertain Strangers Marmalade,
+Suckets, Almonds, Comfits and such like."
+
+"Some," says the author of this savoury list, "will say I would have
+men rather to feast than to fight. But I say the want of those
+necessaries occasions the loss of more men than in any English Fleet
+hath been slain since 88. For when a man is ill, or at the point of
+death, I would know whether a dish of buttered Rice with a little
+Cynamon, Ginger and Sugar, a little minced meat, or rost Beef, a few
+stew'd Prunes, a race of green Ginger, a Flap-jack, a Kan of fresh water
+brewed with a little Cynamon and Sugar be not better than a little poor
+John, or salt fish, with Oil and Mustard, or Bisket, Butter, Cheese, or
+Oatmeal-pottage on Fish-dayes, or on Flesh-dayes, Salt, Beef, Pork and
+Pease, with six shillings beer, this is your ordinary ship's allowance,
+and good for them are well if well conditioned [not such bad diet for a
+healthy man if of good quality] which is not alwayes as Sea-men can [too
+well] witnesse. And after a storme, when poor men are all wet, and some
+have not so much as a cloth to shift them, shaking with cold, few of
+those but will tell you a little Sack or Aqua-vitę is much better to
+keep them in health, than a little small Beer, or cold water although it
+be sweet. Now that every one should provide for himself, few of them
+have either that providence or means, and there is neither Ale-house,
+Tavern, nor Inne to burn a faggot in, neither Grocer, Poulterer,
+Apothecary nor Butcher's Shop, and therefore the use of this petty Tally
+is necessary, and thus to be employed as there is occasion."
+
+The entertainment of strangers, with "Almonds, Comfits and such like,"
+was the duty of a sea-captain, for "every Commander should shew himself
+as like himself as he can," and, "therefore I leave it to their own
+Discretion," to supply suckets for the casual guest. In those days, when
+sugar was a costly commodity, a sucket was more esteemed than now. At
+sea, when the food was mostly salt, it must certainly have been a great
+dainty.
+
+The "allowance" or ration to the men was as follows[26]:--
+
+[Footnote 26: See Sir W. Monson's "Naval Tracts."]
+
+Each man and boy received one pound of bread or biscuit daily, with a
+gallon of beer. The beer was served out four times daily, a quart at a
+time, in the morning, at dinner, in the afternoon, and at supper. On
+Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which were flesh days, the
+allowance of meat was either one pound of salt beef, or one pound of
+salt pork with pease. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, a side of salt-fish,
+ling, haberdine, or cod, was divided between the members of each mess,
+while a seven-ounce ration of butter (or olive oil) and a fourteen-ounce
+ration of cheese, was served to each man. On Fridays, or fast days, this
+allowance was halved. At one time the sailors were fond of selling or
+playing away their rations, but this practice was stopped in the reign
+of Elizabeth, and the men forced to take their food "orderly and in due
+season" under penalties. Prisoners taken during the cruise were allowed
+two-thirds of the above allowance.
+
+The allowance quoted above appears liberal, but it must be remembered
+that the sailors were messed "six upon four," and received only
+two-thirds of the full ration. The quality of the food was very bad. The
+beer was the very cheapest of small beer, and never kept good at sea,
+owing to the continual motion of the ship. It became acid, and induced
+dysentery in those who drank it, though it was sometimes possible to
+rebrew it after it had once gone sour. The water, which was carried in
+casks, was also far from wholesome. After storing, for a day or two, it
+generally became offensive, so that none could drink it. In a little
+while this offensiveness passed off, and it might then be used, though
+the casks bred growths of an unpleasant sliminess, if the water remained
+in them for more than a month. However water was not regarded as a
+drink for human beings until the beer was spent. The salt meat was as
+bad as the beer, or worse. Often enough the casks were filled with lumps
+of bone and fat which were quite uneatable, and often the meat was so
+lean, old, dry and shrivelled that it was valueless as food. The
+victuallers often killed their animals in the heat of the summer, when
+the meat would not take salt, so that many casks must have been unfit
+for food after lying for a week in store. Anti-scorbutics were supplied,
+or not supplied, at the discretion of the captains. It appears that the
+sailors disliked innovations in their food, and rejected the
+substitution of beans, flour "and those white Meats as they are called"
+for the heavy, and innutritious pork and beef. Sailors were always great
+sticklers for their "Pound and Pint," and Boteler tells us that in the
+early seventeenth century "the common Sea-men with us, are so besotted
+on their Beef and Pork, as they had rather adventure on all the
+Calentures, and Scarbots [scurvy] in the World, than to be weaned from
+their Customary Diet, or so much as to lose the least Bit of it."
+
+The salt-fish ration was probably rather better than the meat, but the
+cheese was nearly always very bad, and of an abominable odour. The
+butter was no better than the cheese. It was probably like so much
+train-oil. The bread or biscuit which was stowed in bags in the
+bread-room in the hold, soon lost its hardness at sea, becoming soft and
+wormy, so that the sailors had to eat it in the dark. The biscuits, or
+cakes of bread, seem to have been current coin with many of the West
+Indian natives. In those ships where flour was carried, in lieu of
+biscuit, as sometimes happened in cases of emergency, the men received a
+ration of doughboy, a sort of dumpling of wetted flour boiled with pork
+fat. This was esteemed a rare delicacy either eaten plain or with
+butter.
+
+This diet was too lacking in variety, and too destitute of
+anti-scorbutics to support the mariners in health. The ships in
+themselves were insanitary, and the crews suffered very much from what
+they called calentures, (or fevers such as typhus and typhoid), and the
+scurvy. The scurvy was perhaps the more common ailment, as indeed it is
+to-day. It is now little dreaded, for its nature is understood, and
+guarded against. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
+centuries, it killed its thousands, owing to the ignorance and
+indifference of responsible parties, and to other causes such as the
+construction of the ships and the length of the voyages. A salt diet,
+without fresh vegetables, and without variety, is a predisposing cause
+of scurvy. Exposure to cold and wet, and living in dirty surroundings
+are also predisposing causes. The old wooden ships were seldom very
+clean, and never dry, and when once the scurvy took hold it generally
+raged until the ship reached port, where fresh provisions could be
+purchased. A wooden ship was never quite dry, in any weather, for the
+upper-deck planks, and the timbers of her topsides, could never be so
+strictly caulked that no water could leak in. The sea-water splashed in
+through the scuppers and through the ports, or leaked in, a little at a
+time, through the seams. In bad weather the lower gun-decks (or all
+decks below the spar-deck) were more or less awash, from seas that had
+washed down the hatchways. The upper-deck seams let in the rain, and
+when once the lower-decks were wet it was very difficult to dry them. It
+was impossible to close the gun-deck ports so as to make them
+watertight, for the water would find cracks to come in at, even though
+the edges of the lids were caulked with oakum, and the orifices further
+barred by deadlights or wooden shutters. Many of the sailors, as we have
+seen, were without a change of clothes, and with no proper
+sleeping-place, save the wet deck and the wet jackets that they worked
+in. It often happened that the gun-ports would be closed for several
+weeks together, during which time the gun-decks became filthy and musty,
+while the sailors contracted all manner of cramps and catarrhs. In
+addition to the wet, and the discomfort of such a life, there was also
+the work, often extremely laborious, incidental to heavy weather at sea.
+What with the ceaseless handling of sails and ropes, in frost and snow
+and soaking sea-water; and the continual pumping out of the leaks the
+rotten seams admitted, the sailor had little leisure in which to sleep,
+or to dry himself. When he left the deck he had only the dark, wet
+berth-deck to retire to, a place of bleakness and misery, where he might
+share a sopping blanket, if he had one, with the corpse of a drowned rat
+and the flotsam from the different messes. There was no getting dry nor
+warm, though the berth-deck might be extremely close and stuffy from
+lack of ventilation. The cook-room, or galley fire would not be lighted,
+and there would be no comforting food or drink, nothing but raw meat and
+biscuit, and a sup of sour beer. It was not more unpleasant perhaps than
+life at sea is to-day, but it was certainly more dangerous.[27] When at
+last the storm abated and the sea went down, the ports were opened and
+the decks cleaned. The sailors held a general washing-day, scrubbing the
+mouldy clothes that had been soaked so long, and hanging them to dry
+about the rigging. Wind-sails or canvas ventilators were rigged, to
+admit air to the lowest recesses of the hold. The decks were scrubbed
+down with a mixture of vinegar and sand, and then sluiced with salt
+water, scraped with metal scrapers, and dried with swabs and small
+portable firepots. Vinegar was carried about the decks in large iron
+pots, and converted into vapour by the insertion of red-hot metal bars.
+The swabbers brought pans of burning pitch or brimstone into every
+corner, so that the smoke might penetrate everywhere. But even then the
+decks were not wholesome. There were spaces under the guns which no art
+could dry, and subtle leaks in the topsides that none could stop. The
+hold accumulated filth, for in many ships the ship's refuse was swept on
+to the ballast, where it bred pestilence, typhus fever and the like. The
+bilge-water reeked and rotted in the bilges, filling the whole ship with
+its indescribable stench. Beetles, rats and cockroaches bred and
+multiplied in the crannies, until (as in Captain Cook's case two
+centuries later), they made life miserable for all on board. These
+wooden ships were very gloomy abodes, and would have been so no doubt
+even had they been dry and warm. They were dark, and the lower-deck,
+where most of the men messed, was worse lit than the decks above it, for
+being near to the water-line the ports could seldom be opened. Only in
+very fair weather could the sailors have light and sun below decks. As a
+rule they ate and slept in a murky, stuffy atmosphere, badly lighted by
+candles in heavy horn lanthorns. The gloom of the ships must have
+weighed heavily upon many of the men, and the depression no doubt
+predisposed them to scurvy, making them less attentive to bodily
+cleanliness, and less ready to combat the disease when it attacked them.
+Perhaps some early sea-captains tried to make the between decks less
+gloomy by whitewashing the beams, bulkheads and ship's sides. In the
+eighteenth century this seems to have been practised with success,
+though perhaps the captains who tried it were more careful of their
+hands in other ways, and the benefit may have been derived from other
+causes.
+
+[Footnote 27: The mortality among the sailors was very great.]
+
+Discipline was maintained by some harsh punishments, designed to "tame
+the most rude and savage people in the world." Punishment was inflicted
+at the discretion of the captain, directly after the hearing of the
+case, but the case was generally tried the day after the commission of
+the offence, so that no man should be condemned in hot blood. The most
+common punishment was that of flogging, the men being stripped to the
+waist, tied to the main-mast or to a capstan bar, and flogged upon the
+bare back with a whip or a "cherriliccum." The boatswain had power to
+beat the laggards and the ship's boys with a cane, or with a piece of
+knotted rope. A common punishment was to put the offender on half his
+allowance, or to stop his meat, or his allowance of wine or spirits. For
+more heinous offences there was the very barbarous punishment of
+keel-hauling, by which the victim was dragged from the main yardarm
+right under the keel of the ship, across the barnacles, to the yardarm
+on the farther side. Those who suffered this punishment were liable to
+be cut very shrewdly by the points of the encrusted shells. Ducking from
+the main yardarm was inflicted for stubbornness, laziness, going on
+shore without leave, or sleeping while on watch. The malefactor was
+brought to the gangway, and a rope fastened under his arms and about his
+middle. He was then hoisted rapidly up to the main yardarm, "from whence
+he is violently let fall into the Sea, some times twice, some times
+three severall times, one after another" (_Boteler_). This punishment,
+and keel-hauling, were made more terrible by the discharge of a great
+gun over the malefactor's head as he struck the water, "which proveth
+much offensive to him" (_ibid._). If a man killed another he was
+fastened to the corpse and flung overboard (_Laws of Oleron_). For
+drawing a weapon in a quarrel, or in mutiny, the offender lost his right
+hand (_ibid._). Theft was generally punished with flogging, but in
+serious cases the thief was forced to run the gauntlet, between two rows
+of sailors all armed with thin knotted cords. Ducking from the bowsprit
+end, towing in a rope astern, and marooning, were also practised as
+punishments for the pilferer. For sleeping on watch there was a
+graduated scale. First offenders were soused with a bucket of water. For
+the second offence they were tied up by the wrists, and water was poured
+down their sleeves. For the third offence they were tied to the mast,
+with bags of bullets, or gun-chambers tied about their arms and necks,
+until they were exhausted, or "till their back be ready to break"
+(_Monson_). If they still offended in this kind they were taken and tied
+to the bowsprit end, with rations of beer and bread, and left there with
+leave to starve or fall into the sea. Destruction or theft of ships'
+property was punished by death. Petty insurrections, such as complaints
+of the quality or quantity of the food, etc., were punished by the
+bilboes. The bilboes were iron bars fixed to the deck a little abaft the
+main-mast. The prisoner sat upon the deck under a sentry, and his legs
+and hands were shackled to the bars with irons of a weight proportioned
+to the crime. It was a rule that none should speak to a man in the
+bilboes. For blasphemy and swearing there was "an excellent good
+way"[28] of forcing the sinner to hold a marline-spike in his mouth,
+until his tongue was bloody (_Teonge_). Dirty speech was punished in a
+similar way, and sometimes the offending tongue was scrubbed with sand
+and canvas. We read of two sailors who stole a piece of beef aboard
+H.M.S. _Assistance_ in the year 1676.[29] Their hands were tied behind
+them, and the beef was hung about their necks, "and the rest of the
+seamen cam one by one, and rubd them over the mouth with the raw beife;
+and in this posture they stood two howers." Other punishments were
+"shooting to death," and hanging at the yardarm. "And the Knaveries of
+the Ship-boys are payd by the Boat-Swain with the Rod; and commonly this
+execution is done upon the Munday Mornings; and is so frequently in use,
+that some meer Seamen believe in earnest, that they shall not have a
+fair Wind, unless the poor Boys be duely brought to the Chest, that is,
+whipped, every Munday Morning" (_Boteler_).
+
+[Footnote 28: _Circa_ 1670.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The punishment would have been no less severe a century
+earlier.]
+
+Some of these punishments may appear unduly harsh; but on the whole they
+were no more cruel than the punishments usually inflicted ashore.
+Indeed, if anything they were rather more merciful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+IN ACTION
+
+
+In engaging an enemy's ship at sea the custom was to display the colours
+from the poop, and to hang streamers or pennons from the yardarms.[30]
+The spritsail would then be furled, and the spritsail-yard brought
+alongship. The lower yards were slung with chain, and the important
+ropes, sheets and braces,[31] etc., were doubled. The bulkheads and
+wooden cabin walls were knocked away, or fortified with hammocks or
+bedding, to minimise the risk of splinters. The guns were cast loose and
+loaded. The powder or cartridge was brought up in "budge barrels,"
+covered with leather, from the magazine, and stowed well away from the
+guns, either in amidships, or on that side of the ship not directly
+engaged. Tubs of water were placed between the guns with blankets
+soaking in them for the smothering of any fire that might be caused.
+Other tubs were filled with "vinegar water or what we have" for the
+sponging of the guns. The hatches leading to the hold were taken up, so
+that no man should desert his post during the engagement. The light
+sails were furled, and in some cases sent down on deck. The magazines
+were opened, and hung about with wet blankets to prevent sparks from
+entering. Shot was sent to the shot-lockers on deck. Sand was sprinkled
+on the planking to give a greater firmness to the foothold of the men at
+the guns. The gunner and his mates went round the batteries to make sure
+that all was ready. The caps, or leaden plates, were taken from the
+touch-holes, and the priming powder was poured down upon the cartridge
+within the gun. The carpenter made ready sheets of lead, and plugs of
+oakum, for the stopping of shot-holes.[32] The cook-room fire was
+extinguished. The sails were splashed with a solution of alum. The
+people went to eat and drink at their quarters. Extra tiller ropes, of
+raw hide, were rove abaft. The trumpeters put on their[33] tabards, "of
+the Admiral's colours," and blew points of war as they sailed into
+action. A writer of the early seventeenth century[34] has left the
+following spirited account of a sea-fight:--
+
+[Footnote 30: Monson.]
+
+[Footnote 31: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 32: Monson.]
+
+[Footnote 33: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 34: Captain John Smith.]
+
+"A sail, how bears she or stands shee, to winde-ward or lee-ward? set
+him by the Compasse; he stands right ahead, or on the weather-Bowe, or
+lee-Bowe, let fly your colours if you have a consort, else not. Out with
+all your sails, a steady man to the helme, sit close to keep her steady,
+give him chase or fetch him up; he holds his own, no, we gather on him.
+Captain, out goes his flag and pendants, also his waste-clothes and
+top-armings, which is a long red cloth about three quarters of a yard
+broad, edged on each side with Calico, or white linnen cloth, that goeth
+round about the ship on the outsides of all her upper works fore and
+aft, and before the cubbridge-heads, also about the fore and maine tops,
+as well for the countenance and grace of the ship, as to cover the men
+for being seen, he furies and slinges his maine yarde, in goes his
+spret-saile. Thus they use to strip themselves into their short sailes,
+or fighting sailes, which is only the fore sail, the main and fore
+topsails, because the rest should not be fired nor spoiled; besides they
+would be troublesome to handle, hinder our fights and the using our
+armes; he makes ready his close fights fore and aft.
+
+"Master, how stands the chase? Right on head I say; Well we shall
+reatch him by and by; what's all ready? Yea, yea, every man to his
+charge, dowse your topsaile to salute him for the Sea, hale him with a
+noise of trumpets; Whence is your ship? Of Spaine; Whence is yours? Of
+England. Are you a Merchant, or a Man of War? We are of the Sea. He
+waves us to Lee-ward with his drawne Sword, cals amaine for the King of
+Spaine and springs his loufe. Give him a chase piece with your
+broadside, and run a good berth ahead of him; Done, done. We have the
+winde of him, and he tackes about, tacke you aboute also and keep your
+loufe [keep close to the wind] be yare at the helme, edge in with him,
+give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside as before,
+and keep your loufe; He payes us shot for shot; Well, we shall requite
+him; What, are you ready again? Yea, yea. Try him once more, as before;
+Done, Done; Keep your loufe and charge your ordnance again; Is all
+ready? Yea, yea, edge in with him again, begin with your bowe pieces,
+proceed with your broadside, and let her fall off with the winde, to
+give her also your full chase, your weather broadside, and bring her
+round that the stern may also discharge, and your tackes close aboord
+again; Done, done, the wind veeres, the Sea goes too high to boord her,
+and we are shot thorow and thorow, and betwene winde and water. Try the
+pump, bear up the helme; Master let us breathe and refresh a little, and
+sling a man overboard [_i.e._ lower a man over the side] to stop the
+leakes; that is, to trusse him up aboute the middle in a piece of
+canvas, and a rope to keep him from sinking, and his armes at liberty,
+with a malet in the one hand, and a plug lapped in Okum, and well tarred
+in a tarpawling clowt in the other, which he will quickly beat into the
+hole or holes the bullets made; What cheere mates? is all well? All
+well, all well, all well. Then make ready to bear up with him again, and
+with all your great and small shot charge him, and in the smoke boord
+him thwart the hawse, on the bowe, midships, or rather than faile, on
+the quarter [where the high poop made it difficult to climb on board] or
+make fast your graplings [iron hooks] if you can to his close fights and
+shear off [so as to tear them to pieces]. Captain, we are fowl on each
+other, and the Ship is on fire, cut anything to get clear and smother
+the fire with wet clothes. In such a case they will presently be such
+friends, as to helpe one the other all they can to get clear, lest they
+should both burn together and sink; and if they be generous, the fire
+quenched, drink kindely one to another; heave their cans overboord, and
+then begin again as before.
+
+"Well, Master, the day is spent, the night drawes on, let us consult.
+Chirurgion, look to the wounded, and winde up the slain, with each a
+weight or bullet at their heades and feet to make them sinke, and give
+them three Gunnes for their funerals. Swabber, make clean the ship
+[sprinkle it with hot vinegar to avoid the smell of blood]; Purser,
+record their Names; Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth to windeward
+that we lose him not in the night; Gunners, spunge your Ordnance;
+Sowldiers, scowre your pieces; Carpenters about your leakes; Boatswaine
+and the rest repair your sails and shrouds; and Cooke, you observe your
+directions against the morning watch; Boy, Holla, Master, Holla, is the
+Kettle boiled? Yea, yea; Boatswaine, call up the men to prayer and
+breakfast [We may suppose the dawn has broken].
+
+"Boy, fetch my cellar of bottels [case of spirits], a health to you all
+fore and aft, courage my hearts for a fresh charge; Gunners beat open
+the ports, and out with your lower tire [lower tier of guns] and bring
+me from the weather side to the lee, so many pieces as we have ports to
+bear upon him. Master lay him aboord loufe for loufe; mid Ships men, see
+the tops and yards well manned, with stones, fire pots and brass
+bailes, to throw amongst them before we enter, or if we be put off,
+charge them with all your great and small shot, in the smoke let us
+enter them in the shrouds, and every squadron at his best advantage; so
+sound Drums and Trumpets, and Saint George for England.
+
+"They hang out a flag of truce, hale him a main, abase, or take in his
+flag [to hale one to amaine, a main or a-mayn, was to bid him surrender;
+to abase was to lower the colours or the topsails], strike their sails,
+and come aboord with their Captaine, Purser, and Gunner, with their
+commission, cocket, or bills of loading. Out goes the boat, they are
+launched from the ship's side, entertaine them with a generall cry God
+save the Captain and all the company with the Trumpets sounding, examine
+them in particular, and then conclude your conditions, with feasting,
+freedom or punishment as you find occasion; but alwayes have as much
+care to their wounded as your own, and if there be either young women or
+aged men, use them nobly, which is ever the nature of a generous
+disposition. To conclude, if you surprise him, or enter perforce, you
+may stow the men, rifle, pillage, or sack, and cry a prise."
+
+Down below in the gun-decks during an action, the batteries became so
+full of the smoke of black powder that the men could hardly see what
+they were doing. The darkness prevented them from seeing the very
+dangerous recoiling of the guns, and many were killed by them. It was
+impossible to judge how a gun carriage would recoil, for it never
+recoiled twice in the same manner, and though the men at the side
+tackles did their best to reduce the shock they could not prevent it
+altogether. It was the custom to close the gun-ports after each
+discharge, as the musketeers aboard the enemy could otherwise fire
+through them as the men reloaded. The guns were not fired in a volley,
+as no ship could have stood the tremendous shock occasioned by the
+simultaneous discharge of all her guns. They were fired in succession,
+beginning from the bows. In heavy weather the lower tiers of guns were
+not cast loose, for the rolling made them difficult to control, and the
+sea came washing through the ports and into the muzzles of the guns,
+knocking down the men and drenching the powder. It sometimes happened
+that the shot, and cartridge, were rolled clean out of the guns. In
+sponging and ramming the men were bidden to keep the sponge or rammer on
+that side of them opposite to the side exposed to the enemy so that if a
+shot should strike it, it would not force it into the body of the
+holder. A man was told off to bring cartridges and shot to each gun or
+division of guns and he was strictly forbidden to supply any other gun
+or guns during the action. The wounded were to be helped below by men
+told off especially for the purpose. Once below, in the cockpit, they
+were laid on a sail, and the doctor or his mates attended to them in
+turn. In no case was a man attended out of his turn. This system seems
+equitable, and the sailors were insistent that it should be observed;
+but many poor fellows bled to death, from shattered arteries, etc.,
+while waiting till the doctor should be ready. The chaplain attended in
+the cockpit to comfort the dying, and administer the rites of the
+Church. When a vessel was taken, her crew were stripped by those in want
+of clothes. The prisoners were handcuffed, or chained together, and
+placed in the hold, on the ballast. The ship's company then set to work
+to repair damages, clean and secure the guns, return powder, etc., to
+the armoury, and magazines, and to give thanks for their preservation
+round the main-mast.
+
+[Illustration: Map Shewing the EARLY BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUND]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Action, description of ship in, 334
+
+Allowance of food and drink, 326, 327
+
+Alvarado, 226, etc.
+
+---- battle of, 227 _et seq._
+
+Anastasius (church), 252
+
+Andreas, Captain, 232, 234, 238
+
+Antonio, Captain, 235
+
+Arica, 259, 265, 266, 267
+
+---- battle of, 267 _et seq._, 273, 274
+
+Arquebus, 303
+
+
+Barbecue, 112
+
+Barker, Andrew, 105
+
+Baronha, Admiral, 245
+
+Bastimentos, 22
+
+_Bear_, pinnace, 79, 82, 84
+
+Bishop (of Panama), 255, 256, 281
+
+Blewfields, 134
+
+Boats (ships'), 297
+
+Boatswains, 313
+
+Boco del Toro, 230, 231
+
+Boucan, 112
+
+Bracos, De los, 180
+
+Bradley, John, 173 _et seq._
+
+Buccaneers, rise of, 112 _et seq._;
+  customs, etc., 113;
+  dress, 114;
+  drunkenness, 115;
+  cruel, 116;
+  religious, 119;
+  attached to comrades, 119;
+  preparations for raids, 120 _et seq._;
+  shares of spoil, 125;
+  at the Samballoes, 232;
+  at Perico, 247
+
+Buckenham, Captain, 225
+
+
+Cabeēas, or Cabezas, 80, 84, 88, 92, 95
+
+Cabin-boys, 319
+
+Campeachy, 127
+
+Canoas, 127;
+  capturing prizes from, 129 _et seq._
+
+Captains, 311, 322, 323, 324
+
+Caribs, 108
+
+Carpenters, 316
+
+Cartagena, 11, 26, 27, 33, 35, 40, 41 _et seq._, 44, 45, 94
+
+Cartridges, 300, 301
+
+Castle Gloria, 151
+
+Cativaas, or Catives, 9, 38, 53, 82
+
+Cedro Bueno, halt at, 182
+
+---- canoas sent to, 188
+
+Chaplains, 321, 339
+
+Chagres Castle, expedition to, under Bradley, 173 _et seq._
+
+---- Morgan's arrival at, 180
+
+---- party sent to, 203
+
+---- message from, 205
+
+Chagres River, 25, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 81; also 180-210
+
+Charesha, 26
+
+Chatas (small Spanish boats), 179
+
+Cheapo River, 61, 241, 279
+
+Chapillo, 241, 253
+
+Chirurgeons, 321
+
+Colonies in West Indies, 110, 111
+
+Commissions, 118
+
+Cook, Captain, 233, 234, 256, 258, 262
+
+Cooks (ships'), 315
+
+Coopers, 318
+
+Compensations, 122
+
+Comrades, 323
+
+Corporals, 312
+
+Costa Rica, Morgan sails for, 149
+
+Cox, Captain, 258, 259, 262
+
+Coxon, Captain, 229, 233, 237, 240, 241, 243, 249, 253
+
+---- sails for home, 254
+
+Coxswains, 313
+
+Crews, 319
+
+
+Daggs (pistols), 304
+
+Dampier, William, 126;
+  early life in West Indies, 218 _et seq._;
+  ill at Campeachy, 225;
+  ruined by storm, 226;
+  goes pirating, _ibid._;
+  returns to England, 228;
+  to Jamaica, 229;
+  joins buccaneers, 230;
+  lands on isthmus, 234;
+  not at Perico, 246;
+  not at Arica, 267;
+  leaves Sharp, 276, 277;
+  tramps across isthmus, 280, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288
+
+Darien, Gulf of, 4, 5, 8, 31, 99
+
+Darien isthmus. _See_ Drake, Morgan, Dampier, etc.
+
+Delander, R., 180
+
+De la Barra Castle, 162
+
+Diego, 19, 24, 31, 32, 36, 50, 51
+
+---- Fort, 49, 51, 92
+
+---- River, 37, 38, 49
+
+Discomforts, 328
+
+Discipline, 330, 331, 332
+
+Drake, Francis (afterwards Sir Francis), born, 1;
+  at San Juan d'Ulloa, 1, 2;
+  at West Indies, 2, 3;
+  sails for Nombre de Dios, 3, 4, 5;
+  lands, 6;
+  joins Rause, 7, 8;
+  sails west, 9, 10;
+  attacks Nombre de Dios, 15, 16, 20, 21;
+  hurt, 21;
+  receives herald, 23;
+  goes to Cartagena, 26;
+  establishes fort, 31;
+  goes east, 32, 33;
+  in Cartagena, 40, 41, etc.;
+  returns thither, 45;
+  starving, 46, 47;
+  holds post mortem, 52;
+  goes for Panama, 55 _et seq._;
+  fails to take treasure, 66;
+  retreats, 68;
+  at Venta Cruz, 69;
+  returns to Hixom, 77;
+  goes to Veragua, 80, 81;
+  meets Captain Tetū, 82;
+  makes his great raid, 84, 85, 86, 88;
+  builds raft, 89-90;
+  his bravado, 94;
+  arrives at Plymouth, 96;
+  mentioned, 97;
+  sacks St Domingo, 110;
+  his island, 259, 260
+
+---- John, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37
+
+---- Joseph, 52
+
+
+Entertainments, 325
+
+Estera longa Lemos (near Porto Bello), 153
+
+
+Firing (of cannon), 301;
+  and aiming, 305, 306
+
+Fort Jeronimo (at Porto Bello), 151
+
+Francisco River (St Francis River), 9, 84, 88, 91, 92
+
+French in West Indies, 111, 117
+
+---- buccaneer commissions, 118
+
+Fumigations, 329
+
+
+Gabriele, Josef, 239
+
+Galleons, 292, 293
+
+Galliasses, 292, 293
+
+Galleys, 291
+
+Gambling, 131
+
+Garret, John, 6
+
+Gayny, G., 283, 285, 286, 287
+
+Gear (sailors'), 296
+
+Gibraltar (in Maracaibo), 162
+
+Glub, Charles, 49
+
+Golden Island, 232
+
+Gorgona, 259, 276
+
+Grummets, 320
+
+Guasco (Huasco), 274
+
+Gunners, 300, 301, 302, 304, 305, 308, 309, 312
+
+Guns, 298 _et seq._, 307;
+  list of, 303
+
+Guzman, Don John Perez, takes Santa Katalina, 138. _See also_ Panama
+        battle
+
+
+Harris, Captain, 233, 237;
+  killed and buried, 253
+
+Hawkins, Sir R., 98, 99;
+  his story of Oxenham, 105
+
+Hayti, 106
+
+Hilo (Ylo or Ilo), 260, 273, 274
+
+Hispaniola, 106, 107 _et seq._, 114
+
+Hixom, Ellis, 48, 54, 56, 75, 76, 77
+
+Hobby, Mr, 229
+
+Hunters, 108, 109
+
+
+Indians, 121, 265, 279
+
+Iquique (Yqueque), 264
+
+Iron Castle (at Porto Bello), 139, 151, 158
+
+
+Jamaica, 118, 229, 289
+
+Jobson (or Cobson), 284, 287
+
+Joiners, 316
+
+Juan Fernandez, 261, 264
+
+
+Katalina, Santa, Mansvelt goes to, 135
+
+---- Morgan takes, 171
+
+King Golden Cap, 236, 237, 239, 241, 246, 253, 255
+
+
+La Serena, 260
+
+Las Serenas, 44
+
+La Sounds Key, 285, 287, 288
+
+Liars, 320
+
+Lieutenants, 311
+
+Linstocks, 309
+
+_Lion_, pinnace, 53, 84
+
+Logwood cutting, 127;
+  description of, 222
+
+Longships, 291
+
+Lorenzo, San, Castle of, 173;
+  taken, 176;
+  Morgan's return to, 213;
+  destroyed, 214
+
+
+Magdalena, 31, 37
+
+Main, the, 28, 39, 83, 123, 124, 127
+
+Mansvelt, Dutch pirate, cruises in South Seas, 135;
+  his plans, 134;
+  meets Henry Morgan, 135;
+  sails with him, _ibid._;
+  takes Santa Katalina, 135;
+  seeks recruits and recognition from English Governor, 136;
+  is refused help, 137;
+  sails to Tortuga, 137;
+  dies, 139
+
+Maracaibo, 162
+
+Maroons, 24, 28, 36, 38, 51, 53, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68,
+        69, 70, 74, 75, 76, 85, 89, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102
+
+Marygalante, 4
+
+Masts, 294
+
+Masters, 312, 322
+
+_Minion_, pinnace, 49, 79
+
+Moone, T., 2, 29
+
+Morgan, Henry (afterwards Sir Henry), meets Mansvelt, 135;
+  sails with him, _ibid._;
+  tries to get help from New England, 139;
+  gathers fleet, 140;
+  goes for Puerto del Principe, 141;
+  battle there, 142;
+  town taken, 142;
+  stay there, 143;
+  mutiny and fight, 145;
+  defection of French allies, 146;
+  returns to Port Royal, 146;
+  sails for Costa Rica, 149;
+  lands, 153;
+  takes a fort, 155;
+  attacks Porto Bello, 156;
+  takes it, 157;
+  receives summons from Panama, 159;
+  defeats Spanish troops, 160;
+  receives ransom, 160;
+  returns to Port Royal, 161;
+  goes for Maracaibo, 162;
+  summons De la Barra Castle, 163;
+  the fireship, 164;
+  Spanish rally, 164;
+  Morgan's stratagem, 166;
+  his return to Port Royal, 167;
+  goes for Main, 168, 169;
+  takes Santa Katalina, 177;
+  sails for Chagres, 179;
+  reaches Venta Cruz, 187;
+  sees Panama, 190;
+  takes it, 199, etc.;
+  burns his ships, 209;
+  leaves ruins, 210;
+  returns to Venta Cruz, 212;
+  destroys San Lorenzo, 214;
+  returns to Port Royal, 215;
+  becomes Governor of Jamaica, 216
+
+Mosquito Indians, 122, 123, 124, 125
+
+Mule trains (or recuas), 65, 66, 67, 85
+
+Munjack, 228
+
+Muskets, 303
+
+Mutiny, 257
+
+
+Nombre De Dios, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14;
+  description of, 16, 17, 18, etc.;
+  attack on, 27, 28, 62, 63, 64, 65, 84, 85, 98, 99, 103, 104
+
+Norman, Captain, 180, 205
+
+
+One Bush Key, 219, 221, 224
+
+Ortega, John de, 100, 101
+
+Oxenham, John, 17, 18, 39, 43, 61, 64, 65, 79, 81, 82, 93, 98;
+  sails on his raid, 98;
+  builds ship, 99;
+  raids South Seas, 100;
+  mutiny, 102, 103;
+  Spaniards take him, 104;
+  and hang him, 104, 108
+
+
+Panama, 8, 11, 12, 15, 39, 54, 55, 61, 62, 243, 244, 252, 254, 255
+
+---- description of, 192.
+
+---- Morgan's sight of, 190
+
+---- Governor of. _See_ Guzman, 159, 160.
+
+Parrots, at Alvarado, 227
+
+_Pascha_, a ship, 3, 30, 31, 32, 79, 81, 94, 95
+
+Pavesses, 294
+
+Pearl Islands, 100, 101, 244
+
+Pedro, 57, 60, 95
+
+Penn, 117
+
+Peralta, Don, 206, 245, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 258, 261
+
+Periaguas, 127
+
+Perico, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 250-253
+
+Petticoat (a sky-blue), 279
+
+Petty tally, 324, 325
+
+Pezoro, 79, 80, 81
+
+Pike, Robert, 65, 67, 78
+
+Pine Islands, 8, 9, 20
+
+Pinnaces, 3, 7
+
+Plenty, Port, 36
+
+Plymouth, 3, 4, 96, 98
+
+Porto Bello, 11, 13, 15;
+  description, 150 _et seq._;
+  attacked and sacked, 154 _et seq._; 230, 231
+
+Port Pheasant, 5
+
+Port Royal, 132
+
+---- Morgan's return to, 215
+
+---- Dampier arrives at, 221
+
+Porto Santo, 4
+
+Provisions, 326, 327, 328
+
+Puebla Nueva, 256
+
+Puerto del Principe, 140, 141 _et seq._
+
+Pursers, 314
+
+
+Quartermasters, 314
+
+Quibo, 256, 257, 258, 259
+
+
+Raft (Drake's), 89, 90
+
+Rause, Captain, 7, 9, 25
+
+Rigging, ancient, 295
+
+Ringrose, Basil, 234, 237, 241, 243, 244, 247, 248, 349, 250
+
+---- at Arica, 267, 268, 269, 273, 288, 289
+
+Rio de la Hacha, 47, 169
+
+Rio Grande, 32, 33, 46
+
+Roundships, 291
+
+
+Sails, 294, 295, 296, 297
+
+Sailing from port, 322, 323
+
+San Andreas, 127
+
+---- Antonio, 96
+
+---- Barnardo, 26, 28, 40, 50, 94
+
+---- Domingo, 106, 107
+
+---- Juan d'Ulloa, 1, 2, 12
+
+---- Miguel, 277
+
+Santa Maria, 232, 238, 239, 240, 253
+
+---- Martha, 5, 47
+
+---- Pecaque, 289
+
+Savannahs, 61
+
+Sawkins, Richard, Captain, 229, 233, 236, 240, 243, 248, 249, 250, 253,
+        254, 255, 256;
+  killed, 257, 262, 263, 281
+
+Scrivanos, 28, 41, 53
+
+Sea-fighting, 334, 335, 336, 337
+
+Searles, Captain, 206
+
+Sharp, Captain Bartholomew, 229, 233, 237, 238, 241, 242, 243, 244, 252,
+        253, 254, 255;
+  takes prizes, 257;
+  elected admiral, 258, 259, 262, 265;
+  at Arica, 267, 270, 271, 274, 275, 288, 289, 290
+
+Ship-boys, 319
+
+Simon Le Sieur, 136, 137, 138
+
+Smith, Captain John, 89
+
+Springer, Captain, 248
+
+---- his key, 286
+
+Stewards, 315
+
+Swabbers, 319, 320
+
+_Swan_, a ship, 2, 3, 29, 30
+
+
+Tawnymores (a ship of), 247, 248, 249, 251
+
+Tetū, Captain, 82, 83, 84, 86;
+  hurt, 86, 87, 91
+
+Tiburon, Cape, 169
+
+Tocamora, 231
+
+Tolu, 6, 36, 53, 79
+
+Top-arming, 294
+
+Torna Munni, 183
+
+Tortuga, 111, 112, 115, 117
+
+Tree (a great), 60, 61
+
+_Trinity_, the Most Blessed, a Spanish galleon, 206, 251, 253, 259, 260,
+        261, 263, 264, 288, 289
+
+Tristian, Captain, 285
+
+Trumpeters, 318
+
+Tucker, Francis, 95
+
+
+Venables, 117
+
+Venta Cruz, 25, 62, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 85, 187, 212
+
+Veragua, 78, 79, 80, 81
+
+Villa del Rey, 35
+
+
+Wafer, Lionel, 234, 276, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287
+
+Watling, John, 262, 263, 264, 266;
+  attacks Arica, 267, 268, 269;
+  shot, 270
+
+
+Ylo, 260, 273, 274
+
+Yqueque, 264, 265
+
+Younkers, 320
+
+Ysabel Nueva, 106
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of On The Spanish Main, by John Masefield.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: On the Spanish Main
+       Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
+
+Author: John Masefield
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19396]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE SPANISH MAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Frank van Drogen, Amy Cunningham and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+
+<p>Obvious printing errors were repaired and noted by the use of
+a dashed <ins class="correction" title="like this">underline</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>The List of Illustrations lists the original page numbers;
+however, for this etext the images have been moved to
+appropriate locations in the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 338px;">
+<a name="img010" id="img010"></a>
+<a href="images/010.jpg"><img src="images/010_th.jpg" width="338" height="400"
+alt="CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER" title="CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<h1>ON THE SPANISH MAIN</h1>
+
+<h3>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</h3>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;">BY</p>
+
+<h2>JOHN MASEFIELD</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 3em;">WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 3em;">METHUEN &amp; CO.<br />
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />
+LONDON</p>
+
+<hr class="small" />
+
+<p class="center"><i>First Published in 1906</i></p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 3em;">THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="small" />
+
+<p class="center">TO</p>
+
+<p class="center">JACK B. YEATS</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="toc">
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;<span class="ralign smcap lowercase">PAGE</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc">DRAKE'S VOYAGE TO THE WEST INDIES <span class="ralign">1</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr">His quarrel with the Spaniards&mdash;His preliminary raids&mdash;His
+landfall&mdash;The secret harbour</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE ATTACK ON NOMBRE DE DIOS <span class="ralign">15</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The treasure of the Indies&mdash;The Bastimentos&mdash;A Spanish herald</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE CRUISE OFF THE MAIN <span class="ralign">26</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr">
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: this topic should be after 'Cartagena'">The secret haven</ins>&mdash;The
+cruise of the pinnaces&mdash;Cartagena&mdash;Death
+of John Drake</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE ROAD TO PANAMA <span class="ralign">55</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The Maroons&mdash;The native city&mdash;The great tree&mdash;Panama&mdash;The
+silver train&mdash;The failure&mdash;Venta Cruz</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">BACK TO THE MAIN BODY <span class="ralign">74</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The treasure train&mdash;The spoil&mdash;Captain Tet&ucirc; hurt</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE ADVENTURE OF THE RAFT <span class="ralign">88</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Drake's voyage to the Catives&mdash;Homeward bound&mdash;The interrupted
+sermon</p>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="toc">
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">JOHN OXENHAM <span class="ralign">98</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr">The voyage&mdash;His pinnace&mdash;Into the South Sea&mdash;Disaster&mdash;His
+unhappy end</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE SPANISH RULE IN HISPANIOLA <span class="ralign">106</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Rise of the Buccaneers&mdash;The hunters of the wild
+bulls&mdash;Tortuga&mdash;Buccaneer politics&mdash;Buccaneer customs</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">BUCCANEER CUSTOMS <span class="ralign">129</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Mansvelt and Morgan&mdash;Morgan's raid on Cuba&mdash;Puerto del
+Principe</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE SACK OF PORTO BELLO <span class="ralign">148</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr">The Gulf of Maracaibo&mdash;Morgan's escape from the Spaniards</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">MORGAN'S GREAT RAID <span class="ralign">168</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Chagres castle&mdash;Across the isthmus&mdash;Sufferings of the
+Buccaneers&mdash;Venta Cruz&mdash;Old Panama</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE SACK OF PANAMA <span class="ralign">197</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The burning of the city&mdash;Buccaneer excesses&mdash;An abortive
+mutiny&mdash;Home&mdash;Morgan's defection</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">CAPTAIN DAMPIER <span class="ralign">218</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr">Campeachy&mdash;Logwood cutting&mdash;The march to Santa Maria</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE BATTLE OF PERICO <span class="ralign">245</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Arica&mdash;The South Sea cruise</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="toc">
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">ACROSS THE ISTHMUS <span class="ralign">276</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The way home&mdash;Sufferings and adventures</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">SHIPS AND RIGS <span class="ralign">291</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr"><ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: additional topics are listed at the start of Chapter XVI">Pavesses</ins>&mdash;Top-arming&mdash;Banners&mdash;Boats</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">GUNS AND GUNNERS <span class="ralign">298</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Breech-loaders&mdash;Cartridges&mdash;Powder&mdash;The gunner's art</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE SHIP'S COMPANY <span class="ralign">311</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Captain&mdash;Master&mdash;Lieutenant&mdash;Warrant officers&mdash;Duties and
+privileges</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">THE CHOOSING OF WATCHES <span class="ralign">322</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The petty tally&mdash;Food&mdash;Work&mdash;Punishments</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a></h3>
+
+<p class="toc">IN ACTION <span class="ralign">334</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc" style="margin-top: 1.5em;"><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a> <span class="ralign">341</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="toc">
+<p>&nbsp; <span class="smcap lowercase ralign">PAGE</span></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img010">CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER</a> <span class="ralign"><i>Frontispiece</i></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img035">NOMBRE DE DIOS</a> <span class="ralign">12</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img051">CARTAGENA</a> <span class="ralign">26</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img067">CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR</a> <span class="ralign">40</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">The ship in the foreground may be Drake's flagship, the
+      <i>Bonaventure</i></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img078">AN ELIZABETHAN WARSHIP</a> <span class="ralign">49</span></p>
+
+<p class="chdescr">A pinnace beyond, to the left</p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img126">SHIP AND FLYING-FISH</a> <span class="ralign">95</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img147">A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN</a> <span class="ralign">114</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">A barbecue in right lower corner</p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img167">OLD PORT ROYAL</a> <span class="ralign">132</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img177">PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE</a> <span class="ralign">142</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img187">PORTO BELLO, CIRCA 1740, SHOWING THE SITUATION AND DEFENCES OF
+    THE CITY</a> <span class="ralign">150</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img203">THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE "SPANISH ADMIRAL"</a> <span class="ralign">164</span></p>
+<p class="chdescr">Castle de la Barra in background</p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img214">CHAGRES (CIRCA 1739)</a> <span class="ralign">173</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img223">THE ISTHMUS, SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE</a> <span class="ralign">180</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img240">NEW PANAMA</a> <span class="ralign">195</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img247">THE BATTLE OF PANAMA</a> <span class="ralign">200</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img259">SIR HENRY MORGAN</a> <span class="ralign">210</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></p>
+<div class="toc">
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img317">A DESCRIPTION OF ARICA</a> <span class="ralign">266</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img327">A DESCRIPTION OF HILO</a> <span class="ralign">274</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img348">AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON</a> <span class="ralign">293</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img354">AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON</a> <span class="ralign">297</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img369">A GALLIASSE</a> <span class="ralign">310</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#img384">THE "SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS"</a> <span class="ralign">323</span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#map">MAP OF THE BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUNDS</a> <span class="ralign">340</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h1><a name="ON_THE_SPANISH_MAIN" id="ON_THE_SPANISH_MAIN"></a>ON THE SPANISH MAIN</h1>
+
+
+
+<h2 style="margin-top: 2em;"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>DRAKE'S VOYAGE TO THE WEST INDIES</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>His quarrel with the Spaniards&mdash;His preliminary raids&mdash;His
+landfall&mdash;The secret harbour</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+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 <i>Judith</i>, and a larger
+ship called the <i>Minion</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>Dragon</i> and the <i>Swan</i>. In the second, in 1571, he sailed
+in the <i>Swan</i> without company. The <i>Swan</i> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+with good deliberation, resolved on a third Voyage, he
+accordingly prepared his Ships and Company ... as now
+followes further to be declared."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Pascha</i> of
+Plymouth, of seventy tons. His younger brother, John Drake,
+sailed as captain of the <i>Swan</i>. In all there were seventy-three
+men and boys in the expedition; and we read that
+they were mostly young men&mdash;"the eldest ... fifty, all the
+rest under thirty." They were all volunteers&mdash;a fact that
+shows that Drake had gained a reputation for luck
+in these adventures. Forty-seven of the seventy-three
+sailed aboard the <i>Pascha</i>; while the <i>Swan</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Captain Drake</span>,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 8em;">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.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">Your very loving friend,<br />
+<span class="smcap">John Garret.</span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement that the place was known to the
+Spaniards did not weigh very heavily upon Drake; nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+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 Vit&aelig;, and is in colour white."</p>
+
+<p>The very next day an English barque came sailing into
+the anchorage, with two prizes, in her wake&mdash;"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+(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&mdash;a distance certainly not
+more than 120 miles. He now resolved to leave the three
+ships and the carvel&mdash;all four grown more or less foul-bottomed
+and slow&mdash;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"&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+... 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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Nombre de Dios</span></h3>
+
+<p>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>i.e.</i> jaguars] often came into the town," to carry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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 <i>tiempo muerto</i>, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img035" id="img035"></a>
+<a href="images/035.jpg"><img src="images/035_th.jpg" width="400" height="299"
+alt="NOMBRE DE DIOS" title="NOMBRE DE DIOS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">NOMBRE DE DIOS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Cimmeroons frequently attacked the city while
+it was in occupation. Once they captured and destroyed
+it.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 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.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;The authorities for this and the following chapters are:</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>The Geographical Journal</i> (December-July 1903, p. 325),
+by Colonel G. E. Church, M. Am. Soc. C.E.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ATTACK ON NOMBRE DE DIOS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The treasure of the Indies&mdash;The Bastimentos&mdash;A Spanish herald</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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"&mdash;a
+fiction made the more easy by the intervention of the
+high land between the watchers and the horizon. By the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+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 <i>Spaine</i>, 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a "long half-hour" the storm began to
+abate, and Drake felt that he must put an end to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+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"&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+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,"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CRUISE OFF THE MAIN</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The cruise of the pinnaces&mdash;Cartagena&mdash;The secret haven&mdash;Death
+of John Drake</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>Sailing out of the haven (by the Boca Chica, or Little
+Mouth) Drake set his pinnaces ashore, and stood
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'awayto'">away to</ins>
+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>i.e.</i> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+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 <i>Swan</i>, 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 <i>Swan</i>) 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
+<i>Swan</i> that night.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, a little after daybreak, Drake called
+away his pinnace, "proposing to go a-fishing." Rowing
+down to the <i>Swan</i> 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 <i>Swan</i> was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+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 <i>Pascha's</i>
+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 <i>Swan</i> 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 <i>Pascha's</i> 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+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 <i>Pascha</i> as her captain. He himself,
+he said, would shift into a pinnace; while the <i>Swan</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Pascha</i>, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+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 <i>Pascha</i>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img051" id="img051"></a>
+<a href="images/051.jpg"><img src="images/051_th.jpg" width="400" height="300"
+alt="CARTAGENA" title="CARTAGENA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CARTAGENA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+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&mdash;so great, says the narrative, "that a man can
+scantly be discerned from side to side." A Spaniard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+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&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>
+round&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+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
+<i>Pascha</i> 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"&mdash;the island being about
+half-a-mile from the shore, some three acres in extent,
+"flat, and very full of trees and bushes."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="img067" id="img067"></a>
+<a href="images/067.jpg"><img src="images/067_th.jpg" width="500" height="367"
+alt="CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR; THE SHIP IN THE FOREGROUND MAY BE DRAKE&#39;S FLAGSHIP, THE _BONAVENTURE_"
+title="CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR<br />
+THE SHIP IN THE FOREGROUND MAY BE DRAKE'S FLAGSHIP, THE <i>BONAVENTURE</i></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+afraid of the boat's guns&mdash;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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+remained six days, "notwithstanding the Spaniards grieved
+greatly at our abode there so long."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"a great shallop,
+a fine gundeloe and a great canoe"&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+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&mdash;the fight being at an
+end before the frigate could warp to windward into action.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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 Cura&ccedil;oa, 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"&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+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
+Cura&ccedil;oa, 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!&mdash;balm
+in Gilead&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img078" id="img078"></a>
+<a href="images/078.jpg"><img src="images/078_th.jpg" width="400" height="289"
+alt="AN ELIZABETHAN WAR-SHIP; A PINNACE BEYOND, TO THE LEFT"
+title="AN ELIZABETHAN WAR-SHIP" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AN ELIZABETHAN WAR-SHIP<br />
+A PINNACE BEYOND, TO THE LEFT</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+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"&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>The 15th of November broke bright and fine, though
+the wind still blew from the west. Drake ordered the
+<i>Minion</i>, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+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 <i>botijos</i> 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 <i>Minion</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>&mdash;"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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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&mdash;a trait observable
+in yellow-fever patients. This, says the narrative, "was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Lion</i>, 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 <i>Lion</i> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ROAD TO PANAMA</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Maroons&mdash;The native city&mdash;The great tree&mdash;Panama&mdash;The
+silver train&mdash;The failure&mdash;Venta Cruz</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original">"the</ins> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+secretly, that he had so slightly considered of it
+before."</p>
+
+<p>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"&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+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"&mdash;promising,
+in such a case, to make his name as famous as any of them
+which had received the like favour.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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-vit&aelig; 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+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
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original lacks .">treasure.</ins>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+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!"&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+their manner of country dance or leap, singing Y&oacute; p&eacute;h&oacute;!
+Y&oacute; p&eacute;h&oacute;, 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.</p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Venta Cruz</span></h3>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+twenty-five to thirty dollars of assayed silver for a mule
+load of 200 pounds weight&mdash;a charge which works
+out at nearly &pound;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&mdash;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&mdash;the one from the forest,
+by which Drake's party entered; the other leading over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+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&deg;. 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 some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>times
+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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>BACK TO THE MAIN BODY</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The treasure train&mdash;The spoil&mdash;Captain Tet&ucirc; hurt</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+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 west<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>ward.
+"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+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-vit&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+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 <i>Bear</i> frigate, could sail "Eastwards
+towards Tolu, to see what store of victuals would come
+athwart his halse." In the meanwhile he would take
+the <i>Minion</i> 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 <i>Pascha</i> were free to do so. The rest were dismissed
+"most courteously" with "gifts and favours" of the sorts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+most pleasing to them, such as knives, iron, coloured
+ribbons and cloth.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Minion</i>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <i>Bear</i>, "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 <i>Pascha</i>
+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 <i>Pascha</i>, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, he manned "the new tallowed frigate of
+Tolu," and sailed away west (with Oxenham in the <i>Bear</i>
+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"&mdash;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 Tet&ucirc;, 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"&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+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 Tet&ucirc; with a chain of gold
+supporting a tablet of enamel. Having exchanged gifts,
+according to the custom of the sea, Captain Tet&ucirc; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Tet&ucirc; 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
+Tet&ucirc;, 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 suffi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>ciently
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Bear</i> into the secret haven. The third pinnace, the
+<i>Lion</i>, had been sunk a few days before, but the other
+two, the <i>Eion</i> and the <i>Minion</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+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 Tet&ucirc; 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
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original">"partly</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+They made a brief pause, as they tramped, to lay down
+Captain Tet&ucirc;, 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ADVENTURE OF THE RAFT</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Drake's voyage to the Catives&mdash;Homeward bound&mdash;The interrupted
+sermon</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+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
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original lacks &quot;">perplexity"</ins>
+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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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'"&mdash;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 Tet&ucirc;'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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+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 Tet&ucirc;.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they had gone, Drake ordered his old ship,
+the <i>Pascha</i>, 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 Tet&ucirc; 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 Tet&ucirc;'s two comrades came staggering out,
+and fell upon his knees. In a broken voice he thanked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+God that ever Drake was born to deliver him thus, after
+he had given up all hope.</p>
+
+<p>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 Tet&ucirc;. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the voyage was made, it was "high time
+to think of homeward," before the Spaniards should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+fit out men-of-war against them. Drake was anxious
+to give the <i>Pascha</i> 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
+Tet&ucirc; 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img126" id="img126"></a>
+<a href="images/126.jpg"><img src="images/126_th.jpg" width="400" height="320"
+alt="SHIP AND FLYING FISH" title="SHIP AND FLYING FISH" /></a>
+<span class="caption">SHIP AND FLYING FISH</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Pascha</i>. 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 Tet&ucirc;, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+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. <i>Soli Deo Gloria.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;40,000,
+or more, or less. It is as well to put the estimate low.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>JOHN OXENHAM</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The voyage&mdash;His pinnace&mdash;Into the South Sea&mdash;Disaster&mdash;His
+unhappy end</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1574 he set sail from Plymouth in a fine
+ship of 140 tons, with a crew of seventy men and boys.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+He made a fair passage to the Main, and anchored in
+Drake's old anchorage&mdash;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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+ship, they went aboard of her, and dropped downstream
+to the Pacific&mdash;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
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original has , instead of .">pearls.</ins>
+He then sailed
+northward to the river's mouth taking his prizes with
+him, with all the prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>At the river's mouth he very foolishly "sent away the
+two prizes that hee tooke"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Before he reached this river, the negroes of the Pearl
+Islands sent word to the Governor of Panama that English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original">Spaniards</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 1576.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SPANISH RULE IN HISPANIOLA</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Rise of the buccaneers&mdash;The hunters of the wild bulls&mdash;Tortuga&mdash;Buccaneer
+politics&mdash;Buccaneer customs</p></div>
+
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> 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,"&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+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&mdash;<i>qu&eacute; cosa tan bonita!</i>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>selves
+secure.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 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&mdash;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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;">
+<a name="img147" id="img147"></a>
+<a href="images/147.jpg"><img src="images/147_th.jpg" width="323" height="400"
+alt="A BUCCANEER&#39;S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER&#39;S GUN; A BARBECUE IN RIGHT LOWER CORNER"
+title="A BUCCANEER&#39;S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER&#39;S GUN" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN<br />
+A BARBECUE IN RIGHT LOWER CORNER</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>In 1655, when an English fleet under Penn and Venables
+came to the Indies to attack the Spaniards, a body of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>The buccaneers now began "to make themselves re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>doubtable
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> In many
+cases the partnership lasted during life. A love for his
+partner was usually the only tender sentiment a buccaneer
+allowed himself.</p>
+
+<p>When a number of buccaneers grew tired of plucking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+weeds<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> 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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+Spaniard on the Main. Among the party were generally
+some Indians from Campeachy&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as sufficient men had come to muster, the
+planter<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> 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&mdash;a good fellow, brave as a lion, and
+fortunate in love and war&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Those who lent the ships and bore the cost of the pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>visioning,
+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<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>:&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+a continued cruise with a large crew this hand-to-mouth
+supply was insufficient.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+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&mdash;"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&mdash;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"&mdash;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.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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-vit&aelig;. 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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"&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;Captain James Burney: "Voyages and Discoveries in the
+South Sea"; "History of the Buccaneers." P&egrave;re 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
+Ha&iuml;ti." Cal. State Papers: "America and West Indies." Abb&eacute; 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."
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Cieca'">Cie&ccedil;a</ins>
+de Leon: "Travels."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>BUCCANEER CUSTOMS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Mansvelt and Morgan&mdash;Morgan's raid on Cuba&mdash;Puerto del
+Principe</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Throughout the years of buccaneering, the buccaneers
+often put to sea in canoas and periaguas,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>
+just as Drake put to sea in his three pinnaces. Life
+in an open boat is far from pleasant, but men who
+passed their leisure cutting logwood at Campeachy, or
+hoeing tobacco in Jamaica, or toiling over gramma grass
+under a hot sun after cattle, were not disposed to make
+the worst of things. They would sit contentedly upon
+the oar bench, rowing with a long, slow stroke for hours
+together without showing signs of fatigue. Nearly all
+of them were men of more than ordinary strength, and
+all of them were well accustomed to the climate. When
+they had rowed their canoa to the Main they were able
+to take it easy till a ship came by from one of the Spanish
+ports. If she seemed a reasonable prey, without too
+many guns, and not too high charged, or high built, the
+privateers would load their muskets, and row down to
+engage her. The best shots were sent into the bows,
+and excused from rowing, lest the exercise should cause
+their hands to tremble. A clever man was put to the
+steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden to sing out
+whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It
+was in action, and in action only, that the captain had
+command over his men. The steersman endeavoured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+to keep the masts of the quarry in a line, and to approach
+her from astern. The marksmen from the bows kept up
+a continual fire at the vessel's helmsmen, if they could
+be seen, and at any gun-ports which happened to be
+open. If the helmsmen could not be seen from the sea,
+the canoas aimed to row in upon the vessel's quarters,
+where they could wedge up the rudder with wooden
+chocks or wedges. They then laid her aboard over the
+quarter, or by the after chains, and carried her with their
+knives and pistols. The first man to get aboard received
+some gift of money at the division of the spoil.</p>
+
+<p>When the prize was taken, the prisoners were questioned,
+and despoiled. Often, indeed, they were stripped stark
+naked, and granted the privilege of seeing their finery on
+a pirate's back. Each buccaneer had the right to take
+a shift of clothes out of each prize captured. The cargo
+was then rummaged, and the state of the ship looked to,
+with an eye to using her as a cruiser. As a rule, the
+prisoners were put ashore on the first opportunity, but
+some buccaneers had a way of selling their captives
+into slavery. If the ship were old, leaky, valueless, in
+ballast, or with a cargo useless to the rovers, she was
+either robbed of her guns, and turned adrift with her crew,
+or run ashore in some snug cove, where she could be burnt
+for the sake of the iron-work. If the cargo were of value,
+and, as a rule, the ships they took had some rich thing
+aboard them, they sailed her to one of the Dutch, French,
+or English settlements, where they sold her freight for
+what they could get&mdash;some tenth or twentieth of its value.
+If the ship were a good one, in good condition, well found,
+swift, and not of too great draught (for they preferred to
+sail in small ships), they took her for their cruiser as soon
+as they had emptied out her freight. They sponged and
+loaded her guns, brought their stores aboard her, laid their
+mats upon her deck, secured the boats astern, and sailed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+away in search of other plunder. They kept little discipline
+aboard their ships. What work had to be done
+they did, but works of supererogation they despised and
+rejected as a shade unholy. The night watches were
+partly orgies. While some slept, the others fired guns
+and drank to the health of their fellows. By the light of
+the binnacle, or by the light of the slush lamps in the
+cabin, the rovers played a hand at cards, or diced each
+other at "seven and eleven," using a pannikin as dice-box.
+While the gamblers cut and shuffled, and the dice rattled
+in the tin, the musical sang songs, the fiddlers set their
+music chuckling, and the sea-boots stamped approval.
+The cunning dancers showed their science in the moonlight,
+avoiding the sleepers if they could. In this jolly
+fashion were the nights made short. In the daytime, the
+gambling continued with little intermission; nor had the
+captain any authority to stop it. One captain, in the
+histories, was so bold as to throw the dice and cards
+overboard, but, as a rule, the captain of a buccaneer cruiser
+was chosen as an artist, or navigator, or as a lucky fighter.
+He was not expected to spoil sport. The continual
+gambling nearly always led to fights and quarrels. The
+lucky dicers often won so much that the unlucky had to
+part with all their booty. Sometimes a few men would
+win all the plunder of the cruise, much to the disgust of
+the majority, who clamoured for a redivision of the spoil.
+If two buccaneers got into a quarrel they fought it out
+on shore at the first opportunity, using knives, swords, or
+pistols, according to taste. The usual way of fighting
+was with pistols, the combatants standing back to back,
+at a distance of ten or twelve paces, and turning round to
+fire at the word of command. If both shots missed, the
+question was decided with cutlasses, the man who drew
+first blood being declared the winner. If a man were
+proved to be a coward he was either tied to the mast, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+shot, or mutilated, and sent ashore. No cruise came to an
+end until the company declared themselves satisfied with
+the amount of plunder taken. The question, like all
+other important questions, was debated round the mast,
+and decided by vote.</p>
+
+<p>At the conclusion of a successful cruise, they sailed
+for Port Royal, with the ship full of treasure, such as
+vicuna wool, packets of pearls from the Hatch, jars of
+civet or of ambergris, boxes of "marmalett" and spices,
+casks of strong drink, bales of silk, sacks of chocolate and
+vanilla, and rolls of green cloth and pale blue cotton
+which the Indians had woven in Peru, in some sandy village
+near the sea, in sight of the pelicans and the penguins.
+In addition to all these things, they usually had a number
+of the personal possessions of those they had taken on
+the seas. Lying in the chests for subsequent division
+were swords, silver-mounted pistols, daggers chased and
+inlaid, watches from Spain, necklaces of uncut jewels,
+rings and bangles, heavy carved furniture, "cases of
+bottles" of delicately cut green glass, containing cordials
+distilled of precious mints, with packets of emeralds from
+Brazil, bezoar stones from Patagonia, paintings from
+Spain, and medicinal gums from Nicaragua. All these
+things were divided by lot at the main-mast as soon as
+the anchor held. As the ship, or ships, neared port, her
+men hung colours out&mdash;any colours they could find&mdash;to
+make their vessel gay. A cup of drink was taken as they
+sailed slowly home to moorings, and as they drank they
+fired off the cannon, "bullets and all," again and yet
+again, rejoicing as the bullets struck the water. Up in
+the bay, the ships in the harbour answered with salutes
+of cannon; flags were dipped and hoisted in salute;
+and so the anchor dropped in some safe reach, and the
+division of the spoil began.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img167" id="img167"></a>
+<a href="images/167.jpg"><img src="images/167_th.jpg" width="400" height="281"
+alt="OLD PORT ROYAL" title="OLD PORT ROYAL" /></a>
+<span class="caption">OLD PORT ROYAL</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>After the division of the spoil in the beautiful Port<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+Royal harbour, in sight of the palm-trees and the fort
+with the colours flying, the buccaneers packed their gear,
+and dropped over the side into a boat. They were pulled
+ashore by some grinning black man with a scarlet scarf
+about his head and the brand of a hot iron on his shoulders.
+At the jetty end, where the Indians lounged at their
+tobacco and the fishermen's canoas rocked, the sunburnt
+pirates put ashore. Among the noisy company which
+always gathers on a pier they met with their companions.
+A sort of Roman triumph followed, as the "happily
+returned" lounged swaggeringly towards the taverns.
+Eager hands helped them to carry in their plunder. In
+a few minutes the gang was entering the tavern, the
+long, cool room with barrels round the walls, where there
+were benches and a table and an old blind fiddler jerking
+his elbow at a jig. Noisily the party ranged about the
+table, and sat themselves upon the benches, while the
+drawers, or potboys, in their shirts, drew near to take the
+orders. I wonder if the reader has ever heard a sailor
+in the like circumstance, five minutes after he has touched
+his pay, address a company of parasites in an inn with
+the question: "What's it going to be?"</p>
+
+<p>After the settlement of Jamaica by the English, the
+buccaneers became more enterprising. One buccaneer
+captain, the most remarkable of all of them, a man named
+Mansvelt, probably a Dutchman from Cura&ccedil;oa, attempted
+to found a pirate settlement upon the island of Santa
+Katalina, or Old Providence. Mansvelt was a fortunate
+sea-captain, with considerable charm of manner. He was
+popular with the buccaneers, and had a name among
+them, for he was the first of them to cross the isthmus
+and to sail the South Sea. His South-Sea cruise had
+come to little, for provisions ran short, and his company
+had been too small to attempt a Spanish town. He
+had, therefore, retreated to the North Sea to his ships,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+and had then gone cruising northward along the Nicaragua
+coast as far as the Blewfields River. From this point
+he stood away to the island of Santa Katalina, or Old
+Providence&mdash;an island about six miles long, with an excellent
+harbour, which, he thought, might easily be fortified.
+A smaller island lies directly to the north of it,
+separated from it by a narrow channel of the sea. Twenty
+years before his visit it had been the haunt of an old
+captain of the name of Blewfields, who had made it
+his base while his men went logwood cutting on the
+mainland. Blewfields was now dead, either of rum or
+war, and the Spaniards had settled there, and had built
+themselves a fort or castle to command the harbour.
+Having examined the place, Mansvelt sailed away to
+Jamaica to equip a fleet to take it. He saw that the
+golden times which the buccaneers were then enjoying
+could not last for ever, and that their occupation might
+be wrecked by a single ill-considered treaty, dated from
+St James's or the Court of France. He thought that the
+islands should be seized as a general rendezvous for folk
+of that way of life. With a little trouble the harbour
+could be made impregnable. The land was good, and
+suited for the growing of maize or tobacco&mdash;the two products
+most in demand among them. The islands were
+near the Main, being only thirty-five leagues from the
+Chagres River, the stream from which the golden harvest
+floated from the cities of the south. They were close
+to the coast of Nicaragua, where the logwood grew in
+clumps, waiting for the axes of the lumbermen. With
+the islands in their hands, the buccaneers could drive
+the Spaniards off the isthmus&mdash;or so Mansvelt thought.
+It would at
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original">anyrate</ins>
+have been an easy matter for them
+to have wrecked the trade routes from Panama to Porto
+Bello, and from Porto Bello to Vera Cruz.</p>
+
+<p>While Mansvelt lay at Port Royal, scraping and tallow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>ing
+his ships, getting beef salted and boucanned, and
+drumming up his men from the taverns, a Welshman,
+of the name of Henry Morgan, came sailing up to moorings
+with half-a-dozen captured merchantmen. But a
+few weeks before, he had come home from a cruise with
+a little money in his pockets. He had clubbed together
+with some shipmates, and had purchased a small ship
+with the common fund. She was but meanly equipped,
+yet her first cruise to the westward, on the coast of Campeachy,
+was singularly lucky. Mansvelt at once saw
+his opportunity to win recruits. A captain so fortunate
+as Morgan would be sure to attract followers, for the
+buccaneers asked that their captains should be valorous
+and lucky. For other qualities, such as prudence and
+forethought, they did not particularly care. Mansvelt
+at once went aboard Morgan's ship to drink a cup of
+sack with him in the cabin. He asked him to act as
+vice-admiral to the fleet he was then equipping for
+Santa Katalina. To this Henry Morgan very readily
+consented, for he judged that a great company would
+be able to achieve great things. In a few days, the two
+set sail together from Port Royal, with a fleet of fifteen
+ships, manned by 500 buccaneers, many of whom were
+French and Dutch.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they arrived at Santa Katalina, they anchored,
+and sent their men ashore with some heavy guns. The
+Spanish garrison was strong, and the fortress well situated,
+but in a few days they forced it to surrender. They then
+crossed by a bridge of boats to the lesser island to the
+north, where they ravaged the plantations for fresh
+supplies. Having blown up all the fortifications save
+the castle, they sent the Spanish prisoners aboard the
+ships. They then chose out 100 trusty men to keep
+the island for them. They left these on the island, under
+the command of a Frenchman of the name of Le<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+Sieur Simon. They also left the Spanish slaves behind,
+to work the plantations, and to grow maize and sweet
+potatoes for the future victualling of the fleet. Mansvelt
+then sailed away towards Porto Bello, near which city
+he put his prisoners ashore. He cruised to the eastward
+for some weeks, snapping up provision ships and little
+trading vessels; but he learned that the Governor of
+Panama, a determined and very gallant soldier, was fitting
+out an army to encounter him, should he attempt to land.
+The news may have been false, but it showed the buccaneers
+that they were known to be upon the coast, and
+that their raid up "the river of Colla" to "rob and pillage"
+the little town of Nata, on the Bay of Panama, would be
+fruitless. The Spanish residents of little towns like Nata
+buried all their gold and silver, and then fled into the
+woods when rumours of the pirates came to them. To
+attack such a town some weeks after the townsfolk had
+received warning of their intentions would have been
+worse than useless.</p>
+
+<p>Mansvelt, therefore, returned to Santa Katalina to see
+how the colony had prospered while he had been at sea. He
+found that Le Sieur Simon had put the harbour "in a very
+good posture of defence," having built a couple of batteries
+to command the anchorage. In these he had mounted his
+cannon upon platforms of plank, with due munitions of
+cannon-balls and powder. On the little island to the
+north he had laid out plantations of maize, sweet potatoes,
+plantains, and tobacco. The first-fruits of these green
+fields were now ripe, and "sufficient to revictual the whole
+fleet with provisions and fruits."</p>
+
+<p>Mansvelt was so well satisfied with the prospects of the
+colony that he determined to hurry back to Jamaica to
+beg recruits and recognition from the English Governor.
+The islands had belonged to English subjects in the past,
+and of right belonged to England still. However, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+Jamaican Governor disliked the scheme. He feared that
+by lending his support he would incur the wrath of the
+English Government, while he could not weaken his
+position in Jamaica by sending soldiers from his garrison.
+Mansvelt, "seeing the unwillingness" of this un-English
+Governor, at once made sail for Tortuga, where he hoped
+the French might be less squeamish. He dropped anchor,
+in the channel between Tortuga and Hispaniola early in
+the summer of 1665. He seems to have gone ashore to
+see the French authorities. Perhaps he drank too strong
+a punch of rum and sugar&mdash;a drink very prejudicial in
+such a climate to one not used to it. Perhaps he took the
+yellow fever, or the coast cramp; the fact cannot now be
+known. At any rate he sickened, and died there, "before
+he could accomplish his desires"&mdash;"all things hereby remaining
+in suspense." One account, based on the hearsay
+of a sea-captain, says that Mansvelt was taken by the
+Spaniards, and brought to Porto Bello, and there put to
+death by the troops.</p>
+
+<p>Le Sieur Simon remained at his post, hoeing his tobacco
+plants, and sending detachments to the Main to kill manatee,
+or to cut logwood. He looked out anxiously for Mansvelt's
+ships, for he had not men enough to stand a siege, and
+greatly feared that the Spaniards would attack him. While
+he stayed in this perplexity, wondering why he did not
+hear from Mansvelt, he received a letter from Don John
+Perez de Guzman, the Spanish captain-general, who bade
+him "surrender the island to his Catholic Majesty," on
+pain of severe punishment. To this Le Sieur Simon made
+no answer, for he hoped that Mansvelt's fleet would soon
+be in those waters to deliver him from danger. Don John,
+who was a very energetic captain-general, determined to
+retake the place. He left his residence at Panama, and
+crossed the isthmus to Porto Bello, where he found a ship,
+called the <i>St Vincent</i>, "that belonged to the Company of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+the Negroes" (the Isthmian company of slavers), lying at
+anchor, waiting for a freight. We are told that she was a
+good ship, "well mounted with guns." He provisioned her
+for the sea, and manned her with about 400 men, mostly
+soldiers from the Porto Bello forts. Among the company
+were seven master gunners and "twelve Indians very
+dexterous at shooting with bows and arrows." The city
+of Cartagena furnished other ships and men, bringing
+the squadron to a total of four vessels and 500 men-at-arms.
+With this force the Spanish commander arrived
+off Santa Katalina, coming to anchor in the port there
+on the evening of a windy day, the 10th of August 1665.
+As they dropped anchor they displayed their colours.
+As soon as the yellow silk blew clear, Le Sieur Simon
+discharged "three guns with bullets" at the ships, "the
+which were soon answered in the same coin." The
+Spaniard then sent a boat ashore to summon the garrison,
+threatening death to all if the summons were refused. To
+this Le Sieur Simon replied that the island was a possession
+of the English Crown, "and that, instead of surrendering
+it, they preferred to lose their lives." As more
+than a fourth of the little garrison was at that time
+hunting on the Main, or at sea, the answer was heroic.
+Three days later, some negroes swam off to the ships to
+tell the Spaniards of the garrison's weakness. After
+two more days of council, the boats were lowered
+from the ships, and manned with soldiers. The guns on
+the gun-decks were loaded, and trained. The drums beat
+to quarters both on the ships and in the batteries. Under
+the cover of the warship's guns, the boats shoved off
+towards the landing-place, receiving a furious fire from
+the buccaneers. The "weather was very calm and clear,"
+so that the smoke from the guns did not blow away fast
+enough to allow the buccaneers to aim at the boats. The
+landing force formed into three parties, two of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+attacked the flanks, and the third the centre. The battle
+was very furious, though the buccaneers were outnumbered
+and had no chance of victory. They ran short
+of cannon-balls before they surrendered, but they made
+shift for a time with small shot and scraps of iron, "also
+the organs of the church," of which they fired "threescore
+pipes" at a shot. The fighting lasted most of the day,
+for it was not to the advantage of the Spaniards to come
+to push of pike. Towards sunset the buccaneers were
+beaten from their guns. They fought in the open for a
+few minutes, round "the gate called Costadura," but the
+Spaniards surrounded them, and they were forced to lay
+down their arms. The Spanish colours were set up, and
+two poor Spaniards who had joined the buccaneers were
+shot to death upon the Plaza. The English prisoners
+were sent aboard the ships, and carried into Porto Bello,
+where they were put to the building of a fortress&mdash;the
+Iron Castle, a place of great strength, which later on the
+English blew to pieces. Some of the men were sent to
+Panama "to work in the castle of St Jerome"&mdash;a wonderful,
+great castle, which was burned at the sack of Panama
+almost before the mortar dried.</p>
+
+<p>While the guns were roaring over Santa Katalina, as Le
+Sieur Simon rammed his cannon full of organ pipes, Henry
+Morgan was in lodgings at Port Royal, greatly troubled
+at the news of Mansvelt's death. He was busily engaged
+at the time with letters to the merchants of New England.
+He was endeavouring to get their help towards the fortification
+of the island he had helped to capture. "His
+principal intent," writes one who did not love the man,
+"was to consecrate it as a refuge and sanctuary to the
+Pirates of those parts," making it "a convenient receptacle
+or store house of their preys and robberies." It is pleasant
+to speculate as to the reasons he urged to the devout New
+England Puritans. He must have chuckled to himself, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+shared many a laugh with his clerk, to think that perhaps
+a Levite, or a Man of God, a deacon, or an elder, would
+untie the purse-strings of the sealed if he did but agonise
+about the Spanish Inquisition with sufficient earthquake
+and eclipse. He heard of the loss of the island before the
+answers came to him, and the news, of course, "put him
+upon new designs," though he did not abandon the scheme
+in its entirety. He had his little fleet at anchor in the
+harbour, gradually fitting for the sea, and his own ship
+was ready. Having received his commission from the
+Governor, he gave his captains orders to meet him on the
+Cuban coast, at one of the many inlets affording safe
+anchorage. Here, after several weeks of cruising, he was
+joined by "a fleet of twelve sail," some of them of several
+hundred tons. These were manned by 700 fighting men,
+part French, part English.</p>
+
+<p>At the council of war aboard the admiral's ship, it was
+suggested that so large a company should venture on
+Havana, which city, they thought, might easily be taken,
+"especially if they could but take a few of the ecclesiastics."
+Some of the pirates had been prisoners in the
+Havana, and knew that a town of 30,000 inhabitants
+would hardly yield to 700 men, however desperate.
+"Nothing of consequence could be done there," they
+pronounced, even with ecclesiastics, "unless with fifteen
+hundred men." One of the pirates then suggested
+the town of Puerto del Principe, an inland town surrounded
+by tobacco fields, at some distance from the
+sea. It did a thriving trade with the Havana; and he
+who suggested that it should be sacked, affirmed upon his
+honour, like Boult over Maria, that it never yet "was
+sacked by any Pirates." Towards this virginal rich town
+the buccaneers proceeded, keeping close along the coast
+until they made the anchorage of Santa Maria. Here they
+dropped anchor for the night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the men were making merry over the punch, as
+they cleaned their arms, and packed their satchels, a
+Spanish prisoner "who had overheard their discourse,
+while they thought he did not understand the English
+tongue," slipped through a port-hole to the sea, and swam
+ashore. By some miracle he escaped the ground sharks,
+and contrived to get to Puerto del Principe some hours
+before the pirates left their ships. The Governor of the
+town, to whom he told his story, at once raised all his
+forces, "both freemen and slaves," to prejudice the enemy
+when he attacked. The forest ways were blocked with
+timber baulks, and several ambuscades were laid, with
+cannon in them, "to play upon them on their march."
+In all, he raised and armed 800 men, whom he disposed
+in order, either in the jungle at the ambuscades or
+in a wide expanse of grass which surrounded the town.</p>
+
+<p>In due course Morgan sent his men ashore, and marched
+them through the wood towards the town. They found
+the woodland trackways blocked by the timber baulks, so
+they made a detour, hacking paths for themselves with
+their machetes, until they got clear of the wood. When
+they got out of the jungle they found themselves on an
+immense green field, covered with thick grass, which bowed
+and shivered in the wind. A few pale cattle grazed here
+and there on the savannah; a few birds piped and twittered
+in the sunshine. In front of them, at some little distance,
+was the town they had come to pillage. It lay open to
+them&mdash;a cluster of houses, none of them very large, with
+warehouses and tobacco drying-rooms and churches with
+bells in them. Outside the town, some of them lying
+down, some standing so as to get a view of the enemy,
+were the planters and townsfolk, with their pikes and
+muskets, waiting for the battle to begin. Right in the
+pirates' front was a troop of horsemen armed with lances,
+swords, and pistols, drawn up in very good order, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+ready to advance. The pirates on their coming from the
+wood formed into a semicircle or half-moon shape, the
+bow outwards, the horns curving to prevent the cavalry
+from taking them in flank. They had drums and colours
+in their ranks. The drums beat out a bravery, the colours
+were displayed. The men halted for a moment to get
+their breath and to reprime their guns. Then they advanced
+slowly, to the drubbing of the drums, just as the
+Spanish horsemen trotted forward. As the Spaniards
+sounded the charge, the buccaneers fired a volley of bullets
+at them, which brought a number of cavaliers out of their
+saddles. Those horsemen who escaped the bullets dashed
+down upon the line, and fired their pistols at close quarters,
+afterwards wheeling round, and galloping back to reform.
+They charged again and again, "like valiant and courageous
+soldiers," but at every charge the pirates stood
+firm, and withered them with file-firing. As they retired
+after each rush, the marksmen in the ranks picked them
+off one by one, killing the Governor, in his plumed hat,
+and strewing the grass with corpses. They also man&oelig;uvred
+during this skirmish so as to cut off the horsemen
+from the town. After four hours of battle the cavalry
+were broken and defeated, and in no heart to fight
+further. They made a last charge on their blown horses,
+but their ranks went to pieces at the muzzles of the pirates'
+guns. They broke towards the cover of the woods, but
+the pirates charged them as they ran, and cut them down
+without pity. Then the drums beat out a bravery, and
+the pirates rushed the town in the face of a smart fire. The
+Spaniards fought in the streets, while some fired from the
+roofs and upper windows. So hot was the tussle that the
+pirates had to fight from house to house. The townsmen
+did not cease their fire, till the pirates were gathering wood
+to burn the town, in despair of taking it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 295px;">
+<a name="img177" id="img177"></a>
+<a href="images/177.jpg"><img src="images/177_th.jpg" width="295" height="400"
+alt="The Towne of Puerto del Principe taken &amp; sackt; Part 2 Page 80."
+title="PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As soon as the firing ceased, the townsfolk were driven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+to the churches, and there imprisoned under sentinels.
+Afterwards the pirates "searched the whole country
+round about the town, bringing in day by day many goods
+and prisoners, with much provision." The wine and spirits
+of the townsfolk were set on tap, and "with this they fell
+to banqueting among themselves, and making great cheer
+after their customary way." They feasted so merrily that
+they forgot their prisoners, "whereby the greatest part
+perished." Those who did not perish were examined in
+the Plaza, "to make them confess where they had hidden
+their goods." Those who would not tell where they had
+buried their gold were tortured very barbarously by burning
+matches, twisted cords, or lighted palm leaves. Finally,
+the starving wretches were ordered to find ransoms, "else
+they should be all transported to Jamaica" to be sold as
+slaves. The town was also laid under a heavy contribution,
+without which, they said, "they would turn every
+house into ashes."</p>
+
+<p>It happened that, at this juncture, some buccaneers, who
+were raiding in the woods, made prisoner a negro carrying
+letters from the Governor of the Havana. The letters
+were written to the citizens, telling them to delay the
+payment of their ransoms as long as possible, for that he
+was fitting out some soldiers to relieve them. The letters
+warned Henry Morgan that he had better be away with
+the treasure he had found. He gave order for the plunder
+to be sent aboard in the carts of the townsfolk. He then
+called up the prisoners, and told them very sharply that
+their ransoms must be paid the next day, "forasmuch as
+he would not wait one moment longer, but reduce the
+whole town to ashes, in case they failed to perform the
+sum he demanded." As it was plainly impossible for the
+townsfolk to produce their ransoms at this short notice
+he graciously relieved their misery by adding that he
+would be contented with 500 beeves, "together with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+sufficient salt wherewith to salt them." He insisted that
+the cattle should be ready for him by the next morning,
+and that the Spaniards should deliver them upon the
+beach, where they could be shifted to the ships without
+delay. Having made these terms, he marched his men
+away towards the sea, taking with him six of the principal
+prisoners "as pledges of what he intended." Early the
+next morning the beach of Santa Maria bay was thronged
+with cattle in charge of negroes and planters. Some of
+the oxen had been yoked to carts to bring the necessary
+salt. The Spaniards delivered the ransom, and demanded
+the six hostages. Morgan was by this time in some anxiety
+for his position. He was eager to set sail before the Havana
+ships came round the headland, with their guns run out,
+and matches lit, and all things ready for a fight. He
+refused to release the prisoners until the vaqueros "had
+helped his men to kill and salt the beeves." The work
+of killing and salting was performed "in great haste," lest
+the Havana ships should come upon them before the beef
+was shipped. The hides were left upon the sands, there
+being no time to dry them before sailing. A Spanish
+cowboy can kill, skin, and cut up a steer in a few minutes.
+The buccaneers were probably no whit less skilful. By
+noon the work was done. The beach of Santa Maria was
+strewn with mangled remnants, over which the seagulls
+quarrelled. But before Morgan could proceed to sea, he
+had to quell an uproar which was setting the French and
+English by the ears. The parties had not come to blows,
+but the French were clamouring for vengeance with drawn
+weapons. A French sailor, who was working on the
+beach, killing and pickling the meat, had been plundered
+by an Englishman, who "took away the marrowbones he
+had taken out of the ox." Marrow, "toute chaude," was a
+favourite dish among these people. The Frenchman could
+not brook an insult of a kind as hurtful to his dinner as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+his sense of honour. He challenged the thief to single
+combat: swords the weapon, the time then. The buccaneers
+knocked off their butcher's work to see the fight.
+As the poor Frenchman turned his back to make him
+ready, his adversary stabbed him from behind, running
+him quite through, so that "he suddenly fell dead upon
+the place." Instantly the beach was in an uproar. The
+Frenchmen pressed upon the English to attack the
+murderer and to avenge the death of their fellow. There
+had been bad blood between the parties ever since they
+mustered at the quays before the raid began. The quarrel
+now raging was an excuse to both sides. Morgan walked
+between the angry groups, telling them to put up their
+swords. At a word from him, the murderer was seized,
+set in irons, and sent aboard an English ship. Morgan
+then seems to have made a little speech to pacify the
+rioters, telling the French that the man should be hanged
+("hanged immediately," as they said of Admiral Byng)
+as soon as the ships had anchored in Port Royal bay.
+To the English, he said that the criminal was worthy of
+punishment, "for although it was permitted him to challenge
+his adversary, yet it was not lawful to kill him
+treacherously, as he did." After a good deal of muttering,
+the mutineers returned aboard their ships, carrying with
+them the last of the newly salted beef. The hostages were
+freed, a gun was fired from the admiral's ship, and the
+fleet hove up their anchors, and sailed away from Cuba,
+to some small sandy quay with a spring of water in it,
+where the division of the plunder could be made. The
+plunder was heaped together in a single pile. It was
+valued by the captains, who knew by long experience
+what such goods would fetch in the Jamaican towns.</p>
+
+<p>To the "resentment and grief" of all the 700 men
+these valuers could not bring the total up to 50,000
+pieces of eight&mdash;say &pound;12,000&mdash;"in money and goods."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+All hands were disgusted at "such a small booty,
+which was not sufficient to pay their debts at Jamaica."
+Some cursed their fortune; others cursed their captain.
+It does not seem to have occurred to them
+to blame themselves for talking business before their
+Spanish prisoners. Morgan told them to "think upon
+some other enterprize," for the ships were fit to keep
+the sea, and well provisioned. It would be an easy matter,
+he told them, to attack some town upon the Main "before
+they returned home," so that they should have a little
+money for the taverns, to buy them rum with, at the end
+of the cruise. But the French were still sore about the
+murder of their man: they raised objections to every
+scheme the English buccaneers proposed. Each proposition
+was received contemptuously, with angry bickerings
+and mutterings. At last the French captains intimated
+that they desired to part company. Captain Morgan endeavoured
+to dissuade them from this resolution by using
+every flattery his adroit nature could suggest. Finding
+that they would not listen to him, even though he
+swore by his honour that the murderer, then in chains,
+should be hanged as soon as they reached home, he
+brought out wine and glasses, and drank to their good
+fortune. The booty was then shared up among the adventurers.
+The Frenchmen got their shares aboard, and
+set sail for Tortuga to the sound of a salute of guns.
+The English held on for Port Royal, in great "resentment
+and grief." When they arrived there they caused the
+murderer to be hanged upon a gallows, which, we are
+told, "was all the satisfaction the French Pirates could
+expect."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;If we may believe Morgan's statement to Sir T. Modyford, then
+Governor of Jamaica, he brought with him from Cuba reliable evidence
+that the Spaniards were planning an attack upon that colony (see State
+Papers: West Indies and Colonial Series). If the statements of his prisoners
+were correct, the subsequent piratical raid upon the Main had some justification.
+Had the Spaniards matured their plans, and pushed the attack home, it
+is probable that we should have lost our West Indian possessions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;A. O. Exquemeling: "Bucaniers of America," eds. 1684-5
+and 1699. Cal. State Papers: "West Indies."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SACK OF PORTO BELLO</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Gulf of Maracaibo&mdash;Morgan's escape from the Spaniards</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a melancholy home-coming. The men had little
+more than ten pounds apiece to spend in jollity. The
+merchants who enjoyed their custom were of those kinds
+least anxious to give credit. The ten pounds were but
+sufficient to stimulate desire. They did not allow the
+jolly mariner to enjoy himself with any thoroughness.
+In a day or two, the buccaneers were at the end of their
+gold, and had to haunt the street corners, within scent
+of the rum casks, thinking sadly of the pleasant liquor
+they could not afford to drink. Henry Morgan took
+this occasion to recruit for a new enterprise. He went
+ashore among the drinking-houses, telling all he met of
+golden towns he meant to capture. He always "communicated
+vigour with his words," for, being a Welshman,
+he had a certain fervour of address, not necessarily sincere,
+which touched his simplest phrase with passion. In a
+day or two, after a little talk and a little treating, every
+disconsolate drunkard in the town was "persuaded by
+his reasons, that the sole execution of his orders, would
+be a certain means of obtaining great riches." This persuasion,
+the writer adds, "had such influence upon their
+minds, that with inimitable courage they all resolved
+to follow him." Even "a certain Pirate of Campeachy,"
+a shipowner of considerable repute, resolved to follow
+Morgan "to seek new fortunes and greater advantages
+than he had found before." The French might hold aloof,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+they all declared, but an Englishman was still the equal
+of a Spaniard; while after all a short life and a merry
+one was better than work ashore or being a parson.
+With this crude philosophy, they went aboard again to
+the decks they had so lately left. The Campeachy pirate
+brought in a ship or two, and some large canoas. In all
+they had a fleet of nine sail, manned by "four hundred
+and three score military men." With this force Captain
+Morgan sailed for Costa Rica.</p>
+
+<p>When they came within the sight of land, a council
+was called, to which the captains of the vessels went.
+Morgan told them that he meant to plunder Porto Bello
+by a night attack, "being resolved" to sack the place,
+"not the least corner escaping his diligence." He added
+that the scheme had been held secret, so that "it would
+not fail to succeed well." Besides, he thought it likely
+that a city of such strength would be unprepared for
+any sudden attack. The captains were staggered by
+this resolution, for they thought themselves too weak
+"to assault so strong and great a city." To this the
+plucky Welshman answered: "If our number is small, our
+hearts are great. And the fewer persons we are, the more
+union and better shares we shall have in the spoil." This
+answer, with the thought of "those vast riches they
+promised themselves," convinced the captains that the
+town could be attempted. It was a "dangerous voyage
+and bold assault" but Morgan had been lucky in the past,
+and the luck might still be with him. He knew the Porto
+Bello country, having been there with a party (perhaps
+Mansvelt's party) some years before. At any rate the
+ships would be at hand in the event of a repulse.</p>
+
+<p>It was something of a hazard, for the Spanish garrison
+was formed of all the desperate criminals the colonial
+police could catch. These men made excellent soldiers,
+for after a battle they were given the plunder of the men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+they had killed. Then Panama, with its great garrison, was
+perilously near at hand, being barely sixty miles away, or
+two days' journey. Lastly, the town was strongly fortified,
+with castles guarding it at all points. The garrison was
+comparatively small, mustering about three companies of
+foot. To these, however, the buccaneers had to add 300
+townsfolk capable of bearing arms. Following John Exquemeling's
+plan, we add a brief description of this famous
+town, to help the reader to form a mental picture of it.</p>
+
+<p>Porto Bello stands on the south-eastern side of a fine
+bay, "in the province of Costa Rica." At the time when
+Morgan captured it (in June 1668) it was one of the
+strongest cities in the possession of the King of Spain.
+It was neglected until 1584, when a royal mandate caused
+the traders of Nombre de Dios to migrate thither. It
+then became the port of the galleons,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> where the treasures
+of the south were shipped for Spain. The city which
+Morgan sacked was built upon a strip of level ground
+planted with fruit-trees, at a little distance from the sea,
+but within a few yards of the bay. The westward half of
+the town was very stately, being graced with fine stone
+churches and the residence of the lieutenant-general.
+Most of the merchants' dwellings (and of these there
+may have been 100) were built of cedar wood. Some
+were of stone, a thing unusual in the Indies, and some
+were partly stone, with wooden upper storeys. There was
+a fine stone convent peopled by Sisters of Mercy, and a
+dirty, ruinous old hospital for "the sick men belonging to
+the ships of war." On the shore there was a quay, backed
+by a long stone custom-house. The main street ran along
+the shore behind this custom-house, with cross-streets
+leading to the two great squares. The eastward half of
+the city, through which the road to Panama ran, was
+called Guinea; for there the slaves and negroes used to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+live, in huts and cottages of sugar-cane and palm leaves.
+There, too, was the slave mart, to which the cargoes of
+the Guinea ships were brought. A little river of clear
+water divided the two halves of the town. Another little
+river, bridged in two places, ran between the town and
+Castle Gloria. The place was strongly fortified. Ships
+entering the bay had to pass close to the "Iron Castle,"
+built upon the western point. Directly they stood away
+towards the town they were exposed to the guns of Castle
+Gloria and Fort Jeronimo&mdash;the latter a strong castle built
+upon a sandbank off the Guinea town. The constant
+population was not large, though probably 300 white
+men lived there all the year round, in addition to
+the Spanish garrison. The native quarter was generally
+inhabited by several hundred negroes and mulattoes.
+When the galleons arrived there, and for some weeks
+before, the town was populous with merchants, who came
+across from Panama to buy and sell. Tents were pitched
+in the Grand Plaza, in front of the Governor's house, for
+the protection of perishable goods, like Jesuits'-bark.
+Gold and silver bars became as common to the sight as
+pebbles. Droves of mules came daily in from Panama,
+and ships arrived daily from all the seaports in the Indies.
+As soon as the galleons sailed for Spain, the city emptied
+as rapidly as it had filled. It was too unhealthy a
+place for white folk, who continued there "no longer
+than was needful to acquire a fortune."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="img187" id="img187"></a>
+<a href="images/187.jpg"><img src="images/187_th.jpg" width="500" height="271"
+alt="PORTO BELLO; CIRCA 1740. SHOWING THE SITUATION AND DEFENCES OF THE CITY"
+title="PORTO BELLO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PORTO BELLO<br />
+CIRCA 1740. SHOWING THE SITUATION AND DEFENCES OF THE CITY</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Indeed, Porto Bello was one of the most pestilential
+cities ever built, "by reason of the unhealthiness of the
+Air, occasioned by certain Vapours that exhale from the
+Mountains." It was excessively hot, for it lay (as it still
+lies) in a well, surrounded by hills, "without any intervals
+to admit the refreshing gales." It was less marshy than
+Nombre de Dios, but "the sea, when it ebbs, leaves a vast
+quantity of black, stinking mud, from whence there exhales<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+an intolerable noisome vapour." At every fair-time "a
+kind of pestilential fever" raged, so that at least 400
+folk were buried there annually during the five or six
+weeks of the market. The complaint may have been
+yellow fever; (perhaps the cholera), perhaps pernicious
+fever, aggravated by the dirty habits of the thousands
+then packed within the town. The mortality was especially
+heavy among the sailors who worked aboard the
+galleons, hoisting in or out the bales of merchandise.
+These mariners drank brandy very freely "to recruit
+their spirits," and in other ways exposed themselves to
+the infection. The drinking water of the place was "too
+fine and active for the stomachs of the inhabitants," who
+died of dysentery if they presumed to drink of it. The
+town smoked in a continual steam of heat, unrelieved
+even by the torrents of rain which fall there every day.
+The woods are infested with poisonous snakes, and abound
+in a sort of large toad or frog which crawls into the city
+after rains. The tigers "often make incursions into the
+street," as at Nombre de Dios, to carry off children and
+domestic animals. There was good fishing in the bay,
+and the land was fertile "beyond wonder," so that the
+cost of living there, in the <i>tiempo muerto</i>, was very
+small. There is a hill behind the town called the Capiro,
+about which the streamers of the clouds wreathe whenever
+rain is coming. The town was taken by Sir Francis
+Drake in 1595, by Captain Parker in 1601, by Morgan in
+1668, by Coxon in 1679, and by Admiral Vernon in 1740.</p>
+
+<p>Having told his plans, the admiral bade his men make
+ready. During the afternoon he held towards the west
+of Porto Bello, at some distance from the land. The
+coast up to the Chagres River, and for some miles beyond,
+is low, so that there was not much risk of the ships being
+sighted from the shore. As it grew darker, he edged into
+the land, arriving "in the dusk of the evening" at a place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+called Puerto de Naos, or Port of Ships, a bay midway
+between Porto Bello and the Chagres, and about ten
+leagues from either place.</p>
+
+<p>They sailed westward up the coast for a little distance
+to a place called Puerto Pontin, where they anchored.
+Here the pirates got their boats out, and took to the oars,
+"leaving in the ships only a few men to keep them, and
+conduct them the next day to the port." By the light of
+lamps and battle lanterns the boats rowed on through the
+darkness, till at midnight they had came to a station
+called Estera longa Lemos, a river-mouth a few miles
+from Porto Bello, "where they all went on shore." After
+priming their muskets, they set forth towards the city,
+under the guidance of an English buccaneer, who had
+been a prisoner at Porto Bello but a little while before.
+When they were within a mile or two of the town, they
+sent this Englishmen with three or four companions to
+take a solitary sentry posted at the city outskirts. If
+they could not take him, they were to kill him, but without
+giving the alarm to the inhabitants. By creeping quietly
+behind him, the party took the sentry, "with such cunning
+that he had no time to give warning with his musket, or
+make any other noise." A knife point pressing on his
+spine, and a gag of wood across his tongue, warned him
+to attempt no outcry. Some rope-yarn was passed about
+his wrists, and in this condition he was dragged to Captain
+Morgan. As soon as he was in the admiral's presence, he
+was questioned as to the number of soldiers then in the
+forts, "with many other circumstances." It must have
+been a most uncomfortable trial, for "after every question,
+they made him a thousand menaces to kill him, in case
+he declared not the truth." When they had examined
+him to their satisfaction, they recommenced their march,
+"carrying always the said sentry bound before them."
+Another mile brought them to an outlying fortress, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+was built apparently between Porto Bello and the sea,
+to protect the coast road and a few outlying plantations.
+It was not yet light, so the pirates crept about the fort
+unseen, "so that no person could get either in or out."
+When they had taken up
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'their, ground'">their ground,</ins>
+Morgan bade the
+captured sentry hail the garrison, charging them to
+surrender on pain of being cut to pieces. The garrison
+at once ran to their weapons, and opened a fierce fire on
+the unseen enemy, thus giving warning to the city that
+the pirates were attacking. Before they could reload, the
+buccaneers, "the noble Sparks of Venus," stormed in
+among them, taking them in their confusion, hardly
+knowing what was toward. Morgan was furious that
+the Spaniards had not surrendered at discretion on his
+challenge. The pirates were flushed with the excitement
+of the charge. Someone proposed that they "should be
+as good as their words, in putting the Spaniards to the
+sword, thereby to strike a terror into the rest of the city."
+They hustled the Spanish soldiers "into one room,"
+officers and men together. The cellars of the fort were
+filled with powder barrels. Some ruffian took a handful
+of the powder, and spilled a train along the ground,
+telling his comrades to stand clear. His mates ran from
+the building applauding his device. In another moment
+the pirate blew upon his musket match to make the end
+red, and fired the train he had laid, "and blew up the
+whole castle into the air, with all the Spaniards that were
+within." "Much the better way of the two," says one of
+the chroniclers, who saw the explosion.</p>
+
+<p>"This being done," says the calm historian, "they
+pursued the course of their victory" into the town. By
+this time, the streets were thronged with shrieking townsfolk.
+Men ran hither and thither with their poor belongings.
+Many flung their gold and jewels into wells and
+cisterns, or stamped them underground, "to excuse their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+being totally robbed." The bells were set clanging in the
+belfries; while, to increase the confusion, the Governor
+rode into the streets, calling on the citizens to rally and
+stand firm. As the dreadful panic did not cease, he rode
+out of the mob to one of the castles (Castle Gloria), where
+the troops were under arms. It was now nearly daybreak,
+or light enough for them to see their enemy. As the
+pirates came in sight among the fruit-trees, the Governor
+trained his heavy guns upon them, and opened a smart
+fire. Some lesser castles, or the outlying works of Castle
+Gloria, which formed the outer defences of the town,
+followed his example; nor could the pirates silence them.
+One party of buccaneers crept round the fortifications to
+the town, where they attacked the monastery and the
+convent, breaking into both with little trouble, and
+capturing a number of monks and nuns. With these
+they retired to the pirates' lines.</p>
+
+<p>For several hours, the pirates got no farther, though the
+fire did not slacken on either side. The pirates lay among
+the scrub, hidden in the bushes, in little knots of two and
+three. They watched the castle embrasures after each discharge
+of cannon, for the Spaniards could not reload without
+exposing themselves as they sponged or rammed.
+Directly a Spaniard appeared, he was picked off from the
+bushes with such precision that they lost "one or two men
+every time they charged each gun anew." The losses
+on the English side were fully as severe; for, sheltered
+though they were, the buccaneers lost heavily. The lying
+still under a hot sun was galling to the pirates' temper.
+They made several attempts to storm, but failed in each
+attempt owing to the extreme gallantry of the defence.
+Towards noon they made a furious attack, carrying fireballs,
+or cans filled with powder and resin, in their hands
+"designing, if possible, to burn the doors of the castle."
+As they came beneath the walls, the Spaniards rolled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+down stones upon them, with "earthen pots full of powder"
+and iron shells filled full of chain-shot, "which forced them
+to desist from that attempt." Morgan's party was driven
+back with heavy loss. It seemed to Morgan at this crisis
+that the victory was with the Spanish. He wavered for
+some minutes, uncertain whether to call off his men.
+"Many faint and calm meditations came into his mind"
+seeing so many of his best hands dead and the Spanish
+fire still so furious. As he debated "he was suddenly
+animated to continue the assault, by seeing the English
+colours put forth at one of the lesser castles, then entered
+by his men." A few minutes later the conquerors came
+swaggering up to join him, "proclaiming victory with loud
+shouts of joy."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving his musketeers to fire at the Spanish gunners,
+Morgan turned aside to reconnoitre. Making the capture
+of the lesser fort his excuse, he sent a trumpet, with a
+white flag, to summon the main castle, where the Governor
+had flown the Spanish standard. While the herald was
+gone upon his errand, Morgan set some buccaneers to
+make a dozen scaling ladders, "so broad that three or
+four men at once might ascend by them." By the time
+they were finished, the trumpeter returned, bearing the
+Governor's answer that "he would never surrender himself
+alive." When the message had been given, Captain
+Morgan formed his soldiers into companies, and bade
+the monks and nuns whom he had taken, to place the
+ladders against the walls of the chief castle. He thought
+that the Spanish Governor would hardly shoot down these
+religious persons, even though they bore the ladders for
+the scaling parties. In this he was very much mistaken.
+The Governor was there to hold the castle for his Catholic
+Majesty, and, like "a brave and courageous soldier," he
+"refused not to use his utmost endeavours to destroy whoever
+came near the walls." As the wretched monks and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+nuns came tottering forward with the ladders, they begged
+of him, "by all the Saints of Heaven," to haul his colours
+down, to the saving of their lives. Behind them were
+the pirates, pricking them forward with their pikes
+and knives. In front of them were the cannon of their
+friends, so near that they could see the matches burning
+in the hands of the gunners. "They ceased not
+to cry to him," says the narrative; but they could
+not "prevail with the obstinacy and fierceness that
+had possessed the Governor's mind"&mdash;"the Governor
+valuing his honour before the lives of the Mass-mumblers."
+As they drew near to the walls, they
+quickened their steps, hoping, no doubt, to get below
+the cannon muzzles out of range. When they were but a
+few yards from the walls, the cannon fired at them, while
+the soldiers pelted them with a fiery hail of hand-grenades.
+"Many of the religious men and nuns were killed before
+they could fix the ladders"; in fact, the poor folk were
+butchered there in heaps, before the ladders caught
+against the parapet. Directly the ladders held, the
+pirates stormed up with a shout, in great swarms, like
+a ship's crew going aloft to make the sails fast. They
+had "fireballs in their hands and earthen pots full of
+powder," which "they kindled and cast in among the
+Spaniards" from the summits of the walls. In the midst
+of the smoke and flame which filled the fort the Spanish
+Governor stood fighting gallantly. His wife and child
+were present in that house of death, among the blood
+and smell, trying to urge him to surrender. The men
+were running from their guns, and the hand-grenades
+were bursting all about him, but this Spanish Governor
+refused to leave his post. The buccaneers who came
+about him called upon him to surrender, but he answered
+that he would rather die like a brave soldier than be
+hanged as a coward for deserting his command, "so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+that they were enforc'd to kill him,
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original">nothwithstanding</ins> the
+cries of his Wife and Daughter."</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting over Iron Castle before the firing
+came to an end with the capture of the Castle Gloria.
+The pirates used the last of the light for the securing of
+their many prisoners. They drove them to some dungeon
+in the castle, where they shut them up under a guard.
+The wounded "were put into a certain apartment by
+itself," without medicaments or doctors, "to the intent
+their own complaints might be the cure of their diseases."
+In the dungeons of the castle's lower battery they found
+eleven English prisoners chained hand and foot. They
+were the survivors of the garrison of Providence, which
+the Spaniards treacherously took two years before. Their
+backs were scarred with many floggings, for they had
+been forced to work like slaves at the laying of the quay
+piles in the hot sun, under Spanish overseers. They were
+released at once, and tenderly treated, nor were they
+denied a share of the plunder of the town.</p>
+
+<p>"Having finish'd this Jobb" the pirates sought out the
+"recreations of Heroick toil." "They fell to eating and
+drinking" of the provisions stored within the city, "committing
+in both these things all manner of debauchery
+and excess." They tapped the casks of wine and brandy,
+and "drank about" till they were roaring drunk. In this
+condition they ran about the town, like cowboys on a
+spree, "and never examined whether it were Adultery
+or Fornication which they committed." By midnight
+they were in such a state of drunken disorder that "if
+there had been found only fifty courageous men, they
+might easily have retaken the City, and killed the Pirats."
+The next day they gathered plunder, partly by routing
+through the houses, partly by torturing the townsfolk.
+They seem to have been no less brutal here than they
+had been in Cuba, though the Porto Bello houses yielded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+a more golden spoil than had been won at Puerto Principe.
+They racked one or two poor men until they died. Others
+they slowly cut to pieces, or treated to the punishment
+called "woolding," by which the eyes were forced from
+their sockets under the pressure of a twisted cord. Some
+were tortured with burning matches "and such like slight
+torments." A woman was roasted to death "upon a
+baking stone"&mdash;a sin for which one buccaneer ("as he lay
+sick") was subsequently sorry.</p>
+
+<p>While they were indulging these barbarities, they drank
+and swaggered and laid waste. They stayed within the
+town for fifteen days, sacking it utterly, to the last ryal.
+They were too drunk and too greedy to care much about
+the fever, which presently attacked them, and killed a
+number, as they lay in drunken stupor in the kennels.
+News of their riot being brought across the isthmus,
+the Governor of Panama resolved to send a troop of
+soldiers, to attempt to retake the city, but he had great
+difficulty in equipping a sufficient force. Before his
+men were fit to march, some messengers came in from
+the imprisoned townsfolk, bringing word from Captain
+Morgan that he wanted a ransom for the city, "or
+else he would by fire consume it to ashes." The
+pirate ships were by this time lying off the town, in
+Porto Bello bay. They were taking in fresh victuals
+for the passage home. The ransom asked was 100,000
+pieces of eight, or &pound;25,000. If it had not been paid
+the pirates could have put their threat in force
+without the slightest trouble. Morgan made all ready
+to ensure his retreat in the event of an attack from
+Panama. He placed an outpost of 100 "well-arm'd"
+men in a narrow part of the passage over the isthmus.
+All the plunder of the town was sent on board the
+ships. In this condition he awaited the answer of the
+President.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As soon as that soldier had sufficient musketeers in
+arms, he marched them across the isthmus to relieve the
+city. They attempted the pass which Morgan had secured,
+but lost very heavily in the attempt. The buccaneers
+charged, and completely routed them, driving back the
+entire company along the road to Panama. The President
+had "to retire for that time," but he sent a blustering
+note to Captain Morgan, threatening him and his with
+death "when he should take them, as he hoped soon to
+do." To this Morgan replied that he would not deliver
+the castles till he had the money, and that if the money
+did not come, the castles should be blown to pieces, with
+the prisoners inside them. We are told that "the
+Governor of Panama perceived by this answer that no
+means would serve to mollify the hearts of the Pirates,
+nor reduce them to reason." He decided to let the townsfolk
+make what terms they could. In a few days more
+these wretched folk contrived to scrape together the
+required sum of money, which they paid over as their
+ransom.</p>
+
+<p>Before the expedition sailed away, a messenger arrived
+from Panama with a letter from the Governor to Captain
+Morgan. It made no attempt to mollify his heart nor
+to reduce him to reason, but it expressed a wonder at
+the pirates' success. He asked, as a special favour, that
+Captain Morgan would send him "some small patterns"
+of the arms with which the city had been taken. He
+thought it passing marvellous that a town so strongly fortified
+should have been won by men without great guns.
+Morgan treated the messenger to a cup of drink, and gave
+him a pistol and some leaden bullets "to carry back to
+the President, his Master." "He desired him to accept
+that pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Porto
+Bello." He requested him to keep them for a twelvemonth,
+"after which time he promised to come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+Panama and fetch them away." The Spaniard returned
+the gift to Captain Morgan, "giving him thanks for lending
+him such weapons as he needed not." He also sent a ring
+of gold, with the warning "not to give himself the trouble
+of coming to Panama," for "he should not speed so well
+there" as he had sped at Porto Bello.</p>
+
+<p>"After these transactions" Captain Morgan loosed his
+top-sail, as a signal to unmoor. His ships were fully
+victualled for the voyage, and the loot was safely under
+hatches. As a precaution, he took with him the best
+brass cannon from the fortress. The iron guns were
+securely spiked with soft metal nails, which were snapped
+off flush with the touch-holes. The anchors were weighed
+to the music of the fiddlers, a salute of guns was fired,
+and the fleet stood out of Porto Bello bay along the wet,
+green coast, passing not very far from the fort which they
+had blown to pieces. In a few days' time they raised the
+Keys of Cuba, their favourite haven, where "with all quiet
+and repose" they made their dividend. "They found in
+ready money two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of
+eight, besides all other merchandises, as cloth, linen, silks
+and other goods." The spoil was amicably shared about
+the mast before a course was shaped for their "common
+rendezvous"&mdash;Port Royal.</p>
+
+<p>A godly person in Jamaica, writing at this juncture in
+some distress, expressed himself as follows:&mdash;"There is
+not now resident upon this place ten men to every
+[licensed] house that selleth strong liquors ... besides
+sugar and rum works that sell without license." When
+Captain Morgan's ships came flaunting into harbour, with
+their colours fluttering and the guns thundering salutes,
+there was a rustle and a stir in the heart of every publican.
+"All the Tavern doors stood open, as they do at
+London, on Sundays, in the afternoon." Within those
+tavern doors, "in all sorts of vices and debauchery," the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+pirates spent their plunder "with huge prodigality," not
+caring what might happen on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the return from Porto Bello, Morgan
+organised another expedition with which he sailed into
+the Gulf of Maracaibo. His ships could not proceed far
+on account of the shallowness of the water, but by placing
+his men in the canoas he penetrated to the end of the
+Gulf. On the way he sacked Maracaibo, a town which
+had been sacked on two previous occasions&mdash;the last time
+by L'Ollonais only a couple of years before. Morgan's
+men tortured the inhabitants, according to their custom,
+either by "woolding" them or by placing burning matches
+between their toes. They then set sail for Gibraltar, a
+small town strongly fortified, at the south-east corner of
+the Gulf. The town was empty, for the inhabitants had
+fled into the hills with "all their goods and riches." But
+the pirates sent out search parties, who brought in many
+prisoners. These were examined, with the usual cruelties,
+being racked, pressed, hung up by the heels, burnt with
+palm leaves, tied to stakes, suspended by the thumbs and
+toes, flogged with rattans, or roasted at the camp fires.
+Some were crucified, and burnt between the fingers as they
+hung on the crosses; "others had their feet put into the
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>When they had extracted the last ryal from the sufferers
+they shipped themselves aboard some Spanish vessels
+lying in the port. They were probably cedar-built ships,
+of small tonnage, built at the Gibraltar yards. In these
+they sailed towards Maracaibo, where they found "a poor
+distressed old man, who was sick." This old man told
+them that the Castle de la Barra, which guarded the
+entrance to the Gulf, had been mounted with great guns
+and manned by a strong garrison. Outside the channel
+were three Spanish men-of-war with their guns run out
+and decks cleared for battle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The truth of these assertions was confirmed by a scouting
+party the same day. In order to gain a little time
+Morgan sent a Spaniard to the admiral of the men-of-war,
+demanding a ransom "for not putting Maracaibo
+to the flame." The answer reached him in a day or two,
+warning him to surrender all his plunder, and telling him
+that if he did not, he should be destroyed by the sword.
+There was no immediate cause for haste, because the Spanish
+admiral could not cross the sandbanks into the Gulf
+until he had obtained flat-bottomed boats from Caracas.
+Morgan read the letter to his men "in the market-place
+of Maracaibo," "both in French and English," and then
+asked them would they give up all their spoil, and pass
+unharmed, or fight for its possession. They agreed with
+one voice to fight, "to the very last drop of blood," rather
+than surrender the booty they had risked their skins to
+get. One of the men undertook to rig a fireship to
+destroy the Spanish admiral's flagship. He proposed to
+fill her decks with logs of wood "standing with hats and
+Montera caps," like gunners standing at their guns. At
+the port-holes they would place other wooden logs to
+resemble cannon. The ship should then hang out the
+English colours, the Jack or the red St George's cross, so
+that the enemy should deem her "one of our best men of
+war that goes to fight them." The scheme pleased everyone,
+but there was yet much anxiety among the pirates.
+Morgan sent another letter to the Spanish admiral,
+offering to spare Maracaibo without ransom; to release his
+prisoners, with one half of the captured slaves; and to
+send home the hostages he brought away from Gibraltar,
+if he might be granted leave to pass the entry. The
+Spaniard rejected all these terms, with a curt intimation
+that, if the pirates did not surrender within two more days,
+they should be compelled to do so at the sword's point.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan received the Spaniard's answer angrily, re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>solving
+to attempt the passage "without surrendering
+anything." He ordered his men to tie the slaves and
+prisoners, so that there should be no chance of their
+attempting to rise. They then rummaged Maracaibo for
+brimstone, pitch, and tar, with which to make their fireship.
+They strewed her deck with fireworks and with
+dried palm leaves soaked in tar. They cut her outworks
+down, so that the fire might more quickly spread to the
+enemy's ship at the moment of explosion. They broke
+open some new gun-ports, in which they placed small drums,
+"of which the negroes make use." "Finally, the decks
+were handsomely beset with many pieces of wood dressed
+up in the shape of men with hats or monteras, and likewise
+armed with swords, muskets, and bandoliers." The
+plunder was then divided among the other vessels of the
+squadron. A guard of musketeers was placed over the
+prisoners, and the pirates then set sail towards the passage.
+The fireship went in advance, with orders to fall foul of
+the <i>Spanish Admiral</i>, a ship of forty guns.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img203" id="img203"></a>
+<a href="images/203.jpg"><img src="images/203_th.jpg" width="400" height="255"
+alt="THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE SPANISH ADMIRAL; CASTLE DE LA BARRA IN BACKGROUND"
+title="THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE SPANISH ADMIRAL" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE SPANISH ADMIRAL<br />
+CASTLE DE LA BARRA IN BACKGROUND</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>When it grew dark they anchored for the night, with
+sentinels on each ship keeping vigilant watch. They were
+close to the entry, almost within shot of the Spaniards,
+and they half expected to be boarded in the darkness.
+At dawn they got their anchors, and set sail towards the
+Spaniards, who at once unmoored, and beat to quarters.
+In a few minutes the fireship ran into the man-of-war,
+"and grappled to her sides" with kedges thrown into her
+shrouds. The Spaniards left their guns, and strove to
+thrust her away, but the fire spread so rapidly that they
+could not do so. The flames caught the warship's sails,
+and ran along her sides with such fury that her men had
+hardly time to get away from her before she blew her
+bows out, and went to the bottom. The second ship made
+no attempt to engage: her crew ran her ashore, and
+deserted, leaving her bilged in shallow water. As the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+pirates rowed towards the wreck some of the deserters
+hurried back to fire her. The third ship struck her colours
+without fighting.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing their advantage a number of the pirates landed
+to attack the castle, where the shipwrecked Spaniards
+were rallying. A great skirmish followed, in which the
+pirates lost more men than had been lost at Porto Bello.
+They were driven off with heavy loss, though they continued
+to annoy the fort with musket fire till the evening.
+As it grew dark they returned to Maracaibo, leaving one
+of their ships to watch the fortress and to recover treasure
+from the sunken flagship. Morgan now wrote to the
+Spanish admiral, demanding a ransom for the town.
+The citizens were anxious to get rid of him at any cost,
+so they compounded with him, seeing that the admiral
+disdained to treat, for the sum of 20,000 pieces of
+eight and 500 cattle. The gold was paid, and the
+cattle duly counted over, killed, and salted; but
+Morgan did not purpose to release his prisoners until
+his ship was safely past the fort. He told the Maracaibo
+citizens that they would not be sent ashore until the
+danger of the passage was removed. With this word he
+again set sail to attempt to pass the narrows. He found
+his ship still anchored near the wreck, but in more prosperous
+sort than he had left her. Her men had brought
+up 15,000 pieces of eight, with a lot of gold and silver
+plate, "as hilts of swords and other things," besides
+"great quantity of pieces of eight" which had "melted
+and run together" in the burning of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan now made a last appeal to the Spanish admiral,
+telling him that he would hang his prisoners if the
+fortress fired on him as he sailed past. The Spanish
+admiral sent an answer to the prisoners, who had begged
+him to relent, informing them that he would do his duty,
+as he wished they had done theirs. Morgan heard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+answer, and realised that he would have to use
+some stratagem to escape the threatened danger. He
+made a dividend of the plunder before he proceeded
+farther, for he feared that some of the fleet might never
+win to sea, and that the captains of those which escaped
+might be tempted to run away with their ships.
+The spoils amounted to 250,000 pieces of eight,
+as at Porto Bello, though in addition to this gold
+there were numbers of slaves and heaps of costly
+merchandise.</p>
+
+<p>When the booty had been shared he put in use his
+stratagem. He embarked his men in the canoas, and
+bade them row towards the shore "as if they designed
+to land." When they reached the shore they hid under
+the overhanging boughs "till they had laid themselves
+down along in the boats." Then one or two men rowed
+the boats back to the ships, with the crews concealed under
+the thwarts. The Spaniards in the fortress watched the
+going and returning of the boats. They could not see
+the stratagem, for the boats were too far distant, but
+they judged that the pirates were landing for a night
+attack. The boats plied to and from the shore at intervals
+during the day. The anxious Spaniards resolved to prepare
+for the assault by placing their great guns on the
+landward side of the fortress. They cleared away the
+scrub on that side, in order to give their gunners a clear
+view of the attacking force when the sun set. They
+posted sentries, and stood to their arms, expecting to be
+attacked.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as night had fallen the buccaneers weighed
+anchor. A bright moon was shining, and by the moonlight
+the ships steered seaward under bare poles. As
+they came abreast of the castle on the gentle current of
+the ebb, they loosed their sails to a fair wind blowing
+seaward. At the same moment, while the top-sails were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+yet slatting, Captain Morgan fired seven great guns "with
+bullets" as a last defiance. The Spaniards dragged their
+cannon across the fortress, "and began to fire very
+furiously," without much success. The wind freshened,
+and as the ships drew clear of the narrows they felt its
+force, and began to slip through the water. One or two
+shots took effect upon them before they drew out of
+range, but "the Pirates lost not many of their men, nor
+received any considerable damage in their ships." They
+hove to at a distance of a mile from the fort in order
+to send a boat in with a number of the prisoners. They
+then squared their yards, and stood away towards Jamaica,
+where they arrived safely, after very heavy weather, a
+few days later. Here they went ashore in their stolen
+velvets and silks to spend their silver dollars in the Port
+Royal rum shops. Some mates of theirs were ashore at
+that time after an unlucky cruise. It was their pleasure
+"to mock and jeer" these unsuccessful pirates, "often
+telling them: Let us see what money you brought from
+Comana, and if it be as good silver as that which we bring
+from Maracaibo."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Note.</i>&mdash;On his return from Maracaibo, Morgan gave out that he had met
+with further information of an intended Spanish attack on Jamaica. He
+may have made the claim to justify his actions on the Main, which were
+considerably in excess of the commission Modyford had given him. On the
+other hand, a Spanish attack may have been preparing, as he stated; but
+the preparations could not have gone far, for had the Spaniards been prepared
+for such an expedition Morgan's Panama raid could never have succeeded.</p>
+
+<p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;Exquemeling's "History of The Bucaniers of America";
+Exquemeling's "History" (the Malthus edition), 1684. Cal. State Papers:
+West Indian and Colonial Series.</p>
+
+<p>For my account of Porto Bello I am indebted to various brief accounts
+in Hakluyt, and to a book entitled "A Description of the Spanish Islands,"
+by a "Gentleman long resident in those parts." I have also consulted the
+brief notices in Dampier's Voyages, Wafer's Voyages, various gazetteers,
+and some maps and pamphlets relating to Admiral Vernon's attack in
+1739-40. There is a capital description of the place as it was in its decadence,
+<i>circa</i> 1820, in Michael Scott's "Tom Cringle's Log."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>MORGAN'S GREAT RAID</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Chagres castle&mdash;Across the isthmus&mdash;Sufferings of the buccaneers&mdash;Venta
+Cruz&mdash;Old Panama</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Some months later Henry Morgan found his pirates
+in all the miseries of poverty. They had wasted all
+their silver dollars, and longed for something "to expend
+anew in wine" before they were sold as slaves to pay
+their creditors. He thought that he would save them
+from their misery by going a new cruise. There was
+no need for him to drum up recruits in the rum shops,
+for his name was glorious throughout the Indies. He
+had but to mention that "he intended for the Main" to
+get more men than he could ship. He "assigned the
+south side of the Isle of Tortuga" for his rendezvous,
+and he sent out letters to the "ancient and expert
+Pirates" and to the planters and hunters in Hispaniola,
+asking them, in the American general's phrase, "to come
+and dip their spoons in a platter of glory." Long before
+the appointed day the rendezvous was crowded, for ships,
+canoas, and small boats came thronging to the anchorage
+with all the ruffians of the Indies. Many marched to
+the rendezvous across the breadth of Hispaniola "with
+no small difficulties." The muster brought together a
+grand variety of rascaldom, from Campeachy in the west
+to Trinidad in the east. Hunters, planters, logwood
+cutters, Indians, and half-breeds came flocking from their
+huts and inns to go upon the grand account. Lastly,
+Henry Morgan came in his fine Spanish ship, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+brass and iron guns. At the firing of a gun the assembled
+captains came on board to him for a pirates' council, over
+the punch-bowl, in the admiral's cabin.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided at this council to send a large party
+to the Main, to the de la Hacha River, "to assault a small
+village" of the name of La Rancheria&mdash;the chief granary
+in all the "Terra Firma." The pirates were to seize as
+much maize there as they could find&mdash;enough, if possible,
+to load the ships of the expedition. While they were
+away their fellows at Tortuga were to clean and rig
+the assembled ships to fit them for the coming cruise.
+Another large party was detailed to hunt in the woods
+for hogs and cattle.</p>
+
+<p>In about five weeks' time the ships returned from Rio
+de la Hacha, after much buffeting at sea. They brought
+with them a grain ship they had taken in the port, and
+several thousand sacks of corn which the Spaniards had
+paid them as "a ransom for not burning the town."
+They had also won a lot of silver, "with all other things
+they could rob"&mdash;such as pearls from the local pearl beds.
+The hunters had killed and salted an incredible quantity
+of beef and pork, the ships were scraped and tallowed,
+and nothing more was to be done save to divide the
+victuals among all the buccaneers. This division did not
+take much time. Within a couple of days the admiral
+loosed his top-sail. The pirates fired off their guns and
+hove their anchors up. They sailed out of Port Couillon
+with a fair wind, in a great bravery of flags, towards the
+rendezvous at Cape Tiburon, to the south-west of the
+island Hispaniola. When they reached Cape Tiburon,
+where there is a good anchorage, they brought aboard
+a store of oranges, to save them from the scurvy. While
+the men were busy in the orange groves Henry Morgan
+"gave letters patent, or commissions," to all his captains,
+"to act all manner of hostility against the Spanish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+nation." For this act he had the sealed authority of
+the Council of Jamaica. He was no longer a pirate
+or buccaneer, but an admiral leading a national enterprise.
+As we have said, he had heard, on the Main,
+of an intended Spanish attack upon Jamaica; indeed,
+it is probable that his capture of Porto Bello prevented
+the ripening of the project. There is no need to whitewash
+Morgan, but we may at least regard him at this
+juncture as the saviour of our West Indian colonies.
+After the serving out of these commissions, and their
+due sealing, the captains were required to sign the
+customary articles, allotting the shares of the prospective
+plunder. The articles allotted very liberal compensation
+to the wounded; they also expressly stated the reward
+to be given for bravery in battle. Fifty pieces of eight
+were allotted to him who should haul a Spanish colour
+down and hoist the English flag in its place. Surgeons
+received 200 pieces of eight "for their chests of medicaments."
+Carpenters received one half of that sum.
+Henry Morgan, the admiral of the fleet, was to receive
+one-hundredth part of all the plunder taken. His vice-admiral's
+share is not stated. As a stimulus to the
+pirates, it was published through the fleet that any
+captain and crew who ventured on, and took, a Spanish
+ship should receive a tenth part of her value as a reward
+to themselves for their bravery. When the contracts had
+been signed Morgan asked his captains which town they
+should attempt. They had thirty-seven ships, carrying at
+least 500 cannon. They had 2000 musketeers, "besides
+mariners and boys," while they possessed "great quantity
+of ammunition, and fire balls, with other inventions of
+powder." With such an armament, he said, they could
+attack the proudest of the Spanish cities. They could
+sack La Vera Cruz, where the gold from Manila was
+put aboard the galleons, as they lay alongside the quays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+moored to the iron ring-bolts; or they could go eastward
+to the town of Cartagena to pillage our Lady's
+golden altar in the church there; or they could row up
+the Chagres River, and keep the promise Morgan had
+made to the Governor of Panama. The captains pronounced
+for Panama, but they added, as a rider, that it
+would be well to go to Santa Katalina to obtain guides.
+The Santa Katalina fort was still in the possession of
+the Spaniards, who now used it as a convict settlement,
+sending thither all the outlaws of the "Terra Firma." It
+would be well, they said, to visit Santa Katalina to select
+a few choice cut-throats to guide them over the isthmus.
+With this resolution they set sail for Santa Katalina,
+where they anchored on the fourth day, "before sunrise,"
+in a bay called the Aguada Grande.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the buccaneers had been there under Mansvelt,
+and these now acted as guides to the men who went
+ashore in the fighting party. A day of hard fighting
+followed, rather to the advantage of the Spaniards, for
+the pirates won none of the batteries, and had to sleep
+in the open, very wet and hungry. The next day Morgan
+threatened the garrison with death if they did not yield
+"within few hours." The Governor was not a very gallant
+man, like the Governor at Porto Bello. Perhaps he was
+afraid of his soldiers, the convicts from the "Terra Firma."
+At <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original">anyrate</ins>
+he consented to surrender, but he asked that
+the pirates would have the kindness to pretend to attack
+him, "for the saving of his honesty." Morgan agreed
+very gladly to this proposition, for he saw little chance
+of taking the fort by storm. When the night fell, he
+followed the Governor's direction, and began a furious
+bombardment, "but without bullets, or at least into the
+air." The castles answered in the like manner, burning
+a large quantity of powder. Then the pirates stormed
+into the castles in a dramatic way; while the Spaniards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+retreated to the church, and hung out the white
+flag.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning the pirates sacked the place,
+and made great havoc in the poultry-yards and cattle-pens.
+They pulled down a number of wooden houses
+to supply their camp fires. The guns they nailed or
+sent aboard. The powder they saved for their own use,
+but some proportion of it went to the destruction of the
+forts, which, with one exception, they blew up. For some
+days they stayed there, doing nothing but "roast and
+eat, and make good cheer," sending the Spaniards to
+the fields to rout out fresh provisions. While they lay
+there, Morgan asked "if any banditti were there from
+Panama," as he had not yet found his guides. Three
+scoundrels came before him, saying that they knew the
+road across the isthmus, and that they would act as
+guides if such action were made profitable. Morgan
+promised them "equal shares in all they should pillage
+and rob," and told them that they should come with him
+to Jamaica at the end of the cruise. These terms suited
+the three robbers very well. One of them, "a wicked
+fellow," "the greatest rogue, thief and assassin among
+them," who had deserved rather "to be broken alive
+upon a wheel than punished with serving in a garrison,"
+was the spokesman of the trio. He was the Dubosc of
+that society, "and could domineer and command over
+them," "they not daring to refuse obedience." This
+truculent ruffian, with his oaths and his knives and his
+black moustachios, was elected head guide.</p>
+
+<p>After several days of ease upon the island Morgan sent
+a squadron to the Main, with 400 men, four ships, and
+a canoa, "to go and take the Castle of Chagre," at the
+entrance to the Chagres River. He would not send a
+larger company, though the fort was strong, for he feared
+"lest the Spaniards should be jealous of his designs upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+Panama"&mdash;lest they should be warned, that is, by refugees
+from Chagres before he tried to cross the isthmus.
+Neither would he go himself, for he was still bent upon
+establishing a settlement at Santa Katalina. He chose
+out an old buccaneer, of the name of Brodely or Bradly,
+who had sailed with Mansvelt, to command the expedition.
+He was famous in his way this Captain Brodely,
+for he had been in all the raids, and had smelt a quantity
+of powder. He was as brave as a lion, resourceful as a
+sailor, and, for a buccaneer, most prudent. Ordering his
+men aboard, he sailed for the Chagres River, where, three
+days later, he arrived. He stood in towards the river's
+mouth; but the guns of the castle opened on him, making
+that anchorage impossible. But about a league from the
+castle there is a small bay, and here Captain Brodely
+brought his ships to anchor, and sent his men to their
+blankets, warning them to stand by for an early call.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 298px;">
+<a name="img214" id="img214"></a>
+<a href="images/214.jpg"><img src="images/214_th.jpg" width="298" height="400"
+alt="PLAN of the Town, Road, and Harbour of CHAGRE."
+title="CHAGRES" /></a>
+<span class="caption">CHAGRES<br />
+CIRCA 1739</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The castle of San Lorenzo, which guarded the Chagres
+River's mouth, was built on the right bank of that river, on
+a high hill of great steepness. The hill has two peaks,
+with a sort of natural ditch some thirty feet in depth
+between them. The castle was built upon the seaward
+peak, and a narrow drawbridge crossed the
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'gulley'">gully</ins> to the
+other summit, which was barren and open to the sight.
+The river swept round the northern side of the hill with
+considerable force. To the south the hill was precipitous,
+and of such "infinite asperity," that no man could climb
+it. To the east was the bridged gully connecting the
+garrison with the isthmus. To the west, in a crook of
+the land, was the little port of Chagres, where ships
+might anchor in seven or eight fathoms, "being very
+fit for small vessels." Not far from the foot of the hill,
+facing the river's mouth, there was a battery of eight great
+guns commanding the approach. A little way beneath
+were two more batteries, each with six great guns, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+supplement the one above. A path led from these lower
+batteries to the protected harbour. A steep flight of
+stairs, "hewed out of the rock," allowed the soldiers
+to pass from the water to the summit of the castle. The
+defences at the top of the hill were reinforced with
+palisadoes. The keep, or inner castle, was hedged about
+with a double fence of plank&mdash;the fences being six or
+seven feet apart, and the interstices filled in with earth,
+like gabions. On one side of the castle were the storesheds
+for merchandise and ammunition. On the other,
+and within the palisadoes everywhere, were soldiers' huts,
+built of mud and wattle, thatched with palm leaves, "after
+the manner of the Indians." Lastly, as a sort of outer
+defence, a great submerged rock prevented boats from
+coming too near the seaward side.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning Captain Bradly turned his hands
+up by the boatswain's pipe, and bade them breakfast off
+their beef and parched corn. Maize and charqui were
+packed into knapsacks for the march, and the pirates
+rowed ashore to open the campaign. The ruffians from
+Santa Katalina took their stations at the head of the
+leading company, with trusty pirates just behind them
+ready to pistol them if they played false. In good spirits
+they set forth from the beach, marching in the cool of the
+morning before the sun had risen. The way led through
+mangrove swamps, where the men sank to their knees in
+rotting grasses or plunged to their waists in slime. Those
+who have seen a tropical swamp will know how fierce the
+toil was. They were marching in a dank world belonging
+to an earlier age than ours. They were in the age of the
+coal strata, among wet, green things, in a silence only
+broken by the sound of dropping or by the bellow of an
+alligator. They were there in the filth, in the heat haze,
+in a mist of miasma and mosquitoes. In all probability
+they were swearing at themselves for coming thither.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At two o'clock in the afternoon the buccaneers pushed
+through a thicket of liane and green cane, and debouched
+quite suddenly upon the barren hilltop facing San
+Lorenzo Castle. As they formed up, they were met with
+a thundering volley, which threw them into some confusion.
+They retreated to the cover of the jungle to debate
+a plan of battle, greatly fearing that a fort so strongly
+placed would be impregnable without great guns to batter
+it. However, they were a reckless company, careless of
+their lives, and hot with the tramping through the swamp.
+Give it up they could not, for fear of the mockery of their
+mates. The desperate course was the one course open
+to them. They lit the fireballs, or grenades, they had
+carried through the marsh; they drew their swords, and
+"Come on!" they cried. "Have at all!" And forward
+they stormed, cursing as they ran. A company in reserve
+remained behind in cover, firing over the storming party
+with their muskets.</p>
+
+<p>As the pirates threw themselves into the gully, the
+walls of San Lorenzo burst into a flame of gun fire. The
+Spaniards fought their cannon furiously&mdash;as fast as they
+could fire and reload&mdash;while the musketeers picked off the
+leaders from the loopholes. "Come on, ye English dogs!"
+they cried. "Come on, ye heretics! ye cuckolds! Let
+your skulking mates behind there come on too! You'll
+not get to Panama this bout." "Come on" the pirates
+did, with great gallantry. They flung themselves down
+into the ditch, and stormed up the opposite slope to the
+wooden palings. Here they made a desperate attempt to
+scale, but the foothold was too precarious and the pales
+too high. In a few roaring minutes the attack was at an
+end: it had withered away before the Spanish fire. The
+buccaneers were retreating in knots of one or two, leaving
+some seventy of their number on the sun-bleached rocks of
+the gully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When they got back to the jungle they lay down to
+rest, and slept there quietly while the daylight lasted,
+though the Spaniards still sent shots in their direction.
+As soon as it was dark, they made another furious assault,
+flinging their fireballs against the palings in order to
+burst the planks apart. While they were struggling in
+the ditch, a pirate ran across the gully with his body bent,
+as is natural to a running man. As he ran, an arrow took
+him in the back, and pierced him through to the side.
+He paused a moment, drew the arrow from the wound,
+wrapped the shaft of it with cotton as a wad, and fired
+it back over the paling with his musket. The cotton he
+had used caught fire from the powder, and it chanced
+that this blazing shaft drove home into a palm thatch.
+In the hurry and confusion the flame was not noticed,
+though it spread rapidly across the huts till it reached
+some powder casks. There was a violent explosion just
+within the palisadoes, and stones and blazing sticks came
+rattling down about the Spaniards' ears. The inner castle
+roared up in a blaze, calling the Spaniards from their
+guns to quench the fire&mdash;no easy task so high above the
+water. While the guns were deserted, the pirates ran
+along the bottom of the ditch, thrusting their fireballs
+under the palisadoes, which now began to burn in many
+places. As the flames spread, the planking warped, and
+fell. The outer planks inclined slightly outward, like
+the futtocks of a ship, so that, when they weakened in the
+fire, the inner weight of earth broke them through. The
+pirates now stood back from the fort, in the long black
+shadows, to avoid the showers of earth&mdash;"great heaps of
+earth"&mdash;which were falling down into the ditch. Presently
+the slope from the bottom of the gully was piled
+with earth, so that the pirates could rush up to the
+breaches, and hurl their firepots across the broken woodwork.
+The San Lorenzo fort was now a spiring red flame<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+of fire&mdash;a beacon to the ships at sea. Before midnight
+the wooden walls were burnt away to charcoal; the inner
+fort was on fire in many places; yet the Spaniards still
+held the earthen ramparts, casting down "many flaming
+pots," and calling on the English dogs to attack them.
+The pirates lay close in the shadows, picking off the
+Spaniards as they moved in the red firelight, so that
+many poor fellows came toppling into the gully from
+the mounds.</p>
+
+<p>When day dawned, the castle lay open to the pirates.
+The walls were all burnt, and fallen down, but in the
+breaches stood the Spanish soldiers, manning their guns
+as though the walls still protected them. The fight
+began as furiously as it had raged the day before. By
+noon most of the Spanish gunners had been shot down
+by the picked musketeers; while a storming party ran
+across the ditch, and rushed a breach. As the pirates
+gained the inside of the fort, the Spanish Governor charged
+home upon them with twenty-five soldiers armed with
+pikes, clubbed muskets, swords, or stones from the ruin.
+For some minutes these men mixed in a last desperate
+struggle; then the Spaniards were driven back by the
+increasing numbers of the enemy. Fighting hard, they
+retreated to the inner castle, cheered by their Governor,
+who still called on them to keep their flag aloft. The
+inner castle was a ruin, but the yellow flag still flew there,
+guarded by some sorely wounded soldiers and a couple
+of guns. Here the last stand was made, and here the
+gallant captain was hit by a bullet, "which pierced his
+skull into the brain." The little band of brave men now
+went to pieces before the rush of pirates. Some of them
+fell back, still fighting, to the wall, over which they flung
+themselves "into the sea," dying thus honourably rather
+than surrender. About thirty of them, "whereof scarce
+ten were not wounded," surrendered in the ruins of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+inner fortress. These thirty hurt and weary men were
+the survivors of 314 who had stood to arms the day
+before. All the rest were dead, save "eight or nine," who
+had crept away by boat up the Chagres to take the news to
+Panama. No officer remained alive, nor was any powder
+left; the Spaniards were true soldiers. The pirates lost
+"above one hundred killed" and over seventy wounded,
+or rather more than half of the men engaged. While the
+few remaining Spaniards dug trenches in the sand for
+the burial of the many dead, the pirates questioned them
+as to their knowledge of Morgan's enterprise. They knew
+all about it, they said, for a deserter from the pirate ships
+which raided the Rio de la Hacha (for grain) had spoken
+of the scheme to the Governor at Cartagena. That
+captain had reinforced the Chagres garrison, and had
+sent a warning over the isthmus to the Governor at
+Panama. The Chagres was now well lined with ambuscades.
+Panama was full of soldiers, and the whole Spanish
+population was ready to take up arms to drive the pirates
+to their ships, so they knew what they might look to
+get in case they persisted in their plan. This information
+was sent to Henry Morgan at the Santa Katalina
+fort, with news of the reduction of the Chagres
+castle. Before he received it, Captain Joseph Bradly
+died in the castle, of a wound he had received in the
+fighting.</p>
+
+<p>When Morgan received the news that San Lorenzo had
+been stormed, he began to send aboard the meat, maize,
+and cassava he had collected in Santa Katalina. He had
+already blown the Spanish forts to pieces, with the one
+exception of the fort of St Teresa. He now took all the
+captured Spanish guns, and flung them into the sea, where
+they lie still, among the scarlet coral sprays. The Spanish
+town was then burnt, and the Spanish prisoners placed
+aboard the ships. It was Morgan's intention to return to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+the island after sacking Panama, and to leave there a
+strong garrison to hold it in the interests of the buccaneers.
+When he had made these preparations he weighed his
+anchors, and sailed for the Chagres River under the English
+colours.</p>
+
+<p>Eight days later they came sailing slowly up towards
+the river's mouth. Their joy was so great "when they saw
+the English colours upon the castle, that they minded not
+their way into the river," being gathered at the rum cask
+instead of at the lead, and calling healths instead of soundings.
+As a consequence, four ships of the fleet, including
+the admiral's flagship, ran foul of the ledge of rocks at the
+river's entry. Several men were drowned, but the goods
+and ships' stores were saved, though with some difficulty.
+As they got out warps to bring the ships off, the north
+wind freshened. In shallow water, such as that, a sea rises
+very quickly. In a few hours a regular "norther" had set
+in, and the ships beat to pieces on the ledge before the
+end of the day.</p>
+
+<p>As Morgan came ashore at the port, the guns were fired
+in salute, and the pirates lined the quay and the castle
+walls to give him a triumphant welcome. He examined
+the castle, questioned the lieutenants, and at once took
+steps to repair the damage done by the fire. The thirty
+survivors of the garrison and all the prisoners from Santa
+Katalina, were set to work to drive in new palisadoes in
+the place of those burnt in the attack. The huts were
+rethatched and the whole place reordered. There were
+some Spanish ships in the port whose crews had been
+pressed into the Spanish garrison at the time of the storm.
+They were comparatively small, of the kind known as
+chatas, or chatten, a sort of coast boat of slight draught,
+used for river work and for the conveyance of goods from
+the Chagres to the cities on the Main. They had iron and
+brass guns aboard them, which were hoisted out, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+mounted in the fort. Captain Morgan then picked a
+garrison of 500 buccaneers to hold the fort, under a
+buccaneer named Norman. He placed 150 more in the
+ships in the anchorage, and embarked the remainder in
+flat-bottomed boats for the voyage up the Chagres.</p>
+
+<p>It was the dry season, so that the river, at times so
+turbulent, was dwindled to a tenth of its volume. In order
+that the hard work of hauling boats over shallows might
+not be made still harder, Morgan gave orders that the
+men should take but scanty stock of provisions. A few
+maize cobs and a strip or two of charqui was all the
+travelling store in the scrips his pilgrims carried. They
+hoped that they would find fresh food in the Spanish
+strongholds, or ambuscades, which guarded the passage
+over the isthmus.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="img223" id="img223"></a>
+<a href="images/223.jpg"><img src="images/223_th.jpg" width="500" height="301"
+alt="A Map of the Country and Citty of PANAMA. Part. 3. Page. 31."
+title="THE ISTHMUS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE ISTHMUS<br />
+SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The company set sail from San Lorenzo on the morning
+of the 12th (one says the 18th) of January 1671. They
+numbered in all 1200 men, packed into thirty-two canoas
+and the five chatas they had taken in the port. His
+guides went on ahead in one of the chatas, with her
+guns aboard her and the matches lit, and one Robert
+Delander, a buccaneer captain, in command. The first
+day's sailing against a gentle current was pleasant enough.
+In spite of the heat and the overcrowding of the boats,
+they made six leagues between dawn and sunset, and
+anchored at a place called De los Bracos. Here a
+number of the pirates went ashore to sleep "and stretch
+their limbs, they being almost crippled with lying too
+much crowded in the boats." They also foraged up and
+down for food in the plantations; but the Spaniards had
+fled with all their stores. It was the first day of the
+journey over the isthmus, yet many of the men had already
+come to an end of their provisions. "The greatest part
+of them" ate nothing all day, nor enjoyed "any other
+refreshment" than a pipe of tobacco. The next day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+"very early in the morning," before the sun rose, they
+shoved off from the mooring-place. They rowed all
+day, suffering much from the mosquitoes, but made little
+progress. The river was fallen very low, so that they
+were rowing or poling over a series of pools joined by
+shallow rapids. To each side of them were stretches of
+black, alluvial mud, already springing green with shrubs
+and water-plants. Every now and then, as they rowed
+on, on the dim, sluggish, silent, steaming river, they butted
+a sleeping alligator as he sunned in the shallows, or were
+stopped by a fallen tree, brought by the summer floods
+and left to rot there. At twilight, when the crying of
+the birds became more intense and the monkeys gathered
+to their screaming in the treetops, the boats drew up
+to the bank at a planter's station, or wayside shrine, known
+as Cruz de Juan Gallego. Here they went ashore to
+sleep, still gnawed with famine, and faint with the hard
+day's rowing. The guides told Henry Morgan that after
+another two leagues they might leave the boats, and push
+through the woods on foot.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning the admiral decided to leave
+the boats, for with his men so faint from hunger he
+thought it dangerous to tax them with a labour so
+severe as rowing. He left 160 men to protect the fleet,
+giving them the strictest orders to remain aboard. "No
+man," he commanded, "upon any pretext whatsoever,
+should dare to leave the boats and go ashore." The
+woods there were so dark and thick that a Spanish
+garrison might have lain within 100 yards of the
+fleet, and cut off any stragglers who landed. Having
+given his orders, he chose out a gang of macheteros, or
+men carrying the sharp sword-like machetes, to march
+ahead of the main body, to cut a trackway in the pulpy
+green stuff. They then set forward through the forest,
+over their ankles in swampy mud, up to their knees some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>times
+in rotting leaves, clambering over giant tree trunks,
+wading through stagnant brooks, staggering and slipping
+and swearing, faint with famine; a very desperate gang of
+cut-throats. As they marched, the things called garapatadas,
+or wood-ticks, of which some six sorts flourish
+there, dropped down upon them in scores, to add their
+burning bites to the venom of the mosquitoes. In a moist
+atmosphere of at least 90&deg;, with heavy arms to carry, that
+march must have been terrible. Even the buccaneers,
+men hardened to the climate, could not endure it: they
+straggled back to the boats, and re-embarked.</p>
+
+<p>With a great deal of trouble the pirates dragged the
+boats "to a place farther up the river, called Cedro Bueno,"
+where they halted for the stragglers, who drifted in during
+the evening. Here they went ashore to a wretched
+bivouac, to lie about the camp fires, with their belts drawn
+tight, chewing grass or aromatic leaves to allay their
+hunger. After Cedro Bueno the river narrowed, so that
+there was rather more water to float the canoas. The
+land, too, was less densely wooded, and easier for the men
+to march upon. On the fourth day "the greatest part
+of the Pirates marched by land, being led by one of the
+guides." Another guide led the rest of them in the
+canoas; two boats going ahead of the main fleet, one on
+each side of the river, to discover "the ambuscades of the
+Spaniards." The Spaniards had lined the river-banks at
+intervals with Indian spies, who were so "very dexterous"
+that they brought intelligence of the coming of the
+pirates "six hours at least before they came to any place."
+About noon on this day, as the boats neared Torna
+Cavallos, one of the guides cried out that he saw an
+ambuscade. "His voice caused infinite joy to all the
+Pirates," who made sure that the fastness would be well
+provisioned, and that at last they might "afford something
+to the ferment of their stomachs, which now was grown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+so sharp that it did gnaw their very bowels." The place
+was carried with a rush; but the
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'reboubt'">redoubt</ins>
+was empty. The
+Spaniards had all fled away some hours before, when
+their spies had come in from down the river. There had
+been 500 Spaniards there standing to arms behind the
+barricade of tree trunks. They had marched away with
+all their gear, save only a few leather bags, "all empty,"
+and a few crusts and bread crumbs "upon the ground
+where they had eaten." There were a few shelter huts,
+thatched with palm leaves, within the barricade. These
+the pirates tore to pieces in the fury of their disappointment.
+They fell upon the leather bags like hungry dogs
+quarrelling for a bone. They fought and wrangled for
+the scraps of leather, and ate them greedily, "with frequent
+gulps of water." Had they taken any Spaniards there
+"they would certainly in that occasion [or want] have
+roasted or boiled" them "to satisfy their famine."</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat relieved by the scraps of leather, they
+marched on along the river-bank to "another post called
+Torna Munni." Here they found a second wall of tree
+trunks, loopholed for musketry, "but as barren and
+desert as the former." They sought about in the woods
+for fruits or roots, but could find nothing&mdash;"the Spaniards
+having been so provident as not to leave behind them
+anywhere the least crumb of sustenance." There was
+nothing for them but "those pieces of leather, so hard
+and dry," a few of which had been saved "for supper"
+by the more provident. He who had a little scrap of hide,
+would slice it into strips, "and beat it between two stones,
+and rub it, often dipping it in the water of the river, to
+render it by these means supple and tender." Lastly, the
+hair was scraped off, and the piece "roasted or broiled"
+at the camp fire upon a spit of lance wood. "And being
+thus cooked they cut it into small morsels, and eat it,"
+chewing each bit for several minutes as though loth to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+lose it, and helping it down "with frequent gulps of water."
+There was plenty of fish in the Chagres, but perhaps they
+had no lines. It seems strange, however, that they made
+no attempt to kill some of the myriads of birds and
+monkeys in the trees, or the edible snakes which swarm
+in the grass, or, as a last resource, the alligators in the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>Gaunt with hunger, they took the trail again after a
+night of misery at Torna Munni. The going was slightly
+better, but there was still the wood-ticks, the intense,
+damp heat, and the lust for food to fight against. About
+noon they staggered in to Barbacoas, now a station on the
+Isthmian Railway. There were a few huts at Barbacoas,
+for the place was of some small importance. A native
+swinging bridge, made of bejuco cane, was slung across
+the river there for the benefit of travellers going to
+Porto Bello. An ambush had been laid at Barbacoas,
+but the Spaniards had left the place, after sweeping it
+as bare as Torna Munni. The land was in tillage near
+the huts, but the plantations were barren. "They searched
+very narrowly, but could not find any person, animal or
+other thing that was capable of relieving their extreme
+and ravenous hunger." After a long search they chanced
+upon a sort of cupboard in the rocks, "in which they
+found two sacks of meal, wheat, and like things, with two
+great jars of wine, and certain fruits called Platanos,"
+or large bananas. Morgan very firmly refused to allow
+the buccaneers to use this food. He reserved it strictly
+for those who were in greatest want, thereby saving a
+number of lives. The dying men were given a little
+meal and wine, and placed in the canoas, "and those
+commanded to land that were in them before." They
+then marched on "with greater courage than ever," till
+late into the night, when they lay down in a plundered
+bean patch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"On the sixth day" they were nearly at the end of
+their tether. They dragged along slowly, some in boats,
+some in the woods, halting every now and then in despair
+of going farther, and then staggering on again, careless
+if they lived or died. Their lips were scummy with a
+sort of green froth, caused by their eating grass and the
+leaves of trees. In this condition they came at noon
+to a plantation, "where they found a barn full of maize."
+They beat the door in in a few minutes, "and fell to
+eating of it dry," till they were gorged with it. There
+was enough for all, and plenty left to take away, so they
+distributed a great quantity, "giving to every man a good
+allowance." With their knapsacks full of corn cobs they
+marched on again, in happier case than they had been in
+for several days. They soon came to "an ambuscade of
+Indians," but no Indians stayed within it to impeach their
+passage. On catching sight of the barricade many
+buccaneers flung away their corn cobs, with the merry
+improvidence of their kind, "with the sudden hopes they
+conceived of finding all things in abundance." But the
+larder was as bare as it had been in the other strongholds:
+it contained "neither Indians, nor victuals, nor anything
+else." On the other side of the river, however, there were
+many Indians, "a troop of a hundred," armed with bows,
+"who escaped away through the agility of their feet."
+Some of the pirates "leapt into the river" to attack these
+Indians, and to bring them into camp as prisoners. They
+did not speed in their attempt, but two or three of them
+were shot through the heart as they waded. Their corpses
+drifted downstream, to catch in the oars of the canoas,
+a horrible feast for the caymans. The others returned to
+their comrades on the right or northern bank of the river
+among the howls of the Indians: "Hey, you dogs, you,
+go on to the savannah; go on to the savannah, to find
+out what's in pickle for you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They could go no farther towards the savannah for that
+time, as they wished to cross the river, and did not care
+to do so, in the presence of an enemy, without due rest.
+They camped about big fires of wood, according to their
+custom, but they slept badly, for the hunger and toil had
+made them mutinous. The growling went up and down
+the camp till it came to Morgan's ears. Most of the
+pirates were disgusted with their admiral's "conduct," or
+leadership, and urged a speedy return to Port Royal.
+Others, no less disgusted, swore savagely that they would
+see the job through. Some, who had eaten more burnt
+leather than the others, "did laugh and joke at all their
+discourses," and so laid a last straw upon their burden.
+"In the meanwhile" the ruffian guide, "the rogue, thief,
+and assassin," who had merited to die upon a wheel, was
+a great comfort to them. "It would not be long," he kept
+saying, "before they met with folk, when they would
+come to their own, and forget these hungry times." So
+the night passed, round the red wood logs in the clearing,
+among the steaming jungle.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning of the seventh day they cleaned
+their arms, wiping away the rust and fungus which had
+grown upon them. "Every one discharged his pistol or
+musket, without bullet, to examine the security of their
+firelocks." They then loaded with ball, and crossed the
+river in the canoas. At midday they sighted Venta
+Cruz, the village, or little town, which Drake had taken.
+The smoke was going up to heaven from the Venta Cruz
+chimneys&mdash;a sight very cheering to these pirates. They
+had "great joy and hopes of finding people in the town
+... and plenty of good cheer." They went on merrily,
+"making several arguments to one another [like the gravediggers
+in <i>Hamlet</i>] upon those external signs"&mdash;saying
+that there could be no smoke without a fire, and no fire in
+such a climate save to cook by, and that, therefore, Venta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+Cruz would be full of roast and boiled by the time they
+marched into its Plaza. Thus did they cheer the march and
+the heavy labour at the oars as far as the Venta Cruz jetty.</p>
+
+<p>As they entered Venta Cruz at the double, "all sweating
+and panting" with the hurry of their advance, they found
+the town deserted and in a blaze of fire. There was
+nothing eatable there, for the place had been swept clean,
+and then fired, by the retreating Spaniards. The only
+houses not alight were "the store-houses and stables
+belonging the King." These, being of stone, and Government
+property, had not been kindled. The storehouses
+and stables were, however, empty. Not a horse nor a
+mule nor an ass was in its stall. "They had not left
+behind them any beast whatsoever, either alive or dead."
+Venta Cruz was as profitless a booty as all the other
+stations. A few pariah dogs and cats were in the street,
+as was perhaps natural, even at that date, in a Central-American
+town. These were at once killed, and eaten
+half raw, "with great appetite." Before they were despatched,
+a pirate lighted on a treasure in a recess of the
+King's stables. He found there a stock of wine, some
+fifteen or sixteen jars, or demijohns, of good Peruvian
+wine, "and a leather sack full of bread." "But no
+sooner had they begun to drink of the said wine when
+they fell sick, almost every man." Several hundreds had
+had a cup or two of the drink, and these now judged
+themselves poisoned, and "irrecoverably lost." They
+were not poisoned, as it happened, but they had gone
+hungry for several days, living on "manifold sorts of
+trash." The sudden use of wine and bread caused a very
+natural sickness, such as comes to all who eat or drink
+greedily after a bout of starving. The sickness upset them
+for the day, so that the force remained there, at bivouac in
+the village, until the next morning. During the halt
+Morgan landed all his men ("though never so weak")<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+from the canoas. He retained only one boat, which he
+hid, for use as an advice boat, "to carry intelligence" to
+those down the river. The rest of the canoas were sent
+downstream to the anchorage at Bueno Cedro, where the
+chatas lay moored under a guard. He gave strict orders
+to the rest of the pirates that they were not to leave
+the village save in companies of 100 together. "One
+party of English soldiers stickled not to contravene these
+commands, being tempted with the desire of finding victuals."
+While they straggled in the tilled ground outside
+Venta Cruz they were attacked "with great fury" by a
+number of Spaniards and Indians, "who snatched up" one
+of them, and carried him off. What was done to this one
+so snatched up we are not told. Probably he was tortured
+to give information of the pirates' strength, and then
+hanged up to a tree.</p>
+
+<p>On the eighth day, in the early morning, the sick
+men being recovered, Morgan thought they might proceed.
+He chose out an advance-guard of 200 of the
+strongest of his men, and sent them forward, with their
+matches lighted, to clear the road. The road was a very
+narrow one, but paved with cobble stones, and easy to the
+feet after the quagmires of the previous week. The men
+went forward at a good pace, beating the thickets on each
+side of the road. When they had marched some seven or
+eight miles they were shot at from some Indian ambush.
+A shower of arrows fell among them, but they could not
+see a trace of the enemy, till the Indians, who had shot the
+arrows, broke from cover and ran to a second fastness.
+A few stood firm, about a chief or cacique, "with full
+design to fight and defend themselves." They fought very
+gallantly for a few moments; but the pirates stormed their
+poor defence, and pistolled the cacique, losing eight men
+killed and ten wounded before the Indians broke. Shortly
+after this skirmish, the advance-guard left the wood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+coming to open, green grass-land "full of variegated
+meadows." On a hill at a little distance they saw a
+number of Indians gathered, watching their advance.
+They sent out a troop to capture some of these, but the
+Indians escaped again, "through the agility of their feet,"
+to reappear a little later with their howls of scorn: "Hey,
+you dogs, you English dogs, you. Get on to the savannah,
+you dogs, you cuckolds. On to the savannah, and see
+what's coming to you." "While these things passed the
+ten pirates that were wounded were dressed and plastered
+up."</p>
+
+<p>In a little while the pirates seized a hilltop facing a
+ridge of hill which shut them from the sight of Panama.
+In the valley between the two hills was a thick little wood,
+where Morgan looked to find an ambush. He sent his
+advance-guard of 200 men to search the thicket. As they
+entered, some Spaniards and Indians entered from the
+opposite side, but no powder was burnt, for the Spaniards
+stole away by a bypath, "and were seen no more." That
+night a drenching shower of rain fell, blotting out the
+landscape in a roaring grey film. It sent the pirates running
+hither and thither to find some shelter "to preserve
+their arms from being wet." Nearly all the huts and
+houses in the district had been fired by the Indians, but
+the pirates found a few lonely shepherds' shealings, big
+enough to hold all the weapons of the army and a few of
+the men. Those who could not find a place among the
+muskets were constrained to lie shivering in the open,
+enduring much hardship, for the rain did not slacken till
+dawn.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak Morgan ordered them to march "while
+the fresh air of the morning lasted"; for they were now in
+open country, on the green savannah, where they would
+have no treetops to screen them from the terrible sun.
+During their morning march they saw a troop of Spanish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+horse, armed with spears, watching the advance at a safe
+distance, and retiring as the pirates drew nearer. Shortly
+after this they topped a steep rise, and lo! the smoke
+of Panama, and the blue Pacific, with her sky-line
+trembling gently, and a ship under sail, with five boats,
+going towards some emerald specks of islands. The clouds
+were being blown across the sky. The sun was glorious
+over all that glorious picture, over all the pasture, so green
+and fresh from the rain. There were the snowy Andes
+in the distance, their peaks sharply notched on the clear
+sky. Directly below them, in all her beauty, was the
+royal city of Panama, only hidden from sight by a roll of
+green savannah.</p>
+
+<p>Just at the foot of the rise, in a wealth of fat pasture,
+were numbers of grazing cattle, horses, and asses&mdash;the
+droves of the citizens. The pirates crept down, and shot
+a number of these, "chiefly asses," which they promptly
+flayed, while some of their number gathered firewood.
+As soon as the fires were lit the meat was blackened
+in the flame, and then greedily swallowed in "convenient
+pieces or gobbets." "They more resembled cannibals
+than Europeans at this banquet," for the blood ran down
+the beards of many, so hungry were they for meat after
+the long agony of the march. What they could not eat
+they packed in their satchels. After a long midday rest
+they fell in again for the march, sending fifty men ahead
+to take prisoners "if possibly they could," for in all the
+nine days' tramp they had taken no one to give them
+information of the Spaniards' strength. Towards sunset
+they saw a troop of Spaniards spying on them, who
+hallooed at them, but at such a distance that they could
+not distinguish what was said. As the sun set "they
+came the first time within sight of the highest steeple
+of Panama."</p>
+
+<p>This was a stirring cordial to the way-weary men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+limping down the savannah. The sight of the sea was
+not more cheering to the Greeks than the sight of the
+great gilt weathercock, shifting on the spire, to these
+haggard ruffians with the blood not yet dry upon their
+beards. They flung their hats into the air, and danced
+and shouted. All their trumpets shouted a levity, their
+drums beat, and their colours were displayed. They
+camped there, with songs and laughter, in sight of that
+steeple, "waiting with impatience," like the French
+knights in the play, for the slowly coming dawn. Their
+drums and trumpets made a merry music to their singing,
+and they caroused so noisily that a troop of horsemen
+rode out from Panama to see what was the matter. "They
+came almost within musket-shot of the army, being preceded
+by a trumpet that sounded marvellously well."
+They rode up "almost within musket-shot," but made
+no attempt to draw the pirates' fire. They "hallooed
+aloud to the Pirates, and threatened them," with "Hey,
+ye dogs, we shall meet ye," in the manner of the Indians.
+Seven or eight of them stayed "hovering thereabouts,"
+riding along the camp until the day broke, to watch the
+pirates' movements. As soon as their main body reached
+the town, and reported what they had seen, the Governor
+ordered the city guns to open on the pirates' camp. The
+biggest guns at once began a heavy fire, from which one
+or two spent balls rolled slowly to the outposts without
+doing any damage. At the same time, a strong party
+took up a position to the rear of the camp, as though
+to cut off the retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan placed his sentries, and sent his men to supper.
+They feasted merrily on their "pieces of bulls' and horses'
+flesh," and then lay down on the grass to smoke a pipe
+of tobacco before turning in. That last night's camp
+was peaceful and beautiful: the men were fed and near
+their quarry, the sun had dried their wet clothes; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+night was fine, the stars shone, the Panama guns were
+harmless. They slept "with great repose and huge
+satisfaction," careless of the chance of battle, and anxious
+for the fight to begin.</p>
+
+
+<h3>PANAMA</h3>
+
+<p>Old Panama, the chief Spanish city in South America,
+with the one exception of Cartagena, was built along
+the sea-beach, fronting the bay of Panama, between the
+rivers Gallinero and Matasnillos. It was founded between
+1518 and 1520 by Pedrarias Davila, a poor adventurer,
+who came to the Spanish Indies to supersede Balboa,
+having at that time "nothing but a sword and buckler."
+Davila gave it the name of an Indian village then standing
+on the site. The name means "abounding in fish." It
+soon became the chief commercial city in those parts, for
+all the gold and silver and precious merchandise of Peru
+and Chili were collected there for transport to Porto
+Bello. At the time of Morgan's attack upon it, it
+contained some 7000 houses, with a number of huts
+and hovels for the slaves. The population, counting
+these latter, may have been as great as 30,000.
+Many of the houses were of extreme beauty, being built
+of an aromatic rose wood, or "native cedar," ingeniously
+carved. Many were built of stone in a Moorish fashion,
+with projecting upper storeys. It had several stone monasteries
+and convents, and a great cathedral, dedicated to
+St Anastasius, which was the most glorious building in
+Spanish America. Its tower still stands as a landmark
+to sailors, visible many miles to sea. The stones of it
+are decorated with defaced carvings. Inside it, within the
+ruined walls, are palm and cedar trees, green and beautiful,
+over the roots of which swarm the scarlet-spotted coral
+snakes. The old town was never properly fortified. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+isthmus was accounted a sufficient protection to it, and
+the defences were consequently weak. It was a town
+of merchants, who "thought only of becoming rich, and
+cared little for the public good." They lived a very stately
+life there, in houses hung with silk, stamped leather,
+and Spanish paintings, drinking Peruvian wines out of
+cups of gold and silver. The Genoese Company, a company
+of slavers trading with Guinea, had a "stately house"
+there, with a spacious slave market, where the blacks were
+sold over the morning glass. The Spanish King had
+some long stone stables in the town, tended by a number
+of slaves. Here the horses and mules for the recuas were
+stabled in long lines, like the stables of a cavalry barrack.
+Near these were the royal storehouses, built of stone, for
+the storage of the gold from the King's mines. There were
+also 200 merchants' warehouses, built in one storey, round
+which the slaves slept, under pent roofs.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the city was the beautiful green savannah,
+a rolling sea of grass, with islands of trees, cedar and
+palm, thickly tangled with the many-coloured bindweeds.
+To one side of it, an arm of the sea crept inland, to
+a small salt lagoon, which rippled at high tide, at the
+back of the city. The creek was bridged to allow the
+Porto Bello carriers to enter the town, and a small
+gatehouse or porter's lodge protected the way. The
+bridge is a neat stone arch, still standing. The streets
+ran east and west, "so that when the sun rises no one can
+walk in any of the streets, because there is no shade
+whatever; and this is felt very much as the heat is intense;
+and the sun is so prejudicial to health, that if a
+man is exposed to its rays for a few hours, he will be
+attacked with a fatal illness [pernicious fever], and this has
+happened to many." The port was bad for shipping,
+because of the great rise and fall of the tides. The bay
+is shallow, and ships could only come close in at high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+water. At low water the town looked out upon a strip
+of sand and a mile or more of very wet black mud. "At
+full moon, the waves frequently reach the houses and enter
+those on that side of the town." The roadstead afforded
+safe anchorage for the great ships coming up from Lima.
+Loading and unloading was performed by launches, at
+high water, on days when the surf was moderate. Small
+ships sailed close in at high tide, and beached themselves.</p>
+
+<p>To landward there were many gardens and farms, where
+the Spaniards had "planted many trees from Spain"&mdash;such
+as oranges, lemons, and figs. There were also plantain
+walks, and a great plenty of pines, guavas, onions, lettuces,
+and "alligator pears." Over the savannah roamed herds
+of fat cattle. On the seashore, "close to the houses of
+the city," were "quantities of very small mussels." The
+presence of these mussel beds determined the site of the
+town, "because the Spaniards felt themselves safe from
+hunger on account of these mussels."</p>
+
+<p>The town is all gone now, saving the cathedral tower,
+where the sweet Spanish bells once chimed, and the
+little stone bridge, worn by so many mules' hoofs.
+There is dense tropical forest over the site of it, though
+the foundations of several houses may be traced, and
+two or three walls still stand, with brilliant creepers
+covering up the carved work. It is not an easy place
+to reach, for it is some six miles from new Panama, and
+the way lies through such a tangle of creepers, over such
+swampy ground, poisonous with so many snakes, that
+it is little visited. It can be reached by sea on a fine
+day at high tide if the surf be not too boisterous. To
+landward of the present Panama there is a fine hill, called
+Mount An&ccedil;on. A little to the east of this there is a roll
+of high land, now a fruitful market-garden, or farm of
+orchards. This high land, some five or six miles from
+the ruins, is known as Buccaneers' Hill. It was from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+summit of this high land that the pirates first saw the
+city steeple. Local tradition points out a few old Spanish
+guns of small size, brass and iron, at the near-by village
+of El Moro, as having been left by Morgan's men. At
+the island of Taboga, in the bay of Panama, they point
+with pride to a cave, the haunt of squid and crabs, as
+the hiding-place of Spanish treasure. In the blackness
+there, they say, are the golden sacramental vessels and
+jewelled vestments of the great church of St Anastasius.
+They were hidden there at the time of the raid,
+so effectually that they could never be recovered. We
+can learn of no other local tradition concerning the sack
+and burning.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img240" id="img240"></a>
+<a href="images/240.jpg"><img src="images/240_th.jpg" width="400" height="290"
+alt="NEW PANAMA" title="NEW PANAMA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">NEW PANAMA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>What old Panama was like we do not know, for we
+can trace no picture of it. It was said to be the peer of
+Venice, "the painted city," at a time when Venice was
+yet the "incomparable Queene." It could hardly have
+been a second Venice, though its situation on that beautiful
+blue bay, with the Andes snowy in the distance, and
+the islands, like great green gems, to seaward, is lovely
+beyond words. It was filled with glorious houses, carved
+and scented, and beautiful with costly things. The merchants
+lived a languorous, luxurious life there, waited
+on by slaves, whom they could burn or torture at their
+pleasure. It was "the greatest mart for gold and silver
+in the whole world." There were pearl fisheries up and
+down the bay, yielding the finest of pearls; and "golden
+Potosi"&mdash;the tangible Eldorado, was not far off. The
+merchants of old Panama were, perhaps, as stately fellows
+and as sumptuous in their ways of life as any "on the
+Rialto." Their city is now a tangle of weeds and a
+heap of sun-cracked limestone; their market-place is
+a swamp; their haven is a stretch of surf-shaken mud,
+over which the pelicans go quarrelling for the bodies
+of fish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;Exquemeling's "History"; "The Bucaniers of America."
+Don Guzman's Account, printed in the "Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Bartholomew Sharp." Cal. State Papers: West Indies and Colonial Series.
+"Present State of Jamaica," 1683. "New History of Jamaica," 1740.</p>
+
+<p>For my account of Chagres I am indebted to friends long resident on
+the isthmus, and to Dampier's and Wafer's Voyages.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SACK OF PANAMA</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The burning of the city&mdash;Buccaneer excesses&mdash;An abortive mutiny&mdash;Home&mdash;Morgan's
+defection</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"On the tenth day, betimes in the morning," while the
+black and white monkeys were at their dawn song,
+or early screaming, the pirates fell in for the march, with
+their red flags flying and the drums and trumpets making
+a battle music. They set out gallantly towards the city
+by the road they had followed from Venta Cruz. Before
+they came under fire, one of the guides advised Morgan
+to attack from another point. The Spaniards, he said,
+had placed their heavy guns in position along the probable
+line of their advance. Every clump of trees near
+the trackway would be filled with Spanish sharpshooters,
+while they might expect earth-works or trenches nearer
+to the city. He advised Morgan to make a circuit, so
+as to approach the city through the forest&mdash;over the
+ground on which new Panama was built, a year or
+two later. Morgan, therefore, turned rather to the west
+of the highway, through some tropical woodland, where
+the going was very irksome. As they left the woodland,
+after a march of several hours, they again entered the
+savannah, at a distance of about a mile and a half from
+the town. The ground here was in sweeping folds, so
+that they had a little hill to climb before the town lay
+open to them, at the edge of the sea, to the eastward
+of the salt lagoon. When they topped this rise they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+saw before them "the forces of the people of Panama,
+extended in battle array," between them and the quarry.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish strength on this occasion, according to
+the narrative, was as follows:&mdash;400 horse, of the finest
+horsemen in the world; twenty-four companies of foot,
+each company mustering a full 100 men; and "sixty
+Indians and some negroes." These last were "to drive
+two thousand wild bulls and cause them to run over the
+English camp, and thus, by breaking their files, put them
+into a total disorder and confusion." Morgan gives the
+numbers as 2100 foot and 600 horse, with "two Droves
+of Cattel of 1500 apiece," one for each flank or for the
+angles of the rear. The Spanish Governor, who had been
+"lately blooded 3 times for an Erysipelas," had not done
+as well as he could have wished in the preparation of
+an army of defence. He says that he had brought together
+1400 coloured men, armed with "Carbins, Harquebusses,
+and Fowling Pieces," the muskets having been
+lost at Chagres. He gives the number of cavalry as
+200, "mounted on the same tired Horses which had
+brought them thither." He admits that there were "50
+cow-keepers" and an advance-guard of 300 foot. He had
+also five field-guns "covered with leather." To these
+forces may be added the townsfolk capable of bearing
+arms. These were not very numerous, for most of the
+inhabitants, as we have seen, "thought only of getting
+rich and cared little for the public good." They were
+now, however, in a cold sweat of fear at the sight of
+the ragged battalion trooping down from the hilltop.
+They had dug trenches for themselves within the city
+and had raised batteries to sweep the important streets.
+They had also mounted cannon on the little stone fort,
+or watchman's lodge, at the town end of the bridge across
+the creek.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of so many troops drawn out in order "sur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>prised"
+the pirates "with great fear." The droves of
+"wild bulls" pasturing on the savannah grass were new
+to their experience; the cavalry they had met before
+in Cuba and did not fear, nor did they reckon themselves
+much worse than the Spanish foot; but they saw that
+the Spaniards outnumbered them by more than two to
+one, and they recognised the advantage they had in
+having a defensible city to fall back upon. The buccaneers
+were worn with the long march, and in poor
+case for fighting. They halted at this point, while Morgan
+formed them into a tertia, or division of three battalions
+or troops, of which he commanded the right wing. The
+sight of so many Spaniards halted below them set them
+grumbling in the ranks. "Yea few or none there were
+but wished themselves at home, or at least free from
+the obligation of that Engagement." There was, however,
+nothing else for it. A "wavering condition of Mind" could
+not help them. They had no alternative but "to fight
+resolutely, or die." They might not look to get quarter
+"from an Enemy against whom they had committed so
+many Cruelties."</p>
+
+<p>Morgan formed his men in order, and sent out skirmishers
+to annoy the Spanish troops, and to draw them
+from their position. A few shots were exchanged; but the
+Spaniards were not to be tempted, nor was the ground
+over which the skirmishers advanced at all suitable for
+moving troops. Morgan, therefore, edged his men away
+to the left, to a little hill beyond a dry gut or water-course&mdash;a
+position which the Spaniards could not attack
+from more than one side owing to the nature of the
+ground, which was boggy. Before they could form upon
+the lower slopes of the hill the Spanish horse rode softly
+forward, shouting: "Viva el Rey!" ("Long live the King"),
+with a great display of courage. "But the field being full
+of quaggs, and very soft under foot, they could not ply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+to and fro, and wheel about, as they desired." When
+they had come to a little beyond musket-shot "one
+Francisco Detarro," the colonel of the cavalry, called
+out to his troopers to charge home upon the English
+van. The horses at once broke into a gallop, and charged
+in "so furiously" that Morgan had to strengthen his ranks
+to receive them, "we having no Pikes" with which to gall
+the horses. As the men galloped forward, the line of
+buccaneers made ready to fire. Each musketeer put one
+knee to the ground, and touched off his piece, blasting
+the Spanish regiment almost out of action at the one
+discharge. The charge had been pressed so nearly home
+that the powder corns burnt the leading horses. Those
+who survived the shock of the volley swung off to the
+right to re-form, while the foot came on in their tracks
+"to try their Fortunes." They were received with such
+a terrible fire that they never came to handystrokes.
+They disputed the point for some hours, gradually falling
+into disorder as their losses became more and more heavy.
+The cavalry re-formed, and charged a second and a third
+time, with the result that after two hours' fighting "the
+Spanish Horse was ruined, and almost all killed." During
+the engagement of the foot, the Indians and negroes tried
+their stratagem of the bulls. They drove the herds round
+the flanking parties to the rear, and endeavoured to force
+them through the English lines. "But the greatest part
+of that wild cattle ran away, being frighted with the noise
+of the Battle. And some few, that broke through the
+English Companies, did no other harm than to tear the
+Colours in pieces; whereas the Buccaneers shooting them
+dead, left not one to Trouble them thereabouts."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<a name="img247" id="img247"></a>
+<a href="images/247.jpg"><img src="images/247_th.jpg" width="450" height="263"
+alt="The Battel Between the Spaniards and the pyrats or Buccaniers before the Citty of PANAMA. Part. 3 Page 54"
+title="THE BATTLE OF PANAMA" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE BATTLE OF PANAMA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Seeing the Spanish foot in some disorder, with many
+of their officers killed and few of the men firing, Morgan
+plied them with shot and sent his left wing forward as
+they fell back. The horse made one last gallant attempt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+to break the English line, but the attempt caused their
+complete destruction. At the same moment Morgan
+stormed down upon the foot with all his strength. The
+Spaniards fired "the Shot they had in their Muskets,"
+and flung their weapons down, not caring to come to
+handystrokes. They ran "everyone which way he could
+run"&mdash;an utter rout of broken soldiers. The pirates were
+too fatigued to follow, but they picked them off as they
+ran till they were out of musket-shot.</p>
+
+<p>The buccaneers apparently then cleared away the
+stragglers, by pistolling them wherever they could find
+them. In this employment they beat through the shrubs
+by the sea, where many poor citizens had hidden themselves
+after the final routing of the troops. Some monks
+who were brought in to Captain Morgan were treated
+in the same manner, "for he, being deaf to their Cries,
+commanded them to be instantly pistolled," which order
+was obeyed there and then. A captain or colonel of
+troops was soon afterwards taken, and held to ransom
+after a strict examination. He told Morgan that he
+might look to have great trouble in winning the city,
+for the streets were all dug about with trenches and
+mounted with heavy brass guns. He added that the
+main entrance to the place was strongly fortified, and
+protected by a half company of fifty men with eight
+brass demi-cannon.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan now bade his men rest themselves and take
+food before pushing on to the town. He held a review
+of his army before he marched, and found that he had
+lost heavily&mdash;perhaps 200 men&mdash;while the Spaniards
+had lost about three times that number. "The Pirates,"
+we read, "were nothing discouraged, seeing their number
+so much diminished but rather filled with greater pride
+than before." The comparative heaviness of the Spanish
+loss must have been very comforting. After they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+rested and eaten they set out towards the town, "plighting
+their Oaths to one another in general, they would fight
+till never a man were left alive." A few prisoners, who
+seemed rich enough to be held to ransom, were marched
+with them under a guard of musketeers.</p>
+
+<p>Long before they trod the streets of Panama, they were
+under fire from the batteries, "some of which were charged
+with small pieces of iron, and others with musket-bullets."</p>
+
+<p>They lost men at every step; but their ranks kept
+steady, and street by street the town was won. The main
+agony of the fight took place between two and three
+o'clock, in the heat of the day, when the last Spanish
+gunners were cut to pieces at their guns. After the last
+gun was taken, a few Spaniards fired from street corners
+or from upper windows, but these were promptly pistolled
+or knocked on the head. The town was in the hands of
+the pirates by the time the bells chimed three that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>As Morgan rested with his captains in the Plaza, after
+the heat of the battle, word was brought to him that the
+city was on fire in several places. Many have supposed
+that the town was fired by his orders, or by some careless
+and drunken musketeer of his. It was not the buccaneer
+custom to fire cities before they had sacked them, nor is it
+in the least likely that Morgan would have burnt so
+glorious a town before he had offered it to ransom. The
+Spaniards have always charged Morgan with the crime,
+but it seems more probable that the Spanish Governor was
+the guilty one. It is yet more probable that the fire was
+accidental. Most of the Spanish houses were of wood,
+and at that season of the year the timber would have been
+of extreme dryness, so that a lighted wad or match end
+might have caused the conflagration. At the time when
+the fire was first noticed, the pirates were raging through
+the town in search of plunder. They may well have flung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+away their lighted matches to gather up the spoils they
+found, and thus set fire to the place unwittingly.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing that the town was burning, Morgan caused his
+trumpeters to sound the assembly in the Plaza. When
+the pirates mustered, Morgan at once told off men to
+quench the fire "by blowing up houses by gunpowder, and
+pulling down others to stop its progress." He ordered
+strong guards to patrol the streets and to stand sentry
+without the city. Lastly, he forbade any member of the
+army "to dare to drink or taste any wine," giving out that
+it had all been poisoned beforehand by the Spaniards.
+He feared that his men would get drunk unless he frightened
+them by some such tale. With a drunken army
+rolling in the streets he could hardly hope to hold the
+town against an enemy so lightly beaten as the Spaniards.
+He also sent some sailors down to the beach to seize "a
+great boat which had stuck in the mud of the port."</p>
+
+<p>For all that the pirates could do, the fire spread rapidly,
+for the dry cedar beams burned furiously. The warehouses
+full of merchandise, such as silks, velvets, and fine
+linen, were not burned, but all the grand houses of the
+merchants, where the life had been so stately, were utterly
+gutted&mdash;all the Spanish pictures and coloured tapestries
+going up in a blaze. The splendid house of the Genoese,
+where so many black men had been bought and sold, was
+burned to the ground. The chief streets were ruined
+before midnight, and the fire was not wholly extinguished
+a month later when the pirates marched away. It continued
+to burn and smoulder long after they had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Having checked the riot among his army, Morgan sent
+a company of 150 men back to the garrison at the mouth
+of the Chagres with news of his success. Two other companies,
+of the same strength, he sent into the woods, "being
+all very stout soldiers and well-armed," giving them orders
+to bring in prisoners to hold to ransom. A third company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+was sent to sea under a Captain Searles to capture a
+Spanish galleon which had left the port, laden with gold
+and silver and the jewels of the churches, a day or two
+before. The rest of his men camped out of doors, in the
+green fields without the city, ready for any attack the
+Spaniards might make upon them. Search parties rummaged
+all day among the burning ruins, "especially in
+wells and cisterns," which yielded up many jewels and
+fine gold plates. The warehouses were sacked, and many
+pirates made themselves coats of silk and velvet to replace
+the rags they came in. It is probable that they committed
+many excesses in the heat of the first taking of the town,
+but one who was there has testified to the comparative
+gentleness of their comportment when "the heat of the
+blood" had cooled. "As to their women," he writes, "I
+know [not] or ever heard of anything offered beyond their
+wills; something I know was cruelly executed by Captain
+Collier [commander of one of the ships and one of the
+chief officers of the army] in killing a Frier in the field
+after quarter given; but for the Admiral he was noble
+enough to the vanquished enemy." In fact, the</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i18">"Want of rest and victual<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had made them chaste&mdash;they ravished very little"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;which matter must be laid to their credit.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two was passed by the pirates in rummaging
+among the ruins, eating and drinking, and watching the
+Spaniards as they moved in the savannahs. Troops of
+Spaniards prowled there under arms, looking at their
+burning houses and the grey smoke ever going upward.
+They did not attack the pirates; they did not even fire
+at them from a distance. They were broken men without
+a leader, only thankful to be allowed to watch their blazing
+city. A number of them submitted to the armed men
+sent out to bring in prisoners. A number lingered in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+near-by forests in great misery, living on grass and
+alligator eggs, the latter tasting "like half-rotten musk"&mdash;a
+poor diet after "pheasants" and Peruvian wine.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan soon received word from Chagres castle that
+all was very well with the garrison. Captain Norman,
+who had remained in charge, under oath to keep the
+"bloody flag," or red pirates' banner, flying, "had sent forth
+to sea two boats, to exercise piracy." These had hoisted
+Spanish colours, and set to sea, meeting with a fine
+Spanish merchantman that very same day. They chased
+this ship into the Chagres River, where "the poor
+Spaniards" were caught in a snare under the guns of the
+fort. Her cargo "consisted in victuals and provisions,
+that were all eatable things," unlike the victuals given
+usually to sailors. Such a prize came very opportunely,
+for the castle stores were running out, while the ship's
+crew proved useful in the bitter work of earth carrying
+then going on daily on the ramparts for the repairing of
+the palisado. Hearing that the Chagres garrison was in
+such good case, and so well able to exercise piracy without
+further help, Admiral Morgan resolved to make a longer
+stay in the ruins of old Panama. He arranged "to send forth
+daily parties of two hundred men" to roam the countryside,
+beating the thickets for prisoners, and the prisoners for
+gold. These parties ranged the country very thoroughly,
+gathering "in a short time, a huge quantity of riches, and
+no less number of prisoners." These poor creatures were
+shut up under a guard, to be brought out one by one for
+examination. If they would not confess where they had
+hidden their gold, nor where the gold of their neighbours
+lay, the pirates used them as they had used their prisoners
+at Porto Bello. "Woolding," burning with palm leaves,
+and racking out the arm-joints, seem to have been the
+most popular tortures. Many who had no gold were
+brutally ill treated, and then thrust through with a lance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Among these diversions Admiral Morgan fell in love
+with a beautiful Spanish lady, who appears to have been
+something of a paragon. The story is not worth repeating,
+nor does it read quite sincerely, but it is very probably
+true. John Exquemeling, who had no great love for
+Morgan, declares that he was an eye-witness of the love-making,
+"and could never have judged such constancy
+of mind and virtuous chastity to be found in the world."
+The fiery Welshman did not win the lady, but we gather
+from the evidence that he could have had the satisfaction
+of Matthew Arnold's American, who consoled himself, in
+similar circumstances, with saying: "Well, I guess I
+lowered her moral tone some."</p>
+
+<p>During the first week of their stay in Panama, the ship
+they had sent to sea returned with a booty of three small
+coast boats. Captain Searles had sailed her over Panama
+Bay to the beautiful island of Taboga, in order to fill fresh
+water and rob the inhabitants. Here they took "the
+boatswain and most of the crew"<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> of the <i>Trinity</i>, a Spanish
+galleon, "on board which were the Friers and Nuns, with
+all the old gentlemen and Matrons of the Town, to the
+number of 1500 souls, besides an immense Treasure in
+Silver and Gold." This galleon had seven small guns
+and ten or twelve muskets for her whole defence. She
+was without provisions, and desperately short of water,
+and she had "no more sails than the uppermost sails of
+the mainmast." Her captain was "an old and stout
+Spaniard, a native of Andalusia, in Spain, named Don
+Francisco de Peralta." She was "very richly laden with
+all the King's Plate and great quantity of riches of gold,
+pearl, jewels, and other most precious goods, of all the
+best and richest merchants of Panama. On board of this
+galleon were also the religious women, belonging to the
+nunnery of the said city, who had embarked with them all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+the ornaments of their church, consisting in great quantity
+of gold, plate, and other things of great value." This
+most royal prize was even then slowly dipping past
+Taboga, with her sea-sick holy folk praying heartily for
+the return of the water casks. She could have made no
+possible defence against the pirates had they gone at once
+in pursuit of her. But this the pirates did not do. In
+the village at Taboga there was a wealthy merchant's
+summer-house, with a cellar full of "several sorts of rich
+wines." A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or
+as a bibulous wit once said to the present writer: "A
+bottle now is worth a bath of it to-morrow." Captain
+Searles and his men chose to drink a quiet bowl in the
+cabin rather than go sail the blue seas after the golden
+galleon. They made a rare brew of punch, of which they
+drank "logwood-cutters' measure," or a gallon and a half
+a man. After this they knocked out their tobacco pipes,
+and slept very pleasantly till the morning. They woke
+"repenting of their negligence" and "totally wearied of
+the vices and debaucheries aforesaid." With eyes red
+with drink they blinked at the empty punch-bowls. Then
+with savage "morning-tempers" they damned each other
+for a lot of lunkheads, and put to sea (in one of the Taboga
+prizes) "to pursue the said galleon" with all speed. However,
+by this time Don Peralta, a most gallant and resourceful
+captain, had brought the golden <i>Trinity</i> to a
+place of safety. Had she been taken, she would have
+yielded a spoil hardly smaller than that taken by Cavendish
+in the <i>Madre de Dios</i> or that which Anson won in the
+Manila galleon. Several waggon loads of golden chalices
+and candlesticks, with ropes of pearls, bags of emeralds
+and bezoars, and bar upon bar of silver in the crude, were
+thus bartered away for a sup of punch and a drunken
+chorus in the cabin. Poor Captain Searles never prospered
+after. He went logwood cutting a year or two later, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+as a logwood cutter he arrived at the Rio Summasenta,
+where he careened his ship at a sandy key, since known
+as Searles Key. He was killed a few days afterwards, "in
+the western lagune" there, "by one of his Company as
+they were cutting Logwood together." That was the end
+of Captain Searles.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan was very angry when he heard of the escape
+of the galleon. He at once remanned the four prizes, and
+sent them out, with orders to scour the seas till they
+found her. They cruised for more than a week, examining
+every creek and inlet, beating up many a
+sluggish river, under many leafy branches, but finding
+no trace of the <i>Trinity</i>. They gave up the chase at
+last, and rested at Taboga, where, perhaps, some "rich
+wines" were still in bin. They found a Payta ship at
+anchor at Taboga, "laden with cloth, soap, sugar and
+biscuit, with twenty thousand pieces of eight in ready
+money." She was "a reasonable good ship," but the
+cargo, saving the money, was not much to their taste.
+They took the best of it, and loaded it aboard her longboat,
+making the Taboga negroes act as stevedores.
+They then set the negroes aboard the prize, and carried
+her home to Panama, "some thing better satisfied of their
+voyage, yet withal much discontented they could not meet
+with the galleon." It was at Taboga, it seems, that the
+lady who so inflamed Sir Henry was made prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of three weeks of "woolding" and rummaging,
+Admiral Morgan began to prepare for the journey home.
+He sent his men to look for mules and horses on which
+to carry the plunder to the hidden canoas in the river.
+He learned at this juncture that a number of the pirates
+intended to leave him "by taking a ship that was in
+the port," and going to "rob upon the South Sea." They
+had made all things ready, it seems, having hidden "great
+quantity of provisions," powder, bullets, and water casks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+with which to store their ship. They had even packed
+the good brass guns of the city, "where with they designed
+not only to equip the said vessel but also to fortify themselves
+and raise batteries in some island or other, which
+might serve them for a place of refuge." The scheme
+was fascinating, and a very golden life they would have
+had of it, those lucky mutineers, had not some spoil-sport
+come sneaking privily to Morgan with a tale of what
+was toward. They might have seized Cocos Island or
+Juan Fernandez, or "some other island," such as one of
+the Enchanted, or Gallapagos, Islands, where the goddesses
+were thought to dwell. That would have been a happier
+life than cutting logwood, up to the knees in mud, in
+some drowned savannah of Campeachy.</p>
+
+<p>However, just as the wine-bowl spoiled the project of
+the galleon, so did the treachery of a lickspittle, surely
+one of the meanest of created things, put an end to the
+mutiny. Morgan was not there to colonise Pacific Oceans,
+but to sack Panama. He had no intention of losing half
+his army for an imperial idea. He promptly discouraged
+the scheme by burning all the boats in the roads. The
+ship or chata, which would have been the flagship of the
+mutineers, was dismasted, and the masts and rigging
+were added to the general bonfire. All the brass cannon
+they had taken were nailed and spiked. Wooden bars
+were driven down their muzzles as firmly as possible, and
+the wood was then watered to make it swell. There was
+then no more talk of going a-cruising to found republics.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan thought it wise to leave Panama as soon as
+possible, before a second heresy arose among his merry
+men. He had heard that the Governor of Panama was
+busily laying ambuscades "in the way by which he ought
+to pass at his return." He, therefore, picked out a strong
+company of men, including many of the mutineers, and
+sent them out into the woods to find out the truth of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+matter. They found that the report was false, for a few
+Spanish prisoners, whom they captured, were able to tell
+them how the scheme had failed. The Governor, it was
+true, had planned to make "some opposition by the way,"
+but none of the men remaining with him would consent
+to "undertake any such enterprize." With this news the
+troops marched back to Panama. While they were away,
+the poor prisoners made every effort to raise money for
+their ransoms, but many were unable to raise enough to
+satisfy their captors. Morgan had no wish to wait till
+they could gather more, for by this time, no doubt, he
+had satisfied himself that he had bled the country of all
+the gold it contained. Nor did he care to wait till the
+Spaniards had plucked up heart, and planted some
+musketeers along the banks of the Chagres. He had
+horses and mules enough to carry the enormous heaps of
+plunder to the river. It was plainly foolish to stay longer,
+for at any time a force might attack him (by sea) from
+Lima or (by land) from Porto Bello. He, therefore, gave
+the word for the army to prepare to march. He passed
+his last evening in Panama (as we suppose) with the
+female paragon from Taboga. The army had one last
+debauch over the punch-bowls round the camp fires, and
+then fell in to muster, thinking rapturously of the inns
+and brothels which waited for their custom at Port Royal.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 316px;">
+<a name="img259" id="img259"></a>
+<a href="images/259.jpg"><img src="images/259_th.jpg" width="316" height="400"
+alt="S^r. Hen: Morgan; Part 2. Chap 4." title="SIR HENRY MORGAN" /></a>
+<span class="caption">SIR HENRY MORGAN</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"On the 24th of February, of the year 1671, Captain
+Morgan departed from the city of Panama, or rather from
+the place where the said city of Panama did stand; of the
+spoils whereof he carried with him one hundred and seventy-five
+beasts of carriage, laden with silver, gold and other
+precious things, besides six hundred prisoners more or less,
+between men, women, children and slaves." Thus they
+marched out of the ruined capital, over the green savannah,
+towards the river, where a halt was called to order the army
+for the march to Venta Cruz. A troop of picked marksmen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+was sent ahead to act as a scouting party; the rest of the
+company marched in hollow square, with the prisoners in
+the hollow. In this array they set forward towards Venta
+Cruz to the sound of drums and trumpets, amid "lamentations,
+cries, shrieks and doleful sighs" from the wretched
+women and children. Most of these poor creatures were
+fainting with thirst and hunger, for it had been Morgan's
+policy to starve them, in order "to excite them more
+earnestly to seek for money wherewith to ransom themselves."
+"Many of the women," says the narrative, "begged
+of Captain Morgan upon their knees, with infinite sighs
+and tears, he would permit them to return to Panama,
+there to live in company of their dear husbands and
+children, in little huts of straw which they would erect,
+seeing they had no houses until the rebuilding of the
+city. But his answer was: he came not thither to hear
+lamentations and cries, but rather to seek money. Therefore
+they ought to seek out for that in the first place,
+wherever it were to be had, and bring it to him, otherwise
+he would assuredly transport them all to such places
+whither they cared not to go." With this answer they had
+to remain content, as they lay in camp, under strict guard,
+on the banks of the Rio Grande.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning, "when the march began,"
+"those lamentable cries and shrieks were renewed, in so
+much as it would have caused compassion in the hardest
+heart to hear them. But Captain Morgan, a man little
+given to mercy, was not moved therewith in the least."
+They marched in the same order as before, but on this
+day, we read, the Spaniards "were punched and thrust
+in their backs and sides, with the blunt end of [the pirates']
+arms, to make them march the faster." The "beautiful
+and virtuous lady" "was led prisoner by herself, between
+two Pirates," both of whom, no doubt, wished the other dear
+charmer away. She, poor lady, was crying out that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+had asked two monks to fetch her ransom from a certain
+hiding-place. They had taken the money, she cried,
+according to her instruction, but they had used it to
+ransom certain "of their own and particular friends."
+This evil deed "was discovered by a slave, who brought
+a letter to the said lady." In time, her words were reported
+to Captain Morgan, who held a court of inquiry
+there and then, to probe into the truth of the matter.
+The monks made no denial of the fact, "though under
+some frivolous excuses, of having diverted the money but
+for a day or two, within which time they expected more
+sums to repay it." The reply angered Morgan into releasing
+the poor woman, "detaining the said religious
+men as prisoners in her place," and "using them according
+to the deserts of their incompassionate intrigues."
+Probably they were forced to run the gauntlet between
+two rows of pirates armed with withes of bejuco.</p>
+
+<p>A day's hard marching brought them to the ruins of
+Venta Cruz, on the banks of the river, where the canoas
+lay waiting for them under a merry boat guard. The
+army rested at Venta Cruz for three days, while maize
+and rice were collected for the victualling of the boats.
+Many prisoners succeeded in raising their ransoms during
+this three days' halt. Those who failed, were carried down
+the river to San Lorenzo. On the 5th of March the
+plunder was safely shipped, the army went aboard the
+canoas, the prisoners (including some from Venta Cruz)
+were thrust into the bottoms of the boats, and the homeward
+voyage began. The two monks who had embezzled
+the lady's money escaped translation at this time, being
+ransomed by their friends before the sailing of the fleet.
+The canoas dropped down the river swiftly, with songs
+and cheers from the pirates, till they came to some opening
+in the woods, half way across the isthmus, where the
+banks were free enough from brush to allow them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+camp. Here they mustered in order, as though for a
+review, each man in his place with his sword and firelock.
+Here Captain Morgan caused each man to raise his right
+hand, and to swear solemnly that he had concealed nothing
+privately, "even not so much as the value of sixpence."
+Captain Morgan, a Welshman by birth, "having had some
+experience that those lewd fellows would not much stickle
+to swear falsely in points of interest, commanded every
+one to be searched very strictly, both in their clothes and
+satchels and everywhere it might be presumed they had
+reserved anything. Yea, to the intent this order might
+not be ill-taken by his companions, he permitted himself
+to be searched, even to the very soles of his shoes." One
+man out of each company was chosen to act as searcher
+to his fellows, and a very strict search was made. "The
+French Pirates were not well satisfied with this new
+custom of searching," but there were not very many of
+them, and "they were forced to submit to it." When
+the search was over, they re-embarked, and soon afterwards
+the current caught them, and spun them down
+swiftly to the lion-like rock at the river's mouth. They
+came safely to moorings below San Lorenzo on the
+9th of March. They found that most of the wounded
+they had left there had died of fever, but the rest of
+the garrison was in good case, having "exercised piracy"
+with profit all the time the army had been plundering.
+There was "joy, and a full punch-bowl," in the castle
+rooms that night.</p>
+
+<p>Morgan now sent his Santa Katalina prisoners to Porto
+Bello in "a great boat," demanding a ransom for Chagres
+castle, "threatening otherwise" to blast it to pieces. "Those
+of Porto Bello," who needed all their money to repair their
+own walls, replied that "They would not give one farthing
+towards the ransom of the said castle, and that the
+English might do with it as they pleased"&mdash;a sufficiently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+bold answer, which sealed the fate of San Lorenzo. When
+the answer came, the men were again mustered, and "the
+dividend was made of all the spoil they had purchased
+in that voyage." Each man received his due share, "or
+rather what part thereof Captain Morgan was pleased
+to give." There was general dissatisfaction with "his
+proceedings in this particular," and many shaggy ruffians
+"feared not to tell him openly" that he had "reserved
+the best jewels to himself." They "judged it
+impossible" that the share per man should be but
+a paltry 200 pieces of eight, or &pound;50, after "so many
+valuable booties and robberies." Why, they said, it is
+less than we won at Porto Bello. Many swore fiercely
+that, if they had known how small the booty was
+to prove, they would have seen Henry Morgan in gaol
+before they 'listed. Why they did not tear him piecemeal,
+and heave him into the sea, must remain a mystery.
+They contented themselves with damning him to his face
+for a rogue and a thief, at the same time praying that a
+red-hot hell might be his everlasting portion. "But
+Captain Morgan," says the narrative, "was deaf to all
+these, and many other complaints of this kind, having
+designed in his mind to cheat them of as much as he
+could."</p>
+
+<p>Deaf though he was, and callous, he had a fine regard
+for his own skin. The oaths and curses which were shouted
+after him as he walked in the castle made him "to fear
+the consequence thereof." He "thought it unsafe to
+remain any longer time at Chagre," so he planned a
+master stroke to defeat his enemies. The castle guns
+were dismounted, and hoisted aboard his flagship. The
+castle walls were then blasted into pieces, the lower
+batteries thrown down, and the houses burnt. When
+these things had been done "he went secretly on board
+his own ship, without giving any notice of his departure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+to his companions, nor calling any council, as he used
+to do. Thus he set sail, and put out to sea, not bidding
+anybody adieu, being only followed by three
+or four vessels of the fleet." The captains of these ships,
+it was believed, had shared with him in the concealed
+plunder.</p>
+
+<p>There was great fury among the buccaneers when
+Morgan's escape was known. The French pirates were
+for putting to sea in pursuit, to blow his ships out of
+the water, but Morgan had been sufficiently astute to
+escape in the provision ships. The pirates left behind
+had not food enough to stock their ships, and could not
+put to sea till more had been gathered. While they
+cursed and raged at Chagres, Morgan sailed slowly to
+Port Royal, where he furled his sails, and dropped
+anchor, after a highly profitable cruise. The Governor
+received his percentage of the profits, and Morgan at
+once began to levy recruits for the settling of Santa
+Katalina.</p>
+
+<p>As for his men, they stayed for some days in considerable
+misery at San Lorenzo. They then set sail in
+companies, some for one place, some for another, hoping
+to find food enough to bring them home. Some went
+to the eastward, raiding the coast for food, and snapping
+up small coasting vessels. Some went to the bay of
+Campeachy to cut logwood and to drink rum punch.
+Others went along the Costa Rican coast to find turtle
+to salt for victuals, and to careen their barnacled and
+wormy ships. One strong company went to Cuba, where
+they sacked the Town of the Keys, and won a good booty.
+Most of them came home, in time, but to those who
+returned that home-coming was bitter.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after Morgan's return to Jamaica, a new
+Governor arrived from England with orders to suppress
+the gangs of privateers. He had instructions to proclaim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+a general pardon for all those buccaneers who cared to
+take advantage of the proclamation within a given time.
+Those who wished to leave "their naughty way of life"
+were to be encouraged by grants of land (thirty-five acres
+apiece), so that they might not starve when they forsook
+piracy. But this generous offer was merely a lure or
+bait to bring the buccaneers to port, in order that the
+Governor might mulct them "the tenths and fifteenths
+of their booty as the dues of the Crown for granting
+them commissions." The news of the intended taxation
+spread abroad among the pirates. They heard, too, that
+in future they would find no rest in Port Royal; for this new
+Governor was earnest and diligent in his governorship.
+They, therefore, kept away from Port Royal, and made
+Tortuga their rendezvous, gradually allying themselves
+with the French buccaneers, who had their stronghold
+there. Some of them, who returned to Port Royal, were
+brought before the magistrate, and hanged as pirates.
+Their old captain, Henry Morgan, left his former way
+of life, and soon afterwards become Governor of Jamaica.
+He was so very zealous in "discouraging" the buccaneers
+that the profession gradually lost its standing. The
+best of its members took to logwood cutting or to
+planting; the worst kept the seas, like water-Ishmaelites,
+plundering the ships of all nations save their own. They
+haunted Tortuga, the keys of Cuba, the creeks and inlets
+of the coast, and the bays at the western end of Jamaica.
+They were able to do a great deal of mischief; for there
+were many of them, and the English Colonial governors
+could not spare many men-of-war to police the seas.
+Often the pirates combined and made descents upon
+the coast as in the past. Henry Morgan's defection did
+but drive them from their own pleasant haunt, Port
+Royal. The "free-trade" of buccaneering throve as it
+had always thriven. But about the time of Morgan's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+consulship we read of British men-of-war helping to
+discourage the trade, and thenceforward the buccaneers
+were without the support of the Colonial Government.
+Those who sailed the seas after Morgan's time were
+public enemies, sailing under the shadow of the gallows.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;W. Nelson: "Five Years at Panama." P. Mimande:
+"Souvenirs d'un Echapp&eacute; de Panama." A. Reclus: "Panama et Darien."
+A. Radford: "Jottings on Panama." J. de Acosta: "Voyages." S. de
+Champlain: "Narrative." Cie&ccedil;a de Leon: "Travels." Exquemeling:
+"Bucaniers of America." Don Perez de la Guzman: "Account of the
+Sack of Panama."</p>
+
+<p>I am also indebted to friends long resident in the present city of Panama.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN DAMPIER</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Campeachy&mdash;Logwood cutting&mdash;The march to Santa Maria</p></div>
+
+
+<p>William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who
+had a taste for roving, went to the West Indies
+for the first time in 1674, about three years after the sack
+of Panama. He was "then about twenty-two years old,"
+with several years of sea-service behind him. He had
+been to the north and to the east, and had smelt
+powder in a King's ship during the Dutch wars. He
+came to the West Indies to manage a plantation, working
+his way "as a Seaman" aboard the ship of one Captain
+Kent. Planting sugar or cocoa on Sixteen-Mile Walk
+in an island so full of jolly sinners proved to be but dull
+work. Dampier tried it for some weeks, and then slipped
+away to sea with a Port Royal trader, who plied about
+the coast, fetching the planters' goods to town, and
+carrying European things, such as cloth, iron, powder,
+or the like, to the planters' jetties along the coast. That
+was a more pleasant life, for it took the young man all
+round the island, to quiet plantings where old buccaneers
+were at work. These were kindly fellows, always ready
+for a yarn with the shipmen who brought their goods
+from Port Royal. They treated the young man well,
+giving him yams, plantains, and sweet potatoes, with
+leave to wander through their houses. "But after six
+or seven Months" Dampier "left that Employ," for he
+had heard strange tales of the logwood cutters in
+Campeachy Bay, and longed to see something of them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+He, therefore, slipped aboard a small Jamaica vessel which
+was going to the bay "to load logwood," with two other
+ships in company. The cargo of his ship "was rum and
+sugar; a very good Commodity for the Log-wood Cutters,
+who were then about 250 Men, most English." When
+they anchored off One Bush Key, by the oyster banks
+and "low Mangrovy Land," these lumbermen came aboard
+for drink, buying rum by the gallon or firkin, besides
+some which had been brewed into punch. They stayed
+aboard, drinking, till the casks gave out, firing off their
+small-arms with every health, and making a dreadful
+racket in that still lagoon, where the silence was seldom
+so violently broken. The logwood began to come aboard
+a day or two later; and Dampier sometimes went ashore
+with the boat for it, on which occasions he visited the
+huts of the woodmen, and ate some merry meals with
+them, "with Pork and Pease, or Beef and Dough-boys,"
+not to mention "Drams or Punch."</p>
+
+<p>On the voyage home he was chased by Spaniards,
+who "fired a Gun" at the ketch, but could not fetch
+her alongside.</p>
+
+<p>It was an easy life aboard that little ketch; for every
+morning they fished for their suppers, and at no time
+was any work done unless the ship was actually in peril
+of wreck. While they were lazying slowly eastward,
+"tumbling like an Egg-shell in the Sea," her captain
+ran her on the Alcranes, a collection of sandy little
+islands, where they stayed for some days before they
+found a passage out to sea. They spent the days in
+fishing, or flinging pebbles at the rats, or killing boobies,
+and then set sail again, arriving after some days' sailing,
+at the Isles of Pines.</p>
+
+<p>Here they landed to fill fresh water at the brooks,
+among the sprays of red mangrove, which grew thickly
+at the water's edge. They also took ashore their "two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+bad Fowling-pieces," with intent to kill a wild hog
+or cow, being then in want of food, for the ship's
+provisions had given out. They did not kill any meat
+for all their hunting, nor did they catch much fish.
+Their ill success tempted the sailors to make for the
+Cuban keys, where they thought they would find great
+abundance, "either Fish or Flesh." The Cuban keys
+were favourite haunts of the buccaneers, but it was
+dangerous for a small ship like the ketch to venture
+in among them. On Cape Corientes there was a Spanish
+garrison of forty soldiers, chiefly mulattoes and caribs,
+who owned a swift periagua, fitted with oars and sails.
+They kept sentinels always upon the Cape, and whenever
+a ship hove in sight they would "launch out," and
+seize her, and cut the throats of all on board, "for fear
+of telling Tales." Fear of this garrison, and the prudent
+suggestion of Dampier&mdash;that "it was as probable that
+we might get as little Food in the South Keys, as we
+did at Pines, where, though there was plenty of Beefs
+and Hogs, yet we could not to tell how to get any&mdash;" at
+last prevailed upon the seamen to try for Jamaica. They
+were without food of any kind, save a little flour from
+the bottoms of the casks, and two "Barrels of Beef,"
+which they had taken west to sell, "but 'twas so bad
+that none would buy it." On a porridge of this meat,
+chopped up with mouldy flour, they contrived to keep
+alive, "jogging on" towards the east till they made
+Jamaica. They arrived off Blewfield's Point thirteen
+weeks after leaving Campeachy, and, as Dampier says:
+"I think never any vessel before nor since made such
+Traverses ... as we did.... We got as much Experience
+as if we had been sent out on a Design."
+However, they dropped their anchor "at Nigrill" "about
+three a Clock in the Afternoon," and sent in the boat
+for fruit and poultry. One or two sea-captains, whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+ketches were at anchor there, came out to welcome the
+new arrival. In the little "Cabbin," where the lamp
+swung in gimbals, the sailors "were very busie, going
+to drink a Bowl of Punch, ... after our long Fatigue
+and Fasting." The thirsty sea-captains, bronzed by the
+sun, came stumping down the ladder to bear a hand.
+One captain, "Mr John Hooker," said that he was under
+"Oath to drink but three Draughts of Strong Liquor
+a Day." The bowl, which had not been touched, lay
+with him, with six quarts of good rum punch inside
+it. This Mr Hooker, "putting the Bowl to his Head,
+turn'd it off at one Draught"&mdash;he being under oath,
+and, doubtless, thirsty. "And so, making himself drunk,
+disappointed us of our Expectations, till we made
+another Bowl." Thus with good cheer did they recruit
+themselves in that hot climate after long sailing of the
+seas.</p>
+
+<p>Dampier passed the next few weeks in Port Royal,
+thinking of the jolly life at One Bush Key, and of the
+little huts, so snugly thatched, and of the camp fires,
+when the embers glowed so redly at night before the
+moon rose. The thought of the logwood cutters passing
+to and fro about those camp fires, to the brandy barrel
+or the smoking barbecue, was pleasant to him. He felt
+inclined "to spend some Time at the Logwood Trade,"
+much as a young gentleman of that age would have
+spent "some Time" on the grand tour with a tutor.
+He had a little gold laid by, so that he was able to
+lay in a stock of necessaries for the trade&mdash;such as
+"Hatchets, Axes, Long Knives, Saws, Wedges, etc., a
+Pavillion to sleep in, a Gun with Powder and Shot, etc."
+When all was ready, he went aboard a New England
+ship, and sailed for Campeachy, where he settled "in
+the West Creek of the West Lagoon" with some old
+logwood cutters who knew the trade.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Logwood cutting was then a very profitable business,
+for the wood fetched from &pound;70 to &pound;100 a ton
+in the European markets. The wood is very dense,
+and so heavy that it sinks in water. The work of
+cutting it, and bringing it to the ships, in the rough
+Campeachy country, where there were no roads, was
+very hard. The logwood cutters were, therefore, men of
+muscle, fond of violent work. Nearly all of them in
+Dampier's time were buccaneers who had lost their old
+trade. They were "sturdy, strong Fellows," able to carry
+"Burthens of three or four hundred Weight," and "contented
+to labour very hard." Their hands and arms
+were always dyed a fine scarlet with the continuous
+rubbing of the wood, and their clothes always smelt
+of the little yellow logwood flowers, which smell very
+sweet and strong, at most seasons of the year. The life
+lived by the lumbermen was wild, rough, and merry.
+They had each of them a tent, or a strongly thatched
+hut, to live in, and most of them had an Indian woman
+or a negress to cook their food. Some of them had white
+wives, which they bought at Jamaica for about thirty
+pounds apiece, or five pounds more than the cost of a
+black woman. As a rule, they lived close to the lips of
+the creeks, "for the benefit of the Sea-Breezes," in little
+villages of twenty or thirty together. They slept in
+hammocks, or in Indian cots, raised some three or four
+feet from the ground, to allow for any sudden flood which
+the heavy rains might raise. They cooked their food
+on a sort of barbecue strewn with earth. For chairs they
+used logs of wood or stout rails supported on crutches.
+On the Saturday in each week they left their saws and
+axes and tramped out into the woods to kill beef for
+the following week. In the wet seasons, when the
+savannahs were flooded, they hunted the cattle in canoas
+by rowing near to the higher grass-lands where the beasts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+were at graze. Sometimes a wounded steer would charge
+the canoa, and spill the huntsmen in the water, where the
+alligators nipped them. In the dry months, the hunters
+went on foot. When they killed a steer they cut the
+body into four, flung away the bones, and cut a big hole
+in each quarter. Each of the four men of the hunting
+party then thrust his head through the hole in one of
+the quarters, and put "it on like a Frock," and so trudged
+home. If the sun were hot, and the beef heavy, the
+wearer cut some off, and flung it away. This weekly
+hunting was "a Diversion pleasant enough" after the five
+days' hacking at the red wood near the lagoon-banks.
+The meat, when brought to camp, was boucanned or
+jerked&mdash;that is, dried crisp in the sun. A quarter of a
+steer a man was the week's meat allowance. If a man
+wanted fish or game, in addition, he had to obtain it for
+himself. This diet was supplemented by the local fruits,
+and by stores purchased from the ships&mdash;such as dried
+pease, or flour to make doughboys.</p>
+
+<p>Men who worked hard under a tropical sun, in woods
+sometimes flooded to a depth of two feet, could hardly
+be expected to take a pride in their personal appearance.
+One little vanity they had, and apparently one only&mdash;they
+were fond of perfumes. They used to kill the
+alligator for his musk-sacs, which they thought "as good
+civet as any in the world." Each logwood cutter carried
+a musk-sac in his hat to diffuse scent about him, "sweet
+as Arabian winds when fruits are ripe," wheresoever his
+business led him.</p>
+
+<p>The logwood cutters usually formed into little companies
+of from four to twelve men each. The actual
+"cutters" had less to do than the other members, for
+they merely felled the trees. Others sawed and hacked
+the tree trunks into logs. The boss, or chief man in the
+gang, then chipped away the white sappy rind surround<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>ing
+the scarlet heart with its crystals of brilliant red.
+If the tree were very big (and some were six feet round)
+they split the bole by gunpowder. The red hearts alone
+were exported, as it is the scarlet crystal (which dries to
+a dull black after cutting) which gives the wood its value
+in dyeing. When the timber had been properly cut and
+trimmed it was dragged to the water's edge, and stacked
+there ready for the merchants. The chips burnt very
+well, "making a clear strong fire, and very lasting," in
+which the rovers used to harden "the Steels of their
+Fire Arms when they were faulty."</p>
+
+<p>When a ship arrived at One Bush Key the logwood
+cutters went aboard her for rum and sugar. It was the
+custom for the ship's captain to give them free drinks on
+the day of his arrival, "and every Man will pay honestly
+for what he drinks afterwards." If the captain did not
+set the rum punch flowing with sufficient liberality they
+would "pay him with their worst Wood," and "commonly"
+they "had a stock of such" ready for the niggard when he
+came. Often, indeed, they would give such a one a load
+of hollow logs "filled with dirt in the middle, and both
+ends plugg'd up with a piece of the same." But if the
+captain commanding were "true steel, an old bold blade,
+one of the old buccaneers, a hearty brave toss-pot, a trump,
+a true twopenny"&mdash;why, then, they would spend thirty or
+forty pounds apiece in a drinking bout aboard his ship,
+"carousing and firing of Guns three or four days together."
+They were a careless company, concerned rather in "the
+squandering of life away" than in its preservation. Drink
+and song, and the firing of guns, and a week's work chipping
+blood-wood, and then another drunkenness, was the
+story of their life there. Any "sober men" who came
+thither were soon "debauched" by "the old Standards,"
+and took to "Wickedness" and "careless Rioting." Those
+who found the work too hard used to go hunting in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+woods. Often enough they marched to the woods in
+companies, to sack the Indian villages, to bring away
+women for their solace, and men slaves to sell at Jamaica.
+They also robbed the Indians' huts of honey, cocoa, and
+maize, but then the Indians were "very melancholy and
+thoughtful" and plainly designed by God as game for
+logwood cutters.</p>
+
+<p>In the end the Spaniards fell upon the logwood men
+and carried them away to Mexico and Vera Cruz, sending
+some to the silver mines, and selling the others to tradesmen.
+As slaves they passed the next few years, till they
+escaped to the coast. One of those who escaped told how
+he saw a Captain Buckenham, once a famous man at those
+old drinking bouts, and owner of a sugar ship, working
+as a slave in the city of Mexico. "He saw Captain Buckenham,
+with a Log chained to his Leg, and a Basket
+at his Back, crying Bread about the Streets for a Baker
+his Master."</p>
+
+<p>In this society of logwood cutters Dampier served a
+brief apprenticeship. He must have heard many strange
+tales, and jolly songs, around the camp fires of his mates,
+but none of them, apparently, were fit to print. He went
+hunting cattle, and got himself "bushed," or marooned&mdash;that
+is, lost&mdash;and had a narrow escape from dying in the
+woods. He helped at the cutting and trimming of the
+red wood, and at the curing of the hides of the slaughtered
+steers. When ships arrived he took his sup of rum, and
+fired his pistol, with the best of them. Had he stayed
+there any length of time he would have become a master
+logwood merchant, and so "gotten an Estate"; but luck
+was against him.</p>
+
+<p>In June 1676, when he was recovering from a guinea-worm,
+a creature which nests in one's ankle, and causes
+great torment, a storm, or "South," reduced the logwood
+cutters of those parts to misery. The South was "long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+foretold," by the coming in of many sea-birds to the
+shore's shelter, but the lumbermen "believed it was a
+certain Token of the Arrival of Ships," and took no precautions
+against tempest. Two days later the wind broke
+upon them furiously, scattering their huts like scraps of
+paper. The creek began to rise "faster than I ever saw
+it do in the greatest Spring Tide," so that, by noon, the
+poor wretches, huddled as they were in a hut, without fire,
+were fain to make ready a canoa to save themselves from
+drowning. The trees in the woods were torn up by the
+roots, "and tumbled down strangely across each other."
+The ships in the creek were blown from their anchors.
+Two of them were driven off to sea, dipping their bows
+clean under, and making shocking weather of it. One of
+them was lost in the bay, being whelmed by a green sea.</p>
+
+<p>The storm destroyed all the tools and provisions of the
+lumbermen, and left Dampier destitute. His illness, with
+the poisonous worm in his leg, had kept him from work for
+some weeks, so that he had no cords of red wood ready cut,
+"as the old Standards had," to buy him new tools and
+new stores. Many of the men were in the same case, so
+they agreed with the captains of two pirate ketches which
+called at the creek at that time, to go a cruise to the west
+to seek their fortunes. They cruised up and down the
+bay "and made many Descents into the country," "where
+we got Indian Corn to eat with the Beef, and other Flesh,
+that we got by the way." They also attacked Alvarado, a
+little, protected city on the river of that name, but they
+lost heavily in the attack. Of the sixty pirates engaged,
+ten or eleven were killed or desperately wounded. The
+fort was not surrendered for four or five hours, by which
+time the citizens had put their treasure into boats, and
+rowed it upstream to safety. It was dark by the time
+the pirates won the fort, so that pursuit was out of the
+question. They rested there that night, and spent the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+next day foraging. They killed and salted a number of
+beeves, and routed out much salt fish and Indian corn, "as
+much as we could stow away." They also took a number
+of poultry, which the Spaniards were fattening in coops;
+and nearly a hundred tame parrots, "yellow and red,"
+which "would prate very prettily." In short they heaped
+their decks with hen-coops, parrot-cages, quarters of beef,
+casks of salt fish, and baskets full of maize. In this state,
+the ships lay at anchor, with their men loafing on deck
+with their tobacco, bidding the "yellow and red" parrots
+to say "Damn," or "Pretty Polly," or other ribaldry. But
+before any parrot could have lost his Spanish accent, the
+pirates were called from their lessons by the sight of seven
+Spanish warships, under all sail, coming up to the river-bar
+from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their guns
+were run out, and they were not a mile away when the
+pirates first saw them. As it happened, the River Alvarado
+was full of water, so that these great vessels "could scarce
+stem the current." This piece of luck saved the pirates,
+for it gave them time to make sail, and to clear the bar
+before the Spaniards entered the river. As they dropped
+down the stream, they hove the clutter from the decks.
+Many a Pretty Polly there quenched her blasphemy in
+water, and many a lump of beef went to the mud to gorge
+the alligators. The litter was all overboard, and the men
+stripped to fight the guns, by the time the tide had swept
+them over the bar. At this moment they came within
+range of the Spanish flagship, the <i>Toro</i>, of ten guns and
+100 men. She was to windward of them, and perilously
+close aboard, and her guns sent some cannon-balls into
+them, without doing any serious harm. Dampier was in
+the leading ship, which stood to the eastward, followed by
+her consort, as soon as she was over the bar. After her
+came the <i>Toro</i>, followed by a ship of four guns, and by five
+smaller vessels manned with musketeers, "and the Vessels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+barricadoed round with Bull-hides Breast high." The <i>Toro</i>
+ranged up on the quarter of Dampier's ship, "designing to
+board" her. The pirates dragged their cannon aft, and
+fired at her repeatedly, "in hopes to have lamed either
+Mast or Yard." As they failed to carry away her spars,
+they waited till "she was shearing aboard," when they
+rammed the helm hard up, "gave her a good Volley," and
+wore ship. As soon as she was round on the other tack,
+she stood to the westward, passing down the Spanish line
+under a heavy fire. The <i>Toro</i> held to her course, after the
+second pirate ship, with the six ships of the fleet following
+in her wake. The second pirate ship was much galled
+by the fleet's fire, and ran great risk of being taken.
+Dampier's ship held to the westward, till she was about
+a mile to windward of the other ships. She then tacked,
+and ran down to assist her consort, "who was hard put to
+it." As she ran down, she opened fire on the <i>Toro</i>, "who
+fell off, and shook her ears," edging in to the shore, to
+escape, with her fleet after her. They made no fight of it,
+but tacked and hauled to the wind "and stood away for
+Alvarado." The pirates were very glad to see the last of
+them; "and we, glad of the Deliverance, went away to the
+Eastward." On the way, they visited all the sandy bays
+of the coast to look for "munjack," "a sort of Pitch or
+Bitumen which we find in Lumps." When corrected with
+oil or tallow this natural pitch served very well for the
+paying of the seams "both of Ships and Canoas."</p>
+
+<p>After this adventure, Dampier returned to the lumber
+camp, and passed about a year there, cutting wood. Then,
+for some reason, he determined to leave the Indies, and to
+visit England; and though he had planned to return to
+Campeachy, after he had been home, he never did so. It
+seems that he was afraid of living in that undefended
+place, among those drunken mates of his. They were at
+all times at the mercy of a Spanish man-of-war, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+Dampier "always feared" that a Spanish prison would be
+his lot if he stayed there. It was the lot of his imprudent
+mates, "the old Standards," a few months after he had
+sailed for the Thames.</p>
+
+<p>After a short stay in England, Dampier sailed for
+Jamaica, with a general cargo. He sold his goods at Port
+Royal, but did not follow his original plan of buying rum
+and sugar, and going west as a logwood merchant. About
+Christmas 1679 he bought a small estate in Dorsetshire,
+"of one whose Title to it" he was "well assured of." He
+was ready to sail for England, to take charge of this estate,
+and to settle down as a farmer, when he met "one Mr
+Hobby," at a tavern, who asked him to go "a short
+trading voyage to the Country of the Moskito's." Dampier,
+who was a little short of gold at the moment, was very
+willing to fill his purse before sailing north. He therefore
+consented to go with Mr Hobby, whose ship was then
+ready for the sea. He "went on board Mr Hobby," and a
+fair wind blew them clear of Port Royal. A day or two
+of easy sailing brought them to Negril Bay, "at the West
+End of Jamaica," where Dampier had anchored before,
+when the valorous captain drained the punch-bowl. The
+bay was full of shipping, for Captains Coxon, Sawkins,
+Sharp, and other buccaneers, were lying there filling their
+water casks. They had the red wheft flying, for they
+were bound on the account, to raid the Main. The boats
+alongside them were full of meat and barrels. Mr
+Hobby's men did not wait to learn more than the fact
+that the ships were going cruising. They dumped their
+chests into the dinghy, and rowed aboard of them, and
+'listed themselves among the sunburnt ruffians who were
+hoisting out the water breakers. Dampier and Mr Hobby
+were left alone on their ship, within hearing of the
+buccaneers, who sang, and danced to the fiddle, and clinked
+the cannikin, till the moon had set. For three or four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+days they stayed there, hearing the merriment of the
+rovers, but at the end of the fourth day Dampier wearied
+of Mr Hobby, and joined the buccaneers, who were glad to
+have him.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two after Christmas 1679 they got their
+anchors and set sail. They shaped their course for Porto
+Bello, which had recovered something of its old wealth and
+beauty, in the years of peace it had enjoyed since Morgan
+sacked it. They landed 200 men to the eastward of
+the town, "at such a distance" that the march "occupied
+them three nights." During the day they lay in ambush
+in the woods. As they "came to the town" a negro saw
+them, and ran to set the bells ringing, to call out the
+troops. The buccaneers followed him so closely that
+the town was theirs before the troops could muster. They
+stayed there forty-eight hours gathering plunder, and then
+marched back to their ships staggering under a great weight
+of gold. They shared thirty or forty pounds a man from
+this raid. Afterwards they harried the coast, east and
+west, and made many rich captures. Sawkins, it seems,
+was particularly lucky, for he made a haul of 1000 chests
+of indigo. Warrants were out for all these pirates, and
+had they been taken they would most surely have been
+hanged.</p>
+
+<p>After these adventures, the squadron made for "a place
+called Boco del Toro," "an opening between two islands
+between Chagres and Veragua," where "the general
+rendezvous of the fleet" had been arranged. The ships
+anchored here, with one or two new-comers, including a
+French ship commanded by a Captain Bournano, who
+had been raiding on the isthmus, "near the South Sea,"
+but a few days before. At the council aboard Captain
+Sawkins' ship, it was given out, to all the assembled
+buccaneers, that the Spaniards had made peace with the
+Darien Indians. This was bad news; but Captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+Bournano was able to assure the company "that since
+the conclusion of the said peace, they had been already
+tried, and found very faithful"; for they had been of
+service to him in his late foray. He added that they had
+offered to guide him "to a great and very rich place
+called Tocamora," and that he had promised to come to
+them "with more ships and men," in three months' time.
+The buccaneers thought that Tocamora, apart from the
+beauty of the name, appeared to promise gold, so they
+decided to go thither as soon as they had careened and
+refitted. Boca del Toro, the anchorage in which they lay,
+was full of "green tortoise" for ships short of food. There
+were handy creeks, among the islands, for the ships to
+careen in, when their hulls were foul. The pirates hauled
+their ships into the creeks, and there hove them down,
+while their Moskito allies speared the tortoise, and the
+manatee, along the coast, and afterwards salted the flesh
+for sea-provision.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the squadron was ready, they mustered at
+Water Key, and set sail for Golden Island, where they
+meant to hold a final council. On the way to the eastward
+they put in at the Samballoes, or islands of San
+Blas, to fill fresh water, and to buy fruit from the Indians.
+When the anchors held, the Indians came aboard with
+fruit, venison, and native cloth, to exchange for edged iron
+tools, and red and green beads. They were tall men,
+smeared with black paint (the women used red, much as
+in Europe), and each Indian's nose was hung with a plate
+of gold or silver. Among the women were a few albinos,
+who were said to see better in the dark than in the light.
+"These Indians misliked our design for Tocamora,"
+because the way thither was mountainous and barren and
+certain to be uninhabited. A force going thither would
+be sure to starve on the road, they said, but it would be an
+easy matter to march to Panama, as Drake had marched.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+New Panama was already a rich city, so that they would
+not "fail of making a good voyage by going thither."
+This advice of the Indians impressed the buccaneers.
+They determined to abandon the Tocamora project as too
+dangerous. Most of them were in favour of going to sack
+Panama. But Captain Bournano, and Captain Row, who
+commanded about a hundred Frenchmen between them,
+refused to take their men on "a long march by land."
+Perhaps they remembered how Morgan had treated the
+French buccaneers after his Panama raid, nine years before.
+They therefore remained at anchor when the squadron
+parted company. An Indian chief, Captain Andreas,
+came aboard the English flagship. The bloody colours
+were hoisted, and a gun fired in farewell. The English
+ships then loosed their top-sails and stood away for Golden
+Island, to an anchorage they knew of, where a final muster
+could be held. They dropped anchor there, "being in all
+seven sail," on 3rd April 1680.</p>
+
+<p>Their strength at the Samballoes had been as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="ships at the Samballoes">
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td class="center">Tons</td><td class="center">Guns</td><td class="center">Men</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' colspan="2">Captain Coxon in a ship of</td><td class="right">80</td><td class="right">8</td><td class="right">97</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Captain Harris</td><td>"</td><td class="right">150</td><td class="right">25</td><td class="right">107</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Captain Sawkins</td><td>"</td><td class="right">16</td><td class="right">1</td><td class="right">35</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Captain Sharp</td><td>"</td><td class="right">25</td><td class="right">2</td><td class="right">40</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Captain Cook</td><td>"</td><td class="right">35</td><td class="right">0</td><td class="right">43</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Captain Alleston</td><td>"</td><td class="right">18</td><td class="right">0</td><td class="right">24</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Captain Macket</td><td>"</td><td class="right">14</td><td class="right">0</td><td class="right">20</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>but of these 366 buccaneers a few had remained behind
+with the Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p>While they lay at Golden Island, the Indians brought
+them word of "a town called Santa Maria," on the Rio
+Santa Maria, near the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific
+coast. It was a garrison town, with four companies of
+musketeers in its fort, for there were gold mines in the hills
+behind it. The gold caravans went from it, once a month<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+in the dry seasons, to Panama. If the place failed to yield
+them a booty, the buccaneers were determined to attack
+new Panama. Had they done so they would probably
+have destroyed the place, for though the new city was
+something stronger than the old, the garrison was in the
+interior fighting the Indians. The design on Santa Maria
+was popular. On the matter being put to the vote it was
+carried without protest. The buccaneers passed the 4th of
+April in arranging details, and picking a party to protect
+the ships during their absence. They arranged that
+Captains Alleston and Macket, with about twenty-five or
+thirty seamen, should remain in the anchorage as a ship's
+guard. The remainder of the buccaneers, numbering 331
+able-bodied men (seven of whom were French), were to
+march with the colours the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of April 1680, these 331 adventurers dropped
+across the channel from Golden Island, and landed on the
+isthmus, somewhere near Drake's old anchorage. Captain
+Bartholomew Sharp, of "the dangerous voyage and bold
+assaults," came first, with some Indian guides, one of whom
+helped the Captain, who was sick and faint with a fever.
+This vanguard "had a red flag, with a bunch of white and
+green ribbons." The second company, or main battle, was
+led by the admiral, Richard Sawkins, who "had a red
+flag striped with yellow." The third and fourth companies,
+which were under one captain (Captain Peter
+Harris), had two green flags. The fifth and sixth companies,
+under Captain John Coxon, "had each of them a
+red flag." A few of Alleston's and Macket's men carried
+arms under Coxon in these companies. The rear-guard
+was led by Captain Edmund Cook, "with red colours
+striped with yellow, with a hand and sword for his device."
+"All or most" of the men who landed, "were armed with
+a French fuzee" (or musket), a pistol and hanger, with two
+pounds of powder and "proportionable bullet." Each of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+them carried a scrip or satchel containing "three or four
+cakes of bread," or doughboys, weighing half-a-pound
+apiece, with some modicum of turtle flesh. "For drink
+the rivers afforded enough."</p>
+
+<p>Among the men who went ashore in that company were
+William Dampier, the author of the best books of voyages
+in the language; Lionel Wafer, the chirurgeon of the
+party, who wrote a description of the isthmus; Mr Basil
+Ringrose, who kept an intimate record of the foray; and
+Captain Bartholomew Sharp, who also kept a journal, but
+whose writings are less reliable than those of the other
+three. It is not often that three historians of such supreme
+merit as Dampier, Wafer, and Ringrose, are associated in
+a collaboration so charming, as a piratical raid. Wafer
+had been a surgeon in Port Royal, but Edmund Cook had
+shown him the delights of roving, and the cruise he had
+made to Cartagena had confirmed him in that way of life.
+Basil Ringrose had but lately arrived at the Indies, and it
+is not known what induced him to go buccaneering. He
+was a good cartographer, and had as strong a bent towards
+the description of natural phenomena, as Dampier had.
+He probably followed the pirates in order to see the world,
+and to get some money, and to extend his knowledge.
+Sharp had been a pirate for some years, and there was a
+warrant out for him at Jamaica for his share in the sack
+of Porto Bello. With Dampier's history the reader has
+been made acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, under Captain Andreas, led the buccaneers
+from the landing-place "through a small skirt of wood,"
+beyond which was a league of sandy beach. "After that,
+we went two leagues directly up a woody valley, where we
+saw here and there an old plantation, and had a very good
+path to march in." By dusk they had arrived at a river-bank,
+beneath which the water lay in pools, joined by
+trickles and little runlets, which babbled over sun-bleached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+pebbles. They built themselves huts in this place, about
+a great Indian hut which stood upon the river-bank. They
+slept there that night, "having nothing but the cold Earth
+for their Beds," in much discouragement "with the going
+back of some of the Men." The buccaneers who had been
+some weeks at sea, were not in marching trim, and it
+seems that the long day's tramp in the sun had sickened
+many of them. While they rested in their lodges, an
+Indian king, whom they called "Captain Antonio," came
+in to see them. He said that he had sent word to one of
+his tributaries, farther to the south, to prepare food and
+lodgings for the buccaneers "against their Arrival." As
+for himself, he wished very much that he could come with
+them to lead their guides, but unfortunately "his child lay
+very sick." However, it comforted him to think that the
+child would be dead by the next day, at latest, "and then
+he would most certainly follow and overtake" them. He
+warned the company not to lie in the grass, "for fear of
+monstrous adders"; and so bowed himself out of camp,
+and returned home. The kingly prayers seem to have
+been effectual, for Captain Antonio was in camp again by
+sunrise next morning, with no family tie to keep him from
+marching.</p>
+
+<p>As the men sluiced themselves in the river before taking
+to the road, they noticed that the pebbles shone "with
+sparks of gold" when broken across. They did not stay
+to wash the river-mud, for gold dust and golden pellets,
+but fell in for the march, and climbed from dawn till
+nearly dusk. They went over "a steep Mountain" which
+was parched and burnt and waterless. Four of the
+buccaneers refused to go farther than the foot of this hill,
+so they returned to the ships. The others, under the
+guidance of Antonio, contrived to cross the mountain "to
+an Hollow of Water," at which they drank very greedily.
+Six miles farther on they halted for the night, beside a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+stream. They slept there, "under the Canopy of Heaven,"
+suffering much discomfort from some drenching showers.
+After some days of climbing, wading, and suffering, the army
+reached the house of King Golden Cap, an Indian king.
+The King came out to meet them in his robes, with a
+little reed crown on his head, lined with red silk, and
+covered with a thin plate of gold. He had a golden ring
+in his nose, and a white cotton frock over his shoulders.
+His queen wore a red blanket, and a blouse "like our old-fashioned
+striped hangings." This royal couple bade the
+army welcome, and ordered food to be brought for them.
+The buccaneers passed a couple of days in King Golden
+Cap's city, trading their coloured beads, and scraps of iron,
+for fresh fruit and meat. They found the Indians "very
+cunning" in bargaining, which means, we suppose, that
+they thought a twopenny whittle a poor return for a hog
+or a sack of maize.</p>
+
+<p>When the men had rested themselves, and had dried
+their muddy clothes, they set out again, with Captain
+Sawkins in the vanguard. As they marched out of the
+town "the King ordered us each man to have three
+plantains, with sugar-canes to suck, by way of a present."
+They breakfasted on these fruits, as they marched. The
+road led them "along a very bad Path" continually intersected
+by a river, which they had to wade some fifty or
+sixty times, to their great misery. They passed a few
+Indian huts on the way, and at each hut door stood an
+Indian to give "as we passed by, to every one of us, a
+ripe plantain, or some sweet cassava-root." Some of the
+Indians counted the army "by dropping a grain of corn
+for each man that passed before them," for without
+counters they could not reckon beyond twenty. The
+army had by this time been swelled by an Indian contingent,
+of about 150 men, "armed with Bows, Arrows and
+Lances." The Indians dropping their corn grains must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+have dropped nearly 500 before the last man passed them.
+That night, which was clear and fine, they rested in three
+large Indian huts, where King Golden Cap's men had
+stored up food and drink, and a number of canoas, for the
+voyage south. The river went brawling past their bivouac
+at a little distance, and some of the men caught fish, and
+broiled them in the coals for their suppers.</p>
+
+<p>At daylight next morning, while they were getting the
+canoas to the water, Captain Coxon had "some Words"
+with Captain Harris (of the green flags). The words ran
+into oaths, for the two men were surly with the discomforts
+of turning out. Coxon whipped up a gun and fired
+at Peter Harris, "which he was [naturally] ready to
+return." Sharp knocked his gun up before he could fire,
+"and brought him to be quiet; so that we proceeded on
+our Journey." They had no further opportunities for
+fighting, for Sawkins gave the word a moment later for
+seventy of the buccaneers to embark in the canoas. There
+were fourteen of these boats, all of them of small size.
+Sharp, Coxon, and Cook were placed in charge of them.
+Captain Harris was told off to travel with the land party,
+with Sawkins, King Golden Cap, and the other men.
+Don Andreas, with twenty-eight other Indians (two to a
+canoa) acted as boatmen, or pilots, to the flotilla.</p>
+
+<p>Basil Ringrose, who was one of the boat party, has told
+us of the miseries of the "glide down the stream." The
+river was low, and full of rotting tree trunks, so that "at
+the distance of almost every stone's cast," they had to
+leave the boats "and haul them over either sands or rocks,
+and at other times over trees." Sharp, who was of tougher
+fibre, merely says that they "paddled all Day down the
+Falls and Currents of the River, and at Night took up our
+Quarters upon a Green Bank by the Riverside, where we
+had Wild Fowl and Plantanes for Supper: But our Beds
+were made upon the cold Earth, and our Coverings were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+the Heavens, and green Trees we found there." The next
+day they went downstream again, over many more snags
+and shallows, which set them wading in the mud till their
+boots rotted off their feet. Ringrose was too tired to
+make a note in his journal, save that, that night, "a tiger"
+came out and looked at them as they sat round the camp
+fires. Sharp says that the labour "was a Pleasure," because
+"of that great Unity there was then amongst us,"
+and because the men were eager "to see the fair South
+Sea." They lodged that night "upon a green Bank of
+the River," and ate "a good sort of a Wild Beast like
+unto our English Hog." The third day, according to
+Ringrose, was the worst day of all. The river was as full
+of snags as it had been higher up, but the last reach of it
+was clear water, so that they gained the rendezvous "about
+Four in the Afternoon." To their very great alarm they
+found that the land party had not arrived. They at once
+suspected that the Indians had set upon them treacherously,
+and cut them off in the woods. But Don Andreas
+sent out scouts "in Search of them," who returned "about
+an Hour before Sun-set," with "some of their Number,"
+and a message that the rest would join company in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>A little after daybreak the land force marched in, and
+pitched their huts near the river, "at a beachy point of
+land," perhaps the very one where Oxenham's pinnace
+had been beached. They passed the whole day there
+resting, and cleaning weapons, for they were now but "a
+Day and a Night's Journey" from the town they had
+planned to attack. Many more Indians joined them at
+this last camp of theirs, so that the army had little
+difficulty in obtaining enough canoas to carry them to
+Santa Maria. They set out early the next morning, in
+sixty-eight canoas, being in all "327 of us Englishmen,
+and 50 Indians." Until that day the canoas had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+"poled" as a punt is poled, but now they cut oars and
+paddles "to make what speed we could." All that day
+they rowed, and late into the night, rowing "with all haste
+imaginable," and snapping up one or two passing Indian
+boats which were laden with plantains. It was after midnight,
+and about "Two Hours before Day Light," when
+they ran into a mud bank, about a mile from the town,
+and stepped ashore, upon a causeway of oars and paddles.
+They had to cut themselves a path through jungle, as soon
+as they had crossed the mud, for the town was walled
+about with tropical forest. They "lay still in the Woods,
+till the Light appeared," when they "heard the Spaniard
+discharge his Watch at his Fort by Beat of Drum, and a
+Volley of Shot." It was the Spanish way of changing
+guard, at daybreak. It was also the signal for the "Forlorn"
+of the buccaneers to march to the battle, under
+Sawkins. This company consisted of seventy buccaneers.
+As they debouched from the forest, upon open ground, the
+Spaniards caught sight of them and beat to arms. The
+men in the fort at once opened fire "very briskly," but
+the advance-guard ran in upon them, tore down some of
+the stockade, and "entered the fort incontinently." A
+moment or two of wild firing passed inside the palisades,
+and then the Spanish colours were dowsed. The buccaneers
+in this storm lost two men wounded, of the fifty
+who attacked. The Spanish loss was twenty-six killed,
+and sixteen wounded, out of 300 under arms. About
+fifty more, of the Spanish prisoners, were promptly killed
+by the Indians, who took them into the woods and stabbed
+them "to death" with their lances. It seems that one
+of that garrison, a man named Josef Gabriele, had raped
+King Golden Cap's daughter who was then with child
+by him. (Gabriele, as it chanced, was not speared, but
+saved to pilot the pirates to Panama.) This was the sole
+action of the Indians in that engagement. During the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+battle they lay "in a small hollow," "in great consternation"
+at "the noise of the guns."</p>
+
+<p>Though the buccaneers had taken the place easily, they
+had little cause for rejoicing. The town was "a little
+pitiful Place," with a few thatched huts, or "wild houses
+made of Cane," and "but one Church in it." The fort
+"was only Stockadoes," designed merely as a frontier
+post "to keep in subjection the Indians" or as a lodging
+for men employed in the gold mines. There was no more
+provision in store there than would serve their turn for
+a week. As for the gold, they had missed it by three
+days. Three hundredweight of gold had been sent to
+Panama while they were struggling downstream. News
+of their coming had been brought to the fort in time,
+and "all their treasure of gold," "that huge booty of gold"
+they had expected to win, had been shipped westward.
+Nor had they any prisoners to hold to ransom. The
+Governor, the town priest, and the chief citizens, had slipped
+out of the town in boats, and were now some miles away.
+Richard Sawkins manned a canoa, and went in chase of
+them, but they got clear off, to give advice to Panama
+that pirates were come across the isthmus. The only
+pillage they could find, after torturing their prisoners
+"severely," amounted to "twenty pounds' weight of gold,
+and a small quantity of silver." To this may be added a
+few personal belongings, such as weapons or trinkets, from
+the chests of the garrison.</p>
+
+<p>When the booty, such as it was, had been gathered, the
+captains held a meeting "to discuss what were best to
+be done." Some were for going to the South Sea, to
+cruise; but John Coxon, who had taken Porto Bello, and
+hated to be second to Sawkins, was for going back to the
+ships. The general vote was for going to Panama, "that
+city being the receptacle of all the plate, jewels, and gold
+that is dug out of the mines of all Potosi and Peru."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+However, they could not venture on Panama without
+Coxon, and Coxon's company; so they made Coxon their
+admiral, "Coxon seeming to be well satisfied." Before
+starting, they sent their booty back to Golden Island, under
+a guard of twelve men. Most of the Indians fell off at this
+time, for they had "got from us what knives, scissors, axes,
+needles and beads they could." Old King Golden Cap,
+and his son, were less mercenary, and stayed with the
+colours, being "resolved to go to Panama, out of the desire
+they had to see that place taken and sacked." They may
+have followed the buccaneers in order to kill the Spaniard
+who had raped the princess, for that worthy was still alive,
+under guard. He had promised to lead the pirates "even
+to the very bed-chamber door of the governor of Panama."</p>
+
+<p>With the vision of this bed-chamber door before them,
+the pirates embarked at Santa Maria "in thirty-five
+canoes" and a ship they had found at anchor in the
+river. As they "sailed, or rather rowed" downstream,
+with the ebb, the Spanish prisoners prayed to be taken
+aboard, lest the Indians should take them and torture
+them all to death. "We had much ado to find a sufficient
+number of boats for ourselves," says Ringrose, for the
+Indians had carried many of the canoas away. Yet the
+terror of their situation so wrought upon the Spaniards
+that they climbed on to logs, or crude rafts, or into old
+canoas, "and by that means shifted so ... as to come
+along with us." The island Chepillo, off the mouth of
+the Cheapo River, had been named as the general rendezvous,
+but most of the buccaneers were to spend several
+miserable days before they anchored there. One canoa
+containing ten Frenchmen, was capsized, to the great
+peril of the Frenchmen, who lost all their weapons.
+Ringrose was separated from the company, drenched to
+the skin, half starved, and very nearly lynched by some
+Spaniards. His 19th of April was sufficiently stirring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+to have tired him of going a-roving till his death. He
+put out "wet and cold," at dawn; was shipwrecked at
+ten; saved the lives of five Spaniards at noon; "took
+a survey," or drew a sketch of the coast, an hour later;
+set sail again by four, was taken by the Spaniards and
+condemned to death at nine; was pardoned at ten; sent
+away "in God's name," "vaya ustad con Dios," at eleven;
+and was at sea again "wet and cold," by midnight.
+Sharp's party was the most fortunate, for as they entered
+the bay of Panama they came to an island "a very
+pleasant green Place," off which a barque of thirty tons
+came to anchor, "not long before it was dark." The
+island had a high hummock of land upon it with a
+little hut, and a stack for a bonfire, at the top. A watchman,
+an old man, lived in this hut, looking out over the
+sea for pirates, with orders to fire his beacon, to warn
+the men on the Main if a strange sail appeared. The
+pirates caught this watchman before the fire was lit.
+They learned from him that those at Panama had not
+yet heard of their coming. Shortly after they had
+captured the watchman, the little barque aforesaid, came
+to anchor, and furled her sails. Two of Sharp's canoas
+crept out, "under the shore," and laid her aboard "just
+as it began to be duskish." She proved to be a Panama
+boat, in use as a troop transport. She had just landed
+some soldiers on the Main, to quell some Indians, who
+had been raiding on the frontier. Her crew were negroes,
+Indians, and mulattoes. Most of the buccaneers, especially
+those in the small canoas, "endeavoured to get into"
+this ship, to stretch their legs, and to have the advantage
+of a shelter. More than 130 contrived to stow themselves
+in her 'tween decks, under "that sea-artist, and
+valiant commander" (the words are probably his own)
+"Captain Bartholomew Sharp." They put to sea in her
+the next day, followed by the canoas. During the morn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>ing
+they took another small barque, in which Captain Harris
+placed thirty men, and hoisted the green flag. The wind
+fell calm after the skirmish, but the canoas rowed on to
+Chepillo, to the rendezvous, where they found provisions
+such as "two fat hogs," and some plantains, and a spring
+of water.</p>
+
+<p>A little after dawn, on the day following, while the ships
+were trying to make the anchorage, Captain Coxon, and
+Captain Sawkins, rowed out from Chepillo to board a
+barque which was going past the island under a press of
+sail. The wind was so light that the canoas overhauled
+her, but before they could hook to her chains "a young
+breeze, freshening at that instant," swept her clear of
+danger. Her men fired a volley into Coxon's boat,
+which the pirates returned. "They had for their Breakfast
+a small fight," says Sharp. One of the pirates&mdash;a
+Mr Bull&mdash;was killed with an iron slug. The Spaniards
+got clear away without any loss, "for the Wind blew
+both fresh and fair" for them. Three or four pirates
+were grazed with shot, and some bullets went through
+the canoas. The worst of the matter was that the
+Spaniards got safely to Panama, "to give intelligence
+of our coming."</p>
+
+<p>As they could no longer hope to take the city by surprise,
+"while the Governor was in his bed-chamber," they
+determined to give the citizens as little time for preparation
+as was possible. They were still twenty miles from
+Panama, but the canoas could pass those twenty miles
+in a few hours' easy rowing. They set out at four o'clock
+in the evening, after they had delivered their Spanish
+prisoners "for certain reasons" (which Ringrose "could
+not dive into") into the hands of the Indians. This act
+of barbarity was accompanied with the order that the
+Indians were "to fight, or rather to murder and slay
+the said prisoners upon the shore, and that in view of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+the whole fleet." However, the Spaniards rushed the
+Indians, broke through them, and got away to the woods
+with the loss of but one soldier.</p>
+
+<p>After they had watched the scuffle, the pirates rowed
+away merrily towards Panama, "though many showers
+of rain ceased not to fall." Sharp's vessel, with her
+crew of more than 130 men, made off for the Pearl
+Islands, ostensibly to fill fresh water, but really, no
+doubt, to rob the pearl fisheries. He found a woman
+(who was "very young and handsome"), and "a Case
+or two of Wines," at these islands, together with some
+poultry. He made a feast there, and stayed at anchor
+that night, and did not set sail again till noon of the
+day following, by which time the battle of Panama had
+been fought and won.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;Dampier's Voyages. Wafer's Voyages. Ringrose's
+Journal. "The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew
+Sharp"; "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Bartholomew
+Sharp" (four or five different editions). Ringrose's MSS., Sharp's MSS.,
+in the Sloane MSS.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BATTLE OF PERICO</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Arica&mdash;The South Sea cruise</p></div>
+
+
+<p>On 23rd April 1680, "that day being dedicated to St
+George, our Patron of England," the canoas arrived
+off Panama. "We came," says Ringrose, "before sunrise
+within view of the city of Panama, which makes a pleasant
+show to the vessels that are at sea." They were within
+sight of the old cathedral church, "the beautiful building
+whereof" made a landmark for them, reminding one of
+the buccaneers "of St Paul's in London," a church at that
+time little more than a ruin. The new city was not quite
+finished, but the walls of it were built, and there were
+several splendid churches, with scaffolding about
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: , not visible in original">them,</ins>
+rising high, here and there, over the roofs of the
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: . not visible in original">houses.</ins>
+The townspeople were in a state of panic at the news
+of the pirates' coming. Many of them had fled into the
+savannahs; for it chanced that, at that time, many of
+the troops in garrison, were up the country, at war with
+a tribe of Indians. The best of the citizens, under Don
+Jacinto de Baronha, the admiral of those seas, had
+manned the ships in the bay. Old Don Peralta, who
+had saved the golden galleon ten years before, had 'listed
+a number of negroes, and manned one or two barques with
+them. With the troops still in barracks, and these
+volunteers and pressed men, they had manned, in all
+"five great ships, and three pretty big barks." Their
+force may have numbered 280 men. One account gives
+the number, definitely, as 228. The buccaneer force<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+has been variously stated, but it appears certain that
+the canoas, and periaguas, which took part in the fight,
+contained only sixty-eight of their company. Sharp, as
+we have seen, had gone with his company to the Pearl Islands.
+The remaining 117 men were probably becalmed,
+in their barques and canoas, some miles from the vanguard.</p>
+
+<p>When the buccaneers caught sight of Panama, they
+were probably between that city and the islands of
+Perico and Tobagilla. They were in great disorder, and
+the men were utterly weary with the long night of rowing
+in the rain, with the wind ahead. They were strung out
+over several miles of sea, with five light canoas, containing
+six or seven men apiece, a mile or two in advance.
+After these came two lumbering periaguas, with sixteen
+men in each. King Golden Cap was in one of these
+latter. Dampier and Wafer were probably not engaged
+in this action. Ringrose was in the vanguard, in a small
+canoa.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after they had sighted the roofs of
+Panama, they made out the ships at anchor off the Isle
+of Perico. There were "five great ships and three pretty
+big barks," manned, as we have said, by soldiers, negroes,
+and citizens. The men aboard this fleet were in the rigging
+of their ships, keeping a strict lookout. As they
+caught sight of the pirates the three barques "instantly
+weighed anchor," and bore down to engage, under all
+the sail they could crowd. The great ships had not
+sufficient men to fight their guns. They remained at
+anchor; but their crews went aboard the barques, so that
+the decks of the three men-of-war must have been inconveniently
+crowded. The Spaniards were dead to
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: so in original; typo for windward?">windwind</ins>
+of the pirates, so that they merely squared their
+yards, and ran down the wind "designedly to show their
+valour." They had intended to run down the canoas,
+and to sail over them, for their captains had orders to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+give no quarter to the pirates, but to kill them, every
+man. "Such bloody commands as these," adds Ringrose
+piously, "do seldom or never prosper."</p>
+
+<p>It was now a little after sunrise. The wind was light
+but steady; the sea calm. As the Spaniards drew within
+range, the pirates rowed up into the wind's eye, and got
+to windward of them. Their pistols and muskets had
+not been wetted in the rain, for each buccaneer had provided
+himself with an oiled cover for his firearms, the
+mouth of which he stopped with wax whenever it rained.
+The Spanish ships ran past the three leading canoas, exchanging
+volleys at long range. They were formed in line
+of battle ahead, with a ship manned by mulattoes, or
+"Tawnymores," in the van. This ship ran between the
+fourth canoa, in which Ringrose was, and the fifth (to
+leeward of her) commanded by Sawkins. As she ran
+between the boats she fired two thundering broadsides,
+one from each battery, which wounded five buccaneers.
+"But he paid dear for his passage"; because the buccaneers
+gave her a volley which killed half her sail
+trimmers, so that she was long in wearing round to
+repeat her fire. At this moment the two periaguas came
+into action, and got to windward with the rest of the
+pirates' fleet.</p>
+
+<p>While Ringrose's company were ramming the bullets
+down their gun muzzles, the Spanish admiral (in the
+second ship) engaged, "scarce giving us time to charge."
+She was a fleet ship, and had a good way on her, and her
+design was to pass between two canoas, and give to each
+a roaring hot broadside. As she ran down, so near that
+the buccaneers could look right into her, one of the pirates
+fired his musket at her helmsman, and shot him through
+the heart as he steered. The ship at once "broached-to,"
+and lay with her sails flat aback, stopped dead. The five
+canoas, and one of the periaguas, got under her stern, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+so plied her with shot that her decks were like shambles,
+running with blood and brains, five minutes after she came
+to the wind. Meanwhile Richard Sawkins ran his canoa&mdash;which
+was a mere sieve of cedar wood, owing to the broadside&mdash;alongside
+the second periagua, and took her steering
+oar. He ordered his men to give way heartily, for the
+third Spanish ship, under old Don Peralta, was now bearing
+down to relieve the admiral. Before she got near
+enough to blow the canoas out of water, Captain Sawkins
+ran her on board, and so swept her decks with shot that
+she went no farther. But "between him and Captain
+Sawkins, the dispute, or fight, was very hot, lying board
+on board together, and both giving and receiving death
+unto each other as fast as they could charge." Indeed,
+the fight, at this juncture, was extremely fierce. The two
+Spanish ships in action were surrounded with smoke and
+fire, the men "giving and receiving death" most gallantly.
+The third ship, with her sail trimmers dead, was to leeward,
+trying to get upon the other tack.</p>
+
+<p>After a time her sailors got her round, and reached to
+windward, to help the admiral, who was now being sorely
+battered. Ringrose, and Captain Springer, a famous
+pirate, "stood off to meet him," in two canoas, as "he
+made up directly towards the Admiral." Don Jacinto,
+they noticed, as they shoved off from his flagship, was
+standing on his quarter-deck, waving "with a handkerchief,"
+to the captain of the Tawnymores' ship. He was
+signalling him to scatter the canoas astern of the flagship.
+It was a dangerous moment, and Ringrose plainly saw
+"how hard it would go with us if we should be beaten
+from the Admiral's stern." With the two canoas he ran
+down to engage, pouring in such fearful volleys of bullets
+that they covered the Spaniard's decks with corpses and
+dying men. "We killed so many of them, that the vessel
+had scarce men enough left alive, or unwounded, to carry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+her off. Had he not given us the helm, and made away
+from us, we had certainly been on board him." Her decks
+were littered with corpses, and she was literally running
+blood. The wind was now blowing fresh, and she contrived
+to put before it, and so ran out of action, a terrible
+sight for the Panama women.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus put the Tawnymores out of action, Ringrose
+and Springer hauled to the wind, and "came about
+again upon the Admiral, and all together gave a loud
+halloo." The cheer was answered by Sawkins' men, from
+the periagua, as they fired into the frigate's ports. Ringrose
+ran alongside the admiral, and crept "so close"
+under the vessel's stern, "that we wedged up the rudder."
+The admiral was shot, and killed, a moment later, as he
+brought aft a few musketeers to fire out of the stern ports.
+The ship's pilot, or sailing master, was killed by the same
+volley. As for the crew, the "stout Biscayners," "they
+were almost quite disabled and disheartened likewise,
+seeing what a bloody massacre we had made among
+them with our shot." Two-thirds of the crew were killed,
+"and many others wounded." The survivors cried out for
+quarter, which had been offered to them several times
+before, "and as stoutly denied until then." Captain
+Coxon thereupon swarmed up her sides, with a gang of
+pirates, helping up after him the valorous Peter Harris
+"who had been shot through both his legs, as he boldly
+adventured up along the side of the ship." The Biscayners
+were driven from their guns, disarmed, and thrust down
+on to the ballast, under a guard. All the wounded pirates
+were helped up to the deck and made comfortable. Then,
+in all haste, the unhurt men manned two canoas, and
+rowed off to help Captain Sawkins, "who now had been
+three times beaten from on board by Peralta."</p>
+
+<p>A very obstinate and bloody fight had been raging
+round the third man-of-war. Her sides were splintered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+with musket-balls. She was oozing blood from her
+scuppers, yet "the old and stout Spaniard" in command,
+was cheerily giving shot for shot. "Indeed, to give our
+enemies their due, no men in the world did ever act more
+bravely than these Spaniards."</p>
+
+<p>Ringrose's canoa was the first to second Captain
+Sawkins. She ran close in, "under Peralta's side," and
+poured in a blasting full volley through her after gun-ports.
+A scrap of blazing wad fell among the red-clay
+powder jars in the after magazine. Before she could fire
+a shot in answer, she blew up abaft. Ringrose from the
+canoa "saw his men blown up, that were abaft the mast,
+some of them falling on the deck, and others into the sea."
+But even this disaster did not daunt old Peralta. Like a
+gallant sea-captain, he slung a bowline round his waist, and
+went over the side, burnt as he was, to pick up the men
+who had been blown overboard. The pirates fired at him
+in the water, but the bullets missed him. He regained
+his ship, and the fight went on. While the old man was
+cheering the wounded to their guns, "another jar of
+powder took fire forward," blowing the gun's crews
+which were on the fo'c's'le into the sea. The forward
+half of the ship caught fire, and poured forth a volume
+of black smoke, in the midst of which Richard Sawkins
+boarded, and "took the ship." A few minutes later, Basil
+Ringrose went on board, to give what aid he could to the
+hurt. "And indeed," he says, "such a miserable sight I
+never saw in my life, for not one man there was found,
+but was either killed, desperately wounded, or horribly
+burnt with powder, insomuch that their black skins [the
+ship was manned with negroes] were turned white in
+several places, the powder having torn it from their flesh
+and bones." But if Peralta's ship was a charnel-house,
+the admiral's flagship was a reeking slaughter-pen. Of
+her eighty-six sailors, sixty-one had been killed. Of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+remaining twenty-five, "only eight were able to bear
+arms, all the rest being desperately wounded, and by their
+wounds totally disabled to make any resistance, or defend
+themselves. Their blood ran down the decks in whole
+streams, and scarce one place in the ship was found that
+was free from blood." The loss on the Tawnymores' ship
+was never known, but there had been such "bloody
+massacre" aboard her, that two other barques, in Panama
+Roads, had been too scared to join battle, though they
+had got under sail to engage. According to Ringrose,
+the pirates lost eighteen men killed, and twenty-two men
+wounded, several of them severely. Sharp, who was not
+in the fight, gives the numbers as eleven killed, and thirty-four
+wounded. The battle began "about half an hour
+after sunrise." The last of the Spanish fire ceased a little
+before noon.</p>
+
+<p>Having taken the men-of-war, Captain Sawkins asked
+his prisoners how many men were aboard the galleons, in
+the Perico anchorage. Don Peralta, who was on deck,
+"much burnt in both his hands," and "sadly scalded," at
+once replied that "in the biggest alone there were three
+hundred and fifty men," while the others were manned in
+proportion to their tonnage. But one of his men "who
+lay a-dying upon the deck, contradicted him as he was
+speaking, and told Captain Sawkins there was not one
+man on board any of those ships that were in view."
+"This relation" was believed, "as proceeding from a
+dying man," and a few moments later it was proved to
+be true. The greatest of the galleons, "the Most Blessed
+<i>Trinity</i>," perhaps the very ship in which Peralta had saved
+the treasures of the cathedral church, was found to be
+empty. Her lading of "wine, sugar, and sweetmeats,
+skins and soap" (or hides and tallow) was still in the hold,
+but the Spaniards had deserted her, after they had set her
+on fire, "made a hole in her, and loosened [perhaps cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+adrift] her foresail." The pirates quenched the fire,
+stopped the leak, and placed their wounded men aboard
+her, "and thus constituted her for the time being our
+hospital." They lay at anchor, at Perico, for the rest
+of that day. On the 24th of April they seem to have
+been joined by a large company of those who had been
+to leeward at the time of the battle. Reinforced by these,
+to the strength of nearly 200 men, they weighed their
+anchors, set two of the prize galleons on fire with their
+freights of flour and iron, and removed their fleet to the
+roads of Panama. They anchored near the city, just
+out of heavy gunshot, in plain view of the citizens. They
+could see the famous stone walls, which had cost so much
+gold that the Spanish King, in his palace at Madrid, had
+asked his minister whether they could be seen from the
+palace windows. They marked the stately, great churches
+which were building. They saw the tower of St Anastasius
+in the distance, white and stately, like a blossom above
+the greenwood. They may even have seen the terrified
+people in the streets, following the banners of the church,
+and the priests in their black robes, to celebrate a solemn
+Mass and invocation. Very far away, in the green savannahs,
+they saw the herds of cattle straying between the
+clumps of trees.</p>
+
+<p>Late that night, long after it was dark, Captain Bartholomew
+Sharp joined company. He had been to
+Chepillo to look for them, and had found their fire "not
+yet out," and a few dead Spaniards, whom the Indians
+had killed, lying about the embers. He had been much
+concerned for the safety of the expedition, and was therefore
+very pleased to find that "through the Divine Assistance"
+the buccaneers had triumphed. At supper that
+night he talked with Don Peralta, who told him of some
+comets, "two strange Comets," which had perplexed the
+Quito merchants the year before. There was "good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+Store of Wine" aboard the <i>Trinity</i> galleon, with which
+all hands "cheered up their Hearts for a While." Then,
+having set sentinels, they turned in for the night.</p>
+
+<p>The next day they buried Captain Peter Harris, "a
+brave and stout Soldier, and a valiant Englishman, born
+in the county of Kent, whose death [from gunshot wounds]
+we very much lamented." With him they buried another
+buccaneer who had been hurt in the fight. The other
+wounded men recovered. They would probably have
+landed to sack the town on this day, had not a quarrel
+broken out between some of the company and Captain
+Coxon. The question had been brought forward, whether
+the buccaneers should go cruising in the South Sea, in
+their prizes, or return, overland, to their ships at Golden
+Island. It was probably suggested, as another alternative,
+that they should land to sack the town. All the captains
+with one exception were for staying in the Pacific "to try
+their Fortunes." Captain Coxon, however, was for returning
+to Golden Island. He had been dissatisfied ever since
+the fight at Santa Maria. He had not distinguished himself
+particularly in the fight off Perico, and no doubt he
+felt jealous that the honours of that battle should have
+been won by Sawkins. Sawkins' men taunted him with
+"backwardness" in that engagement, and "stickled not to
+defame, or brand him with the note of cowardice." To
+this he answered that he would be very glad to leave that
+association, and that he would take one of the prizes, a
+ship of fifty tons, and a periagua, to carry his men up the
+Santa Maria River. Those who stayed, he added, might
+heal his wounded. That night he drew off his company,
+with several other men, in all about seventy hands. With
+them he carried "the best of our Doctors and Medicines,"
+and the hearty ill will of the other buccaneers. Old King
+Golden Cap accompanied these deserters, leaving behind
+him his son and a nephew, desiring them to be "not less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+vigorous" than he had been in harrying the Spanish.
+Just before Coxon set sail, he asked Bartholomew Sharp
+to accompany him. But that proven soul "could not hear
+of so dirty and inhuman an Action without detestation."
+So Coxon sailed without ally, "which will not much
+redound to his Honour," leaving all his wounded on the
+deck of the captured galleon. The fleet, it may be added,
+had by this time returned to the anchorage at Perico.</p>
+
+<p>They lay there ten days in all, "debating what were
+best to be done." In that time they took a frigate laden
+with fowls. They took the poultry for their own use, and
+dismissed some of "the meanest of the prisoners" in the
+empty ship. They then shifted their anchorage to the
+island of Taboga, where there were a few houses, which
+some drunken pirates set on fire. While they lay at this
+island the merchants of Panama came off to them "and
+sold us what commodities we needed, buying also of us
+much of the goods we had taken in their own vessels."
+The pirates also sold them a number of negroes they had
+captured, receiving "two hundred pieces of eight for each
+negro we could spare." "And here we took likewise
+several barks that were laden with fowls." After Coxon's
+defection, Richard Sawkins was re-elected admiral, and
+continued in that command till his death some days later.</p>
+
+<p>Before they left Taboga, Captain Sharp went cruising
+to an island some miles distant to pick up some straggling
+drunkards who belonged to his ship. While he lay at
+anchor, in a dead calm, waiting for a breeze to blow, a
+great Spanish merchant ship hove in sight, bound from
+Lima (or Truxillo) to Panama. Sharp ran his canoas
+alongside, and bade her dowse her colours, at the same
+time sending a gang of pirates over her rail, to throw the
+crew under hatches. "He had no Arms to defend himself
+with, save only Rapiers," so her captain made no battle,
+but struck incontinently. She proved to be a very splendid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+prize, for in her hold were nearly 2000 jars of wine and
+brandy, 100 jars of good vinegar, and a quantity of powder
+and shot, "which came very luckily." In addition to these
+goods there were 51,000 pieces of eight, "247 pieces of
+eight a man," a pile of silver sent to pay the Panama
+soldiery; and a store of sweetmeats, such as Peru is still
+famous for. And there were "other Things," says Sharp,
+"that were very grateful to our dis-satisfied Minds."
+Some of the wine and brandy were sold to the Panama
+merchants a few days later, "to the value of three thousand
+Pieces of Eight." A day or two after this they snapped up
+two flour ships, from Paita. One of these was a pretty
+ship of a fine model, of about 100 tons. Sharp fitted her
+for himself, "for I liked her very well." The other flour
+ship was taken very gallantly, under a furious gunfire
+from Panama Castle. The buccaneers rowed in, with
+the cannon-balls flying over their heads. They got
+close alongside "under her Guns," and then towed her
+out of cannon-shot.</p>
+
+<p>They continued several days at Taboga, waiting for a
+Lima treasure ship, aboard which, the Spaniards told
+them, were &pound;2500 in silver dollars. While they waited
+for this ship the Governor at Panama wrote to ask them
+why they had come into those seas. Captain Sawkins
+answered that they had come to help King Golden Cap,
+the King of Darien, the true lord of those lands, and
+that, since they had come so far, "there was no reason
+but that they should have some satisfaction." If the
+Governor would send them 500 pieces of eight for each
+man, and double that sum for each captain, and, further,
+undertake "not any farther to annoy the Indians," why,
+then, the pirates would leave those seas, "and go away
+peaceably. If the Governor would not agree to these
+terms, he might look to suffer." A day or two later,
+Sawkins heard that the Bishop of Panama had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+Bishop at Santa Martha (a little city on the Main), some
+years before, when he (Sawkins) helped to sack the place.
+He remembered the cleric favourably, and sent him "two
+loaves of sugar," as a sort of keepsake, or love-offering.
+"For a retaliation," the Bishop sent him a gold ring;
+which was very Christian in the Bishop, who must have
+lost on the exchange. The bearer of the gold ring, brought
+also an answer from the Governor, who desired to know
+who had signed the pirates' commissions. To this message
+Captain Sawkins sent back for answer: "That as yet all
+his company were not come together, but that when they
+were come up, we would come and visit him at Panama,
+and bring our commissions on the muzzles of our guns,
+at which time he should read them as plain as the flame
+of gunpowder could make them."</p>
+
+<p>With this thrasonical challenge the pirates set sail for
+Otoque, another of the islands in the bay; for Taboga,
+though it was "an exceeding pleasant island," was by
+this time bare of meat. Before they left the place a
+Frenchman deserted from them, and gave a detailed
+account of their plans to the Spanish Governor. It blew
+very hard while they were at sea, and two barques parted
+company in the storm. One of them drove away to the
+eastward, and overtook John Coxon's company. The
+other was taken by the Spaniards.</p>
+
+<p>About the 20th or 21st of May, after several days
+of coasting, the ships dropped anchor on the north coast
+of the island of Quibo. From here some sixty men,
+under Captain Sawkins, set sail in Edmund Cook's ship,
+to attack Pueblo Nuevo, the New Town, situated on the
+banks of a river. At the river's mouth, which was broad,
+with sandy beaches, they embarked in canoas, and rowed
+upstream, under the pilotage of a negro, from dark till
+dawn. The French deserter had told the Spaniards of
+the intended attack, so that the canoas found great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+difficulty in getting upstream. Trees had been felled so
+as to fall across the river, and Indian spies had been
+placed here and there along the river-bank to warn the
+townsmen of the approach of the boats. A mile below
+the town the river had been made impassable, so here
+the pirates went ashore to wait till daybreak. When it
+grew light they marched forward, to attack the strong
+wooden breastworks which the Spaniards had built.
+Captain Sawkins was in advance, with about a dozen
+pirates. Captain Sharp followed at a little distance with
+some thirty more. As soon as Sawkins saw the stockades
+he fired his gun, and ran forward gallantly, to take
+the place by storm, in the face of a fierce fire. "Being a
+man that nothing upon Earth could terrifie" he actually
+reached the breastwork, and was shot dead there, as he
+hacked at the pales. Two other pirates were killed at
+his side, and five of the brave forlorn were badly hurt.
+"The remainder drew off, still skirmishing," and contrived
+to reach the canoas "in pretty good order," though they
+were followed by Spanish sharpshooters for some distance.
+Sharp took command of the boats and brought them off
+safely to the river's mouth, where they took a barque full
+of maize, before they arrived at their ship.</p>
+
+<p>Sawkins was "as valiant and courageous as any could
+be," "a valiant and generous-spirited man, and beloved
+above any other we ever had among us, which he well
+deserved." His death left the company without a captain,
+and many of the buccaneers, who had truly loved Richard
+Sawkins, were averse to serving under another commander.
+They were particularly averse to serving under Sharp,
+who took the chief command from the moment of Sawkins'
+death. At Quibo, where they lay at anchor, "their
+Mutiny" grew very high, nor did they stick at mere
+mutiny. They clamoured for a tarpaulin muster, or "full
+Councel," at which the question of "who should be chief"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+might be put to the vote. At the council, Sharp was
+elected "by a few hands," but many of the pirates refused
+to follow him on the cruise. He swore, indeed, that he
+would take them such a voyage as should bring them
+&pound;1000 a man; but the oaths of Sharp were not good
+security, and the mutiny was not abated. Many of the
+buccaneers would have gone home with Coxon had it
+not been for Sawkins. These now clamoured to go so
+vehemently that Sharp was constrained to give them a
+ship with as much provision "as would serve for treble
+the number." The mutineers who left on this occasion
+were in number sixty-three. Twelve Indians, the last
+who remained among the pirates, went with them, to
+guide them over the isthmus. 146 men remained with
+Sharp. It is probable that many of these would have
+returned at this time, had it not been that "the Rains were
+now already up, and it would be hard passing so many
+Gullies, which of necessity would then be full of water."
+Ringrose, Wafer and Dampier remained among the
+faithful, but rather on this account, than for any love
+they bore their leader. The mutineers had hardly set
+sail, before Captain Cook came "a-Board" Sharp's flagship,
+finding "himselfe a-grieved." His company had kicked
+him out of his ship, swearing that they would not sail
+with such a one, so that he had determined "to rule
+over such unruly folk no longer." Sharp gave his command
+to a pirate named Cox, a New Englander, "who
+forced kindred, as was thought, upon Captain Sharp, out
+of old acquaintance, in this conjuncture of time, only to
+advance himself." Cox took with him Don Peralta, the
+stout old Andalusian, for the pirates were plying the
+captain "of the Money-Ship we took," to induce him to
+pilot them to Guayaquil "where we might lay down our
+Silver, and lade our vessels with Gold." They feared that
+an honest man, such as Peralta, "would hinder the en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>deavours"
+of this Captain Juan, and corrupt his kindly
+disposition.</p>
+
+<p>With these mutinies, quarrels, intrigues, and cabals did
+the buccaneers beguile their time. They stayed at Quibo
+until 6th June, filling their water casks, quarrelling, cutting
+wood, and eating turtle and red deer. They also ate
+huge oysters, so large "that we were forced to cut them
+into four pieces, each quarter being a large mouthful."</p>
+
+<p>On the 6th of June they set sail for the isle of Gorgona,
+off what is now Columbia, where they careened the <i>Trinity</i>,
+and took "down our Round House Coach and all the high
+carved work belonging to the stern of the ship; for when
+we took her from the Spaniards she was high as any
+Third Rate Ship in England." While they were at work
+upon her, Sharp changed his design of going for Guayaquil,
+as one of their prisoners, an old Moor, "who had long
+time sailed among the Spaniards," told him that there
+was gold at Arica, in such plenty that they would get
+there "&pound;2000 a man." He did not hurry to leave his
+careenage, though he must have known that each day
+he stayed there lessened his chance of booty. It was
+nearly August when he left Gorgona, and "from this
+Time forward to the 17th of October there was Nothing
+occurr'd but bare Sailing." Now and then they ran short
+of water, or of food. One or two of their men died of
+fever, or of rum, or of sunstroke. Two or three were
+killed in capturing a small Spanish ship. The only other
+events recorded, are the falls of rain, the direction of the
+wind, the sight of "watersnakes of divers colours," and
+the joyful meeting with Captain Cox, whom they had lost
+sight of, while close in shore one evening. They called
+at "Sir Francis Drake's isle" to strike a few tortoises,
+and to shoot some goats. Captain Sharp we read, here
+"showed himself very ingenious" in spearing turtle, "he
+performing it as well as the tortoise strikers themselves."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was very hot at this little island. Many years before
+Drake had gone ashore there to make a dividend, and had
+emptied bowls of gold coins into the hats of his men,
+after the capture of the <i>Cacafuego</i>. Some of the pirates
+sounded the little anchorage with a greasy lead, in the
+hopes of bringing up the golden pieces which Drake had
+been unable to carry home, and had hove into the sea
+there. They got no gold, but the sun shone "so hot that
+it burnt the skin off the necks of our men," as they craned
+over the rail at their fishery.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of October they landed at the town of Hilo
+to fill fresh water. They took the town, and sacked its
+sugar refineries, which they burnt. They pillaged its
+pleasant orange groves, and carried away many sacks of
+limes and green figs "with many other fruits agreeable to
+the palate." Fruit, sugar, and excellent olive oil were
+the goods which Hilo yielded. They tried to force the
+Spaniards to bring them beef, but as the beef did not
+come, they wrecked the oil and sugar works, and set them
+blazing, and so marched down to their ships, skirmishing
+with the Spanish horse as they fell back. Among the
+spoil was the carcass of a mule (which made "a very good
+meal"), and a box of chocolate "so that now we had
+each morning a dish of that pleasant liquor," such as the
+grand English ladies drank.</p>
+
+<p>The next town attacked was La Serena, a town five
+miles from the present Coquimbo. They took the town,
+and found a little silver, but the citizens had had time
+to hide their gold. The pirates made a great feast of
+strawberries "as big as walnuts," in the "orchards of
+fruit" at this place, so that one of their company wrote
+that "'tis very delightful Living here." They could not
+get a ransom for the town, so they set it on fire. The
+Spaniards, in revenge, sent out an Indian, on an inflated
+horse hide, to the pirates' ship the <i>Trinity</i>. This Indian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+thrust some oakum and brimstone between the rudder
+and the sternpost, and "fired it with a match." The
+sternpost caught fire and sent up a prodigious black
+smoke, which warned the pirates that their ship was
+ablaze. They did not discover the trick for a few minutes,
+but by good fortune they found it out in time to save
+the vessel. They landed their prisoners shortly after
+the fire had been quenched "because we feared lest by
+the example of this stratagem they should plot our
+destruction in earnest." Old Don Peralta, who had lately
+been "very frantic," "through too much hardship and
+melancholy," was there set on shore, after his long captivity.
+Don Juan, the captain of the "Money-Ship," was
+landed with him. Perhaps the two fought together, on
+the point of honour, as soon as they had returned to
+swords and civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>From Coquimbo the pirates sailed for Juan Fernandez.
+On the way thither they buried William Cammock, one
+of their men, who had drunk too hard at La Serena
+"which produced in him a calenture or malignant fever,
+and a hiccough." "In the evening when the pale Magellan
+Clouds were showing we buried him in the sea, according
+to the usual custom of mariners, giving him three French
+vollies for his funeral."</p>
+
+<p>On Christmas Day they were beating up to moorings,
+with boats ahead, sounding out a channel for the ship.
+They did not neglect to keep the day holy, for "we gave
+in the morning early three vollies of shot for solemnization
+of that great festival." At dusk they anchored "in a
+stately bay that we found there," a bay of intensely blue
+water, through which the whiskered seals swam. The
+pirates filled fresh water, and killed a number of goats,
+with which the island swarmed. They also captured
+many goats alive, and tethered them about the decks of
+the <i>Trinity</i>, to the annoyance of all hands, a day or two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+later, when some flurries of wind drove them to sea, to
+search out a new anchorage.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after New Year's Day 1681, "our unhappy
+Divisions, which had been long on Foot, began now to
+come to an Head to some Purpose." The men had been
+working at the caulking of their ship, with design to take
+her through the Straits of Magellan, and so home to the
+Indies. Many of the men wished to cruise the South
+Seas a little longer, while nearly all were averse to plying
+caulking irons, under a burning sun, for several hours a
+day. There was also a good deal of bitterness against
+Captain Sharp, who had made but a poor successor to
+brave Richard Sawkins. He had brought them none of the
+gold and silver he had promised them, and few of the
+men were "satisfied, either with his Courage or Behaviour."
+On the 6th January a gang of pirates "got privately
+ashoar together," and held a fo'c's'le council under the
+greenwood. They "held a Consult," says Sharp, "about
+turning me presently out, and put another in my Room."
+John Cox, the "true-hearted dissembling New-England
+Man," whom Sharp "meerly for old Acquaintance-sake"
+had promoted to be captain, was "the Main Promoter
+of their Design." When the consult was over, the
+pirates came on board, clapped Mr Sharp in irons,
+put him down on the ballast, and voted an old
+pirate named John Watling, "a stout seaman," to
+be captain in his stead. One buccaneer says that
+"the true occasion of the grudge against Sharp was,
+that he had got by these adventures almost a thousand
+pounds, whereas many of our men were not worth a groat,"
+having "lost all their money to their fellow Buccaneers
+at dice."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Edmund Cook, who had been turned out of
+his ship by his men, was this day put in irons on the
+confession of a shameless servant. The curious will find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+the details of the case on page 121, of the 1684 edition
+of Ringrose's journal.</p>
+
+<p>John Watling began his captaincy in very godly sort,
+by ordering his disciples to keep holy the Sabbath day.
+Sunday, "January the ninth, was the first Sunday that
+ever we kept by command and common consent, since
+the loss and death of our valiant Commander Captain
+Sawkins." Sawkins had been strict in religious matters,
+and had once thrown the ship's dice overboard "finding
+them in use on the said day." Since Sawkins' death
+the company had grown notoriously lax, but it is pleasant
+to notice how soon they returned to their natural piety,
+under a godly leader. With Edmund Cook down on
+the ballast in irons, and William Cook talking of salvation
+in the galley, and old John Watling expounding the
+Gospel in the cabin, the galleon, "the Most Holy <i>Trinity</i>"
+must have seemed a foretaste of the New Jerusalem.
+The fiddler ceased such "prophane strophes" as "Abel
+Brown," "The Red-haired Man's Wife," and "Valentinian."
+He tuned his devout strings to songs of Zion. Nay
+the very boatswain could not pipe the cutter up but to
+a phrase of the Psalms.</p>
+
+<p>In this blessed state they washed their clothes in the
+brooks, hunted goats across the island, and burnt and
+tallowed their ship the <i>Trinity</i>. But on the 12th of
+January, one of their boats, which had been along the
+coast with some hunters, came rowing furiously into the
+harbour, "firing of Guns." They had espied three Spanish
+men-of-war some three or four miles to leeward, beating
+up to the island under a press of sail. The pirates were
+in great confusion, for most of them were ashore, "washing
+their clothes," or felling timber. Those on board,
+hove up one of their anchors, fired guns to call the rest
+aboard, hoisted their boats in, and slipped their second
+cable. They then stood to sea, hauling as close to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+wind as she would lie. One of the Mosquito Indians, "one
+William," was left behind on the island, "at this sudden
+departure," and remained hidden there, living on fish and
+fruit, for many weary days. He was not the first man
+to be marooned there; nor was he to be the last.</p>
+
+<p>The three Spanish men-of-war were ships of good size,
+mounting some thirty guns among them. As the pirate
+ship beat out of the harbour, sheeting home her topgallant-sails,
+they "put out their bloody flags," which the
+pirates imitated, "to shew them that we were not as yet
+daunted." They kept too close together for the pirates
+to run them aboard, but towards sunset their flagship had
+drawn ahead of the squadron. The pirates at once tacked
+about so as to engage her, intending to sweep her decks
+with bullets, and carry her by boarding. John Watling
+was not very willing to come to handystrokes, nor were
+the Spaniards anxious to give him the opportunity. No
+guns were fired, for the Spanish admiral wore ship, and
+so sailed away to the island, when he brought his squadron
+to anchor. The pirates called a council, and decided to
+give them the slip, having "outbraved them," and done
+as much as honour called for. They were not very
+pleased with John Watling, and many were clamouring
+for the cruise to end. It was decided that they should
+not attack the Spanish ships, but go off for the Main,
+to sack the town of Arica, where there was gold enough,
+so they had heard, to buy them each "a coach and
+horses." They therefore hauled to the wind again, and
+stood to the east, in very angry and mutinous spirit,
+until the 26th of January.</p>
+
+<p>On that day they landed at Yqueque, a mud-flat, or
+guano island, off a line of yellow sand-hills. They found
+a few Indian huts there, with scaffolds for the drying
+of fish, and many split and rotting mackerel waiting to
+be carried inland. There was a dirty stone chapel in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
+the place, "stuck full of hides and sealskins." There was
+a great surf, green and mighty, bursting about the island
+with a continual roaring. There were pelicans fishing
+there, and a few Indians curing fish, and an abominable
+smell, and a boat, with a cask in her bows, which brought
+fresh water thither from thirty miles to the north. The
+teeth of the Indians were dyed a bright green by their
+chewing of the coca leaf, the drug which made their
+"beast-like" lives endurable. There was a silver mine
+on the mainland, near this fishing village, but the pirates
+did not land to plunder it. They merely took a few
+old Indian men, and some Spaniards, and carried them
+aboard the <i>Trinity</i>, where the godly John Watling examined
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the examination continued; and the
+answers of one of the old men, "a Mestizo Indian," were
+judged to be false. "Finding him in many lies, as we
+thought, concerning Arica, our commander ordered him
+to be shot to death, which was accordingly done." This
+cold-blooded murder was committed much against the
+will of Captain Sharp, who "opposed it as much as he
+could." Indeed, when he found that his protests were
+useless, he took a basin of water (of which the ship was
+in sore need) and washed his hands, like a modern Pilate.
+"Gentlemen," he said, "I am clear of the blood of this
+old man; and I will warrant you a hot day for this
+piece of cruelty, whenever we come to fight at Arica."
+This proved to be "a true and certain prophesy." Sharp
+was an astrologer, and a believer in portents; but he
+does not tell us whether he had "erected any Figure,"
+to discover what was to chance in the Arica raid.</p>
+
+<hr class="small" />
+
+<p>Arica, the most northern port in Chile, has still a
+considerable importance. It is a pleasant town, fairly
+well watered, and therefore more green and cheerful than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
+the nitrate ports. It is built at the foot of a hill (a
+famous battlefield) called the Morro. Low, yellow sand-hills
+ring it in, shutting it from the vast blue crags of
+the Andes, which rise up, splintered and snowy, to the
+east. The air there is of an intense clearness, and those
+who live there can see the Tacna churches, forty miles
+away. It is no longer the port it was, but it does a
+fair trade in salt and sulphur, and supplies the nitrate
+towns with fruit. When the pirates landed there it was
+a rich and prosperous city. It had a strong fort, mounting
+twelve brass guns, defended by four companies of
+troops from Lima. The city had a town guard of 300
+soldiers. There was also an arsenal full of firearms for
+the use of householders in the event of an attack. It
+was not exactly a walled town, like new Panama, but
+a light wooden palisade ran round it, while other palisades
+crossed each street. These defences had been thrown up
+when news had arrived of the pirates being in those seas.
+All the "plate, gold and jewels" of the townsfolk had
+been carefully hidden, and the place was in such a state
+of military vigilance and readiness that the pirates had
+no possible chance of taking it, or at least of holding
+it. When the pirates came upon it there were several
+ships in the bay, laden with commodities from the south
+of Chile.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="img317" id="img317"></a>
+<a href="images/317.jpg"><img src="images/317_th.jpg" width="500" height="187"
+alt="A description of Arica"
+title="A description of Arica" /></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>A description of</i> Arica</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>On the 28th of January, John Watling picked 100
+men, and put off for the shore in boats and canoas, to
+attack the town. By the next day they had got close
+in shore, under the rocks by the San Vitor River's mouth.
+There they lay concealed till the night. At dawn of the
+30th January 1681, "the Martyrdom of our glorious
+King Charles the First," they were dipping off some rocks
+four miles to the south of Arica. Here ninety-two of
+the buccaneers landed, leaving a small boat guard, with
+strict instructions how to act. They were told that if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+the main body "made one smoke from the town," as
+by firing a heap of powder, one canoa was to put in to
+Arica; but that, if two smokes were fired, all the boats
+were to put in at once. Basil Ringrose was one of those
+who landed to take part in the fight. Dampier, it is
+almost certain, remained on board the <i>Trinity</i>, becalmed
+some miles from the shore. Wafer was in the canoas,
+with the boat guard, preparing salves for those wounded
+in the fight. The day seems to have been hot and sunny&mdash;it
+could scarcely have been otherwise&mdash;but those out
+at sea, on the galleon, could see the streamers of cloud
+wreathing about the Andes.</p>
+
+<p>At sunrise the buccaneers got ashore, amongst the
+rocks, and scrambled up a hill which gave them a sight
+of the city. From the summit they could look right
+down upon the streets, little more than a mile from them.
+It was too early for folk to be stirring, and the streets
+were deserted, save for the yellow pariahs, and one or
+two carrion birds. It was so still, in that little town,
+that the pirates thought they would surprise the place,
+as Drake had surprised Nombre de Dios. But while
+they were marching downhill, they saw three horsemen
+watching them from a lookout place, and presently the
+horsemen galloped off to raise the inhabitants. As
+they galloped away, John Watling chose out forty of
+the ninety-two, to attack the fort or castle which defended
+the city. This band of forty, among whom were Sharp
+and Ringrose, carried ten hand-grenades, in addition to
+their pistols and guns. The fort was on a hill above the
+town, and thither the storming party marched, while
+Watling's company pressed on into the streets. The
+action began a few minutes later with the guns of the
+fort firing on the storming party. Down in the town,
+almost at the same moment, the musketry opened in a
+long roaring roll which never slackened. Ringrose's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+party waited for no further signal, but at once engaged,
+running in under the guns and hurling their firepots
+through the embrasures. The grenades were damp, or
+badly filled, or had been too long charged. They did
+not burst or burn as they should have done, while the
+garrison inside the fort kept up so hot a fire, at close
+range, that nothing could be done there. The storming
+party fell back, without loss, and rallied for a fresh attack.
+They noticed then that Watling's men were getting no
+farther towards the town. They were halted in line, with
+their knees on the ground, firing on the breastworks, and
+receiving a terrible fire from the Spaniards. Five of the
+fifty-two men were down (three of them killed) and the
+case was growing serious. The storming party left
+the fort, and doubled downhill into the firing line, where
+they poured in volley after blasting volley, killing a
+Spaniard at each shot, making "a very desperate battle"
+of it, "our rage increasing with our wounds." No troops
+could stand such file-firing. The battle became "mere
+bloody massacre," and the Spaniards were beaten from
+their posts. Volley after volley shook them, for the
+pirates "filled every street in the city with dead bodies";
+and at last ran in upon them, and clubbed them and
+cut them down, and penned them in as prisoners. But
+as the Spaniards under arms were at least twenty times
+as many as the pirates, there was no taking the city
+from them. They were beaten from post to post fighting
+like devils, but the pirates no sooner left a post they
+had taken, "than they came another way, and manned
+it again, with new forces and fresh men." The streets
+were heaped with corpses, yet the Spaniards came on,
+and came on again, till the sand of the roads was like
+red mud. At last they were fairly beaten from the
+chief parts of the town, and numbers of them were
+penned up as prisoners; more, in fact, than the pirates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+could guard. The battle paused for a while at this stage,
+and the pirates took advantage of the lull to get their
+wounded (perhaps a dozen men), into one of the churches
+to have their wounds dressed. As the doctors of the
+party began their work, John Watling sent a message
+to the fort, charging the garrison to surrender. The
+soldiers returned no answer, but continued to load their
+guns, being helped by the armed townsfolk, who now
+flocked to them in scores. The fort was full of musketeers
+when the pirates made their second attack a little after
+noon.</p>
+
+<p>At the second attack, John Watling took 100 of his
+prisoners, placed them in front of his storming party, and
+forced them forward, as a screen to his men, when he
+made his charge. The garrison shot down friend and
+foe indiscriminately, and repulsed the attack, and repulsed
+a second attack which followed a few minutes later.
+There was no taking the fort by storm, and the pirates
+had no great guns with which to batter it. They found,
+however, that one of the flat-roofed houses in the town,
+near the fort's outworks, commanded the interior. "We
+got upon the top of the house," says Ringrose, "and from
+there fired down into the fort, killing many of their men
+and wounding them at our ease and pleasure." While
+they were doing this, a number of the Lima soldiers joined
+the citizens, and fell, with great fury, upon the prisoners'
+guards in the town. They easily beat back the few
+guards, and retook the city. As soon as they had taken
+the town, they came swarming out to cut off the pirates
+from their retreat, and to hem them in between the fort
+and the sea. They were in such numbers that they were
+able to surround the pirates, who now began to lose men
+at every volley, and to look about them a little anxiously
+as they bit their cartridges. From every street in the
+town came Spanish musketeers at the double, swarm after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
+swarm of them, perhaps a couple of thousand. The
+pirates left the fort, and turned to the main army, at the
+same time edging away towards the south, to the hospital,
+or church, where their wounded men were being dressed.
+As they moved away from the battlefield, firing as they
+retreated, old John Watling was shot in the liver with
+a bullet, and fell dead there, to go buccaneering no more.
+A moment later "both our quartermasters" fell, with
+half-a-dozen others, including the boatswain. All this
+time the cannon of the fort were pounding over them,
+and the round-shot were striking the ground all about,
+flinging the sand into their faces. What with the dust
+and the heat and the trouble of helping the many hurt,
+their condition was desperate. "So that now the enemy
+rallying against us, and beating us from place to place,
+we were in a very distracted condition, and in more likelihood
+to perish every man than escape the bloodiness of
+that day. Now we found the words of Captain Sharp
+to bear a true prophecy, being all very sensible that we
+had had a day too hot for us, after that cruel heat in
+killing and murdering in cold blood the old Mestizo
+Indian whom we had taken prisoner at Yqueque." In
+fact they were beaten and broken, and the fear of death
+was on them, and the Spaniards were ringing them round,
+and the firing was roaring from every point. They were
+a bloody, dusty, choking gang of desperates, "in great
+disorder," black with powder, their tongues hanging out
+with thirst. As they stood grouped together, cursing and
+firing, some of them asked Captain Sharp to take command,
+and get them out of that, seeing that Watling
+was dead, and no one there could give an order. To
+this request Sharp at last consented, and a retreat was
+begun, under cover of a fighting rear-guard, "and I hope,"
+says Sharp, "it will not be esteemed a Vanity in me to
+say, that I was mighty Helpful to facilitate this Retreat."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+In the midst of a fearful racket of musketry, he fought
+the pirates through the soldiers to the church where the
+wounded lay. There was no time, nor was there any
+conveyance, for the wounded, and they were left lying
+there, all desperately hurt. The two surgeons could have
+been saved "but that they had been drinking while we
+assaulted the fort, and thus would not come with us
+when they were called." There was no time for a second
+call, for the Spaniards were closing in on them, and the
+firing was as fierce as ever. The men were so faint with
+hunger and thirst, the heat of battle, and the long day's
+marching, that Sharp feared he would never get them
+to the boats. A fierce rush of Spaniards beat them away
+from the hospital, and drove them out of the town "into
+the Savannas or open fields." The Spaniards gave a
+cheer and charged in to end the battle, but the pirates
+were a dogged lot, and not yet at the end of their strength.
+They got into a clump or cluster, with a few wounded men
+in the centre, to load the muskets, "resolving to die one
+by another" rather than to run. They stood firm, cursing
+and damning the Spaniards, telling them to come on, and
+calling them a lot of cowards. There were not fifty buccaneers
+fit to carry a musket, but the forty odd, unhurt
+men stood steadily, and poured in such withering volleys
+of shot, with such terrible precision, that the Spanish
+charge went to pieces. As the charge broke, the pirates
+plied them again, and made a "bloody massacre" of
+them, so that they ran to shelter like so many frightened
+rabbits. The forty-seven had beaten off twenty or thirty
+times their number, and had won themselves a passage
+home.</p>
+
+<p>There was no question of trying to retake the town.
+The men were in such misery that the march back to
+the boats taxed their strength to the breaking point. They
+set off over the savannah, in as good order as they could,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+with a wounded man, or two, in every rank of them. As
+they set forward, a company of horsemen rode out, and
+got upon their flanks "and fired at us all the way, though
+they would not come within reach of our guns; for their
+own reached farther than ours, and out-shot us more than
+one third." There was great danger of these horsemen
+cutting in, and destroying them, on the long open rolls
+of savannah, so Sharp gave the word, and the force
+shogged westward to the seashore, along which they
+trudged to the boats. The beach to the south of Arica
+runs along the coast, in a narrow strip, under cliffs and
+rocky ground, for several miles. The sand is strewn with
+boulders, so that the horsemen, though they followed the
+pirates, could make no concerted charge upon them. Some
+of them rode ahead of them and got above them on the
+cliff tops, from which they rolled down "great stones and
+whole rocks to destroy us." None of these stones did any
+harm to the pirates, for the cliffs were so rough and broken
+that the skipping boulders always flew wide of the mark.
+But though the pirates "escaped their malice for that
+time," they were yet to run a terrible danger before getting
+clear away to sea. The Spaniards had been examining,
+or torturing, the wounded pirates, and the two drunken
+surgeons, left behind in the town. "These gave them
+our signs that we had left to our boats [<i>i.e.</i> revealed the
+signals by which the boats were to be called] so that
+they immediately blew up two smokes, which were perceived
+by the canoas." Had the pirates "not come at
+the instant" to the seaside, within hail of the boats, they
+would have been gone. Indeed they were already under
+sail, and beating slowly up to the northward, in answer
+to the signal. Thus, by a lucky chance, the whole company
+escaped destruction. They lost no time in putting
+from the shore, where they had met with "so very bad
+Entertainment." They "got on board about ten a Clock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+at night; having been involved in a continual and bloody
+fight ... all that day long." Of the ninety-two, who had
+landed that morning, twenty-eight had been left ashore,
+either dead, or as prisoners. Of the sixty-four who got
+to the canoas, eighteen were desperately wounded, and
+barely able to walk. Most of the others were slightly
+hurt, while all were too weary to do anything, save sleep
+or drink. Of the men left behind in the hospital the
+Spaniards spared the doctors only; "they being able to
+do them good service in that country." "But as to the
+wounded men," says Ringrose, "they were all knocked
+on the head," and so ended their roving, and came to
+port where drunken doctors could torture them no longer.
+The Ylo men denied this; and said that the seven pirates
+who did not die of their wounds were kept as slaves.
+The Spanish loss is not known, but it was certainly
+terrible. The Hilo, or Ylo people, some weeks later,
+said that seventy Spaniards had been killed and about
+200 wounded.</p>
+
+<p>All the next day the pirates "plied to and fro in sight
+of the port," hoping that the Spaniards would man the
+ships in the bay, and come out to fight. They reinstated
+Sharp in his command, for they had now "recollected a
+better Temper," though none of them, it seems, wished
+for any longer stay in the South Sea. The Arica fight
+had sickened them of the South Sea, while several of
+them (including Ringrose) became very ill from the exposure
+and toil of the battle. They beat to windward,
+cruising, when they found that the Spaniards would not
+put to sea to fight them. They met with dirty weather
+when they had reached the thirtieth parallel, and the foul
+weather, and their bad fortune made them resolve to leave
+those seas. At a
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads fo'c's'cle">fo'c's'le</ins>
+council held on the 3rd of March,
+they determined to put the helm up, and to return to
+the North Sea. They were short of water and short<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+of food, "having only one cake of bread a day," or
+perhaps half-a-pound of "doughboy," for their "whack"
+or allowance. After a few days' running before the wind
+they came to "the port of Guasco," now Huasco, between
+Coquimbo and Caldera, a little town of sixty or eighty
+houses, with copper smeltries, a church, a river, and some
+sheep-runs. Sixty of the buccaneers went ashore here,
+that same evening, to get provisions, "and anything else
+that we could purchase." They passed the night in the
+church, or "in a churchyard," and in the morning took
+"120 sheep and fourscore goats," about 200 bushels of
+corn "ready ground," some fowls, a fat hog, any quantity
+of fruit, peas, beans, etc., and a small stock of wine.
+These goods they conveyed aboard as being "fit for
+our Turn." The inhabitants had removed their gold and
+silver while the ship came to her anchor, "so that our
+booty here, besides provisions, was inconsiderable." They
+found the fat hog "very like our English pork," thereby
+illustrating the futility of travel; and so sailed away
+again "to seek greater matters." Before they left, they
+contrived to fill their water jars in the river, a piece of
+work which they found troublesome, owing to the height
+of the banks.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="img327" id="img327"></a>
+<a href="images/327.jpg"><img src="images/327_th.jpg" width="500" height="274"
+alt="A Description of Hilo"
+title="A Description of Hilo" /></a>
+<span class="caption"><i>A Description of</i> Hilo</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>From Huasco, where the famous white raisins grow,
+they sailed to Ylo, where they heard of their mates at
+Arica, and secured some wine, figs, sugar, and molasses,
+and some "fruits just ripe and fit for eating," including
+"extraordinary good Oranges of the China sort" They
+then coasted slowly northward, till by Saturday, 16th
+April, they arrived off the island of Plate. Here their
+old bickerings broke out again, for many of the pirates
+were disgusted with Sharp, and eager to go home. Many
+of the others had recovered their spirits since the affair
+at Arica, and wished to stay in the South Seas, to cruise
+a little longer. Those who had fought at Arica would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+not allow Sharp to be deposed a second time, while those
+who had been shipkeepers on that occasion, were angry
+that he should have been re-elected. The two parties
+refused to be reconciled. They quarrelled angrily whenever
+they came on deck together, and the party spirit ran
+so high that the company of shipkeepers, the anti-Sharp
+faction, "the abler and more experienced men," at last
+refused to cruise any longer under Sharp's command. The
+fo'c's'le council decided that a poll should be taken, and
+"that which party soever, upon polling, should be found
+to have the majority, should keep the ship." The other
+party was to take the long boat and the canoas. The
+division was made, and "Captain Sharp's Party carried
+it." The night was spent in preparing the long boat and
+the canoas, and the next morning the boats set sail.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>ACROSS THE ISTHMUS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The way home&mdash;Sufferings and adventures</p></div>
+
+
+<p>At "about Ten a Clock" in the morning of 17th April
+1681, the mutineers went over the side into their
+"Lanch and Canoas, designing for the River Santa
+Maria, in the Gulf of St Michael." "We were in number,"
+says Dampier, who was of the party, "44 white Men
+who bore Arms, a <i>Spanish Indian</i>, who bore Arms also;
+and two <i>Moskito Indians</i>," who carried pistols and fish
+spears. Lionel Wafer "was of Mr Dampier's Side in
+that Matter," and acted as surgeon to the forty-seven,
+until he met with his accident. They embarked in the
+ship's launch or long boat, one canoa "and another Canoa
+which had been sawn asunder in the middle, in order to
+have made Bumkins, or Vessels for carrying water, if we
+had not separated from our Ship." This old canoa they
+contrived to patch together. For provisions they brought
+with them "so much Flower as we could well carry";
+which "Flower" "we" had been industriously grinding
+for the last three days. In addition to the "Flower" they
+had "rubbed up 20 or 30 pound of Chocolate with Sugar
+to sweeten it." And so provided, they hoisted their little
+sails and stood in for the shore. "The Sea Breeze came
+in strong" before they reached the land, so that they had
+to cut up an old dry hide to make a close-fight round
+the launch "to keep the Water out." They took a small
+timber barque the next morning, and went aboard her,
+and sailed her over to Gorgona, where they scrubbed her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+bottom. They learned from their prisoners that the
+Spaniards were on the alert, eagerly expecting them, and
+cruising the seas with fast advice boats to get a sight of
+them. Three warships lay at Panama, ready to hunt them
+whenever the cruisers brought news of their whereabouts.
+A day or two later, the pirates saw "two great ships,"
+with many guns in their ports, slowly beating to the
+southward in search of their company. The heavy rain
+which was falling kept the small timber barque hidden,
+while the pirates took the precautions of striking sail, and
+rowing close in shore. "If they had seen and chased us,"
+the pirates would have landed, trusting to the local
+Indians to make good their escape over the isthmus.</p>
+
+<p>After twelve days of sailing they anchored about twenty
+miles from the San Miguel Gulf, in order to clean their
+arms, and dry their clothes and powder, before proceeding
+up the river, by the way they had come. The next morning
+they set sail into the Gulf, and anchored off an island,
+intending to search the river's mouth for Spaniards before
+adventuring farther. As they had feared, a large Spanish
+man-of-war lay anchored at the river's mouth, "close by
+the shore," with her guns commanding the entrance.
+Some of her men could be seen upon the beach, by the
+door of a large tent, made of the ship's lower canvas.
+"When the Canoas came aboard with this News," says
+Dampier, "some of our Men were a little dis-heartned;
+but it was no more than I ever expected." An hour or
+two later they took one of the Spaniards from the ship
+and learned from him that the ship carried twelve great
+guns, and that three companies of men, with small arms,
+would join her during the next twenty-four hours. They
+learned also that the Indians of that district were friendly
+to the Spaniards. Plainly the pirates were in a dangerous
+position. "It was not convenient to stay longer there,"
+says Dampier. They got aboard their ship without loss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+of time, and ran out of the river "with the Tide of Ebb,"
+resolved to get ashore at the first handy creek they
+came to.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning they ran into "a small Creek
+within two Keys, or little Islands, and rowed up to the
+Head of the Creek, being about a Mile up, and there we
+landed May 1, 1681." The men flung their food and clothes
+ashore, and scuttled their little ship, so that she sank at
+her moorings. While they packed their "Snap-sacks"
+with flour, chocolate, canisters of powder, beads, and
+whittles for the Indians, their slaves "struck a plentiful
+Dish of Fish" for them, which they presently broiled, and
+ate for their breakfasts. Some of the men scouted on
+ahead for a mile or two, and then returned with the
+news that there were no immediate dangers in front of
+them. Some of the pirates were weak and sick, and
+"not well able to march." "We," therefore, "gave out,
+that if any Man faultred in the Journey over Land he
+must expect to be shot to death; for we knew that the
+Spaniards would soon be after us, and one Man falling
+into their hands might be the ruin of us all, by giving
+an account of our strength and condition: yet this would
+not deter 'em from going with us."</p>
+
+<p>At three that afternoon they set out into the jungle,
+steering a N.E. course "by our Pocket Compasses." The
+rain beat upon them all the rest of that day, and all the
+night long, a drenching and steady downpour, which
+swamped the "small Hutts" they contrived to patch
+together. In the morning they struck an old Indian
+trail, no broader than a horse-girth, running somewhat
+to the east. They followed it through the forest till they
+came to an Indian town, where the squaws gave them
+some corn-drink or miscelaw, and sold them a few fowls
+and "a sort of wild Hogs." They hired a guide at this
+village, "to guide us a day's march into the Countrey."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+"He was to have for his pains a Hatchet, and his Bargain
+was to bring us to a certain Indians habitation, who could
+speak Spanish." They paid faithfully for the food the
+Indians gave them, and shared "all sorts of our Provisions
+in common, because none should live better than others,"
+and so stand a better chance of crossing the isthmus.
+When they started out, after a night's rest, one of the
+pirates, being already sick of the march, slipped away
+into the jungle, and was seen no more.</p>
+
+<p>They found the Spanish-speaking Indian in a bad
+mood. He swore that he knew no road to the North
+Sea, but that he could take them to Cheapo, or to Santa
+Maria, "which we knew to be Spanish Garrisons: either
+of them at least 20 miles out of our way." He was plainly
+unwilling to have any truck with them, for "his discourse,"
+was in an angry tone, and he "gave very impertinent
+answers" to the questions put to him. "However we
+were forced to make a virtue of necessity, and humour
+him, for it was neither time nor place to be angry with
+the Indians; all our lives lying in their hand." The
+pirates were at their wits' end, for they lay but a few
+miles from the guard ship, and this surly chief could
+very well set the Spaniards on them. They tempted
+him with green and blue beads, with gold and silver,
+both in the crude and in coin, with beautiful steel axe
+heads, with machetes, "or long knives"; "but nothing
+would work on him." The pirates were beginning to
+despair, when one of them produced "a Sky-coloured
+Petticoat," and placed it about the person of the chief's
+favourite wife. How he had become possessed of such
+a thing, and whether it came from a Hilo beauty, and
+whether she gave it as a love token, on the ship's sailing,
+cannot now be known. It may have been an article
+brought expressly from Jamaica for the fascination of the
+Indians. But <i>honi soit qui mal y pense</i>. The truth of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+matter will never be learned. It is sufficient that the
+man produced it in the very nick of time, and laid the
+blue tissue over the copper-coloured lady. She was so
+much pleased with it "that she immediately began to
+chatter to her Husband, and soon brought him into a
+better Humour." He relented at once, and said that he
+knew the trail to the North Sea, and that he would gladly
+guide them thither were a cut upon his foot healed. As
+he could not go himself he persuaded another Indian to
+guide them "2 Days march further for another Hatchet."
+He tried hard to induce the party to stay with him for
+the rest of the day as the rain was pouring down in
+torrents. "But our business required more haste, our
+Enemies lying so near us, for he told us that he could
+go from his house aboard the Guard-Ship in a Tides time;
+and this was the 4th day since they saw us. So we
+marched 3 Miles further and then built Hutts, where we
+stayed all Night," with the thatch dripping water on to
+them in a steady trickle.</p>
+
+<p>On taking to the road again, wet and starving as they
+were, they found themselves in a network of rivers, some
+thirty of which they had to wade, during the day's march.
+The heavy rain drenched them as they clambered along
+across the jungle. They had but a little handful of fire that
+night, so that they could not dry nor warm themselves.
+They crouched about the "funk of green-wood," shivering
+in the smoke, chewing bullets to alleviate their hunger.
+They slept there in great misery, careless of what happened
+to them. "The Spaniards were but seldom in our
+thoughts," says Dampier, for the pirates thought only of
+guides and food, and feared their own Indian servants
+more than the enemy. A watch of two pirates kept a
+guard all that night, with orders to shoot any Indian
+who showed a sign of treachery. They rose before it
+was light and pushed on into the woods, biting on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+bullet, or the quid, to help them to forget their hunger.
+By ten o'clock they arrived at the house of a brisk young
+Indian, who had been a servant to the Bishop of Panama,
+the man who gave the gold ring to Sawkins. Here they
+had a feast of yams and sweet potatoes, boiled into a
+broth with monkey-meat, a great comfort to those who
+were weak and sickly. They built a great fire in one
+of the huts, at which they dried their clothes, now falling
+to pieces from the continual soakings. They also cleaned
+their rusty gun-locks, and dried their powder, talking
+cheerily together, about the fire, while the rain roared
+upon the thatch. They were close beside the Rio
+Congo "and thus far," says Dampier, the most intelligent
+man among them, "we might have come in our Canoa,
+if I could have persuaded them to it."</p>
+
+<p>As they sat in the hut, in the warmth of the blaze, that
+rainy May day, Lionel Wafer met with an accident. He
+was sitting on the ground, beside one of the pirates,
+who was drying his powder, little by little, half a pound
+at a time, in a great silver dish, part of the plunder of
+the cruise. "A careless Fellow passed by with his Pipe
+lighted," and dropped some burning crumb of tobacco
+on to the powder, which at once blew up. It scorched
+Wafer's knee very terribly, tearing off the flesh from
+the bone, and burning his leg from the knee to the thigh.
+Wafer, who was the surgeon of the party, had a bag full
+of salves and medicines. He managed to dress his
+wounds, and to pass a fairly comfortable night, "and
+being unwilling to be left behind by my Companions,
+I made hard shift to jog on, and bear them Company,"
+when camp was broken at daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>Lame as he was, he kept up with his mates all that day,
+fording rivers "several times," and crossing country which
+would tax the strongest man, in good condition. "The
+last time we forded the River, it was so deep, that our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+tallest Men stood in the deepest place, and handed the
+sick, weak and short Men"; by which act of comradeship
+"we all got over safe." Two of the pirates, "Robert
+Spratlin and William Bowman," could get no farther, and
+were left behind at the river. Dampier notes that his
+"Joint of Bambo, which I stopt at both Ends, closing
+it with Wax, so as to keep out any Water," preserved
+his "Journal and other Writings from being wet," though
+he had often to swim for it.</p>
+
+<p>Drenched and tired, they pitched their huts by the
+river-bank, poor Wafer in torment from his knee, and
+the rest of them hungry and cold. They had hardly
+finished their huts, when the river came down in a great
+wall of water, some sudden flood, due to a cloud-burst
+higher up. The flood sucked away their huts, and forced
+them to run to higher ground. They passed that night
+"straggling in the Woods, some under one Tree, some
+under another," with the thunder roaring overhead, and
+the lightning making a livid brightness all about them.
+The rain fell in torrents, and the pirates were far too
+wretched to keep watch. "So our Slaves, taking Opportunity,
+went away in the Night; all but one, who was
+hid in some hole, and knew nothing of their design, or
+else fell asleep." Among these slaves was a black man,
+Lionel Wafer's assistant, who
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'carrried'">carried</ins>
+the salves and
+medicaments. He took these with him when he slunk
+away, nor did he forget the "Chirurgeon's Gun and all
+his Money." He left poor Wafer destitute there, in the
+forest, "depriv'd of wherewithal to dress my sore."</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, they found that the river had fallen, but
+not so much as they had hoped. It was still too deep to
+ford, and the current ran very swiftly, but Dampier and
+some other swimmers managed to swim across. They
+then endeavoured to get a line over, by which to ferry the
+men who could not swim, and the arms and powder they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+had left on the other bank. They decided to send a man
+back with a line, with instructions to pass the goods first,
+and then the men. "One George Gayny took the end of
+a Line and made it fast about his Neck, and left the other
+end ashore, and one Man stood by the Line, to clear it
+away to him." When Gayny was about half way across,
+the line, which was kinky with the wet, got entangled.
+The man who was lighting it out checked it a moment
+to take out the kink, or to clear it. The check threw
+Gayny on his back, "and he that had the Line in his
+hand," instead of slacking away, or hauling in, so as to
+bring Gayny ashore, "threw it all into the River after him,
+thinking he might recover himself." The stream was
+running down with great fierceness. Gayny had a bag of
+300 dollars on his back, and this bag, with the weight of
+the line, dragged him under. He was carried down, and
+swept out of sight "and never seen more by us." "This
+put a period to that contrivance," adds Dampier grimly.</p>
+
+<p>As they had no wish to emulate poor Gayny, they
+sought about "for a Tree to fell across the River." They
+cut it down, as soon as they had found it, "and it reached
+clean over." The goods and pirates were then crossed in
+safety. All hands soon forgot poor Gayny, for they came
+across a plantain walk in a clearing, and made a good
+breakfast, and stripped it of every fruit. They dismissed
+their guide here, with the gift of an axe head, and hired
+an old Indian to guide them farther towards the North
+Sea. The next day they reckoned themselves out of
+danger, and set forth cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>For the last two days Wafer had been in anguish from
+his burnt knee. As the pirates made ready to leave their
+bivouac, on the tenth morning of the march, he declared
+that he could not "trudge it further through Rivers and
+Woods," with his knee as it was. Two other pirates who
+were broken with the going, declared that they, also, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+too tired out to march. There was no talk, among the
+rest of the band, about shooting the weary ones, according
+to the order they had made at starting. Instead of "putting
+them out of their misery," they "took a very kind
+Leave," giving the broken men such stores as they could
+spare, and telling them to keep in good heart, and follow
+on when they had rested.</p>
+
+<p>One of Wafer's comrades on this occasion was "Mr
+Richard Jopson, who had served an Apprenticeship to a
+Druggist in London. He was an ingenious Man, and a
+good Scholar; he had with him a Greek Testament which
+he frequently read, and would translate <i>extempore</i> into
+<i>English</i>, to such of the Company as were dispos'd to hear
+him." The other weary man was John Hingson, a mariner.
+They watched their mates march away through the woods,
+and then turned back, sick at heart, to the shelter of the
+huts, where the Indians looked at them sulkily, and flung
+them green plantains, "as you would Bones to a Dog."
+One of the Indians made a mess of aromatic herbs and
+dressed Wafer's burn, so that, in three weeks' time, he
+could walk.</p>
+
+<p>Dampier's party marched on through jungle, wading
+across rivers, which took them up to the chest, staggering
+through swamps and bogs, and clambering over rotten
+tree trunks, and across thorn brakes. They were wet and
+wretched and half starved, for their general food was
+macaw berries. Sometimes they killed a monkey, once
+Dampier killed a turkey, and once they came to a plantain
+patch where "we fed plentifully on plantains, both ripe
+and green." Their clothes were rotted into shreds, their
+boots were fallen to pieces, their feet were blistered and
+raw, their legs were mere skinless ulcers from the constant
+soaking. Their faces were swelled and bloody from the
+bites of mosquitoes and wood-ticks. "Not a Man of us
+but wisht the Journey at an End." Those who have seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+"Bad Lands," or what is called "timber," or what is called
+"bush," will know what the party looked like, when, on the
+twenty-second day, they saw the North Sea. The day
+after that they reached the Rio Conception, and drifted
+down to the sea in some canoas, to an Indian village,
+built on the beach "for the benefit of Trade with the
+Privateers." About nine miles away, the Indians told
+them, was a French privateer ship, under one Captain
+Tristian, lying at La Sounds Key. They stayed a
+night at the village, and then went aboard the French
+ship, which was careened in a creek, with a brushwood
+fire on her side, cleaning away her barnacles for a roving
+cruise. Here they parted with their Indian guides, not
+without sorrow, for it is not pleasant to say "So Long" to
+folk with whom one has struggled, and lived, and suffered.
+"We were resolved to reward them to their hearts' Content,"
+said Dampier, much as a cowboy, at the end of the
+trail, will give sugar to his horse, as he bids him good-bye.
+The pirates spent their silver royally, buying red, blue and
+green beads, and knives, scissors, and looking-glasses, from
+the French pirates. They bought up the entire stock of
+the French ship, but even then they felt that they had not
+rewarded their guides sufficiently. They therefore subscribed
+a half-dollar piece each, in coin, as a sort of makeweight.
+With the toys, and the bags of silver, the delighted
+Indians passed back to the isthmus, where they told golden
+stories of the kind whites, so that the Indians of the Main
+could not do enough for Wafer, and for the four pirates
+left behind on the march.</p>
+
+<p>Dampier's party had marched in all 110 miles, over the
+most damnable and heart-breaking country which the mind
+of man can imagine. They had marched "heavy," with
+their guns and bags of dollars; and this in the rainy
+season. They had starved and suffered, and shivered and
+agonised, yet they had lost but two men, poor Gayny, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+was drowned, and (apparently) one who had slipped away
+on the third day of the march. This man may have been
+the Spanish Indian. A note in Ringrose's narrative
+alludes to the capture of one of Dampier's party by the
+Spanish soldiers, and this may have been the man meant.</p>
+
+<p>Two days later, when the Indian guides had gone, and
+the privateer was fit for the sea, they set sail for "the
+rendezvous of the fleet," which had been fixed for Springers'
+Key "another of the Samballoes Isles." Perhaps the
+English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege
+of the guests, aboard ship, to the old anchor tune, with its
+mournful and lovely refrain&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The old band of never-strikes were outward bound on
+another foray.</p>
+
+<p>As for Wafer, and his two companions, they stayed
+with the Indians for some days, living on plantains (given
+very grudgingly), and wondering whether the Indians
+would kill them. The natives were kindly, as a rule, to
+the French and English, but it was now the rainy season,
+when they liked to stay in their huts, about their fires.
+The pirates "had in a Manner awed the Indian guides
+they took ... and made them go with them very much
+against their Wills." The Indians had resented this act of
+the pirates, and as days went by, and the guides did not
+return, they judged that the white men had killed them.
+They prepared "a great Pile of Wood to burn us," says
+Wafer, meaning to avenge their fellows, whom they "had
+supposed dead." But a friendly old chief dissuaded them
+from this act, a few hours before the intended execution.</p>
+
+<p>While the three were living thus, in doubt whether they
+would be speared, or held as slaves, or sold to the
+Spaniards, the two pirates, Spratlin and Bowman, who
+had been left behind at the Rio Congo, arrived at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+village. They had had a terrible journey together, "among
+the wild Woods and Rivers," wandering without guides,
+and living on roots and plantains. On their way, they
+had come upon George Gayny "lying dead in a Creek
+where the Eddy had driven him ashore," "with the Rope
+twisted about him, and his Money at his Neck." They
+left the body where it lay, with its sack of silver dollars
+for which the poor man had come so far, and suffered so
+bitterly. They had no use for dollars at that time "being
+only in care how to work their way through a wild un-Known
+Country."</p>
+
+<p>After a time, the Indians helped the five men a two
+days' march on their journey, and then deserted them,
+leaving them to find the path by themselves, with no
+better guide than a pocket compass. While crossing a
+river by the bole of a fallen tree, the man Bowman "a
+weakly Man, a Taylor by Trade," slipped into the current,
+and was carried off, with "400 Pieces of Eight" in his
+satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny, for he contrived
+to get out. In time they reached the North Sea,
+and came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy
+of an Indian wizard. Here they found Dampier's sloop,
+and rejoined their comrades, to the great delight of all
+hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was
+painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part
+of an Hour, before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our
+Doctor." There was a great feast that night at La
+Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of small
+arms, and a grand ringing of bells in honour of the happy
+return.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all they could do, poor Mr Jopson, or Cobson,
+only lived for three or four days after he reached the ship.
+"His Fatigues, and his Drenching in the Water" had been
+too much for the poor man. He lay "languishing" in his
+cot for a few days, babbling of the drugs of Bucklersbury,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+and thumbing his Greek Testament, and at last passed in
+his checks, quietly and sadly, and "died there at La
+Sounds Key." They buried the poor man in the sands,
+with very genuine sorrow, and then bade the Indians
+adieu, and gave their dead mate a volley of guns, and
+so set sail, with the colours at half-mast, for "the more
+Eastern Isles of the Samballoes."</p>
+
+<p>As for Captain Bartholomew Sharp, in the ship the
+<i>Trinity</i>, he continued to sail the South Seas with the
+seventy pirates left to him. Some days after Dampier's
+party sailed, he took a Guayaquil ship, called the <i>San
+Pedro</i>, which he had taken fourteen months before off
+Panama. Aboard her he found nearly 40,000 pieces of
+eight, besides silver bars, and ingots of gold. He also
+took a great ship called the <i>San Rosario</i>, the richest ship
+the buccaneers ever captured. She had many chests of
+pieces of eight aboard her, and a quantity of wine and
+brandy. Down in her hold, bar upon bar, "were 700 pigs
+of plate," rough silver from the mines, not yet fitted for the
+Lima mint. The pirates thought that this crude silver was
+tin, and so left it where it lay, in the hold of the <i>Rosario</i>
+"which we turned away loose into the sea," with the
+stuff aboard her. One pig of the 700 was brought
+aboard the pirates "to make bullets of." About two-thirds
+of it was "melted and squandered," but some of it
+was left long afterwards, when the <i>Trinity</i> touched at
+Antigua. Here they gave what was left to "a Bristol
+man," probably in exchange for a dram of rum. The
+Bristol man took it home to England "and sold it there
+for &pound;75 sterling." "Thus," said Ringrose, "we parted
+with the richest booty we got in the whole voyage."
+Captain Bartholomew Sharp was responsible for the
+turning adrift of all this silver. Some of the pirates
+had asked leave to hoist it aboard the <i>Trinity</i>. But it
+chanced that, aboard the <i>Rosario</i>, was a Spanish lady,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
+"the beautifullest Creature" that the "Eyes" of Captain
+Sharp ever beheld. The amorous captain was so inflamed
+by this beauty that he paid no attention to anything else.</p>
+
+<p>In a very drunken and quarrelsome condition, the
+pirates worked the <i>Trinity</i> round the Horn, and so home
+to Barbadoes. They did not dare to land there, for one
+of the King's frigates, H.M.S. <i>Richmond</i>, was lying at
+Bridgetown, and the pirates "feared lest the said frigate
+should seize us." They bore away to Antigua, where
+Ringrose, and "thirteen more," shipped themselves for
+England. They landed at Dartmouth on the 26th of
+March 1682. A few more of the company went ashore
+at Antigua, and scattered to different haunts. Sharp and
+a number of pirates landed at Nevis, from whence they
+shipped for London. The ship the <i>Trinity</i> was left to
+seven of the gang who had diced away all their money.
+What became of her is not known.</p>
+
+<p>Sharp and a number of his men were arrested in
+London, and tried for piracy, but the Spanish Ambassador,
+who brought the charge, was without evidence and
+could not obtain convictions. They pleaded that "the
+Spaniards fired at us first," and that they had acted only
+in self-defence, so they 'scaped hanging, though Sharp
+admits that they "were very near it." Three more of the
+crew were laid by the heels at Jamaica, and one of these
+was "wheedled into an open confession," and condemned,
+and hanged. "The other two stood it out, and escaped
+for want of witnesses."</p>
+
+<p>Of the four men so often quoted in this narrative, only
+one, so far as we know, died a violent death. This was
+Basil Ringrose, who was shot at Santa Pecaque a few years
+later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and Sharp
+died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for
+many years after the <i>Trinity</i> dropped her anchor off
+Antigua.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay
+always a little farther on; a little beyond the sky-line.
+Their concern was not to preserve life, "but rather to
+squander it away"; to fling it, like so much oil, into the
+fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If they lived
+riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they
+lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die
+for what they believed to be worth doing. We think
+them terrible. Life itself is terrible. But life was not
+terrible to them; for they were comrades; and comrades and
+brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who "live
+at home at ease" may condemn them. They are free to
+do so. The old buccaneers were happier than they. The
+buccaneers had comrades, and the strength to live their
+own lives. They may laugh at those who, lacking that
+strength, would condemn them with the hate of impotence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>SHIPS AND RIGS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Galleys&mdash;Dromonds&mdash;Galliasses&mdash;Pinnaces&mdash;Pavesses&mdash;Top-arming&mdash;Banners&mdash;Boats</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Until the reign of Henry VIII. the shipping of these
+islands was of two kinds. There were longships,
+propelled, for the most part, by oars, and used generally
+as warships; and there were roundships, or dromonds,
+propelled by sails, and used as a rule for the carriage of
+freight. The dromond, in war-time, was sometimes converted
+into a warship, by the addition of fighting-castles
+fore and aft. The longship, in peace time, was no doubt
+used as a trader, as far as her shallow draught, and small
+beam, allowed.</p>
+
+<p>The longship, or galley, being, essentially, an oar vessel,
+had to fulfil certain simple conditions. She had to be
+light, or men might not row her. She had to be long, or
+she might not carry enough oarsmen to propel her with
+sufficient swiftness. Her lightness, and lack of draught,
+made it impossible for her to carry much provision;
+while the number of her oars made it necessary for her
+to carry a large crew of rowers, in addition to her soldiers
+and sail trimmers. It was therefore impossible for such
+a ship to keep the seas for any length of time, even had
+their build fitted them for the buffetings of the stormy
+home waters. For short cruises, coast work, rapid forays,
+and "shock tactics," she was admirable; but she could not
+stray far from a friendly port, nor put out in foul weather.
+The roundship, dromond, or cargo boat, was often little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+more than two beams long, and therefore far too slow to
+compete with ships of the galley type. She could stand
+heavy weather better than the galley, and she needed
+fewer hands, and could carry more provisions, but she was
+almost useless as a ship of war.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Henry VIII. the shipwrights of this
+country began to build ships which combined something
+of the strength, and capacity of the dromond, with the
+length and fineness of the galley. The ships they evolved
+were mainly dependent upon their sails, but they carried
+a bank of oars on each side, for use in light weather. The
+galley, or longship, had carried guns on a platform at the
+bows, pointing forward. But these new vessels carried
+guns in broadside, in addition to the bow-chasers. These
+broadside guns were at first mounted <i>en barbette</i>, pointing
+over the bulwarks. Early in the sixteenth century the
+port-hole, with a hinged lid, was invented, and the guns
+were then pointed through the ship's sides. As these
+ships carried more guns than the galleys, they were built
+more strongly, lest the shock of the explosions should
+shake them to pieces. They were strong enough to keep
+the seas in bad weather, yet they had enough of the galley
+build to enable them to sail fast when the oars were laid
+inboard. It is thought that they could have made as
+much as four or five knots an hour. These ships were
+known as galliasses,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and galleons, according to the proportions
+between their lengths and beams. The galleons
+were shorter in proportion to their breadth than the
+galliasses.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> There was another kind of vessel, the pinnace,
+which had an even greater proportionate length than the
+galliasse. Of the three kinds, the galleon, being the
+shortest in proportion to her breadth, was the least fitted
+for oar propulsion.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img348" id="img348"></a>
+<a href="images/348.jpg"><img src="images/348_th.jpg" width="400" height="276"
+alt="AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON" title="AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+During the reign of Elizabeth, the galleon, or great ship,
+and the galliasse, or cruiser, grew to gradual perfection,
+in the hands of our great sailors. If we look upon the
+galleon or great ship as the prototype of the ship of the
+line, and on the galliasse as the prototype of the frigate,
+and on the pinnace as the prototype of the sloop, or
+corvette, we shall not be far wrong. They were, of course,
+in many ways inferior to the ships which fought in the
+great French wars, two centuries later, but their general
+appearance was similar. The rig was different, but not
+markedly so, while the hulls of the ships presented many
+points of general likeness. The Elizabethan ships were,
+however, very much smaller than most of the rated ships
+in use in the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img369" id="img369"></a>
+<a href="images/369.jpg"><img src="images/369_th.jpg" width="400" height="276"
+alt="A GALLIASSE" title="A GALLIASSE" /></a>
+<span class="caption">A GALLIASSE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The galleon, or great ship, at the end of the sixteenth
+century, was sometimes of as much as 900 tons. She was
+generally low in the waist, with a high square forecastle
+forward, a high quarter-deck, raised above the waist, just
+abaft the main-mast, and a poop above the quarter-deck,
+sloping upward to the taffrail. These high outerworks
+were shut off from the open waist (the space between the
+main-mast and the forecastle) by wooden bulkheads, which
+were pierced for small, quick-firing guns. Below the
+upper, or spar deck, she had a gun-deck, if not more than
+one, with guns on each side, and right aft. The galliasse
+was sometimes flush-decked, without poop and forecastle,
+and sometimes built with both, but she was never so "high
+charged" as the galleon. The pinnace was as the galliasse,
+though smaller.</p>
+
+<p>The galleon's waist was often without bulwarks, so that
+when she went into action it became necessary to give her
+sail trimmers, and spar-deck fighting men, some protection
+from the enemy's shot.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Sometimes this was done by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+hauling up of waist-trees, or spars of rough untrimmed
+timber, to form a sort of wooden wall. Sometimes they
+rigged what was called a top-arming, or top armour, a
+strip of cloth like the "war girdle" of the Norse longships,
+across the unprotected space. This top-arming was of
+canvas some two bolts deep (3 feet 6 inches), gaily painted
+in designs of red, yellow, green, and white. It gave no
+protection against shot, but it prevented the enemy's
+gunners from taking aim at the deck, or from playing upon
+the hatchways with their murderers and pateraroes. It
+also kept out boarders, and was a fairly good shield to
+catch the arrows and crossbow bolts shot from the enemy's
+tops. Sometimes the top-arming was of scantling, or thin
+plank, in which case it was called a pavesse. Pavesses
+were very beautifully painted with armorial bearings,
+arranged in shields, a sort of reminiscence of the old
+Norse custom of hanging the ship's sides with shields.
+Another way was to mask the open space with a ranged
+hemp cable, which could be cleared away after the fight.</p>
+
+<p>The ships were rigged much as they were rigged two
+centuries later. The chief differences were in the rigging
+of the bowsprit and of the two after masts. Forward the
+ships had bowsprits, on which each set a spritsail, from a
+spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward,
+almost over the spring of the cutwater. Generally, but
+not always, it was made of a single tree (pine or fir). If
+it was what was known as "a made mast," it was built up
+of two, or three, or four, different trees, judiciously sawn,
+well seasoned, and then hooped together. Masts were
+pole-masts until early in the reign of Elizabeth, when a
+fixed topmast was added. By Drake's time they had
+learned that a movable topmast was more useful, and less
+dangerous for ships sailing in these waters. The caps and
+tops were made of elm wood. The sails on the foremast
+were foresail and foretop-sail, the latter much the smaller<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+and less important of the two. They were set on wooden
+yards, the foreyard and foretopsail-yard, both of which
+could be sent on deck in foul weather. The main-mast
+was stepped a little abaft the beam, and carried three sails,
+the main-sail, the main topsail, and a third, the main topgallant-sail.
+This third sail did not set from a yard until
+many years after its introduction. It began life like a
+modern "moon-raker," a triangular piece of canvas,
+setting from the truck, or summit of the topmast, to the
+yardarm of the main topsail-yard. Up above it, on a
+bending light pole, fluttered the great colours, a George's
+cross of scarlet on a ground of white. Abaft the main-mast
+were the mizzen, carrying one sail, on a lateen yard,
+one arm of which nearly touched the deck; and the bonaventure
+mizzen (which we now call the jigger) rigged in
+exactly the same way. Right aft, was a banner pole for
+the display of colours. These masts were stepped, stayed,
+and supported almost exactly as masts are rigged to-day,
+though where we use iron, and wire, they used wood and
+hemp. The shrouds of the fore and main masts led outboard,
+to "chains" or strong platforms projecting from the
+ship's sides. These "chains" were clamped to the ship's
+sides with rigid links of iron. The shrouds of the after
+masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On
+each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead,
+was a fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded
+over. It was a little platform, resting on battens, and in
+ancient times it was circular, with a diameter of perhaps
+six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it, inclining outboard,
+perhaps four feet in height. It was entered by a
+lubber's hole in the flooring, through which the shrouds
+passed. In each top was an arm chest containing Spanish
+darts, crossbows, longbows, arrows, bolts, and perhaps
+granadoes. When the ship went into battle a few picked
+marksmen were stationed in the tops with orders to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+search the enemy's decks with their missiles, particularly
+the afterparts, where the helmsman stood. In later days
+the tops were armed with light guns, of the sorts known as
+slings and fowlers; but top-fighting with firearms was
+dangerous, as the gunners carried lighted matches, and
+there was always a risk of sparks, from the match, or from
+the wads, setting fire to the sails. The running rigging
+was arranged much as running rigging is arranged to-day,
+though its quality, in those times, was probably worse
+than nowadays. The rope appears to have been very
+fickle stuff which carried away under slight provocation.
+The blocks were bad, for the sheaves were made of some
+comparatively soft wood, which swelled, when wet, and
+jammed. Lignum vit&aelig; was not used for block-sheaves
+until after the Dutch War in Cromwell's time. Iron
+blocks were in use in the time of Henry VIII. but only as
+fair-leads for chain topsail sheets, and as snatches for the
+boarding of the "takkes." The shrouds and stays, were
+of hawser stuff, extremely thick nine-stranded hemp; and
+all those parts exposed to chafing (as from a sail, or a
+rope) were either served, or neatly covered up with matting.
+The matting was made by the sailors, of rope, or
+white line, plaited curiously. When in its place it was
+neatly painted, or tarred, much as one may see it in
+Norwegian ships at the present day. The yardarms, and
+possibly the chains, were at one time fitted with heavy
+steel sickles, projecting outboard, which were kept sharp,
+so that, when running alongside an enemy, they might cut
+her rigging to pieces. These sickles were known as sheer-hooks.
+They were probably of little use, for they became
+obsolete before the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img354" id="img354"></a>
+<a href="images/354.jpg"><img src="images/354_th.jpg" width="400" height="276"
+alt="AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON" title="AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON" /></a>
+<span class="caption">AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Most of the sails used in these old ships were woven in
+Portsmouth on hand-looms. The canvas was probably
+of good quality, as good perhaps as the modern stout
+No. 1, for hand-woven stuff is always tighter, tougher,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+better put together, than that woven by the big steam-loom.
+It was at one time the custom to decorate the
+sail, with a design of coloured cloth, cut out, as one cuts
+out a paper pattern, and stitched upon its face with sail
+twine. In the royal ships this design was of lions
+rampant, cut out of scarlet say. The custom of carrying
+such coloured canvas appears to have died out by
+the end of the sixteenth century. Perhaps flag signalling
+had come into vogue making it necessary to abandon
+anything that might tend to confuse the colours. About
+the same time we abandoned the custom of making our
+ships gay with little flags, of red and white linen, in
+guidons like those on a trooper's lance. All through the
+Tudor reigns our ships carried them, but for some reason
+the practice was allowed to die out. A last relic of it
+still flutters on blue water in the little ribbons of the wind-vane,
+on the weather side the poop, aboard sailing ships.</p>
+
+<p>The great ship carried three boats, which were stowed
+on chocks in the waist, just forward of the main-mast, one
+inside the other when not in use. The boats were, the
+long boat, a large, roomy boat with a movable mast;
+the cock, cog or cok boat, sometimes called the galley-watt;
+and the whale, or jolly boat, a sort of small balenger,
+with an iron-plated bow, which rowed fourteen oars. It
+was the custom to tow one or more of these boats astern,
+when at sea, except in foul weather, much as one may
+see a brig, or a topsail schooner, to-day, with a dinghy
+dragging astern. The boat's coxswain stayed in her as
+she towed, making her clean, fending her off, and looking
+out for any unfortunate who chanced to fall overboard.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;W. Charnock: "History of Marine Architecture." Julian
+Corbett: "Drake and the Tudor Navy." A. Jal: "Archeologie Navale";
+"Glossaire Nautique." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir H. Nicholas:
+"History of the Royal Navy." M. Oppenheim: "History of the Administration
+of the Royal Navy"; "Naval Inventories of the Reign of Henry VII."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>GUNS AND GUNNERS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Breech-loaders&mdash;Cartridges&mdash;Powder&mdash;The gunner's art</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Cannon were in use in Europe, it is thought, in the
+eleventh century; for the art of making gunpowder
+came westward, from China, much earlier than people
+have supposed. It is certain that gunpowder was used
+"in missiles," before it was used to propel them. The
+earliest cannon were generally of forged iron built in
+strips secured by iron rings. They were loaded by movable
+chambers which fitted into the breech, and they were
+known as "crakys of war." We find them on English
+ships at the end of the fourteenth century, in two kinds,
+the one a cannon proper, the other an early version of
+the harquebus-a-croc. The cannon was a mere iron tube,
+of immense strength, bound with heavy iron rings. The
+rings were shrunken on to the tube in the ordinary way.
+The tube, when ready, was bolted down to a heavy
+squared beam of timber on the ship's deck. It was loaded
+by the insertion of the "gonne-chambre," an iron pan,
+containing the charge, which fitted into, and closed the
+breech. This gonne-chambre was wedged in firmly by
+a chock of elm wood beaten in with a mallet. Another
+block of wood, fixed in the deck behind it, kept it from
+flying out with any violence when the shot was fired.
+Cannon of this sort formed the main armament of ships
+until after the reign of Henry the Eighth. They fired
+stone cannon-balls, "pellettes of lead, and dyce of iron."
+Each gun had some half-dozen chambers, so that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+firing from them may have been rapid, perhaps three
+rounds a minute. The powder was not kept loose in
+tubs, near the guns, but neatly folded in conical cartridges,
+made of canvas or paper (or flannel) which practice prevailed
+for many years. All ships of war carried "pycks
+for hewing stone-shott," though after 1490, "the iron shott
+callyd bowletts," and their leaden brothers, came into
+general use. The guns we have described, were generally
+two or four pounders, using from half-a-pound, to a pound
+and a quarter, of powder, at each discharge. The carriage,
+or bed, on which they lay, was usually fitted with wheels
+at the rear end only.</p>
+
+<p>The other early sea-cannon, which we have mentioned,
+were also breech-loading. They were mounted on a sort
+of iron wheel, at the summit of a stout wooden staff, fixed
+in the deck, or in the rails of the poop and forecastle.
+They were of small size, and revolved in strong iron pivot
+rings, so that the man firing them might turn them in any
+direction he wished. They were of especial service in
+sweeping the waist, the open spar-deck, between the
+breaks of poop and forecastle, when boarders were on
+board. They threw "base and bar-shot to murder near
+at hand"; but their usual ball was of stone, and for this
+reason they were called petrieroes, and petrieroes-a-braga.
+The harquebus-a-croc, a weapon almost exactly
+similar, threw small cross-bar shot "to cut Sails and
+Rigging." In Elizabethan times it was carried in the
+tops of fighting ships, and on the rails and gunwales of
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'merchantmen,'">merchantmen.</ins></p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Henry VIII., a ship called the <i>Mary
+Rose</i>, of 500 tons, took part in the battle with the French,
+in St Helens Roads, off Brading. It was a sultry
+summer day, almost windless, when the action began,
+and the <i>Mary Rose</i> suffered much (being unable to stir)
+from the gun-fire of the French galleys. At noon, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+a breeze sprang up, and the galleys drew off, the <i>Mary
+Rose</i> sent her men to dinner. Her lower ports, which
+were cut too low down, were open, and the wind heeled
+her over, so that the sea rushed in to them. She sank
+in deep water, in a few moments, carrying with her her
+captain, and all the gay company on board. In 1836
+some divers recovered a few of her cannon, of the kinds
+we have described, some of brass, some of iron. The
+iron guns had been painted red and black. Those of
+brass, in all probability, had been burnished, like so much
+gold. These relics may be seen by the curious, at Woolwich,
+in the Museum of Ordnance, to which they were
+presented by their salver.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Elizabeth, cannon were much less primitive,
+for a great advance took place directly men learned
+the art of casting heavy guns. Until 1543, they had
+forged them; a painful process, necessarily limited to
+small pieces. After that year they cast them round a
+core, and by 1588 they had evolved certain general types
+of ordnance which remained in use, in the British Navy,
+almost unchanged, until after the Crimean War. The
+Elizabethan breech-loaders, and their methods, have now
+been described, but a few words may be added with
+reference to the muzzle-loaders. The charge for these
+was contained in cartridges, covered with canvas, or
+"paper royall" (<i>i.e.</i> parchment), though the parchment
+used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps
+of it remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the
+weapon had to be "wormed," or scraped out, with an
+instrument like an edged corkscrew. A tampion, or wad,
+of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the
+cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball
+in place. When the gun was loaded the gunner filled
+the touch-hole with his priming powder, from a horn
+he carried in his belt, after thrusting a sharp wire, called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+the priming-iron, down the touch-hole, through the cartridge,
+so that the priming powder might have direct access
+to the powder of the charge. He then sprinkled a little
+train of powder along the gun, from the touch-hole to
+the base-ring, for if he applied the match directly to the
+touch-hole the force of the explosion was liable to blow
+his linstock from his hand. In any case the "huff" or
+"spit" of fire, from the touch-hole, burned little holes, like
+pock-marks, in the beams overhead. The match was
+applied smartly, with a sharp drawing back of the hand,
+the gunner stepping quickly aside to avoid the recoil.
+He stepped back, and stood, on the side of the gun opposite
+to that on which the cartridges were stored, so that
+there might be no chance of a spark from his match
+setting fire to the ammunition. Spare match, newly
+soaked in saltpetre water, lay coiled in a little tub beside
+the gun. The cartridges, contained in latten buckets, were
+placed in a barrel by the gun and covered over with a
+skin of leather. The heavy shot were arranged in shot
+racks, known as "gardens," and these were ready to the
+gunner's hand, with "cheeses" of tampions or wads. The
+wads were made of soft wood, oakum, hay, straw, or
+"other such like." The sponges and rammers were
+hooked to the beams above the gun ready for use. The
+rammers were of hard wood, shod with brass, "to save
+the Head from cleaving." The sponges were of soft fast
+wood, "As Aspe, Birch, Willow, or such like," and had
+heads covered with "rough Sheepes skinne wooll," nailed
+to the staff with "Copper nayles." "Ladels," or powder
+shovels, for the loading of guns, were seldom used at sea.</p>
+
+<p>The guns were elevated or depressed by means of
+handspikes and quoins. Quoins were blocks of wood,
+square, and wedge-shaped, with ring-hooks screwed in
+them for the greater ease of
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original lacks .">handling.</ins>
+Two of the gun's
+crew raised the base of the cannon upon their handspikes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+using the "steps" of the gun carriage as their fulcra.
+A third slid a quoin along the "bed" of the carriage,
+under the gun, to support it at the required height. The
+recoil of the gun on firing, was often very violent, but
+it was limited by the stout rope called the breeching,
+which ran round the base of the gun, from each side of
+the port-hole, and kept it from running back more than
+its own length. When it had recoiled it was in the
+position for sponging and loading, being kept from
+running out again, with the roll of the ship, by a train,
+or preventer tackle, hooked to a ring-bolt in amidships.
+In action, particularly in violent action, the guns became
+very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they recoiled
+with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching,
+or to leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass guns
+were more skittish than iron, but all guns needed a rest
+of two or three hours, if possible, after continual firing
+for more than eight hours at a time. To cool a gun in
+action, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot,
+John Roberts advises sponging "with spunges wet in
+ley and water, or water and vinegar, or with the coolest
+fresh or salt water, bathing and washing her both within
+and without." This process "if the Service is hot, as
+it was with us at Bargen" should be repeated, "every
+eighth or tenth shot." The powder in use for cannon
+was called Ordnance or Corne-powder. It was made
+in the following proportion. To every five pounds of
+refined saltpetre, one pound of good willow, or alder,
+charcoal, and one pound of fine yellow sulphur. The
+ingredients were braised together in a mortar, moistened
+with water distilled of orange rinds, or aqua-vit&aelig;, and
+finally dried and sifted. It was a bright, "tawny blewish
+colour" when well made. Fine powder, for muskets or
+priming seems to have had a greater proportion of
+saltpetre.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Naval Tracts of Sir W. Monson, contain a list of
+the sorts of cannon mounted in ships of the time of
+Queen Elizabeth. It is not exhaustive, but as Robert
+Norton and Sir Jonas Moore give similar lists, the
+curious may check the one with the other.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="cannon types">
+<tr><td></td><td class="center">Bore</td><td class="center">Weight<br />of Cannon</td><td class="center">Weight<br />of Shot</td><td class="center">Weight<br />of Powder</td><td class="center">Point Blank<br />Range</td><td class="center">Random</td><td></td><td class="center">Length<br />in Feet</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td class="center">ins.</td><td class="center">lb.</td><td class="center">lb.</td><td class="center">lb.</td><td class="center">paces</td><td class="center">paces</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Cannon Royal or Double Cannon</td><td>8&frac12;</td><td class="right">8000</td><td class="right">66</td><td class="right">30</td><td class="right">800</td><td class="right">1930</td><td class="center">M.L.</td><td class="right">12</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Cannon or Whole Cannon</td><td>8</td><td class="right">6000</td><td class="right">60</td><td class="right">27</td><td class="right">770</td><td class="right">2000</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">11</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Cannon Serpentine</td><td>7</td><td class="right">5500</td><td class="right">53&frac12;</td><td class="right">25</td><td class="right">200</td><td class="right">2000</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">10</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Bastard Cannon</td><td>7</td><td class="right">4500</td><td class="right">41&frac12;</td><td class="right">20</td><td class="right">180</td><td class="right">1800</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">10</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Demi-Cannon</td><td>6&frac12;-7</td><td class="right">4000</td><td class="right">33&frac12;</td><td class="right">18</td><td class="right">170</td><td class="right">1700</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">10</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Cannon Petro or Cannon Perier</td><td>6</td><td class="right">4000</td><td class="right">24&frac12;</td><td class="right">14</td><td class="right">160</td><td class="right">1600</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Culverin</td><td>5-5&frac12;</td><td class="right">4500</td><td class="right">17&frac12;</td><td class="right">12</td><td class="right">200</td><td class="right">2500</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">13</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Basilisk</td><td>5</td><td class="right">4000</td><td class="right">15</td><td class="right">10</td><td class="right">230</td><td class="right">3000</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Demi-Culverin</td><td>4</td><td class="right">3400</td><td class="right">9&frac12;</td><td class="right">8</td><td class="right">200</td><td class="right">2500</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">11</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Bastard Culverin</td><td>4</td><td class="right">3000</td><td class="right">7</td><td class="right">5&frac34;</td><td class="right">170</td><td class="right">1700</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">11</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Saker</td><td>3&frac12;</td><td class="right">1400</td><td class="right">5&frac12;</td><td class="right">5&frac12;</td><td class="right">170</td><td class="right">1700</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">9 or 10</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Minion</td><td>3&frac12;</td><td class="right">1000</td><td class="right">4</td><td class="right">4</td><td class="right">170</td><td class="right">1700</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Falcon</td><td>2&frac12;</td><td class="right">660</td><td class="right">3</td><td class="right">3</td><td class="right">150</td><td class="right">1500</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">7</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Falconet</td><td>2</td><td class="right">500</td><td class="right">1&frac12;</td><td class="right">1&frac14;</td><td class="right">150</td><td class="right">1500</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">6&frac12;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Serpentine</td><td>1&frac12;</td><td class="right">400</td><td class="right">&frac34;</td><td class="right">&frac34;</td><td class="right">140</td><td class="right">1400</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">4&frac12;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Rabinet</td><td>1</td><td class="right">300</td><td class="right">&frac12;</td><td class="right">&frac12;</td><td class="right">120</td><td class="right">1000</td><td class="center">"</td><td class="right">2&frac12;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>To these may be added bases, port pieces, stock fowlers,
+slings, half slings, and three-quarter slings, breech-loading
+guns ranging from five and a half to one-inch bore.</p>
+
+<p>Other firearms in use in our ships at sea were the
+matchlock musket, firing a heavy double bullet, and
+the harquabuse<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> or arquebus, which fired a single bullet.
+The musket was a heavy weapon, and needed a rest,
+a forked staff, to support the barrel while the soldier
+aimed. This staff the musketeer lashed to his wrist,
+with a cord, so that he might drag it after him from
+place to place. The musket was fired with a match,
+which the soldier lit from a cumbrous pocket fire-carrier.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+The harquabuse was a lighter gun, which was fired without
+a rest, either by a wheel-lock (in which a cog-wheel,
+running on pyrites, caused sparks to ignite the powder),
+or by the match and touch-hole. Hand firearms were
+then common enough, and came to us from Italy, shortly
+after 1540. They were called Daggs. They were wheel-locks,
+wild in firing, short, heavy, and beautifully wrought.
+Sometimes they carried more than one barrel, and in
+some cases they were made revolving. They were most
+useful in a hand-to-hand encounter, as with footpads, or
+boarders; but they were useless at more than ten paces.
+A variation from them was the hand-cannon or blunderbuss,
+with a bell-muzzle, which threw rough slugs or
+nails. In Elizabethan ships the musketeers sometimes
+fired short, heavy, long-headed, pointed iron arrows from
+their muskets, a missile which flew very straight, and
+penetrated good steel armour. They had also an infinity
+of subtle fireworks, granadoes and the like, with which
+to set their opponents on fire. These they fired from the
+bombard pieces, or threw from the tops, or cage-works.
+Crossbows and longbows went to sea, with good store
+of Spanish bolts and arrows, until the end of Elizabeth's
+reign, though they were, perhaps, little used after 1590.
+The gunner had charge of them, and as, in a way, the
+gunner was a sort of second captain, sometimes taking
+command of the ship, we cannot do better than to quote
+from certain old books concerning his duties on board.
+Mr W. Bourne, the son of an eminent mathematician, has
+left a curious little book on "The Arte of Shooting in
+Great Ordnance," first published in London, in 1587,
+the year before the Armada. Its author, W. Bourne,
+was at one time a gunner of the bulwark at Gravesend.
+The art of shooting in great guns did not improve very
+much during the century following; nor did the guns
+change materially. The breech-loading, quick-firing guns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+fell out of use as the musket became more handy; but
+otherwise the province of the gunner changed hardly at
+all. It is not too much to say that gunners of Nelson's
+time, might have studied some of Bourne's book with profit.</p>
+
+<p>"As for gunners that do serve by the Sea, [they] must
+observe this order following. First that they do foresee
+that all their great Ordnannce be fast breeched, and
+foresee that all their geare be handsome and in a readinesse.
+&amp; Furthermore that they be very circumspect about their
+Pouder in the time of service, and especially beware of
+their lint stockes &amp; candels for feare of their Pouder, &amp;
+their fireworks, &amp; their Ducum [or priming powder],
+which is very daungerous, and much to be feared. Then
+furthermore, that you do keep your peeces as neer as
+you can, dry within, and also that you keep their tutch-holes
+cleane, without any kind of drosse falling into them."</p>
+
+<p>The gunners were also to know the "perfect dispart"
+of their pieces: that is they were to make a calculation
+which would enable them in sighting, to bring "the
+hollow of the peece," not the outer muzzle rim, "right
+against the marke." In the case of a breech-loader this
+could not be done by art, with any great exactness,
+"but any reasonable man (when he doth see the peece
+and the Chamber) may easily know what he must doe,
+as touching those matters." In fighting at sea, in anything
+like a storm, with green seas running, so that
+"the Shippes do both heave and set" the gunner was
+to choose a gun abaft the main-mast, on the lower orlop,
+"if the shippe may keepe the porte open," as in that part
+of the vessel the motion would be least apparent.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if you doe make a shotte at another Shippe,
+you must be sure to have a good helme-man, that can
+stirre [steer] steady, taking some marke of a Cloude
+that is above by the Horizon, or by the shadowe of the
+Sunne, or by your standing still, take some marke of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+the other shippe through some hole, or any such other
+like. Then he that giveth levell [takes aim] must observe
+this: first consider what disparte his piece must have,
+then lay the peece directly with that parte of the Shippe
+that he doth meane to shoote at: then if the Shippe bee
+under the lee side of your Shippe, shoote your peece in
+the comming downe of the Gayle, and the beginning of
+the other Ship to rise upon the Sea, as near as you can,
+for this cause, for when the other shippe is aloft upon
+the Sea, and shee under your Lee, the Gayle maketh
+her for to head, and then it is likest to do much good."</p>
+
+<p>The helmsman also was to have an eye to the enemy,
+to luff when she luffed, and "putte roomer," or sail large,
+when he saw her helmsman put the helm up. If the
+enemy made signs that she was about to lay the ship
+aboard, either by loosing more sail, or altering her course,
+the gunner had to remember certain things.</p>
+
+<p>"If the one doe meane to lay the other aboorde, then
+they do call up their company either for to enter or
+to defend: and first, if that they doe meane for to enter
+... then marke where that you doe see anye Scottles
+for to come uppe at, as they will stande neere thereaboutes,
+to the intente for to be readie, for to come uppe under
+the Scottles: there give levell with your Fowlers, or
+Slinges, or Bases, for there you shall be sure to do moste
+good, then further more, if you doe meane for to enter
+him, then give level with your fowlers and Port peeces,
+where you doe see his chiefest fight of his Shippe is,
+and especially be sure to have them charged, and to
+shoote them off at the first boording of the Shippes, for
+then you shall be sure to speede. And furthermore,
+mark where his men have most recourse, then discharge
+your Fowlers and Bases. And furthermore for the annoyance
+of your enemie, if that at the boording that the
+Shippes lye therefore you may take away their steeradge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+with one of your great peeces, that is to shoote at his
+Rother, and furthermore at his mayne maste and so
+foorth."</p>
+
+<p>The ordering of cannon on board a ship was a matter
+which demanded a nice care. The gunner had to see
+that the carriages were so made as to allow the guns
+to lie in the middle of the port. The carriage wheels,
+or trocks, were not to be too high, for if they were too
+high they hindered the mariners, when they ran the
+cannon out in action (<i>Norton</i>, <i>Moore</i>, <i>Bourne</i>, <i>Monson</i>).
+Moreover, if the wheels were very large, and the ship
+were heeled over, the wheel rims would grind the ship's
+side continually, unless large skids were fitted to them.
+And if the wheels were large they gave a greater fierceness
+to the impetus of the recoil, when the piece was
+fired. The ports were to be rather "deepe uppe and
+downe" than broad in the traverse, and it was very
+necessary that the lower port-sill should not be too
+far from the deck, "for then the carriage muste bee
+made verye hygh, and that is verye evill" (<i>Bourne</i>). The
+short cannon were placed low down, at the ship's side,
+because short cannon were more easily run in, and secured,
+when the ports were closed, owing to the ship's heeling,
+or the rising of the sea. A short gun, projecting its
+muzzle through the port, was also less likely to catch
+the outboard tackling of the sails, such as "Sheetes and
+Tackes, or the Bolynes." And for these reasons any very
+long guns were placed astern, or far forward, as bow, or
+stern chasers. It was very necessary that the guns
+placed at the stern should be long guns, for the tall
+poops of the galleons overhung the sea considerably. If
+the gun, fired below the overhang, did not project beyond
+the woodwork, it was liable to "blowe up the Counter
+of the Shyppes Sterne," to the great detriment of gilt
+and paint. Some ships cut their stern ports down to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+the deck, and continued the deck outboard, by a projecting
+platform. The guns were run out on to this
+platform, so that the muzzles cleared the overhang.
+These platforms were the originals of the quarter-galleries,
+in which, some centuries later, the gold-laced
+admirals took the air (<i>Bourne</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Sir Jonas Moore, who published a translation of
+Moretti's book on artillery, in 1683, added to his chapters
+some matter relating to sea-gunners, from the French
+of Denis Furnier.</p>
+
+<p>"The Gunner, whom they call in the <i>Straights Captain</i>,
+<i>Master-Canoneer</i>, and in <i>Bretagne</i> and <i>Spain</i>, and in
+other places <i>Connestable</i>, is one of the principal Officers
+in the Ship; it is he alone with the Captain who can
+command the Gunners. He ought to be a man of
+courage, experience, and vigilant, who knows the goodness
+of a Peece of Ordnance, the force of Powder, and
+who also knows how to mount a Peece of Ordnance
+upon its carriage, and to furnish it with Bolts, Plates,
+Hooks, Capsquares [to fit over the Trunnions on which
+the gun rested] Axletrees and Trucks, and that may
+not reverse too much; to order well its Cordage as
+Breeching [which stopped the recoil] and Tackling [by
+which it was run out or in]; to plant the Cannon to
+purpose in the middle of its Port; to know how to
+unclow<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> it [cast it loose for action], make ready his
+Cartridges, and to have them ready to pass from hand
+to hand through the Hatches, and to employ his most
+careful men in that affair; that he have care of all, that,
+he be ready everywhere to assist where necessity shall
+be; and take care that all be made to purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"He and his Companions [the gunner's mates] ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+with their dark Lanthornes continually to see if the Guns
+play, and if the Rings in Ships do not shake." (That
+is, a strict watch was to be kept, at night, when at sea
+in stormy weather, to see that the cannon did not work
+or break loose, and that the ring-bolts remained firm in
+their places.)</p>
+
+<p>"If there be necessity of more Cordage, and to see
+that the Beds and Coins be firm and in good order;
+when the Ship comes to Anker, he furnisheth Cordage,
+and takes care that all his Companions take their turn
+[stand their watch] and quarters, that continually every
+evening they renew their priming Powder [a horn of
+fine dry powder poured into the touch-holes of loaded
+cannon, to communicate the fire to the charge], and all
+are obliged to visit their Cannon Powder every eight
+dayes, to see if it hath not receiv'd wet, although they
+be well stopped a top with Cork and Tallow; to see
+that the Powder-Room be kept neat and clean, and the
+Cartridges ranged in good order, each nature or Calibre
+by itself, and marked above in great Letters the weight
+of the Powder and nature of the Peece to which it
+belongs, and to put the same mark over the Port-hole
+of the Peece; that the Linstocks [<i>or forked staves of wood,
+about two and a half feet long, on which the match was
+carried</i>] be ready, and furnished with Match [<i>or cotton
+thread, boiled in ashes-lye and powder, and kept smouldering,
+with a red end, when in use</i>], and to have alwaies one
+lighted, and where the Cannoneer makes his Quarter
+to have two one above another below [<i>this last passage
+is a little obscure, but we take it to mean that at night,
+when the gunner slept in his cabin, a lighted match was
+to be beside him, but that in the gun-decks below and above
+his cabin (which was in the half-deck) lit matches were
+to be kept ready for immediate use, by those who kept watch</i>],
+that his Granadoes [<i>black clay, or thick glass bottles,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+filled with priming powder, and fired by a length of tow,
+well soaked in saltpetre water</i>] and Firepots [<i>balls of
+hard tar, sulphur-meal and rosin, kneaded together and
+fired by a priming of bruised powder</i>] be in readiness, and
+3 or 400 Cartridges ready fill'd, Extrees [?] and Trucks
+[<i>wheels</i>] to turn often over the Powder Barrels that the
+Powder do not spoil; to have a care of Rings [<i>ring-bolts</i>]
+and of the Ports [he here means port-lids] that they have
+their Pins and small Rings."</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Monson adds that the gunner was to
+acquaint himself with the capacities of every known sort
+of firearm, likely to be used at sea. He also gives some
+professional hints for the guidance of gunners. He tells
+us (and Sir Richard Hawkins confirms him) that no sea-cannon
+ought to be more than seven or eight feet long;
+that they ought not to be taper-bored, nor honey-combed
+within the bore, and that English ordnance, the best in
+Europe, was sold in his day for twelve pounds a ton.</p>
+
+<p>In Boteler's time the gunner commanded a gang, or
+crew, who ate and slept in the gun-room, which seems
+in those days to have been the magazine. He had to
+keep a careful account of the expenditure of his munitions,
+and had orders "not to make any shot without
+the Knowledge and order of the captain."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Authorities.</i>&mdash;N. Boteler: "Six Dialogues." W. Bourne: "The Art
+of Shooting in Great Ordnance"; "Regiment for the Sea"; "Mariner's
+Guide." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir Jonas Moore. R. Norton:
+"The Gunner." John Roberts: "Complete Cannoneer."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHIP'S COMPANY</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Captain&mdash;Master&mdash;Lieutenant&mdash;Warrant officers&mdash;Duties and
+privileges</p></div>
+
+
+<p>By comparing Sir Richard Hawkins' "Observations"
+and Sir W. Monson's "Tracts" with Nicolas Boteler's
+"Dialogical Discourses," we find that the duties of ship's
+officers changed hardly at all from the time of the Armada
+to the death of James I. Indeed they changed hardly at
+all until the coming of the steamship. In modern sailing
+ships the duties of some of the supernumeraries are almost
+exactly as they were three centuries ago.</p>
+
+<p>The captain was the supreme head of the ship, empowered
+to displace any inferior officer except the master
+(<i>Monson</i>). He was not always competent to navigate
+(<i>ibid.</i>), but as a rule he had sufficient science to check
+the master's calculations. He was expected to choose his
+own lieutenant (<i>ibid.</i>), to keep a muster-book, and a
+careful account of the petty officer's stores (<i>Monson</i> and
+<i>Sir Richard Hawkins</i>), and to punish any offences committed
+by his subordinates.</p>
+
+<p>A lieutenant seems to have been unknown in ships of
+war until the early seventeenth century. He ranked
+above the master, and acted as the captain's proxy, or
+ambassador, "upon any occasion of Service" (<i>Monson</i>).
+In battle he commanded on the forecastle, and in the
+forward half of the ship. He was restrained from meddling
+with the master's duties, lest "Mischiefs and factions"
+should ensue. Boteler adds that a lieutenant ought not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+to be "too fierce in his Way at first ... but to carry
+himself with Moderation and Respect to the Master
+Gunner, Boatswain, and the other Officers."</p>
+
+<p>The master was the ship's navigator, responsible for
+the performance of "the ordinary Labours in the ship."
+He took the height of the sun or stars "with his Astrolabe,
+Backstaff or Jacob's-staff" (<i>Boteler</i>). He saw that the
+watches were kept at work, and had authority to punish
+misdemeanants (<i>Monson</i>). Before he could hope for
+employment he had to go before the authorities at Trinity
+House, to show his "sufficiency" in the sea arts (<i>Monson</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The pilot, or coaster, was junior to the master; but
+when he was bringing the vessel into port, or over sands,
+or out of danger, the master had no authority to interfere
+with him (<i>Monson</i>). He was sometimes a permanent
+official, acting as junior navigator when the ship was out
+of soundings (<i>Hawkins</i>), but more generally he was employed
+temporarily, as at present, to bring a ship into or
+out of port (<i>Monson</i> and <i>Boteler</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The ship's company was drilled by a sort of junior
+lieutenant (<i>Boteler</i>), known as the corporal, who was something
+between a master-at-arms and a captain of marines.
+He had charge of the small arms, and had to see to it that
+the bandoliers for the musketmen were always filled with
+dry cartridges, and that the muskets and "matches" were
+kept neat and ready for use in the armoury (<i>Monson</i>). He
+drilled the men in the use of their small arms, and also
+acted as muster master at the setting and relieving of the
+watch.</p>
+
+<p>The gunner, whose duties we have described at length,
+was privileged to alter the ship's course in action, and may
+even have taken command during a chase, or running
+fight. He was assisted by his mates, who commanded the
+various batteries while in action, and aimed and fired
+according to his directions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boatswain, the chief seaman of the crew, was
+generally an old sailor who had been much at sea, and
+knew the whole art of seamanship. He had charge of all
+the sea-stores, and "all the Ropes belonging to the Rigging
+[more especially the fore-rigging], all her Cables, and
+Anchors; all her Sayls, all her Flags, Colours, and
+Pendants;<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> and so to stand answerable for them" (<i>Boteler</i>).
+He was captain of the long boat, which was stowed on
+the booms or spare spars between the fore and main
+masts. He had to keep her guns clean, her oars, mast,
+sails, stores, and water ready for use, and was at all times
+to command and steer her when she left the ship
+(<i>Hawkins</i>). He carried a silver whistle, or call, about his
+neck, which he piped in various measures before repeating
+the master's orders (<i>Monson</i>). The whistle had a ball at
+one end, and was made curved, like a letter S laid
+sideways. The boatswain, when he had summoned all
+hands to their duty, was expected to see that they worked
+well. He kept them quiet, and "at peace one with
+another," probably by knocking together the heads of
+those disposed to quarrel. Lastly, he was the ship's
+executioner, his mates acting as assistants, and at his
+hands, under the supervision of the marshal, the crew
+received their "red-checked shirts," and such bilboed
+solitude as the captain might direct.</p>
+
+<p>The coxswain was the commander of the captain's
+row barge which he had to keep clean, freshly painted
+and gilded, and fitted with the red and white flag&mdash;"and
+when either the Captain or any Person of Fashion is to
+use the Boat, or be carryed too and again from the Ship,
+he is to have the Boat trimmed with her Cushions and
+Carpet and himself is to be ready to steer her out of
+her Stern [in the narrow space behind the back board
+of the stern-sheets] and with his Whistle to chear up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+and direct his Gang of Rowers, and to keep them together
+when they are to wait: and this is the lowest Officer in a
+Ship, that is allowed to carry a Whistle" (<i>Boteler</i>). The
+coxswain had to stay in his barge when she towed astern
+at sea, and his office, therefore, was often very wretched,
+from the cold and wet. He had to see that his boat's
+crew were at all times clean in their persons, and dressed
+alike, in as fine a livery as could be managed (<i>Monson</i>).
+He was to choose them from the best men in the ship,
+from the "able and handsome men" (<i>Monson</i>). He had
+to instruct them to row together, and to accustom the
+port oarsmen to pull starboard from time to time. He
+also kept his command well caulked, and saw the chocks
+and skids secure when his boat was hoisted to the deck.</p>
+
+<p>The quartermasters and their mates had charge of
+the hold (<i>Monson</i>), and kept a sort of check upon the
+steward in his "delivery of the Victuals to the Cook,
+and in his pumping and drawing of the Beer" (<i>Boteler</i>).
+In far later times they seem to have been a rating of
+elderly and sober seamen who took the helm, two and
+two together, in addition to their other duties. In the
+Elizabethan ship they superintended the stowage of the
+ballast, and were in charge below, over the ballast shifters,
+when the ships were laid on their sides to be scraped
+and tallowed. They also had to keep a variety of fish
+hooks ready, in order to catch any fish, such as sharks
+or bonitos.</p>
+
+<p>The purser was expected to be "an able Clerk"
+(<i>Monson</i>) for he had to keep an account of all provisions
+received from the victualler. He kept the ship's muster-book,
+with some account of every man borne upon it.
+He made out passes, or pay-tickets for discharged men
+(<i>ibid.</i>), and, according to <i>Boteler</i>, he was able "to purse
+up roundly for himself" by dishonest dealing. The purser
+(<i>Boteler</i> says the cook) received 6d. a month from every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+seaman, for "Wooden Dishes, Cans, Candles, Lanthorns,
+and Candlesticks for the Hold" (<i>Monson</i>). It was also
+his office to superintend the steward, in the serving out
+of the provisions and other necessaries to the crew.</p>
+
+<p>The steward was the purser's deputy (<i>Monson</i>). He
+had to receive "the full Mass of Victual of all kinds,"
+and see it well stowed in the hold, the heavy things
+below, the light things up above (<i>Boteler</i>). He had
+charge of all the candles, of which those old dark ships
+used a prodigious number. He kept the ship's biscuits
+or bread, in the bread-room, a sort of dark cabin below
+the gun-deck. He lived a life of comparative retirement,
+for there was a "several part in the Hold, which is called
+the Steward's room, where also he Sleeps and Eats"
+(<i>Boteler</i>). He weighed out the provisions for the crew,
+"to the several Messes in the Ship," and was cursed, no
+doubt, by every mariner, for a cheating rogue in league
+with the purser. Though Hawkins tells us that it was
+his duty "with discretion and good tearmes to give
+satisfaction to all."</p>
+
+<p>The cook did his office in a cook-room, or galley, placed
+in the forecastle or "in the Hatchway upon the first
+Orlope" (<i>Boteler</i>). The floor of the galley was not at
+that time paved with brick or stone, as in later days, and
+now. It was therefore very liable to take fire, especially
+in foul weather, when the red embers were shaken from
+the ash-box of the range. It was the cook's duty to take
+the provisions from the steward, both flesh and fish, and
+to cook them, by boiling, until they were taken from him
+(<i>Monson</i>). It was the cook's duty to steep the salt meat
+in water for some days before using, as the meat was
+thus rendered tender and fit for human food (<i>Smith</i>).
+He had the rich perquisite of the ship's fat, which went
+into his slush tubs, to bring him money from the candlemakers.
+The firewood he used was generally green, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+not wet, so that when he lit his fire of a morning, he
+fumigated the fo'c's'le with bitter smoke. It was his duty
+to pour water on his fire as soon as the guns were cast
+loose for battle. Every day, for the saving of firewood,
+and for safety, he had to extinguish his fire directly the
+dinner had been cooked, nor was he allowed to relight it,
+"but in case of necessity, as ... when the Cockswain's
+Gang came wet aboard" (<i>Monson</i>). He would allow his
+cronies in the forenoons to dry their wet gear at his fire,
+and perhaps allow them, in exchange for a bite or sup,
+to cook any fish they caught, or heat a can of drink.</p>
+
+<p>Another supernumerary was the joiner, a rating only
+carried in the seventeenth century on great ships with
+much fancy work about the poop. He it was who
+repaired the gilt carvings in the stern-works, and made
+the bulkheads for the admiral's cabin. He was a
+decorator and beautifier, not unlike the modern painter,
+but he was to be ready at all times to knock up lockers
+for the crew, to make boxes and chests for the gunner, and
+bulkheads, of thin wood, to replace those broken by the
+seas. As a rule the work of the joiner was done by the
+carpenter, a much more important person, who commanded
+some ten or twelve junior workmen. The
+carpenter was trusted with the pumps, both hand and
+chain, and with the repairing of the woodwork throughout
+the vessel. He had to be super-excellent in his profession,
+for a wooden ship was certain to tax his powers. She was
+always out of repair, always leaking, always springing her
+spars. In the summer months, if she were not being
+battered by the sea, she was getting her timber split
+by cannon-shot. In the winter months, when laid up
+and dismantled in the dockyard, she was certain to need
+new planks, beams, inner fittings and spars (<i>Hawkins</i>).
+The carpenter had to do everything for her, often with
+grossly insufficient means, and it was of paramount<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+importance that his work-room in the orlop should be
+fitted with an excellent tool chest. He had to provide
+the "spare Pieces of Timber wherewith to make Fishes,
+for to strengthen and succour the Masts." He had to
+superintend the purchase of a number of spare yards,
+already tapered, and bound with iron, to replace those
+that "should chance to be broken." He was to see these
+lashed to the ship's sides, within board, or stopped in the
+rigging (<i>Monson</i> and <i>Boteler</i>). He had to have all manner
+of gudgeons for the rudder, every sort of nuts or washers
+for the pumps, and an infinity of oakum, sheet lead, soft
+wood, spare canvas, tallow, and the like, with which to
+stop leaks, or to caulk the seams. In his stores he took
+large quantities of lime, horse hair, alum, and thin felt
+with which to wash and sheathe the ship's bottom planking
+(<i>Monson</i>). The alum was often dissolved in water,
+and splashed over spars and sails, before a battle, as it
+was supposed to render them non-inflammable. It was
+his duty, moreover, to locate leaks, either by observing the
+indraught (which was a tedious way), or by placing his ear
+to a little earthen pot inverted against one of the planks
+in the hold. This little pot caused him to hear the water
+as it gurgled in, and by moving it to and fro he could
+locate the hole with considerable certainty (<i>Boteler</i>). He
+had to rig the pumps for the sailors, and to report to the
+captain the depth of water the ship made daily. The
+pumps were of two kinds, one exactly like that in use on
+shore, the other, of the same principle, though more
+powerful. The second kind was called the chain-pump,
+because "these Pumps have a Chain of Burs going in a
+Wheel." They were worked with long handles, called
+brakes (because they broke sailor's hearts), and some ten
+men might pump at one spell. The water was discharged
+on to the deck, which was slightly rounded, so that it ran
+to the ship's side, into a graved channel called the trough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+or scuppers, from which it fell overboard through the
+scupper-holes, bored through the ship's side. These
+scupper-holes were bored by the carpenter. They slanted
+obliquely downwards and were closed outside by a hinged
+flap of leather, which opened to allow water to escape, and
+closed to prevent water from entering (<i>Maynwaring</i>).
+Each deck had a number of scupper-holes, but they
+were all of small size. There was nothing to take the
+place of the big swinging-ports fitted to modern iron
+sailing ships, to allow the green seas to run overboard.</p>
+
+<p>The cooper was another important supernumerary. He
+had to oversee the stowing of all the casks, and to make,
+or repair, or rehoop, such casks as had to be made or
+repaired. He had to have a special eye to the great water
+casks, that they did not leak; binding them securely with
+iron hoops, and stowing them with dunnage, so that they
+might not shift. He was put in charge of watering parties,
+to see the casks filled at the springs, to fit them, when
+full, with their bungs, and to superintend their embarkation
+and stowage (<i>Monson</i> and <i>Boteler</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The trumpeter was an attendant upon the captain,
+and had to sound his silver trumpet when that great man
+entered or left the ship (<i>Monson</i>). "Also when you hale
+a ship, when you charge, board, or enter her; and the
+Poop is his place to stand or sit upon." If the ship carried
+a "noise," that is a band, "they are to attend him, if there
+be not, every one he doth teach to bear a part, the Captain
+is to encourage him, by increasing his Shares, or pay, and
+give the Master Trumpeter a reward." When a prince,
+or an admiral, came on board, the trumpeter put on a
+tabard, of brilliant colours, and hung his silver instrument
+with a heavy cloth of the same. He was to blow a blast
+from the time the visitor was sighted until his barge came
+within 100 fathoms of the ship. "At what time the
+Trumpets are to cease, and all such as carry Whistles are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
+to Whistle his Welcome three several times." As the gilt
+and gorgeous row boat drew alongside, the trumpets
+sounded a point of welcome, and had then to stand about
+the cabin door, playing their best, while the great man ate
+his sweetmeats. As he rowed away again, the trumpeter,
+standing on the poop, blew out "A loath to depart," a sort
+of ancient "good-bye, fare you well," such as sailors sing
+nowadays as they get their anchors for home. In battle
+the trumpeter stood upon the poop, dressed in his glory,
+blowing brave blasts to hearten up the gunners. In hailing
+a friendly ship, in any meeting on the seas, it was
+customary to "salute with Whistles and Trumpets, and
+the Ship's Company give a general shout on both sides."
+When the anchor was weighed, the trumpeter sounded
+a merry music, to cheer the workers. At dinner each
+night he played in the great cabin, while the captain
+drank his wine. At the setting and discharging of the
+watch he had to sound a solemn point, for which duty he
+received an extra can of beer (<i>Monson</i> and <i>Boteler</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The crew, or mariners, were divided into able seamen,
+ordinary seamen, grummets, or cabin-boys, ship-boys and
+swabbers. Swabbers were the weakest men of the crew;
+men, who were useless aloft, or at the guns, and therefore
+set to menial and dirty duties. They were the ship's
+scavengers, and had much uncleanly business to see to.
+Linschoten, describing a Portuguese ship's company,
+dismisses them with three contemptuous words, "the
+swabers pump"; but alas, that was but the first duty of
+your true swabber. Boteler, writing in the reign of James
+I., gives him more than half-a-page, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Office of the Swabber is to see the Ship Kept
+neat and clean, and that as well in the great Cabbin as
+everywhere else betwixt the Decks; to which end he is,
+at the least once or twice a week, if not every day, to
+cause the Ship to be well washed within Board and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+without above Water, and especially about the Gunwalls
+[Gunwales or gunnels, over which the guns once
+pointed] and the Chains and for prevention of Infection,
+to burn sometimes Pitch, or the like wholsom perfumes,
+between the Decks: He is also to have a regard to every
+private Man's Sleeping-place; (to clean the cabins of the
+petty officers in the nether orlop), and to admonish them
+all in general [it being dangerous perhaps, in a poor
+swabber, to admonish in particular] to be cleanly and
+handsom, and to complain to the Captain, of all such
+as will be any way nastie and offensive that way. Surely,
+if this Swabber doth thoroughly take care to discharge
+this his charge I easily believe that he may have his
+hands full, and especially if there chance to be any number
+of Landmen aboard."</p>
+
+<p>Under the swabber there was a temporary rate known
+as the liar. He had to keep the ship clean "without
+board," in the head, chains, and elsewhere. He held his
+place but for a week. "He that is first taken with a Lie
+upon a <i>Monday</i> morning, is proclaimed at the Main-Mast
+with a general Crie, <i>a Liar, a Liar, a Liar</i>, and for that
+week he is under the Swabber" (<i>Monson</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The able seamen, or oldest and most experienced hands,
+did duty about the decks and guns, in the setting up and
+preservation of the rigging, and in the trimming of the
+braces, sheets, and bowlines. The ordinary seamen,
+younkers, grummets, and ship-boys, did the work aloft,
+furled and loosed the sails, and did the ordinary, never-ceasing
+work of sailors. They stood "watch and watch"
+unless the weather made it necessary for all to be on
+deck, and frequently they passed four hours of each day
+in pumping the leakage from the well. They wore no
+uniform, but perhaps some captains gave a certain uniformity
+to the clothes of their crews by taking slop
+chests to sea, and selling clothes of similar patterns to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+the seamen. In the navy, where the crews were pressed,
+the clothes worn must have been of every known cut
+and fashion, though no doubt all the pressed men contrived
+to get tarred canvas coats before they had been
+many days aboard.</p>
+
+<p>The bodies and souls of the seamen were looked after;
+a chaplain being carried for the one, and a chirurgeon, or
+doctor, for the other. The chaplain had to read prayers
+twice or thrice daily, to the whole ship's company, who
+stood or knelt reverently as he read. He had to lead
+in the nightly psalms, to reprove all evil-doers, and to
+exhort the men to their duty. Especially was he to
+repress all blasphemy and swearing. He was to celebrate
+the Holy Communion whenever it was most convenient.
+He was to preach on Sunday, to visit the sick; and, in
+battle, to console the wounded. Admirals, and peers in
+command of ships, had the privilege of bringing to sea
+their own private chaplains.</p>
+
+<p>The chirurgeon had to bring on board his own instruments
+and medicines, and to keep them ready to hand
+in his cabin beneath the gun-deck, out of all possible
+reach of shot. He was expected to know his business,
+and to know the remedies for those ailments peculiar to
+the lands for which the ship intended. He had to produce
+a certificate from "able men of his profession," to show
+that he was fit to be employed. An assistant, or servant,
+was allowed him, and neither he, nor his servant did any
+duty outside the chirurgeon's province (<i>Monson</i>).</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHOOSING OF WATCHES</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The petty tally&mdash;Food&mdash;Work&mdash;Punishments</p></div>
+
+
+<p>As soon as an ancient ship of war was fitted for the
+sea, with her guns on board, and mounted, her
+sails bent, her stores and powder in the hold, her water
+filled, her ballast trimmed, and the hands aboard, some
+"steep-tubs" were placed in the chains for the steeping
+of the salt provisions, "till the salt be out though not the
+saltness." The anchor was then weighed to a note of
+music. The "weeping Rachells and mournefull Niobes"
+were set packing ashore. The colours were run up and
+a gun fired. The foresail was loosed. The cable rubbed
+down as it came aboard (so that it might not be faked
+into the tiers wet or dirty). The boat was hoisted inboard.
+The master "took his departure," by observing the bearing
+of some particular point of land, as the Mew Stone, the
+Start, the Lizard, etc. Every man was bidden to "say
+his private prayer for a bonne voyage." The anchor
+was catted and fished. Sails were set and trimmed. Ropes
+were coiled down clear for running, and the course laid
+by the master.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a name="img384" id="img384"></a>
+<a href="images/384.jpg"><img src="images/384_th.jpg" width="400" height="270"
+alt="THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS; CIRCA 1630"
+title="THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS" /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS<br />
+CIRCA 1630</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The captain or master then ordered the boatswain
+"to call up the company," just as all hands are mustered
+on modern sailing ships at the beginning of a voyage.
+The master "being Chief of the Starboard Watch" would
+then look over the mariners for a likely man. Having
+made his choice he bade the man selected go over to
+the starboard side, while the commander of the port-watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>
+made his choice. When all the men had been chosen,
+and the crew "divided into two parts," then each man
+was bidden to choose "his Mate, Consort or Comrade."
+The bedding arrangements of these old ships were very
+primitive. The officers had their bunks or hammocks
+in their cabins, but the men seem to have slept wherever
+and however they could. Some, no doubt had hammocks,
+but the greater number lay in their cloaks between the
+guns, on mattresses if they had them. A man shared
+his bed and bedding (if he had any) with his "Mate,
+Consort, or Comrade," so that the one bed and bedding
+served for the pair. One of the two friends was always
+on deck while the other slept. In some ships at the
+present time the forecastles are fitted with bunks for
+only half the number of seamen carried, so that the
+practice is not yet dead. The boatswain, with all "the
+Younkers or Common Sailors" then went forward of the
+main-mast to take up their quarters between decks. The
+captain, master's mates, gunners, carpenters, quartermasters,
+etc., lodged abaft the main-mast "in their severall
+Cabbins." The next thing to be done was the arrangement
+of the ship's company into messes, "four to a mess,"
+after which the custom was to "give every messe a quarter
+Can of beere and a bisket of bread to stay their stomacks
+till the kettle be boiled." In the first dog-watch, from
+4 to 6 <span class="smcap lowercase">P.M.</span>, all hands went to prayers about the main-mast,
+and from their devotions to supper. At 6 <span class="smcap lowercase">P.M.</span> the company
+met again to sing a psalm, and say their prayers,
+before the setting of the night watch; this psalm singing
+being the prototype of the modern sea-concert, or singsong.
+At 8 <span class="smcap lowercase">P.M.</span> the first night watch began, lasting until
+midnight, during which four hours half the ship's company
+were free to sleep. At midnight the sleepers were
+called on deck, to relieve the watch. The watches were
+changed as soon as the muster had been called and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+psalm sung, and a prayer offered. They alternated thus
+throughout the twenty-four hours, each watch having
+four hours below, after four hours on deck, unless "some
+flaw of winde come, some storm or gust, or some accident
+that requires the help of all hands." In these cases the
+whole ship's company remained on deck until the work
+was done, or until the master discharged the watch below.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
+The decks were washed down by the swabbers every
+morning, before the company went to breakfast. After
+breakfast the men went about their ordinary duties, cleaning
+the ship, mending rigging, or working at the thousand
+odd jobs the sailing of a ship entails. The tops were
+always manned by lookouts, who received some small
+reward if they spied a prize. The guns were sometimes
+exercised, and all hands trained to general quarters.</p>
+
+<p>A few captains made an effort to provide for the comfort
+of their men by laying in a supply of "bedding,
+linnen, arms<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> and apparel." In some cases they also
+provided what was called the petty tally, or store of
+medical comforts. "The Sea-man's Grammar" of Captain
+John Smith, from which we have been quoting, tells us
+that the petty tally contained:</p>
+
+<p>"Fine wheat flower close and well-packed, Rice, Currants,
+Sugar, Prunes, Cynamon, Ginger, Pepper, Cloves, Green
+Ginger, Oil, Butter, Holland cheese or old Cheese, Wine-Vinegar,
+Canarie-Sack, Aqua-vit&aelig;, the best Wines, the
+best Waters, the juyce of Limons for the scurvy, white
+Bisket, Oatmeal, Gammons of Bacons, dried Neats
+tongues, Beef packed up in Vineger, Legs of Mutton
+minced and stewed, and close packed up, with tried Sewet
+or Butter in earthen Pots. To entertain Strangers
+Marmalade, Suckets, Almonds, Comfits and such like."</p>
+
+<p>"Some," says the author of this savoury list, "will say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
+I would have men rather to feast than to fight. But I
+say the want of those necessaries occasions the loss of
+more men than in any English Fleet hath been slain since
+88. For when a man is ill, or at the point of death, I
+would know whether a dish of buttered Rice with a little
+Cynamon, Ginger and Sugar, a little minced meat, or
+rost Beef, a few stew'd Prunes, a race of green Ginger,
+a Flap-jack, a Kan of fresh water brewed with a little
+Cynamon and Sugar be not better than a little poor
+John, or salt fish, with Oil and Mustard, or Bisket, Butter,
+Cheese, or Oatmeal-pottage on Fish-dayes, or on Flesh-dayes,
+Salt, Beef, Pork and Pease, with six shillings beer,
+this is your ordinary ship's allowance, and good for them
+are well if well conditioned [not such bad diet for a healthy
+man if of good quality] which is not alwayes as Sea-men
+can [too well] witnesse. And after a storme, when poor
+men are all wet, and some have not so much as a cloth
+to shift them, shaking with cold, few of those but will
+tell you a little Sack or Aqua-vit&aelig; is much better to
+keep them in health, than a little small Beer, or cold
+water although it be sweet. Now that every one should
+provide for himself, few of them have either that providence
+or means, and there is neither Ale-house, Tavern,
+nor Inne to burn a faggot in, neither Grocer, Poulterer,
+Apothecary nor Butcher's Shop, and therefore the use
+of this petty Tally is necessary, and thus to be employed
+as there is occasion."</p>
+
+<p>The entertainment of strangers, with "Almonds, Comfits
+and such like," was the duty of a sea-captain, for
+"every Commander should shew himself as like himself
+as he can," and, "therefore I leave it to their own Discretion,"
+to supply suckets for the casual guest. In those
+days, when sugar was a costly commodity, a sucket was
+more esteemed than now. At sea, when the food was
+mostly salt, it must certainly have been a great dainty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The "allowance" or ration to the men was as follows<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Each man and boy received one pound of bread or biscuit
+daily, with a gallon of beer. The beer was served
+out four times daily, a quart at a time, in the morning,
+at dinner, in the afternoon, and at supper. On Sundays,
+Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which were flesh
+days, the allowance of meat was either one pound of
+salt beef, or one pound of salt pork with pease. On
+Wednesdays and Saturdays, a side of salt-fish, ling,
+haberdine, or cod, was divided between the members of
+each mess, while a seven-ounce ration of butter (or olive
+oil) and a fourteen-ounce ration of cheese, was served to
+each man. On Fridays, or fast days, this allowance was
+halved. At one time the sailors were fond of selling
+or playing away their rations, but this practice was
+stopped in the reign of Elizabeth, and the men forced
+to take their food "orderly and in due season" under
+penalties. Prisoners taken during the cruise were allowed
+two-thirds of the above allowance.</p>
+
+<p>The allowance quoted above appears liberal, but it must
+be remembered that the sailors were messed "six upon
+four," and received only two-thirds of the full ration. The
+quality of the food was very bad. The beer was the very
+cheapest of small beer, and never kept good at sea, owing
+to the continual motion of the ship. It became acid, and
+induced dysentery in those who drank it, though it was
+sometimes possible to rebrew it after it had once gone
+sour. The water, which was carried in casks, was also
+far from wholesome. After storing, for a day or two, it
+generally became offensive, so that none could drink it.
+In a little while this offensiveness passed off, and it might
+then be used, though the casks bred growths of an unpleasant
+sliminess, if the water remained in them for more
+than a month. However water was not regarded as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>
+drink for human beings until the beer was spent. The
+salt meat was as bad as the beer, or worse. Often
+enough the casks were filled with lumps of bone and fat
+which were quite uneatable, and often the meat was so
+lean, old, dry and shrivelled that it was valueless as food.
+The victuallers often killed their animals in the heat of
+the summer, when the meat would not take salt, so that
+many casks must have been unfit for food after lying for
+a week in store. Anti-scorbutics were supplied, or not
+supplied, at the discretion of the captains. It appears
+that the sailors disliked innovations in their food, and
+rejected the substitution of beans, flour "and those white
+Meats as they are called" for the heavy, and innutritious
+pork and beef. Sailors were always great sticklers for
+their "Pound and Pint," and Boteler tells us that in the
+early seventeenth century "the common Sea-men with
+us, are so besotted on their Beef and Pork, as they had
+rather adventure on all the Calentures, and Scarbots
+[scurvy] in the World, than to be weaned from their
+Customary Diet, or so much as to lose the least Bit
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>The salt-fish ration was probably rather better than the
+meat, but the cheese was nearly always very bad, and of
+an abominable odour. The butter was no better than
+the cheese. It was probably like so much train-oil. The
+bread or biscuit which was stowed in bags in the bread-room
+in the hold, soon lost its hardness at sea, becoming
+soft and wormy, so that the sailors had to eat it in the
+dark. The biscuits, or cakes of bread, seem to have been
+current coin with many of the West Indian natives. In
+those ships where flour was carried, in lieu of biscuit, as
+sometimes happened in cases of emergency, the men
+received a ration of doughboy, a sort of dumpling of
+wetted flour boiled with pork fat. This was esteemed a
+rare delicacy either eaten plain or with butter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This diet was too lacking in variety, and too destitute
+of anti-scorbutics to support the mariners in health. The
+ships in themselves were insanitary, and the crews
+suffered very much from what they called calentures,
+(or fevers such as typhus and typhoid), and the scurvy.
+The scurvy was perhaps the more common ailment, as
+indeed it is to-day. It is now little dreaded, for its
+nature is understood, and guarded against. In the sixteenth,
+seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, it killed
+its thousands, owing to the ignorance and indifference
+of responsible parties, and to other causes such as the
+construction of the ships and the length of the voyages.
+A salt diet, without fresh vegetables, and without variety,
+is a predisposing cause of scurvy. Exposure to cold and
+wet, and living in dirty surroundings are also predisposing
+causes. The old wooden ships were seldom very clean,
+and never dry, and when once the scurvy took hold it
+generally raged until the ship reached port, where fresh
+provisions could be purchased. A wooden ship was never
+quite dry, in any weather, for the upper-deck planks, and
+the timbers of her topsides, could never be so strictly
+caulked that no water could leak in. The sea-water
+splashed in through the scuppers and through the ports,
+or leaked in, a little at a time, through the seams. In
+bad weather the lower gun-decks (or all decks below
+the spar-deck) were more or less awash, from seas that
+had washed down the hatchways. The upper-deck seams
+let in the rain, and when once the lower-decks were wet
+it was very difficult to dry them. It was impossible to
+close the gun-deck ports so as to make them watertight,
+for the water would find cracks to come in at, even though
+the edges of the lids were caulked with oakum, and the
+orifices further barred by deadlights or wooden shutters.
+Many of the sailors, as we have seen, were without a
+change of clothes, and with no proper sleeping-place, save<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+the wet deck and the wet jackets that they worked in. It
+often happened that the gun-ports would be closed for
+several weeks together, during which time the gun-decks
+became filthy and musty, while the sailors contracted all
+manner of cramps and catarrhs. In addition to the wet,
+and the discomfort of such a life, there was also the work,
+often extremely laborious, incidental to heavy weather at
+sea. What with the ceaseless handling of sails and ropes,
+in frost and snow and soaking sea-water; and the continual
+pumping out of the leaks the rotten seams admitted,
+the sailor had little leisure in which to sleep, or to dry
+himself. When he left the deck he had only the dark,
+wet berth-deck to retire to, a place of bleakness and
+misery, where he might share a sopping blanket, if he
+had one, with the corpse of a drowned rat and the flotsam
+from the different messes. There was no getting dry nor
+warm, though the berth-deck might be extremely close
+and stuffy from lack of ventilation. The cook-room, or
+galley fire would not be lighted, and there would be no
+comforting food or drink, nothing but raw meat and
+biscuit, and a sup of sour beer. It was not more unpleasant
+perhaps than life at sea is to-day, but it was
+certainly more dangerous.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> When at last the storm
+abated and the sea went down, the ports were opened
+and the decks cleaned. The sailors held a general washing-day,
+scrubbing the mouldy clothes that had been
+soaked so long, and hanging them to dry about the
+rigging. Wind-sails or canvas ventilators were rigged,
+to admit air to the lowest recesses of the hold. The
+decks were scrubbed down with a mixture of vinegar
+and sand, and then sluiced with salt water, scraped with
+metal scrapers, and dried with swabs and small portable
+firepots. Vinegar was carried about the decks in large
+iron pots, and converted into vapour by the insertion of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>
+red-hot metal bars. The swabbers brought pans of burning
+pitch or brimstone into every corner, so that the
+smoke might penetrate everywhere. But even then the
+decks were not wholesome. There were spaces under
+the guns which no art could dry, and subtle leaks in
+the topsides that none could stop. The hold accumulated
+filth, for in many ships the ship's refuse was swept on
+to the ballast, where it bred pestilence, typhus fever and
+the like. The bilge-water reeked and rotted in the bilges,
+filling the whole ship with its indescribable stench.
+Beetles, rats and cockroaches bred and multiplied in
+the crannies, until (as in Captain Cook's case two centuries
+later), they made life miserable for all on board. These
+wooden ships were very gloomy abodes, and would have
+been so no doubt even had they been dry and warm.
+They were dark, and the lower-deck, where most of the
+men messed, was worse lit than the decks above it, for
+being near to the water-line the ports could seldom be
+opened. Only in very fair weather could the sailors have
+light and sun below decks. As a rule they ate and slept
+in a murky, stuffy atmosphere, badly lighted by candles
+in heavy horn lanthorns. The gloom of the ships must
+have weighed heavily upon many of the men, and the
+depression no doubt predisposed them to scurvy, making
+them less attentive to bodily cleanliness, and less ready to
+combat the disease when it attacked them. Perhaps some
+early sea-captains tried to make the between decks less
+gloomy by whitewashing the beams, bulkheads and ship's
+sides. In the eighteenth century this seems to have been
+practised with success, though perhaps the captains who
+tried it were more careful of their hands in other ways, and
+the benefit may have been derived from other causes.</p>
+
+<p>Discipline was maintained by some harsh punishments,
+designed to "tame the most rude and savage people in
+the world." Punishment was inflicted at the discretion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
+of the captain, directly after the hearing of the case, but
+the case was generally tried the day after the commission
+of the offence, so that no man should be condemned in
+hot blood. The most common punishment was that of
+flogging, the men being stripped to the waist, tied to
+the main-mast or to a capstan bar, and flogged upon
+the bare back with a whip or a "cherriliccum." The
+boatswain had power to beat the laggards and the ship's
+boys with a cane, or with a piece of knotted rope. A
+common punishment was to put the offender on half his
+allowance, or to stop his meat, or his allowance of wine
+or spirits. For more heinous offences there was the very
+barbarous punishment of keel-hauling, by which the
+victim was dragged from the main yardarm right under
+the keel of the ship, across the barnacles, to the yardarm
+on the farther side. Those who suffered this
+punishment were liable to be cut very shrewdly by the
+points of the encrusted shells. Ducking from the main
+yardarm was inflicted for stubbornness, laziness, going on
+shore without leave, or sleeping while on watch. The
+malefactor was brought to the gangway, and a rope
+fastened under his arms and about his middle. He was
+then hoisted rapidly up to the main yardarm, "from
+whence he is violently let fall into the Sea, some times
+twice, some times three severall times, one after another"
+(<i>Boteler</i>). This punishment, and keel-hauling, were made
+more terrible by the discharge of a great gun over the
+malefactor's head as he struck the water, "which proveth
+much offensive to him" (<i>ibid.</i>). If a man killed another
+he was fastened to the corpse and flung overboard (<i>Laws
+of Oleron</i>). For drawing a weapon in a quarrel, or in
+mutiny, the offender lost his right hand (<i>ibid.</i>). Theft
+was generally punished with flogging, but in serious cases
+the thief was forced to run the gauntlet, between two
+rows of sailors all armed with thin knotted cords. Duck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>ing
+from the bowsprit end, towing in a rope astern, and
+marooning, were also practised as punishments for the
+pilferer. For sleeping on watch there was a graduated
+scale. First offenders were soused with a bucket of water.
+For the second offence they were tied up by the wrists,
+and water was poured down their sleeves. For the third
+offence they were tied to the mast, with bags of bullets,
+or gun-chambers tied about their arms and necks, until
+they were exhausted, or "till their back be ready to
+break" (<i>Monson</i>). If they still offended in this kind they
+were taken and tied to the bowsprit end, with rations
+of beer and bread, and left there with leave to starve
+or fall into the sea. Destruction or theft of ships'
+property was punished by death. Petty insurrections,
+such as complaints of the quality or quantity of the food,
+etc., were punished by the bilboes. The bilboes were
+iron bars fixed to the deck a little abaft the main-mast.
+The prisoner sat upon the deck under a sentry, and his
+legs and hands were shackled to the bars with irons of
+a weight proportioned to the crime. It was a rule that
+none should speak to a man in the bilboes. For
+blasphemy and swearing there was "an excellent good
+way"<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> of forcing the sinner to hold a marline-spike in
+his mouth, until his tongue was bloody (<i>Teonge</i>). Dirty
+speech was punished in a similar way, and sometimes
+the offending tongue was scrubbed with sand and canvas.
+We read of two sailors who stole a piece of beef aboard
+H.M.S. <i>Assistance</i> in the year 1676.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> Their hands were
+tied behind them, and the beef was hung about their
+necks, "and the rest of the seamen cam one by one, and
+rubd them over the mouth with the raw beife; and in
+this posture they stood two howers." Other punishments
+were "shooting to death," and hanging at the yardarm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
+"And the Knaveries of the Ship-boys are payd by the
+Boat-Swain with the Rod; and commonly this execution
+is done upon the Munday Mornings; and is so frequently
+in use, that some meer Seamen believe in earnest, that
+they shall not have a fair Wind, unless the poor Boys
+be duely brought to the Chest, that is, whipped, every
+Munday Morning" (<i>Boteler</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Some of these punishments may appear unduly harsh;
+but on the whole they were no more cruel than the
+punishments usually inflicted ashore. Indeed, if anything
+they were rather more merciful.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>IN ACTION</h3>
+
+
+<p>In engaging an enemy's ship at sea the custom was
+to display the colours from the poop, and to hang
+streamers or pennons from the yardarms.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The spritsail
+would then be furled, and the spritsail-yard brought
+alongship. The lower yards were slung with chain,
+and the important ropes, sheets and braces,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> etc., were
+doubled. The bulkheads and wooden cabin walls were
+knocked away, or fortified with hammocks or bedding,
+to minimise the risk of splinters. The guns were cast
+loose and loaded. The powder or cartridge was brought
+up in "budge barrels," covered with leather, from the
+magazine, and stowed well away from the guns, either
+in amidships, or on that side of the ship not directly
+engaged. Tubs of water were placed between the guns
+with blankets soaking in them for the smothering of
+any fire that might be caused. Other tubs were filled
+with "vinegar water or what we have" for the sponging
+of the guns. The hatches leading to the hold were taken
+up, so that no man should desert his post during the
+engagement. The light sails were furled, and in some
+cases sent down on deck. The magazines were opened,
+and hung about with wet blankets to prevent sparks
+from entering. Shot was sent to the shot-lockers on
+deck. Sand was sprinkled on the planking to give a
+greater firmness to the foothold of the men at the guns.
+The gunner and his mates went round the batteries to
+make sure that all was ready. The caps, or leaden plates,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
+were taken from the touch-holes, and the priming powder
+was poured down upon the cartridge within the gun.
+The carpenter made ready sheets of lead, and plugs of
+oakum, for the stopping of shot-holes.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The cook-room
+fire was extinguished. The sails were splashed with a
+solution of alum. The people went to eat and drink at
+their quarters. Extra tiller ropes, of raw hide, were rove
+abaft. The trumpeters put on their<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> tabards, "of the
+Admiral's colours," and blew points of war as they sailed
+into action. A writer of the early seventeenth century<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>
+has left the following spirited account of a sea-fight:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A sail, how bears she or stands shee, to winde-ward
+or lee-ward? set him by the Compasse; he stands right
+ahead, or on the weather-Bowe, or lee-Bowe, let fly your
+colours if you have a consort, else not. Out with all your
+sails, a steady man to the helme, sit close to keep her
+steady, give him chase or fetch him up; he holds his
+own, no, we gather on him. Captain, out goes his flag
+and pendants, also his waste-clothes and top-armings,
+which is a long red cloth about three quarters of a yard
+broad, edged on each side with Calico, or white linnen
+cloth, that goeth round about the ship on the outsides
+of all her upper works fore and aft, and before the
+cubbridge-heads, also about the fore and maine tops, as
+well for the countenance and grace of the ship, as to
+cover the men for being seen, he furies and slinges his
+maine yarde, in goes his spret-saile. Thus they use to
+strip themselves into their short sailes, or fighting sailes,
+which is only the fore sail, the main and fore topsails,
+because the rest should
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'notb e'">not be</ins>
+fired nor spoiled; besides
+they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our fights
+and the using our armes; he makes ready his close
+fights fore and aft.</p>
+
+<p>"Master, how stands the chase? Right on head I say;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+Well we shall reatch him by and by; what's all ready?
+Yea, yea, every man to his charge, dowse your topsaile to
+salute him for the Sea, hale him with a noise of trumpets;
+Whence is your ship? Of Spaine; Whence is yours? Of
+England. Are you a Merchant, or a Man of War? We
+are of the Sea. He waves us to Lee-ward with his drawne
+Sword, cals amaine for the King of Spaine and springs
+his loufe. Give him a chase piece with your broadside,
+and run a good berth ahead of him; Done, done. We
+have the winde of him, and he tackes about, tacke you
+aboute also and keep your loufe [keep close to the wind]
+be yare at the helme, edge in with him, give him a volley
+of small shot, also your prow and broadside as before, and
+keep your loufe; He payes us shot for shot; Well, we
+shall requite him; What, are you ready again? Yea, yea.
+Try him once more, as before; Done, Done; Keep your
+loufe and charge your ordnance again; Is all ready?
+Yea, yea, edge in with him again, begin with your bowe
+pieces, proceed with your broadside, and let her fall off
+with the winde, to give her also your full chase, your
+weather broadside, and bring her round that the stern
+may also discharge, and your tackes close aboord again;
+Done, done, the wind veeres, the Sea goes too high to
+boord her, and we are shot thorow and thorow, and
+betwene winde and water. Try the pump, bear up the
+helme; Master let us breathe and refresh a little, and
+sling a man overboard [<i>i.e.</i> lower a man over the side] to
+stop the leakes; that is, to trusse him up aboute the
+middle in a piece of canvas, and a rope to keep him from
+sinking, and his armes at liberty, with a malet in the one
+hand, and a plug lapped in Okum, and well tarred in a
+tarpawling clowt in the other, which he will quickly beat
+into the hole or holes the bullets made; What cheere
+mates? is all well? All well, all well, all well. Then
+make ready to bear up with him again, and with all your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>
+great and small shot charge him, and in the smoke boord
+him thwart the hawse, on the bowe, midships, or rather
+than faile, on the quarter [where the high poop made it
+difficult to climb on board] or make fast your graplings
+[iron hooks] if you can to his close fights and shear off [so
+as to tear them to pieces]. Captain, we are fowl on each
+other, and the Ship is on fire, cut anything to get clear
+and smother the fire with wet clothes. In such a case
+they will presently be such friends, as to helpe one the
+other all they can to get clear, lest they should both burn
+together and sink; and if they be generous, the fire
+quenched, drink kindely one to another; heave their
+cans overboord, and then begin again as before.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Master, the day is spent, the night drawes on, let
+us consult. Chirurgion, look to the wounded, and winde
+up the slain, with each a weight or bullet at their heades
+and feet to make them sinke, and give them three Gunnes
+for their funerals. Swabber, make clean the ship [sprinkle
+it with hot vinegar to avoid the smell of blood]; Purser,
+record their Names; Watch, be vigilant to keep your
+berth to windeward that we lose him not in the night;
+Gunners, spunge your Ordnance; Sowldiers, scowre your
+pieces; Carpenters about your leakes; Boatswaine and the
+rest repair your sails and shrouds; and Cooke, you observe
+your directions against the morning watch; Boy, Holla,
+Master, Holla, is the Kettle boiled? Yea, yea; Boatswaine,
+call up the men to prayer and breakfast [We
+may suppose the dawn has broken].</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, fetch my cellar of bottels [case of spirits], a health
+to you all fore and aft, courage my hearts for a fresh
+charge; Gunners beat open the ports, and out with your
+lower tire [lower tier of guns] and bring me from the
+weather side to the lee, so many pieces as we have ports
+to bear upon him. Master lay him aboord loufe for loufe;
+mid Ships men, see the tops and yards well manned, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>
+stones, fire pots and brass bailes, to throw amongst them
+before we enter, or if we be put off, charge them with all
+your great and small shot, in the smoke let us enter them
+in the shrouds, and every squadron at his best advantage;
+so sound Drums and Trumpets, and Saint George for
+England.</p>
+
+<p>"They hang out a flag of truce, hale him a main, abase,
+or take in his flag [to hale one to amaine, a main or a-mayn,
+was to bid him surrender; to abase was to lower the
+colours or the topsails], strike their sails, and come aboord
+with their Captaine, Purser, and Gunner, with their commission,
+cocket, or bills of loading. Out goes the boat,
+they are launched from the ship's side, entertaine them
+with a generall cry God save the Captain and all the
+company with the Trumpets sounding, examine them in
+particular, and then conclude your conditions, with feasting,
+freedom or punishment as you find occasion; but alwayes
+have as much care to their wounded as your own, and if
+there be either young women or aged men, use them
+nobly, which is ever the nature of a generous disposition.
+To conclude, if you surprise him, or enter perforce, you
+may stow the men, rifle, pillage, or sack, and cry a
+prise."</p>
+
+<p>Down below in the gun-decks during an action, the
+batteries became so full of the smoke of black powder
+that the men could hardly see what they were doing.
+The darkness prevented them from seeing the very
+dangerous recoiling of the guns, and many were killed
+by them. It was impossible to judge how a gun carriage
+would recoil, for it never recoiled twice in the same manner,
+and though the men at the side tackles did their best to
+reduce the shock they could not prevent it altogether.
+It was the custom to close the gun-ports after each
+discharge, as the musketeers aboard the enemy could
+otherwise fire through them as the men reloaded. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
+guns were not fired in a volley, as no ship could have
+stood the tremendous shock occasioned by the simultaneous
+discharge of all her guns. They were fired in
+succession, beginning from the bows. In heavy weather
+the lower tiers of guns were not cast loose, for the rolling
+made them difficult to control, and the sea came washing
+through the ports and into the muzzles of the guns, knocking
+down the men and drenching the powder. It sometimes
+happened that the shot, and cartridge, were rolled clean
+out of the guns. In sponging and ramming the men
+were bidden to keep the sponge or rammer on that side
+of them opposite to the side exposed to the enemy so
+that if a shot should strike it, it would not force it into the
+body of the holder. A man was told off to bring cartridges
+and shot to each gun or division of guns and he was
+strictly forbidden to supply any other gun or guns during
+the action. The wounded were to be helped below by
+men told off especially for the purpose. Once below, in
+the cockpit, they were laid on a sail, and the doctor or his
+mates attended to them in turn. In no case was a man
+attended out of his turn. This system seems equitable,
+and the sailors were insistent that it should be observed;
+but many poor fellows bled to death, from shattered
+arteries, etc., while waiting till the doctor should be ready.
+The chaplain attended in the cockpit to comfort the dying,
+and administer the rites of the Church. When a vessel
+was taken, her crew were stripped by those in want of
+clothes. The prisoners were handcuffed, or chained
+together, and placed in the hold, on the ballast. The
+ship's company then set to work to repair damages, clean
+and secure the guns, return powder, etc., to the armoury,
+and magazines, and to give thanks for their preservation
+round the main-mast.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="map" id="map"></a>
+<a href="images/map.png"><img src="images/map_th.png" width="500" height="398"
+alt="Map Shewing the EARLY BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUND"
+title="Map Shewing the EARLY BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUND" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Map Shewing the EARLY BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUND</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This was eleven years after the royal mandate ordering the transference of
+the main trade of the place to Porto Bello. Perhaps the town retained much
+of the trade, in spite of the mandate, as the transference involved the making
+of a new mule track across the bogs and crags between Venta Cruz and Porto
+Bello. Such a track would have taken several years to lay.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Caliver</i>, a light, hand musket. A musket without a crutch, or rest.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See particularly Burney, Exquemeling, Edwards, and Hazard.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See Exquemeling, Burney, and the Abb&eacute; Raynal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Burney.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See Burney, and Exquemeling.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Exquemeling.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Precarious, and not at all permanent.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Similar pacts of comradeship are made among merchant sailors to this day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Exquemeling gives many curious details of the life of these strange people.
+See the French edition of "Histoire des Avanturiers."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Exquemeling gives these details.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Exquemeling.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Dampier.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Exquemeling.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Dampier and Exquemeling.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> With reservations. See p. 13, <a href="#Footnote_1_1"><i>note</i></a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> They had come ashore to get water.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See Charnock's "Marine Architecture."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See Corbett's "Drake and the Tudor Navy."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See Sir W. Monson, "Naval Tracts," and Sir R. Hawkins, "Observations,"
+etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> or caliver.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> This word unclow may be a misprint for uncloy. To uncloy was to get rid
+of the spike, or soft metal nail, thrust into a piece's touch-hole by an enemy.
+It was done by oiling the spike all over, so as to make it "glib," and then
+blowing it out, from within, by a train of powder.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> He had to hang out the ship's colours on going into action (<i>Monson</i>).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See "The Sea-man's Grammar," by Captain John Smith.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The men were expected to bring their own swords and knives.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See Sir W. Monson's "Naval Tracts."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The mortality among the sailors was very great.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Circa</i> 1670.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The punishment would have been no less severe a century earlier.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Monson.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Monson.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Captain John Smith.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+
+<ul><li class="section"><span class="smcap">Action</span>, description of ship in, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li>
+
+<li>Allowance of food and drink, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></li>
+
+<li>Alvarado, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, etc.</li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; battle of, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Anastasius (church), <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li>
+
+<li>Andreas, Captain, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></li>
+
+<li>Antonio, Captain, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+
+<li>Arica, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; battle of, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+
+<li>Arquebus, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Barbecue</span>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li>
+
+<li>Barker, Andrew, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+
+<li>Baronha, Admiral, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+
+<li>Bastimentos, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Bear</i>, pinnace, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+
+<li>Bishop (of Panama), <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+
+<li>Blewfields, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+
+<li>Boats (ships'), <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li>
+
+<li>Boatswains, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a></li>
+
+<li>Boco del Toro, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+
+<li>Boucan, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li>
+
+<li>Bracos, De los, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+
+<li>Bradley, John, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Buccaneers, rise of, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">customs, etc., <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">dress, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">drunkenness, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">cruel, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">religious, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">attached to comrades, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">preparations for raids, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">shares of spoil, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">at the Samballoes, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">at Perico, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+
+<li>Buckenham, Captain, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Cabe&ccedil;as</span>, or Cabezas, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li>
+
+<li>Cabin-boys, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li>
+
+<li>Campeachy, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+
+<li>Canoas, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">capturing prizes from, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Captains, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a></li>
+
+<li>Caribs, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+
+<li>Carpenters, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a></li>
+
+<li>Cartagena, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li>
+
+<li>Cartridges, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li>
+
+<li>Castle Gloria, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>
+
+<li>Cativaas, or Catives, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>
+
+<li>Cedro Bueno, halt at, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; canoas sent to, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+
+<li>Chaplains, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a></li>
+
+<li>Chagres Castle, expedition to, under Bradley, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Morgan's arrival at, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; party sent to, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; message from, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+
+<li>Chagres River, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>; also <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>-<a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li>
+
+<li>Charesha, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>
+
+<li>Chatas (small Spanish boats), <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>
+
+<li>Cheapo River, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+
+<li>Chapillo, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li>
+
+<li>Chirurgeons, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li>
+
+<li>Colonies in West Indies, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li>
+
+<li>Commissions, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+
+<li>Cook, Captain, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+
+<li>Cooks (ships'), <a href='#Page_315'>315</a></li>
+
+<li>Coopers, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li>
+
+<li>Compensations, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a></li>
+
+<li>Comrades, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a></li>
+
+<li>Corporals, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a></li>
+
+<li>Costa Rica, Morgan sails for, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>
+
+<li>Cox, Captain, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+
+<li>Coxon, Captain, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; sails for home, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li>
+
+<li>Coxswains, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a></li>
+
+<li>Crews, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Daggs</span> (pistols), <a href='#Page_304'>304</a></li>
+
+<li>Dampier, William, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">early life in West Indies, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">ill at Campeachy, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">ruined by storm, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes pirating, <i>ibid.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>
+to England, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">to Jamaica, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">joins buccaneers, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">lands on isthmus, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">not at Perico, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">not at Arica, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">leaves Sharp, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">tramps across isthmus, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li>
+
+<li>Darien, Gulf of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+
+<li>Darien isthmus. <i>See</i> Drake, Morgan, Dampier, etc.</li>
+
+<li>Delander, R., <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+
+<li>De la Barra Castle, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a></li>
+
+<li>Diego, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Fort, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; River, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+
+<li>Discomforts, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a></li>
+
+<li>Discipline, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a></li>
+
+<li>Drake, Francis (afterwards Sir Francis), born, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">at San Juan d'Ulloa, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">at West Indies, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails for Nombre de Dios, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">lands, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">joins Rause, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails west, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">attacks Nombre de Dios, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">hurt, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">receives herald, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes to Cartagena, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">establishes fort, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes east, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">in Cartagena, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, etc.;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns thither, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">starving, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">holds post mortem, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes for Panama, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">fails to take treasure, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">retreats, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">at Venta Cruz, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns to Hixom, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes to Veragua, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">meets Captain Tet&ucirc;, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">makes his great raid, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">builds raft, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>-<a href='#Page_90'>90</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">his bravado, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">arrives at Plymouth, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">mentioned, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sacks St Domingo, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">his island, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; John, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Joseph, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Entertainments</span>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></li>
+
+<li>Estera longa Lemos (near Porto Bello), <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Firing</span> (of cannon), <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">and aiming, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a></li>
+
+<li>Fort Jeronimo (at Porto Bello), <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>
+
+<li>Francisco River (St Francis River), <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li>
+
+<li>French in West Indies, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; buccaneer commissions, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+
+<li>Fumigations, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Gabriele, Josef</span>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>
+
+<li>Galleons, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li>
+
+<li>Galliasses, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li>
+
+<li>Galleys, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li>
+
+<li>Gambling, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+
+<li>Garret, John, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+
+<li>Gayny, G., <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li>
+
+<li>Gear (sailors'), <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li>
+
+<li>Gibraltar (in Maracaibo), <a href='#Page_162'>162</a></li>
+
+<li>Glub, Charles, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+
+<li>Golden Island, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+
+<li>Gorgona, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+
+<li>Grummets, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li>
+
+<li>Guasco (Huasco), <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+
+<li>Gunners, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a></li>
+
+<li>Guns, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">list of, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li>
+
+<li>Guzman, Don John Perez, takes Santa Katalina, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>. <i>See also</i> Panama battle</li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Harris, Captain</span>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">killed and buried, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li>
+
+<li>Hawkins, Sir R., <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">his story of Oxenham, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+
+<li>Hayti, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+
+<li>Hilo (Ylo or Ilo), <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+
+<li>Hispaniola, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li>
+
+<li>Hixom, Ellis, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li>
+
+<li>Hobby, Mr, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+
+<li>Hunters, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Indians</span>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+
+<li>Iquique (Yqueque), <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+
+<li>Iron Castle (at Porto Bello), <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Jamaica</span>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li>
+
+<li>Jobson (or Cobson), <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li>
+
+<li>Joiners, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a></li>
+
+<li>Juan Fernandez, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Katalina, Santa</span>, Mansvelt goes to, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Morgan takes, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+
+<li>King Golden Cap, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">La Serena</span>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+
+<li>Las Serenas, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+
+<li>La Sounds Key, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li>
+
+<li>Liars, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li>
+
+<li>Lieutenants, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a></li>
+
+<li>Linstocks, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Lion</i>, pinnace, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+
+<li>Logwood cutting, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">description of, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li>
+
+<li>Longships, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li>
+
+<li>Lorenzo, San, Castle of, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">taken, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">Morgan's return to, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">destroyed, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Magdalena</span>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li>
+
+<li>Main, the, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+
+<li>Mansvelt, Dutch pirate, cruises in South Seas, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">his plans, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">meets Henry Morgan, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails with him, <i>ibid.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">takes Santa Katalina, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">seeks recruits and recognition from English Governor, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">is refused help, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails to Tortuga, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">dies, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+
+<li>Maracaibo, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a></li>
+
+<li>Maroons, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li>
+
+<li>Marygalante, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+
+<li>Masts, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li>
+
+<li>Masters, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Minion</i>, pinnace, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li>
+
+<li>Moone, T., <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+
+<li>Morgan, Henry (afterwards Sir Henry), meets Mansvelt, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails with him, <i>ibid.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">tries to get help from New England, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">gathers fleet, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes for Puerto del Principe, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">battle there, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">town taken, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">stay there, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">mutiny and fight, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">defection of French allies, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns to Port Royal, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails for Costa Rica, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">lands, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">takes a fort, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">attacks Porto Bello, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">takes it, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">receives summons from Panama, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">defeats Spanish troops, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">receives ransom, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns to Port Royal, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes for Maracaibo, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">summons De la Barra Castle, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">the fireship, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">Spanish rally, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">Morgan's stratagem, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">his return to Port Royal, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">goes for Main, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">takes Santa Katalina, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails for Chagres, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">reaches Venta Cruz, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sees Panama, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">takes it, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, etc.;</li>
+<li class="sub">burns his ships, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">leaves ruins, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns to Venta Cruz, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">destroys San Lorenzo, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">returns to Port Royal, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">becomes Governor of Jamaica, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+
+<li>Mosquito Indians, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li>
+
+<li>Mule trains (or recuas), <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+
+<li>Munjack, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li>
+
+<li>Muskets, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li>
+
+<li>Mutiny, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Nombre De Dios</span>, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">description of, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, etc.;</li>
+<li class="sub">attack on, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+
+<li>Norman, Captain, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">One Bush Key</span>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li>
+
+<li>Ortega, John de, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li>
+
+<li>Oxenham, John, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">sails on his raid, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">builds ship, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">raids South Seas, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">mutiny, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">Spaniards take him, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">and hang him, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Panama</span>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; description of, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>.</li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Morgan's sight of, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Governor of. <i>See</i> Guzman, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Parrots, at Alvarado, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Pascha</i>, a ship, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li>
+
+<li>Pavesses, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li>
+
+<li>Pearl Islands, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+
+<li>Pedro, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li>
+
+<li>Penn, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+
+<li>Peralta, Don, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></li>
+
+<li>Periaguas, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+
+<li>Perico, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>-<a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li>
+
+<li>Petticoat (a sky-blue), <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+
+<li>Petty tally, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></li>
+
+<li>Pezoro, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li>
+
+<li>Pike, Robert, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a></li>
+
+<li>Pine Islands, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li>
+
+<li>Pinnaces, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>,
+<a href='#Page_7'><ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads '7,'">7</ins></a></li>
+
+<li>Plenty, Port, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></li>
+
+<li>Plymouth, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li>
+
+<li>Porto Bello, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">description, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</li>
+<li class="sub">attacked and sacked, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a> <i>et seq.</i>; <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+
+<li>Port Pheasant, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+
+<li>Port Royal, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Morgan's return to, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Dampier arrives at, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+
+<li>Porto Santo, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+
+<li>Provisions, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a></li>
+
+<li>Puebla Nueva, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>
+
+<li>Puerto del Principe, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Pursers, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Quartermasters</span>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a></li>
+
+<li>Quibo, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Raft</span> (Drake's), <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li>
+
+<li>Rause, Captain, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>
+
+<li>Rigging, ancient, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li>
+
+<li>Ringrose, Basil, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>,
+<a href='#Page_249'><ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads '349'">249</ins></a>,
+<a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; at Arica, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li>
+
+<li>Rio de la Hacha, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li>
+
+<li>Rio Grande, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li>
+
+<li>Roundships, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Sails</span>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li>
+
+<li>Sailing from port, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a></li>
+
+<li>San Andreas, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Antonio, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Barnardo, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Domingo, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>,</li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Juan d'Ulloa, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>,</li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Miguel, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+
+<li>Santa Maria, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Martha, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; Pecaque, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li>
+
+<li>Savannahs, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>
+
+<li>Sawkins, Richard, Captain, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">killed, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+
+<li>Scrivanos, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li>
+
+<li>Sea-fighting, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a></li>
+
+<li>Searles, Captain, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+
+<li>Sharp, Captain Bartholomew, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">takes prizes, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">elected admiral, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">at Arica, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li>
+
+<li>Ship-boys, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li>
+
+<li>Simon Le Sieur, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+
+<li>Smith, Captain John, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li>
+
+<li>Springer, Captain, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash;&mdash; his key, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a></li>
+
+<li>Stewards, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a></li>
+
+<li>Swabbers, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Swan</i>, a ship, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Tawnymores</span> (a ship of), <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li>
+
+<li>Tet&ucirc;, Captain, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">hurt, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li>
+
+<li>Tiburon, Cape, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li>
+
+<li>Tocamora, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+
+<li>Tolu, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li>
+
+<li>Top-arming, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li>
+
+<li>Torna Munni, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+
+<li>Tortuga, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+
+<li>Tree (a great), <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Trinity</i>, the Most Blessed, a Spanish galleon, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>,
+<a href='#Page_259'><ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads '359'">259</ins></a>,
+<a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li>
+
+<li>Tristian, Captain, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li>
+
+<li>Trumpeters, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li>
+
+<li>Tucker, Francis, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Venables</span>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+
+<li>Venta Cruz, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+
+<li>Veragua, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li>
+
+<li>Villa del Rey, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Wafer, Lionel</span>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li>
+
+<li>Watling, John, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">attacks Arica, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>;</li>
+<li class="sub">shot, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li>
+
+
+<li class="section"><span class="smcap">Ylo</span>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+
+<li>Yqueque, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+
+<li>Younkers, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li>
+
+<li>Ysabel Nueva, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li></ul>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,10991 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: On the Spanish Main
+       Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
+
+Author: John Masefield
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19396]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE SPANISH MAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Frank van Drogen, Amy Cunningham and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Obvious printing errors were repaired; see the html version for details
+of these changes. Other variation in spelling and hyphenation is as in
+the original text.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER]
+
+
+
+
+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 Tetu 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_
+
+  NOMBRE DE DIOS                                                     12
+
+  CARTAGENA                                                          26
+
+  CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR                      40
+      The ship in the foreground may be Drake's flagship, the
+      _Bonaventure_
+
+  AN ELIZABETHAN WARSHIP                                             49
+      A pinnace beyond, to the left
+
+  SHIP AND FLYING-FISH                                               95
+
+  A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN                        114
+      A barbecue in right lower corner
+
+  OLD PORT ROYAL                                                    132
+
+  PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE                                               142
+
+  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
+
+  CHAGRES (CIRCA 1739)                                              173
+
+  THE ISTHMUS, SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE                     180
+
+  NEW PANAMA                                                        195
+
+  THE BATTLE OF PANAMA                                              200
+
+  SIR HENRY MORGAN                                                  210
+
+  A DESCRIPTION OF ARICA                                            266
+
+  A DESCRIPTION OF HILO                                             274
+
+  AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON                                            293
+
+  AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON                                            297
+
+  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
+Vitae, 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.
+
+[Illustration: NOMBRE DE DIOS]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This was eleven years after the royal mandate ordering the
+transference of the main trade of the place to Porto Bello. Perhaps the
+town retained much of the trade, in spite of the mandate, as the
+transference involved the making of a new mule track across the bogs and
+crags between Venta Cruz and Porto Bello. Such a track would have taken
+several years to lay.]
+
+    _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.
+
+[Illustration: CARTAGENA]
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: CARTAGENA IN 1586, SHOWING THE DOUBLE HARBOUR
+    THE SHIP IN THE FOREGROUND MAY BE DRAKE'S FLAGSHIP, THE
+    _BONAVENTURE_]
+
+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 Curacoa, 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 Curacoa, 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."
+
+[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN WAR-SHIP
+    A PINNACE BEYOND, TO THE LEFT]
+
+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-vitae 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 Yo
+peho! Yo peho, 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 L70 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 deg.. 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 Tetu 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-vitae.
+
+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 Tetu, 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 Tetu with a chain of
+gold supporting a tablet of enamel. Having exchanged gifts, according to
+the custom of the sea, Captain Tetu 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 Tetu 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 Tetu, 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 Tetu 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 Tetu, 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 Tetu'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 Tetu.
+
+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 Tetu 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 Tetu'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 Tetu. 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 Tetu 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.
+
+[Illustration: SHIP AND FLYING FISH]
+
+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
+Tetu, 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 L40,000, 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.
+
+[Footnote 2: _Caliver_, a light, hand musket. A musket without a crutch,
+or rest.]
+
+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]
+
+[Footnote 3: See particularly Burney, Exquemeling, Edwards, and Hazard.]
+
+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--_que 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.
+
+[Footnote 4: See Exquemeling, Burney, and the Abbe Raynal.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 5: Burney.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 6: See Burney, and Exquemeling.]
+
+[Illustration: A BUCCANEER'S SLAVE, WITH HIS MASTER'S GUN
+    A BARBECUE IN RIGHT LOWER CORNER]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 7: Exquemeling.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 8: Precarious, and not at all permanent.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 9: Similar pacts of comradeship are made among merchant
+sailors to this day.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 10: Exquemeling gives many curious details of the life of
+these strange people. See the French edition of "Histoire des
+Avanturiers."]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 11: Exquemeling gives these details.]
+
+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."
+
+[Footnote 12: Exquemeling.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 13: Dampier.]
+
+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.
+
+[Footnote 14: Exquemeling.]
+
+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-vitae. 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." Pere 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 Haiti." Cal. State Papers: "America
+    and West Indies." Abbe 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." Cieca de Leon: "Travels."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BUCCANEER CUSTOMS
+
+    Mansvelt and Morgan--Morgan's raid on Cuba--Puerto del Principe
+
+
+Throughout the years of buccaneering, the buccaneers often put to sea in
+canoas and periaguas,[15] just as Drake put to sea in his three
+pinnaces. Life in an open boat is far from pleasant, but men who passed
+their leisure cutting logwood at Campeachy, or hoeing tobacco in
+Jamaica, or toiling over gramma grass under a hot sun after cattle, were
+not disposed to make the worst of things. They would sit contentedly
+upon the oar bench, rowing with a long, slow stroke for hours together
+without showing signs of fatigue. Nearly all of them were men of more
+than ordinary strength, and all of them were well accustomed to the
+climate. When they had rowed their canoa to the Main they were able to
+take it easy till a ship came by from one of the Spanish ports. If she
+seemed a reasonable prey, without too many guns, and not too high
+charged, or high built, the privateers would load their muskets, and row
+down to engage her. The best shots were sent into the bows, and excused
+from rowing, lest the exercise should cause their hands to tremble. A
+clever man was put to the steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden
+to sing out whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It was in
+action, and in action only, that the captain had command over his men.
+The steersman endeavoured to keep the masts of the quarry in a line,
+and to approach her from astern. The marksmen from the bows kept up a
+continual fire at the vessel's helmsmen, if they could be seen, and at
+any gun-ports which happened to be open. If the helmsmen could not be
+seen from the sea, the canoas aimed to row in upon the vessel's
+quarters, where they could wedge up the rudder with wooden chocks or
+wedges. They then laid her aboard over the quarter, or by the after
+chains, and carried her with their knives and pistols. The first man to
+get aboard received some gift of money at the division of the spoil.
+
+[Footnote 15: Dampier and Exquemeling.]
+
+When the prize was taken, the prisoners were questioned, and despoiled.
+Often, indeed, they were stripped stark naked, and granted the privilege
+of seeing their finery on a pirate's back. Each buccaneer had the right
+to take a shift of clothes out of each prize captured. The cargo was
+then rummaged, and the state of the ship looked to, with an eye to using
+her as a cruiser. As a rule, the prisoners were put ashore on the first
+opportunity, but some buccaneers had a way of selling their captives
+into slavery. If the ship were old, leaky, valueless, in ballast, or
+with a cargo useless to the rovers, she was either robbed of her guns,
+and turned adrift with her crew, or run ashore in some snug cove, where
+she could be burnt for the sake of the iron-work. If the cargo were of
+value, and, as a rule, the ships they took had some rich thing aboard
+them, they sailed her to one of the Dutch, French, or English
+settlements, where they sold her freight for what they could get--some
+tenth or twentieth of its value. If the ship were a good one, in good
+condition, well found, swift, and not of too great draught (for they
+preferred to sail in small ships), they took her for their cruiser as
+soon as they had emptied out her freight. They sponged and loaded her
+guns, brought their stores aboard her, laid their mats upon her deck,
+secured the boats astern, and sailed away in search of other plunder.
+They kept little discipline aboard their ships. What work had to be done
+they did, but works of supererogation they despised and rejected as a
+shade unholy. The night watches were partly orgies. While some slept,
+the others fired guns and drank to the health of their fellows. By the
+light of the binnacle, or by the light of the slush lamps in the cabin,
+the rovers played a hand at cards, or diced each other at "seven and
+eleven," using a pannikin as dice-box. While the gamblers cut and
+shuffled, and the dice rattled in the tin, the musical sang songs, the
+fiddlers set their music chuckling, and the sea-boots stamped approval.
+The cunning dancers showed their science in the moonlight, avoiding the
+sleepers if they could. In this jolly fashion were the nights made
+short. In the daytime, the gambling continued with little intermission;
+nor had the captain any authority to stop it. One captain, in the
+histories, was so bold as to throw the dice and cards overboard, but, as
+a rule, the captain of a buccaneer cruiser was chosen as an artist, or
+navigator, or as a lucky fighter. He was not expected to spoil sport.
+The continual gambling nearly always led to fights and quarrels. The
+lucky dicers often won so much that the unlucky had to part with all
+their booty. Sometimes a few men would win all the plunder of the
+cruise, much to the disgust of the majority, who clamoured for a
+redivision of the spoil. If two buccaneers got into a quarrel they
+fought it out on shore at the first opportunity, using knives, swords,
+or pistols, according to taste. The usual way of fighting was with
+pistols, the combatants standing back to back, at a distance of ten or
+twelve paces, and turning round to fire at the word of command. If both
+shots missed, the question was decided with cutlasses, the man who drew
+first blood being declared the winner. If a man were proved to be a
+coward he was either tied to the mast, and shot, or mutilated, and sent
+ashore. No cruise came to an end until the company declared themselves
+satisfied with the amount of plunder taken. The question, like all other
+important questions, was debated round the mast, and decided by vote.
+
+At the conclusion of a successful cruise, they sailed for Port Royal,
+with the ship full of treasure, such as vicuna wool, packets of pearls
+from the Hatch, jars of civet or of ambergris, boxes of "marmalett" and
+spices, casks of strong drink, bales of silk, sacks of chocolate and
+vanilla, and rolls of green cloth and pale blue cotton which the Indians
+had woven in Peru, in some sandy village near the sea, in sight of the
+pelicans and the penguins. In addition to all these things, they usually
+had a number of the personal possessions of those they had taken on the
+seas. Lying in the chests for subsequent division were swords,
+silver-mounted pistols, daggers chased and inlaid, watches from Spain,
+necklaces of uncut jewels, rings and bangles, heavy carved furniture,
+"cases of bottles" of delicately cut green glass, containing cordials
+distilled of precious mints, with packets of emeralds from Brazil,
+bezoar stones from Patagonia, paintings from Spain, and medicinal gums
+from Nicaragua. All these things were divided by lot at the main-mast as
+soon as the anchor held. As the ship, or ships, neared port, her men
+hung colours out--any colours they could find--to make their vessel gay.
+A cup of drink was taken as they sailed slowly home to moorings, and as
+they drank they fired off the cannon, "bullets and all," again and yet
+again, rejoicing as the bullets struck the water. Up in the bay, the
+ships in the harbour answered with salutes of cannon; flags were dipped
+and hoisted in salute; and so the anchor dropped in some safe reach, and
+the division of the spoil began.
+
+[Illustration: OLD PORT ROYAL]
+
+After the division of the spoil in the beautiful Port Royal harbour,
+in sight of the palm-trees and the fort with the colours flying, the
+buccaneers packed their gear, and dropped over the side into a boat.
+They were pulled ashore by some grinning black man with a scarlet scarf
+about his head and the brand of a hot iron on his shoulders. At the
+jetty end, where the Indians lounged at their tobacco and the
+fishermen's canoas rocked, the sunburnt pirates put ashore. Among the
+noisy company which always gathers on a pier they met with their
+companions. A sort of Roman triumph followed, as the "happily returned"
+lounged swaggeringly towards the taverns. Eager hands helped them to
+carry in their plunder. In a few minutes the gang was entering the
+tavern, the long, cool room with barrels round the walls, where there
+were benches and a table and an old blind fiddler jerking his elbow at a
+jig. Noisily the party ranged about the table, and sat themselves upon
+the benches, while the drawers, or potboys, in their shirts, drew near
+to take the orders. I wonder if the reader has ever heard a sailor in
+the like circumstance, five minutes after he has touched his pay,
+address a company of parasites in an inn with the question: "What's it
+going to be?"
+
+After the settlement of Jamaica by the English, the buccaneers became
+more enterprising. One buccaneer captain, the most remarkable of all of
+them, a man named Mansvelt, probably a Dutchman from Curacoa, attempted
+to found a pirate settlement upon the island of Santa Katalina, or Old
+Providence. Mansvelt was a fortunate sea-captain, with considerable
+charm of manner. He was popular with the buccaneers, and had a name
+among them, for he was the first of them to cross the isthmus and to
+sail the South Sea. His South-Sea cruise had come to little, for
+provisions ran short, and his company had been too small to attempt a
+Spanish town. He had, therefore, retreated to the North Sea to his
+ships, and had then gone cruising northward along the Nicaragua coast
+as far as the Blewfields River. From this point he stood away to the
+island of Santa Katalina, or Old Providence--an island about six miles
+long, with an excellent harbour, which, he thought, might easily be
+fortified. A smaller island lies directly to the north of it, separated
+from it by a narrow channel of the sea. Twenty years before his visit it
+had been the haunt of an old captain of the name of Blewfields, who had
+made it his base while his men went logwood cutting on the mainland.
+Blewfields was now dead, either of rum or war, and the Spaniards had
+settled there, and had built themselves a fort or castle to command the
+harbour. Having examined the place, Mansvelt sailed away to Jamaica to
+equip a fleet to take it. He saw that the golden times which the
+buccaneers were then enjoying could not last for ever, and that their
+occupation might be wrecked by a single ill-considered treaty, dated
+from St James's or the Court of France. He thought that the islands
+should be seized as a general rendezvous for folk of that way of life.
+With a little trouble the harbour could be made impregnable. The land
+was good, and suited for the growing of maize or tobacco--the two
+products most in demand among them. The islands were near the Main,
+being only thirty-five leagues from the Chagres River, the stream from
+which the golden harvest floated from the cities of the south. They were
+close to the coast of Nicaragua, where the logwood grew in clumps,
+waiting for the axes of the lumbermen. With the islands in their hands,
+the buccaneers could drive the Spaniards off the isthmus--or so Mansvelt
+thought. It would at anyrate have been an easy matter for them to have
+wrecked the trade routes from Panama to Porto Bello, and from Porto
+Bello to Vera Cruz.
+
+While Mansvelt lay at Port Royal, scraping and tallowing his ships,
+getting beef salted and boucanned, and drumming up his men from the
+taverns, a Welshman, of the name of Henry Morgan, came sailing up to
+moorings with half-a-dozen captured merchantmen. But a few weeks before,
+he had come home from a cruise with a little money in his pockets. He
+had clubbed together with some shipmates, and had purchased a small ship
+with the common fund. She was but meanly equipped, yet her first cruise
+to the westward, on the coast of Campeachy, was singularly lucky.
+Mansvelt at once saw his opportunity to win recruits. A captain so
+fortunate as Morgan would be sure to attract followers, for the
+buccaneers asked that their captains should be valorous and lucky. For
+other qualities, such as prudence and forethought, they did not
+particularly care. Mansvelt at once went aboard Morgan's ship to drink a
+cup of sack with him in the cabin. He asked him to act as vice-admiral
+to the fleet he was then equipping for Santa Katalina. To this Henry
+Morgan very readily consented, for he judged that a great company would
+be able to achieve great things. In a few days, the two set sail
+together from Port Royal, with a fleet of fifteen ships, manned by 500
+buccaneers, many of whom were French and Dutch.
+
+As soon as they arrived at Santa Katalina, they anchored, and sent their
+men ashore with some heavy guns. The Spanish garrison was strong, and
+the fortress well situated, but in a few days they forced it to
+surrender. They then crossed by a bridge of boats to the lesser island
+to the north, where they ravaged the plantations for fresh supplies.
+Having blown up all the fortifications save the castle, they sent the
+Spanish prisoners aboard the ships. They then chose out 100 trusty men
+to keep the island for them. They left these on the island, under the
+command of a Frenchman of the name of Le Sieur Simon. They also left
+the Spanish slaves behind, to work the plantations, and to grow maize
+and sweet potatoes for the future victualling of the fleet. Mansvelt
+then sailed away towards Porto Bello, near which city he put his
+prisoners ashore. He cruised to the eastward for some weeks, snapping up
+provision ships and little trading vessels; but he learned that the
+Governor of Panama, a determined and very gallant soldier, was fitting
+out an army to encounter him, should he attempt to land. The news may
+have been false, but it showed the buccaneers that they were known to be
+upon the coast, and that their raid up "the river of Colla" to "rob and
+pillage" the little town of Nata, on the Bay of Panama, would be
+fruitless. The Spanish residents of little towns like Nata buried all
+their gold and silver, and then fled into the woods when rumours of the
+pirates came to them. To attack such a town some weeks after the
+townsfolk had received warning of their intentions would have been worse
+than useless.
+
+Mansvelt, therefore, returned to Santa Katalina to see how the colony
+had prospered while he had been at sea. He found that Le Sieur Simon had
+put the harbour "in a very good posture of defence," having built a
+couple of batteries to command the anchorage. In these he had mounted
+his cannon upon platforms of plank, with due munitions of cannon-balls
+and powder. On the little island to the north he had laid out
+plantations of maize, sweet potatoes, plantains, and tobacco. The
+first-fruits of these green fields were now ripe, and "sufficient to
+revictual the whole fleet with provisions and fruits."
+
+Mansvelt was so well satisfied with the prospects of the colony that he
+determined to hurry back to Jamaica to beg recruits and recognition from
+the English Governor. The islands had belonged to English subjects in
+the past, and of right belonged to England still. However, the Jamaican
+Governor disliked the scheme. He feared that by lending his support he
+would incur the wrath of the English Government, while he could not
+weaken his position in Jamaica by sending soldiers from his garrison.
+Mansvelt, "seeing the unwillingness" of this un-English Governor, at
+once made sail for Tortuga, where he hoped the French might be less
+squeamish. He dropped anchor, in the channel between Tortuga and
+Hispaniola early in the summer of 1665. He seems to have gone ashore to
+see the French authorities. Perhaps he drank too strong a punch of rum
+and sugar--a drink very prejudicial in such a climate to one not used to
+it. Perhaps he took the yellow fever, or the coast cramp; the fact
+cannot now be known. At any rate he sickened, and died there, "before he
+could accomplish his desires"--"all things hereby remaining in
+suspense." One account, based on the hearsay of a sea-captain, says that
+Mansvelt was taken by the Spaniards, and brought to Porto Bello, and
+there put to death by the troops.
+
+Le Sieur Simon remained at his post, hoeing his tobacco plants, and
+sending detachments to the Main to kill manatee, or to cut logwood. He
+looked out anxiously for Mansvelt's ships, for he had not men enough to
+stand a siege, and greatly feared that the Spaniards would attack him.
+While he stayed in this perplexity, wondering why he did not hear from
+Mansvelt, he received a letter from Don John Perez de Guzman, the
+Spanish captain-general, who bade him "surrender the island to his
+Catholic Majesty," on pain of severe punishment. To this Le Sieur Simon
+made no answer, for he hoped that Mansvelt's fleet would soon be in
+those waters to deliver him from danger. Don John, who was a very
+energetic captain-general, determined to retake the place. He left his
+residence at Panama, and crossed the isthmus to Porto Bello, where he
+found a ship, called the _St Vincent_, "that belonged to the Company of
+the Negroes" (the Isthmian company of slavers), lying at anchor, waiting
+for a freight. We are told that she was a good ship, "well mounted with
+guns." He provisioned her for the sea, and manned her with about 400
+men, mostly soldiers from the Porto Bello forts. Among the company were
+seven master gunners and "twelve Indians very dexterous at shooting with
+bows and arrows." The city of Cartagena furnished other ships and men,
+bringing the squadron to a total of four vessels and 500 men-at-arms.
+With this force the Spanish commander arrived off Santa Katalina, coming
+to anchor in the port there on the evening of a windy day, the 10th of
+August 1665. As they dropped anchor they displayed their colours. As
+soon as the yellow silk blew clear, Le Sieur Simon discharged "three
+guns with bullets" at the ships, "the which were soon answered in the
+same coin." The Spaniard then sent a boat ashore to summon the garrison,
+threatening death to all if the summons were refused. To this Le Sieur
+Simon replied that the island was a possession of the English Crown,
+"and that, instead of surrendering it, they preferred to lose their
+lives." As more than a fourth of the little garrison was at that time
+hunting on the Main, or at sea, the answer was heroic. Three days later,
+some negroes swam off to the ships to tell the Spaniards of the
+garrison's weakness. After two more days of council, the boats were
+lowered from the ships, and manned with soldiers. The guns on the
+gun-decks were loaded, and trained. The drums beat to quarters both on
+the ships and in the batteries. Under the cover of the warship's guns,
+the boats shoved off towards the landing-place, receiving a furious fire
+from the buccaneers. The "weather was very calm and clear," so that the
+smoke from the guns did not blow away fast enough to allow the
+buccaneers to aim at the boats. The landing force formed into three
+parties, two of which attacked the flanks, and the third the centre.
+The battle was very furious, though the buccaneers were outnumbered and
+had no chance of victory. They ran short of cannon-balls before they
+surrendered, but they made shift for a time with small shot and scraps
+of iron, "also the organs of the church," of which they fired
+"threescore pipes" at a shot. The fighting lasted most of the day, for
+it was not to the advantage of the Spaniards to come to push of pike.
+Towards sunset the buccaneers were beaten from their guns. They fought
+in the open for a few minutes, round "the gate called Costadura," but
+the Spaniards surrounded them, and they were forced to lay down their
+arms. The Spanish colours were set up, and two poor Spaniards who had
+joined the buccaneers were shot to death upon the Plaza. The English
+prisoners were sent aboard the ships, and carried into Porto Bello,
+where they were put to the building of a fortress--the Iron Castle, a
+place of great strength, which later on the English blew to pieces. Some
+of the men were sent to Panama "to work in the castle of St Jerome"--a
+wonderful, great castle, which was burned at the sack of Panama almost
+before the mortar dried.
+
+While the guns were roaring over Santa Katalina, as Le Sieur Simon
+rammed his cannon full of organ pipes, Henry Morgan was in lodgings at
+Port Royal, greatly troubled at the news of Mansvelt's death. He was
+busily engaged at the time with letters to the merchants of New England.
+He was endeavouring to get their help towards the fortification of the
+island he had helped to capture. "His principal intent," writes one who
+did not love the man, "was to consecrate it as a refuge and sanctuary to
+the Pirates of those parts," making it "a convenient receptacle or store
+house of their preys and robberies." It is pleasant to speculate as to
+the reasons he urged to the devout New England Puritans. He must have
+chuckled to himself, and shared many a laugh with his clerk, to think
+that perhaps a Levite, or a Man of God, a deacon, or an elder, would
+untie the purse-strings of the sealed if he did but agonise about the
+Spanish Inquisition with sufficient earthquake and eclipse. He heard of
+the loss of the island before the answers came to him, and the news, of
+course, "put him upon new designs," though he did not abandon the scheme
+in its entirety. He had his little fleet at anchor in the harbour,
+gradually fitting for the sea, and his own ship was ready. Having
+received his commission from the Governor, he gave his captains orders
+to meet him on the Cuban coast, at one of the many inlets affording safe
+anchorage. Here, after several weeks of cruising, he was joined by "a
+fleet of twelve sail," some of them of several hundred tons. These were
+manned by 700 fighting men, part French, part English.
+
+At the council of war aboard the admiral's ship, it was suggested that
+so large a company should venture on Havana, which city, they thought,
+might easily be taken, "especially if they could but take a few of the
+ecclesiastics." Some of the pirates had been prisoners in the Havana,
+and knew that a town of 30,000 inhabitants would hardly yield to 700
+men, however desperate. "Nothing of consequence could be done there,"
+they pronounced, even with ecclesiastics, "unless with fifteen hundred
+men." One of the pirates then suggested the town of Puerto del Principe,
+an inland town surrounded by tobacco fields, at some distance from the
+sea. It did a thriving trade with the Havana; and he who suggested that
+it should be sacked, affirmed upon his honour, like Boult over Maria,
+that it never yet "was sacked by any Pirates." Towards this virginal
+rich town the buccaneers proceeded, keeping close along the coast until
+they made the anchorage of Santa Maria. Here they dropped anchor for the
+night.
+
+When the men were making merry over the punch, as they cleaned their
+arms, and packed their satchels, a Spanish prisoner "who had overheard
+their discourse, while they thought he did not understand the English
+tongue," slipped through a port-hole to the sea, and swam ashore. By
+some miracle he escaped the ground sharks, and contrived to get to
+Puerto del Principe some hours before the pirates left their ships. The
+Governor of the town, to whom he told his story, at once raised all his
+forces, "both freemen and slaves," to prejudice the enemy when he
+attacked. The forest ways were blocked with timber baulks, and several
+ambuscades were laid, with cannon in them, "to play upon them on their
+march." In all, he raised and armed 800 men, whom he disposed in order,
+either in the jungle at the ambuscades or in a wide expanse of grass
+which surrounded the town.
+
+In due course Morgan sent his men ashore, and marched them through the
+wood towards the town. They found the woodland trackways blocked by the
+timber baulks, so they made a detour, hacking paths for themselves with
+their machetes, until they got clear of the wood. When they got out of
+the jungle they found themselves on an immense green field, covered with
+thick grass, which bowed and shivered in the wind. A few pale cattle
+grazed here and there on the savannah; a few birds piped and twittered
+in the sunshine. In front of them, at some little distance, was the town
+they had come to pillage. It lay open to them--a cluster of houses, none
+of them very large, with warehouses and tobacco drying-rooms and
+churches with bells in them. Outside the town, some of them lying down,
+some standing so as to get a view of the enemy, were the planters and
+townsfolk, with their pikes and muskets, waiting for the battle to
+begin. Right in the pirates' front was a troop of horsemen armed with
+lances, swords, and pistols, drawn up in very good order, and ready to
+advance. The pirates on their coming from the wood formed into a
+semicircle or half-moon shape, the bow outwards, the horns curving to
+prevent the cavalry from taking them in flank. They had drums and
+colours in their ranks. The drums beat out a bravery, the colours were
+displayed. The men halted for a moment to get their breath and to
+reprime their guns. Then they advanced slowly, to the drubbing of the
+drums, just as the Spanish horsemen trotted forward. As the Spaniards
+sounded the charge, the buccaneers fired a volley of bullets at them,
+which brought a number of cavaliers out of their saddles. Those horsemen
+who escaped the bullets dashed down upon the line, and fired their
+pistols at close quarters, afterwards wheeling round, and galloping back
+to reform. They charged again and again, "like valiant and courageous
+soldiers," but at every charge the pirates stood firm, and withered them
+with file-firing. As they retired after each rush, the marksmen in the
+ranks picked them off one by one, killing the Governor, in his plumed
+hat, and strewing the grass with corpses. They also manoeuvred during
+this skirmish so as to cut off the horsemen from the town. After four
+hours of battle the cavalry were broken and defeated, and in no heart to
+fight further. They made a last charge on their blown horses, but their
+ranks went to pieces at the muzzles of the pirates' guns. They broke
+towards the cover of the woods, but the pirates charged them as they
+ran, and cut them down without pity. Then the drums beat out a bravery,
+and the pirates rushed the town in the face of a smart fire. The
+Spaniards fought in the streets, while some fired from the roofs and
+upper windows. So hot was the tussle that the pirates had to fight from
+house to house. The townsmen did not cease their fire, till the pirates
+were gathering wood to burn the town, in despair of taking it.
+
+[Illustration: PUERTO DEL PRINCIPE]
+
+As soon as the firing ceased, the townsfolk were driven to the
+churches, and there imprisoned under sentinels. Afterwards the pirates
+"searched the whole country round about the town, bringing in day by day
+many goods and prisoners, with much provision." The wine and spirits of
+the townsfolk were set on tap, and "with this they fell to banqueting
+among themselves, and making great cheer after their customary way."
+They feasted so merrily that they forgot their prisoners, "whereby the
+greatest part perished." Those who did not perish were examined in the
+Plaza, "to make them confess where they had hidden their goods." Those
+who would not tell where they had buried their gold were tortured very
+barbarously by burning matches, twisted cords, or lighted palm leaves.
+Finally, the starving wretches were ordered to find ransoms, "else they
+should be all transported to Jamaica" to be sold as slaves. The town was
+also laid under a heavy contribution, without which, they said, "they
+would turn every house into ashes."
+
+It happened that, at this juncture, some buccaneers, who were raiding in
+the woods, made prisoner a negro carrying letters from the Governor of
+the Havana. The letters were written to the citizens, telling them to
+delay the payment of their ransoms as long as possible, for that he was
+fitting out some soldiers to relieve them. The letters warned Henry
+Morgan that he had better be away with the treasure he had found. He
+gave order for the plunder to be sent aboard in the carts of the
+townsfolk. He then called up the prisoners, and told them very sharply
+that their ransoms must be paid the next day, "forasmuch as he would not
+wait one moment longer, but reduce the whole town to ashes, in case they
+failed to perform the sum he demanded." As it was plainly impossible for
+the townsfolk to produce their ransoms at this short notice he
+graciously relieved their misery by adding that he would be contented
+with 500 beeves, "together with sufficient salt wherewith to salt
+them." He insisted that the cattle should be ready for him by the next
+morning, and that the Spaniards should deliver them upon the beach,
+where they could be shifted to the ships without delay. Having made
+these terms, he marched his men away towards the sea, taking with him
+six of the principal prisoners "as pledges of what he intended." Early
+the next morning the beach of Santa Maria bay was thronged with cattle
+in charge of negroes and planters. Some of the oxen had been yoked to
+carts to bring the necessary salt. The Spaniards delivered the ransom,
+and demanded the six hostages. Morgan was by this time in some anxiety
+for his position. He was eager to set sail before the Havana ships came
+round the headland, with their guns run out, and matches lit, and all
+things ready for a fight. He refused to release the prisoners until the
+vaqueros "had helped his men to kill and salt the beeves." The work of
+killing and salting was performed "in great haste," lest the Havana
+ships should come upon them before the beef was shipped. The hides were
+left upon the sands, there being no time to dry them before sailing. A
+Spanish cowboy can kill, skin, and cut up a steer in a few minutes. The
+buccaneers were probably no whit less skilful. By noon the work was
+done. The beach of Santa Maria was strewn with mangled remnants, over
+which the seagulls quarrelled. But before Morgan could proceed to sea,
+he had to quell an uproar which was setting the French and English by
+the ears. The parties had not come to blows, but the French were
+clamouring for vengeance with drawn weapons. A French sailor, who was
+working on the beach, killing and pickling the meat, had been plundered
+by an Englishman, who "took away the marrowbones he had taken out of the
+ox." Marrow, "toute chaude," was a favourite dish among these people.
+The Frenchman could not brook an insult of a kind as hurtful to his
+dinner as to his sense of honour. He challenged the thief to single
+combat: swords the weapon, the time then. The buccaneers knocked off
+their butcher's work to see the fight. As the poor Frenchman turned his
+back to make him ready, his adversary stabbed him from behind, running
+him quite through, so that "he suddenly fell dead upon the place."
+Instantly the beach was in an uproar. The Frenchmen pressed upon the
+English to attack the murderer and to avenge the death of their fellow.
+There had been bad blood between the parties ever since they mustered at
+the quays before the raid began. The quarrel now raging was an excuse to
+both sides. Morgan walked between the angry groups, telling them to put
+up their swords. At a word from him, the murderer was seized, set in
+irons, and sent aboard an English ship. Morgan then seems to have made a
+little speech to pacify the rioters, telling the French that the man
+should be hanged ("hanged immediately," as they said of Admiral Byng) as
+soon as the ships had anchored in Port Royal bay. To the English, he
+said that the criminal was worthy of punishment, "for although it was
+permitted him to challenge his adversary, yet it was not lawful to kill
+him treacherously, as he did." After a good deal of muttering, the
+mutineers returned aboard their ships, carrying with them the last of
+the newly salted beef. The hostages were freed, a gun was fired from the
+admiral's ship, and the fleet hove up their anchors, and sailed away
+from Cuba, to some small sandy quay with a spring of water in it, where
+the division of the plunder could be made. The plunder was heaped
+together in a single pile. It was valued by the captains, who knew by
+long experience what such goods would fetch in the Jamaican towns.
+
+To the "resentment and grief" of all the 700 men these valuers could not
+bring the total up to 50,000 pieces of eight--say L12,000--"in money and
+goods." All hands were disgusted at "such a small booty, which was not
+sufficient to pay their debts at Jamaica." Some cursed their fortune;
+others cursed their captain. It does not seem to have occurred to them
+to blame themselves for talking business before their Spanish prisoners.
+Morgan told them to "think upon some other enterprize," for the ships
+were fit to keep the sea, and well provisioned. It would be an easy
+matter, he told them, to attack some town upon the Main "before they
+returned home," so that they should have a little money for the taverns,
+to buy them rum with, at the end of the cruise. But the French were
+still sore about the murder of their man: they raised objections to
+every scheme the English buccaneers proposed. Each proposition was
+received contemptuously, with angry bickerings and mutterings. At last
+the French captains intimated that they desired to part company. Captain
+Morgan endeavoured to dissuade them from this resolution by using every
+flattery his adroit nature could suggest. Finding that they would not
+listen to him, even though he swore by his honour that the murderer,
+then in chains, should be hanged as soon as they reached home, he
+brought out wine and glasses, and drank to their good fortune. The booty
+was then shared up among the adventurers. The Frenchmen got their shares
+aboard, and set sail for Tortuga to the sound of a salute of guns. The
+English held on for Port Royal, in great "resentment and grief." When
+they arrived there they caused the murderer to be hanged upon a gallows,
+which, we are told, "was all the satisfaction the French Pirates could
+expect."
+
+    _Note._--If we may believe Morgan's statement to Sir T. Modyford,
+    then Governor of Jamaica, he brought with him from Cuba reliable
+    evidence that the Spaniards were planning an attack upon that colony
+    (see State Papers: West Indies and Colonial Series). If the
+    statements of his prisoners were correct, the subsequent piratical
+    raid upon the Main had some justification. Had the Spaniards matured
+    their plans, and pushed the attack home, it is probable that we
+    should have lost our West Indian possessions.
+
+    _Authorities._--A. O. Exquemeling: "Bucaniers of America," eds.
+    1684-5 and 1699. Cal. State Papers: "West Indies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SACK OF PORTO BELLO
+
+    The Gulf of Maracaibo--Morgan's escape from the Spaniards
+
+
+It was a melancholy home-coming. The men had little more than ten pounds
+apiece to spend in jollity. The merchants who enjoyed their custom were
+of those kinds least anxious to give credit. The ten pounds were but
+sufficient to stimulate desire. They did not allow the jolly mariner to
+enjoy himself with any thoroughness. In a day or two, the buccaneers
+were at the end of their gold, and had to haunt the street corners,
+within scent of the rum casks, thinking sadly of the pleasant liquor
+they could not afford to drink. Henry Morgan took this occasion to
+recruit for a new enterprise. He went ashore among the drinking-houses,
+telling all he met of golden towns he meant to capture. He always
+"communicated vigour with his words," for, being a Welshman, he had a
+certain fervour of address, not necessarily sincere, which touched his
+simplest phrase with passion. In a day or two, after a little talk and a
+little treating, every disconsolate drunkard in the town was "persuaded
+by his reasons, that the sole execution of his orders, would be a
+certain means of obtaining great riches." This persuasion, the writer
+adds, "had such influence upon their minds, that with inimitable courage
+they all resolved to follow him." Even "a certain Pirate of Campeachy,"
+a shipowner of considerable repute, resolved to follow Morgan "to seek
+new fortunes and greater advantages than he had found before." The
+French might hold aloof, they all declared, but an Englishman was still
+the equal of a Spaniard; while after all a short life and a merry one
+was better than work ashore or being a parson. With this crude
+philosophy, they went aboard again to the decks they had so lately left.
+The Campeachy pirate brought in a ship or two, and some large canoas. In
+all they had a fleet of nine sail, manned by "four hundred and three
+score military men." With this force Captain Morgan sailed for Costa
+Rica.
+
+When they came within the sight of land, a council was called, to which
+the captains of the vessels went. Morgan told them that he meant to
+plunder Porto Bello by a night attack, "being resolved" to sack the
+place, "not the least corner escaping his diligence." He added that the
+scheme had been held secret, so that "it would not fail to succeed
+well." Besides, he thought it likely that a city of such strength would
+be unprepared for any sudden attack. The captains were staggered by this
+resolution, for they thought themselves too weak "to assault so strong
+and great a city." To this the plucky Welshman answered: "If our number
+is small, our hearts are great. And the fewer persons we are, the more
+union and better shares we shall have in the spoil." This answer, with
+the thought of "those vast riches they promised themselves," convinced
+the captains that the town could be attempted. It was a "dangerous
+voyage and bold assault" but Morgan had been lucky in the past, and the
+luck might still be with him. He knew the Porto Bello country, having
+been there with a party (perhaps Mansvelt's party) some years before. At
+any rate the ships would be at hand in the event of a repulse.
+
+It was something of a hazard, for the Spanish garrison was formed of all
+the desperate criminals the colonial police could catch. These men made
+excellent soldiers, for after a battle they were given the plunder of
+the men they had killed. Then Panama, with its great garrison, was
+perilously near at hand, being barely sixty miles away, or two days'
+journey. Lastly, the town was strongly fortified, with castles guarding
+it at all points. The garrison was comparatively small, mustering about
+three companies of foot. To these, however, the buccaneers had to add
+300 townsfolk capable of bearing arms. Following John Exquemeling's
+plan, we add a brief description of this famous town, to help the reader
+to form a mental picture of it.
+
+Porto Bello stands on the south-eastern side of a fine bay, "in the
+province of Costa Rica." At the time when Morgan captured it (in June
+1668) it was one of the strongest cities in the possession of the King
+of Spain. It was neglected until 1584, when a royal mandate caused the
+traders of Nombre de Dios to migrate thither. It then became the port of
+the galleons,[16] where the treasures of the south were shipped for
+Spain. The city which Morgan sacked was built upon a strip of level
+ground planted with fruit-trees, at a little distance from the sea, but
+within a few yards of the bay. The westward half of the town was very
+stately, being graced with fine stone churches and the residence of the
+lieutenant-general. Most of the merchants' dwellings (and of these there
+may have been 100) were built of cedar wood. Some were of stone, a thing
+unusual in the Indies, and some were partly stone, with wooden upper
+storeys. There was a fine stone convent peopled by Sisters of Mercy, and
+a dirty, ruinous old hospital for "the sick men belonging to the ships
+of war." On the shore there was a quay, backed by a long stone
+custom-house. The main street ran along the shore behind this
+custom-house, with cross-streets leading to the two great squares. The
+eastward half of the city, through which the road to Panama ran, was
+called Guinea; for there the slaves and negroes used to live, in huts
+and cottages of sugar-cane and palm leaves. There, too, was the slave
+mart, to which the cargoes of the Guinea ships were brought. A little
+river of clear water divided the two halves of the town. Another little
+river, bridged in two places, ran between the town and Castle Gloria.
+The place was strongly fortified. Ships entering the bay had to pass
+close to the "Iron Castle," built upon the western point. Directly they
+stood away towards the town they were exposed to the guns of Castle
+Gloria and Fort Jeronimo--the latter a strong castle built upon a
+sandbank off the Guinea town. The constant population was not large,
+though probably 300 white men lived there all the year round, in
+addition to the Spanish garrison. The native quarter was generally
+inhabited by several hundred negroes and mulattoes. When the galleons
+arrived there, and for some weeks before, the town was populous with
+merchants, who came across from Panama to buy and sell. Tents were
+pitched in the Grand Plaza, in front of the Governor's house, for the
+protection of perishable goods, like Jesuits'-bark. Gold and silver bars
+became as common to the sight as pebbles. Droves of mules came daily in
+from Panama, and ships arrived daily from all the seaports in the
+Indies. As soon as the galleons sailed for Spain, the city emptied as
+rapidly as it had filled. It was too unhealthy a place for white folk,
+who continued there "no longer than was needful to acquire a fortune."
+
+[Footnote 16: With reservations. See p. 13, _note_.]
+
+[Illustration: PORTO BELLO
+    CIRCA 1740. SHOWING THE SITUATION AND DEFENCES OF THE CITY]
+
+Indeed, Porto Bello was one of the most pestilential cities ever built,
+"by reason of the unhealthiness of the Air, occasioned by certain
+Vapours that exhale from the Mountains." It was excessively hot, for it
+lay (as it still lies) in a well, surrounded by hills, "without any
+intervals to admit the refreshing gales." It was less marshy than Nombre
+de Dios, but "the sea, when it ebbs, leaves a vast quantity of black,
+stinking mud, from whence there exhales an intolerable noisome vapour."
+At every fair-time "a kind of pestilential fever" raged, so that at
+least 400 folk were buried there annually during the five or six weeks
+of the market. The complaint may have been yellow fever; (perhaps the
+cholera), perhaps pernicious fever, aggravated by the dirty habits of
+the thousands then packed within the town. The mortality was especially
+heavy among the sailors who worked aboard the galleons, hoisting in or
+out the bales of merchandise. These mariners drank brandy very freely
+"to recruit their spirits," and in other ways exposed themselves to the
+infection. The drinking water of the place was "too fine and active for
+the stomachs of the inhabitants," who died of dysentery if they presumed
+to drink of it. The town smoked in a continual steam of heat, unrelieved
+even by the torrents of rain which fall there every day. The woods are
+infested with poisonous snakes, and abound in a sort of large toad or
+frog which crawls into the city after rains. The tigers "often make
+incursions into the street," as at Nombre de Dios, to carry off children
+and domestic animals. There was good fishing in the bay, and the land
+was fertile "beyond wonder," so that the cost of living there, in the
+_tiempo muerto_, was very small. There is a hill behind the town called
+the Capiro, about which the streamers of the clouds wreathe whenever
+rain is coming. The town was taken by Sir Francis Drake in 1595, by
+Captain Parker in 1601, by Morgan in 1668, by Coxon in 1679, and by
+Admiral Vernon in 1740.
+
+Having told his plans, the admiral bade his men make ready. During the
+afternoon he held towards the west of Porto Bello, at some distance from
+the land. The coast up to the Chagres River, and for some miles beyond,
+is low, so that there was not much risk of the ships being sighted from
+the shore. As it grew darker, he edged into the land, arriving "in the
+dusk of the evening" at a place called Puerto de Naos, or Port of
+Ships, a bay midway between Porto Bello and the Chagres, and about ten
+leagues from either place.
+
+They sailed westward up the coast for a little distance to a place
+called Puerto Pontin, where they anchored. Here the pirates got their
+boats out, and took to the oars, "leaving in the ships only a few men to
+keep them, and conduct them the next day to the port." By the light of
+lamps and battle lanterns the boats rowed on through the darkness, till
+at midnight they had came to a station called Estera longa Lemos, a
+river-mouth a few miles from Porto Bello, "where they all went on
+shore." After priming their muskets, they set forth towards the city,
+under the guidance of an English buccaneer, who had been a prisoner at
+Porto Bello but a little while before. When they were within a mile or
+two of the town, they sent this Englishmen with three or four companions
+to take a solitary sentry posted at the city outskirts. If they could
+not take him, they were to kill him, but without giving the alarm to the
+inhabitants. By creeping quietly behind him, the party took the sentry,
+"with such cunning that he had no time to give warning with his musket,
+or make any other noise." A knife point pressing on his spine, and a gag
+of wood across his tongue, warned him to attempt no outcry. Some
+rope-yarn was passed about his wrists, and in this condition he was
+dragged to Captain Morgan. As soon as he was in the admiral's presence,
+he was questioned as to the number of soldiers then in the forts, "with
+many other circumstances." It must have been a most uncomfortable trial,
+for "after every question, they made him a thousand menaces to kill him,
+in case he declared not the truth." When they had examined him to their
+satisfaction, they recommenced their march, "carrying always the said
+sentry bound before them." Another mile brought them to an outlying
+fortress, which was built apparently between Porto Bello and the sea,
+to protect the coast road and a few outlying plantations. It was not yet
+light, so the pirates crept about the fort unseen, "so that no person
+could get either in or out." When they had taken up their ground, Morgan
+bade the captured sentry hail the garrison, charging them to surrender
+on pain of being cut to pieces. The garrison at once ran to their
+weapons, and opened a fierce fire on the unseen enemy, thus giving
+warning to the city that the pirates were attacking. Before they could
+reload, the buccaneers, "the noble Sparks of Venus," stormed in among
+them, taking them in their confusion, hardly knowing what was toward.
+Morgan was furious that the Spaniards had not surrendered at discretion
+on his challenge. The pirates were flushed with the excitement of the
+charge. Someone proposed that they "should be as good as their words, in
+putting the Spaniards to the sword, thereby to strike a terror into the
+rest of the city." They hustled the Spanish soldiers "into one room,"
+officers and men together. The cellars of the fort were filled with
+powder barrels. Some ruffian took a handful of the powder, and spilled a
+train along the ground, telling his comrades to stand clear. His mates
+ran from the building applauding his device. In another moment the
+pirate blew upon his musket match to make the end red, and fired the
+train he had laid, "and blew up the whole castle into the air, with all
+the Spaniards that were within." "Much the better way of the two," says
+one of the chroniclers, who saw the explosion.
+
+"This being done," says the calm historian, "they pursued the course of
+their victory" into the town. By this time, the streets were thronged
+with shrieking townsfolk. Men ran hither and thither with their poor
+belongings. Many flung their gold and jewels into wells and cisterns, or
+stamped them underground, "to excuse their being totally robbed." The
+bells were set clanging in the belfries; while, to increase the
+confusion, the Governor rode into the streets, calling on the citizens
+to rally and stand firm. As the dreadful panic did not cease, he rode
+out of the mob to one of the castles (Castle Gloria), where the troops
+were under arms. It was now nearly daybreak, or light enough for them to
+see their enemy. As the pirates came in sight among the fruit-trees, the
+Governor trained his heavy guns upon them, and opened a smart fire. Some
+lesser castles, or the outlying works of Castle Gloria, which formed the
+outer defences of the town, followed his example; nor could the pirates
+silence them. One party of buccaneers crept round the fortifications to
+the town, where they attacked the monastery and the convent, breaking
+into both with little trouble, and capturing a number of monks and nuns.
+With these they retired to the pirates' lines.
+
+For several hours, the pirates got no farther, though the fire did not
+slacken on either side. The pirates lay among the scrub, hidden in the
+bushes, in little knots of two and three. They watched the castle
+embrasures after each discharge of cannon, for the Spaniards could not
+reload without exposing themselves as they sponged or rammed. Directly a
+Spaniard appeared, he was picked off from the bushes with such precision
+that they lost "one or two men every time they charged each gun anew."
+The losses on the English side were fully as severe; for, sheltered
+though they were, the buccaneers lost heavily. The lying still under a
+hot sun was galling to the pirates' temper. They made several attempts
+to storm, but failed in each attempt owing to the extreme gallantry of
+the defence. Towards noon they made a furious attack, carrying
+fireballs, or cans filled with powder and resin, in their hands
+"designing, if possible, to burn the doors of the castle." As they came
+beneath the walls, the Spaniards rolled down stones upon them, with
+"earthen pots full of powder" and iron shells filled full of chain-shot,
+"which forced them to desist from that attempt." Morgan's party was
+driven back with heavy loss. It seemed to Morgan at this crisis that the
+victory was with the Spanish. He wavered for some minutes, uncertain
+whether to call off his men. "Many faint and calm meditations came into
+his mind" seeing so many of his best hands dead and the Spanish fire
+still so furious. As he debated "he was suddenly animated to continue
+the assault, by seeing the English colours put forth at one of the
+lesser castles, then entered by his men." A few minutes later the
+conquerors came swaggering up to join him, "proclaiming victory with
+loud shouts of joy."
+
+Leaving his musketeers to fire at the Spanish gunners, Morgan turned
+aside to reconnoitre. Making the capture of the lesser fort his excuse,
+he sent a trumpet, with a white flag, to summon the main castle, where
+the Governor had flown the Spanish standard. While the herald was gone
+upon his errand, Morgan set some buccaneers to make a dozen scaling
+ladders, "so broad that three or four men at once might ascend by them."
+By the time they were finished, the trumpeter returned, bearing the
+Governor's answer that "he would never surrender himself alive." When
+the message had been given, Captain Morgan formed his soldiers into
+companies, and bade the monks and nuns whom he had taken, to place the
+ladders against the walls of the chief castle. He thought that the
+Spanish Governor would hardly shoot down these religious persons, even
+though they bore the ladders for the scaling parties. In this he was
+very much mistaken. The Governor was there to hold the castle for his
+Catholic Majesty, and, like "a brave and courageous soldier," he
+"refused not to use his utmost endeavours to destroy whoever came near
+the walls." As the wretched monks and nuns came tottering forward with
+the ladders, they begged of him, "by all the Saints of Heaven," to haul
+his colours down, to the saving of their lives. Behind them were the
+pirates, pricking them forward with their pikes and knives. In front of
+them were the cannon of their friends, so near that they could see the
+matches burning in the hands of the gunners. "They ceased not to cry to
+him," says the narrative; but they could not "prevail with the obstinacy
+and fierceness that had possessed the Governor's mind"--"the Governor
+valuing his honour before the lives of the Mass-mumblers." As they drew
+near to the walls, they quickened their steps, hoping, no doubt, to get
+below the cannon muzzles out of range. When they were but a few yards
+from the walls, the cannon fired at them, while the soldiers pelted them
+with a fiery hail of hand-grenades. "Many of the religious men and nuns
+were killed before they could fix the ladders"; in fact, the poor folk
+were butchered there in heaps, before the ladders caught against the
+parapet. Directly the ladders held, the pirates stormed up with a shout,
+in great swarms, like a ship's crew going aloft to make the sails fast.
+They had "fireballs in their hands and earthen pots full of powder,"
+which "they kindled and cast in among the Spaniards" from the summits of
+the walls. In the midst of the smoke and flame which filled the fort the
+Spanish Governor stood fighting gallantly. His wife and child were
+present in that house of death, among the blood and smell, trying to
+urge him to surrender. The men were running from their guns, and the
+hand-grenades were bursting all about him, but this Spanish Governor
+refused to leave his post. The buccaneers who came about him called upon
+him to surrender, but he answered that he would rather die like a brave
+soldier than be hanged as a coward for deserting his command, "so that
+they were enforc'd to kill him, nothwithstanding the cries of his Wife
+and Daughter."
+
+The sun was setting over Iron Castle before the firing came to an end
+with the capture of the Castle Gloria. The pirates used the last of the
+light for the securing of their many prisoners. They drove them to some
+dungeon in the castle, where they shut them up under a guard. The
+wounded "were put into a certain apartment by itself," without
+medicaments or doctors, "to the intent their own complaints might be the
+cure of their diseases." In the dungeons of the castle's lower battery
+they found eleven English prisoners chained hand and foot. They were the
+survivors of the garrison of Providence, which the Spaniards
+treacherously took two years before. Their backs were scarred with many
+floggings, for they had been forced to work like slaves at the laying of
+the quay piles in the hot sun, under Spanish overseers. They were
+released at once, and tenderly treated, nor were they denied a share of
+the plunder of the town.
+
+"Having finish'd this Jobb" the pirates sought out the "recreations of
+Heroick toil." "They fell to eating and drinking" of the provisions
+stored within the city, "committing in both these things all manner of
+debauchery and excess." They tapped the casks of wine and brandy, and
+"drank about" till they were roaring drunk. In this condition they ran
+about the town, like cowboys on a spree, "and never examined whether it
+were Adultery or Fornication which they committed." By midnight they
+were in such a state of drunken disorder that "if there had been found
+only fifty courageous men, they might easily have retaken the City, and
+killed the Pirats." The next day they gathered plunder, partly by
+routing through the houses, partly by torturing the townsfolk. They seem
+to have been no less brutal here than they had been in Cuba, though the
+Porto Bello houses yielded a more golden spoil than had been won at
+Puerto Principe. They racked one or two poor men until they died. Others
+they slowly cut to pieces, or treated to the punishment called
+"woolding," by which the eyes were forced from their sockets under the
+pressure of a twisted cord. Some were tortured with burning matches "and
+such like slight torments." A woman was roasted to death "upon a baking
+stone"--a sin for which one buccaneer ("as he lay sick") was
+subsequently sorry.
+
+While they were indulging these barbarities, they drank and swaggered
+and laid waste. They stayed within the town for fifteen days, sacking it
+utterly, to the last ryal. They were too drunk and too greedy to care
+much about the fever, which presently attacked them, and killed a
+number, as they lay in drunken stupor in the kennels. News of their riot
+being brought across the isthmus, the Governor of Panama resolved to
+send a troop of soldiers, to attempt to retake the city, but he had
+great difficulty in equipping a sufficient force. Before his men were
+fit to march, some messengers came in from the imprisoned townsfolk,
+bringing word from Captain Morgan that he wanted a ransom for the city,
+"or else he would by fire consume it to ashes." The pirate ships were by
+this time lying off the town, in Porto Bello bay. They were taking in
+fresh victuals for the passage home. The ransom asked was 100,000 pieces
+of eight, or L25,000. If it had not been paid the pirates could have put
+their threat in force without the slightest trouble. Morgan made all
+ready to ensure his retreat in the event of an attack from Panama. He
+placed an outpost of 100 "well-arm'd" men in a narrow part of the
+passage over the isthmus. All the plunder of the town was sent on board
+the ships. In this condition he awaited the answer of the President.
+
+As soon as that soldier had sufficient musketeers in arms, he marched
+them across the isthmus to relieve the city. They attempted the pass
+which Morgan had secured, but lost very heavily in the attempt. The
+buccaneers charged, and completely routed them, driving back the entire
+company along the road to Panama. The President had "to retire for that
+time," but he sent a blustering note to Captain Morgan, threatening him
+and his with death "when he should take them, as he hoped soon to do."
+To this Morgan replied that he would not deliver the castles till he had
+the money, and that if the money did not come, the castles should be
+blown to pieces, with the prisoners inside them. We are told that "the
+Governor of Panama perceived by this answer that no means would serve to
+mollify the hearts of the Pirates, nor reduce them to reason." He
+decided to let the townsfolk make what terms they could. In a few days
+more these wretched folk contrived to scrape together the required sum
+of money, which they paid over as their ransom.
+
+Before the expedition sailed away, a messenger arrived from Panama with
+a letter from the Governor to Captain Morgan. It made no attempt to
+mollify his heart nor to reduce him to reason, but it expressed a wonder
+at the pirates' success. He asked, as a special favour, that Captain
+Morgan would send him "some small patterns" of the arms with which the
+city had been taken. He thought it passing marvellous that a town so
+strongly fortified should have been won by men without great guns.
+Morgan treated the messenger to a cup of drink, and gave him a pistol
+and some leaden bullets "to carry back to the President, his Master."
+"He desired him to accept that pattern of the arms wherewith he had
+taken Porto Bello." He requested him to keep them for a twelvemonth,
+"after which time he promised to come to Panama and fetch them away."
+The Spaniard returned the gift to Captain Morgan, "giving him thanks for
+lending him such weapons as he needed not." He also sent a ring of gold,
+with the warning "not to give himself the trouble of coming to Panama,"
+for "he should not speed so well there" as he had sped at Porto Bello.
+
+"After these transactions" Captain Morgan loosed his top-sail, as a
+signal to unmoor. His ships were fully victualled for the voyage, and
+the loot was safely under hatches. As a precaution, he took with him the
+best brass cannon from the fortress. The iron guns were securely spiked
+with soft metal nails, which were snapped off flush with the
+touch-holes. The anchors were weighed to the music of the fiddlers, a
+salute of guns was fired, and the fleet stood out of Porto Bello bay
+along the wet, green coast, passing not very far from the fort which
+they had blown to pieces. In a few days' time they raised the Keys of
+Cuba, their favourite haven, where "with all quiet and repose" they made
+their dividend. "They found in ready money two hundred and fifty
+thousand pieces of eight, besides all other merchandises, as cloth,
+linen, silks and other goods." The spoil was amicably shared about the
+mast before a course was shaped for their "common rendezvous"--Port
+Royal.
+
+A godly person in Jamaica, writing at this juncture in some distress,
+expressed himself as follows:--"There is not now resident upon this
+place ten men to every [licensed] house that selleth strong liquors ...
+besides sugar and rum works that sell without license." When Captain
+Morgan's ships came flaunting into harbour, with their colours
+fluttering and the guns thundering salutes, there was a rustle and a
+stir in the heart of every publican. "All the Tavern doors stood open,
+as they do at London, on Sundays, in the afternoon." Within those tavern
+doors, "in all sorts of vices and debauchery," the pirates spent their
+plunder "with huge prodigality," not caring what might happen on the
+morrow.
+
+Shortly after the return from Porto Bello, Morgan organised another
+expedition with which he sailed into the Gulf of Maracaibo. His ships
+could not proceed far on account of the shallowness of the water, but by
+placing his men in the canoas he penetrated to the end of the Gulf. On
+the way he sacked Maracaibo, a town which had been sacked on two
+previous occasions--the last time by L'Ollonais only a couple of years
+before. Morgan's men tortured the inhabitants, according to their
+custom, either by "woolding" them or by placing burning matches between
+their toes. They then set sail for Gibraltar, a small town strongly
+fortified, at the south-east corner of the Gulf. The town was empty, for
+the inhabitants had fled into the hills with "all their goods and
+riches." But the pirates sent out search parties, who brought in many
+prisoners. These were examined, with the usual cruelties, being racked,
+pressed, hung up by the heels, burnt with palm leaves, tied to stakes,
+suspended by the thumbs and toes, flogged with rattans, or roasted at
+the camp fires. Some were crucified, and burnt between the fingers as
+they hung on the crosses; "others had their feet put into the fire."
+
+When they had extracted the last ryal from the sufferers they shipped
+themselves aboard some Spanish vessels lying in the port. They were
+probably cedar-built ships, of small tonnage, built at the Gibraltar
+yards. In these they sailed towards Maracaibo, where they found "a poor
+distressed old man, who was sick." This old man told them that the
+Castle de la Barra, which guarded the entrance to the Gulf, had been
+mounted with great guns and manned by a strong garrison. Outside the
+channel were three Spanish men-of-war with their guns run out and decks
+cleared for battle.
+
+The truth of these assertions was confirmed by a scouting party the same
+day. In order to gain a little time Morgan sent a Spaniard to the
+admiral of the men-of-war, demanding a ransom "for not putting Maracaibo
+to the flame." The answer reached him in a day or two, warning him to
+surrender all his plunder, and telling him that if he did not, he should
+be destroyed by the sword. There was no immediate cause for haste,
+because the Spanish admiral could not cross the sandbanks into the Gulf
+until he had obtained flat-bottomed boats from Caracas. Morgan read the
+letter to his men "in the market-place of Maracaibo," "both in French
+and English," and then asked them would they give up all their spoil,
+and pass unharmed, or fight for its possession. They agreed with one
+voice to fight, "to the very last drop of blood," rather than surrender
+the booty they had risked their skins to get. One of the men undertook
+to rig a fireship to destroy the Spanish admiral's flagship. He proposed
+to fill her decks with logs of wood "standing with hats and Montera
+caps," like gunners standing at their guns. At the port-holes they would
+place other wooden logs to resemble cannon. The ship should then hang
+out the English colours, the Jack or the red St George's cross, so that
+the enemy should deem her "one of our best men of war that goes to fight
+them." The scheme pleased everyone, but there was yet much anxiety among
+the pirates. Morgan sent another letter to the Spanish admiral, offering
+to spare Maracaibo without ransom; to release his prisoners, with one
+half of the captured slaves; and to send home the hostages he brought
+away from Gibraltar, if he might be granted leave to pass the entry. The
+Spaniard rejected all these terms, with a curt intimation that, if the
+pirates did not surrender within two more days, they should be compelled
+to do so at the sword's point.
+
+Morgan received the Spaniard's answer angrily, resolving to attempt the
+passage "without surrendering anything." He ordered his men to tie the
+slaves and prisoners, so that there should be no chance of their
+attempting to rise. They then rummaged Maracaibo for brimstone, pitch,
+and tar, with which to make their fireship. They strewed her deck with
+fireworks and with dried palm leaves soaked in tar. They cut her
+outworks down, so that the fire might more quickly spread to the enemy's
+ship at the moment of explosion. They broke open some new gun-ports, in
+which they placed small drums, "of which the negroes make use."
+"Finally, the decks were handsomely beset with many pieces of wood
+dressed up in the shape of men with hats or monteras, and likewise armed
+with swords, muskets, and bandoliers." The plunder was then divided
+among the other vessels of the squadron. A guard of musketeers was
+placed over the prisoners, and the pirates then set sail towards the
+passage. The fireship went in advance, with orders to fall foul of the
+_Spanish Admiral_, a ship of forty guns.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRESHIP DESTROYING THE SPANISH ADMIRAL
+    CASTLE DE LA BARRA IN BACKGROUND]
+
+When it grew dark they anchored for the night, with sentinels on each
+ship keeping vigilant watch. They were close to the entry, almost within
+shot of the Spaniards, and they half expected to be boarded in the
+darkness. At dawn they got their anchors, and set sail towards the
+Spaniards, who at once unmoored, and beat to quarters. In a few minutes
+the fireship ran into the man-of-war, "and grappled to her sides" with
+kedges thrown into her shrouds. The Spaniards left their guns, and
+strove to thrust her away, but the fire spread so rapidly that they
+could not do so. The flames caught the warship's sails, and ran along
+her sides with such fury that her men had hardly time to get away from
+her before she blew her bows out, and went to the bottom. The second
+ship made no attempt to engage: her crew ran her ashore, and deserted,
+leaving her bilged in shallow water. As the pirates rowed towards the
+wreck some of the deserters hurried back to fire her. The third ship
+struck her colours without fighting.
+
+Seeing their advantage a number of the pirates landed to attack the
+castle, where the shipwrecked Spaniards were rallying. A great skirmish
+followed, in which the pirates lost more men than had been lost at Porto
+Bello. They were driven off with heavy loss, though they continued to
+annoy the fort with musket fire till the evening. As it grew dark they
+returned to Maracaibo, leaving one of their ships to watch the fortress
+and to recover treasure from the sunken flagship. Morgan now wrote to
+the Spanish admiral, demanding a ransom for the town. The citizens were
+anxious to get rid of him at any cost, so they compounded with him,
+seeing that the admiral disdained to treat, for the sum of 20,000 pieces
+of eight and 500 cattle. The gold was paid, and the cattle duly counted
+over, killed, and salted; but Morgan did not purpose to release his
+prisoners until his ship was safely past the fort. He told the Maracaibo
+citizens that they would not be sent ashore until the danger of the
+passage was removed. With this word he again set sail to attempt to pass
+the narrows. He found his ship still anchored near the wreck, but in
+more prosperous sort than he had left her. Her men had brought up 15,000
+pieces of eight, with a lot of gold and silver plate, "as hilts of
+swords and other things," besides "great quantity of pieces of eight"
+which had "melted and run together" in the burning of the vessel.
+
+Morgan now made a last appeal to the Spanish admiral, telling him that
+he would hang his prisoners if the fortress fired on him as he sailed
+past. The Spanish admiral sent an answer to the prisoners, who had
+begged him to relent, informing them that he would do his duty, as he
+wished they had done theirs. Morgan heard the answer, and realised that
+he would have to use some stratagem to escape the threatened danger. He
+made a dividend of the plunder before he proceeded farther, for he
+feared that some of the fleet might never win to sea, and that the
+captains of those which escaped might be tempted to run away with their
+ships. The spoils amounted to 250,000 pieces of eight, as at Porto
+Bello, though in addition to this gold there were numbers of slaves and
+heaps of costly merchandise.
+
+When the booty had been shared he put in use his stratagem. He embarked
+his men in the canoas, and bade them row towards the shore "as if they
+designed to land." When they reached the shore they hid under the
+overhanging boughs "till they had laid themselves down along in the
+boats." Then one or two men rowed the boats back to the ships, with the
+crews concealed under the thwarts. The Spaniards in the fortress watched
+the going and returning of the boats. They could not see the stratagem,
+for the boats were too far distant, but they judged that the pirates
+were landing for a night attack. The boats plied to and from the shore
+at intervals during the day. The anxious Spaniards resolved to prepare
+for the assault by placing their great guns on the landward side of the
+fortress. They cleared away the scrub on that side, in order to give
+their gunners a clear view of the attacking force when the sun set. They
+posted sentries, and stood to their arms, expecting to be attacked.
+
+As soon as night had fallen the buccaneers weighed anchor. A bright moon
+was shining, and by the moonlight the ships steered seaward under bare
+poles. As they came abreast of the castle on the gentle current of the
+ebb, they loosed their sails to a fair wind blowing seaward. At the same
+moment, while the top-sails were yet slatting, Captain Morgan fired
+seven great guns "with bullets" as a last defiance. The Spaniards
+dragged their cannon across the fortress, "and began to fire very
+furiously," without much success. The wind freshened, and as the ships
+drew clear of the narrows they felt its force, and began to slip through
+the water. One or two shots took effect upon them before they drew out
+of range, but "the Pirates lost not many of their men, nor received any
+considerable damage in their ships." They hove to at a distance of a
+mile from the fort in order to send a boat in with a number of the
+prisoners. They then squared their yards, and stood away towards
+Jamaica, where they arrived safely, after very heavy weather, a few days
+later. Here they went ashore in their stolen velvets and silks to spend
+their silver dollars in the Port Royal rum shops. Some mates of theirs
+were ashore at that time after an unlucky cruise. It was their pleasure
+"to mock and jeer" these unsuccessful pirates, "often telling them: Let
+us see what money you brought from Comana, and if it be as good silver
+as that which we bring from Maracaibo."
+
+    _Note._--On his return from Maracaibo, Morgan gave out that he had
+    met with further information of an intended Spanish attack on
+    Jamaica. He may have made the claim to justify his actions on the
+    Main, which were considerably in excess of the commission Modyford
+    had given him. On the other hand, a Spanish attack may have been
+    preparing, as he stated; but the preparations could not have gone
+    far, for had the Spaniards been prepared for such an expedition
+    Morgan's Panama raid could never have succeeded.
+
+    _Authorities._--Exquemeling's "History of The Bucaniers of America";
+    Exquemeling's "History" (the Malthus edition), 1684. Cal. State
+    Papers: West Indian and Colonial Series.
+
+    For my account of Porto Bello I am indebted to various brief
+    accounts in Hakluyt, and to a book entitled "A Description of the
+    Spanish Islands," by a "Gentleman long resident in those parts." I
+    have also consulted the brief notices in Dampier's Voyages, Wafer's
+    Voyages, various gazetteers, and some maps and pamphlets relating to
+    Admiral Vernon's attack in 1739-40. There is a capital description
+    of the place as it was in its decadence, _circa_ 1820, in Michael
+    Scott's "Tom Cringle's Log."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MORGAN'S GREAT RAID
+
+    Chagres castle--Across the isthmus--Sufferings of the
+    buccaneers--Venta Cruz--Old Panama
+
+
+Some months later Henry Morgan found his pirates in all the miseries of
+poverty. They had wasted all their silver dollars, and longed for
+something "to expend anew in wine" before they were sold as slaves to
+pay their creditors. He thought that he would save them from their
+misery by going a new cruise. There was no need for him to drum up
+recruits in the rum shops, for his name was glorious throughout the
+Indies. He had but to mention that "he intended for the Main" to get
+more men than he could ship. He "assigned the south side of the Isle of
+Tortuga" for his rendezvous, and he sent out letters to the "ancient and
+expert Pirates" and to the planters and hunters in Hispaniola, asking
+them, in the American general's phrase, "to come and dip their spoons in
+a platter of glory." Long before the appointed day the rendezvous was
+crowded, for ships, canoas, and small boats came thronging to the
+anchorage with all the ruffians of the Indies. Many marched to the
+rendezvous across the breadth of Hispaniola "with no small
+difficulties." The muster brought together a grand variety of rascaldom,
+from Campeachy in the west to Trinidad in the east. Hunters, planters,
+logwood cutters, Indians, and half-breeds came flocking from their huts
+and inns to go upon the grand account. Lastly, Henry Morgan came in his
+fine Spanish ship, with the brass and iron guns. At the firing of a gun
+the assembled captains came on board to him for a pirates' council, over
+the punch-bowl, in the admiral's cabin.
+
+It was decided at this council to send a large party to the Main, to the
+de la Hacha River, "to assault a small village" of the name of La
+Rancheria--the chief granary in all the "Terra Firma." The pirates were
+to seize as much maize there as they could find--enough, if possible, to
+load the ships of the expedition. While they were away their fellows at
+Tortuga were to clean and rig the assembled ships to fit them for the
+coming cruise. Another large party was detailed to hunt in the woods for
+hogs and cattle.
+
+In about five weeks' time the ships returned from Rio de la Hacha, after
+much buffeting at sea. They brought with them a grain ship they had
+taken in the port, and several thousand sacks of corn which the
+Spaniards had paid them as "a ransom for not burning the town." They had
+also won a lot of silver, "with all other things they could rob"--such
+as pearls from the local pearl beds. The hunters had killed and salted
+an incredible quantity of beef and pork, the ships were scraped and
+tallowed, and nothing more was to be done save to divide the victuals
+among all the buccaneers. This division did not take much time. Within a
+couple of days the admiral loosed his top-sail. The pirates fired off
+their guns and hove their anchors up. They sailed out of Port Couillon
+with a fair wind, in a great bravery of flags, towards the rendezvous at
+Cape Tiburon, to the south-west of the island Hispaniola. When they
+reached Cape Tiburon, where there is a good anchorage, they brought
+aboard a store of oranges, to save them from the scurvy. While the men
+were busy in the orange groves Henry Morgan "gave letters patent, or
+commissions," to all his captains, "to act all manner of hostility
+against the Spanish nation." For this act he had the sealed authority
+of the Council of Jamaica. He was no longer a pirate or buccaneer, but
+an admiral leading a national enterprise. As we have said, he had heard,
+on the Main, of an intended Spanish attack upon Jamaica; indeed, it is
+probable that his capture of Porto Bello prevented the ripening of the
+project. There is no need to whitewash Morgan, but we may at least
+regard him at this juncture as the saviour of our West Indian colonies.
+After the serving out of these commissions, and their due sealing, the
+captains were required to sign the customary articles, allotting the
+shares of the prospective plunder. The articles allotted very liberal
+compensation to the wounded; they also expressly stated the reward to be
+given for bravery in battle. Fifty pieces of eight were allotted to him
+who should haul a Spanish colour down and hoist the English flag in its
+place. Surgeons received 200 pieces of eight "for their chests of
+medicaments." Carpenters received one half of that sum. Henry Morgan,
+the admiral of the fleet, was to receive one-hundredth part of all the
+plunder taken. His vice-admiral's share is not stated. As a stimulus to
+the pirates, it was published through the fleet that any captain and
+crew who ventured on, and took, a Spanish ship should receive a tenth
+part of her value as a reward to themselves for their bravery. When the
+contracts had been signed Morgan asked his captains which town they
+should attempt. They had thirty-seven ships, carrying at least 500
+cannon. They had 2000 musketeers, "besides mariners and boys," while
+they possessed "great quantity of ammunition, and fire balls, with other
+inventions of powder." With such an armament, he said, they could attack
+the proudest of the Spanish cities. They could sack La Vera Cruz, where
+the gold from Manila was put aboard the galleons, as they lay alongside
+the quays moored to the iron ring-bolts; or they could go eastward to
+the town of Cartagena to pillage our Lady's golden altar in the church
+there; or they could row up the Chagres River, and keep the promise
+Morgan had made to the Governor of Panama. The captains pronounced for
+Panama, but they added, as a rider, that it would be well to go to Santa
+Katalina to obtain guides. The Santa Katalina fort was still in the
+possession of the Spaniards, who now used it as a convict settlement,
+sending thither all the outlaws of the "Terra Firma." It would be well,
+they said, to visit Santa Katalina to select a few choice cut-throats to
+guide them over the isthmus. With this resolution they set sail for
+Santa Katalina, where they anchored on the fourth day, "before sunrise,"
+in a bay called the Aguada Grande.
+
+Some of the buccaneers had been there under Mansvelt, and these now
+acted as guides to the men who went ashore in the fighting party. A day
+of hard fighting followed, rather to the advantage of the Spaniards, for
+the pirates won none of the batteries, and had to sleep in the open,
+very wet and hungry. The next day Morgan threatened the garrison with
+death if they did not yield "within few hours." The Governor was not a
+very gallant man, like the Governor at Porto Bello. Perhaps he was
+afraid of his soldiers, the convicts from the "Terra Firma." At anyrate
+he consented to surrender, but he asked that the pirates would have the
+kindness to pretend to attack him, "for the saving of his honesty."
+Morgan agreed very gladly to this proposition, for he saw little chance
+of taking the fort by storm. When the night fell, he followed the
+Governor's direction, and began a furious bombardment, "but without
+bullets, or at least into the air." The castles answered in the like
+manner, burning a large quantity of powder. Then the pirates stormed
+into the castles in a dramatic way; while the Spaniards retreated to
+the church, and hung out the white flag.
+
+Early the next morning the pirates sacked the place, and made great
+havoc in the poultry-yards and cattle-pens. They pulled down a number of
+wooden houses to supply their camp fires. The guns they nailed or sent
+aboard. The powder they saved for their own use, but some proportion of
+it went to the destruction of the forts, which, with one exception, they
+blew up. For some days they stayed there, doing nothing but "roast and
+eat, and make good cheer," sending the Spaniards to the fields to rout
+out fresh provisions. While they lay there, Morgan asked "if any
+banditti were there from Panama," as he had not yet found his guides.
+Three scoundrels came before him, saying that they knew the road across
+the isthmus, and that they would act as guides if such action were made
+profitable. Morgan promised them "equal shares in all they should
+pillage and rob," and told them that they should come with him to
+Jamaica at the end of the cruise. These terms suited the three robbers
+very well. One of them, "a wicked fellow," "the greatest rogue, thief
+and assassin among them," who had deserved rather "to be broken alive
+upon a wheel than punished with serving in a garrison," was the
+spokesman of the trio. He was the Dubosc of that society, "and could
+domineer and command over them," "they not daring to refuse obedience."
+This truculent ruffian, with his oaths and his knives and his black
+moustachios, was elected head guide.
+
+After several days of ease upon the island Morgan sent a squadron to the
+Main, with 400 men, four ships, and a canoa, "to go and take the Castle
+of Chagre," at the entrance to the Chagres River. He would not send a
+larger company, though the fort was strong, for he feared "lest the
+Spaniards should be jealous of his designs upon Panama"--lest they
+should be warned, that is, by refugees from Chagres before he tried to
+cross the isthmus. Neither would he go himself, for he was still bent
+upon establishing a settlement at Santa Katalina. He chose out an old
+buccaneer, of the name of Brodely or Bradly, who had sailed with
+Mansvelt, to command the expedition. He was famous in his way this
+Captain Brodely, for he had been in all the raids, and had smelt a
+quantity of powder. He was as brave as a lion, resourceful as a sailor,
+and, for a buccaneer, most prudent. Ordering his men aboard, he sailed
+for the Chagres River, where, three days later, he arrived. He stood in
+towards the river's mouth; but the guns of the castle opened on him,
+making that anchorage impossible. But about a league from the castle
+there is a small bay, and here Captain Brodely brought his ships to
+anchor, and sent his men to their blankets, warning them to stand by for
+an early call.
+
+[Illustration: CHAGRES
+    CIRCA 1739]
+
+The castle of San Lorenzo, which guarded the Chagres River's mouth, was
+built on the right bank of that river, on a high hill of great
+steepness. The hill has two peaks, with a sort of natural ditch some
+thirty feet in depth between them. The castle was built upon the seaward
+peak, and a narrow drawbridge crossed the gully to the other summit,
+which was barren and open to the sight. The river swept round the
+northern side of the hill with considerable force. To the south the hill
+was precipitous, and of such "infinite asperity," that no man could
+climb it. To the east was the bridged gully connecting the garrison with
+the isthmus. To the west, in a crook of the land, was the little port of
+Chagres, where ships might anchor in seven or eight fathoms, "being very
+fit for small vessels." Not far from the foot of the hill, facing the
+river's mouth, there was a battery of eight great guns commanding the
+approach. A little way beneath were two more batteries, each with six
+great guns, to supplement the one above. A path led from these lower
+batteries to the protected harbour. A steep flight of stairs, "hewed out
+of the rock," allowed the soldiers to pass from the water to the summit
+of the castle. The defences at the top of the hill were reinforced with
+palisadoes. The keep, or inner castle, was hedged about with a double
+fence of plank--the fences being six or seven feet apart, and the
+interstices filled in with earth, like gabions. On one side of the
+castle were the storesheds for merchandise and ammunition. On the other,
+and within the palisadoes everywhere, were soldiers' huts, built of mud
+and wattle, thatched with palm leaves, "after the manner of the
+Indians." Lastly, as a sort of outer defence, a great submerged rock
+prevented boats from coming too near the seaward side.
+
+Early in the morning Captain Bradly turned his hands up by the
+boatswain's pipe, and bade them breakfast off their beef and parched
+corn. Maize and charqui were packed into knapsacks for the march, and
+the pirates rowed ashore to open the campaign. The ruffians from Santa
+Katalina took their stations at the head of the leading company, with
+trusty pirates just behind them ready to pistol them if they played
+false. In good spirits they set forth from the beach, marching in the
+cool of the morning before the sun had risen. The way led through
+mangrove swamps, where the men sank to their knees in rotting grasses or
+plunged to their waists in slime. Those who have seen a tropical swamp
+will know how fierce the toil was. They were marching in a dank world
+belonging to an earlier age than ours. They were in the age of the coal
+strata, among wet, green things, in a silence only broken by the sound
+of dropping or by the bellow of an alligator. They were there in the
+filth, in the heat haze, in a mist of miasma and mosquitoes. In all
+probability they were swearing at themselves for coming thither.
+
+At two o'clock in the afternoon the buccaneers pushed through a thicket
+of liane and green cane, and debouched quite suddenly upon the barren
+hilltop facing San Lorenzo Castle. As they formed up, they were met with
+a thundering volley, which threw them into some confusion. They
+retreated to the cover of the jungle to debate a plan of battle, greatly
+fearing that a fort so strongly placed would be impregnable without
+great guns to batter it. However, they were a reckless company, careless
+of their lives, and hot with the tramping through the swamp. Give it up
+they could not, for fear of the mockery of their mates. The desperate
+course was the one course open to them. They lit the fireballs, or
+grenades, they had carried through the marsh; they drew their swords,
+and "Come on!" they cried. "Have at all!" And forward they stormed,
+cursing as they ran. A company in reserve remained behind in cover,
+firing over the storming party with their muskets.
+
+As the pirates threw themselves into the gully, the walls of San Lorenzo
+burst into a flame of gun fire. The Spaniards fought their cannon
+furiously--as fast as they could fire and reload--while the musketeers
+picked off the leaders from the loopholes. "Come on, ye English dogs!"
+they cried. "Come on, ye heretics! ye cuckolds! Let your skulking mates
+behind there come on too! You'll not get to Panama this bout." "Come on"
+the pirates did, with great gallantry. They flung themselves down into
+the ditch, and stormed up the opposite slope to the wooden palings. Here
+they made a desperate attempt to scale, but the foothold was too
+precarious and the pales too high. In a few roaring minutes the attack
+was at an end: it had withered away before the Spanish fire. The
+buccaneers were retreating in knots of one or two, leaving some seventy
+of their number on the sun-bleached rocks of the gully.
+
+When they got back to the jungle they lay down to rest, and slept there
+quietly while the daylight lasted, though the Spaniards still sent shots
+in their direction. As soon as it was dark, they made another furious
+assault, flinging their fireballs against the palings in order to burst
+the planks apart. While they were struggling in the ditch, a pirate ran
+across the gully with his body bent, as is natural to a running man. As
+he ran, an arrow took him in the back, and pierced him through to the
+side. He paused a moment, drew the arrow from the wound, wrapped the
+shaft of it with cotton as a wad, and fired it back over the paling with
+his musket. The cotton he had used caught fire from the powder, and it
+chanced that this blazing shaft drove home into a palm thatch. In the
+hurry and confusion the flame was not noticed, though it spread rapidly
+across the huts till it reached some powder casks. There was a violent
+explosion just within the palisadoes, and stones and blazing sticks came
+rattling down about the Spaniards' ears. The inner castle roared up in a
+blaze, calling the Spaniards from their guns to quench the fire--no easy
+task so high above the water. While the guns were deserted, the pirates
+ran along the bottom of the ditch, thrusting their fireballs under the
+palisadoes, which now began to burn in many places. As the flames
+spread, the planking warped, and fell. The outer planks inclined
+slightly outward, like the futtocks of a ship, so that, when they
+weakened in the fire, the inner weight of earth broke them through. The
+pirates now stood back from the fort, in the long black shadows, to
+avoid the showers of earth--"great heaps of earth"--which were falling
+down into the ditch. Presently the slope from the bottom of the gully
+was piled with earth, so that the pirates could rush up to the breaches,
+and hurl their firepots across the broken woodwork. The San Lorenzo fort
+was now a spiring red flame of fire--a beacon to the ships at sea.
+Before midnight the wooden walls were burnt away to charcoal; the inner
+fort was on fire in many places; yet the Spaniards still held the
+earthen ramparts, casting down "many flaming pots," and calling on the
+English dogs to attack them. The pirates lay close in the shadows,
+picking off the Spaniards as they moved in the red firelight, so that
+many poor fellows came toppling into the gully from the mounds.
+
+When day dawned, the castle lay open to the pirates. The walls were all
+burnt, and fallen down, but in the breaches stood the Spanish soldiers,
+manning their guns as though the walls still protected them. The fight
+began as furiously as it had raged the day before. By noon most of the
+Spanish gunners had been shot down by the picked musketeers; while a
+storming party ran across the ditch, and rushed a breach. As the pirates
+gained the inside of the fort, the Spanish Governor charged home upon
+them with twenty-five soldiers armed with pikes, clubbed muskets,
+swords, or stones from the ruin. For some minutes these men mixed in a
+last desperate struggle; then the Spaniards were driven back by the
+increasing numbers of the enemy. Fighting hard, they retreated to the
+inner castle, cheered by their Governor, who still called on them to
+keep their flag aloft. The inner castle was a ruin, but the yellow flag
+still flew there, guarded by some sorely wounded soldiers and a couple
+of guns. Here the last stand was made, and here the gallant captain was
+hit by a bullet, "which pierced his skull into the brain." The little
+band of brave men now went to pieces before the rush of pirates. Some of
+them fell back, still fighting, to the wall, over which they flung
+themselves "into the sea," dying thus honourably rather than surrender.
+About thirty of them, "whereof scarce ten were not wounded," surrendered
+in the ruins of the inner fortress. These thirty hurt and weary men
+were the survivors of 314 who had stood to arms the day before. All the
+rest were dead, save "eight or nine," who had crept away by boat up the
+Chagres to take the news to Panama. No officer remained alive, nor was
+any powder left; the Spaniards were true soldiers. The pirates lost
+"above one hundred killed" and over seventy wounded, or rather more than
+half of the men engaged. While the few remaining Spaniards dug trenches
+in the sand for the burial of the many dead, the pirates questioned them
+as to their knowledge of Morgan's enterprise. They knew all about it,
+they said, for a deserter from the pirate ships which raided the Rio de
+la Hacha (for grain) had spoken of the scheme to the Governor at
+Cartagena. That captain had reinforced the Chagres garrison, and had
+sent a warning over the isthmus to the Governor at Panama. The Chagres
+was now well lined with ambuscades. Panama was full of soldiers, and the
+whole Spanish population was ready to take up arms to drive the pirates
+to their ships, so they knew what they might look to get in case they
+persisted in their plan. This information was sent to Henry Morgan at
+the Santa Katalina fort, with news of the reduction of the Chagres
+castle. Before he received it, Captain Joseph Bradly died in the castle,
+of a wound he had received in the fighting.
+
+When Morgan received the news that San Lorenzo had been stormed, he
+began to send aboard the meat, maize, and cassava he had collected in
+Santa Katalina. He had already blown the Spanish forts to pieces, with
+the one exception of the fort of St Teresa. He now took all the captured
+Spanish guns, and flung them into the sea, where they lie still, among
+the scarlet coral sprays. The Spanish town was then burnt, and the
+Spanish prisoners placed aboard the ships. It was Morgan's intention to
+return to the island after sacking Panama, and to leave there a strong
+garrison to hold it in the interests of the buccaneers. When he had made
+these preparations he weighed his anchors, and sailed for the Chagres
+River under the English colours.
+
+Eight days later they came sailing slowly up towards the river's mouth.
+Their joy was so great "when they saw the English colours upon the
+castle, that they minded not their way into the river," being gathered
+at the rum cask instead of at the lead, and calling healths instead of
+soundings. As a consequence, four ships of the fleet, including the
+admiral's flagship, ran foul of the ledge of rocks at the river's entry.
+Several men were drowned, but the goods and ships' stores were saved,
+though with some difficulty. As they got out warps to bring the ships
+off, the north wind freshened. In shallow water, such as that, a sea
+rises very quickly. In a few hours a regular "norther" had set in, and
+the ships beat to pieces on the ledge before the end of the day.
+
+As Morgan came ashore at the port, the guns were fired in salute, and
+the pirates lined the quay and the castle walls to give him a triumphant
+welcome. He examined the castle, questioned the lieutenants, and at once
+took steps to repair the damage done by the fire. The thirty survivors
+of the garrison and all the prisoners from Santa Katalina, were set to
+work to drive in new palisadoes in the place of those burnt in the
+attack. The huts were rethatched and the whole place reordered. There
+were some Spanish ships in the port whose crews had been pressed into
+the Spanish garrison at the time of the storm. They were comparatively
+small, of the kind known as chatas, or chatten, a sort of coast boat of
+slight draught, used for river work and for the conveyance of goods from
+the Chagres to the cities on the Main. They had iron and brass guns
+aboard them, which were hoisted out, and mounted in the fort. Captain
+Morgan then picked a garrison of 500 buccaneers to hold the fort, under
+a buccaneer named Norman. He placed 150 more in the ships in the
+anchorage, and embarked the remainder in flat-bottomed boats for the
+voyage up the Chagres.
+
+It was the dry season, so that the river, at times so turbulent, was
+dwindled to a tenth of its volume. In order that the hard work of
+hauling boats over shallows might not be made still harder, Morgan gave
+orders that the men should take but scanty stock of provisions. A few
+maize cobs and a strip or two of charqui was all the travelling store in
+the scrips his pilgrims carried. They hoped that they would find fresh
+food in the Spanish strongholds, or ambuscades, which guarded the
+passage over the isthmus.
+
+[Illustration: THE ISTHMUS
+    SHOWING MORGAN'S LINE OF ADVANCE]
+
+The company set sail from San Lorenzo on the morning of the 12th (one
+says the 18th) of January 1671. They numbered in all 1200 men, packed
+into thirty-two canoas and the five chatas they had taken in the port.
+His guides went on ahead in one of the chatas, with her guns aboard her
+and the matches lit, and one Robert Delander, a buccaneer captain, in
+command. The first day's sailing against a gentle current was pleasant
+enough. In spite of the heat and the overcrowding of the boats, they
+made six leagues between dawn and sunset, and anchored at a place called
+De los Bracos. Here a number of the pirates went ashore to sleep "and
+stretch their limbs, they being almost crippled with lying too much
+crowded in the boats." They also foraged up and down for food in the
+plantations; but the Spaniards had fled with all their stores. It was
+the first day of the journey over the isthmus, yet many of the men had
+already come to an end of their provisions. "The greatest part of them"
+ate nothing all day, nor enjoyed "any other refreshment" than a pipe of
+tobacco. The next day, "very early in the morning," before the sun
+rose, they shoved off from the mooring-place. They rowed all day,
+suffering much from the mosquitoes, but made little progress. The river
+was fallen very low, so that they were rowing or poling over a series of
+pools joined by shallow rapids. To each side of them were stretches of
+black, alluvial mud, already springing green with shrubs and
+water-plants. Every now and then, as they rowed on, on the dim,
+sluggish, silent, steaming river, they butted a sleeping alligator as he
+sunned in the shallows, or were stopped by a fallen tree, brought by the
+summer floods and left to rot there. At twilight, when the crying of the
+birds became more intense and the monkeys gathered to their screaming in
+the treetops, the boats drew up to the bank at a planter's station, or
+wayside shrine, known as Cruz de Juan Gallego. Here they went ashore to
+sleep, still gnawed with famine, and faint with the hard day's rowing.
+The guides told Henry Morgan that after another two leagues they might
+leave the boats, and push through the woods on foot.
+
+Early the next morning the admiral decided to leave the boats, for with
+his men so faint from hunger he thought it dangerous to tax them with a
+labour so severe as rowing. He left 160 men to protect the fleet, giving
+them the strictest orders to remain aboard. "No man," he commanded,
+"upon any pretext whatsoever, should dare to leave the boats and go
+ashore." The woods there were so dark and thick that a Spanish garrison
+might have lain within 100 yards of the fleet, and cut off any
+stragglers who landed. Having given his orders, he chose out a gang of
+macheteros, or men carrying the sharp sword-like machetes, to march
+ahead of the main body, to cut a trackway in the pulpy green stuff. They
+then set forward through the forest, over their ankles in swampy mud, up
+to their knees sometimes in rotting leaves, clambering over giant tree
+trunks, wading through stagnant brooks, staggering and slipping and
+swearing, faint with famine; a very desperate gang of cut-throats. As
+they marched, the things called garapatadas, or wood-ticks, of which
+some six sorts flourish there, dropped down upon them in scores, to add
+their burning bites to the venom of the mosquitoes. In a moist
+atmosphere of at least 90 deg., with heavy arms to carry, that march must
+have been terrible. Even the buccaneers, men hardened to the climate,
+could not endure it: they straggled back to the boats, and re-embarked.
+
+With a great deal of trouble the pirates dragged the boats "to a place
+farther up the river, called Cedro Bueno," where they halted for the
+stragglers, who drifted in during the evening. Here they went ashore to
+a wretched bivouac, to lie about the camp fires, with their belts drawn
+tight, chewing grass or aromatic leaves to allay their hunger. After
+Cedro Bueno the river narrowed, so that there was rather more water to
+float the canoas. The land, too, was less densely wooded, and easier for
+the men to march upon. On the fourth day "the greatest part of the
+Pirates marched by land, being led by one of the guides." Another guide
+led the rest of them in the canoas; two boats going ahead of the main
+fleet, one on each side of the river, to discover "the ambuscades of the
+Spaniards." The Spaniards had lined the river-banks at intervals with
+Indian spies, who were so "very dexterous" that they brought
+intelligence of the coming of the pirates "six hours at least before
+they came to any place." About noon on this day, as the boats neared
+Torna Cavallos, one of the guides cried out that he saw an ambuscade.
+"His voice caused infinite joy to all the Pirates," who made sure that
+the fastness would be well provisioned, and that at last they might
+"afford something to the ferment of their stomachs, which now was grown
+so sharp that it did gnaw their very bowels." The place was carried with
+a rush; but the redoubt was empty. The Spaniards had all fled away some
+hours before, when their spies had come in from down the river. There
+had been 500 Spaniards there standing to arms behind the barricade of
+tree trunks. They had marched away with all their gear, save only a few
+leather bags, "all empty," and a few crusts and bread crumbs "upon the
+ground where they had eaten." There were a few shelter huts, thatched
+with palm leaves, within the barricade. These the pirates tore to pieces
+in the fury of their disappointment. They fell upon the leather bags
+like hungry dogs quarrelling for a bone. They fought and wrangled for
+the scraps of leather, and ate them greedily, "with frequent gulps of
+water." Had they taken any Spaniards there "they would certainly in that
+occasion [or want] have roasted or boiled" them "to satisfy their
+famine."
+
+Somewhat relieved by the scraps of leather, they marched on along the
+river-bank to "another post called Torna Munni." Here they found a
+second wall of tree trunks, loopholed for musketry, "but as barren and
+desert as the former." They sought about in the woods for fruits or
+roots, but could find nothing--"the Spaniards having been so provident
+as not to leave behind them anywhere the least crumb of sustenance."
+There was nothing for them but "those pieces of leather, so hard and
+dry," a few of which had been saved "for supper" by the more provident.
+He who had a little scrap of hide, would slice it into strips, "and beat
+it between two stones, and rub it, often dipping it in the water of the
+river, to render it by these means supple and tender." Lastly, the hair
+was scraped off, and the piece "roasted or broiled" at the camp fire
+upon a spit of lance wood. "And being thus cooked they cut it into small
+morsels, and eat it," chewing each bit for several minutes as though
+loth to lose it, and helping it down "with frequent gulps of water."
+There was plenty of fish in the Chagres, but perhaps they had no lines.
+It seems strange, however, that they made no attempt to kill some of the
+myriads of birds and monkeys in the trees, or the edible snakes which
+swarm in the grass, or, as a last resource, the alligators in the river.
+
+Gaunt with hunger, they took the trail again after a night of misery at
+Torna Munni. The going was slightly better, but there was still the
+wood-ticks, the intense, damp heat, and the lust for food to fight
+against. About noon they staggered in to Barbacoas, now a station on the
+Isthmian Railway. There were a few huts at Barbacoas, for the place was
+of some small importance. A native swinging bridge, made of bejuco cane,
+was slung across the river there for the benefit of travellers going to
+Porto Bello. An ambush had been laid at Barbacoas, but the Spaniards had
+left the place, after sweeping it as bare as Torna Munni. The land was
+in tillage near the huts, but the plantations were barren. "They
+searched very narrowly, but could not find any person, animal or other
+thing that was capable of relieving their extreme and ravenous hunger."
+After a long search they chanced upon a sort of cupboard in the rocks,
+"in which they found two sacks of meal, wheat, and like things, with two
+great jars of wine, and certain fruits called Platanos," or large
+bananas. Morgan very firmly refused to allow the buccaneers to use this
+food. He reserved it strictly for those who were in greatest want,
+thereby saving a number of lives. The dying men were given a little meal
+and wine, and placed in the canoas, "and those commanded to land that
+were in them before." They then marched on "with greater courage than
+ever," till late into the night, when they lay down in a plundered bean
+patch.
+
+"On the sixth day" they were nearly at the end of their tether. They
+dragged along slowly, some in boats, some in the woods, halting every
+now and then in despair of going farther, and then staggering on again,
+careless if they lived or died. Their lips were scummy with a sort of
+green froth, caused by their eating grass and the leaves of trees. In
+this condition they came at noon to a plantation, "where they found a
+barn full of maize." They beat the door in in a few minutes, "and fell
+to eating of it dry," till they were gorged with it. There was enough
+for all, and plenty left to take away, so they distributed a great
+quantity, "giving to every man a good allowance." With their knapsacks
+full of corn cobs they marched on again, in happier case than they had
+been in for several days. They soon came to "an ambuscade of Indians,"
+but no Indians stayed within it to impeach their passage. On catching
+sight of the barricade many buccaneers flung away their corn cobs, with
+the merry improvidence of their kind, "with the sudden hopes they
+conceived of finding all things in abundance." But the larder was as
+bare as it had been in the other strongholds: it contained "neither
+Indians, nor victuals, nor anything else." On the other side of the
+river, however, there were many Indians, "a troop of a hundred," armed
+with bows, "who escaped away through the agility of their feet." Some of
+the pirates "leapt into the river" to attack these Indians, and to bring
+them into camp as prisoners. They did not speed in their attempt, but
+two or three of them were shot through the heart as they waded. Their
+corpses drifted downstream, to catch in the oars of the canoas, a
+horrible feast for the caymans. The others returned to their comrades on
+the right or northern bank of the river among the howls of the Indians:
+"Hey, you dogs, you, go on to the savannah; go on to the savannah, to
+find out what's in pickle for you."
+
+They could go no farther towards the savannah for that time, as they
+wished to cross the river, and did not care to do so, in the presence of
+an enemy, without due rest. They camped about big fires of wood,
+according to their custom, but they slept badly, for the hunger and toil
+had made them mutinous. The growling went up and down the camp till it
+came to Morgan's ears. Most of the pirates were disgusted with their
+admiral's "conduct," or leadership, and urged a speedy return to Port
+Royal. Others, no less disgusted, swore savagely that they would see the
+job through. Some, who had eaten more burnt leather than the others,
+"did laugh and joke at all their discourses," and so laid a last straw
+upon their burden. "In the meanwhile" the ruffian guide, "the rogue,
+thief, and assassin," who had merited to die upon a wheel, was a great
+comfort to them. "It would not be long," he kept saying, "before they
+met with folk, when they would come to their own, and forget these
+hungry times." So the night passed, round the red wood logs in the
+clearing, among the steaming jungle.
+
+Early in the morning of the seventh day they cleaned their arms, wiping
+away the rust and fungus which had grown upon them. "Every one
+discharged his pistol or musket, without bullet, to examine the security
+of their firelocks." They then loaded with ball, and crossed the river
+in the canoas. At midday they sighted Venta Cruz, the village, or little
+town, which Drake had taken. The smoke was going up to heaven from the
+Venta Cruz chimneys--a sight very cheering to these pirates. They had
+"great joy and hopes of finding people in the town ... and plenty of
+good cheer." They went on merrily, "making several arguments to one
+another [like the gravediggers in _Hamlet_] upon those external
+signs"--saying that there could be no smoke without a fire, and no fire
+in such a climate save to cook by, and that, therefore, Venta Cruz
+would be full of roast and boiled by the time they marched into its
+Plaza. Thus did they cheer the march and the heavy labour at the oars as
+far as the Venta Cruz jetty.
+
+As they entered Venta Cruz at the double, "all sweating and panting"
+with the hurry of their advance, they found the town deserted and in a
+blaze of fire. There was nothing eatable there, for the place had been
+swept clean, and then fired, by the retreating Spaniards. The only
+houses not alight were "the store-houses and stables belonging the
+King." These, being of stone, and Government property, had not been
+kindled. The storehouses and stables were, however, empty. Not a horse
+nor a mule nor an ass was in its stall. "They had not left behind them
+any beast whatsoever, either alive or dead." Venta Cruz was as
+profitless a booty as all the other stations. A few pariah dogs and cats
+were in the street, as was perhaps natural, even at that date, in a
+Central-American town. These were at once killed, and eaten half raw,
+"with great appetite." Before they were despatched, a pirate lighted on
+a treasure in a recess of the King's stables. He found there a stock of
+wine, some fifteen or sixteen jars, or demijohns, of good Peruvian wine,
+"and a leather sack full of bread." "But no sooner had they begun to
+drink of the said wine when they fell sick, almost every man." Several
+hundreds had had a cup or two of the drink, and these now judged
+themselves poisoned, and "irrecoverably lost." They were not poisoned,
+as it happened, but they had gone hungry for several days, living on
+"manifold sorts of trash." The sudden use of wine and bread caused a
+very natural sickness, such as comes to all who eat or drink greedily
+after a bout of starving. The sickness upset them for the day, so that
+the force remained there, at bivouac in the village, until the next
+morning. During the halt Morgan landed all his men ("though never so
+weak") from the canoas. He retained only one boat, which he hid, for
+use as an advice boat, "to carry intelligence" to those down the river.
+The rest of the canoas were sent downstream to the anchorage at Bueno
+Cedro, where the chatas lay moored under a guard. He gave strict orders
+to the rest of the pirates that they were not to leave the village save
+in companies of 100 together. "One party of English soldiers stickled
+not to contravene these commands, being tempted with the desire of
+finding victuals." While they straggled in the tilled ground outside
+Venta Cruz they were attacked "with great fury" by a number of Spaniards
+and Indians, "who snatched up" one of them, and carried him off. What
+was done to this one so snatched up we are not told. Probably he was
+tortured to give information of the pirates' strength, and then hanged
+up to a tree.
+
+On the eighth day, in the early morning, the sick men being recovered,
+Morgan thought they might proceed. He chose out an advance-guard of 200
+of the strongest of his men, and sent them forward, with their matches
+lighted, to clear the road. The road was a very narrow one, but paved
+with cobble stones, and easy to the feet after the quagmires of the
+previous week. The men went forward at a good pace, beating the thickets
+on each side of the road. When they had marched some seven or eight
+miles they were shot at from some Indian ambush. A shower of arrows fell
+among them, but they could not see a trace of the enemy, till the
+Indians, who had shot the arrows, broke from cover and ran to a second
+fastness. A few stood firm, about a chief or cacique, "with full design
+to fight and defend themselves." They fought very gallantly for a few
+moments; but the pirates stormed their poor defence, and pistolled the
+cacique, losing eight men killed and ten wounded before the Indians
+broke. Shortly after this skirmish, the advance-guard left the wood,
+coming to open, green grass-land "full of variegated meadows." On a hill
+at a little distance they saw a number of Indians gathered, watching
+their advance. They sent out a troop to capture some of these, but the
+Indians escaped again, "through the agility of their feet," to reappear
+a little later with their howls of scorn: "Hey, you dogs, you English
+dogs, you. Get on to the savannah, you dogs, you cuckolds. On to the
+savannah, and see what's coming to you." "While these things passed the
+ten pirates that were wounded were dressed and plastered up."
+
+In a little while the pirates seized a hilltop facing a ridge of hill
+which shut them from the sight of Panama. In the valley between the two
+hills was a thick little wood, where Morgan looked to find an ambush. He
+sent his advance-guard of 200 men to search the thicket. As they
+entered, some Spaniards and Indians entered from the opposite side, but
+no powder was burnt, for the Spaniards stole away by a bypath, "and were
+seen no more." That night a drenching shower of rain fell, blotting out
+the landscape in a roaring grey film. It sent the pirates running hither
+and thither to find some shelter "to preserve their arms from being
+wet." Nearly all the huts and houses in the district had been fired by
+the Indians, but the pirates found a few lonely shepherds' shealings,
+big enough to hold all the weapons of the army and a few of the men.
+Those who could not find a place among the muskets were constrained to
+lie shivering in the open, enduring much hardship, for the rain did not
+slacken till dawn.
+
+At daybreak Morgan ordered them to march "while the fresh air of the
+morning lasted"; for they were now in open country, on the green
+savannah, where they would have no treetops to screen them from the
+terrible sun. During their morning march they saw a troop of Spanish
+horse, armed with spears, watching the advance at a safe distance, and
+retiring as the pirates drew nearer. Shortly after this they topped a
+steep rise, and lo! the smoke of Panama, and the blue Pacific, with her
+sky-line trembling gently, and a ship under sail, with five boats, going
+towards some emerald specks of islands. The clouds were being blown
+across the sky. The sun was glorious over all that glorious picture,
+over all the pasture, so green and fresh from the rain. There were the
+snowy Andes in the distance, their peaks sharply notched on the clear
+sky. Directly below them, in all her beauty, was the royal city of
+Panama, only hidden from sight by a roll of green savannah.
+
+Just at the foot of the rise, in a wealth of fat pasture, were numbers
+of grazing cattle, horses, and asses--the droves of the citizens. The
+pirates crept down, and shot a number of these, "chiefly asses," which
+they promptly flayed, while some of their number gathered firewood. As
+soon as the fires were lit the meat was blackened in the flame, and then
+greedily swallowed in "convenient pieces or gobbets." "They more
+resembled cannibals than Europeans at this banquet," for the blood ran
+down the beards of many, so hungry were they for meat after the long
+agony of the march. What they could not eat they packed in their
+satchels. After a long midday rest they fell in again for the march,
+sending fifty men ahead to take prisoners "if possibly they could," for
+in all the nine days' tramp they had taken no one to give them
+information of the Spaniards' strength. Towards sunset they saw a troop
+of Spaniards spying on them, who hallooed at them, but at such a
+distance that they could not distinguish what was said. As the sun set
+"they came the first time within sight of the highest steeple of
+Panama."
+
+This was a stirring cordial to the way-weary men limping down the
+savannah. The sight of the sea was not more cheering to the Greeks than
+the sight of the great gilt weathercock, shifting on the spire, to these
+haggard ruffians with the blood not yet dry upon their beards. They
+flung their hats into the air, and danced and shouted. All their
+trumpets shouted a levity, their drums beat, and their colours were
+displayed. They camped there, with songs and laughter, in sight of that
+steeple, "waiting with impatience," like the French knights in the play,
+for the slowly coming dawn. Their drums and trumpets made a merry music
+to their singing, and they caroused so noisily that a troop of horsemen
+rode out from Panama to see what was the matter. "They came almost
+within musket-shot of the army, being preceded by a trumpet that sounded
+marvellously well." They rode up "almost within musket-shot," but made
+no attempt to draw the pirates' fire. They "hallooed aloud to the
+Pirates, and threatened them," with "Hey, ye dogs, we shall meet ye," in
+the manner of the Indians. Seven or eight of them stayed "hovering
+thereabouts," riding along the camp until the day broke, to watch the
+pirates' movements. As soon as their main body reached the town, and
+reported what they had seen, the Governor ordered the city guns to open
+on the pirates' camp. The biggest guns at once began a heavy fire, from
+which one or two spent balls rolled slowly to the outposts without doing
+any damage. At the same time, a strong party took up a position to the
+rear of the camp, as though to cut off the retreat.
+
+Morgan placed his sentries, and sent his men to supper. They feasted
+merrily on their "pieces of bulls' and horses' flesh," and then lay down
+on the grass to smoke a pipe of tobacco before turning in. That last
+night's camp was peaceful and beautiful: the men were fed and near their
+quarry, the sun had dried their wet clothes; the night was fine, the
+stars shone, the Panama guns were harmless. They slept "with great
+repose and huge satisfaction," careless of the chance of battle, and
+anxious for the fight to begin.
+
+
+PANAMA
+
+Old Panama, the chief Spanish city in South America, with the one
+exception of Cartagena, was built along the sea-beach, fronting the bay
+of Panama, between the rivers Gallinero and Matasnillos. It was founded
+between 1518 and 1520 by Pedrarias Davila, a poor adventurer, who came
+to the Spanish Indies to supersede Balboa, having at that time "nothing
+but a sword and buckler." Davila gave it the name of an Indian village
+then standing on the site. The name means "abounding in fish." It soon
+became the chief commercial city in those parts, for all the gold and
+silver and precious merchandise of Peru and Chili were collected there
+for transport to Porto Bello. At the time of Morgan's attack upon it, it
+contained some 7000 houses, with a number of huts and hovels for the
+slaves. The population, counting these latter, may have been as great as
+30,000. Many of the houses were of extreme beauty, being built of an
+aromatic rose wood, or "native cedar," ingeniously carved. Many were
+built of stone in a Moorish fashion, with projecting upper storeys. It
+had several stone monasteries and convents, and a great cathedral,
+dedicated to St Anastasius, which was the most glorious building in
+Spanish America. Its tower still stands as a landmark to sailors,
+visible many miles to sea. The stones of it are decorated with defaced
+carvings. Inside it, within the ruined walls, are palm and cedar trees,
+green and beautiful, over the roots of which swarm the scarlet-spotted
+coral snakes. The old town was never properly fortified. The isthmus
+was accounted a sufficient protection to it, and the defences were
+consequently weak. It was a town of merchants, who "thought only of
+becoming rich, and cared little for the public good." They lived a very
+stately life there, in houses hung with silk, stamped leather, and
+Spanish paintings, drinking Peruvian wines out of cups of gold and
+silver. The Genoese Company, a company of slavers trading with Guinea,
+had a "stately house" there, with a spacious slave market, where the
+blacks were sold over the morning glass. The Spanish King had some long
+stone stables in the town, tended by a number of slaves. Here the horses
+and mules for the recuas were stabled in long lines, like the stables of
+a cavalry barrack. Near these were the royal storehouses, built of
+stone, for the storage of the gold from the King's mines. There were
+also 200 merchants' warehouses, built in one storey, round which the
+slaves slept, under pent roofs.
+
+Outside the city was the beautiful green savannah, a rolling sea of
+grass, with islands of trees, cedar and palm, thickly tangled with the
+many-coloured bindweeds. To one side of it, an arm of the sea crept
+inland, to a small salt lagoon, which rippled at high tide, at the back
+of the city. The creek was bridged to allow the Porto Bello carriers to
+enter the town, and a small gatehouse or porter's lodge protected the
+way. The bridge is a neat stone arch, still standing. The streets ran
+east and west, "so that when the sun rises no one can walk in any of the
+streets, because there is no shade whatever; and this is felt very much
+as the heat is intense; and the sun is so prejudicial to health, that if
+a man is exposed to its rays for a few hours, he will be attacked with a
+fatal illness [pernicious fever], and this has happened to many." The
+port was bad for shipping, because of the great rise and fall of the
+tides. The bay is shallow, and ships could only come close in at high
+water. At low water the town looked out upon a strip of sand and a mile
+or more of very wet black mud. "At full moon, the waves frequently reach
+the houses and enter those on that side of the town." The roadstead
+afforded safe anchorage for the great ships coming up from Lima. Loading
+and unloading was performed by launches, at high water, on days when the
+surf was moderate. Small ships sailed close in at high tide, and beached
+themselves.
+
+To landward there were many gardens and farms, where the Spaniards had
+"planted many trees from Spain"--such as oranges, lemons, and figs.
+There were also plantain walks, and a great plenty of pines, guavas,
+onions, lettuces, and "alligator pears." Over the savannah roamed herds
+of fat cattle. On the seashore, "close to the houses of the city," were
+"quantities of very small mussels." The presence of these mussel beds
+determined the site of the town, "because the Spaniards felt themselves
+safe from hunger on account of these mussels."
+
+The town is all gone now, saving the cathedral tower, where the sweet
+Spanish bells once chimed, and the little stone bridge, worn by so many
+mules' hoofs. There is dense tropical forest over the site of it, though
+the foundations of several houses may be traced, and two or three walls
+still stand, with brilliant creepers covering up the carved work. It is
+not an easy place to reach, for it is some six miles from new Panama,
+and the way lies through such a tangle of creepers, over such swampy
+ground, poisonous with so many snakes, that it is little visited. It can
+be reached by sea on a fine day at high tide if the surf be not too
+boisterous. To landward of the present Panama there is a fine hill,
+called Mount Ancon. A little to the east of this there is a roll of high
+land, now a fruitful market-garden, or farm of orchards. This high land,
+some five or six miles from the ruins, is known as Buccaneers' Hill. It
+was from the summit of this high land that the pirates first saw the
+city steeple. Local tradition points out a few old Spanish guns of small
+size, brass and iron, at the near-by village of El Moro, as having been
+left by Morgan's men. At the island of Taboga, in the bay of Panama,
+they point with pride to a cave, the haunt of squid and crabs, as the
+hiding-place of Spanish treasure. In the blackness there, they say, are
+the golden sacramental vessels and jewelled vestments of the great
+church of St Anastasius. They were hidden there at the time of the raid,
+so effectually that they could never be recovered. We can learn of no
+other local tradition concerning the sack and burning.
+
+[Illustration: NEW PANAMA]
+
+What old Panama was like we do not know, for we can trace no picture of
+it. It was said to be the peer of Venice, "the painted city," at a time
+when Venice was yet the "incomparable Queene." It could hardly have been
+a second Venice, though its situation on that beautiful blue bay, with
+the Andes snowy in the distance, and the islands, like great green gems,
+to seaward, is lovely beyond words. It was filled with glorious houses,
+carved and scented, and beautiful with costly things. The merchants
+lived a languorous, luxurious life there, waited on by slaves, whom they
+could burn or torture at their pleasure. It was "the greatest mart for
+gold and silver in the whole world." There were pearl fisheries up and
+down the bay, yielding the finest of pearls; and "golden Potosi"--the
+tangible Eldorado, was not far off. The merchants of old Panama were,
+perhaps, as stately fellows and as sumptuous in their ways of life as
+any "on the Rialto." Their city is now a tangle of weeds and a heap of
+sun-cracked limestone; their market-place is a swamp; their haven is a
+stretch of surf-shaken mud, over which the pelicans go quarrelling for
+the bodies of fish.
+
+    _Authorities._--Exquemeling's "History"; "The Bucaniers of America."
+    Don Guzman's Account, printed in the "Voyages and Adventures of
+    Captain Bartholomew Sharp." Cal. State Papers: West Indies and
+    Colonial Series. "Present State of Jamaica," 1683. "New History of
+    Jamaica," 1740.
+
+    For my account of Chagres I am indebted to friends long resident on
+    the isthmus, and to Dampier's and Wafer's Voyages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SACK OF PANAMA
+
+    The burning of the city--Buccaneer excesses--An abortive
+    mutiny--Home--Morgan's defection
+
+
+"On the tenth day, betimes in the morning," while the black and white
+monkeys were at their dawn song, or early screaming, the pirates fell in
+for the march, with their red flags flying and the drums and trumpets
+making a battle music. They set out gallantly towards the city by the
+road they had followed from Venta Cruz. Before they came under fire, one
+of the guides advised Morgan to attack from another point. The
+Spaniards, he said, had placed their heavy guns in position along the
+probable line of their advance. Every clump of trees near the trackway
+would be filled with Spanish sharpshooters, while they might expect
+earth-works or trenches nearer to the city. He advised Morgan to make a
+circuit, so as to approach the city through the forest--over the ground
+on which new Panama was built, a year or two later. Morgan, therefore,
+turned rather to the west of the highway, through some tropical
+woodland, where the going was very irksome. As they left the woodland,
+after a march of several hours, they again entered the savannah, at a
+distance of about a mile and a half from the town. The ground here was
+in sweeping folds, so that they had a little hill to climb before the
+town lay open to them, at the edge of the sea, to the eastward of the
+salt lagoon. When they topped this rise they saw before them "the
+forces of the people of Panama, extended in battle array," between them
+and the quarry.
+
+The Spanish strength on this occasion, according to the narrative, was
+as follows:--400 horse, of the finest horsemen in the world; twenty-four
+companies of foot, each company mustering a full 100 men; and "sixty
+Indians and some negroes." These last were "to drive two thousand wild
+bulls and cause them to run over the English camp, and thus, by breaking
+their files, put them into a total disorder and confusion." Morgan gives
+the numbers as 2100 foot and 600 horse, with "two Droves of Cattel of
+1500 apiece," one for each flank or for the angles of the rear. The
+Spanish Governor, who had been "lately blooded 3 times for an
+Erysipelas," had not done as well as he could have wished in the
+preparation of an army of defence. He says that he had brought together
+1400 coloured men, armed with "Carbins, Harquebusses, and Fowling
+Pieces," the muskets having been lost at Chagres. He gives the number of
+cavalry as 200, "mounted on the same tired Horses which had brought them
+thither." He admits that there were "50 cow-keepers" and an
+advance-guard of 300 foot. He had also five field-guns "covered with
+leather." To these forces may be added the townsfolk capable of bearing
+arms. These were not very numerous, for most of the inhabitants, as we
+have seen, "thought only of getting rich and cared little for the public
+good." They were now, however, in a cold sweat of fear at the sight of
+the ragged battalion trooping down from the hilltop. They had dug
+trenches for themselves within the city and had raised batteries to
+sweep the important streets. They had also mounted cannon on the little
+stone fort, or watchman's lodge, at the town end of the bridge across
+the creek.
+
+The sight of so many troops drawn out in order "surprised" the pirates
+"with great fear." The droves of "wild bulls" pasturing on the savannah
+grass were new to their experience; the cavalry they had met before in
+Cuba and did not fear, nor did they reckon themselves much worse than
+the Spanish foot; but they saw that the Spaniards outnumbered them by
+more than two to one, and they recognised the advantage they had in
+having a defensible city to fall back upon. The buccaneers were worn
+with the long march, and in poor case for fighting. They halted at this
+point, while Morgan formed them into a tertia, or division of three
+battalions or troops, of which he commanded the right wing. The sight of
+so many Spaniards halted below them set them grumbling in the ranks.
+"Yea few or none there were but wished themselves at home, or at least
+free from the obligation of that Engagement." There was, however,
+nothing else for it. A "wavering condition of Mind" could not help them.
+They had no alternative but "to fight resolutely, or die." They might
+not look to get quarter "from an Enemy against whom they had committed
+so many Cruelties."
+
+Morgan formed his men in order, and sent out skirmishers to annoy the
+Spanish troops, and to draw them from their position. A few shots were
+exchanged; but the Spaniards were not to be tempted, nor was the ground
+over which the skirmishers advanced at all suitable for moving troops.
+Morgan, therefore, edged his men away to the left, to a little hill
+beyond a dry gut or water-course--a position which the Spaniards could
+not attack from more than one side owing to the nature of the ground,
+which was boggy. Before they could form upon the lower slopes of the
+hill the Spanish horse rode softly forward, shouting: "Viva el Rey!"
+("Long live the King"), with a great display of courage. "But the field
+being full of quaggs, and very soft under foot, they could not ply to
+and fro, and wheel about, as they desired." When they had come to a
+little beyond musket-shot "one Francisco Detarro," the colonel of the
+cavalry, called out to his troopers to charge home upon the English van.
+The horses at once broke into a gallop, and charged in "so furiously"
+that Morgan had to strengthen his ranks to receive them, "we having no
+Pikes" with which to gall the horses. As the men galloped forward, the
+line of buccaneers made ready to fire. Each musketeer put one knee to
+the ground, and touched off his piece, blasting the Spanish regiment
+almost out of action at the one discharge. The charge had been pressed
+so nearly home that the powder corns burnt the leading horses. Those who
+survived the shock of the volley swung off to the right to re-form,
+while the foot came on in their tracks "to try their Fortunes." They
+were received with such a terrible fire that they never came to
+handystrokes. They disputed the point for some hours, gradually falling
+into disorder as their losses became more and more heavy. The cavalry
+re-formed, and charged a second and a third time, with the result that
+after two hours' fighting "the Spanish Horse was ruined, and almost all
+killed." During the engagement of the foot, the Indians and negroes
+tried their stratagem of the bulls. They drove the herds round the
+flanking parties to the rear, and endeavoured to force them through the
+English lines. "But the greatest part of that wild cattle ran away,
+being frighted with the noise of the Battle. And some few, that broke
+through the English Companies, did no other harm than to tear the
+Colours in pieces; whereas the Buccaneers shooting them dead, left not
+one to Trouble them thereabouts."
+
+[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF PANAMA]
+
+Seeing the Spanish foot in some disorder, with many of their officers
+killed and few of the men firing, Morgan plied them with shot and sent
+his left wing forward as they fell back. The horse made one last gallant
+attempt to break the English line, but the attempt caused their
+complete destruction. At the same moment Morgan stormed down upon the
+foot with all his strength. The Spaniards fired "the Shot they had in
+their Muskets," and flung their weapons down, not caring to come to
+handystrokes. They ran "everyone which way he could run"--an utter rout
+of broken soldiers. The pirates were too fatigued to follow, but they
+picked them off as they ran till they were out of musket-shot.
+
+The buccaneers apparently then cleared away the stragglers, by
+pistolling them wherever they could find them. In this employment they
+beat through the shrubs by the sea, where many poor citizens had hidden
+themselves after the final routing of the troops. Some monks who were
+brought in to Captain Morgan were treated in the same manner, "for he,
+being deaf to their Cries, commanded them to be instantly pistolled,"
+which order was obeyed there and then. A captain or colonel of troops
+was soon afterwards taken, and held to ransom after a strict
+examination. He told Morgan that he might look to have great trouble in
+winning the city, for the streets were all dug about with trenches and
+mounted with heavy brass guns. He added that the main entrance to the
+place was strongly fortified, and protected by a half company of fifty
+men with eight brass demi-cannon.
+
+Morgan now bade his men rest themselves and take food before pushing on
+to the town. He held a review of his army before he marched, and found
+that he had lost heavily--perhaps 200 men--while the Spaniards had lost
+about three times that number. "The Pirates," we read, "were nothing
+discouraged, seeing their number so much diminished but rather filled
+with greater pride than before." The comparative heaviness of the
+Spanish loss must have been very comforting. After they had rested and
+eaten they set out towards the town, "plighting their Oaths to one
+another in general, they would fight till never a man were left alive."
+A few prisoners, who seemed rich enough to be held to ransom, were
+marched with them under a guard of musketeers.
+
+Long before they trod the streets of Panama, they were under fire from
+the batteries, "some of which were charged with small pieces of iron,
+and others with musket-bullets."
+
+They lost men at every step; but their ranks kept steady, and street by
+street the town was won. The main agony of the fight took place between
+two and three o'clock, in the heat of the day, when the last Spanish
+gunners were cut to pieces at their guns. After the last gun was taken,
+a few Spaniards fired from street corners or from upper windows, but
+these were promptly pistolled or knocked on the head. The town was in
+the hands of the pirates by the time the bells chimed three that
+afternoon.
+
+As Morgan rested with his captains in the Plaza, after the heat of the
+battle, word was brought to him that the city was on fire in several
+places. Many have supposed that the town was fired by his orders, or by
+some careless and drunken musketeer of his. It was not the buccaneer
+custom to fire cities before they had sacked them, nor is it in the
+least likely that Morgan would have burnt so glorious a town before he
+had offered it to ransom. The Spaniards have always charged Morgan with
+the crime, but it seems more probable that the Spanish Governor was the
+guilty one. It is yet more probable that the fire was accidental. Most
+of the Spanish houses were of wood, and at that season of the year the
+timber would have been of extreme dryness, so that a lighted wad or
+match end might have caused the conflagration. At the time when the fire
+was first noticed, the pirates were raging through the town in search of
+plunder. They may well have flung away their lighted matches to gather
+up the spoils they found, and thus set fire to the place unwittingly.
+
+Hearing that the town was burning, Morgan caused his trumpeters to sound
+the assembly in the Plaza. When the pirates mustered, Morgan at once
+told off men to quench the fire "by blowing up houses by gunpowder, and
+pulling down others to stop its progress." He ordered strong guards to
+patrol the streets and to stand sentry without the city. Lastly, he
+forbade any member of the army "to dare to drink or taste any wine,"
+giving out that it had all been poisoned beforehand by the Spaniards. He
+feared that his men would get drunk unless he frightened them by some
+such tale. With a drunken army rolling in the streets he could hardly
+hope to hold the town against an enemy so lightly beaten as the
+Spaniards. He also sent some sailors down to the beach to seize "a great
+boat which had stuck in the mud of the port."
+
+For all that the pirates could do, the fire spread rapidly, for the dry
+cedar beams burned furiously. The warehouses full of merchandise, such
+as silks, velvets, and fine linen, were not burned, but all the grand
+houses of the merchants, where the life had been so stately, were
+utterly gutted--all the Spanish pictures and coloured tapestries going
+up in a blaze. The splendid house of the Genoese, where so many black
+men had been bought and sold, was burned to the ground. The chief
+streets were ruined before midnight, and the fire was not wholly
+extinguished a month later when the pirates marched away. It continued
+to burn and smoulder long after they had gone.
+
+Having checked the riot among his army, Morgan sent a company of 150 men
+back to the garrison at the mouth of the Chagres with news of his
+success. Two other companies, of the same strength, he sent into the
+woods, "being all very stout soldiers and well-armed," giving them
+orders to bring in prisoners to hold to ransom. A third company was
+sent to sea under a Captain Searles to capture a Spanish galleon which
+had left the port, laden with gold and silver and the jewels of the
+churches, a day or two before. The rest of his men camped out of doors,
+in the green fields without the city, ready for any attack the Spaniards
+might make upon them. Search parties rummaged all day among the burning
+ruins, "especially in wells and cisterns," which yielded up many jewels
+and fine gold plates. The warehouses were sacked, and many pirates made
+themselves coats of silk and velvet to replace the rags they came in. It
+is probable that they committed many excesses in the heat of the first
+taking of the town, but one who was there has testified to the
+comparative gentleness of their comportment when "the heat of the blood"
+had cooled. "As to their women," he writes, "I know [not] or ever heard
+of anything offered beyond their wills; something I know was cruelly
+executed by Captain Collier [commander of one of the ships and one of
+the chief officers of the army] in killing a Frier in the field after
+quarter given; but for the Admiral he was noble enough to the vanquished
+enemy." In fact, the
+
+                        "Want of rest and victual
+    Had made them chaste--they ravished very little"
+
+--which matter must be laid to their credit.
+
+A day or two was passed by the pirates in rummaging among the ruins,
+eating and drinking, and watching the Spaniards as they moved in the
+savannahs. Troops of Spaniards prowled there under arms, looking at
+their burning houses and the grey smoke ever going upward. They did not
+attack the pirates; they did not even fire at them from a distance. They
+were broken men without a leader, only thankful to be allowed to watch
+their blazing city. A number of them submitted to the armed men sent out
+to bring in prisoners. A number lingered in the near-by forests in
+great misery, living on grass and alligator eggs, the latter tasting
+"like half-rotten musk"--a poor diet after "pheasants" and Peruvian
+wine.
+
+Morgan soon received word from Chagres castle that all was very well
+with the garrison. Captain Norman, who had remained in charge, under
+oath to keep the "bloody flag," or red pirates' banner, flying, "had
+sent forth to sea two boats, to exercise piracy." These had hoisted
+Spanish colours, and set to sea, meeting with a fine Spanish merchantman
+that very same day. They chased this ship into the Chagres River, where
+"the poor Spaniards" were caught in a snare under the guns of the fort.
+Her cargo "consisted in victuals and provisions, that were all eatable
+things," unlike the victuals given usually to sailors. Such a prize came
+very opportunely, for the castle stores were running out, while the
+ship's crew proved useful in the bitter work of earth carrying then
+going on daily on the ramparts for the repairing of the palisado.
+Hearing that the Chagres garrison was in such good case, and so well
+able to exercise piracy without further help, Admiral Morgan resolved to
+make a longer stay in the ruins of old Panama. He arranged "to send
+forth daily parties of two hundred men" to roam the countryside, beating
+the thickets for prisoners, and the prisoners for gold. These parties
+ranged the country very thoroughly, gathering "in a short time, a huge
+quantity of riches, and no less number of prisoners." These poor
+creatures were shut up under a guard, to be brought out one by one for
+examination. If they would not confess where they had hidden their gold,
+nor where the gold of their neighbours lay, the pirates used them as
+they had used their prisoners at Porto Bello. "Woolding," burning with
+palm leaves, and racking out the arm-joints, seem to have been the most
+popular tortures. Many who had no gold were brutally ill treated, and
+then thrust through with a lance.
+
+Among these diversions Admiral Morgan fell in love with a beautiful
+Spanish lady, who appears to have been something of a paragon. The story
+is not worth repeating, nor does it read quite sincerely, but it is very
+probably true. John Exquemeling, who had no great love for Morgan,
+declares that he was an eye-witness of the love-making, "and could never
+have judged such constancy of mind and virtuous chastity to be found in
+the world." The fiery Welshman did not win the lady, but we gather from
+the evidence that he could have had the satisfaction of Matthew Arnold's
+American, who consoled himself, in similar circumstances, with saying:
+"Well, I guess I lowered her moral tone some."
+
+During the first week of their stay in Panama, the ship they had sent to
+sea returned with a booty of three small coast boats. Captain Searles
+had sailed her over Panama Bay to the beautiful island of Taboga, in
+order to fill fresh water and rob the inhabitants. Here they took "the
+boatswain and most of the crew"[17] of the _Trinity_, a Spanish galleon,
+"on board which were the Friers and Nuns, with all the old gentlemen and
+Matrons of the Town, to the number of 1500 souls, besides an immense
+Treasure in Silver and Gold." This galleon had seven small guns and ten
+or twelve muskets for her whole defence. She was without provisions, and
+desperately short of water, and she had "no more sails than the
+uppermost sails of the mainmast." Her captain was "an old and stout
+Spaniard, a native of Andalusia, in Spain, named Don Francisco de
+Peralta." She was "very richly laden with all the King's Plate and great
+quantity of riches of gold, pearl, jewels, and other most precious
+goods, of all the best and richest merchants of Panama. On board of this
+galleon were also the religious women, belonging to the nunnery of the
+said city, who had embarked with them all the ornaments of their
+church, consisting in great quantity of gold, plate, and other things of
+great value." This most royal prize was even then slowly dipping past
+Taboga, with her sea-sick holy folk praying heartily for the return of
+the water casks. She could have made no possible defence against the
+pirates had they gone at once in pursuit of her. But this the pirates
+did not do. In the village at Taboga there was a wealthy merchant's
+summer-house, with a cellar full of "several sorts of rich wines." A
+bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or as a bibulous wit once
+said to the present writer: "A bottle now is worth a bath of it
+to-morrow." Captain Searles and his men chose to drink a quiet bowl in
+the cabin rather than go sail the blue seas after the golden galleon.
+They made a rare brew of punch, of which they drank "logwood-cutters'
+measure," or a gallon and a half a man. After this they knocked out
+their tobacco pipes, and slept very pleasantly till the morning. They
+woke "repenting of their negligence" and "totally wearied of the vices
+and debaucheries aforesaid." With eyes red with drink they blinked at
+the empty punch-bowls. Then with savage "morning-tempers" they damned
+each other for a lot of lunkheads, and put to sea (in one of the Taboga
+prizes) "to pursue the said galleon" with all speed. However, by this
+time Don Peralta, a most gallant and resourceful captain, had brought
+the golden _Trinity_ to a place of safety. Had she been taken, she would
+have yielded a spoil hardly smaller than that taken by Cavendish in the
+_Madre de Dios_ or that which Anson won in the Manila galleon. Several
+waggon loads of golden chalices and candlesticks, with ropes of pearls,
+bags of emeralds and bezoars, and bar upon bar of silver in the crude,
+were thus bartered away for a sup of punch and a drunken chorus in the
+cabin. Poor Captain Searles never prospered after. He went logwood
+cutting a year or two later, and as a logwood cutter he arrived at the
+Rio Summasenta, where he careened his ship at a sandy key, since known
+as Searles Key. He was killed a few days afterwards, "in the western
+lagune" there, "by one of his Company as they were cutting Logwood
+together." That was the end of Captain Searles.
+
+[Footnote 17: They had come ashore to get water.]
+
+Morgan was very angry when he heard of the escape of the galleon. He at
+once remanned the four prizes, and sent them out, with orders to scour
+the seas till they found her. They cruised for more than a week,
+examining every creek and inlet, beating up many a sluggish river, under
+many leafy branches, but finding no trace of the _Trinity_. They gave up
+the chase at last, and rested at Taboga, where, perhaps, some "rich
+wines" were still in bin. They found a Payta ship at anchor at Taboga,
+"laden with cloth, soap, sugar and biscuit, with twenty thousand pieces
+of eight in ready money." She was "a reasonable good ship," but the
+cargo, saving the money, was not much to their taste. They took the best
+of it, and loaded it aboard her longboat, making the Taboga negroes act
+as stevedores. They then set the negroes aboard the prize, and carried
+her home to Panama, "some thing better satisfied of their voyage, yet
+withal much discontented they could not meet with the galleon." It was
+at Taboga, it seems, that the lady who so inflamed Sir Henry was made
+prisoner.
+
+At the end of three weeks of "woolding" and rummaging, Admiral Morgan
+began to prepare for the journey home. He sent his men to look for mules
+and horses on which to carry the plunder to the hidden canoas in the
+river. He learned at this juncture that a number of the pirates intended
+to leave him "by taking a ship that was in the port," and going to "rob
+upon the South Sea." They had made all things ready, it seems, having
+hidden "great quantity of provisions," powder, bullets, and water
+casks, with which to store their ship. They had even packed the good
+brass guns of the city, "where with they designed not only to equip the
+said vessel but also to fortify themselves and raise batteries in some
+island or other, which might serve them for a place of refuge." The
+scheme was fascinating, and a very golden life they would have had of
+it, those lucky mutineers, had not some spoil-sport come sneaking
+privily to Morgan with a tale of what was toward. They might have seized
+Cocos Island or Juan Fernandez, or "some other island," such as one of
+the Enchanted, or Gallapagos, Islands, where the goddesses were thought
+to dwell. That would have been a happier life than cutting logwood, up
+to the knees in mud, in some drowned savannah of Campeachy.
+
+However, just as the wine-bowl spoiled the project of the galleon, so
+did the treachery of a lickspittle, surely one of the meanest of created
+things, put an end to the mutiny. Morgan was not there to colonise
+Pacific Oceans, but to sack Panama. He had no intention of losing half
+his army for an imperial idea. He promptly discouraged the scheme by
+burning all the boats in the roads. The ship or chata, which would have
+been the flagship of the mutineers, was dismasted, and the masts and
+rigging were added to the general bonfire. All the brass cannon they had
+taken were nailed and spiked. Wooden bars were driven down their muzzles
+as firmly as possible, and the wood was then watered to make it swell.
+There was then no more talk of going a-cruising to found republics.
+
+Morgan thought it wise to leave Panama as soon as possible, before a
+second heresy arose among his merry men. He had heard that the Governor
+of Panama was busily laying ambuscades "in the way by which he ought to
+pass at his return." He, therefore, picked out a strong company of men,
+including many of the mutineers, and sent them out into the woods to
+find out the truth of the matter. They found that the report was false,
+for a few Spanish prisoners, whom they captured, were able to tell them
+how the scheme had failed. The Governor, it was true, had planned to
+make "some opposition by the way," but none of the men remaining with
+him would consent to "undertake any such enterprize." With this news the
+troops marched back to Panama. While they were away, the poor prisoners
+made every effort to raise money for their ransoms, but many were unable
+to raise enough to satisfy their captors. Morgan had no wish to wait
+till they could gather more, for by this time, no doubt, he had
+satisfied himself that he had bled the country of all the gold it
+contained. Nor did he care to wait till the Spaniards had plucked up
+heart, and planted some musketeers along the banks of the Chagres. He
+had horses and mules enough to carry the enormous heaps of plunder to
+the river. It was plainly foolish to stay longer, for at any time a
+force might attack him (by sea) from Lima or (by land) from Porto Bello.
+He, therefore, gave the word for the army to prepare to march. He passed
+his last evening in Panama (as we suppose) with the female paragon from
+Taboga. The army had one last debauch over the punch-bowls round the
+camp fires, and then fell in to muster, thinking rapturously of the inns
+and brothels which waited for their custom at Port Royal.
+
+[Illustration: SIR HENRY MORGAN]
+
+"On the 24th of February, of the year 1671, Captain Morgan departed from
+the city of Panama, or rather from the place where the said city of
+Panama did stand; of the spoils whereof he carried with him one hundred
+and seventy-five beasts of carriage, laden with silver, gold and other
+precious things, besides six hundred prisoners more or less, between
+men, women, children and slaves." Thus they marched out of the ruined
+capital, over the green savannah, towards the river, where a halt was
+called to order the army for the march to Venta Cruz. A troop of picked
+marksmen was sent ahead to act as a scouting party; the rest of the
+company marched in hollow square, with the prisoners in the hollow. In
+this array they set forward towards Venta Cruz to the sound of drums and
+trumpets, amid "lamentations, cries, shrieks and doleful sighs" from the
+wretched women and children. Most of these poor creatures were fainting
+with thirst and hunger, for it had been Morgan's policy to starve them,
+in order "to excite them more earnestly to seek for money wherewith to
+ransom themselves." "Many of the women," says the narrative, "begged of
+Captain Morgan upon their knees, with infinite sighs and tears, he would
+permit them to return to Panama, there to live in company of their dear
+husbands and children, in little huts of straw which they would erect,
+seeing they had no houses until the rebuilding of the city. But his
+answer was: he came not thither to hear lamentations and cries, but
+rather to seek money. Therefore they ought to seek out for that in the
+first place, wherever it were to be had, and bring it to him, otherwise
+he would assuredly transport them all to such places whither they cared
+not to go." With this answer they had to remain content, as they lay in
+camp, under strict guard, on the banks of the Rio Grande.
+
+Early the next morning, "when the march began," "those lamentable cries
+and shrieks were renewed, in so much as it would have caused compassion
+in the hardest heart to hear them. But Captain Morgan, a man little
+given to mercy, was not moved therewith in the least." They marched in
+the same order as before, but on this day, we read, the Spaniards "were
+punched and thrust in their backs and sides, with the blunt end of [the
+pirates'] arms, to make them march the faster." The "beautiful and
+virtuous lady" "was led prisoner by herself, between two Pirates," both
+of whom, no doubt, wished the other dear charmer away. She, poor lady,
+was crying out that she had asked two monks to fetch her ransom from a
+certain hiding-place. They had taken the money, she cried, according to
+her instruction, but they had used it to ransom certain "of their own
+and particular friends." This evil deed "was discovered by a slave, who
+brought a letter to the said lady." In time, her words were reported to
+Captain Morgan, who held a court of inquiry there and then, to probe
+into the truth of the matter. The monks made no denial of the fact,
+"though under some frivolous excuses, of having diverted the money but
+for a day or two, within which time they expected more sums to repay
+it." The reply angered Morgan into releasing the poor woman, "detaining
+the said religious men as prisoners in her place," and "using them
+according to the deserts of their incompassionate intrigues." Probably
+they were forced to run the gauntlet between two rows of pirates armed
+with withes of bejuco.
+
+A day's hard marching brought them to the ruins of Venta Cruz, on the
+banks of the river, where the canoas lay waiting for them under a merry
+boat guard. The army rested at Venta Cruz for three days, while maize
+and rice were collected for the victualling of the boats. Many prisoners
+succeeded in raising their ransoms during this three days' halt. Those
+who failed, were carried down the river to San Lorenzo. On the 5th of
+March the plunder was safely shipped, the army went aboard the canoas,
+the prisoners (including some from Venta Cruz) were thrust into the
+bottoms of the boats, and the homeward voyage began. The two monks who
+had embezzled the lady's money escaped translation at this time, being
+ransomed by their friends before the sailing of the fleet. The canoas
+dropped down the river swiftly, with songs and cheers from the pirates,
+till they came to some opening in the woods, half way across the
+isthmus, where the banks were free enough from brush to allow them to
+camp. Here they mustered in order, as though for a review, each man in
+his place with his sword and firelock. Here Captain Morgan caused each
+man to raise his right hand, and to swear solemnly that he had concealed
+nothing privately, "even not so much as the value of sixpence." Captain
+Morgan, a Welshman by birth, "having had some experience that those lewd
+fellows would not much stickle to swear falsely in points of interest,
+commanded every one to be searched very strictly, both in their clothes
+and satchels and everywhere it might be presumed they had reserved
+anything. Yea, to the intent this order might not be ill-taken by his
+companions, he permitted himself to be searched, even to the very soles
+of his shoes." One man out of each company was chosen to act as searcher
+to his fellows, and a very strict search was made. "The French Pirates
+were not well satisfied with this new custom of searching," but there
+were not very many of them, and "they were forced to submit to it." When
+the search was over, they re-embarked, and soon afterwards the current
+caught them, and spun them down swiftly to the lion-like rock at the
+river's mouth. They came safely to moorings below San Lorenzo on the 9th
+of March. They found that most of the wounded they had left there had
+died of fever, but the rest of the garrison was in good case, having
+"exercised piracy" with profit all the time the army had been
+plundering. There was "joy, and a full punch-bowl," in the castle rooms
+that night.
+
+Morgan now sent his Santa Katalina prisoners to Porto Bello in "a great
+boat," demanding a ransom for Chagres castle, "threatening otherwise" to
+blast it to pieces. "Those of Porto Bello," who needed all their money
+to repair their own walls, replied that "They would not give one
+farthing towards the ransom of the said castle, and that the English
+might do with it as they pleased"--a sufficiently bold answer, which
+sealed the fate of San Lorenzo. When the answer came, the men were again
+mustered, and "the dividend was made of all the spoil they had purchased
+in that voyage." Each man received his due share, "or rather what part
+thereof Captain Morgan was pleased to give." There was general
+dissatisfaction with "his proceedings in this particular," and many
+shaggy ruffians "feared not to tell him openly" that he had "reserved
+the best jewels to himself." They "judged it impossible" that the share
+per man should be but a paltry 200 pieces of eight, or L50, after "so
+many valuable booties and robberies." Why, they said, it is less than we
+won at Porto Bello. Many swore fiercely that, if they had known how
+small the booty was to prove, they would have seen Henry Morgan in gaol
+before they 'listed. Why they did not tear him piecemeal, and heave him
+into the sea, must remain a mystery. They contented themselves with
+damning him to his face for a rogue and a thief, at the same time
+praying that a red-hot hell might be his everlasting portion. "But
+Captain Morgan," says the narrative, "was deaf to all these, and many
+other complaints of this kind, having designed in his mind to cheat them
+of as much as he could."
+
+Deaf though he was, and callous, he had a fine regard for his own skin.
+The oaths and curses which were shouted after him as he walked in the
+castle made him "to fear the consequence thereof." He "thought it unsafe
+to remain any longer time at Chagre," so he planned a master stroke to
+defeat his enemies. The castle guns were dismounted, and hoisted aboard
+his flagship. The castle walls were then blasted into pieces, the lower
+batteries thrown down, and the houses burnt. When these things had been
+done "he went secretly on board his own ship, without giving any notice
+of his departure to his companions, nor calling any council, as he used
+to do. Thus he set sail, and put out to sea, not bidding anybody adieu,
+being only followed by three or four vessels of the fleet." The captains
+of these ships, it was believed, had shared with him in the concealed
+plunder.
+
+There was great fury among the buccaneers when Morgan's escape was
+known. The French pirates were for putting to sea in pursuit, to blow
+his ships out of the water, but Morgan had been sufficiently astute to
+escape in the provision ships. The pirates left behind had not food
+enough to stock their ships, and could not put to sea till more had been
+gathered. While they cursed and raged at Chagres, Morgan sailed slowly
+to Port Royal, where he furled his sails, and dropped anchor, after a
+highly profitable cruise. The Governor received his percentage of the
+profits, and Morgan at once began to levy recruits for the settling of
+Santa Katalina.
+
+As for his men, they stayed for some days in considerable misery at San
+Lorenzo. They then set sail in companies, some for one place, some for
+another, hoping to find food enough to bring them home. Some went to the
+eastward, raiding the coast for food, and snapping up small coasting
+vessels. Some went to the bay of Campeachy to cut logwood and to drink
+rum punch. Others went along the Costa Rican coast to find turtle to
+salt for victuals, and to careen their barnacled and wormy ships. One
+strong company went to Cuba, where they sacked the Town of the Keys, and
+won a good booty. Most of them came home, in time, but to those who
+returned that home-coming was bitter.
+
+Shortly after Morgan's return to Jamaica, a new Governor arrived from
+England with orders to suppress the gangs of privateers. He had
+instructions to proclaim a general pardon for all those buccaneers who
+cared to take advantage of the proclamation within a given time. Those
+who wished to leave "their naughty way of life" were to be encouraged by
+grants of land (thirty-five acres apiece), so that they might not starve
+when they forsook piracy. But this generous offer was merely a lure or
+bait to bring the buccaneers to port, in order that the Governor might
+mulct them "the tenths and fifteenths of their booty as the dues of the
+Crown for granting them commissions." The news of the intended taxation
+spread abroad among the pirates. They heard, too, that in future they
+would find no rest in Port Royal; for this new Governor was earnest and
+diligent in his governorship. They, therefore, kept away from Port
+Royal, and made Tortuga their rendezvous, gradually allying themselves
+with the French buccaneers, who had their stronghold there. Some of
+them, who returned to Port Royal, were brought before the magistrate,
+and hanged as pirates. Their old captain, Henry Morgan, left his former
+way of life, and soon afterwards become Governor of Jamaica. He was so
+very zealous in "discouraging" the buccaneers that the profession
+gradually lost its standing. The best of its members took to logwood
+cutting or to planting; the worst kept the seas, like water-Ishmaelites,
+plundering the ships of all nations save their own. They haunted
+Tortuga, the keys of Cuba, the creeks and inlets of the coast, and the
+bays at the western end of Jamaica. They were able to do a great deal of
+mischief; for there were many of them, and the English Colonial
+governors could not spare many men-of-war to police the seas. Often the
+pirates combined and made descents upon the coast as in the past. Henry
+Morgan's defection did but drive them from their own pleasant haunt,
+Port Royal. The "free-trade" of buccaneering throve as it had always
+thriven. But about the time of Morgan's consulship we read of British
+men-of-war helping to discourage the trade, and thenceforward the
+buccaneers were without the support of the Colonial Government. Those
+who sailed the seas after Morgan's time were public enemies, sailing
+under the shadow of the gallows.
+
+    _Authorities._--W. Nelson: "Five Years at Panama." P. Mimande:
+    "Souvenirs d'un Echappe de Panama." A. Reclus: "Panama et Darien."
+    A. Radford: "Jottings on Panama." J. de Acosta: "Voyages." S. de
+    Champlain: "Narrative." Cieca de Leon: "Travels." Exquemeling:
+    "Bucaniers of America." Don Perez de la Guzman: "Account of the Sack
+    of Panama."
+
+    I am also indebted to friends long resident in the present city of
+    Panama.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CAPTAIN DAMPIER
+
+    Campeachy--Logwood cutting--The march to Santa Maria
+
+
+William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had a taste for roving, went
+to the West Indies for the first time in 1674, about three years after
+the sack of Panama. He was "then about twenty-two years old," with
+several years of sea-service behind him. He had been to the north and to
+the east, and had smelt powder in a King's ship during the Dutch wars.
+He came to the West Indies to manage a plantation, working his way "as a
+Seaman" aboard the ship of one Captain Kent. Planting sugar or cocoa on
+Sixteen-Mile Walk in an island so full of jolly sinners proved to be but
+dull work. Dampier tried it for some weeks, and then slipped away to sea
+with a Port Royal trader, who plied about the coast, fetching the
+planters' goods to town, and carrying European things, such as cloth,
+iron, powder, or the like, to the planters' jetties along the coast.
+That was a more pleasant life, for it took the young man all round the
+island, to quiet plantings where old buccaneers were at work. These were
+kindly fellows, always ready for a yarn with the shipmen who brought
+their goods from Port Royal. They treated the young man well, giving him
+yams, plantains, and sweet potatoes, with leave to wander through their
+houses. "But after six or seven Months" Dampier "left that Employ," for
+he had heard strange tales of the logwood cutters in Campeachy Bay, and
+longed to see something of them. He, therefore, slipped aboard a small
+Jamaica vessel which was going to the bay "to load logwood," with two
+other ships in company. The cargo of his ship "was rum and sugar; a very
+good Commodity for the Log-wood Cutters, who were then about 250 Men,
+most English." When they anchored off One Bush Key, by the oyster banks
+and "low Mangrovy Land," these lumbermen came aboard for drink, buying
+rum by the gallon or firkin, besides some which had been brewed into
+punch. They stayed aboard, drinking, till the casks gave out, firing off
+their small-arms with every health, and making a dreadful racket in that
+still lagoon, where the silence was seldom so violently broken. The
+logwood began to come aboard a day or two later; and Dampier sometimes
+went ashore with the boat for it, on which occasions he visited the huts
+of the woodmen, and ate some merry meals with them, "with Pork and
+Pease, or Beef and Dough-boys," not to mention "Drams or Punch."
+
+On the voyage home he was chased by Spaniards, who "fired a Gun" at the
+ketch, but could not fetch her alongside.
+
+It was an easy life aboard that little ketch; for every morning they
+fished for their suppers, and at no time was any work done unless the
+ship was actually in peril of wreck. While they were lazying slowly
+eastward, "tumbling like an Egg-shell in the Sea," her captain ran her
+on the Alcranes, a collection of sandy little islands, where they stayed
+for some days before they found a passage out to sea. They spent the
+days in fishing, or flinging pebbles at the rats, or killing boobies,
+and then set sail again, arriving after some days' sailing, at the Isles
+of Pines.
+
+Here they landed to fill fresh water at the brooks, among the sprays of
+red mangrove, which grew thickly at the water's edge. They also took
+ashore their "two bad Fowling-pieces," with intent to kill a wild hog
+or cow, being then in want of food, for the ship's provisions had given
+out. They did not kill any meat for all their hunting, nor did they
+catch much fish. Their ill success tempted the sailors to make for the
+Cuban keys, where they thought they would find great abundance, "either
+Fish or Flesh." The Cuban keys were favourite haunts of the buccaneers,
+but it was dangerous for a small ship like the ketch to venture in among
+them. On Cape Corientes there was a Spanish garrison of forty soldiers,
+chiefly mulattoes and caribs, who owned a swift periagua, fitted with
+oars and sails. They kept sentinels always upon the Cape, and whenever a
+ship hove in sight they would "launch out," and seize her, and cut the
+throats of all on board, "for fear of telling Tales." Fear of this
+garrison, and the prudent suggestion of Dampier--that "it was as
+probable that we might get as little Food in the South Keys, as we did
+at Pines, where, though there was plenty of Beefs and Hogs, yet we could
+not to tell how to get any--" at last prevailed upon the seamen to try
+for Jamaica. They were without food of any kind, save a little flour
+from the bottoms of the casks, and two "Barrels of Beef," which they had
+taken west to sell, "but 'twas so bad that none would buy it." On a
+porridge of this meat, chopped up with mouldy flour, they contrived to
+keep alive, "jogging on" towards the east till they made Jamaica. They
+arrived off Blewfield's Point thirteen weeks after leaving Campeachy,
+and, as Dampier says: "I think never any vessel before nor since made
+such Traverses ... as we did.... We got as much Experience as if we had
+been sent out on a Design." However, they dropped their anchor "at
+Nigrill" "about three a Clock in the Afternoon," and sent in the boat
+for fruit and poultry. One or two sea-captains, whose ketches were at
+anchor there, came out to welcome the new arrival. In the little
+"Cabbin," where the lamp swung in gimbals, the sailors "were very busie,
+going to drink a Bowl of Punch, ... after our long Fatigue and Fasting."
+The thirsty sea-captains, bronzed by the sun, came stumping down the
+ladder to bear a hand. One captain, "Mr John Hooker," said that he was
+under "Oath to drink but three Draughts of Strong Liquor a Day." The
+bowl, which had not been touched, lay with him, with six quarts of good
+rum punch inside it. This Mr Hooker, "putting the Bowl to his Head,
+turn'd it off at one Draught"--he being under oath, and, doubtless,
+thirsty. "And so, making himself drunk, disappointed us of our
+Expectations, till we made another Bowl." Thus with good cheer did they
+recruit themselves in that hot climate after long sailing of the seas.
+
+Dampier passed the next few weeks in Port Royal, thinking of the jolly
+life at One Bush Key, and of the little huts, so snugly thatched, and of
+the camp fires, when the embers glowed so redly at night before the moon
+rose. The thought of the logwood cutters passing to and fro about those
+camp fires, to the brandy barrel or the smoking barbecue, was pleasant
+to him. He felt inclined "to spend some Time at the Logwood Trade," much
+as a young gentleman of that age would have spent "some Time" on the
+grand tour with a tutor. He had a little gold laid by, so that he was
+able to lay in a stock of necessaries for the trade--such as "Hatchets,
+Axes, Long Knives, Saws, Wedges, etc., a Pavillion to sleep in, a Gun
+with Powder and Shot, etc." When all was ready, he went aboard a New
+England ship, and sailed for Campeachy, where he settled "in the West
+Creek of the West Lagoon" with some old logwood cutters who knew the
+trade.
+
+Logwood cutting was then a very profitable business, for the wood
+fetched from L70 to L100 a ton in the European markets. The wood is very
+dense, and so heavy that it sinks in water. The work of cutting it, and
+bringing it to the ships, in the rough Campeachy country, where there
+were no roads, was very hard. The logwood cutters were, therefore, men
+of muscle, fond of violent work. Nearly all of them in Dampier's time
+were buccaneers who had lost their old trade. They were "sturdy, strong
+Fellows," able to carry "Burthens of three or four hundred Weight," and
+"contented to labour very hard." Their hands and arms were always dyed a
+fine scarlet with the continuous rubbing of the wood, and their clothes
+always smelt of the little yellow logwood flowers, which smell very
+sweet and strong, at most seasons of the year. The life lived by the
+lumbermen was wild, rough, and merry. They had each of them a tent, or a
+strongly thatched hut, to live in, and most of them had an Indian woman
+or a negress to cook their food. Some of them had white wives, which
+they bought at Jamaica for about thirty pounds apiece, or five pounds
+more than the cost of a black woman. As a rule, they lived close to the
+lips of the creeks, "for the benefit of the Sea-Breezes," in little
+villages of twenty or thirty together. They slept in hammocks, or in
+Indian cots, raised some three or four feet from the ground, to allow
+for any sudden flood which the heavy rains might raise. They cooked
+their food on a sort of barbecue strewn with earth. For chairs they used
+logs of wood or stout rails supported on crutches. On the Saturday in
+each week they left their saws and axes and tramped out into the woods
+to kill beef for the following week. In the wet seasons, when the
+savannahs were flooded, they hunted the cattle in canoas by rowing near
+to the higher grass-lands where the beasts were at graze. Sometimes a
+wounded steer would charge the canoa, and spill the huntsmen in the
+water, where the alligators nipped them. In the dry months, the hunters
+went on foot. When they killed a steer they cut the body into four,
+flung away the bones, and cut a big hole in each quarter. Each of the
+four men of the hunting party then thrust his head through the hole in
+one of the quarters, and put "it on like a Frock," and so trudged home.
+If the sun were hot, and the beef heavy, the wearer cut some off, and
+flung it away. This weekly hunting was "a Diversion pleasant enough"
+after the five days' hacking at the red wood near the lagoon-banks. The
+meat, when brought to camp, was boucanned or jerked--that is, dried
+crisp in the sun. A quarter of a steer a man was the week's meat
+allowance. If a man wanted fish or game, in addition, he had to obtain
+it for himself. This diet was supplemented by the local fruits, and by
+stores purchased from the ships--such as dried pease, or flour to make
+doughboys.
+
+Men who worked hard under a tropical sun, in woods sometimes flooded to
+a depth of two feet, could hardly be expected to take a pride in their
+personal appearance. One little vanity they had, and apparently one
+only--they were fond of perfumes. They used to kill the alligator for
+his musk-sacs, which they thought "as good civet as any in the world."
+Each logwood cutter carried a musk-sac in his hat to diffuse scent about
+him, "sweet as Arabian winds when fruits are ripe," wheresoever his
+business led him.
+
+The logwood cutters usually formed into little companies of from four to
+twelve men each. The actual "cutters" had less to do than the other
+members, for they merely felled the trees. Others sawed and hacked the
+tree trunks into logs. The boss, or chief man in the gang, then chipped
+away the white sappy rind surrounding the scarlet heart with its
+crystals of brilliant red. If the tree were very big (and some were six
+feet round) they split the bole by gunpowder. The red hearts alone were
+exported, as it is the scarlet crystal (which dries to a dull black
+after cutting) which gives the wood its value in dyeing. When the timber
+had been properly cut and trimmed it was dragged to the water's edge,
+and stacked there ready for the merchants. The chips burnt very well,
+"making a clear strong fire, and very lasting," in which the rovers used
+to harden "the Steels of their Fire Arms when they were faulty."
+
+When a ship arrived at One Bush Key the logwood cutters went aboard her
+for rum and sugar. It was the custom for the ship's captain to give them
+free drinks on the day of his arrival, "and every Man will pay honestly
+for what he drinks afterwards." If the captain did not set the rum punch
+flowing with sufficient liberality they would "pay him with their worst
+Wood," and "commonly" they "had a stock of such" ready for the niggard
+when he came. Often, indeed, they would give such a one a load of hollow
+logs "filled with dirt in the middle, and both ends plugg'd up with a
+piece of the same." But if the captain commanding were "true steel, an
+old bold blade, one of the old buccaneers, a hearty brave toss-pot, a
+trump, a true twopenny"--why, then, they would spend thirty or forty
+pounds apiece in a drinking bout aboard his ship, "carousing and firing
+of Guns three or four days together." They were a careless company,
+concerned rather in "the squandering of life away" than in its
+preservation. Drink and song, and the firing of guns, and a week's work
+chipping blood-wood, and then another drunkenness, was the story of
+their life there. Any "sober men" who came thither were soon "debauched"
+by "the old Standards," and took to "Wickedness" and "careless Rioting."
+Those who found the work too hard used to go hunting in the woods.
+Often enough they marched to the woods in companies, to sack the Indian
+villages, to bring away women for their solace, and men slaves to sell
+at Jamaica. They also robbed the Indians' huts of honey, cocoa, and
+maize, but then the Indians were "very melancholy and thoughtful" and
+plainly designed by God as game for logwood cutters.
+
+In the end the Spaniards fell upon the logwood men and carried them away
+to Mexico and Vera Cruz, sending some to the silver mines, and selling
+the others to tradesmen. As slaves they passed the next few years, till
+they escaped to the coast. One of those who escaped told how he saw a
+Captain Buckenham, once a famous man at those old drinking bouts, and
+owner of a sugar ship, working as a slave in the city of Mexico. "He saw
+Captain Buckenham, with a Log chained to his Leg, and a Basket at his
+Back, crying Bread about the Streets for a Baker his Master."
+
+In this society of logwood cutters Dampier served a brief
+apprenticeship. He must have heard many strange tales, and jolly songs,
+around the camp fires of his mates, but none of them, apparently, were
+fit to print. He went hunting cattle, and got himself "bushed," or
+marooned--that is, lost--and had a narrow escape from dying in the
+woods. He helped at the cutting and trimming of the red wood, and at the
+curing of the hides of the slaughtered steers. When ships arrived he
+took his sup of rum, and fired his pistol, with the best of them. Had he
+stayed there any length of time he would have become a master logwood
+merchant, and so "gotten an Estate"; but luck was against him.
+
+In June 1676, when he was recovering from a guinea-worm, a creature
+which nests in one's ankle, and causes great torment, a storm, or
+"South," reduced the logwood cutters of those parts to misery. The South
+was "long foretold," by the coming in of many sea-birds to the shore's
+shelter, but the lumbermen "believed it was a certain Token of the
+Arrival of Ships," and took no precautions against tempest. Two days
+later the wind broke upon them furiously, scattering their huts like
+scraps of paper. The creek began to rise "faster than I ever saw it do
+in the greatest Spring Tide," so that, by noon, the poor wretches,
+huddled as they were in a hut, without fire, were fain to make ready a
+canoa to save themselves from drowning. The trees in the woods were torn
+up by the roots, "and tumbled down strangely across each other." The
+ships in the creek were blown from their anchors. Two of them were
+driven off to sea, dipping their bows clean under, and making shocking
+weather of it. One of them was lost in the bay, being whelmed by a green
+sea.
+
+The storm destroyed all the tools and provisions of the lumbermen, and
+left Dampier destitute. His illness, with the poisonous worm in his leg,
+had kept him from work for some weeks, so that he had no cords of red
+wood ready cut, "as the old Standards had," to buy him new tools and new
+stores. Many of the men were in the same case, so they agreed with the
+captains of two pirate ketches which called at the creek at that time,
+to go a cruise to the west to seek their fortunes. They cruised up and
+down the bay "and made many Descents into the country," "where we got
+Indian Corn to eat with the Beef, and other Flesh, that we got by the
+way." They also attacked Alvarado, a little, protected city on the river
+of that name, but they lost heavily in the attack. Of the sixty pirates
+engaged, ten or eleven were killed or desperately wounded. The fort was
+not surrendered for four or five hours, by which time the citizens had
+put their treasure into boats, and rowed it upstream to safety. It was
+dark by the time the pirates won the fort, so that pursuit was out of
+the question. They rested there that night, and spent the next day
+foraging. They killed and salted a number of beeves, and routed out much
+salt fish and Indian corn, "as much as we could stow away." They also
+took a number of poultry, which the Spaniards were fattening in coops;
+and nearly a hundred tame parrots, "yellow and red," which "would prate
+very prettily." In short they heaped their decks with hen-coops,
+parrot-cages, quarters of beef, casks of salt fish, and baskets full of
+maize. In this state, the ships lay at anchor, with their men loafing on
+deck with their tobacco, bidding the "yellow and red" parrots to say
+"Damn," or "Pretty Polly," or other ribaldry. But before any parrot
+could have lost his Spanish accent, the pirates were called from their
+lessons by the sight of seven Spanish warships, under all sail, coming
+up to the river-bar from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their
+guns were run out, and they were not a mile away when the pirates first
+saw them. As it happened, the River Alvarado was full of water, so that
+these great vessels "could scarce stem the current." This piece of luck
+saved the pirates, for it gave them time to make sail, and to clear the
+bar before the Spaniards entered the river. As they dropped down the
+stream, they hove the clutter from the decks. Many a Pretty Polly there
+quenched her blasphemy in water, and many a lump of beef went to the mud
+to gorge the alligators. The litter was all overboard, and the men
+stripped to fight the guns, by the time the tide had swept them over the
+bar. At this moment they came within range of the Spanish flagship, the
+_Toro_, of ten guns and 100 men. She was to windward of them, and
+perilously close aboard, and her guns sent some cannon-balls into them,
+without doing any serious harm. Dampier was in the leading ship, which
+stood to the eastward, followed by her consort, as soon as she was over
+the bar. After her came the _Toro_, followed by a ship of four guns, and
+by five smaller vessels manned with musketeers, "and the Vessels
+barricadoed round with Bull-hides Breast high." The _Toro_ ranged up on
+the quarter of Dampier's ship, "designing to board" her. The pirates
+dragged their cannon aft, and fired at her repeatedly, "in hopes to have
+lamed either Mast or Yard." As they failed to carry away her spars, they
+waited till "she was shearing aboard," when they rammed the helm hard
+up, "gave her a good Volley," and wore ship. As soon as she was round on
+the other tack, she stood to the westward, passing down the Spanish line
+under a heavy fire. The _Toro_ held to her course, after the second
+pirate ship, with the six ships of the fleet following in her wake. The
+second pirate ship was much galled by the fleet's fire, and ran great
+risk of being taken. Dampier's ship held to the westward, till she was
+about a mile to windward of the other ships. She then tacked, and ran
+down to assist her consort, "who was hard put to it." As she ran down,
+she opened fire on the _Toro_, "who fell off, and shook her ears,"
+edging in to the shore, to escape, with her fleet after her. They made
+no fight of it, but tacked and hauled to the wind "and stood away for
+Alvarado." The pirates were very glad to see the last of them; "and we,
+glad of the Deliverance, went away to the Eastward." On the way, they
+visited all the sandy bays of the coast to look for "munjack," "a sort
+of Pitch or Bitumen which we find in Lumps." When corrected with oil or
+tallow this natural pitch served very well for the paying of the seams
+"both of Ships and Canoas."
+
+After this adventure, Dampier returned to the lumber camp, and passed
+about a year there, cutting wood. Then, for some reason, he determined
+to leave the Indies, and to visit England; and though he had planned to
+return to Campeachy, after he had been home, he never did so. It seems
+that he was afraid of living in that undefended place, among those
+drunken mates of his. They were at all times at the mercy of a Spanish
+man-of-war, and Dampier "always feared" that a Spanish prison would be
+his lot if he stayed there. It was the lot of his imprudent mates, "the
+old Standards," a few months after he had sailed for the Thames.
+
+After a short stay in England, Dampier sailed for Jamaica, with a
+general cargo. He sold his goods at Port Royal, but did not follow his
+original plan of buying rum and sugar, and going west as a logwood
+merchant. About Christmas 1679 he bought a small estate in Dorsetshire,
+"of one whose Title to it" he was "well assured of." He was ready to
+sail for England, to take charge of this estate, and to settle down as a
+farmer, when he met "one Mr Hobby," at a tavern, who asked him to go "a
+short trading voyage to the Country of the Moskito's." Dampier, who was
+a little short of gold at the moment, was very willing to fill his purse
+before sailing north. He therefore consented to go with Mr Hobby, whose
+ship was then ready for the sea. He "went on board Mr Hobby," and a fair
+wind blew them clear of Port Royal. A day or two of easy sailing brought
+them to Negril Bay, "at the West End of Jamaica," where Dampier had
+anchored before, when the valorous captain drained the punch-bowl. The
+bay was full of shipping, for Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharp, and other
+buccaneers, were lying there filling their water casks. They had the red
+wheft flying, for they were bound on the account, to raid the Main. The
+boats alongside them were full of meat and barrels. Mr Hobby's men did
+not wait to learn more than the fact that the ships were going cruising.
+They dumped their chests into the dinghy, and rowed aboard of them, and
+'listed themselves among the sunburnt ruffians who were hoisting out the
+water breakers. Dampier and Mr Hobby were left alone on their ship,
+within hearing of the buccaneers, who sang, and danced to the fiddle,
+and clinked the cannikin, till the moon had set. For three or four days
+they stayed there, hearing the merriment of the rovers, but at the end
+of the fourth day Dampier wearied of Mr Hobby, and joined the
+buccaneers, who were glad to have him.
+
+A day or two after Christmas 1679 they got their anchors and set sail.
+They shaped their course for Porto Bello, which had recovered something
+of its old wealth and beauty, in the years of peace it had enjoyed since
+Morgan sacked it. They landed 200 men to the eastward of the town, "at
+such a distance" that the march "occupied them three nights." During the
+day they lay in ambush in the woods. As they "came to the town" a negro
+saw them, and ran to set the bells ringing, to call out the troops. The
+buccaneers followed him so closely that the town was theirs before the
+troops could muster. They stayed there forty-eight hours gathering
+plunder, and then marched back to their ships staggering under a great
+weight of gold. They shared thirty or forty pounds a man from this raid.
+Afterwards they harried the coast, east and west, and made many rich
+captures. Sawkins, it seems, was particularly lucky, for he made a haul
+of 1000 chests of indigo. Warrants were out for all these pirates, and
+had they been taken they would most surely have been hanged.
+
+After these adventures, the squadron made for "a place called Boco del
+Toro," "an opening between two islands between Chagres and Veragua,"
+where "the general rendezvous of the fleet" had been arranged. The ships
+anchored here, with one or two new-comers, including a French ship
+commanded by a Captain Bournano, who had been raiding on the isthmus,
+"near the South Sea," but a few days before. At the council aboard
+Captain Sawkins' ship, it was given out, to all the assembled
+buccaneers, that the Spaniards had made peace with the Darien Indians.
+This was bad news; but Captain Bournano was able to assure the company
+"that since the conclusion of the said peace, they had been already
+tried, and found very faithful"; for they had been of service to him in
+his late foray. He added that they had offered to guide him "to a great
+and very rich place called Tocamora," and that he had promised to come
+to them "with more ships and men," in three months' time. The buccaneers
+thought that Tocamora, apart from the beauty of the name, appeared to
+promise gold, so they decided to go thither as soon as they had careened
+and refitted. Boca del Toro, the anchorage in which they lay, was full
+of "green tortoise" for ships short of food. There were handy creeks,
+among the islands, for the ships to careen in, when their hulls were
+foul. The pirates hauled their ships into the creeks, and there hove
+them down, while their Moskito allies speared the tortoise, and the
+manatee, along the coast, and afterwards salted the flesh for
+sea-provision.
+
+As soon as the squadron was ready, they mustered at Water Key, and set
+sail for Golden Island, where they meant to hold a final council. On the
+way to the eastward they put in at the Samballoes, or islands of San
+Blas, to fill fresh water, and to buy fruit from the Indians. When the
+anchors held, the Indians came aboard with fruit, venison, and native
+cloth, to exchange for edged iron tools, and red and green beads. They
+were tall men, smeared with black paint (the women used red, much as in
+Europe), and each Indian's nose was hung with a plate of gold or silver.
+Among the women were a few albinos, who were said to see better in the
+dark than in the light. "These Indians misliked our design for
+Tocamora," because the way thither was mountainous and barren and
+certain to be uninhabited. A force going thither would be sure to starve
+on the road, they said, but it would be an easy matter to march to
+Panama, as Drake had marched. New Panama was already a rich city, so
+that they would not "fail of making a good voyage by going thither."
+This advice of the Indians impressed the buccaneers. They determined to
+abandon the Tocamora project as too dangerous. Most of them were in
+favour of going to sack Panama. But Captain Bournano, and Captain Row,
+who commanded about a hundred Frenchmen between them, refused to take
+their men on "a long march by land." Perhaps they remembered how Morgan
+had treated the French buccaneers after his Panama raid, nine years
+before. They therefore remained at anchor when the squadron parted
+company. An Indian chief, Captain Andreas, came aboard the English
+flagship. The bloody colours were hoisted, and a gun fired in farewell.
+The English ships then loosed their top-sails and stood away for Golden
+Island, to an anchorage they knew of, where a final muster could be
+held. They dropped anchor there, "being in all seven sail," on 3rd April
+1680.
+
+Their strength at the Samballoes had been as follows:--
+
+                                  Tons    Guns    Men
+  Captain Coxon in a ship of       80       8      97
+  Captain Harris       "          150      25     107
+  Captain Sawkins      "           16       1      35
+  Captain Sharp        "           25       2      40
+  Captain Cook         "           35       0      43
+  Captain Alleston     "           18       0      24
+  Captain Macket       "           14       0      20
+
+but of these 366 buccaneers a few had remained behind with the
+Frenchmen.
+
+While they lay at Golden Island, the Indians brought them word of "a
+town called Santa Maria," on the Rio Santa Maria, near the Gulf of San
+Miguel, on the Pacific coast. It was a garrison town, with four
+companies of musketeers in its fort, for there were gold mines in the
+hills behind it. The gold caravans went from it, once a month in the
+dry seasons, to Panama. If the place failed to yield them a booty, the
+buccaneers were determined to attack new Panama. Had they done so they
+would probably have destroyed the place, for though the new city was
+something stronger than the old, the garrison was in the interior
+fighting the Indians. The design on Santa Maria was popular. On the
+matter being put to the vote it was carried without protest. The
+buccaneers passed the 4th of April in arranging details, and picking a
+party to protect the ships during their absence. They arranged that
+Captains Alleston and Macket, with about twenty-five or thirty seamen,
+should remain in the anchorage as a ship's guard. The remainder of the
+buccaneers, numbering 331 able-bodied men (seven of whom were French),
+were to march with the colours the next morning.
+
+On the 5th of April 1680, these 331 adventurers dropped across the
+channel from Golden Island, and landed on the isthmus, somewhere near
+Drake's old anchorage. Captain Bartholomew Sharp, of "the dangerous
+voyage and bold assaults," came first, with some Indian guides, one of
+whom helped the Captain, who was sick and faint with a fever. This
+vanguard "had a red flag, with a bunch of white and green ribbons." The
+second company, or main battle, was led by the admiral, Richard Sawkins,
+who "had a red flag striped with yellow." The third and fourth
+companies, which were under one captain (Captain Peter Harris), had two
+green flags. The fifth and sixth companies, under Captain John Coxon,
+"had each of them a red flag." A few of Alleston's and Macket's men
+carried arms under Coxon in these companies. The rear-guard was led by
+Captain Edmund Cook, "with red colours striped with yellow, with a hand
+and sword for his device." "All or most" of the men who landed, "were
+armed with a French fuzee" (or musket), a pistol and hanger, with two
+pounds of powder and "proportionable bullet." Each of them carried a
+scrip or satchel containing "three or four cakes of bread," or
+doughboys, weighing half-a-pound apiece, with some modicum of turtle
+flesh. "For drink the rivers afforded enough."
+
+Among the men who went ashore in that company were William Dampier, the
+author of the best books of voyages in the language; Lionel Wafer, the
+chirurgeon of the party, who wrote a description of the isthmus; Mr
+Basil Ringrose, who kept an intimate record of the foray; and Captain
+Bartholomew Sharp, who also kept a journal, but whose writings are less
+reliable than those of the other three. It is not often that three
+historians of such supreme merit as Dampier, Wafer, and Ringrose, are
+associated in a collaboration so charming, as a piratical raid. Wafer
+had been a surgeon in Port Royal, but Edmund Cook had shown him the
+delights of roving, and the cruise he had made to Cartagena had
+confirmed him in that way of life. Basil Ringrose had but lately arrived
+at the Indies, and it is not known what induced him to go buccaneering.
+He was a good cartographer, and had as strong a bent towards the
+description of natural phenomena, as Dampier had. He probably followed
+the pirates in order to see the world, and to get some money, and to
+extend his knowledge. Sharp had been a pirate for some years, and there
+was a warrant out for him at Jamaica for his share in the sack of Porto
+Bello. With Dampier's history the reader has been made acquainted.
+
+The Indians, under Captain Andreas, led the buccaneers from the
+landing-place "through a small skirt of wood," beyond which was a league
+of sandy beach. "After that, we went two leagues directly up a woody
+valley, where we saw here and there an old plantation, and had a very
+good path to march in." By dusk they had arrived at a river-bank,
+beneath which the water lay in pools, joined by trickles and little
+runlets, which babbled over sun-bleached pebbles. They built themselves
+huts in this place, about a great Indian hut which stood upon the
+river-bank. They slept there that night, "having nothing but the cold
+Earth for their Beds," in much discouragement "with the going back of
+some of the Men." The buccaneers who had been some weeks at sea, were
+not in marching trim, and it seems that the long day's tramp in the sun
+had sickened many of them. While they rested in their lodges, an Indian
+king, whom they called "Captain Antonio," came in to see them. He said
+that he had sent word to one of his tributaries, farther to the south,
+to prepare food and lodgings for the buccaneers "against their Arrival."
+As for himself, he wished very much that he could come with them to lead
+their guides, but unfortunately "his child lay very sick." However, it
+comforted him to think that the child would be dead by the next day, at
+latest, "and then he would most certainly follow and overtake" them. He
+warned the company not to lie in the grass, "for fear of monstrous
+adders"; and so bowed himself out of camp, and returned home. The kingly
+prayers seem to have been effectual, for Captain Antonio was in camp
+again by sunrise next morning, with no family tie to keep him from
+marching.
+
+As the men sluiced themselves in the river before taking to the road,
+they noticed that the pebbles shone "with sparks of gold" when broken
+across. They did not stay to wash the river-mud, for gold dust and
+golden pellets, but fell in for the march, and climbed from dawn till
+nearly dusk. They went over "a steep Mountain" which was parched and
+burnt and waterless. Four of the buccaneers refused to go farther than
+the foot of this hill, so they returned to the ships. The others, under
+the guidance of Antonio, contrived to cross the mountain "to an Hollow
+of Water," at which they drank very greedily. Six miles farther on they
+halted for the night, beside a stream. They slept there, "under the
+Canopy of Heaven," suffering much discomfort from some drenching
+showers. After some days of climbing, wading, and suffering, the army
+reached the house of King Golden Cap, an Indian king. The King came out
+to meet them in his robes, with a little reed crown on his head, lined
+with red silk, and covered with a thin plate of gold. He had a golden
+ring in his nose, and a white cotton frock over his shoulders. His queen
+wore a red blanket, and a blouse "like our old-fashioned striped
+hangings." This royal couple bade the army welcome, and ordered food to
+be brought for them. The buccaneers passed a couple of days in King
+Golden Cap's city, trading their coloured beads, and scraps of iron, for
+fresh fruit and meat. They found the Indians "very cunning" in
+bargaining, which means, we suppose, that they thought a twopenny
+whittle a poor return for a hog or a sack of maize.
+
+When the men had rested themselves, and had dried their muddy clothes,
+they set out again, with Captain Sawkins in the vanguard. As they
+marched out of the town "the King ordered us each man to have three
+plantains, with sugar-canes to suck, by way of a present." They
+breakfasted on these fruits, as they marched. The road led them "along a
+very bad Path" continually intersected by a river, which they had to
+wade some fifty or sixty times, to their great misery. They passed a few
+Indian huts on the way, and at each hut door stood an Indian to give "as
+we passed by, to every one of us, a ripe plantain, or some sweet
+cassava-root." Some of the Indians counted the army "by dropping a grain
+of corn for each man that passed before them," for without counters they
+could not reckon beyond twenty. The army had by this time been swelled
+by an Indian contingent, of about 150 men, "armed with Bows, Arrows and
+Lances." The Indians dropping their corn grains must have dropped
+nearly 500 before the last man passed them. That night, which was clear
+and fine, they rested in three large Indian huts, where King Golden
+Cap's men had stored up food and drink, and a number of canoas, for the
+voyage south. The river went brawling past their bivouac at a little
+distance, and some of the men caught fish, and broiled them in the coals
+for their suppers.
+
+At daylight next morning, while they were getting the canoas to the
+water, Captain Coxon had "some Words" with Captain Harris (of the green
+flags). The words ran into oaths, for the two men were surly with the
+discomforts of turning out. Coxon whipped up a gun and fired at Peter
+Harris, "which he was [naturally] ready to return." Sharp knocked his
+gun up before he could fire, "and brought him to be quiet; so that we
+proceeded on our Journey." They had no further opportunities for
+fighting, for Sawkins gave the word a moment later for seventy of the
+buccaneers to embark in the canoas. There were fourteen of these boats,
+all of them of small size. Sharp, Coxon, and Cook were placed in charge
+of them. Captain Harris was told off to travel with the land party, with
+Sawkins, King Golden Cap, and the other men. Don Andreas, with
+twenty-eight other Indians (two to a canoa) acted as boatmen, or pilots,
+to the flotilla.
+
+Basil Ringrose, who was one of the boat party, has told us of the
+miseries of the "glide down the stream." The river was low, and full of
+rotting tree trunks, so that "at the distance of almost every stone's
+cast," they had to leave the boats "and haul them over either sands or
+rocks, and at other times over trees." Sharp, who was of tougher fibre,
+merely says that they "paddled all Day down the Falls and Currents of
+the River, and at Night took up our Quarters upon a Green Bank by the
+Riverside, where we had Wild Fowl and Plantanes for Supper: But our Beds
+were made upon the cold Earth, and our Coverings were the Heavens, and
+green Trees we found there." The next day they went downstream again,
+over many more snags and shallows, which set them wading in the mud till
+their boots rotted off their feet. Ringrose was too tired to make a note
+in his journal, save that, that night, "a tiger" came out and looked at
+them as they sat round the camp fires. Sharp says that the labour "was a
+Pleasure," because "of that great Unity there was then amongst us," and
+because the men were eager "to see the fair South Sea." They lodged that
+night "upon a green Bank of the River," and ate "a good sort of a Wild
+Beast like unto our English Hog." The third day, according to Ringrose,
+was the worst day of all. The river was as full of snags as it had been
+higher up, but the last reach of it was clear water, so that they gained
+the rendezvous "about Four in the Afternoon." To their very great alarm
+they found that the land party had not arrived. They at once suspected
+that the Indians had set upon them treacherously, and cut them off in
+the woods. But Don Andreas sent out scouts "in Search of them," who
+returned "about an Hour before Sun-set," with "some of their Number,"
+and a message that the rest would join company in the morning.
+
+A little after daybreak the land force marched in, and pitched their
+huts near the river, "at a beachy point of land," perhaps the very one
+where Oxenham's pinnace had been beached. They passed the whole day
+there resting, and cleaning weapons, for they were now but "a Day and a
+Night's Journey" from the town they had planned to attack. Many more
+Indians joined them at this last camp of theirs, so that the army had
+little difficulty in obtaining enough canoas to carry them to Santa
+Maria. They set out early the next morning, in sixty-eight canoas, being
+in all "327 of us Englishmen, and 50 Indians." Until that day the canoas
+had been "poled" as a punt is poled, but now they cut oars and paddles
+"to make what speed we could." All that day they rowed, and late into
+the night, rowing "with all haste imaginable," and snapping up one or
+two passing Indian boats which were laden with plantains. It was after
+midnight, and about "Two Hours before Day Light," when they ran into a
+mud bank, about a mile from the town, and stepped ashore, upon a
+causeway of oars and paddles. They had to cut themselves a path through
+jungle, as soon as they had crossed the mud, for the town was walled
+about with tropical forest. They "lay still in the Woods, till the Light
+appeared," when they "heard the Spaniard discharge his Watch at his Fort
+by Beat of Drum, and a Volley of Shot." It was the Spanish way of
+changing guard, at daybreak. It was also the signal for the "Forlorn" of
+the buccaneers to march to the battle, under Sawkins. This company
+consisted of seventy buccaneers. As they debouched from the forest, upon
+open ground, the Spaniards caught sight of them and beat to arms. The
+men in the fort at once opened fire "very briskly," but the
+advance-guard ran in upon them, tore down some of the stockade, and
+"entered the fort incontinently." A moment or two of wild firing passed
+inside the palisades, and then the Spanish colours were dowsed. The
+buccaneers in this storm lost two men wounded, of the fifty who
+attacked. The Spanish loss was twenty-six killed, and sixteen wounded,
+out of 300 under arms. About fifty more, of the Spanish prisoners, were
+promptly killed by the Indians, who took them into the woods and stabbed
+them "to death" with their lances. It seems that one of that garrison, a
+man named Josef Gabriele, had raped King Golden Cap's daughter who was
+then with child by him. (Gabriele, as it chanced, was not speared, but
+saved to pilot the pirates to Panama.) This was the sole action of the
+Indians in that engagement. During the battle they lay "in a small
+hollow," "in great consternation" at "the noise of the guns."
+
+Though the buccaneers had taken the place easily, they had little cause
+for rejoicing. The town was "a little pitiful Place," with a few
+thatched huts, or "wild houses made of Cane," and "but one Church in
+it." The fort "was only Stockadoes," designed merely as a frontier post
+"to keep in subjection the Indians" or as a lodging for men employed in
+the gold mines. There was no more provision in store there than would
+serve their turn for a week. As for the gold, they had missed it by
+three days. Three hundredweight of gold had been sent to Panama while
+they were struggling downstream. News of their coming had been brought
+to the fort in time, and "all their treasure of gold," "that huge booty
+of gold" they had expected to win, had been shipped westward. Nor had
+they any prisoners to hold to ransom. The Governor, the town priest, and
+the chief citizens, had slipped out of the town in boats, and were now
+some miles away. Richard Sawkins manned a canoa, and went in chase of
+them, but they got clear off, to give advice to Panama that pirates were
+come across the isthmus. The only pillage they could find, after
+torturing their prisoners "severely," amounted to "twenty pounds' weight
+of gold, and a small quantity of silver." To this may be added a few
+personal belongings, such as weapons or trinkets, from the chests of the
+garrison.
+
+When the booty, such as it was, had been gathered, the captains held a
+meeting "to discuss what were best to be done." Some were for going to
+the South Sea, to cruise; but John Coxon, who had taken Porto Bello, and
+hated to be second to Sawkins, was for going back to the ships. The
+general vote was for going to Panama, "that city being the receptacle of
+all the plate, jewels, and gold that is dug out of the mines of all
+Potosi and Peru." However, they could not venture on Panama without
+Coxon, and Coxon's company; so they made Coxon their admiral, "Coxon
+seeming to be well satisfied." Before starting, they sent their booty
+back to Golden Island, under a guard of twelve men. Most of the Indians
+fell off at this time, for they had "got from us what knives, scissors,
+axes, needles and beads they could." Old King Golden Cap, and his son,
+were less mercenary, and stayed with the colours, being "resolved to go
+to Panama, out of the desire they had to see that place taken and
+sacked." They may have followed the buccaneers in order to kill the
+Spaniard who had raped the princess, for that worthy was still alive,
+under guard. He had promised to lead the pirates "even to the very
+bed-chamber door of the governor of Panama."
+
+With the vision of this bed-chamber door before them, the pirates
+embarked at Santa Maria "in thirty-five canoes" and a ship they had
+found at anchor in the river. As they "sailed, or rather rowed"
+downstream, with the ebb, the Spanish prisoners prayed to be taken
+aboard, lest the Indians should take them and torture them all to death.
+"We had much ado to find a sufficient number of boats for ourselves,"
+says Ringrose, for the Indians had carried many of the canoas away. Yet
+the terror of their situation so wrought upon the Spaniards that they
+climbed on to logs, or crude rafts, or into old canoas, "and by that
+means shifted so ... as to come along with us." The island Chepillo, off
+the mouth of the Cheapo River, had been named as the general rendezvous,
+but most of the buccaneers were to spend several miserable days before
+they anchored there. One canoa containing ten Frenchmen, was capsized,
+to the great peril of the Frenchmen, who lost all their weapons.
+Ringrose was separated from the company, drenched to the skin, half
+starved, and very nearly lynched by some Spaniards. His 19th of April
+was sufficiently stirring to have tired him of going a-roving till his
+death. He put out "wet and cold," at dawn; was shipwrecked at ten; saved
+the lives of five Spaniards at noon; "took a survey," or drew a sketch
+of the coast, an hour later; set sail again by four, was taken by the
+Spaniards and condemned to death at nine; was pardoned at ten; sent away
+"in God's name," "vaya ustad con Dios," at eleven; and was at sea again
+"wet and cold," by midnight. Sharp's party was the most fortunate, for
+as they entered the bay of Panama they came to an island "a very
+pleasant green Place," off which a barque of thirty tons came to anchor,
+"not long before it was dark." The island had a high hummock of land
+upon it with a little hut, and a stack for a bonfire, at the top. A
+watchman, an old man, lived in this hut, looking out over the sea for
+pirates, with orders to fire his beacon, to warn the men on the Main if
+a strange sail appeared. The pirates caught this watchman before the
+fire was lit. They learned from him that those at Panama had not yet
+heard of their coming. Shortly after they had captured the watchman, the
+little barque aforesaid, came to anchor, and furled her sails. Two of
+Sharp's canoas crept out, "under the shore," and laid her aboard "just
+as it began to be duskish." She proved to be a Panama boat, in use as a
+troop transport. She had just landed some soldiers on the Main, to quell
+some Indians, who had been raiding on the frontier. Her crew were
+negroes, Indians, and mulattoes. Most of the buccaneers, especially
+those in the small canoas, "endeavoured to get into" this ship, to
+stretch their legs, and to have the advantage of a shelter. More than
+130 contrived to stow themselves in her 'tween decks, under "that
+sea-artist, and valiant commander" (the words are probably his own)
+"Captain Bartholomew Sharp." They put to sea in her the next day,
+followed by the canoas. During the morning they took another small
+barque, in which Captain Harris placed thirty men, and hoisted the green
+flag. The wind fell calm after the skirmish, but the canoas rowed on to
+Chepillo, to the rendezvous, where they found provisions such as "two
+fat hogs," and some plantains, and a spring of water.
+
+A little after dawn, on the day following, while the ships were trying
+to make the anchorage, Captain Coxon, and Captain Sawkins, rowed out
+from Chepillo to board a barque which was going past the island under a
+press of sail. The wind was so light that the canoas overhauled her, but
+before they could hook to her chains "a young breeze, freshening at that
+instant," swept her clear of danger. Her men fired a volley into Coxon's
+boat, which the pirates returned. "They had for their Breakfast a small
+fight," says Sharp. One of the pirates--a Mr Bull--was killed with an
+iron slug. The Spaniards got clear away without any loss, "for the Wind
+blew both fresh and fair" for them. Three or four pirates were grazed
+with shot, and some bullets went through the canoas. The worst of the
+matter was that the Spaniards got safely to Panama, "to give
+intelligence of our coming."
+
+As they could no longer hope to take the city by surprise, "while the
+Governor was in his bed-chamber," they determined to give the citizens
+as little time for preparation as was possible. They were still twenty
+miles from Panama, but the canoas could pass those twenty miles in a few
+hours' easy rowing. They set out at four o'clock in the evening, after
+they had delivered their Spanish prisoners "for certain reasons" (which
+Ringrose "could not dive into") into the hands of the Indians. This act
+of barbarity was accompanied with the order that the Indians were "to
+fight, or rather to murder and slay the said prisoners upon the shore,
+and that in view of the whole fleet." However, the Spaniards rushed the
+Indians, broke through them, and got away to the woods with the loss of
+but one soldier.
+
+After they had watched the scuffle, the pirates rowed away merrily
+towards Panama, "though many showers of rain ceased not to fall."
+Sharp's vessel, with her crew of more than 130 men, made off for the
+Pearl Islands, ostensibly to fill fresh water, but really, no doubt, to
+rob the pearl fisheries. He found a woman (who was "very young and
+handsome"), and "a Case or two of Wines," at these islands, together
+with some poultry. He made a feast there, and stayed at anchor that
+night, and did not set sail again till noon of the day following, by
+which time the battle of Panama had been fought and won.
+
+    _Authorities._--Dampier's Voyages. Wafer's Voyages. Ringrose's
+    Journal. "The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain
+    Bartholomew Sharp"; "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+    Bartholomew Sharp" (four or five different editions). Ringrose's
+    MSS., Sharp's MSS., in the Sloane MSS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE BATTLE OF PERICO
+
+    Arica--The South Sea cruise
+
+
+On 23rd April 1680, "that day being dedicated to St George, our Patron
+of England," the canoas arrived off Panama. "We came," says Ringrose,
+"before sunrise within view of the city of Panama, which makes a
+pleasant show to the vessels that are at sea." They were within sight of
+the old cathedral church, "the beautiful building whereof" made a
+landmark for them, reminding one of the buccaneers "of St Paul's in
+London," a church at that time little more than a ruin. The new city was
+not quite finished, but the walls of it were built, and there were
+several splendid churches, with scaffolding about them, rising high,
+here and there, over the roofs of the houses. The townspeople were in a
+state of panic at the news of the pirates' coming. Many of them had fled
+into the savannahs; for it chanced that, at that time, many of the
+troops in garrison, were up the country, at war with a tribe of Indians.
+The best of the citizens, under Don Jacinto de Baronha, the admiral of
+those seas, had manned the ships in the bay. Old Don Peralta, who had
+saved the golden galleon ten years before, had 'listed a number of
+negroes, and manned one or two barques with them. With the troops still
+in barracks, and these volunteers and pressed men, they had manned, in
+all "five great ships, and three pretty big barks." Their force may have
+numbered 280 men. One account gives the number, definitely, as 228. The
+buccaneer force has been variously stated, but it appears certain that
+the canoas, and periaguas, which took part in the fight, contained only
+sixty-eight of their company. Sharp, as we have seen, had gone with his
+company to the Pearl Islands. The remaining 117 men were probably
+becalmed, in their barques and canoas, some miles from the vanguard.
+
+When the buccaneers caught sight of Panama, they were probably between
+that city and the islands of Perico and Tobagilla. They were in great
+disorder, and the men were utterly weary with the long night of rowing
+in the rain, with the wind ahead. They were strung out over several
+miles of sea, with five light canoas, containing six or seven men
+apiece, a mile or two in advance. After these came two lumbering
+periaguas, with sixteen men in each. King Golden Cap was in one of these
+latter. Dampier and Wafer were probably not engaged in this action.
+Ringrose was in the vanguard, in a small canoa.
+
+A few minutes after they had sighted the roofs of Panama, they made out
+the ships at anchor off the Isle of Perico. There were "five great ships
+and three pretty big barks," manned, as we have said, by soldiers,
+negroes, and citizens. The men aboard this fleet were in the rigging of
+their ships, keeping a strict lookout. As they caught sight of the
+pirates the three barques "instantly weighed anchor," and bore down to
+engage, under all the sail they could crowd. The great ships had not
+sufficient men to fight their guns. They remained at anchor; but their
+crews went aboard the barques, so that the decks of the three men-of-war
+must have been inconveniently crowded. The Spaniards were dead to
+windwind of the pirates, so that they merely squared their yards, and
+ran down the wind "designedly to show their valour." They had intended
+to run down the canoas, and to sail over them, for their captains had
+orders to give no quarter to the pirates, but to kill them, every man.
+"Such bloody commands as these," adds Ringrose piously, "do seldom or
+never prosper."
+
+It was now a little after sunrise. The wind was light but steady; the
+sea calm. As the Spaniards drew within range, the pirates rowed up into
+the wind's eye, and got to windward of them. Their pistols and muskets
+had not been wetted in the rain, for each buccaneer had provided himself
+with an oiled cover for his firearms, the mouth of which he stopped with
+wax whenever it rained. The Spanish ships ran past the three leading
+canoas, exchanging volleys at long range. They were formed in line of
+battle ahead, with a ship manned by mulattoes, or "Tawnymores," in the
+van. This ship ran between the fourth canoa, in which Ringrose was, and
+the fifth (to leeward of her) commanded by Sawkins. As she ran between
+the boats she fired two thundering broadsides, one from each battery,
+which wounded five buccaneers. "But he paid dear for his passage";
+because the buccaneers gave her a volley which killed half her sail
+trimmers, so that she was long in wearing round to repeat her fire. At
+this moment the two periaguas came into action, and got to windward with
+the rest of the pirates' fleet.
+
+While Ringrose's company were ramming the bullets down their gun
+muzzles, the Spanish admiral (in the second ship) engaged, "scarce
+giving us time to charge." She was a fleet ship, and had a good way on
+her, and her design was to pass between two canoas, and give to each a
+roaring hot broadside. As she ran down, so near that the buccaneers
+could look right into her, one of the pirates fired his musket at her
+helmsman, and shot him through the heart as he steered. The ship at once
+"broached-to," and lay with her sails flat aback, stopped dead. The five
+canoas, and one of the periaguas, got under her stern, and so plied her
+with shot that her decks were like shambles, running with blood and
+brains, five minutes after she came to the wind. Meanwhile Richard
+Sawkins ran his canoa--which was a mere sieve of cedar wood, owing to
+the broadside--alongside the second periagua, and took her steering oar.
+He ordered his men to give way heartily, for the third Spanish ship,
+under old Don Peralta, was now bearing down to relieve the admiral.
+Before she got near enough to blow the canoas out of water, Captain
+Sawkins ran her on board, and so swept her decks with shot that she went
+no farther. But "between him and Captain Sawkins, the dispute, or fight,
+was very hot, lying board on board together, and both giving and
+receiving death unto each other as fast as they could charge." Indeed,
+the fight, at this juncture, was extremely fierce. The two Spanish ships
+in action were surrounded with smoke and fire, the men "giving and
+receiving death" most gallantly. The third ship, with her sail trimmers
+dead, was to leeward, trying to get upon the other tack.
+
+After a time her sailors got her round, and reached to windward, to help
+the admiral, who was now being sorely battered. Ringrose, and Captain
+Springer, a famous pirate, "stood off to meet him," in two canoas, as
+"he made up directly towards the Admiral." Don Jacinto, they noticed, as
+they shoved off from his flagship, was standing on his quarter-deck,
+waving "with a handkerchief," to the captain of the Tawnymores' ship. He
+was signalling him to scatter the canoas astern of the flagship. It was
+a dangerous moment, and Ringrose plainly saw "how hard it would go with
+us if we should be beaten from the Admiral's stern." With the two canoas
+he ran down to engage, pouring in such fearful volleys of bullets that
+they covered the Spaniard's decks with corpses and dying men. "We killed
+so many of them, that the vessel had scarce men enough left alive, or
+unwounded, to carry her off. Had he not given us the helm, and made
+away from us, we had certainly been on board him." Her decks were
+littered with corpses, and she was literally running blood. The wind was
+now blowing fresh, and she contrived to put before it, and so ran out of
+action, a terrible sight for the Panama women.
+
+Having thus put the Tawnymores out of action, Ringrose and Springer
+hauled to the wind, and "came about again upon the Admiral, and all
+together gave a loud halloo." The cheer was answered by Sawkins' men,
+from the periagua, as they fired into the frigate's ports. Ringrose ran
+alongside the admiral, and crept "so close" under the vessel's stern,
+"that we wedged up the rudder." The admiral was shot, and killed, a
+moment later, as he brought aft a few musketeers to fire out of the
+stern ports. The ship's pilot, or sailing master, was killed by the same
+volley. As for the crew, the "stout Biscayners," "they were almost quite
+disabled and disheartened likewise, seeing what a bloody massacre we had
+made among them with our shot." Two-thirds of the crew were killed, "and
+many others wounded." The survivors cried out for quarter, which had
+been offered to them several times before, "and as stoutly denied until
+then." Captain Coxon thereupon swarmed up her sides, with a gang of
+pirates, helping up after him the valorous Peter Harris "who had been
+shot through both his legs, as he boldly adventured up along the side of
+the ship." The Biscayners were driven from their guns, disarmed, and
+thrust down on to the ballast, under a guard. All the wounded pirates
+were helped up to the deck and made comfortable. Then, in all haste, the
+unhurt men manned two canoas, and rowed off to help Captain Sawkins,
+"who now had been three times beaten from on board by Peralta."
+
+A very obstinate and bloody fight had been raging round the third
+man-of-war. Her sides were splintered with musket-balls. She was oozing
+blood from her scuppers, yet "the old and stout Spaniard" in command,
+was cheerily giving shot for shot. "Indeed, to give our enemies their
+due, no men in the world did ever act more bravely than these
+Spaniards."
+
+Ringrose's canoa was the first to second Captain Sawkins. She ran close
+in, "under Peralta's side," and poured in a blasting full volley through
+her after gun-ports. A scrap of blazing wad fell among the red-clay
+powder jars in the after magazine. Before she could fire a shot in
+answer, she blew up abaft. Ringrose from the canoa "saw his men blown
+up, that were abaft the mast, some of them falling on the deck, and
+others into the sea." But even this disaster did not daunt old Peralta.
+Like a gallant sea-captain, he slung a bowline round his waist, and went
+over the side, burnt as he was, to pick up the men who had been blown
+overboard. The pirates fired at him in the water, but the bullets missed
+him. He regained his ship, and the fight went on. While the old man was
+cheering the wounded to their guns, "another jar of powder took fire
+forward," blowing the gun's crews which were on the fo'c's'le into the
+sea. The forward half of the ship caught fire, and poured forth a volume
+of black smoke, in the midst of which Richard Sawkins boarded, and "took
+the ship." A few minutes later, Basil Ringrose went on board, to give
+what aid he could to the hurt. "And indeed," he says, "such a miserable
+sight I never saw in my life, for not one man there was found, but was
+either killed, desperately wounded, or horribly burnt with powder,
+insomuch that their black skins [the ship was manned with negroes] were
+turned white in several places, the powder having torn it from their
+flesh and bones." But if Peralta's ship was a charnel-house, the
+admiral's flagship was a reeking slaughter-pen. Of her eighty-six
+sailors, sixty-one had been killed. Of the remaining twenty-five, "only
+eight were able to bear arms, all the rest being desperately wounded,
+and by their wounds totally disabled to make any resistance, or defend
+themselves. Their blood ran down the decks in whole streams, and scarce
+one place in the ship was found that was free from blood." The loss on
+the Tawnymores' ship was never known, but there had been such "bloody
+massacre" aboard her, that two other barques, in Panama Roads, had been
+too scared to join battle, though they had got under sail to engage.
+According to Ringrose, the pirates lost eighteen men killed, and
+twenty-two men wounded, several of them severely. Sharp, who was not in
+the fight, gives the numbers as eleven killed, and thirty-four wounded.
+The battle began "about half an hour after sunrise." The last of the
+Spanish fire ceased a little before noon.
+
+Having taken the men-of-war, Captain Sawkins asked his prisoners how
+many men were aboard the galleons, in the Perico anchorage. Don Peralta,
+who was on deck, "much burnt in both his hands," and "sadly scalded," at
+once replied that "in the biggest alone there were three hundred and
+fifty men," while the others were manned in proportion to their tonnage.
+But one of his men "who lay a-dying upon the deck, contradicted him as
+he was speaking, and told Captain Sawkins there was not one man on board
+any of those ships that were in view." "This relation" was believed, "as
+proceeding from a dying man," and a few moments later it was proved to
+be true. The greatest of the galleons, "the Most Blessed _Trinity_,"
+perhaps the very ship in which Peralta had saved the treasures of the
+cathedral church, was found to be empty. Her lading of "wine, sugar, and
+sweetmeats, skins and soap" (or hides and tallow) was still in the hold,
+but the Spaniards had deserted her, after they had set her on fire,
+"made a hole in her, and loosened [perhaps cut adrift] her foresail."
+The pirates quenched the fire, stopped the leak, and placed their
+wounded men aboard her, "and thus constituted her for the time being our
+hospital." They lay at anchor, at Perico, for the rest of that day. On
+the 24th of April they seem to have been joined by a large company of
+those who had been to leeward at the time of the battle. Reinforced by
+these, to the strength of nearly 200 men, they weighed their anchors,
+set two of the prize galleons on fire with their freights of flour and
+iron, and removed their fleet to the roads of Panama. They anchored near
+the city, just out of heavy gunshot, in plain view of the citizens. They
+could see the famous stone walls, which had cost so much gold that the
+Spanish King, in his palace at Madrid, had asked his minister whether
+they could be seen from the palace windows. They marked the stately,
+great churches which were building. They saw the tower of St Anastasius
+in the distance, white and stately, like a blossom above the greenwood.
+They may even have seen the terrified people in the streets, following
+the banners of the church, and the priests in their black robes, to
+celebrate a solemn Mass and invocation. Very far away, in the green
+savannahs, they saw the herds of cattle straying between the clumps of
+trees.
+
+Late that night, long after it was dark, Captain Bartholomew Sharp
+joined company. He had been to Chepillo to look for them, and had found
+their fire "not yet out," and a few dead Spaniards, whom the Indians had
+killed, lying about the embers. He had been much concerned for the
+safety of the expedition, and was therefore very pleased to find that
+"through the Divine Assistance" the buccaneers had triumphed. At supper
+that night he talked with Don Peralta, who told him of some comets, "two
+strange Comets," which had perplexed the Quito merchants the year
+before. There was "good Store of Wine" aboard the _Trinity_ galleon,
+with which all hands "cheered up their Hearts for a While." Then, having
+set sentinels, they turned in for the night.
+
+The next day they buried Captain Peter Harris, "a brave and stout
+Soldier, and a valiant Englishman, born in the county of Kent, whose
+death [from gunshot wounds] we very much lamented." With him they buried
+another buccaneer who had been hurt in the fight. The other wounded men
+recovered. They would probably have landed to sack the town on this day,
+had not a quarrel broken out between some of the company and Captain
+Coxon. The question had been brought forward, whether the buccaneers
+should go cruising in the South Sea, in their prizes, or return,
+overland, to their ships at Golden Island. It was probably suggested, as
+another alternative, that they should land to sack the town. All the
+captains with one exception were for staying in the Pacific "to try
+their Fortunes." Captain Coxon, however, was for returning to Golden
+Island. He had been dissatisfied ever since the fight at Santa Maria. He
+had not distinguished himself particularly in the fight off Perico, and
+no doubt he felt jealous that the honours of that battle should have
+been won by Sawkins. Sawkins' men taunted him with "backwardness" in
+that engagement, and "stickled not to defame, or brand him with the note
+of cowardice." To this he answered that he would be very glad to leave
+that association, and that he would take one of the prizes, a ship of
+fifty tons, and a periagua, to carry his men up the Santa Maria River.
+Those who stayed, he added, might heal his wounded. That night he drew
+off his company, with several other men, in all about seventy hands.
+With them he carried "the best of our Doctors and Medicines," and the
+hearty ill will of the other buccaneers. Old King Golden Cap accompanied
+these deserters, leaving behind him his son and a nephew, desiring them
+to be "not less vigorous" than he had been in harrying the Spanish.
+Just before Coxon set sail, he asked Bartholomew Sharp to accompany him.
+But that proven soul "could not hear of so dirty and inhuman an Action
+without detestation." So Coxon sailed without ally, "which will not much
+redound to his Honour," leaving all his wounded on the deck of the
+captured galleon. The fleet, it may be added, had by this time returned
+to the anchorage at Perico.
+
+They lay there ten days in all, "debating what were best to be done." In
+that time they took a frigate laden with fowls. They took the poultry
+for their own use, and dismissed some of "the meanest of the prisoners"
+in the empty ship. They then shifted their anchorage to the island of
+Taboga, where there were a few houses, which some drunken pirates set on
+fire. While they lay at this island the merchants of Panama came off to
+them "and sold us what commodities we needed, buying also of us much of
+the goods we had taken in their own vessels." The pirates also sold them
+a number of negroes they had captured, receiving "two hundred pieces of
+eight for each negro we could spare." "And here we took likewise several
+barks that were laden with fowls." After Coxon's defection, Richard
+Sawkins was re-elected admiral, and continued in that command till his
+death some days later.
+
+Before they left Taboga, Captain Sharp went cruising to an island some
+miles distant to pick up some straggling drunkards who belonged to his
+ship. While he lay at anchor, in a dead calm, waiting for a breeze to
+blow, a great Spanish merchant ship hove in sight, bound from Lima (or
+Truxillo) to Panama. Sharp ran his canoas alongside, and bade her dowse
+her colours, at the same time sending a gang of pirates over her rail,
+to throw the crew under hatches. "He had no Arms to defend himself with,
+save only Rapiers," so her captain made no battle, but struck
+incontinently. She proved to be a very splendid prize, for in her hold
+were nearly 2000 jars of wine and brandy, 100 jars of good vinegar, and
+a quantity of powder and shot, "which came very luckily." In addition to
+these goods there were 51,000 pieces of eight, "247 pieces of eight a
+man," a pile of silver sent to pay the Panama soldiery; and a store of
+sweetmeats, such as Peru is still famous for. And there were "other
+Things," says Sharp, "that were very grateful to our dis-satisfied
+Minds." Some of the wine and brandy were sold to the Panama merchants a
+few days later, "to the value of three thousand Pieces of Eight." A day
+or two after this they snapped up two flour ships, from Paita. One of
+these was a pretty ship of a fine model, of about 100 tons. Sharp fitted
+her for himself, "for I liked her very well." The other flour ship was
+taken very gallantly, under a furious gunfire from Panama Castle. The
+buccaneers rowed in, with the cannon-balls flying over their heads. They
+got close alongside "under her Guns," and then towed her out of
+cannon-shot.
+
+They continued several days at Taboga, waiting for a Lima treasure ship,
+aboard which, the Spaniards told them, were L2500 in silver dollars.
+While they waited for this ship the Governor at Panama wrote to ask them
+why they had come into those seas. Captain Sawkins answered that they
+had come to help King Golden Cap, the King of Darien, the true lord of
+those lands, and that, since they had come so far, "there was no reason
+but that they should have some satisfaction." If the Governor would send
+them 500 pieces of eight for each man, and double that sum for each
+captain, and, further, undertake "not any farther to annoy the Indians,"
+why, then, the pirates would leave those seas, "and go away peaceably.
+If the Governor would not agree to these terms, he might look to
+suffer." A day or two later, Sawkins heard that the Bishop of Panama had
+been Bishop at Santa Martha (a little city on the Main), some years
+before, when he (Sawkins) helped to sack the place. He remembered the
+cleric favourably, and sent him "two loaves of sugar," as a sort of
+keepsake, or love-offering. "For a retaliation," the Bishop sent him a
+gold ring; which was very Christian in the Bishop, who must have lost on
+the exchange. The bearer of the gold ring, brought also an answer from
+the Governor, who desired to know who had signed the pirates'
+commissions. To this message Captain Sawkins sent back for answer: "That
+as yet all his company were not come together, but that when they were
+come up, we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our
+commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read
+them as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them."
+
+With this thrasonical challenge the pirates set sail for Otoque, another
+of the islands in the bay; for Taboga, though it was "an exceeding
+pleasant island," was by this time bare of meat. Before they left the
+place a Frenchman deserted from them, and gave a detailed account of
+their plans to the Spanish Governor. It blew very hard while they were
+at sea, and two barques parted company in the storm. One of them drove
+away to the eastward, and overtook John Coxon's company. The other was
+taken by the Spaniards.
+
+About the 20th or 21st of May, after several days of coasting, the ships
+dropped anchor on the north coast of the island of Quibo. From here some
+sixty men, under Captain Sawkins, set sail in Edmund Cook's ship, to
+attack Pueblo Nuevo, the New Town, situated on the banks of a river. At
+the river's mouth, which was broad, with sandy beaches, they embarked in
+canoas, and rowed upstream, under the pilotage of a negro, from dark
+till dawn. The French deserter had told the Spaniards of the intended
+attack, so that the canoas found great difficulty in getting upstream.
+Trees had been felled so as to fall across the river, and Indian spies
+had been placed here and there along the river-bank to warn the townsmen
+of the approach of the boats. A mile below the town the river had been
+made impassable, so here the pirates went ashore to wait till daybreak.
+When it grew light they marched forward, to attack the strong wooden
+breastworks which the Spaniards had built. Captain Sawkins was in
+advance, with about a dozen pirates. Captain Sharp followed at a little
+distance with some thirty more. As soon as Sawkins saw the stockades he
+fired his gun, and ran forward gallantly, to take the place by storm, in
+the face of a fierce fire. "Being a man that nothing upon Earth could
+terrifie" he actually reached the breastwork, and was shot dead there,
+as he hacked at the pales. Two other pirates were killed at his side,
+and five of the brave forlorn were badly hurt. "The remainder drew off,
+still skirmishing," and contrived to reach the canoas "in pretty good
+order," though they were followed by Spanish sharpshooters for some
+distance. Sharp took command of the boats and brought them off safely to
+the river's mouth, where they took a barque full of maize, before they
+arrived at their ship.
+
+Sawkins was "as valiant and courageous as any could be," "a valiant and
+generous-spirited man, and beloved above any other we ever had among us,
+which he well deserved." His death left the company without a captain,
+and many of the buccaneers, who had truly loved Richard Sawkins, were
+averse to serving under another commander. They were particularly averse
+to serving under Sharp, who took the chief command from the moment of
+Sawkins' death. At Quibo, where they lay at anchor, "their Mutiny" grew
+very high, nor did they stick at mere mutiny. They clamoured for a
+tarpaulin muster, or "full Councel," at which the question of "who
+should be chief" might be put to the vote. At the council, Sharp was
+elected "by a few hands," but many of the pirates refused to follow him
+on the cruise. He swore, indeed, that he would take them such a voyage
+as should bring them L1000 a man; but the oaths of Sharp were not good
+security, and the mutiny was not abated. Many of the buccaneers would
+have gone home with Coxon had it not been for Sawkins. These now
+clamoured to go so vehemently that Sharp was constrained to give them a
+ship with as much provision "as would serve for treble the number." The
+mutineers who left on this occasion were in number sixty-three. Twelve
+Indians, the last who remained among the pirates, went with them, to
+guide them over the isthmus. 146 men remained with Sharp. It is probable
+that many of these would have returned at this time, had it not been
+that "the Rains were now already up, and it would be hard passing so
+many Gullies, which of necessity would then be full of water." Ringrose,
+Wafer and Dampier remained among the faithful, but rather on this
+account, than for any love they bore their leader. The mutineers had
+hardly set sail, before Captain Cook came "a-Board" Sharp's flagship,
+finding "himselfe a-grieved." His company had kicked him out of his
+ship, swearing that they would not sail with such a one, so that he had
+determined "to rule over such unruly folk no longer." Sharp gave his
+command to a pirate named Cox, a New Englander, "who forced kindred, as
+was thought, upon Captain Sharp, out of old acquaintance, in this
+conjuncture of time, only to advance himself." Cox took with him Don
+Peralta, the stout old Andalusian, for the pirates were plying the
+captain "of the Money-Ship we took," to induce him to pilot them to
+Guayaquil "where we might lay down our Silver, and lade our vessels with
+Gold." They feared that an honest man, such as Peralta, "would hinder
+the endeavours" of this Captain Juan, and corrupt his kindly
+disposition.
+
+With these mutinies, quarrels, intrigues, and cabals did the buccaneers
+beguile their time. They stayed at Quibo until 6th June, filling their
+water casks, quarrelling, cutting wood, and eating turtle and red deer.
+They also ate huge oysters, so large "that we were forced to cut them
+into four pieces, each quarter being a large mouthful."
+
+On the 6th of June they set sail for the isle of Gorgona, off what is
+now Columbia, where they careened the _Trinity_, and took "down our
+Round House Coach and all the high carved work belonging to the stern of
+the ship; for when we took her from the Spaniards she was high as any
+Third Rate Ship in England." While they were at work upon her, Sharp
+changed his design of going for Guayaquil, as one of their prisoners, an
+old Moor, "who had long time sailed among the Spaniards," told him that
+there was gold at Arica, in such plenty that they would get there "L2000
+a man." He did not hurry to leave his careenage, though he must have
+known that each day he stayed there lessened his chance of booty. It was
+nearly August when he left Gorgona, and "from this Time forward to the
+17th of October there was Nothing occurr'd but bare Sailing." Now and
+then they ran short of water, or of food. One or two of their men died
+of fever, or of rum, or of sunstroke. Two or three were killed in
+capturing a small Spanish ship. The only other events recorded, are the
+falls of rain, the direction of the wind, the sight of "watersnakes of
+divers colours," and the joyful meeting with Captain Cox, whom they had
+lost sight of, while close in shore one evening. They called at "Sir
+Francis Drake's isle" to strike a few tortoises, and to shoot some
+goats. Captain Sharp we read, here "showed himself very ingenious" in
+spearing turtle, "he performing it as well as the tortoise strikers
+themselves."
+
+It was very hot at this little island. Many years before Drake had gone
+ashore there to make a dividend, and had emptied bowls of gold coins
+into the hats of his men, after the capture of the _Cacafuego_. Some of
+the pirates sounded the little anchorage with a greasy lead, in the
+hopes of bringing up the golden pieces which Drake had been unable to
+carry home, and had hove into the sea there. They got no gold, but the
+sun shone "so hot that it burnt the skin off the necks of our men," as
+they craned over the rail at their fishery.
+
+At the end of October they landed at the town of Hilo to fill fresh
+water. They took the town, and sacked its sugar refineries, which they
+burnt. They pillaged its pleasant orange groves, and carried away many
+sacks of limes and green figs "with many other fruits agreeable to the
+palate." Fruit, sugar, and excellent olive oil were the goods which Hilo
+yielded. They tried to force the Spaniards to bring them beef, but as
+the beef did not come, they wrecked the oil and sugar works, and set
+them blazing, and so marched down to their ships, skirmishing with the
+Spanish horse as they fell back. Among the spoil was the carcass of a
+mule (which made "a very good meal"), and a box of chocolate "so that
+now we had each morning a dish of that pleasant liquor," such as the
+grand English ladies drank.
+
+The next town attacked was La Serena, a town five miles from the present
+Coquimbo. They took the town, and found a little silver, but the
+citizens had had time to hide their gold. The pirates made a great feast
+of strawberries "as big as walnuts," in the "orchards of fruit" at this
+place, so that one of their company wrote that "'tis very delightful
+Living here." They could not get a ransom for the town, so they set it
+on fire. The Spaniards, in revenge, sent out an Indian, on an inflated
+horse hide, to the pirates' ship the _Trinity_. This Indian thrust some
+oakum and brimstone between the rudder and the sternpost, and "fired it
+with a match." The sternpost caught fire and sent up a prodigious black
+smoke, which warned the pirates that their ship was ablaze. They did not
+discover the trick for a few minutes, but by good fortune they found it
+out in time to save the vessel. They landed their prisoners shortly
+after the fire had been quenched "because we feared lest by the example
+of this stratagem they should plot our destruction in earnest." Old Don
+Peralta, who had lately been "very frantic," "through too much hardship
+and melancholy," was there set on shore, after his long captivity. Don
+Juan, the captain of the "Money-Ship," was landed with him. Perhaps the
+two fought together, on the point of honour, as soon as they had
+returned to swords and civilisation.
+
+From Coquimbo the pirates sailed for Juan Fernandez. On the way thither
+they buried William Cammock, one of their men, who had drunk too hard at
+La Serena "which produced in him a calenture or malignant fever, and a
+hiccough." "In the evening when the pale Magellan Clouds were showing we
+buried him in the sea, according to the usual custom of mariners, giving
+him three French vollies for his funeral."
+
+On Christmas Day they were beating up to moorings, with boats ahead,
+sounding out a channel for the ship. They did not neglect to keep the
+day holy, for "we gave in the morning early three vollies of shot for
+solemnization of that great festival." At dusk they anchored "in a
+stately bay that we found there," a bay of intensely blue water, through
+which the whiskered seals swam. The pirates filled fresh water, and
+killed a number of goats, with which the island swarmed. They also
+captured many goats alive, and tethered them about the decks of the
+_Trinity_, to the annoyance of all hands, a day or two later, when some
+flurries of wind drove them to sea, to search out a new anchorage.
+
+Shortly after New Year's Day 1681, "our unhappy Divisions, which had
+been long on Foot, began now to come to an Head to some Purpose." The
+men had been working at the caulking of their ship, with design to take
+her through the Straits of Magellan, and so home to the Indies. Many of
+the men wished to cruise the South Seas a little longer, while nearly
+all were averse to plying caulking irons, under a burning sun, for
+several hours a day. There was also a good deal of bitterness against
+Captain Sharp, who had made but a poor successor to brave Richard
+Sawkins. He had brought them none of the gold and silver he had promised
+them, and few of the men were "satisfied, either with his Courage or
+Behaviour." On the 6th January a gang of pirates "got privately ashoar
+together," and held a fo'c's'le council under the greenwood. They "held
+a Consult," says Sharp, "about turning me presently out, and put another
+in my Room." John Cox, the "true-hearted dissembling New-England Man,"
+whom Sharp "meerly for old Acquaintance-sake" had promoted to be
+captain, was "the Main Promoter of their Design." When the consult was
+over, the pirates came on board, clapped Mr Sharp in irons, put him down
+on the ballast, and voted an old pirate named John Watling, "a stout
+seaman," to be captain in his stead. One buccaneer says that "the true
+occasion of the grudge against Sharp was, that he had got by these
+adventures almost a thousand pounds, whereas many of our men were not
+worth a groat," having "lost all their money to their fellow Buccaneers
+at dice."
+
+Captain Edmund Cook, who had been turned out of his ship by his men, was
+this day put in irons on the confession of a shameless servant. The
+curious will find the details of the case on page 121, of the 1684
+edition of Ringrose's journal.
+
+John Watling began his captaincy in very godly sort, by ordering his
+disciples to keep holy the Sabbath day. Sunday, "January the ninth, was
+the first Sunday that ever we kept by command and common consent, since
+the loss and death of our valiant Commander Captain Sawkins." Sawkins
+had been strict in religious matters, and had once thrown the ship's
+dice overboard "finding them in use on the said day." Since Sawkins'
+death the company had grown notoriously lax, but it is pleasant to
+notice how soon they returned to their natural piety, under a godly
+leader. With Edmund Cook down on the ballast in irons, and William Cook
+talking of salvation in the galley, and old John Watling expounding the
+Gospel in the cabin, the galleon, "the Most Holy _Trinity_" must have
+seemed a foretaste of the New Jerusalem. The fiddler ceased such
+"prophane strophes" as "Abel Brown," "The Red-haired Man's Wife," and
+"Valentinian." He tuned his devout strings to songs of Zion. Nay the
+very boatswain could not pipe the cutter up but to a phrase of the
+Psalms.
+
+In this blessed state they washed their clothes in the brooks, hunted
+goats across the island, and burnt and tallowed their ship the
+_Trinity_. But on the 12th of January, one of their boats, which had
+been along the coast with some hunters, came rowing furiously into the
+harbour, "firing of Guns." They had espied three Spanish men-of-war some
+three or four miles to leeward, beating up to the island under a press
+of sail. The pirates were in great confusion, for most of them were
+ashore, "washing their clothes," or felling timber. Those on board, hove
+up one of their anchors, fired guns to call the rest aboard, hoisted
+their boats in, and slipped their second cable. They then stood to sea,
+hauling as close to the wind as she would lie. One of the Mosquito
+Indians, "one William," was left behind on the island, "at this sudden
+departure," and remained hidden there, living on fish and fruit, for
+many weary days. He was not the first man to be marooned there; nor was
+he to be the last.
+
+The three Spanish men-of-war were ships of good size, mounting some
+thirty guns among them. As the pirate ship beat out of the harbour,
+sheeting home her topgallant-sails, they "put out their bloody flags,"
+which the pirates imitated, "to shew them that we were not as yet
+daunted." They kept too close together for the pirates to run them
+aboard, but towards sunset their flagship had drawn ahead of the
+squadron. The pirates at once tacked about so as to engage her,
+intending to sweep her decks with bullets, and carry her by boarding.
+John Watling was not very willing to come to handystrokes, nor were the
+Spaniards anxious to give him the opportunity. No guns were fired, for
+the Spanish admiral wore ship, and so sailed away to the island, when he
+brought his squadron to anchor. The pirates called a council, and
+decided to give them the slip, having "outbraved them," and done as much
+as honour called for. They were not very pleased with John Watling, and
+many were clamouring for the cruise to end. It was decided that they
+should not attack the Spanish ships, but go off for the Main, to sack
+the town of Arica, where there was gold enough, so they had heard, to
+buy them each "a coach and horses." They therefore hauled to the wind
+again, and stood to the east, in very angry and mutinous spirit, until
+the 26th of January.
+
+On that day they landed at Yqueque, a mud-flat, or guano island, off a
+line of yellow sand-hills. They found a few Indian huts there, with
+scaffolds for the drying of fish, and many split and rotting mackerel
+waiting to be carried inland. There was a dirty stone chapel in the
+place, "stuck full of hides and sealskins." There was a great surf,
+green and mighty, bursting about the island with a continual roaring.
+There were pelicans fishing there, and a few Indians curing fish, and an
+abominable smell, and a boat, with a cask in her bows, which brought
+fresh water thither from thirty miles to the north. The teeth of the
+Indians were dyed a bright green by their chewing of the coca leaf, the
+drug which made their "beast-like" lives endurable. There was a silver
+mine on the mainland, near this fishing village, but the pirates did not
+land to plunder it. They merely took a few old Indian men, and some
+Spaniards, and carried them aboard the _Trinity_, where the godly John
+Watling examined them.
+
+The next day the examination continued; and the answers of one of the
+old men, "a Mestizo Indian," were judged to be false. "Finding him in
+many lies, as we thought, concerning Arica, our commander ordered him to
+be shot to death, which was accordingly done." This cold-blooded murder
+was committed much against the will of Captain Sharp, who "opposed it as
+much as he could." Indeed, when he found that his protests were useless,
+he took a basin of water (of which the ship was in sore need) and washed
+his hands, like a modern Pilate. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am clear of
+the blood of this old man; and I will warrant you a hot day for this
+piece of cruelty, whenever we come to fight at Arica." This proved to be
+"a true and certain prophesy." Sharp was an astrologer, and a believer
+in portents; but he does not tell us whether he had "erected any
+Figure," to discover what was to chance in the Arica raid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arica, the most northern port in Chile, has still a considerable
+importance. It is a pleasant town, fairly well watered, and therefore
+more green and cheerful than the nitrate ports. It is built at the foot
+of a hill (a famous battlefield) called the Morro. Low, yellow
+sand-hills ring it in, shutting it from the vast blue crags of the
+Andes, which rise up, splintered and snowy, to the east. The air there
+is of an intense clearness, and those who live there can see the Tacna
+churches, forty miles away. It is no longer the port it was, but it does
+a fair trade in salt and sulphur, and supplies the nitrate towns with
+fruit. When the pirates landed there it was a rich and prosperous city.
+It had a strong fort, mounting twelve brass guns, defended by four
+companies of troops from Lima. The city had a town guard of 300
+soldiers. There was also an arsenal full of firearms for the use of
+householders in the event of an attack. It was not exactly a walled
+town, like new Panama, but a light wooden palisade ran round it, while
+other palisades crossed each street. These defences had been thrown up
+when news had arrived of the pirates being in those seas. All the
+"plate, gold and jewels" of the townsfolk had been carefully hidden, and
+the place was in such a state of military vigilance and readiness that
+the pirates had no possible chance of taking it, or at least of holding
+it. When the pirates came upon it there were several ships in the bay,
+laden with commodities from the south of Chile.
+
+[Illustration: _A description of_ Arica]
+
+On the 28th of January, John Watling picked 100 men, and put off for the
+shore in boats and canoas, to attack the town. By the next day they had
+got close in shore, under the rocks by the San Vitor River's mouth.
+There they lay concealed till the night. At dawn of the 30th January
+1681, "the Martyrdom of our glorious King Charles the First," they were
+dipping off some rocks four miles to the south of Arica. Here ninety-two
+of the buccaneers landed, leaving a small boat guard, with strict
+instructions how to act. They were told that if the main body "made
+one smoke from the town," as by firing a heap of powder, one canoa was
+to put in to Arica; but that, if two smokes were fired, all the boats
+were to put in at once. Basil Ringrose was one of those who landed to
+take part in the fight. Dampier, it is almost certain, remained on board
+the _Trinity_, becalmed some miles from the shore. Wafer was in the
+canoas, with the boat guard, preparing salves for those wounded in the
+fight. The day seems to have been hot and sunny--it could scarcely have
+been otherwise--but those out at sea, on the galleon, could see the
+streamers of cloud wreathing about the Andes.
+
+At sunrise the buccaneers got ashore, amongst the rocks, and scrambled
+up a hill which gave them a sight of the city. From the summit they
+could look right down upon the streets, little more than a mile from
+them. It was too early for folk to be stirring, and the streets were
+deserted, save for the yellow pariahs, and one or two carrion birds. It
+was so still, in that little town, that the pirates thought they would
+surprise the place, as Drake had surprised Nombre de Dios. But while
+they were marching downhill, they saw three horsemen watching them from
+a lookout place, and presently the horsemen galloped off to raise the
+inhabitants. As they galloped away, John Watling chose out forty of the
+ninety-two, to attack the fort or castle which defended the city. This
+band of forty, among whom were Sharp and Ringrose, carried ten
+hand-grenades, in addition to their pistols and guns. The fort was on a
+hill above the town, and thither the storming party marched, while
+Watling's company pressed on into the streets. The action began a few
+minutes later with the guns of the fort firing on the storming party.
+Down in the town, almost at the same moment, the musketry opened in a
+long roaring roll which never slackened. Ringrose's party waited for no
+further signal, but at once engaged, running in under the guns and
+hurling their firepots through the embrasures. The grenades were damp,
+or badly filled, or had been too long charged. They did not burst or
+burn as they should have done, while the garrison inside the fort kept
+up so hot a fire, at close range, that nothing could be done there. The
+storming party fell back, without loss, and rallied for a fresh attack.
+They noticed then that Watling's men were getting no farther towards the
+town. They were halted in line, with their knees on the ground, firing
+on the breastworks, and receiving a terrible fire from the Spaniards.
+Five of the fifty-two men were down (three of them killed) and the case
+was growing serious. The storming party left the fort, and doubled
+downhill into the firing line, where they poured in volley after
+blasting volley, killing a Spaniard at each shot, making "a very
+desperate battle" of it, "our rage increasing with our wounds." No
+troops could stand such file-firing. The battle became "mere bloody
+massacre," and the Spaniards were beaten from their posts. Volley after
+volley shook them, for the pirates "filled every street in the city with
+dead bodies"; and at last ran in upon them, and clubbed them and cut
+them down, and penned them in as prisoners. But as the Spaniards under
+arms were at least twenty times as many as the pirates, there was no
+taking the city from them. They were beaten from post to post fighting
+like devils, but the pirates no sooner left a post they had taken, "than
+they came another way, and manned it again, with new forces and fresh
+men." The streets were heaped with corpses, yet the Spaniards came on,
+and came on again, till the sand of the roads was like red mud. At last
+they were fairly beaten from the chief parts of the town, and numbers of
+them were penned up as prisoners; more, in fact, than the pirates could
+guard. The battle paused for a while at this stage, and the pirates took
+advantage of the lull to get their wounded (perhaps a dozen men), into
+one of the churches to have their wounds dressed. As the doctors of the
+party began their work, John Watling sent a message to the fort,
+charging the garrison to surrender. The soldiers returned no answer, but
+continued to load their guns, being helped by the armed townsfolk, who
+now flocked to them in scores. The fort was full of musketeers when the
+pirates made their second attack a little after noon.
+
+At the second attack, John Watling took 100 of his prisoners, placed
+them in front of his storming party, and forced them forward, as a
+screen to his men, when he made his charge. The garrison shot down
+friend and foe indiscriminately, and repulsed the attack, and repulsed a
+second attack which followed a few minutes later. There was no taking
+the fort by storm, and the pirates had no great guns with which to
+batter it. They found, however, that one of the flat-roofed houses in
+the town, near the fort's outworks, commanded the interior. "We got upon
+the top of the house," says Ringrose, "and from there fired down into
+the fort, killing many of their men and wounding them at our ease and
+pleasure." While they were doing this, a number of the Lima soldiers
+joined the citizens, and fell, with great fury, upon the prisoners'
+guards in the town. They easily beat back the few guards, and retook the
+city. As soon as they had taken the town, they came swarming out to cut
+off the pirates from their retreat, and to hem them in between the fort
+and the sea. They were in such numbers that they were able to surround
+the pirates, who now began to lose men at every volley, and to look
+about them a little anxiously as they bit their cartridges. From every
+street in the town came Spanish musketeers at the double, swarm after
+swarm of them, perhaps a couple of thousand. The pirates left the fort,
+and turned to the main army, at the same time edging away towards the
+south, to the hospital, or church, where their wounded men were being
+dressed. As they moved away from the battlefield, firing as they
+retreated, old John Watling was shot in the liver with a bullet, and
+fell dead there, to go buccaneering no more. A moment later "both our
+quartermasters" fell, with half-a-dozen others, including the boatswain.
+All this time the cannon of the fort were pounding over them, and the
+round-shot were striking the ground all about, flinging the sand into
+their faces. What with the dust and the heat and the trouble of helping
+the many hurt, their condition was desperate. "So that now the enemy
+rallying against us, and beating us from place to place, we were in a
+very distracted condition, and in more likelihood to perish every man
+than escape the bloodiness of that day. Now we found the words of
+Captain Sharp to bear a true prophecy, being all very sensible that we
+had had a day too hot for us, after that cruel heat in killing and
+murdering in cold blood the old Mestizo Indian whom we had taken
+prisoner at Yqueque." In fact they were beaten and broken, and the fear
+of death was on them, and the Spaniards were ringing them round, and the
+firing was roaring from every point. They were a bloody, dusty, choking
+gang of desperates, "in great disorder," black with powder, their
+tongues hanging out with thirst. As they stood grouped together, cursing
+and firing, some of them asked Captain Sharp to take command, and get
+them out of that, seeing that Watling was dead, and no one there could
+give an order. To this request Sharp at last consented, and a retreat
+was begun, under cover of a fighting rear-guard, "and I hope," says
+Sharp, "it will not be esteemed a Vanity in me to say, that I was mighty
+Helpful to facilitate this Retreat." In the midst of a fearful racket
+of musketry, he fought the pirates through the soldiers to the church
+where the wounded lay. There was no time, nor was there any conveyance,
+for the wounded, and they were left lying there, all desperately hurt.
+The two surgeons could have been saved "but that they had been drinking
+while we assaulted the fort, and thus would not come with us when they
+were called." There was no time for a second call, for the Spaniards
+were closing in on them, and the firing was as fierce as ever. The men
+were so faint with hunger and thirst, the heat of battle, and the long
+day's marching, that Sharp feared he would never get them to the boats.
+A fierce rush of Spaniards beat them away from the hospital, and drove
+them out of the town "into the Savannas or open fields." The Spaniards
+gave a cheer and charged in to end the battle, but the pirates were a
+dogged lot, and not yet at the end of their strength. They got into a
+clump or cluster, with a few wounded men in the centre, to load the
+muskets, "resolving to die one by another" rather than to run. They
+stood firm, cursing and damning the Spaniards, telling them to come on,
+and calling them a lot of cowards. There were not fifty buccaneers fit
+to carry a musket, but the forty odd, unhurt men stood steadily, and
+poured in such withering volleys of shot, with such terrible precision,
+that the Spanish charge went to pieces. As the charge broke, the pirates
+plied them again, and made a "bloody massacre" of them, so that they ran
+to shelter like so many frightened rabbits. The forty-seven had beaten
+off twenty or thirty times their number, and had won themselves a
+passage home.
+
+There was no question of trying to retake the town. The men were in such
+misery that the march back to the boats taxed their strength to the
+breaking point. They set off over the savannah, in as good order as they
+could, with a wounded man, or two, in every rank of them. As they set
+forward, a company of horsemen rode out, and got upon their flanks "and
+fired at us all the way, though they would not come within reach of our
+guns; for their own reached farther than ours, and out-shot us more than
+one third." There was great danger of these horsemen cutting in, and
+destroying them, on the long open rolls of savannah, so Sharp gave the
+word, and the force shogged westward to the seashore, along which they
+trudged to the boats. The beach to the south of Arica runs along the
+coast, in a narrow strip, under cliffs and rocky ground, for several
+miles. The sand is strewn with boulders, so that the horsemen, though
+they followed the pirates, could make no concerted charge upon them.
+Some of them rode ahead of them and got above them on the cliff tops,
+from which they rolled down "great stones and whole rocks to destroy
+us." None of these stones did any harm to the pirates, for the cliffs
+were so rough and broken that the skipping boulders always flew wide of
+the mark. But though the pirates "escaped their malice for that time,"
+they were yet to run a terrible danger before getting clear away to sea.
+The Spaniards had been examining, or torturing, the wounded pirates, and
+the two drunken surgeons, left behind in the town. "These gave them our
+signs that we had left to our boats [_i.e._ revealed the signals by
+which the boats were to be called] so that they immediately blew up two
+smokes, which were perceived by the canoas." Had the pirates "not come
+at the instant" to the seaside, within hail of the boats, they would
+have been gone. Indeed they were already under sail, and beating slowly
+up to the northward, in answer to the signal. Thus, by a lucky chance,
+the whole company escaped destruction. They lost no time in putting from
+the shore, where they had met with "so very bad Entertainment." They
+"got on board about ten a Clock at night; having been involved in a
+continual and bloody fight ... all that day long." Of the ninety-two,
+who had landed that morning, twenty-eight had been left ashore, either
+dead, or as prisoners. Of the sixty-four who got to the canoas, eighteen
+were desperately wounded, and barely able to walk. Most of the others
+were slightly hurt, while all were too weary to do anything, save sleep
+or drink. Of the men left behind in the hospital the Spaniards spared
+the doctors only; "they being able to do them good service in that
+country." "But as to the wounded men," says Ringrose, "they were all
+knocked on the head," and so ended their roving, and came to port where
+drunken doctors could torture them no longer. The Ylo men denied this;
+and said that the seven pirates who did not die of their wounds were
+kept as slaves. The Spanish loss is not known, but it was certainly
+terrible. The Hilo, or Ylo people, some weeks later, said that seventy
+Spaniards had been killed and about 200 wounded.
+
+All the next day the pirates "plied to and fro in sight of the port,"
+hoping that the Spaniards would man the ships in the bay, and come out
+to fight. They reinstated Sharp in his command, for they had now
+"recollected a better Temper," though none of them, it seems, wished for
+any longer stay in the South Sea. The Arica fight had sickened them of
+the South Sea, while several of them (including Ringrose) became very
+ill from the exposure and toil of the battle. They beat to windward,
+cruising, when they found that the Spaniards would not put to sea to
+fight them. They met with dirty weather when they had reached the
+thirtieth parallel, and the foul weather, and their bad fortune made
+them resolve to leave those seas. At a fo'c's'le council held on the 3rd
+of March, they determined to put the helm up, and to return to the North
+Sea. They were short of water and short of food, "having only one cake
+of bread a day," or perhaps half-a-pound of "doughboy," for their
+"whack" or allowance. After a few days' running before the wind they
+came to "the port of Guasco," now Huasco, between Coquimbo and Caldera,
+a little town of sixty or eighty houses, with copper smeltries, a
+church, a river, and some sheep-runs. Sixty of the buccaneers went
+ashore here, that same evening, to get provisions, "and anything else
+that we could purchase." They passed the night in the church, or "in a
+churchyard," and in the morning took "120 sheep and fourscore goats,"
+about 200 bushels of corn "ready ground," some fowls, a fat hog, any
+quantity of fruit, peas, beans, etc., and a small stock of wine. These
+goods they conveyed aboard as being "fit for our Turn." The inhabitants
+had removed their gold and silver while the ship came to her anchor, "so
+that our booty here, besides provisions, was inconsiderable." They found
+the fat hog "very like our English pork," thereby illustrating the
+futility of travel; and so sailed away again "to seek greater matters."
+Before they left, they contrived to fill their water jars in the river,
+a piece of work which they found troublesome, owing to the height of the
+banks.
+
+[Illustration: _A Description of_ Hilo]
+
+From Huasco, where the famous white raisins grow, they sailed to Ylo,
+where they heard of their mates at Arica, and secured some wine, figs,
+sugar, and molasses, and some "fruits just ripe and fit for eating,"
+including "extraordinary good Oranges of the China sort" They then
+coasted slowly northward, till by Saturday, 16th April, they arrived off
+the island of Plate. Here their old bickerings broke out again, for many
+of the pirates were disgusted with Sharp, and eager to go home. Many of
+the others had recovered their spirits since the affair at Arica, and
+wished to stay in the South Seas, to cruise a little longer. Those who
+had fought at Arica would not allow Sharp to be deposed a second
+time, while those who had been shipkeepers on that occasion, were angry
+that he should have been re-elected. The two parties refused to be
+reconciled. They quarrelled angrily whenever they came on deck together,
+and the party spirit ran so high that the company of shipkeepers, the
+anti-Sharp faction, "the abler and more experienced men," at last
+refused to cruise any longer under Sharp's command. The fo'c's'le
+council decided that a poll should be taken, and "that which party
+soever, upon polling, should be found to have the majority, should keep
+the ship." The other party was to take the long boat and the canoas. The
+division was made, and "Captain Sharp's Party carried it." The night was
+spent in preparing the long boat and the canoas, and the next morning
+the boats set sail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ACROSS THE ISTHMUS
+
+    The way home--Sufferings and adventures
+
+
+At "about Ten a Clock" in the morning of 17th April 1681, the mutineers
+went over the side into their "Lanch and Canoas, designing for the River
+Santa Maria, in the Gulf of St Michael." "We were in number," says
+Dampier, who was of the party, "44 white Men who bore Arms, a _Spanish
+Indian_, who bore Arms also; and two _Moskito Indians_," who carried
+pistols and fish spears. Lionel Wafer "was of Mr Dampier's Side in that
+Matter," and acted as surgeon to the forty-seven, until he met with his
+accident. They embarked in the ship's launch or long boat, one canoa
+"and another Canoa which had been sawn asunder in the middle, in order
+to have made Bumkins, or Vessels for carrying water, if we had not
+separated from our Ship." This old canoa they contrived to patch
+together. For provisions they brought with them "so much Flower as we
+could well carry"; which "Flower" "we" had been industriously grinding
+for the last three days. In addition to the "Flower" they had "rubbed up
+20 or 30 pound of Chocolate with Sugar to sweeten it." And so provided,
+they hoisted their little sails and stood in for the shore. "The Sea
+Breeze came in strong" before they reached the land, so that they had to
+cut up an old dry hide to make a close-fight round the launch "to keep
+the Water out." They took a small timber barque the next morning, and
+went aboard her, and sailed her over to Gorgona, where they scrubbed
+her bottom. They learned from their prisoners that the Spaniards were
+on the alert, eagerly expecting them, and cruising the seas with fast
+advice boats to get a sight of them. Three warships lay at Panama, ready
+to hunt them whenever the cruisers brought news of their whereabouts. A
+day or two later, the pirates saw "two great ships," with many guns in
+their ports, slowly beating to the southward in search of their company.
+The heavy rain which was falling kept the small timber barque hidden,
+while the pirates took the precautions of striking sail, and rowing
+close in shore. "If they had seen and chased us," the pirates would have
+landed, trusting to the local Indians to make good their escape over the
+isthmus.
+
+After twelve days of sailing they anchored about twenty miles from the
+San Miguel Gulf, in order to clean their arms, and dry their clothes and
+powder, before proceeding up the river, by the way they had come. The
+next morning they set sail into the Gulf, and anchored off an island,
+intending to search the river's mouth for Spaniards before adventuring
+farther. As they had feared, a large Spanish man-of-war lay anchored at
+the river's mouth, "close by the shore," with her guns commanding the
+entrance. Some of her men could be seen upon the beach, by the door of a
+large tent, made of the ship's lower canvas. "When the Canoas came
+aboard with this News," says Dampier, "some of our Men were a little
+dis-heartned; but it was no more than I ever expected." An hour or two
+later they took one of the Spaniards from the ship and learned from him
+that the ship carried twelve great guns, and that three companies of
+men, with small arms, would join her during the next twenty-four hours.
+They learned also that the Indians of that district were friendly to the
+Spaniards. Plainly the pirates were in a dangerous position. "It was not
+convenient to stay longer there," says Dampier. They got aboard their
+ship without loss of time, and ran out of the river "with the Tide of
+Ebb," resolved to get ashore at the first handy creek they came to.
+
+Early the next morning they ran into "a small Creek within two Keys, or
+little Islands, and rowed up to the Head of the Creek, being about a
+Mile up, and there we landed May 1, 1681." The men flung their food and
+clothes ashore, and scuttled their little ship, so that she sank at her
+moorings. While they packed their "Snap-sacks" with flour, chocolate,
+canisters of powder, beads, and whittles for the Indians, their slaves
+"struck a plentiful Dish of Fish" for them, which they presently
+broiled, and ate for their breakfasts. Some of the men scouted on ahead
+for a mile or two, and then returned with the news that there were no
+immediate dangers in front of them. Some of the pirates were weak and
+sick, and "not well able to march." "We," therefore, "gave out, that if
+any Man faultred in the Journey over Land he must expect to be shot to
+death; for we knew that the Spaniards would soon be after us, and one
+Man falling into their hands might be the ruin of us all, by giving an
+account of our strength and condition: yet this would not deter 'em from
+going with us."
+
+At three that afternoon they set out into the jungle, steering a N.E.
+course "by our Pocket Compasses." The rain beat upon them all the rest
+of that day, and all the night long, a drenching and steady downpour,
+which swamped the "small Hutts" they contrived to patch together. In the
+morning they struck an old Indian trail, no broader than a horse-girth,
+running somewhat to the east. They followed it through the forest till
+they came to an Indian town, where the squaws gave them some corn-drink
+or miscelaw, and sold them a few fowls and "a sort of wild Hogs." They
+hired a guide at this village, "to guide us a day's march into the
+Countrey." "He was to have for his pains a Hatchet, and his Bargain was
+to bring us to a certain Indians habitation, who could speak Spanish."
+They paid faithfully for the food the Indians gave them, and shared "all
+sorts of our Provisions in common, because none should live better than
+others," and so stand a better chance of crossing the isthmus. When they
+started out, after a night's rest, one of the pirates, being already
+sick of the march, slipped away into the jungle, and was seen no more.
+
+They found the Spanish-speaking Indian in a bad mood. He swore that he
+knew no road to the North Sea, but that he could take them to Cheapo, or
+to Santa Maria, "which we knew to be Spanish Garrisons: either of them
+at least 20 miles out of our way." He was plainly unwilling to have any
+truck with them, for "his discourse," was in an angry tone, and he "gave
+very impertinent answers" to the questions put to him. "However we were
+forced to make a virtue of necessity, and humour him, for it was neither
+time nor place to be angry with the Indians; all our lives lying in
+their hand." The pirates were at their wits' end, for they lay but a few
+miles from the guard ship, and this surly chief could very well set the
+Spaniards on them. They tempted him with green and blue beads, with gold
+and silver, both in the crude and in coin, with beautiful steel axe
+heads, with machetes, "or long knives"; "but nothing would work on him."
+The pirates were beginning to despair, when one of them produced "a
+Sky-coloured Petticoat," and placed it about the person of the chief's
+favourite wife. How he had become possessed of such a thing, and whether
+it came from a Hilo beauty, and whether she gave it as a love token, on
+the ship's sailing, cannot now be known. It may have been an article
+brought expressly from Jamaica for the fascination of the Indians. But
+_honi soit qui mal y pense_. The truth of the matter will never be
+learned. It is sufficient that the man produced it in the very nick of
+time, and laid the blue tissue over the copper-coloured lady. She was so
+much pleased with it "that she immediately began to chatter to her
+Husband, and soon brought him into a better Humour." He relented at
+once, and said that he knew the trail to the North Sea, and that he
+would gladly guide them thither were a cut upon his foot healed. As he
+could not go himself he persuaded another Indian to guide them "2 Days
+march further for another Hatchet." He tried hard to induce the party to
+stay with him for the rest of the day as the rain was pouring down in
+torrents. "But our business required more haste, our Enemies lying so
+near us, for he told us that he could go from his house aboard the
+Guard-Ship in a Tides time; and this was the 4th day since they saw us.
+So we marched 3 Miles further and then built Hutts, where we stayed all
+Night," with the thatch dripping water on to them in a steady trickle.
+
+On taking to the road again, wet and starving as they were, they found
+themselves in a network of rivers, some thirty of which they had to
+wade, during the day's march. The heavy rain drenched them as they
+clambered along across the jungle. They had but a little handful of fire
+that night, so that they could not dry nor warm themselves. They
+crouched about the "funk of green-wood," shivering in the smoke, chewing
+bullets to alleviate their hunger. They slept there in great misery,
+careless of what happened to them. "The Spaniards were but seldom in our
+thoughts," says Dampier, for the pirates thought only of guides and
+food, and feared their own Indian servants more than the enemy. A watch
+of two pirates kept a guard all that night, with orders to shoot any
+Indian who showed a sign of treachery. They rose before it was light and
+pushed on into the woods, biting on the bullet, or the quid, to help
+them to forget their hunger. By ten o'clock they arrived at the house of
+a brisk young Indian, who had been a servant to the Bishop of Panama,
+the man who gave the gold ring to Sawkins. Here they had a feast of yams
+and sweet potatoes, boiled into a broth with monkey-meat, a great
+comfort to those who were weak and sickly. They built a great fire in
+one of the huts, at which they dried their clothes, now falling to
+pieces from the continual soakings. They also cleaned their rusty
+gun-locks, and dried their powder, talking cheerily together, about the
+fire, while the rain roared upon the thatch. They were close beside the
+Rio Congo "and thus far," says Dampier, the most intelligent man among
+them, "we might have come in our Canoa, if I could have persuaded them
+to it."
+
+As they sat in the hut, in the warmth of the blaze, that rainy May day,
+Lionel Wafer met with an accident. He was sitting on the ground, beside
+one of the pirates, who was drying his powder, little by little, half a
+pound at a time, in a great silver dish, part of the plunder of the
+cruise. "A careless Fellow passed by with his Pipe lighted," and dropped
+some burning crumb of tobacco on to the powder, which at once blew up.
+It scorched Wafer's knee very terribly, tearing off the flesh from the
+bone, and burning his leg from the knee to the thigh. Wafer, who was the
+surgeon of the party, had a bag full of salves and medicines. He managed
+to dress his wounds, and to pass a fairly comfortable night, "and being
+unwilling to be left behind by my Companions, I made hard shift to jog
+on, and bear them Company," when camp was broken at daybreak.
+
+Lame as he was, he kept up with his mates all that day, fording rivers
+"several times," and crossing country which would tax the strongest man,
+in good condition. "The last time we forded the River, it was so deep,
+that our tallest Men stood in the deepest place, and handed the sick,
+weak and short Men"; by which act of comradeship "we all got over safe."
+Two of the pirates, "Robert Spratlin and William Bowman," could get no
+farther, and were left behind at the river. Dampier notes that his
+"Joint of Bambo, which I stopt at both Ends, closing it with Wax, so as
+to keep out any Water," preserved his "Journal and other Writings from
+being wet," though he had often to swim for it.
+
+Drenched and tired, they pitched their huts by the river-bank, poor
+Wafer in torment from his knee, and the rest of them hungry and cold.
+They had hardly finished their huts, when the river came down in a great
+wall of water, some sudden flood, due to a cloud-burst higher up. The
+flood sucked away their huts, and forced them to run to higher ground.
+They passed that night "straggling in the Woods, some under one Tree,
+some under another," with the thunder roaring overhead, and the
+lightning making a livid brightness all about them. The rain fell in
+torrents, and the pirates were far too wretched to keep watch. "So our
+Slaves, taking Opportunity, went away in the Night; all but one, who was
+hid in some hole, and knew nothing of their design, or else fell
+asleep." Among these slaves was a black man, Lionel Wafer's assistant,
+who carried the salves and medicaments. He took these with him when he
+slunk away, nor did he forget the "Chirurgeon's Gun and all his Money."
+He left poor Wafer destitute there, in the forest, "depriv'd of
+wherewithal to dress my sore."
+
+In the morning, they found that the river had fallen, but not so much as
+they had hoped. It was still too deep to ford, and the current ran very
+swiftly, but Dampier and some other swimmers managed to swim across.
+They then endeavoured to get a line over, by which to ferry the men who
+could not swim, and the arms and powder they had left on the other
+bank. They decided to send a man back with a line, with instructions to
+pass the goods first, and then the men. "One George Gayny took the end
+of a Line and made it fast about his Neck, and left the other end
+ashore, and one Man stood by the Line, to clear it away to him." When
+Gayny was about half way across, the line, which was kinky with the wet,
+got entangled. The man who was lighting it out checked it a moment to
+take out the kink, or to clear it. The check threw Gayny on his back,
+"and he that had the Line in his hand," instead of slacking away, or
+hauling in, so as to bring Gayny ashore, "threw it all into the River
+after him, thinking he might recover himself." The stream was running
+down with great fierceness. Gayny had a bag of 300 dollars on his back,
+and this bag, with the weight of the line, dragged him under. He was
+carried down, and swept out of sight "and never seen more by us." "This
+put a period to that contrivance," adds Dampier grimly.
+
+As they had no wish to emulate poor Gayny, they sought about "for a Tree
+to fell across the River." They cut it down, as soon as they had found
+it, "and it reached clean over." The goods and pirates were then crossed
+in safety. All hands soon forgot poor Gayny, for they came across a
+plantain walk in a clearing, and made a good breakfast, and stripped it
+of every fruit. They dismissed their guide here, with the gift of an axe
+head, and hired an old Indian to guide them farther towards the North
+Sea. The next day they reckoned themselves out of danger, and set forth
+cheerily.
+
+For the last two days Wafer had been in anguish from his burnt knee. As
+the pirates made ready to leave their bivouac, on the tenth morning of
+the march, he declared that he could not "trudge it further through
+Rivers and Woods," with his knee as it was. Two other pirates who were
+broken with the going, declared that they, also, were too tired out to
+march. There was no talk, among the rest of the band, about shooting the
+weary ones, according to the order they had made at starting. Instead of
+"putting them out of their misery," they "took a very kind Leave,"
+giving the broken men such stores as they could spare, and telling them
+to keep in good heart, and follow on when they had rested.
+
+One of Wafer's comrades on this occasion was "Mr Richard Jopson, who had
+served an Apprenticeship to a Druggist in London. He was an ingenious
+Man, and a good Scholar; he had with him a Greek Testament which he
+frequently read, and would translate _extempore_ into _English_, to such
+of the Company as were dispos'd to hear him." The other weary man was
+John Hingson, a mariner. They watched their mates march away through the
+woods, and then turned back, sick at heart, to the shelter of the huts,
+where the Indians looked at them sulkily, and flung them green
+plantains, "as you would Bones to a Dog." One of the Indians made a mess
+of aromatic herbs and dressed Wafer's burn, so that, in three weeks'
+time, he could walk.
+
+Dampier's party marched on through jungle, wading across rivers, which
+took them up to the chest, staggering through swamps and bogs, and
+clambering over rotten tree trunks, and across thorn brakes. They were
+wet and wretched and half starved, for their general food was macaw
+berries. Sometimes they killed a monkey, once Dampier killed a turkey,
+and once they came to a plantain patch where "we fed plentifully on
+plantains, both ripe and green." Their clothes were rotted into shreds,
+their boots were fallen to pieces, their feet were blistered and raw,
+their legs were mere skinless ulcers from the constant soaking. Their
+faces were swelled and bloody from the bites of mosquitoes and
+wood-ticks. "Not a Man of us but wisht the Journey at an End." Those who
+have seen "Bad Lands," or what is called "timber," or what is called
+"bush," will know what the party looked like, when, on the twenty-second
+day, they saw the North Sea. The day after that they reached the Rio
+Conception, and drifted down to the sea in some canoas, to an Indian
+village, built on the beach "for the benefit of Trade with the
+Privateers." About nine miles away, the Indians told them, was a French
+privateer ship, under one Captain Tristian, lying at La Sounds Key. They
+stayed a night at the village, and then went aboard the French ship,
+which was careened in a creek, with a brushwood fire on her side,
+cleaning away her barnacles for a roving cruise. Here they parted with
+their Indian guides, not without sorrow, for it is not pleasant to say
+"So Long" to folk with whom one has struggled, and lived, and suffered.
+"We were resolved to reward them to their hearts' Content," said
+Dampier, much as a cowboy, at the end of the trail, will give sugar to
+his horse, as he bids him good-bye. The pirates spent their silver
+royally, buying red, blue and green beads, and knives, scissors, and
+looking-glasses, from the French pirates. They bought up the entire
+stock of the French ship, but even then they felt that they had not
+rewarded their guides sufficiently. They therefore subscribed a
+half-dollar piece each, in coin, as a sort of makeweight. With the toys,
+and the bags of silver, the delighted Indians passed back to the
+isthmus, where they told golden stories of the kind whites, so that the
+Indians of the Main could not do enough for Wafer, and for the four
+pirates left behind on the march.
+
+Dampier's party had marched in all 110 miles, over the most damnable and
+heart-breaking country which the mind of man can imagine. They had
+marched "heavy," with their guns and bags of dollars; and this in the
+rainy season. They had starved and suffered, and shivered and agonised,
+yet they had lost but two men, poor Gayny, who was drowned, and
+(apparently) one who had slipped away on the third day of the march.
+This man may have been the Spanish Indian. A note in Ringrose's
+narrative alludes to the capture of one of Dampier's party by the
+Spanish soldiers, and this may have been the man meant.
+
+Two days later, when the Indian guides had gone, and the privateer was
+fit for the sea, they set sail for "the rendezvous of the fleet," which
+had been fixed for Springers' Key "another of the Samballoes Isles."
+Perhaps the English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege of
+the guests, aboard ship, to the old anchor tune, with its mournful and
+lovely refrain--
+
+    "I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."
+
+The old band of never-strikes were outward bound on another foray.
+
+As for Wafer, and his two companions, they stayed with the Indians for
+some days, living on plantains (given very grudgingly), and wondering
+whether the Indians would kill them. The natives were kindly, as a rule,
+to the French and English, but it was now the rainy season, when they
+liked to stay in their huts, about their fires. The pirates "had in a
+Manner awed the Indian guides they took ... and made them go with them
+very much against their Wills." The Indians had resented this act of the
+pirates, and as days went by, and the guides did not return, they judged
+that the white men had killed them. They prepared "a great Pile of Wood
+to burn us," says Wafer, meaning to avenge their fellows, whom they "had
+supposed dead." But a friendly old chief dissuaded them from this act, a
+few hours before the intended execution.
+
+While the three were living thus, in doubt whether they would be
+speared, or held as slaves, or sold to the Spaniards, the two pirates,
+Spratlin and Bowman, who had been left behind at the Rio Congo, arrived
+at the village. They had had a terrible journey together, "among the
+wild Woods and Rivers," wandering without guides, and living on roots
+and plantains. On their way, they had come upon George Gayny "lying dead
+in a Creek where the Eddy had driven him ashore," "with the Rope twisted
+about him, and his Money at his Neck." They left the body where it lay,
+with its sack of silver dollars for which the poor man had come so far,
+and suffered so bitterly. They had no use for dollars at that time
+"being only in care how to work their way through a wild un-Known
+Country."
+
+After a time, the Indians helped the five men a two days' march on their
+journey, and then deserted them, leaving them to find the path by
+themselves, with no better guide than a pocket compass. While crossing a
+river by the bole of a fallen tree, the man Bowman "a weakly Man, a
+Taylor by Trade," slipped into the current, and was carried off, with
+"400 Pieces of Eight" in his satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny,
+for he contrived to get out. In time they reached the North Sea, and
+came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy of an Indian wizard.
+Here they found Dampier's sloop, and rejoined their comrades, to the
+great delight of all hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was
+painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part of an Hour,
+before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our Doctor." There was a great
+feast that night at La Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of
+small arms, and a grand ringing of bells in honour of the happy return.
+
+In spite of all they could do, poor Mr Jopson, or Cobson, only lived for
+three or four days after he reached the ship. "His Fatigues, and his
+Drenching in the Water" had been too much for the poor man. He lay
+"languishing" in his cot for a few days, babbling of the drugs of
+Bucklersbury, and thumbing his Greek Testament, and at last passed in
+his checks, quietly and sadly, and "died there at La Sounds Key." They
+buried the poor man in the sands, with very genuine sorrow, and then
+bade the Indians adieu, and gave their dead mate a volley of guns, and
+so set sail, with the colours at half-mast, for "the more Eastern Isles
+of the Samballoes."
+
+As for Captain Bartholomew Sharp, in the ship the _Trinity_, he
+continued to sail the South Seas with the seventy pirates left to him.
+Some days after Dampier's party sailed, he took a Guayaquil ship, called
+the _San Pedro_, which he had taken fourteen months before off Panama.
+Aboard her he found nearly 40,000 pieces of eight, besides silver bars,
+and ingots of gold. He also took a great ship called the _San Rosario_,
+the richest ship the buccaneers ever captured. She had many chests of
+pieces of eight aboard her, and a quantity of wine and brandy. Down in
+her hold, bar upon bar, "were 700 pigs of plate," rough silver from the
+mines, not yet fitted for the Lima mint. The pirates thought that this
+crude silver was tin, and so left it where it lay, in the hold of the
+_Rosario_ "which we turned away loose into the sea," with the stuff
+aboard her. One pig of the 700 was brought aboard the pirates "to make
+bullets of." About two-thirds of it was "melted and squandered," but
+some of it was left long afterwards, when the _Trinity_ touched at
+Antigua. Here they gave what was left to "a Bristol man," probably in
+exchange for a dram of rum. The Bristol man took it home to England "and
+sold it there for L75 sterling." "Thus," said Ringrose, "we parted with
+the richest booty we got in the whole voyage." Captain Bartholomew Sharp
+was responsible for the turning adrift of all this silver. Some of the
+pirates had asked leave to hoist it aboard the _Trinity_. But it chanced
+that, aboard the _Rosario_, was a Spanish lady, "the beautifullest
+Creature" that the "Eyes" of Captain Sharp ever beheld. The amorous
+captain was so inflamed by this beauty that he paid no attention to
+anything else.
+
+In a very drunken and quarrelsome condition, the pirates worked the
+_Trinity_ round the Horn, and so home to Barbadoes. They did not dare to
+land there, for one of the King's frigates, H.M.S. _Richmond_, was lying
+at Bridgetown, and the pirates "feared lest the said frigate should
+seize us." They bore away to Antigua, where Ringrose, and "thirteen
+more," shipped themselves for England. They landed at Dartmouth on the
+26th of March 1682. A few more of the company went ashore at Antigua,
+and scattered to different haunts. Sharp and a number of pirates landed
+at Nevis, from whence they shipped for London. The ship the _Trinity_
+was left to seven of the gang who had diced away all their money. What
+became of her is not known.
+
+Sharp and a number of his men were arrested in London, and tried for
+piracy, but the Spanish Ambassador, who brought the charge, was without
+evidence and could not obtain convictions. They pleaded that "the
+Spaniards fired at us first," and that they had acted only in
+self-defence, so they 'scaped hanging, though Sharp admits that they
+"were very near it." Three more of the crew were laid by the heels at
+Jamaica, and one of these was "wheedled into an open confession," and
+condemned, and hanged. "The other two stood it out, and escaped for want
+of witnesses."
+
+Of the four men so often quoted in this narrative, only one, so far as
+we know, died a violent death. This was Basil Ringrose, who was shot at
+Santa Pecaque a few years later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and
+Sharp died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for many
+years after the _Trinity_ dropped her anchor off Antigua.
+
+They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little
+farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to
+preserve life, "but rather to squander it away"; to fling it, like so
+much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If
+they lived riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they
+lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die for what they
+believed to be worth doing. We think them terrible. Life itself is
+terrible. But life was not terrible to them; for they were comrades; and
+comrades and brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who "live at
+home at ease" may condemn them. They are free to do so. The old
+buccaneers were happier than they. The buccaneers had comrades, and the
+strength to live their own lives. They may laugh at those who, lacking
+that strength, would condemn them with the hate of impotence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+SHIPS AND RIGS
+
+    Galleys--Dromonds--Galliasses--Pinnaces--Pavesses--Top-arming--
+    Banners--Boats
+
+
+Until the reign of Henry VIII. the shipping of these islands was of two
+kinds. There were longships, propelled, for the most part, by oars, and
+used generally as warships; and there were roundships, or dromonds,
+propelled by sails, and used as a rule for the carriage of freight. The
+dromond, in war-time, was sometimes converted into a warship, by the
+addition of fighting-castles fore and aft. The longship, in peace time,
+was no doubt used as a trader, as far as her shallow draught, and small
+beam, allowed.
+
+The longship, or galley, being, essentially, an oar vessel, had to
+fulfil certain simple conditions. She had to be light, or men might not
+row her. She had to be long, or she might not carry enough oarsmen to
+propel her with sufficient swiftness. Her lightness, and lack of
+draught, made it impossible for her to carry much provision; while the
+number of her oars made it necessary for her to carry a large crew of
+rowers, in addition to her soldiers and sail trimmers. It was therefore
+impossible for such a ship to keep the seas for any length of time, even
+had their build fitted them for the buffetings of the stormy home
+waters. For short cruises, coast work, rapid forays, and "shock
+tactics," she was admirable; but she could not stray far from a friendly
+port, nor put out in foul weather. The roundship, dromond, or cargo
+boat, was often little more than two beams long, and therefore far too
+slow to compete with ships of the galley type. She could stand heavy
+weather better than the galley, and she needed fewer hands, and could
+carry more provisions, but she was almost useless as a ship of war.
+
+In the reign of Henry VIII. the shipwrights of this country began to
+build ships which combined something of the strength, and capacity of
+the dromond, with the length and fineness of the galley. The ships they
+evolved were mainly dependent upon their sails, but they carried a bank
+of oars on each side, for use in light weather. The galley, or longship,
+had carried guns on a platform at the bows, pointing forward. But these
+new vessels carried guns in broadside, in addition to the bow-chasers.
+These broadside guns were at first mounted _en barbette_, pointing over
+the bulwarks. Early in the sixteenth century the port-hole, with a
+hinged lid, was invented, and the guns were then pointed through the
+ship's sides. As these ships carried more guns than the galleys, they
+were built more strongly, lest the shock of the explosions should shake
+them to pieces. They were strong enough to keep the seas in bad weather,
+yet they had enough of the galley build to enable them to sail fast when
+the oars were laid inboard. It is thought that they could have made as
+much as four or five knots an hour. These ships were known as
+galliasses,[18] and galleons, according to the proportions between their
+lengths and beams. The galleons were shorter in proportion to their
+breadth than the galliasses.[19] There was another kind of vessel, the
+pinnace, which had an even greater proportionate length than the
+galliasse. Of the three kinds, the galleon, being the shortest in
+proportion to her breadth, was the least fitted for oar propulsion.
+
+[Footnote 18: See Charnock's "Marine Architecture."]
+
+[Footnote 19: See Corbett's "Drake and the Tudor Navy."]
+
+[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON]
+
+During the reign of Elizabeth, the galleon, or great ship, and the
+galliasse, or cruiser, grew to gradual perfection, in the hands of our
+great sailors. If we look upon the galleon or great ship as the
+prototype of the ship of the line, and on the galliasse as the prototype
+of the frigate, and on the pinnace as the prototype of the sloop, or
+corvette, we shall not be far wrong. They were, of course, in many ways
+inferior to the ships which fought in the great French wars, two
+centuries later, but their general appearance was similar. The rig was
+different, but not markedly so, while the hulls of the ships presented
+many points of general likeness. The Elizabethan ships were, however,
+very much smaller than most of the rated ships in use in the eighteenth
+century.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLIASSE]
+
+The galleon, or great ship, at the end of the sixteenth century, was
+sometimes of as much as 900 tons. She was generally low in the waist,
+with a high square forecastle forward, a high quarter-deck, raised above
+the waist, just abaft the main-mast, and a poop above the quarter-deck,
+sloping upward to the taffrail. These high outerworks were shut off from
+the open waist (the space between the main-mast and the forecastle) by
+wooden bulkheads, which were pierced for small, quick-firing guns. Below
+the upper, or spar deck, she had a gun-deck, if not more than one, with
+guns on each side, and right aft. The galliasse was sometimes
+flush-decked, without poop and forecastle, and sometimes built with
+both, but she was never so "high charged" as the galleon. The pinnace
+was as the galliasse, though smaller.
+
+The galleon's waist was often without bulwarks, so that when she went
+into action it became necessary to give her sail trimmers, and spar-deck
+fighting men, some protection from the enemy's shot.[20] Sometimes this
+was done by the hauling up of waist-trees, or spars of rough untrimmed
+timber, to form a sort of wooden wall. Sometimes they rigged what was
+called a top-arming, or top armour, a strip of cloth like the "war
+girdle" of the Norse longships, across the unprotected space. This
+top-arming was of canvas some two bolts deep (3 feet 6 inches), gaily
+painted in designs of red, yellow, green, and white. It gave no
+protection against shot, but it prevented the enemy's gunners from
+taking aim at the deck, or from playing upon the hatchways with their
+murderers and pateraroes. It also kept out boarders, and was a fairly
+good shield to catch the arrows and crossbow bolts shot from the enemy's
+tops. Sometimes the top-arming was of scantling, or thin plank, in which
+case it was called a pavesse. Pavesses were very beautifully painted
+with armorial bearings, arranged in shields, a sort of reminiscence of
+the old Norse custom of hanging the ship's sides with shields. Another
+way was to mask the open space with a ranged hemp cable, which could be
+cleared away after the fight.
+
+[Footnote 20: See Sir W. Monson, "Naval Tracts," and Sir R. Hawkins,
+"Observations," etc.]
+
+The ships were rigged much as they were rigged two centuries later. The
+chief differences were in the rigging of the bowsprit and of the two
+after masts. Forward the ships had bowsprits, on which each set a
+spritsail, from a spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward,
+almost over the spring of the cutwater. Generally, but not always, it
+was made of a single tree (pine or fir). If it was what was known as "a
+made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, different trees,
+judiciously sawn, well seasoned, and then hooped together. Masts were
+pole-masts until early in the reign of Elizabeth, when a fixed topmast
+was added. By Drake's time they had learned that a movable topmast was
+more useful, and less dangerous for ships sailing in these waters. The
+caps and tops were made of elm wood. The sails on the foremast were
+foresail and foretop-sail, the latter much the smaller and less
+important of the two. They were set on wooden yards, the foreyard and
+foretopsail-yard, both of which could be sent on deck in foul weather.
+The main-mast was stepped a little abaft the beam, and carried three
+sails, the main-sail, the main topsail, and a third, the main
+topgallant-sail. This third sail did not set from a yard until many
+years after its introduction. It began life like a modern "moon-raker,"
+a triangular piece of canvas, setting from the truck, or summit of the
+topmast, to the yardarm of the main topsail-yard. Up above it, on a
+bending light pole, fluttered the great colours, a George's cross of
+scarlet on a ground of white. Abaft the main-mast were the mizzen,
+carrying one sail, on a lateen yard, one arm of which nearly touched the
+deck; and the bonaventure mizzen (which we now call the jigger) rigged
+in exactly the same way. Right aft, was a banner pole for the display of
+colours. These masts were stepped, stayed, and supported almost exactly
+as masts are rigged to-day, though where we use iron, and wire, they
+used wood and hemp. The shrouds of the fore and main masts led outboard,
+to "chains" or strong platforms projecting from the ship's sides. These
+"chains" were clamped to the ship's sides with rigid links of iron. The
+shrouds of the after masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On
+each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead, was a
+fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded over. It was a little
+platform, resting on battens, and in ancient times it was circular, with
+a diameter of perhaps six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it,
+inclining outboard, perhaps four feet in height. It was entered by a
+lubber's hole in the flooring, through which the shrouds passed. In each
+top was an arm chest containing Spanish darts, crossbows, longbows,
+arrows, bolts, and perhaps granadoes. When the ship went into battle a
+few picked marksmen were stationed in the tops with orders to search
+the enemy's decks with their missiles, particularly the afterparts,
+where the helmsman stood. In later days the tops were armed with light
+guns, of the sorts known as slings and fowlers; but top-fighting with
+firearms was dangerous, as the gunners carried lighted matches, and
+there was always a risk of sparks, from the match, or from the wads,
+setting fire to the sails. The running rigging was arranged much as
+running rigging is arranged to-day, though its quality, in those times,
+was probably worse than nowadays. The rope appears to have been very
+fickle stuff which carried away under slight provocation. The blocks
+were bad, for the sheaves were made of some comparatively soft wood,
+which swelled, when wet, and jammed. Lignum vitae was not used for
+block-sheaves until after the Dutch War in Cromwell's time. Iron blocks
+were in use in the time of Henry VIII. but only as fair-leads for chain
+topsail sheets, and as snatches for the boarding of the "takkes." The
+shrouds and stays, were of hawser stuff, extremely thick nine-stranded
+hemp; and all those parts exposed to chafing (as from a sail, or a rope)
+were either served, or neatly covered up with matting. The matting was
+made by the sailors, of rope, or white line, plaited curiously. When in
+its place it was neatly painted, or tarred, much as one may see it in
+Norwegian ships at the present day. The yardarms, and possibly the
+chains, were at one time fitted with heavy steel sickles, projecting
+outboard, which were kept sharp, so that, when running alongside an
+enemy, they might cut her rigging to pieces. These sickles were known as
+sheer-hooks. They were probably of little use, for they became obsolete
+before the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON]
+
+Most of the sails used in these old ships were woven in Portsmouth on
+hand-looms. The canvas was probably of good quality, as good perhaps as
+the modern stout No. 1, for hand-woven stuff is always tighter,
+tougher, better put together, than that woven by the big steam-loom.
+It was at one time the custom to decorate the sail, with a design of
+coloured cloth, cut out, as one cuts out a paper pattern, and stitched
+upon its face with sail twine. In the royal ships this design was of
+lions rampant, cut out of scarlet say. The custom of carrying such
+coloured canvas appears to have died out by the end of the sixteenth
+century. Perhaps flag signalling had come into vogue making it necessary
+to abandon anything that might tend to confuse the colours. About the
+same time we abandoned the custom of making our ships gay with little
+flags, of red and white linen, in guidons like those on a trooper's
+lance. All through the Tudor reigns our ships carried them, but for some
+reason the practice was allowed to die out. A last relic of it still
+flutters on blue water in the little ribbons of the wind-vane, on the
+weather side the poop, aboard sailing ships.
+
+The great ship carried three boats, which were stowed on chocks in the
+waist, just forward of the main-mast, one inside the other when not in
+use. The boats were, the long boat, a large, roomy boat with a movable
+mast; the cock, cog or cok boat, sometimes called the galley-watt; and
+the whale, or jolly boat, a sort of small balenger, with an iron-plated
+bow, which rowed fourteen oars. It was the custom to tow one or more of
+these boats astern, when at sea, except in foul weather, much as one may
+see a brig, or a topsail schooner, to-day, with a dinghy dragging
+astern. The boat's coxswain stayed in her as she towed, making her
+clean, fending her off, and looking out for any unfortunate who chanced
+to fall overboard.
+
+    _Authorities._--W. Charnock: "History of Marine Architecture."
+    Julian Corbett: "Drake and the Tudor Navy." A. Jal: "Archeologie
+    Navale"; "Glossaire Nautique." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir H.
+    Nicholas: "History of the Royal Navy." M. Oppenheim: "History of the
+    Administration of the Royal Navy"; "Naval Inventories of the Reign
+    of Henry VII."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GUNS AND GUNNERS
+
+    Breech-loaders--Cartridges--Powder--The gunner's art
+
+
+Cannon were in use in Europe, it is thought, in the eleventh century;
+for the art of making gunpowder came westward, from China, much earlier
+than people have supposed. It is certain that gunpowder was used "in
+missiles," before it was used to propel them. The earliest cannon were
+generally of forged iron built in strips secured by iron rings. They
+were loaded by movable chambers which fitted into the breech, and they
+were known as "crakys of war." We find them on English ships at the end
+of the fourteenth century, in two kinds, the one a cannon proper, the
+other an early version of the harquebus-a-croc. The cannon was a mere
+iron tube, of immense strength, bound with heavy iron rings. The rings
+were shrunken on to the tube in the ordinary way. The tube, when ready,
+was bolted down to a heavy squared beam of timber on the ship's deck. It
+was loaded by the insertion of the "gonne-chambre," an iron pan,
+containing the charge, which fitted into, and closed the breech. This
+gonne-chambre was wedged in firmly by a chock of elm wood beaten in with
+a mallet. Another block of wood, fixed in the deck behind it, kept it
+from flying out with any violence when the shot was fired. Cannon of
+this sort formed the main armament of ships until after the reign of
+Henry the Eighth. They fired stone cannon-balls, "pellettes of lead, and
+dyce of iron." Each gun had some half-dozen chambers, so that the
+firing from them may have been rapid, perhaps three rounds a minute. The
+powder was not kept loose in tubs, near the guns, but neatly folded in
+conical cartridges, made of canvas or paper (or flannel) which practice
+prevailed for many years. All ships of war carried "pycks for hewing
+stone-shott," though after 1490, "the iron shott callyd bowletts," and
+their leaden brothers, came into general use. The guns we have
+described, were generally two or four pounders, using from half-a-pound,
+to a pound and a quarter, of powder, at each discharge. The carriage, or
+bed, on which they lay, was usually fitted with wheels at the rear end
+only.
+
+The other early sea-cannon, which we have mentioned, were also
+breech-loading. They were mounted on a sort of iron wheel, at the summit
+of a stout wooden staff, fixed in the deck, or in the rails of the poop
+and forecastle. They were of small size, and revolved in strong iron
+pivot rings, so that the man firing them might turn them in any
+direction he wished. They were of especial service in sweeping the
+waist, the open spar-deck, between the breaks of poop and forecastle,
+when boarders were on board. They threw "base and bar-shot to murder
+near at hand"; but their usual ball was of stone, and for this reason
+they were called petrieroes, and petrieroes-a-braga. The
+harquebus-a-croc, a weapon almost exactly similar, threw small cross-bar
+shot "to cut Sails and Rigging." In Elizabethan times it was carried in
+the tops of fighting ships, and on the rails and gunwales of
+merchantmen.
+
+In the reign of Henry VIII., a ship called the _Mary Rose_, of 500 tons,
+took part in the battle with the French, in St Helens Roads, off
+Brading. It was a sultry summer day, almost windless, when the action
+began, and the _Mary Rose_ suffered much (being unable to stir) from the
+gun-fire of the French galleys. At noon, when a breeze sprang up, and
+the galleys drew off, the _Mary Rose_ sent her men to dinner. Her lower
+ports, which were cut too low down, were open, and the wind heeled her
+over, so that the sea rushed in to them. She sank in deep water, in a
+few moments, carrying with her her captain, and all the gay company on
+board. In 1836 some divers recovered a few of her cannon, of the kinds
+we have described, some of brass, some of iron. The iron guns had been
+painted red and black. Those of brass, in all probability, had been
+burnished, like so much gold. These relics may be seen by the curious,
+at Woolwich, in the Museum of Ordnance, to which they were presented by
+their salver.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth, cannon were much less primitive, for a great
+advance took place directly men learned the art of casting heavy guns.
+Until 1543, they had forged them; a painful process, necessarily limited
+to small pieces. After that year they cast them round a core, and by
+1588 they had evolved certain general types of ordnance which remained
+in use, in the British Navy, almost unchanged, until after the Crimean
+War. The Elizabethan breech-loaders, and their methods, have now been
+described, but a few words may be added with reference to the
+muzzle-loaders. The charge for these was contained in cartridges,
+covered with canvas, or "paper royall" (_i.e._ parchment), though the
+parchment used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps of it
+remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the weapon had to be
+"wormed," or scraped out, with an instrument like an edged corkscrew. A
+tampion, or wad, of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the
+cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball in place. When
+the gun was loaded the gunner filled the touch-hole with his priming
+powder, from a horn he carried in his belt, after thrusting a sharp
+wire, called the priming-iron, down the touch-hole, through the
+cartridge, so that the priming powder might have direct access to the
+powder of the charge. He then sprinkled a little train of powder along
+the gun, from the touch-hole to the base-ring, for if he applied the
+match directly to the touch-hole the force of the explosion was liable
+to blow his linstock from his hand. In any case the "huff" or "spit" of
+fire, from the touch-hole, burned little holes, like pock-marks, in the
+beams overhead. The match was applied smartly, with a sharp drawing back
+of the hand, the gunner stepping quickly aside to avoid the recoil. He
+stepped back, and stood, on the side of the gun opposite to that on
+which the cartridges were stored, so that there might be no chance of a
+spark from his match setting fire to the ammunition. Spare match, newly
+soaked in saltpetre water, lay coiled in a little tub beside the gun.
+The cartridges, contained in latten buckets, were placed in a barrel by
+the gun and covered over with a skin of leather. The heavy shot were
+arranged in shot racks, known as "gardens," and these were ready to the
+gunner's hand, with "cheeses" of tampions or wads. The wads were made of
+soft wood, oakum, hay, straw, or "other such like." The sponges and
+rammers were hooked to the beams above the gun ready for use. The
+rammers were of hard wood, shod with brass, "to save the Head from
+cleaving." The sponges were of soft fast wood, "As Aspe, Birch, Willow,
+or such like," and had heads covered with "rough Sheepes skinne wooll,"
+nailed to the staff with "Copper nayles." "Ladels," or powder shovels,
+for the loading of guns, were seldom used at sea.
+
+The guns were elevated or depressed by means of handspikes and quoins.
+Quoins were blocks of wood, square, and wedge-shaped, with ring-hooks
+screwed in them for the greater ease of handling. Two of the gun's crew
+raised the base of the cannon upon their handspikes, using the "steps"
+of the gun carriage as their fulcra. A third slid a quoin along the
+"bed" of the carriage, under the gun, to support it at the required
+height. The recoil of the gun on firing, was often very violent, but it
+was limited by the stout rope called the breeching, which ran round the
+base of the gun, from each side of the port-hole, and kept it from
+running back more than its own length. When it had recoiled it was in
+the position for sponging and loading, being kept from running out
+again, with the roll of the ship, by a train, or preventer tackle,
+hooked to a ring-bolt in amidships. In action, particularly in violent
+action, the guns became very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they
+recoiled with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching, or to
+leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass guns were more skittish than
+iron, but all guns needed a rest of two or three hours, if possible,
+after continual firing for more than eight hours at a time. To cool a
+gun in action, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot, John
+Roberts advises sponging "with spunges wet in ley and water, or water
+and vinegar, or with the coolest fresh or salt water, bathing and
+washing her both within and without." This process "if the Service is
+hot, as it was with us at Bargen" should be repeated, "every eighth or
+tenth shot." The powder in use for cannon was called Ordnance or
+Corne-powder. It was made in the following proportion. To every five
+pounds of refined saltpetre, one pound of good willow, or alder,
+charcoal, and one pound of fine yellow sulphur. The ingredients were
+braised together in a mortar, moistened with water distilled of orange
+rinds, or aqua-vitae, and finally dried and sifted. It was a bright,
+"tawny blewish colour" when well made. Fine powder, for muskets or
+priming seems to have had a greater proportion of saltpetre.
+
+The Naval Tracts of Sir W. Monson, contain a list of the sorts of cannon
+mounted in ships of the time of Queen Elizabeth. It is not exhaustive,
+but as Robert Norton and Sir Jonas Moore give similar lists, the curious
+may check the one with the other.
+
+                          Weight  Weight Weight Point             Length
+                    Bore    of      of     of   Blank  Random       in
+                          Cannon   Shot  Powder Range              Feet
+
+                    ins.    lb.     lb.   lb.   paces  paces
+  Cannon Royal or
+  Double Cannon      81/2    8000     66     30     800   1930  M.L.    12
+  Cannon or
+  Whole Cannon       8     6000     60     27     770   2000   "      11
+  Cannon Serpentine  7     5500     531/2    25     200   2000   "      10
+  Bastard Cannon     7     4500     411/2    20     180   1800   "      10
+  Demi-Cannon        61/2-7  4000     331/2    18     170   1700   "      10
+  Cannon Petro or
+  Cannon Perier      6     4000     241/2    14     160   1600   "       4
+  Culverin           5-51/2  4500     171/2    12     200   2500   "      13
+  Basilisk           5     4000     15     10     230   3000   "       4
+  Demi-Culverin      4     3400      91/2     8     200   2500   "      11
+  Bastard Culverin   4     3000      7      53/4    170   1700   "      11
+  Saker              31/2    1400      51/2     51/2    170   1700   " 9 or 10
+  Minion             31/2    1000      4      4     170   1700   "       8
+  Falcon             21/2     660      3      3     150   1500   "       7
+  Falconet           2      500      11/2     11/4    150   1500   "       61/2
+  Serpentine         11/2     400       3/4      3/4    140   1400   "       41/2
+  Rabinet            1      300       1/2      1/2    120   1000   "       21/2
+
+To these may be added bases, port pieces, stock fowlers, slings, half
+slings, and three-quarter slings, breech-loading guns ranging from five
+and a half to one-inch bore.
+
+Other firearms in use in our ships at sea were the matchlock musket,
+firing a heavy double bullet, and the harquabuse[21] or arquebus, which
+fired a single bullet. The musket was a heavy weapon, and needed a rest,
+a forked staff, to support the barrel while the soldier aimed. This
+staff the musketeer lashed to his wrist, with a cord, so that he might
+drag it after him from place to place. The musket was fired with a
+match, which the soldier lit from a cumbrous pocket fire-carrier. The
+harquabuse was a lighter gun, which was fired without a rest, either by
+a wheel-lock (in which a cog-wheel, running on pyrites, caused sparks to
+ignite the powder), or by the match and touch-hole. Hand firearms were
+then common enough, and came to us from Italy, shortly after 1540. They
+were called Daggs. They were wheel-locks, wild in firing, short, heavy,
+and beautifully wrought. Sometimes they carried more than one barrel,
+and in some cases they were made revolving. They were most useful in a
+hand-to-hand encounter, as with footpads, or boarders; but they were
+useless at more than ten paces. A variation from them was the
+hand-cannon or blunderbuss, with a bell-muzzle, which threw rough slugs
+or nails. In Elizabethan ships the musketeers sometimes fired short,
+heavy, long-headed, pointed iron arrows from their muskets, a missile
+which flew very straight, and penetrated good steel armour. They had
+also an infinity of subtle fireworks, granadoes and the like, with which
+to set their opponents on fire. These they fired from the bombard
+pieces, or threw from the tops, or cage-works. Crossbows and longbows
+went to sea, with good store of Spanish bolts and arrows, until the end
+of Elizabeth's reign, though they were, perhaps, little used after 1590.
+The gunner had charge of them, and as, in a way, the gunner was a sort
+of second captain, sometimes taking command of the ship, we cannot do
+better than to quote from certain old books concerning his duties on
+board. Mr W. Bourne, the son of an eminent mathematician, has left a
+curious little book on "The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance," first
+published in London, in 1587, the year before the Armada. Its author, W.
+Bourne, was at one time a gunner of the bulwark at Gravesend. The art of
+shooting in great guns did not improve very much during the century
+following; nor did the guns change materially. The breech-loading,
+quick-firing guns fell out of use as the musket became more handy; but
+otherwise the province of the gunner changed hardly at all. It is not
+too much to say that gunners of Nelson's time, might have studied some
+of Bourne's book with profit.
+
+[Footnote 21: or caliver.]
+
+"As for gunners that do serve by the Sea, [they] must observe this order
+following. First that they do foresee that all their great Ordnannce be
+fast breeched, and foresee that all their geare be handsome and in a
+readinesse. & Furthermore that they be very circumspect about their
+Pouder in the time of service, and especially beware of their lint
+stockes & candels for feare of their Pouder, & their fireworks, & their
+Ducum [or priming powder], which is very daungerous, and much to be
+feared. Then furthermore, that you do keep your peeces as neer as you
+can, dry within, and also that you keep their tutch-holes cleane,
+without any kind of drosse falling into them."
+
+The gunners were also to know the "perfect dispart" of their pieces:
+that is they were to make a calculation which would enable them in
+sighting, to bring "the hollow of the peece," not the outer muzzle rim,
+"right against the marke." In the case of a breech-loader this could not
+be done by art, with any great exactness, "but any reasonable man (when
+he doth see the peece and the Chamber) may easily know what he must doe,
+as touching those matters." In fighting at sea, in anything like a
+storm, with green seas running, so that "the Shippes do both heave and
+set" the gunner was to choose a gun abaft the main-mast, on the lower
+orlop, "if the shippe may keepe the porte open," as in that part of the
+vessel the motion would be least apparent.
+
+"Then if you doe make a shotte at another Shippe, you must be sure to
+have a good helme-man, that can stirre [steer] steady, taking some marke
+of a Cloude that is above by the Horizon, or by the shadowe of the
+Sunne, or by your standing still, take some marke of the other shippe
+through some hole, or any such other like. Then he that giveth levell
+[takes aim] must observe this: first consider what disparte his piece
+must have, then lay the peece directly with that parte of the Shippe
+that he doth meane to shoote at: then if the Shippe bee under the lee
+side of your Shippe, shoote your peece in the comming downe of the
+Gayle, and the beginning of the other Ship to rise upon the Sea, as near
+as you can, for this cause, for when the other shippe is aloft upon the
+Sea, and shee under your Lee, the Gayle maketh her for to head, and then
+it is likest to do much good."
+
+The helmsman also was to have an eye to the enemy, to luff when she
+luffed, and "putte roomer," or sail large, when he saw her helmsman put
+the helm up. If the enemy made signs that she was about to lay the ship
+aboard, either by loosing more sail, or altering her course, the gunner
+had to remember certain things.
+
+"If the one doe meane to lay the other aboorde, then they do call up
+their company either for to enter or to defend: and first, if that they
+doe meane for to enter ... then marke where that you doe see anye
+Scottles for to come uppe at, as they will stande neere thereaboutes, to
+the intente for to be readie, for to come uppe under the Scottles: there
+give levell with your Fowlers, or Slinges, or Bases, for there you shall
+be sure to do moste good, then further more, if you doe meane for to
+enter him, then give level with your fowlers and Port peeces, where you
+doe see his chiefest fight of his Shippe is, and especially be sure to
+have them charged, and to shoote them off at the first boording of the
+Shippes, for then you shall be sure to speede. And furthermore, mark
+where his men have most recourse, then discharge your Fowlers and Bases.
+And furthermore for the annoyance of your enemie, if that at the
+boording that the Shippes lye therefore you may take away their
+steeradge with one of your great peeces, that is to shoote at his
+Rother, and furthermore at his mayne maste and so foorth."
+
+The ordering of cannon on board a ship was a matter which demanded a
+nice care. The gunner had to see that the carriages were so made as to
+allow the guns to lie in the middle of the port. The carriage wheels, or
+trocks, were not to be too high, for if they were too high they hindered
+the mariners, when they ran the cannon out in action (_Norton_, _Moore_,
+_Bourne_, _Monson_). Moreover, if the wheels were very large, and the
+ship were heeled over, the wheel rims would grind the ship's side
+continually, unless large skids were fitted to them. And if the wheels
+were large they gave a greater fierceness to the impetus of the recoil,
+when the piece was fired. The ports were to be rather "deepe uppe and
+downe" than broad in the traverse, and it was very necessary that the
+lower port-sill should not be too far from the deck, "for then the
+carriage muste bee made verye hygh, and that is verye evill" (_Bourne_).
+The short cannon were placed low down, at the ship's side, because short
+cannon were more easily run in, and secured, when the ports were closed,
+owing to the ship's heeling, or the rising of the sea. A short gun,
+projecting its muzzle through the port, was also less likely to catch
+the outboard tackling of the sails, such as "Sheetes and Tackes, or the
+Bolynes." And for these reasons any very long guns were placed astern,
+or far forward, as bow, or stern chasers. It was very necessary that the
+guns placed at the stern should be long guns, for the tall poops of the
+galleons overhung the sea considerably. If the gun, fired below the
+overhang, did not project beyond the woodwork, it was liable to "blowe
+up the Counter of the Shyppes Sterne," to the great detriment of gilt
+and paint. Some ships cut their stern ports down to the deck, and
+continued the deck outboard, by a projecting platform. The guns were run
+out on to this platform, so that the muzzles cleared the overhang. These
+platforms were the originals of the quarter-galleries, in which, some
+centuries later, the gold-laced admirals took the air (_Bourne_).
+
+Sir Jonas Moore, who published a translation of Moretti's book on
+artillery, in 1683, added to his chapters some matter relating to
+sea-gunners, from the French of Denis Furnier.
+
+"The Gunner, whom they call in the _Straights Captain_,
+_Master-Canoneer_, and in _Bretagne_ and _Spain_, and in other places
+_Connestable_, is one of the principal Officers in the Ship; it is he
+alone with the Captain who can command the Gunners. He ought to be a man
+of courage, experience, and vigilant, who knows the goodness of a Peece
+of Ordnance, the force of Powder, and who also knows how to mount a
+Peece of Ordnance upon its carriage, and to furnish it with Bolts,
+Plates, Hooks, Capsquares [to fit over the Trunnions on which the gun
+rested] Axletrees and Trucks, and that may not reverse too much; to
+order well its Cordage as Breeching [which stopped the recoil] and
+Tackling [by which it was run out or in]; to plant the Cannon to purpose
+in the middle of its Port; to know how to unclow[22] it [cast it loose
+for action], make ready his Cartridges, and to have them ready to pass
+from hand to hand through the Hatches, and to employ his most careful
+men in that affair; that he have care of all, that, he be ready
+everywhere to assist where necessity shall be; and take care that all be
+made to purpose.
+
+[Footnote 22: This word unclow may be a misprint for uncloy. To uncloy
+was to get rid of the spike, or soft metal nail, thrust into a piece's
+touch-hole by an enemy. It was done by oiling the spike all over, so as
+to make it "glib," and then blowing it out, from within, by a train of
+powder.]
+
+"He and his Companions [the gunner's mates] ought with their dark
+Lanthornes continually to see if the Guns play, and if the Rings in
+Ships do not shake." (That is, a strict watch was to be kept, at night,
+when at sea in stormy weather, to see that the cannon did not work or
+break loose, and that the ring-bolts remained firm in their places.)
+
+"If there be necessity of more Cordage, and to see that the Beds and
+Coins be firm and in good order; when the Ship comes to Anker, he
+furnisheth Cordage, and takes care that all his Companions take their
+turn [stand their watch] and quarters, that continually every evening
+they renew their priming Powder [a horn of fine dry powder poured into
+the touch-holes of loaded cannon, to communicate the fire to the
+charge], and all are obliged to visit their Cannon Powder every eight
+dayes, to see if it hath not receiv'd wet, although they be well stopped
+a top with Cork and Tallow; to see that the Powder-Room be kept neat and
+clean, and the Cartridges ranged in good order, each nature or Calibre
+by itself, and marked above in great Letters the weight of the Powder
+and nature of the Peece to which it belongs, and to put the same mark
+over the Port-hole of the Peece; that the Linstocks [_or forked staves
+of wood, about two and a half feet long, on which the match was
+carried_] be ready, and furnished with Match [_or cotton thread, boiled
+in ashes-lye and powder, and kept smouldering, with a red end, when in
+use_], and to have alwaies one lighted, and where the Cannoneer makes
+his Quarter to have two one above another below [_this last passage is a
+little obscure, but we take it to mean that at night, when the gunner
+slept in his cabin, a lighted match was to be beside him, but that in
+the gun-decks below and above his cabin (which was in the half-deck) lit
+matches were to be kept ready for immediate use, by those who kept
+watch_], that his Granadoes [_black clay, or thick glass bottles,
+filled with priming powder, and fired by a length of tow, well soaked in
+saltpetre water_] and Firepots [_balls of hard tar, sulphur-meal and
+rosin, kneaded together and fired by a priming of bruised powder_] be in
+readiness, and 3 or 400 Cartridges ready fill'd, Extrees [?] and Trucks
+[_wheels_] to turn often over the Powder Barrels that the Powder do not
+spoil; to have a care of Rings [_ring-bolts_] and of the Ports [he here
+means port-lids] that they have their Pins and small Rings."
+
+Sir William Monson adds that the gunner was to acquaint himself with the
+capacities of every known sort of firearm, likely to be used at sea. He
+also gives some professional hints for the guidance of gunners. He tells
+us (and Sir Richard Hawkins confirms him) that no sea-cannon ought to be
+more than seven or eight feet long; that they ought not to be
+taper-bored, nor honey-combed within the bore, and that English
+ordnance, the best in Europe, was sold in his day for twelve pounds a
+ton.
+
+In Boteler's time the gunner commanded a gang, or crew, who ate and
+slept in the gun-room, which seems in those days to have been the
+magazine. He had to keep a careful account of the expenditure of his
+munitions, and had orders "not to make any shot without the Knowledge
+and order of the captain."
+
+    _Authorities._--N. Boteler: "Six Dialogues." W. Bourne: "The Art of
+    Shooting in Great Ordnance"; "Regiment for the Sea"; "Mariner's
+    Guide." Sir W. Monson: "Naval Tracts." Sir Jonas Moore. R. Norton:
+    "The Gunner." John Roberts: "Complete Cannoneer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SHIP'S COMPANY
+
+    Captain--Master--Lieutenant--Warrant officers--Duties and privileges
+
+
+By comparing Sir Richard Hawkins' "Observations" and Sir W. Monson's
+"Tracts" with Nicolas Boteler's "Dialogical Discourses," we find that
+the duties of ship's officers changed hardly at all from the time of the
+Armada to the death of James I. Indeed they changed hardly at all until
+the coming of the steamship. In modern sailing ships the duties of some
+of the supernumeraries are almost exactly as they were three centuries
+ago.
+
+The captain was the supreme head of the ship, empowered to displace any
+inferior officer except the master (_Monson_). He was not always
+competent to navigate (_ibid._), but as a rule he had sufficient science
+to check the master's calculations. He was expected to choose his own
+lieutenant (_ibid._), to keep a muster-book, and a careful account of
+the petty officer's stores (_Monson_ and _Sir Richard Hawkins_), and to
+punish any offences committed by his subordinates.
+
+A lieutenant seems to have been unknown in ships of war until the early
+seventeenth century. He ranked above the master, and acted as the
+captain's proxy, or ambassador, "upon any occasion of Service"
+(_Monson_). In battle he commanded on the forecastle, and in the forward
+half of the ship. He was restrained from meddling with the master's
+duties, lest "Mischiefs and factions" should ensue. Boteler adds that a
+lieutenant ought not to be "too fierce in his Way at first ... but to
+carry himself with Moderation and Respect to the Master Gunner,
+Boatswain, and the other Officers."
+
+The master was the ship's navigator, responsible for the performance of
+"the ordinary Labours in the ship." He took the height of the sun or
+stars "with his Astrolabe, Backstaff or Jacob's-staff" (_Boteler_). He
+saw that the watches were kept at work, and had authority to punish
+misdemeanants (_Monson_). Before he could hope for employment he had to
+go before the authorities at Trinity House, to show his "sufficiency" in
+the sea arts (_Monson_).
+
+The pilot, or coaster, was junior to the master; but when he was
+bringing the vessel into port, or over sands, or out of danger, the
+master had no authority to interfere with him (_Monson_). He was
+sometimes a permanent official, acting as junior navigator when the ship
+was out of soundings (_Hawkins_), but more generally he was employed
+temporarily, as at present, to bring a ship into or out of port
+(_Monson_ and _Boteler_).
+
+The ship's company was drilled by a sort of junior lieutenant
+(_Boteler_), known as the corporal, who was something between a
+master-at-arms and a captain of marines. He had charge of the small
+arms, and had to see to it that the bandoliers for the musketmen were
+always filled with dry cartridges, and that the muskets and "matches"
+were kept neat and ready for use in the armoury (_Monson_). He drilled
+the men in the use of their small arms, and also acted as muster master
+at the setting and relieving of the watch.
+
+The gunner, whose duties we have described at length, was privileged to
+alter the ship's course in action, and may even have taken command
+during a chase, or running fight. He was assisted by his mates, who
+commanded the various batteries while in action, and aimed and fired
+according to his directions.
+
+The boatswain, the chief seaman of the crew, was generally an old sailor
+who had been much at sea, and knew the whole art of seamanship. He had
+charge of all the sea-stores, and "all the Ropes belonging to the
+Rigging [more especially the fore-rigging], all her Cables, and Anchors;
+all her Sayls, all her Flags, Colours, and Pendants;[23] and so to stand
+answerable for them" (_Boteler_). He was captain of the long boat, which
+was stowed on the booms or spare spars between the fore and main masts.
+He had to keep her guns clean, her oars, mast, sails, stores, and water
+ready for use, and was at all times to command and steer her when she
+left the ship (_Hawkins_). He carried a silver whistle, or call, about
+his neck, which he piped in various measures before repeating the
+master's orders (_Monson_). The whistle had a ball at one end, and was
+made curved, like a letter S laid sideways. The boatswain, when he had
+summoned all hands to their duty, was expected to see that they worked
+well. He kept them quiet, and "at peace one with another," probably by
+knocking together the heads of those disposed to quarrel. Lastly, he was
+the ship's executioner, his mates acting as assistants, and at his
+hands, under the supervision of the marshal, the crew received their
+"red-checked shirts," and such bilboed solitude as the captain might
+direct.
+
+[Footnote 23: He had to hang out the ship's colours on going into action
+(_Monson_).]
+
+The coxswain was the commander of the captain's row barge which he had
+to keep clean, freshly painted and gilded, and fitted with the red and
+white flag--"and when either the Captain or any Person of Fashion is to
+use the Boat, or be carryed too and again from the Ship, he is to have
+the Boat trimmed with her Cushions and Carpet and himself is to be ready
+to steer her out of her Stern [in the narrow space behind the back board
+of the stern-sheets] and with his Whistle to chear up and direct his
+Gang of Rowers, and to keep them together when they are to wait: and
+this is the lowest Officer in a Ship, that is allowed to carry a
+Whistle" (_Boteler_). The coxswain had to stay in his barge when she
+towed astern at sea, and his office, therefore, was often very wretched,
+from the cold and wet. He had to see that his boat's crew were at all
+times clean in their persons, and dressed alike, in as fine a livery as
+could be managed (_Monson_). He was to choose them from the best men in
+the ship, from the "able and handsome men" (_Monson_). He had to
+instruct them to row together, and to accustom the port oarsmen to pull
+starboard from time to time. He also kept his command well caulked, and
+saw the chocks and skids secure when his boat was hoisted to the deck.
+
+The quartermasters and their mates had charge of the hold (_Monson_),
+and kept a sort of check upon the steward in his "delivery of the
+Victuals to the Cook, and in his pumping and drawing of the Beer"
+(_Boteler_). In far later times they seem to have been a rating of
+elderly and sober seamen who took the helm, two and two together, in
+addition to their other duties. In the Elizabethan ship they
+superintended the stowage of the ballast, and were in charge below, over
+the ballast shifters, when the ships were laid on their sides to be
+scraped and tallowed. They also had to keep a variety of fish hooks
+ready, in order to catch any fish, such as sharks or bonitos.
+
+The purser was expected to be "an able Clerk" (_Monson_) for he had to
+keep an account of all provisions received from the victualler. He kept
+the ship's muster-book, with some account of every man borne upon it. He
+made out passes, or pay-tickets for discharged men (_ibid._), and,
+according to _Boteler_, he was able "to purse up roundly for himself" by
+dishonest dealing. The purser (_Boteler_ says the cook) received 6d. a
+month from every seaman, for "Wooden Dishes, Cans, Candles, Lanthorns,
+and Candlesticks for the Hold" (_Monson_). It was also his office to
+superintend the steward, in the serving out of the provisions and other
+necessaries to the crew.
+
+The steward was the purser's deputy (_Monson_). He had to receive "the
+full Mass of Victual of all kinds," and see it well stowed in the hold,
+the heavy things below, the light things up above (_Boteler_). He had
+charge of all the candles, of which those old dark ships used a
+prodigious number. He kept the ship's biscuits or bread, in the
+bread-room, a sort of dark cabin below the gun-deck. He lived a life of
+comparative retirement, for there was a "several part in the Hold, which
+is called the Steward's room, where also he Sleeps and Eats"
+(_Boteler_). He weighed out the provisions for the crew, "to the several
+Messes in the Ship," and was cursed, no doubt, by every mariner, for a
+cheating rogue in league with the purser. Though Hawkins tells us that
+it was his duty "with discretion and good tearmes to give satisfaction
+to all."
+
+The cook did his office in a cook-room, or galley, placed in the
+forecastle or "in the Hatchway upon the first Orlope" (_Boteler_). The
+floor of the galley was not at that time paved with brick or stone, as
+in later days, and now. It was therefore very liable to take fire,
+especially in foul weather, when the red embers were shaken from the
+ash-box of the range. It was the cook's duty to take the provisions from
+the steward, both flesh and fish, and to cook them, by boiling, until
+they were taken from him (_Monson_). It was the cook's duty to steep the
+salt meat in water for some days before using, as the meat was thus
+rendered tender and fit for human food (_Smith_). He had the rich
+perquisite of the ship's fat, which went into his slush tubs, to bring
+him money from the candlemakers. The firewood he used was generally
+green, if not wet, so that when he lit his fire of a morning, he
+fumigated the fo'c's'le with bitter smoke. It was his duty to pour water
+on his fire as soon as the guns were cast loose for battle. Every day,
+for the saving of firewood, and for safety, he had to extinguish his
+fire directly the dinner had been cooked, nor was he allowed to relight
+it, "but in case of necessity, as ... when the Cockswain's Gang came wet
+aboard" (_Monson_). He would allow his cronies in the forenoons to dry
+their wet gear at his fire, and perhaps allow them, in exchange for a
+bite or sup, to cook any fish they caught, or heat a can of drink.
+
+Another supernumerary was the joiner, a rating only carried in the
+seventeenth century on great ships with much fancy work about the poop.
+He it was who repaired the gilt carvings in the stern-works, and made
+the bulkheads for the admiral's cabin. He was a decorator and
+beautifier, not unlike the modern painter, but he was to be ready at all
+times to knock up lockers for the crew, to make boxes and chests for the
+gunner, and bulkheads, of thin wood, to replace those broken by the
+seas. As a rule the work of the joiner was done by the carpenter, a much
+more important person, who commanded some ten or twelve junior workmen.
+The carpenter was trusted with the pumps, both hand and chain, and with
+the repairing of the woodwork throughout the vessel. He had to be
+super-excellent in his profession, for a wooden ship was certain to tax
+his powers. She was always out of repair, always leaking, always
+springing her spars. In the summer months, if she were not being
+battered by the sea, she was getting her timber split by cannon-shot. In
+the winter months, when laid up and dismantled in the dockyard, she was
+certain to need new planks, beams, inner fittings and spars (_Hawkins_).
+The carpenter had to do everything for her, often with grossly
+insufficient means, and it was of paramount importance that his
+work-room in the orlop should be fitted with an excellent tool chest. He
+had to provide the "spare Pieces of Timber wherewith to make Fishes, for
+to strengthen and succour the Masts." He had to superintend the purchase
+of a number of spare yards, already tapered, and bound with iron, to
+replace those that "should chance to be broken." He was to see these
+lashed to the ship's sides, within board, or stopped in the rigging
+(_Monson_ and _Boteler_). He had to have all manner of gudgeons for the
+rudder, every sort of nuts or washers for the pumps, and an infinity of
+oakum, sheet lead, soft wood, spare canvas, tallow, and the like, with
+which to stop leaks, or to caulk the seams. In his stores he took large
+quantities of lime, horse hair, alum, and thin felt with which to wash
+and sheathe the ship's bottom planking (_Monson_). The alum was often
+dissolved in water, and splashed over spars and sails, before a battle,
+as it was supposed to render them non-inflammable. It was his duty,
+moreover, to locate leaks, either by observing the indraught (which was
+a tedious way), or by placing his ear to a little earthen pot inverted
+against one of the planks in the hold. This little pot caused him to
+hear the water as it gurgled in, and by moving it to and fro he could
+locate the hole with considerable certainty (_Boteler_). He had to rig
+the pumps for the sailors, and to report to the captain the depth of
+water the ship made daily. The pumps were of two kinds, one exactly like
+that in use on shore, the other, of the same principle, though more
+powerful. The second kind was called the chain-pump, because "these
+Pumps have a Chain of Burs going in a Wheel." They were worked with long
+handles, called brakes (because they broke sailor's hearts), and some
+ten men might pump at one spell. The water was discharged on to the
+deck, which was slightly rounded, so that it ran to the ship's side,
+into a graved channel called the trough, or scuppers, from which it
+fell overboard through the scupper-holes, bored through the ship's side.
+These scupper-holes were bored by the carpenter. They slanted obliquely
+downwards and were closed outside by a hinged flap of leather, which
+opened to allow water to escape, and closed to prevent water from
+entering (_Maynwaring_). Each deck had a number of scupper-holes, but
+they were all of small size. There was nothing to take the place of the
+big swinging-ports fitted to modern iron sailing ships, to allow the
+green seas to run overboard.
+
+The cooper was another important supernumerary. He had to oversee the
+stowing of all the casks, and to make, or repair, or rehoop, such casks
+as had to be made or repaired. He had to have a special eye to the great
+water casks, that they did not leak; binding them securely with iron
+hoops, and stowing them with dunnage, so that they might not shift. He
+was put in charge of watering parties, to see the casks filled at the
+springs, to fit them, when full, with their bungs, and to superintend
+their embarkation and stowage (_Monson_ and _Boteler_).
+
+The trumpeter was an attendant upon the captain, and had to sound his
+silver trumpet when that great man entered or left the ship (_Monson_).
+"Also when you hale a ship, when you charge, board, or enter her; and
+the Poop is his place to stand or sit upon." If the ship carried a
+"noise," that is a band, "they are to attend him, if there be not, every
+one he doth teach to bear a part, the Captain is to encourage him, by
+increasing his Shares, or pay, and give the Master Trumpeter a reward."
+When a prince, or an admiral, came on board, the trumpeter put on a
+tabard, of brilliant colours, and hung his silver instrument with a
+heavy cloth of the same. He was to blow a blast from the time the
+visitor was sighted until his barge came within 100 fathoms of the ship.
+"At what time the Trumpets are to cease, and all such as carry Whistles
+are to Whistle his Welcome three several times." As the gilt and
+gorgeous row boat drew alongside, the trumpets sounded a point of
+welcome, and had then to stand about the cabin door, playing their best,
+while the great man ate his sweetmeats. As he rowed away again, the
+trumpeter, standing on the poop, blew out "A loath to depart," a sort of
+ancient "good-bye, fare you well," such as sailors sing nowadays as they
+get their anchors for home. In battle the trumpeter stood upon the poop,
+dressed in his glory, blowing brave blasts to hearten up the gunners. In
+hailing a friendly ship, in any meeting on the seas, it was customary to
+"salute with Whistles and Trumpets, and the Ship's Company give a
+general shout on both sides." When the anchor was weighed, the trumpeter
+sounded a merry music, to cheer the workers. At dinner each night he
+played in the great cabin, while the captain drank his wine. At the
+setting and discharging of the watch he had to sound a solemn point, for
+which duty he received an extra can of beer (_Monson_ and _Boteler_).
+
+The crew, or mariners, were divided into able seamen, ordinary seamen,
+grummets, or cabin-boys, ship-boys and swabbers. Swabbers were the
+weakest men of the crew; men, who were useless aloft, or at the guns,
+and therefore set to menial and dirty duties. They were the ship's
+scavengers, and had much uncleanly business to see to. Linschoten,
+describing a Portuguese ship's company, dismisses them with three
+contemptuous words, "the swabers pump"; but alas, that was but the first
+duty of your true swabber. Boteler, writing in the reign of James I.,
+gives him more than half-a-page, as follows:--
+
+"The Office of the Swabber is to see the Ship Kept neat and clean, and
+that as well in the great Cabbin as everywhere else betwixt the Decks;
+to which end he is, at the least once or twice a week, if not every day,
+to cause the Ship to be well washed within Board and without above
+Water, and especially about the Gunwalls [Gunwales or gunnels, over
+which the guns once pointed] and the Chains and for prevention of
+Infection, to burn sometimes Pitch, or the like wholsom perfumes,
+between the Decks: He is also to have a regard to every private Man's
+Sleeping-place; (to clean the cabins of the petty officers in the nether
+orlop), and to admonish them all in general [it being dangerous perhaps,
+in a poor swabber, to admonish in particular] to be cleanly and handsom,
+and to complain to the Captain, of all such as will be any way nastie
+and offensive that way. Surely, if this Swabber doth thoroughly take
+care to discharge this his charge I easily believe that he may have his
+hands full, and especially if there chance to be any number of Landmen
+aboard."
+
+Under the swabber there was a temporary rate known as the liar. He had
+to keep the ship clean "without board," in the head, chains, and
+elsewhere. He held his place but for a week. "He that is first taken
+with a Lie upon a _Monday_ morning, is proclaimed at the Main-Mast with
+a general Crie, _a Liar, a Liar, a Liar_, and for that week he is under
+the Swabber" (_Monson_).
+
+The able seamen, or oldest and most experienced hands, did duty about
+the decks and guns, in the setting up and preservation of the rigging,
+and in the trimming of the braces, sheets, and bowlines. The ordinary
+seamen, younkers, grummets, and ship-boys, did the work aloft, furled
+and loosed the sails, and did the ordinary, never-ceasing work of
+sailors. They stood "watch and watch" unless the weather made it
+necessary for all to be on deck, and frequently they passed four hours
+of each day in pumping the leakage from the well. They wore no uniform,
+but perhaps some captains gave a certain uniformity to the clothes of
+their crews by taking slop chests to sea, and selling clothes of similar
+patterns to the seamen. In the navy, where the crews were pressed, the
+clothes worn must have been of every known cut and fashion, though no
+doubt all the pressed men contrived to get tarred canvas coats before
+they had been many days aboard.
+
+The bodies and souls of the seamen were looked after; a chaplain being
+carried for the one, and a chirurgeon, or doctor, for the other. The
+chaplain had to read prayers twice or thrice daily, to the whole ship's
+company, who stood or knelt reverently as he read. He had to lead in the
+nightly psalms, to reprove all evil-doers, and to exhort the men to
+their duty. Especially was he to repress all blasphemy and swearing. He
+was to celebrate the Holy Communion whenever it was most convenient. He
+was to preach on Sunday, to visit the sick; and, in battle, to console
+the wounded. Admirals, and peers in command of ships, had the privilege
+of bringing to sea their own private chaplains.
+
+The chirurgeon had to bring on board his own instruments and medicines,
+and to keep them ready to hand in his cabin beneath the gun-deck, out of
+all possible reach of shot. He was expected to know his business, and to
+know the remedies for those ailments peculiar to the lands for which the
+ship intended. He had to produce a certificate from "able men of his
+profession," to show that he was fit to be employed. An assistant, or
+servant, was allowed him, and neither he, nor his servant did any duty
+outside the chirurgeon's province (_Monson_).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE CHOOSING OF WATCHES
+
+    The petty tally--Food--Work--Punishments
+
+
+As soon as an ancient ship of war was fitted for the sea, with her guns
+on board, and mounted, her sails bent, her stores and powder in the
+hold, her water filled, her ballast trimmed, and the hands aboard, some
+"steep-tubs" were placed in the chains for the steeping of the salt
+provisions, "till the salt be out though not the saltness." The anchor
+was then weighed to a note of music. The "weeping Rachells and
+mournefull Niobes" were set packing ashore. The colours were run up and
+a gun fired. The foresail was loosed. The cable rubbed down as it came
+aboard (so that it might not be faked into the tiers wet or dirty). The
+boat was hoisted inboard. The master "took his departure," by observing
+the bearing of some particular point of land, as the Mew Stone, the
+Start, the Lizard, etc. Every man was bidden to "say his private prayer
+for a bonne voyage." The anchor was catted and fished. Sails were set
+and trimmed. Ropes were coiled down clear for running, and the course
+laid by the master.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS
+    CIRCA 1630]
+
+The captain or master then ordered the boatswain "to call up the
+company," just as all hands are mustered on modern sailing ships at the
+beginning of a voyage. The master "being Chief of the Starboard Watch"
+would then look over the mariners for a likely man. Having made his
+choice he bade the man selected go over to the starboard side, while the
+commander of the port-watch made his choice. When all the men had
+been chosen, and the crew "divided into two parts," then each man was
+bidden to choose "his Mate, Consort or Comrade." The bedding
+arrangements of these old ships were very primitive. The officers had
+their bunks or hammocks in their cabins, but the men seem to have slept
+wherever and however they could. Some, no doubt had hammocks, but the
+greater number lay in their cloaks between the guns, on mattresses if
+they had them. A man shared his bed and bedding (if he had any) with his
+"Mate, Consort, or Comrade," so that the one bed and bedding served for
+the pair. One of the two friends was always on deck while the other
+slept. In some ships at the present time the forecastles are fitted with
+bunks for only half the number of seamen carried, so that the practice
+is not yet dead. The boatswain, with all "the Younkers or Common
+Sailors" then went forward of the main-mast to take up their quarters
+between decks. The captain, master's mates, gunners, carpenters,
+quartermasters, etc., lodged abaft the main-mast "in their severall
+Cabbins." The next thing to be done was the arrangement of the ship's
+company into messes, "four to a mess," after which the custom was to
+"give every messe a quarter Can of beere and a bisket of bread to stay
+their stomacks till the kettle be boiled." In the first dog-watch, from
+4 to 6 P.M., all hands went to prayers about the main-mast, and from
+their devotions to supper. At 6 P.M. the company met again to sing a
+psalm, and say their prayers, before the setting of the night watch;
+this psalm singing being the prototype of the modern sea-concert, or
+singsong. At 8 P.M. the first night watch began, lasting until midnight,
+during which four hours half the ship's company were free to sleep. At
+midnight the sleepers were called on deck, to relieve the watch. The
+watches were changed as soon as the muster had been called and a psalm
+sung, and a prayer offered. They alternated thus throughout the
+twenty-four hours, each watch having four hours below, after four hours
+on deck, unless "some flaw of winde come, some storm or gust, or some
+accident that requires the help of all hands." In these cases the whole
+ship's company remained on deck until the work was done, or until the
+master discharged the watch below.[24] The decks were washed down by the
+swabbers every morning, before the company went to breakfast. After
+breakfast the men went about their ordinary duties, cleaning the ship,
+mending rigging, or working at the thousand odd jobs the sailing of a
+ship entails. The tops were always manned by lookouts, who received some
+small reward if they spied a prize. The guns were sometimes exercised,
+and all hands trained to general quarters.
+
+[Footnote 24: See "The Sea-man's Grammar," by Captain John Smith.]
+
+A few captains made an effort to provide for the comfort of their men by
+laying in a supply of "bedding, linnen, arms[25] and apparel." In some
+cases they also provided what was called the petty tally, or store of
+medical comforts. "The Sea-man's Grammar" of Captain John Smith, from
+which we have been quoting, tells us that the petty tally contained:
+
+[Footnote 25: The men were expected to bring their own swords and
+knives.]
+
+"Fine wheat flower close and well-packed, Rice, Currants, Sugar, Prunes,
+Cynamon, Ginger, Pepper, Cloves, Green Ginger, Oil, Butter, Holland
+cheese or old Cheese, Wine-Vinegar, Canarie-Sack, Aqua-vitae, the best
+Wines, the best Waters, the juyce of Limons for the scurvy, white
+Bisket, Oatmeal, Gammons of Bacons, dried Neats tongues, Beef packed up
+in Vineger, Legs of Mutton minced and stewed, and close packed up, with
+tried Sewet or Butter in earthen Pots. To entertain Strangers Marmalade,
+Suckets, Almonds, Comfits and such like."
+
+"Some," says the author of this savoury list, "will say I would have
+men rather to feast than to fight. But I say the want of those
+necessaries occasions the loss of more men than in any English Fleet
+hath been slain since 88. For when a man is ill, or at the point of
+death, I would know whether a dish of buttered Rice with a little
+Cynamon, Ginger and Sugar, a little minced meat, or rost Beef, a few
+stew'd Prunes, a race of green Ginger, a Flap-jack, a Kan of fresh water
+brewed with a little Cynamon and Sugar be not better than a little poor
+John, or salt fish, with Oil and Mustard, or Bisket, Butter, Cheese, or
+Oatmeal-pottage on Fish-dayes, or on Flesh-dayes, Salt, Beef, Pork and
+Pease, with six shillings beer, this is your ordinary ship's allowance,
+and good for them are well if well conditioned [not such bad diet for a
+healthy man if of good quality] which is not alwayes as Sea-men can [too
+well] witnesse. And after a storme, when poor men are all wet, and some
+have not so much as a cloth to shift them, shaking with cold, few of
+those but will tell you a little Sack or Aqua-vitae is much better to
+keep them in health, than a little small Beer, or cold water although it
+be sweet. Now that every one should provide for himself, few of them
+have either that providence or means, and there is neither Ale-house,
+Tavern, nor Inne to burn a faggot in, neither Grocer, Poulterer,
+Apothecary nor Butcher's Shop, and therefore the use of this petty Tally
+is necessary, and thus to be employed as there is occasion."
+
+The entertainment of strangers, with "Almonds, Comfits and such like,"
+was the duty of a sea-captain, for "every Commander should shew himself
+as like himself as he can," and, "therefore I leave it to their own
+Discretion," to supply suckets for the casual guest. In those days, when
+sugar was a costly commodity, a sucket was more esteemed than now. At
+sea, when the food was mostly salt, it must certainly have been a great
+dainty.
+
+The "allowance" or ration to the men was as follows[26]:--
+
+[Footnote 26: See Sir W. Monson's "Naval Tracts."]
+
+Each man and boy received one pound of bread or biscuit daily, with a
+gallon of beer. The beer was served out four times daily, a quart at a
+time, in the morning, at dinner, in the afternoon, and at supper. On
+Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which were flesh days, the
+allowance of meat was either one pound of salt beef, or one pound of
+salt pork with pease. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, a side of salt-fish,
+ling, haberdine, or cod, was divided between the members of each mess,
+while a seven-ounce ration of butter (or olive oil) and a fourteen-ounce
+ration of cheese, was served to each man. On Fridays, or fast days, this
+allowance was halved. At one time the sailors were fond of selling or
+playing away their rations, but this practice was stopped in the reign
+of Elizabeth, and the men forced to take their food "orderly and in due
+season" under penalties. Prisoners taken during the cruise were allowed
+two-thirds of the above allowance.
+
+The allowance quoted above appears liberal, but it must be remembered
+that the sailors were messed "six upon four," and received only
+two-thirds of the full ration. The quality of the food was very bad. The
+beer was the very cheapest of small beer, and never kept good at sea,
+owing to the continual motion of the ship. It became acid, and induced
+dysentery in those who drank it, though it was sometimes possible to
+rebrew it after it had once gone sour. The water, which was carried in
+casks, was also far from wholesome. After storing, for a day or two, it
+generally became offensive, so that none could drink it. In a little
+while this offensiveness passed off, and it might then be used, though
+the casks bred growths of an unpleasant sliminess, if the water remained
+in them for more than a month. However water was not regarded as a
+drink for human beings until the beer was spent. The salt meat was as
+bad as the beer, or worse. Often enough the casks were filled with lumps
+of bone and fat which were quite uneatable, and often the meat was so
+lean, old, dry and shrivelled that it was valueless as food. The
+victuallers often killed their animals in the heat of the summer, when
+the meat would not take salt, so that many casks must have been unfit
+for food after lying for a week in store. Anti-scorbutics were supplied,
+or not supplied, at the discretion of the captains. It appears that the
+sailors disliked innovations in their food, and rejected the
+substitution of beans, flour "and those white Meats as they are called"
+for the heavy, and innutritious pork and beef. Sailors were always great
+sticklers for their "Pound and Pint," and Boteler tells us that in the
+early seventeenth century "the common Sea-men with us, are so besotted
+on their Beef and Pork, as they had rather adventure on all the
+Calentures, and Scarbots [scurvy] in the World, than to be weaned from
+their Customary Diet, or so much as to lose the least Bit of it."
+
+The salt-fish ration was probably rather better than the meat, but the
+cheese was nearly always very bad, and of an abominable odour. The
+butter was no better than the cheese. It was probably like so much
+train-oil. The bread or biscuit which was stowed in bags in the
+bread-room in the hold, soon lost its hardness at sea, becoming soft and
+wormy, so that the sailors had to eat it in the dark. The biscuits, or
+cakes of bread, seem to have been current coin with many of the West
+Indian natives. In those ships where flour was carried, in lieu of
+biscuit, as sometimes happened in cases of emergency, the men received a
+ration of doughboy, a sort of dumpling of wetted flour boiled with pork
+fat. This was esteemed a rare delicacy either eaten plain or with
+butter.
+
+This diet was too lacking in variety, and too destitute of
+anti-scorbutics to support the mariners in health. The ships in
+themselves were insanitary, and the crews suffered very much from what
+they called calentures, (or fevers such as typhus and typhoid), and the
+scurvy. The scurvy was perhaps the more common ailment, as indeed it is
+to-day. It is now little dreaded, for its nature is understood, and
+guarded against. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
+centuries, it killed its thousands, owing to the ignorance and
+indifference of responsible parties, and to other causes such as the
+construction of the ships and the length of the voyages. A salt diet,
+without fresh vegetables, and without variety, is a predisposing cause
+of scurvy. Exposure to cold and wet, and living in dirty surroundings
+are also predisposing causes. The old wooden ships were seldom very
+clean, and never dry, and when once the scurvy took hold it generally
+raged until the ship reached port, where fresh provisions could be
+purchased. A wooden ship was never quite dry, in any weather, for the
+upper-deck planks, and the timbers of her topsides, could never be so
+strictly caulked that no water could leak in. The sea-water splashed in
+through the scuppers and through the ports, or leaked in, a little at a
+time, through the seams. In bad weather the lower gun-decks (or all
+decks below the spar-deck) were more or less awash, from seas that had
+washed down the hatchways. The upper-deck seams let in the rain, and
+when once the lower-decks were wet it was very difficult to dry them. It
+was impossible to close the gun-deck ports so as to make them
+watertight, for the water would find cracks to come in at, even though
+the edges of the lids were caulked with oakum, and the orifices further
+barred by deadlights or wooden shutters. Many of the sailors, as we have
+seen, were without a change of clothes, and with no proper
+sleeping-place, save the wet deck and the wet jackets that they worked
+in. It often happened that the gun-ports would be closed for several
+weeks together, during which time the gun-decks became filthy and musty,
+while the sailors contracted all manner of cramps and catarrhs. In
+addition to the wet, and the discomfort of such a life, there was also
+the work, often extremely laborious, incidental to heavy weather at sea.
+What with the ceaseless handling of sails and ropes, in frost and snow
+and soaking sea-water; and the continual pumping out of the leaks the
+rotten seams admitted, the sailor had little leisure in which to sleep,
+or to dry himself. When he left the deck he had only the dark, wet
+berth-deck to retire to, a place of bleakness and misery, where he might
+share a sopping blanket, if he had one, with the corpse of a drowned rat
+and the flotsam from the different messes. There was no getting dry nor
+warm, though the berth-deck might be extremely close and stuffy from
+lack of ventilation. The cook-room, or galley fire would not be lighted,
+and there would be no comforting food or drink, nothing but raw meat and
+biscuit, and a sup of sour beer. It was not more unpleasant perhaps than
+life at sea is to-day, but it was certainly more dangerous.[27] When at
+last the storm abated and the sea went down, the ports were opened and
+the decks cleaned. The sailors held a general washing-day, scrubbing the
+mouldy clothes that had been soaked so long, and hanging them to dry
+about the rigging. Wind-sails or canvas ventilators were rigged, to
+admit air to the lowest recesses of the hold. The decks were scrubbed
+down with a mixture of vinegar and sand, and then sluiced with salt
+water, scraped with metal scrapers, and dried with swabs and small
+portable firepots. Vinegar was carried about the decks in large iron
+pots, and converted into vapour by the insertion of red-hot metal bars.
+The swabbers brought pans of burning pitch or brimstone into every
+corner, so that the smoke might penetrate everywhere. But even then the
+decks were not wholesome. There were spaces under the guns which no art
+could dry, and subtle leaks in the topsides that none could stop. The
+hold accumulated filth, for in many ships the ship's refuse was swept on
+to the ballast, where it bred pestilence, typhus fever and the like. The
+bilge-water reeked and rotted in the bilges, filling the whole ship with
+its indescribable stench. Beetles, rats and cockroaches bred and
+multiplied in the crannies, until (as in Captain Cook's case two
+centuries later), they made life miserable for all on board. These
+wooden ships were very gloomy abodes, and would have been so no doubt
+even had they been dry and warm. They were dark, and the lower-deck,
+where most of the men messed, was worse lit than the decks above it, for
+being near to the water-line the ports could seldom be opened. Only in
+very fair weather could the sailors have light and sun below decks. As a
+rule they ate and slept in a murky, stuffy atmosphere, badly lighted by
+candles in heavy horn lanthorns. The gloom of the ships must have
+weighed heavily upon many of the men, and the depression no doubt
+predisposed them to scurvy, making them less attentive to bodily
+cleanliness, and less ready to combat the disease when it attacked them.
+Perhaps some early sea-captains tried to make the between decks less
+gloomy by whitewashing the beams, bulkheads and ship's sides. In the
+eighteenth century this seems to have been practised with success,
+though perhaps the captains who tried it were more careful of their
+hands in other ways, and the benefit may have been derived from other
+causes.
+
+[Footnote 27: The mortality among the sailors was very great.]
+
+Discipline was maintained by some harsh punishments, designed to "tame
+the most rude and savage people in the world." Punishment was inflicted
+at the discretion of the captain, directly after the hearing of the
+case, but the case was generally tried the day after the commission of
+the offence, so that no man should be condemned in hot blood. The most
+common punishment was that of flogging, the men being stripped to the
+waist, tied to the main-mast or to a capstan bar, and flogged upon the
+bare back with a whip or a "cherriliccum." The boatswain had power to
+beat the laggards and the ship's boys with a cane, or with a piece of
+knotted rope. A common punishment was to put the offender on half his
+allowance, or to stop his meat, or his allowance of wine or spirits. For
+more heinous offences there was the very barbarous punishment of
+keel-hauling, by which the victim was dragged from the main yardarm
+right under the keel of the ship, across the barnacles, to the yardarm
+on the farther side. Those who suffered this punishment were liable to
+be cut very shrewdly by the points of the encrusted shells. Ducking from
+the main yardarm was inflicted for stubbornness, laziness, going on
+shore without leave, or sleeping while on watch. The malefactor was
+brought to the gangway, and a rope fastened under his arms and about his
+middle. He was then hoisted rapidly up to the main yardarm, "from whence
+he is violently let fall into the Sea, some times twice, some times
+three severall times, one after another" (_Boteler_). This punishment,
+and keel-hauling, were made more terrible by the discharge of a great
+gun over the malefactor's head as he struck the water, "which proveth
+much offensive to him" (_ibid._). If a man killed another he was
+fastened to the corpse and flung overboard (_Laws of Oleron_). For
+drawing a weapon in a quarrel, or in mutiny, the offender lost his right
+hand (_ibid._). Theft was generally punished with flogging, but in
+serious cases the thief was forced to run the gauntlet, between two rows
+of sailors all armed with thin knotted cords. Ducking from the bowsprit
+end, towing in a rope astern, and marooning, were also practised as
+punishments for the pilferer. For sleeping on watch there was a
+graduated scale. First offenders were soused with a bucket of water. For
+the second offence they were tied up by the wrists, and water was poured
+down their sleeves. For the third offence they were tied to the mast,
+with bags of bullets, or gun-chambers tied about their arms and necks,
+until they were exhausted, or "till their back be ready to break"
+(_Monson_). If they still offended in this kind they were taken and tied
+to the bowsprit end, with rations of beer and bread, and left there with
+leave to starve or fall into the sea. Destruction or theft of ships'
+property was punished by death. Petty insurrections, such as complaints
+of the quality or quantity of the food, etc., were punished by the
+bilboes. The bilboes were iron bars fixed to the deck a little abaft the
+main-mast. The prisoner sat upon the deck under a sentry, and his legs
+and hands were shackled to the bars with irons of a weight proportioned
+to the crime. It was a rule that none should speak to a man in the
+bilboes. For blasphemy and swearing there was "an excellent good
+way"[28] of forcing the sinner to hold a marline-spike in his mouth,
+until his tongue was bloody (_Teonge_). Dirty speech was punished in a
+similar way, and sometimes the offending tongue was scrubbed with sand
+and canvas. We read of two sailors who stole a piece of beef aboard
+H.M.S. _Assistance_ in the year 1676.[29] Their hands were tied behind
+them, and the beef was hung about their necks, "and the rest of the
+seamen cam one by one, and rubd them over the mouth with the raw beife;
+and in this posture they stood two howers." Other punishments were
+"shooting to death," and hanging at the yardarm. "And the Knaveries of
+the Ship-boys are payd by the Boat-Swain with the Rod; and commonly this
+execution is done upon the Munday Mornings; and is so frequently in use,
+that some meer Seamen believe in earnest, that they shall not have a
+fair Wind, unless the poor Boys be duely brought to the Chest, that is,
+whipped, every Munday Morning" (_Boteler_).
+
+[Footnote 28: _Circa_ 1670.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The punishment would have been no less severe a century
+earlier.]
+
+Some of these punishments may appear unduly harsh; but on the whole they
+were no more cruel than the punishments usually inflicted ashore.
+Indeed, if anything they were rather more merciful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+IN ACTION
+
+
+In engaging an enemy's ship at sea the custom was to display the colours
+from the poop, and to hang streamers or pennons from the yardarms.[30]
+The spritsail would then be furled, and the spritsail-yard brought
+alongship. The lower yards were slung with chain, and the important
+ropes, sheets and braces,[31] etc., were doubled. The bulkheads and
+wooden cabin walls were knocked away, or fortified with hammocks or
+bedding, to minimise the risk of splinters. The guns were cast loose and
+loaded. The powder or cartridge was brought up in "budge barrels,"
+covered with leather, from the magazine, and stowed well away from the
+guns, either in amidships, or on that side of the ship not directly
+engaged. Tubs of water were placed between the guns with blankets
+soaking in them for the smothering of any fire that might be caused.
+Other tubs were filled with "vinegar water or what we have" for the
+sponging of the guns. The hatches leading to the hold were taken up, so
+that no man should desert his post during the engagement. The light
+sails were furled, and in some cases sent down on deck. The magazines
+were opened, and hung about with wet blankets to prevent sparks from
+entering. Shot was sent to the shot-lockers on deck. Sand was sprinkled
+on the planking to give a greater firmness to the foothold of the men at
+the guns. The gunner and his mates went round the batteries to make sure
+that all was ready. The caps, or leaden plates, were taken from the
+touch-holes, and the priming powder was poured down upon the cartridge
+within the gun. The carpenter made ready sheets of lead, and plugs of
+oakum, for the stopping of shot-holes.[32] The cook-room fire was
+extinguished. The sails were splashed with a solution of alum. The
+people went to eat and drink at their quarters. Extra tiller ropes, of
+raw hide, were rove abaft. The trumpeters put on their[33] tabards, "of
+the Admiral's colours," and blew points of war as they sailed into
+action. A writer of the early seventeenth century[34] has left the
+following spirited account of a sea-fight:--
+
+[Footnote 30: Monson.]
+
+[Footnote 31: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 32: Monson.]
+
+[Footnote 33: _Ibid._]
+
+[Footnote 34: Captain John Smith.]
+
+"A sail, how bears she or stands shee, to winde-ward or lee-ward? set
+him by the Compasse; he stands right ahead, or on the weather-Bowe, or
+lee-Bowe, let fly your colours if you have a consort, else not. Out with
+all your sails, a steady man to the helme, sit close to keep her steady,
+give him chase or fetch him up; he holds his own, no, we gather on him.
+Captain, out goes his flag and pendants, also his waste-clothes and
+top-armings, which is a long red cloth about three quarters of a yard
+broad, edged on each side with Calico, or white linnen cloth, that goeth
+round about the ship on the outsides of all her upper works fore and
+aft, and before the cubbridge-heads, also about the fore and maine tops,
+as well for the countenance and grace of the ship, as to cover the men
+for being seen, he furies and slinges his maine yarde, in goes his
+spret-saile. Thus they use to strip themselves into their short sailes,
+or fighting sailes, which is only the fore sail, the main and fore
+topsails, because the rest should not be fired nor spoiled; besides they
+would be troublesome to handle, hinder our fights and the using our
+armes; he makes ready his close fights fore and aft.
+
+"Master, how stands the chase? Right on head I say; Well we shall
+reatch him by and by; what's all ready? Yea, yea, every man to his
+charge, dowse your topsaile to salute him for the Sea, hale him with a
+noise of trumpets; Whence is your ship? Of Spaine; Whence is yours? Of
+England. Are you a Merchant, or a Man of War? We are of the Sea. He
+waves us to Lee-ward with his drawne Sword, cals amaine for the King of
+Spaine and springs his loufe. Give him a chase piece with your
+broadside, and run a good berth ahead of him; Done, done. We have the
+winde of him, and he tackes about, tacke you aboute also and keep your
+loufe [keep close to the wind] be yare at the helme, edge in with him,
+give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside as before,
+and keep your loufe; He payes us shot for shot; Well, we shall requite
+him; What, are you ready again? Yea, yea. Try him once more, as before;
+Done, Done; Keep your loufe and charge your ordnance again; Is all
+ready? Yea, yea, edge in with him again, begin with your bowe pieces,
+proceed with your broadside, and let her fall off with the winde, to
+give her also your full chase, your weather broadside, and bring her
+round that the stern may also discharge, and your tackes close aboord
+again; Done, done, the wind veeres, the Sea goes too high to boord her,
+and we are shot thorow and thorow, and betwene winde and water. Try the
+pump, bear up the helme; Master let us breathe and refresh a little, and
+sling a man overboard [_i.e._ lower a man over the side] to stop the
+leakes; that is, to trusse him up aboute the middle in a piece of
+canvas, and a rope to keep him from sinking, and his armes at liberty,
+with a malet in the one hand, and a plug lapped in Okum, and well tarred
+in a tarpawling clowt in the other, which he will quickly beat into the
+hole or holes the bullets made; What cheere mates? is all well? All
+well, all well, all well. Then make ready to bear up with him again, and
+with all your great and small shot charge him, and in the smoke boord
+him thwart the hawse, on the bowe, midships, or rather than faile, on
+the quarter [where the high poop made it difficult to climb on board] or
+make fast your graplings [iron hooks] if you can to his close fights and
+shear off [so as to tear them to pieces]. Captain, we are fowl on each
+other, and the Ship is on fire, cut anything to get clear and smother
+the fire with wet clothes. In such a case they will presently be such
+friends, as to helpe one the other all they can to get clear, lest they
+should both burn together and sink; and if they be generous, the fire
+quenched, drink kindely one to another; heave their cans overboord, and
+then begin again as before.
+
+"Well, Master, the day is spent, the night drawes on, let us consult.
+Chirurgion, look to the wounded, and winde up the slain, with each a
+weight or bullet at their heades and feet to make them sinke, and give
+them three Gunnes for their funerals. Swabber, make clean the ship
+[sprinkle it with hot vinegar to avoid the smell of blood]; Purser,
+record their Names; Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth to windeward
+that we lose him not in the night; Gunners, spunge your Ordnance;
+Sowldiers, scowre your pieces; Carpenters about your leakes; Boatswaine
+and the rest repair your sails and shrouds; and Cooke, you observe your
+directions against the morning watch; Boy, Holla, Master, Holla, is the
+Kettle boiled? Yea, yea; Boatswaine, call up the men to prayer and
+breakfast [We may suppose the dawn has broken].
+
+"Boy, fetch my cellar of bottels [case of spirits], a health to you all
+fore and aft, courage my hearts for a fresh charge; Gunners beat open
+the ports, and out with your lower tire [lower tier of guns] and bring
+me from the weather side to the lee, so many pieces as we have ports to
+bear upon him. Master lay him aboord loufe for loufe; mid Ships men, see
+the tops and yards well manned, with stones, fire pots and brass
+bailes, to throw amongst them before we enter, or if we be put off,
+charge them with all your great and small shot, in the smoke let us
+enter them in the shrouds, and every squadron at his best advantage; so
+sound Drums and Trumpets, and Saint George for England.
+
+"They hang out a flag of truce, hale him a main, abase, or take in his
+flag [to hale one to amaine, a main or a-mayn, was to bid him surrender;
+to abase was to lower the colours or the topsails], strike their sails,
+and come aboord with their Captaine, Purser, and Gunner, with their
+commission, cocket, or bills of loading. Out goes the boat, they are
+launched from the ship's side, entertaine them with a generall cry God
+save the Captain and all the company with the Trumpets sounding, examine
+them in particular, and then conclude your conditions, with feasting,
+freedom or punishment as you find occasion; but alwayes have as much
+care to their wounded as your own, and if there be either young women or
+aged men, use them nobly, which is ever the nature of a generous
+disposition. To conclude, if you surprise him, or enter perforce, you
+may stow the men, rifle, pillage, or sack, and cry a prise."
+
+Down below in the gun-decks during an action, the batteries became so
+full of the smoke of black powder that the men could hardly see what
+they were doing. The darkness prevented them from seeing the very
+dangerous recoiling of the guns, and many were killed by them. It was
+impossible to judge how a gun carriage would recoil, for it never
+recoiled twice in the same manner, and though the men at the side
+tackles did their best to reduce the shock they could not prevent it
+altogether. It was the custom to close the gun-ports after each
+discharge, as the musketeers aboard the enemy could otherwise fire
+through them as the men reloaded. The guns were not fired in a volley,
+as no ship could have stood the tremendous shock occasioned by the
+simultaneous discharge of all her guns. They were fired in succession,
+beginning from the bows. In heavy weather the lower tiers of guns were
+not cast loose, for the rolling made them difficult to control, and the
+sea came washing through the ports and into the muzzles of the guns,
+knocking down the men and drenching the powder. It sometimes happened
+that the shot, and cartridge, were rolled clean out of the guns. In
+sponging and ramming the men were bidden to keep the sponge or rammer on
+that side of them opposite to the side exposed to the enemy so that if a
+shot should strike it, it would not force it into the body of the
+holder. A man was told off to bring cartridges and shot to each gun or
+division of guns and he was strictly forbidden to supply any other gun
+or guns during the action. The wounded were to be helped below by men
+told off especially for the purpose. Once below, in the cockpit, they
+were laid on a sail, and the doctor or his mates attended to them in
+turn. In no case was a man attended out of his turn. This system seems
+equitable, and the sailors were insistent that it should be observed;
+but many poor fellows bled to death, from shattered arteries, etc.,
+while waiting till the doctor should be ready. The chaplain attended in
+the cockpit to comfort the dying, and administer the rites of the
+Church. When a vessel was taken, her crew were stripped by those in want
+of clothes. The prisoners were handcuffed, or chained together, and
+placed in the hold, on the ballast. The ship's company then set to work
+to repair damages, clean and secure the guns, return powder, etc., to
+the armoury, and magazines, and to give thanks for their preservation
+round the main-mast.
+
+[Illustration: Map Shewing the EARLY BUCCANEER CRUISING GROUND]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Action, description of ship in, 334
+
+Allowance of food and drink, 326, 327
+
+Alvarado, 226, etc.
+
+---- battle of, 227 _et seq._
+
+Anastasius (church), 252
+
+Andreas, Captain, 232, 234, 238
+
+Antonio, Captain, 235
+
+Arica, 259, 265, 266, 267
+
+---- battle of, 267 _et seq._, 273, 274
+
+Arquebus, 303
+
+
+Barbecue, 112
+
+Barker, Andrew, 105
+
+Baronha, Admiral, 245
+
+Bastimentos, 22
+
+_Bear_, pinnace, 79, 82, 84
+
+Bishop (of Panama), 255, 256, 281
+
+Blewfields, 134
+
+Boats (ships'), 297
+
+Boatswains, 313
+
+Boco del Toro, 230, 231
+
+Boucan, 112
+
+Bracos, De los, 180
+
+Bradley, John, 173 _et seq._
+
+Buccaneers, rise of, 112 _et seq._;
+  customs, etc., 113;
+  dress, 114;
+  drunkenness, 115;
+  cruel, 116;
+  religious, 119;
+  attached to comrades, 119;
+  preparations for raids, 120 _et seq._;
+  shares of spoil, 125;
+  at the Samballoes, 232;
+  at Perico, 247
+
+Buckenham, Captain, 225
+
+
+Cabecas, or Cabezas, 80, 84, 88, 92, 95
+
+Cabin-boys, 319
+
+Campeachy, 127
+
+Canoas, 127;
+  capturing prizes from, 129 _et seq._
+
+Captains, 311, 322, 323, 324
+
+Caribs, 108
+
+Carpenters, 316
+
+Cartagena, 11, 26, 27, 33, 35, 40, 41 _et seq._, 44, 45, 94
+
+Cartridges, 300, 301
+
+Castle Gloria, 151
+
+Cativaas, or Catives, 9, 38, 53, 82
+
+Cedro Bueno, halt at, 182
+
+---- canoas sent to, 188
+
+Chaplains, 321, 339
+
+Chagres Castle, expedition to, under Bradley, 173 _et seq._
+
+---- Morgan's arrival at, 180
+
+---- party sent to, 203
+
+---- message from, 205
+
+Chagres River, 25, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 81; also 180-210
+
+Charesha, 26
+
+Chatas (small Spanish boats), 179
+
+Cheapo River, 61, 241, 279
+
+Chapillo, 241, 253
+
+Chirurgeons, 321
+
+Colonies in West Indies, 110, 111
+
+Commissions, 118
+
+Cook, Captain, 233, 234, 256, 258, 262
+
+Cooks (ships'), 315
+
+Coopers, 318
+
+Compensations, 122
+
+Comrades, 323
+
+Corporals, 312
+
+Costa Rica, Morgan sails for, 149
+
+Cox, Captain, 258, 259, 262
+
+Coxon, Captain, 229, 233, 237, 240, 241, 243, 249, 253
+
+---- sails for home, 254
+
+Coxswains, 313
+
+Crews, 319
+
+
+Daggs (pistols), 304
+
+Dampier, William, 126;
+  early life in West Indies, 218 _et seq._;
+  ill at Campeachy, 225;
+  ruined by storm, 226;
+  goes pirating, _ibid._;
+  returns to England, 228;
+  to Jamaica, 229;
+  joins buccaneers, 230;
+  lands on isthmus, 234;
+  not at Perico, 246;
+  not at Arica, 267;
+  leaves Sharp, 276, 277;
+  tramps across isthmus, 280, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288
+
+Darien, Gulf of, 4, 5, 8, 31, 99
+
+Darien isthmus. _See_ Drake, Morgan, Dampier, etc.
+
+Delander, R., 180
+
+De la Barra Castle, 162
+
+Diego, 19, 24, 31, 32, 36, 50, 51
+
+---- Fort, 49, 51, 92
+
+---- River, 37, 38, 49
+
+Discomforts, 328
+
+Discipline, 330, 331, 332
+
+Drake, Francis (afterwards Sir Francis), born, 1;
+  at San Juan d'Ulloa, 1, 2;
+  at West Indies, 2, 3;
+  sails for Nombre de Dios, 3, 4, 5;
+  lands, 6;
+  joins Rause, 7, 8;
+  sails west, 9, 10;
+  attacks Nombre de Dios, 15, 16, 20, 21;
+  hurt, 21;
+  receives herald, 23;
+  goes to Cartagena, 26;
+  establishes fort, 31;
+  goes east, 32, 33;
+  in Cartagena, 40, 41, etc.;
+  returns thither, 45;
+  starving, 46, 47;
+  holds post mortem, 52;
+  goes for Panama, 55 _et seq._;
+  fails to take treasure, 66;
+  retreats, 68;
+  at Venta Cruz, 69;
+  returns to Hixom, 77;
+  goes to Veragua, 80, 81;
+  meets Captain Tetu, 82;
+  makes his great raid, 84, 85, 86, 88;
+  builds raft, 89-90;
+  his bravado, 94;
+  arrives at Plymouth, 96;
+  mentioned, 97;
+  sacks St Domingo, 110;
+  his island, 259, 260
+
+---- John, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37
+
+---- Joseph, 52
+
+
+Entertainments, 325
+
+Estera longa Lemos (near Porto Bello), 153
+
+
+Firing (of cannon), 301;
+  and aiming, 305, 306
+
+Fort Jeronimo (at Porto Bello), 151
+
+Francisco River (St Francis River), 9, 84, 88, 91, 92
+
+French in West Indies, 111, 117
+
+---- buccaneer commissions, 118
+
+Fumigations, 329
+
+
+Gabriele, Josef, 239
+
+Galleons, 292, 293
+
+Galliasses, 292, 293
+
+Galleys, 291
+
+Gambling, 131
+
+Garret, John, 6
+
+Gayny, G., 283, 285, 286, 287
+
+Gear (sailors'), 296
+
+Gibraltar (in Maracaibo), 162
+
+Glub, Charles, 49
+
+Golden Island, 232
+
+Gorgona, 259, 276
+
+Grummets, 320
+
+Guasco (Huasco), 274
+
+Gunners, 300, 301, 302, 304, 305, 308, 309, 312
+
+Guns, 298 _et seq._, 307;
+  list of, 303
+
+Guzman, Don John Perez, takes Santa Katalina, 138. _See also_ Panama
+        battle
+
+
+Harris, Captain, 233, 237;
+  killed and buried, 253
+
+Hawkins, Sir R., 98, 99;
+  his story of Oxenham, 105
+
+Hayti, 106
+
+Hilo (Ylo or Ilo), 260, 273, 274
+
+Hispaniola, 106, 107 _et seq._, 114
+
+Hixom, Ellis, 48, 54, 56, 75, 76, 77
+
+Hobby, Mr, 229
+
+Hunters, 108, 109
+
+
+Indians, 121, 265, 279
+
+Iquique (Yqueque), 264
+
+Iron Castle (at Porto Bello), 139, 151, 158
+
+
+Jamaica, 118, 229, 289
+
+Jobson (or Cobson), 284, 287
+
+Joiners, 316
+
+Juan Fernandez, 261, 264
+
+
+Katalina, Santa, Mansvelt goes to, 135
+
+---- Morgan takes, 171
+
+King Golden Cap, 236, 237, 239, 241, 246, 253, 255
+
+
+La Serena, 260
+
+Las Serenas, 44
+
+La Sounds Key, 285, 287, 288
+
+Liars, 320
+
+Lieutenants, 311
+
+Linstocks, 309
+
+_Lion_, pinnace, 53, 84
+
+Logwood cutting, 127;
+  description of, 222
+
+Longships, 291
+
+Lorenzo, San, Castle of, 173;
+  taken, 176;
+  Morgan's return to, 213;
+  destroyed, 214
+
+
+Magdalena, 31, 37
+
+Main, the, 28, 39, 83, 123, 124, 127
+
+Mansvelt, Dutch pirate, cruises in South Seas, 135;
+  his plans, 134;
+  meets Henry Morgan, 135;
+  sails with him, _ibid._;
+  takes Santa Katalina, 135;
+  seeks recruits and recognition from English Governor, 136;
+  is refused help, 137;
+  sails to Tortuga, 137;
+  dies, 139
+
+Maracaibo, 162
+
+Maroons, 24, 28, 36, 38, 51, 53, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68,
+        69, 70, 74, 75, 76, 85, 89, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102
+
+Marygalante, 4
+
+Masts, 294
+
+Masters, 312, 322
+
+_Minion_, pinnace, 49, 79
+
+Moone, T., 2, 29
+
+Morgan, Henry (afterwards Sir Henry), meets Mansvelt, 135;
+  sails with him, _ibid._;
+  tries to get help from New England, 139;
+  gathers fleet, 140;
+  goes for Puerto del Principe, 141;
+  battle there, 142;
+  town taken, 142;
+  stay there, 143;
+  mutiny and fight, 145;
+  defection of French allies, 146;
+  returns to Port Royal, 146;
+  sails for Costa Rica, 149;
+  lands, 153;
+  takes a fort, 155;
+  attacks Porto Bello, 156;
+  takes it, 157;
+  receives summons from Panama, 159;
+  defeats Spanish troops, 160;
+  receives ransom, 160;
+  returns to Port Royal, 161;
+  goes for Maracaibo, 162;
+  summons De la Barra Castle, 163;
+  the fireship, 164;
+  Spanish rally, 164;
+  Morgan's stratagem, 166;
+  his return to Port Royal, 167;
+  goes for Main, 168, 169;
+  takes Santa Katalina, 177;
+  sails for Chagres, 179;
+  reaches Venta Cruz, 187;
+  sees Panama, 190;
+  takes it, 199, etc.;
+  burns his ships, 209;
+  leaves ruins, 210;
+  returns to Venta Cruz, 212;
+  destroys San Lorenzo, 214;
+  returns to Port Royal, 215;
+  becomes Governor of Jamaica, 216
+
+Mosquito Indians, 122, 123, 124, 125
+
+Mule trains (or recuas), 65, 66, 67, 85
+
+Munjack, 228
+
+Muskets, 303
+
+Mutiny, 257
+
+
+Nombre De Dios, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14;
+  description of, 16, 17, 18, etc.;
+  attack on, 27, 28, 62, 63, 64, 65, 84, 85, 98, 99, 103, 104
+
+Norman, Captain, 180, 205
+
+
+One Bush Key, 219, 221, 224
+
+Ortega, John de, 100, 101
+
+Oxenham, John, 17, 18, 39, 43, 61, 64, 65, 79, 81, 82, 93, 98;
+  sails on his raid, 98;
+  builds ship, 99;
+  raids South Seas, 100;
+  mutiny, 102, 103;
+  Spaniards take him, 104;
+  and hang him, 104, 108
+
+
+Panama, 8, 11, 12, 15, 39, 54, 55, 61, 62, 243, 244, 252, 254, 255
+
+---- description of, 192.
+
+---- Morgan's sight of, 190
+
+---- Governor of. _See_ Guzman, 159, 160.
+
+Parrots, at Alvarado, 227
+
+_Pascha_, a ship, 3, 30, 31, 32, 79, 81, 94, 95
+
+Pavesses, 294
+
+Pearl Islands, 100, 101, 244
+
+Pedro, 57, 60, 95
+
+Penn, 117
+
+Peralta, Don, 206, 245, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 258, 261
+
+Periaguas, 127
+
+Perico, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 250-253
+
+Petticoat (a sky-blue), 279
+
+Petty tally, 324, 325
+
+Pezoro, 79, 80, 81
+
+Pike, Robert, 65, 67, 78
+
+Pine Islands, 8, 9, 20
+
+Pinnaces, 3, 7
+
+Plenty, Port, 36
+
+Plymouth, 3, 4, 96, 98
+
+Porto Bello, 11, 13, 15;
+  description, 150 _et seq._;
+  attacked and sacked, 154 _et seq._; 230, 231
+
+Port Pheasant, 5
+
+Port Royal, 132
+
+---- Morgan's return to, 215
+
+---- Dampier arrives at, 221
+
+Porto Santo, 4
+
+Provisions, 326, 327, 328
+
+Puebla Nueva, 256
+
+Puerto del Principe, 140, 141 _et seq._
+
+Pursers, 314
+
+
+Quartermasters, 314
+
+Quibo, 256, 257, 258, 259
+
+
+Raft (Drake's), 89, 90
+
+Rause, Captain, 7, 9, 25
+
+Rigging, ancient, 295
+
+Ringrose, Basil, 234, 237, 241, 243, 244, 247, 248, 349, 250
+
+---- at Arica, 267, 268, 269, 273, 288, 289
+
+Rio de la Hacha, 47, 169
+
+Rio Grande, 32, 33, 46
+
+Roundships, 291
+
+
+Sails, 294, 295, 296, 297
+
+Sailing from port, 322, 323
+
+San Andreas, 127
+
+---- Antonio, 96
+
+---- Barnardo, 26, 28, 40, 50, 94
+
+---- Domingo, 106, 107
+
+---- Juan d'Ulloa, 1, 2, 12
+
+---- Miguel, 277
+
+Santa Maria, 232, 238, 239, 240, 253
+
+---- Martha, 5, 47
+
+---- Pecaque, 289
+
+Savannahs, 61
+
+Sawkins, Richard, Captain, 229, 233, 236, 240, 243, 248, 249, 250, 253,
+        254, 255, 256;
+  killed, 257, 262, 263, 281
+
+Scrivanos, 28, 41, 53
+
+Sea-fighting, 334, 335, 336, 337
+
+Searles, Captain, 206
+
+Sharp, Captain Bartholomew, 229, 233, 237, 238, 241, 242, 243, 244, 252,
+        253, 254, 255;
+  takes prizes, 257;
+  elected admiral, 258, 259, 262, 265;
+  at Arica, 267, 270, 271, 274, 275, 288, 289, 290
+
+Ship-boys, 319
+
+Simon Le Sieur, 136, 137, 138
+
+Smith, Captain John, 89
+
+Springer, Captain, 248
+
+---- his key, 286
+
+Stewards, 315
+
+Swabbers, 319, 320
+
+_Swan_, a ship, 2, 3, 29, 30
+
+
+Tawnymores (a ship of), 247, 248, 249, 251
+
+Tetu, Captain, 82, 83, 84, 86;
+  hurt, 86, 87, 91
+
+Tiburon, Cape, 169
+
+Tocamora, 231
+
+Tolu, 6, 36, 53, 79
+
+Top-arming, 294
+
+Torna Munni, 183
+
+Tortuga, 111, 112, 115, 117
+
+Tree (a great), 60, 61
+
+_Trinity_, the Most Blessed, a Spanish galleon, 206, 251, 253, 259, 260,
+        261, 263, 264, 288, 289
+
+Tristian, Captain, 285
+
+Trumpeters, 318
+
+Tucker, Francis, 95
+
+
+Venables, 117
+
+Venta Cruz, 25, 62, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 85, 187, 212
+
+Veragua, 78, 79, 80, 81
+
+Villa del Rey, 35
+
+
+Wafer, Lionel, 234, 276, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287
+
+Watling, John, 262, 263, 264, 266;
+  attacks Arica, 267, 268, 269;
+  shot, 270
+
+
+Ylo, 260, 273, 274
+
+Yqueque, 264, 265
+
+Younkers, 320
+
+Ysabel Nueva, 106
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
+
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