CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN -1891 BY "HENKY WILLIAMS SAGE Digitized by Microsoft® F 2161.H28"l9lo"'™™"'"-"'"^'' ^'iniiSiwS**'^* '" *''* ""^s* '"""es in the 3>im§A' ^2-i i9f 458 This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation witli Cornell University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in limited quantity for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive..Qrg/details/cu31924021197458 ■^ Digitiz€3 by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES IN THE XVII CENTURY Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® ,/_A^j Carte des Isles iJiJ^ §^l^ DE l'A:merique ~' ^''^l £T VSPLVSIEVRS PAYS DE TElUiE EERME -:;^) s:tues aiicievAutdi^ccoTslcs '^ ... 1/1 e}iitfcuri:t.'\-cnldcs<{clailjiju'cnnapoiiU^iitcii/rcrdan.-kj-C%rLs. \ DigitizcWby Microaoft^,,^ IRO^l CHARLEVOIX "hISTOIKE DE S. DOMINCUE Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES IN THE XVII CENTURY BY G. H. HARING \ \ h WITH TEnVmAPS and ILLUSTRATIONS z NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 1910 Digitized by Microsoft® h K-i^^^vSi* First Published in igio Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE THE principal facts about the exploits of the English and French buccaneers of the seventeenth century in the West Indies are sufficiently well known to modern readers. The French Jesuit historians of the Antilles have left us many interesting details of their mode of life, and Exquemelin's history of the freebooters has been reprinted numerous times both in France and in England. Based upon these old, contemporary nar- ratives, modern accounts are issued from the press with astonishing regularity, some of them purporting to be serious history, others appearing in the more popular and entertaining guise of romances. AU^ however, are alike in confining themselves for their information to what may almost be called the traditional sources — Exquemelin, the Jesuits, and perhaps a few narratives like those of Dampier and Wafer. To write another history of these privateers or pirates, for they have, unfortunately, more than once deserved that name, may seem a rather fruitless under- taking. It is justified only by the fact that there exist numerous other documents bearing upon the subject, documents which till now have been entirely neglected. Exquemelin has been reprinted, the story of the buccaneers has been re-told, yet no writer, whether editor or historian, has attempted to estimate the trust- worthiness of the old tales by comparing them with these other sources, or to show the connection between the Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES buccaneers and the history of the English colonies in the West Indies. The object of this volume, therefore, is not only to give a narrative, according to the most authentic, available sources, of the more brilliant exploits of these sea-rovers, but, what is of greater interest and importance, to trace the policy pursued toward them by the English and French Governments. The "Buccaneers in the West Indies" was presented as a thesis to the Board of Modern History of Oxford University in May 1909 to fulfil the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Letters. It was written under the supervision of C. H. Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History in Oxford, and to him the writer owes a lasting; debt of gratitude for his unfailing aid and sympathy during the course of preparation. C. H. H. Oxford, 1910 Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS Preface V CHAP. PAGB I. Introductory — Part I.— The Spanish Colonial System . i ^ Part II.— The Freebooters of the Sixteenth Century 28 II. The Beginnings of the Buccaneers . . 57 III. The Conquest of Jamaica ... . 85 -V- IV. Tortuga, 1655-1664 . . ... 113 V. Porto Bello and Panama 120 VI. The Government Suppresses the Buccaneers 200 ^ VII. The Buccaneers Turn Pirate .... 232 Appendices * 7 3-74 Bibliography 275 Index . .... 289 Digitized by Microsoft® LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map of the West Indies .... Frontispiece From Charlevoix' Histoire de S. Domingue. PAGE Spanish Periagua i From Exquemelin's Histoire des Aventuriers Trevoux, 1744- Buccaneer Vessels 7 6 From Exquemelin's Histoire des Aventuriers Trevoux, 1744. A Correct Map of Jamaica 85 From the Royal Magazitie, 1760. Map of San Domingo 86 From Charlevoix' Histoire de S. Domingue, Plan of the Bay and Town of Portobelo . 154 From Prevost d'Exiles' Voyages. The Isthmus of Darien 164 From Exquemelin's Bucaniers, 1684-5. 'The Battel between the Spaniards and the pyrats or Buccaniers before the Citty of Panama' 166 From Exquemelin's Bucaniers of America, 1684-5. Plan of Vera-Cruz 242 From Charlevoix' Histoire de S. Domingue, 1730. Plan of the Town and Roadstead of Cartagena and of the Forts From Baron DB Pontis' Relation de ce qui c" est fait la prise de Carthagene, Bruxelles, i6g8. 264 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES IN THE XVII CENTURY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 1. — THE SPANISH COLONIAL SYSTEM AT the time of the discovery of America the Spaniards, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu has remarked, were perhaps less fitted than any other nation of western Europe for the task of American colonization. Whatever may have been the political rdle thrust upon them in the six- teenth century by the Hapsburg marriages, whatever certain historians may say of the grandeur and nobility of the Spanish national character, Spain was then neither rich nor populous, nor industrious. For centuries she had been called upon to wage a continuous warfare with the Moors, and during this time had not only found little leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, but had acquired a disdain for manual work which helped to mould her colonial administration and influenced all her subsequent history. And wl>en the termination of the last of these wars left her mistress of a united Spain, and the exploita- tion of her own resources seemed to require all the energies she could muster, an entire new hemisphere was suddenly Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES thrown open to her, and given into her hands by a papal decree to possess and populate. Already weakened by the exile of the most sober and industrious of her popula- tion, the Jews ; drawn into a foreign policy for which she had neither the means nor the inclination ; instituting at home an economic policy which was almost epileptic in its consequences, she found her strength dissipated, and gradually sank into a condition of economic and political impotence. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor in the service of the Castilian Crown, wishing to find a western route by sea to India and especially to Zipangu (Japan), the magic land described by the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, landed on 12th October 1492, on "Guanahani," one of the Bahama Islands. From "Guanahani" he passed on to other islands of the same group, and thence to Hispaniola, Tortuga and Cuba. Returning to Spain in March 1493, he sailed again in September of the same year with seventeen vessels and 1 500 persons, and this time keeping farther to the south, sighted Porto Rico and some of the Lesser Antilles, founded a colony on Hispaniola, and discovered Jamaica in 1494. On a third voyage in 1498- he discovered Trinidad, and coasted along the shores of South America from the Orinoco River to the island of Margarita. After a fourth and last voyage in 1502-04, Columbus died at Valladolid in 1506, in the firm belief that he had discovered a part of the Continent of Asia. The entire circle of the Antilles having thus been revealed before the end of the fifteenth century, the Spaniards pushed forward to the continent. While Hojida, Vespucci, Pinzon and de Solis were exploring the eastern coast from La Plata to Yucatan, Ponce de Leon in 1512 discovered Florida, and in 15 13 Vasco Nunez de Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY Balboa descried the Pacific Ocean from the heights of Darien, revealing for the first time the existence of a new- continent. In 1520 Magellan entered the Pacific through the strait which bears his name, and a year later was killed in one of the Philippine Islands. Within the next twenty years Cortez had conquered the realm of Mon- tezuma, and Pizarro the empire of Peru ; and thus within the space of two generations all of the West Indies, North America to California and the Carolinas, all of South America except Brazil, which the error of Cabral gave to the Portuguese, and in the east the Philippine Islands and New Guinea passed under the sway of the Crown of Castile. Ferdinand and Isabella in 1493 had consulted with several persons of eminent learning to find out whether it was necessary to obtain the investiture of the Pope for their newly-discovered possessions, and all were of opinion that this formality was unnecessary.' Nevertheless, on 3rd May 1493, a bull was granted by Pope Alexander VI.» which divided the sovereignty of those parts of the world not possessed by any Christian prince between Spain and Portugal by a meridian line 100 leagues west of the Azores or of Cape Verde. Later Spanish writers made much of this papal gift; yet, as Georges Scelle points out,* it is possible that this bull was not so much a deed of conveyance, investing the Spaniards with the proprietor- ship of America, as it was an act of ecclesiastical juris- diction according them, on the strength of their acquired right and proven Catholicism, a monopoly as it were in the propagation of the faith. At that time, even Catholic ' Herrera: Decades II. I, p. 4, cited in Scelle: la Traite Negriere, I. p. 6. Note 2. ' Scelle, op. cit., I. pp. 6-9. 3 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES princes were no longer accustomed to seek the Popes sanction when making a new conquest, and certainly in the domain of public law the Pope was not considered to have temporal jurisdiction over the entire world. He did, however, intervene in temporal matters when they directly influenced spiritual affairs, and of this the propagation of the faith was an instance. As the compromise between Spain and Portugal was very indecisive, owing to the difference in longitude of the Azores and Cape Verde, a second Act was signed on 7th June 1494, which placed the line of demarcation 270 leagues farther to the west. The colonization ' of the Spanish Indies, on its social and administrative side, presents a curious contrast. On the one hand we see the Spanish Crown, with high ideals of order and justice, of religious and political unity, extend- ing to its ultramarine possessions its faith, its language, its laws and its administration ; providing for the welfare of the aborigines with paternal solicitude; endeavouring to restrain and temper the passions of the conquerors ; building churches and founding schools and monasteries ; in a word, trying to make its colonies an integral part of the Spanish monarchy, "une soci6t6 vieille dans une contr6e neuve." Some Spanish writers, it is true, have exaggerated the virtues of their old colonial system ; yet that system had excellences which we cannot afford to despise. If the Spanish kings had not choked their government with procrastination and routine ; if they had only taken their task a bit less seriously and had not tried to apply too strictly to an empty continent the paternal administration of an older country ; we might have been privileged to witness the development and operation of as complete and benign a system of colonial government as has been devised in modern times. The public initiative 4 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY of the Spanish government, and the care • with which it selected its colonists, compare very favourably with the opportunism of the English and the French, who colonized by chance private activity and sent the worst elements of their population, criminals and vagabonds, to people their new settlements across the sea. However much we may deprecate the treatment of the Indians by the conquista- dores, we must not forget that the greater part of the population of Spanish America to-day is still Indian, and that no other colonizing people have succeeded like the Spaniards in assimilating and civili2ing the natives. The code of laws which the Spaniards gradually evolved for the rule of their transmarine provinces, was, in spite of defects which are visible only to the larger experience of the present day, one of the wisest, most humane and best- co-ordinated of any to this day published for any colony. Although the Spaniards had to deal with a large popula- tion of barbarous natives, the word " conquest " was sup- pressed in legislation as ill-sounding, " because the peace is to be sealed," they said, " not with the sound of arms, but with charity and good-will." ^ The actual results, however, of the social policy of the Spanish kings fell far below the ideals they had set for themselves. The monarchic spirit of the crown was so strong that it crushed every healthy, expansive tendency in the new countries. It burdened the colonies with a numerous, privileged nobility, who congregated mostly in the larger towns and set to the rest of the colonists a pernicious example of idleness and luxury. In its zeal for the propagation of the Faith, the Crown constituted ' "For caanto los pacificaciones no se ban de hacer con ruido de annas, sino con caridad y buen modo."— Recop. de leyes . . de las Indias, lib. vii. tit. I. 5 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES a powerfully endowed Church, which, while it did splendid service in converting and civilizing the natives, engrossed much of the land in the form of mainmort, and filled the new world with thousands of idle, unproductive, and ofteti licentious friars. With an innate distrust and fear of individual initiative, it gave virtual omnipotence to royal officials and excluded all Creoles from public employment. In this fashion was transferred to America the crushing jMlitical and ecclesiastical absolutism of the mother country. Self-reliance and independence of thought or action on the part of the Creoles was discouraged, divisions and factions among them were encouraged and educational opportunities restricted, and the American- born Spaniards gradually sank into idleness and lethargy, indifferent to all but childish honours and distinctions and petty local jealousies. To make matters worse, many of the Spaniards Who crossed the seas to the American colonies came not to colonize, not to trade or cultivate the soil, so much as to extract from the natives a tribute of gold and silver. The Indians, instead of being protected and civilized, were only too often reduced to serfdom and confined to a laborious routine for which they had neither the aptitude nor the strength ; while the government at home was too distant to interfere effectively in their behalf. Driven by cruel taskmasters they died by thousands from exhaustion and despair, and in some places entirely disappeared. The Crown of Castile, moreover, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sought to extend Spanish commerce and monopolize all the treasure of the Indies by means of a rigid and complicated commercial system. Yet in the end it saw the trade of the New World pass into the hands of its rivals, its own marine reduced to a 6 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY shadow of its fornjer strength, its crews arid its vessels supplied by merchants from' foreign lands, and its riches diverted at their very source. / This Spanish commercial system was based upon two distinct principles. One was the principle of cploniaL ex clusivism^ according to which all the tra de of ih&-~ colonies was to be reserved to t he mot her count ry. Spain on her side undertook to furnish the colonies with all they required, shipped upon Spanish vessels ; the colonies in return were to produce nothing but raw materials and articles which did not compete with the home products with which they were to be exchanged. The second principle was the nTrrrantiln dnrtri ne whirh , considering as wealth itself the precious metals which are but its symbol, l aid down__that money^ ought, hy every means possible, to be imgorted and hoardgd^.neyer exported." This latter theory, the fallacy of which has long been established, resulted in the endeavour of the Spanish Hapsburgs to conserve the wealth of the country, not by the encouragement of industry, but by the increase and complexity of imposts. The former doctrine, adopted by a non-producing country which was in no position to fulfil its part in the colonial compact, led to the most disastrous consequences. While the Spanish Crown was aiming to concentrate and monopolize its colonial commerce, the prosperity of Spain itself was slowly sapped by reason of these mis- taken economic theories. Owing to the lack of work- men, the increase of imposts, and the prejudice against the mechanic arts, industry was being ruined ; while the increased depopulation of the realm, the mainmort of ecclesiastical lands, the majorats of the nobility and ' Scelle, (Margry, op. cit., p. 192/). IS Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES to get silver, cochineal, leather and cocoa. The Margarita patache, meanwhile, had sailed on to Cumana and Caracas to receive there th6 king's treasure, mostly paid in cocoa, the real currency of the country, and thence proceeded to Cartagena to rejoin the galleons.' The fleet reached Cartagena ordinarily about two months after its departure from Cadiz. On its arrival, the general forwarded the news to Porto Bello, together with the packets destined for the viceroy at Lima. From Porto Bello a courier hastened across the isthmus to the President of Panama, who spread the advice amongst the merchants in his jurisdiction, and, at the same time, sent a dispatch boat to Payta, in Peru. The general of the galleons, meanwhile, was also sending a courier over- land to Lima, and another to Santa Fe, the capital of the interior province of New Granada, whence runners carried to Popagan, Antioquia, Mariguita, and adjacent provinces, the news of his arrival.* The galleons were instructed to remain at Cartagena only a month, but bribes from the merchants generally made it their interest to linger for fifty or sixty days. To Cartagena came the gold and emeralds of New Granada, the pearls of Margarita and Rancherias, and the indigo, tobacco, cocoa and other products of the Venezuelan coast. The merchants of Gautemala, likewise, shipped their commodities to Carta- gena by way of Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan river, for they feared to send goods across the Gulf of Honduras to Havana, because of the French and English buccaneers hanging about Cape San Antonio.^ ' Memoir of MM. Duhalde and de Rochefort to the French king, 1680 mules laden with wedges of silver, which were unloaded in the market-place and permitted to lie about like heaps of stones in the streets, without causing any fear or suspicion of being lost.' While the treasure of the King of Spain was being transferred to the galleons in the harbour, the merchants were making their trade. There was little liberty, however, in com- mercial transactions, for the prices were fixed and published beforehand, and when negotiations began ex- change was purely mechanical. The fair, which was Supposed to be open for forty days, was, in later times, generally completed in ten or twelve. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the volume of business trans- years later, describes th^ site as a waste. " Nombre de Dios," he says, "is now nothing but a name. For I have Iain ashore in the place where that City stood, but it is all overgrown with Wood, so as to have no sign that any Town hath been there." (Voyages, ed. 1906, i. p. 81.) ' Gage, ed. 1655, pp. 196-8. 18 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY acted was estimated to amount to thirty or forty million pounds sterling.' In view of the prevailing east wind in these regions, and the maze of reefs, cays and shoals extending far out to sea from the Mosquito Coast, the galleons, in making their course from Porto Bello to Havana, first sailed back to Cartagena upon the eastward coast eddy, so as to get well to windward of Nicaragua before attempting the passage through the Yucatan Channel.* The fleet anchored at Cartagena a second time for ten or twelve days, where it was rejoined by the patache of Margarita ' and by the merchant ships which had been sent to trade in Terra-Firma. From Cartagena, too, the general sent dispatches to Spain and to Havana, giving the condition of the vessels, the state of trade, the day when he expected to sail, and the probable time of arrival.* For when the galleons were in the Indies all ports were closed by the Spaniards, for fear that precious information of the whereabouts of the fleet and of the value of its cargo might inconveniently leak out to their rivals. From Cartagena the course was north-west past Jamaica and the Caymans to the Isle of Pines, and thence round Capes Corrientes and San Antonio to Havana. The fleet generally required about eight days for the journey, and arrived at Havana late in the summer. Here the galleons refitted and revictualfed, received tobacco, sugar, and other Cuban exports, and if not ordered to return with the Flota, sailed for Spain no later than the middle of September. The course for Spain was from Cuba through ' Scelle, op. cit., i. p. 65. ' Oppenheim, ii. p. 338. 3 When the Margarita patache failed to meet the galleons at Cartagena, it was given its clearance and allowed to sail alone to Havana— a tempting prey to buccaneers hovering in those seas. ■» Dohalde and de Rochefort. 19 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES the Bahama Channel, north-east between the Virginian Capes and the Bermudas to about 38°, in order to recover the strong northerly winds, and then east to the Azores. In winter the galleons sometimes ran south of the Ber- mudas, and then slowly worked up to the higher latitude ; but in this case they often either lost some ships on the Bermuda shoals, or to avoid these slipped too far south, were forced back into the West Indies and missed their voyage altogether.^ At the Azores the general, falling in with his first intelligence from Spain, learned where on the coast of Europe or Africa he was to sight land ; and finally, in the latter part of October or the beginning of November, he dropped anchor at San Lucar or in Cadiz harbour. The Flota or Mexican fleet, consisting in the seven- teenth century of two galleons of 800 or 900 tons and from fifteen to twenty merchantmen, usually left Cadiz between June and July and wintered in America; but if it was to return with the galleons from Havana in September it sailed for the Indies as early as April. The course from Spain to the Indies was the same as for the flpet of Terra-Firma, From Deseada or Guadeloupe, how- ever, the Flota steered north-west, passing Santa Cruz and Porto Rico on the north, and sighting the little isles of Mona and Saona, as far as the Bay of Neyba in Hispaniola, where the ships took on fresh wood and water.* Putting to sea again, and circling round Beata and Alta Vela, the fleet sighted in turn Cape Tiburon, Cape de Cruz, the Isle of Pines, and Capes Corrientes and San Antonio at the ' Rawl. MSS., A. 175, 313 b; Oppenheim, ii. p. 338. = Here I am following the MSS. quoted by Oppenheim (ii. pp. 335^). Instead of watering in Hispaniola, the fleet sometimes stopped at Dominica, or at Aguada in Porto Rico. 20 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY west end of Cuba. Meanwhile merchant ships had dropped away one by one, sailing to San Juan de Porto Rico, San Domingo, St. Jago de Cuba and even to Truxillo and Cavallos in Honduras, to carry orders from Spain to the governors, receive cargoes of leather, cocoa, etc., and rejoin the Flota at Havana. From Cape San Antonio to Vera Cruz there was an outside or winter route and an Inside or summer route. The former lay north-west between the Alacranes and the Negrillos to the Mexican coast about sixteen leagues north of Vera Cruz, and then down before the wind into the desired haven. The summer track was much closer to the shore of Campeache, the fleet threading its way among the cays and shoals, and approaching Vera Cruz by a channel on the south-east. If the Flota sailed from Spain in July it generally arrived at Vera Cruz in the first fifteen days of September, and the ships were at once laid up until March, when the crews reassembled to careen and refit them. If the fleet was to return in the same year, however, the exports of New Spain and adjacent provinces, the goods from China and the Philippines carried across Mexico from the Pacific port of Acapulco, and the ten or twelve millions of treasure for the king, were at once put on board and the ships departed to join the galleons at Havana. Otherwise the fleet sailed from Vera Cruz in April, and as it lay dead to the leeward of Cuba, used the northerly winds to about 25°, then steered south-east and reached Havana in eighteen or twenty days. By the beginning of June it was ready to sail for Spain, where it arrived at the end of July, by the same course as that followed by the galleons,' We are accustomed to think of Spanish commerce ■ Duhalde and de Rochefort. 21 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES with the Indies as being made solely by great fleets which sailed yearly from Seville or Cadiz to Mexico and the Isthmus of Darien. There were, however, always excep- tions to this rule. When, as sometimes happened, the Flota did not sail, two ships of 600 or 700 tons were sent by the King of Spain to Vera Cruz to carry the quick- silver necessary for the mines. The metal was divided between New Spain and Peru by the viceroy at Mexico, who sent via Gautemala the portion intended for the south. These ships, called "azogues," carried from 2000 to 2SCX) quintals^ of silver, and sometimes convoyed six or seven merchant vessels. From time to time an isolated ship was also allowed to sail from Spain to Caracas with licence from the Council of the Indies and the Contra- tacion, paying the king a duty of five ducats on the ton. It was called the "register of Caracas," took the same route as the galleons, and returned with one of the fleets from Havana. Similar vessels traded at Maracaibo, in Porto Rico and at San Domingo, at Havana and Matanzas in Cuba and at Truxillo and Campeache.* There was always, moreover, a special traffic with Buenos Ayres. This port was opened to a limited trade in negroes in 1595. In 1602 permission was given to the inhabitants of La Plata to export for six years the products of their lands to other Spanish possessions, in exchange for goods of which they had need ; and when in 16 16 the colonists demanded an indefinite renewal of this privilege, the sop thrown to them was the bare right of trade to the amount of 100 tons every three years. Later in the century the Council of the Indies extended ' Quintal = about lOO pounds. = These " vaisseaux de registre " were supposed not to exceed 300 tons, but through fraud were often double that burden. 22 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY the period to five years, so as not to prejudice the trade of the galleons.' It was this commerce, which we have noticed at such length, that the buccaneers of the West Indies in the seventeenth century came to regard as their legitimate prey. These "corsarios Luteranos," as the Spaniards sometimes called them, scouring the coast of the Main from Venezuela to Cartagena, hovering about the broad channel between Cuba and Yucatan, or prowling in the Florida Straits, became the nightmare of Spanish seamen. Like a pack of terriers they hung upon the skirts of the great unwieldy fleets, ready to snap up, any unfortunate vessel which a tempest or other accident had separated from its fellows. When Thomas Gage was sailing in the galleons from Porto Bello to Cartagena in 1637, four buccaneers hovering near them carried away two merchant- ships under cover of darkness. As the same fleet was departing from Havana, just outside the harbour two strange vessels appeared in their midst, and getting to the windward of them singled out a Spanish ship which had strayed a short distance from the rest, suddenly gave her a broadside and made her yield. The vessel was laden with sugar and other goods to the value of 8o,cxx) crowns. The Spanish vice-admiral and two other galleons gave chase, but without success, for the wind was against them. The whole action lasted only half an hour.* The Spanish ships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were notoriously clumsy and unseaworthy. With short keel and towering poop and forecastle they were an easy prey for the long, low, close-sailing sloops ■ Duhalde and de Rochefort ; Scelle, op. eit., i. p. 54. = Gsige,ed. 1655, pp. 199-200. 23 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES and barques of the buccaneers. But this was not their only weakness. Although the king expressly prohibited the loading of merchandise on the galleons except on the king's account, this rule was often broken for the private profit of the captain, the sailors, and even of the general. The men-of-war, indeed, were sometimes so embarrassed with goods and passengers that it was scarcely possible to defend them when attacked. The galleon which bore the general's flag had often as many as 700 souls, crew, marines and passengers, on board, and the same number were crowded upon those carrying the vice-admiral and the pilot. Ship-masters frequently hired guns, anchors, cables, and stores to make up the required equipment, and men to fill up the muster-rolls, against the time when the " visitadors " came on board to make their official inspection, getting rid of the stores and men immediately afterward. Merchant ships were armed with such feeble crews, owing to the excessive crowding, that it was all they could do to withstand the least spell of bad weather, let alone outmanoeuvre a swift-sailing buccaneer.' By Spanish law strangers were forbidden to resort to, Aor reside in, the Indies without express permission of the I king. By law, moreover, they might not trade with the Indies from Spain, either on their own account or through the intermediary of a Spaniard, and they were forbidden even to associate with those engaged in such a trade. Colonists were stringently enjoined from having anything to do with them. In 1569 an order was issued for the seizure of all goods sent to the colonies on the account of foreigners, and a royal cedula of 16 14 decreed the penalty of death and confiscation upon any who connived at the ' Dahalde and de Rochefoit ; Oppenheim, ii. p. 318. 24 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY participation of foreigners in Spanish colonial commerce/ It was impossible, however, to maintain so complete an ejcclusion when the products of Spain fell far short of supplying the needs of the colonists. Foreign merchants were bound to have a hand in this traffic, and the Spanish government tried to recompense itself by imposing on the out-going cargoes tyrannical exactions called "indults." The results were fatal. Foreigners often eluded these impositions by interloping in the West Indies and in the South Sea.^ And as the Contratacion, by fixing each year the nature and quantity of the goods to be shipped to the colonies, raised the price of merchandise at will and reaped enormous profits, the colonists welcomed this contraband trade as an opportunity of enriching them- selves and adding to the comforts and luxuries of living. From the beginning of the seventeenth century as many as 200 ships sailed each year from Portugal with rich cargoes of silks„ cloths and woollens intended for Spanish America.^ The Portuguese bought these articles of the Flemish, English, and French, loaded them at Lisbon and Oporto, ran their vessels to Brazil and up the La Plata as far as navigation permitted, and then trans- ported the goods overland through Paraguay and Tucuman to Potosi and even to Lima. The Spanish merchants of Peru kept factors in Brazil as well as in Spain, and as » Scelle, op. cit., i. p. 45 ; Recop., t. i. lib. iii. tit. viii. ^ There seems to have been a contraband trade carried on at Cadiz itself. Foreign merchants embarked their goods upon the galleons directly from their own vessels in the harbour, without registering them with the Con- tratacion ; and on the return of the fleets received the price of their goods in ingots of gold and silver by the same fraud. It is scarcely possible that this was done Avithout the tacit authorization of the Council of the Indies at Madrid, for if the Council had insisted upon a rigid execution of the laws regarding r^istration, detection would have been inevitable. 3 Weiss, op. cit., ii. p. 226. 25 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES Portuguese imposts were not so excessive as those levied at Cadiz and Seville, the Portuguese could undersell their Spanish rivals. The frequent possession of Assientos by the Portuguese and Dutch in the first half of the seven- teenth century also facilitated this contraband, far when carrying negroes from Africa to Hispaniola, Cuba and the towns on the Main, they profited by their opportunities to sell merchandise also, and generally without the least obstacle. Other nations in the seventeenth century were not slow to follow the same course ; and two circumstances con- tributed to make that course easy. One was the great length of coast line on both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes over which a surveillance had to be exercised, making it difficult to catch the interlopers. The other was the venal connivance of the governors of the ports, who often tolerated and even encouraged the traffic on the plea that the colonists demanded it.' The subterfuges adopted by the interlopers were very simple. When a vessel wished to enter a Spanish port to trade, the captain, pretending that provisions had run low, or that the ship suffered from a leak or a broken mast, sent a polite note to the governor accompanied by a considerable gift. He generally obtained permission to enter, unload, and put the ship into ' Most of the offices in the Spanish Indies were venal. No one obtained a post without paying dearly for it, except the viceroys of Mexico and Peru, who were grandees, and received their places through favour at court. The governors of the ports, and the presidents of the Audiencias established at Panama, San Domingo, and Gautemala, bought their posts in Spain. The offices in the interior were in the gift of the viceroys and sold to the highest bidder. Although each port had three corregidors who audited the finances, as they also paid for their places, they connived with the governors. The consequence was inevitable. Each official during his tenure of office ex- pected to recover his initial outlay, and amass a small fortune besides. So not only were the bribes of interlopers acceptable, but the officials often them- selves bought and sold the contraband articles. 26 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY a seaworthy condition. All the formalities were minutely observed. The unloaded goods were shut up in a store- house, and the doors sealed. But there was always found another door unsealed, and by this they abstracted the goods during the night, and substituted coin or bars of gold and silver. When the vessel was repaired to the captain's satisfaction, it was reloaded and sailed away. There was also, especially on the shores of the Caribbean Sea, a less elaborate commerce called "sloop- trade," for it was usually managed by sloops which hovered near some secluded spot on the coast, often at the mouth of a river, and informed the inhabitants of their presence in the neighbourhood by firing a shot from a cannon. Sometimes a large ship filled with merchandise was stationed in a bay close at hand, and by means of these smaller craft made its trade with the colonists. The latter, generally in disguise, came off in canoes by night. The interlopers, however, were always on guard against such dangerous visitors, and never admitted more than a few at a time ; for when the Spaniards found themselves stronger than the crew, and a favourable opportunity presented itself, they rarely failed to attempt the vessel. Thus the Spaniards of the seventeenth century, by persisting, both at home and in "their colonies, in an ecofioimc'^pol Jcy^vKTcTT was fatally" inconsistent"" wit'k "their powers'arTd resources, saw tIieir"commerce gr-adually iCextiriguished by. the ships of the foreign interloper; and their tropical possessions fajl.jj„prey to_ marauding banSs of half-piratical buccaneers Although struggling under tremendous initial disabilities in Europe, they had attempted, upon the slender pleas of prior discovery and papal investiture, to reserve half the world to themselves. Withost a marine, without maritime tradi- 27 Digitized by Microsoft® ;■* BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES tions, they sought to hold a colonial empire greater than any the world had yet seen, and comparable only with thp empire of Great Britain three centuries later. By discouraging industry in Spain, and yet enforcing in the colonies an absolute commercial dependence on the home-country, by combining in their rule of distant America a solicitous paternalism with a restriction of initiative altogether disastrous in its consequences, the Spaniards succeeded in reducing their colonies to political impotence. And when, to make their grip the more firm, they evolved, as a method of outwitting the foreigner of his spoils, the system of great fleets and single ports of call, they found the very means they had contrived for their own safety to be the instrument of commercial disaster. II. — THE FREEBOOTERS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY It was the French chronologist, Scaliger, who in the sixteenth century asserted, "nulli melius piraticam exercent quam Angli " ; and although he had no need to cross the Channel to find men proficient in this primitive calling, the remark applies to the England of his time with a force which we to-day scarcely realise. Certainly the inveterate hostility with which the English- man learned to regard the Spaniard in the latter half of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth centuries found its most remarkable expression in the exploits of the Elizabethan "sea-dogs" and of the buccaneers of a later period. The religious differences and political jealousies which grew out of the turmoil of the Reformation, and the moral anarchy incident to the dissolution of ancient religious institutions, were the Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY motive causes for an outburst of piratical activity comparable only with the professional piracy of the Barbary States, Even as far back as the thirteenth century, indeed, lawless sea-rovers, mostly Bretons and Flemings, had infested the English Channel and the seas about Great Britain. In the sixteenth this mode of livelihood became the refuge for numerous young Englishmen, Catholic and Protestant, who, fleeing from the persecu- tions of Edward VI. and of Mary, sought refuge in French ports or in the recesses of the Irish coast, and became the leaders of wild roving bands living chiefly upon plunder. Among them during these persecutions vrere found many men belonging to the best families in England, and although with the accession of Elizabeth most of the leaders returned to the service of the State, the pirate crews remained at their old trade. The contagion spread, especially in the western counties, and great numbers of fishermen who found their old employment profitless were recruited into this new calling.* At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign we find these Anglo-Irish pirates venturing farther south, plundering treasure galleons off the coast of Spain, and cutting vessels out of the very ports of the Spanish king. Such outr^es of course provoked reprisals, and the pirates, if caught, were sent to the galleys, rotted in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or, least of all, were burnt in the plaza at Valladolid. These cruelties only added fuel to a deadly hatred which was kindling between the two nations, a hatred which it took one hundred and fifty years to quench. The most venturesome of these sea-rovers, however, ' Froude : History of England, viii. p. 436# 29 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES were soon attracted to a larger and more distant sphere of activity. Spain, as we have seen, was then endeavour- ing to reserve to herself in the western hemisphere an entire new world; and this at a time when the great northern maritime powers, France, England and Holland, were in the full tide of economic development, restless with new thoughts, hopes and ambitions, and keenly- jealous of new commercial and industrial outlets. The famous Bull of Alexander VI. had provoked Francis I. to express a desire "to see the clause in Adam's will which entitled his brothers of Castile and Portugal to divide the New World between them," and very early the French corsairs had been encouraged to test the pre- tensions of the Spaniards by the time-honoured proofs of fire and steel. The English nation, however, in the first half of the sixteenth century, had not disputed with Spain her exclusive trade and dominion in those regions. The hardy mariners of the north were still indifferent to the wonders of a new continent awaiting their exploitation, and it was left to the Spaniards to unfold before the eyes of Europe the vast riches of America, and to found empires on the plateaus of Mexico and beyond the Andes. During the reign of Philip II. all this was changed. English privateers began to extend their ojperations w^gtwanlTlinTlJr^aprthe'Wry'sources of "S^nish wealth diftd power, while the wars which abiorbed the attention of the Spaniards in Europe, from the jcevolt of the I,ow i^owntfies to the Treaty of W^'^^P^^^^?- ^^f*. the field clear for" these" ul^uitaj^^^^ea-rovers. ■'The maritime powers, altiietrfKobliged by the SKeory of colonial exclusion to pretend to acquiesce in the Spaniard's claim to tropical America, secretly protected and supported their mariners who coursed those western seas. France and England 30 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY were now jealous and fearful of Spanish predominance in Europe, and kept eyes obstinately fixed on the in- exhaustible streams of gold and silver by means of which Spain was enabled to pay her armies and man her fleets. Queen Elizabeth, while she publicly excused or disavowed to Philip II. the outrages committed by Hawkins and Drake, blaming the turbulence of the times and promising to do her utmost to suppress the disorders, was secretly one of the principal shareholders in their enterprises. The policy of the marauders was simple. The treasure which oiled the machinery of Spanish policy came from the Indies where it was accumulated ; hence there were only two means of obtaining possession of it : — bold raids on the ill-protected American continent, and the capture of vessels en route} The counter policy of the Spaniards was also two-fold : — on the one hand, the establishment of commerce by means of annual fleets protected by a powerful convoy ; on the other, the removal of the centres of population from the coasts to the interior of the country far from danger of attack.^ The Spaniards in America, however, proved to be no match for the bold, intrepid mariners who disputed their supremacy. The descendants of the Conquistadores had deteriorated sadly from the type of their forbears. Softened by tropical heats and a crude, uncultured luxury, they seem to have lost initiative and power of resistance. The disastrous ' 1585, AngDSt I2tb. Ralph Lane to Sir Philip Sidney. Port Ferdinando, Virginia. — He has discovered the infinite riches of St. John (Porto Rico ?) and Hispaniola by dwelling on the islands five weeks. He thinks that if the Queen finds herself burdened with the King of Spain, to attempt them would be most honourable, feasible and profitable. He exhorts him not to refuse this good opportunity of rendering so great a service to the Church of Christ. The strength of the Spaniards doth altogether grow from the mines of her treasure. Extract, C.S.P.Colon., 1574- 1660. ' Scelle, op. cit. , ii. p. xiii. 31 Digitized by Microsoft® / BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES commercial system of monopoly and centralization forced them to vegetate ; while the policy of confining political office to native-born Spaniards denied any outlet to Creole talent and energy. Moreover, the productive power and administrative abilities of the native-bom Spaniards themselves were gradually being paralyzed and reduced to impotence under the crushing obligation of preserving and defending so unwieldy an empire and of managing such disproportionate riches, a task for which they had neither the aptitude nor the means.' Privateering in the West Indies may indeed be regarded as a challenge to the Spaniards of America, sunk in lethargy and living upon the credit of past glory and achievement, a challenge to prove their right to retain their dominion and extend their civilization and culture over half the world,^ There were other motives which lay behind these piratical aggressions of the French and English in Spanish America. The Spaniards, ever since the days of the Dominican monk and bishop, Las Casas, had been re- probated as the heartless oppressors and murderers of the native Indians. The original owners of the soil had been dispossessed and reduced to slavery. In the West Indies, the great islands, Cuba and Hispaniola, were rendered desolate for want of inhabitants. Two great empires, Mexico and Peru, had been subdued by treachery, their kings murdered, and their people made to suffer a ' Scelle, op. cit. , i. p. ix. ' 1611, February 28. Sir Thos. Roe to Salisbury. Port d'Espaigne, Trinidad. — He has seen more of the coast from the River Amazon to the Orinoco than any other Englishman alive. The Spaniards here are proud and insolent, yet needy and weak, their force is reputation, their safety is opinion. The Spaniards treat the English worse than Moors. The govern- ment is lazy and has more skill in planting and selling tobacco than in erecting colonies and marching armies. Extract, C.S. P. Colon., 1574-1660. (Koe was sent by Prince Henry upon a voyage of discovery to the Indies.) 32 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY living death in the mines of Potosi and New Spain. Such was the Protestant Englishman's conception, in the sixteenth century, of the results of Spanish colonial policy. To avenge the blood of these innocent victims, and teach the true religion to the survivors, was to glorify the Church militant and strike a blow at Antichrist. Spain, more- over, in the eyes of the Puritans, was the lieutenant of Rome, the Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse, who harried and burnt their Protestant brethren whenever she could lay hands upon them. That she was eager to repeat her ; ill-starred attempt of 1588 and introduce into the British ; ^sles the accursed Inquisition was patent to everyone. I Protestant England, therefore, filled with the enthusiasm \ and intolerance of a new faith, made no bones of despoiling * the Spaniards, especially as the service of God was likely \ to be repaid with plunder. / A pamphlet written by Dalbv Thoma s in 1690 ex- presses with tolerable accuracy the attitude of the average Englishman toward Spain during the previous century.' He says : — " We will make a short reflection on the unaccountable negligence, or rather stupidity, of this nation, during the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Queen Mary, who could contentedly sit still and see the Spanish rifle, plunder and bring home * undisturbed, all the wealth of that golden world ; and to suffer them with forts and castles to shut up the doors and entrances unto all the rich provinces of America, having not the least title or pretence of right beyond any other nation; except that of being by accident the first dis- coverer of some parts of it; where the unprecedented cruelties, exorbitances and barbarities, their own histories witness, they practised on a poor, naked and innocent people, which inhabited the islands, as well as upon those 3 33 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES truly civilized and mighty empires of Peru and Mexico, called to all mankind for succour and relief against their outrageous avarice and horrid massacres. . . . (We) slept on until the ambitious Spaniard, by that inexhaustible spring of treasure, had corrupted most of the courts and senates of Europe, and had set on fire, by civil broils and discords, all our neighbour nations, or had subdued them to his yoke ; contriving too to make us wear his chains and bear a share in the triumph of universal monarchy, not only projected but near accomplished, when Queen Elizabeth came to the crown . . . and to the divided interests of Philip II. and Queen Elizabeth, in personal more than National concerns, we do owe that start of hers in letting loose upon him, and encouraging those daring adventurers, Drake, Hawkins, Rawleigh, the Lord Clifford and many other braves that age produced, who, by their privateering and bold undertaking (like those the buccaneers practise) now opened the way to our dis- coveries, and succeeding settlements in America."' On the 19th of Novembsfi527^^s^e Spaniards in a caravel loading cassava at Hhe Isle of Mona, between Hispaniola and Porto Rico, sighted a strange vessel of about 250 tons well-armed with cannon, and believing it to be a ship from Spain sent a boat to make inquiries. The new-comers at the same time were seen to launch a pinnace carrying some twenty-five men, all armed with corselets and bows. As the two boats approached the Spaniards inquired the nationality of the strangers and were told that they were English. The story given by the English master was that his ship and another had ' " An historical account of the rise and growth of the West India Colonies." By Dalby Thomas, Lond., 1690. (Harl. Miscell., 1808, II. 357-) 34 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY been fitted out by the King of England and had sailed from London to discover the land of the Great Khan ; that they had been separated in a great storm ; that this ship afterwards ran into a sea of ice, and unable to get through, turned south, touched at Bacallaos (Newfound- land), where the pilot was killed by Indians, and sailing 400 leagues along the coast of "terra nueva" had found her way to this island of Porto Rico. The Englishmen offered to show their commission written in Latin and Romance, which the Spanish captain could not read ; and after sojourning at the island for two days, they inquired for the route to Hispaniola and sailed away. On the evening of 25th November this same vessel appeared before the port of San Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola, where the master with ten or twelve sailors went ashore in a boat to ask leave to enter and trade. This they obtained, for the alguazil mayor and two pilots were sent back with them to bring the ship into port. But early next morning, when they approached the shore, the Spanish alcaide, Francisco de Tapia, commanded a gun to be fired at the ship from the castle; whereupon the English, seeing the reception accorded them, sailed back to Porto Rico, there obtained some provisions in exchange for pewter and cloth, and departed for Europe, " where it is believed that they never arrived, for nothing is known of them." The alcaide, says Herrera, was imprisoned by the oidores, because he did not, instead of driving the ship away, allow her to enter the port, whence she could not have departed without the permission of the city and the fort.' ' Oviedo : Historia general de las Indias, lib. xix. cap. xiii. ; ColeccionJ de docnmentos . . . de ultratnar, torn. iv. p. 57 (deposition of the Spanish captain at the Isle of Mona) ; Pacheco, etc. : Coleccion de 35 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES This is the earliest record we possess of the appearance of an English ship in the waters of Spanish America. Others, however, soon followed. In 1530 William Hawkins, father of the famous John Hawkins, ventured in "a tall and goodly ship . . . called the 'Polo of Pl3miouth,' " down to the coast of Guinea, trafficked with the natives for gold-dust and ivory, and then crossed the ocean to Brazil, " where he behaved himself so wisely with those savage people " that one of the kings of the country took ship with him to England and was presented to Henry VHI. at Whitehall.* The real occasion, however, for the appearance of foreign ships in Spanish-American waters was the new occupation of carrying negroes from the African coast to the Spanish colonies to be sold as slaves. The rapid depopulation of the Indies, and the really serious concern of the Spanish crown for the preservation of the indigenes, had compelled the Spanish government to permit the introduction of negro slaves from an early period. At first restricted to Christian slaves carried from Spain, after 1510 licences to take over a certain number, subject of course to governmental imposts, were given to private individuals ; and in August 1518, owing to the incessant clamour of the colonists for more negroes, Laurent de Gouvenot, Governor of Bresa and one of the foreign favourites of documentos ... de las posesiones espanoles en America y Oceania, torn, xl. p. 305 (cross-examination of witnesses by officers of the Royal Audiencia in San Domingo just after the visit of the English ship to that place) ; English Historical Review, XX. p. 115. The Ship is identified with the " Samson " dispatched by Henry VIH. in 1527 "with divers cunning men to seek strange regions," which sailed from the Thames on 20th May in company with the " Mary of Guildford," was lost by her consort in a storm on the night of 1st July, and was believed to have foundered with all on board. (Ibid.) ' Hakluyt, ed. 1600, HI. p. 700 ; Froude, op. cit., viii. p. 427. 36 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY Charles V., obtained the first regular contract to carry 4000 slaves directly from Africa to the West Indies.' With slight modifications the contract system became permanent, and with it, as a natural consequence, came contraband trade. Cargoes of negroes were frequently " run " from Africa by Spaniards and Portuguese, and as early as 1506 an order was issued to expel all contraband slaves from Hispaniola." The supply never equalled the demand, however, and this explains why John Hawkins found it so profitable to carry ship- loads of blacks across from the Guinea coast, and why Spanish colonists could not resist the temptation to buy them, not- withstanding the stringent laws against trading with foreigners. "'~ \ The first voyage of John Hawkins was made in 1562- 63. In conjunction with Thomas Hampton he fitted out three vessels and sailed for Sierra Leone. There he collected, "partly by the sword and partly by other means," some 300 negroes, and with this valuable human freight crossed the Atlantic to San Domingo in Hispaniola. Uncertain as to his reception, Hawkins on his arrival pretended that he had been driven in by foul weather, and was in need of provisions, but without ready money to pay for them. He therefore requested per- mission to sell "certain slaves he had with him." The opportunity was eagerly welcomed by the planters, and the governor, not thinking it necessary to construe his orders from home too stringently, allowed two-thirds of the cargo to be sold. As neither Hawkins nor the Spanish colonists anticipated any serious displeasure on the part of Philip II., the remaining 100 slaves were left as a ' Scelle., op. cit., i. pp. 123-25, 139-61. ' Colecc. de doc. . . . de ultramar, torn. vi. p. 15. 37 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES deposit with the Council of the island. Hawkins invested the proceeds in a return cargo of hides, half of which he sent in Spanish vessels to Spain under the care of his partner, while he returned with the rest to England. The Spanish Government, however, was not going to sanction for a moment the intrusion of the English into the Indies, On Hampton's arrival at Cadiz his cargo was confiscated and he himself narrowly escaped the Inquisi- tion. The slaves left in San Domingo were forfeited, and Hawkins, although he " cursed, threatened and implored," could not obtain a farthing for his lost hides and negroes. The only result of his demands was the dispatch of a peremptory order to the West Indies that no English vessel should be allowed under any pretext to trade there.' The second of the great Elizabethan sea-captains to beard the Spanish lion was Hawkins' friend and pupil, Francis Drake. In 1567 he accompanied Hawkins on his third expedition. With six ships, one of which was lent by the Queen herself, they sailed from Plymouth in October, picked up about 450 slaves on the Guinea coast, sighted Dominica in the West Indies in March, and coasted along the mainland of South America past Margarita and Cape de la Vela, carrying on a " tolerable good trade." Rio de la Hacha they stormed with 200 men, losing only two in the encounter; but they were scattered by a tempest near Cartagena and driven into the Gulf of Mexico, where, on i6th September, they entered the narrow port of S. Juan d'Ulloa or Vera Cruz. The next day the fleet of New Spain, consisting of thirteen large ships, appeared outside, and after an exchange of pledges of peace and amity with the English ' Fronde, op. cii., viii. pp. 470-72. 38 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY intruders, entered on the 20th. On the morning of the 24th, however, a fierce encounter was begun, and Hawkins and Drake, stubbornly defending themselves against tremendous odds, were glad to escape with two shattered vessels and the loss of ;^icx),ooo treasure. After a voyage of terrible suffering, Drake, in the "Judith," succeeded in reaching England on 20th January 1569, and Hawkins followed five days later.' Within a few years, however, Drake was away again, this time alone and with the sole, unblushing purpose of robbing the Dons, With only two ships and seventy -three men he prowled about the waters of the West Indies for almost a year, capturing and rifling Spanish vessels, plundering towns on the Main and intercepting convoys of treasure across the Isthmus of Darien. In 1577 he sailed on the voyage which carried him round the world, a feat for which he was knighted, promoted to the rank of admiral, and visited by the Queen on board his ship, the " Golden Hind." While Drake was being feted in London as the hero of the hour, Philip of Spain from his cell in the Escorial must have execrated these English sea-rovers whose visits brought ruin to his colonies and menaced the safety of his treasure galleons. In the autumn of 1585 Drake was again in command of a formidable armament intended against the West Indies. Supported by 2000 troops under General Carleill, and by Martin Frpbisher and Francis Knollys in the fleet, he took and plundered San Domingo, and after occupying Cartagena for six weeks ransomed the city for 110,000 ducats. This fearless old Elizabethan sailed from Plymouth on his last voyage in August 1595. Though under the joint command of Drake and Hawkins, the ' Corbett : Drake and the Tudor Navy, I, ch. 3, 39 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES expedition seemed doomed to disaster throughout its course. One vessel, the " Francis," fell into the hands of the Spaniards, While the fleet was passing through the Virgin Isles, Hawkins fell ill and died. A desperate attack was made on S. Juan de Porto Rico, but the English, after losing forty or fifty men, were compelled to retire. Drake then proceeded to the Main, where in turn he captured and plundered Rancherias, Rio de la Hacha, Santa Marta and Nombre de Dios. With 750 soldiers he made a bold attempt to cross the isthmus tp the city of Panama, but turned back after the loss of eighty or ninety of his followers. A few days later, on 15th January 1596, he too fell ill, died on the 28th, and was buried in a leaden coffin off the coast of Darien.' Hawkins and Drake, however, were by no means the only English privateers of that century in American waters. Names like Oxenham, Grenville, Raleigh and Clifford, and others of lesser fame, such as Winter, Knollys and Barker, helped to swell the roll of these Elizabethan sea-rovers. To many a gallant sailor the Caribbean Sea was a happy hunting-ground where he might indulge at his pleasure any propensities to lawless adventure. If in 1588 he had helped to scatter the Invincible Armada, he now pillaged treasure ships on the coasts of the Spanish Main ; if he had been with Drake to flout his Catholic Majesty at Cadiz, he now closed with the Spaniards within their distant cities beyond the seas. Thus he lined his own pockets with Spanish doubloons, and incidentally curbed Philip's power of invading England. Nor must we think these mariners the same as the lawless buccaneers of a later period. The men of this generation were of a ' Corbett: Drake and the Tudor Navy, II. chs. i, 2, 11. 40 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY sterner and more fanatical mould, men who for their wildest acts often claimed the sanction of religious con- victions. Whether they carried off the heathen from Africa, or plundered the fleets of Romish Spain, they were but entering upon "the heritage of the saints." Judged by the standards of our own century they were pirates and freebooters, but in the eyes of their fellow- countrymen their attacks upon the Spaniards seemed fair and honourable. The last of the great privateering voyages for which Drake had set the example was the armament which Lord George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, sent against Porto Rico in 1598. The ill-starred expeditions of Raleigh to Guiana in 1595 and again in 1617 belong rather to the history of exploration and colonization. Clifford, " courtier, gambler and buccaneer," having run through a great part of his very considerable fortune, had seized the opportunity offered him by the plunder of the Spanish colonies to re-coup himself; and during a period of twelve years, from 1586 to 1598, almost every year fitted out, and often himself commanded, an expedition against the Spaniards. In his last and most ambitious effort,. in 1598, he equipped twenty vessels entirely at his own cost, sailed from Plymouth in March, and on 6th June laid siege to the city of San Juan, which he proposed to clear of Spaniards and establish as an English stronghold. Although ihe place was captured, the expedition proved a fiasco. A violent sickness broke out among the troops, and as Clifford had already sailed away with some of the ships to Flores to lie in wait for the treasure fleet. Sir Thomas Berkeley, who was left in command in Porto Rico, abandoned the island and returned to rejoin the Earl.' ' Corbett : The Successors of Drake, ch. x. 41 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES The English in the sixteenth century, however, had no monopoly of this piratical game. The French did some- thing in their own way, and the Dutch were not far behind. Indeed, the French may claim to have set the €xample for the Elizabethan freebooters, for in the first half of the sixteenth century privateers flocked to the Spanish Indies from Dieppe, Brest and the towns of the Basque coast. The gleam of the golden lingots of Peru, and the pale lights of the emeralds from the mountains of New Granada, exercised a hypnotic influence not only on ordinary seamen but on merchants and on seignpurs with depleted fortunes. Names like Jean Terrier, Jacques Sore and Frangois le Clerc, the latter popularly called " Pie de Palo," or " wooden-leg," by the Spaniards, were as detest- able in Spanish ears as those of the great English captains. Even before 1 500 French corsairs hovered about Cape St Vincent and among the Azores and the Canaries ; and their prowess and audacity were so feared that Columbus, on returning from his third voyage in 1498, declared that he had sailed for the island of Madeira by a new route to avoid meeting a French fleet which was awaiting him near St Vincent.' With the establishment of the system of armed convoys, however, and the presence of Spanish fleets on the coast of Europe, the corsairs suffered some painful reverses which impelled them to transfer their operations to American waters. Thereafter Spanish records are full of references to attacks by Frenchmen on Havana, St. Jago de Cuba, San Domingo and towns on ' Marcel : Les corsaires fran9ais au XVIe siecle, p. 7. As early as 1501 a Toyal ordinance in Spain prescribed the constrnction of carracks to pursue the privateers, and in 1513 royal cedutas were sent to the officials of the Casa de Contratttcion ordering them to send two caravels to guard the coasts of Cuba and protect Spanish navigation from the assaults of French corsairs. {Ibid., p. 8). 42 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY the mainland of South and Central America; full of appeals, too, from the colonies to the neglectful authorities in Spain, urging them to send artillery, cruisers and munitions of war for their defence.' A letter dated 8th April 1537, written by Gonzalo de Guzman to the Empress, furnishes us with some interest- ing details of the exploits of an anonymous French corsair in that year. In November 1536 this Frenchman had seized in the port of Chagre, on the Isthmus of Darien, a Spanish vessel laden with horses from San Domingo, had cast the cargo into the sea, put the crevy^ on shore and sailed away with his prize. A month or two later he appeared off the coast of Havana and dropped anchor in a small bay a few leagues from the city. As there were then five Spanish ships lying in the harbour, the inhabit- ants compelled the captains to attempt the seizure of the pirate, promising to pay for the ships if they were lost. Three vessels of 200 tons each sailed out to the attack, and for several days they fired at the French corsair, which, being a patache of light draught, had run up the bay beyond their reach. Finally one morning the Frenchmen were seen pressing with both sail and oar to escape from the port. A Spanish vessel cut her cables to follow in pursuit, but encountering a heavy sea and contrary winds was abandoned by her crew, who made for shore in boats. The other two Spanish ships were deserted in similar fashion, whereupon the French, observing this new turn of affairs, re-entered the bay and easily recovered the three drifting vessels. Two of the prizes they burnt, and arming the third sailed away to cruise in the Florida ' Colecc. de doc . . . de ultramar, tomos i., iv., vi. ; Duc^r^ : Les corsaires sous I'ancien regime. Append. II. ; Dure, op. cit, i. Append. XIV. 43 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES straits, in the route of ships returning from the West Indies to Spain.' The corsairs, however, were not always so uniformly- successful. A band of eighty, who attempted to plunder the town of St. Jago de Cuba, were repulsed with some loss by a certain Diego Perez of Seville, captain of an armed merchant ship then in the harbour, who later petitioned for the grant of a coat-of-arms in recognition of his services.* In October 1544 six French vessels attacked the town of Santa Maria de los Remedios, near Cape de la Vela, but failed to take it in face of the stubborn resistance of the inhabitants. Yet the latter a few months earlier had been unable to preserve their homes from pillage, and had been obliged to flee to La Granjeria de las Perlas on the Rio de la Hacha.^ There is small wonder, indeed, that the defenders were so rarely victori- ous. The Spanish towns were ill-provided with forts and gims, and often entirely without ammunition or any regular soldiers. The distance between the settlements as a rule was great, and the inhabitants, as soon as informed of the presence of the enemy, knowing that they had no means of resistance and little hope of succour, left their homes to the mercy of the freebooters and fled to the hills and woods with their families and most precious belongings. Thus when, in October 1554, another band of three hundred French privateers swooped down upon the unfortunate town of St. Jago de Cuba, they were able to hold it for thirty days, and plundered it to the value of 80,000 pieces of eight.* The following year, however, witnessed an even more remarkable action. In July 1555 the celebrated ' Colecc. de doc. . . . de ultramar, torn vi. p. 22. = Ibid., p. 23. ' Marcel, op. cit., p. i6. * Colecc. de doc. . . . de ultramar, torn. vi. p. 360. 44 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY captain, Jacques Sore, landed two hundred men from a caravel a half-league from the city of Havana, and before daybreak marched on the town and forced the surrender of the castle. The Spanish governor had time to retire to the country, where he gathered a small force of Spaniards and negroes, and returned to surprise the French by night. Fifteen or sixteen of the latter were killed, and Sore, who himself was wounded, in a rage gave orders for the massacre of all the prisoners. He burned the cathedral and the hospital, pillaged the houses and razed most of the city to the ground. After transferring all the artillery to his vessel, he made several forays into the country, burned a few plantations, and finally sailed away in the beginning of August. No record remains of the amount of the booty, but it must have been enormous. To fill the cup of bitterness for the poor inhabitants, on 4th October there appeared on the coast another French ship, which had learned of Sore's visit and of the helpless state of the Spaniards. Several hundred men disembarked, sacked a few plantations neglected by their predecessors, tore down or burned the houses which the Spaniards had begun to rebuild, and seized a caravel loaded with leather which had recently entered the harbour.' It is true that during these years there was almost constant war in Europe between the Emperor and France ; yet this does not entirely explain the activity of the French privateers in Spanish America, for we find them busy there in the years when peace reigned at home. Once unleash the sea-dogs and it was extremely difficult to bring them again under restraint. With the seventeenth century began a new era in the history of the West Indies, If in the sixteenth the ' Colecc. de doc. . . . de ultramar, torn. ti. p. 360. 45 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES E nglish French and DutchjaJIie^to tropical America as piraticafintrn ciei v hTttfse as and countries-which-bfelonged tirotlTersrrfrtfiefollowing century fliey-rarfiSasp^manent -^0knri5ergand-«ettI&t&;-^-Jii&'& p M iiffir d«f=»d^ the , whole i^ng- of the West Indian islands before 1500, from the beginning neglected the lesser for the larger Antilles— Cuba, Hispaniola, Porto Rico and Jamaica — and for those islands like Trinidad, which lie close to the mainland. And when in 15 19 Cortez sailed from Cuba for the conquest of Mexico, and twelve years later Pizarro entered Peru, the emigrants who left Spain to seek their fortunes in the New World flocked to the vast territories which the Conquistadors^ and their lieutenants had subdued on the Continent. / It was consequently to the smaller islands which compose the Leeward and Windward groups that the English, French and Dutch first resorted as colonists. Small, and therefore "eaisy to settle, easy to depopulate and to re-people, attractive not only on account of their own wealth, but also as a starting-point for the vast and rich continent off which they lie," these islands became the pawns in a game of diplomacy and colonization which continued for 150 years. "^ In the sev enteenth century, moreover, the Spanish iponarchy was declining rapidly both in power and prestige, an3 its empire, though still formidable" no lorTger overshadowed the other nations of Europe"asiir-the"4ays of Charles V. and Philip II. FranceT^witH t'Ee'Bourbons on the throne, was entering upon an era of rapid expansion at home and abroad, while the Dutch, by the truce of 1609, virtually obtained the freedom for which they had struggled so long. In England Queen Elizabeth had died in 1603, and her Stuart successor exchanged her policy of dalliance, 46 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY of balance between France and Spain, for one of peace and conciliation. The aristocratic free-booters who had enriched themselves by harassing the Spanish Indies were succeeded by a less romantic but more business-like generation, which devoted itself to trade and planting. Abortive attempts at colonization had been made in the sixteenth century. The Dutch, who were trading in the West Indies as early as 1542, by 1580 seem to have gained some foothold in Guiana;' and the French Huguenots„ under the patronage of the Admiral de Coligny, made three unsuccessful efforts to form settlements on the American continent, one in Brazil in 1555, another near Port Royal in South Carolina in 1 562, and two years later a third on the St. John's River in Florida. The only English effort in the sixteenth century was the vain attempt of Sir Walter Raleigh between 1585 and 1590 to plant a colony on Roanoke Island, on the coast of what is now North Carolina. It was not till 1607 that the first permanent English settlement in America was made at Jamestown in Virginia. Between 1609 and 1619 numerous stations were established by English, Dutch and French in Guiana between the mouth of the Orinoco and that of the Amazon. In_j62L^he Dutch West India Company was incorporated, an d a few yearsTafeFpKJposals for a similar company were broachedjn England. ""'Among tKeWesTTnaiarriglariasl^ St Kitts received its first English iettlers in 1623 ; and two years later the island was formally divided with the French, thus becoming the earliest nucleus of English and French colonization in those regions. Barbado^s was colonized in 1624-25. In 1628 English settlers from St Kitts spread to Nevis and ' Lucas : A Historical Geography of the British Colonies, vol. ii- pp. 37. 50- 47 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES Barbuda, and within another four years to Antigua and Montserrat; while as early as 1625 English and Dutch took joint possession of Santa Cruz. The founders of the French settlement on St. Kitts induced Richelieu to incor- porate a French West India Company with the title, " The Company of the Isles of America," and under its auspices Guadeloupe, Martinique and other islands of the Wind- ward group were colonized in 1635 and succeeding years. Meanwhile between 1632 and 1634 the Dutch had established trading stations on St Eustatius in the north, and on Tobago and Curasao in the south near the Spanish mainland. While these centres of trade and population were being formed in the very heart of the Spanish seas, the privateers were not altogether idle. To the treaty of Vervins between France and Spain in 1598 had been added a secret re- strictive article whereby it was agreed that the peace should not hold good south of the Tropic of Cancer and west of the meridian of the Azores. Beyond these two lines (called " les Hgnes de I'enclos des Amities ") French and Spanish ships might attack each other and take fair prize as in open war. The ministers of Henry IV. com- municated this restriction verbally to the merchants of the ports, and soon private men-of-war from Dieppe, Havre and St. Malo flocked to the western seas.' Ships loaded with contraband goods no longer sailed for the Indies unless armed ready to engage all comers, and many ship-captains renounced trade altogether for the more profitable and exciting occupation of privateering. In the early years of the seventeenth century, moreover, Dutch fleets harassed the coasts of Chile and Peru,^ while ' Weiss, op. cit., ii. p. 292. " DuTO, op. cit., iii. ch. xvi. ; iv. chs. iii, , viii. 48 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY in Brazil ' and the West Indies a second " Pie de Palo," this time the Dutch admiral, Piet Heyn, was proving a scourge to the Spaniards. Heyn was employed by the Dutch West India Company, which from the year 1623 onwards, carried the Spanish war into the trans- marine possessions of Spain and Portugal. With a fleet composed of twenty-six ships and 3300 men, of which he was vice-admiral, he greatly distinguished himself at the capture of Bahia, the seat of Portuguese power in Brazil. Similar expeditions were sent out annually, and brought back the rich spoils of the South American colonies. Within two years the extraordinary number of eighty ships, with 1 500 cannon and over 9000 sailors and soldiers, were despatched to American seas, and although Bahia was soon retaken, the Dutch for a time occupied Pernambuco, as well as San Juan de Porto Rico in the West Indies.^ In 1628 Piet Heyn was in command of a squadron designed to intercept the plate fleet which sailed every year from Vera Cruz to Spain. With thirty-one ships, 700 cannon and nearly 3000 men he cruised along the northern coast of Cuba, and on 8th September fell in with his quarry near Cape San Antonio. The Spaniards made a running fight along the coast until they reached the Matanzas River near Havana, into which they turned with the object of running the great-bellied galleons aground and escaping with what treasure they could. The Dutch followed, however, and most of the rich cargo was diverted into the coffers of the Dutch West India Company. The gold, silver, indigo, sugar and logwood were sold in the Netherlands for fifteen million guilders, ' Portugal between 1581 and 1640 was subject to the Crown of Spain, and Brazil, a Portuguese colony, was consequently within the pale of Spanish influence and administration. = Blok : History of the People of the Netherlands, iv. p. 36. 4 49 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES and the company was enabled to distribute to its share- holders the unprecedented dividend of 50 per cent. It was an exploit which two generations of English mariners had attempted in vain, and the unfortunate Spanish general, Don Juan de Benavides, on his return to Spain was imprisoned for his defeat and later beheaded.' In 1639 we find the Spanish Council of War for the Indies conferring with the King on measures to be taken against English piratical ships in the Caribbean ; ^ and in 1642 Captain William Jackson, provided with an ample commission from the Earl of Warwick ^ and duplicates under the Great Seal, made a raid in which he emulated the exploits of Sir Francis Drake and his contemporaries. Starting out with three ships and about 11 00 men, mostly picked up in St. Kitts and Barbadoes, he cruised along the Main from Caracas to Honduras and plundered the towns of Maracaibo and Truxillo. On 25 th March 1643 he dropped anchor in what is now Kingston Harbour in Jamaica, landed about scx3 men, and after some sharp fighting and the loss of forty of his followers, entered the town of St. Jago de la Vega, which he ransomed for 2(X) beeves, io,ocx) lbs. of cassava bread and 7000 pieces of eight. Many of the English were so captivated by the beauty and fertility of the island that twenty-three deserted in one night to the Spaniards.* The first two Stuart Kings, like the great Queen who preceded them, and in spite of the presence of a " Blok : History of the People of the Netherlands, iv. p. 37 ; Duro, op. cit., iv. p. 99 ; Gage, ed. 1655, p. 80. ' Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 36,325, No. 10. 3 Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, was created admiral of the fleet by order of Parliament in March 1642, and although removed by Charles I. was re- instated by Parliament on ist July. 4 Brit. Mus., Sloane MSS., 793 or 894 ; Add. MSS., 36,327, No. 9. 50 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY powerful Spanish faction at the English Court, looked upon the Indies with envious eyes, as a source of perennial wealth to whichever nation could secure them. James I., to be sure, was a man of peace, and soon after his accession patched up a treaty with the Spaniards ; but he had no intention of giving up any English claims, however shadowy they might be, to America. Cornwallis, the new ambassador at Madrid, from a vantage ground where he could easily see the financial and administrative confusion into which Spain, in spite of her colonial wealth, had fallen, was most dissatisfied with the treaty. In a letter to Cranborne, dated 2nd July 1605, he suggested that England never lost so great an opportunity of winning honour and wealth as by relinquishing the war with Spain, and that Philip and his kingdom "were reduced to such a state as they could not in all likelihood have endured for the space of two years more."^ This opinion we find repeated in his letters in the following years, with covert hints that an attack upon the Indies might after all be the most profitable and politic thing to do. When, in October 1607, Zuniga, the Spanish ambassador in London, complained to James of the establishment of the new colony in Virginia, James replied that Virginia was land discovered by the English and therefore not within the jurisdiction of Philip; and a week later Salisbury, while confiding to Zuniga that he thought the English might not justly go to Virginia, still refused to prohibit their going or command their re- turn, for it would be an acknowledgment, he said, that the King of Spain was lord of all the Indies.' In 1609, ■ Winwood Papers, II. pp. 75-77- = Brown : Genesis of the United States, I. pp. 120-25, 172. SI Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES in the truce concluded between Spain and the Nether- lands, one of the stipulations provided that for nine years the Dutch were to be free to trade in all places in the East and West Indies except those in actual possession of the Spaniards on the date of cessation of hostilities; and thereafter the English and French governments endeavoured with all the more persistence to obtain a similar privilege. Attorney-General Heath, in 1625, presented a memorial to the Crown on the advantages derived by the Spaniards and Dutch in the West Indies, maintaining that it was neither safe nor profitable for them to be absolute lords of those regions ; and he suggested that his Majesty openly interpose or permit it to be done underhand.' In,,Se£tember 1637 proposals were renewed in England for a West Jndia Company as the" only method of obtaining a share~in the wealthy of America. It was suggested thaiT'some convenient port be seized as a safe retreat from which to plunder Spanish trade on land and sea, ,and tKat the oificers of the company be empowered to conquer and occupy any part oT" the West Indies, "build ships, levy soldiers and munitions of war, and make reprisals.* The temper of Englishmen at this time was again illustrated in 1640 when the Spanish ambassador, Alonzo de Cardenas, protested to Charles I, against certain ships which the Earls of Warwick and Marlborough were sending to the West Indies with the intention, Cardenas declared, of committing hostilities against the Spaniards. The Earl of Warwick, it seems, pretended to have received great injuries from the latter and threatened to recoup his losses at their expense. He procured from the king a broad commission which gave " C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660. - C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660. 52 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY him the right to trade in the West Indies, and to " offend " such as opposed him. Under shelter of this commission the Earl of Marlborough was now going to sea with three or four armed ships, and Cardenas prayed the king to restrain him until he gave security not to commit any acts of violence against the Spanish nation. The petition was referred to a committee of the Lords, who concluded that as the peace had never been strictly observed by either nation in the Indies they would not demand any security of the Earl. "Whether the Spaniards will think this reasonable or not," concludes Secretary Windebank in his letter to Sir Arthur Hopton, " is no great matter." ' During this century and a half between 1500 and 1650, the Spaniards were by no means passive or in- different to the attacks made upon their authority and prestige in the New World. The hostility of the mariners from the north they repaid with interest, and woe to the foreign interloper or privateer who fell into their clutches. When Henry II. of France in 1557 issued an order that Spanish prisoners be condemned to the galleys, the Spanish government retaliated by commanding its sea-captains to mete out the same treat- ment to their French captives, except that captains, masters and officers taken in the navigation of the Indies were to be hung or cast into the sea.' In December 1600 the governor of Cumana had suggested to the King, as a means of keeping Dutch and English ships from the salt mines of Araya, the ingenious scheme of poisoning the salt. This advice, it seems, was not followed, but a few years later, in 1605, a Spanish fleet 'Clarendon State Papers, II. p. 87 ; Rymer : Foedera, XX. p. 416. ' Duro, op. cit. , ii. p. 462. S3 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES of fourteen galleons sent from Lisbon surprised and burnt nineteen Dutch vessels found loading salt at Araya, and murdered most of the prisoners.' In December 1604 the Venetian ambassador in London wrote of "news that the Spanish in the West Indies captured two English vessels, cut off the hands, feet, noses and ears of the crews and smeared them with honey and tied them to trees to be tortured by flies and other insects. The Spanish here plead," he con- tinued, "that they were pirates, not merchants, and that they did not know of the peace. But the barbarity makes people here cry out."^ On 22nd June 1606, Edmondes, the English Ambassador at Brussels, in a letter to CornwalHs, speaks of a London ship which was sent to trade in Virginia, and putting into a river in Florida to obtain water, was surprised there by Spanish vessels from Havana, the men ill-treated and the cargo confiscated.3 And it was but shortly after that Captain Chaloner's ship on its way to Virginia was seized by the Spaniards in the West Indies, and the crew sent to languish in the dungeons of Seville or condemned to the galleys. By attacks upon some of the English settlements, too, the Spaniards gave their threats a more effective form. Frequent raids were made upon the English and Dutch plantations in Guiana ;■• and on 8th- 1 8th September 1629 a Spanish fleet of over thirty sail, commanded by Don Federico de Toledo, nearly annihilated the joint French and English colony on St. Kitts. Nine English ships were captured and the settlements burnt. The French inhabitants temporarily evacuated the island and sailed ' Duro, op. cit., iii. pp. 236-37. 'C.S.P. Venet., 1603-07, p. 199. 3 Winwood Papers, II. p. 233. ■•Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 36,319, No. 7; 36,320, No. 8; 36,321, No. 24 ; 36,322, No. 23. 54 Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY for Antigua ; but of the English some 550 were carried to Cartagena and Havana, whence they were shipped ta England, and all the rest fled to the mountains and woods.' Within three months' time, however, after the departure of the Spaniards, the scattered settlers had returned and re-established the colony. Providence Island and its neighbour, Henrietta, being situated near the Mosquito Coast, were peculiarly exposed to Spanish attack;^ while near the north shore of Hispaniola the island of Tortuga, which was colonized by the same English company, suffered repeatedly from the assaults of its hostile neighbours. In July 1635 a Spanish fleet from the Main assailed the island of Providence, but un- able to land among the rocks, was after five days beaten off " considerably torn " by the shot from the fort.^ On the strength of these injuries received and of others antici- pated, the Providence Company obtained from the king the liberty " to right themselves " by making reprisals, and during the next six years kept numerous vessels preying upon Spanish commerce in those waters. King Philip was therefore all the more intent upon destroying the plantation.'' He bided his time, however, until the early summer of 1641, when the general of the galleons, Don Francisco Diaz Pimienta, with twelve sail and 2000 men, fell upon the colony, razed the forts and carried off all the English, about 770 in number, together with forty cannon and half a million of plunder .^ It was just ten years later that a ■ C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660:— 1629, Sth and 30th Nov. ; 1630, 29th July. ^ Gage saw at Cartagena about a dozen English prisoners captured by the Spaniards at sea, and belonging to the settlement on Providence Island. 3 C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660 :— 163s, 19th March ; 1636, 26th March. < Brit. Mus., Add. MSB., 36,323, No. 10. 5 Dnro, Tomo., IV. p. 339 j cf. also in Bodleian Library: — "A letter -written upon occasion in the Low Countries, etc. Whereunto is added avisos 55 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES force of 800 men from Porto Rico invaded Santa Cruz, whence the Dutch had been expelled by the English in 1646, killed the English governor and more than 100 settlers, seized two ships in the harbour and burnt and pillaged most of the plantations. The rest of the inhabitants escaped to the woods, and after the departure of the Spaniards deserted the colony for St. Kitts and other islands.' from several places, of the taking of the Island of Providence, by the Spaniards from the Ei^lisb. London. Printed for Nath. Batter, Mar. 22, 1641. "I have letter by an aviso from Cartagena, dated the 14th of September, wherein they advise that the galleons were ready laden with the silver, and would depart thence the 6th of October. The general of the galleons, named Francisco Dias Pimienta, had beene formerly in the monetb of July with above 3000 men, and the least of his ships, in the island of S. Catalina, where he had taken and carried away with all the English, and razed the forts, wherein they found 600 negroes, much gold and indigo, so that the prize is esteemed worth above halfe a million. " ' Rawl. MSS., A. 32, 297 ; 31, 121. S6 Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS IN the second half of the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth centuries, strangers who visited the great Spanish islands of Hispaniola, Jamaica or Porto Rico, usually remarked the extraordinary number of wild cattle and boars found roaming upon them. These herds were in every case sprung from domestic animals originally brought from Spain. For as the aborigines in the Greater Antilles decreased in numbers under the heavy yoke of their conquerors, and as the Spaniards themselves turned their backs upon the Antilles for the richer allurements of the continent, less and less land was left under cultivation ; and cattle, hogs, horses and even dogs ran wild, increased at a rapid rate, and soon filled the broad savannas and deep woods which covered the greater part of these islands. The northern shore of Hispaniola the Spaniards had never settled, and thither, probably from an early period, interloping ships were accustomed to resort when in want of victuals. With a long range of uninhabited coast, good anchorage and abundance of provisions, this northern shore could not fail to induce some to remain. In time we find there scattered groups of hunters, mostly French and English, who gained a rude livelihood by killing wild cattle for their • skins, and curing the flesh to supply the needs of passing vessels. The origin of these men we do not know. They may have been deserters from ships, crews of wrecked S7 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES vessels, or even chance marooners. In any case the charm of their half-savage, independent mode of life must soon have attracted others, and a fairly, regular traflSc sprang up between them and the ubiquitous Dutch traders, whom they supplied with hides, tallow and cured meat in return for the few crude necessities and luxuries they required. Their numbers were recruited in 1629 by colonists from St. Kitts who had fled before Don Federico de Toledo. Making common lot with the hunters, the refugees found sustenance so easy and the natural bounty of the island so rich and varied, that many remained and settled. To the north-west of Hispaniola lies a small, rocky island about eight leagues in length and two in breadth^ separated by a narrow channel from its larger neighbour. From the shore of Hispaniola the island appears in form like a monster sea-turtle floating upon the waves, and hence was named by the Spaniards " Tortuga." Sa mountainous and inaccessible on the northern side as to- be called the C6te-de-Fer, and with only one harbour upon the south, it offered a convenient refuge to the French and English hunters should the Spaniards become troublesome. These hunters probably ventured across to Tortuga before 1630, for there are indications that a Spanish expedition v/as sent against the island from Hispaniola in 1630 or 1631, and a division of the spoil made in the city of San Domingo after its return.' It was then, apparently, that, the Spaniards left upon Tortuga an officer and twenty- eight men, the small garrison which, says Charlevoix, was found there when the hunters returned. The Spanish soldiers were already tired of their exile upon this lonely, inhospitable rock, and evacuated with the same satisfaction with which the French and English resumed their occu- pancy. From the testimony of some documents in the 'Bibi. Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9334, f. 48. S8 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS English colonial archives we may gather that the English from the first were in predominance in the new colony, and exercised almost sole authority. In the minutes of the Providence Company, under date of 19th May 163 1, we find that a committee was " appointed to treat with the agents for a colony of about 1 50 persons, settled upon Tortuga " ; ^ and a few weeks later that " the planters upon the island of Tortuga desired the company to take them under their protection, and to be at the charge of their fortification, in consideration of a twentieth part of the commodities raised there yearly."^ At the same time the Earl df Holland, governor of the company, and his associates petitioned the king for an enlargement of their grant " only of 3 or 4 degrees of northerly latitude, to avoid all doubts as to whether one of the islands (Tortuga) was contained in their former grant." ^ Although there were several islands named Tortuga in the region of the West Indies, all the evidence points to the identity of the island concerned in this petition with the Tortuga near the north coast of Hispaniola.* The Providence Company accepted the offer of the settlers upon Tortuga, and sent a ship to reinforce the little colony with six pieces of ordnance, a supply of ammunition and provisions, and a number of apprentices or engages. A Captain Hilton was appointed governor, with Captain Christopher Wormeley to succeed him in case of the governor's death or absence, and the name of 'C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660, p. 130. This company had been organised under the name of " The Governor and Company of Adventurers for the Plantations of the Islands of Providence, Henrietta and the adjacent islands, between lo and 20 degrees of north latitude and 290 and 310 degrees of longitude." The patent of incorporation is dated 4th December 1630 {ibid., p. 123). ^ Ibid., p. 131. ^Ibid. 'This identity was first pointed out by Pierre de Vaissiere in his recent book: "Saint Domingue (1629- 1789). La societ Charievoix : Histoire de . . . Saint Domingue, liv. vii. pp. 9-10. The story is repeated by Duro (op. Hi., v. p. 34), who says that the Spaniards were led by "el general D. Carlos Ibarra." 62 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS of soo armed lancers in an effort to drive the intruders from the larger island of Hispaniola. These lancers, half of whom were always kept in the field, were divided into companies of fifty each, whence they were called by the French," cinquantaines." Ranging the woods and savannas this Spanish constabulary attacked isolated hunters wherever they found them, and they formed an important element in the constant warfare between the French and Spanish colonists throughout the rest of the century.' Meanwhile an English adventurer, some time after the Spanish descent of 1638, gathered a body of 300 of his compatriots in the island of Nevis near St. Kitts, and sail- ing for Tortuga dispossessed the few Frenchmen living there of the island. According to French accounts he was received amicably by the inhabitantsand lived with them for four months, when he turned upon his hosts, disarmed them and marooned them upon the opposite shore of Hispaniola. A few made their way to St. Kitts and complained to M. was a level platform, and upon it rose a steep rock some 30 feet high. Nine or ten paces from the base of the rock gushed forth a perennial fountain of fresh water. The new governor quickly made the most of these natural advantages. The platform he shaped into terraces, with means for accom- modating several hundred men. On the top of the rock he built a house for himself, as well as a magazine, and mounted a battery of two guns. The only access to the ' Charlevoix, op. cit., liv. vii. pp. io-i2 ; Vaissiere., of. cit.. Appendix I {" Memoire envoy^ aux seigneurs de la Compagnie des Isles de I'Amerique par M. de Poincy, le 15 Novembre 1640"). According to the records of the Providence Company, Tortuga in 1640 had 300 inhabitants. A Captain Fload, who had been governor, wras then in London to clear himself of charges preferred against him by the planters,, while a Captain James was exercising authority as " President" in the island. C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660, pp. 313, 314.) Fload was probably the " English captain " referred to in de Poincy's memoir. His oppressive rule seems to have been felt as well by the English as by the French. 64 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS rock was by a narrow approach, up half of which steps were cut in the stone, the rest of the ascent being by means of an iron ladder which could easily be raised and lowered.' This little fortress, in which the governor could repose with a feeling of entire security, he euphuistically called his " dove-cote." The dove-cote was not finished any too soon, for the Spaniards of San Domingo in 1643 determined to destroy this rising power in their neighbourhood, and sent against Levasseur a force of 500 or 600 men. When they tried to land within a half gunshot of the shore, however, they were greeted with a discharge of artillery from the fort, which sank one of the vessels and forced the rest to retire. The Spaniards withdrew to a place two leagues to leeward, where they succeeded in disembarking, but fell into an ambush laid by Levasseur, lost, according to the French accounts, between ic» and 200 men, and fled to their ships and back to Hispaniola. With this victory the reputation of Levasseur spread far and wide throughout the islands, and for ten years the Spaniards made no further attempt to dislodge the French settlement.' Planters, hunters and corsairs now came in greater numbers to Tortuga. The hunters, using the smaller island merely as a headquarters for supplies and a retreat in time of danger, penetrated more boldly than ever into the interior of Hispaniola, plundering the Spanish planta- tions in their path, and establishing settlements on the north shore at Port Margot and Port de Paix. Corsairs, after cruising and robbing along the Spanish coasts, retired to Tortuga to refit and find a market for their spoils. Plantations of tobacco and sugar were cultivated, and although the soil never yielded such rich returns as upon the other islands, Dutch and French trading ships frequently resorted there for these commodities, and especially for the skins prepared by the hunters, bringing in exchange ' Dutertre : Histoire g^n^rale des Antilles, torn. i. p. 171. "^ Charlevoix: op. «V., liv. vii. pp. 12-13. s 65 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES brandy, guns, powder and cloth. Indeed, under the active, positive administration of Levasseur, Tortuga enjoyed a degree of prosperity which almost rivalled that of the French settlements^ iji- the Leeward Islands. The term "^buccaneer," though usually applied to the corsairs who in the seventeenth century ravaged the Spanish possessions in the West Indies and the South Seas, should really be restricted to these cattle-hunters of west and north-west Hispaniola. The flesh of the wild cattle was cured by the hunters after a fashion learnt from the Caribbee Indians. The meat was cut into long strips, laid upon a grate or hurdle constructed of green sticks, and dried over a slow wood fire fed with bones and the trimmings of the hide of the animal. By this means an excellent flavour was iihparted to the meat and a fine red colour. The place where the flesh was smoked was called by the Indians a " boucan," and the same term, from the poverty of an undeveloped language, was applied to the frame or grating on which the flesh was dried. In course of time the dried meat became known as "viande boucann6e," and the hunters themselves- as "boucaniers" or "buccaneers." When later circum- stances led the hunters to combine their trade in flesh and hides with that of piracy, the name gradually lost its original significance and acquired, in the English language at least, its modern and better-known meaning of corsair or freebooter. The French adventurers, how- ever, seem always to have restricted the word " boucanier " to its proper signification, that of a hunter and curer of meat ; and when they developed into corsairs, by a curious contrast they adopted an English name and called them- selves " flibustiers," which is merely the French sailor's way of pronouncing the English word " freebooter." ' ■ In this monograph, by "buccaneers " are always meant the corsairs and filibusters, and not the cattle and hog killers of Hispaniola and Tortuga. 66 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS The buccaneers or West Indian corsairs owed their origin as well as their name to the cattle and hog-hunters of Hispaniola and Tortuga. Doubtless many of the wilder, more restless spirits in the smaller islands of the Wind- ward and Leeward groups found their way into the ranks of this piratical fraternity, or were willing at least to lend a hand in an occasional foray against their Spanish neighbours. We know that Jackson, in 1642, had no difficulty in gathering 700 or 800 men from Barbadoes and St. Kitts for his ill-starred dash upon the Spanish Main. And when the French in later years made their periodical descents upon the Dutch stations on Tobago, Curacao and St "Eustatius, they always found in their island colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe buccaneers enough and more, eager to fill their ships. It seems to be generally agreed, however, among the Jesuit historians of the West Indies — and upon these writers we are almost entirely dependent for our knowledge of the origins of buccaneering — that the corsairs had their source and nucleus in the hunters who infested the coasts of Hispaniola.,, Between the hunter and the pirate at first no impassable line was drawn. The same person combined in himself the occupations of cow-killing and cruising, varying the monotony of the one by occasionally trying his hand at the other. In either case he lived at constant enmity with the Spaniards. With the passing of time the sea attracted more and more away from their former pursuits. Even the planters who were beginning to filter into the new settlements found the attractions of coursing against the Spaniards to be irresistible. Great extremes of fortune, 1. such as those to which the buccaneers were subject, have always exercised an attraction over minds of an adventurous stamp. It was the same allurement which drew the " forty- niners" to California, and in 1897 the gold -seekers to the Canadian Klondyke. If the suffering endured was often 67 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES great, the prize to be gained was worth it. Fortune, if fickle one day, might the next bring incredible bounty, and the buccaneers who sweltered in a tropical sea, with starvation staring them in the face, dreamed of rolling in the oriental wealth of a Spanish argosy. Especially to the cattle-hunter must this temptation have been great, for his mode of life was the very rudest. He roamed the woods by day with his dog and apprentices, and at night slept in the open air or in a rude shed hastily constructed of leaves and skins, which served as a house, and which he called after the Indian name, " ajoupa " or " barbacoa." His dress was of the simplest — coarse cloth trousers, and a shirt which hung loosely over them, both pieces so black and saturated with the blood and grease of slain animals that they looked as if they had been tarred ("de toile gaudronnde ").' A belt of undressed bull's hide bound the shirt, and supported on one side three or four large knives, on the other a pouch for powder and shot. A cap with a short pointed brim extending over the eyes, rude shoes of cowhide or pigskin made all of one piece bound over the foot, and a short, large-bore musket, completed the hunter's grotesque outfit. Often he carried wound about his waist a sack of netting into which he crawled at night to keep off the pestiferous mosquitoes. With creditable regularity he and his apprentices arose early in the morning and started on foot for the hunt, eating no food until they had killed and skinned as many wild cattle or swine as there were persons in the company. After having skinned the last animal, the master-hunter broke its softest bones and made a meal for himself and his followers on the marrow. Then each took up a hide and returned to the boucan, where they dined on the flesh they had killed.^' In this ' Labat : Nouveau voyage anx isles de TAmerique, ed. 1742, torn. vii. P- 233- ' Le Pers, printed in Margry, op, cit. 68 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS fashion the hunter lived for the space of six months or a year. Then he made a division of the skins and dried meat, and repaired to Tortuga or one of the French settle- ments on the coast of Hispaniola to recoup his stock of ammunition and spend the rest of his gains in a wild carouse of drunkenness and debauchery. His money gone, he returned again to the hunt. The cow-killers, as they had neither wife nor children, commonly associated in pairs with the right of inheriting from each other, a custom which was called " matelotage." These private associa- tions, however, did not prevent the property of all from being in a measure common. Their mode of settling quarrels was the most primitive — ^the duel. In other things they governed themselves by a certain " coutumier," a medley of bizarre laws which they had originated among themselves. At any attempt to bring them under civilised rules, the reply always was, "telle 6toit la coutume de la c6te " ; and that definitely closed the matter. They based their rights thus to live upon the fact, they said, of having passed the Tropic, where, borrow- ing from the sailor's well-known superstition, they pre- tended to have drowned all their former obligations." Even their family names they discarded, and the saying was in those days that one knew a man in the Isles only when he was married. From a life of this sort, cruising against Spanish ships, if not an unmixed good, was at least always a desirable recreation. Every Spanish prize brought into Tortuga, moreover, was an incitement to fresh adventure against the common foe. The " gens de la c6te," as they called themselves, ordinarily associated a score or more together, and having taken or built them- selves a canoe, put to sea with intent to seize a Spanish barque or some other coasting vessel. With silent paddles, under cover of darkness, they approached the unsuspecting ' Le Pers, printed in Margry, op. cit, 69 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES prey, killed the frightened sailors or drove them overboard, and carried the prize to Tortuga. There the raiders either dispersed to their former occupations, or gathered a larger crew of congenial spirits and sailed away for bigger game. All the Jesuit historians of the West Indies, Dutertre, Labat and Charlevoix, have left us accounts of the manners and customs . of the buccaneers. The Dutch physician, Exquemelin, who lived with the buccaneers for several years, from 1668 to 1674, and wrote a pictur- esque narrative from materials at his disposal, has also been a source for the ideas of most later writers on the subject. It may not be out of place to quote his de- scription of the men whose deeds he recorded. "Before the Pirates go out to sea," he writes, "they give notice to every one who goes upon the voyage of the day on which they ought precisely to embark, intimating also to them their obligation of bringing each man in particular so many pounds of powder and bullets as they think necessary for that expedition. Being all come on board, they join together in council, concerning what place they ought first to go wherein to get provisions — especially of flesh, seeing they scarce eat anything else. And of this the most common sort among them is pork. The next food is tortoises, which they are accustomed to salt a little. Sometimes they resolve to rob such or such hog-yards, wherein the Spaniards often have a thousand heads of swine together. They come to these places in the dark of night, and having beset the keeper's lodge, they force him to rise, and give them as many heads as they desire, threatening withal to kill him in case he disobeys their command or makes any noise. Yea, these menaces are oftentimes put in execution, without giving any quarter to the miserable swine-keepers, or any other person that endeavours to hinder their robberies. 70 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS " Having got provisions of flesh sufficient for tlieir voyage, they return to their ship. Here their allowance, twice a day to every one, is as much as he can eat, without either weight or measure. Neither does the steward of the vessel give any greater proportion of flesh or anything else to the captciin than to the meanest mariner. The ship being well victualled, they call another council, to deliberate towards what place they shall go, to seek their desperate fortunes. In this council, likewise, they agree upon certain Articles, which are put in writing, by way of bond or obligation, which everyone is bound to observe, and all of them, or the chief, set their hands to it. Herein they specify, and set down veiy distinctly, what sums of money each particular person ought to have for that voyage, the fund of all the payments being the common stock of what is gotten by the whole expedition ; for otherwise it is the same law, among these people, as with other Pirates, ' No prey, no pay.' In the first place, therefore, they mention how much the Captain ought to have for his ship. Next the salary of the carpenter, or shipwright, who careened, mended and rigged the vessel. This commonly amounts to lOO or 1 50 pieces of eight, being, according to the agreement, more or less. Afterwards for provisions and victualling they draw out of the same common stock about 200 pieces of eight. Also a competent salary for the surgeon and his chest of medicaments, which is usually rated at 200 or 250 pieces of eight. Lastly they stipulate_in writing what recompense or reward each one ought to have, that is either wounded or maimed in his body, suffering the loss of any limb, by that voyage. Thus they order for the loss of a right arm 600 pieces of eight, or six slaves ; for the loss of a left arm 500 pieces of eight, or five slaves ; for a right leg 500 pieces of eight, or five slaves ; for the left leg 400 pieces of eight, or four slaves; for an eye 100 71 Digitized by Microsoft® y BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES pieces of eight or one slave ; for a finger of the hand the same reward as for the eye. All which sums of money, as I have said before, are taken out of the capital sum or common stock of what is got by their piracy. For a very exact and equal dividend is made of the remainder among them all. Yet herein they have also regard to qualities and places. Thus the Captain, or chief Com- mander, is allotted five or six portions to what the ordinary seamen have ; the Master's Mate only two ; and other Officers proportionate to their employment. After whom they draw equal parts from the highest even to the lowest mariner, the boys not being omitted. For even these draw half a share, by reason that, when they happen to 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. "They observe among themselves very good orders. For in the prizes they take it is severely prohibited to everyone to usurp anything in particular to themselves. Hence all they take is equally divided, according to what has been said before. Yea> they make a solemn oath to each other not to abscond or conceal the least thing they find amongst the prey. If afterwards anyone is found unfaithful, who has contravened the said oath, immediately he is separated and turned out of the society. Among themselves they are very civil and charitable to each other. Insomuch that if any wants what another has, with great liberality they give it one to another. As soon as these pirates have taken any prize of ship or boat, the first thing they endeavour is to set on shore the prisoners, detaining only some few for their own help and service, to whom also they give their liberty after the space of two or three years. They put in very frequently for refresh- ment at one island or another; but more especially into 72 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS those which lie on the southern side of the Isle of Cuba. Here they careen their vessels, and in the meanwhile some of them go to hunt, others to cruise upon the seas in canoes, seeking their fortune. Many times they take the poor fishermen of tortoises, and carrying them to their habitations they make them work so long as the pirates are pleased." The articles which fixed the conditions under which the buccaneers sailed were commonly called the "chasse--^ partie."' In the earlier days of buccaneering, before the-^i period of great leaders like Mansfield, Morgan and Gram- 1 mont, the captain was usually chosen from among their , own number. Although faithfully obeyed he was remov- able at will, and had scarcely more prerogative than the ordinary sailor. After 1655 the buccaneers generally- sailed under commissions from the governors of Jamaica or Tortuga, and then they always set aside one tenth of the profits for the governor. But when their prizes were unauthorised they often withdrew to some secluded coast to make a partition of the booty, and on their return to port eased the governor's conscience with politic gifts ; and as the governor generally had little control over these difficult people he found himself all the more obliged to dissimulate. Although the buccaneers were called by the Spaniards " ladrones " and " demonios," names which they richly deserved, they often gave part of their spoil to churches in the ports which they frequented, especially if among the booty they found any ecclesiastical orna- ments or the stuffs for making them — articles which not infrequently formed an important part of the cargo of Spanish treasure ships. In March 1694 the Jesuit writer, Labat, took part in a Mass at Martinique which was ' Dampier writes that " Privateers are not obliged to any ship, but free to go ashore where they please, or to go into any other ship that will entertain them, only paying for their prorision." (Edition 1906, i. p. 61). 73 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES performed for some French buccaneers in pursuance of a vow made when they were taking two English vessels near Barbadoes. The French vessel and its two prizes were anchored near the church, and fired salutes of all their cannon at the beginning of the Mass, at the Elevation of the Host, at the Benediction, and again at the end of the Te Deum sung after the Mass.' Labat, who, although a priest, is particularly lenient towards the crimes of the buccaneers, and who we suspect must have been the recipient of numerous "favours" from them out of their store of booty, relates a curious tale of the buccaneer, Captain Daniel, a tale which has often been used by other writers, but which may bear repetition. Daniel, in need of provisions, anchored one night off one of the " Saintes," small islands near Dominica, and landing without opposi- tion, took possession of the house of the cur^ and of some other inhabitants of the neighbourhood. He carried the curd and his people on board his ship without offering them the least violence, and told them that he merely wished to buy some wine, brandy and fowls. While these were being gathered, Daniel requested the curd to cele- brate Mass, which the poor priest dared not refuse. So the necessary sacred vessels were sent for and an altar improvised on the deck for the service, which they chanted to the best of their ability. As at Martinique, the Mass was begun by a discharge of artillery, and after the Exaudiat and prayer for the King was closed by a loud " Vive le Roi ! " from the throats of the buccaneers. A single incident, however, somfiwhat disturbed the devotions. One of the buccaneers, remaining in an indecent attitude during the Elevation, was rebuked by the captain, and instead of heeding the correction, replied with an impertin- ence and a fearful oath. Quick as a flash Daniel whipped out his pistol and shot the buccaneer through the head, ' Labat, op, cit., torn. i. ch. 9. 74 Digitized by Microsoft® BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS adjuring God that he would do as much to the first who failed in his respect to the Holy Sacrifice. The shot was fired close by the priest, who, as we can readily imagine, was considerably agitated. "Do not be troubled, my father," said Daniel ; " he is a rascal lacking in his duty and I have punished him to teach him better." A very efficacious means, remarks Labat, of preventing his falling into another like mistake. After the Mass the body of the dead man was thrown into the sea, and the cure was recompensed for his pains by some goods out of their stock and the present of a negro slave.' The buccaneers preferred to sail in barques, vessels of one mast and rigged with triangular sails. This type of boat, they found, could be more easily manoeuvred, was faster and sailed closer to the wind. The boats were built of cedar, and the best were reputed to come from Bermuda. They carried very few guns, generally from six to twelve or fourteen, the corsairs believing that four muskets did more execution than one cannon.^ The buccaneers sometimes used brigantines, vessels with two masts, the fore or mizzenmast being square-rigged with t\yo sails and the mainmast rigged like that of a barque. The corsair at Martinique of whom Labat speaks was captain of a corvette, a boat like a brigantine, except that all the sails were square-rigged. At the beginning of a "voyage the freebooters were generally so crowded in their, -small vessels that they suffered much from lack of room. Moreover, they had little protection from sun and rain, and with but a small stock of provisions often faced starvation. It was this as much as anything which frequently inspired ' Ihem to attack without reflection any possible prize, great or small, and to make themselves masters of it or perish in the attempt. Their first object was to come to close - _acad?^'s commerce and nivigsitipn, she must break through Spain's" monopSly of the^Indies '^arid gain a controFlrr" Spanish America." San Domingo was tobfe but a "pirelimiftafy step, after "which the rest of the Spanish dominions in the New World would be gradually absorbed. ^ The immediate excuse for the attack on Hispaniola/ I and Jamaica was the Spaniards' practice of seizing English ships and ill-treating English crews merely be- ' \ cause they were found in some part of the Caribbean i Sea, and even though bound for a plantation actually in possession of English colonists. It was the old question / of effective occupation versus papal donation, and both ' Cf. the " Commission of the Commissioneis for the West Indian Expedition." (Narrative of Gen. Venables, p. 109.) ' Cf. American Hist. Review, vol. iv. p. 228 ; " Instructions unto Gen. Robt. Venables." (Narrative of Gen. Venables, p. ill.) 88 Digitized by Microsoft® THE CONQUEST OF JAMAICA Cromwell and Venables convinced themselves that Spanish assaults in the past on English ships and colonies supplied a sufficient casus belli} There was no justification, however, for a secret attack upon Spain. She had been the first to recognize the young republic, and was willing and even anxious to league herself with England. There had been actual negotiations for an alliance, and Cromwell's offers, though rejected, had never been really withdrawn. Without a declaration of war or formal notice of any sort, a fleet was fitted out and sent in utmost secrecy to fall unawares upon the colonies of a friendly nation. The whole aspect of the exploit was Elizabethan. It was inspired by Drake and Raleigh, a reversion to the Elizabethan gold-hunt. It was the first of the great buccaneering expeditions.^ ' Cf. Narrative of Gen. Venables, pp. 3, 90 ; " Instructions unto General! Penn," etc., Hid., p. 107. After the outbreak of the Spanish war, Cromwell was anxious to clear his government of the charges of treachery and violation of international duties. The task was entrusted to the Latin Secretary, John Milton, who on 26th October 1655 published a manifesto defending the actions of the Common- wealth. He gave two principal reasons for the attempt upon the West Indies : — (l) the cruelties of the Spaniards toward the English in America and their depredations on English colonies and trade; (2) the outrageous treatment and extermination of the Indians. He denied the Spanish claims to all of America, either at a papal gift, or by right of discovery alone, or even by right of settlement, and insisted upon both the natural and treaty rights of Englishmen to trade in Spanish seas. ' The memory of the exploits of Drake and his contemporaries was not allowed to die in the first half of the seventeenth century. Books like " Sir Francis Drake Revived," and " The World encompassed by Sir Francis Drake," were printed time and time again. The former was published in 1626 and ^ain two years later ; " The World Encompassed " first appeared in 1628 and was reprinted in 1635 and 1653. A quotation from the title-page of the latter may serve to illustrate the temper of the times : — Drake, Sir Francis. The world encompassed. Being his next voyage to that to Nombre de Dios, formerly imprinted . . . offered . . . especi- ally for the stirring up of heroick spirits, to benefit their country and eternize their names by like bold attempts. Lon. 1628. Cf. also Gardiner, op. cit.. III. pp. 343-44- 89 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES Cromwell was doubtless influenced, too, by the representations of Thomas Gage. Gage was an English- man who had joined the Dominicans and had been sent by his Order out to Spanish America. In 1641 he returned to England, announced his conversion to Protestantism, took the side of Parliament and became a minister. His experiences in the West Indies and Mexico he published in 1648 under the name of "The English-American, or a New Survey of the West Indies," a most entertaining book, which aimed to arouse Englishmen against Romish "idolatries," to show how valuable the Spanish-American provinces might be to England in trade and bullion and how easily they might be seized. In the summer of 1654, more- over, Gzige had laid before the Protector a memorial in which he recapitulated the conclusions of his book, assuring Cromwell that the Spanish colonies were sparsely peopled and that the few whites were unwarlike and scantily provided with arras and ammunition. He asserted that the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba would be a matter of no difficulty, and that even Central America was too weak to oppose a long resistance.' All this was true, and had Cromwell but sent a re- spectable force under an efficient leader the result would have been different. The exploits of the buccaneers a few years later proved it. It was fortunate, considering the distracted state of affairs in Jamaica in 1655-56, that the Spaniards were in no condition to attempt to regain the island. Cuba, the nearest Spanish territory to Jamaica, was being ravaged by the most terrible pestilence known there in years, and the inhabitants, alarmed for their own safety, instead of trying to dispossess the English, were 'Gardiner, op. cit., III. p. 346; cf. also "Present State of Jamaica, 1683." 90 Digitized by Microsoft® THE CONQUEST OF JAMAICA busy providing for the defence of their own coasts.' In 1657, however, some troops under command of the old Spanish governor of Jamaica, D. Christopher Sasi Arnoldo, crossed from St Jago de Cuba and entrenched themselves on the northern shore as the advance post of a greater force ex- pected from the mainland. Papers of instructions relating to the enterprise were intercepted by Colonel Doyley, then acting-governor of Jamaica ; and he with 500 picked men embarked for the north side, attacked the Spaniards in their entrenchments and utterly routed them.* The next year about IOCX3 men, the long-expected corps of regular Spanish infantry, landed and erected a fort at Rio Nuevo. Doyley, displaying the same energy, set out again on nth June with 750 men, landed under fire on the 22nd, and next day captured the fort in a brilliant attack in which about 300 Spaniards were killed and 100 more, with many officers and flags, captured. The English lost about sixty in killed and wounded.' After the failure of a similar, though weaker, attempt in 1660, the Spaniards despaired of regaining Jamaica, and most of those still upon the island embraced the first opportunity to retire to Cuba and other Spanish settlements. As colonists the troops in Jamaica proved to be very discouraging material, and the army was soon in a wretched state. The officers and soldiers plundered and mutinied instead of working and planting. Their wastefulness led to scarcity of food, and scarcity of food brought disease and death.* They wished to force the ■Long: "History of Jamaica," I. p. 260; C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76- Addenda, No. 274. ' Long, op. cit., I. p. 272 ff. 3 Ibid. ; Thurloe Papers, VI. p. 540 ; VII. p. 260 ; " Present State of Jamaica, 1683 " ; C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda, Nos. 303-308. * Long, op. cit., I. p. 245 ; C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda, Nos. 236, 261, 276, etc. The conditions in Jamaica directly after its capture are in remarkable con- trast to what might have been expected after reading the enthusiastic descrip- 91 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES Protector to recall them, or to employ them in assaulting the opulent Spanish towns on the Main, an occupation far more lucrative than that of planting corn and pro- visions for sustenance. Cromwell, however, set himself to develop and strengthen his new colony. He issued a proclamation encouraging trade and settlement in the island by exempting the inhabitants from taxes, and the Council voted that looo young men and an equal number of girls be shipped over from Ireland. The Scotch government was instructed to apprehend and transport idlers and vagabonds, and commissioners were sent into New England and to the Windward and Lee- ward Islands to try and attract settlers.' Bermudians, Jews, Quakers from Barbadoes and criminals from New- gate, helped to swell the population of the new colony, and in 1658 the island is said to have contained 4500 whites, besides 1500 or more negro slaves,"^ To.dami»a*e-the Spamsh-tradejiDUte? wasjoneof the principal^bjects-of "EngKsh' ^aoli gy. in the _W eaL.Ijidies. —Tfiis purpose is reflected in all of Cromwell's instructions to the leaders of the Jamaican design, and it appears again in his instructions of loth October 165 5 to Major-General Fortescue and Vice-Admiral Goodson. Fortescue was given power and authority to land men upon territory claimed by the Spaniards, to take their forts, castles and places of strength, and to pursue, kill and destroy all who opposed him. The Vice- Admiral was to assist him with his sea-forces, and to use his best endeavours to seize all tions of the island, its climate, soil and. products, left us by Englishmen who visited it. Jackson in 1643 compared it with the Arcadian plains and Thessalien Tempe, and many of his men wanted to remain and live with the Spaniards. See also the description of Jamaica contained in the Rawlinson MSS. and written just after the arrival of the English army: — "As for the country . . . more than this." (Narrative of Gen. Venables, pp. 138-9.) 'CS.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda, Nos. 229, 232; Lucas: Historical Geography of the British Colonies, II. p. loi, and note. ' Lucas, op. cit., II. p. 109. 92 Digitized by Microsoft® THE CONQUEST OF JAMAICA ships belonging to the King of Spain or his subjects in America.' The soldiers, as has been said, were more eager to fight the Spaniards than to plant, and oppor- tunities were soon given them to try their hand. Admiral Penn had left twelve ships under Goodson's charge, and of these, six were at sea picking up a few scattered Spanish prizes which helped to pay for the victuals supplied out of New England.* Goodson, however, was after larger prey> no less than the galleons or a Spanish town upon the mainland. He did not know where the galleons were,, but at the end of July he seems to have been lying with eight vessels before Cartagena and Porto Bello, and on 22nd November he sent Captain Blake with nine ships to> the same coast to intercept all vessels going thither from Spain or elsewhere. The fleet was broken up by foul weather, however, and part returned on 14th December to refit, leaving a few small frigates to He in wait for some merchantmen reported to be in that region.^ The first town on the Main to feel the presence of this new power in the Indies was Santa Marta, close to Cartagena on the shores of what is now the U.S. of Columbia. In the latter part of October, just a month before the departure of Blake, Goodson sailed with a fleet of eight vessels to ''rav^e the Spanish coasts. According to one account his original design had been against Rio de la Hacha near the pearl fisheries, " but having missed his aim " he sailed for Santa Marta. He landed 400 sailors and soldiers, under the protection of his guns, took and demolished the two forts which barred his way, and entered the town. Finding that the inhabitants had already fled with as. much of their belongings as they could carry, he pursued • C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda, Nos. 230, 231. Fortescue was- Gen. Venables' successor in Jamaica. ^ Ibid., No. 218 ; Long, op- cit., I. p. 262. 3 C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda, Nos. 218, 252 ; Thurloe Papers,. IV. pp. 451,457- 93 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES them some twelve miles up into the country ; and on his retnrn plundered and burnt their houses, embarked with thirty pieces of cannon and other booty, and sailed for Jamaica.' It was a gallant' performance with a handful of men, but the profits were much less than had been expected. It had been agreed that the seamen and soldiers should receive half the spoil, but on counting the proceeds it was found that their share amounted to no more than ;^400, to balance which the State took the thirty pieces of ordnance and some powder, shot, hides, salt and Indian corn.^ Sqdgwick wrote to Thurloe that "reckoning all got there on the State's share, it did not pay for the powder and shot spent in that service." 3 Sedgwick was one of the civil commissioners appointed for the government of Jamaica. A brave, pious soldier with a long experience and honourable military record in the Massachusetts colony, he did not approve of this type of warfare against the Spaniards. " This kind of maroon- ing cruising West India trade of plundering and burning towns," he writes, " though it hath been long practised in these parts, yet is not honourable for a princely navy, neither was it, I think, the work designed, though perhaps it may be tolerated at present." If Cromwell was to accomplish his original purpose of blocking up the Spanish ti'easure route, he wrote again, permanent foothold must be gained in some important Spanish fortress, either Cartagena or Havana, places strongly garrisoned, however, and requiring for their reduction a considerable army and fleet, such as Jamaica did not then possess. But to waste and burn towns of inferior rank without retaining them merely dragged on the war indefinitely and effected little advantage or profit to anybody.* Captain Nuberry " Thurloe Papers, IV. pp. 152, 493. » C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda, No. 236. 3 Thurloe Papers, IV. p. 604. t Ibid., pp. 454-5, 604. 94 Digitized by Microsoft® THE 'CONQUEST OF JAMAICA visited Santa Marta several weeks after Goodson's descent, and, going on shore, found that about a hundred people had made bold to return and rebuild their devastated homes. Upon sight of the English tl^e poor people again fled incontinently to the woods, and Nuberry and his men destroyed their houses a second time.' On gth April 1656 Goodson, with ten of his best ships, set sail again and steered eastward along the coast of Hispaniola as far as Alta Vela, hoping to meet with some Spanish ships reported in that region. . Encountering none, he stood for the Main, and landed on 4th May with about 450 men at Rio de la Hacha. The story of the exploit is merely a repetition of what happened at Santa Marta. The people had sight of the English fleet six hours before it could drop anchor, and fled from the town to the hills and surrounding woods. Only twelve men were left behind to hold the fort, which the English stormed and took within half an hour. Four large brass cannon were carried to the ships and the fort partly demolished. The Spaniards pretended to parley for the ransom of their town, but when after a day's delay they gave no sign of complying with the admiral's demands, he burned the place on 8th May and sailed away.* Goodson called again at Santa Marta on the nth to get water, and on the 14th stood before Cartagena to view the harbour. Leaving three vessels to ply there, he returned to Jamaica, bringing back with him only two small prizes, one laden with wine, the other with cocoa. The seamen of the fleet, however, were restless and eager for further enterprises of this nature, and Goodson by the middle of June had fourteen of his vessels lying oif the Cuban coast near Cape S. Antonio in wait for the galleons or the Flota, both of which fleets were then expected at Havana, His ambition to repeat the achieve- ' Thurloe Papers, IV. p. 452. ' liid., V. pp. 96, 151. 95 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES ment of Piet Heyn was fated never to be realised. The fleet of Terra-Firma, he soon learned, had sailed into Havana on 15th May, and on 13th June, three days before his arrival on that coast, had departed for Spain.' Mean- while, one of his own vessels, the " Arms of Holland," was blown up, with the loss of all on board but three men and the captain, and two other ships were disabled. Five of the fleet returned to England on 23rd August, and with the rest Goodson remained on the Cuban coast until the end of the month, watching in vain for the fleet from Vera Cruz which never sailed.* Colonel Edward Doyley, the officer who so promptly defeated the attempts of the Spaniards in 1657-58 to re-conquer Jamaica, was now governor of the island. He had sailed with the expedition to the West Indies as lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of General Venables, and on the death of Major-General Fortescue in November 1655 had been chosen by Cromwell's commissioners in Jamaica as commander-in-chief of the land forces. In May 1656 he was superseded by Robert Sedgwick, but the latter died within a few days, and Doyley petitioned the Protector to appoint him to the post. William Brayne, however, arrived from England in December 1656 to take chief command, and when he, like his two predecessors, was stricken down by disease nine months later, the place devolved permanently upon Doyley. Doyley was a very efficient governor, and although he has been accused of showing little regard or respect for planting and trade, the ' This was the treasure fleet which Captain Stayner's ship and two other frigates captured off Cadiz on 9th September. Six galleons were captured, sunk or burnt, with no less than ;f6oo,ooo of gold and silver. The galleons which Blake burnt in the harbour of Santa Cruz, on 20th April 1657, were doubtless the Mexican fleet for which Admiral Goodson vainly waited before Havana in the previous summer. ^ C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76, Addenda, Nos. 260, 263, 266, 270, 275; Thurloe Papers, V. p. 340. 96 Digitized by Microsoft® THE CONQUEST OF JAMAICA charge appears to be unjust." He firmly maintained order among men disheartened and averse to settlement, and at the end of his service delivered up the colony a compara- tively well-ordered and thriving community. He was confirmed in his post by Charles H. at the Restoration, but superseded by Lord Windsor in August 1661. Doyley's claim to distinction rests mainly upon his vigorous policy against the Spaniards, not only in defending Jamaica, but by encouraging privateers and carrying the war into the enemies' quarters. In July 1658, on learning from some prisoners that the galleons were in Porto Bello awaiting the plate from Panama, Doyley embarked 300 men on a fleet of five vessels and sent it to lie in an obscure bay between that port and Cartagena to intercept the Spanish ships. On 20th October the galleons were espied, twenty- nine vessels in all, fifteen galleons and fourteen stout merchantmen. Unfortunately, all the English vessels except the " Hector " and the " Marston Moor " were at that moment absent to obtain fresh water. Those two alone could do nothing, but passing helplessly through the Spaniards, hung on their rear and tried without success to scatter them. The English fleet later attacked and burnt the town of Tolu on the Main, capturing two Spanish ships in the road ; and afterwards paid another visit to the unfortunate Santa Marta, where they remained three days, marching several miles into the country and burning and destroying everything in their path.^ On 23rd April 1659, however, there returned to Port Royal another expedition whose success realised the wildest dreams of avarice. Three frigates under command ' Cf. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 12,430: Journal of Col. Beeston. Col. Beeston seems to have harboured a peculiar spite against Doyley. For the contrary view of Doyley, cf. Long, op. cit., I. p. 284. ' C.S.P. Colon., 1675-76. Addenda., Nos. 309, 310. In these letters the towns are called " Tralo " and " St. Mark." Cf. also Thurloe Papers, VII. ' p. 340. 7 97 Digitized by Microsoft® BUCCANEERS IN THE WEST INDIES of Captain Christopher Myngs,' with 300 soldiers on board, had been sent by Doyley to harry the South American coast. They first entered and destroyed Cumana, and then ranging along the coast westward, landed again at Puerto Cabello and at Coro. At the latter town they followed the inhabitants into the woods, where besides other plunder they came upon twenty-two chests of royal treasure intended for the King of Spain, each chest containing 400 pounds of silver.* Embarking this money and other spoil in the shape of plate, jewels and cocoa, they returned to Port Royal with the richest prize that ever entered Jamaica. The whole pillage was estimated at between ;^20o,ooo and ;£^3C)0,oc)0.3 The abundance of new wealth introduced into Jamaica did much to raise the spirits of the colonists, and set the island well upon the road to more prosperous times. The sequel to this brilliant exploit, however, was in some ways unfortunate. Disputes were engendered between the officers of the expedition and the governor and other authorities on shore over the disposal of the booty, and in the early part of June 1659 Captain Myngs was sent home in the "Marston Moor," suspended for disobeying orders and plundering the hold of one of the prizes to the value of I2,CHX) pieces of eight. Myngs was an active, intrepid commander, but apparently avaricious and impatient of ' Captain Christopher Myngs had been appointed to the ' ' Marston Moor, " a frigate of fifty-four guns, in October 1654, and had seen two years' service in the West Indies under Goodson in 1656 and 1657. In May 1656 he took part in the sack of Rio de la Hacha. In July 1657 the " Marston Moor " returned to England and was ordered to be refitted, but by 20th February 1658 Myngs and his frigate were again at Port Royal (CS. P. Colon., 1675-76, Addenda, Nos. 295, 297). After Admiral Goodson's return to England {7di