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Title: The Monarchs of the Main; Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers. Volume 1 (of 3)

Author: Walter Thornbury

Release date: January 21, 2012 [eBook #38631]

Language: English

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THE MONARCHS OF THE MAIN;

Or,

Adventures of the Buccaneers.

by

GEORGE W. THORNBURY, ESQ.

"One foot on sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never."
                MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

In Three Volumes.

VOL. I.







London:
Hurst and Blackett, Publishers,
Successors to Henry Colburn,
13, Great Marlborough Street.
1855.

London: Sercombe and Jack, 16 Great Windmill Street.




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.--THE PRECURSORS OF THE BUCCANEERS.

History of Tortuga--Description of the island--Origin of the
Buccaneers--Conquest of Tortuga by the French and English--Hunters,
planters, and corsairs--Le Basque takes Maracaibo--War with the
Spaniards of Hispaniola--The French West Indian Company buy
Tortuga--Their various governors                                      1

CHAPTER II.--MANNERS OF THE HUNTERS.

Indian derivation of the word Buccaneer--Flibustier--The three
classes--Dress of the hunters--West Indian scenery--Method of
hunting--Wild dogs--Anecdotes--Wild oxen--Wild boars and wild
horses--Buccaneer dainties--Cow-killing, English, French, and Spanish
methods--Amusements--Duels--Adventures--Conflicts with the Fifties, or
Spanish militia--The hunters driven to sea--Turn corsairs--The hunters'
_engagés_, or apprentices--Hide curing--Hardships of the bush life--The
planters' _engagés_--Cruelties of planters--The _matelotage_--Huts,
manners, and food                                                    35

CHAPTER III.--THE FLIBUSTIERS, OR SEA ROVERS.

Originated in the Spanish persecution of French hunters--Customs--"No
peace beyond the line"--"No prey, no pay"--Pay and pensions--Their
helots the Mosquito Indians--Lewis Scott, an Englishman, the first
Corsair--John Davis takes St. Francis in Campeachy--Their
debauchery--Gambling--Religion--Classes from which they sprang--Equality
at sea--Mode of fighting--Food--Dress                               111

CHAPTER IV.--PIERRE-LE-GRAND, THE FIRST BUCCANEER.

Plunder of Segovia--Pierre-le-Grand--Peter Francis--Captures of Spanish
vessels--Mode of capture--Barthelemy Portugese--His escapes and
victories--Roche the Brazilian--Fanatical hatred of the Spaniards--His
wrecks and adventures                                               152

CHAPTER V.--LOLONNOIS THE CRUEL.

Lolonnois' stratagems--His cruelty--His partner, Michael le
Basque--Takes Maracaibo--Tortures the citizens--Sacks the town--Takes
Gibraltar--Attempt on Merida--Famine and pestilence--Retreat--Division
of spoil--Ransom--Takes St. Pedro--Burns Veragua--Wrecked in the Gulf of
Honduras--Attacked by Indians--Killed and eaten by the savages      188

CHAPTER VI.--ALEXANDRE BRAS DE FER, AND MONTBARS THE EXTERMINATOR.

Bras de Fer compared by French writers to Alexander the Great--His
exploits and stratagems--Montbars--Anecdote of his childhood--Goes to
sea--His first naval engagement--Joins the Buccaneers--Defeats the
Spanish Fifties--His uncle killed--His revenge--Anecdote of the negro
vessel--Adam and Anne le Roux plunder Santiago                      267




PREFACE.


I claim for this book, at least originality. But this originality,
unfortunately, if it attaches interest to an author's labours, adds also
to his responsibilities.

The history of the Buccaneers has hitherto remained unwritten. Three or
four forgotten volumes contain literally all that is recorded of the
wars and conquests of these extraordinary men. Of these volumes two are
French, one Dutch, and one in English. The majority of our readers,
therefore, it is probable, know nothing more of the freebooters but
their name, confound them with the mere pirates of two centuries later,
and derive their knowledge of their manners from those dozen lines of
the Abbé Reynal, that have been transferred from historian to
historian, and from writer to writer, for the last two centuries.

The chief records of Buccaneer adventurers are drawn literally from only
three books. The first of these is _Oexmelin's Histoire des Aventuriers_.
12mo. Paris, 1688. Oexmelin was a Frenchman, who went out to St. Domingo
as a planter's apprentice or _engagé_, and eventually became surgeon in
the Buccaneer fleet--knew Lolonnois, and accompanied Sir Henry Morgan to
Panama.

The second is _Esquemeling's Zee Roovers_. Amsterdam. 4to. 1684.--A book
constantly mistaken by booksellers and in catalogues for Oexmelin.
Esquemeling was a Dutch _engagé_ at St. Domingo, and his book is an
English translation from the Dutch. The writer appears of humbler birth
than Oexmelin, but served also at Panama.

The third is _Ringrose's History of the Cruises of Sharpe, &c._ This
man, who served with Dampier, seems to have been an ignorant sailor, and
a mere log-keeper.

The fourth is _Ravenau de Lussan's Narrative_. De Lussan was a young
French officer of fortune, who served in some of Ringrose's cruises.
This is a book written by a vivacious and keen observer, but is less
complete than Oexmelin's, but equally full of anecdote, and very amusing.

For secondary authorities we come to the French Jesuit historians of the
West Indian Islands, diffuse Rochefort, the gossiping _bon vivant_
Labat; Tertre, dry and prejudiced; Charlevoix, careful, condensed, and
entertaining; and Raynal, polished, classical, second-hand, and
declamatory.

The English secondaries are, Dampier, with his companions, Wafer and
Cowley. Several old pamphlets contain quaint versions of Morgan's
conquest of Panama; and in 1817, Burney, in his "History of Discoveries
in the South Sea," devotes many chapters to a dry but very imperfect
abridgment of Buccaneer adventure, omitting carefully everything that
gives either life or colour. Captain Southey, in his "History of the
West Indies," supplies many odd scraps of old voyages, and presents many
scattered figures, but attempts no picture.

Nor has modern fiction, however short of material, discovered these new
and virgin mines. Mrs. Hall has a novel, it is true, called _The
Buccaneer_, the scene of which is, however, laid in England; and Angus
B. Reach has skimmed the same subject, but has evidently not even read
half the three existing authorities. Dana, the American poet, has a poem
called the Buccaneer, but this is merely a collection of lines on the
sea. Sir Walter Scott's Bertram, although he had been a Buccaneer, is a
mere ruffian, who would do for any age, and Scott himself places
Morgan's conquest of Panama in the reign of Charles I., when it actually
took place in that of Charles II., fifty years later.

Defoe himself, little conscious of the rich region he was treading,
sketched a Buccaneer sailor when he re-christened Alexander Selkirk
Robinson Crusoe, and condensed all the spirit of Dampier into a book
still read as eagerly by the man as by the boy.

When I find a writer of Scott's profundity of reading and depth of
research placing the great event of Buccaneer history fifty years
before its time, booksellers mistaking a Dutch for a French writer, and
living historians confounding the Flibustiers of Tortuga, who attacked
only the Spaniards, with their degraded successors the pirates of New
Providence, who robbed all nations and even their own without mercy, I
think I have proved that my book is not a superfluity.

It is seldom that an author can invite the whole reading world to peruse
the self-rewarding labour of his student life. Mine is no book for a
sect, a clique, a profession, or a trade. It brings new scenes and new
creations to the novel reader, jaded with worn-out types of conventional
existence. It supplies the historian with a page of English, French, and
Spanish history that the capricious muse of history has hitherto kept in
MS. It traces the foundation of our colonial empire. To the psychologist
it furnishes deep matter for thought, while the philosopher may see in
these pages humanity in a new aspect, and man's soul exposed to new
temptations.

What Dampier has described and Defoe drawn materials from, no man can
dare to assert is wanting in interest. The readers to whom these books
are new will be astonished to find the adventures of Xenophon paralleled
in De Lussan's retreat over the Isthmus, and Swift forestalled in his
conception of some of the oddest customs of Lilliput. Oexmelin, I may
boldly assert, is a much more amusing writer than half our historians, a
keen and enlightened observer, who looked upon Buccaneering as a
chivalrous life, in which the sea knight got equally hard knocks as the
land hero, but more money.

If my characters are not so grand as those of history, I can present to
my reader men as greedy of gold, ambitious and sagacious as Pizarro or
Cortes, and as reckless as Alexander, and as cruel as Cæsar. If the
Buccaneers were but insects, bred from the putrefactions of a decaying
empire, their plans were at least gigantic, and their courage
unprecedented.

Anomalous beings, hunters by land and sea, scaring whole fleets with a
few canoes, sacking cities with a few grenadiers, devastating every
coast from California to Cape Horn, they only needed a common principle
of union to have founded an aggressive republic, as wealthy as Venice
and as warlike as Carthage. One great mind and the New World had been
their own.

But from the first Providence sowed amongst them the seeds of
discord--difference of religion and difference of race. Never settling,
their race had its ranks renewed, not by descendants, but by fresh
recruits, men with new interests and lower aims. In less than a century
the Brotherhood had passed away, their virtues were forgotten and their
vices alone remembered.

The Buccaneers were robbers, yet they sought something beyond gold.
Mansvelt took the island of St. Catherine, and planned a republic, and
Morgan contemplated the destruction of the Bravo Indians. They were
outlaws, and yet religious robbers, yet generous and regardful of the
minutest delicacies of honour; lovers of freedom, yet obeying the
sternest discipline; cruel, yet tender to their friends.

All the light and shade of the darkest fiction look poor beside the
adventures of these men. Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, gallants,
officers, common seamen, farmers' sons, men of rank, hunters, sailors,
planters, murderers, fanatics, Creoles, Spaniards, negroes, astrologers,
monks, pilots, guides, merchants--all pass before us in a motley and
ever-changing masquerade. The backgrounds to these scenes are the wooded
shores of the West Indian Islands, woods sparkling at night with
fire-flies, broad savannahs dark with wild cattle, the volcanic islands
peopled by marooned sailors, stormy promontories, the lonely sand "keys"
of Jamaica, and the rocky fastnesses of Tortuga.




MONARCHS OF THE MAIN.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF TORTUGA.

    The precursors of the Buccaneers--Description of Tortuga--Origin of
    the Buccaneers--Conquest of Tortuga by the French--The hunters,
    planters, and corsairs--Le Basque takes Maracaibo--War in
    Hispaniola--French West Indian Company buy Tortuga--The Governor, M.
    D'Ogeron.


Drake, Cavendish, and Oxenham, indeed all the naval heroes of
Elizabeth's reign, were the precursors of the Buccaneers. The captains
of those "tall ships" that sailed from Plymouth Sound, and the green
nooks of the sunny coast of Devon, to capture stately carracks laden
deep with silks, spices, pearls, and precious stones, the treasure of
Potosi and Peru, were but Buccaneers under another name, agreeing with
them in the great principle of making war on none but Spaniards, but on
Spaniards unceasingly. "No peace beyond the line" was the motto on the
flag of both Drake and Morgan.

Sir John Hawkins, who began the slave trade, and who was Drake's
earliest patron, took the town of Rio de la Hacha, and struggled
desperately with the galleons in the port of St. Juan d'Ulloa. Drake
sacked Nombre de Dios, and, passing across the isthmus, stormed Vera
Cruz. He destroyed St. Domingo and Carthagena, burnt La Rancheria, and
attacked Porto Rico. But still more truly a Buccaneer was John Oxenham,
one of Drake's followers, who, cruising about Panama, captured several
bullion vessels; but was at last slain, with all his men, having fallen
in love with a Spanish captive, and liberated her son, who surprised him
with reinforcements from Nombre de Dios. Then came Raleigh, more
chivalrous than them all--looser in principle, but wiser in head. He
planned an attack on Panama, and ravaged St. Thomas's.

The first Buccaneers were poor French hunters, who, driven by the
Spaniards out of Hispaniola, fled to the neighbouring island of Tortuga,
and there settled as planters.

This Buccaneer colony of Tortuga arose rather by accident than by the
design of any one ambitious mind. The French had established a colony in
the almost deserted island of St. Christopher's, which had begun to
flourish when the Spaniards, alarmed at a hostile power's vicinity to
their mines, to which their thoughts then alone tended, put a stop to
the prosperity of the French settlements by frequent attacks made by
their fleets on their way to New Spain. From the just hatred excited by
these unprovoked forays sprang the first impulse of retaliation. These
injuries provoked the French, as they had done the Dutch, to fit out
privateers. But a still more powerful motive soon became paramount. A
spirit of cupidity arose, which was stimulated by the heated
imaginations of men poor and angry. Before them lay regions of gold,
timidly guarded by a vindictive but feeble enemy; and Spain became to
these pioneer settlers what a bedridden miser is to the dreams of a
needy bravo.

The report of the Dutch successes spread through all the ports of
France. Sailors were the ready bearers of wild tales they had themselves
half invented. Some hardy adventurers of Dieppe fitted out vessels to
carry on a warfare that retaliation had now rendered just, war made
legal, and chance rendered profitable. The sailor who was to-day
munching his onion on the quays of Marseilles might, a few weeks hence,
be lord of Carthagena, or rolling in the treasures of a Manilla galleon,
clothed in Eastern silks, and delighted with the perfumes of India.
Finding their enterprise successful, but St. Kitt's too distant to form
a convenient depôt for their booty, they began to look about for some
nearer locality. At first they found their return voyages to the West
Indian islands frequently occupying three months, which seemed years to
men hurrying to store up old plunder, and to sally forth for new. In
search of an asylum, these privateersmen touched at Hispaniola, hoping
to find some lonely island near its shores; but as soon as they had
landed, and saw the great forests full of game, and broad savannahs
alive with wild cattle, and finding it abandoned by the Spaniards, and
the Indians nearly all dead or emigrated, they determined to settle at a
place so full of advantages, where they could revictual their ships, and
remain secure and unobserved. The sight of Tortuga, a small neighbouring
island, rocky, and yet not without a harbour, convinced them that nature
had constructed for their growing empire at once a magazine, a citadel,
and a fortress. They had now a sanctuary and a haven, shelter for their
booty, and food for their men.

The Spaniards, although not occupying the island, were anxious that it
should not be occupied by others. They had long had a foreboding that
this island would become a resort for pirates, and had just garrisoned
it with an alfarez and twenty-five men. The French had, however, little
difficulty in getting rid of this small force, the soldiers being
enraged at finding themselves left by their countrymen, without
provisions or reinforcements, upon a barren rock.

Once masters of the heap of stones, the French began to deliberate by
what means they could retain it. The sight of buildings already begun,
and the prospect of more food than they could get at St. Christopher's,
determined these restless men to settle on the spot they had won. Part
of them returned to Hispaniola to kill oxen and boars, and to salt the
flesh for those who would remain to plant; and those men who determined
to build assured the sailors that stores of dry meat should always be
ready to revictual their ships.

The adventurers, having a nucleus for their operations, began to widen
their operations. They became now divided into three distinct classes,
always intermingling, and never very definitely divided, but still for
the main part separate: the _sea rovers_, or flibustiers; the
_planters_, or habitans; and the _hunters_, or buccaneers. For the first
class, there were many names: the English, following an Indian word,
called them Buccaneers, from the Indian term _boucan_ (dried meat); the
Dutch denominated them Zee Roovers, and the French Flibustiers, or
Aventuriers. A fourth class, growing by degrees either into the
Buccaneers or the planters, were the apprentices, or _engagés_.

A few French planters could not have retained the island had not their
numbers been swelled by the addition of many English. In a short time,
French vessels touched at the island, to trade for the booty that now
arrived more frequently, unintermittingly, and in greater quantities.
The trade grew less speculative and uncertain. French captains found it
profitable to barter not only for hides and meat with the Buccaneers,
but with the Flibustiers for silver-plate and pieces of eight. The high
prices paid for wine and brandy soon rendered the commerce with Bordeaux
a matter worthy the attention of the French Government. In a few days of
Buccaneer excess more was spent in barter than could have been realised
in months of average traffic with the more cautious.

The Spaniards, fully alive to the danger of this planter settlement,
determined to destroy it at a single blow. The design was easy of
accomplishment, for the Buccaneers had grown careless from long
impunity, and had long since crowned themselves undisputed kings of
Hispaniola and its dependencies. Taking advantage of a time when the
English corsairs were at sea and the French Buccaneers hunting on the
mainland, the Spanish General of the Indian Fleet landed with a handful
of soldiers and retook the island in an hour. The few planters were
overpowered before they could run together, the hunters before they
could seize their arms. Some were at once put to the sword, and others
hung on the nearest trees. The larger portion, however, taking advantage
of well-known lurking places, waited for the night, and then escaped to
the mainland in their canoes. The Spaniards, satisfied with the terror
they had struck, left the island un-garrisoned, and returned exultingly
to St. Domingo. Hearing, however, that there were a great many
Buccaneers still settled as hunters in Hispaniola, and that the wild
cattle were diminishing by their ravages, the general levied some troops
to put them down. To these men, who were known as the Spanish _Fifties_,
we shall hereafter advert.

The Spanish fleet was scarcely well out of sight before the Buccaneers,
angry but unintimidated, flocked back to their now desolated island,
full of rage at the sight of the bodies of their companions and the
ashes of their ruined houses. The English returned headed by a Buccaneer
named Willis, who gave an English character to the new colony. The
French adventurers, jealous of English interference, and fearful that
the island would fall into the possession of England, left Tortuga, and,
going to St. Christopher's, informed the Governor, the Chevalier de
Poncy, of the ease with which it could be conquered. De Poncy, alive to
the scheme and jealous for French honour, fitted out an expedition, and
intrusted the command to M. Le Vasseur, a brave soldier and good
engineer, just arrived from France, who levied a force of forty French
Protestants, and agreed to conquer the island for De Poncy and to govern
in his name, as well as to pay half the expenses of the conquest. In a
few days he dropped anchor in Port Margot, on the north side of
Hispaniola, about seven leagues from Tortuga. He instantly collected a
force of forty French Buccaneers from the woods and the savannahs, and,
having arranged his plans, made a descent upon the island in the month
of April, 1640. As soon as he had landed, he sent a message to the
English Governor to say that he had come to avenge the insults received
by the French flag, and to warn him that if he did not leave the island
with all those of his nation in twenty-four hours, he should lay waste
every plantation with fire and sword. The English, feeling their
position untenable, instantly embarked in a vessel lying in the road,
without (as Oexmelin, a French writer, says) striking a blow in
self-defence. The French population of the island then, rising in arms,
welcomed the invaders as friends.

Le Vasseur, the bloodless conqueror of this new Barataria, was received
with shouts and acclamations. He at once visited every nook of the
island that needed defence, and prepared to insure it against reconquest
either by the Spaniards or the English. He found it inaccessible on
three sides; and on the unprotected quarter built a fort, on a peak of
impregnable rock, rising 600 feet above the narrow path which it
commanded. The summit of this rock was about thirty feet square, and
could only be ascended by steps cut in the stone or by a moveable iron
ladder. The fort held four guns. A spring of water completed the
advantages of the spot, which was surrounded with walls and fenced in
with hedges, woods, precipices, and every aid that art or nature could
furnish. The only approach to this steep was a narrow avenue in which no
more than three men could march abreast.

The Buccaneers now flocked to Tortuga in greater numbers than before,
some to congratulate the new governor on his victory, and others to
enrol themselves as his subjects: all who came he received with
promises of support and protection. The Spaniards, in the meanwhile,
determined to crush this wasp's nest, fitted out at St. Domingo a new
armament of six vessels, having on board 500 or 600 men. They at first
anchored before the fort, but, receiving a volley, moored two leagues
lower down, and landed their troops. In attempting to storm the fort by
a _coup de main_, they were beaten off with the loss of 200 men, the
garrison sallying out and driving them back to their ships.

The now doubly victorious governor was hailed as the defender and
saviour of Tortuga. The news of victory soon reached the ears of M. de
Poncy, at St. Christopher's, who, at first rejoiced at the success,
became soon afraid of the ambition of his new ally. Fearing that he
would repudiate the contract, and declare himself an independent
sovereign, he took the precaution of testing his sincerity. He sent two
of his relations to Tortuga to request land as settlers, but really to
act as spies. Le Vasseur, subtle and penetrating, at once detected their
object. He received the young men with great civility, but took care to
secure their speedy return to St. Christopher's. Having now attained the
summit of his wishes, he became, as many greater men have been,
intoxicated with power. His temper changed, and he grew severe,
suspicious, intolerant, and despotic. He not only bound his subjects in
chains, but delighted to clank the fetters, and remind them of their
slavery. He ill-used the planters, loaded the merchants with taxes,
punished the most venial faults, and grew as much hated as he had been
once beloved. He went so far in his tyranny as to forbid the exercise of
the Catholic religion, to burn the churches and expel the priests. The
murder of such a persecutor has always been held a sin easily forgiven
by the confessor, and lust and superstition soon gave birth to murder.

Charlevoix relates an amusing instance of the governor's contumacy. De
Poncy, informed that his vessels had taken a silver idol (a Virgin Mary)
from some Spanish cathedral, wrote to demand its surrender. Le Vasseur
returned a wooden image by the messenger, desiring him to say, that for
religious purposes, wood or silver was equally good. One of his most
cruel inventions Le Vasseur called his "hell." It seems to have
resembled the portable iron cages in which Louis XI. used to confine his
state prisoners.

M. de Poncy, informed of the extraordinary change in the character of Le
Vasseur, endeavoured to beguile him by promises, threats, and
entreaties. Justice gave him now a pretext of enforcing what
self-interest had long meditated. The toils were growing closer round
the doomed man, but Heaven sent a speedier punishment. Le Vasseur, still
waiving all openings for formal complaint, was exulting in all the glory
of a small satrapy, when two nephews conspired against his life.
Cupidity inspired the crime, and they easily persuaded themselves that
God and man alike demanded the expiation. One writer calls them simply
captains, "companions of fortune," and another, the nephews of Le
Vasseur.

These ungrateful men had already been declared his heirs, but they had
quarrelled with him about a mistress he had taken from them, and one
fault in a friend obliterates the remembrance of many virtues. They
believed that the inhabitants, rejoiced at deliverance from such
tyranny, would appoint them joint governors in the first outburst of
their gratitude. They shot him from an ambush as he was descending from
the rock fort to the shore, but, only wounding him slightly, were
obliged to complete the murder with a poignard. The wounded man called
for a priest, and declared himself, with his last breath, a steadfast
Catholic. He seems to have been a dark, wily man, of strong passions,
tenacious ambition, and ungovernable will.

While this crime was perpetrating, De Poncy, determined to recover
possession of at least his share of Tortuga, and weary and angry at the
subterfuges of Le Vasseur, had resolved upon a new expedition. The
leader was a Chevalier de Fontenoy, a soldier of fortune, who, attracted
by the sparkle of Spanish gold, had just arrived at St. Kitt's in a
French frigate. Full of chivalry, he at once proposed to sail, although
informed that the place was impregnable, and could only be taken by
stratagem. While the armament was fitting up, he made a cruise round
Carthagena, on the look out for Spanish prizes, and joined M. Feral, a
nephew of the general, at Port de Paix, a rendezvous twelve leagues from
Tortuga. Informed there of the murder of Le Vasseur, they at once sailed
for the harbour, and landed 500 men at the spot where the Spaniards had
formerly been repulsed. The two murderers immediately capitulated, on
condition of being allowed to depart with all their uncle's treasure.
The Chevalier was proclaimed governor, and received with as many
acclamations as Le Vasseur had been before him. The old religion was
restored, and commerce patronized and protected, by royal edict. Two
bastions were added to the fort, and more guns mounted. The Buccaneers
crowded back in greater numbers than even on Le Vasseur's arrival.
Before they had only imagined the advantages of this conquest, but now
they had tasted them. The Chevalier hailed all Buccaneers as friends
and brothers, and even himself fitted out privateers. The Spanish ships
could scarcely venture out of port, and one merchant alone is known to
have lost 300,000 crowns' worth of merchandise in a single year.

It is easier to conquer than to retain a conquest, and vigilance grows
blunted by success. The Chevalier, too confident in his strength,
allowed half his population to embark in cruisers. The sick, the aged,
the maimed, laboured in the plantations with the slaves. The Spaniards,
informed of this, landed in force, without resistance. The few
Buccaneers crowded into the fort, which the enemy dared not approach.
Discovering, however, a mountain that commanded the rock, precipitous,
but still accessible, they determined to plant a battery upon it, and
drive the Buccaneers from their last foothold. With infinite vigour and
determination they hewed a road to the mountain between two rocks.
Making frames of wood, they lashed on their cannons, and forced the
slaves and prisoners to drag them to the summit, and, with a battery of
four guns, suddenly opened a fire upon the unguarded fort. The
Chevalier, not expecting this enterprise, had just deprived himself of
his last defence, by cutting down the large trees that grew round the
walls. In spite of all the threats and expostulations of the governor,
the garrison, galled by this plunging fire, at once capitulated. They
left the island in twenty-four hours, with arms and baggage, drums
beating, colours flying, and match burning, and set sail in two
half-scuttled vessels lying in the road, having first given hostages not
to serve against Spain for a given time. In another vessel, but alone,
set sail the two murderers, who, being short of food, consummated their
crimes by leaving the women and children of their company on a desert
island.

The Spanish general, repairing the fort, garrisoned it with sixty men,
whom he supplied with provisions. Fontenoy, repulsed in an attempt to
recover the island, soon afterwards returned to France.

In 1655, when Admiral Penn appeared off St. Domingo with Cromwell's
fleet, the Spaniards, to increase their forces in Hispaniola, recalled
the troop which had held Tortuga eighteen months--the commander first
blowing up the fort, burning the church, the houses, and the magazines,
and devastating the plantations. Not long afterwards, an English refugee
of wealth, Elias Ward (or, as the French call him, _Elyazouärd_), came
from Jamaica, with his family and a dozen soldiers, and with an English
commission from the general, and was soon joined by about 120 French and
English adventurers.

The treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, brought no repose to the hunters of
Hispaniola from Spanish inroads. The planters were compelled to work
armed, and to keep watch at night for fear of being murdered in their
beds. In 1667 the war recommencing, let the bloodhounds, who had long
been straining in the leash, free to raven and devour. De Lisle again
plundered St. Jago, and obtained 2,500 piastres ransom, each of his
adventurers secured 300 crowns, the Spaniards abandoning the defiles
and carrying off their treasure to Conception.

This was the golden age of Buccaneering. Vauclin, Ovinet, and Tributor,
plundered the towns of Cumana, Coro, St. Martha, and Nicaragua. Le
Basque, with only forty men, surprised Maracaibo by night. He seized the
principal inhabitants and shut them in the cathedral, and threatened to
instantly cut off their heads if the citizens ventured to rise in arms.
Daylight discovering his feeble force, he could obtain no ransom. The
Flibustiers then retreated, each man driving a prisoner before him, a
pistol slung in one hand and a naked sabre raised over the Spaniard's
head in the other. These hostages were detained twenty-four hours, and
released at the moment the French departed. This is the same Le Basque
whom Charlevoix describes as cutting out the Margaret from under the
cannon of Portobello, and winning a million piastres. At another time,
they retreated laden with booty and carrying with them the Governor and
the principal citizens of St. Jago; but the Spaniards, rallying, placed
themselves, 1,000 in number, in an ambuscade by the way, trusting to
their numbers and expecting an easy victory. The French, turning well,
scarcely missed a shot, and in a short time killed 100 of the enemy's
men, and, wounding a great many more, drove them off after two hours'
fighting. They rallied and returned in a short time, determined to
conquer or die; but the French, showing the prisoners, declared that if
a shot was fired by the enemy they would kill them before their eyes,
and would then sell their own lives dearly. This menace frightened the
Spaniards, and the Flibustiers continued their retreat unmolested.
Having waited some time in vain on the coast for the ransom, they left
the prisoners unhurt, and returned gaily to Tortuga.

In 1663, Spain, finding that France in secret encouraged the Buccaneers
of Hispaniola, gave orders to exterminate every Frenchman in the island,
promising recompence to those who distinguished themselves in the war.
An old Flemish officer, named Vandelinof, who had served with
distinction in the Low Country wars, took the command. His first
stratagem was to attempt to surprise the chief French boucan, at
Gonaive, on the Brûlé Savannah, with 800 men. The hunters, observing
them, gave the alarm, and, collecting 100 "brothers," advanced to meet
them in a defile where the Spanish numbers were of no avail. The Fleming
was killed at the first volley, and after an obstinate struggle the
Spaniards fled to the mountains.

The enemy, after this defeat, returned to their old and safer plan of
night surprises--which frequently succeeded, owing to the negligent
watch kept by the Buccaneers. The hunters, much harassed by the constant
sense of insecurity, began to retire every night to the small islands
round St. Domingo, and seldom went alone to the chase. Some boucans,
such as those at the port of Samana, grew rapidly into towns. Near this
excellent harbour the cattle were unusually abundant, and in a few hours
the Flibustier could carry his hides to his market at Tortuga. Gradually
French and Dutch vessels began to visit the port to buy hides and to
trade.

Every morning before starting to the savannah, the hunters climbed the
highest hill to see if any Spaniards were visible. They then agreed on a
rendezvous for the evening, arriving there to the moment. If any one was
missing he was at once known to be taken or killed, and no one was
permitted to return home till their comerade's death had been avenged.
One evening the hunters of Samana, missing four of the band, marched
towards St. Jago, and, discovering from some prisoners that their
companions had been massacred, entered a Spanish village and slew every
one they met.

The Spaniards too had sometimes their revenge. "The river of massacre"
near Samana was so called from thirty Buccaneers who were slain there
while fording the river laden with hides. Another band of hunters, led
by Charles Tore, had been hunting at a place called the Bois-Brûlé
Savannah, and having completed the number of skins the merchants had
contracted for, returned to Samana. Crossing a savannah they were
surprised by an overwhelming force of Spaniards, and, in spite of a
desperate resistance, slain to a man. The Buccaneers, irritated by these
losses, began to think of revenge. When the Spaniards destroyed the wild
cattle, some turned planters about Port de Paix, others became
Flibustiers.

The death of De Poncy threw the French colonies into some disorder, and
Tortuga was for awhile forgotten both by the home and colonial
government. During this interval a gentleman of Perigord, named Rossy, a
retired Buccaneer, resolved to resume his old profession. Returning to
St. Domingo, he was hailed as a father by the hunters, who proposed to
him to recover Tortuga. Rossy, knowing that fidelity is the last virtue
that forsakes the heart, accepted their proposal with the enthusiasm of
a gambler accustomed to such desperate casts. He was soon joined by five
hundred refugees, burning for conquest and revenge. They assembled in
canoes at a rendezvous in Hispaniola, and agreed to land one hundred men
on the north side of the island and surprise the mountain fort. The
Spaniards in the town, not even entrenched, were soon beaten into the
fort. The garrison of the rock were rather astonished to be awoke at
break of day by a salute from the neighbouring mountain, when they could
see the enemy still quietly encamped below. Sallying out, they could
discern no opponents, but before they could regain the fort were all cut
to pieces or made prisoners. The survivors were at once thrust into a
boat and sent to Cuba, and Rossy declared governor. He soon after
received a commission from the French king, together with a permission
to levy a tax, for the support of his dignity, of a tenth of all prizes
brought into Tortuga. Rossy governed quietly for some years, and
eventually retired to his native country to die, and La Place, his
nephew, reigned in his stead.

In 1664, the French West India Company became masters of Tortuga and the
Antilles, and appointed M. D'Ogeron, a gentleman of Anjou who had failed
in commerce, as their governor. He proved a good administrator, and
built magazines and storehouses for his grateful and attached people.
D'Ogeron soon established order and prosperity in the island, which
became a refuge for the red flag and the terror of the Spaniards. He
colonised all the north side of Hispaniola, from Port Margot, where he
had a house, to the three rivers opposite Tortuga. He attracted
colonists from the Antilles, and brought over women from France, in
order to settle his nomadic and mutinous population. In 1661, the West
India Company, dissatisfied with the profits of their merchandize,
resolved to relinquish the colony and call in their debts; and it was in
the St. John, sent out for this purpose, that the Buccaneer historian
Oexmelin, whom we shall have frequently to quote, first visited Tortuga.
D'Ogeron, determined not to relinquish a settlement already beginning to
flourish, hastened to France, and persuaded some private merchants to
continue the trade. They promised to fit out twelve vessels annually, if
he would supply them with back freight. He on his part agreed to provide
the colonists with slaves and to destroy the wild dogs, which were
committing great ravages among the herds of Hispaniola. This new
company did not answer. The inhabitants suffered by the monopoly, and
grew discontented at only being allowed to trade with certain vessels,
and being obliged to turn their backs on better bargains or cheaper
merchandize. An accident lit the train. M. D'Ogeron attempted to prevent
their trading with some Dutch merchants, and they rose in arms. Shots
were fired at the governor, and the revolters threatened to burn out the
planters who would not join their flag. But succours from the Antilles
soon brought them to their senses, and, one of their ringleaders being
hung, they surrendered at discretion. The governor, alarmed even at an
outbreak that he had checked, made in his turn concessions. He permitted
all French merchants to trade upon paying a heavy harbour due, and the
number of ships soon became too numerous for the limited commerce of the
place. M. D'Ogeron next procured colonists from Brittany and Anjou, and
eventually, after some further exploits, very daring but always
unfortunate, he was succeeded in command by his nephew M. De Poncy.

There are several Tortugas. There is one in the Caribbean sea, another
near the coast of Honduras, a third not far from Carthagena, and a
fourth in the gulf of California; they all derived their names from
their shape, resembling the turtle which throng in these seas.

The Buccaneer fastness with which we have to do is the Tortuga of the
North Atlantic Ocean, a small rocky island about 60 leagues only in
circumference, and distant barely six miles from the north coast of
Hispaniola. This Tortuga was to the refugee hunters of the savannahs
what New Providence became to the pirates, and the Galapagos islands to
the South Sea adventurers of half a century later. It had only one port,
the entrance to which formed two channels: on two sides it was
iron-bound, and on the other defended by reefs and shoals, less
threatening than the cliffs, but not less dangerous. Though scantily
supplied with spring water--a defect which the natives balanced by a
free use of "the water of life"--the interior was very fertile and well
wooded. Palm and sandal wood trees grew in profusion; sugar, tobacco,
aloes, resin, China-root, indigo, cotton, and all sorts of tropical
plants were the riches of the planters. The cultivators were already
receiving gifts from the earth, which--liberal benefactor--she gave
without expecting a return, for the virgin soil needed little seed,
care, or nourishment. The island was too small for savannahs, but the
tangled brushwood abounded in wild boars.

The harbour had a fine sand bottom, was well sheltered from the winds,
and was walled in by the Coste de Fer rocks. Round the habitable part of
the shore stretched sands, so that it could not be approached but by
boats. The town consisted of only a few store-houses and wine shops, and
was called the _Basse Terre_. The other five habitable parts of the
island were Cayona, the Mountain, the Middle Plantation, the Ringot, and
Mason's Point. A seventh, the Capsterre, required only water to make it
habitable, the land being very fertile. To supply the want of springs,
the planters collected the rain water in tanks. The soil of the island
was alternately sand and clay, and from the latter they made excellent
pottery. The mountains, though rocky, and scarcely covered with soil,
were shaded with trees of great size and beauty, the roots of which
clung like air plants to the bare rock, and, netting them round, struck
here and there deeper anchors into the wider crevices. This timber was
so dry and tough that, if it was cut and exposed to the heat of the sun,
it would split with a loud noise, and could therefore only be used as
fuel.

This favoured island boasted all the fruits of the Antilles: its tobacco
was better than that of any other island; its sugar canes attained an
enormous size, and their juice was sweeter than elsewhere; its numerous
medicinal plants were exported to heal the diseases of the Old World.
The only four-footed animal was the wild boar, originally transplanted
from Hispaniola. As it soon grew scarce, the French governor made it
illegal to hunt with dogs, and required the hunter to follow his prey
single-handed and on foot. The wood-pigeons were almost the only birds
in the island. They came in large flocks at certain periods of the year;
Oexmelin says that, in two or three hours, without going eighty steps
from the road, he killed ninety-five with his own hand. As soon as they
eat a certain berry their flesh became bitter as our larks do when they
move from the stubbles into the turnips. A Gascon visitor, once
complaining of their sudden bitterness, was told by a Buccaneer as a
joke that his servant had forgot to remove the gall. Fish abounded round
the island, and crabs without nippers; the night fishermen carrying
torches of the candle-wood tree. The shell fish was the food of servants
and slaves, and was said to be so indigestible as to frequently produce
giddiness and temporary blindness; the turtle and manitee, too, formed
part of their daily diet. The planters were much tormented by the white
and red land-crabs, or tourtourons, which lived in the earth, visited
the sea to spawn, and at night gnawed the sugar-canes and the roots of
plants. Their only venomous reptile was the viper, which they tamed to
kill mice; in a wild state, it fed on poultry or pigeons. From the
stomach of one Oexmelin drew seven pigeons and a large fowl, which had
been swallowed about three hours before, and cooked them for his own
dinner, verifying the old proverb of "robbing Peter to pay Paul." In
times of scarcity these snakes were eaten for food. Besides chameleons
and lizards, there were small insects with shells like a snail. These
were considered good to eat and very nourishing. When held near the
fire, they distilled a red oily liquid useful as a rheumatic liniment.
Though the scorpions and scolopendrias were not venomous, nature, always
just in her compensations, covered the island with poisonous shrubs. The
most fatal of these was the noxious mançanilla. It grew as high as a
pear tree, had leaves like a wild laurel, and bore fruit like an apple;
this fruit was so deadly, that even fish that ate of it, if they did not
die, became themselves poisonous, and were known by the blackness of
their teeth. The only antidote was olive oil. The Indian fishermen
used, as a test, to taste the heart of the fish they caught, and if it
proved bitter they knew at once that it had been poisoned, and threw it
away. The very rain-drops that fell from the leaves were deadly to man
and beast, and it was as dangerous to sleep under its shadow as under
the upas. The friendly boughs invited the traveller (as vice does man)
to rest under their shade; but when he awoke he found himself sick and
faint, and covered with feverish sores. New-comers were too frequently
tempted by the sight and odour of the fruit, and the only remedy for the
rash son of Adam was to bind him down, and, in spite of heat and pain,
to prevent him drinking for two or three days. The body of the sufferer
became at first "red as fire, and his tongue black as ink," then a great
torment of thirst and fever came upon him, but slowly passed away.
Another poisonous shrub resembled the pimento; its berries were used by
the Indians to rub their eyes, giving them, as they believed, a keener
sight, and enabling them to see the fish deeper in the water and to
strike them at a greater distance with the harpoon. The root of this
bush was a poison, so deadly that the only known antidote for it was its
own berries, bruised and drunk in wine. Of another plant, Oexmelin
relates an instance of a negro girl being poisoned by a rejected lover,
by merely putting some of its leaves between her toes when asleep.




CHAPTER II.

MANNERS OF THE HUNTERS.

    Derivation of the words Buccaneer and Flibustier--The three
    classes--Dress of the hunters--West Indian scenery--Method of
    hunting--Wild dogs--Anecdotes--Wild oxen, wild boars, and wild
    horses--Buccaneer food--Cow killing--Spanish
    method--Amusements--Duels--Adventures with the Spanish militia--The
    hunters driven to sea--The _engagés_, or apprentices--Hide
    curing--Hardships of the bush life--The planter's
    _engagés_--Cruelties of planters--The _matelotage_--Huts--Food.


The hunters of the wild cattle in the savannahs of Hispaniola were known
under the designation of Buccaneers as early as the year 1630.

They derived this name from _boucan_,[1] an old Indian word which their
luckless predecessors, the Caribs, gave to the hut in which they smoked
the flesh of the oxen killed in hunting, or not unfrequently the limbs
of their persecutors the Spaniards. They applied the same term, from the
poverty of an undeveloped language, to the _barbecue_, or square wooden
frame upon which the meat was dried. In course of time this hunters'
food became known as _viande boucanée_, and the hunters themselves
gradually assumed the name of Buccaneers.

[1] Charlevoix's "Histoire de l'Ile Espagnole," p. 6, vol. ii

Their second title of Flibustiers was a mere corruption of the English
word freebooters--a German term, imported into England during the Low
Country wars of Elizabeth's reign. It has been erroneously traced to the
Dutch word _flyboat_; but the Jesuit traveller, Charlevoix, asserts
that, in fact, this species of craft derived its title from being first
used by the Flibustiers, and not from its swiftness. This, however, is
evidently a mistake, as Drayton and Hakluyt use the word; and it seems
to be of even earlier standing in the French language. The derivation
from the English word freebooter is at once seen when the _s_ in
Flibu_s_tier becomes lost in pronunciation.

In 1630, a party of French colonists, who had failed in an attack on St.
Christopher's, finding, as we have shown, Hispaniola almost deserted by
the Spaniards, who neglected the Antilles to push their conquests on the
mainland, landed on the south side and formed a settlement, discovering
the woods and the plains to be teeming with wild oxen and wild hogs. The
Dutch merchants promised to supply them with every necessary, and to
receive the hides and tallow that they collected in exchange for lead,
powder, and brandy. These first settlers were chiefly Normans, and the
first trading vessels that visited the coast were from Dieppe.

The origin of the Buccaneers, or hunters, and the Flibustiers, or sea
rovers, as the Dutch called them, was contemporaneous. From the very
beginning many grew weary of the chase and became corsairs, at first
turning their arms against all nations but their own, but latterly, as
strict privateersmen, revenging their injuries only on the Spaniards,
with whom France was frequently at war, and generally under the
authority of regular or forged commissions obtained from the Governor of
St. Domingo or some other French settlement. Between the Buccaneers and
Flibustiers no impassable line was drawn; to chase the wild ox or the
Spaniard was the same to the greater part of the colonists, and on sea
or land the hunter's musket was an equally deadly weapon.

Two years after the French refugees from St. Christopher's had landed on
the half-deserted shores of Hispaniola, the Flibustiers seized the small
adjoining island of Tortuga, attracted by its safe and well-defended
harbour, its fertility, and the strength of its natural defences. The
French and English colonists of St. Christopher's began now to cultivate
the small plantations round the harbour, encouraged by the number of
French trading vessels that visited it, and by the riches that the
Flibustiers captured from the Spaniards. These vessels brought over
young men from France to be bound to the planters for three years as
_engagés_, by a contract that legalized the transitory slavery.

There were thus at once established four classes of men--_Buccaneers_,
or hunters; _planters_, or inhabitants; _engagés_, who were apprenticed
to either the one or the other; and _sea-rovers_. They governed
themselves by a sort of democratic compact--each inhabitant being
monarch in his own plantation, and every Flibustier king on his own
deck. But the latter was not unfrequently deposed by his crew; and the
former, if cruel to his _engagés_, was compelled to submit to the French
governor's interference. Before giving any history of the various
revolutions in Tortuga, or the wars of the Spaniards in Hispaniola, we
will describe the manners of each of the three classes we have
mentioned.

And first of the Buccaneers, or hunters, of Hispaniola.

These wild men fed on the bodies of the cattle they killed in hunting,
and by selling their hides and tallow obtained money enough to buy the
necessaries and even the luxuries of life,--for the gambling table and
the debauch. While the Flibustiers called each other "brothers of the
coast," the Buccaneers were included in the generic term "_gens de la
côté_," and in time the names of Buccaneer and Flibustier were used
indiscriminately.

The hunter's dress consisted of a plain shirt, or blouse (Du Tertre
calls it a sack), belted at the waist with a bit of green hide. It was
soon dyed a dull purple with the blood of the wild bull, and was always
smeared with grease. "When they returned from the chase to the boucan,"
says the above-named writer, "you would say that these are the butcher's
vilest servants, who have been eight days in the slaughterhouse without
washing." As they frequently carried the meat home by cutting a hole in
the centre, and thrusting their heads through it, we may imagine the
cannibals that they must have looked. They wore drawers, or frequently
only tight mocassins, reaching to the knee; their sandals were of bull's
hide or hog skin, fastened with leather laces.

In Oexmelin's _Histoire des Aventuriers_, the hunter is represented with
bare feet, but this could not have been usual, when we remember the
danger of chigoes, snakes, and scorpions, not to speak of prickly pear
coverts and thorny brakes. From their leather waist belt hung a short,
heavy _machete_ or sabre, and an alligator skin case of Dutch hunting
knives. On their heads they wore a leather skull-cap, shaped like our
modern jockey's, with a peak in front. They wore their hair falling
wildly on their shoulders, and their huge beards increased the ferocity
of their appearance. Oexmelin particularly mentions the beard, although
no existing engraving of the Buccaneer chiefs represents them with this
grim ornament. According to Charlevoix, some of them wore a shirt, and
over this a sort of brewer's apron, or coarse sacking tunic, open at the
sides. From this shirt being always stained with blood, perhaps
sometimes purposely dipped into it, the Abbé Reynal supposes that such a
shirt was the necessary dress of the Buccaneer. Oexmelin says that as his
vessel approached St. Domingo, "a Buccaneers' canoe came off with six
men at the paddles, whose appearance excited the astonishment of all
those on board, who had never before been out of France. They wore a
small linen tunic and short drawers, reaching only half down the thigh.
It required one to look close to see if the shirt was linen or not, so
stained was it with the blood which had dripped from the animals they
kill and carry home. All of them had large beards, and carried at their
girdle a case of cayman skin, in which were four knives and a bayonet."
Like the Canadian trappers, or, indeed, sportsmen in general, they were
peculiarly careful of their muskets, which were made expressly for them
in France, the best makers being Brachie of Dieppe, and Gelu of Nantes.
These guns were about four feet and a half long, and were known
everywhere as "Buccaneering pieces." The stocks were square and heavy,
with a hollow for the shoulder, and they were all made of the same
calibre, single barrel, and carrying balls sixteen to the pound. Every
hunter took with him fifteen or twenty pounds of powder, the best of
which came from Cherbourg. They kept it in waxed calabashes to secure it
from the damp, having no shelter or hut that would keep out the West
Indian rains. Their bullet pouch and powder horn hung on either side,
and their small tents they carried, rolled up tight like bandoliers, at
their waist, for they slept wherever they halted, and generally in their
clothes.

We have no room and no colours bright enough to paint the chief features
of the Indian woods, the cloven cherry, that resembles the arbutus, the
cocoa with its purple pods, the red _bois immortel_, the stunted bastard
cedar, the logwood with its sweet blossom and hawthorn-like leaf, the
cashew with its golden fruit, the oleander, the dock-like yam, and the
calabash tree.

What Hesperian orchards are those where the citron, lemon, and lime
cling together, and the pine-apple grows in prickly hedges, soft custard
apples hang out their bags of sweetness, and the avocada swings its
pears big as pumpkins; where the bread-fruit with its gigantic leaves,
the glossy star apple, and the golden shaddock, drop their masses of
foliage among the dewy and fresh underwood of plantains, far below the
tall and graceful cocoa-nut tree.

Michael Scott depicts with photographic exactness and brilliancy every
phase of the West Indian day, and enables us to imagine the light and
shade that surrounded the strange race of whom we write. At daybreak,
the land wind moans and shakes the dew from the feathery palms; the
fireflies grow pale, and fade out one after the other, like the stars;
the deep croaking of the frog ceases, and the lizards and crickets are
silent; the monkeys leave off yelling; the snore of the tree toad and
the wild cry of the tiger-cat are no more heard; but fresh sounds arise,
and the woods thrill with the voices and clatter of an awaking city; the
measured tap of the woodpecker echoes, with the clear, flute-like note
of the pavo del monte, the shriek of the macaw, and the chatter of the
parroquet; the pigeon moans in the inmost forest, and the gabbling
crows croak and scream.

At noon, as the breeze continues, and the sun grows vertical, the
branches grow alive with gleaming lizards and coloured birds, noisy
parrots hop round the wild pine, the cattle retreat beneath the trees
for shelter, to browse the cooler grass, and the condouli and passion
flowers of all sizes, from a soup plate to a thumb ring, shut their
blossoms; the very humming-birds cease to drone and buzz round the
orange flowers, and the land-crab is heard rustling among the dry grass.
In the swamps the hot mist rises, and the wild fowl flock to the reeds
and canes in the muddy lagoons, where the strong smell of musk denotes
the lurking alligator; the feathery plumes of the bamboos wave not, and
the cotton tree moves not a limb.

The rainy season brings far different scenes: then the sky grows
suddenly black, the wild ducks fly screaming here and there, the carrion
crows are whirled bodingly about the skies, the smaller birds hurry to
shelter, the mountain clouds bear down upon the valleys, and a low,
rushing sound precedes the rain. The torrents turn brown and earthy, all
nature seems to wait the doom with fear. The low murmur of the
earthquake is still more impressive, with the distant thunder breaking
the deep silence, and the trees bending and groaning though the air is
still. Besides the rains and the earthquakes, the tornadoes are still
more dreadful visitants, when the air in a moment grows full of shivered
branches, shattered roofs, and uptorn canes.

The great features of the West Indian forests are the fireflies and the
monkeys. At night, when the wind is rustling in the dry palm leaves, the
sparkles of green fire break out among the trees like sparks blown from
a thousand torches; the gloom pulses with them as the flame ebbs and
flows, and the planters' chambers are filled with these harmless
incendiaries. The yell of the monkeys at daybreak has been compared to a
devils' holiday, to distant thunder, loose iron bars in a cart in Fleet
Street, bagpipes, and drunken men laughing.

To Coleridge we are indebted for word pictures of the cabbage tree, and
the silk cotton tree with their buttressed trunks; the banyan with its
cloistered arcades; the wild plantain with its immense green leaves rent
in slips, its thick bunches of fruit, and its scarlet pendent seed; the
mangroves, with their branches drooping into the sea; the banana, with
its jointed leaves; the fern trees, twenty feet high; the gold canes, in
arrowy sheaves; and the feathery palms. Nor do we forget the figuera,
the bois le Sueur, or the wild pine burning like a topaz in a calix of
emerald. Beneath the broad roof of creepers, from which the oriole hangs
its hammock nest, grow, in a wild jungle of beauty, the scarlet cordia,
the pink and saffron flower fence, the plumeria, and the white datura.
The flying fish glided by us, says H.N. Coleridge, speaking of the
Indian seas, bonitos and albicores played around the bows, dolphins
gleamed in our wake, ever and anon a shark, and once a great
emerald-coloured whale, kept us company. Elsewhere he describes the
silver strand, fringed with evergreen drooping mangroves, and the long
shrouding avenues of thick leaves that darkly fringe the blue ocean. By
the shore grow the dark and stately manchineel, beautiful but noxious,
the white wood, and the bristling sea-side grape, with its broad leaves
and bunches of pleasant berries. The sea birds skim about the waves, and
the red flamingoes stalk around the sandy shoals, while the alligators
wallow on the mud banks, and the snowy pelicans hold their councils in
solemn stupidity.

Leaving the sea and the shore we wander on into the interior, for the
West Indian vegetation has everywhere a common character, and see
delighted the forest trees growing on the cliffs, knotted and bound
together with luxuriant festoons of evergreen creepers, connecting them
in one vast network of leaves and branches, the wild pine sparkling on
the huge limbs of the wayside trees, beside it the dagger-like Spanish
needle, the quilted pimploe, and the maypole aloe shooting its yellow
flowered crown twenty feet above the traveller, or amid the dark
foliage, twines of purple wreaths or lilac jessamine; and the woods
ringing with the song of birds, interrupted at times by strange shrieks
or moanings of some tropic wanderer; we see with these the snowy
amaryllis, the gorgeous hibiscus with its crown of scarlet, the
quivering limes and dark glossy orange bushes; we rest under the green
tamarind or listen to the mournful creaking of the sand box tree.

The Buccaneers went in pairs, every hunter having his _camerade_ or
_matelot_ (sailor), as well as his _engagés_. They had seldom any fixed
habitation, but pitched their tents where the cattle were to be found,
building temporary sheds, thatched with palm leaves, to defend them from
the rain and to lodge their stock of hides till they could barter it
with the next vessel for wine, brandy, linen, arms, powder, or lead.
They would return three leagues from the chase to their huts, laden with
meat and skins, and if they ate in the open country it was always with
their musket cocked and near at hand for fear of surprise. With their
_matelots_ they had everything in common. The chief occupation of these
voluntary outlaws was the chase of the wild ox, that of the wild boar
being at first a mere amusement, or only followed as the means of
procuring a luxurious meal; at a later period, however, many Frenchmen
lived by hunting the hog, whose flesh they boucaned and sold for
exportation, its flavour being superior to that of any other meat.

The Buccaneers sometimes went in companies of ten or twelve, each man
having his Indian attendant besides his apprentices. Before setting out
they arranged a spot for rendezvous in case of attack. If they remained
long in one place, they built thatched sheds under which to pitch their
tents. They rose at daybreak to start for the chase, leaving one of the
band to guard the huts. The masters generally went first and alone
(sometimes the worst shot was left in the tent to cook), and the
_engagés_ and the dogs followed; one hound, the _venteur_, went in front
of all, often leading the hunter through wood and over rock where no
path had ever been. When the quarry came in sight the dogs barked round
it and kept it at bay till the hunters could come up and fire. They
generally aimed at the breast of the bull, or tried to hamstring it as
soon as possible. Many hunters ran down the wild cattle in the savannah
and attacked it with their dogs. If only wounded the ox would rush upon
them and gore all he met. But this happened very seldom, for the men
were deadly shots, seldom missed their _coup_, and were always
sufficiently active, if in danger, to climb the tree from behind which
they had fired. The _venteur_ dog had a peculiar short bark by which he
summoned the pack to his aid, and as soon as they heard it the _engagés_
rushed to the rescue. When the beast was half flayed, the master took
out the largest bone and sucked the hot marrow, which served him for a
meal, giving a bit also to the _venteur_, but not to any other dogs,
lest they should grow lazy in hunting; but the last lagger in the pack
had sometimes a bit thrown him to incite him to greater exertion. He
then left the _engagés_ to carry the skin to the boucan, with a few of
the best joints, giving the rest to the carrion crows, that soon sniffed
out the blood. They continued the chase till each man had killed an ox,
and the last returned home, laden like the rest with a hide and a
portion of raw meat. By this time the first comer had prepared dinner,
roasted some beef, or spitted a whole hog. The tables were soon laid;
they consisted of a flat stone, the fallen trunk of a tree, or a root,
with no cloth, no napkin, no bread, and no wine; pimento and orange
juice were sufficient sauce for hungry men, and a contented mind and a
keen appetite never quarrelled with rude cooking. This monotonous life
was only varied by a conflict with a wounded bull, or a skirmish with
the Spaniards. The grand fête days were when the hunter had collected as
many hides as he had contracted to supply the merchant, and carried them
to Tortuga, to Cape Tiburon, Samana, or St. Domingo, probably to return
in a week's time, weary of drinking or beggared from the gambling table,
tired of civilization, and restless for the chase.

The wild cattle of Hispaniola--the oxen, hogs, horses, and dogs--were
all sprung from the domestic animals originally brought from Spain. The
dogs were introduced into the island to chase the Indians, a cruelty
that even the mild Columbus practised. Esquemeling says, those first
conquerors of the New World made use of dogs "to range and search the
intricate thicket of woods and forests for those their implacable and
unconquerable enemies; thus they forced them to leave their old refuge
and submit to the sword, seeing no milder usage would do it. Hereupon
they killed some of them, and, quartering their bodies, placed them on
the highways, that others might take a warning from such a punishment.
But this severity proved of ill consequence, for, instead of frighting
them and reducing them to civility, they conceived such horror of the
Spaniards that they resolved to detest and fly their sight for ever;
hence the greatest part died in caves and subterraneous places of the
woods and mountains, in which places I myself have often seen great
numbers of human bones. The Spaniards, finding no more Indians to
appear about the woods, turned away a great number of dogs they had in
their houses; and they, finding no masters to keep them, betook
themselves to the woods and fields to hunt for food to preserve their
lives, and by degrees grew wild."

The young of these maroon dogs the hunters were in the habit of bringing
up. When they found a wild bitch with whelps, they generally took away
the puppies and brought them to their tents, preferring them to any
other sort of dog. They seem to have been between a greyhound and a
mastiff. The Dutch writer whom we have just quoted mentions the singular
fact, that these dogs, even in a wild state, retained their acquired
habits. The _venteur_ always led the way, and was allowed to dip the
first fangs into the victim. The wild dogs went in packs of fifty or
eighty, and were so fierce that they would not scruple to attack a whole
herd of wild boars, bringing down two or three at once. They destroyed a
vast number of wild cattle, devouring the young as soon as a mare had
foaled or a cow calved.

"One day," says Esquemeling, "a French Buccaneer showed me a strange
action of this kind. Being in the fields hunting together, we heard a
great noise of dogs which had surrounded a wild boar. Having tame dogs
with us we left them in custody of our servants, being desirous to see
the sport. Hence my companion and I climbed up two several trees, both
for security and prospect. The wild boar, all alone, stood against a
tree, defending himself with his tusks from a great number of dogs that
enclosed him, killed with his teeth and wounded several of them. This
bloody fight continued about an hour, the wild boar meanwhile attempting
many times to escape. At last flying, one dog leaped upon his back; and
the rest of the dogs, perceiving the courage of their companion,
fastened likewise on the boar, and presently killed him. This done, all
of them, the first only excepted, laid themselves down upon the ground
about the prey, and there peaceably continued till he, the first and
most courageous of the troop, had eaten as much as he could. When this
dog had left off, all the rest fell in to take their share till nothing
was left."

In 1668, the Governor of Tortuga, finding these dogs were rendering the
wild boar almost extinct, and alarmed lest the hunters should leave a
place where food was growing scarce, sent to France for poison to
destroy these mastiffs, and placed poisoned horse flesh in the woods.
But although this practice was continued for six months, and an
incredible number were killed, yet the race soon appeared almost as
numerous as before.

The wild horses went in troops of about two or three hundred. They were
awkward and mis-shapen, small and short-bodied, with large heads, long
necks, trailing ears, and thick legs. They had always a leader, and when
they met a hunter, stared at him till he approached within shot, then
gallopped off all together. They were only killed for their skins,
though their flesh was sometimes smoked for the use of the sailors.
These horses were caught by stretching nooses along their tracks, in
which they got entangled by the neck. When taken, they were quickly
tamed by being kept two or three days without food, and were then used
to carry hides. They were good workers, but easily lamed. When a
Buccaneer turned them adrift from want of food to keep them through the
winter, they were known to return ten months after, or, meeting them in
the savannah, begin to whine and caress their old masters, and suffer
themselves to be recaptured. They were also killed for the sake of the
fat about the neck and belly, which the hunters used for lamp oil.

The wild oxen were tame unless wounded, and their hides were generally
from eleven to thirteen feet long. They were very strong and very swift,
in spite of their short and slender legs. In the course of a single
century from their introduction, they had so increased, that the French
Buccaneers, when they landed, seldom went in search of them, but waited
for them near the shore, at the salt pools where they came to drink. The
herds fed at night on the savannahs, and at noon retired to the shelter
of the forests. A wounded bull would often blockade, for four hours, a
tree in which a hunter had taken refuge, bellowing round the trunk and
ploughing at the roots with his horns. The French hunters generally shot
them; but the Spanish "hocksers" rode them down on horseback, and
hamstrung them with a crescent-shaped spear, in form something like a
cheese-knife with a long handle.

The wild boars, when much pressed, adopted the same military stratagem
as the oxen. They threw themselves into the form of a hollow square, the
sows in the rear and the sucking pigs in the middle, the white sabre
tusks of the boars gleaming outwards towards the foe. The dogs always
fastened upon the defenceless sow in preference to the ferocious male,
whom they seldom attacked if it got at bay under a tree, though it might
be alone, glaring before the red jaws of eighty yelping dogs. The wild
boar hunting was less dangerous than that of the wild oxen, and less
profitable. The hogs soon grew scarce, a party of hunters sometimes
killing 100 in a day, and only carrying home three or four of the
fattest. It was not uncommon for solitary hunters or _engagés_ who had
lost their way in the woods to amuse themselves by training up the young
hogs they found basking under the trees, and teaching them to track
their own species and pull them down by tugging at their long leathery
ears. Oexmelin, the most intelligent of the few Buccaneer writers,
relates his own success in training four pigs, whom he taught to follow
at his heels like dogs, to play with him, and obey his orders. When they
saw a herd of boars they would run forward and decoy them towards him.
On one occasion, one of them escaped into the plains, but returned three
days after, very complacently heading a herd of hogs, of which his
master and his _matelot_ killed four. It is not many years since that an
English gamekeeper brought up a pig to get his own bread as a pointer.

At first, when the green savannahs were spotted black with cattle, the
hunters were so fastidious that they seldom ate anything but the udders
of cows, considering bull meat too tough. Many a herd was killed, as at
present in Australia or California, for the hide and tallow. If the
first animal killed in the day's hunt was a cow, an _engagé_ was
instantly sent to the tent with part of the flesh to cook for the
evening. When the _engagés_ had each gone home with his joint and his
hide, the Buccaneer followed with his own load, his dogs, tired and
panting, lagging at his heels. If on his way back he met a boar, or more
oxen, he threw down his fardel, slew a fresh victim, and, flaying it,
hung the hide on a tree out of reach of the wild dogs, and came back for
it on the morrow.

On returning to the boucan, each man set to work to stretch
(_brochéter_) his hide, fastening it tightly out with fourteen wooden
pegs, and rubbing it with ashes and salt mixed together to make it dry
quicker. When this was done, they sat down to partake of the food that
the first comer had by this time cooked. The beef they generally boiled
in the large cauldron which every hunter possessed, drawing it out when
it was done with a wooden skewer. A board served them for a dish. With
a wooden spoon they collected the gravy in a calabash; and into this
they squeezed the juice of a fresh picked lemon, a crushed citron, or a
little pimento, which formed the hunter's favourite sauce, _pimentado_.
This being done with all the care of a Ude, they seized their hunting
knives and wooden skewers, and commenced a solemn attack upon the
ponderous joint. The residue they divided among their dogs. Père Labat,
an oily Jesuit if we trust to his portrait, describes, with great gusto,
a Buccaneer feast at which he was present, and at which a hog was
roasted whole. The boucaned meat was used in voyages, or when no oxen
could be met with.

When they wanted to boucan a pig, they first flayed it and took out all
the bones. The meat they cut in long slips, which they placed in mats,
and there left it till the next day, when they proceeded to smoke it.
The boucan was a small hut covered close with palm-mats, with a low
entrance, and no chimney or windows: it contained a wooden framework
seven or eight feet high, on which the meat was placed, and underneath
which a charcoal fire was lit. The fire they always fed with the
animal's own skin and bones, which made the smoke thick and full of
ammonia. The volatile salt of the bones being more readily absorbed by
the meat than the mere ligneous acid of wood, the result of this process
was an epicurean mouthful far superior to our Westphalia hams, and more
like our hung beef. Oexmelin waxes quite eloquent in its praise. He says
it was so exquisite that it needed no cooking; its very look, red as a
rose, not to mention its delightful fragrance, tempted the worst
appetite to eat it, whatever it might be. The only misfortune was that
six months after smoking, the meat grew tasteless and unfit for use; but
when fresh, it was thought so wholesome that sick men came from a
distance to live in a hunter's tent and share his food for a time. The
first thing that passengers visiting the West Indies saw was a
Buccaneers' canoe bringing dry meat for sale. The boucaned meat was
sold in bales of sixty pounds' weight, and their pots of tallow were
worth about six pieces of eight.

Labat--no ordinary lover of good cheer, if we may judge from his
portrait, which represents him with cheeks as plump as a pulpit cushion,
and with fat rolls of double chin--describes the Buccaneer fare with
much unction, having gone to a hunter's feast,--a corporeal treat
intended as a slight return for much spiritual food. Each Buccaneer, he
says, had two skewers, made of clean peeled wood, one having two spikes.
The boucan itself was made of four stakes as thick as a man's arm, and
about four feet long, struck in the ground to form a square five feet
long and three feet across. On these forked sticks they placed cross
bars, and upon these the spit, binding them all with withes. The wild
boar, being skinned and gutted, was placed whole upon this spit, the
stomach kept open with a stick. The fire was made of charcoal, and put
on with bark shovels. The interior of the pig was filled with citron
juice, salt, crushed pimento, and pepper; and the flesh was constantly
pricked, so that this juice might penetrate. When the meat was ready,
the cooks fired off a musket twice, to summon the hunters from the
woods, while banana leaves were placed round for plates. If the hunters
brought home any birds, they at once picked them and threw them into the
stomach of the pig, as into a pot. If the hunters were novices, and
brought home nothing, they were sent out again to seek it; if they were
veterans, they were compelled to drink as many cups as the best hunter
had that day killed deer, bulls, or boars. A leaf served to hold the
pimento sauce, and a calabash to drink from, while bananas were their
substitute for bread. The _engagés_ waited on their masters, and one of
the penalties for clumsy serving was to be compelled to drink off a
calabash full of sauce.

The English "cow killers" and the French hunters were satisfied with
getting as many hides as they could in the shortest possible time, but
the Spanish _matadores_ gave the trade an air of chivalrous adventure by
rivalling the feats of the Moorish bull-fighters of Granada. They did
not use firearms, but carried lances with a half-moon blade, employing
dogs, and, being generally men of wealth and planters, had servants on
foot to encourage them to the attack. When they tracked an ox in the
woods, they made the hounds drive him out into the prairie, where the
matadors could spur after him, and, wheeling round the monster,
hamstring him or thrust him through with a lance. Dampierre describes
minutely the Spanish mode of hocksing. The horses were trained to
retreat and advance without even a signal. The hocksing-iron, of a
half-moon shape, measuring six inches horizontally, resembled in form a
gardener's turf-cutter. The handle, some fourteen feet long, was held
like a lance over the horse's head, a matador's steed being always known
by its right ear being bent down with the weight of the shaft. The place
to strike the bull was just above the hock; when struck the horse
instantly wheeled to the left, to avoid the charge of the wounded ox,
who soon broke his nearly severed leg, but still limped forward to
avenge himself on his formidable enemy. Then the hockser, riding softly
up, struck him with his iron again, but this time into a fore leg, and
at once laid him prostrate, moaning in terror and in pain. Then,
dismounting, the Spaniard took a sharp dagger and stabbed the beast
behind the horns, severing the spinal marrow. This operation the English
called "polling." The hunter at once remounted, and left his skinners to
remove the hide.

The stately Spaniard delighted in this dangerous chase, with all its
stratagems, surprises, and hair-breadth escapes, when life depended on a
turn of the bridle or the prick of a spur. However pressed for food or
endangered by enemies, he practised it with all the stately ceremonies
of the Madrid arena. The fiery animal, streaming with blood and foam,
bellowing with rage and pain, frequently trampled and gored the dogs and
slew both horse and rider. Oexmelin mentions a bull at Cuba which killed
three horses in the same day, the lucky rider making a solemn pilgrimage
to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe when he had given his victim
the _coup de grace_.

These Spanish hunters did not rough it like the Buccaneers, and kept
horses to carry their bales. They were particular in their food, and ate
bread and cassava with their beef; drank wine and brandy; and were very
choice in their fruit and preserves. Gay in their dress, they prided
themselves on their white linen. Every separate hunting field had its
own customs. At Campeachy, where the ground was swampy, the
logwood-cutters frequently shot the oxen from a canoe, and were
sometimes pursued by a wounded beast, who would try to sink the boat.
When the woodmen killed a bull, they cut it into quarters, and, taking
out all the bones, cut a hole in the centre of each piece large enough
to pass their heads through, and trudged home with it to their tents on
the shore. If they grew tired or were pursued, they cut off a portion of
the meat and lightened their load.

The Spaniards, less poor, greedy, and thoughtless than the English and
French adventurers, killed only the bulls and old cows, and left the
younger ones to breed. The French were notorious for their wanton waste,
using oxen merely as marks for their bullets, and as utterly indifferent
to the future as Autolycus, who "slept out the thought of it." About
1650 the wild cattle of Jamaica were entirely destroyed, and the
Governor procured a fresh supply from Cuba.

Whenever the oxen grew scarce, they became wilder and more ferocious. In
some places no hunter dared to fire at them if alone, nor ever ventured
into their pastures unattended. All animals grow shy if frequently
pursued, and no fish are so unapproachable as those of a much frequented
stream. Dampierre says that at Beef Island the old bulls who had once
been wounded, when they saw the hunters or heard their muskets, would
instantly form into a square, with their cows in the rear and the calves
in the middle, turning as the hunters turned, and presenting their horns
like a cluster of bayonets. It then became necessary to beat the woods
for stragglers. A beast mortally wounded always made at the hunter; but
if only grazed by the bullet it ran away. A cow was thought to be more
dangerous than a bull, as the former charged with its eyes open, and the
latter with them closed. The danger was often imminent. One of
Dampierre's messmates ventured into the savannah, about a mile from the
huts, and coming within shot of a bull wounded it desperately. The bull,
however, had strength enough to pursue and overtake the logwood-cutter
before he could load again, to trample him, and gore him in the thigh.
Then, faint with loss of blood, it reeled down dead, and fell heavily
beside the bleeding and groaning hunter. His comerade, coming the next
morning to seek for the man, found him weak and almost dying, and,
taking him on his back, bore him to his hut, where he was soon cured.
The rapidity of such cures is peculiar to savages, or men who devote
their whole life to muscular exertion; for the flesh of the South Sea
Islanders is said to close upon a sword as india-rubber does upon the
knife that cuts it. Often, in the heat and excitement of these
pursuits, the solitary hunter, and still more often, from want of
experience and from youthful rashness, the _engagé_, would lose his way
in the woods, or, falling into a forest pool, become a prey of the
lurking cayman, if not alarmed by the premonitory odour of musk that
indicated its dangerous vicinity. Nature is full of these warnings: and
the vibrating rattle of the Indian snake has saved the life of many a
Buccaneer.

Besides an unceasing supply of beef on shore, and salted turtle at sea,
the Buccaneers ate the flesh of deer and of peccavy. On the mainland
wild turkeys were always within shot, and fat monkeys and plump parrots
were resources for more hungry and less epicurean men. The rich fruits
of the West Indies, needing no cultivation to improve their flavour,
grew around their huts, and were to be had all the year round for the
picking. The parched hunters delighted in the resinous-flavoured mango
and the luscious guava as much as our modern sailors. In such a country
every one is a vegetarian; for when dinner is over, to be a fruit eater
needs no hermit-like asceticism. The plantain and the yam served them
instead of the bread-fruit of the Pacific, or the potato of Virginia,
and the custard-apple took the place of pastry; but the great dainty
which all their chroniclers mention was the large avocado pear, which
they supposed to be an aphrodisiac. This prodigious lemon-coloured fruit
was allowed to mellow, its soft pulp was then scooped out and beaten up
in a plate with orange and lime juice; but hungry and more impatient men
ate it at once, with a little salt and a roast plantain. A Buccaneer
never touched an unknown fruit till he had seen birds pecking it on the
tree. No bird was ever seen to touch the blooming but poisonous apples
of the manchineel, which few animals but crabs could eat with impunity;
as this tree grew by the sea-shore, even fish were rendered poisonous by
feeding on the fruit that fell into the water. The verified stories of
the manchineel excel the fables related of the upas of Batavia. The very
dew upon its branches poisoned those upon whom it dropped. Esquemeling
says: "One day, being hugely tormented with mosquitoes or gnats, and
being as yet unacquainted with the nature of this tree, I cut a branch
to serve me for a fan, but all my face was swelled the next day, and
filled with blisters as if it were burnt, to such a degree that I was
blind for three days."

The hunters tormented by mosquitoes and sand flies used leafy branches
for fans, and anointed their faces with hog's grease to defend
themselves from the stings. By night in their huts they burned tobacco,
without which smoke they could not have obtained sleep. The mosquitoes
were of all sorts, the buzzing and the silent, the tormentors by day and
night; but they dispersed when the land breeze rose, or whenever the
wind increased. The common mosquito was not visible by day, but at
sunset filled the woods with its ominous humming. Oexmelin describes on
one occasion his lying for eight hours in the water of a brook to escape
their stings; sitting on a stone or on the sand, and keeping his face,
which was above water, covered with leaves to protect him from the fiery
stings.

The Buccaneers made their pens of reeds, and their paper of the leaves
of a peculiar sort of palm, the outer cuticle of which was thin, white,
and soft; their ink was the black juice of the juniper berries, letters
written with which turned white in nine days. They kept harmless snakes
in their houses to feed on the rats and mice, just as we do cats, or the
Copts did the ichneumons. They frequently used a handful of fire-flies
instead of a lantern: Esquemeling, himself a Buccaneer, says, that with
three of these in his cottage at midnight he could see to read in any
book, however small the print.

The Buccaneers carried in their tobacco pouches the horn of an immense
sort of spider, which Esquemeling describes as big as an egg, with feet
as long as a crab, and four black teeth like a rabbit, its bite being
sharp but not venomous. These teeth or horns they used either as
toothpicks or pipe-cleaners; they were supposed to have the property of
preserving the user from toothache. They are described as about two
inches long, black as jet, smooth as glass, sharp as a thorn, and a
little bent at the lower end.

Their favourite toy, the dice, they cut from the white ivory-like teeth
of the sea-horse. Great observers of the use of things, and well
lessoned in the bitter school of experience, they turned every new
natural production they met with to some useful purpose, uniting with
the keen sagacity of the hunter the shrewd instinct of the savage. Their
horsewhips they formed from the skin of the back of a wild bull or
sea-cow. The lashes were made of slips of hide, two or three feet long,
of the full thickness at the bottom, and cut square and tapering to the
point. These thongs they twisted while still green, and then hung them
up in a hut to dry; in a few weeks they shrank and became hard as wood,
and tough as an American cowhide, an Abyssinian scourge, or the
far-famed Russian knout. From the skin of the manitee they cut straps,
which they used in their canoes instead of the ordinary tholes.

The wild boar hunters frequently lived in huts four or five together,
and remained for months, frequently a year, in the same place, supplying
the neighbouring planters by contract. The most perfect equality
reigned between the _matelots_; and if one of them wanted powder or
lead, he took it from the other's store, telling him of the loan, and
repaying it when able.

When a dispute arose between any of them, their associates tried to
reconcile the difference. A dispute about a shooting wager, or the
smallest trifle, might give rise to deadly feuds between such lawless
and vindictive exiles, unaccustomed to control, and ready to resort to
arms. If both still determined to have revenge, the musket was the
impassive arbiter appealed to. The friends of the duellists decided at
what distance the combatants should stand, and made them draw lots for
the first fire. If one fell dead, the bystanders immediately held a sort
of inquest, at which they decided whether he had been fairly dealt with,
and examined the body to see that the death-shot had been fairly fired
in front, and not in a cowardly or treacherous manner, and handled his
musket to see whether it was discharged and had been in good order. A
surgeon then opened the orifice of the wound, and if he decided that
the bullet had entered behind, or much on one side, they declared the
survivor a murderer; Lynch law was proclaimed, they tied the culprit to
a tree, and shot him with their muskets. In Tortuga, or near a town,
this rude justice was never resorted to, and, even in the wilder places,
was soon abandoned as the hunters grew more civilized. These duels
generally took place on the sea beach if the Flibustiers were the
combatants.

As these men took incessant exercise, were indifferent to climate, and
fed chiefly on fresh meat, they enjoyed good health. They were, however,
subject to flying fevers that passed in a day, and which did not confine
them even to their tents.

With the Spanish Lanceros, or Fifties as they were called by the
Buccaneers, the hunters were perpetually at war, their intrepid infantry
being generally successful against the hot charges of these yeomanry of
the savannahs. There were four companies of them in Hispaniola, with a
hundred spearmen in each company; half of these were generally on the
patrol, while the remainder rested, and from their number they derived
their nickname. Their duty was to surprise the isolated hunters, to burn
the stores of hides, make prisoners of the _engagés_, and guard the
Spanish settlers against any sudden attack. At other times they were
employed in killing off the herds of wild cattle that furnished the
Buccaneers with food, and drew fresh bands to the plains where they
abounded. In great enterprises the whole corps cried "boot and saddle,"
and they took with them at all times a few muleteers on foot, either to
carry their baggage, or to serve as scouts in the woods, where the
cow-killers built their huts. But, in spite of Negro foragers and Indian
spies, the keener-eyed Buccaneers generally escaped, or, if met with,
broke like raging wolves through their adversaries' toils. Accustomed to
the bush, inured to famine and fatigue, and more indifferent than even
the Spaniards to climate, the Buccaneers were seldom taken prisoners.
Unerring marksmen, with a spice of the wild beast in their blood, they
preferred death to flight or capture.

It is probable that even for this toilsome and dangerous pursuit the
Spaniards easily obtained recruits. Constant sport with the wild cattle,
abundant food, and a spirit of adventure would prove an irresistible
bait to the bravos of Carthagena, or the matadors of Campeachy. The
hangers-on of the wineshops and the pulque drinkers of Mexico would
readily embark in any campaign that would bring them a few pistoles, and
give them good food and gay clothing.

Oexmelin relates several instances of the daring escapes of the Buccaneer
hunters from the blood-thirsting pursuit of the Fifties. It was their
custom, directly that news reached the tents that the Lanceros were out,
to issue an order that the first man who caught sight of the horsemen
should inform the rest, in order to attack the foe by an ambuscade, if
they were too numerous to meet in the open field. The great aim, on the
other hand, of the Lanceros, was to wait for a night of rain and wind,
when the sound of their hoofs could not be heard, and to butcher the
sleepers when their fire-arms were either damp or piled out of reach.
Frequently they surrounded the hunters when heavy after a debauch, and
when even the sentinels were asleep at the tent doors.

The following anecdote conveys some impression of these encounters. A
French Buccaneer going one day into the savannahs to hunt, followed by
his _engagé_, was suddenly surrounded by a troop of shouting Lanceros.
He saw at once that the Fifties had at last trapped him. He was
surrounded, and escape from their swift pursuit, with no tree near, was
hopeless. But he would not let hope desert him so long as the spears
were still out of his heart. His _engagé_ was as brave as himself, and
both determined to stand at bay and sell their lives dearly. The hunter
of mad oxen, and the tamer of wild horses, need not fear man or devil.
The master and man put themselves back to back, and, laying their common
stock of powder and bullets in their caps between them, prepared for
death. The Spaniards, who only carried lances, kept coursing round them,
afraid to narrow in, or venture within shot, and crying out to them
with threats to surrender. They next offered them quarter, and at last
promised to disarm but not hurt them, saying they were only executing
the orders of their general. The two Frenchmen replied mockingly, that
they would never surrender, and wanted no quarter, and that the first
lancer who approached would pay dear for his visit. The Spaniards still
hovered round, afraid to advance, none of them willing to be the first
victim, or to play the scapegoat for the rest. "C'est le premier pas qui
coute," and the first step they made was backward. After some
consultation at a safe distance, they finally left the Buccaneers still
standing threateningly back to back, and spurred off, half afraid that
the Tartars they had nearly caught might turn the tables, and advance
against them.

The steady persistency of the Buccaneer infantry was generally
victorious over the impetuous but transitory onslaught of the Spanish
cavalry.

Another time a wild Buccaneer while hunting alone was surprised by a
similar party of mounted pikemen. Seeing that there was some distance
between him and the nearest wood, and that his capture was certain, he
bethought himself of the following _ruse_. Putting his gun up to his
shoulder he advanced at a trot, shouting exultingly, "_à moi, à moi!_"
as if he was followed by a band of scattered companions who had been in
search of the Spaniards. The cavaliers, believing at once that they had
fallen into an ambush, took flight, to the joy of the ingenious hunter,
who quickly made his escape, laughing, into the neighbouring covert.

The Spaniards were worn out at last with this border warfare,
unprofitable because it was waged with men who were too poor to reward
the plunderer, and dangerous because fought with every disadvantage of
weapon and situation. In the savannahs the Spaniards were formidable,
but in the woods they became a certain prey to the musketeer. Unable to
drive the plunderers out of the island, the Spaniards at last foolishly
resolved to render the island not worth the plunder. Orders came from
Spain to kill off the wild cattle that Columbus had originally brought
to the island, and particularly round the coast. If the trade with the
French vessels and the barter of hides for brandy could once be
arrested, the hunters would be driven from the woods by starvation, or
perish one by one in their dens. They little thought that this scheme
would succeed, and what would be the consequence of such success. The
hunters turned sea crusaders, and the sea became the savannah where they
sought their human game. Every creek soon thronged with men more deadly
than the Danish Vikinger: wrecked on a habitable shore, they landed as
invaders and turned hunters as before; driven to their boats, they
became again adventurers. In this name and in that of "soldiers of
fortune" they delighted: a more honest and less courteous age would have
termed them pirates. By the year 1686, the change from Buccaneer to
Flibustier had been almost wholly effected.

The Buccaneers' _engagés_ led a life very little better than those white
slaves whom the glittering promises of the planters had decoyed from
France. The existence of the former was, however, rendered more bearable
by their variety of adventure, by better food, and by daily recreation.
If all day in the hot sun he had to toil carrying bales of skins from
his master's hut towards the shore, we must remember that American
seamen still work contentedly at the same labour in California for a
sailor's ordinary wages. Mutual danger produced necessarily, except in
the most brutal, a kind of fellowship between the master and the servant
of the boucan. Up at daybreak, the _engagé_ sweltered all day through
the bush, groaning beneath his burden of loathsome hides, but the good
meal came before sunset, and then the pipes were lit, and the brandy
went round, and the song was sung, and the tale was told, while the
hunters shot at a mark, or made wagers upon the respective skill of
their _matelots_ or their _engagés_.

We hear from Charlevoix, that young prodigals of good family had been
known to prefer the canvas tent to the tapestried wall, and to have
grasped the hunter's musket with the hand that might have wielded the
general's baton or the marshal's staff.

The Buccaneer's life was not one of mere revelry and ease; no luxurious
caves or safe strongholds served at once for their treasure house, their
palace, and their fortress. They were wandering outlaws; hated both by
the Spaniards and the Indians, they ate with a loaded gun within their
reach. The jaguar lurked beside them, the coppersnake glared at them
from his lair. If their foot stumbled, they were gored by the ox or
ripped up by the boar; if they fled they became a prey to the cayman of
the pool; they were swept away as they forded swollen rivers; they were
swallowed up by that dreadful foretype of the Judgment, the earthquake.
The shark and the sea monster swam by their canoe, the carrion crow that
fed to-day upon the carcase they had left, too often fed to-morrow on
the slain hunter. The wildest transitions of safety and danger, plenty
and famine, peace and war, health and sickness, surrounded their daily
life. To-day on the savannah dark with the wild herds, to-morrow
compelled to feast on the flesh of a murdered comerade; to-day
surrounded by revelling friends, to-morrow left alone to die.

The present system of hide curing practised in California seems almost
identical with that employed by the Buccaneers. The following extract
from Dana's "Three Years before the Mast" will convey a correct
impression of what constituted the greater portion of an _engagé's_
labour. He describes the shore piled with hides, just out of reach of
the tide; each skin doubled lengthwise in the middle, and nearly as
stiff as a board, and the whole bundles carried down on men's heads from
the place of curing to the stacks. "When the hide is taken from the
bullock, holes are cut round it, near the edge, and it is staked out to
dry, to prevent shrinking. They are then to be cured, and are carried
down to the shore at low tide and made fast in small piles, where they
lie for forty-eight hours, when they are taken out, rolled up in
wheelbarrows, and thrown into vats full of strong brine, where they
remain for forty-eight hours. The sea water only cleans and softens
them, the brine pickles them. They are then removed from the vats, lie
on a platform twenty-four hours, and are then staked out, still wet and
soft; the men go over them with knives, cutting off all remaining pieces
of meat or fat, the ears, and any part that would either prevent the
packing or keeping. A man can clean about twenty-five a-day, keeping at
his work. This cleaning must be done before noon, or they get too dry.
When the sun has been upon them for a few hours they are gone over with
scrapers to remove the fat that the sun brings out; the stakes are then
pulled up and the hides carefully doubled, with the hair outside, and
left to dry. About the middle of the afternoon, they are turned upon the
other side, and at sunset piled up and turned over. The next day they
are spread out and opened again, and at night, if fully dry, are thrown
up on a long horizontal pole, five at a time, and beaten with flails to
get out the dust; thus, being salted, scraped, cleaned, dried, and
beaten, they are stowed away in the warehouses."

The Buccaneer's life was not spent in quaffing sangaree or basking under
orange blossoms--not in smoking beside mountains of flowers, where the
humming-birds fluttered like butterflies, and the lizards flashed across
the sunbeams, shedding jewelled and enchanted light. No Indian in the
mine, no Arab pearl-diver, no worn, pale children at an English factory,
no galley-slave dying at the oar, led such a life as a Buccaneer
_engagé_ if bound to a cruel master. Imagine a delicate youth, of good
but poor family, decoyed from a Norman country town by the loud-sounding
promises of a St. Domingo agent, specious as a recruiting sergeant,
voluble as the projector of bubble companies, greedy, plausible, and
lying. He comes out to the El Dorado of his dreams, and is at once taken
to the hut of some rude Buccaneer. The first night is a revel, and his
sleep is golden and full of visions. The spell is broken at daybreak. He
has to carry a load of skins, weighing some twenty-six pounds, three or
four leagues, through brakes of prickly pear and clumps of canes. The
pathless way cannot be traversed at greater speed than about two hours
to a quarter of a league. The sun grows vertical, and he is feverish and
sick at heart. Three years of this purgatory are varied by blows and
curses. The masters too often loaded their servants with blows if they
dared to faint through weakness, hunger, thirst, or fatigue. Some
hunters had the forbearance to rest on a Sunday, induced rather by
languor than by piety; but on these days the _engagé_ had to rise as
usual at daybreak, to go out and kill a wild boar for the day's feast.
This was disembowelled and roasted whole, being placed on a spit
supported on two forked stakes, so that the flames might completely
surround the carcase.

Most Buccaneers, even if they rested on Sunday, required their
apprentices to carry the hides down as usual to the place of shipment,
fearing that the Spaniards might choose that very day to burn the huts
and destroy the skins. An _engagé_ once complained to his master, and
reminded him that it was not right to work on a Sunday, God himself
having said to the Jews, "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thou
hast to do, for the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
"And I tell you," said the scowling Buccaneer, striking the earth with
the butt-end of his gun and roaring out a dreadful curse, "I tell you,
six days shalt thou kill bulls and skin them, and the seventh day thou
shalt carry them down to the beach," beating the daring remonstrant as
he spoke. There was no remedy for these sufferers but patience. Time or
death alone brought relief. Three years soon run out. The mind grows
hardened under suffering as flesh does under the lash. Nature, where she
cannot heal a wound, teaches us where to find unfailing balms. Some grew
reckless to blows, or learned to ingratiate themselves with their
masters by their increasing daring or sturdy industry. An apprentice
whose bullet never flew false, or who could run down the wild ox on the
plain, acquired a fame greater than that of his master. They knew that
in time they themselves would be Buccaneers, and could inflict the very
cruelties from which they now suffered. There were instances where acts
of service to the island, or feats of unusual bravery, raised an
_engagé_ of a single year to the full rank of hunter. An apprentice who
could bring in more hides than even his master, must have been too
valuable an acquisition to have been lost by a moment of spleen. That
horrible cases of cruelty did occur, there can be no doubt. There were
no courts of justice in the forest, no stronger arm or wiser head to
which to appeal. But there are always remedies for despair. The loaded
gun was at hand, the knife in the belt, and the poison berries grew by
the hut. There was the unsubdued passion still at liberty in the
heart--there was the will to seize the weapon and the hand to use it.
Providence is fruitful in her remedies of evils, and preserves a balance
which no sovereignty can long disturb. No tyrant can shut up the
volcano, or chain the earthquake. There were always the mountains or the
Spaniards to take refuge amongst, though famine and death dwelt in the
den of the wild beasts, and, if they fled to the Spaniards, they were
often butchered as mere runaway slaves before they could explain, in an
unknown language, that they were not spies. But still the very
impossibility of preventing such escapes must have tended to temper the
severity of the masters. A Flibustier, anxious for a crew, must have
sometimes carried off discontented _engagés_ both from the plantations
and the ajoupas. The following story illustrates the social relations of
the Buccaneer master and his servant.

A Buccaneer one day, seeing that his apprentice, newly arrived from
France, could not keep up with him, turned round and struck him over the
head with the lock of his musket. The youth fell, stunned, to the
ground; and the hunter, thinking he was dead, stripped him of his arms,
and left his body where it had fallen and weltering in the blood flowing
from the wound. On his return to his hut, afraid to disclose the truth,
he told his companions that the lad, who had always skulked work, had at
last _marooned_ (a Spanish word applied to runaway negroes). A few
curses were heaped upon him, and no more was thought about his
disappearance.

Soon after the master was out of sight the lad had recovered his senses,
arisen, pale and weak, and attempted to return to the tents.
Unaccustomed to the woods, he lost his way, got off the right track, and
finally gave himself up as doomed to certain death. For some days he
remained wandering round and round the same spot, without either
recovering the path or being able to reach the shore. Hunger did not at
first press him, for he ate the meat with which his master had loaded
him, and ate it raw, not knowing the Indian manner of procuring fire,
and his knives being taken from his belt. Ignorant of what fruits were
safe to eat, where animals fit for food were to be found, and not
knowing how to kill them unarmed, he prepared his mind for the dreadful
and lingering torture of starvation. But he seems to have been of an
ingenious and persevering disposition, and hope did not altogether
forsake him. He had too a companion, for one of his master's dogs,
which had grown fond of his playmate, had remained behind with his body,
licking the hand that had so often fed him.

At first he spent whole days vainly searching for a path. Very often he
climbed up a hill, from which he could see the great, blue, level sea,
stretching out boundless to the horizon, and this renewed his hope. He
looked up, and knew that God's sky was above him, and felt that he might
be still saved. At night he was startled by the screams of the monkeys,
the bellowing of the wild cattle in the distant savannah, or the
unearthly cry of some solitary and unknown bird. Superstition filled him
with fears, and he felt deserted by man, but tormented by the things of
evil. The tracks of the wild cattle led him far astray. Long ere this
his faithful dog, driven by hunger, had procured food for both.
Sometimes beneath the spreading boughs of the river-loving yaco-tree,
they would surprise a basking sow, surrounded by a wandering brood of
voracious sucklings. The dog would cling to the sow, while the boy
aided him in the pursuit of the errant progeny. When they had killed
their prey, they would lie down and share their meal together. The boy
learned to like the raw meat, and the dog had acquired his appetite long
before. Experience soon taught them where to capture their prey in the
quickest and surest manner. He caught the puppies of a wild dog, and
trained them in the chase; and he even taught a young wild boar that he
had caught alive to join in the capture of his own species. After having
led this life for nearly a year, he one day suddenly came upon the
long-lost path, which soon brought him to the sea-shore. His master's
tents were gone, and, from various appearances, seemed to have been long
struck.

The lad, now grown accustomed to his wild life, resigned himself to his
condition, feeling sure that, sooner or later, he should meet with a
party of Buccaneers. His deliverance was not long delayed. After about
twelve months' life in the bush, he fell in with a troop of skinners, to
whom he related his story. They were at first distrustful and alarmed,
as his master had told them that he had _marooned_, and had joined the
Indians. His appearance soon convinced them that his story was true, and
that he was neither a _maroon_ nor a deserter, for he was clothed in the
rags of his _engagé's_ shirt and drawers, and had a strip of raw meat
hanging from his girdle. Two tame boars and three dogs followed at his
heels, and refused to leave him. He at once joined his deliverers, who
freed him from all obligations to his master, and gave him arms, powder,
and lead to hunt for himself, and he soon became one of the most
renowned Buccaneers on that coast. It was a long time before he could
eat roasted meat, which not only was distasteful, but made him ill. Long
after, when flaying a wild boar, he was frequently unable to restrain
himself from eating the flesh raw.

When an apprentice had served three years, his master was expected to
give him as a reward a musket, a pound of powder, six pounds of lead,
two shirts, two pairs of drawers, and a cap. The _valets_, as the French
called them, then became comerades, and ceased to be mere _engagés_.
They took their own _matelots_, and became, in their turn, Buccaneers.
When they had obtained a sufficient quantity of hides, they either sent
or took them to Tortuga, and brought from thence a young apprentice to
treat him as they themselves had been treated.

The planters' _engagés_ led a life more dreadful than that of their
wilder brethren. They were decoyed from France under the same pretences
that once filled our streets with the peasants' sons of Savoy, and the
peasants' daughters from Frankfort, or that now lure children from the
pleasant borders of Como, to pine away in a London den. The want of
sufficient negroes led men to resort to all artifices to obtain
assistance in cultivating the sugar-cane and the tobacco plant. In the
French Antilles they were sold for three years, but often resold in the
interim. Amongst the English they were bound for seven years, and being
occasionally sold again at their own request, before the expiration of
this term, they sometimes served fifteen or twenty years before they
could obtain their freedom. At Jamaica, if a man could not pay even a
small debt at a tavern, he was sold for six or eight months. The
planters had agents in France, England, and other countries, who sent
out these apprentices. They were worked much harder than the slaves,
because their lives, after the expiration of the three years, were of no
consequence to the masters. They were often the victims of a disease
called "coma," the effect of hard usage and climate, and which ended in
idiotcy. Père Labat remarks the quantity of idiots in the West Indies,
many of whom were dangerous, although allowed to go at liberty. Many of
these worse than slaves were of good birth, tender education, and weak
constitutions, unable to endure even the debilitating climate, and much
less hard labour. Esquemeling, himself originally an _engagé_, gives a
most piteous description of their sufferings. Insufficient food and
rest, he says, were the smallest of their sufferings. They were
frequently beaten, and often fell dead at their masters' feet. The men
thus treated died fast: some became dropsical, and others scorbutic. A
man named Bettesea, a merchant of St. Christopher's, was said to have
killed more than a hundred apprentices with blows and stripes. "This
inhumanity," says Esquemeling, "I have _often seen_ with great grief."
The following anecdote of human suffering equals the cruelty of the
Virginian slave owner who threw one slave into the vat of boiling
molasses, and baked another in an oven:--

"A certain planter (of St. Domingo) exercised such cruelty towards one
of his servants as caused him to run away. Having absconded for some
days in the woods, he was at last taken, and brought back to the wicked
Pharaoh. No sooner had he got him but he commanded him to be tied to a
tree; here he gave him so many lashes on his naked back as made his body
run with an entire stream of blood; then, to make the smart of his
wounds the greater, he anointed him with lemon-juice, mixed with salt
and pepper. In this miserable posture he left him tied to the tree for
twenty-four hours, which being past, he began his punishment again,
lashing him as before, so cruelly, that the miserable creature gave up
the ghost, with these dying words, 'I beseech the Almighty God, Creator
of heaven and earth, that He permit the wicked spirit to make thee feel
as many torments before thy death as thou hast caused me to feel before
mine.'

"A strange thing, and worthy of astonishment and admiration: scarce
three or four days were past, after this horrible fact, when the
Almighty Judge, who had heard the cries of that tormented wretch,
suffered the evil one suddenly to possess this barbarous and inhuman
homicide, so that those cruel hands which had punished to death the
innocent servant were the tormentors of his own body, for he beat
himself and tore his flesh after a miserable manner, till he lost the
very shape of a man, not ceasing to howl and cry without any rest by day
or night. Thus he continued raving till he died."

It was by the endurance of such sufferings as these that the early
Buccaneers were hardened into fanatical monsters like Montbars and
Lolonnois.

In the early part of his book, Esquemeling gives us his own history. A
Dutchman by birth, he arrived at Tortuga in 1680, when the French West
India Company, unable to turn the island into a depôt, as they had
intended, were selling off their merchandise and their plantations.
Esquemeling, as a bound _engagé_ of the company, was sold to the
lieutenant-governor of the island, who treated him with great severity,
and refused to take less than three hundred pieces of eight for his
freedom. Falling sick through vexation and despair, he was sold to a
chirurgeon, for seventy pieces of eight, who proved kind to him, and
finally gave him his liberty for 100 pieces of eight, to be paid after
his first Flibustier trip.

Oexmelin was probably sold almost at the same time as Esquemeling, and
was bought by the commandant-general. Not allowed to pursue his own
profession of a surgeon, he was employed in the most laborious and
painful work, transplanting tobacco, or thinning the young plants,
grating cassava, or pressing the juice from the banana. Overworked and
under fed, associating with slaves, and regarded with hatred and
suspicion, he scarcely received money enough to procure either food or
clothing; his master refusing, even for the inducement of two crowns
a-day, to allow him to practise as physician. A single year of toil at
the plantations threw him into dangerous ill health; for weeks sheltered
only under an outhouse, he was kept alive by the kindness of a black
slave, who brought him daily an egg. Feeble as he was, the great thirst
of a tropical fever compelled him often to rise and drag himself to a
neighbouring tank, that he might drink, even though to drink were to
die. Recovering from this fever, a wolfish hunger was the first sign of
convalescence, but to appease this he had neither food, nor money to buy
it. In this condition he devoured even unripe oranges, green, hard, and
bitter, and resorted to other extremities which he is ashamed to
confess. On one occasion as he was descending from the rock fort, where
his master lived, into the town, he met a friend, the secretary of the
governor, who made him come and dine with him, and gave him a parting
present of a bottle of wine; his master, who had seen what had passed,
by means of a telescope, from his place of vantage, when he returned,
took away the wine, and threw him into a dungeon, accusing him of being
a spy and a traitor. This prison was a cellar, hollowed out of the rock,
full of filth and very dark. In this he swore Oexmelin should rot in
spite of all the governors in the world. Here he was kept for three
days, his feet in irons, fed only by a little bread and water that they
passed to him through an aperture, without even opening the door. One
day, as he lay naked on the stone, and in the dark, he felt a snake
twine itself, cold and slimy, round his body, tightening the folds till
they grew painful, and then sliding off to its hole. On the fourth day
they opened the door and tried to discover if he had told the governor
anything of his master's cruelties; they then set him to dig a plot of
ground near the Fort. Finding himself left unguarded, he resolved to go
and complain to the governor, having first consulted a good old
Capuchin, who took compassion on his pale and famished aspect. The
governor instantly took pity on the wretched runaway, fed and clothed
him, and on his recovery to health placed him with a celebrated surgeon
of the place, who paid his value to his master; the governor being
unwilling to take him into his own service, for fear he should be
accused to the home authorities of taking away slaves from the planters.

The _engagés_ were called to their work at daybreak by a shrill whistle
(as the negroes are now by the hoarse conch shell); and the foreman,
allowing any who liked to smoke, led them to their work. This consisted
in felling trees and in picking or lopping tobacco; the driver stood by
them as they dug or picked, and struck those who slackened or rested, as
a captain would do to his galley slaves. Whether sick or well they were
equally obliged to work. They were frequently employed in picking mahot,
a sort of bark used to tie up bales. If they died of fatigue they were
quietly buried, and there an end. Early in the morning one of the band
had to feed the pigs with potato leaves, and prepare his comerades'
dinner. They boiled their meat, putting peas and chopped potatoes into
the water. The cook worked with the gang, but returned a little sooner
to prepare his messmates' dinner, while they were stripping the tobacco
stalk. On feast-days and Sundays they had some indulgences. Oexmelin
relates an instance of a sick slave being employed to turn a grindstone
on which his master was sharpening his axe; being too weak to do it
well, the butcher turned round and clove him down between the shoulders.
The slave fell down, bleeding profusely, and died within two hours; yet
this master was one of a body of planters deemed very indulgent in
comparison to those of some other islands. One planter of St.
Christopher, named Belle Tête, who came from Dieppe, prided himself on
having killed 200 _engagés_ who would not work, all of whom, he
declared, died of sheer laziness. When they were in the last
extremities he was in the habit of rubbing their mouths with the yolk of
an egg, in order that he might conscientiously swear he had pressed them
to take food till the very last. Upon a priest one day remonstrating
with him on his brutality, he replied, with perfect effrontery, that he
had once been a bound _engagé_, and had never been treated better; that
he had come all the way to that shore to get money, and provided he
could get it and see his children roll in a coach, he did not care
himself if the devil carried him off.

The following anecdote shows what strange modifications of crime this
species of slavery might occasionally produce. There was a rich
inhabitant of Guadaloupe, whose father became so poor that he was
obliged to sell himself as an _engagé_, and by a singular coincidence
sold himself to a merchant who happened to be his son's agent. The poor
fellow, finding himself his son's servant, thought himself well off, but
soon found that he was treated as brutally as the rest. The son,
finding the father was old and discontented, and therefore unable to do
much work, and afraid to beat him for the sake of the scandal, sold him
soon after to another planter, who treated him better, gave him more to
eat, and eventually restored him to liberty. Of the ten thousand Scotch
and Irish whom Cromwell sent to the West Indies, many became _engagés_,
and finally Buccaneers. Many of the old Puritan soldiers, who had served
in the same wars, were enrolled in the same ranks.

The same principle of brotherhood applied to the planters as to the
ordinary Buccaneers. They called each other _matelots_, and, before
living together, signed a contract by which they agreed to share
everything in common. Each had the power to dispose of his companion's
money and goods, and an agreement signed by one bound the other also. If
the one died, the survivor became the inheritor of the whole, in
preference even to heirs who might come from Europe to claim the share
or attempt to set up a claim. The engagement could be broken up whenever
either wished it, and was often cancelled in a moment of petulance or
of transitory vexation. A third person was sometimes admitted into the
brotherhood on the same conditions. By this singular custom, friendships
were formed as firm as those between a Highlander and his
foster-brother, a Canadian trapper and his comerade, or an English
sailor and his messmate.

The _matelotage_, or _compagnon à bon lot_, being thus formed, the two
planters would go to the governor of the island and request a grant of
land. The officer of the district was then sent to measure out what they
required, of a specified size in a specified spot. The usual grant was a
plot, two hundred feet wide and thirty feet long, as near as possible to
the sea-shore, as being most convenient for the transport of goods, as
well as for the ease of procuring salt water, which they used in
preparing the tobacco leaf. When the sea-shore was covered with cabins
the planters built their huts higher up and four deep, those nearest to
the beach being obliged to allow a roadway to those who were the
furthest back. Their lodges, or _ajoupas_, were raised upon ground
cleared from wood, the thicket being first burnt with the lower branches
of the larger trees. The trunks, too large to remove, were cut down to
within two or three feet of the earth, and allowed to dry and rot for
several summers, and finally also consumed by fire. The savages, on the
other hand, cut down all the trees, let them dry as they fell, and then,
setting the whole alight, reduced it at once to ashes, without any
clearing, lopping, or piling. When about thirty or forty feet of ground
was thus cleared, they began to plant vegetables and cultivate the
ground--peas, potatoes, manioc, banana, and figs being the daily
necessaries of their lives. The banana they planted near rivers, no
planter residing in a place where there was not some well or spring.
Their _casa_, or chief lodge, was supported by posts fifteen or sixteen
feet high, thatched with palm branches, rushes, or sugar-canes, and
walled either with reeds or palisades. Inside, they had _barbecues_, or
forms rising two or three feet from the ground, upon which lay their
mattresses stuffed with banana leaves, and above it the mosquito net of
thin white linen, which they called a _pavillon_. A smaller lodge served
for cooking or for warehousing. Friends and neighbours always assisted
in building these cabins, and were treated in return with brandy by the
planter. The laws of the society obliged the settlers to help each
other, and this kindness was never refused. The same system of mutual
support originated the Scotch penny weddings and the English friendly
custom of ploughing a young farmer's fields.

Now the _ajoupa_ was built, the tobacco ground had to be dug. An
enclosure of two thousand plants required much care, and was obliged to
be kept clean and free from weeds. They had to be lopped, and
transplanted, and irrigated, and finally picked and stored. The people
of Tortuga, the Buccaneers' island, exchanged their tobacco with the
French merchants for hatchets, hoes, knives, sacking, and above all for
wine and brandy.

From potatoes, which the planters ate for breakfast, they extracted
maize, a sour but pleasant beverage. The cassava root they grated for
cakes, making a liquor called _veycon_ of the residue. From the banana
they also extracted an intoxicating drink.

With the wild boar hunters they exchanged tobacco leaf for dried meat,
often paying away at one time two or three hundred weight of tobacco,
and frequently sending a servant of their own to the savannahs to help
the hunter and to supply him with powder and shot.




CHAPTER III.

THE FLIBUSTIERS, OR SEA ROVERS.

    Originated in the Spanish persecution of French
    Hunters--Customs--Pay and Pensions--The Mosquito Indians, their
    Habits--Food--Lewis Scott, an Englishman, first Corsair--John Davis:
    takes St. Francisco, in Campeachy--Debauchery--Love of
    Gaming--Religion--Class from which they sprang--Equality at
    Sea--Mode of Fighting--Dress.


The Flibustiers first began by associating together in bands of from
fifteen to twenty men. Each of them carried the Buccaneer musket,
holding a ball of sixteen to the pound, and had generally pistols at his
belt, holding bullets of twenty or twenty-four to the pound, and besides
this they wore a good sabre or cutlass. When collected at some
preconcerted rendezvous, generally a key or small island off Cuba, they
elected a captain, and embarked in a canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of
a single tree in the Indian manner. This canoe was either bought by the
association or the captain. If the latter, they agreed to give him the
first ship they should take. As soon as they had all signed the
charter-party, or mutual agreement, they started for the destined port
off which they were to cruise. The first Spanish vessel they took served
to repay the captain and recompense themselves. They dressed themselves
in the rich robes of Castilian grandees over their own blooded shirts,
and sat down to revel in the gilded saloon of the galleon. If they found
their prize not seaworthy, they would take her to some small sand island
and careen, while the crew helped the Indians to turn turtle, and to
procure bull's flesh. The Spanish crew they kept to assist in careening,
for they never worked themselves, but fought and hunted while the
unfortunate prisoners were toiling round the fire where the pitch
boiled, or the turtle was stewing. The Flibustiers divided the spoil as
soon as each one had taken an oath that nothing had been secreted. When
the ship was ready for sea, they let the Spaniards go, and kept only the
slaves. If there were no negroes or Indians, they retained a few
Spaniards to wait upon them. If the prisoners were men of consequence,
they detained them till they could obtain a ransom. Every Flibustier
brought a certain supply of powder and ball for the common stock. Before
starting on an expedition it was a common thing to plunder a Spanish
hog-yard, where a thousand swine were often collected, surrounding the
keeper's lodge at night, and shooting him if he made any resistance. The
tortoise fishermen were often forced to fish for them gratuitously,
although nearly every ship had its Mosquito Indian to strike turtle and
sea-cow, and to fish for the whole boat's crew. "No prey, no pay," was
the Buccaneers' motto. The charter-party specified the salary of the
captain, surgeon, and carpenter, and allowed 200 pieces of eight for
victualling. The boys had but half a share, although it was either
their duty or the surgeon's, when the rest had boarded, to remain behind
to fire the former vessel, and then retire to the prize.

The Buccaneer code, worthy of Napoleon or Justinian, was equal to the
statutes of any land, insomuch as it answered the want of those for whom
it was compiled, and seldom required either revision or enlargement. It
was never appealed from, and was seldom found to be unjust or severe.

The captain was allowed five or six shares, the master's mate only two,
and the other officers in proportion, down to the lowest mariner. All
acts of special bravery or merit were rewarded by special grants. The
man who first caught sight of a prize received a hundred crowns. The
sailor who struck down the enemy's captain, and the first boarder who
reached the enemy's deck, were also distinguished by honours. The
surgeon, always a great man among a crew whose lives so often depended
on his skill, received 200 crowns to supply his medicine chest. If they
took a prize, he had a share like the rest. If they had no money to
give him, he was rewarded with two slaves.

The loss of an eye was recompensed at 100 crowns, or one slave.

The loss of both eyes with 600 crowns, or six slaves.

The loss of a right hand or right leg at 200 crowns, or two slaves.

The loss of both hands or legs at 600 crowns, or six slaves.

The loss of a finger or toe at 100 crowns, or one slave.

The loss of a foot or leg at 200 crowns, or two slaves.

The loss of both legs at 600 crowns, or six slaves.

Nothing but death seems to have been considered as worth recompensing
with more than 600 crowns. For any wound, which compelled a sailor to
carry a _canulus_, 200 crowns were given, or two slaves. If a man had
not even lost a member, but was for the present deprived of the use of
it, he was still entitled to his compensation as much as if he had lost
it altogether. The maimed were allowed to take either money or slaves.

The charter-party drawn up by Sir Henry Morgan before his famous
expedition, which ended in the plunder and destruction of Panama, shows
several modifications of the earlier contract.

To him who struck the enemy's flag, and planted the Buccaneers', fifty
piastres, besides his share.

To him who took a prisoner who brought tidings, 100 piastres, besides
his share.

For every grenade thrown into an enemy's port-hole, five piastres.

To him who took an officer of rank at the risk of his life,
proportionate reward.

To him who lost two legs, 500 crowns, or fifteen slaves.

To him who lost two arms, 800 piastres, or eighteen slaves.

To him who lost one leg or one arm, 500 piastres, or six slaves.

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

For both eyes, 200 piastres, or two slaves.

For the loss of a finger, 100 piastres, or one slave. A Flibustier who
had a limb crippled, received the same pay as if it was lost. A wound
requiring an issue, was recompensed with 500 piastres, or five slaves.
These shares were all allotted before the general division. If a vessel
was taken at sea, its cargo was divided among the whole fleet, but the
crew first boarding it received 100 crowns, if its value exceeded 10,000
crowns, and for every 10,000 crowns' worth of cargo, 100 went to the men
that boarded. The surgeon received 200 piastres, besides his share.

The Mosquito Indians were the helots of the Buccaneers; they employed
them to catch fish, and their vessels had generally a small canoe, kept
for their use, in which they might strike tortoise or manitee. These
Indians used no oars, but a pair of broad-bladed paddles, which they
held perpendicularly, grasping the staff with both hands and putting
back the water by sheer strength, and with very quick, short strokes.
Two men generally went in the same boat, the one sitting in the stern,
the other kneeling down in the head. They both paddled softly till they
approached the spot where their prey lay; they then remained still,
looking very warily about them, and the one at the head then rose up,
with his striking-staff in his hand. This weapon was about eight feet
long, almost as thick as a man's arm at the larger end, at which there
was a hole into which the harpoon was put; at the other extremity was
placed a piece of light (bob) wood, with a hole in it, through which the
small end of the staff came. On this bob wood a line of ten or twelve
fathoms was neatly wound--the end of the one line being fastened to the
wood, and the other to the harpoon, the man keeping about a fathom of it
loose in his hand. When he struck, the harpoon came off the shaft, and,
as the wounded fish swam away, the line ran off from the reel. Although
the bob and line were frequently dragged deep under water, and often
caught round coral branches or sunk wreck, it generally rose to the
surface of the water. The Indians struggled to recover the bob, which
they were accustomed to do in about a quarter of an hour.

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

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

The manitee, or sea-cow, was a favourite article of food with these
wandering seamen. It was a monster as big as a horse, and as unwieldy as
a walrus, with eyes not much larger than peas, and a head like a cow.
Its flesh was white, sweet, and wholesome. The tail of a young fish was
a dainty, and a young sucking-calf, roasted, was an epicure's morsel.
The head and tail of older animals were tough, yet the belly was
frequently eaten.

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

The Buccaneers' history is a singular example of how evil generates
evil. The Spaniards destroyed the wild cattle, and the hunters turned
freebooters. Spain discontinued trading to prevent piracy, and the
adventurers, starved for want of gold, made descents upon the mainland.
The evil grew by degrees till the worm they had at first trod upon arose
in their path an indestructible and devastating monster of a hundred
heads. First single ships, then fleets, were swept off by these locusts
of the deep; first, islands were burnt, then villages sacked, and at
last cities conquered. First the North and then the South Pacific were
visited, till the whole coast from Panama to Cape Horn trembled at the
very flutter of their flag. The first Flibustier, Lewis Scott, scared
Campeachy with a few canoes. Grognet grappled the Lima fleet with a
whole squadron of pirate craft. The Buccaneer spirit arose from revenge,
and ended in robbery and murder. At first fierce but merciful, they grew
rapacious, loathsome, and bloody. Their early chivalry forsook
them--they sank into the enemies of God and all mankind, and the last
refuse of them expired on the gallows of Jamaica, children of Cain,
unpitied by any, their very courage despised, and their crimes detested.
At their culminating point, united under the sway of one great mind,
they might have formed a large empire in South America, or conquered it
as tributaries to France or England. Always thirsty for gold, they were
often chivalrous, generous, intrepid, merciful, and disinterested.

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

We may claim for our own nation the first pioneer in this new field of
enterprise. Lewis Scott, an Englishman, led the way by sacking the town
of St. Francisco, in Campeachy, and, compelling the inhabitants to pay a
ransom, returned safely to Jamaica. Where the carcase is there will the
eagles be gathered together, for no sooner had his sails grown small in
the distance than Mansweld, another Buccaneer, made several successful
descents upon the same luckless coast, unfortunate in its very
fertility. He then equipped a fleet and attempted to return by the
kingdom of New Granada to the South Sea, passing the town of Carthagena.
This scheme failed in consequence of a dispute arising between the
French and English crews, who were always quarrelling over their
respective share of provisions; but in spite of this he took the island
of St. Catherine, and attempted to found a Buccaneer state.

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

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

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

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

Thus concluded this adventurous raid, in which a town forty leagues
inland, and containing at least 800 well-armed defenders, was stormed
and robbed by eighty resolute sailors. Davis reached Jamaica in safety
with his plunder, which was soon put into wider circulation by the aid
of the dice, the tavern keepers, and the courtesans. The money once
expended, Davis was roused to fresh exertion. He associated himself with
two or three other captains, who, superstitiously relying on his good
fortune, chose him as admiral of a small flotilla of eight or nine armed
gunboats. The less fortunate rewarded him with boundless confidence. His
first excursion was to the town of St. Christopher, in Cuba, to wait for
the fleet from New Spain, in hopes to cut off some rich unwieldy
straggler. But the fleet contrived to escape his sentinels and pass
untouched. Davis then sallied forth and sacked a small town named St.
Augustine of Florida, in spite of its castle and garrison of 100 men. He
suffered little loss; but the inhabitants proved very poor, and the
booty was small.

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

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

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

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

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

Even as late as 1694, Montauban gives us some idea of the wild
debaucheries committed by the Buccaneers even at Bourdeaux. "My
freebooters," he says, "who had not seen France for a long time, finding
themselves now in a great city where pleasure and plenty reigned, were
not backward to refresh themselves after the fatigues they had endured
while so long absent from their native country. They spent a world of
money here, and proved horribly extravagant. The merchants and their
hosts made no scruple to advance them money, or lend them as much as
they pleased, upon the reputation of their wealth and the noise there
was throughout the city of the valuable prizes whereof they had a share.
All the nights they spent in such divertisements as pleased them best;
and the days, in running up and down the town in masquerade, causing
themselves to be carried in chairs with lighted flambeaux at noon--of
which debauches some died, while four of my crew fairly deserted me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ravenau de Lussan illustrates the motives that sometimes led the youth
of the higher classes to turn Buccaneers. He commences his book with
true French vanity, by saying, that few children of Paris, which
contains so many of the wonders of the world (ten out of the eight, we
suppose), seek their fortune abroad. From a child he was seized with a
passionate disposition for travel, and would steal out of his father's
house and play truant when he was yet scarce seven. He soon reached La
Vilette and the suburbs, and by degrees learnt to lose sight of Paris.
With this passion arose a desire for a military life. The noise of a
drum in the street transported him with joy. He made a friend of an
officer, and, offering him his sword, joined his company, and witnessed
the siege of Condé, ending his campaign, still unwearied of his new form
of life. He then became a cadet in a marine regiment. The captain
drained him of all his money, and his father, at a great expense, bought
him his discharge. Under the Count D'Avegeau he entered the French
Guards, and fought at the siege of St. Guislain. Growing, on his return,
weary of Paris, he embarked again on sea, having nothing but voyages in
his head; the longest and most dangerous appearing to his imagination,
he says, the most delightful. Travelling by land seemed to him long and
difficult, and he once more chose the sea, deeming it only fit for a
woman to remain at home ignorant of the world. His affectionate parents
tried in vain to reason him out of this gadding humour, and finding him
only grow firmer and more inflexible, they desisted.

Not caring whither he went, so he could get to sea, he embarked in 1697
from Dieppe for St. Domingo. Here he remained for five months _engagé_
to a French planter, "more a Turk than a Frenchman." "But what misery,"
he says, "soever I have undergone with him, I freely forgive him, being
resolved to forget his name, which I shall not mention in this place,
because the laws of Christianity require that at my hand, though as to
matters of charity he is not to expect much of that in me, since he, on
his part, has been every way defective in the exercise thereof upon my
account." But his patience at last worn out, and weary of cruelties that
seemed endless, De Lussan applied to M. de Franquesnay, the king's
lieutenant, who himself gave him shelter in his house for six months. He
was now in debt, and thinking it "honest to pay his creditors," he
joined the freebooters in order to satisfy them, not willing to apply
again for money to his parents. "These borrowings from the Spaniards,"
he says, "have this advantage attending them, that there is no
obligation to repay them," and there was war between the two crowns, so
that he was a legal privateersman. Selecting a leader, De Lussan pitched
on De Graff, as a brave corsair, who happened to be then at St. Domingo,
eager to sail. Furnishing himself with arms, at the expense of
Franquesnay, he joined De Graff. "We were," he says, "in a few hours
satisfied with each other, and became such friends as those are wont to
be who are about to run the same risk of fortune, and apparently to die
together." The 22nd of November, the day he sailed from Petit Guave,
seemed the happiest of his life.

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

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

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

They first fell on their knees at their quarters (each group round its
gun), to pray God that they might obtain both victory and plunder. Then
all lay down flat on the deck, except the few left to steer and
navigate--proceeding to board as soon as their musketeers had silenced
the enemy's fire. If victorious, they put their prisoners on shore,
attended to the wounded, and took stock of the booty. A third part of
the crew went on board the prize, and a prize captain was chosen by lot.
No excuse was allowed; and if illness prevented the man elected taking
the office, his _matelot_, or companion, took his place.

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER IV.

PETER THE GREAT, THE FIRST BUCCANEER.

    Plunder of Segovia--Pierre-le-Grand--Pierre François--Barthelemy
    Portugues--His Escapes--Roche, the Brazilian--Fanatical hatred of
    Spaniards--Wrecks and Adventures.


The date of the first organized Buccaneer expedition is uncertain. We
only know that about the year 1654, a large party of Buccaneers, French
and English, joined in an expedition to the continent. They ascended, in
canoes, a river on the Mosquito Shore, a small distance on the south
side of Cape Gracias à Dios, and after labouring for a month against a
strong stream, full of torrents, left their boats and marched to the
town of Nueva Segovia, which they plundered, and then returned down the
river.

It is difficult to trace the exact beginning of the Flibustiers, or, as
they were soon called, the Buccaneers. According to most writers, the
first successful adventurer known at Tortuga was Pierre-le-Grand (Peter
the Great). He was a native of Dieppe, and his greatest enterprise was
the capture of the vice-admiral of the Spanish _flota_, while lying off
Cape Tiburon, on the west side of Hispaniola. This he accomplished in a
canoe with only twenty-eight companions. Setting out by the Carycos he
surprised his unwieldy antagonist in the channel of Bahama, which the
Spaniards had hitherto passed in perfect security. He had been now a
long time at sea without obtaining any prize worth taking, his
provisions were all but exhausted, and his men, in danger of starving,
were almost reduced to despair. While hanging over the gunwale, listless
and discontented, the Buccaneers suddenly spied a large vessel of the
Spanish fleet, separated from the rest and fast approaching them. They
instantly sailed towards her to ascertain her strength, and though they
found it to be vastly superior to theirs, partly from despair and partly
from cupidity they resolved at once to take it or die in the attempt. It
was but to die a little quicker if they failed, and the blood in their
veins might as well be shed in a moment as slowly stagnate with famine.
If they did not conquer they would die, but if they did not attack, and
escaped notice, they would also perish, and by the most painful and
lingering of deaths. Being now come so near that flight was impossible,
they took a solemn oath to their captain to stand by him to the last,
and neither to flinch nor skulk, partly hoping that the enemy was
insufficiently armed, and that they might still master her. It was in
the dusk of the evening, and the coming darkness facilitated their
boarding, and concealed the disadvantage of numbers. While they got
their arms ready they ordered their chirurgeon to bore a hole in the
sides of the boat, in order that the utter hopelessness of their
situation might impel them to more daring self-devotion, that they
might be forced to attack more vigorously and board more quickly. But
their courage needed no such incitement. With no other arms than a sword
in one hand and a pistol in the other, they immediately climbed up the
sides of the Spaniard and made their way pell-mell to the state cabin.
There they found the captain and his officers playing at cards. Setting
a pistol to their breasts, they commanded them to deliver up the ship.
The Spaniards, surprised to hear the Buccaneers below, not having seen
them board, and seeing no boat by which they could have arrived (for the
surgeon had now sunk it, and rejoined his friends through a porthole),
cried out, in an agony of superstitious fear, "Jesu, bless us, these are
devils!" thinking the men had fallen from the clouds, or had been shaken
from some shooting star. In the mean time Peter's kinsfolk fought their
way into the gunroom, seized the arms, killed a few sailors who snatched
up swords, and drove the rest under hatches.

That very morning some of the Spanish sailors had told their captain
that a pirate boat was gaining upon them, but when he came up to see,
and beheld so small a craft, he laughed at their fears of a mere cockle
shell, and went down again, despising any vessel, though it were as big
and strong as their own. Upon a second alarm, late in the day, when his
lieutenant asked him if he should not get a cannon or two ready, he grew
angry, and replied, "No, no, rig the crane out, and hoist the boat
aboard." Peter, having taken this rich prize, detained as many of the
Spanish seamen as he needed, and put the rest on shore in Hispaniola,
which was close at hand. The vessel was full of provisions and great
riches, and Pierre steered at once for France, never returning to resume
a career so well begun.

The news of this capture set Tortuga in an uproar. The planters and
hunters of Hispaniola burned to follow up a profession so glorious and
so profitable. It had been discovered now that a man's fortune could be
made by one single scheme of daring and enterprise. Not being able to
purchase or hire boats at Tortuga, they set forth in their canoes to
seek them elsewhere. Some began cruising about Cape de Alvarez, carrying
off small Spanish vessels that carried hides and tobacco to the
Havannah. Returning with their prizes to Tortuga, they started again for
Campeachy or New Spain, where they captured richer vessels of greater
burden. In less than a month they had brought into harbour two plate
vessels, bound from Campeachy to the Caraccas, and two other ships of
great size. In two years no less than twenty Buccaneer vessels were
equipped at Tortuga, and the Spaniards, finding their losses increase
and transport becoming precarious, despatched two large men-of-war to
defend the coast.

The next scourge of the Spaniard in these seas was Pierre François, a
native of Dunkirk, whose combinative, far-seeing genius and dauntless
heart soon raised him above the level of the mere footpads of the ocean.
His little brigantine, with a picked crew of twenty-six men--hunters by
sea and land--cruised generally about the Cape de la Vela, waiting for
merchant ships on their way from Maracaibo to Campeachy. Pierre had now
been a long time afloat and taken no prize, the usual prelude to great
enterprises amongst these men, who defied all dangers and all enemies.
The provisions were running short, the boat was leaky, the captain moody
and silent, and the crew half mutinous. To return empty-handed to
Tortuga was to be a butt for every sneerer, a victim to unrelenting
creditors; to the men beggary, to Pierre a loss of fame and all future
promotion. But, there being a perfect equality in these boats, the crews
seldom rose in open rebellion; and as every one had a voice in the
proposal of a scheme, there was no one to rail at if the scheme failed.
At last, amid this suspense, more tedious than a tropic calm, one more
daring or more far-seeing than the rest stood up and suggested a visit
to the pearl-fishings at the Rivière de la Hache. History, always drowsy
at critical periods, does not say if François was the proposer of this
scheme or not. We may be sure he was a sturdy seconder, and that the
plan was carried amid wild cheering and waving of hats and guns and
swords enough to scare the sharks floating hungrily round the boat, and
frighten the glittering flying-fish back into the sea. These Rancheria
fishings were at a rich bank of pearl to which the people of Carthagena
sent annually twelve vessels, with a man-of-war convoy, generally a
Spanish armadilla with a crew of 200 men, and carrying twenty-four
pieces of cannon. Every vessel had two or three Negro slaves on board,
who dived for the pearls. These men seldom lived long, and were
frequently ruptured by the exertion of holding breath a quarter of an
hour below the waves. The time for diving was from October till May,
when the north winds were lulled and the sea calm.

The large vessel was called the _Capitana_, and to this the proceeds of
the day were brought every night, to prevent any risk of fraud or theft.
Rather than return unsuccessful, Pierre resolved to swoop down upon this
guarded covey, and carry off the ship of war in the sight of all the
fleet; a feat as dangerous as the abduction of an Irish heiress on the
brink of marriage. He found the fishing boats riding at anchor at the
mouth of the River de la Hache, and the man-of-war scarcely half a
league distant. In the morning he approached them, and they, seeing him
hovering at a distance like a kite above a farmyard, ran under shelter
of their guardian's guns, like chickens under the hen's wing. Keeping
still at a distance, they supposed he was afraid to approach, and soon
allowed their fears to subside. The captain of the armadilla, however,
took the precaution of sending three armed men on board each boat,
believing the pearls the object of the Buccaneer, and left his own
vessel almost defenceless. The hour had come. Furling his sails, Pierre
rowed along the coast, feigning himself a Spanish vessel from Maracaibo,
and when near the pearl bank, suddenly attacked the vice-admiral with
eight guns and sixty men, and commanded him to surrender. The Spaniards,
although surprised, made a good defence, but at last surrendered after
half an-hour's hand-to-hand fight, before the almost unmanned armadilla
could approach to render assistance. Pierre now sank his own boat, which
had only been kept afloat by incessant working at the pumps. Many men
would have rested satisfied with such a prize, but Pierre knew no Capua,
and "thought naught done while aught remained to do." He at once
resolved, by a stratagem, to capture the armadilla, and then the whole
fleet would be his own. The night being very dark, and the wind high and
favourable, he weighed anchor, forcing the prisoners to help his own
crew. The man-of-war, seeing one of its fleet sailing, followed, fearing
that the sailors were absconding with the pearls. As soon as it
approached, Pierre made all the Spaniards, on pain of instant death,
shout out "_Victoria, victoria!_ we have taken the ladrones," upon which
the man-of-war drew off, promising to send for the prisoners in the
morning. Laughing in his sleeve, Pierre gave orders for hoisting all
sail, and stood away for the open sea, putting forth all his strength to
get out of sight by daybreak. But the blood of the murdered Spaniards,
yet hot upon the deck, was crying to heaven against him, and he was
pursued. He had not got a league before the wind fell, and his ship lay
like a log on the water, just within sight of his pursuers, who kept a
long way off, burning with impatience and shame, and fretting like
hounds in leash when the boar breaks out. About evening the wind rose,
after much invocatory whistling, many prayers, many curses. Pierre,
ignorant of the power of his prize, and what canvas she could bear,
hoisted at random every stitch of sail and ran for his life, pursued by
the armadilla, wrathful, white-winged, and swift. Like many a fleet
runner, Pierre stumbled in his very eagerness for speed. He overloaded
his vessel with sail. The wind grew higher, and howled like an avenging
spirit, and his mainmast fell with the crash of a thunder-split oak. But
Pierre held firm; he threw his prisoners into the hold, nailed down the
hatches, and, trusting to night to escape, stood boldly at bay. He
despaired of meeting force by force, having only twenty-two sound men,
the rest being, before long, either killed or wounded. All in vain; the
great bird of prey bore down upon him like a hawk upon a throstle,
gaining, gaining every moment. Pierre defended himself courageously, and
at last surrendered on condition. The Spanish captain agreed that the
Buccaneers should not be employed in carrying, building-stones for three
or four years like mere negroes, but should be set safe on dry land. As
yet, the deep animosity of the two races had not sprung up. The prize
they so nearly bore off contained above 100,000 pieces of eight in
pearls, besides provisions and goods. At first the captain would have
put them all to the sword, but his crew persuaded him to keep his word.
The Frenchmen were then thrust down with curses into the same dark hold
from whence the imprisoned Spaniards were now released; so "the
whirligig of time brings about its revenge." When the crestfallen
Buccaneers were brought before the governor of Carthagena, an outcry
arose among the populace that the robbers should all be hung, to atone
for an alfarez whom they had killed, and who, they said, was worth the
whole French nation put together. The governor, however, though he did
not put them to death, ungenerously broke the terms of his agreement,
and compelled his prisoners to work at the fortifications of St.
Francisco, in his own island. After about three years of this painful
slavery, amid the jeers and contumely of the very negroes, they were
sent to Spain, and from thence escaping one by one to France, made their
way back to the Spanish main, more eager than ever to revenge their
wrongs at the hands of a nation whose riches furnished a ready means of
expiation, and whose cowardice rendered them incapable of frequent
retaliation.

The third hero on our stage, equally bold and no less memorable, was
Barthelemy Portugues, a native of Portugal, as his name implied.

Roused by the rumours of adventures which insured gold and glory,
Barthelemy (no saint, and certainly more ready to flay others than to
submit to flaying) sought out a small vessel at Jamaica, and fitted it
up at his own expense. As only his most remarkable enterprises are
recorded it is probable, from his having money, that he was already
known as a successful Flibustier. This boat he armed with four
three-pounders, and embarked with a crew of thirty men. Leaving Kingston
with a good wind at his back, he set sail to cruise off Cape de
Corriente, which he knew was the high road where he should meet vessels
coming from the Caraccas or Carthagena, on their way to Campeachy, New
Spain, or the Havannah. He had not been long beating about the Cape--a
point rounded with as much care by a Spanish merchantman, afraid of
Buccaneers, as Cape St. Vincent was by the European captain, dreading
the Salee rovers--before a great vessel, bound from Maracaibo and
Carthagena to the Havannah, hove in sight. It had a crew of seventy men,
and carried twenty guns, and many passengers and marines. The
Flibustiers, thinking a Spaniard so well armed and manned to be more
than their match, held one of their republican councils round the mast,
and refused to attack unless the captain wished. He decided that no
opportunity should be lost, for that nothing in any part of the world
could be won without risk. They instantly gave chase to the vessel that
quietly awaited their approach, as astonished at the attack as a swallow
would be if it were pursued by a gnat. Receiving one flaming broadside,
noisy but harmless, the half-stripped rovers instantly threw themselves
on board, but were repulsed by the Spaniards, who were numerous,
hopeful, and brave. Returning to their vessel and throwing down their
cutlass for the musket, they kept up a close fire of small arms for five
hours without ceasing. Every gunner and every reefer was picked off, the
decks were red, the return fire grew slack as the defence grew weaker,
and the foe's proud courage cooled; the Buccaneers again threw
themselves on board, and made themselves masters of the ship, with the
loss of only ten men and four wounded. They had now only fifteen men
left to navigate a vessel containing nearly forty prisoners. This number
was all that were left alive, and of these many were maimed with shot
wounds or gashed with sword cuts. The conquerors' first act was to throw
the dead overboard, officer and sailor, just as they fell, stripping off
the jewels and ransacking pockets for the dead men's doubloons. The
living Spaniards, wounded and dying, they drove into one small boat, and
gave them their liberty, afraid to keep them as prisoners and unwilling
to shed their blood. They then set to work to splice the rigging and
piece the sails, and lastly, to rummage for the plunder. They found the
value of their prize to be 75,000 crowns, besides 120,000 pounds of
cocoa, worth about 5000 additional. Having refitted the shattered
vessel, they would have sailed round the island of Jamaica, but a
contrary wind and current obliged them to steer to Cape St. Anthony, the
west extremity of Cuba, where they landed and took in water, of which
they were in great want.

They had scarcely hoisted sail to resume their course, probably
intending to return to port to sell their spoil before starting afresh,
when they unexpectedly fell upon three large vessels coming from New
Spain to the Havannah, who gave chase, as certain of victory as three
greyhounds bounding after a single hare. The Flibustiers, heavy laden
with plunder, and unable to make way, were almost instantly retaken,
falling as easy a prey as a gorged wolf does to the hunter. In a few
hours the Buccaneers were under hatches, stripped of even their very
clothes, and counting the moments before execution--the Puritan doling
out his hymns, the Catholic muttering his Miserere, and the rude
Cow-killer vowing vengeance if he could but escape. Two evenings after a
storm arose and separated the leash of armed merchantmen.

The vessel containing the luckless Portugues arrived first at St.
Francisco, Campeachy. Barthelemy, who spoke Spanish, had been well
treated by the captain, who did not know what a prize he had taken. The
news of the capture soon ran through the town, the captain became a
public man, the bells rang, the people flocked to see the caged lions,
and the principal merchants of the place crowded to congratulate him on
his success. Among the curious and timid visitors was one who
recognised Barthelemy, in spite of all his oaths and denials, and
demanded his surrender. No hate can match the hate of injured avarice
and frustrated cupidity. "This is Barthelemy the Portuguese," he told
every one, "the most wicked rascal in the world, and who has done more
harm to Spanish commerce than all the other pirates put together." He
ran everywhere and declared they had at last got hold of the man so
famous for the many insolences, robberies, and murders he had committed
on their coast, and by whose cruel hands many of their kinsmen had
perished. The captain, rather distrustful--somewhat favourable to
Barthelemy, perhaps, considering him as a brother seaman, worth any ten
land-lubbers, and annoyed at the arrogance of the merchant's
demand--refused to surrender the Portuguese, or to send him on shore.
The enraged merchant upon this proceeded to the governor, who, listening
to his complaint, sent to demand the Buccaneers in the king's name. He
was instantly arrested, spite of the captain's entreaties, and placed
on board another vessel, heavily ironed, for fear he should escape, as
he had done on a former occasion. A gibbet was erected, and the next day
it was resolved to lead him at once from his cabin to the place of
execution, without the hypocritical and useless ceremony of even a
prejudged trial. For some time Portugues remained uncertain of his fate,
till a Spanish sailor (for he seems to have had the power of winning
friends) told him that the gibbet was already putting together, and the
rope was ready noosed. In that delay was his safety; that very night he
resolved to escape, or perish by a quicker or less disgraceful death. No
doubt, with that strange mixture of religion remaining in the minds of
most Buccaneers, he prayed to God or the saints to aid him.

He soon freed himself from his irons. Discovering in his cabin two of
those large earthen jars in which wine was brought from Spain to the
Indies, he closed over the orifices, and hung them to his side with
cords, being probably unable to swim, and the distance too far to the
shore. Finding that he could not elude the vigilance of the sleepless
sentinel that paced at his door, he stabbed him with a knife he had
secretly purchased, and let himself noiselessly down, from the
mainchains into the water, floating to land without the splash that a
swimmer would have made in still water. Once on land he concealed
himself in a wood, prepared to bear any danger, and glad at heart to
endure starvation rather than suffer a public and shameful death. He was
too cunning to set off at once on a route that would be explored, but
hid himself among trees half covered with water, in order to prevent the
possibility of his being tracked by the maroon bloodhounds--a common
stratagem with the moss-troopers, who found the sound of running water
drown the noise of their movements and the murmur of their breathing,
and destroy all traces of their track. Bruce and Wallace had long before
escaped by the artifice that now saved a robber and a murderer. His must
have been anxious nights, varied by the shouts of negroes, the deep bay
of the dogs, the oaths of the Spaniards, the discharge of fire-arms, the
toll of the alarm bell, the glare of beacons; and the flash of torches.
For these three days he lived on yams and other roots growing around
him. From a tree in which he sometimes harboured he had the satisfaction
of seeing his pursuers search the wood in vain, and finally relinquish
the pursuit.

Believing that the danger had now in some degree decreased, the
lion-hearted sailor determined to push for the Golpho Triste, forty
leagues distant, where he hoped to find a Buccaneer ship careening. He
arrived there after fourteen days of incredible endurance. He started in
the evening from the seashore, within sight of the lit-up town where a
black gibbet was still standing bodingly against the sky. His forced
marches were full of terrible dangers and perils. He had no provisions
with him, and nothing but a small calabash of water hung at his side.
Hunger and thirst strode beside him, the wild beast glared in his path,
the Spanish voices seemed to pursue him. His subsistence was the raw
shell-fish that he found washed among the rocks upon the shore, fresh or
putrid he had no time to consider. He had streams to ford, dark with
caymans, and he had to traverse woods where the jaguars howled. Whenever
he came to a stream unusually dark, deep, and dangerous, and where no
ford was visible (for he could not swim), he threw in large stones as he
waded to scare away the crocodiles that lurked round the shallows. In
one spot he travelled five or six leagues swinging like a sloth from
bough to bough of a pathless wood of mangroves, never once setting foot
upon the ground. His day's progress was often scarcely perceptible. At
one river more than usually deep he found an old plank, which had
drifted ashore when the seaman was washed off, and from this he obtained
some large rusty nails. Extracting these nails, he sharpened them on a
stone with great labour, and used them to cut down some branches of
trees, which he joined together with osiers and pliable twigs, and
slowly constructed a raft. Hunger, thirst, heat, and fear beset him
round; and the voice of the sea, always on his right hand, came to him
like the hungry howl of death. In these fourteen nights he must have
literally tasted death, and anticipated the horrors of hell.

"Fortune favors the brave." He found a Buccaneer vessel in the gulf, and
he was saved. The crew were old companions of his, newly arrived from
Jamaica and from England. He related to them his adversities and his
misfortunes. All listened eagerly to adventures that might to-morrow be
their own. He thought alone of revenge, and told them that if they chose
he would give them a ship worth a whole fleet of their canoes. He
desired their help. He only asked for one boat and thirty men. With
these he promised to return to Campeachy and capture the vessel that had
taken him but fourteen days before. They soon granted his request, the
boat was at once equipped, and he sailed along the coast, passing for a
smuggler bringing contraband goods. In eight days he arrived at
Campeachy, undauntedly and without noise boarding the vessel at
midnight. They were challenged by the sentinel. Barthelemy, who spoke
good Spanish, replied, in a low voice, "We are part of the crew
returning with goods from land, on which no duty has been paid." The
sentinel, hoping for a share, or at least some hush-money, did not
repeat the question. Allowing him no time to detect the trick, they
stabbed him, and, rushing forward, overpowered the watch. Cutting the
cable, they surprised the sleepers in their cabins, and, weighing
anchor, soon compelled the Spaniards, by a resolute attack, to
surrender; and, setting sail from the port, rejoined their exulting
comrades, unpursued by any vessel. Great was the joy of the adventurers
in becoming possessors of so brave a ship. Portugues was now again rich
and powerful, though but lately a condemned prisoner in the very vessel
upon whose deck he now stood the lord of all. With this cargo of rich
merchandise Barthelemy intended to achieve enterprises, for though the
Spaniards' plate had been all disembarked at Campeachy, the booty was
still large. But let no hunter halloo till he is out of the wood, and
no sailor laugh till he gets into port. While he was making his voyage
to Jamaica, and already counting his profits as certain, a terrible
storm arose off the isle of Pinos, on the south of Cuba, which drove his
prize against the Jardine rocks, where she went to pieces. Portugues and
his companions escaped in a canoe to Jamaica, and before long started on
new adventures. What eventually became of him we know not, but we are
told that "he was never fortunate after." Whether he swung on the
Campeachy gibbet after all, became a prey to the Darien man-eater, was
pierced by the Greek bullet, or was devoured by the sea, long expecting
its victim, we shall never know. He sails away from Kingston with
colours flying, and wanders away into unknown deeps.

Of this wild man's end nothing was ever known. He was living at Jamaica
when Esquemeling left for England. His bones, perhaps, still whiten on
some Indian bay, with the sea moaning around that nameless dust for
ever--doomed to destroy man, but lamenting the very desolation it
occasions.

This Roche Braziliano (or Roc, the Brazilian, as the English adventurers
called him,) was born at Groninghen, in East Friezeland; and his own
name being forgotten, he was called the Brazilian, because his parents
had been Dutch settlers in the Brazils. Roche was taught the Indian and
Portuguese languages at an early age, and, when the latter nation retook
the Brazils, removed with his parents to the French Antilles, where he
learned French. Disliking the nation, he passed into Jamaica. Here he
learned to speak English, and, settling among our more congenial race,
became attached to the country of his adoption. But he had lingered too
long in the desert to have much taste for even Goshen. He had already
acquired the Arab's love for wandering, and poverty combined to lead him
into an adventurer's ship. Into this mode of life all restless talent
and love of enterprise was now driven.

After only three voyages, Roche became commander of a brig whose crew
had mutinied from their captain and offered him the command. In a few
days, this almost untried man had the good fortune to capture a large
vessel coming from New Spain with a great quantity of plate on board. On
his arrival in Jamaica, Roc became at once the acknowledged leader of
all the Vikinger of the Spanish main--their first sailor, their hero,
and their model. He soon grew so terrible that the Spanish mothers used
his name as a hushword to their children.

Roc is described as having a stalwart and vigorous body. He was of
ordinary height, but stout and muscular. His face was wide and short,
his cheek-bones prominent, and his eyebrows bushy and of unusual size.
He was skilful in the use of all Indian and Catholic (Spanish) arms, a
good hunter, a good fisherman, and a good shot--as skilful a pilot as he
was a brave soldier. He generally carried a naked sabre resting on his
arm, and made no scruple of cutting down any of his crew who were idle,
mutinous, or cowardly. He was much dreaded even in Jamaica, and
particularly when drunk, says his candid biographer. At those times he
would frequently run a-muck through the streets, beating and wounding
any one he met, especially if they dared to oppose or resist him. In his
sober moments he was esteemed and feared, but he too often abandoned
himself to every sort of debauchery.

In Roc we see the first indication of a new phase of Buccaneering
life--_a fanatical hatred of the Spaniard_. The sailor, at first a mere
privateersman at sea, and a hunter on shore, was now a legal robber,
with a spice of the crusader: a chivalrous Vendetta feeling had become
superadded to the mere love of booty. A thirst for gold had proved
irresistible: what would it be now when it became heightened by a thirst
for blood?

To the Spaniards Roc was always very barbarous and cruel, out of an
inveterate hatred to that nation. He seldom gave them quarter, and
treated them with untiring ferocity. He taxed his invention for new
modes of torture, revenging upon them by a rather indirect mode of
retaliation the wrongs inflicted upon his parents by the Portuguese. He
is said to have even roasted alive some of his prisoners on wooden
spits, like boucaned boars, because they refused to disclose the
hog-yards where he might victual his ships. By the Spaniards he was
reported to be really an apostate outlaw of their own nation, this being
the only way in which they could account for his needless and useless
cruelties.

On one occasion, as he was cruising on the coast of Campeachy, a dismal
tempest, says the chronicler, "surprised him so violently" that his ship
was wrecked, himself and his crew only escaping with their muskets, a
little powder, and a few bullets, much more useful, however, than gold
on such a coast. They reached shore not far from Golpho Triste, the
scene of Barthelemy's escape. Roc was not the man to be cast down by an
accident no more regarded by true adventurers than the upsetting of a
coach by an ordinary traveller. Getting ashore in a canoe, he determined
to march quickly along the coast, and repair to the gulf, a well-known
haunt of the members of their craft. Roc bade his men be of good heart,
and he would bring them safe out of every danger, and, giving them hope,
the promise was already half accomplished. Getting on the main road,
they proceeded on their march through a hostile country, with the air of
men who had conquered the whole Indies. They had already reached a
desert track, and were grown fatigued, hungry, and thirsty, when some
Indians gave the alarm, and the Spaniards were soon down upon them, to
the number of one hundred well-armed and well-mounted horsemen, while
the Buccaneers were but thirty men.

As soon as Roc saw the enemy, the Brazilian cried out, "Courage, _mes
frères_, we are hungry now, but, Caramba, you shall soon have a dinner
if you follow me," and then, perceiving the imminent danger, he
encouraged his men, telling them they were better soldiers than the
Spaniards, and that they ought rather to die fighting under their arms
as became men of courage, than to surrender, and have their lives
pressed out by the extremest torments. Seeing their commander's
courage, the wrecked men resolved to attack, instead of waiting tamely
for the enemy's approach, and, facing the Spaniards, they at once
discharged their guns so dexterously, that they killed a horseman with
almost every shot. After an hour's hot fighting, the Spaniards fled. The
adventurers lost only two men, two more being lamed. Stripping the dead,
they took from them every valuable, and despatched the wounded with the
butt-end of their muskets. They then feasted on the wine and brandy they
found in their knapsacks, or at their saddle bows, and declared
themselves ready to attack as many again; and having finished their
meal, they mounted on the stray horses, and proceeded on their march.

The victors had not gone more than two days' journey before they caught
sight of a well-manned Spanish vessel, lying off the shore beneath. It
had come to protect the boats which landed the men who cut the Campeachy
dyewood. Roc saw that the poultry-yard knew nothing of the kite that was
hovering near. He instantly concealed his band, and went with six
comerades into a thicket near the beach to watch. Here they passed the
night. At daybreak the Spaniards, pulling to shore in their canoe, were
received in a courteous but unexpected manner by the Buccaneers. Roc
instantly summoned his men, boarded and took the vessel. The little
man-of-war contained little plate, but, what was of equal use, two
hundred weight of salt, with which he salted down a few of the horses
which he killed. The remaining horses he gave to his Spanish prisoners,
telling them laughingly, that the beasts were worth more than the
vessel, and that once on their backs on dry land no rascal need fear
drowning.

A Buccaneer's first thought on obtaining one prize was to gain another
as soon as possible. Roc had still twenty-six man by him, and a good
vessel to move in. He soon took a ship, bound to Maracaibo from New
Spain, laden with merchandise and money designed to buy a cargo of
cocoa-nuts. With this they repaired to Jamaica, letting the vessel
scorch in harbour till their money was all gone. Having spent all,
Braziliano put out to sea again, impatient of poverty and resolved to
trust to fortune, for he was her favourite child. He sailed for the
rendezvous at Campeachy, and after fifteen days started in a canoe to
hover round the port, beating about like a hawk in search of prey.

He was soon after captured and taken with his men before a Spanish
governor, who cast them into a dungeon, intending to hang them every
one. But fortune only hid her smiles for a moment, and had not deserted
him. Roc, as subtle as he was intrepid, had not yet exhausted his wiles.
He was at bay and the dogs were gathered round, but they had not yet got
him by the throat. He made friends with the slave who brought him food,
and promised to give him money to buy his freedom if he would aid his
scheme. He did not wish to compromise the slave: he only wished him to
be the bearer of a letter to the governor. The slave told the governor
that he had been put on shore in the bay by some Buccaneers and had been
ordered to deliver the letter. The letter was an angry threat, supposed
to be indited by the captain of a French vessel lying in the offing. It
advised the governor "to have a care how he used those persons he had in
his custody, for in case he should do them any harm, they did swear unto
him, they would never give quarter unto any person of the Spanish nation
that should fall into their hands." The governor, lifting up his eyes
and twisting his moustachios at the threat, was intimidated, and became
anxious to get rid as soon as possible of such dangerous prisoners, for
Campeachy had already been taken once by the adventurers, and he feared
what mischief the companions who visited Spanish towns might do. He
began now to treat his prisoners with greater kindness, and on the first
opportunity sent for them, and, exacting a simple oath that they would
abandon piracy, shipped them on board the galleon fleet bound for Spain.
Roc, with his usual versatility, soon made himself so much beloved that
the Spanish captain offered to take him as a sailor, and he accepted the
offer. During this single voyage to Spain he made a sum of no less than
500 crowns by selling the officers fish that he struck in the Indian
manner with arrows and harpoons from the main-chains. His comerades,
whom he never forgot, were treated with consideration on his account.

On his arrival in Spain, Roc, in spite of his oath, which had been
exacted by fear of death, and therefore absolvable by any priest, lost
no time in getting back to Jamaica, where he arrived without a vessel to
call his own, but in other respects in better circumstances than when he
left. He joined himself at once to two French adventurers.

The chief of these, named Tributor, was an old Buccaneer of great
experience. They determined to land upon the peninsula of Yucatan, in
hopes of taking the town of Merida. Roc, who had been there before as a
prisoner, and had doubtless proposed the scheme, served as guide, but
some Indians got upon their trail and alarmed the Spaniards, who
fortified the place and prepared for an attack. On the Buccaneers'
arrival they found the town well garrisoned and defended, and while
they were still debating whether to advance or retreat, the question was
abruptly decided for them by a body of the enemy's horsemen who fell
upon their rear, cut half of them to pieces, and made the rest
prisoners. The wily Roc, never taken much by surprise, contrived to
escape, but old Tributor and his men were all captured. Oexmelin
expresses his wonder at Roc's escape, because he had always held it vile
cowardliness to allow another man to strike before himself. "Hitherto he
had been the last to yield, even when he was overborne by enemies, and
had been heard to say that he preferred death to dishonour." _Nemo
mortalium_, &c.




CHAPTER V.

LOLONNOIS THE CRUEL.

    Lolonnois--His stratagem--His cruelty--His partner, Michael le
    Basque--Takes Maracaibo--Tortures the citizens--Sacks the
    town--Takes Gibraltar--Attempt on Merida--Famine and
    pestilence--Division of spoil--Takes St. Pedro--Burns
    Veragua--Wrecked in Honduras--Attacked by Indians--Killed and eaten
    by the savages.


The Spanish ships now decreased in number, merchants relinquishing a
trade so uncertain and perilous. The consequence of this was that the
Buccaneers, finding their sea cruises grow less profitable, began to
venture upon the mainland, and attack towns and even cities.

The first Buccaneer who distinguished himself in this wider field of
action was Francis Lolonnois. He was born among the sands of Olonne, in
Poictou, and drew his _nom de guerre_ from that wild and fitting
birthplace. He quitted France in early life, and embarked at Rochelle as
an _engagé_ for the Caribbean Islands, where he served the customary
slavery of three years. Having heard much during this servitude of the
hunters of Hispaniola, he sailed for that island as soon as his
apprenticeship had expired, and he was again a free adventurer. He first
bound himself as a valet to a hunter, and finally became himself a
Buccaneer, having now passed through all the usual experiences of a
young West Indian colonist. Spending some time upon the savannahs, he
became restless and tired of shore, and desirous of enlisting as a
freebooter under the red flag. Repairing to Tortuga, the head-quarters
of Flibustier enterprise, he enrolled himself among the rovers of the
sea, with whom he made many voyages as simple mariner or companion. From
the first day he trod plank he is said to have shown himself destined
to attain high distinction, surpassing all the "Brothers" in adroitness,
agility, and daring.

In these floating republics talent soon rose to the surface. Lolonnois
was elected master of a vessel, with which he took many prizes, but at
last lost everything by a storm which wrecked his ship, drowned his men,
sank his cargo, and cast him bleeding and naked upon a savage shore. His
courage and conduct, however, had won the admiration of the Governor of
Tortuga, M. de la Place, whose island he had enriched by the frequent
sale of prizes, and who launched him again in a new ship to encounter
once more all the fury of the sea, the hurricane, and the Spaniard.
Fortune was at first favourable to him, and he acquired great riches.
His name became so dreaded by the Indians and the Spaniards that they
chose rather to die or drown than surrender to one who never knew the
word mercy. He never learned how to chain fortune to his mast, and was
soon a second time wrecked at Campeachy. The men were all saved, but on
reaching land were pursued and killed by the Spaniards. Lolonnois,
himself severely wounded, saved his life by a stratagem. Mixing the sand
of the shore with the blood flowing from his wounds, he smeared his face
and body, and hid himself dexterously under a heap of dead, remaining
there till the Spaniards had carried off one or two of his less severely
wounded companions into Campeachy. As soon as they were gone he arose
with a grim smile from his lurking place among the slain, and betook
himself to the woods. He then washed his now stiffened wounds in a
river, and bound up his gashes as he could. As soon as they were healed
(the flesh of these men soon healed), he put on the dress of a slain
Spaniard, and made his way boldly into the neighbouring city. In the
suburbs he entered into conversation with some slaves he met, whom he
bribed by an offer of freedom if they would obey him and follow his
guidance.

They listened to his proposal, and, stealing their master's canoe,
brought it to the sea-shore, where Lolonnois lay concealed. But before
this the disguised Buccaneer had gone rambling fearlessly through the
enemy's town, witnessing the rejoicings made at his own supposed death;
for his companions, who were kept close prisoners in a dungeon, had been
asked what had become of their captain, to which they had always replied
that he was dead, upon which the Spaniards lit up bonfires in their open
squares, thanking God for their deliverance from so cruel a pirate.

The flames of these fires were red upon the bay when Lolonnois and the
slaves pushed off their canoe and made haste to escape. They reached
Tortuga in safety, and Lolonnois kept his promise, and set the slaves at
liberty--although, if he had been base and worthless enough, he could
have refitted his boat with the profits of their sale. He now thought
only of revenging himself on the Spaniards for their cruelty in
murdering the survivors of a wreck. He spent whole days in considering
how he could capture a vessel and restore himself to his former
reputation for skill and fortune. By some extraordinary plan,
Esquemeling--who writes always with affected horror of the men amongst
whom he lived--says, with "craft and subtlety," he soon obtained a third
ship, with a crew of twenty-one men and a surgeon. Being well provided
with arms and necessaries--how provided by a penniless man it is
impossible to guess--he resolved to visit De Los Cayos, a village on the
south side of Cuba, where he knew vessels from the Havannah passed to
the port of Boca de Estera, where they purchase tobacco, sugar, and
hides, coming generally in small boats, for the sea ran very shallow. At
this place meat was also obtained to victual the Spanish fleets.

Here Lolonnois was very sanguine of booty, but some fishermen's boats,
observing him, alarmed the town. One of these canoes they captured, and,
placing in it a crew of eleven men, proceeded to coast about the Bayes
du Nord. The Buccaneers kept at some distance from each other, in hopes
of sooner surrounding their prey, for each of their crews was strong
enough to capture any merchant vessel that had not more than fifteen or
sixteen unarmed men on board. They remained some months beating off and
on Cuba, but caught nothing, although this was the very height of the
commercial season. After a long delay of wonder and vexation, they
learned the cause of their failure from the crew of a fishing-boat which
they captured, who told them that the people of Cayos would not venture
to sea because they knew that they were there. It would be dangerous for
them to remain, they added, for the chief merchants of the port had
instantly despatched a "vessel overland" to the Governor of Havannah,
telling him that Lolonnois had come in two canoes to destroy them, and
begging him to send and destroy the "ladrones." The governor could with
difficulty at first be persuaded to listen to the petition, because he
had just received letters from Campeachy bidding him rejoice at the
death of that pirate; but, aroused by the continued importunities of his
angry petitioners, he at last sent a ship to their relief.

This ship carried ten guns, and had a crew of ninety young, vigorous,
and well-armed men, to whom he gave at parting an express command that
they should not return into his presence without having first destroyed
those pirates. He sent with them a negro hangman, desiring him to kill
on the spot all they should take, except Lolonnois, the captain, who was
to be brought alive in triumph to the Havannah. The ship had scarcely
arrived at Cayos when the pirate, advertised of its approach, came to
seek it at its moorings in the river Estera. Lolonnois cried out, when
he saw it loom in the distance, "Courage, mes camarades! courage, mes
bons frères! we shall soon be well mounted." Capturing some fishermen
busy with their nets, he forced them at night to show him the entrance
of the port.

Rowing very quietly in the shadow of the trees that bordered the river's
banks and hid their approach, they arrived under the vessel's side a
little after two o'clock in the morning--not long before daybreak. The
watch on board the ship hailed them, and asked them whence they came and
if they had seen any pirates? They made one of the fishermen who guided
them reply in Spanish that they had seen no pirates or anything else;
and this made the Spaniards believe that Lolonnois had fled at their
approach. The Buccaneers instantly began to open fire on both sides from
their canoes. The Spaniards, who kept good guard, returned the fire, but
without much effect, for their enemies lay down flat in their boats, and
the trees served them as gabions. The Spaniards fought bravely, in spite
of the suddenness and vigour of the attack, and made some use of their
great guns. The combat lasted from dawn till midday, the crew of the
vessel discharging ineffectual volleys of musketry, which seldom injured
the assailants, whose bullets, on the other hand, killed or wounded
every moment some of the Havannah youth. When the firing began to
slacken, Lolonnois pulled his canoes out into the stream, and boarded
the vessel, which almost instantly surrendered.

Those who survived were beaten down under the hatches, while the wounded
on the decks received the _coup de grace_. When this had been done,
Lolonnois commanded his men to bring up the prisoners one by one from
the hold, cutting off their heads as they came up with his own hand, and
tasting their blood. The negro hangman, seeing the fate of his
predecessors, threw himself passionately at the feet of the Buccaneer
chief, and exclaimed in Spanish, "If you will not kill me I will tell
you the truth." Lolonnois, supposing he had some secret to tell, bade
him speak on. But he refused to open his lips further till life were
promised him; upon the promise being made, the trembling wretch
exclaimed, "Senor capitan, Monsieur, the governor of the Havannah, not
doubting but that this well-armed frigate would have taken the strongest
of your vessels, sent me on board to serve as executioner, and to hang
all the prisoners that his men took, in order to intimidate your nation,
so that they should not dare ever to approach a Spanish vessel."
Esquemeling, who always exaggerates the cruelty of his quondam
companions, says, Lolonnois, making the black confess what he thought
fit, commanded him to be murdered with the rest; but Oexmelin gives a
more probable version. At the negro's mention of his being a hangman he
grew furious, and but for his words, "I give thee quarter and even
liberty because I promised it thee," would certainly have put him to
death. He then slew all the rest of the crew but one man, whom he spared
in order to send him back with a letter to the governor of the Havannah.
The letter ran thus: "I have returned your kindness by doing to your men
what they designed to do to me and my companions. I shall never
henceforward give quarter to any Spaniard whatsoever, and I have great
hopes of executing upon your own person the very same punishment I have
done upon those you sent against me. It would be better for you to cut
your throat than to fall into my power."

The governor, enraged at the loss of his ship and crew, and exasperated
by the insolent daring of the letter, swore in the presence of many that
he would not grant quarter to any pirate who fell into his hands.
Furious that two canoes, with twenty-two half-naked men, should be able
to deride the might of Spain in his person, he instantly sent round word
to the neighbouring Indian forts to hang all their French and English
prisoners, instead of, as usual, embarking them for Spain. The citizens
of Havannah, hearing of this imprudent bravado, sent a deputation to the
governor to represent to him that, for one Englishman or Frenchman that
the Spaniards captured, the Buccaneers took every day a hundred of their
people, that the men of Havannah were obliged to get their living by
trading, that life was far dearer to them than mere money, which was all
the Buccaneers wanted; and lastly, that all their fishermen would be
daily exposed to danger, the Buccaneers having frequent opportunity for
reprisal. Upon this the angry governor was at last persuaded to bridle
his passion and remit the severity of his oath.

Lolonnois, now provided with a good ship, resolved to cruise from port
to port to obtain provisions and men. Off Maracaibo he surprised a ship
laden with plate, outward-bound to buy cocoa-nuts, and with this prize
returned to Tortuga, much to his own satisfaction and the general joy
of that strange colony of runaway slaves, disbanded soldiers, hunters,
privateersmen, pirates, Puritans, and papists. He had not been long in
port before he planned an expedition to Maracaibo, joining another
adventurer in equipping a body of five hundred men. In Tortuga he found
prisoners for guides, and disbanded adventurers resolute enough to be
his companions. His partner was Michael le Basque, a Buccaneer who had
retired very rich, and was now major of the island. He had done great
actions in Europe, and bore the repute of being a good soldier.
Lolonnois was to rule by sea and Le Basque by land.

Le Basque knew all the avenues of Maracaibo, and had lately taken in a
prize two Indians, who knew the port well and offered to act both as
pilots and guides. Le Basque had consented to join Lolonnois, struck by
the daring and comprehension of his plans, and Lolonnois was overjoyed
at the alliance of so tried a man. Notice was instantly given to all the
unemployed Buccaneers that they were planning a great expedition with
much chance of booty. All who were willing to join them were to come by
a certain day to the rendezvous either at Tortuga or Bayala, on the
north side of Hispaniola; at the latter place he revictualled his fleet,
took some French hunters as volunteers into his company, careened his
vessels, and procured beef and pork by the chase.

His fleet consisted of eight small ships, of which his own, the largest,
carried only twenty pieces of cannon; his crews amounted altogether to
about four hundred men. Setting sail from Bayala the last day in July,
while doubling Ponta del Espada (Sword Point), the eastern cape of
Hispaniola, Lolonnois overtook two Spanish vessels coming from Porto
Rico to New Spain, and one of these Lolonnois insisted on capturing with
his own hand, sending in his fleet to Savona. The Spaniards, although
they had an opportunity for two whole hours, refused to fly, and, being
well armed, prepared for a desperate resistance; the combat lasted for
three hours. The ship carried sixteen guns, and was manned by fifty
fighting men. They found in her a cargo of 120,000 pounds' weight of
cocoa, 40,000 pieces of eight, and the value of 10,000 more in jewels.
Lolonnois instantly sent this prize back to Tortuga to be unloaded, with
orders to return to the rendezvous at Savona. On their way to this
place, his vanguard had also been in luck, having met with a Spanish
vessel bringing military stores and money from Cumana for the garrisons
of Hispaniola. In this vessel, which they took without any resistance,
though armed with eight guns, they found 7,000 pounds' weight of powder,
a great number of muskets and other arms, together with 12,000 pieces of
eight.

These successes encouraged the adventurers, and to superstitious men
seemed like promises of good fortune and success. The generosity of the
governor of Tortuga also tended to heighten their spirits. M. D'Ogeron,
the French governor, had been greatly delighted at the early arrival of
so rich a prize, worth, at the lowest calculation, 180,000 livres, and
threw open all his store-houses for the use of the prize crew. Ordering
her to be quickly unloaded, he sent her back to Lolonnois full of
provisions and necessaries. Many persons who had come from France with
the governor now joined an expedition which had begun so auspiciously,
desirous of gaining a fortune with the same rapidity as the older
colonists. By hazarding a little money a planter could obtain a chance
of sharing in the plunder of a distant city without moving from under
the shadow of his tamarind tree, and the governor's approval threw an
air of legal government patronage over the expedition. D'Ogeron even
sent his two nephews on board, young gallants newly arrived from France,
and one of whom afterwards ruled the island in the room of his uncle.
With a fleet recruited with men in room of those killed by the fever or
the Spaniards, and full of hope and spirits, Lolonnois sailed for
Maracaibo. His own vessel he gave to his comrade Anthony du Puis, and
went himself on board the _Cacaoyere_, as the largest prize was called.

Before sailing, he reviewed his little invincible armada. His own new
frigate carried sixteen guns and 120 men. His vice-admiral, Moses
Vauclin, had ten guns and ninety men; and his _matelot_, Le Basque,
sailed in a vessel called _La Poudrière_, because it contained all the
powder, the ammunition, and the money for the sailors' pay. It carried
twenty pieces of cannon and ninety men. Pierre le Picard steered a
brigantine with forty men. Moses had equipped another of the same size,
and the two other smaller vessels were each managed by a crew of thirty
men. Every sailor was armed with a good musket, a brace of pistols, and
a strong sabre. At this review Lolonnois first disclosed his whole plan,
which was to visit Maracaibo, in the province of New Venezuela, and to
pillage all the towns that border the lake. He then produced his guides,
one of whom had been a pilot over the bar at Maracaibo, and who vouched
for the ease with which the attack could be made. Shouts and clamour
announced the universal satisfaction at the proposal. They all agreed to
follow him, and took an oath that they would obey him implicitly on the
penalty of being mulcted of their booty. The usual _chasse-partie_, or
Buccaneers' agreement, was then drawn up, specifying the exact share
that each one should receive of the spoil, from the captain down to the
boys of the ships, and not forgetting the wounded and the guides.

Venezuela, or "little Venice," derived its name from its being very low
land, and only preserved from frequent inundation by artificial means.
At six or seven leagues' distance from the Bay of Maracaibo, or Gulf of
Venezuela, are two small islands--the island of the Watch Tower and the
island of the Pigeons. Between these two islands runs a channel of fresh
water--as wide across as an eight-pound shot can carry, about sixty
leagues long, and thirty broad--which empties itself into the sea. On
the Isla de las Vigilias stood a hill surmounted by a watch-tower; on
the Isla de las Palombas a fort to impede the entrance of vessels, which
were obliged to come very near, the channel being narrowed by two
sand-banks, which left only fourteen feet water. The sand-drifts were
very numerous; some of them, particularly one called El Tablazo, not
having more than six feet water.

"West hereof," says Esquemeling--for we must describe the past, not the
present city--"is the city of Maracaibo, very pleasant to the view, its
houses being built along the shore, having delightful prospects all
round. The city may contain three or four thousand persons, slaves
included, all which make a town of reasonable bigness. There are judged
to be about 800 persons able to bear arms, all Spaniards. Here are one
parish church, well built and adorned, four monasteries, and one
hospital. The city is governed by a deputy-governor, substituted by the
governor of the Caraccas. The trade here exercised is mostly in hides
and tobacco. The inhabitants possess great numbers of cattle and many
plantations, which extend thirty leagues in the country, especially
towards the great town of Gibraltar, where are gathered great quantities
of cocoa nuts, and all other garden fruits, which serve for the regale
and sustenance of the inhabitants of Maracaibo, whose territories are
much drier than those of Gibraltar. Hither those of Maracaibo send great
quantities of flesh, they making returns in oranges, lemons, and other
fruits; for the inhabitants of Gibraltar want flesh, not being capable
of feeding cows and sheep."

The inner lake within the great bar, so difficult to cross, was fed by
upwards of seventy streams, of which several were navigable. The two
capes on either side of the gulf were named respectively Cape St. Roman
and the Cape of Caquibacoa. The east side, though frequently flooded,
was unhealthy, but very fertile, something resembling the Maremma,
where, according to an Italian proverb, a man gets rich in six months
and dies in seven.

In the bay itself, ten or twelve leagues from the lake, are the two
islands of Onega and Las Monges. On the east side, near the
_embouchure_, there was a fishermen's village called Barbacoa, where the
Indians lived in trees to escape the floods; for, after great rains, the
lands were often overflowed in broad tracts of two or three leagues. A
few miles from this was the town of Gibraltar, where the best cocoa in
the Indies was grown, as well as the celebrated "priests' tobacco."
Beyond this twenty leagues of jurisdiction, rose mountains perpetually
covered with snow, contrasting remarkably with the swampy fields and the
rich tropical vegetation of the well-irrigated district below. On the
other side of these mountains lay the mother city of Merida, between
which, during the summer alone, mules carried merchandise to Gibraltar;
the cocoa and tobacco of Merida being exchanged for Peruvian flour and
the fruits of Gibraltar. Near this latter town were rich plantations and
wooded districts, abounding with the tall cedars from which the Indians
scooped out solid _piraguas_, or canoes, capable of carrying thirty
tons, which were rigged with one large sail.

The territory of Gibraltar was flat, and naturally fertile, watered by
rivers and brooks, besides being artificially irrigated by small
channels, necessary in the frequent droughts. Everything desirable for
food and pleasant to the sight grew here in abundance, the air was
filled with birds as beautiful as wandering blossoms, and the rivers
teemed with many-coloured fish. But into this Indian Paradise death had
entered, and these swamps were the lairs of the deadliest fevers that
devastate humanity. In the rainy season the merchants left Gibraltar,
just as the rich do Rome, and retired to Merida or Maracaibo to escape
the pestilence that walked not merely in darkness but even in the bright
noon. At six leagues from this town and its 1,500 inhabitants, ran a
river navigable by vessels of fifty tons' burthen.

Maracaibo itself had a spacious and secure port, and was well adapted
for building vessels, owing to the abundance of timber in the
neighbourhood. In the small island of Borrica were fed great numbers of
goats, which were bred chiefly for their skins. In curious
contradistinction to all this bustle of commerce, life, and wealth, on
the south-east border of the lake lived the Bravo-Indians, a savage
race, who had never been subdued by the Spaniard. They also, like the
fishermen, dwelt in huts built in the branches of the mangrove trees at
the very edge of the water, safe from the floods, and from the equally
annoying, though less fatal, visitation of the mosquitoes. Beyond them
to the west spread a dry and arid country--where nothing but cacti and
stunted, bitter shrubs grew, so thorny as to be almost impassable by the
traveller--waste and barren. Here the Spaniards pastured a few flocks,
and the only houses were the huts of the armed shepherds who tended the
lonely herds. These cattle were killed chiefly for their fat and hides,
the flesh being left for the flocks of merchant birds--a sort of
vulture, four or five of whom would pick an ox to the bone in a day or
two.

Lolonnois, arriving at one of the islands in the gulf, landed and took
in provisions, not wishing to arrive at the bar till daybreak, in hopes
of surprising the fort; and anchoring, out of sight of the watch-tower
weighed anchor in the evening from the island of Onega, and sailed all
night, but was seen by the sentinels, who immediately made signals to
the fort, which discharged its cannon and announced the approach of an
enemy.

Mooring off the bar, Lolonnois lost no time in landing to attack the
fort that guarded the very door through which he must pass. The
batteries consisted of simple gabions or baskets masked with turf, and
concealing fourteen pieces of cannon and 250 men, with flanking
earthworks thrown up to protect the gunners. Lolonnois and Le Basque
landed at a league from the fort, and advanced at the head of their men.
The governor, seeing them land, had prepared an ambuscade, in hopes of
attacking them at the same time in flank and rear. The Buccaneers,
discovering this, got before the Spaniards, and routed them so utterly
that not a single man returned to the fort, which was instantly attacked
"with the usual desperation of this sort of people," says Esquemeling.
The fighting continued for three hours. The Buccaneers, aiming with
hunters' precision, killed so many of the Spaniards, and reduced their
numbers so terribly, that the survivors could not prevent the savage
swordsmen storming the embrasures, slaying half the survivors, and
taking the rest prisoners. A few survivors are said by one writer to
have fled in confusion into Maracaibo, crying, "The pirates will
presently be here with 2,000 men."

The rest of the day Lolonnois spent in destroying the fort he had
captured, first signalling his ships to come in as the danger was over.
His men levelled the earth ramparts, spiked the guns, buried the dead,
and sent the wounded on board the fleet. The next day, very early in the
morning, the ships weighed anchor and directed their course, in
close-winged phalanx, like a flock of locusts, towards the doomed city
of Maracaibo, now only six leagues distant. They made but slow way, in
spite of all their impatience, for there was very little wind; and it
was not till the next morning that they drew in sight of the town,
standing pleasantly on the cool shore, with its galleries of shaded
balconies, its towers and steeples--the goal to which they steered.

Suspicious of ambuscades after the danger at the bar, Lolonnois put his
men into canoes, and pulled to shore under protection of salvos from his
great guns, which he ordered to be pointed at the woods which lined the
beach. Half the men went in the canoes, and half remained on board; but
these furious discharges were thrown away, the Spaniards having long
since fled. To their great astonishment, the town itself was deserted.
The people, remembering the horrors of a former Buccaneer descent, when
Maracaibo had been "sacked to the uttermost," had escaped to Gibraltar
in their boats and canoes, taking with them all the jewels and money
they could carry.

To the alarmed friends who received them, they said that the fort of the
bar had been taken, and nothing been saved, nor any soldiers escaped. At
Gibraltar they believed themselves safe, thinking the Buccaneers would
pillage the unfortunate and defenceless town and then retreat over the
bar.

The hungry sailors, who had lived scantily for four weeks, found the
deserted houses well provided with flour, bread, pork, poultry, and
brandy, and with these they made good cheer. The warehouses were
brimming with merchandise, the cellars were flowing with Spanish wine.
The more prudent fell to plunder, the more thoughtless to revel. The
former class probably embraced the older, and the latter the younger
men. Each party abused the vice from which he abstained, and gave
himself up without scruple to his own more favourite indulgence. But
soon the man weary of wine began to plunder, and the man loaded with
pieces of eight began to drink. The moment that plunder ceased, waste
began, and prudence and folly alike ended the day,--poor and drunk. The
commanders at once seized on the best houses, indulging their natural
love of order and justice, by placing sentinels at the larger shops and
warehouses.

The great monastery of the Cordeliers served them as a guard-house, for
a long time the abode of thieves, yet never so manifestly as now; for a
long time the shrine of mammon, yet now for the first time filled by
his avowed worshippers. Had the town not been deserted, that night would
have heard the groans of the victim of cruelty; as it was, it echoed
only with the songs and shouts of debauchery. The Buccaneer had reached
his Capua, but there were no Judiths ready to slay these Holofernes in
their drunken sleep. Perhaps a night surprise would have failed. These
men were still the vigilant hunters and the watchful sailors; sunken
rocks and lurking Spaniards, breakers and wild bulls, reefs and wild
panthers had taught them never to sleep unguarded and unwatched.

The next day a fresh source of plunder was opened. Lolonnois--for Le
Basque's command, even by land, seems to have been secondary--sent a
body of 160 men to reconnoitre the neighbouring woods, where some of the
inhabitants were, it was supposed, concealed. They returned the same
night, discharging their guns, and dragging after them a miserable
weeping train of twenty prisoners, men, women, and children; and,
besides this, a sack of 20,000 pieces of eight, and many mules, laden
with household goods and merchandise.

Some of the prisoners were at once racked, to make them confess where
they had hidden their riches, but neither pain nor fear could extort
their secret. Lolonnois, who valued not murdering, though in cold blood,
ten or twelve Spaniards, drew his cutlass and hacked one of them to
pieces before all his companions; and while the pale, tortured men were
still writhing and groaning by his side, declared, "If you do not
confess and declare where you have the rest of your goods, I will do the
like to all your companions." In spite of all these horrible cruelties
and inhuman threats, only one was found base enough to offer to conduct
the Buccaneers to a place where the rest of the fugitives were hidden.
When they arrived there, they found their coming had been announced, the
riches had been removed to another place, and the Spaniards had fled.
The exiles now changed their hiding-places daily, and, amid the
universal danger and distrust, a father would not even rely on his own
son.

After fifteen days "taking stock" at Maracaibo, Lolonnois marched
towards Gibraltar, intending afterwards to sack Merida, as at these
places he expected to find the wealth transported from the City of the
Lake. Several of his prisoners offered to serve as guides, but warned
him that he would find the place strong and fortified. "No matter,"
cried the Buccaneer, "the better sign that it is worth taking."

Gibraltar was already prepared. The inhabitants, expecting Lolonnois,
had entreated aid from the governor of Merida, a stout old soldier who
had served in Flanders. He sent back word, that they need take no care,
for he hoped in a little while to exterminate the pirates. He had soon
after this hopeful bravado entered the town at the head of 400
well-armed men, and was soon joined by an equal number of armed
townsmen, whom he at once enrolled. On the side of the town towards the
sea he raised with great rapidity a battery, mounting twenty guns, well
protected by baskets of earth, and flanked by a smaller traverse of
eight pieces. He lastly barricaded a narrow passage to the town, through
which the pirates, he knew, must pass, and opened another path leading
to a swampy wood that was quite impassable.

Three days after leaving Maracaibo Lolonnois approached Gibraltar, and,
seeing the royal standard hung out, perceived there were breakers ahead,
and called a general council, one of those republican gatherings that
distinguished the Buccaneer armies, and remind us of the less unanimous
consultations that Xenophon describes. He confessed that the difficulty
of the enterprise was great, seeing the Spaniards had had so much time
to put themselves in a state of defence, and had now got together a
large force and much ammunition; "but have a good courage," said he, "we
must either defend ourselves like good soldiers or lose our lives with
all the riches we have got. Do as I shall do, who am your captain. At
other times we have fought with fewer men than we have now, and yet
have overcome a greater number of enemies than can be in this town; _the
more they are the more riches we shall gain_." His men all cried out,
with one voice, that they would follow and obey him. "'Tis well," he
replied, "but know ye, the first man who will show any fear or the least
apprehension thereof, I will pistol him with my own hands."

The Buccaneers cast anchor near the shore, about three-quarters of a
league from the town, and the next day before sunrise landed to the
number of 380 determined men, each armed with a cutlass, a brace of
pistols, and thirty charges of powder and bullets. On the shore they all
shook hands with one another, many for the last time, and began their
march, Lolonnois exclaiming, "Come, _mes frères_, follow me and have
good courage." Their guide, ignorant of what the governor of Merida had
done, led them in all good faith up the barricaded way, where, to his
surprise, he found the paths in one place blocked up with large trees,
newly cut, and in another swamped so that the soft mud reached up above
their thighs.

Lolonnois, seeing the passage hopeless, attempted the narrow way, which
had been carefully cleared as a trap for them. Here only six men could
go abreast, and the shots of the town ploughed incessantly down the
path. At the same time the Spaniards, in a small terraced battery of six
guns, beat their drums and hung out their silk flags. The adventurers,
harassed by the fire that they could not return, and slipping on the
swampy path, grew vexed and impatient. "Courage, my brothers," cried
their leader, "we must beat these fellows or die; follow me, and if I
fall don't give in for that." With these words he ran full butt, with
head down like a mad bull, against the Spaniards, followed by all his
men, as daring but less patient than himself. Cutting down boughs they
made a rude pathway, firm and sure, over the deep mud. When within about
a pistol shot from the entrenchments, they began again to sink up to
their knees, and the enemy's grape-shot fell thick and hot upon the
impeded ranks. Many dropped, but their last words were always, "Courage,
never flinch, _mes frères_, and you'll win it yet." All this time they
could scarce see or hear, so blinded and deafened were they by the
thunder and fire.

In the midst of this discomfiture the Spaniards suddenly broke through
the gloom, just as they got out of the wood and trod upon firmer ground,
and drove them back by a furious onslaught, many of them being killed
and wounded. They then attempted the other passage again, but without
success, and finding the Spaniards would not sally out, and the gabions
too heavy to tear up by hand, Lolonnois resorted to the old stratagem,
so successful at Hastings, by which the very impatience of courage is
made to prove fatal to an enemy.

At a preconcerted signal the Buccaneers began to retreat, upon which the
defenders of the battery, exclaiming, "They fly, they fly; follow,
follow," sallied forth in disorder to the pursuit, shouting and firing
like an undisciplined rabble. Once out of gun-shot of the batteries, the
pursued turned into pursuers, and falling on the foe, sword in hand,
slew about 200. Fighting their way through those who survived, the
Buccaneers soon became masters of all the fortifications. Not more than
100 out of the 600 defenders remained alive, and these, as Falstaff
says, would have to limp to the town-end and beg for life. The brave old
governor lay dead among his foremost men.

The survivors who could crawl or run hid themselves in the woods,
impeded in their flight by the very obstructions they had themselves
raised. The men in the battery surrendered, and obtained quarter.
Neither Lolonnois nor Le Basque was scratched, but forty of their
companions perished, and eighty were grievously wounded. The greater
part of these died through the fevers and subsequent pestilence. 500
dead Spaniards were found, but many more had hidden themselves, to die
alone in peace.

The Buccaneers, now masters of Gibraltar, pulled down the Spanish
colours from tower and steeple, and hoisted their own red or black flag.
Making prisoners of all they met, they shut them up under guard in the
chief church, where they erected a battery of great guns, in case the
Spaniards should attempt to rally in a fit of despair. They then
collected the dead bodies of the Spaniards, and, piling them up, scarred
and gashed, in two large canoes, towed them out a quarter of a league to
sea, and scuttled them. They then gathered from every house, rich or
poor, all the plate, merchandise, and household stuff, which was not too
hot or too heavy to carry off, as rapacious as the borderer who stopped
wistfully opposite the hay-stack, wishing it had but four legs, that he
might make it "gang awa' wi' the rest." The Spaniards having buried
their treasure, as usual, armed parties were sent into the surrounding
woods to search for buried money, and to bring in hunters and planters
as prisoners to torture. Hung up by the beard, or burnt with
gun-matches, the wretched sufferers were forced to confess the
hiding-places.

Lolonnois soon turned the fertile country into a smoking black desert,
and, still insatiable for money and blood, planned an expedition over
the snow mountains to Merida, but reluctantly relinquished it when he
found his men unwilling to risk what they had got for the mere
uncertainly of getting more, though Merida was only forty leagues
distant. They had now 150 prisoners, besides 500 slaves, and many women
and children, many of whom were dying daily of famine, so short were
provisions already in a city in which the small army had been encamped
only eighteen days.

When they had spent six weeks in the town, Lolonnois determined to
return, nothing now being left to pillage. Disease and famine were worse
enemies than the Spaniard or the Indian, and cared for neither steel nor
lead. A pestilential disease appeared in consequence of the numerous
dead bodies left in the woods exposed to the wild beasts and the birds.
Those that lay nearest to the walls had been strewn over with earth, the
rest were left to taint the air, and slay the living--a putrid fever
broke out; the Spaniards killed more of the enemy after their death than
they had done in their life. The Frenchmen's wounds, already closing,
began now to re-open, the sick died daily, and the strongest pined and
sickened; all longed to return, even plunder grew distasteful to them
without health, and once more at sea they hoped soon to be well.

Men who had been revelling in the plenty of two captured cities, could
not return without impatience to the restraints of a time of scarcity.
Gibraltar always depending upon Maracaibo for its meat, and not well
supplied with flour, was, in fact, like a miser dying for want of a
loaf, while his storehouses were brimmed over with gold. The little meat
and flour were quickly consumed by the Buccaneers, who left their
prisoners to shift for themselves. The cattle they soon appropriated,
giving the mules' and asses' flesh to those Spaniards whose hunger was
strong enough to conquer their disgust. A few of the women were allowed
better fare, and many who had become the mistresses of their captors
were well treated by their lovers. Some of these were mere slaves,
others were voluntary concubines, but the greater part had been
compelled, by poverty and fear, to abandon their fathers and husbands.

Lolonnois, sending four of his prisoners into the woods, demanded a
ransom of 80,000 pieces of eight within two days, threatening the
fugitives to burn the town to ashes if his desire was not acceded to.
The Spaniards, already half-beggared, disagreed about the ransom; the
bolder and the more avaricious refused to pay a piastre, the old, the
timid, and the more generous preferred poverty to such a loss. Some said
it would serve as a mere bribe to allure a third adventurer, and others
declared it was the only means of saving Merida. While they were thus
disputing the two days passed, and the debate was put an end to by the
sight of flame ascending above the roofs. The city was already fired in
two or three places, when the inhabitants, promising to bring the
ransom, persuaded the Buccaneers to assist in quenching the flames, not,
however, till the chief houses were burned, and the chief monastery was
ruined.

Oexmelin merely says that Lolonnois set fire to the four corners of the
town, and in six hours reduced the whole to ashes. Palm-thatch and cedar
walls burn quick, and the sea-breeze was there to fan the flames, while
the Buccaneers were learned in the art of destruction. Lolonnois then
collected his men by beat of drum, and embarked his booty. Before he
sailed, he sent two of his prisoners again into the woods, to tell the
inhabitants that all the prisoners in his hands would be at once put to
death if the ransom were not paid. All prisoners who had not paid their
ransom he took with him, even the slaves being valued at so much, and
having put on board all riches that were movable, and a large sum of
money as a ransom for what was immovable, the Buccaneer fleet returned
to Maracaibo. The city, now partly repeopled, was thrown again into
disorder, nor much lessened when three or four prisoners came to the
governor, bearing a demand from Lolonnois to pay at once 30,000 pieces
of eight down upon his deck, or to expect a second sack, and the fate of
Gibraltar. While these terms were under concession, and the Spanish
merchants were chaffering with the sailors, as a lowland farmer might
have done with a highland _cateran_, a party of well-inclined
Flibustiers, unwilling to waste their time, rowed on shore, and stripped
the great church of its pictures, images, carvings, clocks, and bells,
even to the very cross on its steeple, piously desiring to erect a
chapel at Tortuga, where there was much need of spiritual instruction.
The Spaniards at last agreed to pay for their ransom and liberty 20,000
piastres, 10,000 pieces of eight, and 500 cows, provided the fleet would
do no further injury, and depart at once, and the blessing of Maracaibo
with them.

We can imagine the trembling and suppressed joy with which the people of
Maracaibo must have beheld the fleet sail slowly out of their harbour,
all eyes on board bent onward to the horizon and the golden future--none
looking back with a moment's regret upon the misery and the black ruin
left behind. How many orphans must have cursed them as they sailed, and
how many widows! Three days after the embarkation, to the horror of the
city, a vessel with a red flag at its masthead was seen re-entering the
harbour, but only, as it soon appeared, to demand a pilot to take the
fleet over the bar.

On their way to Hispaniola, Lolonnois touched at the Isle de la Vacca,
intending to stay there and divide the spoil. This island was inhabited
by French Buccaneers, who sold the flesh of the animals they killed to
vessels in want of victual. But a dispute arising here, the fleet again
set out to disband the crew at Gouaves in Hispaniola.

They arrived in two months, and, unlading the whole "cargazon of
riches," proceeded to make a dividend of their prizes and their gains.
Lolonnois and the other captains began by taking a solemn oath in
public, that they had concealed and held back no portion of the spoil,
but had thrown all without reserve into the public stock. The ceremony
of this oath must have been an imposing sight: wild groups of
half-stripped sailors, wounded men, and female captives, negroes and
Indians, Spanish soldiers and mulatto fishermen, and in the middle piled
bales of silks, heaps of glittering coin, and rich stuffs streaming over
scattered arms and costly jewels, while, looking on, perhaps wistfully,
leaning on their muskets, a few hunters fresh from the savannahs,
bull's-hide sandals on their feet, and long knives hanging from their
belts. After the captains had taken the oath, the common _matelots_,
down even to the cabin boys, took the vow that they had given up all
their spoil, to be shared equally by those who had equally ventured
their lives to win it.

After an exact calculation, the total value of their profits in jewels
and money was discovered to be 260,000 crowns, not including 100,000
crowns' worth of church furniture and a cargo of tobacco. On the final
division every man received money, silk, and linen to the value of about
100 pieces of eight. The surgeon and the wounded were as usual paid
first. The slaves were then sold by auction, and their purchase-money
divided among the various crews. The uncoined plate was weighed, and
sold at the rate of ten pieces of eight to a pound; the jewels were sold
at false and fanciful prices, and were generally undervalued, owing to
the ignorance of the arbitrators. A Buccaneer always preferred coin to
jewels, and jewels, as being portable, to heavy merchandise, which they
often threw overboard or wantonly destroyed. The adventurers then all
took the oath a second time, and proceeded to apportion the shares of
such as had fallen, handing them to the _matelots_, or messmate, to
forward to their heirs or nearest relations. We do not know whether, in
peculiar cases, a _matelot_ became his _camarade's_ heir.

The dividend over, they returned to Tortuga, amid the general rejoicing
of all over whom love or cupidity had any power. "For three weeks, while
their money lasted," says Oexmelin, probably an eye witness of the scene,
"there was nothing but dances, feasts, and protestations of unceasing
friendship." The _cabaretiers_ and the gambling-house keepers soon
revenged the cruelties of Maracaibo. The proud captors of that luckless
city in a few weeks were hungry beggars, basking on the quay of Tortuga,
straining their eyes to catch sight of some vessel that might take them
on board, and relieve them from that reaction of wretchedness. They were
jeered at as mad spendthrifts by the very men who had urged them to
their folly. The love of courtesans grew colder as the pieces of eight
diminished, and men were refused charity by the very wretches whom their
foolish generosity had lately enriched. No doubt watches were fried and
bank-bills eaten as sandwiches, just as they were during the war at
Portsmouth or at Dover. The prudent were those who made the money spin
out a day longer than their fellows, and the wildest were those who had
found out that two dice-boxes and two fiddlers ran through the
burdensome money a little faster than only one dice-box and one fiddler.

Some of the Buccaneers, skilful with the cards, added to their store and
returned at once to France, resolved to turn merchants, and trade with
the Indies they had wasted. The extravagant prices paid by these men
for wine, and particularly brandy, rendered that trade a source of great
profit. Just before the return of the fleet two French vessels had
arrived at Tortuga laden with spirits, which at first sold at very
moderate rates, but ultimately, from the great demand and the limited
means of supply, reached an exorbitant price, a gallon selling for as
much as four pieces of eight.

The tavern-keepers and the _filles de joie_ obtained most of the money
so dearly earned, and lavished it as those from whom they won it had
done. Cards and dice helped those who had not struck a blow at the
Spaniard, to now quietly spoil the captors. The story of Sampson and
Dalilah was daily acted. Even the governor hastened to benefit by the
expedition. He bought a cargo of cocoa of the Buccaneers, and shipped it
at once to France in Lolonnois' vessel, giving scarcely a twentieth part
of its value, and realising a profit of £120,000. The adventurers did
not grudge him this bargain, as he had risked everything for Tortuga,
and had suffered considerable losses. "M. D'Ogeron," says Oexmelin, with
some _naïveté_, "aimait les 'honnêtes gens,' les obligeait sans cesse,
et ne les lassait jamais manquer de rien."

Neither Lolonnois' talent, rank, nor courage kept him further from the
tavern door than the meanest of his crew. The poor drudge of a negro
that served as a butt to the sailors could not give way to baser
debauchery. It was the voice of the cannon alone that roused him to
great actions. On land he was a Caliban, at sea a Barbarossa. In spite
of his great booty, in a few short weeks he was poorer than his crew.
Tortuga was to him the Circe's island that transformed him into a beast.
As soon as his foot trod the plank, he became again the wily and the
wise Ulysses: the first in daring or in suffering, ready to endure or to
attack, above his fellow men in patience and impatience. His expenses
were large, and when the prizes ceased to come in he was soon reduced to
live upon his capital, and that quickly melted away in open-house
feasting and entertainments given to the governor. He had been
before he returned, moreover, so burdened with debts that even his
prize-money could not have defrayed them. There was but one means of
release--another expedition. Let the Spanish mother clasp her child
closer to her breast, for she knows not how soon she may have to part
with it for ever. Is there no comet that may warn an unprepared and a
doomed people?

Lolonnois had now acquired great repute at Tortuga. He was known to be
brave, and, what is a rare combination, prudent. Under his guidance men
who had forgot his previous misfortunes, thought themselves secure of
gold, and without glory gold is not to be won. He needed now no
entreaties to induce men to fill his ships; the difficulty was in
selecting from the volunteers. Those who had before stayed behind now
determined to venture; those who had once followed him were already
driven by mere poverty to enlist. The privations of land were
intolerable to men who had just revelled in riches--the privations of
sea could be endured by the mere force of habit. The planters threw by
their hoes, and quitted the hut for the cabin.

The towns of Nicaragua were now to share the fate of those of Venezuela.
About 700 men and six ships formed the expedition. Lolonnois himself
sailed in a large "flute" which he had brought from Maracaibo with 300
men; the other adventurers embarked in five smaller vessels. Having
careened and revictualled at Bayala, in Hispaniola, he steered for
Matamana, a port on the south side of Cuba. He here informed his
companions of the plan of the expedition, and produced an Indian of
Nicaragua who had offered to serve as guide. He assured them of the
riches of the country, and expressed his belief that they could surprise
the place before the inhabitants had secreted their money. His proposal
was received with the usual unhesitating applause.

At Matamana, Lolonnois collected by force all the canoes of the tortoise
fishermen, much to their grief and dismay, these poor men having no
other means of subsistence but fishing. These boats he needed to take
him up the channel of Nicaragua, which was too shallow for vessels of
any larger burthen. While attempting to round Cape Gracias à Dios, the
fleet was arrested by what the Spanish sailors call a "furious calm"--a
sad and tedious imprisonment to men to whom every delay involved the
success of their enterprise.

In spite of all their endeavours, they were carried by the current into
the Gulf of Honduras. Both wind and tide being against them, the smaller
vessels--better sailers and more manageable than that of Lolonnois--made
more way than he could do; but were obliged to wait for him, and stay
for his orders, being quite powerless without him and his 300 men.

They spent nearly a month in trying to recover their path, but all in
vain, losing in two hours what they gained in two days, and, their
provisions running short, put ashore to revictual.

Touching at the first land they could reach, they sent their canoes up
the river Xagua--their guides bringing them to the villages of the
"long-eared Indians," a race tributary to Spain, whose traders bartered
knives and mirrors with them for cocoa. The Buccaneers burned their huts
and carried off their millet, hogs, and poultry, loading the canoes with
all the food they could bring away to their impatient comerades, who
determined to remain here till the unfavourable weather had passed, and
burn and pillage along the whole borders of the gulf. The Indian
provisions proved but scanty for so numerous a band, but were divided
equally among the ships that were seeking food like locusts, and moving
daily on to new pastures.

A council of war was now held to discuss their position. Some were for
discontinuing the expedition, since the provisions ran so short. The
oldest and most experienced proposed plundering round the gulf till the
bad season had passed; and this plan was decided on. Having rifled a few
villages, they came to Puerto Cavallo, a place where Spanish ships
frequently anchored, and which contained two storehouses full of
cochineal, indigo, hides, &c., from Guatimala. There happened then to
be lying in the port a Spanish vessel of twenty-four guns and sixteen
patarerros. Its cargo, however, was nearly all unloaded and carried up
into the interior to be exchanged in barter with the Indians. This ship
was instantly seized; and Lolonnois, landing without any resistance,
burned the magazines and all the houses, and made many prisoners. The
Spaniards he put to the torture to induce them to confess. If any
refused to answer, he pulled out their tongues, or cut them to pieces
with his hanger, "desiring," says Esquemeling, "to do so to every
Spaniard in the world." Many, terrified by the rack, promised to
confess, really having nothing to disclose. These men were always
cruelly put to death in revenge. One mulatto was bound hand and foot and
thrown alive into the sea to intimidate the rest, and to induce two
survivors to show the French chief the nearest road to the neighbouring
town of San Pedro.

For this expedition Lolonnois selected 300 men, leaving his lieutenant,
Moses Vauclin, to govern in his absence, and despatching a few of his
small flotilla to help him by a diversion on the coast. Before starting,
he told his companions that he would never refuse to march at their
head, but that he should kill with his own hand "the first who turned
tail." San Pedro was only ten leagues distant. He had not proceeded
three before he fell into an ambuscade.

The Spaniards' favourite scheme of attack was the treacherous
surprise--a mere sort of attempt at wholesale assassination--seldom
successful, and always exasperating the enemy to greater cruelties. They
had now entrenched themselves behind gabions in a narrow road,
impassable on either side with trees and strong thickets. Lolonnois
instantly striking down the guides, whether innocent or guilty, charged
the enemy with desperate courage, and put them to flight after a long
encounter, ending in a total rout. They killed a few Buccaneers and left
many of their own men dead upon the ground. The wounded Spaniards, being
first questioned as to the distance from San Pedro, and the best way to
get there, were instantly beheaded. The prisoners informed him that
some runaway slaves, escaped from Porto Cavallo, had told them of the
intended attack on San Pedro. Determined to prevent this, they had
planned the ambuscade, and two other still stronger earthworks which
awaited him further on. To prevent connivance, or any possible
treachery, Lolonnois then had the Spaniards brought before him one by
one, and demanded of each in turn if there was no means of getting into
another and less guarded road. On their each denying that there was, he
grew frenzied and almost mad at the thoughts of such inevitable danger,
and had them all murdered but two; and then, in ungovernable passion, he
ripped open with his cutlass the breast of one of these survivors, who
was bound to a tree. Esquemeling asserts that he even tore out his heart
and gnawed it "like a ravenous wolf," swearing and shouting that he
would serve them all alike if they did not show him another way. The
miserable survivor, willing to save his life at any risk, his memory or
invention quickened by the imminent danger, conducted him into another
path, but so bad a one that Lolonnois preferred to return to the old one
in spite of all its perils, so difficult, slow, and laborious was the
march. He now seems to have grown almost fevered with rage, anxiety, and
vexation. "Mon Dieu," he growled, "les Espagnols me le payeront," and he
cursed the delay that kept him from the enemy.

There is no doubt that in these men a fanatical and almost superstitious
hatred of the enemy had sprung up, inflamed by mutual cruelties, for
forgiveness was not the chief virtue of the victorious Spaniard. To the
Buccaneer the Spaniard seemed cruel, cowardly, treacherous, and
degraded; to the Spaniard the Buccaneer seemed a monster scarcely
human--bloody, voluptuous, faithless, and rapacious.

That same evening the chief fell into a second ambuscade, which, says
Esquemeling, "he assaulted with such horrible fury" that in less than an
hour's time he routed the Spaniards and killed the greater part of them,
the rest flying to the third ambush, which was planted about two
leagues from the town. The Spaniards had thought, by these repeated
attacks, to destroy the enemy piecemeal, and for this object, which they
did not attain, frittered their forces into small and useless
detachments.

Lolonnois and his people, weary with fighting and marching, and
half-fainting with hunger and thirst, lay down in the wood that night,
and slept till the morning, the _matelots_ keeping good watch and ward,
and guarding their sleeping companions. At daybreak they resumed their
journey, with confidence increased by the clear light and with bodies
invigorated by rest. The third ambuscade was stronger and more
advantageously placed than even the two preceding. They attacked it with
showers of fire-balls, and drove out the enemy, slaying without mercy,
and giving no quarter. "No quarter, no quarter," cried their ferocious
leader, still thirsty for human blood, when they would have stayed their
hands, from exhaustion rather than from pity. "The more we kill here,
the less we shall meet in the town," was his war-cry. Very few of the
enemy escaped to San Pedro, the greater part being either slain or
wounded.

Before they ventured to make the final attack, the Buccaneers rested to
look to their arms and prepare their ammunition. In vain they attempted
to discover a second approach. There was but one, and that was well
barricaded, and planted all round with thorny shrubs, which the best
shod traveller could not pass, much less barefooted men, clad only in a
shirt and drawers. These thorns, Oexmelin says, were more dangerous than
those crow's-feet used in Europe to annoy cavalry.

Lolonnois, seeing that no other way was left, and that delay would imply
fear in his own men, and excite hope in the enemy, resolved to storm the
works, in spite of the rage and despair of a well-armed and superior
force, sheltered from shot and commanding his approach. "The Spaniards,"
says Esquemeling, "posted behind the said defences, seeing the pirates
come, began to ply them with their great guns; but these, perceiving
them ready to fire, used to stoop down, and then the shot was made to
fall upon the defendants with fire-balls and naked swords, killing many
of the town." Driven back for a time, they renewed the attack with fewer
men; husbanding their shot, for they were now short of powder; never
shooting at a long distance; and seldom firing but with great
deliberation when an enemy's head appeared above the rampart; and
occasionally giving a general discharge, in which nearly every bullet
killed an enemy. Several times the Buccaneers advanced to the very
mouths of the guns, and, throwing down fire-balls into the works, leaped
after them, sword in hand, through the embrasures; but only to be again
driven back.

This obstinate combat, so eager on both sides, had lasted about four
hours, and night was fast approaching, when Lolonnois, ordering a last
furious attack, put the now weakened Spaniards to flight, a great number
of them being killed as soon as they turned their backs. The citizens
then hung out a white flag, and, coming to a parley, agreed to surrender
the town on condition of receiving two hours' respite. During this
time, Lolonnois found that he had lost about thirty men, ten more being
wounded. This demand of two hours was employed by the towns-people in
loading themselves with their riches and preparing for flight--the
Buccaneers virtuously abstaining from any molestation till the time had
duly expired, and then pursuing the fugitives and plundering them of
every _maravedi_. But neither their self-denial nor their vigilance was
well rewarded, for fortune gave them nothing but a few leather sacks
full of indigo, the rest, even in that short time, having been buried or
destroyed--a disappointment which, we think, no reasonable person can
regret. Lolonnois had particularly ordered that not only all the goods
should be seized, but that every fugitive should be made prisoner.

The Buccaneer chief, having stayed a few days at San Pedro, and
"committed most horrid insolences," was anxious to send for a new
reinforcement, and attack the town of Guatimala--a place a long way
distant, and defended by 400 men. On his men as usual refusing to
accede to an apparently rash project, Lolonnois contented himself by
pillaging San Pedro, intending to impress a recollection of his visit
upon the grateful inhabitants by burning their town. He obtained no
great booty, for the inhabitants were a poor people, trading in nothing
but dyes. If he had chosen to carry away their stores of indigo, he
might have realised more than 40,000 crowns; but the Buccaneers cared
for nothing but coin and bullion, and were too ignorant, too lazy, and
too improvident to stop their debauches by loading their vessels with a
perishable cargo of uncertain value.

Having remained now eighteen days in San Pedro without obtaining much,
for the West Indian Spaniard had already learned to hide as skilfully as
the Hindoo ryot, Lolonnois called together his prisoners, and demanded
from them a ransom as the condition of sparing their town. They doggedly
answered, with all the insolence of despair, that he had taken from them
all they had, and that they had nothing more to give; that they could
not coin without gold, and that, as far as they went, he might do what
he liked to the town.

Lolonnois then reduced the town to ashes, and, marching to the sea-side
to rejoin his companions, found that they had been employing their time,
innocently and usefully, in capturing the fishing-boats of Guatimala.
Some Indians, newly taken, informed him that a _hourque_, a vessel of
800 tons, bringing goods from Spain to the Honduras, was then lying in
the great river of Guatimala. Resolving to careen and victual at the
islands on the other side of the gulf, they left two canoes at the mouth
of the river to give notice when the vessel should venture forth.

The time spent in thus watching outside the covert, they devoted to
turtle fishing, dividing themselves into parties, each having his own
station to prevent disputes. Their nets they made of the bark of the
macoa tree; a natural pitch or bitumen for their boats they found in
fused heaps upon the shore. The formation of this pitch, or "wax," as
Esquemeling calls it, the sailors attributed to wild bees; the hollow
trees in which they built being torn down by storms and swept down into
the sea. The rest of their time--which never seems to have been
wearisome, unless the subsequent mutiny indicates it, for these men had
the tenacity of a slot-hound in the pursuit of blood--was spent in
cruises among those Indians of the coast of Yucatan, who seek for amber
on the shore. These tribes were the willing serfs of Spain, having
served them without resistance for a full century. The Spaniards had, as
they believed, converted the whole nation to Christianity by sending a
priest to them once a-week, but, on their sudden return to idolatry, had
begun to persecute them, angry at their own failure.

According to the Buccaneers' account, these Indian chiefs worshipped
each a peculiar spirit, to whom they offered sacrifices of fire, burning
incense of sweet-scented gums. They had a singular custom of carrying
their new-born children into their temples, and leaving them for a night
in a hole filled with wood-ashes, generally in an open place, untended,
and where wild beasts could enter. Leaving the child here they found in
the morning the foot-prints of some wild beast on the ashes. To this
animal, whatever it might be, jaguar, snake, or cayman, they dedicated
the child, whose patron god it became. To this animal the child prayed
for vengeance against its enemies, and to it he offered sacrifices.

Their marriages were accompanied by a very beautiful and simple
ceremony. A young man, having satisfied his intended bride's father as
to his fitness to manage a plantation, was presented with a bow and
arrow. He then visits the maiden, and puts on her head a wreath of green
leaves and sweet-smelling flowers, taking off the crown usually worn by
virgins. A meeting of her relations is then called, the maize juice is
drunk, and the day after marriage the bride's garland is torn to pieces
with cries and lamentations.

In these islands the Buccaneers found canoes of the Aregues Indians,
which must have drifted 600 leagues. They had remained turtle-fishing
and amber-seeking about three months, when the welcome tidings came that
the enemy's vessel had ventured out. All hands were now employed in
preparing the careening ships. It was, however, at last agreed to wait
for its return, when, as they expected, it would not only contain
merchandise but money. They therefore sent their canoes to observe her
motions, and, hearing of the ambuscade, the Spaniards returned to port.
Lolonnois, as weary of delay as a greyhound is vexed by a hare's
repeated doubling, determined to do what Mahomet did when the mountain
would not go to him; since the Spaniards would not come to him, he went
himself to the Spaniards. Informed of their approach by spies, Indians
or fishermen, the vessel was prepared to receive him. The decks were
cleared, the boarding-nettings up, and the guns double-shotted. The
Spaniard carried fifty-six pieces of cannon, and the crew were well
provided with hand grenades, torches, fusees, and fire-balls, especially
on the quarter-deck and bows, and a crew of some 130 men stood armed and
threatening at their quarters. But Lolonnois cared for none of these
things, and the rich cargo shone, to his eye, through the ship's
transparent sides. With his small craft of twenty-two guns, with a
single fly-boat as his only ally, he boldly attacked the enemy, but was
at first beaten off.

To the Buccaneer a slight check was almost a certain precursor of
victory; waiting till about sixty of the Spanish sailors had fallen from
the fire of his deadly musketry, when their courage slackened, and the
smoke of their powder lay in a dark mist round the bulwarks, hiding his
movements, he boarded with four canoes, well manned. In spite of the
brave defence, the Buccaneers fought with such fury that they forced the
Spaniards to surrender.

Lolonnois then sent his boats up the river to secure a small patache,
which they knew lay near at hand, laden with plate, indigo, and
cochineal. But the inhabitants, alarmed at the capture of the larger
vessel, swept away from under their very eyes, saved the patache by
preventing her departure.

The booty of the prize was much less than was expected, the vessel being
already almost entirely unladen. Its cargo consisted of iron and paper,
and it still contained 20,000 reams of paper, and 100 tons of iron bars,
which had served as ballast. The few bales of merchandise were nothing
but linens, serges, and cloth, thread, and a few jars of wine. In the
return cargo there would have been at least a million in specie. These
heterogeneous articles were of no use to men who wanted nothing but coin
or jewels, lead or powder. Dividing the paper, they used it for napkins,
and other useless trifles, and several jars of almond and olive-oil were
wasted in the same reckless manner.

Having now accomplished their purpose, without much return for their
three months' patience, Lolonnois called a general council of the fleet,
and declared his intention of going to Guatimala. Upon this announcement
a division arose in the assembly, and the hoarse murmurs of a coming
tempest were heard around the speaker. Many of the adventurers, new to
the trade, could no longer conceal their weariness and their
disappointment. They had set sail from Tortuga with the feeling with
which a country boy comes to London. They had believed that pieces of
eight grew on the trees like pears, and had overlooked the dragons that
guarded the Hesperian trees. Having seen their predecessors return home
laden with the plunder of Maracaibo, many had overlooked the toil and
dangers by which it was won, in the sight of the joy and prodigality
with which it was lavished; they had seen only the rich pearls, and
forgotten the stormy seas from which they had been gathered. They were
weary of the hardships, and mutinous for want of food. The mere seeker
for gold could not endure what was submitted to by those who were
desirous of earning distinction. The older hands laughed at their
pinings, derided their complaints, and swore that they would rather die
and starve there, than return home with empty purses, to be the scorn
and laughing-stock of all Hispaniola. The majority of the experienced
men, foreseeing that the voyage to Nicaragua would not succeed, and was
"little to their purpose," separated from Lolonnois, and set sail
secretly in the swift sailing vessel that Moses Vauclin had captured in
the port of Cavallo, and which he now commanded, boasting, with reason,
that it was the swiftest sailing vessel that had been seen in the West
Indies for fifty years. With Moses Vauclin went Pierre le Picard, who,
seeing others desert Lolonnois, resolved to do the same.

Steering homewards, the fugitives coasted along the whole continent till
they came to Costa Rica, where they landed a good party, marched up to
Veraguas, and burnt the town, pillaging the Spaniards, who made a stout
resistance, carrying off a few prisoners, and obtaining a scanty booty
of some seven or eight pounds' worth of gold, which their slaves washed
from the mud of the rivers. Alarmed at the multitude of Spaniards that
began to gather round them, the marauders abandoned their design of
attacking the town of Nata, on the south sea-coast, although many rich
merchants lived there, whose slaves worked in the gold-washings of
Veraguas. Returning to Tortuga, these undisciplined men, impatient of
poverty, united themselves under the flag of a noble adventurer, the
Chevalier du Plessis, who had just arrived in the Indies, poor and
proud, and prepared to cruise against the Spaniard in those seas.
Vauclin being an experienced pilot, well acquainted with the turtle
islands, and every key and reef the surf washed from California to Cape
Horn, was taken into favour by the titled privateersman, who promised
him the first prize he captured, if he would sail in his company. But a
serious difficulty arose in the execution of this liberal promise, for
the Chevalier was soon after shot through the head while grappling with
a Spanish ship of thirty-six guns, and Moses was elected captain in his
stead. In his first cruise, the brave deserter was fortunate enough to
take a cocoa vessel from the Havannah, with a cargo valued at 150,000
livres.

During this time, Lolonnois and his men remained alone and deserted in
the gulf of Honduras. He was now in some distress, short of provisions,
and in a vessel too "great to get out at the reflux of those seas." His
300 men had no food but that which they contrived to kill daily on
shore, living chiefly on the flesh of parrots and monkeys. By day they
generally fished or hunted, by night, taking advantage of the land
breeze, they sailed painfully on till they rounded Cape Gracias à Dios,
and slowly the Pearl Islands hove in sight. Staunch and inexorable,
Lolonnois, amid all the tedium of this enervating idleness, still
nourished the project of making a swoop down upon Nicaragua, intending
to leave his cumbrous vessel behind, and row up the river St. John in
canoes, until he reached the lake. But the same reason that made his
vessel lag behind those of his companions, now drove it ashore in a
shallow near Cape Gracias, where it drew too much water to be
extricated. In vain he unloaded his guns and iron, and used every means
that experience and ingenuity could suggest to lighten the ship, and
float her again into deep water. Always firm and resolute, Lolonnois at
once determined to break her to pieces on the sand-shoal, and with her
planks and nails to construct a boat.

His men, with perfect _sang froid_, not even impatient at the loss, much
less afraid of danger, escaping to land, began to build Indian
_ajoupas_, or huts. Lolonnois, accustomed to such reverses, concealed
his chagrin, if he even felt any. Regardless of himself, he adjured his
men to lose no courage, for he knew of a means of escape, and, what was
more, a way to make their fortune yet, before they returned to Tortuga.
Prepared for every emergency, and even for the longest delay, part of
the crew were at once employed in planting peas and other vegetables,
the remainder in fishing and hunting, all but the few who worked busily
at the boat in which Nicaragua was to be visited. In spite of desertion,
failure, wreck, and famine, Lolonnois held on to the plan of the
expedition, which he deemed cowardly and shameful to abandon. The men,
confident in the sagacity and courage of their leader, surrendered
themselves like children to his guidance.

The Indians of the Perlas Islands, on which they had struck, were a
fierce and untamable race, strong and agile, swift as horses, hardy
divers, brave but cruel, warlike, and man-eaters. Their wooden clubs
were jagged with crocodiles' teeth; they had no bows or arrows, but
used lances a fathom and a-half long. They built no huts, and lived on
fruits grown in plantations cleared from the forest. Fishers and
swimmers, they were so dexterous as to be able to bring up with a rope
an anchor of 600 cwt. from a rock, a feat which Esquemeling himself saw
a few of them perform. The seamen in vain attempted to propitiate these
wild freemen, to serve them as guides or hunters. At last, finding a
great number together, and pursuing the fugitives, they tracked five men
and four women to a cave, and took much pains to propitiate them. The
captives remaining obstinately silent, as if from fear, in spite of the
food that was given them, were dismissed with presents of knives and
beads. They left, promising to return; "but soon forgot their
_benefactors_," says Esquemeling, disgustfully. The sailors believed
that at night all the Indians swam to a neighbouring island, as they
never saw either boat or Indian again.

Some time before this the Frenchmen's terror had been excited by the
discovery that these Indians were cannibals. Two Buccaneers, a Frenchman
and a Spaniard, had straggled into the woods in search of game. Pursued
by a troop of savages, the latter, after a desperate struggle, was
captured, and heard of no more; the former, the swifter footed of the
two, escaped. A few days after, an armed party of a dozen Flibustiers,
led by this survivor, went into the same part of the forest to see if
they could find any traces of the Indian encampment. Near the place
where the Spaniard had fallen into the ambush they discovered the ashes
of a fire, still warm, and among the embers some human bones, well
scraped, and a white man's hand with two fingers half roasted, but still
unconsumed.

For six months, till the long-boat was completed, the Buccaneers lived
on Spanish wheat, bananas, and on the fruits and green crops which they
had sown on landing. Their bread they baked in portable ovens saved from
the wreck.

Lolonnois now once more prepared to carry out his unabandoned project.
With part of his crew he resolved to row up the river of Nicaragua, to
capture some canoes, and return to fetch away those whom the new boat
would not hold. The men cast lots for the choice of sailing with him. He
took about one-half of the shipwrecked crew with him, part in the
long-boat and part in a skiff which had been saved when the larger
vessel drove on the bank. They arrived in a few days at Desaguadera,
near Nicaragua, but attacked on the beach by an overpowering number of
Spaniards and Indians, they were driven back to their boats, with the
loss of many men, and escaped with difficulty, beaten and desponding.

Lolonnois, now fairly at bay with fortune, still resolved neither to
return to Tortuga ragged and penniless, nor to rejoin his comerades till
he had obtained a sufficient number of canoes to embark his companions.
In order the better to obtain provisions he divided his men into two
bands. The one party proceeded to the Cape Gracias à Dios, where they
were well received; the other sailed to Boca del Toro, on the coast of
Carthagena, where adventurers frequently repaired for turtle and other
provisions, intending to embark in the first friendly vessel that should
arrive.

Nicaragua was still destined to remain unscathed. "God Almighty," says
Esquemeling, who writes with some bitterness, and probably much
hypocrisy, "the time of His divine justice being now come, had appointed
the Indians of Darien to be the instruments and executioners thereof."
Landing at a place called the La Pointe à Diegue to obtain fresh water,
Lolonnois and his men, weary of "wave, and wind, and oar," drew their
canoes to land, and threw up entrenchments, knowing that they were now
in the neighbourhood of the Bravo Indians, the most savage race known on
the mainland--as cruel as sharks, and as numerous and greedy of blood as
the vultures. He himself and a few others, passing the river, near the
Gulf of Darien, landed in order to sack a town and obtain provisions.
Here this modern Ulysses found a termination to his troubles and his
life, for, being taken prisoner by the Indians, he was killed, chopped
to pieces, and devoured. Many of his companions were also burnt alive,
and but a few escaped to Tortuga, by the detail of their horrors to
check for a few days the love of adventure in the minds of its restless
and impetuous adventurers.

Esquemeling, or his English translator--who generally considers it
necessary to conclude his chapters with a sanctimonious moral, a snuffle
of the nose, and a lifting up of the eyes--says, "Hither Lolonnois came
(brought by his evil conscience that cried for punishment), thinking to
act his cruelties; but the Indians, within a few days after his arrival,
took him prisoner, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire, and his
ashes into the air (_virtuous indignation_), that no trace or memory
might remain of such an infamous, inhuman creature.... Thus ends the
history, the life, and the miserable death of that infernal wretch,
Lolonnois, who, full of horrid, execrable, and enormous deeds, and
debtor to so much innocent blood, died by cruel and butcherly hands,
such as his own were in the course of his life." Towards the conclusion
of his malediction Esquemeling's wrath unfortunately gets much the
better of his grammar.

The men left behind in the island de las Perlas, after long waiting for
their companions--who had only escaped Scylla to run into
Charybdis--were taken off by an English adventurer, who, collecting a
body of 500 men, resolved on an expedition to the mainland. Ascending
the river Moustique, near Cape Gracias, he sailed on, expecting to find
some inlet to the lake of Nicaragua, round which Lolonnois' men still
hovered. The expedition started full of hope, for the shipwrecked men
were rejoiced at ending ten months of suffering, anxiety, and privation.

The result was worse than mere disappointment. In fifteen days they
reached no Spanish town, but only some poor Indian villages, which they
found deserted by the natives, who, aware of their coming, had fled,
carrying off all the produce of their plantations. These they burnt in
their rage, and marched recklessly onwards. They had carried no
provision with them, expecting to find everywhere sufficient; and, to
render their condition worse, had brought all their 500 men, except five
or six who were left to guard each vessel. "These their hopes," says
Esquemeling--turning up as usual the whites of his eyes--who looks with
great contempt on all unsuccessful attempts at thieving, "were found
totally vain, _as not being grounded_." In a few days the hope of
plunder, which had first animated them, grew clouded by despondency.
Scarcity rapidly became want, and they were reduced to such extreme
necessity and hunger that they gathered the plants that grew on the
river's bank for food. In a fortnight their courage and vigour had
entirely gone; their hearts sank, and their bodies were wasted by
famine.

Leaving the river they took to the woods, seeking for Indian villages
where they might obtain food. Ranging up and down the woods for some
days in a fruitless search, they returned to the river, now their only
guide, and struck back towards the point of coast where their ships lay.
In this laborious journey they were reduced to much extremity--eating
their shoes, their leather belts, and the very sheaths of their knives
and swords. They grew at last so ravenous as to resolve to kill and
devour the first Indian they could meet; but they could not obtain one
either for food or as a guide. Some fell sick, and, fainting by the
wayside, were left to perish. Many were killed and eaten by the Indians,
and others died of starvation. At last they reached the shore, and,
finding some comfort and relief to their present miseries, at once set
sail to encounter more. After remaining some time on land, they
re-embarked, but a quarrel arising between the French and English
Buccaneers, who seldom kept long friends, they separated into small
parties, and engaged in fresh expeditions.




CHAPTER VI.

ALEXANDRE BRAS-DE-FER, AND MONTBARS THE EXTERMINATOR.

    Bras-de-Fer compared to Alexander the Great--His adventures and
    stratagems--Montbars--Anecdotes of his childhood--Goes to sea--His
    first fight--Meets and joins the Buccaneers--Defeats the Spanish
    Fifties--His uncle killed--His revenge--The negro vessel--Adam and
    Anne le Roux plunder Santiago.


We now come to a class of Buccaneers who lived at we scarcely know what
period, although they were probably contemporaries of Oexmelin. Their
adventures, though on a narrower scale, are perhaps more interesting
than those that had subsequently taken place, and are valuable as
illustrations of manners.

Oexmelin relates, in his usual shrewd and vivacious manner, the singular
exploits of Alexandre Bras-de-Fer, a French adventurer, with whom he was
acquainted, and who, unlike his contemporaries, never joined in large
expeditions, preferring the promptitude of a single swift cruiser, with
none to share his risks or subtract from his booty. His life seems to
have been crowded with romantic and strange incidents. His character
appears to have been a strange combination of bravery and chivalry, a
love of rapine, and a fantastic vanity. Oexmelin says naïvely, that this
modern Alexander was as great a man among the adventurers of Tortuga as
the ancient Alexander was among the conquerors of the East. Nor does he
see much difference between the two worthies, except that the Macedonian
was the adventurer upon the larger scale.

Our Alexandre was vigorous in body and handsome in feature--so, at
least, vouches Oexmelin, who, a surgeon by profession, once cured him of
a severe wound that he had received--a cure which, if Alexandre had been
generous (which he was not, in this instance at least), might have made
the doctor's fortune.

Bras-de-Fer displayed as great judgment in the conception of his
enterprises as he did courage in the carrying them out. His head and
hand worked well together, and he seldom had to fight his way out of
dangers into which his own incautiousness had led him. The vessel which
he commanded he called the _Phoenix_, because it was of such a unique and
peculiar structure that it was said to be among vessels what the phoenix
was fabled to be among birds.

Alexandre always went alone, in preference to crowding in a fleet. His
pride or his prudence may have given him a fondness for solitary
cruises, for the _Phoenix_ was a bird of prey. A picked crew and a single
swift vessel had many advantages over a rebellious flotilla--and
subordinate captains were often mutinous if not treacherous. If solitude
increased his risk, it also increased his probability of success.

Oexmelin, the only writer who mentions Alexandre, relates but one of his
adventures, which he took down, as he tells us, from the hero's own
lips. The rest of his exploits he suppresses, either from a fear of
being tedious or a dread of being considered a mere romancer.

On the occasion of which he speaks, Alexandre was bound upon an
expedition of great consequence--which, however, as it did not succeed,
the narrator, with a wise modesty, does not think worth mentioning.
After lying some time imprisoned in a tedious calm, his prayers for a
change of weather were answered by a great storm, that blew up the sea
into mountains--wind and fire seeming to struggle together in the air
for the possession of the helpless ship and its pale crew. The furious
thunder drowned the very roar of the sea, and the masts soon went by the
board. The lightning, striking its burning arrows through the deck, set
fire to the powder-magazine, and blew up the part of the vessel in which
it was stored. Half of the crew were hurled into the air, and were
killed before they reached the boiling sea that eagerly waited for their
fall. The remainder of the crew, finding the vessel going down by the
head, took to swimming, and soon reached dry land: Alexandre--strong and
brawny, brave, but desirous of life, and always awake to the means of
its preservation--by no means the last, setting an example at once of
prudence, coolness, and decision. On shaking the brine from their limbs
and looking around, the wrecked men found that they had been thrown upon
a tract of land as much to be dreaded by the Buccaneer as the realm of
Polyphemus was by the wise Ulysses. They stood upon an island near the
Boca del Drago (Dragon's Mouth), inhabited by a tribe of Indians, fierce
and cruel cannibals. Remaining for some time upon the shore, they
exerted themselves in recovering what they could from the scorched
driftings of the wreck. Amongst other things they saved--what was more
valuable than food, because they presented the means of saving their
lives for the present and for the future--a number of their hunters'
muskets, sufficient to arm all their number, together with a quantity of
powder and lead for bullets. Without either of the three requisites the
other two had been useless. They now gathered courage from the
possibility of escape, and determined to secure themselves from the
Indians, reconnoitre the place for fear of surprise, and after that
remain patiently encamped till some friendly vessel should arrive.

One day, while some of the band were smoking, singing, and talking,
their past dangers already half forgotten in the desire of escaping the
present by encountering fresh in the future, the sentinels on the
look-out hill gave the signal of an approaching vessel. On all rushing
to the spot, the keener eyes detected a large ship, dark against the
grey horizon. It presently discharged a gun at the shore, and in the
direction in which they stood. Preparing for the worst, Alexandre and
his men hid themselves in a wooded hollow and held a council of war.
Some were of opinion that they should wait for the stranger's arrival,
and then quietly beg the captain to take them on board. The more
impatient and lawless, less pacific in such an emergency, believed that
such a plan would lead, if the vessel proved, as it probably would, a
Spaniard, to their all being taken prisoners, and at once strung from
the yard-arm, without inquiry, as Frenchmen and pirates. Bras-de-Fer
spoke last, and crushed all opposition by his voice and gesture. He was
for war to the death, and escape at any risk. Better Spanish rope than
Indian fire, better pistol shot than starvation. Quick in decision and
firm in execution, he had at once determined not merely to stand on the
defensive, but at all risks to assume the aggressive. The adventurers
yielded as if an angel had spoken, for Alexandre had more than the usual
ascendancy of a leader over them. Both his mind and body were of a more
athletic bulk and iron mould. He could dare and suffer more. His active
and his passive, his moral and physical courage, were greater than
theirs. They loved him because he shared their dangers, and did not
humiliate them by the assumption of his real superiority. He wore the
crown, but he was not always dazzling their eyes with its oppressive
glitter. They respected him, because he could control both his own
passions and those of the men whom he led to victory and never to
defeat. The success of his victories he doubled by the prudence with
which they were followed up, and the skill with which he conducted a
retreat rendered his very defeats in themselves successes.

The vessel, which proved to be a Spanish merchant ship, with war
equipments, approached nearer, standing off and on, attracted by the
fruit and flowers whose perfume spread over the level sea, and allured
by that fragrance, a sure proof of the existence of good water not far
from the shore. The boats were lowered, and a well-armed party landed
with much caution. The captain marched at their head, followed by his
best soldiers, dreading an ambuscade of the Indians of that coast, who
were known to be warlike and treacherous, but not suspecting the
Buccaneers, who kept themselves in the wood, ready to swoop down upon
their prey, like the kite upon the dovecote.

Already well acquainted with the paths and foot-tracks, Alexandre's men
crept quietly through the trees, which grew thick and dark, and,
defiling by secret avenues, surrounded the principal approach by which
the Spaniards had already entered, in good order and on the alert, but
with apprehensions already subsiding. The adventurers being very
inferior in number and scantily armed, kept themselves hidden, waiting
for chance to give them some momentary advantage. When the enemy was
well encircled in the defile, mistaking perhaps the lighted matches for
fire-flies among the branches, the French suddenly opened a murderous
fire upon the soldiers, who found themselves girt by a belt of flame,
coming from they knew not where. A pilgrim seeing a volcano opening at
his feet could not be more astonished. The Spaniards, seeing no enemies
to aim at, withheld their fire, thinking that the Indians were burning
the forest. The absence of arrows, and the report of muskets, convinced
them more deadly enemies awaited them, and that Europeans and not
Indians were the preparers of the ambush. With much promptitude,
instead of flying in a foolish headlong rout, they threw themselves upon
their faces; and the captain gave the word of command not to fire till
the enemy came in sight, being ignorant yet of their number and their
nation.

The adventurers looked through the loopholes which they had cut in the
thick underwood for the passage of their firearms, to see what effect
their volley had produced, the smoke now clearing away and permitting
them to see more clearly. To their astonishment they could see no one;
the enemy had vanished, as if blown to pieces by the fire. They began to
think that they had retreated, although they had heard no sound of their
retreat; they could scarcely believe that they were all dead.

Alexandre's impatience soon decided the question; determined to conquer,
he chafed at the delay and mystery. His resolution was soon made. He
left his ambush and broke out from the wood into the open. The mystery
was quickly solved, for he was instantly attacked by the Spaniards,
who, when they saw him break cover, sprang up to their feet, with a
shout, as swift as the foes of Cadmus. Alexandre, retreating for a
moment to make his spring the surer, leaped upon the hostile captain and
aimed a blow at his head with his sabre, which was warded off by a large
scull-cap, from which the steel glanced. Bras-de-Fer was about to repeat
his blow with better effect, when his foot caught in a root and he fell.
Closely pressed by his antagonist, and requiring all his skill to save
his life, rising up, with his left hand and with his strong right arm,
he struck the uplifted sabre from the hand of his enemy. This lucky blow
of a defenceless man gave Alexandre time to leap up and call the
adventurers, who had not then left the ambush, and were now pouring out
on every side, pressing the enemy in the rear and on the flank. Having
made a great carnage among the Spaniards, the Flibustiers, at a signal
from Alexandre, closed in, and, bearing down upon the craven and
terrified foe sword in hand, slew them to a man, taking special care
that not a single one should escape, for fear of spreading an alarm.

The Spanish crew remaining to keep guard in the vessel, had heard the
sound of musketry, and at once supposed that their people had fallen in
with some hostile Indians, but knowing that their troops were brave and
numerous, and believing they could easily cut a few savages to pieces,
they sent no reinforcement, but contented themselves by discharging a
noisy broadside to turn the scale of the supposed battle, and increase
the terror of the fugitives. On the other hand, the victorious
adventurers lost no time in following up their ambush by an ingenious
stratagem. They stripped the dead, and arrayed themselves in their dress
and arms. They then collected a quantity of their own Indian arrows,
which they had previously taken from savages which they had killed. Then
pulling their broad-brimmed Panama hats over their eyes (even the
captain's, with a red gash through it), and shouldering their arms,
imitating the Spanish march, and uttering shouts of "victory, victory,"
proceeded to the shore at the point nearest the vessel. The guards on
board, seeing their supposed companions returned so soon, victorious,
laden with spoil, and each one carrying a sheaf of arrows, received them
with open arms as they clambered up by the main-chains. Before they
could recover from their astonishment, the Buccaneers were masters of
the vessel. There was scarcely any struggle, for only the sailors and a
few marines had been left on board. The surprise was complete and
sudden, and the most watchful might be pardoned for being deluded by
such an artifice. The adventurers found the vessel laden with costly
merchandise, and soon started with it upon a trip of a very different
nature from that for which it had been first intended.

Oexmelin laments that in many other adventures which Alexandre told him,
he found that he passed too lightly over his own exploits, and
attributed all the glory to the courage of his companions. But when his
comerades related the story, they were not so generous to him as he had
been to them, and, either from envy or shame, suppressed many of his
noblest actions. He concludes his sketch of the two Alexanders with
incomparable _naïveté_ in the following manner: "Au reste, je ne
prétends pas que la comparaison soit toute-à-fait juste, car s'il y a
quelque rapport, _il y a encore plus de différence_. En effet il étoit
aussi brave que téméraire, et lui étoit brave que prudent. Alexandre
aymoit le vin, et lui l'eau-de-vie. Aussi Alexandre fuyoit les femmes
par grandeur d'âme, et luy les cherchoit par tendresse de coeur; et pour
preuve de ce que je dis il s'en trouve une assez belle dans le vaisseau
dont j'ay parlé, qu'il préféra à tout l'avantage du butin."

"To conclude: if I have compared him to the Great Alexander, I do not
pretend that the comparison is altogether just; for, if there are some
points of resemblance, there are many more of difference. Of a truth,
the one Alexander was as brave as he was headstrong, the other as brave
as he was prudent; the one loved wine, and the other brandy; the one
fled from women through real greatness of heart, the other sought them
from a natural tenderness of soul; and, as a proof of what I say, he met
a beautiful woman in the vessel of which I have spoken, whom he valued
more than all the other spoil."

Providence, a French moral philosopher ventures to suggest, raised up
the Buccaneers to revenge on the Spaniards all the sufferings and
injustices of the Indians. The Spaniard was the scourge of the Indian,
and the Buccaneer the scourge of the Spaniard.

Lolonnois and Montbars are always considered as equal claimants for the
hateful pre-eminence of being the most ferocious of the whole Buccaneer
brotherhood, considering them from their origin to their extinction. But
the sovereignty of blood must be at once awarded to Lolonnois. Montbars
seldom killed a Spaniard who begged for mercy, while Lolonnois delighted
to spurn them from his feet, and slew all he could without pity, or even
regard for ransom. It was from the very lips of Lolonnois that Oexmelin
was informed that Montbars was sprung from one of the best families in
Languedoc. He was well educated, but soon disregarded every other study
to practise martial exercise, and particularly shooting. These warlike
sports he pursued with a concentrated, unremitting eagerness,
approaching insanity. Even as a boy, when firing with his cross-bow, he
said he only wished to shoot well that he might know how to kill a
Spaniard. His mind had already become filled with a generous but cruel
determination, which grew rapidly into monomania. The animal force of a
strong but ill-balanced mind all grew to this point, and his thoughts by
day, and his dreams by night, became but a reiteration and reblending of
the one master passion. No one ever became his confidant, but the
following is the general explanation given of the deeds of his after
life. It is said that, in his early childhood, Montbars had read of the
almost incredible cruelties practised by the Spaniards during the
conquest of America. In the Antilles, they had exhibited the horrors of
the Inquisition in broad daylight. Fanaticism, avarice, and ambition had
ruled like a trinity of devils over the beautiful regions, desolated
and plague-smitten; whole nations had become extinct, and the name of
Christ was polluted into the mere cypher of an armed and aggressive
commerce. These books had impressed the gloomy boy with a deep,
absorbing, fanatical hatred of the conquerors, and a fierce pity for the
conquered. He believed himself marked out by God as the Gideon sent to
their relief. Dreams of riches and gratified ambition spurred him
unconsciously to the task. He thought and dreamed of nothing but the
murdered Indians. He inquired eagerly from travellers for news from
America, and testified prodigious and ungovernable joy when he heard
that the Spaniards had been defeated by the Caribs or the Bravos.

He indeed knew by heart every deed of atrocity that history recorded of
his enemies, and would dilate on each one with a rude and impatient
eloquence. The following story he was frequently accustomed to relate,
and to gloat over with a look that indicated a mind capable of even
greater cruelty, if once led away by a fanatic spirit of retaliation. A
Spaniard, the story ran, was once upon a time appointed governor of an
Indian province, which was inhabited by a fierce and warlike race of
savages. He proved a cruel governor, unforgiving in his resentments, and
insatiable in his avarice. The Indians, unable any longer to endure
either his barbarities or his exactions, seized him, and, showing him
gold, told him that they had at last been able, by great good luck, to
find enough to satisfy his demands. They then held him firm, and melting
the ore, poured it down his throat till he expired in torments under
their hands.

On one occasion, Montbars openly showed that his reason was somewhat
disturbed, and that, on the one subject of his thoughts, he had ceased
to be able to reflect calmly. While a boy, he had to take part in a
comedy which was to be acted by himself and the fellow-students of the
college, for his friends either ignored or disregarded his dreams and
fancies. Amongst other scenes was a prologue, in the shape of a dialogue
between a Spaniard and a Frenchman. Montbars was to represent the
Frenchman, and his companion the Spaniard. The Spaniard, appearing first
upon the stage, began to utter a thousand invectives against France,
mingled with much ribald rhodomontade, and Montbars became excited, and
could not contain his impatience. To his heated mind the mimic scene
became a reality. He broke in upon the stage, furiously interrupted his
comerade in the middle of his speech, and, loading him with blows, would
certainly have put him to death on the spot, as "a Spanish liar and
murderer," had the combatants not been separated by the terrified
bystanders.

His father, rich, and loving his son much, perhaps all the better for
these wayward eccentricities, which, he believed, contact of the world
and the pleasures of youth would soon drive from his memory, desired to
enrol him in the army, or induce him to enter some profession. But to
all his questions and entreaties the boy only replied, that all he
wanted was "to fight against the Spaniards." Seeing that his friends
would oppose his project, he ran away from his father's house, and took
refuge at Havre with an uncle who commanded one of the French king's
ships. He was about to start on a cruise against Spain, with whom France
was then at war, and, pleased at the boy's avowed attachment to a
maritime life, wrote to his father, approving of the boy's resolution.
The father reluctantly gave what could be construed into a consent, and
in a few days the vessel sailed.

During the voyage out, the young fanatic evinced the greatest eagerness
for an engagement, and directly a vessel appeared in sight ran to arm
himself, hoping it might be a Spaniard. At length, one did in reality
appear, and he had an opportunity of distinguishing himself against his
declared enemies. They gave chase to the Spanish vessel, and received
her broadside. The elder Montbars, seeing his nephew intoxicated with
joy, and, disregarding all risk of exposure, determining to throw away
his life, clapped him under hatches, as a reckless boy, and only let him
rush out when the boarding commenced, and the enemy's vessel was
evidently their own. The liberated youth led the boarders with all the
calmness of a veteran man-of-war's-man. Leaping, sabre in hand, upon the
foe, he fought with them pell-mell, broke through their thickest ranks,
and, followed by a few whom his courage animated to rival his own
rashness, rushed twice from end to end of the Spanish vessel, mowing
down all he met to the right and left. The Spaniards were refused
quarter, those who escaped the sword perished in the sea, and Montbars,
to whom the honour of the victory was unanimously awarded, refused
quarter to a single one. The prize was found full of spoil, the hold
crammed with riches, containing 30,000 bales of cotton, 2000 bales of
silk, besides Indian stuffs, 2000 packets of incense, and 1000 of
cloves, which made up the treasure. In addition to all this, they found
a small casket of diamonds, the case clasped with iron, and fastened
with four locks, which alone outvalued all the bulkier merchandise.
While his uncle and the sailors exulted over these treasures, Montbars
was counting the dead Spaniards, and gloating over the first victims of
the hecatomb he still hoped to slay. Blood, and not booty, was his
object.

In spite of the young victor, a few Spanish sailors and officers had
been spared in the general carnage. From these survivors they learnt
that two other vessels had been parted from them in a storm, near where
they then were (St. Domingo), and that their rendezvous had been fixed
at Port Margot. Captain Montbars determined to wait for them there, and
to capture them by the stratagem of sending the captured vessel with its
Spanish colours out to meet them, as a decoy. While the French vessel
and its prize lay waiting at the rendezvous, some huntsmen's boats came
off to sea, bringing boucaned meat to barter for brandy. The Buccaneers
apologised for bringing so little meat, saying, "that a band of Spanish
Fifties had lately ravaged their district, burnt their hides, stolen
their dried meat, and burnt their boucans."

"And why do you suffer it?" said Montbars, impetuously, for he had been
listening eagerly all this time, to the recital of a new proof of
Spanish perfidy.

"We do not suffer it," answered the huntsmen, roughly. "The Spaniards
know well what sort of people we are, and they chose a time when we were
all away cow-killing; but our day is coming. We are now collecting our
companions, who have suffered worse than we have; we have given notice
far and wide, and if the fifty grow to 1000, we shall soon bring them to
bay."

"If you are willing," says Montbars, "I will march at your head. I do
not want to command you, but to expose myself first, to show you what I
am ready to do against these accursed Spaniards."

The old hunters, astonished at the daring of a mere youth, and glad of
another musket, accepted his proposal. His uncle, unable to rein him in,
and already weary of so hot-brained a volunteer, yielded to his
entreaties. He permitted him to go, giving him a party of seamen to
guard him, and supplied him with but few provisions, in hopes of
bringing him quickly back. He threatened, on parting, to leave him
behind if he was not on board to the very hour, then calling him a
foolish madcap, and cursing him for a hair-brain, he dismissed him with
his blessing, swearing the next minute there wasn't a braver lad at that
moment treading a plank.

Montbars departed with some uneasiness, not caring about his uncle's
advice or the scantiness of provisions, but only afraid that he might
miss the Spaniards on land, and be absent also when the Spanish vessels
were attacked. He wanted no greater inducement to hurry his return than
the prospect of a naval engagement. He had scarcely landed with his men,
when the hunters brought them into a small savannah surrounded by hills
and woods. They had not taken many steps across this broad
hunting-ground before they saw some mounted Spaniards appear in the
distance--these men were part of a troop that had collected, hearing
that the Buccaneers were assembling to attack them.

Montbars, transported with rage at the sight of a Spaniard, would have
rushed at once upon them, single-handed, but an old experienced
Buccaneer caught him by the arm: "Stop," said he, "there is plenty of
time, and, if you do what I tell you, not one of these fellows shall
escape." These words, "not one," would at any time have arrested
Montbars, and they did so then. The old Buccaneer, crying a halt, bade
the men turn their backs on the Spaniards, as if they had not seen them.
He next unrolled the linen tent, which he carried in the usual fashion
of his craft, and began to pitch it, followed by all his companions, who
did the same, imitating their fugleman, without inquiry, trusting to the
address that had often before delivered them out of danger. They then
drew out their brandy flasks and affected to prepare for a revel,
intending to deceive the Spaniards, who, they knew, would give them time
to drink, in hopes of surprising them, an easy prey, when asleep. The
empty horns were passed round with jokes, and songs, and shouts, and the
corked flasks circulated as merrily as if the feast had been a real one.
Without appearing to observe, they could see the Spanish patrols
disappear over the ridge of the hill, to warn their men in the valley
to prepare for a night surprise. The Buccaneer leader, passing the
signal from hand to hand, sent an _engagé_ into the woods to quickly
rouse all the "brothers" in the neighbourhood, to bid them come and help
them, and to prepare an ambush in the opposite forest. In the mean time,
other scouts were sent to watch the motions of the enemy, to be sure
that they were coming, and were not making any flank movement.

At dusk the Buccaneers slipped quietly from beneath their tents, and
crept into the adjacent woods. Here they found their companions and
their _engagés_ already assembled and eager for the attack. Montbars,
weary of all preparations, was now burning to see the Spaniards,
declared they never would come, and that they had better go out and
surprise them while night lasted; but the Spaniards were purposely
delaying, knowing that the longer they delayed the deeper would be the
sleep of the revellers. At daybreak, they could see a dark troop
beginning to move forward over the ridge, and soon to descend the hill
into the plain in good order, a small detachment marching before them as
a forlorn hope. The Buccaneers, well posted and unobserved, waited for
them, sure of their prey, for the tents being pitched at some distance
one from the other, they could see every movement of the Spaniards. As
they drew nearer, the Fifties broke into small troops, and each
encircled a tent. To their astonishment, at that moment the wood grew a
flame, and a hot rolling fire led on the advancing Buccaneers, who,
breaking out with yell and shout, very terrible in the silence of the
dawning, overthrew horse and rider. Montbars, inspired by the fever of
the onslaught, which always seemed for a moment to restore the balance
of his mind, leaped on a horse, whose rider he had killed, and headed
the attack. Wherever resistance was made, he rode in, charging every
knot of troopers as they attempted to rally. Hurrying on too far beyond
his companions, while breaking into the heart of the squadron, he was
surrounded, and would have been quickly overpowered had he not been
rescued by a determined rush of his men. More furious at this escape,
he pursued the scattered enemy right and left, with increased fury,
inflicting blows as dreadful as they were unusual. One of the
Buccaneers, seeing many of his men suffering from the Indian arrows,
cried out to the Indians, in Spanish, pointing to Montbars, "Do you not
see that God has sent you a liberator, who fights for you, to deliver
you from the Spaniards, and yet you still fight for your tyrants?"
Hearing these words, and astonished at Montbars' contempt for death, the
archers changed sides and turned their arrows against the Spaniards, who
fled, overwhelmed by this new misfortune, and perhaps impelled by an
undefinable and superstitious terror.

Montbars looked upon this day as the happiest in his life. He had seen
the Indians he had so pitied fighting by his side, and regarding him as
their protector. Cleaving down a wounded Spaniard, who clung to his
knees and begged for mercy, he cried, "I would it were the last of this
accursed race." An eye witness of the battle describes the carnage as
horrible--the living trampling on the living, and stumbling over the
dying and the dead. The Buccaneers and the Indians, rejoicing in their
liberty and their revenge, entreated Montbars to follow up his
successes, and wanted at once to ravage the Spanish plantations, and
extirpate the survivors, while they were still discouraged. Montbars
gladly consented to the proposal, and was about to march exultingly at
their head, when the boom of a cannon was heard. It was the report of a
gun from his uncle's vessel, and he could not resist obeying a signal
that might be the signal of an approaching battle. He instantly hurried
back, but found, to his annoyance, that the signal had been only fired
as a warning to announce the hour of instant sailing.

The hunters, already attached to their young leader, refused to leave
him, and the Indians were afraid to abide the vengeance of the
Spaniards. They were all therefore at once placed on board the prize,
and supplied with muskets and sabres. The delighted uncle appointed
Montbars as captain, with an old officer, under the name of lieutenant,
to act as his guardian.

After eight days' sail, Montbars was attacked, at the mouth of a large
key, by four Spanish vessels, each one larger than his own. They
surrounded him so suddenly that he had no time to escape, and he lay
amongst them like a wolf at bay. They formed, in fact, the van of the
great Indian plate fleet, which was, every year, as eagerly expected by
the king of Spain as it was by all the marauders of the Spanish main.
The elder Montbars, bold and hardy, unhesitatingly attacked two of the
vessels, and several times drove back their boarders. Although gouty
himself and unable to move, the staunch old Gascon shouted his orders
from his elbow chair; and, cursing alternately the enemy and the
disease, defended his ship to the last extremity. Having fought for more
than three hours with ferocious obstinacy, and seeing his young hero
terribly pressed by his two adversaries, he resolved upon a final
effort, the last struggle of a wild beast that feels the knife is at his
throat. Firing a tremendous broadside, he attacked both his enemies
with such fury that he sank them and himself, and died "laughing" in all
the exultation of that revenge which is the only victory of despair.

Montbars the younger made great exertions to save himself and to avenge
his uncle. The old lion was dead, but the cub had much life in him yet.
He sank one of his antagonists with a crashing shot and boarded the
other. His Indians, seeing their leader enter the Spanish vessel at one
end, threw themselves into the water and clambered promptly up the
other. Their war-cries and arrows produced a powerful diversion, and
took the Spaniards by surprise. Throwing many into the sea, they killed
others, while Montbars put all that resisted to the sword. In a short
time he was master of a vessel larger even than those that had been
sunk. The friendly Indians, who now looked upon him as an invincible
demigod, he employed in a fruitless search for his uncle's body.
Conquerors and conquered were destined to remain locked in each other's
arms, and piled over with bloody trophies of burnt wreck until the day
that the sea should give up her dead.

The hunters renewed their proposal of a descent upon the mainland, and
Montbars agreed to any scheme which would enable him to avenge his uncle
and his friends. He had formerly lived to avenge the wrongs of others,
to these were now added his own. The governor of the province, hearing
of the contemplated attack, prepared an ambuscade of negroes and
militiamen. Putting himself at the head of 800 men, divided into three
battalions, his wings strengthened with cavalry and his van guarded with
cannon, he prepared to prevent the landing of the "Exterminator."

These preparations only increased the ardour of Montbars. It seemed
cowardly to ravage an unprotected country: its devastation, after
defeating its defenders, was a reward of conquest. Montbars was the
first to leap from the canoes, and the first to rush upon the Spanish
pikes. The front battalion was soon repulsed, and some Indians taking
the reserve force in the flank, they were driven back in great
disorder. Montbars, hotly pursuing, made a prodigious carnage of the
enemy, and carried fire and sword far into the interior.

One day, while at sea, the young captain, already a veteran in
experience, was obliged to put into a bay to careen. To his great
surprise, although the place was a mere track of sand, he saw some
Spaniards on a distant plain, marching in good order and well-armed.
Fearing that if they saw his men they would take to flight, he sent a
few of his favourite Indians to decoy them towards him. Then falling
upon them with fury as they cried out for quarter Montbars shouted, in
Spanish, that they had nothing to hope for till they had killed himself
and all his men. These dreadful words, together with his revengeful
looks, drove them to take up their arms and fight with dogged and brutal
despair, till they were slain almost to a man. Advancing into the
country in search of more human prey, Montbars carried off the arms of
the Spaniards and a great quantity of fruits and provisions.

It appeared, from a survivor, that the Spaniards had arrived in that
country in a singular manner. They had formed the crew in guard of a
vessel full of negro slaves who had conspired together to drive the ship
on shore. They had secretly bored holes in the ship's hold, in which
they had placed pluggets, which they drew out, and replaced, unseen, and
in a moment. While the Spaniards were seated together, talking with
their usual stately, stolid phlegm, this unaccountable leak would break
out and fill the cabin, or drench them in their hammocks. The slaves
never seemed alarmed, but always astonished, and filled the air with
interjections, in the Congo language. The water rushing in pell-mell,
even the ship's carpenter did not know from where, drove all hands, at
great danger to the ship, almost to leave the helm to save the cargo,
which was already damaged. The negroes, quiet and orderly, would
generally succeed, after a time, in stopping the leak, and excited
general admiration by their promptitude and naval skill. All then went
on well for a time; but with the least wind or storm the leak
recommenced, till the very captain began reluctantly to confess, with
tears in his eyes, that they were all as good as lost, for the vessel
was dangerous, and not seaworthy. In the middle of the night, or at meal
time, this supernatural leak would recommence, till the pumps were all
but worn out, and the men faint with want of sleep. One day, when the
vessel was skirting a reef, the negroes watched the opportunity, and the
leak commenced with redoubled fury, the slaves howling as if from the
very disquietness of their hearts. The Spaniards, thinking all hope
lost, and the vessel, as they declared, already beginning to settle
down, abandoned the ship, and threw themselves on that very tongue of
land where Montbars afterwards surprised them. The trick had been
cleverly planned and cleverly executed, but a hitch in the machinery had
nearly ruined all. One of the blacks, more timid or less sagacious than
the rest, seeing the water pour in with more than usual impetuosity, and
on all sides, lost his presence of mind. Not able at once, in his panic,
to find the hole which he had to stop, he believed that his companions
had also failed, and that all was indeed lost, and, throwing himself
overboard without inquiring, he joined the Spaniards, who were thanking
God (prematurely) for their deliverance.

Looking back for his companions, to his horror he saw a dozen of them
tugging at the helm, and putting out wildly to sea. The truth flashed
upon him, and he knew in a moment that his safety was a loss. Giving way
to uncontrollable despair, he tore his wool, and stamped his feet, and
cursed his fetish, and stretched out his hands, as if to stay the
parting vessel. The Spaniards, astonished at this apparently passionate
desire to be drowned, began slowly to discover the successful stratagem.
They looked: "Demonio, St. Antonio!"--the vessel did not sink, but
glided swiftly out to sea. They could see the blacks laughing, pulling
at the ropes, and grinning from the port-holes. They turned with fury on
the unhappy survivor, and put him to the torture till he confessed the
truth.

And this story completes all that history has preserved of one of the
strangest combinations of fanatic and soldier that has ever appeared
since the days of Loyola. In another age, and under other circumstances,
he might have become a second Mohammed. Equally remorseless, his
ambition, though narrower, seems to have been no less fervid. If he was
cruel, we must allow him to have been sincere even in his fanaticism.
Daring, untiring, of unequalled courage, and unmatched resolution, the
cruelty of the Spaniards he put down by greater cruelty. He passes from
us into unknown seas, and we hear of him no more. He died probably
unconscious of crime, unpitying and unpitied.

Oexmelin, who saw Montbars at Honduras, describes him as active,
vivacious, and full of fire, like all the Gascons. He was of tall
stature, erect and firm, his air grand, noble, and martial. His
complexion was sun-burnt, and the colour of his eyes could not be
discerned under the deep, arched vaulting of his bushy eyebrows. His
very glance in battle was said to intimidate the Spaniards, and to drive
them to despair.

In 1659, Santiago was pillaged by the Flibustiers, in revenge for the
murder of twelve Frenchmen, who had been shot by a Spanish captain, who
took them from a Flemish vessel, sparing only a woman, and a child who
hid itself under the robe of a monk.

Determined on retaliation, the people of the coast assembled to the
number of 500. Obtaining an English commission, they embarked on board a
frigate from Nantes, and a number of small craft--De L'Isle being their
commander, and Adam, Lormel, and Anne le Roux their lieutenants. They
landed at Puerto de Plata, "le Dimanche des Rameaux," and marched upon
St. Jago at daybreak. Passing over the bodies of the guards, they rushed
to the governor's house, and surprised him in bed. He, knowing French,
threw himself on his knees, and told them that peace was about to be
declared between the two nations. They replied, that they carried an
English commission, and, reproaching him for his cruelties, bade him
either prepare for death, or pay down 60,000 crowns. Part of this ransom
he instantly paid in hides. The pillage of the town lasted twenty-four
hours, and nothing was spared; the very bells were carried from the
churches, and the altars stripped of their plate. No violence, however,
we are glad to record, was offered to the women, the Brotherhood having
agreed, that any such offender should lose his share of the spoil.

END OF VOL. I.




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FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

"There is much in Pepys' Diary that throws a distinct and vivid light
over the picture of England and its government during the period
succeeding the Restoration. If, quitting the broad path of history, we
look for minute information concerning ancient manners and customs, the
progress of arts and sciences, and the various branches of antiquity, we
have never seen a mine so rich as these volumes. The variety of Pepys'
tastes and pursuits led him into almost every department of life. He was
a man of business, a man of information, a man of whim, and, to a
certain degree, a man of pleasure. He was a statesman, a _bel-esprit_, a
virtuoso, and a connoisseur. His curiosity made him an unwearied, as
well as an universal, learner, and whatever he saw found its way into
his tablets."

FROM THE ATHENÆUM.

"The best book of its kind in the English language. The new matter is
extremely curious, and occasionally far more characteristic and
entertaining than the old. The writer is seen in a clearer light, and
the reader is taken into his inmost soul. Pepys' Diary is the ablest
picture of the age in which the writer lived, and a work of standard
importance in English literature."

FROM THE EXAMINER.

"We place a high value on Pepys' Diary as the richest and most
delightful contribution ever made to the history of English life and
manners in the latter half of the seventeenth century."

FROM TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

"We owe Pepys a debt of gratitude for the rare and curious information
he has bequeathed to us in this most amusing and interesting work. His
Diary is valuable, as depicting to us many of the most important
characters of the times. Its author has bequeathed to us the records of
his heart--the very reflection of his energetic mind; and his quaint but
happy narrative clears up numerous disputed points--throws light into
many of the dark corners of history, and lays bare the hidden substratum
of events which gave birth to, and supported the visible progress of,
the nation."

FROM THE MORNING POST.

"Of all the records that have ever been published, Pepys' Diary gives us
the most vivid and trustworthy picture of the times, and the clearest
view of the state of English public affairs and of English society
during the reign of Charles II. We see there, as in a map, the vices of
the monarch, the intrigues of the Cabinet, the wanton follies of the
court, and the many calamities to which the nation was subjected during
the memorable period of fire, plague, and general licentiousness."

IMPORTANT NEW HISTORICAL WORK.

_Now ready, in 2 vols. post 8vo, embellished with Portraits, price 21s.
bound,_

THE QUEENS BEFORE THE CONQUEST.

BY MRS. MATTHEW HALL.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

FROM THE LITERARY GAZETTE.

"Mrs. Hall's work presents a clear and connected series of records of
the early female sovereigns of England, of whom only a few scattered
anecdotes have hitherto been familiarly known to general readers. The
book is of great interest, as containing many notices of English life
and manners in the remote times of our British, Roman, Saxon, and Danish
ancestors."

SUNDAY TIMES.

"These volumes open up a new and interesting page of history to the
majority of readers. What Miss Strickland has achieved for English
Queens since the Norman era, has been accomplished by Mrs. Hall on
behalf of the royal ladies who, as wives of Saxon kings, have influenced
the destinies of Britain."

SUN.

"Mrs. Hall may be congratulated on having successfully accomplished a
very arduous undertaking. Her volumes form a useful introduction to the
usual commencement of English history."

CRITIC.

"The most instructive history we possess of the pre-Conquest period. It
should take its place by the side of Miss Strickland's 'Lives of the
Queens.'"

OBSERVER.

"Of all our female historico-biographical writers, Mrs. Hall seems to us
to be one of the most painstaking, erudite, and variously and profoundly
accomplished. Her valuable volumes contain not only the lives of the
Queens before the Conquest, but a very excellent history of England
previously to the Norman dynasty."

BELL'S MESSENGER.

"These interesting volumes have been compiled with judgment, discretion,
and taste. Mrs. Hall has spared neither pains nor labour to make her
history worthy of the characters she has essayed to illustrate. The book
is, in every sense, an addition of decided value to the annals of the
British people."

NEW QUARTERLY REVIEW.

"These volumes have long been a desideratum, and will be hailed as a
useful, and indeed essential, introduction to Miss Strickland's
world-famous biographical history."


THE PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

BY SIR BERNARD BURKE,

ULSTER KING OF ARMS.

A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED FROM THE PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS OF
THE NOBILITY, &c.

With 1500 Engravings of ARMS. In 1 vol. (comprising as much matter as
twenty ordinary volumes), 38s. bound.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following is a List of the Principal Contents of this Standard
Work:--

I. A full and interesting history of each order of the English Nobility,
showing its origin, rise, titles, immunities, privileges, &c.

II. A complete Memoir of the Queen and Royal Family, forming a brief
genealogical History of the Sovereign of this country, and deducing the
descent of the Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts, and Guelphs, through their
various ramifications. To this section is appended a list of those Peers
and others who inherit the distinguished honour of Quartering the Royal
Arms of Plantagenet.

III. An Authentic table of Precedence.

IV. A perfect HISTORY OF ALL THE PEERS AND BARONETS, with the fullest
details of their ancestors and descendants, and particulars respecting
every collateral member of each family, and all intermarriages, &c.

V. The Spiritual Lords.

VI. Foreign Noblemen, subjects by birth of the British Crown.

VII. Extinct Peerages, of which descendants still exist.

VIII. Peerages claimed.

IX. Surnames of Peers and Peeresses, with Heirs Apparent and
Presumptive.

X. Courtesy titles of Eldest Sons.

XI. Peerages of the Three Kingdoms in order of Precedence.

XII. Baronets in order of Precedence.

XIII. Privy Councillors of England and Ireland.

XIV. Daughters of Peers married to Commoners.

XV. ALL THE ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD, with every Knight and all the Knights
Bachelors.

XVI. Mottoes translated, with poetical illustrations.

       *       *       *       *       *

"The most complete, the most convenient, and the cheapest work of the
kind ever given to the public."--_Sun_.

"The best genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the Peerage and
Baronetage, and the first authority on all questions affecting the
aristocracy."--_Globe_.

"For the amazing quantity of personal and family history, admirable
arrangement of details, and accuracy of information, this genealogical
and heraldic dictionary is without a rival. It is now the standard and
acknowledged book of reference upon all questions touching pedigree, and
direct or collateral affinity with the titled aristocracy. The lineage
of each distinguished house is deduced through all the various
ramifications. Every collateral branch, however remotely connected, is
introduced; and the alliances are so carefully inserted, as to show, in
all instances, the connexion which so intimately exists between the
titled and untitled aristocracy. We have also much most entertaining
historical matter, and many very curious and interesting family
traditions. The work is, in fact, a complete cyclopædia of the whole
titled classes of the empire, supplying all the information that can
possibly be desired on the subject."--_Morning Post_.




CHEAP EDITION OF THE DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF

JOHN EVELYN, F.R.S.

_Now completed, with Portraits, in Four Volumes, post octavo (either of
which may be had separately), price 6s. each, handsomely bound,_

COMPRISING ALL THE IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL NOTES, LETTERS, AND OTHER
ILLUSTRATIONS LAST MADE.

"We rejoice to welcome this beautiful and compact edition of Evelyn. It
is intended as a companion to the recent edition of Pepys, and presents
similar claims to interest and notice. Evelyn was greatly above the vast
majority of his contemporaries, and the Diary which records the
incidents in his long life, extending over the greater part of a
century, is deservedly esteemed one of the most valuable and interesting
books in the language. Evelyn took part in the breaking out of the civil
war against Charles I., and he lived to see William of Orange ascend the
throne. Through the days of Strafford and Land, to those of Sancroft and
Ken, he was the steady friend of moderation and peace in the English
Church. He interceded alike for the royalist and the regicide; he was
the correspondent of Cowley, the patron of Jeremy Taylor, the associate
and fellow-student of Boyle; and over all the interval between Vandyck
and Kneller, between the youth of Milton and the old age of Dryden,
poetry and the arts found him an intelligent adviser, and a cordial
friend. There are, on the whole, very few men of whom England has more
reason to be proud. He stands among the first in the list of Gentlemen.
We heartily commend so good an edition of this English
classic."--_Examiner._

"This work is a necessary companion to the popular histories of our
country, to Hume, Hallam, Macaulay, and Lingard.--_Sun._


LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF ENGLAND.

By MRS. EVERETT GREEN,

EDITOR OF THE "LETTERS OF ROYAL AND ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES."

6 vols., post 8vo, with Illustrations, 10s. 6d. each, bound. Either of
which may be had separately.

"This work is a worthy companion to Miss Strickland's admirable 'Queens
of England.' That celebrated work, although its heroines were, for the
most part, foreign Princesses, related almost entirely to the history of
this country. The Princesses of England, on the contrary, are themselves
English, but their lives are nearly all connected with foreign nations.
Their biographies, consequently, afford us a glimpse of the manners and
customs of the chief European kingdoms, a circumstance which not only
gives to the work the charm of variety, but which is likely to render it
peculiarly useful to the general reader, as it links together by
association the contemporaneous history of various nations. We cordially
commend Mrs. Green's production to general attention; it is
(necessarily) as useful as history, and fully as entertaining as
romance."--_Sun._




SIR B. BURKE'S DICTIONARY OF THE

EXTINCT, DORMANT, AND ABEYANT PEERAGES

OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

Beautifully printed, in 1 vol, 8vo, containing 800 double-column pages,
21s. bound.

This work connects, in many instances, the new with the old nobility,
and it will in all cases show the cause which has influenced the revival
of an extinct dignity in a new creation. It should be particularly
noticed, that this new work appertains nearly as much to extant as to
extinct persons of distinction; for though dignities pass away, it
rarely occurs that whole families do.


HISTORY OF THE LANDED GENTRY.

A Genealogical Dictionary

OF THE WHOLE OF THE UNTITLED ARISTOCRACY OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND
IRELAND.

By SIR BERNARD BURKE.

A new and improved Edition, in 1 vol., uniform with the "Peerage."


-->THE PURCHASERS of the earlier editions of the Dictionary of the Landed
Gentry are requested to take notice that

A COPIOUS INDEX

has been compiled with great care and at great expense, containing
REFERENCES TO THE NAMES OF EVERY PERSON (upwards of 100,000) MENTIONED
IN THE WORK, and may be had bound uniformly with the work: price, 5s.


ROMANTIC RECORDS OF THE ARISTOCRACY.

By SIR BERNARD BURKE.

SECOND AND CHEAPER EDITION, 2 vols., post 8vo, 21s. bound.

"The most curious incidents, the most stirring tales, and the most
remarkable circumstances connected with the histories, public and
private, of our noble houses and aristocratic families, are here given
in a shape which will preserve them in the library, and render them the
favorite study of those who are interested in the romance of real life.
These stories, with all the reality of established fact, read with as
much spirit as the tales of Boccaccio, and are as full of strange matter
for reflection and amazement."--_Britannia._




REVELATIONS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND.

Second Edition, 1 volume, post 8vo, with Portrait, 10s. 6d. bound.

"We have perused this work with extreme interest. It is a portrait of
Talleyrand drawn by his own hand."--_Morning Post._

"A more interesting work has not issued from the press for many years.
It is in truth a most complete Boswell sketch of the greatest
diplomatist of the age."--_Sunday Times._


THE LIFE AND REIGN OF CHARLES I.

By I. DISRAELI.

A NEW EDITION. REVISED BY THE AUTHOR, AND EDITED BY HIS SON, THE RT.
HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. 2 vols., 8vo, 28s. bound.

"By far the most important work on the important age of Charles I. that
modern times have produced."--_Quarterly Review._


MEMOIRS OF SCIPIO DE RICCI,

LATE BISHOP OF PISTOIA AND PRATO;

REFORMER OF CATHOLICISM IN TUSCANY.

Cheaper Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, 12s. bound.

The leading feature of this important work is its application to the
great question now at issue between our Protestant and Catholic
fellow-subjects. It contains a complete _exposé_ of the Romish Church
Establishment during the eighteenth century, and of the abuses of the
Jesuits throughout the greater part of Europe. Many particulars of the
most thrilling kind are brought to light.


HISTORIC SCENES.

By AGNES STRICKLAND.

Author of "Lives of the Queens of England," &c. 1 vol., post 8vo,
elegantly bound, with Portrait of the Author, 10s. 6d.

"This attractive volume is replete with interest. Like Miss Strickland's
former works, it will be found, we doubt not, in the hands of youthful
branches of a family as well as in those of their parents, to all and
each of whom it cannot fail to be alike amusing and
instructive."--_Britannia._




MEMOIRS OF PRINCE ALBERT;

AND THE HOUSE OF SAXONY.

Second Edition, revised, with Additions, by Authority. 1 vol., post 8vo,
with Portrait, bound, 6s.


MADAME CAMPAN'S MEMOIRS

OF THE COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.

Cheaper Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, with Portraits, price 7s.

"We have seldom perused so entertaining a work. It is as a mirror of the
most splendid Court in Europe, at a time when the monarchy had not been
shorn of any of its beams, that it is particularly worthy of
attention."--_Chronicle._


LIFE AND LETTERS OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

3 vols., small 8vo, 15s.

"A curious and entertaining piece of domestic biography of a most
extraordinary person, under circumstances almost unprecedented."--_New
Monthly._

"An extremely amusing book, full of anecdotes and traits of character of
kings, princes, nobles, generals," &c.--_Morning Journal._


MEMOIRS OF A HUNGARIAN LADY.

MADAME PULSZKY.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF. 2 vols., 12s. bound.

"Worthy of a place by the side of the Memoirs of Madame de Staël and
Madame Campan."--_Globe._


MEMOIRS OF A GREEK LADY,

THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER OF THE LATE QUEEN CAROLINE.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF. 2 vols., post 8vo, price 12s. bound.




Now ready, Part XI., price 5s., of

M.A. THIERS' HISTORY OF FRANCE

UNDER NAPOLEON.

A SEQUEL TO HIS HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

As guardian to the archives of the state, M. Thiers had access to
diplomatic papers and other documents of the highest importance,
hitherto known only to a privileged few. From private sources M. Thiers
has also derived much valuable information. Many interesting memoirs,
diaries, and letters, all hitherto unpublished, and most of them
destined for political reasons to remain so, have been placed at his
disposal; while all the leading characters of the empire, who were alive
when the author undertook the present history, have supplied him with a
mass of incidents and anecdotes which have never before appeared in
print.

N.B. Any of the Parts may, for the present, be had separately, at 5s.
each; and subscribers are recommended to complete their sets as soon as
possible, to prevent disappointment.

***The public are requested to be particular in giving their orders for
"COLBURN'S AUTHORISED TRANSLATION."


RUSSIA UNDER THE AUTOCRAT NICHOLAS I.

BY IVAN GOLOVINE, A RUSSIAN SUBJECT.

Cheaper Edition, 2 vols., with a full-length Portrait of the Emperor,
10s. bound.

"These are volumes of an extremely interesting nature, emanating from
the pen of a Russian, noble by birth, who has escaped beyond the reach
of the Czar's power. The merits of the work are very considerable. It
throws a new light on the state of the empire--its aspect, political and
domestic--its manners; the _employés_ about the palace, court, and
capital; its police; its spies; its depraved society," &c.--_Sunday
Times._


JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE,

Comprising the Narrative of a Three Years' Residence in Japan, with an
Account of British Commercial Intercourse with that Country.

By CAPTAIN GOLOWNIN.

NEW and CHEAPER EDITION. 2 vols. post 8vo, 10s. bound.

"No European has been able, from personal observation and experience, to
communicate a tenth part of the intelligence furnished by this
writer."--_British Review._


MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF

SIR ROBERT MURRAY KEITH, K.B.,

_Minister Plenipotentiary at the Courts of Dresden, Copenhagen, and
Vienna, from 1769 to 1793; with Biographical Memoirs of_

QUEEN CAROLINE MATILDA, SISTER OF GEORGE III.

Cheaper Edition. Two vols., post 8vo, with Portraits, 15s. bound.




THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS;

OR, ROMANCE AND REALITIES OF EASTERN TRAVEL.

By ELIOT WARBURTON, Esq.

CHEAP EDITION, revised in 1 vol., with numerous Illustrations, 6s.
bound.

"A book calculated to prove more practically useful was never penned
than the 'Crescent and the Cross'--a work which surpasses all others in
its homage for the sublime and its love for the beautiful in those
famous regions consecrated to everlasting immortality in the annals of
the prophets--and which no other modern writer has ever depicted with a
pencil at once so reverent and as picturesque."--_Sun._


LORD LINDSAY'S LETTERS ON THE HOLY LAND.

FOURTH EDITION, Revised, 1 vol., post 8vo, with Illustrations, 6s.
bound.

"Lord Lindsay has felt and recorded what he saw with the wisdom of a
philosopher, and the faith of an enlightened Christian."--_Quarterly
Review._


NARRATIVE OF A

TWO YEARS' RESIDENCE AT NINEVEH;

With Remarks on the Chaldeans, Nestorians, Yexidees, &c.

By the Rev. J.P. FLETCHER.

Cheaper Edition. Two vols., post 8vo, 12s. bound.


ADVENTURES IN GEORGIA, CIRCASSIA, AND RUSSIA.

By Lieutenant-Colonel G. POULETT CAMERON, C.B., K.T.S., &c.

2 vols., post 8vo, bound, 12s.


CAPTAINS KING AND FITZROY.

NARRATIVE OF THE TEN TEARS' VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD,

OF H.M.S. ADVENTURE AND BEAGLE.

Cheaper Edition, in 2 large vols. 8vo, with Maps, Charts, and upwards of
Sixty Illustrations, by Landseer, and other eminent Artists, price 1_l._
11s. 6d. bound.

"One of the most interesting narratives of voyaging that it has fallen
to our lot to notice, and which must always occupy a distinguished space
in the history of scientific navigation."--_Quarterly Review._




THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S CAMPAIGN

IN THE NETHERLANDS IN 1815.

Comprising the Battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo. Illustrated
by Official Documents.

By WILLIAM MUDFORD, Esq.

1 vol., 4to, with Thirty Coloured Plates, Portraits, Maps, Plans, &c.,
bound, 21s.


STORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.

A COMPANION VOLUME TO MR. GLEIG'S

"STORY OF THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO."

With Six Portraits and Map, 5s. bound.


THE NEMESIS IN CHINA;

COMPRISING A COMPLETE

HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THAT COUNTRY.

From Notes of Captain W.H. HALL, R.N.

1 vol., Plates, 6s. bound.

"Capt. Hall's narrative of the services of the _Nemesis_ is full of
interest, and will, we are sure, be valuable hereafter, as affording
most curious materials for the history of steam navigation."--_Quarterly
Review._


CAPTAIN CRAWFORD'S NAVAL REMINISCENCES;

COMPRISING MEMOIRS OF

ADMIRALS SIR E. OWEN, SIR B. HALLOWELL CAREW, AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED
COMMANDERS.

2 vols., post 8vo, with Portraits, 12s. bound.


ADVENTURES OF A SOLDIER.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

Being the Memoirs of EDWARD COSTELLO, of the Rifle Brigade, and late
Captain in the British Legion. Cheap Edition, with Portrait, 3s. 6d.
bound.

"An excellent book of its class. A true and vivid picture of a soldier's
life."--_Athenæum._

"This highly interesting volume is filled with details and anecdotes of
the most startling character, and well deserves a place in the library
of every regiment in the service."--_Naval and Military Gazette._




PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF

MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND, OF SUNNYSIDE.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

Third and Cheaper Edition, 1 vol., 6s. bound.

"Nothing half so true or so touching in the delineation of Scottish
character has appeared since Galt published his 'Annals of the Parish,'
and this is purer and deeper than Galt, and even more absolutely and
simply true."--_Lord Jeffrey._


Cheaper Edition, in 3 vols., price 10s. 6d., half-bound,

FORTUNE: A STORY OF LONDON LIFE.

By D.T. COULTON, Esq.

"A brilliant novel. A more vivid picture of various phases of society
has not been painted since 'Vivian Grey' first dazzled and confounded
the world; but it is the biting satire of fashionable life, the moral
anatomy of high society, which will attract all readers. In every sense
of the word, 'Fortune' is an excellent novel."--_Observer._

"'Fortune' is not a romance, but a novel. All is reality about it: the
time, the characters, and the incidents. In its reality consists its
charm and its merit. It is, indeed, an extraordinary work, and has
introduced to the world of fiction a new writer of singular ability,
with a genius more that of Bulwer than any to whom we can compare
it."--_Critic._


THE MODERN ORLANDO.

By Dr. CROLY.

"By far the best thing of the kind that has been written since
Byron."--_Literary Gazette._


THE HALL AND THE HAMLET.

By WILLIAM HOWITT.

Author of "The Book of the Seasons," "Rural Life in England," &c.

Cheaper Edition, 2 vols., post 8vo, 12s. bound.

"This work is full of delightful sketches and sweet and enchanting
pictures of rural life, and we have no doubt will be read not only at
the homestead of the farmer, but at the mansion of the squire, or the
castle of the lord, with gratification and delight."--_Sunday Times._


PUBLISHED FOR HENRY COLBURN,

BY HIS SUCCESSORS, HURST & BLACKETT,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.




       *       *       *       *       *




Transcriber's note:

  Mismatched quotation marks in one paragraph of Chapter III
  were left as in the original.

  Pg 26: nomade changed to nomadic

  Pg 41: Manchete changed to Machete





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