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