 CHAPTER I. The Bold Buccaneers. When I was a boy I strongly desired to be a pirate, and the reason for this was the absolute independence of that sort of life. Restrictions of all sorts had become onerous to me, and in my reading of the adventures of the bold sea rovers of the Maine, I had unconsciously selected those portions of a pirate's life which were attractive to me, and had totally disregarded all the rest. In fact, I had a great desire to become what might be called a marine robin hood. I would take from the rich and give to the poor, I would run my long, low black craft by the side of the merchant men, and when I had loaded my vessel with the rich stuffs and golden ingots which comprised her cargo, I would sail away to some poor village and make its inhabitants prosperous and happy for the rest of their lives by a judicious distribution of my beauty. I would always be as free as a sea bird. My men would be devoted to me, and my word would be their law. I would decide for myself whether this or that proceeding would be proper, generous, and worthy of my unlimited power, when tired of sailing I would retire to my island, the position of which, in a beautiful, semi-tropic ocean, would be known only to myself and to my crew, and there I would pass happy days in the company of my books, my works of art, and all the various treasures I had taken from the mercenary vessels which I had overhauled. Such was my notion of a pirate's life. I would kill nobody, the very side of my black flag would be sufficient to put an end to all thought of resistance on the part of my victims, who would no more think of fighting me than a fat bishop would have thought of lifting his hand against that robin hood in his merry men. And I truly believe that I expected my conscience to have a great deal more to do in the way of approval of my actions than it had found necessary in the course of my ordinary schoolboy life. I mention these early impressions because I have a notion that a great many people, and not only young people, have an idea of piracy not altogether different from that of my boyhood. They know that pirates are wicked men, that in fact they are sea robbers or maritime murderers, but their bold and adventurous method of life, their bravery, daring, and the exciting character of their expeditions, give them something of the same charm and interest which belong to the robber knights of the Middle Ages. The one mounts his mailed steed and clanks his longsword against his iron stirrup, riding forth into the world with a feeling that he can do anything that pleases him, if he finds himself strong enough. The other springs into his rakish craft, spreads his sails to the wind, and dashes over the sparkling mane with a feeling that he can do anything he pleases, provided he be strong enough. The first pirates who made themselves known in American waters were the famous buccaneers. These began their career in a very common place in unobjectionable manner, and the name by which they were known had originally no piratical significance. It was derived from the French word bucaneer, signifying a drier of beef. Some of the West India islands, especially San Domingo, were almost overrun with wild cattle of various kinds, and this was owing to the fact that the Spaniards had killed off nearly all the natives, and so had left the interior of the islands to the herds of cattle which had increased rapidly. There were a few settlements on the seacoast, but the Spaniards did not allow the inhabitants of these to trade with any nation but their own, and consequently the people were badly supplied with the necessaries of life. But the trading vessels which sailed from Europe to that part of the Caribbean Sea were manned by bold and daring sailors, and when they knew that San Domingo contained an abundance of beef cattle, they did not hesitate to stop at the little seaports to replenish their stores. The natives of the island were skilled in the art of preparing beef by smoking and drying it, very much in the same way in which our Indians prepared jerked meat for winter use. But so many vessels came to San Domingo for beef that there were not enough people on the island to do all the hunting and drying that was necessary, so these trading vessels frequently anchored in some quiet cove, and the crews went on shore and devoted themselves to securing a cargo of beef, not only enough for their own use, but for trading purposes. Thus they became known as beef dryers or buccaneers. When the Spaniards heard of this new industry which had arisen within the limits of their possessions, they pursued the vessels of the buccaneers wherever they were seen, and relentlessly destroyed them in their crews. But there were not enough Spanish vessels to put down the trade in dried beef. More European vessels, generally English and French, stopped at San Domingo. More bands of hunting sailors made their way into the interior. When these daring fellows knew that the Spaniards were determined to break up their trade, they became more determined that it should not be broken up, and they armed themselves and their vessels so that they might be able to make a defense against the Spanishmen of war. Thus, gradually and almost imperceptibly, a state of maritime warfare grew up in the waters of the West Indies between Spain and the beef traders of other nations. And from being obliged to fight, the buccaneers became glad to fight, provided that it was Spain they fought. True to her policy of despotism and cruelty when dealing with her American possessions, Spain waged a bitter and bloody war against the buccaneers who dared to interfere with the commercial relations between herself and her West India colonies. And in return the buccaneers were just as bitter and savage in their warfare against Spain. From defending themselves against Spanish attacks, they began to attack Spaniards wherever there was any chance of success, at first only upon the sea, but afterwards on land. The cruelty and ferocity of Spanish rule had brought them into existence, and it was against Spain and her positions that the cruelty and ferocity which she had taught them were now directed. When the buccaneers had begun to understand each other and to affect organizations among themselves, they adopted a general name, the Brethren of the Coast. The outside world, especially the Spanish world, called them pirates, sea robbers, buccaneers, any title which would express their lawless character, but in their own denomination of themselves they expressed only their fraternal relations, and for the greater part of their career they truly stood by each other like Brothers. End of Chapter 1 From the very earliest days of history there have been pirates, and it is therefore not at all remarkable that in the early days of the history of this continent sea robbers should have made themselves prominent. But the buccaneers of America differed in many ways from those pirates with whom the history of the old world has made us acquainted. It was very seldom that an armed vessel set out from a European port for the express purpose of sea robbery in American waters. At first nearly all the noted buccaneers were traders, but the circumstances which surrounded them in the new world made of them pirates whose evil deeds have never been surpassed in any part of the globe. These unusual circumstances and amazing temptations do not furnish an excuse for the exceptionally wicked careers of the early American pirates. But we are bound to remember these causes all we could not understand the records of the settlement of the West Indies. The buccaneers were fierce and reckless fellows who pursued their daring occupation because it was profitable, because they had learned to like it, and because it enabled them to wreak a certain amount of vengeance upon the common enemy. But we must not assume that they inaugurated the piratical conquests and warfare which existed so long upon our eastern sea coasts. Before the buccaneers began their careers, there had been great masters of piracy who had opened their schools in the Caribbean Sea, and in order that the condition of affairs in this country during parts of the 16th and 17th centuries may be clearly understood, we will consider some of the very earliest noted pirates of the West Indies. When we begin a judicial inquiry into the condition of our fellow beings, we should try to be as courteous as we can, but we must be just. Consequently, a man's fame and position must not turn us aside when we are acting as historical investigators. Therefore, we shall be bold and speak the truth, and although we shall take off our hats and bow respectfully, we must still assert that Christopher Columbus was the first to practice piracy in American waters. When he sailed with his three little ships to discover unknown lands, he was an accredited explorer for the court of Spain, and was bravely sailing forth with an honest purpose, and with the same regard for the law and justice as is possessed by any explorer of the present day. But when he discovered some unknown lands, rich in treasure and outside of all legal restrictions, the views and ideas of the great discoverer gradually changed. Being now beyond the boundaries of civilization, he also placed himself beyond the boundaries of civilised law. Robbery, murder and the destruction of property by the commanders of naval expeditions who have no warrant or commission for their conduct, is the same as piracy. And when Columbus ceased to be a legalised explorer and when against the expressed wishes and even the prohibitions of the royal personages who had sent him out on this expedition, he began to devastate the countries he had discovered and to enslave and exterminate their peaceable natives, then he became a mastering piracy, from whom the Buccaneers afterward learned many valuable lesson. It is not necessary for us to enter very deeply into the consideration of the policy of Columbus towards the people of the islands of the West Indies. His second voyage was nothing more than an expedition for the sake of plunder. He had discovered gold and other riches in the West Indies, and he had found that the people who inhabited the islands were simple hearted, inoffensive creatures, who did not know how to fight and who did not want to fight. Therefore it was so easy to sail his ships into the harbours of defenceless islands to subjugate the natives and take away the products of their mines and soil, that he commenced a veritable course of piracy. The acquisition of gold and all sorts of plunder seemed to be the sole object of this Spanish expedition. Natives were enslaved and subjected to the greatest hardships, so that they died in great numbers. At one time 300 of them were sent as slaves to Spain. A pack of bloodhounds, which Columbus had brought with him for the purpose, was used to hunt down the poor Indians when they endeavored to escape from the hands of the oppressors, and in every way the island of Haiti, the principal scene of the actions of Columbus, was treated as if its inhabitants had committed a dreadful crime by being in possession of the wealth which the Spaniards desired for themselves. Queen Isabella was greatly opposed to these cruel and unjust proceedings. She sent back to their native land the slaves which Columbus had shipped to Spain, and she gave positive orders that no more of the inhabitants were to be enslaved, and that they were all to be treated with moderation and kindness. But the Atlantic is a wide ocean, and Columbus, far away from his royal patron, paid little attention to her wishes and commands. Without going further into the history of this period, we will simply mention the fact that it was on account of his alleged atrocities that Columbus was superseded in his command, and sent back in chains to Spain. There was another noted personage of the 16th century who played the part of pirate in the New World, and thereby set a most shining example to the buccaneers of those regions. This was no other than Sir Francis Drake, one of England's greatest naval commanders. It is probable that Drake, when he started out in life, was a man of very law-abiding and orderly disposition, for he was appointed by Queen Elizabeth a naval chaplain, and it is said, though there is some doubt about this, that he was subsequently vicar of a parish. But by nature he was a sailor and nothing else, and after having made several voyages in which he showed himself a good fighter, as well as a good commander, he undertook in 1572 an expedition against the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, for which he had no legal warrant whatever. Spain was not at war with England, and when Drake sailed with four small ships into the port of the little town of Nombre de Dios in the middle of the night, the inhabitants of the town were as much astonished as the people of Perth and Boyd would be if four armed vessels were to steam into Raritan Bay and endeavour to take possession of the town. The peaceful Spanish townspeople were not at war with any civilised nation, and they could not understand why bands of armed men should invade their streets, enter the marketplace, fire their calibres or muskets into the air, and then sounded trumpet loud enough to wake up everybody in the place. Just outside of the town the invaders had left a portion of their men, and when these heard the trumpet in the marketplace they also fired their guns. All this noise and hubbub so frightened the good people of the town that many of them jumped from their beds, and without stopping to dress fled away to the mountains. But all the citizens were not such cowards, and fourteen or fifteen of them armed themselves and went out to defend their town from the unknown invaders. Beginners in any trade or profession, whether it be the playing of the piano or the painting of pictures or the pursuit of piracy, are often timid and distrustful of themselves. So it happened on this occasion with Francis Drake and his men, who were merely amateur pirates and showed very plainly that they did not yet understand their business. When the fifteen Spanish citizens came into the marketplace and found there the little body of armed Englishmen, they immediately fired upon them, not knowing or caring who they were. This brave resistance seems to have frightened Drake and his men almost as much as their trumpets and guns had frightened the citizens, and the English immediately retreated from the town. When they reached the place where they had left the rest of their party, they found that these had already run away and taken to the boats. Consequently Drake and his brave men were obliged to take off some of their clothes and to wade out to the little ships. The Englishmen secured no booty whatever, and killed only one Spaniard, who was a man who had been looking out of a window to see what was the matter. Whether or not Drake's conscience had anything to do with the bungling manor in which he made his first attempt at piracy, we cannot say, but he soon gave his conscience a holiday and undertook some very successful robbing enterprises. He received information from some natives that a train of mules was coming across the Isthmus of Panama, loaded with gold and silver bullion, and guarded only by their drivers, for the merchants who owned all this treasure had no idea that there was anyone in that part of the world who would commit a robbery upon them. But Drake and his men soon proved that they could hold up a train of mules as easily as some of the mass robbers in our western country hold up a train of cars. All the gold was taken, but the silver was too heavy for the ammeter pirates to carry. Two days after that, Drake and his men came to a place called the House of Crosses, where they killed five or six peaceable merchants, but were greatly disappointed to find no gold, although the house was full of rich merchandise of various kinds. As his men had no means of carrying away heavy goods, he burned up the house and all its contents and went to his ships and sailed away with the treasure he had already obtained. Whatever this gallant ex-chapel now thought of himself, he was considered by the Spaniards as an out-and-out pirate, and in this opinion they were quite correct. During his great voyage around the world, which he began in 1577, he came down upon the Spanish American settlements like a storm from the sea. He attacked towns, carried off treasure, captured merchant vessels, and in fact showed himself to be a thoroughbred and accomplished pirate of the first class. It was in consequence of the rich plunder, with which his ships were now loaded, that he made his voyage around the world. He was afraid to go back the way he came for fear of capture, and so having passed the straits of Magellan, and having failed to find a way out of the Pacific in the neighborhood of California, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope and sailed along the western coast of Africa to European waters. This grand piratical expedition excited great indignation in Spain, which country was still at peace with England, and even in England there were influential people who counseled the Queen that it would be wise and prudent to disavow Drake's actions, and compel him to restore to Spain the booty he had taken from his subjects. But Queen Elizabeth was not the woman to do that sort of thing. She liked brave men and brave deeds, and she was proud of Drake. Therefore, instead of punishing him, she honored him and went to take dinner with him on board his ship, which lay at Depthord. So Columbus does not stand alone as a grand master of piracy. The famous Sir Francis Strake, who became vice admiral of the fleet which defeated the Spanish Amara, was a worthy companion of the great Genoese. These notable instances have been mentioned because it would be unjust to take up the history of those resolute traders who sailed from England, France and Holland, to the distant waters of the Western world for the purpose of legitimate enterprise and commerce, and who afterwards became thoroughgoing pirates, without trying to make it clear that they had shining examples for their notable careers. End of Chapter 2 CHAPTER 3. PUPLES IN PIRACY After the discoveries of Columbus, the Spanish mind seems to have been filled with the idea that the whole undiscovered world, wherever it might be, belonged to Spain, and that no other nation had any right whatever to discover anything on the other side of the Atlantic, or to make any use whatever of lands which had been discovered. In fact, the natives of the new countries and the inhabitants of all old countries except their own, were considered by Spain as possessing no rights whatever. If the natives refused to pay tribute, or to spend their days toiling for gold for their masters, or if vessels from England or France touched at one of their settlements for purposes of trade, it was all the same to the Spaniards. A war of attempted extermination was waged alike against the peaceful inhabitants of Hispaniola, now Haiti, and upon the bearded and hearty seamen from northern Europe. Under this treatment the natives weakened and gradually disappeared, but the Buccaneers became more and more numerous and powerful. The Buccaneers were not unlike the class of men known in our western country as cowboys. Young fellows of good families from England and France often determined to embrace a life of adventure, and possibly profit, and sailed out to the West Indies to get gold and hides, and to fight Spaniards. Frequently they dropped their family names and assumed others more suitable to roving free-booters, and like the bold young fellows who ride over our western plains, driving cattle and shooting Indians, they adopted a style of dress as free and easy, but probably not quite so picturesque as that of the cowboy. They soon became a very rough set of fellows, in appearance as well as action, endeavouring in every way to let the people of the western world understand that they were absolutely free and independent of the manners and customs, as well as the laws of their native countries. So well was this independence understood, that when the Buccaneers became strong enough to inflict some serious injury upon the settlements in the West Indies, and the Spanish court remonstrated with Queen Elizabeth on account of what had been done by some of her subjects. She replied that she had nothing to do with these Buccaneers, who although they had been born in England, had ceased for the time to be her subjects, and the Spaniards must defend themselves against them, just as if they were an independent nation. But it is possible for men who have been brought up in civilized society, and who have been accustomed to obey laws, to rid themselves entirely of all ideas of propriety and morality, as soon as they begin a life of lawlessness. So it happened that many of the Buccaneers could not divest themselves of the notions of good behavior to which they had been accustomed from youth. For instance, we are told of a captain of Buccaneers who landing at a settlement on Sunday took his crew to church. As it is not at all probable that any of the Buccaneering vessels carry chaplains, opportunities of attending services must have been rare. This captain seems to have wished to show that pirates in church know what they ought to do, just as well as other people. It was for this reason that when one of his men behaved himself in an improper and disorderly manner during the service, this proper-minded captain arose from his seat and shot the offender dead. There was a Frenchman of that period who must have been a warm hearted philanthropist, because having read accounts of the terrible atrocities of the Spaniards in the Western lands, he determined to leave his home and his family and become a Buccaneer in order that he might do what he could for the suffering natives in the Spanish possessions. He entered into the great work which he had planned for himself with such enthusiasm and zeal, that in the course of time he came to be known as the exterminator. And if there had been more people of his philanthropic turn of mind there would have been no inhabitants whatever upon the islands from which the Spaniards had driven out the Indians. There was another person of that day, also a Frenchman, who became deeply involved in debt in his own country, and feeling that the principles of honour forbade him to live upon and enjoy what was really the property of others, he made up his mind to sell across the Atlantic and become a Buccaneer. He hoped that if he should be successful in his new profession and should be enabled to rob Spaniards for a term of years, he could return to France, pay off all his debts, and afterward live the life of a man of honour and respectability. Other ideas which the Buccaneers brought with them from their native countries soon showed themselves when these daring sailors began their lives as regular pirates. Among these the idea of organisation was very prominent. Of course it was hard to get a number of free and untrammeled crews to unite and obey the commands of a few officers, but in time the Buccaneers had recognised leaders, and laws were made for concerted action. In consequence of this the Buccaneers became a formidable body of men, sometimes superior to the Spanish naval and military forces. It must be remembered that the Buccaneers lived in a very peculiar age, so far as the history of America is concerned, it might be called the age of blood and gold. In the newly discovered countries there were no laws which European nations or individuals cared to observe. In the West Indies and the adjacent Mainlands there were gold and silver, and there were also valuable products of other kinds, and when the Spaniards sailed to their part of the New World these treasures were the things for which they came. The natives were weak and not able to defend themselves. All the Spaniards had to do was to take what they could find, and when they could not find enough they made the poor Indians find it for them. Here was a part of the world, and an age of the world, wherein it was the custom for men to do what they pleased, provided they felt themselves strong enough, and it was not to be supposed that any one European nation could expect a monopoly of this state of mind. Therefore it was that while the Spaniards robbed and ruined the natives of the lands they discovered, the English, French, and Dutch buccaneers robbed the robbers. Great vessels were sent out from Spain, carrying nothing in the way of merchandise to America, but returning with all the precious metals and valuable products of the newly discovered regions, which could in any way be taken from the unfortunate natives. The gold mines of the New World had long been worked and yielded handsome revenues, but the native method of operating them did not satisfy the Spaniards, who forced the poor Indians to labor incessantly at the difficult task of digging out the precious metals, until many of them died under the cruel oppression. Sometimes the Indians were kept six months underground, working in the mines, and at one time, when it was found that the natives had died off, or had fled from the neighborhood of some of the rich gold deposits, it was proposed to send to Africa and get a cargo of Negroes to work the mines. Now it is easy to see that all this made buccaneering a very tempting occupation. To capture a great treasure ship, after the Spaniards had been at so much trouble to load it, was a grand thing, according to the pirate's point of view, and although it often required reckless bravery and almost superhuman energy to accomplish the feats necessary in this dangerous vocation, these were qualities which were possessed by nearly all the sea robbers of our coast. The stories of some of the most interesting of these wild and desperate fellows, men who did not combine piracy with discoveries and explorations, but who were out and out sea robbers, and ganged in that way all the reputation they ever possessed will be told in subsequent chapters. End of chapter three. Chapter four of buccaneers and pirates of our coasts. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lucy LaFaro, New South Wales, Australia. Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coasts by Frank R Stockton. Very prominent among the early regular buccaneers was a Frenchman who came to be called the Great. This man seems to have been one of those adventurers who were not buccaneers in the earlier sense of the word. By which I mean they were not traders who touched at Spanish settlements to procure cattle and hides, and who were prepared to fight any Spaniards who might interfere with them. But they were men who came from Europe on purpose to prey upon Spanish possessions, whether on land or sea. Some of them made a rough sort of settlement on the island of Tortuga. And then it was that Peter the Great seems to have come into prominence. He gathered about him a body of adherents, but although he had a great reputation as an individual pirate, it seems to have been a good while before he achieved any success as a leader. The fortunes of Peter and his men must have been at a pretty low ebb when they found themselves cruising in a large canoe-shaped boat not far from the island of Hispaniola. There were 29 of them in all and they were not able to procure a vessel suitable for their purpose. There had been a long time floating about in an aimless way hoping to see some Spanish merchant vessels which they might attack and possibly capture. But no such vessel appeared. Their provisions began to give out. The men were hungry, discontented and grumbling. In fact they were in almost a better condition as were the sailors of Columbus just before they discovered signs of land after their long and weary voyage across the Atlantic. When Peter and his men were almost on the point of despair they perceived far away upon the still waters a large ship with a great jump hopes sprang up in the breast of every man. They seized the oars and pulled in the direction of the distant craft. But when they were near enough they saw that the vessel was not a merchantman probably piled with gold and treasure but a man of war belonging to the Spanish fleet. In fact it was the vessel of the vice admiral. This was an astonishing and disheartening state of things. It was very much as if a lion hearing the approach of probable prey had sprung from the thicket where he had been concealed and had beheld for him not a fine fat deer but an immense and scrawny elephant. But the 29 buccaneers in the crew were very hungry. They had not come out upon those waters to attack men of war but more than that they had not come out to perish by hunger and thirst. There could be no doubt that there was plenty to eat and to drink on that tall Spanish vessel and if they could not get food and water they could not live more than a day or two longer. Under the circumstances it was not long before Peter the Great made up his mind that if his men would stand by him he would endeavour to capture that Spanish war vessel. When he put the question to his crew they all swore that they would follow him and obey his orders as long as life was left in their bodies. To attack a vessel armed with cannon by a crew very much larger than their little party seemed almost like throwing themselves upon certain death. But still there was a chance that in some way they might get the better of the Spaniards whereas if they rode away again into the solitudes of the ocean they would give up all chance of saving themselves from death by starvation. Steadily therefore they pulled toward the Spanish vessel and slowly for there was but little wind she approached them. The people in the man of war did not fail to perceive the little boat far out on the ocean and some of them sent to the captain and reported the fact. The news however did not interest him for he was engaged in playing cards in his cabin and it was not until an hour afterward that he consented to come on deck and look out toward the boat which had been sighted and which was now much nearer. Taking a good look at the boat and perceiving that it was nothing more than a canoe the captain laughed at the advice of some of his officers who thought it would be well to fire a few cannon shot and sink the little craft. The captain thought it would be a useless proceeding. He did not know anything about the people in the boat and he did not very much care but he remarked that if they should come near enough it might be a good thing to put out and haul them and their boat on deck after which they might be examined and questioned whenever it should suit his convenience. Then he went down to his cards. If Peter the Great and his men could have been sure that if they were to row alongside the Spanish vessel they would have been quietly hauled on deck and examine they would have been delighted at the opportunity. With cutlasses, pistols and knives they were more than ready to demonstrate to the Spaniards what sort of fellows they were and the captain would have found hungry pirates, uncomfortable persons to question. But it seemed to Peter and his crew a very difficult thing indeed to get themselves on board the man of war. So they curbed their ardour and enthusiasm and waited until nightfall before approaching nearer. As soon as it became dark enough they slowly and quietly paddled toward the great ship which was now almost be calmed. There were no lights in the boat and the people on the deck of the vessel saw and heard nothing on the dark waters around them. When they were very near the man of war, the captain of the Buccaneers according to the ancient accounts of this adventure ordered his chirurgeon or surgeon to bore a large hole in the bottom of their canoe. It is probable that this officer with his saws and other surgical instruments was expected to do carpenter work when there were no duties for him to perform in the regular line of his profession. At any rate he went to work and noiselessly bored the hole. This remarkable proceeding showed the desperate character of these pirates. A great almost impossible task was before them and nothing but absolute recklessness could enable them to succeed. If his men should meet with strong opposition from the Spaniards in the proposed attack and if any of them should become frightened and try to retreat to the boat Peter knew that all would be lost and consequently he determined to make it impossible for any man to get away in that boat. If they could not conquer the Spanish vessel they must die on her decks. When the half sunken canoe touched the sides of the vessel the pirates seizing every rope or projection on which they could lay their hands climbed up the sides of the man of war as if there had been 29 cats and springing over the rail dashed upon the sailors who were on deck. These men were utterly stupefied and astounded. They had seen nothing they had heard nothing and all of a sudden they were confronted with savage fellows with cutlasses and pistols. Some of the crew looked over the sides to see where these strange visitors had come from but they saw nothing for the canoe to the bottom. Then they were filled with a superstitious horror believing that the wild visitors were devils who had dropped from the sky for there seemed no other place from which they could come. Making no attempt to defend themselves the sailors wild with terror tumbled below and hid themselves without even giving an alarm. The Spanish captain was still playing cards and whether he was winning or losing the old historians do not tell us but very suddenly a newcomer took a hand in the game. This was Peter the Great and he played the ace of trumps. With a great pistol in his hand he called upon the Spanish captain to surrender. That noble commander glanced around there was a savage pirate holding a pistol at the head of each of the officers at the table. He threw up his cards. The trick was won by Peter and his men. The rest of the game was easy enough. When the pirates spread themselves over the vessel the frightened crew got out of sight as well as they could. Some who attempted to seize their arms in order to defend themselves were ruthlessly cut down or shot and when the hatches had been securely fastened upon the sailors who had fled below Peter the Great was captain and owner of that tall Spanish man of war. It is quite certain that the first thing these pirates did to celebrate victory was to eat a rousing good supper and then they took charge of the vessel and sailed her triumphantly over the waters on which not many hours before they had feared that a little boat would soon be floating filled with their emaciated bodies. This most remarkable success of Peter the Great worked a great change of course in the circumstances of himself and his men but it worked a greater change in the career and possibly in the character of the captain. He was now a very rich man and all his followers had plenty of money. The Spanish vessel was amply supplied with provisions and there was also on board a great quantity of gold bullion which was to be shipped to Spain. In fact Peter and his men had booty enough to satisfy any sensible pirate. Now we all know that sensible pirates and people in any life who are satisfied when they have enough are very rare indeed and therefore it is not a little surprising that the bold buccaneer whose story we are now telling should have proved that he merited in a certain way the title his companions had given him. Sailing his prize to the shores of his Spaniola Peter put on shore all the Spaniards whose services he did not desire. The rest of his prisoners he compelled to help then work the ship and then without delay he sailed away to France and there he retired entirely from the business of piracy and set himself up as a gentleman of wealth and leisure. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts by Frank R Stockton Chapter 5 The Story of a Pearl Pirate The ordinary story of the pirate or the wicked man in general no matter how successful he may have been in his criminal career nearly always ends disasterously points a moral which doubtless has a good effect on a large class of people who would be very glad to do wrong provided no harm was likely to come to them in consequence. But the story of Peter the Great which we have just told contains no such moral. In fact its influence upon the adventurers of that period was most unwholesome. When the wonderful success of Peter the Great became known the buccaneering community at suddenly excited. Every bushy bearded fellow who could get possession of a small boat and induce a score of other bushy bearded fellows to follow him wanted to start out and capture a rich Spanish galleon as the great ships used to like for war and commerce were then called. But not only were the French and English sailors and traders who have become buccaneers excited and stimulated by the remarkable good fortune but many people of adventurous mine who had never thought of leaving England for purposes of piracy now became firmly convinced that there was no business which promised better than that of a buccaneer and some of them crossed the ocean for the express purpose of getting rich by capturing Spanish vessels homeward bound. As there was not enough suitable vessels in Tortuga for the demands of the recently stimulated industry the buccaneer sailors went to other parts of the West Indies to obtain suitable craft and it is related that in about a month after the great victory of Peter the Great two large Spanish vessels loaded with silver bullion and two other heavily laden merchantmen were brought into Tortuga by the buccaneers. One of the adventures who set out about this time on a cruise after gold laden vessels was a Frenchman who was known to his countrymen as Pierre Francois and to the English as Peter Francis. He was a good sailor and ready for any sort of a sea fight but for a long time he cruised about without seeing anything which it was worthwhile to attempt to capture. At last when his provisions began to give out and his men became somewhat discontented Pierre made up his mind that rather than return to Tortuga empty-handed he would make a bold and novel stroke for fortune. At the mouth of one of the large rivers of the mainland the Spaniards had established a pearl fishery for there was no kind of wealth or treasure on the land underground or at the bottom of the sea that the Spaniards did not get if it were possible for them to do so. Every year at the proper season a dozen or more vessels came to this pearl bank attended by a man of war to protect them from molestation. Pierre knew all about this and as he could not find any Spanish merchant to rob he thought he would go down and see what he could do with the pearl fishers. This was something the buccaneers had not yet attempted but no one knows what he can do until he tries and it was very necessary that this buccaneer captain should try something immediately. When he reached the coast near the mouth of the river he took the mass out of his little vessel and headed to join them on some entirely peaceable errand and in fact there was no reason whatever why the Spaniards should suppose that a boat full of buccaneers should be rowing along that part of the coast. The pearl fishing vessels were all at anchor and the people on board were quietly attending to their business. Out at sea, some distance from the mouth of the river the man of war was lying be calmed. The native divers who went down the shellfish which contained the pearls plunged into the water and came up wet and shining in the sun with no fear whatever of any sharks which might be swimming about in search of a dinner and the people on the vessels opened the oysters and carefully searched for pearls feeling as safe from harm as if they were picking olives in their native groves. But something worse than a shark was quietly making its way over those tranquil waters and no banditie who ever descended from Spanish mountains upon the quiet peasants of a village equaled in ferocity the savage fellows who were crouching in the little boat belonging to Pierre of Tortuga. This innocent looking craft which the pearlfishers probably thought was loaded with fruit or vegetables which somebody from the mainland desired to sell was permitted without being challenged or interfered with to row up alongside the largest vessel of the fleet on which there were some armed men in a few cannon. As soon as Pierre's boat touched the Spanish vessel the buccaneers sprang on board with their pistols and cutlasses and a savage fight began. The Spaniards were surprised but there were a great many more of them than there were pirates and they fought hard. However the man who makes the attack and who is at the same time desperate and hungry has a great advantage and it was not long before the buccaneers were masters of the vessel. Those of the Spaniards who were not killed were forced into the service of their captors and Pierre found himself in command of a very good vessel. Now it so happened that the man of war was so far away that she knew nothing of this fight on board one of the fleet which she was there to watch and if she had known of it she would not have been able to give any assistance for there was no wind by which she could sail to the mouth of the ship. Therefore, so far as she was concerned Pierre considered himself safe but although he had captured a Spanish ship he was not so foolish as to haul down her flag and run up his own in her place. He had had very good success so far but he was not satisfied. It was quite probable that there was a rich store of pearls on board the vessel he had taken but on the other vessels of the fleet there were many more pearls than he wanted if he could get them. In fact he conceived the grand idea of capturing the whole fleet but it would be impossible for Pierre to attempt anything on such a magnificent scale until he had first disposed of the man of war and as he had now a good strong ship with a much larger crew than that which he had set out for the Spanish prisoners would be obliged to man the guns and help in every way to fight their countrymen Pierre determined to attack the man of war. A land wind began to blow which enabled him to make very fair headway out to sea. The Spanish colours were flying from his top mast and he hoped to be able without being suspected of any evil designs to get so near to the man of war that he might run alongside and boldly board her. But something now happened which Pierre could not have expected. When the commander of the war vessel perceived that one of the fleet under his charge was leaving her companions and putting out to sea he could imagine no reason for such extraordinary conduct except that she was taking advantage of the fact that the wind had not yet reached his vessel and was trying to run away with the pearls she had on board. From these ready suspicions we may imagine that, at that time the robbers who robbed robbers were not all buccaneers. Soon after the Spanish captain believed that one of his fleet was making his way out of the river the wind reached his vessel and he immediately set all sail and started in pursuit of the rascals whom he supposed to be his dishonest countrymen. The breeze freshened rapidly and when Pierre and his men saw that the man of war was coming toward them at a good rate of speed showing plainly that he had suspicions of them they gave up all hope of running alongside of her and concluded that the best thing they could do would be to give up their plan of capturing the pearl fishing fleet and get away with the ship they had taken in whatever it had on board. So they set all sail and there was a fine sea-chase. The now frightened buccaneers were too anxious to get away they not only put on all the sail which the vessel could carry but they put on more. The wind blew harder and suddenly down came the main mast to crash. This stopped the chase and the next act in the performance would have to be a sea-fight. Pierre and his buccaneers were good at that sort of thing and when the man of war came up there was a terrible time on board those two vessels but the Spaniards were the stronger and the buccaneers were defeated. There must have been something in the daring courage of this Frenchman and his little band of followers for there was no other reason for the good treatment which the buccaneers received. They were not put to the sword nor thrown overboard not sent on shore and made to work as slaves three very common methods for treating prisoners in those days but they were all set free and put on land where they might go where they pleased. This unfortunate result of the bold enterprise undertaken by Pierre Francois was deeply deplored not only at Tortuga but in England and in France. If this bold buccaneer had captured the Pearl Fleet it would have been a victory that would have made a hero of him on each side of the Atlantic but had he even been able to get away with the one vessel he had seized he would have been a rich man and might have retired to a life of ease and affluence. The vessel he had captured proved to be one of the richest laden of the whole fleet and not only in the heart of Pierre but as a man but among his sympathizers in Europe and America there was great disappointment at the loss of that main mass which, until it cracked was carrying him forward to fame and fortune. End of story Chapter 6 of buccaneers and pirates of our coasts This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org This recording has been Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina buccaneers and pirates of our coasts by Frank R Stockton Chapter 6 The surprising adventures of Vartolomei Portuguese As we have seen that the buccaneers were mainly English, French and Dutch sailors who were united to make a common piratical warfare upon the Spaniards in the West Indies it may seem a little strange to find a man from Portugal who seemed to be on the wrong side of this peculiar fight which was going on in the New World between the sailors of Northern and Southern Europe But although Portugal is such a close neighbor of Spain the two countries have often been at war with each other and their interests are by no means the same The only advantage that Portugal could expect from the newly discovered treasures of the West is that the seafaring men acting with the seafaring men of other nations should rest from Spanish vessels homeward bound Consequently there were Portuguese among the pirates of those days Among these was a man named Vartolomei Portuguese a famous filibustiere It may be here remarked that the name of buccaneer was chiefly affected by the English adventurers on our coast while the French members of the profession of filibustiere This word which has since been corrupted into our familiar filibuster is said to have been originally a corruption being nothing more than the French method of pronouncing the word freebooters which title had long been used for independent robbers Thus although Vartolomei called himself a filibustiere he was really a buccaneer and his name came to be known all over the Caribbean Sea From the accounts we have of him it appears that he did not start out on his career of piracy as a poor man He had some capital to invest in the business and when he went over to the West Indies he took with him a small ship armed with four small cannon and man by a crew of picked men many of them no doubt professional robbers and the others anxious for practice in this most alluring vocation for the gold fields of California were ever more attractive to the bold and hearty adventurers of our country than were the gold fields of the sea to the buccaneers and filibustiers of the 17th century When Vartolomei reached the Caribbean Sea he probably first touched at Tortuga the pirate's headquarters and then sailed out very much as if he had been a fisherman going forth to see what he could catch on the sea He cruised about on the track of ships going from the mainland to the Havana's or the island of Hispaniola and when at last he sided a vessel in the distance it was not long before he and his men had made up their minds that if they were to have any sport that day it would be with what might be called most decidedly a game fish for the ship slowly sailing towards them was a large Spanish vessel and from her portholes there protruded the muzzles of at least 20 cannon of course they knew that such a vessel would have a much larger crew than their own and altogether Vartolomei was very much in the position of a man who should go out to Harpoon Asturgeon and who should find himself confronted by a vicious swordfish the Spanish merchant of that day were generally well armed for getting home safely across the Atlantic was often the most difficult part of the treasure-seeking there were many of these ships which although they did not belong to the Spanish Navy might almost be designated as men of war and it was one of these with which our filiboustier had now met but pirates and fishermen cannot afford to pick and choose they must take what comes to them and make the best of it and this is exactly the way in which the matter presented itself to Vartolomei and his men they held one of their councils around the mast after an address from their leader they decided that come what may they must attack that Spanish vessel so the little pirate sailed boldly towards the big Spaniard and the latter vessel utterly astonished at the audacity of this attack for the pirate's flag was flying lay to, head to the wind and waited, the gunners standing by their cannon when the pirates had come near enough to see and understand the size of the vessel they had thought of attacking they did not, as might have been expected, put about and sail away at the best of their vessel's speed but they kept straight on their course as if they had been about to fall upon a great unwieldy merchantman manned by common sailors perceiving the full hardiness of the little vessel the Spanish commander determined to give it a lesson which would teach its captain to understand better the relative power of great vessels so as soon as the pirate's vessel was near enough he ordered a broadside fired upon it the Spanish ship had a great many people on board it had a crew of seventy men and besides these there were some passengers and regular marines and knowing that the captain had determined to fire upon the approaching vessel everybody had gathered on deck to see the little pirate ship go down but the ten great cannonballs which were shot out at Bartolomé's little craft all missed their aim and before the guns could be reloaded or the great ship begot around so as to deliver her other broadside the pirate vessel was alongside of her Bartolomé had fired none of his cannon such guns were useless against so huge a foe what he was after was a hand to hand combat on the deck of the Spanish ship the pirates were all ready for hot work they had thrown aside their coats and shirts as if each of them were going into a prize fight and with their cutlasses and their hands and their pistols and knives and their belts they scrambled like monkeys up the sides of the great ship but Spaniards are brave men and good fighters and there were more than twice as many of them as there were of the pirates and it was not long before the latter found out that they could not capture that vessel by boarding it they had tumbled as fast as they could go leaving some of their number dead and wounded behind them they jumped into their own vessel and then they put off to a short distance to take breath and get ready for a different kind of fight the triumphant Spaniards now prepared to get rid of this boatload of half-naked wild beasts which they could easily do if they should take better aim with their cannon than they had done before but to their amazement they soon found that they could do nothing with the guns nor were they able to work their ship so as to get it into position for effectual shots Bartolomien and his men laid aside their cutlasses and their pistols and took up their muskets with which they were well provided their vessel lay within a very short range of the Spanish ship and whenever a man could be seen through the portholes or showed himself in the rigging or anywhere else where it was necessary to go in order to work the ship he made himself a target for the good aim of the pirates the pirate vessel could move about as it pleased for it required but a few men to manage it and so it kept out of the way of the Spanish guns and its best marksman crouching close to the deck fired and fired whenever a Spanish head was to be seen for five long hours this unequal contest was kept up it might have reminded one of a man with a slender rod and a long delicate line who had hooked a big salmon the man could not pull in the salmon but on the other hand the salmon could not hurt the man and in the course of time the big fish would be tired out and the man would get out his landing net and scoop him in now Bartolomien thought he could scoop in the Spanish vessel so many of her men had been shot that the two crews would be more nearly equal so boldly he ran his vessel alongside the big ship and again boarded her now there was another great fight on the decks the Spaniards had ceased to be triumphant but they had become desperate and in the furious combat ten of the pirates were killed and four wounded but the Spaniards fared worse than that more than half of the men who had not been shot by the pirates went down before their cutlasses and pistols and it was not long before Bartolomien had captured the great Spanish ship it was a fearful and a bloody victory he had gained a great part of his own men were lying dead or helpless on the deck and of the Spaniards only 40 were left alive and these it appears from the accounts must have been nearly all wounded or disabled it was a common habit among the buccaneers as well as among the Spaniards to kill all prisoners who were not able to work for them but Bartolomien does not seem to have lived at the stage of depravity necessary for this so he determined not to kill his prisoners but he put them all into a boat and let them go where they pleased while he was left with 15 men to work a great vessel which required a crew 5 times that number but the men who could conquer and capture a ship against such enormous odds felt themselves fully capable of working her even with their little crew before doing anything of navigation they cleared the decks of the dead bodies taking from them all watches, trinkets and money and then went below to see what sort of a prize they had gained they found it a very good one indeed there were 75,000 crowns in money besides a cargo of cocoa worth 5,000 more and this combined with the value of the ship and all its fittings was a great fortune for those days when the victorious pirates encountered their gains and had mended the sails and rigging of their new ship they took what they wanted out of their own vessel and left her to sink or to float as she pleased and then they sailed away in the direction of the island of Jamaica but the winds did not suit them and as their crew was so very small they could not take advantage of light breezes as they could have done if they had men enough consequently they were obliged to enter before they reached the friendly vicinity of Jamaica they cast anchor at Cape St. Anthony on the west end of Cuba after a considerable delay at this place they started out again to resume their voyage but it was not long before they perceived to their horror three Spanish vessels coming towards them it was impossible for a very large ship manned by an extremely small crew to sail away from these fully equipped vessels and as to attempting to defend themselves against the overwhelming power of the antagonists that was too absurd to be thought of even by such a reckless fellow as Bartolome so when the ship was hailed by the Spanish vessels he lay too and waited until a boat's crew bordered him with the eye of a nautical man the Spanish captain of one of the ships perceived that something was the matter with this vessel for its sails and rigging were terribly cut up by the long fight through which it had passed and of course he wanted to know what had happened when he found that the great ship was in the possession of a very small body of pirates Bartolome and his men were immediately made prisoners taken on board the Spanish ship stripped of everything they possessed even their clothes and shut up in the hold a crew from the Spanish ships was sent to man the vessel which had been captured and then the little fleet set sail to San Francisco and Campichi an hour had worked a very great change in the fortunes of Bartolome and his men in the fine cabin of their grand prize they had feasted and sung and had gloried over their wonderful success and now in the vessel of their captor they were shut up in the dark to be enslaved or perhaps executed but it is not likely that any one of them either dispaired or repented and it was very little in use by pirates End of story Chapter 7 The Pirate Who Could Not Swim When the little fleet of Spanish vessels including the one which had been captured by a Bartholome Portuguese and his men were on their way to Campichi they met with very stormy weather so that they were separated and the ship which contained Bartholome and his companions arrived first at the port for which they were bound the captain of the ship which they were bound the captain who had Bartholome and the others in charge did not know what an important capture he had made he supposed that these pirates were ordinary buccaneers and it appears that it was his intention to keep them as his own private prisoners for as they were all very able-bodied men they would be extremely useful on a ship but when his vessel was safely moored he became known in the town that he had a company of pirates on board a great many people came from shore to see these savage men who were probably looked upon very much as if they were a menagerie of wild beasts brought from foreign lands among the sightseers who came to the ship was a merchant of the town who had seen Bartholome before and who had heard of his various exploits he therefore went to the captain of the vessel and informed him that he had on board one of the very worst pirates in the whole world whose wicked deeds were well known in various parts of the West Indies and who ought immediately to be delivered up to the civil authorities this proposal however met with no favour from the Spanish captain who had found Bartholome a very quiet man and could see that he was a very strong one and he did not at all desire to give up such a valuable addition to his crew but the merchant grew very angry for he knew that Bartholome had inflicted great injury on Spanish commerce and as the captain would not listen to him he went to the governor of the town and reported the case when this dignitary heard the story he immediately sent a party of officers to the ship and commanded the captain to deliver the pirate leader into their charge the men were left where they were but Bartholome was taken away and confined in another ship the merchant who seemed to know a great deal about him informed the authorities that this terrible pirate had been captured several times but that he had always managed to escape and therefore he was put in irons and preparations were made to execute him on the next day for from what he had heard the governor considered that this pirate was no better than a wild beast and that he should be put to death without even the formality of a trial but there was a Spanish soldier on board the ship who seemed to have had some pity or perhaps some admiration for the daring pirate and he thought that if he were to be hung the next day it was no more than right to let him know it so that when he went in to take some food to Bartholome he told him what was to happen this pirate captain was a man who always wanted to have a share in what was to happen and he immediately racked his brain to find out what he could do in this case he had never been in a more desperate situation but he did not lose heart and immediately set to work to free himself from his irons which were probably very clumsy affairs at last carrying little how much he scratched and tore his skin he succeeded in getting rid of his fetters and could move about as freely as a tiger in a cage to get out of this cage was Bartholome's first object it would be comparatively easy because in the course of time someone would come into the hold and the athletic buccaneer thought that he could easily get the better of whoever might open the hatch but the next act in this truly melodramatic performance would be a great deal more difficult for in order to escape from the ship it would be absolutely necessary for Bartholome to swim to shore and he did not know how to swim which seems a strange failing in a hardy sailor with so many other nautical accomplishments in the rough hold where he was shut up our pirate peering about anxious and earnest discovered two large earthen jars in which wine had been brought from Spain and with these he determined to make a sort of life preserver he found some pieces of oiled cloth which he tied tightly over the open mouths of the jars and fastened them with cords he was satisfied that this unwieldy contrivance would support him in the water among other things he had found in his rummaging about the hold was an old knife and with this in his hand he now sat waiting for a good opportunity to escape from Bartholome's sentinel this came soon after nightfall a man descended with the lantern to see that the prisoner was still secure let us hope that it was not the soldier who had kindly informed him of his fate and as soon as he was fairly in the hold Bartholome sprang upon him there was a fierce struggle but the pirate was quick and powerful and the sentinel was soon dead Bartholome climbs swiftly and noiselessly up the short ladder came out on deck in the darkness made a rush toward the side of the ship and leapt overboard for a moment he sank below the surface but the two airtight jars quickly rose and bore him up with him there was a bustle on board the ship there was some random firing of muskets in the direction of the splashing which the watch had heard but none of the balls struck the pirate or his jars and he soon floated out of sight and hearing kicking out with his legs and paddling as well as he could with one hand while he held on to the jars with the other he at last managed to reach the land and ran as fast as he could into the dark woods beyond the town Bartholome was now greatly in fear that when his escape was discovered he would be tracked by bloodhounds and dogs were much used by the Spaniards in pursuing escaping slaves or prisoners and he therefore did not feel safe in immediately making his way along the coast which was what he wished to do if the hounds should get upon his trail he was a lost man the desperate pirate therefore determined to give the bloodhounds no chance to follow him and for three days he remained in a marshy forest in the dark recesses of which he could hide the water which covered the ground prevented the dogs from following his scent he had nothing to eat except a few roots of water plants but he was accustomed to privation and these kept him alive often he heard the hounds baying in the dry land adjoining the marsh and sometimes he saw at night distant torches which he was sure were carried by men who were hunting for him but at last the pursuit seemed to be given up and hearing no more dogs and seeing no more flickering lights, Bartholomew left the marsh and set out on his long journey down the coast the place he wished to reach was called Golfo Triste which was 40 leagues away but where he had reason to suppose he would find some friends when he came out from among the trees he mounted a small hill and looked back upon the town the public square was lighted in the middle of it he saw the gallows which had been erected for his execution and this sight doubtless animated him very much during the first part of his journey the terrible trials and hardships which Bartholomew experienced during his tramp along the coast were such as could have been endured only by one of the strongest and toughest of men he had found in the marsh an old gourd or calabash which he had filled with fresh water for he could expect nothing but sea water during his journey and as for solid food he had nothing but the raw shellfish which he found upon the rocks but after a diet of roots shellfish must have been a very agreeable change and they gave him all the strength and vigor he needed very often he found streams and inlets which he was obliged to forward and as he could see that they were always filled with alligators the passage of them was very pleasant his method of getting across one of these narrow streams was to hurl rocks into the water until he had frightened away the alligators immediately in front of him and then when he had made for himself what seemed to be a free passage he would dash in and hurry across at other times great forests stretched down to the very coast and through these he was obliged to make his way although he could hear the roars of streams of wild beasts all about him anyone who is afraid to go down into a dark cellar to get some apples from a barrel at the foot of the stairs can have no idea of the sort of mind possessed by Bartholomew Portuguese the animals might howl around him and glare at him with their shining eyes and the alligators might lash the water into foam with their great tails but he was bound for Golfo Triste and was not to be stopped on his way by anything alive but at last he came to something not alive which seemed to be an obstacle which would certainly get the better of him this was a wide river flowing through the inland country into the sea he made his way up the shore of this river for a considerable distance but it grew but little narrower and he could see no chance of getting across he could not swim and he had no wine jars now with which to bore himself up and if he had been able to swim he would probably have been eaten up by alligators soon after he left the shore but a man in his situation would not be likely to give up readily he had done so much that he was ready to do more if he could only find out what to do now a piece of good fortune happened to him although to an ordinary traveller might have been considered a matter of no importance whatever on the edge of the shore where it had floated down from some region higher up the river Bartholome perceived an old board in which there were some long and heavy rusty nails greatly encouraged by this discovery the indefatigable traveller said about a work which resembled that of the old woman who wanted a needle and who began to rub a crowbar on a stone in order to reduce it to the proper size Bartholome carefully knocked all the nails out of the board and then finding a large flat stone he rubbed down one of them until he had formed it into the shape of a rude knife blade which he made as sharp as he could then with these tools he undertook the construction of a raft working away like a beaver and using the sharpened nails instead of his teeth he cut down a number of small trees and when he had enough of these slender trunks he bound them together with reeds and ossears which he found on the river bank so after infinite labour and trial he constructed a raft which would bear him on the surface of the water when he had launched this he got upon it gathering up his legs so as to keep out alligators and with a long pole pushed himself off from the shore sometimes paddling and sometimes pushing his pole against the bottom he at last got across the river and took up his journey upon dry land but our pirate had not progressed very far upon the other side of the river before he met with a new difficulty of a very formidable character this was a great forest of mangrove trees which grow in muddy and watery places and which have many roots some coming down from the branches and some extending themselves in a hopeless tangle in the water and mud it would have been impossible for even a stork to walk through this forest but as there was no way of getting around it Bartholome determined to go through it even if he could not walk no athlete of the present day no matter if he should be a most accomplished circus man could reasonably expect to perform the feat which this bold pirate successfully accomplished for five or six leagues he went through that mangrove forest never once setting his foot upon the ground by which is meant mud water and roots but swinging himself by his hands and arms from branch to branch he had been a great ape only resting occasionally drawing himself upon a stout limb where he might sit for a while and get his breath if he had slipped while he was swinging from one limb to another and had gone down into the mire and roots beneath him it is likely that he would never have been able to get out alive but he made no slips he might not have had the agility and grace of a trapeze performer but his grasp was powerful and his arms were strong and so he swung and clutched and clutched and swung until he had gone entirely through the forest and had come out on the open coast End of Section 7 Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts by Frank A. Stockton How Bartholomew Rested Himself It was full two weeks from the time that Bartholomew began his most adventurous and difficult journey before he reached the little town of Golfo Treesd where as he had hoped he found some of his Buccaneers and Pirates on the coast of Bartholomew but as he had hoped he found some of his Buccaneer friends now that his hardships and dangers were over and when instead of roots and shellfish he could sit down to good plentiful meals and stretch himself upon a comfortable bed it might have been supposed that Bartholomew would have given himself a long rest but this hearty pirate had no desire for a vacation at this time instead of being worn out and exhausted by his amazing exertions he arrived among his friends vigorous and energetic and exceedingly anxious to recommend business as soon as possible he told them of all that had happened to him what wonderful good fortune had come to him and what terrible bad fortune had quickly followed it and when he had related his adventures and his dangers he astonished even his peritical friends by asking them to furnish him with a small vessel and about twenty men in order that he may go back and avenge himself not only for what had happened to him for what would have happened if he had not taken his affairs into his own hands to do daring and astounding deeds is part of the business of being a pirate and although it was an uncommonly bold enterprise that Bartholomew contemplated he got his vessel and he got his men and away he sailed after a voyage of about eight days he came in sight of the little seaport town sailing slowly along the coast he waited until nightfall before entering the harbor anchored at a considerable distance from shore was the great Spanish ship on which he had been a prisoner and from which he would have been taken and hung in the public square the sight of the vessel filled his soul with a savage fury known only to pirates and bulldogs as the little vessel slowly approached the great ship the people on board the latter and allowed it to come alongside such small craft seldom coming from the sea but the moment Bartholomew reached the ship he scrambled up its side almost as rapidly as he had jumped down from it with his two wine jars a few weeks before and every one of his crew leaving their own vessel to take care of itself scrambled up after him nobody on board was prepared to defend the ship it was the same old story resting quietly in a peaceful harbor what danger had they to expect? as usual the pirates had everything their own way they were ready to fight and the others were not and they were led by a man who was determined to take that ship without giving even a thought to the ordinary alternative of dying in the attempt the affair was more of a massacre than a combat and there were people on board who did not know what was taking place until the vessel had been captured as soon as Bartholomew was master of the great vessel he gave orders to slip the cable and hoist the sails for he was anxious to get out of that harbor as quickly as possible the fight had apparently attracted no attention in the town but there were ships in the port whose company the bold buccaneer did not at all desire and as soon as possible he got his grand prize under way and went sailing out of the port now indeed was Bartholomew triumphant the ship was captured was a finer one and a richer one than that other vessel which had been taken from him it was loaded with valuable merchandise and we may hear remark that for some reason or other all Spanish vessels of that day which were so unfortunate as to be taken by pirates seemed to be richly laden if our bold pirate had sung wild pirate songs as he passed the flowing bowl while carousing with his crew in the cabin of the Spanish vessel he now sang wilder songs and passed more flowing bowls for this prize was a much greater one than the first if Bartholomew could have communicated his great good fortune to the other buccaneers in the West Indies there would have been a boom in piracy which would have threatened great danger to the honesty and integrity of the seafaring men of that region but nobody, not even a pirate has any way of finding out what is going to happen next and if Bartholomew had had an idea of the fluctuations which were about to occur in the market in which he had made his investments he would have been in a great hurry to sell all his stock very much below par the fluctuations referred to occurred on the ocean near the island of Pinos and came in the shape of great storm waves which blew the Spanish vessel with all its rich cargo and its triumphant pirate crew high up upon the cruel rocks absolutely and utterly Bartholomew and his men barely managed to get into a little boat and row themselves away all the wealth and treasure which had come to them with the capture of a Spanish vessel all the power which the possession of the vessel gave them and all the wild joy which came to them with riches and power were lost to them in a short a space of time as it had taken to gain them downs few lives surpassed that of Bartholomew, Portuguese but after this he seems in the language of the old English song all in the downs he had many adventures after the desperate affair in the Bay of Campeche but they must all have turned out badly for him and consequently very well it is probable for divers and sundry Spanish vessels and for the rest of his life he bore the reputation of an unfortunate pirate he was one of those men whose success seems to have depended entirely upon his own exertion if there happened to be the least chance of his doing anything he generally did it Spanish cannon well-armed Spanish crews manacles, imprisonment the danger of the ocean to a man who could not swim bloodhounds, alligators wild beasts, awful forests impenetrable to common men all these were bravely met Bartholomew but when he came to ordinary good fortune such as any pirate might expect Bartholomew the Portuguese found that he had no chance at all but he was not a common pirate and was therefore obliged to be content with his uncommon career he eventually settled in the island of Jamaica but nobody knows what became of him if it so happened that he found himself obliged to make his living by some simple industry such as the selling food upon a street corner it is likely he never disposed of a banana or an orange unless he jumped at the throat of a passer-by and compelled him to purchase as for sitting still and waiting for customers to come to him such a man as Bartholomew would not be likely to do anything so common place End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information and to find out how to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Marion Brown Toronto, Canada Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts by Frank R Stockton A pirate author In the days which we are considering there were all sorts of pirates some of whom gained much reputation in one way or some in another but there was one of whom who had a disposition different from that of any of his fellows he was a regular pirate but it is not likely that he ever did much fighting For, as he took great pride in the brave deeds of the brethren of the coast he would have been sure to tell us of his own if he had ever performed any He was a mild-mannered man and although he was a pirate he eventually laid aside the pistol the musket and the cutlass and took up the pen a very uncommon weapon for a buccaneer This man was John Asquamiling supposed by some to be a Dutchman and by others a native of France He sailed to the West Indies in the year 1666 in the service of the French West India Company He went out as a peaceable merchant clerk who had no more idea of becoming a pirate than he had of going into literature although he finally did both At that time the French West India Company had a colonial establishment on the island of Tortuga which was principally inhabited as we have seen before by buccaneers in all their various grades and stages from beef dryers to pirates The French authorities undertook to supply these erratic people with the goods and provisions and built storehouses with everything necessary for carrying on the trade There were plenty of purchasers for the buccaneers were willing to buy everything which could be brought from Europe They were fond of good wine good groceries good firearms and ammunition fine cutlasses and very often good clothes in which they could disport themselves while on shore But they had peculiar customs and manners and although they were willing to buy what the buccaneers had to sell they could not be prevailed upon to pay their bills A pirate is not the sort of a man who generally cares to pay his bills When he gets goods in any way he wants them charged to him and if that charge includes the features of robbery and murder he will probably make no objection But as for paying good money for what is received that is quite another thing That this was the state of feeling on the island of Tortuga was discovered before very long by the mercantile agents who then applied to the mother country for assistance in collecting the debts do them and a body of men who might be called collectors or deputy sheriffs was sent out to the island But although these officers were armed with pistols and swords as well as with authority they could do nothing with the buccaneers and after a time the work of endeavouring to collect debts from pirates was given up And as there was no profit the mercantile agency was also given up and its officers were ordered to sell out everything they had on hand and come home There was therefore a sale for which cash payments were demanded and there was a great bargain day on the island of Tortuga Everything was disposed of the stock of merchandise on hand the tables, the desks, the stationery the bookkeepers, the clerks and the errand boys the living items of the stock on hand as if they had been any kind of merchandise and were sold as slaves Now poor John Asquamealing found himself in a sad condition He was bought by one of the French officials who had been left on the island and he described his new master as a veritable fiend He was worked hard, half fed treated cruelly in many ways and to add to his misery his master tantalised him by offering to set him free upon the payment of a sum of money equal to about three hundred dollars He might as well have been asked to pay three thousand or three million dollars for he had not a penny in the world At last he was so fortunate as to fall sick and his master as avaricious as he was cruel fearing that this creature he owned might die and thus be an entire loss to him sold him to a surgeon very much as one would sell a sick horse to a veterinary surgeon on the principle that he might make something out of the animal by curing him His new master treated Esquimiling very well and after he had taken medicine and food enough to set him upon his legs and had worked for the surgeon about a year that kind master offered him his liberty if he would promise, as soon as he could earn the money to pay him one hundred dollars which would be a profit to his owner who had paid but seventy dollars for him This offer, of course, Esquimiling accepted with delight and having made the bargain he stepped forth upon the warm sands of Tortuga, a free and happy man but he was as poor as a church mouse he had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back and he saw no way in which he could make enough money to keep himself alive until he had paid for himself he tried various ways of support but there was no opening for a young businessman in that section of the country and at last he came to the conclusion that there was only one way by which he could accomplish his object and he therefore determined to enter into the wicked order of pirates or robbers at sea it must have been a strange thing for a man accustomed to pens and ink to yardsticks and scales to feel obliged to enroll himself into a company of bloody big-bearded pirates but a man must eat and buccaneering was the only profession open to our ex-clerk For some reason or other certainly not on account of his bravery and daring Esquimiling was very well received by the pirates of Tortuga Perhaps they liked him because he was a mild-mannered man and so different from themselves Nobody was afraid of him Everyone felt superior to him and we are all very apt to like people to whom we feel superior As for Esquimiling himself he soon came to entertain the highest opinion of his pirate companions He looked upon the buccaneers who had distinguished themselves as great heroes and it must have been extremely gratifying to those savage fellows to tell Esquimiling the wonderful things they had done In the whole of the West Indies there was no one who was in the habit of giving such intelligent attention to the accounts of peretical depredations and savage sea-fights as was Esquimiling and if he had demanded a salary as a listener there is no doubt that it would have been paid to him It was not long before his intense admiration of the buccaneers and their performances began to produce in him the feeling that the history of these great exploits should not be lost to the world and so he said about writing the lives and adventures of many of the buccaneers with whom he became acquainted He remained with the pirates for several years and during that time worked very industriously getting material together for his history When he returned to his own country in 1672, having done as much literary work as was possible among the uncivilized surroundings of Tortuga, he there completed a book which he called the buccaneers of America or the true account the most remarkable assaults committed of late years upon the coasts of the West Indies by the buccaneers, etc by John Esquimiling one of the buccaneers who was present at those tragedies From this title it is probable that our literary pirate accompanied his comrades on their various voyages and assaults in the capacity of reporter and although he states he was present at many of those tragedies he makes no reference to any deeds of valor or cruelty performed by himself which shows him to have been a wonderfully conscientious historian There are persons, however who doubt his impartiality because, as he liked the French he always gave the pirates of that nationality the credit for most of the bravery displayed on their expeditions and all of the magnanimity and courtesy if there happened to be any while the surliness, brutality and extraordinary wickedness were all ascribed to the English But be this as it may the French's history was a great success It was written in Dutch and was afterwards translated into English French and Spanish It contained a great deal of information regarding buccaneering in general and most of the stories of pirates which we have already told and many of the surprising narrations which are to come have been taken from the book of this buccaneer historian End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Buccaneers and Pirates This is a LibraVox recording All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org Recording by Phil Surrett in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coasts by Frank R Stockton Chapter 10 The Story of Rock the Brazilian Having given the history of a very plain and quiet buccaneer who was a reporter and writer and who, if he were now living would be eligible as a member of an authors club we will pass to the consideration of a regular out and out pirate one from whose masthead would have floated the black flag with its skull and crossbones if that emblematic piece of budding had been in use by the pirates of the period Buccaneer was called Rock because he had to have a name and his own was unknown and the Brazilian because he was born in Brazil though of Dutch parents unlike most of his fellow practitioners he did not gradually become a pirate from his early youth he never had an intention of being anything else as soon as he grew to be a man he became a bloody buccaneer and at the first opportunity he joined a pirate crew and had made but a few voyages a remarkable sea robber he was offered the command of a ship with a well armed crew of marine savages and in a very short time after he had set out on his first independent cruise he fell in with a Spanish ship loaded with silver bullion having captured this he sailed with his prize to Jamaica which was one of the great resorts of the English buccaneers there his success delighted the community his talents for the conduct of great piratical operations soon became apparent and finally acknowledged as the head pirate of the West Indies he was now looked upon as a hero even by those colonists who had no sympathy with pirates and as for Esquimiling he simply worshipped the great Brazilian Desperado if he had been writing the life and times of Alexander the Great Julius Caesar or Mr Gladstone he could not have been more enthusiastic in his praises and as in the Arabian Nights the rock is described as the greatest of birds for this rock was the greatest of pirates but it was not only in the mind of the historian that rock now became famous the better he became known the more general was the fear and respect felt for him and we are told that the mothers of the islands used to put their children to sleep by threatening them with the terrible rock if they did not close their eyes this story however I regard with a great deal of doubt it has been told of Saladin and many other wicked and famous men who frighten a child into going to sleep if I found it necessary to make a youngster take a nap I should say nothing of the condition of affairs in Cuba or of the persecutions of the Armenians this renowned pirate from Brazil must have been a terrible fellow to look at he was strong and brawny his face was short and very wide with high cheekbones and his expression probably resembled that of a pug dog his eyebrows were enormously large and bushy and from under them mundane surroundings he was not a man whose spirit could be quelled by looking him steadfastly in the eye it was his custom in the daytime to walk about carrying a drawn cutlass resting easily upon his arm edge up very much as a fine gentleman carries his high silk hat and anyone who should impertinently stare or endeavor to quell his high spirits in any other way would probably have felt the edge of that cutlass descending rapidly through his physical organism he was a man who insisted upon being obeyed and if any one of his crew behaved improperly or was even found idle this strict and inexorable master would cut him down where he stood but although he was so strict in exacting during the business sessions of his piratical year by which I mean when he was cruising around after prizes he was very much more disagreeable when he was taking a vacation on his return to Jamaica after one of his expeditions it was his habit to give himself some relaxation after the hardships and dangers through which he had passed and on such occasions it was a great comfort to Rock to get himself thoroughly drunk with his cutlass waving high in the air he would rush out into the street and take a whack at every one whom he met as far as was possible the citizens allowed him to have the street to himself and it was not at all likely that his visits to Jamaica were looked forward to with any eager anticipations Rock it may be said was not only a bloody pirate but a blooded one he was thoroughbred from the time he had been able to assert his individuality he had been a pirate and there was no reason to suppose that he would ever reform himself into anything else there were no extenuating circumstances in his case in his nature there was no alloy nor moderation nor forbearance the appreciative Esquimiling who might be called the Boswell of the Buccaneers could never have met his hero Rock when that bushy bearded pirate was a muck in the streets but if he had it is not probable that his book would have been written he assures us that when Rock was not drunk he was esteemed but at the same time feared but there are various ways of gaining esteem and Rock's method certainly succeeded very well in the case of his literary associate as we have seen the hatred of the Spaniards by the Buccaneers began very early in the settlement of the West Indies and in fact it is very likely that the Spaniards there would never have been any Buccaneers but in all the instances of ferocious enmity towards the Spaniards there has been nothing to equal the feelings of Rock the Brazilian upon that subject his dislike to everything Spanish arose he declared from cruelties which had been practiced upon his parents by the people of that nation and his main principle of action throughout all his piratical career seemed to have been that there was nothing too bad for a Spaniard the objective of his life was to wage bitter war against Spanish ships and Spanish settlements he seldom gave any quarter to his prisoners and would often subject them to horrible tortures in order to make them tell where he could find the things he wanted there is nothing horrible that has ever been written or told about the Buccaneer life which could not have been told about Rock the Brazilian he was a typical pirate Rock was very successful in his enterprises and took a great deal of valuable merchandise to Jamaica Rock's crew were always rich men when they went on shore they did not remain in that condition very long the Buccaneers of that day were all very extravagant and moreover they were great gamblers and it was not uncommon for them to lose everything they possessed before they had been on shore a week then there was nothing for them to do but go on board their vessels and put out to sea in search of some fresh prize so far Rock's career had been very much like that of many other companions of the coast differing from them only in respect to intensity and force but he was a clever man with ideas and was able to adapt himself to circumstances he was cruising about Campeche without seeing any craft that was worth capturing when he thought that it would be very well for him to go out on a sort of marine scouting expedition and find out whether or not there were any Spanish vessels in the bay which were well laden and which were likely to soon come out so with a small boat filled with some of his trusty men he went quietly into the port to see what he could discover if he had had Esquimaling with him and had sent that mild-mannered observer into the harbor to investigate into the state of affairs and come back with a report it would have been a great deal better for the pirate captain but he chose to go himself and he came to grief no sooner did the people on the ships lying in the harbor behold a boat approaching with a big-browed, broad-jawed mariner sitting in the stern and with a good many more broad-backed mariners than were necessary pulling at the oars than they gave the alarm the well-known pirate was recognized and it was not long before he was captured Rock must have had a great deal of confidence in his own powers or perhaps he relied somewhat upon the fear which his very presence evoked but he made a mistake this time he had run into the lion's jaw and the lion had closed his teeth upon him when the pirate captain and his companions were brought before the governor there was no pretense of putting them to trial buccaneers were outlawed by the Spanish and were considered as wild beasts to be killed without mercy wherever caught consequently Rock and his men were thrown into a dungeon and condemned to be executed if however the Spanish governor had known what was good for himself he would have had them killed that night during the time that preparations were going on for making examples of these impertinent pirates who had dared to enter the port of Campichi Rock was racking his brains to find some method of getting out of the terrible scrape into which he had fallen this was a branch of the business in which a capable pirate was obliged to be proficient if he could not get himself out of scrapes he could not expect to be successful in this case there was no chance of cutting down sentinels or jumping overboard with a couple of wine jars for a life preserver or of doing any of those ordinary things which pirates were in the habit of doing when escaping from their captors Rock and his men were in a dungeon on land inside of a fortress and if they had escaped from this they would find themselves unarmed in the midst of a body of Spanish soldiers their stout arms and their stout hearts were of no use to them now and they were obliged to depend upon their wits if they had any Rock had plenty of wit and he used it well there was a slave probably not a negro nor a native but most likely some European who had been made prisoner to begin to bring him food and drink and by the means of this man the pirate hoped to play a trick upon the governor he promised the slave that if he would help him and he told him it would be very easy to do so he would give him money enough to buy his freedom and return to his friends and this of course was a great inducement to the poor fellow who may have been an Englishman or a Frenchman in good circumstances at home the slave agreed to the proposals and the first thing he did was to bring some writing materials to Rock whereupon began the composition of a letter upon which he based all his hopes of life and freedom when he was coming into the bay Rock had noticed a large French vessel that was lying at some distance from the town and he wrote his letter as if it had come from the captain of this ship in the character of this French captain he addressed his letter to the governor of the town and in it he stated that he had understood that certain companions of the coast for whom he had great sympathy for the French and the Buccaneers had been captured by the governor who, he heard, had threatened to execute them then the French captain by the hand of Rock went on to say that if any harm should come to these brave men who had been taken and imprisoned when they were doing no harm to anybody he would swear in his most solemn manner that never for the rest of his life would he give quarter to any Spaniard who might fall into his hand and he moreover threatened that any kind of vengeance which should become possible for the Buccaneers and the French united to inflict upon the Spanish ships or upon the town of Campici should be taken as soon as possible after he should hear of any injury that might be inflicted upon the unfortunate men who were then lying imprisoned in the fortress when the slave came back to Rock the letter was given to him with very particular directions as to what he was to do with it he was to disguise himself as much as possible so that he should not be recognized by the people of the place to make his way out of the town and early in the morning he was to return as if he had been walking along the shore of the harbor when he was to state that he had been put on shore from the French vessel in the offing with the letter which he was to present to the governor the slave performed his part of the business very well the next day Wetton bedraggled from making his way through the weeds and mud of the coast he presented himself at the fortress with his letter and when he was allowed to take it to the governor no one suspected that he was a person employed about the place having fulfilled his mission he departed and when seen again he was the same servant whose business it was to carry food to the prisoners the governor read the letter with a disquieted mind he knew that the French ship which was lying outside the harbor was a powerful vessel and he did not like French ships anyway the town had once been taken and very badly treated by a little fleet of French and English buccaneers and he was very anxious that nothing of the kind should happen again there was no great Spanish force in the harbor at that time and he did not know how many buccaneering vessels might be able to gather together in the bay if it should become known that the great pirate rock had been put to death in Campeche it was an unusual thing for a prisoner to have such powerful friends so nearby and the governor took rock's case into most earnest consideration a few hours reflection was sufficient to convince him that it would be very unsafe to danger his prize as the pirate rock and he determined to get rid of him as soon as possible he felt himself in the position of a man who has stolen a baby bear and who hears the roar of an approaching parent through the woods to throw away the cub and walk off as though he had no idea there were any bears in that forest would be the inclination of a man so situated and to get rid of the great pirate without provoking the vengeance of his friends was the natural inclination of the governor now rock and his men were treated well and having been brought before the governor were told that in consequence of their having committed no overt act of disorder they would be set at liberty and shipped to England upon the single condition that they would abandon piracy and agree to become quiet citizens in whatever respectable vocation they might select to these terms rock and his men agreed without argument they declared that they would retire from the buccaneering business and that nothing would suit them better than to return to the ways of civilization and virtue there was a ship about to depart for Spain and on this the governor gave rock and his men free passage to the other side of the ocean there is no doubt that our buccaneers would have much preferred to have been put on board the French vessel but as the Spanish governor had started his prisoners on the road to reform he did not wish to throw them into the way of temptation by allowing them to associate with such wicked companions as Frenchmen and rock made no suggestion of the kind knowing very well how greatly astonished the French captain would be if the governor were to communicate with him on the subject on the voyage to Spain rock was on his good behavior and he was a man who knew how to behave very well when it was absolutely necessary no doubt there must have been many dull days on board ship when he would have been delighted to gamble, to get drunk and to run amok up and down the deck but he carefully abstained from all these recreations and showed himself to be such an able-bodied and willing sailor that the captain allowed him to serve as one of the crew rock knew how to do a great many things not only could he murder and rob but he knew how to turn an honest penny when there was no other way of filling his purse he had learned among the Indians how to shoot fish with bow and arrows and on this voyage across the Atlantic he occupied all his spare time in sitting in the rigging and shooting the fish which disported themselves about the vessel these fish he sold to the officers and we are told that in this way he earned no less than 500 crowns perhaps that many dollars if this account is true fish must have been very costly in those days but it showed plainly that if rock had desired to get into an honest business he would have found fish shooting a profitable occupation in every way rock behaved so well that for his sake all his men were treated kindly and allowed many privileges but when this party of reformed pirates reached Bane and were allowed to go where they pleased they thought no more of the owls they had taken to abandon piracy then they thought of the owls which they had been in the habit of throwing right and left when they had been strolling about on the island of Jamaica they had no ship and not enough money to buy one but as soon as they could manage it they sailed back to the West Indies and eventually found themselves in Jamaica as bold and as bloody buccaneers as ever they had been not only did rock cast from him every thought of reformation and a respectable life but he determined to begin the business of piracy at a scale than ever before he made a compact with an old French buccaneer named Tributor and with a large company of buccaneers he actually set out to take a town having lost everything he possessed and having passed such a long time without any employment more profitable than that of shooting fish with a bow and arrows our doughty pirate now desired to make a grand strike and if he could take a town and pillage it of everything valuable it contained he would make a very good fortune in a very short time and might retire if he chose from the active practice of his profession the town which rock and tributor determined to attack was Merida in Yucatan and although this was a bold and rash undertaking the two pirates were bold and rash enough for anything rock had been a prisoner in Merida and on account of his knowledge of the town he believed that he and his followers could land upon the coast and then quietly advance upon the town without their approach being discovered if they could do this it would be an easy matter to rush upon the unsuspecting garrison and having annihilated these make themselves masters of the town but their plans did not work very well they were discovered by some Indians after they had landed who hurried to Merida and gave notice of the approach of the buccaneers consequently when rock and his companions reached the town they found the garrison prepared for them cannons loaded and all the approaches guarded still the pirates did not hesitate they advanced fiercely to the attack they were accustomed to do when they were boarding a Spanish vessel but they soon found that fighting on land was very different from fighting at sea in a marine combat it is seldom that a party of borders is attacked in the rear by the enemy although on land such methods of warfare may always be expected but rock and tributor did not expect anything of the kind and they were therefore greatly dismayed when a party of horsemen from the town who had made a wide detour through the woods suddenly charged upon their rear between the guns of the garrison and the sabers of the horsemen the buccaneers had a very hard time and it was not long before they were completely defeated tributor and a great many of the pirates were killed or taken and rock the Brazilian had a terrible fall this most memorable fall occurred in the estimation of John Esquamealing who knew all about the attack on Merida and who wrote the account of it but he had never expected to be called upon to record that his great hero rocked the Brazilian saved his life after the utter defeat of himself and his companions by ignominiously running away the loyal chronicler had his firm belief in the absolute inability of his hero to fly from danger as was shown by the Scottish Douglas when he stood his back against a mass of stone and invited his enemies to come one, come all the bushy-browed pirate of the drawn Cutlass had so often expressed his contempt for a soldier who would even surrender to say nothing of running away that Esquamealing could scarcely believe that rock had retreated from his enemies, deserted his friends and turned his back upon the principles which he had always so truculently proclaimed but this downfall of a hero simply shows that Esquamealing although he was a member of the paratical body and was proud to consider himself a buccaneer did not understand the true nature of a pirate under the brutality, the cruelty the dishonesty and the recklessness of the sea robbers of those days there was nearly always meanness and cowardice rock as we have said in the beginning of this sketch was a typical pirate under certain circumstances he showed himself to have all those brave and savage qualities which Esquamealing esteemed and revered and under other circumstances he showed those other qualities which Esquamealing despised but which are necessary to make up the true character of a pirate the historian John seems to have been very much cut up by the manner in which his favourite hero had rounded off his piratical career and after that he entirely dropped rock from his chronicles this out and out pirate was afterwards living in Jamaica and probably engaged in new enterprises but Esquamealing would have nothing more to do with him nor with the history of his deeds end of this sketch