XXXVIA. D. 1670THE BUCCANEERS
Itis only a couple of centuries since Spain was the greatest nation on earth, with the Atlantic for her duck pond, the American continents for her back yard, and a notice up to warn away the English, “No dogs admitted.”
England was a little power then, Charles II had to come running when the French king whistled, and we were so weak that the Dutch burned our fleet in London River. Every year a Spanish fleet came from the West Indies to Cadiz, laden deep with gold, silver, gems, spices and all sorts of precious merchandise.
Much as our sailors hated to see all that treasure wasted on Spaniards, England had to keep the peace with Spain, because Charles II had his crown jewels in pawn and no money for such luxuries as war. The Spanish envoy would come to him making doleful lamentations about our naughty sailors, who, in the far Indies, had insolently stolen a galleon or sacked a town. Charles, with his mouth watering at such a tale of loot, would be inexpressibly shocked. The “lewd French” must have done this, or the “pernicious Dutch,” but not our woolly lambs—our innocent mariners.
The buccaneers of the West Indies were of manynations besides the British, and they were not quite pirates. For instance, they would scorn to seize a good Protestant shipload of salt fish, but always attacked the papist who flaunted golden galleons before the nose of the poor. They were serious-minded Protestants with strong views on doctrine, and only made their pious excursions to seize the goods of the unrighteous. Their opinions were so sound on all really important points of dogmatic theology that they could allow themselves a little indulgence in mere rape, sacrilege, arson, robbery and murder, or fry Spaniards in olive oil for concealing the cash box. Then, enriched by such pious exercises, they devoutly spent the whole of their savings on staying drunk for a month.
The first buccaneers sallied out in a small boat and captured a war-ship. From such small beginnings arose a pirate fleet, which, under various leaders, French, Dutch, Portuguese, became a scourge to the Spanish empire overseas. When they had wiped out Spain’s merchant shipping and were short of plunder, they attacked fortified cities, held them to ransom, and burned them for fun, then in chase of the fugitive citizens, put whole colonies to an end by sword and fire.
Naturally only the choicest scoundrels rose to captaincies, and the worst of the lot became admiral. It should thrill the souls of all Welshmen to learn that Henry Morgan gained that bad eminence. He had risen to the command of five hundred cutthroats when he pounced down on Maracaibo Bay in Venezuela. At the entrance stood Fort San Carlos, the place which has lately resisted the attack of a German squadron. Morgan was made of sterner stuff than these Germans,for when the garrison saw him coming, they took to the woods, leaving behind them a lighted fuse at the door of the magazine. Captain Morgan grabbed that fuse himself in time to save his men from a disagreeable hereafter.
Beyond its narrow entrance at Fort San Carlos, the inlet widens to an inland sea, surrounded in those days by Spanish settlements, with the two cities of Gibraltar and Maracaibo. Morgan sacked these towns and chased their flying inhabitants into the mountains. His prisoners, even women and children, were tortured on the rack until they revealed all that they knew of hidden money, and some were burned by inches, starved to death, or crucified.
These pleasures had been continued for five weeks, when a squadron of three heavy war-ships arrived from Spain, and blocked the pirates’ only line of retreat to the sea at Fort San Carlos. Morgan prepared a fire ship, with which he grappled and burned the Spanish admiral. The second ship was wrecked, the third captured by the pirates, and the sailors of the whole squadron were butchered while they drowned. Still Fort San Carlos, now bristling with new guns, had to be dealt with before the pirates could make their escape to the sea. Morgan pretended to attack from the land, so that all the guns were shifted to that side of the fort ready to wipe out his forces. This being done, he got his men on board, and sailed through the channel in perfect safety.
Sir Henry Morgan
Sir Henry Morgan
And yet attacks upon such places as Maracaibo were mere trifling, for the Spaniards held all the wealth of their golden Indies at Panama. This gorgeous city was on the Pacific Ocean, and to reach it, one mustcross the Isthmus of Darien by the route in later times of the Panama railway and the Panama Canal, through the most unwholesome swamps, where to sleep at night in the open was almost sure death from fever. Moreover, the landing place at Chagres was covered by a strong fortress, the route was swarming with Spanish troops and wild savages in their pay, and their destination was a walled city esteemed impregnable.
By way of preparing for his raid, Morgan sent four hundred men who stormed the castle of Chagres, compelling the wretched garrison to jump off a cliff to destruction. The English flag shone from the citadel when Morgan’s fleet arrived. The captain landed one thousand two hundred men and set off up the Chagres River with five boats loaded with artillery, thirty-two canoes and no food. This was a mistake, because the Spaniards had cleared the whole isthmus, driving off the cattle, rooting out the crops, carting away the grain, burning every roof, and leaving nothing for the pirates to live on except the microbes of fever. As the pirates advanced they retreated, luring them on day by day into the heart of the wilderness. The pirates broiled and ate their sea boots, their bandoleers, and certain leather bags. The river being foul with fallen timber, they took to marching. On the sixth day they found a barn full of maize and ate it up, but only on the ninth day had they a decent meal, when, sweating, gasping and swearing, they pounced upon a herd of asses and cows, and fell to roasting flesh on the points of their swords.
On the tenth day they debouched upon a plain before the City of Panama, where the governor awaited with his troops. There were two squadrons of cavalryand four regiments of foot, besides guns, and the pirates heartily wished themselves at home with their mothers. Happily the Spanish governor was too sly, for he had prepared a herd of wild bulls with Indian herders to drive into the pirate ranks, which bulls, in sheer stupidity, rushed his own battalions. Such bulls as tried to fly through the pirate lines were readily shot down, but the rest brought dire confusion. Then began a fierce battle, in which the Spaniards lost six hundred men before they bolted. Afterward through a fearful storm of fire from great artillery, the pirates stormed the city and took possession.
Of course, by this time, the rich galleons had made away to sea with their treasure, and the citizens had carried off everything worth moving, to the woods. Moreover, the pirates were hasty in burning the town, so that the treasures which had been buried in wells or cellars were lost beyond all finding. During four weeks, this splendid capital of the Indies burned, while the people hid in the woods; and the pirates tortured everybody they could lay hands on with fiendish cruelty. Morgan himself, caught a beautiful lady and threw her into a cellar full of filth because she would not love him. Even in their retreat to the Atlantic, the pirates carried off six hundred prisoners, who rent the air with their lamentations, and were not even fed until their ransoms arrived.
Before reaching Chagres, Morgan had every pirate stripped to make sure that all loot was fairly divided. The common pirates were bitterly offended at the dividend of only two hundred pieces of eight per man, but Morgan stole the bulk of the plunder for himself, and returned a millionaire to Jamaica.
Charles II knighted him and made him governor of Jamaica as a reward for robbing the Spaniards. Afterwards his majesty changed his mind, and Morgan died a prisoner in the tower of London as a punishment for the very crime which had been rewarded with a title and a vice-royalty.