Guarding the Port of the Mississippi beside the Buccaneer Pilot, Lawrence de Graaf—A Queer Flag at the Mast
THEBadinewas the name of a ship dancing over the Atlantic to her port at Santo Domingo of the West Indies. Behind her came her sister ship, theMarine, a small frigate. In their wake, wavering gull-like in the sunshine, sailed a couple of store vessels.
The commander of the fleet was the Sieur de Iberville, a Canadian, lately the hero of the battle of Hudson Bay. With the sweep and dash of some North Sea Viking, he had plunged with his ship, thePelican, into the frost and fog of that Arctic harbor. He fell upon those ancient rivals of the French, the English traders, and took them by surprise. To their man-of-war he gave a slashing fight and sank it. Two consort ships were captured. Fort Nelson could not hold out against his impetuous onslaught. It was taken and renamed Fort Bourbon.
For this maritime conquest France hailed him as a brilliant genius. The court fêted and idolized him. The king gave him a patent, two hundred colonists, and supplies enough to found a colony at the mouth of the Great River.
The first fleet sent from the mother country to the sea entrance of the Mississippi had over-sailed the estuary and had been wrecked upon the coast of Texas. The brave La Salle, leader of the expedition, had perished tragically while going back overland to search for what was called his "fatal river."
The Sieur de Iberville's fleet had crossed the ocean safely. The decks of theBadineandMarinewere crowded with folks in their best array. Land had been sighted. They longed for a view of that New World which was to be their home.
One of the commander's retinue, an adventurer of France, Anthony Auguelle, the Picard du Gay, set his scarlet heels upon the boards where his buckles glittered finely. His hair was parted in the middle and hung in heavy curls on his shoulders. In those days he who had good hair wore it thus; he who had it not bought a wig and achieved the same effect. A plumed hat adorned the curls. This was the fashion of that Paris Anthony had so lately quitted for the Spanish Main. His velvet coat which concealed a shirt of mail, his laces and ruffles, his kneebreeches and sword were exactly as they should be. He was proud of himself.
Yet all of this elegance was forgotten when the lookout called: "A sail! A sail!"
The colonists strained their eyes on the horizon where one by one each gradually made out three low-lying craft of speed, sloops of ten guns each. They flew no flag. But when upon closer approach the pilot of theBadinehailed them with some cabalistic word, they set up such a shout as none of the listeners had ever heard. As they passed at quarters perilously close the dullest eye could see—all ready to raise as it lay at the foot of the mast in the foremost boat—the black flag of piracy!
On theBadineand theMarineand on both the other ships every gun was manned, every soldier stood in readiness. But the sloops gave them a cheer and a great laugh. Nothing else!
The officers looked to the Sieur de Iberville for explanation. He looked to his pilot. Now this pilot's name was Lawrence de Graaf and he was a buccaneer upon occasion. Every one on board knew that. But a ship must have a pilot, even though he be a person with a history. And a buccaneer is to a pirate as a tadpole to a frog. Until he is fully developed he is more interesting than repulsive. So de Graaf answered, quite simply, "They wait for bigger game."
After an uneasy interval of suspense andguessing they found that he was right, for they saw a far-away dot which on coming nearer and nearer proved to be that most magnificent pageant of the coral seas, a Spanish galleon with all sail spread.
As this splendid treasure ship went past them on the wings of the trade wind theBadineshouted a warning to her, "Beware the sloops!"
The other ships from France repeated the hail, "Beware the sloops!" She dipped an ensign in a salute of thanks. How gallant she was!
"Shall we turn about and go to her assistance?" asked the Sieur de Bienville, younger brother to the commandant. This was his first sight of pirates, and he was as full of fight as a cockerel.
The Sieur de Iberville shook his head. "The sloops are Spanish, the galleon is Spanish, too; they might combine against us and amuse themselves by making us walk Spanish before they fought it out between them."
"Will there be pirates at the mouth of the Mississippi?" queried de Bienville, hopefully.
"If we begin a successful colony they will raid it. All good towns will be looted. You will have your fill of defending the weak in days to come. When you grow too strong to be robbed you can then buy of the sea-rovers all the stuff they have taken from some one else."
"And you won't stop now to interfere inSpanish family quarrels?" asked Anthony in a tone filled with regret.
The Sieur de Iberville shook his head, and the fleet went on to anchor at Cape Haytien. At that place they met theLa Françoise, a fifty-gun war-ship, sent to join them and to act as escort past the lanes of piracy.
By de Graaf's advice they stopped also at the island of Tortugas, where they could get a stock of meat much cheaper than at Santo Domingo. Cut prices were possible, for the men of Tortugas stole the cattle from the planters of Santo Domingo. They dried the meat by a process called buchanning. While fitting out any ship with meat these buchanners, or buccaneers, examined it to see whether it was armed or not and whether it was worth a chase.
The Sieur de Iberville's fleet was not afraid of them. From the superior height of the quarter-deck, and the elevated sense of clean mind, decent body, and elegant clothes, Anthony looked down upon the unkempt men who loaded the meat.
These fellows had rough hair braided into queues tied back with bandanas. Their chests and arms and feet were bare. Bright sashes bound round their rags held pistols of every size and shape. Wherever a knife could be stuck, behind ears, in pockets, up trousers legs, there it gleamed. When one of them carried a bladebetween his teeth how reckless he looked! How any man could degrade himself to the level of one of these foul robbers Anthony could not imagine.
One yellow-fanged beef-handler had a scar across his mouth from some blow which had knocked out his lower front teeth. He was whistling through this handy opening a curiously wild and melodious air. Leaning over the rail, Anthony puckered his lips around the impish gap in his own handsome teeth and repeated the tune with an echo's mockery.
The man glanced up. If he had not fancied Anthony's look it was an even chance that he had gone black with hate and thrown a knife. Like most people at whom Anthony smiled he softened into friendliness. "Ha, comrade," he called, for the ship was moving out, "we will meet again. How do they call you?" His words were English.
Tickled at making the acquaintance of a buccaneer so easily, Anthony replied in French: "I am the Picard du Gay at your service. Thank you for the tune."
"Good-by, du Gay, good-by!"
"Good-by, brother, good-by," and Anthony laughed as he waved his hand.
All this looked like playing with fire to the Sieur de Bienville. He was young; much younger than Anthony now was. But Anthony stilllooked so boyish and was so fresh at heart that the two had become cronies on the long voyage. With one mind they now fell to talking of the Gulf pirates. What could they do if their colony was attacked and the skull and cross-bones flaunted in their faces?
They were therefore much dismayed, upon reaching Pensacola, to find that they themselves were objects of suspicion. Their fleet was forbidden to enter the harbor. Pensacola was a Spanish colony. The officers of the port were polite but firm in their refusal. Behind them lay a Spanish war-ship even bigger than theLa Françoise. The French fleet moved on.
De Bienville fumed, "They treat us as though we were robbers." But after he had followed de Graaf's significant look at the fifty guns of their escort, he demanded of his brother, "If our war-ship had been the best armed would you have gone in by force?" and when the commandant did not reply he and Anthony put their heads together and went over the whole matter again. "I think our patent allows us to use our judgment about how to hold andextendthe king's dominion." And he made round eyes as who should ask, "How far can a man go in the pursuit of such duties?"
Westward then moved these French ships. Cautiously they wound among the islands whichmake a barrier between the rough waters of the Gulf and the northern coast. In the quieter channel thus formed they came to anchor and chose Ship's Island for their first stopping-place. Here the war-ship left them: here the colonists built the first huts to shelter themselves.
The mouth of the Mississippi must be near at hand, but they did not know exactly where. Not wishing to risk his all as the unfortunate La Salle had done, the Sieur de Iberville left most of his colonists and his ocean-going ships at the island. Taking forty-eight men in two open boats he rowed westward still further along the coast.
The sky and sea were as blue as blue could be. The beach sands and the clouds were white as spray. The live-oaks and the pines marked the mainland with lines of beauty. In the channel porpoises at play stood up on their tails to make bows of welcome inviting the Frenchmen to follow them.
It was a pleasant thing to be sweeping along through this balmy air. Anthony's barytone began to mark the time for the oarsmen with the tune he had picked up at Tortugas. The new melody seemed oddly suited to the time and place.
"Teach him the words," cried de Graaf, and the sailors who knew a little of that difficult language called English were soon singing inchorus with Anthony the words of the song once so popular:
"My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed, as I sailed,My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed.God's laws I did forbid and right wickedly I didAs I sailed!"
"My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed, as I sailed,My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed.God's laws I did forbid and right wickedly I didAs I sailed!"
"My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed, as I sailed,My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed.God's laws I did forbid and right wickedly I didAs I sailed!"
For two rollicking days they rang endless changes on this fascinating theme. On the third a storm overtook them. Not daring to put into the waters of the Gulf, the Sieur de Iberville decided to risk landing on the rocky coast.
Nobody, then, knew how big the world was. Longitude was not understood. Sailors had to guess at distances east and west. La Salle had thus gone past the Mississippi's mouth whose latitude he knew. The accident had brought his colony to a miserable end at the unfavorable place where they finally landed.
By a lucky chance, since there was no way to reckon the right spot, the Sieur de Iberville went straight into the Great River half hidden behind the outlying palisades. He saved his boats: he found his port. The place of landing he named Mardi Gras for the day, Tuesday, March 3, 1699.
It was a good beginning. After that all the adventurers were eager to go upon exploring parties, to make friends with the Indians, and tobuild a town. The colonists were ready to set their homes almost any place upon the borders of this summer sea. So the city of the port of the Great River was begun, settled, and stockaded as the Sieur La Salle had prophesied that some day it would be.
It was better not to have all his resources in one place to tempt a buccaneer attack, and so Sieur de Iberville built another fort on Ship Island and one at Biloxi inlet on the north coast.
Ship's Island was an ideal secret refuge, and when it was abandoned by the French colonists for larger quarters on shore it became a rendezvous for pirates of the Gulf. Its silver sand has buried many treasures of gold and gems and it has been dyed with the blood of captured crews. To-day a government station stands upon it and its wicked years are almost forgotten by the honest boats with respectable mariners now sailing tamely past it.
On the bay at Biloxi, the Sieur de Iberville's bastioned fort held a dozen cannon. Later still another fort was built in Mobile Bay. All were intended to guard the coming city at the mouth of the Mississippi and her immense domain. Anthony was one of many to work on these defenses against sea-robbers, or Indians, or rival nations.
One day, while he and the boyish de Bienville and a few armed followers were floating downthe Mississippi from one of their numerous scouting trips, what should they see but a full-rigged ship coming to meet them.
Their surprise was mixed with fear. For the ship was English and she carried sixteen guns. And, as they presently learned, a sister ship quite as strong lay off the mouth of the Great River. What if this commander turned those guns on their tiny new town? What if he captured these Frenchmen and took this smaller open boat with its four little cannon?
The stripling de Bienville was a master of men. He promised his crew that they should not be taken. Then he sent a friendly hail to the ruddy captain of the English and beamed confidently at his fellows when it was politely returned. Anthony, who loved courtesy, forgot how scared he was as he listened to the formal speech in which the two leaders conversed.
They used English, but he was able to understand that the Englishman was Captain Barr and that he had come at the command of his king and queen to take possession of the Mississippi!
Anthony's heart sank like lead. After all that Frenchmen had done and suffered to explore this river valley it seemed dreadful to lose it now by so unequal a battle as this would be if their little boat had to fight it out with the English ship. But de Bienville's boyish faceshowed the friendliest interest in the Englishman's plans.
He assured Captain Barr that therewasa Mississippi river. "I amsureof that," he stated positively in his frank young way, "for I've often heard the Indians speak of it. If you continue to sail along the coast line you will surely find some splendid stream.Thisriver, of course, belongs to the French; there is one of our colonies on it; but there are other rivers, enough for all of us. You have our best wishes to take with you as you go in search of a Mississippi foryourempire."
So this English Captain Barr turned his big ship about and, leaving the little French boat in control, sailed away never to return.
Quoth the wise de Bienville: "When we cannot win by force of arms, strategy is the thing. My dear du Gay, as you stood and nodded your head to confirm the stories I told, I have a fancy that you involved yourself in international intrigue. It is just possible that you and I may look like doubtful characters to Captain Barr's superior officers since we pulled a kingdom from his grasp. Men have walked the plank for less than we have done this day!"
Many captains of every nation were watched with suspicion in those days, for the riches of the New World sailing homeward toward the Old were a constant temptation to travelers, andmany privateers became pirates because it was such an easy way to make money. Not only Ship Island, but almost any dot of land would do for a harbor to a band of smugglers or marooners. For a full century after the settlement of its mouth they flourished in the neighboring channels and bayous of the Great River.
All kings were alike to a pirate. He openly defied French, English, and Spanish rule. But when in the time of the War of 1812, "old Andy Jackson" came down to New Orleans to make a stand for democracy against the British red-coats, the smugglers and outlaws of the north coast, those ruffian Baratarians, with their strong sentiment for personal freedom and self-government, offered themselves to him. They were glad to fight for his cause.
Under the notorious Lafitte they came bringing all the ferocity of hand-forged guns and home-made knives and filibustered ammunition. They threw the whole of their buccaneering energy into the cause of the first republic of the continent. In that long struggle, when hope was almost gone, they helped to turn the scale for freedom and were one of the picturesque units who made possible the famous victory of New Orleans.
In de Bienville's time Captain Barr's was the earliest ship to threaten French rights. Whetherit was his turning back which displeased his government into challenging the Sieur de Iberville or whether there were commands from France to strike any rival before she struck them, Anthony as a subordinate couldn't find out, but there came a day when the commandant ordered theBadineand theMarineinto action, and leaving de Bienville behind to look after the colonists, he sailed away to the island of Nevis and, taking it by surprise, captured it without trouble.
St. Christopher also belonged to England, and that the French meant to get on the same cruise. On its coral strand the tiny hamlet of thatched huts, palm grove, brilliant birds, and huge flowers seemed an easy little Noah's ark sort of town to pick up.
But alack-a-day! Its men were all at home. They proved to be, not timid natives under one domineering white man, but a very hornets' nest of recruiting buccaneers. And the Sieur de Iberville's soldiers, for all their vaunted military training, were hard pressed to subdue the town.
Now Anthony was not a soldier. He was attached to the Iberville expedition as an envoy to the Mississippi Indians. But when he saw the need of another sword arm, he hurriedly braided his hair and tied it back out of the way with his kerchief, loosened his collar for more air, rolledup his sleeves, tightened his sash, snatched his pistol, and threw himself against the enemy.
The military formation of the ranks had been broken almost as soon as it touched the shore. The battle was not organized—it was a running fight—each Frenchman against the nearest buccaneer, hand to hand, up and down, back and forth, over the one long street of the toy village. Going at one another like a lot of fiends, they cut and hacked—shot and clubbed—guns were emptied—swords broken—teeth and nails used—any weapon to keep the next man off.
The buccaneers were disappearing. Victory seemed to be with the French. They paused for breath. Through the lull came the alarm: "The ship! The ship!"
The English had run for the harbor by a back way and were attacking the flag-ship! They scaled the swinging ladders. Repelling the owners like boarders, the rogues forced the French to fight madly for their ownBadine. If the buccaneers could once get a ship like this they could sail the Gulf and river as full-fledged pirates. What a truly fine joke it would be if the men of St. Christopher should turn the French ship against the French port! It was one of the tricks of the Spanish Main to do such things.
Anthony fought like a man of twice his size. He struggled for his own life, for the life of theMississippi port, for the life of New France. He banged away as though Joliet, Accau, Tonty, and La Salle were at his back. His hand never faltered. Over the rail into the bow he went headlong. A man was at the mast. The rascal all ready to pull down the French colors whipped out his own pennant—a white skull and cross-bones on a black field.
Anthony flung against him with all the force of desperation. Together they went down and rolled over and over the swaying deck; with the buccaneer on top they bumped into the rail.
One great hand with claws like knives had already torn Anthony's shoulder into slits; the other fastened on his throat; it was ready to tighten its strangle-hold. The vanquished one glared wildly at his would-be murderer. Then he began to laugh with his eyes. Who knew better than Anthony how to make merry with one glance? The buccaneer stared in wonder. His hold relaxed. Anthony's lips parted in as friendly a smile as ever a man could give. His assailant hung over him in perplexity. Anthony puckered his lips and whistled one bar. The buccaneer replied with that toothless grin of far-away Tortugas. Recognition had come to him. "Ho, brother," he laughed, "ho, ho! I didn't know ye."
ANTHONY FLUNG AGAINST HIM WITH ALL THE FORCE OF DESPERATIONANTHONY FLUNG AGAINST HIM WITH ALL THE FORCE OF DESPERATION
ANTHONY FLUNG AGAINST HIM WITH ALL THE FORCE OF DESPERATION
Anthony began to chuckle contagiously, flapped his old friend on the back and fell to laughing heartily and long. The fearsome strangler, like a huge bear diverted by a taste of honey, forgot the fight now raging in the stern and joined in a hoarse "Ha, ha, ha!"
Who can tell where a battle turns? Suppose the French flag had come down and the black flag had gone up! The sight of such an exchange would have encouraged the pirates to fiercer efforts. England might have wrested this little fleet from France. The control of the Mississippi would then have passed to another king.
With their leader so cunningly beguiled by Anthony that he was quite out of their sight and forgetting to strike where his hand was needed most, the pirates weakened. The desperate Frenchmen succeeded in pitching them into the sea. Dejected they swam ashore.
The Sieur de Iberville towered above them as they crawled upon the reef. His pistols were ready, his powder dry, all the advantage was on his side. He demanded their surrender.
They acknowledged his victory and gave up St. Christopher.
Anthony's sensitive ears had followed this last part of the foray as he sat huddled in the bow. The noisy laugher did not bother to notice anything. Anthony took a peep and pointed out to his friend that the buccaneers were already in irons. He whispered: "I don't want our soldiers to captureyou. Take this plank,drop over the side, float further down the beach and get away in safety."
"Keep the flag," mumbled the buccaneer; "show it to de Graaf. If ever you steal this ship I'll join your crew," and he disappeared over the rail.
When theBadinefinally put out into the Gulf Anthony went to de Iberville's cabin to report. There he confronted himself in the mirror of its fine furnishings. His rough hair was braided into a queue and tied back with a bandana. His naked chest and arms were dirty, his clothes were in rags bound round with a sash. His stockings had been ripped away. His feet were bare. He looked at the uncouth figure that he presented. Where had he seen such another? His smile was gone. His voice was dull with misery.
"Tell me," he demanded, "what I am. Am I a patriot or am I a pirate?" With a pair of dreadful blood-stained hands he unfurled the black flag of such shocking design.
The Sieur de Iberville was also much disheveled, but he answered with the dignity of a victor. "The courts of all civilized nations are now busy with the problem: 'When is it right for men to fight on the high seas?' and until that is decided, if it ever can be, you and I must obey our superior officers." He laid a soothing hand on Anthony's wounded shoulder. "We have beenin very bad company this morning, du Gay. Lest we get into worse, let me advise you to tie a piece of lead in that captured rag and drop it overboard. Many a man no worse than you and I has been hanged because he carried the Jolly Roger!"