When the Chevalier de Fontenay was driven from Tortuga in January 1654, the Spaniards left a small garrison to occupy the fort and prevent further settlements of French and English buccaneers. These troops possessed the island for about eighteen months, but on the approach of the expedition under Penn and Venables were ordered by the Conde de Penalva, President of S. Domingo, to demolish the fort, bury the artillery and other arms, and retire to his aid in Hispaniola.189Some six months later an Englishman, Elias Watts,190with his family and ten or twelve others, came from Jamaica in a shallop, re-settled the island, and raised a battery of four guns upon the ruins of the larger fort previously erected by the French. Watts received a commission for the island from General Brayne, who was then governor of Jamaica, and in a short time gathered about him a colony of about 150, both English and French. Among these new-comers was a "poor distressed gentleman" by the name of James Arundell, formerly a colonel in the Royalist army and now banished from England, who eventually married Watts' daughter and became the head of the colony.
It was while Watts was governor of Tortuga, if we are to believe the Jesuit, Dutertre, that the buccaneers determined to avenge the treachery of the Spaniards to a French vessel in that neighbourhood by plundering the city of St. Jago in Hispaniola. According to this historian, who from the style of the narrative seems to be reporting the words of an eye-witness, the buccaneers, including doubtless both hunters and corsairs, formed a party of 400 men under the leadership of four captains and obtained a commission for the enterprise from the English governor, who was very likely looking forward to a shareof the booty. Compelling the captain of a frigate which had just arrived from Nantes to lend his ship, they embarked in it and in two or three other boats found on the coast for Puerta de Plata, where they landed on Palm Sunday of 1659.191St. Jago, which lay in a pleasant, fertile plain some fifteen or twenty leagues in the interior of Hispaniola, they approached through the woods on the night of Holy Wednesday, entered before daybreak, and surprised the governor in his bed. The buccaneers told him to prepare to die, whereupon he fell on his knees and prayed to such effect that they finally offered him his life for a ransom of 60,000 pieces of eight. They pillaged for twenty-four hours, taking even the bells, ornaments and sacred vessels of the churches, and after refreshing themselves with food and drink, retreated with their plunder and prisoners, including the governor and chief inhabitants. Meanwhile the alarm had been given for ten or twelve leagues round about. Men came in from all directions, and rallying with the inhabitants of the town till they amounted to about 1000 men, marched through the woods by a by-route, got ahead of the buccaneers and attacked them from ambush. The English and French stood their ground in spite of inferior numbers, for they were all good marksmen and every shot told. As the Spaniards persisted, however, they finally threatened to stab the governor and all the other prisoners, whereupon the Spaniards took counsel and retired to their homes. The invaders lost only ten killed and five or six wounded. They tarried on the coast several days waiting for the rest of the promised ransom, but as it failed to arrive they liberated the prisoners and returned to Tortuga, each adventurer receiving 300 crowns as his share of the pillage.192
In the latter part of 1659 a French gentleman, Jérémie Deschamps, seigneur du Rausset, who had been one of the first inhabitants of Tortuga under Levasseur and de Fontenay, repaired to England and had sufficient influence there to obtain an order from the Council of State to Colonel Doyley to give him a commission as governor of Tortuga, with such instructions as Doyley might think requisite.193This same du Rausset, it seems, had received a French commission from Louis XIV. as early as November 1656.194At any rate, he came to Jamaica in 1660 and obtained his commission from Doyley on condition that he held Tortuga in the English interest.195Watts, it seems, had meanwhile learnt that he was to be superseded by a Frenchman, whereupon he embarked with his family and all his goods and sought refuge in New England. About two months later, according to one story, Doyley heard that Deschamps had given a commission to a privateer and committed insolences for which Doyley feared to be called to account. He sent to remonstrate with him, but Deschamps answered that he possessed a French commission and that he had better interest with the powers in England than had the governor of Jamaica. As there were more French than English on the island, Deschamps then proclaimed the King of France and set up the French colours.196Doyley as yet had received no authority from the newly-restored king,Charles II., and hesitated to use any force; but he did give permission to Arundell, Watts' son-in-law, to surprise Deschamps and carry him to Jamaica for trial. Deschamps was absent at the time at Santa Cruz, but Arundell, relying upon the friendship and esteem which the inhabitants had felt for his father-in-law, surprised the governor's nephew and deputy, the Sieur de la Place, and possessed himself of the island. By some mischance or neglect, however, he was disarmed by the French and sent back to Jamaica.197This was not the end of his misfortunes. On the way to Jamaica he and his company were surprised by Spaniards in the bay of Matanzas in Cuba, and carried to Puerto Principe. There, after a month's imprisonment, Arundell and Barth. Cock, his shipmaster, were taken out by negroes into the bush and murdered, and their heads brought into the town.198Deschamps later returned to France because of ill-health, leaving la Place to govern the island in his stead, and when the property of the French Antilles was vested in the new French West India Company in 1664 he was arrested and sent to the Bastille. The cause of his arrest is obscure, but it seems that he had been in correspondence with the English government, to whom he had offered to restore Tortuga on condition of being reimbursed with £6000 sterling. A few days in the Bastille made him think better of his resolution. He ceded his rights to the company for 15,000 livres, and was released from confinement in November.199
The fiasco of Arundell's attempt was not the only effort of the English to recover the island. In answer to a memorial presented by Lord Windsor before his departure for Jamaica, an Order in Council was delivered to him inFebruary 1662, empowering him to use his utmost endeavours to reduce Tortuga and its governor to obedience.200The matter was taken up by the Jamaican Council in September, shortly after Windsor's arrival;201and on 16th December an order was issued by deputy-governor Lyttleton to Captain Robert Munden of the "Charles" frigate for the transportation of Colonel Samuel Barry and Captain Langford to Tortuga, where Munden was to receive orders for reducing the island.202The design miscarried again, however, probably because of ill-blood between Barry and Munden. Clement de Plenneville, who accompanied Barry, writes that "the expedition failed through treachery";203and Beeston says in his Journal that Barry, approaching Tortuga on 30th January, found the French armed and ready to oppose him, whereupon he ordered Captain Munden to fire. Munden however refused, sailed away to Corydon in Hispaniola, where he put Barry and his men on shore, and then "went away about his merchandize."204Barry made his way in a sloop to Jamaica where he arrived on 1st March. Langford, however, was sent to Petit-Goave, an island about the size of Tortuga in thecul-de-sacat the western end of Hispaniola, where he was chosen governor by the inhabitants and raised the first English standard. Petit-Goave had been frequented by buccaneers since 1659, and after d'Ogeron succeededdu Rausset as governor for the French in those regions, it became with Tortuga one of their chief resorts. In the latter part of 1664 we find Langford in England petitioning the king for a commission as governor of Tortuga and the coast of Hispaniola, and for two ships to go and seize the smaller island.205Such a design, however, with the direct sanction and aid of the English government, might have endangered a rupture with France. Charles preferred to leave such irregular warfare to his governor in Jamaica, whom he could support or disown as best suited the exigencies of the moment. Langford, moreover, seems not to have made a brilliant success of his short stay at Petit-Goave, and was probably distrusted by the authorities both in England and in the West Indies. When Modyford came as governor to Jamaica, the possibility of recovering Tortuga was still discussed, but no effort to effect it was ever made again.
Footnote 189:(return)Dutertre, t. iii. p. 126; Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499.On 26th February 1656 there arrived at Jamaica a small vessel the master of which, touching at Tortuga, had found upon the deserted island two papers, one in Spanish, the other in "sorrie English" (Thurloe Papers, IV. p. 601). These papers were copies of a proclamation forbidding settlement on the island, and the English paper (Rawl. MSS., A. 29, f. 500) is printed in Firth's "Venables" as follows:—"The Captane and Sarginge Mager Don Baltearsor Calderon and Spenoso, Nopte to the President that is now in the sity of Santo-domingo, and Captane of the gones of the sitye, and Governor and Lord Mare of this Island, and stranch of this Lland of Tortogo, and Chefe Comander of all for the Khinge of Spaine."Yoo moust understand that all pepell what soever that shall com to this Iland of the Khinge of Spaine Catholok wich is name is Don Pilep the Ostere the forth of this name, that with his harmes he hath put of Feleminge and French men and Englesh with lefee heare from the yeare of 1630 tell the yeare of thurty fouer and tell the yeare of fifte fouer in wich the Kinge of Spane uesenge all curtyse and given good quartell to all that was upon this Iland, after that came and with oute Recepet upon this Iland knowinge that the Kinge of Spane had planted upon it and fortified in the name of the Kinge came the forth time the 15th of Augost the last yeare French and Fleminges to govern this Iland the same Governeore that was heare befor his name was Themeleon hot man De founttana gentleman of the ourder of Guresalem for to take this Iland put if fources by se and land and forsed us to beate him oute of this place with a greate dale of shame, and be caues yoo shall take notes that wee have puelld doune the Casill and carid all the gonenes and have puelld doune all the houes and have lefte no thinge, the same Captane and Sargint-mager in the name of the Kinge wich God blesh hath given yoo notis that what souer nason souer that shall com to live upon this Iland that thare shall not a man mother or children cape of the sorde, thare fore I give notiss to all pepell that they shall have a care with out anye more notis for this is the order of the Kinge and with out fall you will not want yooer Pamente and this is the furst and second and thorde time, and this whe leave heare for them that comes hear to take notis, that when wee com upon you, you shall not pleate that you dod not know is riten the 25 of August 1656."Baltesar Calderon y EspinosaPor Mandado de Senor Gouor.Pedro Francode riva deney xasuss.
Dutertre, t. iii. p. 126; Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499.
On 26th February 1656 there arrived at Jamaica a small vessel the master of which, touching at Tortuga, had found upon the deserted island two papers, one in Spanish, the other in "sorrie English" (Thurloe Papers, IV. p. 601). These papers were copies of a proclamation forbidding settlement on the island, and the English paper (Rawl. MSS., A. 29, f. 500) is printed in Firth's "Venables" as follows:—
"The Captane and Sarginge Mager Don Baltearsor Calderon and Spenoso, Nopte to the President that is now in the sity of Santo-domingo, and Captane of the gones of the sitye, and Governor and Lord Mare of this Island, and stranch of this Lland of Tortogo, and Chefe Comander of all for the Khinge of Spaine.
"Yoo moust understand that all pepell what soever that shall com to this Iland of the Khinge of Spaine Catholok wich is name is Don Pilep the Ostere the forth of this name, that with his harmes he hath put of Feleminge and French men and Englesh with lefee heare from the yeare of 1630 tell the yeare of thurty fouer and tell the yeare of fifte fouer in wich the Kinge of Spane uesenge all curtyse and given good quartell to all that was upon this Iland, after that came and with oute Recepet upon this Iland knowinge that the Kinge of Spane had planted upon it and fortified in the name of the Kinge came the forth time the 15th of Augost the last yeare French and Fleminges to govern this Iland the same Governeore that was heare befor his name was Themeleon hot man De founttana gentleman of the ourder of Guresalem for to take this Iland put if fources by se and land and forsed us to beate him oute of this place with a greate dale of shame, and be caues yoo shall take notes that wee have puelld doune the Casill and carid all the gonenes and have puelld doune all the houes and have lefte no thinge, the same Captane and Sargint-mager in the name of the Kinge wich God blesh hath given yoo notis that what souer nason souer that shall com to live upon this Iland that thare shall not a man mother or children cape of the sorde, thare fore I give notiss to all pepell that they shall have a care with out anye more notis for this is the order of the Kinge and with out fall you will not want yooer Pamente and this is the furst and second and thorde time, and this whe leave heare for them that comes hear to take notis, that when wee com upon you, you shall not pleate that you dod not know is riten the 25 of August 1656."
Baltesar Calderon y EspinosaPor Mandado de Senor Gouor.Pedro Francode riva deney xasuss.
Baltesar Calderon y EspinosaPor Mandado de Senor Gouor.Pedro Francode riva deney xasuss.
Baltesar Calderon y Espinosa
Por Mandado de Senor Gouor.
Pedro Francode riva deney xasuss.
Footnote 190:(return)In Dutertre's account the name is Eliazouard (Elias Ward).
In Dutertre's account the name is Eliazouard (Elias Ward).
Footnote 191:(return)According to a Spanish account of the expedition the date was 1661. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499.
According to a Spanish account of the expedition the date was 1661. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499.
Footnote 192:(return)Dutertre, tom. iii. pp. 130-34.
Dutertre, tom. iii. pp. 130-34.
Footnote 193:(return)Rawl. MSS., A. 347, ff. 31 and 36; S.P. Spain, vol. 47:—Deposition of Sir Charles Lyttleton; Margry,op. cit., p. 281.
Rawl. MSS., A. 347, ff. 31 and 36; S.P. Spain, vol. 47:—Deposition of Sir Charles Lyttleton; Margry,op. cit., p. 281.
Footnote 194:(return)Charlevoix,op. cit., liv. vii. p. 36; Vaissière,op. cit., p. 10.
Charlevoix,op. cit., liv. vii. p. 36; Vaissière,op. cit., p. 10.
Footnote 195:(return)According to Dutertre, Deschamps' commission extended only to the French inhabitants upon Tortuga, the French and English living thereafter under separate governments as at St. Kitts. Dutertre, t. iii. p. 135.
According to Dutertre, Deschamps' commission extended only to the French inhabitants upon Tortuga, the French and English living thereafter under separate governments as at St. Kitts. Dutertre, t. iii. p. 135.
Footnote 196:(return)Rawl. MSS., A. 347, f. 36.According to Dutertre's version, Watts had scarcely forsaken the island when Deschamps arrived in the Road, and found that the French inhabitants had already made themselves masters of the colony and had substituted the French for the English standard. Dutertre, t. iii. p. 136.
Rawl. MSS., A. 347, f. 36.
According to Dutertre's version, Watts had scarcely forsaken the island when Deschamps arrived in the Road, and found that the French inhabitants had already made themselves masters of the colony and had substituted the French for the English standard. Dutertre, t. iii. p. 136.
Footnote 197:(return)Rawl. MSS., A. 347, f. 36.
Rawl. MSS., A. 347, f. 36.
Footnote 198:(return)C.S.P. Colon., 1661-68, No. 648.
C.S.P. Colon., 1661-68, No. 648.
Footnote 199:(return)Dutertre, t. iii. p. 138; Vaissière,op. cit., p. 11, note 2.
Dutertre, t. iii. p. 138; Vaissière,op. cit., p. 11, note 2.
Footnote 200:(return)C.S.P. Colon., 1661-68, No. 233.
C.S.P. Colon., 1661-68, No. 233.
Footnote 201:(return)Ibid., No. 364.
Ibid., No. 364.
Footnote 202:(return)Ibid., No. 390;cf.also No. 474 (1).
Ibid., No. 390;cf.also No. 474 (1).
Footnote 203:(return)Ibid., No. 475.
Ibid., No. 475.
Footnote 204:(return)Beeston's Journal, 1st March 1663.According to Dutertre, some inhabitants of Tortuga ran away to Jamaica and persuaded the governor that they could no longer endure French domination, and that if an armed force was sent, it would find no obstacle in restoring the English king's authority. Accordingly Col. Barry was despatched to receive their allegiance, with orders to use no violence but only to accept their voluntary submission. When Barry landed on Tortuga, however, with no other support than a proclamation and a harangue, the French inhabitants laughed in his face, and he returned to Jamaica in shame and confusion. Dutertre, t. iii. pp. 137-38.
Beeston's Journal, 1st March 1663.
According to Dutertre, some inhabitants of Tortuga ran away to Jamaica and persuaded the governor that they could no longer endure French domination, and that if an armed force was sent, it would find no obstacle in restoring the English king's authority. Accordingly Col. Barry was despatched to receive their allegiance, with orders to use no violence but only to accept their voluntary submission. When Barry landed on Tortuga, however, with no other support than a proclamation and a harangue, the French inhabitants laughed in his face, and he returned to Jamaica in shame and confusion. Dutertre, t. iii. pp. 137-38.
Footnote 205:(return)C.S.P. Colon., 1661-68, Nos. 817-21.
C.S.P. Colon., 1661-68, Nos. 817-21.
On 4th January 1664, the king wrote to Sir Thomas Modyford in Barbadoes that he had chosen him governor of Jamaica.206Modyford, who had lived as a planter in Barbadoes since 1650, had taken a prominent share in the struggles between Parliamentarians and Royalists in the little island. He was a member of the Council, and had been governor for a short time in 1660. His commission and instructions for Jamaica207were carried to the West Indies by Colonel Edward Morgan, who went as Modyford's deputy-governor and landed in Barbadoes on 21st April.208Modyford was instructed, among other things, to prohibit the granting of letters of marque, and particularly to encourage trade and maintain friendly relations with the Spanish dominions. Sir Richard Fanshaw had just been appointed to go to Spain and negotiate a treaty for wider commercial privileges in the Indies, and Charles saw that the daily complaints of violence and depredation done by Jamaican ships on the King of Spain's subjects were scarcely calculated to increase the good-will and compliance of the Spanish Court. Nor had the attempt in the Indies to force a trade upon the Spaniards been brilliantly successful. It was soon evident that another course of action was demanded. Sir Thomas Modyford seems at first to have been sincerelyanxious to suppress privateering and conciliate his Spanish neighbours. On receiving his commission and instructions he immediately prepared letters to the President of San Domingo, expressing his fair intentions and requesting the co-operation of the Spaniards.209Modyford himself arrived in Jamaica on 1st June,210proclaimed an entire cessation of hostilities,211and on the 16th sent the "Swallow" ketch to Cartagena to acquaint the governor with what he had done. On almost the same day letters were forwarded from England and from Ambassador Fanshaw in Madrid, strictly forbidding all violences in the future against the Spanish nation, and ordering Modyford to inflict condign punishment on every offender, and make entire restitution and satisfaction to the sufferers.212
The letters for San Domingo, which had been forwarded to Jamaica with Colonel Morgan and thence dispatched to Hispaniola before Modyford's arrival, received a favourable answer, but that was about as far as the matter ever got. The buccaneers, moreover, the principal grievance of the Spaniards, still remained at large. As Thomas Lynch wrote on 25th May, "It is not in the power of the governor to have or suffer a commerce, nor will any necessity or advantage bring private Spaniards to Jamaica, for we and they have used too many mutual barbarisms to have a sudden correspondence. When the king was restored, the Spaniards thought the manners of the English nation changed too, and adventured twenty or thirty vessels to Jamaica for blacks, but the surprises and irruptions by C. Myngs, for whom the governor of San Domingo has upbraided the commissioners, made the Spaniards redouble their malice, and nothing but an order from Spain can giveus admittance or trade."213For a short time, however, a serious effort was made to recall the privateers. Several prizes which were brought into Port Royal were seized and returned to their owners, while the captors had their commissions taken from them. Such was the experience of one Captain Searles, who in August brought in two Spanish vessels, both of which were restored to the Spaniards, and Searles deprived of his rudder and sails as security against his making further depredations upon the Dons.214In November Captain Morris Williams sent a note to Governor Modyford, offering to come in with a rich prize of logwood, indigo and silver, if security were given that it should be condemned to him for the payment of his debts in Jamaica; and although the governor refused to give any promises the prize was brought in eight days later. The goods were seized and sold in the interest of the Spanish owner.215Nevertheless, the effects of the proclamation were not at all encouraging. In the first month only three privateers came in with their commissions, and Modyford wrote to Secretary Bennet on 30th June that he feared the only effect of the proclamation would be to drive them to the French in Tortuga. He therefore thought it prudent, he continued, to dispense somewhat with the strictness of his instructions, "doing by degrees and moderation what he had at first resolved to execute suddenly and severely."216
Tortuga was really the crux of the whole difficulty. Back in 1662 Colonel Doyley, in his report to the Lord Chancellor after his return to England, had suggested thereduction of Tortuga to English obedience as the only effective way of dealing with the buccaneers;217and Modyford in 1664 also realized the necessity of this preliminary step.218The conquest of Tortuga, however, was no longer the simple task it might have been four or five years earlier. The inhabitants of the island were now almost entirely French, and with their companions on the coast of Hispaniola had no intention of submitting to English dictation. The buccaneers, who had become numerous and independent and made Tortuga one of their principal retreats, would throw all their strength in the balance against an expedition the avowed object of whose coming was to make their profession impossible. The colony, moreover, received an incalculable accession of strength in the arrival of Bertrand d'Ogeron, the governor sent out in 1665 by the new French West India Company. D'Ogeron was one of the most remarkable figures in the West Indies in the second half of the seventeenth century. Of broad imagination and singular kindness of heart, with an indomitable will and a mind full of resource, he seems to have been an ideal man for the task, not only of reducing to some semblance of law and order a people who had never given obedience to any authority, but also of making palatable therégimeand exclusive privileges of a private trading company. D'Ogeron first established himself at Port Margot on the coast of Hispaniola opposite Tortuga in the early part of 1665; and here the adventurers at once gave him to understand that they would never submit to any mere company, much less suffer an interruption of their trade with the Dutch, who had supplied them with necessities at a time when it was not even known in France that there were Frenchmen in that region.D'Ogeron pretended to subscribe to these conditions, passed over to Tortuga where he received the submission of la Place, and then to Petit-Goave and Leogane, in thecul-de-sacof Hispaniola. There he made his headquarters, adopted every means to attract planters andengagés, and firmly established his authority. He made advances from his own purse without interest to adventurers who wished to settle down to planting, bought two ships to facilitate trade between the colony and France, and even contrived to have several lots of fifty women each brought over from France to be sold and distributed as wives amongst the colonists. The settlements soon put on a new air of prosperity, and really owed their existence as a permanent French colony to the efforts of this new governor.219It was under the administration of d'Ogeron that l'Olonnais,220Michel le Basque, and most of the French buccaneers flourished, whose exploits are celebrated in Exquemelin's history.
The conquest of Tortuga was not the only measure necessary for the effectual suppression of the buccaneers. Five or six swift cruisers were also required to pursue and bring to bay those corsairs who refused to come in with their commissions.221Since the Restoration the West Indies had been entirely denuded of English men-of-war; while the buccaneers, with the tacit consent or encouragement of Doyley, had at the same time increased both in numbers and boldness. Letters written from Jamaica in 1664 placed the number scattered abroad in privateering at from 1500 to 2000, sailing in fourteen or fifteen ships.222They were desperate men, accustomed to living at sea, with no trade but burning and plundering, and unlikelyto take orders from any but stronger and faster frigates. Nor was this condition of affairs surprising when we consider that, in the seventeenth century, there flowed from Europe to the West Indies adventurers from every class of society; men doubtless often endowed with strong personalities, enterprising and intrepid; but often, too, of mediocre intelligence or little education, and usually without either money or scruples. They included many who had revolted from the narrow social laws of European countries, and were disinclined to live peaceably within the bounds of any organized society. Many, too, had belonged to rebellious political factions at home, men of the better classes who were banished or who emigrated in order to keep their heads upon their shoulders. In France the total exhaustion of public and private fortune at the end of the religious wars disposed many to seek to recoup themselves out of the immense colonial riches of the Spaniards; while the disorders of the Rebellion and the Commonwealth in England caused successive emigrations of Puritans and Loyalists to the newer England beyond the seas. At the close of the Thirty Years' War, too, a host of French and English adventurers, who had fattened upon Germany and her misfortunes, were left without a livelihood, and doubtless many resorted to emigration as the sole means of continuing their life of freedom and even of licence. Coming to the West Indies these men, so various in origin and character, hoped soon to acquire there the riches which they lost or coveted at home; and their expectations deceived, they often broke in a formal and absolute manner the bonds which attached them to their fellow humanity. Jamaica especially suffered in this respect, for it had been colonized in the first instance by a discontented, refractory soldiery, and it was being recruited largely by transported criminals and vagabonds. In contrast with the policy of Spain, who placed themost careful restrictions upon the class of emigrants sent to her American possessions, England from the very beginning used her colonies, and especially the West Indian islands, as a dumping-ground for her refuse population. Within a short time a regular trade sprang up for furnishing the colonies with servile labour from the prisons of the mother country. Scots captured at the battles of Dunbar and Worcester,223English, French, Irish and Dutch pirates lying in the gaols of Dorchester and Plymouth,224if "not thought fit to be tried for their lives," were shipped to Barbadoes, Jamaica, and the other Antilles. In August 1656 the Council of State issued an order for the apprehension of all lewd and dangerous persons, rogues, vagrants and other idlers who had no way of livelihood and refused to work, to be transported by contractors to the English plantations in America;225and in June 1661 the Council for Foreign Plantations appointed a committee to consider the same matter.226Complaints were often made that children and apprentices were "seduced or spirited away" from their parents and masters and concealed upon ships sailing for the colonies; and an office ofregistry was established to prevent this abuse.227In 1664 Charles granted a licence for five years to Sir James Modyford, brother of Sir Thomas, to take all felons convicted in the circuits and at the Old Bailey who were afterwards reprieved for transportation to foreign plantations, and to transmit them to the governor of Jamaica;228and this practice was continued throughout the whole of the buccaneering period.
Privateering opened a channel by which these disorderly spirits, impatient of the sober and laborious life of the planter, found an employment agreeable to their tastes. An example had been set by the plundering expeditions sent out by Fortescue, Brayne and Doyley, and when these naval excursions ceased, the sailors and others who had taken part in them fell to robbing on their private account. Sir Charles Lyttleton, we have seen, zealously defended and encouraged the freebooters; and Long, the historian of Jamaica, justified their existence on the ground that many traders were attracted to the island by the plunder with which Port Royal was so abundantly stocked, and that the prosperity of the colony was founded upon the great demand for provisions for the outfit of the privateers. These effects, however, were but temporary and superficial, and did not counterbalance the manifest evils of the practice, especially the discouragement to planting, and the element of turbulence and unrest ever present in the island. Under such conditions Governor Modyford found it necessary to temporise with the marauders, and perhaps he did so the more readily because he felt that they were still needed for the security of the colony. A war between England and the States-General then seemed imminent, and the governor considered that unless he allowed the buccaneers to dispose of their bootywhen they came in to Port Royal, they might, in event of hostilities breaking out, go to the Dutch at Curaçao and other islands, and prey upon Jamaican commerce. On the other hand, if, by adopting a conciliatory attitude, he retained their allegiance, they would offer the handiest and most effective instrument for driving the Dutch themselves out of the Indies.229He privately told one captain, who brought in a Spanish prize, that he only stopped the Admiralty proceedings to "give a good relish to the Spaniard"; and that although the captor should have satisfaction, the governor could not guarantee him his ship. So Sir Thomas persuaded some merchants to buy the prize-goods and contributed one quarter of the money himself, with the understanding that he should receive nothing if the Spaniards came to claim their property.230A letter from Secretary Bennet, on 12th November 1664, confirmed the governor in this course;231and on 2nd February 1665, three weeks before the declaration of war against Holland, a warrant was issued to the Duke of York, High Admiral of England, to grant, through the colonial governors and vice-admirals, commissions of reprisal upon the ships and goods of the Dutch.232Modyford at once took advantage of this liberty. Some fourteen pirates, who in the beginning of February had been tried and condemned to death, were pardoned; and public declaration was made that commissions would be granted against the Hollanders. Before nightfall two commissions had been taken out, and all the rovers were making applications and planning how to seize Curaçao.233Modyford drew up an elaborate design234for rooting out at one and the same time the Dutch settlements and the French buccaneers, and on 20th April hewrote that Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan had sailed with ten ships and some 500 men, chiefly "reformed prisoners," resolute fellows, and well armed with fusees and pistols.235Their plan was to fall upon the Dutch fleet trading at St. Kitts, capture St. Eustatius, Saba, and perhaps Curaçao, and on the homeward voyage visit the French settlements on Hispaniola and Tortuga. "All this is prepared," he wrote, "by the honest privateer, at the old rate of no purchase no pay, and it will cost the king nothing considerable, some powder and mortar-pieces." On the same day, 20th April, Admiral de Ruyter, who had arrived in the Indies with a fleet of fourteen sail, attacked the forts and shipping at Barbadoes, but suffered considerable damage and retired after a few hours. At Montserrat and Nevis, however, he was more successful and captured sixteen merchant ships, after which he sailed for Virginia and New York.236
The buccaneers enrolled in Colonel Morgan's expedition proved to be troublesome allies. Before their departure from Jamaica most of them mutinied, and refused to sail until promised by Morgan that the plunder should be equally divided.237On 17th July, however, the expedition made its rendezvous at Montserrat, and on the 23rd arrived before St. Eustatius. Two vessels had been lost sight of, a third, with the ironical name of the "Olive Branch," had sailed for Virginia, and many stragglers had been left behind at Montserrat, so that Morgan could muster only 326 men for the assault. There was only one landing-place on the island, with a narrow path accommodating but two men at a time leading to an eminence which was crowned with a fort and 450 Dutchmen. Morgan landed his division first, and Colonel Carey followed. The enemy, it seems, gave them but one smallvolley and then retreated to the fort. The governor sent forward three men to parley, and on receiving a summons to surrender, delivered up the fort with eleven large guns and considerable ammunition. "It is supposed they were drunk or mad," was the comment made upon the rather disgraceful defence.238During the action Colonel Morgan, who was an old man and very corpulent, was overcome by the hard marching and extraordinary heat, and died. Colonel Carey, who succeeded him in command, was anxious to proceed at once to the capture of the Dutch forts on Saba, St. Martins and Tortola; but the buccaneers refused to stir until the booty got at St. Eustatius was divided—nor were the officers and men able to agree on the manner of sharing. The plunder, besides guns and ammunition, included about 900 slaves, negro and Indian, with a large quantity of live stock and cotton. Meanwhile a party of seventy had crossed over to the island of Saba, only four leagues distant, and secured its surrender on the same terms as St. Eustatius. As the men had now become very mutinous, and on a muster numbered scarcely 250, the officers decided that they could not reasonably proceed any further and sailed for Jamaica, leaving a small garrison on each of the islands. Most of the Dutch, about 250 in number, were sent to St. Martins, but a few others, with some threescore English, Irish and Scotch, took the oath of allegiance and remained.239
Encouraged by a letter from the king,240Governor Modyford continued his exertions against the Dutch. In January (?) 1666 two buccaneer captains, Searles and Stedman, with two small ships and only eighty men took the island of Tobago, near Trinidad, and destroyed everything they could not carry away. Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes, had also fitted out an expedition to take the island, but the Jamaicans were three or four days before him. The latter were busy with their work of pillage, when Willoughby arrived and demanded the island in the name of the king; and the buccaneers condescended to leave the fort and the governor's house standing only on condition that Willoughby gave them liberty to sell their plunder in Barbadoes.241Modyford, meanwhile, greatly disappointed by the miscarriage of the design against Curaçao, called in the aid of the "old privateer," Captain Edward Mansfield, and in the autumn of 1665, with the hope of sending another armament against the island, appointed a rendezvous for the buccaneers in Bluefields Bay.242
In January 1666 war against England was openly declared by France in support of her Dutch allies, and in the following month Charles II. sent letters to his governors in the West Indies and the North American colonies, apprising them of the war and urging them to attack their French neighbours.243The news of the outbreak of hostilities did not reach Jamaica until 2nd July, but already in December of the previous year warning hadbeen sent out to the West Indies of the coming rupture.244Governor Modyford, therefore, seeing the French very much increased in Hispaniola, concluded that it was high time to entice the buccaneers from French service and bind them to himself by issuing commissions against the Spaniards. The French still permitted the freebooters to dispose of Spanish prizes in their ports, but the better market afforded by Jamaica was always a sufficient consideration to attract not only the English buccaneers, but the Dutch and French as well. Moreover, the difficulties of the situation, which Modyford had repeatedly enlarged upon in his letters, seem to have been appreciated by the authorities in England, for in the spring of 1665, following upon Secretary Bennet's letter of 12th November and shortly after the outbreak of the Dutch war, the Duke of Albemarle had written to Modyford in the name of the king, giving him permission to use his own discretion in granting commissions against the Dons.245Modyford was convinced that all the circumstances were favourable to such a course of action, and on 22nd February assembled the Council. A resolution was passed that it was to the interest of the island to grant letters of marque against the Spaniards,246and a proclamation to this effect was published by the governor at Port Royal and Tortuga. In the following August Modyford sent home to Bennet, now become Lord Arlington, an elaborate defence of his actions. "Your Lordship very well knows," wrote Modyford, "how great an aversion I had for the privateers while at Barbadoes, but after I had put His Majesty's orders for restitution in strict execution, I found my error in the decay of the forts and wealth of this place, and also the affections of this people to His Majesty's service; yet Icontinued discountenancing and punishing those kind of people till your Lordship's of the 12th November 1664 arrived, commanding a gentle usage of them; still we went to decay, which I represented to the Lord General faithfully the 6th of March following, who upon serious consideration with His Majesty and the Lord Chancellor, by letter of 1st June 1665, gave me latitude to grant or not commissions against the Spaniard, as I found it for the advantage of His Majesty's service and the good of this island. I was glad of this power, yet resolved not to use it unless necessity drove me to it; and that too when I saw how poor the fleets returning from Statia were, so that vessels were broken up and the men disposed of for the coast of Cuba to get a livelihood and so be wholly alienated from us. Many stayed at the Windward Isles, having not enough to pay their engagements, and at Tortuga and among the French buccaneers; still I forebore to make use of my power, hoping their hardships and great hazards would in time reclaim them from that course of life. But about the beginning of March last I found that the guards of Port Royal, which under Colonel Morgan were 600, had fallen to 138, so I assembled the Council to advise how to strengthen that most important place with some of the inland forces; but they all agreed that the only way to fill Port Royal with men was to grant commissions against the Spaniards, which they were very pressing in ... and looking on our weak condition, the chief merchants gone from Port Royal, no credit given to privateers for victualling, etc., and rumours of war with the French often repeated, I issued a declaration of my intentions to grant commissions against the Spaniards. Your Lordship cannot imagine what an universal change there was on the faces of men and things, ships repairing, great resort of workmen and labourers to Port Royal, many returning, many debtors released out ofprison, and the ships from the Curaçao voyage, not daring to come in for fear of creditors, brought in and fitted out again, so that the regimental forces at Port Royal are near 400. Had it not been for that seasonable action, I could not have kept my place against the French buccaneers, who would have ruined all the seaside plantations at least, whereas I now draw from them mainly, and lately David Marteen, the best man of Tortuga, that has two frigates at sea, has promised to bring in both."247
In so far as the buccaneers affected the mutual relations of England and Spain, it after all could make little difference whether commissions were issued in Jamaica or not, for the plundering and burning continued, and the harassed Spanish-Americans, only too prone to call the rogues English of whatever origin they might really be, continued to curse and hate the English nation and make cruel reprisals whenever possible. Moreover, every expedition into Spanish territory, finding the Spaniards very weak and very rich, gave new incentive to such endeavour. While Modyford had been standing now on one foot, now on the other, uncertain whether to repulse the buccaneers or not, secretly anxious to welcome them, but fearing the authorities at home, the corsairs themselves had entirely ignored him. The privateers whom Modyford had invited to rendezvous in Bluefield's Bay in November 1665 had chosen Captain Mansfield as their admiral, and in the middle of January sailed from the south cays of Cuba for Curaçao. In the meantime, however, because they had been refused provisions which, according to Modyford's account, they sought to buy from the Spaniards in Cuba, they had marched forty-two miles into the island, and on the strength of Portuguese commissions which they held against the Spaniards, had plundered and burnt the town of Sancti Spiritus, routed a body of 200 horse, carriedsome prisoners to the coast, and for their ransom extorted 300 head of cattle.248The rich and easy profits to be got by plundering the Spaniards were almost too much for the loyalty of the men, and Modyford, hearing of many defections from their ranks, had despatched Captain Beeston on 10th November to divert them, if possible, from Sancti Spiritus, and confirm them in their designs against Curaçao.249The officers of the expedition, indeed, sent to the governor a letter expressing their zeal for the enterprise; but the men still held off, and the fleet, in consequence, eventually broke up. Two vessels departed for Tortuga, and four others, joined by two French rovers, sailed under Mansfield to attempt the recapture of Providence Island, which, since 1641, had been garrisoned by the Spaniards and used as a penal settlement.250Being resolved, as Mansfield afterwards told the governor of Jamaica, never to see Modyford's face until he had done some service to the king, he sailed for Providence with about 200 men,251and approaching the island in the night by an unusual passage among the reefs, landed early inthe morning, and surprised and captured the Spanish commander. The garrison of about 200 yielded up the fort on the promise that they would be carried to the mainland. Twenty-seven pieces of ordnance were taken, many of which, it is said, bore the arms of Queen Elizabeth engraved upon them. Mansfield left thirty-five men under command of a Captain Hattsell to hold the island, and sailed with his prisoners for Central America. After cruising along the shores of the mainland, he ascended the San Juan River and entered and sacked Granada, the capital of Nicaragua. From Granada the buccaneers turned south into Costa Rica, burning plantations, breaking the images in the churches, ham-stringing cows and mules, cutting down the fruit trees, and in general destroying everything they found. The Spanish governor had only thirty-six soldiers at his disposal and scarcely any firearms; but he gathered the inhabitants and some Indians, blocked the roads, laid ambuscades, and did all that his pitiful means permitted to hinder the progress of the invaders. The freebooters had designed to visit Cartago, the chief city of the province, and plunder it as they had plundered Granada. They penetrated only as far as Turrialva, however, whence weary and footsore from their struggle through the Cordillera, and harassed by the Spaniards, they retired through the province of Veragua in military order to their ships.252On 12th June the buccaneers, laden with booty, sailed into Port Royal. There was at that moment no declared war between England andSpain. Yet the governor, probably because he believed Mansfield to be justified,ex post facto, by the issue of commissions against the Spaniards in the previous February, did no more than mildly reprove him for acting without his orders; and "considering its good situation for favouring any design on the rich main," he accepted the tender of the island in behalf of the king. He despatched Major Samuel Smith, who had been one of Mansfield's party, with a few soldiers to reinforce the English garrison;253and on 10th November the Council in England set the stamp of their approval upon his actions by issuing a commission to his brother, Sir James Modyford, to be lieutenant-governor of the new acquisition.254
In August 1665, only two months before the departure of Mansfield from Jamaica, there had returned to Port Royal from a raid in the same region three privateer captains named Morris, Jackman and Morgan.255These men, with their followers, doubtless helped to swell the ranks of Mansfield's buccaneers, and it was probably their report of the wealth of Central America which induced Mansfield to emulate their performance. In the previous January these three captains, still pretending to sail under commissions from Lord Windsor, had ascended the riverTabasco, in the province of Campeache, with 107 men, and guided by Indians made a detour of 300 miles, according to their account, to Villa de Mosa,256which they took and plundered. When they returned to the mouth of the river, they found that their ships had been seized by Spaniards, who, on their approach, attacked them 300 strong. The Spaniards, softened by the heat and indolent life of the tropics, were no match for one-third their number of desperadoes, and the buccaneers beat them off without the loss of a man. The freebooters then fitted up two barques and four canoes, sailed to Rio Garta and stormed the place with only thirty men; crossed the Gulf of Honduras to the Island of Roatan to rest and obtain fresh water, and then captured and plundered the port of Truxillo. Down the Mosquito Coast they passed like a devouring flame, consuming all in their path. Anchoring in Monkey Bay, they ascended the San Juan River in canoes for a distance of 100 miles to Lake Nicaragua. The basin into which they entered they described as a veritable paradise, the air cool and wholesome, the shores of the lake full of green pastures and broad savannahs dotted with horses and cattle, and round about all a coronal of azure mountains. Hiding by day among the numerous islands and rowing all night, on the fifth night they landed near the city of Granada, just a year before Mansfield's visit to the place. The buccaneers marched unobserved to the central square of the city, overturned eighteen cannon mounted there, seized the magazine, andtook and imprisoned in the cathedral 300 of the citizens. They plundered for sixteen hours, then released their prisoners, and taking the precaution to scuttle all the boats, made their way back to the sea coast. The town was large and pleasant, containing seven churches besides several colleges and monasteries, and most of the buildings were constructed of stone. About 1000 Indians, driven to rebellion by the cruelty and oppression of the Spaniards, accompanied the marauders and would have massacred the prisoners, especially the religious, had they not been told that the English had no intentions of retaining their conquest. The news of the exploit produced a lively impression in Jamaica, and the governor suggested Central America as the "properest place" for an attack from England on the Spanish Indies.257
Providence Island was now in the hands of an English garrison, and the Spaniards were not slow to realise that the possession of this outpost by the buccaneers might be but the first step to larger conquests on the mainland. The President of Panama, Don Juan Perez de Guzman, immediately took steps to recover the island. He transferred himself to Porto Bello, embargoed an English ship of thirty guns, the "Concord," lying at anchor there with licence to trade in negroes, manned it with 350 Spaniards under command of José Sánchez Jiménez, and sent it to Cartagena. The governor of Cartagena contributed several small vessels and a hundred or more men to the enterprise, and on 10th August 1666 the united Spanish fleet appeared off the shores of Providence. On the refusal of Major Smith to surrender, the Spaniardslanded, and on 15th August, after a three days' siege, forced the handful of buccaneers, only sixty or seventy in number, to capitulate. Some of the English defenders later deposed before Governor Modyford that the Spaniards had agreed to let them depart in a barque for Jamaica. However this may be, when the English came to lay down their arms they were made prisoners by the Spaniards, carried to Porto Bello, and all except Sir Thomas Whetstone, Major Smith and Captain Stanley, the three English captains, submitted to the most inhuman cruelties. Thirty-three were chained to the ground in a dungeon 12 feet by 10. They were forced to work in the water from five in the morning till seven at night, and at such a rate that the Spaniards themselves confessed they made one of them do more work than any three negroes; yet when weak for want of victuals and sleep, they were knocked down and beaten with cudgels so that four or five died. "Having no clothes, their backs were blistered with the sun, their heads scorched, their necks, shoulders and hands raw with carrying stones and mortar, their feet chopped and their legs bruised and battered with the irons, and their corpses were noisome to one another." The three English captains were carried to Panama, and there cast into a dungeon and bound in irons for seventeen months.258
On 8th January 1664 Sir Richard Fanshaw, formerly ambassador to Portugal, had arrived in Madrid from England to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Spain, and if possible to patch up a peace between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. He had renewed the old demand for a free commerce in the Indies; and the negotiations had dragged through the years of 1664 and1665, hampered and crossed by the factions in the Spanish court, the hostile machinations of the Dutch resident in Madrid, and the constant rumours of cruelties and desolations by the freebooters in America.259The Spanish Government insisted that by sole virtue of the articles of 1630 there was peace on both sides of the "Line," and that the violences of the buccaneers in the West Indies, and even the presence of English colonists there, was a breach of the articles. In this fashion they endeavoured to reduce Fanshaw to the position of a suppliant for favours which they might only out of their grace and generosity concede. It was a favourite trick of Spanish diplomacy, which had been worked many times before. The English ambassador was, in consequence, compelled strenuously to deny the existence of any peace in America, although he realised how ambiguous his position had been rendered by the original orders of Charles II. to Modyford in 1664.260After the death of Philip IV. in 1665, negotiations were renewed with the encouragement of the Queen Regent, and on 17th December provisional articles were signed by Fanshaw and the Duke de Medina de los Torres and sent to England for ratification.261Fanshaw died shortly after, and Lord Sandwich, his successor, finally succeeded in concluding a treaty on 23rd May 1667.262The provisions of the treaty extended to places "where hitherto trade and commerce hath been accustomed," and the only privileges obtained in America were those which had been granted to the Low Countries by the Treaty of Munster. On 21st July of the same year a general peace was concluded at Breda between England, Holland and France.