The Monarchs of the Main Volume I Part 3

This was disembowelled and roasted whole, being placed on a spit supported on two forked stakes, so that the flames might completely surround the carcase.

Most Buccaneers, even if they rested on Sunday, required their apprentices to carry the hides down as usual to the place of s.h.i.+pment, fearing that the Spaniards might choose that very day to burn the huts and destroy the skins. An _engage_ once complained to his master, and reminded him that it was not right to work on a Sunday, G.o.d himself having said to the Jews, "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thou hast to do, for the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy G.o.d."

"And I tell you," said the scowling Buccaneer, striking the earth with the b.u.t.t-end of his gun and roaring out a dreadful curse, "I tell you, six days shalt thou kill bulls and skin them, and the seventh day thou shalt carry them down to the beach," beating the daring remonstrant as he spoke. There was no remedy for these sufferers but patience. Time or death alone brought relief. Three years soon run out. The mind grows hardened under suffering as flesh does under the lash. Nature, where she cannot heal a wound, teaches us where to find unfailing balms. Some grew reckless to blows, or learned to ingratiate themselves with their masters by their increasing daring or st.u.r.dy industry. An apprentice whose bullet never flew false, or who could run down the wild ox on the plain, acquired a fame greater than that of his master. They knew that in time they themselves would be Buccaneers, and could inflict the very cruelties from which they now suffered. There were instances where acts of service to the island, or feats of unusual bravery, raised an _engage_ of a single year to the full rank of hunter. An apprentice who could bring in more hides than even his master, must have been too valuable an acquisition to have been lost by a moment of spleen. That horrible cases of cruelty did occur, there can be no doubt. There were no courts of justice in the forest, no stronger arm or wiser head to which to appeal. But there are always remedies for despair. The loaded gun was at hand, the knife in the belt, and the poison berries grew by the hut. There was the unsubdued pa.s.sion still at liberty in the heart--there was the will to seize the weapon and the hand to use it.

Providence is fruitful in her remedies of evils, and preserves a balance which no sovereignty can long disturb. No tyrant can shut up the volcano, or chain the earthquake. There were always the mountains or the Spaniards to take refuge amongst, though famine and death dwelt in the den of the wild beasts, and, if they fled to the Spaniards, they were often butchered as mere runaway slaves before they could explain, in an unknown language, that they were not spies. But still the very impossibility of preventing such escapes must have tended to temper the severity of the masters. A Flibustier, anxious for a crew, must have sometimes carried off discontented _engages_ both from the plantations and the ajoupas. The following story ill.u.s.trates the social relations of the Buccaneer master and his servant.

A Buccaneer one day, seeing that his apprentice, newly arrived from France, could not keep up with him, turned round and struck him over the head with the lock of his musket. The youth fell, stunned, to the ground; and the hunter, thinking he was dead, stripped him of his arms, and left his body where it had fallen and weltering in the blood flowing from the wound. On his return to his hut, afraid to disclose the truth, he told his companions that the lad, who had always skulked work, had at last _marooned_ (a Spanish word applied to runaway negroes). A few curses were heaped upon him, and no more was thought about his disappearance.

Soon after the master was out of sight the lad had recovered his senses, arisen, pale and weak, and attempted to return to the tents.

Unaccustomed to the woods, he lost his way, got off the right track, and finally gave himself up as doomed to certain death. For some days he remained wandering round and round the same spot, without either recovering the path or being able to reach the sh.o.r.e. Hunger did not at first press him, for he ate the meat with which his master had loaded him, and ate it raw, not knowing the Indian manner of procuring fire, and his knives being taken from his belt. Ignorant of what fruits were safe to eat, where animals fit for food were to be found, and not knowing how to kill them unarmed, he prepared his mind for the dreadful and lingering torture of starvation. But he seems to have been of an ingenious and persevering disposition, and hope did not altogether forsake him. He had too a companion, for one of his master's dogs, which had grown fond of his playmate, had remained behind with his body, licking the hand that had so often fed him.

At first he spent whole days vainly searching for a path. Very often he climbed up a hill, from which he could see the great, blue, level sea, stretching out boundless to the horizon, and this renewed his hope. He looked up, and knew that G.o.d's sky was above him, and felt that he might be still saved. At night he was startled by the screams of the monkeys, the bellowing of the wild cattle in the distant savannah, or the unearthly cry of some solitary and unknown bird. Superst.i.tion filled him with fears, and he felt deserted by man, but tormented by the things of evil. The tracks of the wild cattle led him far astray. Long ere this his faithful dog, driven by hunger, had procured food for both.

Sometimes beneath the spreading boughs of the river-loving yaco-tree, they would surprise a basking sow, surrounded by a wandering brood of voracious sucklings. The dog would cling to the sow, while the boy aided him in the pursuit of the errant progeny. When they had killed their prey, they would lie down and share their meal together. The boy learned to like the raw meat, and the dog had acquired his appet.i.te long before. Experience soon taught them where to capture their prey in the quickest and surest manner. He caught the puppies of a wild dog, and trained them in the chase; and he even taught a young wild boar that he had caught alive to join in the capture of his own species. After having led this life for nearly a year, he one day suddenly came upon the long-lost path, which soon brought him to the sea-sh.o.r.e. His master's tents were gone, and, from various appearances, seemed to have been long struck.

The lad, now grown accustomed to his wild life, resigned himself to his condition, feeling sure that, sooner or later, he should meet with a party of Buccaneers. His deliverance was not long delayed. After about twelve months' life in the bush, he fell in with a troop of skinners, to whom he related his story. They were at first distrustful and alarmed, as his master had told them that he had _marooned_, and had joined the Indians. His appearance soon convinced them that his story was true, and that he was neither a _maroon_ nor a deserter, for he was clothed in the rags of his _engage's_ s.h.i.+rt and drawers, and had a strip of raw meat hanging from his girdle. Two tame boars and three dogs followed at his heels, and refused to leave him. He at once joined his deliverers, who freed him from all obligations to his master, and gave him arms, powder, and lead to hunt for himself, and he soon became one of the most renowned Buccaneers on that coast. It was a long time before he could eat roasted meat, which not only was distasteful, but made him ill. Long after, when flaying a wild boar, he was frequently unable to restrain himself from eating the flesh raw.

When an apprentice had served three years, his master was expected to give him as a reward a musket, a pound of powder, six pounds of lead, two s.h.i.+rts, two pairs of drawers, and a cap. The _valets_, as the French called them, then became comerades, and ceased to be mere _engages_.

They took their own _matelots_, and became, in their turn, Buccaneers.

When they had obtained a sufficient quant.i.ty of hides, they either sent or took them to Tortuga, and brought from thence a young apprentice to treat him as they themselves had been treated.

The planters' _engages_ led a life more dreadful than that of their wilder brethren. They were decoyed from France under the same pretences that once filled our streets with the peasants' sons of Savoy, and the peasants' daughters from Frankfort, or that now lure children from the pleasant borders of Como, to pine away in a London den. The want of sufficient negroes led men to resort to all artifices to obtain a.s.sistance in cultivating the sugar-cane and the tobacco plant. In the French Antilles they were sold for three years, but often resold in the interim. Amongst the English they were bound for seven years, and being occasionally sold again at their own request, before the expiration of this term, they sometimes served fifteen or twenty years before they could obtain their freedom. At Jamaica, if a man could not pay even a small debt at a tavern, he was sold for six or eight months. The planters had agents in France, England, and other countries, who sent out these apprentices. They were worked much harder than the slaves, because their lives, after the expiration of the three years, were of no consequence to the masters. They were often the victims of a disease called "coma," the effect of hard usage and climate, and which ended in idiotcy. Pere Labat remarks the quant.i.ty of idiots in the West Indies, many of whom were dangerous, although allowed to go at liberty. Many of these worse than slaves were of good birth, tender education, and weak const.i.tutions, unable to endure even the debilitating climate, and much less hard labour. Esquemeling, himself originally an _engage_, gives a most piteous description of their sufferings. Insufficient food and rest, he says, were the smallest of their sufferings. They were frequently beaten, and often fell dead at their masters' feet. The men thus treated died fast: some became dropsical, and others s...o...b..tic. A man named Bettesea, a merchant of St. Christopher's, was said to have killed more than a hundred apprentices with blows and stripes. "This inhumanity," says Esquemeling, "I have _often seen_ with great grief."

The following anecdote of human suffering equals the cruelty of the Virginian slave owner who threw one slave into the vat of boiling mola.s.ses, and baked another in an oven:--

"A certain planter (of St. Domingo) exercised such cruelty towards one of his servants as caused him to run away. Having absconded for some days in the woods, he was at last taken, and brought back to the wicked Pharaoh. No sooner had he got him but he commanded him to be tied to a tree; here he gave him so many lashes on his naked back as made his body run with an entire stream of blood; then, to make the smart of his wounds the greater, he anointed him with lemon-juice, mixed with salt and pepper. In this miserable posture he left him tied to the tree for twenty-four hours, which being past, he began his punishment again, las.h.i.+ng him as before, so cruelly, that the miserable creature gave up the ghost, with these dying words, 'I beseech the Almighty G.o.d, Creator of heaven and earth, that He permit the wicked spirit to make thee feel as many torments before thy death as thou hast caused me to feel before mine.'

"A strange thing, and worthy of astonishment and admiration: scarce three or four days were past, after this horrible fact, when the Almighty Judge, who had heard the cries of that tormented wretch, suffered the evil one suddenly to possess this barbarous and inhuman homicide, so that those cruel hands which had punished to death the innocent servant were the tormentors of his own body, for he beat himself and tore his flesh after a miserable manner, till he lost the very shape of a man, not ceasing to howl and cry without any rest by day or night. Thus he continued raving till he died."

It was by the endurance of such sufferings as these that the early Buccaneers were hardened into fanatical monsters like Montbars and Lolonnois.

In the early part of his book, Esquemeling gives us his own history. A Dutchman by birth, he arrived at Tortuga in 1680, when the French West India Company, unable to turn the island into a depot, as they had intended, were selling off their merchandise and their plantations.

Esquemeling, as a bound _engage_ of the company, was sold to the lieutenant-governor of the island, who treated him with great severity, and refused to take less than three hundred pieces of eight for his freedom. Falling sick through vexation and despair, he was sold to a chirurgeon, for seventy pieces of eight, who proved kind to him, and finally gave him his liberty for 100 pieces of eight, to be paid after his first Flibustier trip.

Oexmelin was probably sold almost at the same time as Esquemeling, and was bought by the commandant-general. Not allowed to pursue his own profession of a surgeon, he was employed in the most laborious and painful work, transplanting tobacco, or thinning the young plants, grating ca.s.sava, or pressing the juice from the banana. Overworked and under fed, a.s.sociating with slaves, and regarded with hatred and suspicion, he scarcely received money enough to procure either food or clothing; his master refusing, even for the inducement of two crowns a-day, to allow him to practise as physician. A single year of toil at the plantations threw him into dangerous ill health; for weeks sheltered only under an outhouse, he was kept alive by the kindness of a black slave, who brought him daily an egg. Feeble as he was, the great thirst of a tropical fever compelled him often to rise and drag himself to a neighbouring tank, that he might drink, even though to drink were to die. Recovering from this fever, a wolfish hunger was the first sign of convalescence, but to appease this he had neither food, nor money to buy it. In this condition he devoured even unripe oranges, green, hard, and bitter, and resorted to other extremities which he is ashamed to confess. On one occasion as he was descending from the rock fort, where his master lived, into the town, he met a friend, the secretary of the governor, who made him come and dine with him, and gave him a parting present of a bottle of wine; his master, who had seen what had pa.s.sed, by means of a telescope, from his place of vantage, when he returned, took away the wine, and threw him into a dungeon, accusing him of being a spy and a traitor. This prison was a cellar, hollowed out of the rock, full of filth and very dark. In this he swore Oexmelin should rot in spite of all the governors in the world. Here he was kept for three days, his feet in irons, fed only by a little bread and water that they pa.s.sed to him through an aperture, without even opening the door. One day, as he lay naked on the stone, and in the dark, he felt a snake twine itself, cold and slimy, round his body, tightening the folds till they grew painful, and then sliding off to its hole. On the fourth day they opened the door and tried to discover if he had told the governor anything of his master's cruelties; they then set him to dig a plot of ground near the Fort. Finding himself left unguarded, he resolved to go and complain to the governor, having first consulted a good old Capuchin, who took compa.s.sion on his pale and famished aspect. The governor instantly took pity on the wretched runaway, fed and clothed him, and on his recovery to health placed him with a celebrated surgeon of the place, who paid his value to his master; the governor being unwilling to take him into his own service, for fear he should be accused to the home authorities of taking away slaves from the planters.

The _engages_ were called to their work at daybreak by a shrill whistle (as the negroes are now by the hoa.r.s.e conch sh.e.l.l); and the foreman, allowing any who liked to smoke, led them to their work. This consisted in felling trees and in picking or lopping tobacco; the driver stood by them as they dug or picked, and struck those who slackened or rested, as a captain would do to his galley slaves. Whether sick or well they were equally obliged to work. They were frequently employed in picking mahot, a sort of bark used to tie up bales. If they died of fatigue they were quietly buried, and there an end. Early in the morning one of the band had to feed the pigs with potato leaves, and prepare his comerades'

dinner. They boiled their meat, putting peas and chopped potatoes into the water. The cook worked with the gang, but returned a little sooner to prepare his messmates' dinner, while they were stripping the tobacco stalk. On feast-days and Sundays they had some indulgences. Oexmelin relates an instance of a sick slave being employed to turn a grindstone on which his master was sharpening his axe; being too weak to do it well, the butcher turned round and clove him down between the shoulders.

The slave fell down, bleeding profusely, and died within two hours; yet this master was one of a body of planters deemed very indulgent in comparison to those of some other islands. One planter of St.

Christopher, named Belle Tete, who came from Dieppe, prided himself on having killed 200 _engages_ who would not work, all of whom, he declared, died of sheer laziness. When they were in the last extremities he was in the habit of rubbing their mouths with the yolk of an egg, in order that he might conscientiously swear he had pressed them to take food till the very last. Upon a priest one day remonstrating with him on his brutality, he replied, with perfect effrontery, that he had once been a bound _engage_, and had never been treated better; that he had come all the way to that sh.o.r.e to get money, and provided he could get it and see his children roll in a coach, he did not care himself if the devil carried him off.

The following anecdote shows what strange modifications of crime this species of slavery might occasionally produce. There was a rich inhabitant of Guadaloupe, whose father became so poor that he was obliged to sell himself as an _engage_, and by a singular coincidence sold himself to a merchant who happened to be his son's agent. The poor fellow, finding himself his son's servant, thought himself well off, but soon found that he was treated as brutally as the rest. The son, finding the father was old and discontented, and therefore unable to do much work, and afraid to beat him for the sake of the scandal, sold him soon after to another planter, who treated him better, gave him more to eat, and eventually restored him to liberty. Of the ten thousand Scotch and Irish whom Cromwell sent to the West Indies, many became _engages_, and finally Buccaneers. Many of the old Puritan soldiers, who had served in the same wars, were enrolled in the same ranks.

The same principle of brotherhood applied to the planters as to the ordinary Buccaneers. They called each other _matelots_, and, before living together, signed a contract by which they agreed to share everything in common. Each had the power to dispose of his companion's money and goods, and an agreement signed by one bound the other also. If the one died, the survivor became the inheritor of the whole, in preference even to heirs who might come from Europe to claim the share or attempt to set up a claim. The engagement could be broken up whenever either wished it, and was often cancelled in a moment of petulance or of transitory vexation. A third person was sometimes admitted into the brotherhood on the same conditions. By this singular custom, friends.h.i.+ps were formed as firm as those between a Highlander and his foster-brother, a Canadian trapper and his comerade, or an English sailor and his messmate.

The _matelotage_, or _compagnon a bon lot_, being thus formed, the two planters would go to the governor of the island and request a grant of land. The officer of the district was then sent to measure out what they required, of a specified size in a specified spot. The usual grant was a plot, two hundred feet wide and thirty feet long, as near as possible to the sea-sh.o.r.e, as being most convenient for the transport of goods, as well as for the ease of procuring salt water, which they used in preparing the tobacco leaf. When the sea-sh.o.r.e was covered with cabins the planters built their huts higher up and four deep, those nearest to the beach being obliged to allow a roadway to those who were the furthest back. Their lodges, or _ajoupas_, were raised upon ground cleared from wood, the thicket being first burnt with the lower branches of the larger trees. The trunks, too large to remove, were cut down to within two or three feet of the earth, and allowed to dry and rot for several summers, and finally also consumed by fire. The savages, on the other hand, cut down all the trees, let them dry as they fell, and then, setting the whole alight, reduced it at once to ashes, without any clearing, lopping, or piling. When about thirty or forty feet of ground was thus cleared, they began to plant vegetables and cultivate the ground--peas, potatoes, manioc, banana, and figs being the daily necessaries of their lives. The banana they planted near rivers, no planter residing in a place where there was not some well or spring.

Their _casa_, or chief lodge, was supported by posts fifteen or sixteen feet high, thatched with palm branches, rushes, or sugar-canes, and walled either with reeds or palisades. Inside, they had _barbecues_, or forms rising two or three feet from the ground, upon which lay their mattresses stuffed with banana leaves, and above it the mosquito net of thin white linen, which they called a _pavillon_. A smaller lodge served for cooking or for warehousing. Friends and neighbours always a.s.sisted in building these cabins, and were treated in return with brandy by the planter. The laws of the society obliged the settlers to help each other, and this kindness was never refused. The same system of mutual support originated the Scotch penny weddings and the English friendly custom of ploughing a young farmer's fields.

Now the _ajoupa_ was built, the tobacco ground had to be dug. An enclosure of two thousand plants required much care, and was obliged to be kept clean and free from weeds. They had to be lopped, and transplanted, and irrigated, and finally picked and stored. The people of Tortuga, the Buccaneers' island, exchanged their tobacco with the French merchants for hatchets, hoes, knives, sacking, and above all for wine and brandy.

From potatoes, which the planters ate for breakfast, they extracted maize, a sour but pleasant beverage. The ca.s.sava root they grated for cakes, making a liquor called _veycon_ of the residue. From the banana they also extracted an intoxicating drink.

With the wild boar hunters they exchanged tobacco leaf for dried meat, often paying away at one time two or three hundred weight of tobacco, and frequently sending a servant of their own to the savannahs to help the hunter and to supply him with powder and shot.

CHAPTER III.

THE FLIBUSTIERS, OR SEA ROVERS.

Originated in the Spanish persecution of French Hunters--Customs--Pay and Pensions--The Mosquito Indians, their Habits--Food--Lewis Scott, an Englishman, first Corsair--John Davis: takes St. Francisco, in Campeachy--Debauchery--Love of Gaming--Religion--Cla.s.s from which they sprang--Equality at Sea--Mode of Fighting--Dress.

The Flibustiers first began by a.s.sociating together in bands of from fifteen to twenty men. Each of them carried the Buccaneer musket, holding a ball of sixteen to the pound, and had generally pistols at his belt, holding bullets of twenty or twenty-four to the pound, and besides this they wore a good sabre or cutla.s.s. When collected at some preconcerted rendezvous, generally a key or small island off Cuba, they elected a captain, and embarked in a canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of a single tree in the Indian manner. This canoe was either bought by the a.s.sociation or the captain. If the latter, they agreed to give him the first s.h.i.+p they should take. As soon as they had all signed the charter-party, or mutual agreement, they started for the destined port off which they were to cruise. The first Spanish vessel they took served to repay the captain and recompense themselves. They dressed themselves in the rich robes of Castilian grandees over their own blooded s.h.i.+rts, and sat down to revel in the gilded saloon of the galleon. If they found their prize not seaworthy, they would take her to some small sand island and careen, while the crew helped the Indians to turn turtle, and to procure bull's flesh. The Spanish crew they kept to a.s.sist in careening, for they never worked themselves, but fought and hunted while the unfortunate prisoners were toiling round the fire where the pitch boiled, or the turtle was stewing. The Flibustiers divided the spoil as soon as each one had taken an oath that nothing had been secreted. When the s.h.i.+p was ready for sea, they let the Spaniards go, and kept only the slaves. If there were no negroes or Indians, they retained a few Spaniards to wait upon them. If the prisoners were men of consequence, they detained them till they could obtain a ransom. Every Flibustier brought a certain supply of powder and ball for the common stock. Before starting on an expedition it was a common thing to plunder a Spanish hog-yard, where a thousand swine were often collected, surrounding the keeper's lodge at night, and shooting him if he made any resistance. The tortoise fishermen were often forced to fish for them gratuitously, although nearly every s.h.i.+p had its Mosquito Indian to strike turtle and sea-cow, and to fish for the whole boat's crew. "No prey, no pay," was the Buccaneers' motto. The charter-party specified the salary of the captain, surgeon, and carpenter, and allowed 200 pieces of eight for victualling. The boys had but half a share, although it was either their duty or the surgeon's, when the rest had boarded, to remain behind to fire the former vessel, and then retire to the prize.

The Buccaneer code, worthy of Napoleon or Justinian, was equal to the statutes of any land, insomuch as it answered the want of those for whom it was compiled, and seldom required either revision or enlargement. It was never appealed from, and was seldom found to be unjust or severe.

The captain was allowed five or six shares, the master's mate only two, and the other officers in proportion, down to the lowest mariner. All acts of special bravery or merit were rewarded by special grants. The man who first caught sight of a prize received a hundred crowns. The sailor who struck down the enemy's captain, and the first boarder who reached the enemy's deck, were also distinguished by honours. The surgeon, always a great man among a crew whose lives so often depended on his skill, received 200 crowns to supply his medicine chest. If they took a prize, he had a share like the rest. If they had no money to give him, he was rewarded with two slaves.

The loss of an eye was recompensed at 100 crowns, or one slave.

The loss of both eyes with 600 crowns, or six slaves.

The loss of a right hand or right leg at 200 crowns, or two slaves.

The loss of both hands or legs at 600 crowns, or six slaves.

The loss of a finger or toe at 100 crowns, or one slave.

The loss of a foot or leg at 200 crowns, or two slaves.

The loss of both legs at 600 crowns, or six slaves.

Nothing but death seems to have been considered as worth recompensing with more than 600 crowns. For any wound, which compelled a sailor to carry a _canulus_, 200 crowns were given, or two slaves. If a man had not even lost a member, but was for the present deprived of the use of it, he was still ent.i.tled to his compensation as much as if he had lost it altogether. The maimed were allowed to take either money or slaves.

The charter-party drawn up by Sir Henry Morgan before his famous expedition, which ended in the plunder and destruction of Panama, shows several modifications of the earlier contract.

To him who struck the enemy's flag, and planted the Buccaneers', fifty piastres, besides his share.

To him who took a prisoner who brought tidings, 100 piastres, besides his share.

For every grenade thrown into an enemy's port-hole, five piastres.

To him who took an officer of rank at the risk of his life, proportionate reward.

To him who lost two legs, 500 crowns, or fifteen slaves.

To him who lost two arms, 800 piastres, or eighteen slaves.

To him who lost one leg or one arm, 500 piastres, or six slaves.