Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers
TextAgain she assumed her masculine attire, sold out all her effects, and with gold enough in her purse to meet her immediate wants, set out for Holland, where, a perfect stranger, she entered again upon her masculine career, without any fear of detection. Quartered upon one of the frontier towns of Holland there was an English regiment of foot. It was a time of peace, and the soldiers were living in indolence, with nothing to do. It was easy, under these circumstances, to join the regiment, and to purchase a release, at any time when one might wish to do so.
Again Frank enlisted. After a few months, weary of the monotonous life, she obtained a discharge, and shipped herself, as a common sailor, on board a vessel bound for the West Indies. It was a Dutch vessel. Frank was the only English person on board. On the voyage, an English pirate hove in sight and ran down upon the merchant-ship. The pirate was so well armed, and such a throng of desperate men crowded its decks, that resistance would have been but folly. The ship was captured without a struggle.
The pirate, after plundering the ship of all its treasures, impressed the English Frank as an addition to its own crew; and then turned the despoiled ship adrift, inflicting no personal injury upon the officers or sailors. As we have before mentioned, these buccaneers did not regard themselves, at that time, neither were they regarded by others, as ordinary pirates would now be judged. They were acting in a certain sense under the royal commission. They were authorized to plunder all Spanish ships. And if they occasionally made a mistake, and did not read the flag aright, it was an irregularity not entirely unpardonable.
This piratic ship continued its cruise of plundering for several months. Frank had been impressed on board, and could not escape had she wished to do. Probably her moral sense was not sufficiently instructed to lead her to make any remonstrances, which would, of course, have been entirely unavailing, or to feel any special qualms of conscience. Accustomed as she ever had been to the masculine dress, and to all the habits of the sailor and the soldier, she did not feel the least embarrassment in her new situation. No one moved about the decks or clambered the shrouds with more free motion than Frank.
Just about this time the royal proclamation, to which we have referred, came out, offering pardon to all pirates who would surrender themselves, excepting Kidd and Avery. The crew of this ship of buccaneers decided to take advantage of this proclamation.
The West-Indian group, called the Bahamas, consists of several hundred islands of various magnitudes. One of these, San Salvador, was the first land, in the New World, which was discovered by Columbus. The most important of the group, from its excellent harbor, and its situation in reference to Florida, is New Providence. The island was originally settled by the English in 1629. It was captured by the Spaniards, and the English were expelled, in the year 1641. The merciless Spaniards murdered the governor, and committed many other great outrages. Again, in the year 1666, the thunders of British broadsides echoed along its shores, and the banners of England were again unfurled over its mountains and fertile vales. Forty-seven years passed away, over this war-cursed globe, when, in 1703, a united fleet of French and Spanish ships expelled the English, and, neglecting to take military possession of the island, it became a rendezvous for pirates, where scenes of revelry, sensuality, and crime were perpetrated which no pen can describe.
Thus for eighty years Heaven looked down upon its enormities. It was then again formally ceded to the English, and has since remained in their possession. At the time of which we are writing, England held the island, and a British governor was in command there. The buccaneers, with their purses well filled with gold, the result of their cruises as freebooters, ran into the harbor of New Providence. They made their surrender to the governor, and received the royal pardon.
Frank had been but a short time among them. Her purse was not a heavy one. It is not known that she added anything to it during her short and compulsory cruise on board the buccaneer. Her money was soon expended. The British governor at New Providence was at that very time fitting out several armed vessels to cruise against the Spaniards, as privateersmen. He was eager to enlist any of the bold buccaneers who could be lured to enter that service. Nothing could be more congenial to the wishes of these desperate men. Frank, being out of employment, enlisted as privateersman, on board of one of these Government ships.
CHAPTER XIII
Anne Bonny, the Female Pirate
Rackam the Pirate. – Anne Bonny his Wife. – Reasons for Assuming a Boy’s Dress. – Infamous Character of Rackam. – Anne falls in Love with Mary. – Curious Complications. – The Duel. – Chivalry of Frank. – The Capture. – The Trial. – Testimony of the Artist. – Death of Mary Read. – Rackam Dies on the Scaffold.
There was upon the island of New Providence, at that time, a very consummate villain by the name of Rackam. He had been captain of a pirate ship, and shared his cabin with his wife, a very depraved woman, who was disguised in boy’s clothes. She apparently discharged the duties of a cabin-boy. This Captain Rackam had taken advantage of the king’s proclamation, had surrendered himself as a pirate, and had received a pardon.
Eagerly he enlisted, with his wife in man’s garb, as a messmate, in one of the governor’s privateers. No one on board the ship was aware of the sex of his companion. She was truly his wife, and her real name was Anne Bonny. She had been a rude, ungovernable girl, and her parents were so displeased that she should have married such a worthless wretch as Rackam was known to be, that they would no longer recognize her. Having nothing to live upon, she assumed a sailor’s dress, and they both shipped for New Providence. He doubtless intended there to resume the career of a pirate.
Rackam and Anne Bonny enlisted on board the same ship. Here then there were two women in male attire, neither of whom had any suspicion of the real sex of the other. No one could associate with such companions as those of Mary Read, or encounter the influences to which she was constantly exposed, without becoming in some degree corrupted.
The privateersman had been out but a few days when Rackam, who had many of his old confederates on board, formed a conspiracy, rose upon the officers, set them adrift, seized the ship, and turned to his old trade. Mary Read, in the character of Frank, was, as we have mentioned, a very handsome young fellow. The captain’s cabin-boy, Anne Bonney, fell desperately in love with Frank, and revealed to him, as she supposed, her sex. She approached Frank with all the seductions and allurements with which Potiphar’s wife solicited Joseph. Thus importuned, Frank confided to her that she was also a woman in disguise. This led to increased intimacy between the two young sailor women.
Captain Rackam became intensely jealous of his wife, in consequence of her familiarity with Frank. He threatened Anne that he would certainly cut Frank’s throat. Anne, well aware of the desperate character of the pirate, felt constrained, that she might save Mary’s life, to let the captain into the secret also. He did not divulge it, knowing that she might be exposed to very cruel treatment from the unprincipled wretches who thronged his decks.
But again the all-devouring passion took possession of the bosom of Frank. Many vessels were captured. After being plundered they were generally turned adrift again, with their crews. If the pirates, however, found on board these ships any one who could be of use to them, he was detained on board their ship. It so chanced that one day they took a ship where there was a young English artist. Rackam, thinking that the artist might be of service to him, in sketching scenes and drawing charts, detained him as a captive. He was a genteel young fellow, handsome, of fascinating manners, very skilful with his pencil, and possessed of very attractive conversational powers. Frank and the young artist were instinctively drawn toward each other.
And when Frank told her companion that she loathed the life of a pirate, that she was one of the crew by compulsion, and that she should embrace the first possible opportunity to escape, a new bond of union was formed between them. They became messmates, and were always together. He never had a doubt that the masculine pronoun, he, belonged to his bronzed but smooth-cheeked and soft-voiced companion.
Even on board a pirate ship there are many opportunities for seclusion. In the dark and tempestuous night, when the wine-heated officers were carousing in the cabin, and the crew were rioting in the forecastle, Frank and the artist, wrapped in those thick sailor-jackets which defy both wind and rain, would seek some retired position upon the deck, beneath the stormy sky, and beguile the weary hours in relating to each other the story of the past, and in planning measures for escape. Frank was the younger of the two, and in these hours of midnight communings, loved to recline with her head in the lap of her unsuspecting comrade.
The inevitable result ensued. The whole passionate nature of the woman, still almost in her girlhood, became aglow with love of the young artist. In one of these midnight communings she revealed to her astonished friend her sex. His friendship was speedily converted into impassioned love. He had ever, under her assumed character, had occasion to respect her. He could not recall a single action of immodesty or impropriety. Alone in the darkness of the night, upon the solitary deck with the stars alone looking down upon them, they went through the ceremony of what they both deemed a secret marriage.
Mary Read ever averred that she regarded those nuptials as sacred as if the rite had been performed in the church, by the robed priest, and in the presence of any number of witnesses. She was never accused of being unfaithful to her marriage vows, or of ever having been even indiscreet in her conduct.
Still the months passed away. The ship continued its piratic cruise. Frank, though secretly the wife of the artist, had excited no suspicion of her disguise. In her sailor’s garb she still performed every duty imposed upon others of the crew. There were several bloody actions fought. In these engagements both she and Anne Bonny were called upon, like the rest, to work at the guns.
It was one of the laws of the ship, that if any quarrel arose between any two of the crew, there should be no contention on board the ship, but that when they next approached an island, they should, with their friends, land in a boat, and settle the quarrel in a duel on the shore. The artist was so grossly incited by one of the pirates, that he either challenged him, or accepted a challenge from him to fight a duel. Frank would not have had her husband, on any account, refuse the hostile meeting. Public sentiment was such among the pirates, that had he done this, there would have been no end to the insults and abuse he would have received as a reward.
Frank was in a state of great agitation and anxiety for the fate of her lover. She was an admirable swordsman, and no one of the piratic crew was a truer shot with the pistol. Her love was so passionate that she felt that she could not live without that husband, whose union with her was so enhanced by the attractions which secrecy and romance give. She was far more ready to peril her own life than to have his endangered.
She therefore deliberately provoked such a quarrel with the pirate who was soon to have a hostile meeting with her husband, as to compel him to an immediate and angry challenge. Adroitly she succeeded in having the time appointed for their meeting two hours before the duel was to be fought with her husband. In her intensely excited frame of mind she resolved to make sure work of it.
They were to meet at but a few paces distance, discharge their pistols at each other, and then, with drawn swords, advance and fight until one or the other was effectually disabled or killed. The pistols were discharged. Neither of them was seriously wounded. They then crossed swords. There was a fierce clashing of the weapons for a few minutes and then the agile Frank passed her sword through the body of her adversary, and he fell before her a bloody corpse.
Such rencontres were too common with that ship’s crew, and Frank had been too conversant all her days with such scenes of blood to have it produce any serious impression upon her mind. With much composure she wiped her crimsoned sword and returned to the ship, exulting in the thought that she had saved her husband’s life. The attachment between Frank and her lover before this seems to have been very strong. But this event bound them more firmly together than ever before.
Almost invariably, even in this world, retribution follows crime. After many successful captures, and much rioting and revelry with this godless crew, the hour of vengeance came. One day a swift-sailing English frigate, of powerful armament, caught sight of the pirate and gave chase. The vessel was overtaken and captured, and all her crew, in irons, were carried to England for trial. There was no disposition to deal tenderly with these wretches, whose crimes could scarcely be numbered. The trial was expeditious and the execution prompt. The young artist easily proved that he was a prisoner on board the ship, and had never taken any part in their piratic exploits. He was promptly released. Frank was one of the pirates. Her assertion that she was reluctantly so, was of no avail. She had been of their recognized number; she had been identified with them in all the employments of a sailor; she had taken an active part in their battles.
One of the witnesses, who had been taken a prisoner by Rackam, and detained for some time on board the pirates’ craft, gave the following testimony against Frank, or rather against Mary Read; for during the trial her sex had been divulged, and the embarrassing fact had been discovered that, ere long, she was to become a mother. The testimony was as follows:
“I was taken prisoner by Rackam, and was detained for some time on board the pirate ship. One day I accidentally fell into discourse with the prisoner at the bar. She was dressed like the ordinary seamen, and I did not suppose her to be anything different. Taking her for a young man, I asked her what pleasure she could find in such enterprises, where her life was continually in danger by fire or sword; and not only so, but she must be sure of dying an ignominious death if she should be taken alive?
“She replied, that as to hanging, she deemed it no great hardship; for were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate, and so infest the seas that men of courage must starve. She said that were it put to the choice of the pirates, they would not have the punishment less than death; for it was only the fear of death which kept many dastardly rogues honest. Many of those, she said, who are now cheating the widows and orphans, and oppressing their poor neighbors who have no money to obtain justice, would then rob at sea. Thus the ocean would be crowded with rogues like the land. No merchant would venture out. Trade in a little time would not be worth following. It is the fear of hanging alone which restrains thousands from piracy.”
When we consider the impossibility of making an exact report of conversation, and when we consider the situation of Frank among the pirates, and that her life would instantly have been forfeited if they had suspected her of unfaithfulness, we can imagine that essentially these remarks might have been made, without indicating any special moral delinquency. Frank did not deny having made them.
Several of the crew, however, brought forward much more damaging testimony. When, to the astonishment of all, the sex both of Mary Read and Anne Bonny was made known to the court, the pirates seemed very desirous that their fate should be inseparably connected with their own. The testimony against Anne Bonny was very strong. She had accompanied her infamous husband in most of his adventures, and had rendered herself very conspicuous by her courage and her energetic action.
When the frigate took the pirate there was a short conflict. But the great guns of the frigate swept the pirate’s deck with such a storm of grape-shot, that every one rushed into the hold, excepting Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Mary Read, it was said, called upon those under the deck to come up and fight like men. As they refused, in her rage she fired her pistol down among them, killing one and wounding others. This latter charge, which went far to condemn her, she utterly denied. Such bravado was not at all in accordance with her general character. But it was just the conduct to be expected of Anne Bonny. She was a desperado, as robust in person as she was masculine in character. Rumor said that before she entered upon her piratic career she stabbed a servant-maid with a carving-knife, and so severely beat a young fellow whom she disliked that he narrowly escaped with his life.
They were both pronounced guilty of piracy, and condemned to be hung. As it was not deemed right that Mary Read’s child should forfeit its life in consequence of its mother’s sins, Mary was allowed a reprieve, until after the birth of her child. Being remanded to her gloomy and solitary cell in Newgate prison, she awaited, with anguish, her approaching maternity, to be immediately followed by an ignominious death upon the scaffold. The horror of her situation threw her into a fever, of which she fortunately died. Thus she escaped the scaffold: and she and her unborn babe slept in the grave together.
Rackam was hanged just before the time appointed for the execution of his wife. The morning on which he was led to the scaffold, he was first conducted to the cell of Anne Bonny. Her characteristic speech to him was:
“I am sorry to see you here; but if you had fought like a man, you need not have been hanged like a dog.”
In an hour from that time he was struggling in death’s agonies. Anne was reprieved from time to time, and finally escaped execution. What at last became of her no one knows.
CHAPTER XIV
Sir Henry Morgan
His Origin. – Goes to the West Indies. – Joins the Buccaneers. – Meets Mansvelt the Pirate. – Conquest of St. Catharine. – Piratic Colony there. – Ravaging the Coast of Costa Rica. – Sympathy of the Governor of Jamaica. – Death of Mansvelt. – Expedition of Don John. – The Island Recaptured by the Spaniards. – Plans of Morgan. – His Fleet. – The Sack of Puerto Principe. – Horrible Atrocities. – Retreat of the Pirates. – The Duel. – They Sail for Puerto Velo. – Conquest of the City. – Heroism of the Governor.
Though the name of Sir Henry Morgan has not attained equal notoriety with that of Captain William Kidd, his achievements were far more wonderful and infamous. He was born of a good and wealthy family in Wales. Early developing a roaming disposition, he left his home for the seacoast, and there took passage for Barbadoes. In those days any man could obtain a passage to the colonies; by agreeing to pay the fare in service on the other side. Labor was in great demand. Upon the arrival of the ship the planters would hasten on board and pay the passage money, which the emigrant was to repay by certain stipulated months of labor.
In this way Henry Morgan reached Barbadoes. Here his labor was sold to pay his passage, and he faithfully served out his term. He had come from a virtuous home, but rapidly the reckless boy yielded to the influences which surrounded him, until he became the worst of the bad. From Barbadoes he wandered over to Jamaica, seeking his fortune. Though there was then peace between England and Spain, the British Government was encouraging private piratical excursions against the commerce of Spain. As we have had frequent occasion to mention, these buccaneers had nothing to fear from the English courts so long as they confined themselves to robbing the Spanish ships.
At Jamaica, Morgan found two vessels openly fitting out for these buccaneering expeditions. He shipped on board one of them, and made two or three very successful voyages. Some men seem born to command. Such do not long remain in a subordinate position. Morgan was a man of the imperial mould. As he now had considerable money at his disposal, he proposed, to some of his comrades, that they should join stocks, purchase a vessel, and cruise on their own account. This was promptly done, and Morgan was unanimously chosen commander.
Morgan was already a desperado. With a numerous crew and a well-armed vessel he set out to cruise along that portion of the Mexican coast called Campeachy. After an absence of a few months, he returned triumphantly to Jamaica, his ship laden with the spoil of many captures. This pirate took refuge beneath the flag of England and under the guns of her fort. At that time the British Government was the most atrocious pirate earth had ever known; for while at peace with Spain, the Government encouraged all private piratical expeditions against her commerce.
In the streets of Jamaica, Morgan met a notorious pirate by the name of Mansvelt. The renown of this sea-robber had spread far and wide. He was then equipping a very considerable fleet, intending to man it with a sufficiency of troops to enable him to land upon the territory of the Spaniards and to plunder their cities. Mansvelt, seeing Morgan return with so many prizes, formed a high opinion of his skill and courage, and appointed him vice-admiral of his squadron.
A fleet of fifteen ships was soon ready for sea, with a crew of five hundred pirates. About a thousand miles southwest of Jamaica, in Central America, was the Spanish province of Costa Rica, reaching across the narrow Isthmus of Panama from sea to sea. A few leagues from the shore, and but about one hundred miles north of the river Chagres, was the Island of St. Catharine, where the Spaniards had a small garrison. The pirates landed, captured the island, took the Spanish soldiers prisoners, and garrisoned the fort with a hundred of their own men. They left a numerous band of slaves, taken from the Spaniards, to cultivate the soil for their new masters. A Frenchman, by the name of Le Sieur Simon, was placed in command. He was directed to put the island in the best posture for defence, and to set all the slaves at work to raise provisions on the fertile plantations. He was thus expected to revictual the fleet upon its return. It was evidently the intention of Mansvelt to establish there a colony of buccaneers, with fleet and army, of which colony he was to be the king. He had no fears of being interrupted in his operations by the British Government.
Mansvelt again spread his sails, and, accompanied by his energetic vice-admiral Morgan, cruised along the eastern coast of Costa Rica. At various points he sent boats, armed with pirates, ashore to rob the villages. The Spanish governor of the adjacent province of Panama, on the south, hearing of these depredations, gathered all the forces at his disposal, and rousing the whole country, advanced to expel the pirates. Mansvelt retreated, and returned with his fleet to St. Catharine. Here he found that his agent had been very efficient, and that an ample supply of provisions was ready for his ships.
This most infamous of pirates returned to the Island of Jamaica, held an interview with the governor, informed him frankly of his plans, and solicited the loan of a portion of his garrison to enable him to hold the island against any attempt of the Spaniards to regain it. The governor received the pirate courteously, expressed the fear that the King of England might not exactly approve of such undisguised hostility, when there was peace between the two countries, and stating also that his garrison was then so feeble that he could not with safety diminish its strength.
Mansvelt then repaired, with one of his ships, to the celebrated rendezvous of the buccaneers at Tortuga. While endeavoring to raise recruits among the desperadoes assembled there, he was taken sick, and passed away, to answer for his guilty life at the tribunal of God.
In the mean time, on the 14th of July, 1665, Don John, the governor of Panama, commenced organizing an expedition to regain the island. He sent a ship, under Captain Joseph Ximines, thoroughly equipped, and manned by three hundred and eighty-two soldiers. The ship touched at Carthagena, with a letter to the commandant of the Spanish settlement there. He promptly added to the expedition three small armed vessels, with one hundred and twenty-six men. On the 2d of August this little fleet came in sight of the western end of the Island of St. Catharine. The wind was contrary. It was not until the 12th they entered the harbor and cast anchor before the pirates’ strong fort.
There was an interchange of a few shots between the stone castle and the fleet, which effected but little injury on either side. Ximines sent one of his officers on shore bearing a flag of truce, with the following summons:
“In the name of the King of Spain, I demand the surrender of this island. It was taken in the midst of peace between England and Spain. If the surrender is refused, and I am forced to take the works by storm, I shall certainly put all the garrison to the sword.”
The piratic commander returned the answer. “This island once belonged to the King of England. It rightly belongs to him now. We will sooner die than surrender.”
During the night of Friday, the 13th, three slaves swam off to the ships, and informed the commandant that there were but seventy-two soldiers in the fort and that they were in great consternation in view of the force brought against them. Saturday was devoted to preparations for landing in the boats and storming the works.
The morning of the Sabbath dawned beautifully over the Eden-like luxuriance of the tropical isle.
The vessels brought their broadsides to bear upon the fort, and, under cover of their fire, three strong parties were landed in the boats. Captain Leyva led sixty men to attack the principal gate. Captain Galeno, at the head of ninety men, took a circuitous route through the forest to attack the castle in the rear. The commander-in-chief, Ximines, with a still stronger force, assailed one of the sides. The conflict was short, but not very bloody. Six of the pirates were killed, and a pretty large number wounded. The Spaniards lost but one man killed and four wounded.
The pirates endeavored to escape into the woods, but were cut off and all captured. There were found, in the fort, eight hundred pounds of powder, two hundred and fifty pounds of bullets, and also a large supply of provisions and other material of war. Two Spaniards were taken who had enlisted with the buccaneers, to rob the commerce of Spain. They were immediately led out and shot.
The fort proved to be very strong, and an excellent piece of workmanship. It was built of stone, quadrangular in form, with walls eighty-eight feet high. While these scenes were transpiring, Captain Morgan, unconscious of them, was at Jamaica. Hearing of the death of Mansvelt, he, without opposition, assumed the admiralship. He was straining every nerve to retain possession of St. Catharine, and so to strengthen the works as to make the island a safe and convenient store-house for the vast plunder of the buccaneers.
As the governor of Jamaica declined adding to the piratic force, in St. Catharine, at the expense of his own garrison, Morgan wrote to leading merchants in Virginia and New England, urging them, by the promise of the most liberal pay, to send him provisions, ammunition, and other necessary articles. When the tidings reached him that the Spaniards had regained the island, he lost no time in unavailing regrets, but immediately turned, with demoniac energy, to other enterprises.
With great vigor he commenced organizing a new fleet. His agents proudly strode through every English port, openly purchasing vessels and ammunition, and mounting the guns. All the vessels were ordered to rendezvous, within a given time, at a solitary harbor on the south side of the Island of Cuba.
This magnificent island is eight hundred miles in length, and from twenty-five to one hundred and thirty in breadth. The principal towns of Cuba, at that time, were Havana on the north and Santiago on the south. Havana was fortified by three strong forts. There were many other small and flourishing settlements scattered along the extended coast. There were ten thousand families in Havana, and its commerce was immense.
Captain Morgan had, in the course of two months, assembled in his retired harbor a fleet of twelve vessels, large and small, with over eight hundred fighting men. He called a council of his officers to decide as to the enterprise upon which they should embark. Several urged a midnight attack upon Havana. They said that there was immense wealth in the city, that it might be attacked by surprise, as no one suspected danger; and that the city could be plundered before the inhabitants would have any time to organize for defence.
Others affirmed that they were not strong enough for so great an achievement; that they needed at least fifteen hundred men to attempt the capture of a city of fifty thousand inhabitants. After much discussion it was decided to attack a flourishing inland town of Cuba, called Puerto Principe. It was situated a few leagues from the southern shore, and was utterly unprepared for such an attack as the pirates could bring against it. One of the pirates was familiar with the place and with all of its approaches. He said that the town had never been sacked, and consequently was very rich.