Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers

Terrible was the condition of the Spaniards in the woods. They were suffering from every kind of exposure. They were devoured by insects. They were starving. They were watching over sick and dying friends. And they were every moment in danger of being captured, and exposed to the most horrible torments, to extort the confession of hidden treasures, when they had no treasure to hide.

The next night another party of prisoners was brought in, with other plunder. Lolonois summoned the captives before him. Drawing his sharp sabre, he, without apparently the slightest emotion, hewed one of them to pieces before the eyes of all the rest. He did this slowly and deliberately, so as to prolong life as much as possible. Then, turning to the rest, he said, with a pirate’s oath:

“If you do not reveal to me where you have concealed the rest of your goods, I will serve every one of you in the same manner.”

For fifteen days the pirates remained at Maracaibo. They perpetrated cruelties upon their captives so terrible, that we are compelled to spread a veil over them. They then prepared to move on to Gibraltar.

The governor of this province, which was called Venezuela, or Little Venice, from its many marshes, resided at Merida. He was a veteran soldier, who had gained renown in the wars in Flanders. He was, moreover, somewhat of a braggadocio. The panic-stricken inhabitants of Gibraltar, sent imploring appeals to him for aid. He returned the boastful reply:

“Give yourselves no uneasiness. I will soon be with you, at the head of four hundred experienced soldiers. The pirates shall be utterly exterminated.”

He reached Gibraltar with his little army. Rallying the inhabitants, he soon had at his command a force of eight hundred well-armed men. He raised two batteries to command the approaches to the town. Upon one he mounted twenty guns; upon the other eight. He also barricaded the main entrance to the town. To deceive the pirates, he opened a road which led circuitously away into impassable swamps.

As Lolonois approached the town he saw the royal banner of Spain floating over its defences, indicating that he could not take possession of the place without a battle. He called his officers around him, and thus addressed them:

“The difficulties of our enterprise have become very great. The Spaniards have had much time to prepare for their defence. They have an ample supply of ammunition, and have assembled a large number of men. Still, let us be of good courage. We must either defend ourselves like valiant soldiers, or lose our lives with all the riches we have gained. I am your captain. Do as I do. We have fought with fewer men than we have now. We have conquered foes more numerous than can possibly oppose us here. The more they are, the greater our glory, and the greater our riches. But know ye this, that the first man who gives any indication of fear, I will pistol with my own hand.”

They landed from their ships, a little after midnight. In all, they numbered three hundred and eighty. Each man had a musket with thirty bullets, cartridges, a cutlass, and two or three loaded pistols in his belt. As they commenced their march, which they knew must lead to the death of some of them, they shook hands with each other in pledge of mutual support.

“Come, my brothers,” said Lolonois, “follow me, and be of good courage.”

Upon reaching the barricade, where they encountered a heavy fire, they turned aside into the new road which had been opened to insnare them. This battle in the woods, amid swamps and thickets, and intertwining vines and torturing thorns, can not be described. The combatants were sometimes up to their waists in mire. The entanglements of a tropical forest were such that they often could not see or approach each other. Much of the firing was at random. The air was heavy with moisture. The large guns of the batteries hurled balls and grape-shot, crashing through the branches. The sulphurous smoke settled down upon the morass in stifling folds.

The pirates cut down branches of the trees and threw them into the marsh, and thus gradually struggled through, until they reached the firm ground beyond. Here the Spaniards were again ready to receive them, with opposing batteries. Many of the pirates had perished in the swamp. Their situation now seemed desperate. Lolonois was equal to the occasion. He feigned a panic. The pirates fled tumultuously, crying out, “Save himself who can.” Their flight was toward the ships.

The Spaniards, deceived by the feigned discomfiture, rushed from behind their intrenchments in eager pursuit, shouting joyfully, “They fly; they fly!” Lolonois and his men, having drawn them some distance from their batteries, turned upon them with the reckless ferocity of tigers. Their bloody work was soon accomplished. A few of the Spaniards escaped in terror to the woods. All the rest were cut down. Gibraltar was at the mercy of the pirates.

Five hundred Spaniards lay dead upon the ground. Many of those who escaped to the woods were wounded, and of these not a few died, for they were destitute of all aid in dressing their wounds. Fearing that so many dead bodies might create contagion, the pirates piled them all in two large boats, and sunk them in the lake. Still many putrefying corpses were left scattered through the woods. The pirates admit that they lost eighty in the conflict. The number was probably greater. Though most of the inhabitants escaped from the town, the victors held about one hundred and fifty prisoners, men, women, and children. They prized these captives because, by torturing them, they hoped to find where money was concealed.

The town was plundered effectually. Every nook and corner they searched. The miserable captives were shut up in the church. Gangs of men were sent out to ravage the plantations around. As provisions became scarce, the prisoners were left without any supply of bread or water. The hearts of the pirates were no more moved by their piteous moans than were the stone blocks with which the church was built. During the four weeks the pirates held Gibraltar, nearly all these captives died of actual starvation.

Their gangs ranged the woods for great distances, bringing in plunder and prisoners. Many women were brought in. Every conceivable measure was resorted to, to get money. The whole region was wantonly turned into a blackened, smouldering desert. Lolonois wished to pursue his mad career over the mountains to Merida. But a pestilential and contagious disease sprang up among his men. God’s hand seemed to smite them. All were sick. Skeleton forms staggered through the streets. These men were not ignorant of the crimes they were committing. There were no loving hands to attend them in the languor of sickness, in the agonies of death. In misery, many of these wretches were burned with fever. Moaning and blaspheming they died, and their guilty souls passed to the tribunal of that God who cannot look upon sin but with abhorrence. They had seized their ill-gotten gold, and it had indeed turned to ashes in their grasp.

CHAPTER X
The Plunder; the Carousal; and the New Enterprise

^{Gibraltar in Ashes. – The Return to Maracaibo. – Division of the Plunder. – Peculiar Scene. – Reception of the Pirates at Tortuga. – Fiend-like Carousal. – The Pirates Reduced to Beggary. – Lolonois’s New Enterprise. – The “Furious Calm.” – Days of Disaster. – Ravaging the Coast. – Capture of San Pedro.}

Disease was now cutting down the pirates faster than the bullets or sabres of the Spaniards had done. The victors, with an abundance of gold and booty, were starving. The provisions in the place were all consumed, and no fresh supplies had been brought in. The woe-stricken wretches were quarrelling among themselves about the division of the spoil.

Lolonois sent several parties of men into the region around, to search out fugitives from Gibraltar, and say to them that if, within two days, they would send in to him fifty-eight thousand dollars, he would not burn the city; otherwise he would lay every building in ashes. He set at liberty several of his prisoners also, to convey to their friends the same information. Disappointed in the money he had found, he still believed that large sums had been secreted by the fugitives.

The two days passed, and the money did not come. Lolonois set fire to the four corners of the town, and in six hours reduced it to ashes. By beat of drum he assembled his sick and starving men, and embarked, with all the riches which were movable. He took several captives with him, male and female. Sailing down the bay, they soon reached Maracaibo. Quite a number of the inhabitants, who had returned tremblingly to their desolated homes, he captured. Beggared as the poor creatures already were, the merciless pirate said to them:

“If you will supply me with five hundred cows, and bring me thirty thousand dollars in coin, I will spare your city. If you do not yield to this demand, I will treat your city as I have served Gibraltar. Not one building shall be left standing.”

The cows were driven in. The money was paid. The people, still trembling, and not daring to manifest their joy, saw these Goths and Vandals of modern times, spread their sails, and slowly disappear in the distant horizon. But who can imagine the condition in which the town was left? The people were utterly despoiled. The homes were desolated. Widows and orphans wept and wailed, with life-long penury before them. Not a few of the people with ruined constitutions, tottered through the streets, slowly recovering from the crushings and the lacerations of the rack. When we read of such crimes perpetrated by man upon his brother, one almost shrinks from owning himself a man. And the weary heart finds little comfort in the thought that the Spaniards deserved it all. These woes came upon them as a righteous retribution. With equal cruelty they had treated the native Cubans, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians.

The fleet sailed for Gonaves on the Island of Hispaniola. There the spoil was to be divided. Each one took a solemn oath, on the Bible, that he had concealed nothing, but that he had thrown everything into the public stock.

The gathering of the pirates for this distribution on the shores of a lovely bay of the Island of St. Domingo, must have presented a very singular spectacle. In the centre of a small verdant lawn, spread upon the grass, were bales of richest silk; cloths of great variety of texture; baskets of gold and silver coin, pistols, sabres, and muskets of the best construction, and costly jewels, and golden cups, vases, and ornaments, of which the churches had been despoiled. Around stood wild groups of heavily armed, half-naked pirates, in ferocity of aspect resembling fiends rather than men. Some countenances were disfigured with sabre gashes; while some hobbled upon crutches. Native Indians had gathered around, their long, black hair streaming in the wind, and their almost naked bodies shining like coin fresh from the mint. Several Spanish captives were there, men and women, looking sadly on at the distribution of the wealth of which their own homes had been plundered. There were also a large number of negro slaves present, with their black limbs and woolly, hatless heads, whom the pirates had brought with them to perform their heavy or menial tasks.

After an exact calculation of the whole spoil in coin, jewels, and goods, the sum total was estimated at only about five hundred thousand dollars. The property was really worth much more. But a very low estimate was placed upon most of the goods. Silver in bullion was valued at eight dollars a pound. The pirates were so ignorant of the real value of jewels, that they were prized at nothing like their real worth. Many of the stores and fabrics were also greatly undervalued.

Still, even at this low estimate, the average was over a thousand dollars for each pirate. Having finished this important business, they set sail for Tortuga, where most of them were, in a few days, to squander all the fruits of their robberies and murders, in the most riotous dissipation. After a four-weeks’ voyage they reached the great rendezvous of the buccaneers. The island was crowded with gamblers and abandoned women, and every conceivable haunt of dissipation.

For three weeks Tortuga presented a spectacle of frenzied and maddened carousal, which could not have been surpassed. Men, insane with drink, rushed through the streets, slashing with their sabres in all directions. Casks of rum and wine were placed in the streets, standing on end, with the heads knocked out, and every passer-by was compelled to drink. The women, more loathsome in their wickedness than the men, reeled through the thoroughfares, in the richest silks and satins, and bedecked with glittering jewelry of which a duchess might be proud. There were oaths and brawls and bloody duels. In the delirium of these demoniac orgies gold watches were fried for a costly breakfast, and were served up with boiled pearls and jewels.

Two French vessels chanced just then to enter the port, laden with wine and brandy. This was throwing fresh fuel upon the fiery conflagration of violence, sin, and shame then raging in this miniature city of all the fiends. In the course of three weeks nearly all of these thieves had squandered everything. The riches they had gained by murder and the endurance and the infliction of untold miseries, had all passed into the hands of the gamblers, the liquor dealers, and the abandoned women. John Esquemeling, who witnessed these scenes, of which he wrote an account, says that the governor of the island bought of these buccaneers a shipload of cocoa, for not one-twentieth part its real value. He sent it to Europe, and realized over five hundred thousand dollars from the profits. Lolonois, though fiercely brave, and with unusual native strength of mind, was a low, degraded, brutal man. He indulged in these bacchanal orgies with the meanest of his crew. No one was guilty of greater excesses. No one sank to greater depths in the mire of loathsome wickedness. Not one short month had passed ere he was reeling through the streets a filthy and ragged beggar. He was also deeply involved in debt.

He could conceive of but one mode of extrication. That was to set out upon another piratic expedition. The ravages of the pirates had been so great that the commerce of those seas was almost annihilated. Merchant ships abandoned the ocean, unless attended by a very strong convoy. This it was which led the buccaneers to go in fleets, so as to land in sufficient strength to desolate the coasts and to sack towns and cities.

Lolonois’s success had given him high reputation as a pirate. There were many on the island ready to furnish him with the means for another adventure. There were hundreds of penniless, starving wretches staggering through the streets, eager to enlist under his banner for any service whatever. Inscrutable is the mystery of God’s government. He has allowed miniature hells to exist on earth, and to be crowded with demons in human form. No philosophy, no theology can explain this. The heart, in its anguish, often cries out, “O Lord, how long! how long!” Faith tremblingly and sadly exclaims, “What we know not now we shall know hereafter.”

This demoniac man had sense enough to abandon his cups, until his brain was sufficiently clear to organize, even to its details, the plan for a new expedition. The enterprise was communicated to a few men of capital and unscrupulous shrewdness. Money was promptly raised. Six vessels were purchased. There were generally vessels enough in the harbor, from the prizes that were brought in, and from the large number of piratic ships.

Lolonois placarded a proclamation upon the walls, calling for volunteers. More than seven hundred eager applicants thronged his doors. Three hundred of these he took, with himself, on board his largest ship. The rest were placed in five other ships. None but the leading officers were informed of the destination of the fleet.

They first sailed to a port called Bayaha, on the Island of San Domingo, then, as we have mentioned, called Hispaniola; or Little Spain. Here they filled their water-casks and supplied themselves with provisions. Thence they sailed to Matamana, a solitary but commodious harbor on the south side of Cuba. This region was famous for its rich turtles. Native Cuban fishermen, in large boats, pursued these animals, alike valuable for their flesh and their shells. The pirates were fond of turtle soup. Lolonois needed a large number of boats, that he might simultaneously land the crews, from his ships, upon any doomed city.

These poor men were mercilessly robbed of their boats, into many of which forty sailors could be crowded. The poor fishermen, having no other means of subsistence, were overwhelmed with grief and dismay. Lolonois was as heedless of their sorrows as he was of the manifest trouble of the tortoise when deprived of its young. Again they spread their sails, and had advanced about three hundred miles along the southern coast of Cuba, when they were overtaken by what the Spaniards call a “furious calm.”

For four weeks there was not a breath of air. Day after day the tropical sun rose, pouring down upon their blistered decks his scorching rays. The cabins became as furnaces. There was relief nowhere. The pirates swore, prayed, called upon the Virgin and the saints. All was in vain. Twenty eight days of this terrible imprisonment passed slowly away. In the mean time a strong, but imperceptible and resistless current swept them along into the Gulf of Honduras, which deeply penetrates the eastern coast of Central America. Upon leaving Cuba, the crews had been informed of the enterprise before them. They were to coast along the province of Nicaragua and plunder all its settlements, great and small.

This important Spanish province extended entirely across the Isthmus of Panama, then called Darien, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. It was bounded on the north by Honduras, and on the south by Costa Rica. By the current, the pirates had been swept nearly five hundred miles west of the point which they wished to make. To return, they must coast, for that distance, along the bleak, almost uninhabited northern shore of Honduras.

The Gulf stream, pouring into the Bay of Honduras, pressed strongly against them. The calm was followed by fresh winds. But these winds were strong and contrary. It was impossible to beat against both wind and current.

Another dreary month thus passed away, as they struggled against adversity. Their provisions were consumed. Their water-casks were empty. Famine compelled them to seek the land. Entering the mouth of a large river, which they called Xagua, and which afforded a harbor for their fleet, they cast anchor. The region was quite densely inhabited by Indians, inoffensive and friendly. They had for some years conducted trade with the Spaniards, which was profitable to both parties. The Indians received, in exchange for cocoa, articles from Europe, to them of priceless value.

There were many picturesque Indian villages, scattered along the banks of the river, beneath cocoa groves, and surrounded by orange plantations and fields of Indian corn. The natives had also learned the value of swine and poultry, and were well supplied with both. When they saw the fleet approaching they were not alarmed, but rejoiced, as they were eager both to sell and to buy. They sprang into their canoes, loading them with vegetables, fruit, and fowls, and with smiling faces paddled out to the ships.

How shall I describe the scenes which ensued? Burke, I think, says, “to speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.” These incarnate fiends shot down the poor Indians, men and women, in mere wantonness – for the fun of it. Boats filled with these armed demons then went ashore. They shot the men, as they could. They took many women captives. They stripped the Indians of everything, swine, poultry, fruit, corn, and then burned their villages.

The renowned French historian, Michelet, though an unbeliever in the Christian religion, says that when writing the account of the atrocities perpetrated by the ancient nobility of France upon the peasantry, he found himself praying to God that there might be some future punishment, where these tyrants, clothed in purple and sumptuously feeding, might receive the due award for their crimes.

The amount of food obtained, furnished but a few days’ supply for seven hundred hungry mouths. Lolonois decided to remain there at anchor until the weather should prove more favorable. In the mean time he sent his armed boats up the river and along the shores in both directions for indiscriminate plunder. The whole region was devastated. The terrified Indians fled in all directions, taking with them what they could. Notwithstanding the utmost diligence of the plunderers, they could each day bring in barely enough for the day’s supply.

When the pirates had got everything here upon which they could lay their hands, they weighed anchor and worked their way slowly along the coast several leagues, until they reached a harbor called Port Cavallo. This was a trading-post of the Spaniards. They had here two capacious store-houses, to hold the goods which they received from the natives, and the articles brought from Spain to give to them in return. Ships occasionally arrived with fresh supplies, and to transport the purchases to Spain.

There was at that time in the harbor a large Spanish ship, which mounted twenty-four guns and sixteen mortars. But this one ship could make no effectual resistance against the fleet of the pirates. It was immediately seized. Its cargo had been mostly unloaded and carried back into the country, to be exchanged, in barter, with the Indians. They stripped the store-houses, and plundered and destroyed all the adjacent dwellings. They captured many prisoners, and put them to dreadful torture to compel them to confess, often when they had nothing which they could disclose.

Lolonois hacked them to pieces with his sabre; tore out their tongues; dislocated their joints with the rack. He committed upon them, writes Esquemeling, “the most insolent and inhuman cruelties that ever heathens invented, putting them to the cruelest tortures they could imagine or devise. Oftentimes it happened that some of these miserable prisoners, being forced thereunto by the rack, would promise to discover the places where the fugitive Spaniards lay hidden; which, being not able afterward to perform, they were put to more enormous and cruel deaths than they who were killed before.”

About twenty miles from Port Cavallo there was, not far from the coast, a small but thriving town called San Pedro. Lolonois took three hundred men and commenced his march to sack the place. He left his lieutenant, Moses Vauclin, in command of the men who were left behind with the ships. A few boats, well armed, were sent along the coast to render such assistance as might be needful. Before starting he told his troops that he would always march at their head, sharing all their dangers; but that he would cut down the first one who manifested any disposition to retreat or gave the least sign of fear.

There were no broad roads to traverse, but only intricate mule-paths, which could with difficulty be followed through the dense growth of a tropical forest. Two Spanish captives were taken as guides. The inhabitants of San Pedro, informed of their approach, sent out a party of men to intrench themselves in ambush on the way. The narrow road led through gigantic forests with almost impenetrable thickets of brambles and thorns and interlacing vines on either side.

When the pirates had advanced about nine miles, the Spaniards in ambush opened fire upon them. Taking deliberate aim, at the first discharge many of the pirates were killed, and more wounded. The battle which ensued was desperate on both sides. Lolonois, assuming that his guides had led him into the ambush, instantly cut them both down.

The fury of the pirates was irresistible, and the Spaniards were put to flight. They left behind many dead and wounded. The pirates put to death all of the wounded, excepting one or two whom they reserved as guides. These they threatened with instant death if they did not guide them safely to the city. There was but one available path leading there. Intimidated by the awful threats of Lolonois, when he asked them if there were other ambuscades farther on, they said that there were. He then asked them if there were not some other path to the city, by which they could avoid the ambuscades. The guides replied that they did not know of any.

Lolonois was in a great rage. He drew his sabre and cut one of the captives to pieces before the rest. He cut out his heart, seized it, and began to gnaw it, like a ravenous wolf. Then turning to the other captives, he said:

“I swear unto you, by the death of God, that I will serve you all the same way if you do not lead me to the city by another route.”

Terror-stricken, the poor creatures endeavored to lead through the thickets. But they could not force their way. Lolonois was compelled to return to the former path. But he swore the most terrible oaths that the Spaniards should pay dearly for causing him so much trouble. The same evening they encountered another ambuscade. Lolonois fell upon his foes with the same fury with which the tiger leaps upon its prey, apparently regardless of his own life, if he can but destroy his victim. In less than an hour the Spaniards were routed, and scarcely one escaped.

The pirates, though victorious, were faint with fatigue, hunger, and thirst. They threw themselves down in the woods that night, and, probably with consciences utterly seared, slept that sound sleep which toil and danger often bring.

The next morning, at break of day, the pirates resumed their march. Ere long, they came upon a third ambuscade. This was much stronger and better planned than either of the others. The pirates had provided themselves with a large number of fire-balls, which they showered down with much effect upon their foes. Lolonois seemed inspired with the fury of a madman. He foamed at the mouth and gnashed his teeth as he shouted:

“No quarter; no quarter! The more we kill here, the less we shall meet in the town.”

But few of the Spaniards escaped to San Pedro. Nearly all were killed; for the wounded were immediately dispatched. The pirates had now arrived within sight of the town. There was but one narrow approach, and that the Spaniards had thoroughly barricaded. The thorny shrubs which grew densely around were utter impenetrable. Nothing remained for the pirates but to make an instantaneous attempt to storm the works. Several times they were driven back, but only to renew the conflict with increasing fury. This conflict, of fiend-like ferocity, continued four hours. The white flag of surrender was then unfurled from the town.

After a brief parley, the citizens agreed to yield up the town, without further resistance, if they were allowed two hours to retire with such articles as they could take away with them. Lolonois, who in this last battle had lost forty men, agreed to the terms. The Spaniards, with their wives and children, fled, with such few articles as they could carry in their arms or on the backs of mules.