The Monarchs of the Main, Volume I (of 3)

CHAPTER I.—THE PRECURSORS OF THE BUCCANEERS.

History of Tortuga—Description of the island—Origin of the Buccaneers—Conquest of Tortuga by the French and English—Hunters, planters, and corsairs—Le Basque takes Maracaibo—War with the Spaniards of Hispaniola—The French West Indian Company buy Tortuga—Their various governors 1

CHAPTER II.—MANNERS OF THE HUNTERS.

Indian derivation of the word Buccaneer—Flibustier—The three classes—Dress of the hunters—West Indian scenery—Method of hunting—Wild dogs—Anecdotes—Wild oxen—Wild boars and wild horses—Buccaneer dainties—Cow-killing, English, French, and Spanish methods—Amusements—Duels—Adventures—Conflicts with the Fifties, or Spanish militia—The hunters driven to sea—Turn corsairs—The hunters' engagés, or apprentices—Hide curing—Hardships of the bush life—The planters' engagés—Cruelties of planters—The matelotage—Huts, manners, and food 35

CHAPTER III.—THE FLIBUSTIERS, OR SEA ROVERS.

Originated in the Spanish persecution of French hunters—Customs—"No peace beyond the line"—"No prey, no pay"—Pay and pensions—Their helots the Mosquito Indians—Lewis Scott, an Englishman, the first Corsair—John Davis takes St. Francis in Campeachy—Their debauchery—Gambling—Religion—Classes from which they sprang—Equality at sea—Mode of fighting—Food—Dress 111

CHAPTER IV.—PIERRE-LE-GRAND, THE FIRST BUCCANEER.

Plunder of Segovia—Pierre-le-Grand—Peter Francis—Captures of Spanish vessels—Mode of capture—Barthelemy Portugese—His escapes and victories—Roche the Brazilian—Fanatical hatred of the Spaniards—His wrecks and adventures 152

CHAPTER V.—LOLONNOIS THE CRUEL.

Lolonnois' stratagems—His cruelty—His partner, Michael le Basque—Takes Maracaibo—Tortures the citizens—Sacks the town—Takes Gibraltar—Attempt on Merida—Famine and pestilence—Retreat—Division of spoil—Ransom—Takes St. Pedro—Burns Veragua—Wrecked in the Gulf of Honduras—Attacked by Indians—Killed and eaten by the savages 188

CHAPTER VI.—ALEXANDRE BRAS DE FER, AND MONTBARS THE EXTERMINATOR.

Bras de Fer compared by French writers to Alexander the Great—His exploits and stratagems—Montbars—Anecdote of his childhood—Goes to sea—His first naval engagement—Joins the Buccaneers—Defeats the Spanish Fifties—His uncle killed—His revenge—Anecdote of the negro vessel—Adam and Anne le Roux plunder Santiago 267

I claim for this book, at least originality. But this originality, unfortunately, if it attaches interest to an author's labours, adds also to his responsibilities.

The history of the Buccaneers has hitherto remained unwritten. Three or four forgotten volumes contain literally all that is recorded of the wars and conquests of these extraordinary men. Of these volumes two are French, one Dutch, and one in English. The majority of our readers, therefore, it is probable, know nothing more of the freebooters but their name, confound them with the mere pirates of two centuries later, and derive their knowledge of their manners from those dozen lines of the Abbé Reynal, that have been transferred from historian to historian, and from writer to writer, for the last two centuries.

The chief records of Buccaneer adventurers are drawn literally from only three books. The first of these is Œxmelin's Histoire des Aventuriers. 12mo. Paris, 1688. Œxmelin was a Frenchman, who went out to St. Domingo as a planter's apprentice or engagé, and eventually became surgeon in the Buccaneer fleet—knew Lolonnois, and accompanied Sir Henry Morgan to Panama.

The second is Esquemeling's Zee Roovers. Amsterdam. 4to. 1684.—A book constantly mistaken by booksellers and in catalogues for Œxmelin. Esquemeling was a Dutch engagé at St. Domingo, and his book is an English translation from the Dutch. The writer appears of humbler birth than Œxmelin, but served also at Panama.

The third is Ringrose's History of the Cruises of Sharpe, &c. This man, who served with Dampier, seems to have been an ignorant sailor, and a mere log-keeper.

The fourth is Ravenau de Lussan's Narrative. De Lussan was a young French officer of fortune, who served in some of Ringrose's cruises. This is a book written by a vivacious and keen observer, but is less complete than Œxmelin's, but equally full of anecdote, and very amusing.

For secondary authorities we come to the French Jesuit historians of the West Indian Islands, diffuse Rochefort, the gossiping bon vivant Labat; Tertre, dry and prejudiced; Charlevoix, careful, condensed, and entertaining; and Raynal, polished, classical, second-hand, and declamatory.

The English secondaries are, Dampier, with his companions, Wafer and Cowley. Several old pamphlets contain quaint versions of Morgan's conquest of Panama; and in 1817, Burney, in his "History of Discoveries in the South Sea," devotes many chapters to a dry but very imperfect abridgment of Buccaneer adventure, omitting carefully everything that gives either life or colour. Captain Southey, in his "History of the West Indies," supplies many odd scraps of old voyages, and presents many scattered figures, but attempts no picture.

Nor has modern fiction, however short of material, discovered these new and virgin mines. Mrs. Hall has a novel, it is true, called The Buccaneer, the scene of which is, however, laid in England; and Angus B. Reach has skimmed the same subject, but has evidently not even read half the three existing authorities. Dana, the American poet, has a poem called the Buccaneer, but this is merely a collection of lines on the sea. Sir Walter Scott's Bertram, although he had been a Buccaneer, is a mere ruffian, who would do for any age, and Scott himself places Morgan's conquest of Panama in the reign of Charles I., when it actually took place in that of Charles II., fifty years later.

Defoe himself, little conscious of the rich region he was treading, sketched a Buccaneer sailor when he re-christened Alexander Selkirk Robinson Crusoe, and condensed all the spirit of Dampier into a book still read as eagerly by the man as by the boy.

When I find a writer of Scott's profundity of reading and depth of research placing the great event of Buccaneer history fifty years before its time, booksellers mistaking a Dutch for a French writer, and living historians confounding the Flibustiers of Tortuga, who attacked only the Spaniards, with their degraded successors the pirates of New Providence, who robbed all nations and even their own without mercy, I think I have proved that my book is not a superfluity.

It is seldom that an author can invite the whole reading world to peruse the self-rewarding labour of his student life. Mine is no book for a sect, a clique, a profession, or a trade. It brings new scenes and new creations to the novel reader, jaded with worn-out types of conventional existence. It supplies the historian with a page of English, French, and Spanish history that the capricious muse of history has hitherto kept in MS. It traces the foundation of our colonial empire. To the psychologist it furnishes deep matter for thought, while the philosopher may see in these pages humanity in a new aspect, and man's soul exposed to new temptations.

What Dampier has described and Defoe drawn materials from, no man can dare to assert is wanting in interest. The readers to whom these books are new will be astonished to find the adventures of Xenophon paralleled in De Lussan's retreat over the Isthmus, and Swift forestalled in his conception of some of the oddest customs of Lilliput. Œxmelin, I may boldly assert, is a much more amusing writer than half our historians, a keen and enlightened observer, who looked upon Buccaneering as a chivalrous life, in which the sea knight got equally hard knocks as the land hero, but more money.

If my characters are not so grand as those of history, I can present to my reader men as greedy of gold, ambitious and sagacious as Pizarro or Cortes, and as reckless as Alexander, and as cruel as Cæsar. If the Buccaneers were but insects, bred from the putrefactions of a decaying empire, their plans were at least gigantic, and their courage unprecedented.

Anomalous beings, hunters by land and sea, scaring whole fleets with a few canoes, sacking cities with a few grenadiers, devastating every coast from California to Cape Horn, they only needed a common principle of union to have founded an aggressive republic, as wealthy as Venice and as warlike as Carthage. One great mind and the New World had been their own.

But from the first Providence sowed amongst them the seeds of discord—difference of religion and difference of race. Never settling, their race had its ranks renewed, not by descendants, but by fresh recruits, men with new interests and lower aims. In less than a century the Brotherhood had passed away, their virtues were forgotten and their vices alone remembered.

The Buccaneers were robbers, yet they sought something beyond gold. Mansvelt took the island of St. Catherine, and planned a republic, and Morgan contemplated the destruction of the Bravo Indians. They were outlaws, and yet religious robbers, yet generous and regardful of the minutest delicacies of honour; lovers of freedom, yet obeying the sternest discipline; cruel, yet tender to their friends.

All the light and shade of the darkest fiction look poor beside the adventures of these men. Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, gallants, officers, common seamen, farmers' sons, men of rank, hunters, sailors, planters, murderers, fanatics, Creoles, Spaniards, negroes, astrologers, monks, pilots, guides, merchants—all pass before us in a motley and ever-changing masquerade. The backgrounds to these scenes are the wooded shores of the West Indian Islands, woods sparkling at night with fire-flies, broad savannahs dark with wild cattle, the volcanic islands peopled by marooned sailors, stormy promontories, the lonely sand "keys" of Jamaica, and the rocky fastnesses of Tortuga.

The precursors of the Buccaneers—Description of Tortuga—Origin of the Buccaneers—Conquest of Tortuga by the French—The hunters, planters, and corsairs—Le Basque takes Maracaibo—War in Hispaniola—French West Indian Company buy Tortuga—The Governor, M. D'Ogeron.

Drake, Cavendish, and Oxenham, indeed all the naval heroes of Elizabeth's reign, were the precursors of the Buccaneers. The captains of those "tall ships" that sailed from Plymouth Sound, and the green nooks of the sunny coast of Devon, to capture stately carracks laden deep with silks, spices, pearls, and precious stones, the treasure of Potosi and Peru, were but Buccaneers under another name, agreeing with them in the great principle of making war on none but Spaniards, but on Spaniards unceasingly. "No peace beyond the line" was the motto on the flag of both Drake and Morgan.

Sir John Hawkins, who began the slave trade, and who was Drake's earliest patron, took the town of Rio de la Hacha, and struggled desperately with the galleons in the port of St. Juan d'Ulloa. Drake sacked Nombre de Dios, and, passing across the isthmus, stormed Vera Cruz. He destroyed St. Domingo and Carthagena, burnt La Rancheria, and attacked Porto Rico. But still more truly a Buccaneer was John Oxenham, one of Drake's followers, who, cruising about Panama, captured several bullion vessels; but was at last slain, with all his men, having fallen in love with a Spanish captive, and liberated her son, who surprised him with reinforcements from Nombre de Dios. Then came Raleigh, more chivalrous than them all—looser in principle, but wiser in head. He planned an attack on Panama, and ravaged St. Thomas's.

The first Buccaneers were poor French hunters, who, driven by the Spaniards out of Hispaniola, fled to the neighbouring island of Tortuga, and there settled as planters.

This Buccaneer colony of Tortuga arose rather by accident than by the design of any one ambitious mind. The French had established a colony in the almost deserted island of St. Christopher's, which had begun to flourish when the Spaniards, alarmed at a hostile power's vicinity to their mines, to which their thoughts then alone tended, put a stop to the prosperity of the French settlements by frequent attacks made by their fleets on their way to New Spain. From the just hatred excited by these unprovoked forays sprang the first impulse of retaliation. These injuries provoked the French, as they had done the Dutch, to fit out privateers. But a still more powerful motive soon became paramount. A spirit of cupidity arose, which was stimulated by the heated imaginations of men poor and angry. Before them lay regions of gold, timidly guarded by a vindictive but feeble enemy; and Spain became to these pioneer settlers what a bedridden miser is to the dreams of a needy bravo.

The report of the Dutch successes spread through all the ports of France. Sailors were the ready bearers of wild tales they had themselves half invented. Some hardy adventurers of Dieppe fitted out vessels to carry on a warfare that retaliation had now rendered just, war made legal, and chance rendered profitable. The sailor who was to-day munching his onion on the quays of Marseilles might, a few weeks hence, be lord of Carthagena, or rolling in the treasures of a Manilla galleon, clothed in Eastern silks, and delighted with the perfumes of India. Finding their enterprise successful, but St. Kitt's too distant to form a convenient depôt for their booty, they began to look about for some nearer locality. At first they found their return voyages to the West Indian islands frequently occupying three months, which seemed years to men hurrying to store up old plunder, and to sally forth for new. In search of an asylum, these privateersmen touched at Hispaniola, hoping to find some lonely island near its shores; but as soon as they had landed, and saw the great forests full of game, and broad savannahs alive with wild cattle, and finding it abandoned by the Spaniards, and the Indians nearly all dead or emigrated, they determined to settle at a place so full of advantages, where they could revictual their ships, and remain secure and unobserved. The sight of Tortuga, a small neighbouring island, rocky, and yet not without a harbour, convinced them that nature had constructed for their growing empire at once a magazine, a citadel, and a fortress. They had now a sanctuary and a haven, shelter for their booty, and food for their men.

The Spaniards, although not occupying the island, were anxious that it should not be occupied by others. They had long had a foreboding that this island would become a resort for pirates, and had just garrisoned it with an alfarez and twenty-five men. The French had, however, little difficulty in getting rid of this small force, the soldiers being enraged at finding themselves left by their countrymen, without provisions or reinforcements, upon a barren rock.

Once masters of the heap of stones, the French began to deliberate by what means they could retain it. The sight of buildings already begun, and the prospect of more food than they could get at St. Christopher's, determined these restless men to settle on the spot they had won. Part of them returned to Hispaniola to kill oxen and boars, and to salt the flesh for those who would remain to plant; and those men who determined to build assured the sailors that stores of dry meat should always be ready to revictual their ships.

The adventurers, having a nucleus for their operations, began to widen their operations. They became now divided into three distinct classes, always intermingling, and never very definitely divided, but still for the main part separate: the sea rovers, or flibustiers; the planters, or habitans; and the hunters, or buccaneers. For the first class, there were many names: the English, following an Indian word, called them Buccaneers, from the Indian term boucan (dried meat); the Dutch denominated them Zee Roovers, and the French Flibustiers, or Aventuriers. A fourth class, growing by degrees either into the Buccaneers or the planters, were the apprentices, or engagés.

A few French planters could not have retained the island had not their numbers been swelled by the addition of many English. In a short time, French vessels touched at the island, to trade for the booty that now arrived more frequently, unintermittingly, and in greater quantities. The trade grew less speculative and uncertain. French captains found it profitable to barter not only for hides and meat with the Buccaneers, but with the Flibustiers for silver-plate and pieces of eight. The high prices paid for wine and brandy soon rendered the commerce with Bordeaux a matter worthy the attention of the French Government. In a few days of Buccaneer excess more was spent in barter than could have been realised in months of average traffic with the more cautious.

The Spaniards, fully alive to the danger of this planter settlement, determined to destroy it at a single blow. The design was easy of accomplishment, for the Buccaneers had grown careless from long impunity, and had long since crowned themselves undisputed kings of Hispaniola and its dependencies. Taking advantage of a time when the English corsairs were at sea and the French Buccaneers hunting on the mainland, the Spanish General of the Indian Fleet landed with a handful of soldiers and retook the island in an hour. The few planters were overpowered before they could run together, the hunters before they could seize their arms. Some were at once put to the sword, and others hung on the nearest trees. The larger portion, however, taking advantage of well-known lurking places, waited for the night, and then escaped to the mainland in their canoes. The Spaniards, satisfied with the terror they had struck, left the island un-garrisoned, and returned exultingly to St. Domingo. Hearing, however, that there were a great many Buccaneers still settled as hunters in Hispaniola, and that the wild cattle were diminishing by their ravages, the general levied some troops to put them down. To these men, who were known as the Spanish Fifties, we shall hereafter advert.

The Spanish fleet was scarcely well out of sight before the Buccaneers, angry but unintimidated, flocked back to their now desolated island, full of rage at the sight of the bodies of their companions and the ashes of their ruined houses. The English returned headed by a Buccaneer named Willis, who gave an English character to the new colony. The French adventurers, jealous of English interference, and fearful that the island would fall into the possession of England, left Tortuga, and, going to St. Christopher's, informed the Governor, the Chevalier de Poncy, of the ease with which it could be conquered. De Poncy, alive to the scheme and jealous for French honour, fitted out an expedition, and intrusted the command to M. Le Vasseur, a brave soldier and good engineer, just arrived from France, who levied a force of forty French Protestants, and agreed to conquer the island for De Poncy and to govern in his name, as well as to pay half the expenses of the conquest. In a few days he dropped anchor in Port Margot, on the north side of Hispaniola, about seven leagues from Tortuga. He instantly collected a force of forty French Buccaneers from the woods and the savannahs, and, having arranged his plans, made a descent upon the island in the month of April, 1640. As soon as he had landed, he sent a message to the English Governor to say that he had come to avenge the insults received by the French flag, and to warn him that if he did not leave the island with all those of his nation in twenty-four hours, he should lay waste every plantation with fire and sword. The English, feeling their position untenable, instantly embarked in a vessel lying in the road, without (as Œxmelin, a French writer, says) striking a blow in self-defence. The French population of the island then, rising in arms, welcomed the invaders as friends.

Le Vasseur, the bloodless conqueror of this new Barataria, was received with shouts and acclamations. He at once visited every nook of the island that needed defence, and prepared to insure it against reconquest either by the Spaniards or the English. He found it inaccessible on three sides; and on the unprotected quarter built a fort, on a peak of impregnable rock, rising 600 feet above the narrow path which it commanded. The summit of this rock was about thirty feet square, and could only be ascended by steps cut in the stone or by a moveable iron ladder. The fort held four guns. A spring of water completed the advantages of the spot, which was surrounded with walls and fenced in with hedges, woods, precipices, and every aid that art or nature could furnish. The only approach to this steep was a narrow avenue in which no more than three men could march abreast.

The Buccaneers now flocked to Tortuga in greater numbers than before, some to congratulate the new governor on his victory, and others to enrol themselves as his subjects: all who came he received with promises of support and protection. The Spaniards, in the meanwhile, determined to crush this wasp's nest, fitted out at St. Domingo a new armament of six vessels, having on board 500 or 600 men. They at first anchored before the fort, but, receiving a volley, moored two leagues lower down, and landed their troops. In attempting to storm the fort by a coup de main, they were beaten off with the loss of 200 men, the garrison sallying out and driving them back to their ships.

The now doubly victorious governor was hailed as the defender and saviour of Tortuga. The news of victory soon reached the ears of M. de Poncy, at St. Christopher's, who, at first rejoiced at the success, became soon afraid of the ambition of his new ally. Fearing that he would repudiate the contract, and declare himself an independent sovereign, he took the precaution of testing his sincerity. He sent two of his relations to Tortuga to request land as settlers, but really to act as spies. Le Vasseur, subtle and penetrating, at once detected their object. He received the young men with great civility, but took care to secure their speedy return to St. Christopher's. Having now attained the summit of his wishes, he became, as many greater men have been, intoxicated with power. His temper changed, and he grew severe, suspicious, intolerant, and despotic. He not only bound his subjects in chains, but delighted to clank the fetters, and remind them of their slavery. He ill-used the planters, loaded the merchants with taxes, punished the most venial faults, and grew as much hated as he had been once beloved. He went so far in his tyranny as to forbid the exercise of the Catholic religion, to burn the churches and expel the priests. The murder of such a persecutor has always been held a sin easily forgiven by the confessor, and lust and superstition soon gave birth to murder.

Charlevoix relates an amusing instance of the governor's contumacy. De Poncy, informed that his vessels had taken a silver idol (a Virgin Mary) from some Spanish cathedral, wrote to demand its surrender. Le Vasseur returned a wooden image by the messenger, desiring him to say, that for religious purposes, wood or silver was equally good. One of his most cruel inventions Le Vasseur called his "hell." It seems to have resembled the portable iron cages in which Louis XI. used to confine his state prisoners.

M. de Poncy, informed of the extraordinary change in the character of Le Vasseur, endeavoured to beguile him by promises, threats, and entreaties. Justice gave him now a pretext of enforcing what self-interest had long meditated. The toils were growing closer round the doomed man, but Heaven sent a speedier punishment. Le Vasseur, still waiving all openings for formal complaint, was exulting in all the glory of a small satrapy, when two nephews conspired against his life. Cupidity inspired the crime, and they easily persuaded themselves that God and man alike demanded the expiation. One writer calls them simply captains, "companions of fortune," and another, the nephews of Le Vasseur.

These ungrateful men had already been declared his heirs, but they had quarrelled with him about a mistress he had taken from them, and one fault in a friend obliterates the remembrance of many virtues. They believed that the inhabitants, rejoiced at deliverance from such tyranny, would appoint them joint governors in the first outburst of their gratitude. They shot him from an ambush as he was descending from the rock fort to the shore, but, only wounding him slightly, were obliged to complete the murder with a poignard. The wounded man called for a priest, and declared himself, with his last breath, a steadfast Catholic. He seems to have been a dark, wily man, of strong passions, tenacious ambition, and ungovernable will.

While this crime was perpetrating, De Poncy, determined to recover possession of at least his share of Tortuga, and weary and angry at the subterfuges of Le Vasseur, had resolved upon a new expedition. The leader was a Chevalier de Fontenoy, a soldier of fortune, who, attracted by the sparkle of Spanish gold, had just arrived at St. Kitt's in a French frigate. Full of chivalry, he at once proposed to sail, although informed that the place was impregnable, and could only be taken by stratagem. While the armament was fitting up, he made a cruise round Carthagena, on the look out for Spanish prizes, and joined M. Feral, a nephew of the general, at Port de Paix, a rendezvous twelve leagues from Tortuga. Informed there of the murder of Le Vasseur, they at once sailed for the harbour, and landed 500 men at the spot where the Spaniards had formerly been repulsed. The two murderers immediately capitulated, on condition of being allowed to depart with all their uncle's treasure. The Chevalier was proclaimed governor, and received with as many acclamations as Le Vasseur had been before him. The old religion was restored, and commerce patronized and protected, by royal edict. Two bastions were added to the fort, and more guns mounted. The Buccaneers crowded back in greater numbers than even on Le Vasseur's arrival. Before they had only imagined the advantages of this conquest, but now they had tasted them. The Chevalier hailed all Buccaneers as friends and brothers, and even himself fitted out privateers. The Spanish ships could scarcely venture out of port, and one merchant alone is known to have lost 300,000 crowns' worth of merchandise in a single year.

It is easier to conquer than to retain a conquest, and vigilance grows blunted by success. The Chevalier, too confident in his strength, allowed half his population to embark in cruisers. The sick, the aged, the maimed, laboured in the plantations with the slaves. The Spaniards, informed of this, landed in force, without resistance. The few Buccaneers crowded into the fort, which the enemy dared not approach. Discovering, however, a mountain that commanded the rock, precipitous, but still accessible, they determined to plant a battery upon it, and drive the Buccaneers from their last foothold. With infinite vigour and determination they hewed a road to the mountain between two rocks. Making frames of wood, they lashed on their cannons, and forced the slaves and prisoners to drag them to the summit, and, with a battery of four guns, suddenly opened a fire upon the unguarded fort. The Chevalier, not expecting this enterprise, had just deprived himself of his last defence, by cutting down the large trees that grew round the walls. In spite of all the threats and expostulations of the governor, the garrison, galled by this plunging fire, at once capitulated. They left the island in twenty-four hours, with arms and baggage, drums beating, colours flying, and match burning, and set sail in two half-scuttled vessels lying in the road, having first given hostages not to serve against Spain for a given time. In another vessel, but alone, set sail the two murderers, who, being short of food, consummated their crimes by leaving the women and children of their company on a desert island.

The Spanish general, repairing the fort, garrisoned it with sixty men, whom he supplied with provisions. Fontenoy, repulsed in an attempt to recover the island, soon afterwards returned to France.

In 1655, when Admiral Penn appeared off St. Domingo with Cromwell's fleet, the Spaniards, to increase their forces in Hispaniola, recalled the troop which had held Tortuga eighteen months—the commander first blowing up the fort, burning the church, the houses, and the magazines, and devastating the plantations. Not long afterwards, an English refugee of wealth, Elias Ward (or, as the French call him, Elyazouärd), came from Jamaica, with his family and a dozen soldiers, and with an English commission from the general, and was soon joined by about 120 French and English adventurers.

The treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, brought no repose to the hunters of Hispaniola from Spanish inroads. The planters were compelled to work armed, and to keep watch at night for fear of being murdered in their beds. In 1667 the war recommencing, let the bloodhounds, who had long been straining in the leash, free to raven and devour. De Lisle again plundered St. Jago, and obtained 2,500 piastres ransom, each of his adventurers secured 300 crowns, the Spaniards abandoning the defiles and carrying off their treasure to Conception.

This was the golden age of Buccaneering. Vauclin, Ovinet, and Tributor, plundered the towns of Cumana, Coro, St. Martha, and Nicaragua. Le Basque, with only forty men, surprised Maracaibo by night. He seized the principal inhabitants and shut them in the cathedral, and threatened to instantly cut off their heads if the citizens ventured to rise in arms. Daylight discovering his feeble force, he could obtain no ransom. The Flibustiers then retreated, each man driving a prisoner before him, a pistol slung in one hand and a naked sabre raised over the Spaniard's head in the other. These hostages were detained twenty-four hours, and released at the moment the French departed. This is the same Le Basque whom Charlevoix describes as cutting out the Margaret from under the cannon of Portobello, and winning a million piastres. At another time, they retreated laden with booty and carrying with them the Governor and the principal citizens of St. Jago; but the Spaniards, rallying, placed themselves, 1,000 in number, in an ambuscade by the way, trusting to their numbers and expecting an easy victory. The French, turning well, scarcely missed a shot, and in a short time killed 100 of the enemy's men, and, wounding a great many more, drove them off after two hours' fighting. They rallied and returned in a short time, determined to conquer or die; but the French, showing the prisoners, declared that if a shot was fired by the enemy they would kill them before their eyes, and would then sell their own lives dearly. This menace frightened the Spaniards, and the Flibustiers continued their retreat unmolested. Having waited some time in vain on the coast for the ransom, they left the prisoners unhurt, and returned gaily to Tortuga.

In 1663, Spain, finding that France in secret encouraged the Buccaneers of Hispaniola, gave orders to exterminate every Frenchman in the island, promising recompence to those who distinguished themselves in the war. An old Flemish officer, named Vandelinof, who had served with distinction in the Low Country wars, took the command. His first stratagem was to attempt to surprise the chief French boucan, at Gonaive, on the Brûlé Savannah, with 800 men. The hunters, observing them, gave the alarm, and, collecting 100 "brothers," advanced to meet them in a defile where the Spanish numbers were of no avail. The Fleming was killed at the first volley, and after an obstinate struggle the Spaniards fled to the mountains.

The enemy, after this defeat, returned to their old and safer plan of night surprises—which frequently succeeded, owing to the negligent watch kept by the Buccaneers. The hunters, much harassed by the constant sense of insecurity, began to retire every night to the small islands round St. Domingo, and seldom went alone to the chase. Some boucans, such as those at the port of Samana, grew rapidly into towns. Near this excellent harbour the cattle were unusually abundant, and in a few hours the Flibustier could carry his hides to his market at Tortuga. Gradually French and Dutch vessels began to visit the port to buy hides and to trade.

Every morning before starting to the savannah, the hunters climbed the highest hill to see if any Spaniards were visible. They then agreed on a rendezvous for the evening, arriving there to the moment. If any one was missing he was at once known to be taken or killed, and no one was permitted to return home till their comerade's death had been avenged. One evening the hunters of Samana, missing four of the band, marched towards St. Jago, and, discovering from some prisoners that their companions had been massacred, entered a Spanish village and slew every one they met.

The Spaniards too had sometimes their revenge. "The river of massacre" near Samana was so called from thirty Buccaneers who were slain there while fording the river laden with hides. Another band of hunters, led by Charles Tore, had been hunting at a place called the Bois-Brûlé Savannah, and having completed the number of skins the merchants had contracted for, returned to Samana. Crossing a savannah they were surprised by an overwhelming force of Spaniards, and, in spite of a desperate resistance, slain to a man. The Buccaneers, irritated by these losses, began to think of revenge. When the Spaniards destroyed the wild cattle, some turned planters about Port de Paix, others became Flibustiers.

The death of De Poncy threw the French colonies into some disorder, and Tortuga was for awhile forgotten both by the home and colonial government. During this interval a gentleman of Perigord, named Rossy, a retired Buccaneer, resolved to resume his old profession. Returning to St. Domingo, he was hailed as a father by the hunters, who proposed to him to recover Tortuga. Rossy, knowing that fidelity is the last virtue that forsakes the heart, accepted their proposal with the enthusiasm of a gambler accustomed to such desperate casts. He was soon joined by five hundred refugees, burning for conquest and revenge. They assembled in canoes at a rendezvous in Hispaniola, and agreed to land one hundred men on the north side of the island and surprise the mountain fort. The Spaniards in the town, not even entrenched, were soon beaten into the fort. The garrison of the rock were rather astonished to be awoke at break of day by a salute from the neighbouring mountain, when they could see the enemy still quietly encamped below. Sallying out, they could discern no opponents, but before they could regain the fort were all cut to pieces or made prisoners. The survivors were at once thrust into a boat and sent to Cuba, and Rossy declared governor. He soon after received a commission from the French king, together with a permission to levy a tax, for the support of his dignity, of a tenth of all prizes brought into Tortuga. Rossy governed quietly for some years, and eventually retired to his native country to die, and La Place, his nephew, reigned in his stead.

In 1664, the French West India Company became masters of Tortuga and the Antilles, and appointed M. D'Ogeron, a gentleman of Anjou who had failed in commerce, as their governor. He proved a good administrator, and built magazines and storehouses for his grateful and attached people. D'Ogeron soon established order and prosperity in the island, which became a refuge for the red flag and the terror of the Spaniards. He colonised all the north side of Hispaniola, from Port Margot, where he had a house, to the three rivers opposite Tortuga. He attracted colonists from the Antilles, and brought over women from France, in order to settle his nomadic and mutinous population. In 1661, the West India Company, dissatisfied with the profits of their merchandize, resolved to relinquish the colony and call in their debts; and it was in the St. John, sent out for this purpose, that the Buccaneer historian Œxmelin, whom we shall have frequently to quote, first visited Tortuga. D'Ogeron, determined not to relinquish a settlement already beginning to flourish, hastened to France, and persuaded some private merchants to continue the trade. They promised to fit out twelve vessels annually, if he would supply them with back freight. He on his part agreed to provide the colonists with slaves and to destroy the wild dogs, which were committing great ravages among the herds of Hispaniola. This new company did not answer. The inhabitants suffered by the monopoly, and grew discontented at only being allowed to trade with certain vessels, and being obliged to turn their backs on better bargains or cheaper merchandize. An accident lit the train. M. D'Ogeron attempted to prevent their trading with some Dutch merchants, and they rose in arms. Shots were fired at the governor, and the revolters threatened to burn out the planters who would not join their flag. But succours from the Antilles soon brought them to their senses, and, one of their ringleaders being hung, they surrendered at discretion. The governor, alarmed even at an outbreak that he had checked, made in his turn concessions. He permitted all French merchants to trade upon paying a heavy harbour due, and the number of ships soon became too numerous for the limited commerce of the place. M. D'Ogeron next procured colonists from Brittany and Anjou, and eventually, after some further exploits, very daring but always unfortunate, he was succeeded in command by his nephew M. De Poncy.

There are several Tortugas. There is one in the Caribbean sea, another near the coast of Honduras, a third not far from Carthagena, and a fourth in the gulf of California; they all derived their names from their shape, resembling the turtle which throng in these seas.

The Buccaneer fastness with which we have to do is the Tortuga of the North Atlantic Ocean, a small rocky island about 60 leagues only in circumference, and distant barely six miles from the north coast of Hispaniola. This Tortuga was to the refugee hunters of the savannahs what New Providence became to the pirates, and the Galapagos islands to the South Sea adventurers of half a century later. It had only one port, the entrance to which formed two channels: on two sides it was iron-bound, and on the other defended by reefs and shoals, less threatening than the cliffs, but not less dangerous. Though scantily supplied with spring water—a defect which the natives balanced by a free use of "the water of life"—the interior was very fertile and well wooded. Palm and sandal wood trees grew in profusion; sugar, tobacco, aloes, resin, China-root, indigo, cotton, and all sorts of tropical plants were the riches of the planters. The cultivators were already receiving gifts from the earth, which—liberal benefactor—she gave without expecting a return, for the virgin soil needed little seed, care, or nourishment. The island was too small for savannahs, but the tangled brushwood abounded in wild boars.

The harbour had a fine sand bottom, was well sheltered from the winds, and was walled in by the Coste de Fer rocks. Round the habitable part of the shore stretched sands, so that it could not be approached but by boats. The town consisted of only a few store-houses and wine shops, and was called the Basse Terre. The other five habitable parts of the island were Cayona, the Mountain, the Middle Plantation, the Ringot, and Mason's Point. A seventh, the Capsterre, required only water to make it habitable, the land being very fertile. To supply the want of springs, the planters collected the rain water in tanks. The soil of the island was alternately sand and clay, and from the latter they made excellent pottery. The mountains, though rocky, and scarcely covered with soil, were shaded with trees of great size and beauty, the roots of which clung like air plants to the bare rock, and, netting them round, struck here and there deeper anchors into the wider crevices. This timber was so dry and tough that, if it was cut and exposed to the heat of the sun, it would split with a loud noise, and could therefore only be used as fuel.

This favoured island boasted all the fruits of the Antilles: its tobacco was better than that of any other island; its sugar canes attained an enormous size, and their juice was sweeter than elsewhere; its numerous medicinal plants were exported to heal the diseases of the Old World. The only four-footed animal was the wild boar, originally transplanted from Hispaniola. As it soon grew scarce, the French governor made it illegal to hunt with dogs, and required the hunter to follow his prey single-handed and on foot. The wood-pigeons were almost the only birds in the island. They came in large flocks at certain periods of the year; Œxmelin says that, in two or three hours, without going eighty steps from the road, he killed ninety-five with his own hand. As soon as they eat a certain berry their flesh became bitter as our larks do when they move from the stubbles into the turnips. A Gascon visitor, once complaining of their sudden bitterness, was told by a Buccaneer as a joke that his servant had forgot to remove the gall. Fish abounded round the island, and crabs without nippers; the night fishermen carrying torches of the candle-wood tree. The shell fish was the food of servants and slaves, and was said to be so indigestible as to frequently produce giddiness and temporary blindness; the turtle and manitee, too, formed part of their daily diet. The planters were much tormented by the white and red land-crabs, or tourtourons, which lived in the earth, visited the sea to spawn, and at night gnawed the sugar-canes and the roots of plants. Their only venomous reptile was the viper, which they tamed to kill mice; in a wild state, it fed on poultry or pigeons. From the stomach of one Œxmelin drew seven pigeons and a large fowl, which had been swallowed about three hours before, and cooked them for his own dinner, verifying the old proverb of "robbing Peter to pay Paul." In times of scarcity these snakes were eaten for food. Besides chameleons and lizards, there were small insects with shells like a snail. These were considered good to eat and very nourishing. When held near the fire, they distilled a red oily liquid useful as a rheumatic liniment. Though the scorpions and scolopendrias were not venomous, nature, always just in her compensations, covered the island with poisonous shrubs. The most fatal of these was the noxious mançanilla. It grew as high as a pear tree, had leaves like a wild laurel, and bore fruit like an apple; this fruit was so deadly, that even fish that ate of it, if they did not die, became themselves poisonous, and were known by the blackness of their teeth. The only antidote was olive oil. The Indian fishermen used, as a test, to taste the heart of the fish they caught, and if it proved bitter they knew at once that it had been poisoned, and threw it away. The very rain-drops that fell from the leaves were deadly to man and beast, and it was as dangerous to sleep under its shadow as under the upas. The friendly boughs invited the traveller (as vice does man) to rest under their shade; but when he awoke he found himself sick and faint, and covered with feverish sores. New-comers were too frequently tempted by the sight and odour of the fruit, and the only remedy for the rash son of Adam was to bind him down, and, in spite of heat and pain, to prevent him drinking for two or three days. The body of the sufferer became at first "red as fire, and his tongue black as ink," then a great torment of thirst and fever came upon him, but slowly passed away. Another poisonous shrub resembled the pimento; its berries were used by the Indians to rub their eyes, giving them, as they believed, a keener sight, and enabling them to see the fish deeper in the water and to strike them at a greater distance with the harpoon. The root of this bush was a poison, so deadly that the only known antidote for it was its own berries, bruised and drunk in wine. Of another plant, Œxmelin relates an instance of a negro girl being poisoned by a rejected lover, by merely putting some of its leaves between her toes when asleep.

Derivation of the words Buccaneer and Flibustier—The three classes—Dress of the hunters—West Indian scenery—Method of hunting—Wild dogs—Anecdotes—Wild oxen, wild boars, and wild horses—Buccaneer food—Cow killing—Spanish method—Amusements—Duels—Adventures with the Spanish militia—The hunters driven to sea—The engagés, or apprentices—Hide curing—Hardships of the bush life—The planter's engagés—Cruelties of planters—The matelotage—Huts—Food.

The hunters of the wild cattle in the savannahs of Hispaniola were known under the designation of Buccaneers as early as the year 1630.

They derived this name from boucan,[1] an old Indian word which their luckless predecessors, the Caribs, gave to the hut in which they smoked the flesh of the oxen killed in hunting, or not unfrequently the limbs of their persecutors the Spaniards. They applied the same term, from the poverty of an undeveloped language, to the barbecue, or square wooden frame upon which the meat was dried. In course of time this hunters' food became known as viande boucanée, and the hunters themselves gradually assumed the name of Buccaneers.

Their second title of Flibustiers was a mere corruption of the English word freebooters—a German term, imported into England during the Low Country wars of Elizabeth's reign. It has been erroneously traced to the Dutch word flyboat; but the Jesuit traveller, Charlevoix, asserts that, in fact, this species of craft derived its title from being first used by the Flibustiers, and not from its swiftness. This, however, is evidently a mistake, as Drayton and Hakluyt use the word; and it seems to be of even earlier standing in the French language. The derivation from the English word freebooter is at once seen when the s in Flibustier becomes lost in pronunciation.

In 1630, a party of French colonists, who had failed in an attack on St. Christopher's, finding, as we have shown, Hispaniola almost deserted by the Spaniards, who neglected the Antilles to push their conquests on the mainland, landed on the south side and formed a settlement, discovering the woods and the plains to be teeming with wild oxen and wild hogs. The Dutch merchants promised to supply them with every necessary, and to receive the hides and tallow that they collected in exchange for lead, powder, and brandy. These first settlers were chiefly Normans, and the first trading vessels that visited the coast were from Dieppe.

The origin of the Buccaneers, or hunters, and the Flibustiers, or sea rovers, as the Dutch called them, was contemporaneous. From the very beginning many grew weary of the chase and became corsairs, at first turning their arms against all nations but their own, but latterly, as strict privateersmen, revenging their injuries only on the Spaniards, with whom France was frequently at war, and generally under the authority of regular or forged commissions obtained from the Governor of St. Domingo or some other French settlement. Between the Buccaneers and Flibustiers no impassable line was drawn; to chase the wild ox or the Spaniard was the same to the greater part of the colonists, and on sea or land the hunter's musket was an equally deadly weapon.

Two years after the French refugees from St. Christopher's had landed on the half-deserted shores of Hispaniola, the Flibustiers seized the small adjoining island of Tortuga, attracted by its safe and well-defended harbour, its fertility, and the strength of its natural defences. The French and English colonists of St. Christopher's began now to cultivate the small plantations round the harbour, encouraged by the number of French trading vessels that visited it, and by the riches that the Flibustiers captured from the Spaniards. These vessels brought over young men from France to be bound to the planters for three years as engagés, by a contract that legalized the transitory slavery.

There were thus at once established four classes of men—Buccaneers, or hunters; planters, or inhabitants; engagés, who were apprenticed to either the one or the other; and sea-rovers. They governed themselves by a sort of democratic compact—each inhabitant being monarch in his own plantation, and every Flibustier king on his own deck. But the latter was not unfrequently deposed by his crew; and the former, if cruel to his engagés, was compelled to submit to the French governor's interference. Before giving any history of the various revolutions in Tortuga, or the wars of the Spaniards in Hispaniola, we will describe the manners of each of the three classes we have mentioned.

And first of the Buccaneers, or hunters, of Hispaniola.

These wild men fed on the bodies of the cattle they killed in hunting, and by selling their hides and tallow obtained money enough to buy the necessaries and even the luxuries of life,—for the gambling table and the debauch. While the Flibustiers called each other "brothers of the coast," the Buccaneers were included in the generic term "gens de la côté," and in time the names of Buccaneer and Flibustier were used indiscriminately.

The hunter's dress consisted of a plain shirt, or blouse (Du Tertre calls it a sack), belted at the waist with a bit of green hide. It was soon dyed a dull purple with the blood of the wild bull, and was always smeared with grease. "When they returned from the chase to the boucan," says the above-named writer, "you would say that these are the butcher's vilest servants, who have been eight days in the slaughterhouse without washing." As they frequently carried the meat home by cutting a hole in the centre, and thrusting their heads through it, we may imagine the cannibals that they must have looked. They wore drawers, or frequently only tight mocassins, reaching to the knee; their sandals were of bull's hide or hog skin, fastened with leather laces.

In Œxmelin's Histoire des Aventuriers, the hunter is represented with bare feet, but this could not have been usual, when we remember the danger of chigoes, snakes, and scorpions, not to speak of prickly pear coverts and thorny brakes. From their leather waist belt hung a short, heavy machete or sabre, and an alligator skin case of Dutch hunting knives. On their heads they wore a leather skull-cap, shaped like our modern jockey's, with a peak in front. They wore their hair falling wildly on their shoulders, and their huge beards increased the ferocity of their appearance. Œxmelin particularly mentions the beard, although no existing engraving of the Buccaneer chiefs represents them with this grim ornament. According to Charlevoix, some of them wore a shirt, and over this a sort of brewer's apron, or coarse sacking tunic, open at the sides. From this shirt being always stained with blood, perhaps sometimes purposely dipped into it, the Abbé Reynal supposes that such a shirt was the necessary dress of the Buccaneer. Œxmelin says that as his vessel approached St. Domingo, "a Buccaneers' canoe came off with six men at the paddles, whose appearance excited the astonishment of all those on board, who had never before been out of France. They wore a small linen tunic and short drawers, reaching only half down the thigh. It required one to look close to see if the shirt was linen or not, so stained was it with the blood which had dripped from the animals they kill and carry home. All of them had large beards, and carried at their girdle a case of cayman skin, in which were four knives and a bayonet." Like the Canadian trappers, or, indeed, sportsmen in general, they were peculiarly careful of their muskets, which were made expressly for them in France, the best makers being Brachie of Dieppe, and Gelu of Nantes. These guns were about four feet and a half long, and were known everywhere as "Buccaneering pieces." The stocks were square and heavy, with a hollow for the shoulder, and they were all made of the same calibre, single barrel, and carrying balls sixteen to the pound. Every hunter took with him fifteen or twenty pounds of powder, the best of which came from Cherbourg. They kept it in waxed calabashes to secure it from the damp, having no shelter or hut that would keep out the West Indian rains. Their bullet pouch and powder horn hung on either side, and their small tents they carried, rolled up tight like bandoliers, at their waist, for they slept wherever they halted, and generally in their clothes.

We have no room and no colours bright enough to paint the chief features of the Indian woods, the cloven cherry, that resembles the arbutus, the cocoa with its purple pods, the red bois immortel, the stunted bastard cedar, the logwood with its sweet blossom and hawthorn-like leaf, the cashew with its golden fruit, the oleander, the dock-like yam, and the calabash tree.

What Hesperian orchards are those where the citron, lemon, and lime cling together, and the pine-apple grows in prickly hedges, soft custard apples hang out their bags of sweetness, and the avocada swings its pears big as pumpkins; where the bread-fruit with its gigantic leaves, the glossy star apple, and the golden shaddock, drop their masses of foliage among the dewy and fresh underwood of plantains, far below the tall and graceful cocoa-nut tree.

Michael Scott depicts with photographic exactness and brilliancy every phase of the West Indian day, and enables us to imagine the light and shade that surrounded the strange race of whom we write. At daybreak, the land wind moans and shakes the dew from the feathery palms; the fireflies grow pale, and fade out one after the other, like the stars; the deep croaking of the frog ceases, and the lizards and crickets are silent; the monkeys leave off yelling; the snore of the tree toad and the wild cry of the tiger-cat are no more heard; but fresh sounds arise, and the woods thrill with the voices and clatter of an awaking city; the measured tap of the woodpecker echoes, with the clear, flute-like note of the pavo del monte, the shriek of the macaw, and the chatter of the parroquet; the pigeon moans in the inmost forest, and the gabbling crows croak and scream.

At noon, as the breeze continues, and the sun grows vertical, the branches grow alive with gleaming lizards and coloured birds, noisy parrots hop round the wild pine, the cattle retreat beneath the trees for shelter, to browse the cooler grass, and the condouli and passion flowers of all sizes, from a soup plate to a thumb ring, shut their blossoms; the very humming-birds cease to drone and buzz round the orange flowers, and the land-crab is heard rustling among the dry grass. In the swamps the hot mist rises, and the wild fowl flock to the reeds and canes in the muddy lagoons, where the strong smell of musk denotes the lurking alligator; the feathery plumes of the bamboos wave not, and the cotton tree moves not a limb.

The rainy season brings far different scenes: then the sky grows suddenly black, the wild ducks fly screaming here and there, the carrion crows are whirled bodingly about the skies, the smaller birds hurry to shelter, the mountain clouds bear down upon the valleys, and a low, rushing sound precedes the rain. The torrents turn brown and earthy, all nature seems to wait the doom with fear. The low murmur of the earthquake is still more impressive, with the distant thunder breaking the deep silence, and the trees bending and groaning though the air is still. Besides the rains and the earthquakes, the tornadoes are still more dreadful visitants, when the air in a moment grows full of shivered branches, shattered roofs, and uptorn canes.

The great features of the West Indian forests are the fireflies and the monkeys. At night, when the wind is rustling in the dry palm leaves, the sparkles of green fire break out among the trees like sparks blown from a thousand torches; the gloom pulses with them as the flame ebbs and flows, and the planters' chambers are filled with these harmless incendiaries. The yell of the monkeys at daybreak has been compared to a devils' holiday, to distant thunder, loose iron bars in a cart in Fleet Street, bagpipes, and drunken men laughing.

To Coleridge we are indebted for word pictures of the cabbage tree, and the silk cotton tree with their buttressed trunks; the banyan with its cloistered arcades; the wild plantain with its immense green leaves rent in slips, its thick bunches of fruit, and its scarlet pendent seed; the mangroves, with their branches drooping into the sea; the banana, with its jointed leaves; the fern trees, twenty feet high; the gold canes, in arrowy sheaves; and the feathery palms. Nor do we forget the figuera, the bois le Sueur, or the wild pine burning like a topaz in a calix of emerald. Beneath the broad roof of creepers, from which the oriole hangs its hammock nest, grow, in a wild jungle of beauty, the scarlet cordia, the pink and saffron flower fence, the plumeria, and the white datura. The flying fish glided by us, says H.N. Coleridge, speaking of the Indian seas, bonitos and albicores played around the bows, dolphins gleamed in our wake, ever and anon a shark, and once a great emerald-coloured whale, kept us company. Elsewhere he describes the silver strand, fringed with evergreen drooping mangroves, and the long shrouding avenues of thick leaves that darkly fringe the blue ocean. By the shore grow the dark and stately manchineel, beautiful but noxious, the white wood, and the bristling sea-side grape, with its broad leaves and bunches of pleasant berries. The sea birds skim about the waves, and the red flamingoes stalk around the sandy shoals, while the alligators wallow on the mud banks, and the snowy pelicans hold their councils in solemn stupidity.

Leaving the sea and the shore we wander on into the interior, for the West Indian vegetation has everywhere a common character, and see delighted the forest trees growing on the cliffs, knotted and bound together with luxuriant festoons of evergreen creepers, connecting them in one vast network of leaves and branches, the wild pine sparkling on the huge limbs of the wayside trees, beside it the dagger-like Spanish needle, the quilted pimploe, and the maypole aloe shooting its yellow flowered crown twenty feet above the traveller, or amid the dark foliage, twines of purple wreaths or lilac jessamine; and the woods ringing with the song of birds, interrupted at times by strange shrieks or moanings of some tropic wanderer; we see with these the snowy amaryllis, the gorgeous hibiscus with its crown of scarlet, the quivering limes and dark glossy orange bushes; we rest under the green tamarind or listen to the mournful creaking of the sand box tree.

The Buccaneers went in pairs, every hunter having his camerade or matelot (sailor), as well as his engagés. They had seldom any fixed habitation, but pitched their tents where the cattle were to be found, building temporary sheds, thatched with palm leaves, to defend them from the rain and to lodge their stock of hides till they could barter it with the next vessel for wine, brandy, linen, arms, powder, or lead. They would return three leagues from the chase to their huts, laden with meat and skins, and if they ate in the open country it was always with their musket cocked and near at hand for fear of surprise. With their matelots they had everything in common. The chief occupation of these voluntary outlaws was the chase of the wild ox, that of the wild boar being at first a mere amusement, or only followed as the means of procuring a luxurious meal; at a later period, however, many Frenchmen lived by hunting the hog, whose flesh they boucaned and sold for exportation, its flavour being superior to that of any other meat.

The Buccaneers sometimes went in companies of ten or twelve, each man having his Indian attendant besides his apprentices. Before setting out they arranged a spot for rendezvous in case of attack. If they remained long in one place, they built thatched sheds under which to pitch their tents. They rose at daybreak to start for the chase, leaving one of the band to guard the huts. The masters generally went first and alone (sometimes the worst shot was left in the tent to cook), and the engagés and the dogs followed; one hound, the venteur, went in front of all, often leading the hunter through wood and over rock where no path had ever been. When the quarry came in sight the dogs barked round it and kept it at bay till the hunters could come up and fire. They generally aimed at the breast of the bull, or tried to hamstring it as soon as possible. Many hunters ran down the wild cattle in the savannah and attacked it with their dogs. If only wounded the ox would rush upon them and gore all he met. But this happened very seldom, for the men were deadly shots, seldom missed their coup, and were always sufficiently active, if in danger, to climb the tree from behind which they had fired. The venteur dog had a peculiar short bark by which he summoned the pack to his aid, and as soon as they heard it the engagés rushed to the rescue. When the beast was half flayed, the master took out the largest bone and sucked the hot marrow, which served him for a meal, giving a bit also to the venteur, but not to any other dogs, lest they should grow lazy in hunting; but the last lagger in the pack had sometimes a bit thrown him to incite him to greater exertion. He then left the engagés to carry the skin to the boucan, with a few of the best joints, giving the rest to the carrion crows, that soon sniffed out the blood. They continued the chase till each man had killed an ox, and the last returned home, laden like the rest with a hide and a portion of raw meat. By this time the first comer had prepared dinner, roasted some beef, or spitted a whole hog. The tables were soon laid; they consisted of a flat stone, the fallen trunk of a tree, or a root, with no cloth, no napkin, no bread, and no wine; pimento and orange juice were sufficient sauce for hungry men, and a contented mind and a keen appetite never quarrelled with rude cooking. This monotonous life was only varied by a conflict with a wounded bull, or a skirmish with the Spaniards. The grand fête days were when the hunter had collected as many hides as he had contracted to supply the merchant, and carried them to Tortuga, to Cape Tiburon, Samana, or St. Domingo, probably to return in a week's time, weary of drinking or beggared from the gambling table, tired of civilization, and restless for the chase.

The wild cattle of Hispaniola—the oxen, hogs, horses, and dogs—were all sprung from the domestic animals originally brought from Spain. The dogs were introduced into the island to chase the Indians, a cruelty that even the mild Columbus practised. Esquemeling says, those first conquerors of the New World made use of dogs "to range and search the intricate thicket of woods and forests for those their implacable and unconquerable enemies; thus they forced them to leave their old refuge and submit to the sword, seeing no milder usage would do it. Hereupon they killed some of them, and, quartering their bodies, placed them on the highways, that others might take a warning from such a punishment. But this severity proved of ill consequence, for, instead of frighting them and reducing them to civility, they conceived such horror of the Spaniards that they resolved to detest and fly their sight for ever; hence the greatest part died in caves and subterraneous places of the woods and mountains, in which places I myself have often seen great numbers of human bones. The Spaniards, finding no more Indians to appear about the woods, turned away a great number of dogs they had in their houses; and they, finding no masters to keep them, betook themselves to the woods and fields to hunt for food to preserve their lives, and by degrees grew wild."

The young of these maroon dogs the hunters were in the habit of bringing up. When they found a wild bitch with whelps, they generally took away the puppies and brought them to their tents, preferring them to any other sort of dog. They seem to have been between a greyhound and a mastiff. The Dutch writer whom we have just quoted mentions the singular fact, that these dogs, even in a wild state, retained their acquired habits. The venteur always led the way, and was allowed to dip the first fangs into the victim. The wild dogs went in packs of fifty or eighty, and were so fierce that they would not scruple to attack a whole herd of wild boars, bringing down two or three at once. They destroyed a vast number of wild cattle, devouring the young as soon as a mare had foaled or a cow calved.

"One day," says Esquemeling, "a French Buccaneer showed me a strange action of this kind. Being in the fields hunting together, we heard a great noise of dogs which had surrounded a wild boar. Having tame dogs with us we left them in custody of our servants, being desirous to see the sport. Hence my companion and I climbed up two several trees, both for security and prospect. The wild boar, all alone, stood against a tree, defending himself with his tusks from a great number of dogs that enclosed him, killed with his teeth and wounded several of them. This bloody fight continued about an hour, the wild boar meanwhile attempting many times to escape. At last flying, one dog leaped upon his back; and the rest of the dogs, perceiving the courage of their companion, fastened likewise on the boar, and presently killed him. This done, all of them, the first only excepted, laid themselves down upon the ground about the prey, and there peaceably continued till he, the first and most courageous of the troop, had eaten as much as he could. When this dog had left off, all the rest fell in to take their share till nothing was left."

In 1668, the Governor of Tortuga, finding these dogs were rendering the wild boar almost extinct, and alarmed lest the hunters should leave a place where food was growing scarce, sent to France for poison to destroy these mastiffs, and placed poisoned horse flesh in the woods. But although this practice was continued for six months, and an incredible number were killed, yet the race soon appeared almost as numerous as before.

The wild horses went in troops of about two or three hundred. They were awkward and mis-shapen, small and short-bodied, with large heads, long necks, trailing ears, and thick legs. They had always a leader, and when they met a hunter, stared at him till he approached within shot, then gallopped off all together. They were only killed for their skins, though their flesh was sometimes smoked for the use of the sailors. These horses were caught by stretching nooses along their tracks, in which they got entangled by the neck. When taken, they were quickly tamed by being kept two or three days without food, and were then used to carry hides. They were good workers, but easily lamed. When a Buccaneer turned them adrift from want of food to keep them through the winter, they were known to return ten months after, or, meeting them in the savannah, begin to whine and caress their old masters, and suffer themselves to be recaptured. They were also killed for the sake of the fat about the neck and belly, which the hunters used for lamp oil.

The wild oxen were tame unless wounded, and their hides were generally from eleven to thirteen feet long. They were very strong and very swift, in spite of their short and slender legs. In the course of a single century from their introduction, they had so increased, that the French Buccaneers, when they landed, seldom went in search of them, but waited for them near the shore, at the salt pools where they came to drink. The herds fed at night on the savannahs, and at noon retired to the shelter of the forests. A wounded bull would often blockade, for four hours, a tree in which a hunter had taken refuge, bellowing round the trunk and ploughing at the roots with his horns. The French hunters generally shot them; but the Spanish "hocksers" rode them down on horseback, and hamstrung them with a crescent-shaped spear, in form something like a cheese-knife with a long handle.

The wild boars, when much pressed, adopted the same military stratagem as the oxen. They threw themselves into the form of a hollow square, the sows in the rear and the sucking pigs in the middle, the white sabre tusks of the boars gleaming outwards towards the foe. The dogs always fastened upon the defenceless sow in preference to the ferocious male, whom they seldom attacked if it got at bay under a tree, though it might be alone, glaring before the red jaws of eighty yelping dogs. The wild boar hunting was less dangerous than that of the wild oxen, and less profitable. The hogs soon grew scarce, a party of hunters sometimes killing 100 in a day, and only carrying home three or four of the fattest. It was not uncommon for solitary hunters or engagés who had lost their way in the woods to amuse themselves by training up the young hogs they found basking under the trees, and teaching them to track their own species and pull them down by tugging at their long leathery ears. Œxmelin, the most intelligent of the few Buccaneer writers, relates his own success in training four pigs, whom he taught to follow at his heels like dogs, to play with him, and obey his orders. When they saw a herd of boars they would run forward and decoy them towards him. On one occasion, one of them escaped into the plains, but returned three days after, very complacently heading a herd of hogs, of which his master and his matelot killed four. It is not many years since that an English gamekeeper brought up a pig to get his own bread as a pointer.

At first, when the green savannahs were spotted black with cattle, the hunters were so fastidious that they seldom ate anything but the udders of cows, considering bull meat too tough. Many a herd was killed, as at present in Australia or California, for the hide and tallow. If the first animal killed in the day's hunt was a cow, an engagé was instantly sent to the tent with part of the flesh to cook for the evening. When the engagés had each gone home with his joint and his hide, the Buccaneer followed with his own load, his dogs, tired and panting, lagging at his heels. If on his way back he met a boar, or more oxen, he threw down his fardel, slew a fresh victim, and, flaying it, hung the hide on a tree out of reach of the wild dogs, and came back for it on the morrow.

On returning to the boucan, each man set to work to stretch (brochéter) his hide, fastening it tightly out with fourteen wooden pegs, and rubbing it with ashes and salt mixed together to make it dry quicker. When this was done, they sat down to partake of the food that the first comer had by this time cooked. The beef they generally boiled in the large cauldron which every hunter possessed, drawing it out when it was done with a wooden skewer. A board served them for a dish. With a wooden spoon they collected the gravy in a calabash; and into this they squeezed the juice of a fresh picked lemon, a crushed citron, or a little pimento, which formed the hunter's favourite sauce, pimentado. This being done with all the care of a Ude, they seized their hunting knives and wooden skewers, and commenced a solemn attack upon the ponderous joint. The residue they divided among their dogs. Père Labat, an oily Jesuit if we trust to his portrait, describes, with great gusto, a Buccaneer feast at which he was present, and at which a hog was roasted whole. The boucaned meat was used in voyages, or when no oxen could be met with.

When they wanted to boucan a pig, they first flayed it and took out all the bones. The meat they cut in long slips, which they placed in mats, and there left it till the next day, when they proceeded to smoke it. The boucan was a small hut covered close with palm-mats, with a low entrance, and no chimney or windows: it contained a wooden framework seven or eight feet high, on which the meat was placed, and underneath which a charcoal fire was lit. The fire they always fed with the animal's own skin and bones, which made the smoke thick and full of ammonia. The volatile salt of the bones being more readily absorbed by the meat than the mere ligneous acid of wood, the result of this process was an epicurean mouthful far superior to our Westphalia hams, and more like our hung beef. Œxmelin waxes quite eloquent in its praise. He says it was so exquisite that it needed no cooking; its very look, red as a rose, not to mention its delightful fragrance, tempted the worst appetite to eat it, whatever it might be. The only misfortune was that six months after smoking, the meat grew tasteless and unfit for use; but when fresh, it was thought so wholesome that sick men came from a distance to live in a hunter's tent and share his food for a time. The first thing that passengers visiting the West Indies saw was a Buccaneers' canoe bringing dry meat for sale. The boucaned meat was sold in bales of sixty pounds' weight, and their pots of tallow were worth about six pieces of eight.

Labat—no ordinary lover of good cheer, if we may judge from his portrait, which represents him with cheeks as plump as a pulpit cushion, and with fat rolls of double chin—describes the Buccaneer fare with much unction, having gone to a hunter's feast,—a corporeal treat intended as a slight return for much spiritual food. Each Buccaneer, he says, had two skewers, made of clean peeled wood, one having two spikes. The boucan itself was made of four stakes as thick as a man's arm, and about four feet long, struck in the ground to form a square five feet long and three feet across. On these forked sticks they placed cross bars, and upon these the spit, binding them all with withes. The wild boar, being skinned and gutted, was placed whole upon this spit, the stomach kept open with a stick. The fire was made of charcoal, and put on with bark shovels. The interior of the pig was filled with citron juice, salt, crushed pimento, and pepper; and the flesh was constantly pricked, so that this juice might penetrate. When the meat was ready, the cooks fired off a musket twice, to summon the hunters from the woods, while banana leaves were placed round for plates. If the hunters brought home any birds, they at once picked them and threw them into the stomach of the pig, as into a pot. If the hunters were novices, and brought home nothing, they were sent out again to seek it; if they were veterans, they were compelled to drink as many cups as the best hunter had that day killed deer, bulls, or boars. A leaf served to hold the pimento sauce, and a calabash to drink from, while bananas were their substitute for bread. The engagés waited on their masters, and one of the penalties for clumsy serving was to be compelled to drink off a calabash full of sauce.

The English "cow killers" and the French hunters were satisfied with getting as many hides as they could in the shortest possible time, but the Spanish matadores gave the trade an air of chivalrous adventure by rivalling the feats of the Moorish bull-fighters of Granada. They did not use firearms, but carried lances with a half-moon blade, employing dogs, and, being generally men of wealth and planters, had servants on foot to encourage them to the attack. When they tracked an ox in the woods, they made the hounds drive him out into the prairie, where the matadors could spur after him, and, wheeling round the monster, hamstring him or thrust him through with a lance. Dampierre describes minutely the Spanish mode of hocksing. The horses were trained to retreat and advance without even a signal. The hocksing-iron, of a half-moon shape, measuring six inches horizontally, resembled in form a gardener's turf-cutter. The handle, some fourteen feet long, was held like a lance over the horse's head, a matador's steed being always known by its right ear being bent down with the weight of the shaft. The place to strike the bull was just above the hock; when struck the horse instantly wheeled to the left, to avoid the charge of the wounded ox, who soon broke his nearly severed leg, but still limped forward to avenge himself on his formidable enemy. Then the hockser, riding softly up, struck him with his iron again, but this time into a fore leg, and at once laid him prostrate, moaning in terror and in pain. Then, dismounting, the Spaniard took a sharp dagger and stabbed the beast behind the horns, severing the spinal marrow. This operation the English called "polling." The hunter at once remounted, and left his skinners to remove the hide.

The stately Spaniard delighted in this dangerous chase, with all its stratagems, surprises, and hair-breadth escapes, when life depended on a turn of the bridle or the prick of a spur. However pressed for food or endangered by enemies, he practised it with all the stately ceremonies of the Madrid arena. The fiery animal, streaming with blood and foam, bellowing with rage and pain, frequently trampled and gored the dogs and slew both horse and rider. Œxmelin mentions a bull at Cuba which killed three horses in the same day, the lucky rider making a solemn pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe when he had given his victim the coup de grace.

These Spanish hunters did not rough it like the Buccaneers, and kept horses to carry their bales. They were particular in their food, and ate bread and cassava with their beef; drank wine and brandy; and were very choice in their fruit and preserves. Gay in their dress, they prided themselves on their white linen. Every separate hunting field had its own customs. At Campeachy, where the ground was swampy, the logwood-cutters frequently shot the oxen from a canoe, and were sometimes pursued by a wounded beast, who would try to sink the boat. When the woodmen killed a bull, they cut it into quarters, and, taking out all the bones, cut a hole in the centre of each piece large enough to pass their heads through, and trudged home with it to their tents on the shore. If they grew tired or were pursued, they cut off a portion of the meat and lightened their load.

The Spaniards, less poor, greedy, and thoughtless than the English and French adventurers, killed only the bulls and old cows, and left the younger ones to breed. The French were notorious for their wanton waste, using oxen merely as marks for their bullets, and as utterly indifferent to the future as Autolycus, who "slept out the thought of it." About 1650 the wild cattle of Jamaica were entirely destroyed, and the Governor procured a fresh supply from Cuba.

Whenever the oxen grew scarce, they became wilder and more ferocious. In some places no hunter dared to fire at them if alone, nor ever ventured into their pastures unattended. All animals grow shy if frequently pursued, and no fish are so unapproachable as those of a much frequented stream. Dampierre says that at Beef Island the old bulls who had once been wounded, when they saw the hunters or heard their muskets, would instantly form into a square, with their cows in the rear and the calves in the middle, turning as the hunters turned, and presenting their horns like a cluster of bayonets. It then became necessary to beat the woods for stragglers. A beast mortally wounded always made at the hunter; but if only grazed by the bullet it ran away. A cow was thought to be more dangerous than a bull, as the former charged with its eyes open, and the latter with them closed. The danger was often imminent. One of Dampierre's messmates ventured into the savannah, about a mile from the huts, and coming within shot of a bull wounded it desperately. The bull, however, had strength enough to pursue and overtake the logwood-cutter before he could load again, to trample him, and gore him in the thigh. Then, faint with loss of blood, it reeled down dead, and fell heavily beside the bleeding and groaning hunter. His comerade, coming the next morning to seek for the man, found him weak and almost dying, and, taking him on his back, bore him to his hut, where he was soon cured. The rapidity of such cures is peculiar to savages, or men who devote their whole life to muscular exertion; for the flesh of the South Sea Islanders is said to close upon a sword as india-rubber does upon the knife that cuts it. Often, in the heat and excitement of these pursuits, the solitary hunter, and still more often, from want of experience and from youthful rashness, the engagé, would lose his way in the woods, or, falling into a forest pool, become a prey of the lurking cayman, if not alarmed by the premonitory odour of musk that indicated its dangerous vicinity. Nature is full of these warnings: and the vibrating rattle of the Indian snake has saved the life of many a Buccaneer.

Besides an unceasing supply of beef on shore, and salted turtle at sea, the Buccaneers ate the flesh of deer and of peccavy. On the mainland wild turkeys were always within shot, and fat monkeys and plump parrots were resources for more hungry and less epicurean men. The rich fruits of the West Indies, needing no cultivation to improve their flavour, grew around their huts, and were to be had all the year round for the picking. The parched hunters delighted in the resinous-flavoured mango and the luscious guava as much as our modern sailors. In such a country every one is a vegetarian; for when dinner is over, to be a fruit eater needs no hermit-like asceticism. The plantain and the yam served them instead of the bread-fruit of the Pacific, or the potato of Virginia, and the custard-apple took the place of pastry; but the great dainty which all their chroniclers mention was the large avocado pear, which they supposed to be an aphrodisiac. This prodigious lemon-coloured fruit was allowed to mellow, its soft pulp was then scooped out and beaten up in a plate with orange and lime juice; but hungry and more impatient men ate it at once, with a little salt and a roast plantain. A Buccaneer never touched an unknown fruit till he had seen birds pecking it on the tree. No bird was ever seen to touch the blooming but poisonous apples of the manchineel, which few animals but crabs could eat with impunity; as this tree grew by the sea-shore, even fish were rendered poisonous by feeding on the fruit that fell into the water. The verified stories of the manchineel excel the fables related of the upas of Batavia. The very dew upon its branches poisoned those upon whom it dropped. Esquemeling says: "One day, being hugely tormented with mosquitoes or gnats, and being as yet unacquainted with the nature of this tree, I cut a branch to serve me for a fan, but all my face was swelled the next day, and filled with blisters as if it were burnt, to such a degree that I was blind for three days."

The hunters tormented by mosquitoes and sand flies used leafy branches for fans, and anointed their faces with hog's grease to defend themselves from the stings. By night in their huts they burned tobacco, without which smoke they could not have obtained sleep. The mosquitoes were of all sorts, the buzzing and the silent, the tormentors by day and night; but they dispersed when the land breeze rose, or whenever the wind increased. The common mosquito was not visible by day, but at sunset filled the woods with its ominous humming. Œxmelin describes on one occasion his lying for eight hours in the water of a brook to escape their stings; sitting on a stone or on the sand, and keeping his face, which was above water, covered with leaves to protect him from the fiery stings.

The Buccaneers made their pens of reeds, and their paper of the leaves of a peculiar sort of palm, the outer cuticle of which was thin, white, and soft; their ink was the black juice of the juniper berries, letters written with which turned white in nine days. They kept harmless snakes in their houses to feed on the rats and mice, just as we do cats, or the Copts did the ichneumons. They frequently used a handful of fire-flies instead of a lantern: Esquemeling, himself a Buccaneer, says, that with three of these in his cottage at midnight he could see to read in any book, however small the print.

The Buccaneers carried in their tobacco pouches the horn of an immense sort of spider, which Esquemeling describes as big as an egg, with feet as long as a crab, and four black teeth like a rabbit, its bite being sharp but not venomous. These teeth or horns they used either as toothpicks or pipe-cleaners; they were supposed to have the property of preserving the user from toothache. They are described as about two inches long, black as jet, smooth as glass, sharp as a thorn, and a little bent at the lower end.

Their favourite toy, the dice, they cut from the white ivory-like teeth of the sea-horse. Great observers of the use of things, and well lessoned in the bitter school of experience, they turned every new natural production they met with to some useful purpose, uniting with the keen sagacity of the hunter the shrewd instinct of the savage. Their horsewhips they formed from the skin of the back of a wild bull or sea-cow. The lashes were made of slips of hide, two or three feet long, of the full thickness at the bottom, and cut square and tapering to the point. These thongs they twisted while still green, and then hung them up in a hut to dry; in a few weeks they shrank and became hard as wood, and tough as an American cowhide, an Abyssinian scourge, or the far-famed Russian knout. From the skin of the manitee they cut straps, which they used in their canoes instead of the ordinary tholes.

The wild boar hunters frequently lived in huts four or five together, and remained for months, frequently a year, in the same place, supplying the neighbouring planters by contract. The most perfect equality reigned between the matelots; and if one of them wanted powder or lead, he took it from the other's store, telling him of the loan, and repaying it when able.

When a dispute arose between any of them, their associates tried to reconcile the difference. A dispute about a shooting wager, or the smallest trifle, might give rise to deadly feuds between such lawless and vindictive exiles, unaccustomed to control, and ready to resort to arms. If both still determined to have revenge, the musket was the impassive arbiter appealed to. The friends of the duellists decided at what distance the combatants should stand, and made them draw lots for the first fire. If one fell dead, the bystanders immediately held a sort of inquest, at which they decided whether he had been fairly dealt with, and examined the body to see that the death-shot had been fairly fired in front, and not in a cowardly or treacherous manner, and handled his musket to see whether it was discharged and had been in good order. A surgeon then opened the orifice of the wound, and if he decided that the bullet had entered behind, or much on one side, they declared the survivor a murderer; Lynch law was proclaimed, they tied the culprit to a tree, and shot him with their muskets. In Tortuga, or near a town, this rude justice was never resorted to, and, even in the wilder places, was soon abandoned as the hunters grew more civilized. These duels generally took place on the sea beach if the Flibustiers were the combatants.

As these men took incessant exercise, were indifferent to climate, and fed chiefly on fresh meat, they enjoyed good health. They were, however, subject to flying fevers that passed in a day, and which did not confine them even to their tents.

With the Spanish Lanceros, or Fifties as they were called by the Buccaneers, the hunters were perpetually at war, their intrepid infantry being generally successful against the hot charges of these yeomanry of the savannahs. There were four companies of them in Hispaniola, with a hundred spearmen in each company; half of these were generally on the patrol, while the remainder rested, and from their number they derived their nickname. Their duty was to surprise the isolated hunters, to burn the stores of hides, make prisoners of the engagés, and guard the Spanish settlers against any sudden attack. At other times they were employed in killing off the herds of wild cattle that furnished the Buccaneers with food, and drew fresh bands to the plains where they abounded. In great enterprises the whole corps cried "boot and saddle," and they took with them at all times a few muleteers on foot, either to carry their baggage, or to serve as scouts in the woods, where the cow-killers built their huts. But, in spite of Negro foragers and Indian spies, the keener-eyed Buccaneers generally escaped, or, if met with, broke like raging wolves through their adversaries' toils. Accustomed to the bush, inured to famine and fatigue, and more indifferent than even the Spaniards to climate, the Buccaneers were seldom taken prisoners. Unerring marksmen, with a spice of the wild beast in their blood, they preferred death to flight or capture.

It is probable that even for this toilsome and dangerous pursuit the Spaniards easily obtained recruits. Constant sport with the wild cattle, abundant food, and a spirit of adventure would prove an irresistible bait to the bravos of Carthagena, or the matadors of Campeachy. The hangers-on of the wineshops and the pulque drinkers of Mexico would readily embark in any campaign that would bring them a few pistoles, and give them good food and gay clothing.

Œxmelin relates several instances of the daring escapes of the Buccaneer hunters from the blood-thirsting pursuit of the Fifties. It was their custom, directly that news reached the tents that the Lanceros were out, to issue an order that the first man who caught sight of the horsemen should inform the rest, in order to attack the foe by an ambuscade, if they were too numerous to meet in the open field. The great aim, on the other hand, of the Lanceros, was to wait for a night of rain and wind, when the sound of their hoofs could not be heard, and to butcher the sleepers when their fire-arms were either damp or piled out of reach. Frequently they surrounded the hunters when heavy after a debauch, and when even the sentinels were asleep at the tent doors.

The following anecdote conveys some impression of these encounters. A French Buccaneer going one day into the savannahs to hunt, followed by his engagé, was suddenly surrounded by a troop of shouting Lanceros. He saw at once that the Fifties had at last trapped him. He was surrounded, and escape from their swift pursuit, with no tree near, was hopeless. But he would not let hope desert him so long as the spears were still out of his heart. His engagé was as brave as himself, and both determined to stand at bay and sell their lives dearly. The hunter of mad oxen, and the tamer of wild horses, need not fear man or devil. The master and man put themselves back to back, and, laying their common stock of powder and bullets in their caps between them, prepared for death. The Spaniards, who only carried lances, kept coursing round them, afraid to narrow in, or venture within shot, and crying out to them with threats to surrender. They next offered them quarter, and at last promised to disarm but not hurt them, saying they were only executing the orders of their general. The two Frenchmen replied mockingly, that they would never surrender, and wanted no quarter, and that the first lancer who approached would pay dear for his visit. The Spaniards still hovered round, afraid to advance, none of them willing to be the first victim, or to play the scapegoat for the rest. "C'est le premier pas qui coute," and the first step they made was backward. After some consultation at a safe distance, they finally left the Buccaneers still standing threateningly back to back, and spurred off, half afraid that the Tartars they had nearly caught might turn the tables, and advance against them.

The steady persistency of the Buccaneer infantry was generally victorious over the impetuous but transitory onslaught of the Spanish cavalry.

Another time a wild Buccaneer while hunting alone was surprised by a similar party of mounted pikemen. Seeing that there was some distance between him and the nearest wood, and that his capture was certain, he bethought himself of the following ruse. Putting his gun up to his shoulder he advanced at a trot, shouting exultingly, "à moi, à moi!" as if he was followed by a band of scattered companions who had been in search of the Spaniards. The cavaliers, believing at once that they had fallen into an ambush, took flight, to the joy of the ingenious hunter, who quickly made his escape, laughing, into the neighbouring covert.

The Spaniards were worn out at last with this border warfare, unprofitable because it was waged with men who were too poor to reward the plunderer, and dangerous because fought with every disadvantage of weapon and situation. In the savannahs the Spaniards were formidable, but in the woods they became a certain prey to the musketeer. Unable to drive the plunderers out of the island, the Spaniards at last foolishly resolved to render the island not worth the plunder. Orders came from Spain to kill off the wild cattle that Columbus had originally brought to the island, and particularly round the coast. If the trade with the French vessels and the barter of hides for brandy could once be arrested, the hunters would be driven from the woods by starvation, or perish one by one in their dens. They little thought that this scheme would succeed, and what would be the consequence of such success. The hunters turned sea crusaders, and the sea became the savannah where they sought their human game. Every creek soon thronged with men more deadly than the Danish Vikinger: wrecked on a habitable shore, they landed as invaders and turned hunters as before; driven to their boats, they became again adventurers. In this name and in that of "soldiers of fortune" they delighted: a more honest and less courteous age would have termed them pirates. By the year 1686, the change from Buccaneer to Flibustier had been almost wholly effected.

The Buccaneers' engagés led a life very little better than those white slaves whom the glittering promises of the planters had decoyed from France. The existence of the former was, however, rendered more bearable by their variety of adventure, by better food, and by daily recreation. If all day in the hot sun he had to toil carrying bales of skins from his master's hut towards the shore, we must remember that American seamen still work contentedly at the same labour in California for a sailor's ordinary wages. Mutual danger produced necessarily, except in the most brutal, a kind of fellowship between the master and the servant of the boucan. Up at daybreak, the engagé sweltered all day through the bush, groaning beneath his burden of loathsome hides, but the good meal came before sunset, and then the pipes were lit, and the brandy went round, and the song was sung, and the tale was told, while the hunters shot at a mark, or made wagers upon the respective skill of their matelots or their engagés.

We hear from Charlevoix, that young prodigals of good family had been known to prefer the canvas tent to the tapestried wall, and to have grasped the hunter's musket with the hand that might have wielded the general's baton or the marshal's staff.

The Buccaneer's life was not one of mere revelry and ease; no luxurious caves or safe strongholds served at once for their treasure house, their palace, and their fortress. They were wandering outlaws; hated both by the Spaniards and the Indians, they ate with a loaded gun within their reach. The jaguar lurked beside them, the coppersnake glared at them from his lair. If their foot stumbled, they were gored by the ox or ripped up by the boar; if they fled they became a prey to the cayman of the pool; they were swept away as they forded swollen rivers; they were swallowed up by that dreadful foretype of the Judgment, the earthquake. The shark and the sea monster swam by their canoe, the carrion crow that fed to-day upon the carcase they had left, too often fed to-morrow on the slain hunter. The wildest transitions of safety and danger, plenty and famine, peace and war, health and sickness, surrounded their daily life. To-day on the savannah dark with the wild herds, to-morrow compelled to feast on the flesh of a murdered comerade; to-day surrounded by revelling friends, to-morrow left alone to die.

The present system of hide curing practised in California seems almost identical with that employed by the Buccaneers. The following extract from Dana's "Three Years before the Mast" will convey a correct impression of what constituted the greater portion of an engagé's labour. He describes the shore piled with hides, just out of reach of the tide; each skin doubled lengthwise in the middle, and nearly as stiff as a board, and the whole bundles carried down on men's heads from the place of curing to the stacks. "When the hide is taken from the bullock, holes are cut round it, near the edge, and it is staked out to dry, to prevent shrinking. They are then to be cured, and are carried down to the shore at low tide and made fast in small piles, where they lie for forty-eight hours, when they are taken out, rolled up in wheelbarrows, and thrown into vats full of strong brine, where they remain for forty-eight hours. The sea water only cleans and softens them, the brine pickles them. They are then removed from the vats, lie on a platform twenty-four hours, and are then staked out, still wet and soft; the men go over them with knives, cutting off all remaining pieces of meat or fat, the ears, and any part that would either prevent the packing or keeping. A man can clean about twenty-five a-day, keeping at his work. This cleaning must be done before noon, or they get too dry. When the sun has been upon them for a few hours they are gone over with scrapers to remove the fat that the sun brings out; the stakes are then pulled up and the hides carefully doubled, with the hair outside, and left to dry. About the middle of the afternoon, they are turned upon the other side, and at sunset piled up and turned over. The next day they are spread out and opened again, and at night, if fully dry, are thrown up on a long horizontal pole, five at a time, and beaten with flails to get out the dust; thus, being salted, scraped, cleaned, dried, and beaten, they are stowed away in the warehouses."

The Buccaneer's life was not spent in quaffing sangaree or basking under orange blossoms—not in smoking beside mountains of flowers, where the humming-birds fluttered like butterflies, and the lizards flashed across the sunbeams, shedding jewelled and enchanted light. No Indian in the mine, no Arab pearl-diver, no worn, pale children at an English factory, no galley-slave dying at the oar, led such a life as a Buccaneer engagé if bound to a cruel master. Imagine a delicate youth, of good but poor family, decoyed from a Norman country town by the loud-sounding promises of a St. Domingo agent, specious as a recruiting sergeant, voluble as the projector of bubble companies, greedy, plausible, and lying. He comes out to the El Dorado of his dreams, and is at once taken to the hut of some rude Buccaneer. The first night is a revel, and his sleep is golden and full of visions. The spell is broken at daybreak. He has to carry a load of skins, weighing some twenty-six pounds, three or four leagues, through brakes of prickly pear and clumps of canes. The pathless way cannot be traversed at greater speed than about two hours to a quarter of a league. The sun grows vertical, and he is feverish and sick at heart. Three years of this purgatory are varied by blows and curses. The masters too often loaded their servants with blows if they dared to faint through weakness, hunger, thirst, or fatigue. Some hunters had the forbearance to rest on a Sunday, induced rather by languor than by piety; but on these days the engagé had to rise as usual at daybreak, to go out and kill a wild boar for the day's feast. 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 shipment, fearing that the Spaniards might choose that very day to burn the huts and destroy the skins. An engagé once complained to his master, and reminded him that it was not right to work on a Sunday, God 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 God." "And I tell you," said the scowling Buccaneer, striking the earth with the butt-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 sturdy 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 engagé 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 passion 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 engagés both from the plantations and the ajoupas. The following story illustrates 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 shore. 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 God'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. Superstition 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 appetite 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-shore. 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 engagé's shirt 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 shirts, two pairs of drawers, and a cap. The valets, as the French called them, then became comerades, and ceased to be mere engagés. They took their own matelots, and became, in their turn, Buccaneers. When they had obtained a sufficient quantity 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' engagés 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 assistance 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. Père Labat remarks the quantity 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 constitutions, unable to endure even the debilitating climate, and much less hard labour. Esquemeling, himself originally an engagé, 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 scorbutic. 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 molasses, 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, lashing him as before, so cruelly, that the miserable creature gave up the ghost, with these dying words, 'I beseech the Almighty God, 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 depôt, as they had intended, were selling off their merchandise and their plantations. Esquemeling, as a bound engagé 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.

Œxmelin 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 cassava, or pressing the juice from the banana. Overworked and under fed, associating 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 passed, 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 Œxmelin 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 passed 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 compassion 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 engagés were called to their work at daybreak by a shrill whistle (as the negroes are now by the hoarse conch shell); 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. Œxmelin 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 Tête, who came from Dieppe, prided himself on having killed 200 engagés 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 engagé, and had never been treated better; that he had come all the way to that shore 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 engagé, 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 engagés, 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, friendships 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 à 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-shore, 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-shore 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 assisted 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 cassava 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.

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—Class from which they sprang—Equality at Sea—Mode of Fighting—Dress.

The Flibustiers first began by associating 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 cutlass. 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 association or the captain. If the latter, they agreed to give him the first ship 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 shirts, 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 assist 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 ship 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 ship 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 entitled 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.

To him who lost an eye, 100 piastres, or one slave.

For both eyes, 200 piastres, or two slaves.

For the loss of a finger, 100 piastres, or one slave. A Flibustier who had a limb crippled, received the same pay as if it was lost. A wound requiring an issue, was recompensed with 500 piastres, or five slaves. These shares were all allotted before the general division. If a vessel was taken at sea, its cargo was divided among the whole fleet, but the crew first boarding it received 100 crowns, if its value exceeded 10,000 crowns, and for every 10,000 crowns' worth of cargo, 100 went to the men that boarded. The surgeon received 200 piastres, besides his share.

The Mosquito Indians were the helots of the Buccaneers; they employed them to catch fish, and their vessels had generally a small canoe, kept for their use, in which they might strike tortoise or manitee. These Indians used no oars, but a pair of broad-bladed paddles, which they held perpendicularly, grasping the staff with both hands and putting back the water by sheer strength, and with very quick, short strokes. Two men generally went in the same boat, the one sitting in the stern, the other kneeling down in the head. They both paddled softly till they approached the spot where their prey lay; they then remained still, looking very warily about them, and the one at the head then rose up, with his striking-staff in his hand. This weapon was about eight feet long, almost as thick as a man's arm at the larger end, at which there was a hole into which the harpoon was put; at the other extremity was placed a piece of light (bob) wood, with a hole in it, through which the small end of the staff came. On this bob wood a line of ten or twelve fathoms was neatly wound—the end of the one line being fastened to the wood, and the other to the harpoon, the man keeping about a fathom of it loose in his hand. When he struck, the harpoon came off the shaft, and, as the wounded fish swam away, the line ran off from the reel. Although the bob and line were frequently dragged deep under water, and often caught round coral branches or sunk wreck, it generally rose to the surface of the water. The Indians struggled to recover the bob, which they were accustomed to do in about a quarter of an hour.

When the sea-cow grew tired and began to lie still, they drew in the line, and the monster, feeling the harpoon a second time, would often make a maddened rush at the canoe. It then became necessary that the steersman should be nimble in turning the head of the canoe the way his companion pointed, as he alone was able to see and feel the way the manitee was swimming. Directly the fish grew tired, they hauled in the line, which the vexed creature drew out again a dozen times with ferocious but impotent speed. When its strength grew quite exhausted, they would drag it up the side of their boat and knock it on the head, or, pulling it to the shore, made it fast while they went out to strike another. From the great size of a sea-cow it was always necessary to go to shore in order to get it safely into their boats; hauling it up in shoal water, they upset their canoes, and then rolling the fish in righted again with the weight. The Indians sometimes paddled one home, and towed the other after them. Dampierre says he knew two Indians, who every day for a week brought two manitee on board his ship, the least not weighing less than six hundred pounds, and yet in so small a canoe that three Englishmen could row it.

If the fishermen struck a sea-cow that had a calf they generally captured both—the mother carrying the young under her side fins, and always regarding their safety before her own; the young, moreover, would seldom desert their mother, and would follow the canoe in spite of noise and blows. The least sound startled the manitee, but the turtles required less care. These fish had certain islands near Cuba which they chose to lay their eggs in. At certain seasons they came from the gulf of Honduras in such vast multitudes, that ships, which had lost their latitude, very often steered at night, following the sound of these clattering shoals. When they had been about a month in the Caribbean sea they grew fat, and the fishing commenced. Salt turtle was the Buccaneers' healthiest food, and was supposed to free them from all the ailments of debauchery. The Indians struck the turtle with a short, sharp, triangular-headed iron, not more than an inch long, which fitted into a spear handle. The lance head was loose and had the usual line attached. Their lines they made of the fibrous bark of a tree, which they also used for their rigging.

The manitee, or sea-cow, was a favourite article of food with these wandering seamen. It was a monster as big as a horse, and as unwieldy as a walrus, with eyes not much larger than peas, and a head like a cow. Its flesh was white, sweet, and wholesome. The tail of a young fish was a dainty, and a young sucking-calf, roasted, was an epicure's morsel. The head and tail of older animals were tough, yet the belly was frequently eaten.

Dampierre speaks of his companions feasting on pork and peas, and beef and dough-boys, and this nautical coarseness was generally found associated with occasional tropical luxuriousness. In cases of necessity, wrecked sailors fed on sharks, which they first boiled and then squeezed dry, and stewed with pepper and vinegar. The oil of turtle they used instead of butter for their dumplings. The best turtle were said to be those that fed on land; those that lived on sea-weed, and not on grass, being yellow and rank. The larger fish needed two men to turn them on their backs. The Flibustiers also ate the iguanas, or large South American lizards. Vast flocks of doves were found in many of the islands, sometimes in such abundance that a sailor could knock down five or six dozen of an afternoon.

The Buccaneers' history is a singular example of how evil generates evil. The Spaniards destroyed the wild cattle, and the hunters turned freebooters. Spain discontinued trading to prevent piracy, and the adventurers, starved for want of gold, made descents upon the mainland. The evil grew by degrees till the worm they had at first trod upon arose in their path an indestructible and devastating monster of a hundred heads. First single ships, then fleets, were swept off by these locusts of the deep; first, islands were burnt, then villages sacked, and at last cities conquered. First the North and then the South Pacific were visited, till the whole coast from Panama to Cape Horn trembled at the very flutter of their flag. The first Flibustier, Lewis Scott, scared Campeachy with a few canoes. Grognet grappled the Lima fleet with a whole squadron of pirate craft. The Buccaneer spirit arose from revenge, and ended in robbery and murder. At first fierce but merciful, they grew rapacious, loathsome, and bloody. Their early chivalry forsook them—they sank into the enemies of God and all mankind, and the last refuse of them expired on the gallows of Jamaica, children of Cain, unpitied by any, their very courage despised, and their crimes detested. At their culminating point, united under the sway of one great mind, they might have formed a large empire in South America, or conquered it as tributaries to France or England. Always thirsty for gold, they were often chivalrous, generous, intrepid, merciful, and disinterested.

A greater evil soon cured the lesser. The Spaniards, dreading robbery worse than death, ceased in a great measure to trade. The poorer merchants were ruined by the loss of a single cocoa vessel; the richer waited for the convoy of the plate fleets, or followed in the wake of the galleon, hoping to escape if she was captured, as the chickens do when the hen goes cackling up in the claws of the kite. For every four vessels that once sailed not more than one could be now seen. What with the war of France on Holland, and England on France, and all on Spain, there was little safety for the poor trader. Yet those who could risk a loss still made great profits. This cessation of trade was a poor remedy against the sea robber: it was to rob oneself instead of being robbed, to commit suicide for fear of murder. It was a remedy that saved life, but rendered life hateful. The Buccaneers, starving for want of prey, remained moodily in the rocky fastnesses of Tortuga, like famished eagles looking down on a country they have devastated. To accomplish greater feats they united in bodies, and made forays on the coast. They had before remained at the threshold—they now rushed headlong into the sanctuary, and they got their bread, or rather other people's bread, by daring dashes and surprises of towns, leaving them only when wrapped in flames or swept by the pestilence that always followed in their train.

We may claim for our own nation the first pioneer in this new field of enterprise. Lewis Scott, an Englishman, led the way by sacking the town of St. Francisco, in Campeachy, and, compelling the inhabitants to pay a ransom, returned safely to Jamaica. Where the carcase is there will the eagles be gathered together, for no sooner had his sails grown small in the distance than Mansweld, another Buccaneer, made several successful descents upon the same luckless coast, unfortunate in its very fertility. He then equipped a fleet and attempted to return by the kingdom of New Granada to the South Sea, passing the town of Carthagena. This scheme failed in consequence of a dispute arising between the French and English crews, who were always quarrelling over their respective share of provisions; but in spite of this he took the island of St. Catherine, and attempted to found a Buccaneer state.

John Davis, a Dutchman, excelled both his predecessors in daring. Cruising about Jamaica he became a scourge to all the Spanish mariners who ventured near the coasts of the Caraccas, or his favourite haunts, Carthagena and the Boca del Toro, where he lay wait for vessels bound to Nicaragua. One day he missed his shot, and having a long time traversed the sea and taken nothing—a failure which generally drove these brave men to some desperate expedient to repair their sinking fortunes—he resolved with ninety men to visit the lagoon of Nicaragua, and sack the town of Granada. An Indian from the shores of the lagoon promised to guide him safely and secretly; and his crew, with one voice, declared themselves ready to follow him wherever he led. By night he rowed thirty leagues up the river, to the entry of the lake, and concealed his ships under the boughs of the trees that grew upon the banks; then putting eighty men in his three canoes he rowed on to the town, leaving ten sailors to guard the vessels. By day they hid under the trees; at night they pushed on towards the unsuspecting town, and reached it on the third midnight—taking it, as he had expected, without a blow and by surprise. To a sentinel's challenge they replied that they were fishermen returning home, and two of the crew, leaping on shore, ran their swords through the interrogator, to stop further questions which might have been less easily answered. Following their guide they reached a small covered way that led to the right of the town, while another Indian towed their canoes to a point to which they had agreed each man should bring his booty.

As soon as they arrived at the town they separated into small bands, and were led one by one to the houses of the richest inhabitants. Here they quietly knocked, and, being admitted as friends, seized the inmates by the throat and compelled them, on pain of death, to surrender all the money and jewels that they had. They then roused the sacristans of the principal churches, from whom they took the keys and carried off all the altar plate that could be beaten up or rendered portable. The pixes they stripped of their gems, gouged out the jewelled eyes of virgin idols, and hammered up the sacramental cups into convenient lumps of metal.

This quiet and undisturbed pillage had lasted for two hours without a struggle, when some servants, escaping from the adventurers, began to ring the alarm bells to warn the town, while a few of the already plundered citizens, breaking into the marketplace, filled the streets with uproar and affright. Davis, seeing that the inhabitants were beginning to rally from that panic which had alone secured his victory, commenced a retreat, as the enemy were now gathering in armed and threatening numbers. In a hollow square, with their booty in the centre, the Buccaneers fought their way to their boats, amid tumultuous war-cries and shouts of derision and exultation. In spite of their haste, they were prudent enough to carry with them some rich Spaniards, intending to exchange them for any of their own men they might lose in their retreat. On regaining their ships they compelled these prisoners to send them as a ransom 500 cows, with which they revictualled their ships for the passage back to Jamaica. They had scarcely well weighed anchor before they saw 600 mounted Spaniards dash down to the shore in the hopes of arresting their retreat. A few broadsides were the parting greetings of these unwelcome visitors.

This expedition was accomplished in eight days. The booty consisted of coined money and bullion amounting to about 40,000 crowns. Esquemeling computes it at 4,000 pieces of eight, and in ready money, plate, and jewels to about 50,000 pieces of eight more.

Thus concluded this adventurous raid, in which a town forty leagues inland, and containing at least 800 well-armed defenders, was stormed and robbed by eighty resolute sailors. Davis reached Jamaica in safety with his plunder, which was soon put into wider circulation by the aid of the dice, the tavern keepers, and the courtesans. The money once expended, Davis was roused to fresh exertion. He associated himself with two or three other captains, who, superstitiously relying on his good fortune, chose him as admiral of a small flotilla of eight or nine armed gunboats. The less fortunate rewarded him with boundless confidence. His first excursion was to the town of St. Christopher, in Cuba, to wait for the fleet from New Spain, in hopes to cut off some rich unwieldy straggler. But the fleet contrived to escape his sentinels and pass untouched. Davis then sallied forth and sacked a small town named St. Augustine of Florida, in spite of its castle and garrison of 100 men. He suffered little loss; but the inhabitants proved very poor, and the booty was small.

In making war against Spain, the hunters were mere privateersmen cruising against a national enemy; but in their endurance, patience, and energy, they stood alone. In their onset—rushing, singing, and dancing through fire and flame—they resembled rather the old Barsekars or the first levies of Mohammed. But in one point they were very remarkable; that they did more, and were yet actuated by a lower motive. Almost devoid of religion, they fought with all the madness of fanaticism against a people themselves constitutionally fanatic, but already enervated by climate, by sudden wealth, and a long experience of contaminating luxury. The galleons of Manilla were their final aim, as they gradually passed from the devastated shores of South America to the Philippine Islands and the coasts of Guinea. They had been the instrument of Providence, and knew themselves so, to avenge the wrongs of the Indian upon the Spaniard; they were soon to become the first avengers of the Negro. Long years of plunder had made the Spaniard and the Creole as secretive as the Hindu. At the first intelligence of some terrified fisherman, the frightened townsman threw his pistoles into wells, or mortared them up in the wall of his fortresses. Laden mules were driven into the interior; the women fled to the nearest plantation; the old men barred themselves up in the church. Their first thought was always flight; their second, to turn and strike a blow for all they loved, valued, and revered.

The debauchery of the Buccaneers was as unequalled as their courage. Œxmelin relates a story of an Englishman who gave 500 crowns to his mistress at a single revel. This man, who had earned 1,500 crowns by exposing himself to desperate dangers, was, within three months, sold for a term of three years to a planter, to discharge a tavern debt which he could not pay. A conqueror of Panama might be seen to-morrow driven by the overseer's whip among a gang of slaves, cutting sugar canes, or picking tobacco.

Another Buccaneer, a Frenchman, surnamed Vent-en-Panne, was so addicted to play that he lost everything but his shirt. Every pistole that he could earn he spent in this absorbing vice—so tempting to men, who longed for excitement, were indifferent to money, and daily risked their lives for the prospect of gain. On one occasion he lost 500 crowns, his whole share of some recent prize-money, besides 300 crowns which he had borrowed of a comerade who would now lend him no more. Determined to try his fortune again, he hired himself as servant at the very gambling-house where he had been ruined, and, by lighting pipes for the players and bringing them in wine, earned fifty crowns in two days. He staked this, and soon won 12,000 crowns. He then paid his debts and resolved to lose no more, shipping himself on board an English vessel that touched at Barbadoes. At Barbadoes he met a rich Jew who offered to play him. Unable to abstain, he sat down, and won 1,300 crowns and 100,000 lbs. of sugar already shipped for England, and, in addition to this, a large mill and sixty slaves. The Jew, begging him to stay and give him his revenge, ran and borrowed some money, and returned and took up the cards. The Buccaneer consented, more from love of play than generosity; and the Jew, putting down 1,500 jacobuses, won back 100 crowns, and finally all his antagonist's previous winnings—stripping him even to the very clothes he wore. The delighted winner allowed him for very shame to retain his clothes, and gave him money enough to return, disconsolate and beggared, to Tortuga. Becoming again a Buccaneer, he gained 6,000 or 7,000 crowns. M. D'Ogeron, the governor, treating him as a wayward child, taking away his money, sent him back to France with bills of exchange for the amount. Vent-en-Panne, now cured of his vice, took to merchandise; but, always unfortunate, was killed in his first voyage to the West Indies, his vessel being attacked by two Ostende frigates, of twenty-four or thirty guns each, which were eventually, however, driven off by the dead man's crew of only thirty Buccaneers.

When the pleasures of Tortuga or Jamaica had swallowed up all the hard-earned winnings of these men, they returned to sea, expending their last pistoles in powder and ball, and leaving heavy scores still unsettled with the cabaretiers. They then hastened to the quays, or small sandy islands off Cuba, to careen their vessels and to salt turtle. Sometimes they repaired to Honduras, where they had Indian wives; latterly, to the Galapagos isles, to the Boca del Toro, or the coast of Castilla del Oro.

Some Buccaneers, Esquemeling says, would spend 3,000 piastres in a night, not leaving themselves even a shirt in the morning. "My own master," he adds, "would buy a whole pipe of wine, and, placing it in the street, would force every one that passed by to drink with him, threatening also to pistol them in case they would not do it. At other times he would do the same with barrels of ale or beer; and very often with both his hands he would throw these liquors about the street, and wet the clothes of such as walked by, without regard whether he spoiled their apparel or not, or whether they were men or women." Port Royal was a favourite scene for such carousals.

Even as late as 1694, Montauban gives us some idea of the wild debaucheries committed by the Buccaneers even at Bourdeaux. "My freebooters," he says, "who had not seen France for a long time, finding themselves now in a great city where pleasure and plenty reigned, were not backward to refresh themselves after the fatigues they had endured while so long absent from their native country. They spent a world of money here, and proved horribly extravagant. The merchants and their hosts made no scruple to advance them money, or lend them as much as they pleased, upon the reputation of their wealth and the noise there was throughout the city of the valuable prizes whereof they had a share. All the nights they spent in such divertisements as pleased them best; and the days, in running up and down the town in masquerade, causing themselves to be carried in chairs with lighted flambeaux at noon—of which debauches some died, while four of my crew fairly deserted me."

This, it must be remembered, was at a time when buccaneering had sunk into privateering—the half-way house to mere piracy. The distinguishing mark of the true Buccaneer was, that he attacked none but Spaniards.

Of the Buccaneers' estimation of religion, Charlevoix gives us some curious accounts. He says, "there remained no traces of it in their heart, but still, sometimes, from time to time, they appeared to meditate deeply. They never commenced a combat without first embracing each other, in sign of reconciliation. They would at such times strike themselves rudely on the breast, as if they wished to rouse some compunction in their hearts, and were not able. Once escaped from danger, they returned headlong to their debauchery, blasphemy, and brigandage. The Buccaneers, looking upon themselves as worthy fellows, regarded the Flibustiers as wretches, but in reality there was not much difference. The Buccaneers were, perhaps, the less vicious, but the Flibustiers preserved a little more of the externals of religion; with the exception of a certain honour among them, and their abstinence from human flesh, few savages were more wicked, and a great number of them much less so."

This passage shows a very curious jealousy between the hunters and the corsairs, and a singular distinction as to religious feeling. Père Labat, however, speaks of the Flibustiers as attending confession immediately after a sea-fight with most exemplary devotion. A more important distinction than that made by Charlevoix was that between the Protestant and Roman Catholic adventurers, the latter being as superstitious as the former were irreverent. Ravenau de Lussan always speaks with horror of the blasphemy and irreligion of his English comerades, one of whom was an old trooper of Cromwell's; and Grognet's fleet eventually separated from the English ships, on account of the latter crews lopping crucifixes with their sabres, and firing at images with their pistols. A Flibustier captain, named Daniel, shot one of his men in a Spanish church for behaving irreverently at mass; and Ringrose gives an instance of an English commander who threw the dice overboard, if he found his men gambling on a Sunday.

We find Ravenau de Lussan's troop singing a Te Deum after victories, and Œxmelin tells us that prayers were said daily on board Flibustier ships.

It is difficult to say from what class of life either the Buccaneers or the Flibustiers sprang. The planters often became hunters, and the hunters sailors, and the reverse. Morgan was a Welsh farmer's son, who ran away to sea; Montauban, the son of a Gascon gentleman; D'Ogeron had been a captain in the French marines; Von Horn, a common sailor in an Ostende smack; Dampierre was a Somersetshire yeoman, and Esquemeling a Dutch planter's apprentice. Charlevoix says, "few could bear for many years a life so hard and laborious, and the greater part only continued in it till they could gain enough to become planters. Many, continually wasting their money, never earned sufficient to buy a plantation; others grew so accustomed to the life, and so fond even of its hardships and painful risks, that, though often heirs to good fortunes, they would not leave it to return to France."

The life of M. D'Ogeron, the governor of Tortuga, is an example of another class of Buccaneers, and of the causes which led to the choice of such a profession. At fifteen, he was captain of a regiment of marines, and in 1656, joining a company intending to colonize the Matingo river, he embarked in a ship, fitted out at the expense of 17,000 livres. Disappointed in this bubble, he tried to settle at Martinique, but deceived by the governor, who withdrew a grant of land, he determined to settle with the Buccaneers of St. Domingo. Embarking in a ricketty vessel, he ran ashore on Hispaniola, and lost all his merchandise and provisions. Giving his engagés their liberty, he joined the hunters, and became distinguished as well for courage as virtue. His goods sent from France were sold at a loss, and he returned to his native country a poor man. Collecting his remaining money, he hired engagés, and loaded a vessel with wine and brandy. Finding the market glutted, he sold his cargo at a loss, and was cheated by his Jamaica agent. Returning again to France, he fitted out a third vessel, and finally settled as a planter in Hispaniola. At this juncture the French West India Company fixed their eyes upon him, and in 1665 made him governor of their colony.

Ravenau de Lussan illustrates the motives that sometimes led the youth of the higher classes to turn Buccaneers. He commences his book with true French vanity, by saying, that few children of Paris, which contains so many of the wonders of the world (ten out of the eight, we suppose), seek their fortune abroad. From a child he was seized with a passionate disposition for travel, and would steal out of his father's house and play truant when he was yet scarce seven. He soon reached La Vilette and the suburbs, and by degrees learnt to lose sight of Paris. With this passion arose a desire for a military life. The noise of a drum in the street transported him with joy. He made a friend of an officer, and, offering him his sword, joined his company, and witnessed the siege of Condé, ending his campaign, still unwearied of his new form of life. He then became a cadet in a marine regiment. The captain drained him of all his money, and his father, at a great expense, bought him his discharge. Under the Count D'Avegeau he entered the French Guards, and fought at the siege of St. Guislain. Growing, on his return, weary of Paris, he embarked again on sea, having nothing but voyages in his head; the longest and most dangerous appearing to his imagination, he says, the most delightful. Travelling by land seemed to him long and difficult, and he once more chose the sea, deeming it only fit for a woman to remain at home ignorant of the world. His affectionate parents tried in vain to reason him out of this gadding humour, and finding him only grow firmer and more inflexible, they desisted.

Not caring whither he went, so he could get to sea, he embarked in 1697 from Dieppe for St. Domingo. Here he remained for five months engagé to a French planter, "more a Turk than a Frenchman." "But what misery," he says, "soever I have undergone with him, I freely forgive him, being resolved to forget his name, which I shall not mention in this place, because the laws of Christianity require that at my hand, though as to matters of charity he is not to expect much of that in me, since he, on his part, has been every way defective in the exercise thereof upon my account." But his patience at last worn out, and weary of cruelties that seemed endless, De Lussan applied to M. de Franquesnay, the king's lieutenant, who himself gave him shelter in his house for six months. He was now in debt, and thinking it "honest to pay his creditors," he joined the freebooters in order to satisfy them, not willing to apply again for money to his parents. "These borrowings from the Spaniards," he says, "have this advantage attending them, that there is no obligation to repay them," and there was war between the two crowns, so that he was a legal privateersman. Selecting a leader, De Lussan pitched on De Graff, as a brave corsair, who happened to be then at St. Domingo, eager to sail. Furnishing himself with arms, at the expense of Franquesnay, he joined De Graff. "We were," he says, "in a few hours satisfied with each other, and became such friends as those are wont to be who are about to run the same risk of fortune, and apparently to die together." The 22nd of November, the day he sailed from Petit Guave, seemed the happiest of his life.

Dampierre mentions an old Buccaneer, who was slain at the taking of Leon. "He was," he says, "a stout, grey-headed old man, aged about eighty-four, who had served under Oliver Cromwell in the Irish rebellion; after which he was at Jamaica, and had followed privateering ever since. He would not accept the offer our men made him to tarry ashore, but said he would venture as far as the best of them; but when surrounded by the Spaniards he refused "to take quarter, but discharged his gun amongst them, keeping a pistol still charged; so they shot him dead at a distance. His name was Swan (rara avis). He was a very merry, hearty old man, and always used to declare he would never take quarter."

When the adventurers were at sea, they lived together as a friendly brotherhood. Every morning at ten o'clock the ship's cook put the kettle on the fire to boil the salt beef for the crew, in fresh water if they had plenty, but if they ran short in brine; meal was boiled at the same time, and made into a thick porridge, which was mixed with the gravy and the fat of the meat. The whole was then served to the crew on large platters, seven men to a plate. If the captain or cook helped themselves to a larger share than their messmates, any of the republican crew had a right to change plates with them. But, notwithstanding this brotherly equality, and in spite of the captain being deposable by his crew, there was maintained at all moments of necessity the strictest discipline, and the most rigid subordination of rank. The crews had two meals a day. They always said grace before meat: the French Catholics singing the canticles of Zecharias, the Magnificat, or the Miserere; the English reading a chapter from the New Testament, or singing a psalm.

Directly a vessel hove in sight, the Flibustiers gave chase. If it showed a Spanish flag, the guns were run out, and the decks cleared; the pikes lashed ready, and every man prepared his musket and powder, of which he alone was the guardian (and not the gunner), these articles being generally paid for from the common stock, unless provided by the captain.

They first fell on their knees at their quarters (each group round its gun), to pray God that they might obtain both victory and plunder. Then all lay down flat on the deck, except the few left to steer and navigate—proceeding to board as soon as their musketeers had silenced the enemy's fire. If victorious, they put their prisoners on shore, attended to the wounded, and took stock of the booty. A third part of the crew went on board the prize, and a prize captain was chosen by lot. No excuse was allowed; and if illness prevented the man elected taking the office, his matelot, or companion, took his place.

On arriving at Tortuga, they paid a commission to the governor, and before dividing the spoil, rewarded the captain, the surgeons, and the wounded. The whole crew then threw into a common heap all they possessed above the value of five sous, and took an oath on the New Testament, holding up their right hands, that they had kept nothing back. Any one detected in perjury was marooned, and his share either given to the rest, to the heirs of the dead, or as a bequest to some chapel. The jewels and merchandise were sold, and they divided the produce.

"It was impossible," says Œxmelin, "to put any obstacle in the way of men who, animated simply by the hope of gain, were capable of such great enterprises, having nothing but life to lose and all to win. It is true that they would not have persisted long in their expeditions if they had had neither boats nor provisions. For ships they never wanted, because they were in the habit of going out in small canoes and capturing the largest and best provisioned vessels. For harbours they could never want, because everybody fled before them, and they had but to appear to be victorious." This intelligent and animated writer concludes his book by expressing an opinion that a firm and organized resistance by Spain at the outset might have stopped the subsequent mischief; but this opinion he afterwards qualifies in the following words, which, coming from such a writer so well acquainted with those of whom he writes, speaks volumes in favour of Buccaneer prowess: "Je dis peut-être, car les aventuriers sont de terribles gens."

Charlevoix describes the first Flibustiers as going out in canoes with twenty-five or thirty men, without pilot or provisions, to capture pearl-fishers and surprise small cruisers. If they succeeded, they went to Tortuga, bought a vessel, and started 150 strong, going to Cuba to take in salt turtle, or to Port Margot or Bayaha for dried pork or beef—dividing all upon the compagnon à bon lot principle. They always said public prayer before starting on an expedition, and returned solemn thanks to God for victory.

"They were," says a Jesuit writer, "at first so crowded in their boats that they had scarcely room to lie down; and, as they practised no economy in eating, they were always short of food. They were also night and day exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and yet loved so much the independence in which they lived, that no one murmured. Some sang when others wished to sleep, and all were by turns compelled to bear these inconveniences without complaint. But one may imagine men so little at their ease spared no pains to gain more comforts; that the sight of a larger and more convenient vessel gave them courage sufficient to capture it; and that hunger deprived them of all sense of the danger of procuring food. They attacked all they met without a thought, and boarded as soon as possible. A single volley would have sunk their vessels; but they were skilful in manœuvre, their sailors were very active, and they presented to the enemy nothing but a prow full of fusiliers, who, firing through the portholes, struck the gunners with terror. Once on board, nothing could prevent them becoming masters of a ship, however numerous the crew. The Spaniards' blood grew cold when those whom they called, and looked upon as, demons came in sight, and they frequently surrendered at once in order to obtain quarter. If the prize was rich their lives were spared; but if the cargo proved poor, the Buccaneers often threw the crew into the sea in revenge."

Their favourite coasts were the Caraccas, Carthagena, Nicaragua, and Campeachy, where the ports were numerous and well frequented. Their best harbours at the Caraccas were Cumana, Canagote, Coro, and Maracaibo; at Carthagena, La Rancheria, St. Martha, and Portobello. Round Cuba they watched for vessels going from New Spain to Maracaibo. If going, they found them laden with silver; if returning, full of cocoa. The prizes to the Caraccas were laden with the lace and manufactures of Spain; those from Havannah, with leather, Campeachy wood, cocoa, tobacco, and Spanish coin.

The dress of the Buccaneer sailors must have varied with the changes of the age. Retaining their red shirts and leather sandals as the working dress of their brotherhood, we find them donning all the splendour rummaged from Spanish cabins, now wearing the plumed hat and laced sword-belt of Charles the Second's reign, and now the tufts of ribbons of the perfumed court of Louis Quatorze. Sprung from all nations and all ranks, some of them prided themselves upon the rough beard, bare feet, and belted shirt of the rudest seaman, while others, like Grammont and De Graff, flaunted in the richest costumes of their period. They must have passed from the long cloak and loose cassock of the Stuart reign to the jack-boots and Dutch dress of William of Orange; from the laced and flowing Steenkirk to the fringed cock-hat and deep-flapped waistcoat of Queen Anne. In the English translation of Esquemeling, Barthelemy Portugues, one of the earliest sea-rovers, is represented as having his long, lank hair parted in the centre and falling on his shoulders, and his moustachios long and rough. He wears a plain embroidered coat with a neck-band, and carries in his arms a short, broad sabre, unsheathed, as was the habit with many Buccaneer chiefs. Roche Braziliano appears in a plain hunter's shirt, the strings tying it at the neck being fastened in a bow. Lolonnois has the same shirt, showing at his neck and puffing through the openings of his sleeve, and he carries a naked broadsword with a shell guard. In the portrait of Sir Henry Morgan we see much more affectation of aristocratic dress. He has a rich coat of Charles the Second's period, a laced cravat tied in a fringed bow with long ends, and his broad sword-belt is stiff with gold lace. The hunter's shirt, however, still shows through the slashed sleeves.

Plunder of Segovia—Pierre-le-Grand—Pierre François—Barthelemy Portugues—His Escapes—Roche, the Brazilian—Fanatical hatred of Spaniards—Wrecks and Adventures.

The date of the first organized Buccaneer expedition is uncertain. We only know that about the year 1654, a large party of Buccaneers, French and English, joined in an expedition to the continent. They ascended, in canoes, a river on the Mosquito Shore, a small distance on the south side of Cape Gracias à Dios, and after labouring for a month against a strong stream, full of torrents, left their boats and marched to the town of Nueva Segovia, which they plundered, and then returned down the river.

It is difficult to trace the exact beginning of the Flibustiers, or, as they were soon called, the Buccaneers. According to most writers, the first successful adventurer known at Tortuga was Pierre-le-Grand (Peter the Great). He was a native of Dieppe, and his greatest enterprise was the capture of the vice-admiral of the Spanish flota, while lying off Cape Tiburon, on the west side of Hispaniola. This he accomplished in a canoe with only twenty-eight companions. Setting out by the Carycos he surprised his unwieldy antagonist in the channel of Bahama, which the Spaniards had hitherto passed in perfect security. He had been now a long time at sea without obtaining any prize worth taking, his provisions were all but exhausted, and his men, in danger of starving, were almost reduced to despair. While hanging over the gunwale, listless and discontented, the Buccaneers suddenly spied a large vessel of the Spanish fleet, separated from the rest and fast approaching them. They instantly sailed towards her to ascertain her strength, and though they found it to be vastly superior to theirs, partly from despair and partly from cupidity they resolved at once to take it or die in the attempt. It was but to die a little quicker if they failed, and the blood in their veins might as well be shed in a moment as slowly stagnate with famine. If they did not conquer they would die, but if they did not attack, and escaped notice, they would also perish, and by the most painful and lingering of deaths. Being now come so near that flight was impossible, they took a solemn oath to their captain to stand by him to the last, and neither to flinch nor skulk, partly hoping that the enemy was insufficiently armed, and that they might still master her. It was in the dusk of the evening, and the coming darkness facilitated their boarding, and concealed the disadvantage of numbers. While they got their arms ready they ordered their chirurgeon to bore a hole in the sides of the boat, in order that the utter hopelessness of their situation might impel them to more daring self-devotion, that they might be forced to attack more vigorously and board more quickly. But their courage needed no such incitement. With no other arms than a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, they immediately climbed up the sides of the Spaniard and made their way pell-mell to the state cabin. There they found the captain and his officers playing at cards. Setting a pistol to their breasts, they commanded them to deliver up the ship. The Spaniards, surprised to hear the Buccaneers below, not having seen them board, and seeing no boat by which they could have arrived (for the surgeon had now sunk it, and rejoined his friends through a porthole), cried out, in an agony of superstitious fear, "Jesu, bless us, these are devils!" thinking the men had fallen from the clouds, or had been shaken from some shooting star. In the mean time Peter's kinsfolk fought their way into the gunroom, seized the arms, killed a few sailors who snatched up swords, and drove the rest under hatches.

That very morning some of the Spanish sailors had told their captain that a pirate boat was gaining upon them, but when he came up to see, and beheld so small a craft, he laughed at their fears of a mere cockle shell, and went down again, despising any vessel, though it were as big and strong as their own. Upon a second alarm, late in the day, when his lieutenant asked him if he should not get a cannon or two ready, he grew angry, and replied, "No, no, rig the crane out, and hoist the boat aboard." Peter, having taken this rich prize, detained as many of the Spanish seamen as he needed, and put the rest on shore in Hispaniola, which was close at hand. The vessel was full of provisions and great riches, and Pierre steered at once for France, never returning to resume a career so well begun.

The news of this capture set Tortuga in an uproar. The planters and hunters of Hispaniola burned to follow up a profession so glorious and so profitable. It had been discovered now that a man's fortune could be made by one single scheme of daring and enterprise. Not being able to purchase or hire boats at Tortuga, they set forth in their canoes to seek them elsewhere. Some began cruising about Cape de Alvarez, carrying off small Spanish vessels that carried hides and tobacco to the Havannah. Returning with their prizes to Tortuga, they started again for Campeachy or New Spain, where they captured richer vessels of greater burden. In less than a month they had brought into harbour two plate vessels, bound from Campeachy to the Caraccas, and two other ships of great size. In two years no less than twenty Buccaneer vessels were equipped at Tortuga, and the Spaniards, finding their losses increase and transport becoming precarious, despatched two large men-of-war to defend the coast.

The next scourge of the Spaniard in these seas was Pierre François, a native of Dunkirk, whose combinative, far-seeing genius and dauntless heart soon raised him above the level of the mere footpads of the ocean. His little brigantine, with a picked crew of twenty-six men—hunters by sea and land—cruised generally about the Cape de la Vela, waiting for merchant ships on their way from Maracaibo to Campeachy. Pierre had now been a long time afloat and taken no prize, the usual prelude to great enterprises amongst these men, who defied all dangers and all enemies. The provisions were running short, the boat was leaky, the captain moody and silent, and the crew half mutinous. To return empty-handed to Tortuga was to be a butt for every sneerer, a victim to unrelenting creditors; to the men beggary, to Pierre a loss of fame and all future promotion. But, there being a perfect equality in these boats, the crews seldom rose in open rebellion; and as every one had a voice in the proposal of a scheme, there was no one to rail at if the scheme failed. At last, amid this suspense, more tedious than a tropic calm, one more daring or more far-seeing than the rest stood up and suggested a visit to the pearl-fishings at the Rivière de la Hache. History, always drowsy at critical periods, does not say if François was the proposer of this scheme or not. We may be sure he was a sturdy seconder, and that the plan was carried amid wild cheering and waving of hats and guns and swords enough to scare the sharks floating hungrily round the boat, and frighten the glittering flying-fish back into the sea. These Rancheria fishings were at a rich bank of pearl to which the people of Carthagena sent annually twelve vessels, with a man-of-war convoy, generally a Spanish armadilla with a crew of 200 men, and carrying twenty-four pieces of cannon. Every vessel had two or three Negro slaves on board, who dived for the pearls. These men seldom lived long, and were frequently ruptured by the exertion of holding breath a quarter of an hour below the waves. The time for diving was from October till May, when the north winds were lulled and the sea calm.

The large vessel was called the Capitana, and to this the proceeds of the day were brought every night, to prevent any risk of fraud or theft. Rather than return unsuccessful, Pierre resolved to swoop down upon this guarded covey, and carry off the ship of war in the sight of all the fleet; a feat as dangerous as the abduction of an Irish heiress on the brink of marriage. He found the fishing boats riding at anchor at the mouth of the River de la Hache, and the man-of-war scarcely half a league distant. In the morning he approached them, and they, seeing him hovering at a distance like a kite above a farmyard, ran under shelter of their guardian's guns, like chickens under the hen's wing. Keeping still at a distance, they supposed he was afraid to approach, and soon allowed their fears to subside. The captain of the armadilla, however, took the precaution of sending three armed men on board each boat, believing the pearls the object of the Buccaneer, and left his own vessel almost defenceless. The hour had come. Furling his sails, Pierre rowed along the coast, feigning himself a Spanish vessel from Maracaibo, and when near the pearl bank, suddenly attacked the vice-admiral with eight guns and sixty men, and commanded him to surrender. The Spaniards, although surprised, made a good defence, but at last surrendered after half an-hour's hand-to-hand fight, before the almost unmanned armadilla could approach to render assistance. Pierre now sank his own boat, which had only been kept afloat by incessant working at the pumps. Many men would have rested satisfied with such a prize, but Pierre knew no Capua, and "thought naught done while aught remained to do." He at once resolved, by a stratagem, to capture the armadilla, and then the whole fleet would be his own. The night being very dark, and the wind high and favourable, he weighed anchor, forcing the prisoners to help his own crew. The man-of-war, seeing one of its fleet sailing, followed, fearing that the sailors were absconding with the pearls. As soon as it approached, Pierre made all the Spaniards, on pain of instant death, shout out "Victoria, victoria! we have taken the ladrones," upon which the man-of-war drew off, promising to send for the prisoners in the morning. Laughing in his sleeve, Pierre gave orders for hoisting all sail, and stood away for the open sea, putting forth all his strength to get out of sight by daybreak. But the blood of the murdered Spaniards, yet hot upon the deck, was crying to heaven against him, and he was pursued. He had not got a league before the wind fell, and his ship lay like a log on the water, just within sight of his pursuers, who kept a long way off, burning with impatience and shame, and fretting like hounds in leash when the boar breaks out. About evening the wind rose, after much invocatory whistling, many prayers, many curses. Pierre, ignorant of the power of his prize, and what canvas she could bear, hoisted at random every stitch of sail and ran for his life, pursued by the armadilla, wrathful, white-winged, and swift. Like many a fleet runner, Pierre stumbled in his very eagerness for speed. He overloaded his vessel with sail. The wind grew higher, and howled like an avenging spirit, and his mainmast fell with the crash of a thunder-split oak. But Pierre held firm; he threw his prisoners into the hold, nailed down the hatches, and, trusting to night to escape, stood boldly at bay. He despaired of meeting force by force, having only twenty-two sound men, the rest being, before long, either killed or wounded. All in vain; the great bird of prey bore down upon him like a hawk upon a throstle, gaining, gaining every moment. Pierre defended himself courageously, and at last surrendered on condition. The Spanish captain agreed that the Buccaneers should not be employed in carrying, building-stones for three or four years like mere negroes, but should be set safe on dry land. As yet, the deep animosity of the two races had not sprung up. The prize they so nearly bore off contained above 100,000 pieces of eight in pearls, besides provisions and goods. At first the captain would have put them all to the sword, but his crew persuaded him to keep his word. The Frenchmen were then thrust down with curses into the same dark hold from whence the imprisoned Spaniards were now released; so "the whirligig of time brings about its revenge." When the crestfallen Buccaneers were brought before the governor of Carthagena, an outcry arose among the populace that the robbers should all be hung, to atone for an alfarez whom they had killed, and who, they said, was worth the whole French nation put together. The governor, however, though he did not put them to death, ungenerously broke the terms of his agreement, and compelled his prisoners to work at the fortifications of St. Francisco, in his own island. After about three years of this painful slavery, amid the jeers and contumely of the very negroes, they were sent to Spain, and from thence escaping one by one to France, made their way back to the Spanish main, more eager than ever to revenge their wrongs at the hands of a nation whose riches furnished a ready means of expiation, and whose cowardice rendered them incapable of frequent retaliation.

The third hero on our stage, equally bold and no less memorable, was Barthelemy Portugues, a native of Portugal, as his name implied.

Roused by the rumours of adventures which insured gold and glory, Barthelemy (no saint, and certainly more ready to flay others than to submit to flaying) sought out a small vessel at Jamaica, and fitted it up at his own expense. As only his most remarkable enterprises are recorded it is probable, from his having money, that he was already known as a successful Flibustier. This boat he armed with four three-pounders, and embarked with a crew of thirty men. Leaving Kingston with a good wind at his back, he set sail to cruise off Cape de Corriente, which he knew was the high road where he should meet vessels coming from the Caraccas or Carthagena, on their way to Campeachy, New Spain, or the Havannah. He had not been long beating about the Cape—a point rounded with as much care by a Spanish merchantman, afraid of Buccaneers, as Cape St. Vincent was by the European captain, dreading the Salee rovers—before a great vessel, bound from Maracaibo and Carthagena to the Havannah, hove in sight. It had a crew of seventy men, and carried twenty guns, and many passengers and marines. The Flibustiers, thinking a Spaniard so well armed and manned to be more than their match, held one of their republican councils round the mast, and refused to attack unless the captain wished. He decided that no opportunity should be lost, for that nothing in any part of the world could be won without risk. They instantly gave chase to the vessel that quietly awaited their approach, as astonished at the attack as a swallow would be if it were pursued by a gnat. Receiving one flaming broadside, noisy but harmless, the half-stripped rovers instantly threw themselves on board, but were repulsed by the Spaniards, who were numerous, hopeful, and brave. Returning to their vessel and throwing down their cutlass for the musket, they kept up a close fire of small arms for five hours without ceasing. Every gunner and every reefer was picked off, the decks were red, the return fire grew slack as the defence grew weaker, and the foe's proud courage cooled; the Buccaneers again threw themselves on board, and made themselves masters of the ship, with the loss of only ten men and four wounded. They had now only fifteen men left to navigate a vessel containing nearly forty prisoners. This number was all that were left alive, and of these many were maimed with shot wounds or gashed with sword cuts. The conquerors' first act was to throw the dead overboard, officer and sailor, just as they fell, stripping off the jewels and ransacking pockets for the dead men's doubloons. The living Spaniards, wounded and dying, they drove into one small boat, and gave them their liberty, afraid to keep them as prisoners and unwilling to shed their blood. They then set to work to splice the rigging and piece the sails, and lastly, to rummage for the plunder. They found the value of their prize to be 75,000 crowns, besides 120,000 pounds of cocoa, worth about 5000 additional. Having refitted the shattered vessel, they would have sailed round the island of Jamaica, but a contrary wind and current obliged them to steer to Cape St. Anthony, the west extremity of Cuba, where they landed and took in water, of which they were in great want.

They had scarcely hoisted sail to resume their course, probably intending to return to port to sell their spoil before starting afresh, when they unexpectedly fell upon three large vessels coming from New Spain to the Havannah, who gave chase, as certain of victory as three greyhounds bounding after a single hare. The Flibustiers, heavy laden with plunder, and unable to make way, were almost instantly retaken, falling as easy a prey as a gorged wolf does to the hunter. In a few hours the Buccaneers were under hatches, stripped of even their very clothes, and counting the moments before execution—the Puritan doling out his hymns, the Catholic muttering his Miserere, and the rude Cow-killer vowing vengeance if he could but escape. Two evenings after a storm arose and separated the leash of armed merchantmen.

The vessel containing the luckless Portugues arrived first at St. Francisco, Campeachy. Barthelemy, who spoke Spanish, had been well treated by the captain, who did not know what a prize he had taken. The news of the capture soon ran through the town, the captain became a public man, the bells rang, the people flocked to see the caged lions, and the principal merchants of the place crowded to congratulate him on his success. Among the curious and timid visitors was one who recognised Barthelemy, in spite of all his oaths and denials, and demanded his surrender. No hate can match the hate of injured avarice and frustrated cupidity. "This is Barthelemy the Portuguese," he told every one, "the most wicked rascal in the world, and who has done more harm to Spanish commerce than all the other pirates put together." He ran everywhere and declared they had at last got hold of the man so famous for the many insolences, robberies, and murders he had committed on their coast, and by whose cruel hands many of their kinsmen had perished. The captain, rather distrustful—somewhat favourable to Barthelemy, perhaps, considering him as a brother seaman, worth any ten land-lubbers, and annoyed at the arrogance of the merchant's demand—refused to surrender the Portuguese, or to send him on shore. The enraged merchant upon this proceeded to the governor, who, listening to his complaint, sent to demand the Buccaneers in the king's name. He was instantly arrested, spite of the captain's entreaties, and placed on board another vessel, heavily ironed, for fear he should escape, as he had done on a former occasion. A gibbet was erected, and the next day it was resolved to lead him at once from his cabin to the place of execution, without the hypocritical and useless ceremony of even a prejudged trial. For some time Portugues remained uncertain of his fate, till a Spanish sailor (for he seems to have had the power of winning friends) told him that the gibbet was already putting together, and the rope was ready noosed. In that delay was his safety; that very night he resolved to escape, or perish by a quicker or less disgraceful death. No doubt, with that strange mixture of religion remaining in the minds of most Buccaneers, he prayed to God or the saints to aid him.

He soon freed himself from his irons. Discovering in his cabin two of those large earthen jars in which wine was brought from Spain to the Indies, he closed over the orifices, and hung them to his side with cords, being probably unable to swim, and the distance too far to the shore. Finding that he could not elude the vigilance of the sleepless sentinel that paced at his door, he stabbed him with a knife he had secretly purchased, and let himself noiselessly down, from the mainchains into the water, floating to land without the splash that a swimmer would have made in still water. Once on land he concealed himself in a wood, prepared to bear any danger, and glad at heart to endure starvation rather than suffer a public and shameful death. He was too cunning to set off at once on a route that would be explored, but hid himself among trees half covered with water, in order to prevent the possibility of his being tracked by the maroon bloodhounds—a common stratagem with the moss-troopers, who found the sound of running water drown the noise of their movements and the murmur of their breathing, and destroy all traces of their track. Bruce and Wallace had long before escaped by the artifice that now saved a robber and a murderer. His must have been anxious nights, varied by the shouts of negroes, the deep bay of the dogs, the oaths of the Spaniards, the discharge of fire-arms, the toll of the alarm bell, the glare of beacons; and the flash of torches. For these three days he lived on yams and other roots growing around him. From a tree in which he sometimes harboured he had the satisfaction of seeing his pursuers search the wood in vain, and finally relinquish the pursuit.

Believing that the danger had now in some degree decreased, the lion-hearted sailor determined to push for the Golpho Triste, forty leagues distant, where he hoped to find a Buccaneer ship careening. He arrived there after fourteen days of incredible endurance. He started in the evening from the seashore, within sight of the lit-up town where a black gibbet was still standing bodingly against the sky. His forced marches were full of terrible dangers and perils. He had no provisions with him, and nothing but a small calabash of water hung at his side. Hunger and thirst strode beside him, the wild beast glared in his path, the Spanish voices seemed to pursue him. His subsistence was the raw shell-fish that he found washed among the rocks upon the shore, fresh or putrid he had no time to consider. He had streams to ford, dark with caymans, and he had to traverse woods where the jaguars howled. Whenever he came to a stream unusually dark, deep, and dangerous, and where no ford was visible (for he could not swim), he threw in large stones as he waded to scare away the crocodiles that lurked round the shallows. In one spot he travelled five or six leagues swinging like a sloth from bough to bough of a pathless wood of mangroves, never once setting foot upon the ground. His day's progress was often scarcely perceptible. At one river more than usually deep he found an old plank, which had drifted ashore when the seaman was washed off, and from this he obtained some large rusty nails. Extracting these nails, he sharpened them on a stone with great labour, and used them to cut down some branches of trees, which he joined together with osiers and pliable twigs, and slowly constructed a raft. Hunger, thirst, heat, and fear beset him round; and the voice of the sea, always on his right hand, came to him like the hungry howl of death. In these fourteen nights he must have literally tasted death, and anticipated the horrors of hell.

"Fortune favors the brave." He found a Buccaneer vessel in the gulf, and he was saved. The crew were old companions of his, newly arrived from Jamaica and from England. He related to them his adversities and his misfortunes. All listened eagerly to adventures that might to-morrow be their own. He thought alone of revenge, and told them that if they chose he would give them a ship worth a whole fleet of their canoes. He desired their help. He only asked for one boat and thirty men. With these he promised to return to Campeachy and capture the vessel that had taken him but fourteen days before. They soon granted his request, the boat was at once equipped, and he sailed along the coast, passing for a smuggler bringing contraband goods. In eight days he arrived at Campeachy, undauntedly and without noise boarding the vessel at midnight. They were challenged by the sentinel. Barthelemy, who spoke good Spanish, replied, in a low voice, "We are part of the crew returning with goods from land, on which no duty has been paid." The sentinel, hoping for a share, or at least some hush-money, did not repeat the question. Allowing him no time to detect the trick, they stabbed him, and, rushing forward, overpowered the watch. Cutting the cable, they surprised the sleepers in their cabins, and, weighing anchor, soon compelled the Spaniards, by a resolute attack, to surrender; and, setting sail from the port, rejoined their exulting comrades, unpursued by any vessel. Great was the joy of the adventurers in becoming possessors of so brave a ship. Portugues was now again rich and powerful, though but lately a condemned prisoner in the very vessel upon whose deck he now stood the lord of all. With this cargo of rich merchandise Barthelemy intended to achieve enterprises, for though the Spaniards' plate had been all disembarked at Campeachy, the booty was still large. But let no hunter halloo till he is out of the wood, and no sailor laugh till he gets into port. While he was making his voyage to Jamaica, and already counting his profits as certain, a terrible storm arose off the isle of Pinos, on the south of Cuba, which drove his prize against the Jardine rocks, where she went to pieces. Portugues and his companions escaped in a canoe to Jamaica, and before long started on new adventures. What eventually became of him we know not, but we are told that "he was never fortunate after." Whether he swung on the Campeachy gibbet after all, became a prey to the Darien man-eater, was pierced by the Greek bullet, or was devoured by the sea, long expecting its victim, we shall never know. He sails away from Kingston with colours flying, and wanders away into unknown deeps.

Of this wild man's end nothing was ever known. He was living at Jamaica when Esquemeling left for England. His bones, perhaps, still whiten on some Indian bay, with the sea moaning around that nameless dust for ever—doomed to destroy man, but lamenting the very desolation it occasions.

This Roche Braziliano (or Roc, the Brazilian, as the English adventurers called him,) was born at Groninghen, in East Friezeland; and his own name being forgotten, he was called the Brazilian, because his parents had been Dutch settlers in the Brazils. Roche was taught the Indian and Portuguese languages at an early age, and, when the latter nation retook the Brazils, removed with his parents to the French Antilles, where he learned French. Disliking the nation, he passed into Jamaica. Here he learned to speak English, and, settling among our more congenial race, became attached to the country of his adoption. But he had lingered too long in the desert to have much taste for even Goshen. He had already acquired the Arab's love for wandering, and poverty combined to lead him into an adventurer's ship. Into this mode of life all restless talent and love of enterprise was now driven.

After only three voyages, Roche became commander of a brig whose crew had mutinied from their captain and offered him the command. In a few days, this almost untried man had the good fortune to capture a large vessel coming from New Spain with a great quantity of plate on board. On his arrival in Jamaica, Roc became at once the acknowledged leader of all the Vikinger of the Spanish main—their first sailor, their hero, and their model. He soon grew so terrible that the Spanish mothers used his name as a hushword to their children.

Roc is described as having a stalwart and vigorous body. He was of ordinary height, but stout and muscular. His face was wide and short, his cheek-bones prominent, and his eyebrows bushy and of unusual size. He was skilful in the use of all Indian and Catholic (Spanish) arms, a good hunter, a good fisherman, and a good shot—as skilful a pilot as he was a brave soldier. He generally carried a naked sabre resting on his arm, and made no scruple of cutting down any of his crew who were idle, mutinous, or cowardly. He was much dreaded even in Jamaica, and particularly when drunk, says his candid biographer. At those times he would frequently run a-muck through the streets, beating and wounding any one he met, especially if they dared to oppose or resist him. In his sober moments he was esteemed and feared, but he too often abandoned himself to every sort of debauchery.

In Roc we see the first indication of a new phase of Buccaneering life—a fanatical hatred of the Spaniard. The sailor, at first a mere privateersman at sea, and a hunter on shore, was now a legal robber, with a spice of the crusader: a chivalrous Vendetta feeling had become superadded to the mere love of booty. A thirst for gold had proved irresistible: what would it be now when it became heightened by a thirst for blood?

To the Spaniards Roc was always very barbarous and cruel, out of an inveterate hatred to that nation. He seldom gave them quarter, and treated them with untiring ferocity. He taxed his invention for new modes of torture, revenging upon them by a rather indirect mode of retaliation the wrongs inflicted upon his parents by the Portuguese. He is said to have even roasted alive some of his prisoners on wooden spits, like boucaned boars, because they refused to disclose the hog-yards where he might victual his ships. By the Spaniards he was reported to be really an apostate outlaw of their own nation, this being the only way in which they could account for his needless and useless cruelties.

On one occasion, as he was cruising on the coast of Campeachy, a dismal tempest, says the chronicler, "surprised him so violently" that his ship was wrecked, himself and his crew only escaping with their muskets, a little powder, and a few bullets, much more useful, however, than gold on such a coast. They reached shore not far from Golpho Triste, the scene of Barthelemy's escape. Roc was not the man to be cast down by an accident no more regarded by true adventurers than the upsetting of a coach by an ordinary traveller. Getting ashore in a canoe, he determined to march quickly along the coast, and repair to the gulf, a well-known haunt of the members of their craft. Roc bade his men be of good heart, and he would bring them safe out of every danger, and, giving them hope, the promise was already half accomplished. Getting on the main road, they proceeded on their march through a hostile country, with the air of men who had conquered the whole Indies. They had already reached a desert track, and were grown fatigued, hungry, and thirsty, when some Indians gave the alarm, and the Spaniards were soon down upon them, to the number of one hundred well-armed and well-mounted horsemen, while the Buccaneers were but thirty men.

As soon as Roc saw the enemy, the Brazilian cried out, "Courage, mes frères, we are hungry now, but, Caramba, you shall soon have a dinner if you follow me," and then, perceiving the imminent danger, he encouraged his men, telling them they were better soldiers than the Spaniards, and that they ought rather to die fighting under their arms as became men of courage, than to surrender, and have their lives pressed out by the extremest torments. Seeing their commander's courage, the wrecked men resolved to attack, instead of waiting tamely for the enemy's approach, and, facing the Spaniards, they at once discharged their guns so dexterously, that they killed a horseman with almost every shot. After an hour's hot fighting, the Spaniards fled. The adventurers lost only two men, two more being lamed. Stripping the dead, they took from them every valuable, and despatched the wounded with the butt-end of their muskets. They then feasted on the wine and brandy they found in their knapsacks, or at their saddle bows, and declared themselves ready to attack as many again; and having finished their meal, they mounted on the stray horses, and proceeded on their march.

The victors had not gone more than two days' journey before they caught sight of a well-manned Spanish vessel, lying off the shore beneath. It had come to protect the boats which landed the men who cut the Campeachy dyewood. Roc saw that the poultry-yard knew nothing of the kite that was hovering near. He instantly concealed his band, and went with six comerades into a thicket near the beach to watch. Here they passed the night. At daybreak the Spaniards, pulling to shore in their canoe, were received in a courteous but unexpected manner by the Buccaneers. Roc instantly summoned his men, boarded and took the vessel. The little man-of-war contained little plate, but, what was of equal use, two hundred weight of salt, with which he salted down a few of the horses which he killed. The remaining horses he gave to his Spanish prisoners, telling them laughingly, that the beasts were worth more than the vessel, and that once on their backs on dry land no rascal need fear drowning.

A Buccaneer's first thought on obtaining one prize was to gain another as soon as possible. Roc had still twenty-six man by him, and a good vessel to move in. He soon took a ship, bound to Maracaibo from New Spain, laden with merchandise and money designed to buy a cargo of cocoa-nuts. With this they repaired to Jamaica, letting the vessel scorch in harbour till their money was all gone. Having spent all, Braziliano put out to sea again, impatient of poverty and resolved to trust to fortune, for he was her favourite child. He sailed for the rendezvous at Campeachy, and after fifteen days started in a canoe to hover round the port, beating about like a hawk in search of prey.

He was soon after captured and taken with his men before a Spanish governor, who cast them into a dungeon, intending to hang them every one. But fortune only hid her smiles for a moment, and had not deserted him. Roc, as subtle as he was intrepid, had not yet exhausted his wiles. He was at bay and the dogs were gathered round, but they had not yet got him by the throat. He made friends with the slave who brought him food, and promised to give him money to buy his freedom if he would aid his scheme. He did not wish to compromise the slave: he only wished him to be the bearer of a letter to the governor. The slave told the governor that he had been put on shore in the bay by some Buccaneers and had been ordered to deliver the letter. The letter was an angry threat, supposed to be indited by the captain of a French vessel lying in the offing. It advised the governor "to have a care how he used those persons he had in his custody, for in case he should do them any harm, they did swear unto him, they would never give quarter unto any person of the Spanish nation that should fall into their hands." The governor, lifting up his eyes and twisting his moustachios at the threat, was intimidated, and became anxious to get rid as soon as possible of such dangerous prisoners, for Campeachy had already been taken once by the adventurers, and he feared what mischief the companions who visited Spanish towns might do. He began now to treat his prisoners with greater kindness, and on the first opportunity sent for them, and, exacting a simple oath that they would abandon piracy, shipped them on board the galleon fleet bound for Spain. Roc, with his usual versatility, soon made himself so much beloved that the Spanish captain offered to take him as a sailor, and he accepted the offer. During this single voyage to Spain he made a sum of no less than 500 crowns by selling the officers fish that he struck in the Indian manner with arrows and harpoons from the main-chains. His comerades, whom he never forgot, were treated with consideration on his account.

On his arrival in Spain, Roc, in spite of his oath, which had been exacted by fear of death, and therefore absolvable by any priest, lost no time in getting back to Jamaica, where he arrived without a vessel to call his own, but in other respects in better circumstances than when he left. He joined himself at once to two French adventurers.

The chief of these, named Tributor, was an old Buccaneer of great experience. They determined to land upon the peninsula of Yucatan, in hopes of taking the town of Merida. Roc, who had been there before as a prisoner, and had doubtless proposed the scheme, served as guide, but some Indians got upon their trail and alarmed the Spaniards, who fortified the place and prepared for an attack. On the Buccaneers' arrival they found the town well garrisoned and defended, and while they were still debating whether to advance or retreat, the question was abruptly decided for them by a body of the enemy's horsemen who fell upon their rear, cut half of them to pieces, and made the rest prisoners. The wily Roc, never taken much by surprise, contrived to escape, but old Tributor and his men were all captured. Œxmelin expresses his wonder at Roc's escape, because he had always held it vile cowardliness to allow another man to strike before himself. "Hitherto he had been the last to yield, even when he was overborne by enemies, and had been heard to say that he preferred death to dishonour." Nemo mortalium, &c.

Lolonnois—His stratagem—His cruelty—His partner, Michael le Basque—Takes Maracaibo—Tortures the citizens—Sacks the town—Takes Gibraltar—Attempt on Merida—Famine and pestilence—Division of spoil—Takes St. Pedro—Burns Veragua—Wrecked in Honduras—Attacked by Indians—Killed and eaten by the savages.

The Spanish ships now decreased in number, merchants relinquishing a trade so uncertain and perilous. The consequence of this was that the Buccaneers, finding their sea cruises grow less profitable, began to venture upon the mainland, and attack towns and even cities.

The first Buccaneer who distinguished himself in this wider field of action was Francis Lolonnois. He was born among the sands of Olonne, in Poictou, and drew his nom de guerre from that wild and fitting birthplace. He quitted France in early life, and embarked at Rochelle as an engagé for the Caribbean Islands, where he served the customary slavery of three years. Having heard much during this servitude of the hunters of Hispaniola, he sailed for that island as soon as his apprenticeship had expired, and he was again a free adventurer. He first bound himself as a valet to a hunter, and finally became himself a Buccaneer, having now passed through all the usual experiences of a young West Indian colonist. Spending some time upon the savannahs, he became restless and tired of shore, and desirous of enlisting as a freebooter under the red flag. Repairing to Tortuga, the head-quarters of Flibustier enterprise, he enrolled himself among the rovers of the sea, with whom he made many voyages as simple mariner or companion. From the first day he trod plank he is said to have shown himself destined to attain high distinction, surpassing all the "Brothers" in adroitness, agility, and daring.

In these floating republics talent soon rose to the surface. Lolonnois was elected master of a vessel, with which he took many prizes, but at last lost everything by a storm which wrecked his ship, drowned his men, sank his cargo, and cast him bleeding and naked upon a savage shore. His courage and conduct, however, had won the admiration of the Governor of Tortuga, M. de la Place, whose island he had enriched by the frequent sale of prizes, and who launched him again in a new ship to encounter once more all the fury of the sea, the hurricane, and the Spaniard. Fortune was at first favourable to him, and he acquired great riches. His name became so dreaded by the Indians and the Spaniards that they chose rather to die or drown than surrender to one who never knew the word mercy. He never learned how to chain fortune to his mast, and was soon a second time wrecked at Campeachy. The men were all saved, but on reaching land were pursued and killed by the Spaniards. Lolonnois, himself severely wounded, saved his life by a stratagem. Mixing the sand of the shore with the blood flowing from his wounds, he smeared his face and body, and hid himself dexterously under a heap of dead, remaining there till the Spaniards had carried off one or two of his less severely wounded companions into Campeachy. As soon as they were gone he arose with a grim smile from his lurking place among the slain, and betook himself to the woods. He then washed his now stiffened wounds in a river, and bound up his gashes as he could. As soon as they were healed (the flesh of these men soon healed), he put on the dress of a slain Spaniard, and made his way boldly into the neighbouring city. In the suburbs he entered into conversation with some slaves he met, whom he bribed by an offer of freedom if they would obey him and follow his guidance.

They listened to his proposal, and, stealing their master's canoe, brought it to the sea-shore, where Lolonnois lay concealed. But before this the disguised Buccaneer had gone rambling fearlessly through the enemy's town, witnessing the rejoicings made at his own supposed death; for his companions, who were kept close prisoners in a dungeon, had been asked what had become of their captain, to which they had always replied that he was dead, upon which the Spaniards lit up bonfires in their open squares, thanking God for their deliverance from so cruel a pirate.

The flames of these fires were red upon the bay when Lolonnois and the slaves pushed off their canoe and made haste to escape. They reached Tortuga in safety, and Lolonnois kept his promise, and set the slaves at liberty—although, if he had been base and worthless enough, he could have refitted his boat with the profits of their sale. He now thought only of revenging himself on the Spaniards for their cruelty in murdering the survivors of a wreck. He spent whole days in considering how he could capture a vessel and restore himself to his former reputation for skill and fortune. By some extraordinary plan, Esquemeling—who writes always with affected horror of the men amongst whom he lived—says, with "craft and subtlety," he soon obtained a third ship, with a crew of twenty-one men and a surgeon. Being well provided with arms and necessaries—how provided by a penniless man it is impossible to guess—he resolved to visit De Los Cayos, a village on the south side of Cuba, where he knew vessels from the Havannah passed to the port of Boca de Estera, where they purchase tobacco, sugar, and hides, coming generally in small boats, for the sea ran very shallow. At this place meat was also obtained to victual the Spanish fleets.

Here Lolonnois was very sanguine of booty, but some fishermen's boats, observing him, alarmed the town. One of these canoes they captured, and, placing in it a crew of eleven men, proceeded to coast about the Bayes du Nord. The Buccaneers kept at some distance from each other, in hopes of sooner surrounding their prey, for each of their crews was strong enough to capture any merchant vessel that had not more than fifteen or sixteen unarmed men on board. They remained some months beating off and on Cuba, but caught nothing, although this was the very height of the commercial season. After a long delay of wonder and vexation, they learned the cause of their failure from the crew of a fishing-boat which they captured, who told them that the people of Cayos would not venture to sea because they knew that they were there. It would be dangerous for them to remain, they added, for the chief merchants of the port had instantly despatched a "vessel overland" to the Governor of Havannah, telling him that Lolonnois had come in two canoes to destroy them, and begging him to send and destroy the "ladrones." The governor could with difficulty at first be persuaded to listen to the petition, because he had just received letters from Campeachy bidding him rejoice at the death of that pirate; but, aroused by the continued importunities of his angry petitioners, he at last sent a ship to their relief.

This ship carried ten guns, and had a crew of ninety young, vigorous, and well-armed men, to whom he gave at parting an express command that they should not return into his presence without having first destroyed those pirates. He sent with them a negro hangman, desiring him to kill on the spot all they should take, except Lolonnois, the captain, who was to be brought alive in triumph to the Havannah. The ship had scarcely arrived at Cayos when the pirate, advertised of its approach, came to seek it at its moorings in the river Estera. Lolonnois cried out, when he saw it loom in the distance, "Courage, mes camarades! courage, mes bons frères! we shall soon be well mounted." Capturing some fishermen busy with their nets, he forced them at night to show him the entrance of the port.

Rowing very quietly in the shadow of the trees that bordered the river's banks and hid their approach, they arrived under the vessel's side a little after two o'clock in the morning—not long before daybreak. The watch on board the ship hailed them, and asked them whence they came and if they had seen any pirates? They made one of the fishermen who guided them reply in Spanish that they had seen no pirates or anything else; and this made the Spaniards believe that Lolonnois had fled at their approach. The Buccaneers instantly began to open fire on both sides from their canoes. The Spaniards, who kept good guard, returned the fire, but without much effect, for their enemies lay down flat in their boats, and the trees served them as gabions. The Spaniards fought bravely, in spite of the suddenness and vigour of the attack, and made some use of their great guns. The combat lasted from dawn till midday, the crew of the vessel discharging ineffectual volleys of musketry, which seldom injured the assailants, whose bullets, on the other hand, killed or wounded every moment some of the Havannah youth. When the firing began to slacken, Lolonnois pulled his canoes out into the stream, and boarded the vessel, which almost instantly surrendered.

Those who survived were beaten down under the hatches, while the wounded on the decks received the coup de grace. When this had been done, Lolonnois commanded his men to bring up the prisoners one by one from the hold, cutting off their heads as they came up with his own hand, and tasting their blood. The negro hangman, seeing the fate of his predecessors, threw himself passionately at the feet of the Buccaneer chief, and exclaimed in Spanish, "If you will not kill me I will tell you the truth." Lolonnois, supposing he had some secret to tell, bade him speak on. But he refused to open his lips further till life were promised him; upon the promise being made, the trembling wretch exclaimed, "Senor capitan, Monsieur, the governor of the Havannah, not doubting but that this well-armed frigate would have taken the strongest of your vessels, sent me on board to serve as executioner, and to hang all the prisoners that his men took, in order to intimidate your nation, so that they should not dare ever to approach a Spanish vessel." Esquemeling, who always exaggerates the cruelty of his quondam companions, says, Lolonnois, making the black confess what he thought fit, commanded him to be murdered with the rest; but Œxmelin gives a more probable version. At the negro's mention of his being a hangman he grew furious, and but for his words, "I give thee quarter and even liberty because I promised it thee," would certainly have put him to death. He then slew all the rest of the crew but one man, whom he spared in order to send him back with a letter to the governor of the Havannah. The letter ran thus: "I have returned your kindness by doing to your men what they designed to do to me and my companions. I shall never henceforward give quarter to any Spaniard whatsoever, and I have great hopes of executing upon your own person the very same punishment I have done upon those you sent against me. It would be better for you to cut your throat than to fall into my power."

The governor, enraged at the loss of his ship and crew, and exasperated by the insolent daring of the letter, swore in the presence of many that he would not grant quarter to any pirate who fell into his hands. Furious that two canoes, with twenty-two half-naked men, should be able to deride the might of Spain in his person, he instantly sent round word to the neighbouring Indian forts to hang all their French and English prisoners, instead of, as usual, embarking them for Spain. The citizens of Havannah, hearing of this imprudent bravado, sent a deputation to the governor to represent to him that, for one Englishman or Frenchman that the Spaniards captured, the Buccaneers took every day a hundred of their people, that the men of Havannah were obliged to get their living by trading, that life was far dearer to them than mere money, which was all the Buccaneers wanted; and lastly, that all their fishermen would be daily exposed to danger, the Buccaneers having frequent opportunity for reprisal. Upon this the angry governor was at last persuaded to bridle his passion and remit the severity of his oath.

Lolonnois, now provided with a good ship, resolved to cruise from port to port to obtain provisions and men. Off Maracaibo he surprised a ship laden with plate, outward-bound to buy cocoa-nuts, and with this prize returned to Tortuga, much to his own satisfaction and the general joy of that strange colony of runaway slaves, disbanded soldiers, hunters, privateersmen, pirates, Puritans, and papists. He had not been long in port before he planned an expedition to Maracaibo, joining another adventurer in equipping a body of five hundred men. In Tortuga he found prisoners for guides, and disbanded adventurers resolute enough to be his companions. His partner was Michael le Basque, a Buccaneer who had retired very rich, and was now major of the island. He had done great actions in Europe, and bore the repute of being a good soldier. Lolonnois was to rule by sea and Le Basque by land.

Le Basque knew all the avenues of Maracaibo, and had lately taken in a prize two Indians, who knew the port well and offered to act both as pilots and guides. Le Basque had consented to join Lolonnois, struck by the daring and comprehension of his plans, and Lolonnois was overjoyed at the alliance of so tried a man. Notice was instantly given to all the unemployed Buccaneers that they were planning a great expedition with much chance of booty. All who were willing to join them were to come by a certain day to the rendezvous either at Tortuga or Bayala, on the north side of Hispaniola; at the latter place he revictualled his fleet, took some French hunters as volunteers into his company, careened his vessels, and procured beef and pork by the chase.

His fleet consisted of eight small ships, of which his own, the largest, carried only twenty pieces of cannon; his crews amounted altogether to about four hundred men. Setting sail from Bayala the last day in July, while doubling Ponta del Espada (Sword Point), the eastern cape of Hispaniola, Lolonnois overtook two Spanish vessels coming from Porto Rico to New Spain, and one of these Lolonnois insisted on capturing with his own hand, sending in his fleet to Savona. The Spaniards, although they had an opportunity for two whole hours, refused to fly, and, being well armed, prepared for a desperate resistance; the combat lasted for three hours. The ship carried sixteen guns, and was manned by fifty fighting men. They found in her a cargo of 120,000 pounds' weight of cocoa, 40,000 pieces of eight, and the value of 10,000 more in jewels. Lolonnois instantly sent this prize back to Tortuga to be unloaded, with orders to return to the rendezvous at Savona. On their way to this place, his vanguard had also been in luck, having met with a Spanish vessel bringing military stores and money from Cumana for the garrisons of Hispaniola. In this vessel, which they took without any resistance, though armed with eight guns, they found 7,000 pounds' weight of powder, a great number of muskets and other arms, together with 12,000 pieces of eight.

These successes encouraged the adventurers, and to superstitious men seemed like promises of good fortune and success. The generosity of the governor of Tortuga also tended to heighten their spirits. M. D'Ogeron, the French governor, had been greatly delighted at the early arrival of so rich a prize, worth, at the lowest calculation, 180,000 livres, and threw open all his store-houses for the use of the prize crew. Ordering her to be quickly unloaded, he sent her back to Lolonnois full of provisions and necessaries. Many persons who had come from France with the governor now joined an expedition which had begun so auspiciously, desirous of gaining a fortune with the same rapidity as the older colonists. By hazarding a little money a planter could obtain a chance of sharing in the plunder of a distant city without moving from under the shadow of his tamarind tree, and the governor's approval threw an air of legal government patronage over the expedition. D'Ogeron even sent his two nephews on board, young gallants newly arrived from France, and one of whom afterwards ruled the island in the room of his uncle. With a fleet recruited with men in room of those killed by the fever or the Spaniards, and full of hope and spirits, Lolonnois sailed for Maracaibo. His own vessel he gave to his comrade Anthony du Puis, and went himself on board the Cacaoyere, as the largest prize was called.

Before sailing, he reviewed his little invincible armada. His own new frigate carried sixteen guns and 120 men. His vice-admiral, Moses Vauclin, had ten guns and ninety men; and his matelot, Le Basque, sailed in a vessel called La Poudrière, because it contained all the powder, the ammunition, and the money for the sailors' pay. It carried twenty pieces of cannon and ninety men. Pierre le Picard steered a brigantine with forty men. Moses had equipped another of the same size, and the two other smaller vessels were each managed by a crew of thirty men. Every sailor was armed with a good musket, a brace of pistols, and a strong sabre. At this review Lolonnois first disclosed his whole plan, which was to visit Maracaibo, in the province of New Venezuela, and to pillage all the towns that border the lake. He then produced his guides, one of whom had been a pilot over the bar at Maracaibo, and who vouched for the ease with which the attack could be made. Shouts and clamour announced the universal satisfaction at the proposal. They all agreed to follow him, and took an oath that they would obey him implicitly on the penalty of being mulcted of their booty. The usual chasse-partie, or Buccaneers' agreement, was then drawn up, specifying the exact share that each one should receive of the spoil, from the captain down to the boys of the ships, and not forgetting the wounded and the guides.

Venezuela, or "little Venice," derived its name from its being very low land, and only preserved from frequent inundation by artificial means. At six or seven leagues' distance from the Bay of Maracaibo, or Gulf of Venezuela, are two small islands—the island of the Watch Tower and the island of the Pigeons. Between these two islands runs a channel of fresh water—as wide across as an eight-pound shot can carry, about sixty leagues long, and thirty broad—which empties itself into the sea. On the Isla de las Vigilias stood a hill surmounted by a watch-tower; on the Isla de las Palombas a fort to impede the entrance of vessels, which were obliged to come very near, the channel being narrowed by two sand-banks, which left only fourteen feet water. The sand-drifts were very numerous; some of them, particularly one called El Tablazo, not having more than six feet water.

"West hereof," says Esquemeling—for we must describe the past, not the present city—"is the city of Maracaibo, very pleasant to the view, its houses being built along the shore, having delightful prospects all round. The city may contain three or four thousand persons, slaves included, all which make a town of reasonable bigness. There are judged to be about 800 persons able to bear arms, all Spaniards. Here are one parish church, well built and adorned, four monasteries, and one hospital. The city is governed by a deputy-governor, substituted by the governor of the Caraccas. The trade here exercised is mostly in hides and tobacco. The inhabitants possess great numbers of cattle and many plantations, which extend thirty leagues in the country, especially towards the great town of Gibraltar, where are gathered great quantities of cocoa nuts, and all other garden fruits, which serve for the regale and sustenance of the inhabitants of Maracaibo, whose territories are much drier than those of Gibraltar. Hither those of Maracaibo send great quantities of flesh, they making returns in oranges, lemons, and other fruits; for the inhabitants of Gibraltar want flesh, not being capable of feeding cows and sheep."

The inner lake within the great bar, so difficult to cross, was fed by upwards of seventy streams, of which several were navigable. The two capes on either side of the gulf were named respectively Cape St. Roman and the Cape of Caquibacoa. The east side, though frequently flooded, was unhealthy, but very fertile, something resembling the Maremma, where, according to an Italian proverb, a man gets rich in six months and dies in seven.

In the bay itself, ten or twelve leagues from the lake, are the two islands of Onega and Las Monges. On the east side, near the embouchure, there was a fishermen's village called Barbacoa, where the Indians lived in trees to escape the floods; for, after great rains, the lands were often overflowed in broad tracts of two or three leagues. A few miles from this was the town of Gibraltar, where the best cocoa in the Indies was grown, as well as the celebrated "priests' tobacco." Beyond this twenty leagues of jurisdiction, rose mountains perpetually covered with snow, contrasting remarkably with the swampy fields and the rich tropical vegetation of the well-irrigated district below. On the other side of these mountains lay the mother city of Merida, between which, during the summer alone, mules carried merchandise to Gibraltar; the cocoa and tobacco of Merida being exchanged for Peruvian flour and the fruits of Gibraltar. Near this latter town were rich plantations and wooded districts, abounding with the tall cedars from which the Indians scooped out solid piraguas, or canoes, capable of carrying thirty tons, which were rigged with one large sail.

The territory of Gibraltar was flat, and naturally fertile, watered by rivers and brooks, besides being artificially irrigated by small channels, necessary in the frequent droughts. Everything desirable for food and pleasant to the sight grew here in abundance, the air was filled with birds as beautiful as wandering blossoms, and the rivers teemed with many-coloured fish. But into this Indian Paradise death had entered, and these swamps were the lairs of the deadliest fevers that devastate humanity. In the rainy season the merchants left Gibraltar, just as the rich do Rome, and retired to Merida or Maracaibo to escape the pestilence that walked not merely in darkness but even in the bright noon. At six leagues from this town and its 1,500 inhabitants, ran a river navigable by vessels of fifty tons' burthen.

Maracaibo itself had a spacious and secure port, and was well adapted for building vessels, owing to the abundance of timber in the neighbourhood. In the small island of Borrica were fed great numbers of goats, which were bred chiefly for their skins. In curious contradistinction to all this bustle of commerce, life, and wealth, on the south-east border of the lake lived the Bravo-Indians, a savage race, who had never been subdued by the Spaniard. They also, like the fishermen, dwelt in huts built in the branches of the mangrove trees at the very edge of the water, safe from the floods, and from the equally annoying, though less fatal, visitation of the mosquitoes. Beyond them to the west spread a dry and arid country—where nothing but cacti and stunted, bitter shrubs grew, so thorny as to be almost impassable by the traveller—waste and barren. Here the Spaniards pastured a few flocks, and the only houses were the huts of the armed shepherds who tended the lonely herds. These cattle were killed chiefly for their fat and hides, the flesh being left for the flocks of merchant birds—a sort of vulture, four or five of whom would pick an ox to the bone in a day or two.

Lolonnois, arriving at one of the islands in the gulf, landed and took in provisions, not wishing to arrive at the bar till daybreak, in hopes of surprising the fort; and anchoring, out of sight of the watch-tower weighed anchor in the evening from the island of Onega, and sailed all night, but was seen by the sentinels, who immediately made signals to the fort, which discharged its cannon and announced the approach of an enemy.

Mooring off the bar, Lolonnois lost no time in landing to attack the fort that guarded the very door through which he must pass. The batteries consisted of simple gabions or baskets masked with turf, and concealing fourteen pieces of cannon and 250 men, with flanking earthworks thrown up to protect the gunners. Lolonnois and Le Basque landed at a league from the fort, and advanced at the head of their men. The governor, seeing them land, had prepared an ambuscade, in hopes of attacking them at the same time in flank and rear. The Buccaneers, discovering this, got before the Spaniards, and routed them so utterly that not a single man returned to the fort, which was instantly attacked "with the usual desperation of this sort of people," says Esquemeling. The fighting continued for three hours. The Buccaneers, aiming with hunters' precision, killed so many of the Spaniards, and reduced their numbers so terribly, that the survivors could not prevent the savage swordsmen storming the embrasures, slaying half the survivors, and taking the rest prisoners. A few survivors are said by one writer to have fled in confusion into Maracaibo, crying, "The pirates will presently be here with 2,000 men."

The rest of the day Lolonnois spent in destroying the fort he had captured, first signalling his ships to come in as the danger was over. His men levelled the earth ramparts, spiked the guns, buried the dead, and sent the wounded on board the fleet. The next day, very early in the morning, the ships weighed anchor and directed their course, in close-winged phalanx, like a flock of locusts, towards the doomed city of Maracaibo, now only six leagues distant. They made but slow way, in spite of all their impatience, for there was very little wind; and it was not till the next morning that they drew in sight of the town, standing pleasantly on the cool shore, with its galleries of shaded balconies, its towers and steeples—the goal to which they steered.

Suspicious of ambuscades after the danger at the bar, Lolonnois put his men into canoes, and pulled to shore under protection of salvos from his great guns, which he ordered to be pointed at the woods which lined the beach. Half the men went in the canoes, and half remained on board; but these furious discharges were thrown away, the Spaniards having long since fled. To their great astonishment, the town itself was deserted. The people, remembering the horrors of a former Buccaneer descent, when Maracaibo had been "sacked to the uttermost," had escaped to Gibraltar in their boats and canoes, taking with them all the jewels and money they could carry.

To the alarmed friends who received them, they said that the fort of the bar had been taken, and nothing been saved, nor any soldiers escaped. At Gibraltar they believed themselves safe, thinking the Buccaneers would pillage the unfortunate and defenceless town and then retreat over the bar.

The hungry sailors, who had lived scantily for four weeks, found the deserted houses well provided with flour, bread, pork, poultry, and brandy, and with these they made good cheer. The warehouses were brimming with merchandise, the cellars were flowing with Spanish wine. The more prudent fell to plunder, the more thoughtless to revel. The former class probably embraced the older, and the latter the younger men. Each party abused the vice from which he abstained, and gave himself up without scruple to his own more favourite indulgence. But soon the man weary of wine began to plunder, and the man loaded with pieces of eight began to drink. The moment that plunder ceased, waste began, and prudence and folly alike ended the day,—poor and drunk. The commanders at once seized on the best houses, indulging their natural love of order and justice, by placing sentinels at the larger shops and warehouses.

The great monastery of the Cordeliers served them as a guard-house, for a long time the abode of thieves, yet never so manifestly as now; for a long time the shrine of mammon, yet now for the first time filled by his avowed worshippers. Had the town not been deserted, that night would have heard the groans of the victim of cruelty; as it was, it echoed only with the songs and shouts of debauchery. The Buccaneer had reached his Capua, but there were no Judiths ready to slay these Holofernes in their drunken sleep. Perhaps a night surprise would have failed. These men were still the vigilant hunters and the watchful sailors; sunken rocks and lurking Spaniards, breakers and wild bulls, reefs and wild panthers had taught them never to sleep unguarded and unwatched.

The next day a fresh source of plunder was opened. Lolonnois—for Le Basque's command, even by land, seems to have been secondary—sent a body of 160 men to reconnoitre the neighbouring woods, where some of the inhabitants were, it was supposed, concealed. They returned the same night, discharging their guns, and dragging after them a miserable weeping train of twenty prisoners, men, women, and children; and, besides this, a sack of 20,000 pieces of eight, and many mules, laden with household goods and merchandise.

Some of the prisoners were at once racked, to make them confess where they had hidden their riches, but neither pain nor fear could extort their secret. Lolonnois, who valued not murdering, though in cold blood, ten or twelve Spaniards, drew his cutlass and hacked one of them to pieces before all his companions; and while the pale, tortured men were still writhing and groaning by his side, declared, "If you do not confess and declare where you have the rest of your goods, I will do the like to all your companions." In spite of all these horrible cruelties and inhuman threats, only one was found base enough to offer to conduct the Buccaneers to a place where the rest of the fugitives were hidden. When they arrived there, they found their coming had been announced, the riches had been removed to another place, and the Spaniards had fled. The exiles now changed their hiding-places daily, and, amid the universal danger and distrust, a father would not even rely on his own son.

After fifteen days "taking stock" at Maracaibo, Lolonnois marched towards Gibraltar, intending afterwards to sack Merida, as at these places he expected to find the wealth transported from the City of the Lake. Several of his prisoners offered to serve as guides, but warned him that he would find the place strong and fortified. "No matter," cried the Buccaneer, "the better sign that it is worth taking."

Gibraltar was already prepared. The inhabitants, expecting Lolonnois, had entreated aid from the governor of Merida, a stout old soldier who had served in Flanders. He sent back word, that they need take no care, for he hoped in a little while to exterminate the pirates. He had soon after this hopeful bravado entered the town at the head of 400 well-armed men, and was soon joined by an equal number of armed townsmen, whom he at once enrolled. On the side of the town towards the sea he raised with great rapidity a battery, mounting twenty guns, well protected by baskets of earth, and flanked by a smaller traverse of eight pieces. He lastly barricaded a narrow passage to the town, through which the pirates, he knew, must pass, and opened another path leading to a swampy wood that was quite impassable.

Three days after leaving Maracaibo Lolonnois approached Gibraltar, and, seeing the royal standard hung out, perceived there were breakers ahead, and called a general council, one of those republican gatherings that distinguished the Buccaneer armies, and remind us of the less unanimous consultations that Xenophon describes. He confessed that the difficulty of the enterprise was great, seeing the Spaniards had had so much time to put themselves in a state of defence, and had now got together a large force and much ammunition; "but have a good courage," said he, "we must either defend ourselves like good soldiers or lose our lives with all the riches we have got. Do as I shall do, who am your captain. At other times we have fought with fewer men than we have now, and yet have overcome a greater number of enemies than can be in this town; the more they are the more riches we shall gain." His men all cried out, with one voice, that they would follow and obey him. "'Tis well," he replied, "but know ye, the first man who will show any fear or the least apprehension thereof, I will pistol him with my own hands."

The Buccaneers cast anchor near the shore, about three-quarters of a league from the town, and the next day before sunrise landed to the number of 380 determined men, each armed with a cutlass, a brace of pistols, and thirty charges of powder and bullets. On the shore they all shook hands with one another, many for the last time, and began their march, Lolonnois exclaiming, "Come, mes frères, follow me and have good courage." Their guide, ignorant of what the governor of Merida had done, led them in all good faith up the barricaded way, where, to his surprise, he found the paths in one place blocked up with large trees, newly cut, and in another swamped so that the soft mud reached up above their thighs.

Lolonnois, seeing the passage hopeless, attempted the narrow way, which had been carefully cleared as a trap for them. Here only six men could go abreast, and the shots of the town ploughed incessantly down the path. At the same time the Spaniards, in a small terraced battery of six guns, beat their drums and hung out their silk flags. The adventurers, harassed by the fire that they could not return, and slipping on the swampy path, grew vexed and impatient. "Courage, my brothers," cried their leader, "we must beat these fellows or die; follow me, and if I fall don't give in for that." With these words he ran full butt, with head down like a mad bull, against the Spaniards, followed by all his men, as daring but less patient than himself. Cutting down boughs they made a rude pathway, firm and sure, over the deep mud. When within about a pistol shot from the entrenchments, they began again to sink up to their knees, and the enemy's grape-shot fell thick and hot upon the impeded ranks. Many dropped, but their last words were always, "Courage, never flinch, mes frères, and you'll win it yet." All this time they could scarce see or hear, so blinded and deafened were they by the thunder and fire.

In the midst of this discomfiture the Spaniards suddenly broke through the gloom, just as they got out of the wood and trod upon firmer ground, and drove them back by a furious onslaught, many of them being killed and wounded. They then attempted the other passage again, but without success, and finding the Spaniards would not sally out, and the gabions too heavy to tear up by hand, Lolonnois resorted to the old stratagem, so successful at Hastings, by which the very impatience of courage is made to prove fatal to an enemy.

At a preconcerted signal the Buccaneers began to retreat, upon which the defenders of the battery, exclaiming, "They fly, they fly; follow, follow," sallied forth in disorder to the pursuit, shouting and firing like an undisciplined rabble. Once out of gun-shot of the batteries, the pursued turned into pursuers, and falling on the foe, sword in hand, slew about 200. Fighting their way through those who survived, the Buccaneers soon became masters of all the fortifications. Not more than 100 out of the 600 defenders remained alive, and these, as Falstaff says, would have to limp to the town-end and beg for life. The brave old governor lay dead among his foremost men.

The survivors who could crawl or run hid themselves in the woods, impeded in their flight by the very obstructions they had themselves raised. The men in the battery surrendered, and obtained quarter. Neither Lolonnois nor Le Basque was scratched, but forty of their companions perished, and eighty were grievously wounded. The greater part of these died through the fevers and subsequent pestilence. 500 dead Spaniards were found, but many more had hidden themselves, to die alone in peace.

The Buccaneers, now masters of Gibraltar, pulled down the Spanish colours from tower and steeple, and hoisted their own red or black flag. Making prisoners of all they met, they shut them up under guard in the chief church, where they erected a battery of great guns, in case the Spaniards should attempt to rally in a fit of despair. They then collected the dead bodies of the Spaniards, and, piling them up, scarred and gashed, in two large canoes, towed them out a quarter of a league to sea, and scuttled them. They then gathered from every house, rich or poor, all the plate, merchandise, and household stuff, which was not too hot or too heavy to carry off, as rapacious as the borderer who stopped wistfully opposite the hay-stack, wishing it had but four legs, that he might make it "gang awa' wi' the rest." The Spaniards having buried their treasure, as usual, armed parties were sent into the surrounding woods to search for buried money, and to bring in hunters and planters as prisoners to torture. Hung up by the beard, or burnt with gun-matches, the wretched sufferers were forced to confess the hiding-places.

Lolonnois soon turned the fertile country into a smoking black desert, and, still insatiable for money and blood, planned an expedition over the snow mountains to Merida, but reluctantly relinquished it when he found his men unwilling to risk what they had got for the mere uncertainly of getting more, though Merida was only forty leagues distant. They had now 150 prisoners, besides 500 slaves, and many women and children, many of whom were dying daily of famine, so short were provisions already in a city in which the small army had been encamped only eighteen days.

When they had spent six weeks in the town, Lolonnois determined to return, nothing now being left to pillage. Disease and famine were worse enemies than the Spaniard or the Indian, and cared for neither steel nor lead. A pestilential disease appeared in consequence of the numerous dead bodies left in the woods exposed to the wild beasts and the birds. Those that lay nearest to the walls had been strewn over with earth, the rest were left to taint the air, and slay the living—a putrid fever broke out; the Spaniards killed more of the enemy after their death than they had done in their life. The Frenchmen's wounds, already closing, began now to re-open, the sick died daily, and the strongest pined and sickened; all longed to return, even plunder grew distasteful to them without health, and once more at sea they hoped soon to be well.

Men who had been revelling in the plenty of two captured cities, could not return without impatience to the restraints of a time of scarcity. Gibraltar always depending upon Maracaibo for its meat, and not well supplied with flour, was, in fact, like a miser dying for want of a loaf, while his storehouses were brimmed over with gold. The little meat and flour were quickly consumed by the Buccaneers, who left their prisoners to shift for themselves. The cattle they soon appropriated, giving the mules' and asses' flesh to those Spaniards whose hunger was strong enough to conquer their disgust. A few of the women were allowed better fare, and many who had become the mistresses of their captors were well treated by their lovers. Some of these were mere slaves, others were voluntary concubines, but the greater part had been compelled, by poverty and fear, to abandon their fathers and husbands.

Lolonnois, sending four of his prisoners into the woods, demanded a ransom of 80,000 pieces of eight within two days, threatening the fugitives to burn the town to ashes if his desire was not acceded to. The Spaniards, already half-beggared, disagreed about the ransom; the bolder and the more avaricious refused to pay a piastre, the old, the timid, and the more generous preferred poverty to such a loss. Some said it would serve as a mere bribe to allure a third adventurer, and others declared it was the only means of saving Merida. While they were thus disputing the two days passed, and the debate was put an end to by the sight of flame ascending above the roofs. The city was already fired in two or three places, when the inhabitants, promising to bring the ransom, persuaded the Buccaneers to assist in quenching the flames, not, however, till the chief houses were burned, and the chief monastery was ruined.

Œxmelin merely says that Lolonnois set fire to the four corners of the town, and in six hours reduced the whole to ashes. Palm-thatch and cedar walls burn quick, and the sea-breeze was there to fan the flames, while the Buccaneers were learned in the art of destruction. Lolonnois then collected his men by beat of drum, and embarked his booty. Before he sailed, he sent two of his prisoners again into the woods, to tell the inhabitants that all the prisoners in his hands would be at once put to death if the ransom were not paid. All prisoners who had not paid their ransom he took with him, even the slaves being valued at so much, and having put on board all riches that were movable, and a large sum of money as a ransom for what was immovable, the Buccaneer fleet returned to Maracaibo. The city, now partly repeopled, was thrown again into disorder, nor much lessened when three or four prisoners came to the governor, bearing a demand from Lolonnois to pay at once 30,000 pieces of eight down upon his deck, or to expect a second sack, and the fate of Gibraltar. While these terms were under concession, and the Spanish merchants were chaffering with the sailors, as a lowland farmer might have done with a highland cateran, a party of well-inclined Flibustiers, unwilling to waste their time, rowed on shore, and stripped the great church of its pictures, images, carvings, clocks, and bells, even to the very cross on its steeple, piously desiring to erect a chapel at Tortuga, where there was much need of spiritual instruction. The Spaniards at last agreed to pay for their ransom and liberty 20,000 piastres, 10,000 pieces of eight, and 500 cows, provided the fleet would do no further injury, and depart at once, and the blessing of Maracaibo with them.

We can imagine the trembling and suppressed joy with which the people of Maracaibo must have beheld the fleet sail slowly out of their harbour, all eyes on board bent onward to the horizon and the golden future—none looking back with a moment's regret upon the misery and the black ruin left behind. How many orphans must have cursed them as they sailed, and how many widows! Three days after the embarkation, to the horror of the city, a vessel with a red flag at its masthead was seen re-entering the harbour, but only, as it soon appeared, to demand a pilot to take the fleet over the bar.

On their way to Hispaniola, Lolonnois touched at the Isle de la Vacca, intending to stay there and divide the spoil. This island was inhabited by French Buccaneers, who sold the flesh of the animals they killed to vessels in want of victual. But a dispute arising here, the fleet again set out to disband the crew at Gouaves in Hispaniola.

They arrived in two months, and, unlading the whole "cargazon of riches," proceeded to make a dividend of their prizes and their gains. Lolonnois and the other captains began by taking a solemn oath in public, that they had concealed and held back no portion of the spoil, but had thrown all without reserve into the public stock. The ceremony of this oath must have been an imposing sight: wild groups of half-stripped sailors, wounded men, and female captives, negroes and Indians, Spanish soldiers and mulatto fishermen, and in the middle piled bales of silks, heaps of glittering coin, and rich stuffs streaming over scattered arms and costly jewels, while, looking on, perhaps wistfully, leaning on their muskets, a few hunters fresh from the savannahs, bull's-hide sandals on their feet, and long knives hanging from their belts. After the captains had taken the oath, the common matelots, down even to the cabin boys, took the vow that they had given up all their spoil, to be shared equally by those who had equally ventured their lives to win it.

After an exact calculation, the total value of their profits in jewels and money was discovered to be 260,000 crowns, not including 100,000 crowns' worth of church furniture and a cargo of tobacco. On the final division every man received money, silk, and linen to the value of about 100 pieces of eight. The surgeon and the wounded were as usual paid first. The slaves were then sold by auction, and their purchase-money divided among the various crews. The uncoined plate was weighed, and sold at the rate of ten pieces of eight to a pound; the jewels were sold at false and fanciful prices, and were generally undervalued, owing to the ignorance of the arbitrators. A Buccaneer always preferred coin to jewels, and jewels, as being portable, to heavy merchandise, which they often threw overboard or wantonly destroyed. The adventurers then all took the oath a second time, and proceeded to apportion the shares of such as had fallen, handing them to the matelots, or messmate, to forward to their heirs or nearest relations. We do not know whether, in peculiar cases, a matelot became his camarade's heir.

The dividend over, they returned to Tortuga, amid the general rejoicing of all over whom love or cupidity had any power. "For three weeks, while their money lasted," says Œxmelin, probably an eye witness of the scene, "there was nothing but dances, feasts, and protestations of unceasing friendship." The cabaretiers and the gambling-house keepers soon revenged the cruelties of Maracaibo. The proud captors of that luckless city in a few weeks were hungry beggars, basking on the quay of Tortuga, straining their eyes to catch sight of some vessel that might take them on board, and relieve them from that reaction of wretchedness. They were jeered at as mad spendthrifts by the very men who had urged them to their folly. The love of courtesans grew colder as the pieces of eight diminished, and men were refused charity by the very wretches whom their foolish generosity had lately enriched. No doubt watches were fried and bank-bills eaten as sandwiches, just as they were during the war at Portsmouth or at Dover. The prudent were those who made the money spin out a day longer than their fellows, and the wildest were those who had found out that two dice-boxes and two fiddlers ran through the burdensome money a little faster than only one dice-box and one fiddler.

Some of the Buccaneers, skilful with the cards, added to their store and returned at once to France, resolved to turn merchants, and trade with the Indies they had wasted. The extravagant prices paid by these men for wine, and particularly brandy, rendered that trade a source of great profit. Just before the return of the fleet two French vessels had arrived at Tortuga laden with spirits, which at first sold at very moderate rates, but ultimately, from the great demand and the limited means of supply, reached an exorbitant price, a gallon selling for as much as four pieces of eight.

The tavern-keepers and the filles de joie obtained most of the money so dearly earned, and lavished it as those from whom they won it had done. Cards and dice helped those who had not struck a blow at the Spaniard, to now quietly spoil the captors. The story of Sampson and Dalilah was daily acted. Even the governor hastened to benefit by the expedition. He bought a cargo of cocoa of the Buccaneers, and shipped it at once to France in Lolonnois' vessel, giving scarcely a twentieth part of its value, and realising a profit of £120,000. The adventurers did not grudge him this bargain, as he had risked everything for Tortuga, and had suffered considerable losses. "M. D'Ogeron," says Œxmelin, with some naïveté, "aimait les 'honnêtes gens,' les obligeait sans cesse, et ne les lassait jamais manquer de rien."

Neither Lolonnois' talent, rank, nor courage kept him further from the tavern door than the meanest of his crew. The poor drudge of a negro that served as a butt to the sailors could not give way to baser debauchery. It was the voice of the cannon alone that roused him to great actions. On land he was a Caliban, at sea a Barbarossa. In spite of his great booty, in a few short weeks he was poorer than his crew. Tortuga was to him the Circe's island that transformed him into a beast. As soon as his foot trod the plank, he became again the wily and the wise Ulysses: the first in daring or in suffering, ready to endure or to attack, above his fellow men in patience and impatience. His expenses were large, and when the prizes ceased to come in he was soon reduced to live upon his capital, and that quickly melted away in open-house feasting and entertainments given to the governor. He had been before he returned, moreover, so burdened with debts that even his prize-money could not have defrayed them. There was but one means of release—another expedition. Let the Spanish mother clasp her child closer to her breast, for she knows not how soon she may have to part with it for ever. Is there no comet that may warn an unprepared and a doomed people?

Lolonnois had now acquired great repute at Tortuga. He was known to be brave, and, what is a rare combination, prudent. Under his guidance men who had forgot his previous misfortunes, thought themselves secure of gold, and without glory gold is not to be won. He needed now no entreaties to induce men to fill his ships; the difficulty was in selecting from the volunteers. Those who had before stayed behind now determined to venture; those who had once followed him were already driven by mere poverty to enlist. The privations of land were intolerable to men who had just revelled in riches—the privations of sea could be endured by the mere force of habit. The planters threw by their hoes, and quitted the hut for the cabin.

The towns of Nicaragua were now to share the fate of those of Venezuela. About 700 men and six ships formed the expedition. Lolonnois himself sailed in a large "flute" which he had brought from Maracaibo with 300 men; the other adventurers embarked in five smaller vessels. Having careened and revictualled at Bayala, in Hispaniola, he steered for Matamana, a port on the south side of Cuba. He here informed his companions of the plan of the expedition, and produced an Indian of Nicaragua who had offered to serve as guide. He assured them of the riches of the country, and expressed his belief that they could surprise the place before the inhabitants had secreted their money. His proposal was received with the usual unhesitating applause.

At Matamana, Lolonnois collected by force all the canoes of the tortoise fishermen, much to their grief and dismay, these poor men having no other means of subsistence but fishing. These boats he needed to take him up the channel of Nicaragua, which was too shallow for vessels of any larger burthen. While attempting to round Cape Gracias à Dios, the fleet was arrested by what the Spanish sailors call a "furious calm"—a sad and tedious imprisonment to men to whom every delay involved the success of their enterprise.

In spite of all their endeavours, they were carried by the current into the Gulf of Honduras. Both wind and tide being against them, the smaller vessels—better sailers and more manageable than that of Lolonnois—made more way than he could do; but were obliged to wait for him, and stay for his orders, being quite powerless without him and his 300 men.

They spent nearly a month in trying to recover their path, but all in vain, losing in two hours what they gained in two days, and, their provisions running short, put ashore to revictual.

Touching at the first land they could reach, they sent their canoes up the river Xagua—their guides bringing them to the villages of the "long-eared Indians," a race tributary to Spain, whose traders bartered knives and mirrors with them for cocoa. The Buccaneers burned their huts and carried off their millet, hogs, and poultry, loading the canoes with all the food they could bring away to their impatient comerades, who determined to remain here till the unfavourable weather had passed, and burn and pillage along the whole borders of the gulf. The Indian provisions proved but scanty for so numerous a band, but were divided equally among the ships that were seeking food like locusts, and moving daily on to new pastures.

A council of war was now held to discuss their position. Some were for discontinuing the expedition, since the provisions ran so short. The oldest and most experienced proposed plundering round the gulf till the bad season had passed; and this plan was decided on. Having rifled a few villages, they came to Puerto Cavallo, a place where Spanish ships frequently anchored, and which contained two storehouses full of cochineal, indigo, hides, &c., from Guatimala. There happened then to be lying in the port a Spanish vessel of twenty-four guns and sixteen patarerros. Its cargo, however, was nearly all unloaded and carried up into the interior to be exchanged in barter with the Indians. This ship was instantly seized; and Lolonnois, landing without any resistance, burned the magazines and all the houses, and made many prisoners. The Spaniards he put to the torture to induce them to confess. If any refused to answer, he pulled out their tongues, or cut them to pieces with his hanger, "desiring," says Esquemeling, "to do so to every Spaniard in the world." Many, terrified by the rack, promised to confess, really having nothing to disclose. These men were always cruelly put to death in revenge. One mulatto was bound hand and foot and thrown alive into the sea to intimidate the rest, and to induce two survivors to show the French chief the nearest road to the neighbouring town of San Pedro.

For this expedition Lolonnois selected 300 men, leaving his lieutenant, Moses Vauclin, to govern in his absence, and despatching a few of his small flotilla to help him by a diversion on the coast. Before starting, he told his companions that he would never refuse to march at their head, but that he should kill with his own hand "the first who turned tail." San Pedro was only ten leagues distant. He had not proceeded three before he fell into an ambuscade.

The Spaniards' favourite scheme of attack was the treacherous surprise—a mere sort of attempt at wholesale assassination—seldom successful, and always exasperating the enemy to greater cruelties. They had now entrenched themselves behind gabions in a narrow road, impassable on either side with trees and strong thickets. Lolonnois instantly striking down the guides, whether innocent or guilty, charged the enemy with desperate courage, and put them to flight after a long encounter, ending in a total rout. They killed a few Buccaneers and left many of their own men dead upon the ground. The wounded Spaniards, being first questioned as to the distance from San Pedro, and the best way to get there, were instantly beheaded. The prisoners informed him that some runaway slaves, escaped from Porto Cavallo, had told them of the intended attack on San Pedro. Determined to prevent this, they had planned the ambuscade, and two other still stronger earthworks which awaited him further on. To prevent connivance, or any possible treachery, Lolonnois then had the Spaniards brought before him one by one, and demanded of each in turn if there was no means of getting into another and less guarded road. On their each denying that there was, he grew frenzied and almost mad at the thoughts of such inevitable danger, and had them all murdered but two; and then, in ungovernable passion, he ripped open with his cutlass the breast of one of these survivors, who was bound to a tree. Esquemeling asserts that he even tore out his heart and gnawed it "like a ravenous wolf," swearing and shouting that he would serve them all alike if they did not show him another way. The miserable survivor, willing to save his life at any risk, his memory or invention quickened by the imminent danger, conducted him into another path, but so bad a one that Lolonnois preferred to return to the old one in spite of all its perils, so difficult, slow, and laborious was the march. He now seems to have grown almost fevered with rage, anxiety, and vexation. "Mon Dieu," he growled, "les Espagnols me le payeront," and he cursed the delay that kept him from the enemy.

There is no doubt that in these men a fanatical and almost superstitious hatred of the enemy had sprung up, inflamed by mutual cruelties, for forgiveness was not the chief virtue of the victorious Spaniard. To the Buccaneer the Spaniard seemed cruel, cowardly, treacherous, and degraded; to the Spaniard the Buccaneer seemed a monster scarcely human—bloody, voluptuous, faithless, and rapacious.

That same evening the chief fell into a second ambuscade, which, says Esquemeling, "he assaulted with such horrible fury" that in less than an hour's time he routed the Spaniards and killed the greater part of them, the rest flying to the third ambush, which was planted about two leagues from the town. The Spaniards had thought, by these repeated attacks, to destroy the enemy piecemeal, and for this object, which they did not attain, frittered their forces into small and useless detachments.

Lolonnois and his people, weary with fighting and marching, and half-fainting with hunger and thirst, lay down in the wood that night, and slept till the morning, the matelots keeping good watch and ward, and guarding their sleeping companions. At daybreak they resumed their journey, with confidence increased by the clear light and with bodies invigorated by rest. The third ambuscade was stronger and more advantageously placed than even the two preceding. They attacked it with showers of fire-balls, and drove out the enemy, slaying without mercy, and giving no quarter. "No quarter, no quarter," cried their ferocious leader, still thirsty for human blood, when they would have stayed their hands, from exhaustion rather than from pity. "The more we kill here, the less we shall meet in the town," was his war-cry. Very few of the enemy escaped to San Pedro, the greater part being either slain or wounded.

Before they ventured to make the final attack, the Buccaneers rested to look to their arms and prepare their ammunition. In vain they attempted to discover a second approach. There was but one, and that was well barricaded, and planted all round with thorny shrubs, which the best shod traveller could not pass, much less barefooted men, clad only in a shirt and drawers. These thorns, Œxmelin says, were more dangerous than those crow's-feet used in Europe to annoy cavalry.

Lolonnois, seeing that no other way was left, and that delay would imply fear in his own men, and excite hope in the enemy, resolved to storm the works, in spite of the rage and despair of a well-armed and superior force, sheltered from shot and commanding his approach. "The Spaniards," says Esquemeling, "posted behind the said defences, seeing the pirates come, began to ply them with their great guns; but these, perceiving them ready to fire, used to stoop down, and then the shot was made to fall upon the defendants with fire-balls and naked swords, killing many of the town." Driven back for a time, they renewed the attack with fewer men; husbanding their shot, for they were now short of powder; never shooting at a long distance; and seldom firing but with great deliberation when an enemy's head appeared above the rampart; and occasionally giving a general discharge, in which nearly every bullet killed an enemy. Several times the Buccaneers advanced to the very mouths of the guns, and, throwing down fire-balls into the works, leaped after them, sword in hand, through the embrasures; but only to be again driven back.

This obstinate combat, so eager on both sides, had lasted about four hours, and night was fast approaching, when Lolonnois, ordering a last furious attack, put the now weakened Spaniards to flight, a great number of them being killed as soon as they turned their backs. The citizens then hung out a white flag, and, coming to a parley, agreed to surrender the town on condition of receiving two hours' respite. During this time, Lolonnois found that he had lost about thirty men, ten more being wounded. This demand of two hours was employed by the towns-people in loading themselves with their riches and preparing for flight—the Buccaneers virtuously abstaining from any molestation till the time had duly expired, and then pursuing the fugitives and plundering them of every maravedi. But neither their self-denial nor their vigilance was well rewarded, for fortune gave them nothing but a few leather sacks full of indigo, the rest, even in that short time, having been buried or destroyed—a disappointment which, we think, no reasonable person can regret. Lolonnois had particularly ordered that not only all the goods should be seized, but that every fugitive should be made prisoner.

The Buccaneer chief, having stayed a few days at San Pedro, and "committed most horrid insolences," was anxious to send for a new reinforcement, and attack the town of Guatimala—a place a long way distant, and defended by 400 men. On his men as usual refusing to accede to an apparently rash project, Lolonnois contented himself by pillaging San Pedro, intending to impress a recollection of his visit upon the grateful inhabitants by burning their town. He obtained no great booty, for the inhabitants were a poor people, trading in nothing but dyes. If he had chosen to carry away their stores of indigo, he might have realised more than 40,000 crowns; but the Buccaneers cared for nothing but coin and bullion, and were too ignorant, too lazy, and too improvident to stop their debauches by loading their vessels with a perishable cargo of uncertain value.

Having remained now eighteen days in San Pedro without obtaining much, for the West Indian Spaniard had already learned to hide as skilfully as the Hindoo ryot, Lolonnois called together his prisoners, and demanded from them a ransom as the condition of sparing their town. They doggedly answered, with all the insolence of despair, that he had taken from them all they had, and that they had nothing more to give; that they could not coin without gold, and that, as far as they went, he might do what he liked to the town.

Lolonnois then reduced the town to ashes, and, marching to the sea-side to rejoin his companions, found that they had been employing their time, innocently and usefully, in capturing the fishing-boats of Guatimala. Some Indians, newly taken, informed him that a hourque, a vessel of 800 tons, bringing goods from Spain to the Honduras, was then lying in the great river of Guatimala. Resolving to careen and victual at the islands on the other side of the gulf, they left two canoes at the mouth of the river to give notice when the vessel should venture forth.

The time spent in thus watching outside the covert, they devoted to turtle fishing, dividing themselves into parties, each having his own station to prevent disputes. Their nets they made of the bark of the macoa tree; a natural pitch or bitumen for their boats they found in fused heaps upon the shore. The formation of this pitch, or "wax," as Esquemeling calls it, the sailors attributed to wild bees; the hollow trees in which they built being torn down by storms and swept down into the sea. The rest of their time—which never seems to have been wearisome, unless the subsequent mutiny indicates it, for these men had the tenacity of a slot-hound in the pursuit of blood—was spent in cruises among those Indians of the coast of Yucatan, who seek for amber on the shore. These tribes were the willing serfs of Spain, having served them without resistance for a full century. The Spaniards had, as they believed, converted the whole nation to Christianity by sending a priest to them once a-week, but, on their sudden return to idolatry, had begun to persecute them, angry at their own failure.

According to the Buccaneers' account, these Indian chiefs worshipped each a peculiar spirit, to whom they offered sacrifices of fire, burning incense of sweet-scented gums. They had a singular custom of carrying their new-born children into their temples, and leaving them for a night in a hole filled with wood-ashes, generally in an open place, untended, and where wild beasts could enter. Leaving the child here they found in the morning the foot-prints of some wild beast on the ashes. To this animal, whatever it might be, jaguar, snake, or cayman, they dedicated the child, whose patron god it became. To this animal the child prayed for vengeance against its enemies, and to it he offered sacrifices.

Their marriages were accompanied by a very beautiful and simple ceremony. A young man, having satisfied his intended bride's father as to his fitness to manage a plantation, was presented with a bow and arrow. He then visits the maiden, and puts on her head a wreath of green leaves and sweet-smelling flowers, taking off the crown usually worn by virgins. A meeting of her relations is then called, the maize juice is drunk, and the day after marriage the bride's garland is torn to pieces with cries and lamentations.

In these islands the Buccaneers found canoes of the Aregues Indians, which must have drifted 600 leagues. They had remained turtle-fishing and amber-seeking about three months, when the welcome tidings came that the enemy's vessel had ventured out. All hands were now employed in preparing the careening ships. It was, however, at last agreed to wait for its return, when, as they expected, it would not only contain merchandise but money. They therefore sent their canoes to observe her motions, and, hearing of the ambuscade, the Spaniards returned to port. Lolonnois, as weary of delay as a greyhound is vexed by a hare's repeated doubling, determined to do what Mahomet did when the mountain would not go to him; since the Spaniards would not come to him, he went himself to the Spaniards. Informed of their approach by spies, Indians or fishermen, the vessel was prepared to receive him. The decks were cleared, the boarding-nettings up, and the guns double-shotted. The Spaniard carried fifty-six pieces of cannon, and the crew were well provided with hand grenades, torches, fusees, and fire-balls, especially on the quarter-deck and bows, and a crew of some 130 men stood armed and threatening at their quarters. But Lolonnois cared for none of these things, and the rich cargo shone, to his eye, through the ship's transparent sides. With his small craft of twenty-two guns, with a single fly-boat as his only ally, he boldly attacked the enemy, but was at first beaten off.

To the Buccaneer a slight check was almost a certain precursor of victory; waiting till about sixty of the Spanish sailors had fallen from the fire of his deadly musketry, when their courage slackened, and the smoke of their powder lay in a dark mist round the bulwarks, hiding his movements, he boarded with four canoes, well manned. In spite of the brave defence, the Buccaneers fought with such fury that they forced the Spaniards to surrender.

Lolonnois then sent his boats up the river to secure a small patache, which they knew lay near at hand, laden with plate, indigo, and cochineal. But the inhabitants, alarmed at the capture of the larger vessel, swept away from under their very eyes, saved the patache by preventing her departure.

The booty of the prize was much less than was expected, the vessel being already almost entirely unladen. Its cargo consisted of iron and paper, and it still contained 20,000 reams of paper, and 100 tons of iron bars, which had served as ballast. The few bales of merchandise were nothing but linens, serges, and cloth, thread, and a few jars of wine. In the return cargo there would have been at least a million in specie. These heterogeneous articles were of no use to men who wanted nothing but coin or jewels, lead or powder. Dividing the paper, they used it for napkins, and other useless trifles, and several jars of almond and olive-oil were wasted in the same reckless manner.

Having now accomplished their purpose, without much return for their three months' patience, Lolonnois called a general council of the fleet, and declared his intention of going to Guatimala. Upon this announcement a division arose in the assembly, and the hoarse murmurs of a coming tempest were heard around the speaker. Many of the adventurers, new to the trade, could no longer conceal their weariness and their disappointment. They had set sail from Tortuga with the feeling with which a country boy comes to London. They had believed that pieces of eight grew on the trees like pears, and had overlooked the dragons that guarded the Hesperian trees. Having seen their predecessors return home laden with the plunder of Maracaibo, many had overlooked the toil and dangers by which it was won, in the sight of the joy and prodigality with which it was lavished; they had seen only the rich pearls, and forgotten the stormy seas from which they had been gathered. They were weary of the hardships, and mutinous for want of food. The mere seeker for gold could not endure what was submitted to by those who were desirous of earning distinction. The older hands laughed at their pinings, derided their complaints, and swore that they would rather die and starve there, than return home with empty purses, to be the scorn and laughing-stock of all Hispaniola. The majority of the experienced men, foreseeing that the voyage to Nicaragua would not succeed, and was "little to their purpose," separated from Lolonnois, and set sail secretly in the swift sailing vessel that Moses Vauclin had captured in the port of Cavallo, and which he now commanded, boasting, with reason, that it was the swiftest sailing vessel that had been seen in the West Indies for fifty years. With Moses Vauclin went Pierre le Picard, who, seeing others desert Lolonnois, resolved to do the same.

Steering homewards, the fugitives coasted along the whole continent till they came to Costa Rica, where they landed a good party, marched up to Veraguas, and burnt the town, pillaging the Spaniards, who made a stout resistance, carrying off a few prisoners, and obtaining a scanty booty of some seven or eight pounds' worth of gold, which their slaves washed from the mud of the rivers. Alarmed at the multitude of Spaniards that began to gather round them, the marauders abandoned their design of attacking the town of Nata, on the south sea-coast, although many rich merchants lived there, whose slaves worked in the gold-washings of Veraguas. Returning to Tortuga, these undisciplined men, impatient of poverty, united themselves under the flag of a noble adventurer, the Chevalier du Plessis, who had just arrived in the Indies, poor and proud, and prepared to cruise against the Spaniard in those seas. Vauclin being an experienced pilot, well acquainted with the turtle islands, and every key and reef the surf washed from California to Cape Horn, was taken into favour by the titled privateersman, who promised him the first prize he captured, if he would sail in his company. But a serious difficulty arose in the execution of this liberal promise, for the Chevalier was soon after shot through the head while grappling with a Spanish ship of thirty-six guns, and Moses was elected captain in his stead. In his first cruise, the brave deserter was fortunate enough to take a cocoa vessel from the Havannah, with a cargo valued at 150,000 livres.

During this time, Lolonnois and his men remained alone and deserted in the gulf of Honduras. He was now in some distress, short of provisions, and in a vessel too "great to get out at the reflux of those seas." His 300 men had no food but that which they contrived to kill daily on shore, living chiefly on the flesh of parrots and monkeys. By day they generally fished or hunted, by night, taking advantage of the land breeze, they sailed painfully on till they rounded Cape Gracios à Dios, and slowly the Pearl Islands hove in sight. Staunch and inexorable, Lolonnois, amid all the tedium of this enervating idleness, still nourished the project of making a swoop down upon Nicaragua, intending to leave his cumbrous vessel behind, and row up the river St. John in canoes, until he reached the lake. But the same reason that made his vessel lag behind those of his companions, now drove it ashore in a shallow near Cape Gracias, where it drew too much water to be extricated. In vain he unloaded his guns and iron, and used every means that experience and ingenuity could suggest to lighten the ship, and float her again into deep water. Always firm and resolute, Lolonnois at once determined to break her to pieces on the sand-shoal, and with her planks and nails to construct a boat.

His men, with perfect sang froid, not even impatient at the loss, much less afraid of danger, escaping to land, began to build Indian ajoupas, or huts. Lolonnois, accustomed to such reverses, concealed his chagrin, if he even felt any. Regardless of himself, he adjured his men to lose no courage, for he knew of a means of escape, and, what was more, a way to make their fortune yet, before they returned to Tortuga. Prepared for every emergency, and even for the longest delay, part of the crew were at once employed in planting peas and other vegetables, the remainder in fishing and hunting, all but the few who worked busily at the boat in which Nicaragua was to be visited. In spite of desertion, failure, wreck, and famine, Lolonnois held on to the plan of the expedition, which he deemed cowardly and shameful to abandon. The men, confident in the sagacity and courage of their leader, surrendered themselves like children to his guidance.

The Indians of the Perlas Islands, on which they had struck, were a fierce and untamable race, strong and agile, swift as horses, hardy divers, brave but cruel, warlike, and man-eaters. Their wooden clubs were jagged with crocodiles' teeth; they had no bows or arrows, but used lances a fathom and a-half long. They built no huts, and lived on fruits grown in plantations cleared from the forest. Fishers and swimmers, they were so dexterous as to be able to bring up with a rope an anchor of 600 cwt. from a rock, a feat which Esquemeling himself saw a few of them perform. The seamen in vain attempted to propitiate these wild freemen, to serve them as guides or hunters. At last, finding a great number together, and pursuing the fugitives, they tracked five men and four women to a cave, and took much pains to propitiate them. The captives remaining obstinately silent, as if from fear, in spite of the food that was given them, were dismissed with presents of knives and beads. They left, promising to return; "but soon forgot their benefactors," says Esquemeling, disgustfully. The sailors believed that at night all the Indians swam to a neighbouring island, as they never saw either boat or Indian again.

Some time before this the Frenchmen's terror had been excited by the discovery that these Indians were cannibals. Two Buccaneers, a Frenchman and a Spaniard, had straggled into the woods in search of game. Pursued by a troop of savages, the latter, after a desperate struggle, was captured, and heard of no more; the former, the swifter footed of the two, escaped. A few days after, an armed party of a dozen Flibustiers, led by this survivor, went into the same part of the forest to see if they could find any traces of the Indian encampment. Near the place where the Spaniard had fallen into the ambush they discovered the ashes of a fire, still warm, and among the embers some human bones, well scraped, and a white man's hand with two fingers half roasted, but still unconsumed.

For six months, till the long-boat was completed, the Buccaneers lived on Spanish wheat, bananas, and on the fruits and green crops which they had sown on landing. Their bread they baked in portable ovens saved from the wreck.

Lolonnois now once more prepared to carry out his unabandoned project. With part of his crew he resolved to row up the river of Nicaragua, to capture some canoes, and return to fetch away those whom the new boat would not hold. The men cast lots for the choice of sailing with him. He took about one-half of the shipwrecked crew with him, part in the long-boat and part in a skiff which had been saved when the larger vessel drove on the bank. They arrived in a few days at Desaguadera, near Nicaragua, but attacked on the beach by an overpowering number of Spaniards and Indians, they were driven back to their boats, with the loss of many men, and escaped with difficulty, beaten and desponding.

Lolonnois, now fairly at bay with fortune, still resolved neither to return to Tortuga ragged and penniless, nor to rejoin his comerades till he had obtained a sufficient number of canoes to embark his companions. In order the better to obtain provisions he divided his men into two bands. The one party proceeded to the Cape Gracias à Dios, where they were well received; the other sailed to Boca del Toro, on the coast of Carthagena, where adventurers frequently repaired for turtle and other provisions, intending to embark in the first friendly vessel that should arrive.

Nicaragua was still destined to remain unscathed. "God Almighty," says Esquemeling, who writes with some bitterness, and probably much hypocrisy, "the time of His divine justice being now come, had appointed the Indians of Darien to be the instruments and executioners thereof." Landing at a place called the La Pointe à Diegue to obtain fresh water, Lolonnois and his men, weary of "wave, and wind, and oar," drew their canoes to land, and threw up entrenchments, knowing that they were now in the neighbourhood of the Bravo Indians, the most savage race known on the mainland—as cruel as sharks, and as numerous and greedy of blood as the vultures. He himself and a few others, passing the river, near the Gulf of Darien, landed in order to sack a town and obtain provisions. Here this modern Ulysses found a termination to his troubles and his life, for, being taken prisoner by the Indians, he was killed, chopped to pieces, and devoured. Many of his companions were also burnt alive, and but a few escaped to Tortuga, by the detail of their horrors to check for a few days the love of adventure in the minds of its restless and impetuous adventurers.

Esquemeling, or his English translator—who generally considers it necessary to conclude his chapters with a sanctimonious moral, a snuffle of the nose, and a lifting up of the eyes—says, "Hither Lolonnois came (brought by his evil conscience that cried for punishment), thinking to act his cruelties; but the Indians, within a few days after his arrival, took him prisoner, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire, and his ashes into the air (virtuous indignation), that no trace or memory might remain of such an infamous, inhuman creature.... Thus ends the history, the life, and the miserable death of that infernal wretch, Lolonnois, who, full of horrid, execrable, and enormous deeds, and debtor to so much innocent blood, died by cruel and butcherly hands, such as his own were in the course of his life." Towards the conclusion of his malediction Esquemeling's wrath unfortunately gets much the better of his grammar.

The men left behind in the island de las Perlas, after long waiting for their companions—who had only escaped Scylla to run into Charybdis—were taken off by an English adventurer, who, collecting a body of 500 men, resolved on an expedition to the mainland. Ascending the river Moustique, near Cape Gracias, he sailed on, expecting to find some inlet to the lake of Nicaragua, round which Lolonnois' men still hovered. The expedition started full of hope, for the shipwrecked men were rejoiced at ending ten months of suffering, anxiety, and privation.

The result was worse than mere disappointment. In fifteen days they reached no Spanish town, but only some poor Indian villages, which they found deserted by the natives, who, aware of their coming, had fled, carrying off all the produce of their plantations. These they burnt in their rage, and marched recklessly onwards. They had carried no provision with them, expecting to find everywhere sufficient; and, to render their condition worse, had brought all their 500 men, except five or six who were left to guard each vessel. "These their hopes," says Esquemeling—turning up as usual the whites of his eyes—who looks with great contempt on all unsuccessful attempts at thieving, "were found totally vain, as not being grounded." In a few days the hope of plunder, which had first animated them, grew clouded by despondency. Scarcity rapidly became want, and they were reduced to such extreme necessity and hunger that they gathered the plants that grew on the river's bank for food. In a fortnight their courage and vigour had entirely gone; their hearts sank, and their bodies were wasted by famine.

Leaving the river they took to the woods, seeking for Indian villages where they might obtain food. Ranging up and down the woods for some days in a fruitless search, they returned to the river, now their only guide, and struck back towards the point of coast where their ships lay. In this laborious journey they were reduced to much extremity—eating their shoes, their leather belts, and the very sheaths of their knives and swords. They grew at last so ravenous as to resolve to kill and devour the first Indian they could meet; but they could not obtain one either for food or as a guide. Some fell sick, and, fainting by the wayside, were left to perish. Many were killed and eaten by the Indians, and others died of starvation. At last they reached the shore, and, finding some comfort and relief to their present miseries, at once set sail to encounter more. After remaining some time on land, they re-embarked, but a quarrel arising between the French and English Buccaneers, who seldom kept long friends, they separated into small parties, and engaged in fresh expeditions.

Bras-de-Fer compared to Alexander the Great—His adventures and stratagems—Montbars—Anecdotes of his childhood—Goes to sea—His first fight—Meets and joins the Buccaneers—Defeats the Spanish Fifties—His uncle killed—His revenge—The negro vessel—Adam and Anne le Roux plunder Santiago.

We now come to a class of Buccaneers who lived at we scarcely know what period, although they were probably contemporaries of Œxmelin. Their adventures, though on a narrower scale, are perhaps more interesting than those that had subsequently taken place, and are valuable as illustrations of manners.

Œxmelin relates, in his usual shrewd and vivacious manner, the singular exploits of Alexandre Bras-de-Fer, a French adventurer, with whom he was acquainted, and who, unlike his contemporaries, never joined in large expeditions, preferring the promptitude of a single swift cruiser, with none to share his risks or subtract from his booty. His life seems to have been crowded with romantic and strange incidents. His character appears to have been a strange combination of bravery and chivalry, a love of rapine, and a fantastic vanity. Œxmelin says naïvely, that this modern Alexander was as great a man among the adventurers of Tortuga as the ancient Alexander was among the conquerors of the East. Nor does he see much difference between the two worthies, except that the Macedonian was the adventurer upon the larger scale.

Our Alexandre was vigorous in body and handsome in feature—so, at least, vouches Œxmelin, who, a surgeon by profession, once cured him of a severe wound that he had received—a cure which, if Alexandre had been generous (which he was not, in this instance at least), might have made the doctor's fortune.

Bras-de-Fer displayed as great judgment in the conception of his enterprises as he did courage in the carrying them out. His head and hand worked well together, and he seldom had to fight his way out of dangers into which his own incautiousness had led him. The vessel which he commanded he called the Phœnix, because it was of such a unique and peculiar structure that it was said to be among vessels what the phœnix was fabled to be among birds.

Alexandre always went alone, in preference to crowding in a fleet. His pride or his prudence may have given him a fondness for solitary cruises, for the Phœnix was a bird of prey. A picked crew and a single swift vessel had many advantages over a rebellious flotilla—and subordinate captains were often mutinous if not treacherous. If solitude increased his risk, it also increased his probability of success.

Œxmelin, the only writer who mentions Alexandre, relates but one of his adventures, which he took down, as he tells us, from the hero's own lips. The rest of his exploits he suppresses, either from a fear of being tedious or a dread of being considered a mere romancer.

On the occasion of which he speaks, Alexandre was bound upon an expedition of great consequence—which, however, as it did not succeed, the narrator, with a wise modesty, does not think worth mentioning. After lying some time imprisoned in a tedious calm, his prayers for a change of weather were answered by a great storm, that blew up the sea into mountains—wind and fire seeming to struggle together in the air for the possession of the helpless ship and its pale crew. The furious thunder drowned the very roar of the sea, and the masts soon went by the board. The lightning, striking its burning arrows through the deck, set fire to the powder-magazine, and blew up the part of the vessel in which it was stored. Half of the crew were hurled into the air, and were killed before they reached the boiling sea that eagerly waited for their fall. The remainder of the crew, finding the vessel going down by the head, took to swimming, and soon reached dry land: Alexandre—strong and brawny, brave, but desirous of life, and always awake to the means of its preservation—by no means the last, setting an example at once of prudence, coolness, and decision. On shaking the brine from their limbs and looking around, the wrecked men found that they had been thrown upon a tract of land as much to be dreaded by the Buccaneer as the realm of Polyphemus was by the wise Ulysses. They stood upon an island near the Boca del Drago (Dragon's Mouth), inhabited by a tribe of Indians, fierce and cruel cannibals. Remaining for some time upon the shore, they exerted themselves in recovering what they could from the scorched driftings of the wreck. Amongst other things they saved—what was more valuable than food, because they presented the means of saving their lives for the present and for the future—a number of their hunters' muskets, sufficient to arm all their number, together with a quantity of powder and lead for bullets. Without either of the three requisites the other two had been useless. They now gathered courage from the possibility of escape, and determined to secure themselves from the Indians, reconnoitre the place for fear of surprise, and after that remain patiently encamped till some friendly vessel should arrive.

One day, while some of the band were smoking, singing, and talking, their past dangers already half forgotten in the desire of escaping the present by encountering fresh in the future, the sentinels on the look-out hill gave the signal of an approaching vessel. On all rushing to the spot, the keener eyes detected a large ship, dark against the grey horizon. It presently discharged a gun at the shore, and in the direction in which they stood. Preparing for the worst, Alexandre and his men hid themselves in a wooded hollow and held a council of war. Some were of opinion that they should wait for the stranger's arrival, and then quietly beg the captain to take them on board. The more impatient and lawless, less pacific in such an emergency, believed that such a plan would lead, if the vessel proved, as it probably would, a Spaniard, to their all being taken prisoners, and at once strung from the yard-arm, without inquiry, as Frenchmen and pirates. Bras-de-Fer spoke last, and crushed all opposition by his voice and gesture. He was for war to the death, and escape at any risk. Better Spanish rope than Indian fire, better pistol shot than starvation. Quick in decision and firm in execution, he had at once determined not merely to stand on the defensive, but at all risks to assume the aggressive. The adventurers yielded as if an angel had spoken, for Alexandre had more than the usual ascendancy of a leader over them. Both his mind and body were of a more athletic bulk and iron mould. He could dare and suffer more. His active and his passive, his moral and physical courage, were greater than theirs. They loved him because he shared their dangers, and did not humiliate them by the assumption of his real superiority. He wore the crown, but he was not always dazzling their eyes with its oppressive glitter. They respected him, because he could control both his own passions and those of the men whom he led to victory and never to defeat. The success of his victories he doubled by the prudence with which they were followed up, and the skill with which he conducted a retreat rendered his very defeats in themselves successes.

The vessel, which proved to be a Spanish merchant ship, with war equipments, approached nearer, standing off and on, attracted by the fruit and flowers whose perfume spread over the level sea, and allured by that fragrance, a sure proof of the existence of good water not far from the shore. The boats were lowered, and a well-armed party landed with much caution. The captain marched at their head, followed by his best soldiers, dreading an ambuscade of the Indians of that coast, who were known to be warlike and treacherous, but not suspecting the Buccaneers, who kept themselves in the wood, ready to swoop down upon their prey, like the kite upon the dovecote.

Already well acquainted with the paths and foot-tracks, Alexandre's men crept quietly through the trees, which grew thick and dark, and, defiling by secret avenues, surrounded the principal approach by which the Spaniards had already entered, in good order and on the alert, but with apprehensions already subsiding. The adventurers being very inferior in number and scantily armed, kept themselves hidden, waiting for chance to give them some momentary advantage. When the enemy was well encircled in the defile, mistaking perhaps the lighted matches for fire-flies among the branches, the French suddenly opened a murderous fire upon the soldiers, who found themselves girt by a belt of flame, coming from they knew not where. A pilgrim seeing a volcano opening at his feet could not be more astonished. The Spaniards, seeing no enemies to aim at, withheld their fire, thinking that the Indians were burning the forest. The absence of arrows, and the report of muskets, convinced them more deadly enemies awaited them, and that Europeans and not Indians were the preparers of the ambush. With much promptitude, instead of flying in a foolish headlong rout, they threw themselves upon their faces; and the captain gave the word of command not to fire till the enemy came in sight, being ignorant yet of their number and their nation.

The adventurers looked through the loopholes which they had cut in the thick underwood for the passage of their firearms, to see what effect their volley had produced, the smoke now clearing away and permitting them to see more clearly. To their astonishment they could see no one; the enemy had vanished, as if blown to pieces by the fire. They began to think that they had retreated, although they had heard no sound of their retreat; they could scarcely believe that they were all dead.

Alexandre's impatience soon decided the question; determined to conquer, he chafed at the delay and mystery. His resolution was soon made. He left his ambush and broke out from the wood into the open. The mystery was quickly solved, for he was instantly attacked by the Spaniards, who, when they saw him break cover, sprang up to their feet, with a shout, as swift as the foes of Cadmus. Alexandre, retreating for a moment to make his spring the surer, leaped upon the hostile captain and aimed a blow at his head with his sabre, which was warded off by a large scull-cap, from which the steel glanced. Bras-de-Fer was about to repeat his blow with better effect, when his foot caught in a root and he fell. Closely pressed by his antagonist, and requiring all his skill to save his life, rising up, with his left hand and with his strong right arm, he struck the uplifted sabre from the hand of his enemy. This lucky blow of a defenceless man gave Alexandre time to leap up and call the adventurers, who had not then left the ambush, and were now pouring out on every side, pressing the enemy in the rear and on the flank. Having made a great carnage among the Spaniards, the Flibustiers, at a signal from Alexandre, closed in, and, bearing down upon the craven and terrified foe sword in hand, slew them to a man, taking special care that not a single one should escape, for fear of spreading an alarm.

The Spanish crew remaining to keep guard in the vessel, had heard the sound of musketry, and at once supposed that their people had fallen in with some hostile Indians, but knowing that their troops were brave and numerous, and believing they could easily cut a few savages to pieces, they sent no reinforcement, but contented themselves by discharging a noisy broadside to turn the scale of the supposed battle, and increase the terror of the fugitives. On the other hand, the victorious adventurers lost no time in following up their ambush by an ingenious stratagem. They stripped the dead, and arrayed themselves in their dress and arms. They then collected a quantity of their own Indian arrows, which they had previously taken from savages which they had killed. Then pulling their broad-brimmed Panama hats over their eyes (even the captain's, with a red gash through it), and shouldering their arms, imitating the Spanish march, and uttering shouts of "victory, victory," proceeded to the shore at the point nearest the vessel. The guards on board, seeing their supposed companions returned so soon, victorious, laden with spoil, and each one carrying a sheaf of arrows, received them with open arms as they clambered up by the main-chains. Before they could recover from their astonishment, the Buccaneers were masters of the vessel. There was scarcely any struggle, for only the sailors and a few marines had been left on board. The surprise was complete and sudden, and the most watchful might be pardoned for being deluded by such an artifice. The adventurers found the vessel laden with costly merchandise, and soon started with it upon a trip of a very different nature from that for which it had been first intended.

Œxmelin laments that in many other adventures which Alexandre told him, he found that he passed too lightly over his own exploits, and attributed all the glory to the courage of his companions. But when his comerades related the story, they were not so generous to him as he had been to them, and, either from envy or shame, suppressed many of his noblest actions. He concludes his sketch of the two Alexanders with incomparable naïveté in the following manner: "Au reste, je ne prétends pas que la comparaison soit toute-à-fait juste, car s'il y a quelque rapport, il y a encore plus de différence. En effet il étoit aussi brave que téméraire, et lui étoit brave que prudent. Alexandre aymoit le vin, et lui l'eau-de-vie. Aussi Alexandre fuyoit les femmes par grandeur d'âme, et luy les cherchoit par tendresse de cœur; et pour preuve de ce que je dis il s'en trouve une assez belle dans le vaisseau dont j'ay parlé, qu'il préféra à tout l'avantage du butin."

"To conclude: if I have compared him to the Great Alexander, I do not pretend that the comparison is altogether just; for, if there are some points of resemblance, there are many more of difference. Of a truth, the one Alexander was as brave as he was headstrong, the other as brave as he was prudent; the one loved wine, and the other brandy; the one fled from women through real greatness of heart, the other sought them from a natural tenderness of soul; and, as a proof of what I say, he met a beautiful woman in the vessel of which I have spoken, whom he valued more than all the other spoil."

Providence, a French moral philosopher ventures to suggest, raised up the Buccaneers to revenge on the Spaniards all the sufferings and injustices of the Indians. The Spaniard was the scourge of the Indian, and the Buccaneer the scourge of the Spaniard.

Lolonnois and Montbars are always considered as equal claimants for the hateful pre-eminence of being the most ferocious of the whole Buccaneer brotherhood, considering them from their origin to their extinction. But the sovereignty of blood must be at once awarded to Lolonnois. Montbars seldom killed a Spaniard who begged for mercy, while Lolonnois delighted to spurn them from his feet, and slew all he could without pity, or even regard for ransom. It was from the very lips of Lolonnois that Œxmelin was informed that Montbars was sprung from one of the best families in Languedoc. He was well educated, but soon disregarded every other study to practise martial exercise, and particularly shooting. These warlike sports he pursued with a concentrated, unremitting eagerness, approaching insanity. Even as a boy, when firing with his cross-bow, he said he only wished to shoot well that he might know how to kill a Spaniard. His mind had already become filled with a generous but cruel determination, which grew rapidly into monomania. The animal force of a strong but ill-balanced mind all grew to this point, and his thoughts by day, and his dreams by night, became but a reiteration and reblending of the one master passion. No one ever became his confidant, but the following is the general explanation given of the deeds of his after life. It is said that, in his early childhood, Montbars had read of the almost incredible cruelties practised by the Spaniards during the conquest of America. In the Antilles, they had exhibited the horrors of the Inquisition in broad daylight. Fanaticism, avarice, and ambition had ruled like a trinity of devils over the beautiful regions, desolated and plague-smitten; whole nations had become extinct, and the name of Christ was polluted into the mere cypher of an armed and aggressive commerce. These books had impressed the gloomy boy with a deep, absorbing, fanatical hatred of the conquerors, and a fierce pity for the conquered. He believed himself marked out by God as the Gideon sent to their relief. Dreams of riches and gratified ambition spurred him unconsciously to the task. He thought and dreamed of nothing but the murdered Indians. He inquired eagerly from travellers for news from America, and testified prodigious and ungovernable joy when he heard that the Spaniards had been defeated by the Caribs or the Bravos.

He indeed knew by heart every deed of atrocity that history recorded of his enemies, and would dilate on each one with a rude and impatient eloquence. The following story he was frequently accustomed to relate, and to gloat over with a look that indicated a mind capable of even greater cruelty, if once led away by a fanatic spirit of retaliation. A Spaniard, the story ran, was once upon a time appointed governor of an Indian province, which was inhabited by a fierce and warlike race of savages. He proved a cruel governor, unforgiving in his resentments, and insatiable in his avarice. The Indians, unable any longer to endure either his barbarities or his exactions, seized him, and, showing him gold, told him that they had at last been able, by great good luck, to find enough to satisfy his demands. They then held him firm, and melting the ore, poured it down his throat till he expired in torments under their hands.

On one occasion, Montbars openly showed that his reason was somewhat disturbed, and that, on the one subject of his thoughts, he had ceased to be able to reflect calmly. While a boy, he had to take part in a comedy which was to be acted by himself and the fellow-students of the college, for his friends either ignored or disregarded his dreams and fancies. Amongst other scenes was a prologue, in the shape of a dialogue between a Spaniard and a Frenchman. Montbars was to represent the Frenchman, and his companion the Spaniard. The Spaniard, appearing first upon the stage, began to utter a thousand invectives against France, mingled with much ribald rhodomontade, and Montbars became excited, and could not contain his impatience. To his heated mind the mimic scene became a reality. He broke in upon the stage, furiously interrupted his comerade in the middle of his speech, and, loading him with blows, would certainly have put him to death on the spot, as "a Spanish liar and murderer," had the combatants not been separated by the terrified bystanders.

His father, rich, and loving his son much, perhaps all the better for these wayward eccentricities, which, he believed, contact of the world and the pleasures of youth would soon drive from his memory, desired to enrol him in the army, or induce him to enter some profession. But to all his questions and entreaties the boy only replied, that all he wanted was "to fight against the Spaniards." Seeing that his friends would oppose his project, he ran away from his father's house, and took refuge at Havre with an uncle who commanded one of the French king's ships. He was about to start on a cruise against Spain, with whom France was then at war, and, pleased at the boy's avowed attachment to a maritime life, wrote to his father, approving of the boy's resolution. The father reluctantly gave what could be construed into a consent, and in a few days the vessel sailed.

During the voyage out, the young fanatic evinced the greatest eagerness for an engagement, and directly a vessel appeared in sight ran to arm himself, hoping it might be a Spaniard. At length, one did in reality appear, and he had an opportunity of distinguishing himself against his declared enemies. They gave chase to the Spanish vessel, and received her broadside. The elder Montbars, seeing his nephew intoxicated with joy, and, disregarding all risk of exposure, determining to throw away his life, clapped him under hatches, as a reckless boy, and only let him rush out when the boarding commenced, and the enemy's vessel was evidently their own. The liberated youth led the boarders with all the calmness of a veteran man-of-war's-man. Leaping, sabre in hand, upon the foe, he fought with them pell-mell, broke through their thickest ranks, and, followed by a few whom his courage animated to rival his own rashness, rushed twice from end to end of the Spanish vessel, mowing down all he met to the right and left. The Spaniards were refused quarter, those who escaped the sword perished in the sea, and Montbars, to whom the honour of the victory was unanimously awarded, refused quarter to a single one. The prize was found full of spoil, the hold crammed with riches, containing 30,000 bales of cotton, 2000 bales of silk, besides Indian stuffs, 2000 packets of incense, and 1000 of cloves, which made up the treasure. In addition to all this, they found a small casket of diamonds, the case clasped with iron, and fastened with four locks, which alone outvalued all the bulkier merchandise. While his uncle and the sailors exulted over these treasures, Montbars was counting the dead Spaniards, and gloating over the first victims of the hecatomb he still hoped to slay. Blood, and not booty, was his object.

In spite of the young victor, a few Spanish sailors and officers had been spared in the general carnage. From these survivors they learnt that two other vessels had been parted from them in a storm, near where they then were (St. Domingo), and that their rendezvous had been fixed at Port Margot. Captain Montbars determined to wait for them there, and to capture them by the stratagem of sending the captured vessel with its Spanish colours out to meet them, as a decoy. While the French vessel and its prize lay waiting at the rendezvous, some huntsmen's boats came off to sea, bringing boucaned meat to barter for brandy. The Buccaneers apologised for bringing so little meat, saying, "that a band of Spanish Fifties had lately ravaged their district, burnt their hides, stolen their dried meat, and burnt their boucans."

"And why do you suffer it?" said Montbars, impetuously, for he had been listening eagerly all this time, to the recital of a new proof of Spanish perfidy.

"We do not suffer it," answered the huntsmen, roughly. "The Spaniards know well what sort of people we are, and they chose a time when we were all away cow-killing; but our day is coming. We are now collecting our companions, who have suffered worse than we have; we have given notice far and wide, and if the fifty grow to 1000, we shall soon bring them to bay."

"If you are willing," says Montbars, "I will march at your head. I do not want to command you, but to expose myself first, to show you what I am ready to do against these accursed Spaniards."

The old hunters, astonished at the daring of a mere youth, and glad of another musket, accepted his proposal. His uncle, unable to rein him in, and already weary of so hot-brained a volunteer, yielded to his entreaties. He permitted him to go, giving him a party of seamen to guard him, and supplied him with but few provisions, in hopes of bringing him quickly back. He threatened, on parting, to leave him behind if he was not on board to the very hour, then calling him a foolish madcap, and cursing him for a hair-brain, he dismissed him with his blessing, swearing the next minute there wasn't a braver lad at that moment treading a plank.

Montbars departed with some uneasiness, not caring about his uncle's advice or the scantiness of provisions, but only afraid that he might miss the Spaniards on land, and be absent also when the Spanish vessels were attacked. He wanted no greater inducement to hurry his return than the prospect of a naval engagement. He had scarcely landed with his men, when the hunters brought them into a small savannah surrounded by hills and woods. They had not taken many steps across this broad hunting-ground before they saw some mounted Spaniards appear in the distance—these men were part of a troop that had collected, hearing that the Buccaneers were assembling to attack them.

Montbars, transported with rage at the sight of a Spaniard, would have rushed at once upon them, single-handed, but an old experienced Buccaneer caught him by the arm: "Stop," said he, "there is plenty of time, and, if you do what I tell you, not one of these fellows shall escape." These words, "not one," would at any time have arrested Montbars, and they did so then. The old Buccaneer, crying a halt, bade the men turn their backs on the Spaniards, as if they had not seen them. He next unrolled the linen tent, which he carried in the usual fashion of his craft, and began to pitch it, followed by all his companions, who did the same, imitating their fugleman, without inquiry, trusting to the address that had often before delivered them out of danger. They then drew out their brandy flasks and affected to prepare for a revel, intending to deceive the Spaniards, who, they knew, would give them time to drink, in hopes of surprising them, an easy prey, when asleep. The empty horns were passed round with jokes, and songs, and shouts, and the corked flasks circulated as merrily as if the feast had been a real one. Without appearing to observe, they could see the Spanish patrols disappear over the ridge of the hill, to warn their men in the valley to prepare for a night surprise. The Buccaneer leader, passing the signal from hand to hand, sent an engagé into the woods to quickly rouse all the "brothers" in the neighbourhood, to bid them come and help them, and to prepare an ambush in the opposite forest. In the mean time, other scouts were sent to watch the motions of the enemy, to be sure that they were coming, and were not making any flank movement.

At dusk the Buccaneers slipped quietly from beneath their tents, and crept into the adjacent woods. Here they found their companions and their engagés already assembled and eager for the attack. Montbars, weary of all preparations, was now burning to see the Spaniards, declared they never would come, and that they had better go out and surprise them while night lasted; but the Spaniards were purposely delaying, knowing that the longer they delayed the deeper would be the sleep of the revellers. At daybreak, they could see a dark troop beginning to move forward over the ridge, and soon to descend the hill into the plain in good order, a small detachment marching before them as a forlorn hope. The Buccaneers, well posted and unobserved, waited for them, sure of their prey, for the tents being pitched at some distance one from the other, they could see every movement of the Spaniards. As they drew nearer, the Fifties broke into small troops, and each encircled a tent. To their astonishment, at that moment the wood grew a flame, and a hot rolling fire led on the advancing Buccaneers, who, breaking out with yell and shout, very terrible in the silence of the dawning, overthrew horse and rider. Montbars, inspired by the fever of the onslaught, which always seemed for a moment to restore the balance of his mind, leaped on a horse, whose rider he had killed, and headed the attack. Wherever resistance was made, he rode in, charging every knot of troopers as they attempted to rally. Hurrying on too far beyond his companions, while breaking into the heart of the squadron, he was surrounded, and would have been quickly overpowered had he not been rescued by a determined rush of his men. More furious at this escape, he pursued the scattered enemy right and left, with increased fury, inflicting blows as dreadful as they were unusual. One of the Buccaneers, seeing many of his men suffering from the Indian arrows, cried out to the Indians, in Spanish, pointing to Montbars, "Do you not see that God has sent you a liberator, who fights for you, to deliver you from the Spaniards, and yet you still fight for your tyrants?" Hearing these words, and astonished at Montbars' contempt for death, the archers changed sides and turned their arrows against the Spaniards, who fled, overwhelmed by this new misfortune, and perhaps impelled by an undefinable and superstitious terror.

Montbars looked upon this day as the happiest in his life. He had seen the Indians he had so pitied fighting by his side, and regarding him as their protector. Cleaving down a wounded Spaniard, who clung to his knees and begged for mercy, he cried, "I would it were the last of this accursed race." An eye witness of the battle describes the carnage as horrible—the living trampling on the living, and stumbling over the dying and the dead. The Buccaneers and the Indians, rejoicing in their liberty and their revenge, entreated Montbars to follow up his successes, and wanted at once to ravage the Spanish plantations, and extirpate the survivors, while they were still discouraged. Montbars gladly consented to the proposal, and was about to march exultingly at their head, when the boom of a cannon was heard. It was the report of a gun from his uncle's vessel, and he could not resist obeying a signal that might be the signal of an approaching battle. He instantly hurried back, but found, to his annoyance, that the signal had been only fired as a warning to announce the hour of instant sailing.

The hunters, already attached to their young leader, refused to leave him, and the Indians were afraid to abide the vengeance of the Spaniards. They were all therefore at once placed on board the prize, and supplied with muskets and sabres. The delighted uncle appointed Montbars as captain, with an old officer, under the name of lieutenant, to act as his guardian.

After eight days' sail, Montbars was attacked, at the mouth of a large key, by four Spanish vessels, each one larger than his own. They surrounded him so suddenly that he had no time to escape, and he lay amongst them like a wolf at bay. They formed, in fact, the van of the great Indian plate fleet, which was, every year, as eagerly expected by the king of Spain as it was by all the marauders of the Spanish main. The elder Montbars, bold and hardy, unhesitatingly attacked two of the vessels, and several times drove back their boarders. Although gouty himself and unable to move, the staunch old Gascon shouted his orders from his elbow chair; and, cursing alternately the enemy and the disease, defended his ship to the last extremity. Having fought for more than three hours with ferocious obstinacy, and seeing his young hero terribly pressed by his two adversaries, he resolved upon a final effort, the last struggle of a wild beast that feels the knife is at his throat. Firing a tremendous broadside, he attacked both his enemies with such fury that he sank them and himself, and died "laughing" in all the exultation of that revenge which is the only victory of despair.

Montbars the younger made great exertions to save himself and to avenge his uncle. The old lion was dead, but the cub had much life in him yet. He sank one of his antagonists with a crashing shot and boarded the other. His Indians, seeing their leader enter the Spanish vessel at one end, threw themselves into the water and clambered promptly up the other. Their war-cries and arrows produced a powerful diversion, and took the Spaniards by surprise. Throwing many into the sea, they killed others, while Montbars put all that resisted to the sword. In a short time he was master of a vessel larger even than those that had been sunk. The friendly Indians, who now looked upon him as an invincible demigod, he employed in a fruitless search for his uncle's body. Conquerors and conquered were destined to remain locked in each other's arms, and piled over with bloody trophies of burnt wreck until the day that the sea should give up her dead.

The hunters renewed their proposal of a descent upon the mainland, and Montbars agreed to any scheme which would enable him to avenge his uncle and his friends. He had formerly lived to avenge the wrongs of others, to these were now added his own. The governor of the province, hearing of the contemplated attack, prepared an ambuscade of negroes and militiamen. Putting himself at the head of 800 men, divided into three battalions, his wings strengthened with cavalry and his van guarded with cannon, he prepared to prevent the landing of the "Exterminator."

These preparations only increased the ardour of Montbars. It seemed cowardly to ravage an unprotected country: its devastation, after defeating its defenders, was a reward of conquest. Montbars was the first to leap from the canoes, and the first to rush upon the Spanish pikes. The front battalion was soon repulsed, and some Indians taking the reserve force in the flank, they were driven back in great disorder. Montbars, hotly pursuing, made a prodigious carnage of the enemy, and carried fire and sword far into the interior.

One day, while at sea, the young captain, already a veteran in experience, was obliged to put into a bay to careen. To his great surprise, although the place was a mere track of sand, he saw some Spaniards on a distant plain, marching in good order and well-armed. Fearing that if they saw his men they would take to flight, he sent a few of his favourite Indians to decoy them towards him. Then falling upon them with fury as they cried out for quarter Montbars shouted, in Spanish, that they had nothing to hope for till they had killed himself and all his men. These dreadful words, together with his revengeful looks, drove them to take up their arms and fight with dogged and brutal despair, till they were slain almost to a man. Advancing into the country in search of more human prey, Montbars carried off the arms of the Spaniards and a great quantity of fruits and provisions.

It appeared, from a survivor, that the Spaniards had arrived in that country in a singular manner. They had formed the crew in guard of a vessel full of negro slaves who had conspired together to drive the ship on shore. They had secretly bored holes in the ship's hold, in which they had placed pluggets, which they drew out, and replaced, unseen, and in a moment. While the Spaniards were seated together, talking with their usual stately, stolid phlegm, this unaccountable leak would break out and fill the cabin, or drench them in their hammocks. The slaves never seemed alarmed, but always astonished, and filled the air with interjections, in the Congo language. The water rushing in pell-mell, even the ship's carpenter did not know from where, drove all hands, at great danger to the ship, almost to leave the helm to save the cargo, which was already damaged. The negroes, quiet and orderly, would generally succeed, after a time, in stopping the leak, and excited general admiration by their promptitude and naval skill. All then went on well for a time; but with the least wind or storm the leak recommenced, till the very captain began reluctantly to confess, with tears in his eyes, that they were all as good as lost, for the vessel was dangerous, and not seaworthy. In the middle of the night, or at meal time, this supernatural leak would recommence, till the pumps were all but worn out, and the men faint with want of sleep. One day, when the vessel was skirting a reef, the negroes watched the opportunity, and the leak commenced with redoubled fury, the slaves howling as if from the very disquietness of their hearts. The Spaniards, thinking all hope lost, and the vessel, as they declared, already beginning to settle down, abandoned the ship, and threw themselves on that very tongue of land where Montbars afterwards surprised them. The trick had been cleverly planned and cleverly executed, but a hitch in the machinery had nearly ruined all. One of the blacks, more timid or less sagacious than the rest, seeing the water pour in with more than usual impetuosity, and on all sides, lost his presence of mind. Not able at once, in his panic, to find the hole which he had to stop, he believed that his companions had also failed, and that all was indeed lost, and, throwing himself overboard without inquiring, he joined the Spaniards, who were thanking God (prematurely) for their deliverance.

Looking back for his companions, to his horror he saw a dozen of them tugging at the helm, and putting out wildly to sea. The truth flashed upon him, and he knew in a moment that his safety was a loss. Giving way to uncontrollable despair, he tore his wool, and stamped his feet, and cursed his fetish, and stretched out his hands, as if to stay the parting vessel. The Spaniards, astonished at this apparently passionate desire to be drowned, began slowly to discover the successful stratagem. They looked: "Demonio, St. Antonio!"—the vessel did not sink, but glided swiftly out to sea. They could see the blacks laughing, pulling at the ropes, and grinning from the port-holes. They turned with fury on the unhappy survivor, and put him to the torture till he confessed the truth.

And this story completes all that history has preserved of one of the strangest combinations of fanatic and soldier that has ever appeared since the days of Loyola. In another age, and under other circumstances, he might have become a second Mohammed. Equally remorseless, his ambition, though narrower, seems to have been no less fervid. If he was cruel, we must allow him to have been sincere even in his fanaticism. Daring, untiring, of unequalled courage, and unmatched resolution, the cruelty of the Spaniards he put down by greater cruelty. He passes from us into unknown seas, and we hear of him no more. He died probably unconscious of crime, unpitying and unpitied.

Œxmelin, who saw Montbars at Honduras, describes him as active, vivacious, and full of fire, like all the Gascons. He was of tall stature, erect and firm, his air grand, noble, and martial. His complexion was sun-burnt, and the colour of his eyes could not be discerned under the deep, arched vaulting of his bushy eyebrows. His very glance in battle was said to intimidate the Spaniards, and to drive them to despair.

In 1659, Santiago was pillaged by the Flibustiers, in revenge for the murder of twelve Frenchmen, who had been shot by a Spanish captain, who took them from a Flemish vessel, sparing only a woman, and a child who hid itself under the robe of a monk.

Determined on retaliation, the people of the coast assembled to the number of 500. Obtaining an English commission, they embarked on board a frigate from Nantes, and a number of small craft—De L'Isle being their commander, and Adam, Lormel, and Anne le Roux their lieutenants. They landed at Puerto de Plata, "le Dimanche des Rameaux," and marched upon St. Jago at daybreak. Passing over the bodies of the guards, they rushed to the governor's house, and surprised him in bed. He, knowing French, threw himself on his knees, and told them that peace was about to be declared between the two nations. They replied, that they carried an English commission, and, reproaching him for his cruelties, bade him either prepare for death, or pay down 60,000 crowns. Part of this ransom he instantly paid in hides. The pillage of the town lasted twenty-four hours, and nothing was spared; the very bells were carried from the churches, and the altars stripped of their plate. No violence, however, we are glad to record, was offered to the women, the Brotherhood having agreed, that any such offender should lose his share of the spoil.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON: SERCOMBE AND JACK, 16 GREAT WINDMILL STREET.