FOR OUR BOYS & GIRLS

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 456, 22 March 1890, Page 3

FOR OUR BOYS & GIRLS

EDITED BY MRS FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. [COPYRIGHT.] [All Rights Reserved.] THE BUCCANEERS. By Andrew Laing. Most boys envy the buccaneer?. The greatest of all boys, Canon Kingsley, once wrote a pleasing and regretful poem in which the last buccaneer represents himself as a kind of picturesque philanthropist: — * There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, All furnished well with small arms, and cannons round about: And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free, . , , To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. Thence w# sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold. Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old; Likewise the merchant captains with hearts as hard as stone, Who ilog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone.’ The buccaneer is 4 a gallant sailor,’according to Kingsley’s poem a Robin Hood of the waters, who only preys on the wicked rich, or the cruel and Popish Spaniard, and the extortionate shipowner. For his own part, when he is not rescuing poor Indians, the buccaneer lives mainly ‘for climate and the affections.’ ‘ Oh, sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees. With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar Of the breakers on the reef outside that never touched the shore.’ This is delightfully idyllic, like the lives of the Tahitian shepherds in the Anti-Jaco-bin—the .shepherds whose occupation was a sinecure, as there were no sheep in Tahiti. How often, [dying the weary pen,has one wished to be a buccaneer 1 Yet the vocation was not really so touchingly chivalrous as the poet would have us deem. One Joseph Esquemeling, himself a buccaneer, has written the history and described the exploits of his companions in Dlain prose, warning eager youths that ‘ pieces of eight do nob grow on every tree,’ as many raw recruits believed. Mr Esquemeling’s account of these matters may be purchased, with a great deal else that is instructive and entertaining, in The History of the Buccaneers of America” (London, 1810). This edition is a dumpy little book, in very small type, and quite a crowd of publishers took part in the venture, includng Messrs Rivington, and Messrs Longman. The old editions are difficult to procure if your pockets are not stuffed with pieces of eight. You do not often find even this volume, but 4 when found make a note of,’ and you have a reply to Canon Kingsley. The charitable old Scotch lady, who heard our ghostly foe evil spoken of, remarked that, 4 if we were all as diligent and conscientious as the devil, it would be better for u?.’ Now, the buccaneers were certainly models of diligence and conscientiousness in their own industry, which was to torture people till they gave up their goods, and then to run them through the body, and spend the spoils over drink and dice. Except Dampier, who was a clever man, bub a poor buccaneer (Mr Clarke Russell has written his life), they were the most hideously ruthless miscreants ihat ever disgraced the earth and the sea. But their courage and endurance were no less notable than their greed and cruolty, so thata moral can besqueezed even outof these abandoned miscreants. The soldiers and sailors who made their way within gunshot of Khartoum, overcoming thirst, hunger, heat, the desert, and the gallant children of the desert, did not fight, march and suffer more bravely than the scoundrels who sacked Mairaibo, and burned Panama. Their good qualities were no less astounding and exemplary than their almost incredible wickedness. They did nob lie about in hammocks much, listening bo the landward wind among the woods—the true buccaneers. To tell the truth, most of them had no particular cause to love the human species. They were often Europeans who had been sold into slavery on the West Indian plantations, where they learned lessons of cruelty by suffering it. Thus Mr Joseph Esquemeling, our historian, has been nearly beaten, toroured, and starved to death in Tortuga ; ‘so I determined, not knowing how to get any living, to enter into the order of the pirates, j or robbers of thb sea.’ The poor Indians of the isles, much pitied by Kingsley’s buccaneer, had a habit of sticking their prisoners all over with thorns, wrapped in oily cotton, whereto they then set fire. 4 These cruelties many Christians have seen whib they lived among these barbarians.’ Mr Esauemeling was to see, and inflict, plenty of this kind of torment, which was not out of the way or unusual. One planter alone had killed over a hundred of his servants ; 4 the-Fnglish did the same with theirs.’ A buccaneer voyage began in stealing a ship, collecting desperadoes, and torturing the local herdsmen till they gave up their masters’ flocks, which were salted as pro-O visions. Articles of service were then drawn up, on the principle 4 no prey, no pay.’ The spoils, when taken, were loyally- divided as a rule, though Captain Morgan, of Wales, made no more scruple about robbing his crew than about barbacuing a Spanish priest. 4 They are ”ery civil arid charitable to each other, so that if anyone wants what another has, with irreat willingness they give it one to another.’ In other matters they did not in the least resemble the early Christians. A fellow- named Portuguese may be taken as our first example of their commendable qU With S ’a small ship of four- guns he had taken a great one of twenty guns, with 70,000 pieces of eight. . . • He himself, however, was now captured by a larger vessel, and imprisoned on board. Being carelessly watched, he escaped on two earbhern jars (for he could not swim), reached the woods in Campechy, and walked for 120 miles through the bush. His only food was a few shellfish, < and by way of a knife he had a large nail, which he whetted to an edge on a stone. Having made a kind of raft, he struck a river, and paddled to Golpho.Triste, where he found congenial pirates. With twenty of these, and a boat, be returned to Campechy, where he had been a prisoner, and actually

captured the large ship in which he had lain captive ! Bad luck pursued-him, however; his prize was lost in a storm, he reached Jamaica in a canoe, and never afterwards was concerned as leader in any affair of distinction. Nob even Odysseus had more resource, nor was more long enduring ; but Fortune was Portuguese’s foe. Braziliano, another buccaneer, served as a pirate before the mast, and 4 was beloved and respected by all. Being raised to command, he took a plate ship, which success was of indifferent service to his otherwise amiable chaiacter. 4 He would often appear foolish and brutish when in drink,’ and has been known to roast Spaniards alive on wooden spits ‘ for not showing him hog yards where he might steal swine.’ One can hardly suppose that Kingsley would have regretted this buccaneer, even if he had been the last, which uoluckilv he was not. His habit of sitting in the street beside a barrel of beer, and shooting all passers-by who would not drink with him, provoked remark, and was an act detestable to all friends of temperance principles. Francois Soloneis, from Southern France, had been kidnapped, and sold as a slave in the Caribbo Islands. Recovering his freedom, he plundered the Spanish, says my buccaneer author, 4 till his unfortunate death.’ With two canoes he captured a ship which had been sent atter him, carrying ten guns.and a hangman for his express benefit. This hangman, much to the fellow’s chagrin, Soloneis pub to death like the rest of his prisoners. His great achievements were in the Gulf of V enezuela, or Bay of Marcaibo. The gulf is a strong place ; the mouth, no wider than a gun shot, is guarded by two islands. Far up the inlet is Marcaibo, a town of 3,000 people, fortified and surrounded by woods. Yet further up is the town of Gibraltar. To attack these was a desperate enterprise, but Soloneis stole past the forts, and frightened the town folk into the woods. As a rule the Spaniards made the poorest resistance : there were examples of courage, but none of conduct. With strong forts, heavy guns, many men, provisions and ammunition, they quailed before the desperate valour of the pirates. The towns were sacked, the fugitives hunted out of the woods, and the most abominable tortures were applied to make them betray and reveal their treasures. When they were silent, or had no treasures to declare, they were hacked, twisted, burned and starved to death.

Such was the manner of Soloneis ; and Captain Morgan, of Wales, was even more ruthless.

Gibraltar was well fortified and strengthened after Maracaibo fall, new batteries were laised, the way through the woods was barricaded, and no fewer than eight hundred men were under arms to resist a small pirate force, exhausted by debauch, and having its retreat cut off by the forts at the mouth of the great salt water loch. Bub Soloneis did not blench : he told the men that audacity was their one hope, also that he would pistol the first who gave ground. The men cheered enthusiastically, and a party of 350 landed. The barricaded way they could nob force, and in a newlycut path they met a strong battery which fired grape. But Soloneis was invincible. He tried that old trick which rarely fails, a sham retreat, and this lured the Spaniards from their earthwork on the path. The pirates then turned sword in hand, slew two hundred of the enemy, and captured eight guns. The town yielded, the people fled to the woods, and then began the wonted sport of torturing the prisoners. Maracaibo they ransomed afresh, detained a pilot, passed the forts with ease, and returned after sacking a small province. On a dividend being declared, they parted 260,000 pieces of eight among the band, and spent the pillage in a revel of three weeks. Soloneis 4 got great repute ’ by this conduct, bub I rejoice to add that, in a raid on Nicaragua he 4 miserably perished,and mec what Mr Esquemeling calls 4 his unfortunate death.’ For Soloneis was really an ungenblemanly character. He would hack a Spaniard to pieces, tear out his heart, and 4 gnaw with his teeth like a ravenous wolf, saying to the rest, ‘‘l will serve you all alike if you show me nob another way ” ’ to a town which he designed attacking. In Nicaragua, he was taken by the Indians, who, being entirely on the Spanish side, tore him to pieces and burned him. Thus we really must nob bo deluded by the professions of Mr Kingsley’s sentimental buccaneer, with his pity for 4 thelndian folk of old.’

Except Denis Scott, a renowned bandit in his day, .Captain Henry Morgan is the first renowned British buccaneer. He was a young Welshman, who,after having been sold as a slave in Barbadoes, became a sailor of fortune. With about 400 men he assailed Puerto Rello. 4 lf our number is small,' he said, our hearts are. great,’ and so he assailed the third city and place of arms which Spain then possessed in the West Indies. The entrance of the harbour was protected by twostrongcastles, judged as 4 almost impregnable,’ while Morgan had no artillery of any avail against fortresses. Morgan had the luck to capture a Spanish soldier, whom he compelled to parley with the garrison of the castle. This he stormed and blew up, massacring all the defenders, while with guns he disarmed the sister fortress. When all but defeated in a new assault, the sight ,of the English colours animated | him afresh. He made the captive I monks and nuns carry the scaling ladders, in which unwonted exploit the poor religious folk lost many of their , numbers. The wall was mounted, the soldiers defeated, though the Governor fought like a Spaniard of the old school, slew many pirates with his own hand, and pistolled some of his own men for cowardice. He died at his post, refusing quarter, and falling like a gentleman of Spain, or like Helmsley and Boyle, British pirates, who, alone and unled, charged the victorious Boers at Majuba. Morgan, too, was not wanting in fortitude. He extorted 100,000 pieces of eight from the Governor of Panama, and sent him a pistol as a sample of the gun wherewith he took so great a city. He added that he would return and take this pistol out of Panama, nor was he less good than his word. In Cuba he divided 250,000 pieces of eight, and a great booty in other treasure. A few weeks saw it all in the hands of tavern keepers and the women of the place. Morgan’s next performance was a new sack of Maracaibo, now much stronger than Soloneis had found it. After the most appalling cruelties not fit to he told, he returned, passing the castles at the mouth of the port by an ingenious stratagem. Running boatload after boatload of men to the landside, he brought them back by stealth, leading the garrison to expect an attack from that quarter. The guns were massed to landward, and no soonor was this done than Morgan sailed up through the channel, with but little loss. Why. the Spanish did not close the passage with a boom does not appear. Probably they were glad to be quit of Morgan on any terms.

A great Spanish fleet he routed by the ingenious employment of a fire-ship. In a later expedition a strong place was taken by a curious accident. One. of the buccaneers was shot through the body with an arrow. He drew it out, wrapped it in

cotton, fired it from his musket, and so set light to a roof and burned the town. His raid on Panama was extraordinary for the endurance of his men. For days they lived on the leather of bottles and belts. 4 Some, who were never out of their mothers’ kitchens, may ask how these pirates could eat and digest these pieces of leather, so hard aiid dry ? Whom I answer : that could they once experience what hunger, or rather, famine is, they would find the way as the pirates did.’ It was at the close of this march that the Indians drove wild bulls among them, bub they cared very little for these new allies of the Spaniards; Beef in any form was only too welcome. - , , , Morgan burned the fair cedar houses of Panama, bun lost the plate ship with all the gold and silver out of the churches. How they tortured a poor wretch who chanced to wear a pair of taffeby trousers belonging to bis master, with a small silver key hanging out, it is better not to repeat. The men got only two hundred pieces of eight each, after all their. toil, for their Welshman was, indeed a thief, and bilked his crews no less than he plundered the Spaniards, without remorse. Finally he sneaked away fiom the fleet with a ship or two, and it is to be feared that Captain Morgan made a good thing by dint of his incredible cruelty and villainy. And so we leave Mr Esquemeling, whom Captain Morgan also deserted, for who would linger long when there is not even honour among thieves ? Alluring as the pirate’s profession is, we must nob forget that it has a seamy side, and was by no means all ruin and pieces of eight. And there is something repulsive to a generous nature in roasting men because they will not show you where bo steal hogs.