North American Cities and Their Vicinity

504 i£x ICibrtB SEYMOUR DURST When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/northamericancitOOunse "HE HAD FOUND THE CAPTAIN AGREEABLE AND COMPANIONABLE." HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Vol. LXXX1X. NOVEMBER, 1894. No. DXXX1V. sea-ugbbejis o/jvew ymx by Thomas A.Janvier. i. domination the most romantic of our his- SEA-STEALING, though they did not torians have not ventured the suggestion call it by so harsh a name, was a lead- that anybody ever went to sleep when ing industry with the thrifty dwellers in there was a bargain to be made; and in this town two hundred years ago. That the period to which I now refer, when the was a good time for sturdy adventure English fairly were settled in possession afloat; and our well-mettled New-York- of New York by twenty years of occu- ers were not the kind then, any more pancy, exceeding wide-awakeness was the than they are now, to let money-making rule. Nor was anybody troubled with chances slip away by default. Even in squeamishness. Therefore it was that our referring to what is styled (but very er- townsfolk, paltering no more with for- roneously) the drowsy period of the Dutch tune than they did with moral scruples, Copyright, 1894, by Harper aud Brothers. All rights reserved. — — 814 HARPER'S NEW M >NTHLY MAGAZINE. set themselves briskly to collecting' the rously returning with their rich freight- revenues of the sea. age to their home port. These revenues were raised by two dif- Neither of these methods of acquiring ferent systems: which may be likened, wealth on the high seas, the director the for convenience' sake, to direct and to in- indirect, seems to have received the un- direct taxation. In the first case, our qualified endorsement of public opinion robust towns - people put out to sea in in New York in those days which came private armed vessels ostentatiously car- and went again two hundred years ago; rying letters of marque entitling them to yet both of them were more than toler- war against the King's enemies—which ated, and the Red Sea Trade unquestion- empowering documents they const rued, ably was regarded as a business rather as soon as they had made an offing from than as a crime. Because of which lib- Sandy Hook, as entitling them to lay eral views in regard to what might prop- hands upon all desirable property that erly enough be done off soundings, or at they found afloat under any flag. out-of-the-way islands in the ocean sea, The indirect method of taxation had in it is a fact that at the fag-end of the sev- it less heroic quality than was involved enteenth century our enterprising towns- in the direct levy; yet was it, being safer folk were sufficiently prominent in both in a business way and almost as profit- lines of marine industry —as pirates pure able, very extensively carried on. Eu- and simple, and as keen traders driving phemism was well thought of even then hard bargains with piratesin the purchase in New York: wherefore this more con- of their stolen goods— to fix upon them- servative (d ass <>f sea-robbers posed square- selves the ill-tempered attention of pretty ly as honest merchants engaged in what much the whole of the civilized world. they termed the Red Sea Trade. At the foot of the letter, as our French cousins II. say, their position was well taken. Their That the New York of that period was so-called merchant ships dropped down as pluckily criminal a little town as there the harbor into the bay and thence out was to be encountered upon any coast of to the seaward, carrying, for merchant- Christendom ('tis but fair to say that sev- men, oddly mixed ladings, whereof the eral worse were to be found on the coasts main quantities were arms and gunpow- of heathen countries) was due as much to der and cannon-balls and lead, and strong outward constraining circumstances as to spirits, and provisions, and general sea- inward natural disposition. Indeed, the stores. Making a course to the southeast- coming of the pirates hither was less the ward, they would slide around the Cape result of their own volition than of a cruel to some convenient meeting-place in the necessity; and the hearty welcome here Indian Ocean, usually Madagascar, where given them is to be credited as one of the they would fall in with other ships earliest exhibitions of that heterogeneous whereof the lading was Eastern stuffs, hospitality for which our city still con- and spices, and precious stones, and a tinues justly to be famed. good deal of deep-toned yellow-red Ara- As everybody at all familiar with pi- bian gold. No information was volun- ratical matters knows, the pirates doing teered by their possessors, a rough-and- business in American waters in the lat- tumble dare-devil bushy-bearded set of ter part of the seventeenth century had a men, as to where these pleasing commod- hard time of it. What with the increased ities came from ; nor did the New-Yorkers vigilance of French and English war- manifest an indiscreet curiosity — being ships in the Caribbean and off the West content that they could exchange their India Islands; the defection to the French New York lading for the Oriental lading service of many of their own number, on terms which made the transaction and to the English service of Morgan profitable (in Johnsonian phrase) beyond who was knighted for his misdeeds, and the dreams of avarice. When the ex- in the year 1680 was made Governor of change had been effected the parties to it Jamaica; and finally (this was the death- separated amicably: the late venders of blow), after that infamous coalition of all the Oriental goods betaking themselves, Christendom against them, brought about most gloriously drunk on their prodigal by the Peace of Ryswick— it is not too much purchases of West India rum, to parts to say that even the most capable men in unknown, and the New-Yorkers deco- the profession were at their wits' end. THE SEA-ROBBERS OF NEW YORK. 815 The prime necessity of these harried dered him. Pii"ates used to do that to and bedeviled seafarers was a friendly their captains now and then — not neces- port in which they could fit out their sarily for publication, but as an evidence ships, and to which they could return of bad faith. At any rate, his ship came with their stolen goods. Without these bade to America in charge of one Edward facilities for carrying on their work and Coats, and made the eastern end of Long for realizing upon their investment of Island in April, 1093. By this time Gov- courageous labor, they might as well — ernor Fletcher—a weak brother morally save for the fun of it —not he pirates at —was in power; and with him negotia- all ; and such of them as were hanged by tions presently were concluded by which, Sir Henry Morgan, their old comrade, or in consideration of the sum of £'1800 to were turned over by him —as was a whole be divided between the Governor and his ship's company— to he racked and fagot- Council, Captain Coats and his men were ed by the Spaniards of Hispaniola, did assured against any harm coming to not even have any fun. Most fortu- them, in New York at least, as the re- nate, therefore, was it that at the very sult of their piratical escapade. In the time that this dismal state of affairs was Governor's share was the pirate ship, on forward in Caribbean latitudes the possi- which —selling it to the respectable Caleb bility of relief for oppressed pirates was Heathcote —he realized £800. discovered here in our own hospitable III. and generous city of New York. Like many other important discoveries, It was the deal between Coats and the i-evelation of the piratical possibilities Fletcher which gave to piracy, under the of New York came about almost by acci- genteel guise of privateering, its practical dent: when one William Mason stumbled start in New York: as is made evident upon the simple plan of fitting out at this by the fact that as soon as the facili- port a pirate ship in the guise of a patriot ties offered for the transaction of pirati- privateer. It was in the year 1689 —dur- cal business by the obliging Governor ing Leisler's short administration —that were noised abroad there was a notable Mason was authorized to sail for Quebec gathering in this town of well-seasoned and "to war as in his wisdom should adventurers under the black flag. seem meet" against the French. Several Quite the most prominent of these ear- other ships similarly were commissioned ly arrivals was Captain Thomas Tew, a at the same time, and as these engaged well-known practising pirate of that time; only in genuine privateering there is no and an odd flavor of kindliness is given reason for supposing that Mason's let- to this section of the chronicle by the fact ter of marque was taken out in bad that between him and the Governor — faith. What swung him from legal to quite aside from the question of mutual illegal piracy appears to have been pure interest — there was developed a friend- bad luck.

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