WILL IAM D A MP IE B L W I CLA RK RUS SE L 5 MIt‘ll1m AND N E W Y OR K 1 8 9: . 8 CONTE NT S C H A P TE R I — THE BuccA NE E Rs NAVIGAT ION IN THE SEVE NTEE NTH — CEN TURY FE A T URE S OF TH E VOCAT IONAL LIF E OF THE EARLY MARINE R C H A P T E R II ’ DA MP IE R S EA RL Y LIFE CA MPE CHE HE — B-U E 2 CCA NE RS , 1 65 1 681 CH A P T E R: ’ — DA MP IE R s FIRST VOYAG E ROUND TH E W ORLD , 1 681 1 691 CH A P T E R — ROE BUCK , 1 699 1 701 C H A P T E R V ! ST GE GE 1 02—1 - TH E VOYAGE OF THE . oR , 7 706 7 C H A P TE R I THE BUCCA NEERS— NA VIGA TION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CE NTURY— FEA TURES OF THE VOCA TIONA L L IFE OF THE EA RLY MA RINER IN or about the m iddle of the seventeenth century the D H island of San omingo, or ispaniola as it was then called, was haunted and overrun by a singular com i . mun ty of savage, surly, fierce, and filthy men They o o were chiefly composed of French c l nists, whose ranks had from time to time been enlarged by liberal contri butions from the slums and alleys of more than one Eur opean city and town . These people went dressed r in shi ts and pantaloons of coarse linen cloth, which they steeped in the blood of the animals they slaughtered. They wore round caps, boots of hogskin drawn over n f their aked eet, and belts of raw hide, in which they stuck their sabres and knives. They also armed them r el ocks selves with fi which threw a couple of balls, each n weighing two ou ces. The places where they dried bouccm s and salted their meat were called , and from this b ucaniers term they came to be styled , or buccaneers, as we spell it. They were hunters by trade, and savages 32 B 2 WIL LIA M D A MP IE R CHA P . a a in their habits. They ch sed and sl ughtered horned t cattle and trafficked with the flesh, and their favouri e food was raw marrow from the bones of the beasts which they shot. They ate and slept on the ground, their and table was a stone, their bolster the trunk of a tree, their roof the hot and sparkling heavens of the A ntilles . But wild as they were they were at least peaceful . It s a is not clear that at thi st ge, at all events, they were in any way associated with the freebooters or rovers who i s were now worrying the Span ard in those seas. Their f was ass dl tra fic was entirelyinnocent, and it ure ythe policy ' of the D on to sufier them to continue shooting the wild . Unf or tunatel for cattlewithout molestation y themselves, the Spaniards grew jealous of them. They regarded the W est Indies and the continent of South A merica as their own, and the presence of the foreigner was . intolerable They made war against the buccaneers, in vow g expulsion or extermination . Both sides fought fiercely. The Spaniard had discipline and training ; on u the other hand, the b ccaneer had the art of levelling as a as - de dly a piece the Transvaal Boer of to day. The struggle was long and cruel ; the Spaniards eventually San D conquered, and the hunters, quitting omingo, sought refuge in the adjacent islands . In spite of their defeat, troops of the buccaneers contrived from time to time to pass over into San D omingo from their head in quarters Tortuga, where they hunted as before, and brought away with them as much cattle as sufficed them . to trade with The Spaniards lay in ambush, and shot the stragglers as they swept past in chase ; but this sort a in of warf re prov g of no avail, it was finally resolved to cattle r slaughter the whole of the th oughout the island, TH E B UCCA IVE E RS 3 that the buccaneers should b e starved into leaving once No ul and for good . act co d have been rasher and more . n impolitic The hunters fi ding their occupation gone , e went over to the freeboot rs, and as pirates, as their m history shows, in a short ti e abundantly avenged their indisputable wrongs. Novelists and poets have found something fascinating in the story of the buccaneers . The light of romance r x the colours thei e ploits, and even upon maturest gaze there will linger something of the radiance with which the ardent imagination of boyhood gilds the - t actions and persons of those fierce sea warriors . I is n unhappily true, evertheless, that the buccaneers were a r ofli ate . race of treacherous, cruel, and p g miscreants l Their name was at a ater date given to, or appro riated D p by, such men as Clipperton, Cowley, ampier, s R Shel vocke W oode ogers, and , whose behaviour as mi i l as ene es, whose sk l and heroism seamen, and whose discoveries as navigators, greatly lightened the blackness ut S of the old traditions. B the buccaneers of the panish M — n al ain, the men who are the pri cip figures in the annals of the freebooters, the people whose lives are contained in such narratives as those of Joseph Exque D e L D e M meling, ussan, ontauban, Captain Charles ’ Von Ar chenholtz s Johnson, in brief but excellent history, — u ruffians and in other works, were rog es and without ll parallel in the history of vi ainy. They owned indeed r li r many extraordina y qua ties, which, exe ted in honest fields of action, might have been deemed virtues of a hi high kind . Their courage was great, their ac evements s wonderful, their fortitude worthy of noble cau es, their N capacity of endurance unrivalled in sea. story. o skil 4 WILLIAM D A MP IE R CH A P. fuller body of seamen were ever afloat. But their his Olonois or tory is loathsome for the cruelties it relates . L olonois Braziliano M Le G , , organ, Bat, rand, and others e famous as pirat s, were monsters whose like is nowhere to be matched . The relation of their sailings and land m ar chin s ul illa in s ings and g , their assa ts, p g g , defeats, and triumphs, is a sickening narrative of barbarities ; but d w it must be a mitted, coupled ith extraordinary examples of o of courage in s me instances absolutely sublime, and unconquerable resolution. It was inevitable that the successes of these pirates d shoul prove a temptation to English seafaring men . Small vessels were fitted out in British ports or the for W I d Colonies, and sailed the est n ian Seas to pill age the Spaniard wherever he might be found on land or . Of H water ten it happened, as arris, the editor of a n voluminous collectio of voyages, tells us, that crews were embarked and pilots engaged without being apprised “ o of the object of the v yage, and nothing was said about the true design until they were at sea, where they ” 1 o !the captains) were abs lute masters . To this order belongs that race of English buccaneers of whom D ampier may be advanced as the most conspicuous example. - They possessed all the high spirited qualities, the daring, the courage, the endurance of the Morgans and Bats Brazilianos and , but they were seldom or never wantonly u d d cr el they burne , they sacke , as freely as the others they pillaged churches with as little compunction poverty and sickness pleaded to them in vain when, firelocks fireb rands with in one hand and in the other, they thundered through the deserted street and marked “ ’ 1 Harris s ll Co ection, Cowl e s Vo a e vol y y g , . i. 1 748 . 6 WIL LIA M D A MP /E R CHA P. ’ Centurion s It is there recorded that the consort, the Gl t on n 21 st ouces er, was descried Ju e from the island of Juan Fernandez some eight or ten miles to lee i hin o . ward, beat ng or reac g int the bay The weather a r ds thickened and she disappeared. Five d ys afte war for o she again hove in sight, and a wh le fortnight she a was stretching aw y first on one, then on the other a i ff t ck, in va n e ort to reach the island ; nor was it 23rd h until July t at she was able to enter the bay, the i and then only because wind had sh fted, and per m itted her to head for her destination with a flowing i h sheet. Thus for above a month was th s s ip striving to get to Windward and traverse three leagues on a taut bowline ! The old vessels were cumbrously rigged. At the head of their lower masts they carried huge round tops as big as a ballroom.