The Monarchs of the Main. George W. Thornbury
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