William Dampier. William Clark Russell
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eleven hundred militiamen. Such was the Panama of which our handful of audacious buccaneers were coolly proposing the sacking, and doubtless the burning. It seems, however, that when they arrived most of the soldiers were absent, and Ringrose tells us that had they attempted the town at once instead of attacking the ships in the bay, they must have made an easy conquest. The desperate energy, the hot and furious courage, of an earlier race of pirates were wanting in them. They lingered long enough to enable the city to render its capture impracticable, and then, feigning a sentimental interest in the condition of the Indians, they despatched word to the Governor that if he would suffer the natives to enjoy their own “power and liberty,” and send to the buccaneers five hundred pieces of eight for each man, and one thousand pieces of eight for each commander, they would desist from further hostilities. A civil message was returned, and they were also asked from whom they received their commission; to which Captain Sawkins responded in a style which he may have borrowed from the tragedies of Nathaniel Lee: “That as yet all his company were not come together; but that when they were come up, we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read them as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them.” All this was mere windy, hectoring talk, and nothing followed it. The buccaneers were growing mutinous with famine, and as it was clear there was nothing to be done with Panama, Captain Sawkins, who was chief in command, gave orders to weigh anchor, and the pirates sailed away without a ducat's worth of satisfaction for the prodigious hardships they had endured.
Whilst they lay at anchor before Caboa the two chief commanders, Sawkins and Sharp, went ashore with sixty or seventy men to attack Puebla Nueva. Ringrose dates this attempt May 22nd, 1680. The inhabitants were prepared, and the only issue of a sharp engagement was the death of Captain Sawkins and the loss of several of his people. This defeat led to a mutiny among the buccaneers. Eventually Captain Sharp, who was now chief in command, called the men together and proposed to them to remain in the South Sea and then go home by way of the Horn, adding that he would guarantee that every man who stayed with him should be worth a thousand pounds by the time he arrived in England. This scheme of cruising in the South Sea against the Spaniards had been Sawkins's fixed project, and he was so great a favourite that had he lived it is probable the whole of the crew would have accompanied him; but Sharp did not enjoy the general confidence of his people, and a number of the men sullenly and obstinately refused to linger any longer in these waters. Ringrose was amongst those who were weary of the hazardous and unremunerative adventures of the buccaneers, and would have been glad to leave the ship. Had he done so there would have been no record of this voyage of Dampier; but he was wise enough to fear the Indians and to dread the sufferings of an overland journey in the rainy season. He therefore resolved to remain with Captain Sharp, amongst whose adherents was William Dampier. Sixty-three of the men left them, and then on Sunday, June 6th, 1680, Captain Sharp and his people steered away to the southward with the intention of plundering Arica.
On approaching the coast they found the bay guarded by numerous parties of horsemen, whilst the tops of the hills were also lined with men. They withdrew without firing a gun. Better luck, however, befell them on October 29th at Hilo. This place they took without difficulty, and found it stored with quantities of pitch, tar, wine, oil, and flour. The sacking of Hilo was a sort of holiday jaunt for the freebooters, who feasted delightfully on olives, lemons, and limes; on cakes, on flagons of cool wines, on great strawberries, and sweetmeats and other delicacies. As they marched up the valley the Spaniards accompanied their progress upon the hill-tops, and rolled great stones down upon them, but no man was hurt; whilst to the explosion of a single musket every visible Spanish head was instantly ducked out of sight. Much that strikes one as marvellous in the achievements of the buccaneers in the South Sea vanishes when one thinks of the abject cowardice of the American Spaniards. Had their troops been composed of priests and old women, they could not have fled with livelier hysterical nimbleness from the sight of the English colours. The picture is humiliating, though it is not wanting in the ridiculous. All through the buccaneering annals, as in Anson's and the voyages of others, one is incessantly meeting with this sort of thing:—A boat filled with armed privateersmen approaches the beach. A numerous party of horsemen, bristling with sabres, lances, and muskets, stand as in a posture to dispute their landing. But as the boat draws near the horsemen retreat, and in no very good order, back to behind the town as the seamen spring ashore. They are finally seen on the summit of a hill in company with several troops of foot soldiers, who, whilst their bands play and their banners proudly flutter, gaze downwards at the twenty or thirty sailors who are firing the houses of their town and lurching seawards with sacks of silver on their backs.
Ringrose calls a halt at the “Isle of Plate,” as he writes it, to tell us a little story: “This Island received its Name from Sir Francis Drake, and his famous Actions. For it is reported that he here made the Dividend of that vast quantity of Plate which he took in the Armada of this sea, distributing it to each Man of his Company by whole Bowls full. The Spaniards affirm to this Day that he took at that Time twelvescore Tons of Plate, and sixteen bowls of coined Money a Man; his number being then forty-five Men in all; insomuch that they were forced to heave much of it overboard, because his ship could not carry it all. Hence this Island was called by the Spaniards the Isle of Plate, from this great Dividend, and by us Drake's Isle.”
Traditions of this kind were very nicely calculated to keep the buccaneering heart high. Our genial freebooter has also another yarn to spin in connection with this coast. He says that in the time of Oliver Cromwell the merchants of Lima fitted out a ship armed with seventy brass guns, with a treasure in her hold of no less than thirty millions of dollars, “all which vast sum of money,” he says, “was given by the merchants of Lima, and sent as a present to our Gracious King (or rather his father) who now reigneth, to supply him in his exile and distress, but that this great and rich ship was lost by keeping along the shore in the Bay of Manta above mentioned or thereabouts. The truth whereof is much to be questioned.” Be his stories true or false, however, it is pleasant to sail in the company of an old seaman who has an anecdote to fit every bay or headland of the coast along which he jogs. Unhappily Ringrose, who begins very well, drifts fast into the unsuggestive trick of “loggings,” telling us in twenty pages at a stretch that on Monday the sun rose at such and such an hour, that on Tuesday it blew a fresh gale, that on Wednesday there was a ring round the moon, that on Thursday they had made thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, and so forth. It is by comparing the best of the early mariners' narratives with Dampier's that one remarks his eminent superiority as a writer, observer, and describer.
As they sailed down the American seaboard they captured a few small vessels, but their booty was inconsiderable. On December 3rd, 1680, they attacked the city of La Serena. They routed the Spaniards, who, in flying, carried away the best of their goods and jewels. An offer of ransom was made, and the price fixed was ninety-five thousand pieces of eight. It was soon rendered plain, however, that the enemy had no intention of paying, whereupon the buccaneers fired every house in the town to the end that the whole place might be reduced to ashes. Before the ship sailed she was very nearly burnt by a curious Spanish stratagem. A horse's hide was blown out with wind to the condition of a bladder. A man got upon it and silently paddled himself under the stern of the privateer, between whose rudder and sternpost he crammed a mass of oakum, brimstone, and other combustible matter. This done, he softly fired it with a match and sneaked away ashore. The buccaneers observing the dark mass on the water, concluded it to be a dead horse, and gave it no particular heed. On a sudden the alarm of fire was raised; the rudder was seen to be burning and the ship was full of smoke. After some trouble the flames were extinguished, and then suspecting some stratagem in the object they had previously lightly glanced at, they sent the boat ashore, where the puffed-out hide was found with a match burning at both ends of it.
By Christmas Day they were at anchor off the Island of Juan Fernandez. It is noteworthy that Ringrose, in his journal under date of January 3rd, says that their pilot told them that many years ago a ship was cast away upon this island and only one man saved, who lived alone upon it for over five years before any vessel came that way to carry him off. It is curious that none of the biographers of Defoe should refer to this statement in dealing with the inspirations of the great writer's masterpiece. Whilst lying at this island there was trouble amongst the men, which resulted in Captain Sharp being deposed. A number of the crew wanted