Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
forswear his evil courses.
However, he jogged along in his course of piracy snugly enough until
he fell foul of the gallant Colonel Rhett, off Charleston Harbor,
whereupon his luck and his courage both were suddenly snuffed out with
a puff of powder smoke and a good rattling broadside. Down came the
"Black Roger" with its skull and crossbones from the fore, and Colonel
Rhett had the glory of fetching back as pretty a cargo of scoundrels
and cutthroats as the town ever saw.
After the next assizes they were strung up, all in a row--evil apples
ready for the roasting.
"Ned" England was a fellow of different blood--only he snapped his
whip across the back of society over in the East Indies and along the
hot shores of Hindustan.
The name of Capt. Howel Davis stands high among his fellows. He was
the Ulysses of pirates, the beloved not only of Mercury, but of
Minerva.
He it was who hoodwinked the captain of a French ship of double the
size and strength of his own, and fairly cheated him into the
surrender of his craft without the firing of a single pistol or the
striking of a single blow; he it was who sailed boldly into the port
of Gambia, on the coast of Guinea, and under the guns of the castle,
proclaiming himself as a merchant trading for slaves.
The cheat was kept up until the fruit of mischief was ripe for the
picking; then, when the governor and the guards of the castle were
lulled into entire security, and when Davis's band was scattered about
wherever each man could do the most good, it was out pistol, up
cutlass, and death if a finger moved. They tied the soldiers back to
back, and the governor to his own armchair, and then rifled wherever
it pleased them. After that they sailed away, and though they had not
made the fortune they had hoped to glean, it was a good snug round sum
that they shared among them.
Their courage growing high with success, they determined to attempt
the island of Del Principe--a prosperous Portuguese settlement on the
coast. The plan for taking the place was cleverly laid, and would have
succeeded, only that a Portuguese negro among the pirate crew turned
traitor and carried the news ashore to the governor of the fort.
Accordingly, the next day, when Captain Davis came ashore, he found
there a good strong guard drawn up as though to honor his coming. But
after he and those with him were fairly out of their boat, and well
away from the water side, there was a sudden rattle of musketry, a
cloud of smoke, and a dull groan or two. Only one man ran out from
under that pungent cloud, jumped into the boat, and rowed away; and
when it lifted, there lay Captain Davis and his companions all of a
heap, like a pile of old clothes.
Capt. Bartholomew Roberts was the particular and especial pupil of
Davis, and when that worthy met his death so suddenly and so
unexpectedly in the unfortunate manner above narrated, he was chosen
unanimously as the captain of the fleet, and he was a worthy pupil of
a worthy master. Many were the poor fluttering merchant ducks that
this sea hawk swooped upon and struck; and cleanly and cleverly were
they plucked before his savage clutch loosened its hold upon them.
"He made a gallant figure," says the old narrator, "being dressed in a
rich crimson waistcoat and breeches and red feather in his hat, a gold
chain around his neck, with a diamond cross hanging to it, a sword in
his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling
flung over his shoulders according to the fashion of the pyrates."
Thus he appeared in the last engagement which he fought--that with the
_Swallow_--a royal sloop of war. A gallant fight they made of it,
those bulldog pirates, for, finding themselves caught in a trap
betwixt the man-of-war and the shore, they determined to bear down
upon the king's vessel, fire a slapping broadside into her, and then
try to get away, trusting to luck in the doing, and hoping that their
enemy might be crippled by their fire.
Captain Roberts himself was the first to fall at the return fire of
the _Swallow_; a grapeshot struck him in the neck, and he fell forward
across the gun near to which he was standing at the time. A certain
fellow named Stevenson, who was at the helm, saw him fall, and
thought he was wounded. At the lifting of the arm the body rolled over
upon the deck, and the man saw that the captain was dead. "Whereupon,"
says the old history, "he" [Stevenson] "gushed into tears, and wished
that the next shot might be his portion." After their captain's death
the pirate crew had no stomach for more fighting; the "Black Roger"
was struck, and one and all surrendered to justice and the gallows.
* * * * *
Such is a brief and bald account of the most famous of these pirates.
But they are only a few of a long list of notables, such as Captain
Martel, Capt. Charles Vane (who led the gallant Colonel Rhett, of
South Carolina, such a wild-goose chase in and out among the sluggish
creeks and inlets along the coast), Capt. John Rackam, and Captain
Anstis, Captain Worley, and Evans, and Philips, and others--a score or
more of wild fellows whose very names made ship captains tremble in
their shoes in those good old times.
And such is that black chapter of history of the past--an evil
chapter, lurid with cruelty and suffering, stained with blood and
smoke. Yet it is a written chapter, and it must be read. He who
chooses may read betwixt the lines of history this great truth: Evil
itself is an instrument toward the shaping of good. Therefore the
history of evil as well as the history of good should be read,
considered, and digested.
Chapter II
THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN BRAND
It is not so easy to tell why discredit should be cast upon a man
because of something that his grandfather may have done amiss, but the
world, which is never overnice in its discrimination as to where to
lay the blame, is often pleased to make the innocent suffer in the
place of the guilty.
Barnaby True was a good, honest, biddable lad, as boys go, but yet he
was not ever allowed altogether to forget that his grandfather had
been that very famous pirate, Capt. William Brand, who, after so many
marvelous adventures (if one may believe the catchpenny stories and
ballads that were written about him), was murdered in Jamaica by Capt.
John Malyoe, the commander of his own consort, the _Adventure_ galley.
It has never been denied, that ever I heard, that up to the time of
Captain Brand's being commissioned against the South Sea pirates he
had always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea captain as could
be.
When he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the
_Royal Sovereign_, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of
New York. The governor himself had subscribed to the adventure, and
had himself signed Captain Brand's commission. So, if the unfortunate
man went astray, he must have had great temptation to do so, many
others behaving no better when the opportunity offered in those
far-away seas where so many rich purchases might very easily be taken
and no one the wiser.
To be sure, those stories and ballads made our captain to be a most
wicked, profane wretch; and if he were, why, God knows he suffered and
paid for it, for he laid his bones in Jamaica, and never saw his home
or his wife and daughter again after he had sailed away on the _Royal
Sovereign_ on that long misfortunate voyage, leaving them in New York
to the care of strangers.
At the time when he met his fate in Port Royal Harbor he had obtained
two vessels under his command--the _Royal Sovereign_, which was the
boat fitted out for him in New York, and the _Adventure_ galley, which
he was said to have taken somewhere in the South Seas. With these he
lay in those waters of Jamaica for over a month after his return from
the coasts of Africa, waiting for news from home, which, when it came,
was of the very blackest; for the colonial authorities were at that
time stirred up very hot against him to take him and hang him for a
pirate, so as to clear their own skirts for having to do with such a
fellow. So maybe it seemed better to our captain to hide his
ill-gotten treasure there in those far-away parts, and afterward to
try and bargain with it for his life when he should reach New York,
rather than to sail straight for the Americas with what he had earned
by his piracies, and so risk losing life and money both.
However that might be, the story was that Captain Brand and his
gunner, and Captain Malyoe of the _Adventure_ and the sailing master
of the _Adventure_ all went ashore together with a chest of money (no
one of them choosing to trust the other three in so nice an affair),
and buried the treasure somewhere on the beach of Port Royal
Harbor. The story then has it that they fell a-quarreling about a
future division of the money, and that, as a wind-up to the affair,
Captain Malyoe shot Captain Brand through the head, while the sailing
master of the _Adventure_ served the gunner of the _Royal Sovereign_
after the same fashion through the body, and that the murderers then
went away, leaving the two stretched out in their own blood on the
sand in the staring sun, with no one to know where the money was hid
but they two who had served their comrades so.
It is a mighty great pity that anyone should have a grandfather who
ended his days in such a sort as this, but it was no fault of Barnaby
True's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing that he
was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather
turned pirate, and was only one year old when he so met his tragical
end. Nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of
calling him "Pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that
famous catchpenny song beginning thus:
Oh, my name was Captain Brand,
A-sailing,
And a-sailing;
Oh, my name was Captain Brand,
A-sailing free.
Oh, my name was Captain Brand,
And I sinned by sea and land,
For I broke God's just command,
A-sailing free.
'Twas a vile thing to sing at the grandson of so misfortunate a man,
and oftentimes little Barnaby True would double up his fists and would
fight his tormentors at great odds, and would sometimes go back home
with a bloody nose to have his poor mother cry over him and grieve for
him.
Not that his days were all of teasing and torment, neither; for if his
comrades did treat him so, why, then, there were other times when he
and they were as great friends as could be, and would go in swimming
together where there was a bit of sandy strand along the East River
above Fort George, and that in the most amicable fashion. Or, maybe
the very next day after he had fought so with his fellows, he would go
a-rambling with them up the Bowerie Road, perhaps to help them steal
cherries from some old Dutch farmer, forgetting in such adventure what
a thief his own grandfather had been.
Well, when Barnaby True was between sixteen and seventeen years old he
was taken into employment in the countinghouse of Mr. Roger Hartright,
the well-known West India merchant, and Barnaby's own stepfather.
It was the kindness of this good man that not only found a place for
Barnaby in the countinghouse, but advanced him so fast that against