Dampier'S First Voyage

There was another Mosquito Indian amongst the buccaneers, a man named Robin, who was the first to leap ashore to greet his brother black.

Dampier tells us that first Robin threw himself flat on his face at the feet of the other, who, helping him up and embracing him, fell flat on the ground at Robin’s feet, and was by him taken up also.

“We stood,” he says, “with pleasure to behold the surprise and tenderness and solemnity of this Interview, which was exceedingly affectionate on both Sides; and when their ceremonies of civility were over, we also, who stood gazing at them, drew near, each of us embracing him we had found here, who was overjoyed to see so many of his old friends come hither, as he thought, purposely to fetch him.”

They sailed from Juan Fernandez on April 8th, still in company with Eaton’s ship. During the month of May they captured several vessels, in one of which, besides a quantity of marmalade, they found a stately and handsome mule designed as a gift for the President of Panama, and an immense wooden image of the Virgin Mary.

They were, however, unfortunate enough to miss what would have better pleased them than mules and images. When this ship started from Lima, she had 800,000 dollars on board. But on her arrival at Guanchaco news of a privateersman then hovering off the port of Valdivia came to the ears of the merchants, who thereupon instantly removed every stiver out of the vessel.

The recital, even in an abbreviated form, of the adventures of these buccaneers upon the Western American seaboard would make a book of nearly half the thickness of Dampier’s first volume.

As a mere journal of exploits perhaps the narrative grows after a while a little tedious. One sea-fight is like another; the assaults by land lead to nothing; the prizes captured at sea are insignificant. [Pg 56]Yet Dampier’s page continues to charm us by the vivacity of his descriptions of coasts, of storms, of the corposant, of the turtle, and by a hundred unlaboured and unconscious felicities of phrase.

When off Cape Blanco Captain Cooke died. He was ill when at Juan Fernandez, and continued so till within two or three leagues of the Cape, when he suddenly expired, though Dampier tells us he seemed that morning to be as likely to live as he had been some weeks before; “But it is usual for sick Men coming from the Sea, where they have nothing but the Sea-Air, to die off as soon as ever they come within view of the Land.”

The command devolved upon Edward Davis, the quartermaster of the ship. Cooke’s body was taken ashore, and whilst some of the crew were burying it three Indians approached, believing the men to be Spaniards, and were made prisoners, though one of them shortly after escaped.

The others told the buccaneers of a farm where there was plenty of cattle to be had; and the attempt to steal the bullocks is marked by one of those incidents which convey a fuller idea of the resolved and desperate character of the freebooters, their perils, expedients, and astonishing escapes, than could be communicated by volumes of descriptions of their battles by sea and attacks by land.

12 men slept ashore, intending when the morning came to drive the bulls and cows which were feeding in the savannas down to the beach; but when the afternoon of the next day arrived they were still ashore, and their shipmates aboard the vessel growing uneasy, ten men were sent in a boat to see what had become of them. On entering the bay they observed the twelve fellows on a small rock half a mile from the shore standing in water to above their waists.

It seems that, having slept through the night, they had risen betimes to catch the cattle, when they were suddenly surprised by 50 armed Spaniards.

The privateersmen drew together in a body, and retreated without disorder or confusion to the beach, but on arriving there they found their boat, which they had dragged out of the water, in flames.

The Spaniards now made sure of them, and being numerous, ventured upon several sneers and scoffs before attacking them, asking them, for instance, if they would be so good as to do them the honour to walk to their plantation and steal their cattle and take whatever else they had a mind to, and so forth; to all which menacing and savagely deriding flouts the buccaneers answered never a word. The tide was at half-ebb; a privateersman catching sight of a rock a good distance from the shore, just then showing its head above water, whispered to the others that it would be as good as a castle to them if they could get there.

Meanwhile the Spaniards were beginning to whistle a shot amongst them now and then. One of the tallest of the buccaneers waded into the water to try if the distance to the rock could be forded.

The depth proved nowhere great; so the twelve marched over to the little distant stronghold, and there remained till their shipmates came for them. They stood about 7 hours in all, and must have perished had the boat not then arrived, for the water was flowing, and the tide thereabouts rose to eight feet. The enemy watched them from the shore, but always from behind the bushes, where they had first planted themselves.

“The Spaniards,” says Dampier contemptuously, “in these parts are very expert in heaving or [Pg 58]darting the Lance; with which upon occasion they will do great Feats, especially in Ambuscades: And by their good Will they care not for fighting otherwise, but content themselves with standing a loof, threatening and calling Names, at which they are as expert as the other; so that if their Tongues be quiet we always take it for granted they have laid some Ambush.”

Not very long after this Captain Davis and Captain Eaton separated, bringing the date to the second day of September 1684, and on the 24th Dampier’s ship arrived at La Plata and anchored. Whilst lying at this island the privateers were joined by Captain Swan in a vessel named the Cygnet. This ship had been freighted by certain London merchants for honourable traffic with the Spaniards in the South Seas, but when she was at Nicoya there arrived a troop of privateersmen from overland, and Swan’s men, bringing the pirates aboard, forced their captain to go a-buccaneering.

That Swan was as reluctant to oblige them as he afterwards represented himself to have been to Dampier, is possible; it is certain, however, that on meeting with Davis he threw most of the goods he had been freighted to trade with overboard, that his ship, by being “clear,” as it is called, might be the fitter to fight and chase. He seems to have been a man of some foresight.

Anticipating a time when there might happen such a scarcity of provisions as to force them out of those seas, he taught his men not only to eat, but actually to relish the oily, salt, and rancid flesh of penguins and boobys. “He would commend it,” says Dampier, “for extraordinary good food, comparing the seal to a roasting pig, the boobys to hens, and the penguins to ducks.”

The only land-attack of consequence was the attempt on Guayaquil by Swan and Davis. It was badly concerted and half-heartedly undertaken. They landed at about two miles from the town, and being unable to push their way through the tangled growths by night, sat down to wait for daylight. An Indian, who offered to pilot them, was attached to one of Davis’s men by a string. The privateersman losing heart, secretly cut the string, and, when the guide had gone some distance, bawled out that the Indian was off and that somebody had cut the cord!

What there was in this to terrify the others is not easily seen, but it is true, nevertheless, that their consternation was so great, not a man would venture a step farther. It was not long before they returned to their ship, and so ended their attempt on Guayaquil.

The only material issue of this cheap adventure was their capture of three vessels, on board of which were no less than one thousand negroes,—“all lusty young men and women,” says Dampier, who laments that they did not convey the whole of them to the Isthmus of Panama, and employ them in digging for gold in the mines at Santa Maria.

His idea might seem full of promise to him, but it takes another complexion when examined by the light of the experience of the twelve hundred men who embarked at Leith for Darien on July 26th, 1698.

On December 23, 1684, they sailed for the Bay of Panama. 9 days later, whilst proceeding from Tomaco towards Gallo, one of their canoes captured a pacquet-boat sailing from Panama to Lima.

The Spaniards buoyed the bag of letters and threw it overboard, but it was picked up by the buccaneers, who gathered from the despatches that the President of Panama had sent the mail-boat they had seized to hasten the sailing of the Plate Fleet from Lima.

Dampier says that the privateersmen “were very joyful of this news,” which is intelligible enough when we consider that the King of Spain’s treasure alone on board this fleet was commonly valued at twenty-four millions of dollars, whilst the worth of the galleons was still further increased by their carrying a vast amount in what was termed merchants’ money, besides rich commodities of all sorts. It was at once settled that the buccaneers should intercept this fleet.

They were in number now two vessels and three barks, and on February 14th, 1685, having finished the business of careening, cleaning, and watering their craft, they stood away for the Bay of Panama. Whilst they lay off the Island of Tobago they were nearly destroyed by a singular stratagem.

A man feigning to be a merchant came to them from Panama. He professed to act as by stealth, in which the buccaneers found no cause for suspicion, for it was common enough for Spanish merchants to traffic privately with them, notwithstanding the prohibition of the governors.

It was arranged that this merchant should fill his vessel with goods, and bring her by night to the English, who were to shift their berth to receive her.

He came, but with a fire-ship instead of a cargo-boat, and approaching the English close, hailed them with the watchword that had been settled upon. The privateers growing suspicious, ordered the vessel to bring to, and on her not doing so, fired into her.

Her crew instantly jumped into their boats, after firing the ship, which blew up and burnt close alongside of the privateersmen, “so that,” says Dampier, “we were forced to cut our cables in all haste, and scamper away as well as we could.”

Swan was also imperilled by another Spanish device. His ship lay about a mile distant, with a canoe made fast to his anchor-buoy.

Just as the fire-ship blew up, Swan noticed something floating on the water close aboard of him. He peered, and discerned a man upon it softly paddling the contrivance towards his vessel. Probably the fellow suspected he was discovered, for he suddenly dived and disappeared.