Privateer Life

The traditions of those days still linger, and the sailor of our own times suffers to a certain extent from prejudices which were excited and perpetuated by the bold and reckless savages of the age of Dampier and, later on, of Fielding. But I am speaking of the average merchantman; it is readily conceivable that the buccaneer or privateersman should have gone far beyond him.

He recognised no restrictions save those which were absolutely essential to his safety at sea; his profession of piracy rendered him insensible to cruelty by familiarising him with many of the most violent forms of it;

He slept like a wild animal upon the hard deck, with a rug for his cover and nothing [Pg 147]else between him and the stars. Dampier grimly says in his chapter on the winds: “‘Tis usual with Seamen in those parts to sleep on the Deck, especially for Privateers; among whom I made these Observations.

In Privateers, especially when we are at an Anchor, the Deck is spread with Mats to lye on each Night. Every Man has one, some two.

This, with a Pillow for the Head and a Rug for a Covering, is all the Bedding that is necessary for Men of that Employ.”

For one day the freebooter might feast on the fifty delicacies of a plundered ship, and for weeks his food would be so coarse and innutritious as to fill his eyes with the fires of famine and pale his cheek to the haggardness of the corpse.

It needed exceptional and extraordinary powers of command to control such wretches. The qualities of the men in charge of Rogers and Courtney are significantly expressed by their early mutiny. Many of them were seasoned buccaneers—ruffians whom not even the common hope could keep straight.

Fortunately for his employers, Rogers knew how to handle them.

On the 18th, the 2 vessels captured a small Spanish ship which they carried to Teneriffe. There were some male and female passengers on board, and she was laden with what would now be called a general cargo.

The English merchants, to whom possibly a portion of this cargo was consigned, objected to the capture, and represented that they would be in danger if the bark were not restored.

The agent of the privateers, a man named Vanbrugh, went ashore and was detained, and it came very near to Rogers and Courtney bombarding the town of Oratava.

When the inhabitants saw the vessels standing in with tompions out and all hands at quarters, they offered to satisfy the demands of the buccaneers, who thereupon sold the prize for 450 dollars and then made haste to sail away, very glad of the chance to once more “mind their own concerns,” as Rogers puts it.

On the last day of September they dropped anchor in the harbour of St. Vincent, one of the Cape de Verde Islands.

Scarcely were they arrived when fresh disturbances arose amongst the men. The mutiny originated in altercations touching the distribution of plunder, and with the hope of terminating these incessant and perilous brawls, the commanders went to work to frame such articles as they believed would inspire the seamen with confidence in the intentions of their superiors.

The paper they drew up is preserved, and it is of interest as illustrating a form of marine life that for generations has been as extinct as the ships in which the privateersmen sailed.

First of all it was settled that the plunder taken on board any prize by either ship should be equally divided between the companies of both ships.

Any man concealing booty exceeding the value of a dollar during twenty-four hours after the capture of a prize was to be severely punished, and to lose his share of the plunder.

Article 4 provided that:

“If any prize be taken by boarding, then whatsoever is taken shall be every man’s own as follows: a Sailor 10 pounds, any Officer below a Carpenter 20 pounds, a Mate, Gunner, Boatswain, and Carpenter 40 pounds, a Lieutenant or Master 80 pounds, and the Captains 100 pounds each, above the gratuity promised by the owners to such as shall signalise themselves.”

It was further agreed that twenty pieces of eight should be given to him who first saw a prize of good value.

Another article provided that every man on board, after the capture of a prize, should be searched by persons appointed for that purpose.

This agreement was signed by the officers and men of both ships, and was perhaps the best, if indeed it was not the only, expedient that Rogers could have hit upon for silencing the constant mutinous growlings of the rapacious rogues under his command, unavailing as it subsequently proved.

They weighed on October 8th and steered for the coast of Brazil. In spite of thoughtfully-framed articles, handsome concessions on the part of the captains, and the taut discipline of the quarter-deck, the spirit of mutiny continued strong.

The men were too numerous; the ship’s work made demands upon only a portion of them at a time; the crew had therefore plenty of leisure, which they employed in haranguing one another into insubordination. As an example of the difficulty of dealing with these men, it is related that a fellow named Page, who was second mate of the Dutchess, was ordered on board the Duke to exchange posts with a man similarly rated.

Captain Cooke was sent to fetch him; Page refused to come; a dispute followed, fists were doubled up and the men fell to blows.

They managed at last to convey the mutinous mate to the Duke, but before they had time to charge him with his offence, he sprang into the sea and started to swim back to his ship. He was recaptured, lifted over the side and punished—probably spread-eagled and man-handled, after the old fashion.

Disturbances of this kind were not calculated to gild the prospects of the sober-headed.

In the Dutchess they had eight of the ringleaders of a party (who had proposed [Pg 150]to run away with the ship) under hatches in irons. There were repeated attempts to desert after the vessels had come to an anchor on November 18th off the coast of Brazil.

Two sailors escaped into the woods, but were so terrified by the sight of a number of monkeys and baboons which they mistook for tigers, that they plunged into the water to the depth of their waists, and stood bawling for help until a boat was sent to fetch them aboard.

One thinks of Dampier, hot-tempered and prone to despondency, talking with his friend Rogers about the troublesome posture of the crew, expressing many doubts as to the practicability of the voyage, and perhaps suggesting adventures remote from the prescription of the Bristol merchants.

An incident peculiar to the old piratical life steals out in this part of the story. Early one morning the people who were on the look-out on the quarter-deck sighted a canoe gliding silently and shadow-like shorewards. It was hailed and ordered to come aboard; but no other answer was returned than the swifter plying of the oars. The pinnace and yawl were manned and sent in pursuit, and on approaching the canoe one of them fired into it to bring it to.

It held on bravely nevertheless, but was captured as its stem smote the beach. One of her people was a friar, who with quivering knees instantly owned to possessing a little store of gold, obtained, as the rough sailors surmised, “by his trade of confessing the ignorant.”

The father was very politely treated, but he did not seem to value the attention paid him by Captain Rogers. What he wanted was his gold, which there is no reason whatever to suppose he ever received. He talked of obtaining justice in Portugal or England, [Pg 151]and was answered by the hurricane shout to the forecastle to get the ship under-weigh.

The vessels were now fairly bound for the passage of the Horn. The crew, who in the torrid zone growled continuously and piratically in their gizzards, were no sooner in the high latitudes than they grew reasonable.

It was the summer season in that hemisphere, but Dampier carried them so far south that all hands nearly perished of cold.

At least 1/3 of the people of both ships were down with sickness; and they barely escaped a languishing and miserable end by the good fortune of prosperous winds, which blew them swiftly northwards under more temperate heights.

It was necessary to make land speedily for the sake of the men’s health, and Juan Fernandez was fixed upon. They steered for the island, but the charts differed and they could not find it. Dampier was as much at a loss as the rest, and wondered at not being able to hit it, telling how often he had been there, and how he carried a most accurate map of the island about with him in his head.

In order to find it they were forced to sail in sight of the coast of Chili, so as to obtain “a departure,” and then stretch away west upon the parallel of it, or thereabouts. They fell in with it at last, but not until after much fruitless scouring of the seas.

The name of Dampier is intimately associated with the passage that now follows. There is nothing, perhaps, in what may be termed the romantic chapters of the maritime annals more picturesque and impressive than the discovery by the Duke and Dutchess of Alexander Selkirk on the island of Juan Fernandez.

The accentuation the story obtained from the genius of Defoe makes [Pg 152]it immortal. But even as a mere anecdote, without better skill brought to bear upon it than is found in the plain relations of Rogers and Cooke, its interest is so remarkable, it is so brimful of fascinating inspiration, that of all sea-stories it bids fair to be the longest remembered.

Many people are familiar with the name of Dampier only in connection with the strange, surprising adventures of Mr. Alexander Selkirk.

The narrative belongs peculiarly to Dampier’s experiences. Selkirk was mate of the Cinque Ports when her captain, Stradling, was Dampier’s consort, and he was still that ship’s mate when Stradling quarrelled with Dampier at King’s Island in the Bay of Panama.

The tale is related by Woodes Rogers and by Cooke, [27]—an old-world tale indeed, which every schoolboy has by heart; yet I cannot satisfy myself that its omission on the score of triteness only would be desirable in a volume that professes to recount the most striking passages in the naval career of William Dampier.

Cooke’s version is fuller than Rogers’s—that is to say, he wrote two accounts of it, his reference to it in his first volume being deemed meagre and unsatisfactory by the public, who had been set agape by the wonderful yarn; but Rogers’s narrative is the better written; besides, as Dampier is aboard the Duke, it is proper to allow his captain to speak. The full story is much too long for quotation at large in these pages.

I therefore select the following as amongst the most striking passages. They were off the island on February 1st, 1709, and sent the pinnace ashore with Captain Dover in charge.

“As soon as it was dark, we saw a Light ashore.

Our Boat was then about a League from the Island, and bore away for the Ships as soon as she saw the Lights: We put our Lights aboard for the Boat, tho’ some were of Opinion the Lights we saw were our Boat’s Lights: But as Night came on it appeared too large for that. We fired our Quarterdeck Gun and several Musquets, shewing Lights in our Mizen and Fore Shrouds, that our Boat might find us whilst we were in the Lee of the Island: … All this Stir and Apprehension arose, as we afterwards found, from one poor naked Man who passed in our Imagination, at present, for a Spanish Garrison, a Body of Frenchmen, or a Crew of Pirates.”

Next day they sent their yawl ashore, and as this boat did not return, they despatched the pinnace to Seek her. Rogers then continues:

“Immediately our Pinnace returned from the Shore and brought abundance of Crayfish with a Man cloathed in Goat-skins, who looked wilder than the first Owners of them. He had been on the Island Four Years and Four Months, being left there by Captain Stradling in the Cinque Ports;

His Name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotsman who had been Master of the Cinque Ports, a Ship that came here last with Captain Dampier, who told me that this was the best man in her, and I immediately agreed with him to be a Mate on board our Ship: ‘Twas he that made the Fire last Night when he saw our Ships, which he judged to be English….

The reason of his being left here was a Difference between him and [Pg 154]his Captain; which, together with the Ship’s being leaky, made him willing rather to stay here, than go along with him at first; and when he was at last willing to go the Captain would not receive him….

He had with him his Cloaths and Bedding, with a Firelock, some Powder, Bullets, and Tobacco, a Hatchet, a Knife, a Kettle, a Bible, some Practical Pieces, and his Mathematical Instruments and Books.

He diverted and provided for himself as well as he could; but for the first eight Months had much ado to bear up against Melancholy and the Terror of being left alone in such a Place.

He built two Huts with Pimento-trees, covered them with long Grass, and lined them with the Skins of Goats, which he killed with his Gun as he wanted, so long as his Powder lasted, which was but a Pound; and that being almost spent, he got Fire by rubbing two Sticks of Pimento Wood together upon his Knee.

In the lesser Hut, at some Distance from the other, he dressed his Victuals; and in the larger he slept, and employed himself in Reading, singing Psalms, and Praying, so that he said he was a better Christian while in this Solitude than ever he was before, or than he was afraid he should ever be again.

At first he never eat anything till Hunger constrained him, partly for Grief and partly for want of Bread and Salt: Nor did he go to Bed till he could watch no longer; the Pimento Wood, which burnt very clear, served him both for Fire and Candle, and refreshed him with its fragrant Smell….

By the Favour of Providence and Vigour of his Youth, being now but thirty Years old, he came at last to conquer all the Inconveniences of his Solitude and to be very easy.

When his Cloaths were out he made himself a Coat and a Cap of Goat-skins, [Pg 155]which he stitched together with little Thongs of the same that he cut with his Knife.

He had no other Needle but a Nail; and when his Knife was worn to the Back he made others as well as he could of some Iron Hoops that were left ashore, which he beat thin, and ground upon Stones.

Having some Linen Cloth by him, he sewed him some Shirts with a Nail, and stitched them with the Worsted of his old Stockings, which he pulled out on purpose.

He had his last Shirt on when we found him in the Island. At his first coming on board us he had so much forgot his Language for want of Use that we could scarce understand him; for he seemed to speak his Words by halves. We offered him a Dram; but he would not touch it, having drank nothing but Water since his being there; and it was some Time before he could relish our Victuals.”

It is easy to imagine the interest with which Dampier would listen to the recital of his old associate’s strange adventures.