Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea Part 18

Du Guay-Trouin had now recovered his breath. Again the bellying canvas of the _St. Jacques des Victoires_ bore her down upon the _Delft_, and again the two war-dogs wrapped in deadly embrace. Hear the invincible Frenchman's own account of the final a.s.sault:

"With head down," he writes, "I rushed against the redoubtable Baron, resolved to conquer or to perish. The last action was so sharp and so b.l.o.o.d.y that every one of the Dutch officers was killed or wounded.

Wa.s.senaer, himself, received four dangerous wounds and fell on his quarterdeck, where he was seized by my own brave fellows, his sword still in his hand.

"The _Faluere_ had her share in the engagement, running alongside of me, and sending me forty men on board for reinforcement. More than half of my own crew perished in this action. I lost in it one of my cousins, first Lieutenant of my own ship, and two other kinsmen on board the _Sans-Pareil_, with many other officers killed or wounded.

It was an awful butchery."

But at last he had won, and the victorious pennon of the Privateer fluttered triumphant over the battered hulks which barely floated upon the spar-strewn water.

"The horrors of the night," he writes, "the dead and dying below, the ship scarcely floating, the swelling waves threatening each moment to engulf her, the wild howling of the storm, and the iron-bound coast of Bretagne to leeward, were all together such as to try severely the courage of the few remaining officers and men.

"At daybreak, however, the wind went down; we found ourselves near the Breton coast; and, upon our firing guns and making signals of distress, a number of boats came to our a.s.sistance. In this manner was the _St. Jacques_ taken into Port Louis, followed in the course of the day by the three Dutch ships-of-war, twelve of the merchant ships, the _Lenore_, and the two St. Malo privateers. The _Sans-Pareil_ did not get in till the next day, after having been twenty times upon the point of perishing by fire and tempest."

Thus ended the great fight of Renee Du Guay-Trouin, whose blood, you see, was quite as blue as his breeches.

"Again," wrote His Majesty the King, "do I offer you a commission in the Royal Navy, Du Guay-Trouin. Will you accept? This time it is a Captaincy."

"I do," replied little Renee,--quite simply--and, at the next dinner of the officers of the Royal Marines, they sang a chorus, which ran:

"Oh, yes, he's only a Democrat, his blood is hardly blue, Oh, Sacre Nom de Dieu! Sapristi! Eet is true!

But he's a jolly tar dog, with dirk and pistol, too, He fights like William the Conqueror, he fights!

Egad! that's true!

A health to Renee the terrible; soldier and sailor too."

EDWARD ENGLAND

TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS

(1690?-_about_ 1725)

"A Privateer's not a Buccaneer, but they're pretty chummy friends, One flies a reg'lar ensign, there's nothing that offends.

One sails 'neath Letters Legal, t'other 'neath Cross-Bones, But, both will sink you, Sailor, or my name's not Davy Jones."

--_Old Ballad._

EDWARD ENGLAND

TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS

(1690?-_about_ 1725)

"If England wuz but wind an' paint, How we'd hate him.

But he ain't."

--_Log of the Royal James._

"Hit him with a bottle, he deserves it, th' brute!"

The man who spoke was a thick-set sailor of some forty-five summers, with a swarthy skin, a brownish mat of hair, a hard visage, and a cut across one eye. He stood upon the deck of a good-sized brig, which was drowsily lolling along the coast of Africa.

"Yes, he treated us like dogs aboard th' _Cuttlefish_. Here, give me a shot at 'im."

Thus cried another sailor--a toughish customer also--and, as his voice rang out, a dozen more came running to the spot.

Cringing before the evil gaze of the seamen stood the Captain of a Bristol merchantman--the _Cadogan_--which lay a boat's length away, upon the gla.s.sy surface of a rocking sea.

Again rang out the harsh tones of him who had first spoken.

"Ah, Captain Skinner, it is you, eh? You are the very person I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and I shall pay you in your own coin."

The poor Captain trembled in every joint, and said, with a curious chattering of his teeth,

"Yes, Edward England, you've got me now. But go easy like, will yer? I always was a friend o' yourn."

"Yer didn't look like a friend on th' old _Jamaica_, when you refused to pay me my wages," interrupted the first speaker. "Yer didn't remove me to 'er cursed man-o'-warsman, did yer? Yer didn't see that I got th' cat-o'-nine-tails on my back, did yer? Now, Mr. Skinner, it's my chance ter get even. Tie him ter th' windla.s.s, boys, and we'll fix th'

feller's hash."

With a jeering laugh the sailors seized the frightened man, roped him tightly to the desired prop, and, procuring a lot of gla.s.s bottles, pelted him with them until their arms were tired.

"You wuz a good master to me, Captain Skinner," cried one. "Now you're gettin' a dose of your own medicine. Overboard with him, Boys."

And, suiting the action to the words, he seized him by the collar. The ropes were unwound. The poor wretch was dragged to the rail, and, as his body spun out into the oily sea, a shot ended the life of poor Thomas Skinner of the _Cadogan_ from Bristol. Captain Edward England and his men had had a sweet and sure revenge.

Where this reckless mariner was born, it is difficult to ascertain.

We know that he started life honestly enough, for he was mate of a sloop that sailed from Jamaica, about the year 1715, and was taken by a pirate called Captain Winter. The youthful sailor soon took up the careless ways of his captors, and it was not many years before he became Captain of his own vessel: a sloop flying the black flag with a skull and cross-bones.

Off the east coast of Africa he soon took a ship called the _Pearl_, for which he exchanged his own sloop, fitting the new vessel up for piratical service, after rechristening her the _Royal James_. Cruising about in this staunch craft, he captured several ships of different sizes and flying the flags of many nations. He was rich and prosperous.

"Captain," said one of his reckless followers, at this time, "man-o'-warsmen are gettin' too thick in these parts for an honest sailor. Let's get across th' pond to th' Brazilian coast."

"You're quite right," answered England. "We've got to look for other pickings. After we provision-up, we'll sail towards th' setting sun.

That's a fresh field and we can have it to ourselves."

So all made ready for a trans-Atlantic voyage.

But Captain England was in error when he said that he was sailing for fields which had never before been touched. Two other piratical vessels: the _Revenge_ and the _Flying King_, had been cruising off the coast of Brazil, just before his advent. Fighting in partnership, they had taken two Portuguese schooners, and were making off with them, when a Portuguese man-o'-warsman came booming along under full canvas. She was an unwelcome guest.

Setting all sail the two pirates had attempted to get away and the _Revenge_ succeeded in doing so. Two days later a typhoon struck her and she was soon swinging bottom upwards, with the kittiwakes shrieking over her barnacled keel.

But the revengeful man-o'-warsman ploughed relentlessly after the _Flying King_, which could not fly quite fast enough, this time, and--in despair--was run, bows on, upon the sh.o.r.e, where the crew scrambled to the sand in a desperate endeavor to get away. The sailors from the man-o'-warsman were speedy; they shot twelve of the buccaneers, took the rest prisoners (there were seventy in all) and hanged thirty-eight to the yard-arm. News of this came to Captain England when he neared the tropic coast of Brazil.