Historical Tales Volume Iii Part 10

But the freebooters had lost heavily, and Panama, a city defended by walls and forts, remained to be taken. Morgan knew that success depended on taking instant advantage of the panic of the enemy, and he advanced without delay against the town. It was strongly defended with artillery, but the impetuous a.s.sault of the freebooters carried all before it, and after a three hours' fight the city was in their hands.

The scenes that followed were marked by the most atrocious ferocity and vandalism. The city was given up to indiscriminate pillage, attended by outrages of every kind, and in the end was set on fire by Morgan's orders and burned to the ground, much of its great wealth being utterly consumed through the sheer instinct of destruction.

Fortunately for the people of Panama, the majority of them had sought safety in flight, taking their women and all their portable wealth. In pursuit of those that had fled by water Morgan sent out a well-manned ship, which returned after a two days' cruise with three prizes. It also brought back news that a large galleon, deeply laden with treasure in gold and silver and carrying away the princ.i.p.al women of the town, with their jewels, had escaped. It was poorly manned and defended and for days Morgan made strenuous efforts to discover and capture it, but fortunately this rich prize eluded his grasp.

For three weeks the freebooters occupied the site of the burned city, many of them engaged in searching the ruins for gold and silver, while some, who were discontented with the acts of their leader, conspired to seize the largest ship in the harbor and start on a piratical cruise of their own down the Pacific. This coming to Morgan's ears on the eve of its execution, he defeated it by causing the main-mast of the ship to be cut down, and afterwards by setting fire to all the ships in the harbor.

The return of the freebooters had its items of interest. The booty, consisting of gold, silver, and jewels, was laden on a large number of animals, beside which disconsolately walked six hundred prisoners, men, women, and children, Morgan refusing them their liberty except on payment of a ransom which they could not procure. Some of them succeeded in obtaining the ransom on the march, but the majority were taken to Chagres.

From there they were sent in a ship to Porto Bello, a neighboring coast town, Morgan threatening that place with destruction unless a heavy ransom was sent him. The inhabitants sent word back that not a half-penny would be paid, and that he might do what he pleased. What he pleased to do was to carry out his threat of destroying the town.

The final outcome of this frightful raid remains to be told. It demonstrated that Morgan was as faithless to his companions as he was ferocious to his victims. On their way back from Panama he ordered that every man should be searched and every article they had secreted be added to the general store. To induce them to consent he offered himself to be searched first. In the final division, however, of the spoil, which was valued at four hundred and forty-three thousand two hundred pounds weight of silver, he played the part of a traitor, many of the most precious articles disappearing from the store and the bulk of the precious stones especially being added by Morgan to his share.

This and other acts of the leader created such a hostile feeling among the men that a mutiny was imminent, to avoid which Morgan secretly set sail with his own and three other vessels, whose commanders had shared with him in the unequal division of the spoil. The fury of the remaining freebooters, on finding that they had been abandoned, was extreme, and they determined to pursue and attack Morgan and his confederates, but lack of provisions prevented them from carrying this into effect.

Meanwhile, events were taking place not much to the comfort of the freebooting fraternity. An English ship-of-the-line arrived at Jamaica with orders to bring home the governor to answer for the protection he had given "these bloodthirsty and plundering rascals," while the governor who succeeded him issued the severest orders against any future operations of the freebooters.

From this time Morgan withdrew from his career of robbery, content to enjoy the wealth which he had so cruelly and treacherously obtained. He settled in Jamaica, where he was permitted to enjoy in security his ill-gotten wealth. In fact, the British government showed its real sentiment concerning his career by promoting him to high offices and giving him the honor of knighthood. As a result this faithless and cruel pirate bore during the remainder of his life the distinction of being addressed as Sir Henry Morgan.

A DRAMA OF PLUNDER, MURDER, AND REVENGE

A famous story of American history is that which tells of the ma.s.sacre of the French settlers in Florida by the Spaniards of St. Augustine, and of the signal revenge taken on the murderers by the French chevalier Dominique de Gourgues. There is a parallel tale to tell about Brazil, not so full of the element of romance, yet for all that an interesting story and well worth the telling.

The great Portuguese colony of Brazil, like many of the Spanish colonies, was open to the attacks of buccaneers and of free lances of the seas bearing the flags of various countries of Europe. There was not an important port of the country, except its capital, Rio Janeiro, that escaped attack by hostile fleets, eager for spoil, during the seventeenth century, and early in the eighteenth Rio itself was made the victim of a.s.sault. A city of over twelve thousand people, and the gateway to a rich gold-mining country in the rear, its wealth invited a visit from the prize-seekers, though the strength of its population and garrison long kept these away. Its turn for a.s.sault came in 1710.

In that year a squadron appeared in the waters outside the harbor on which the people looked with doubt. It flew the French flag, and that standard had not been a welcome visitor in the past. In fact, it was commanded by a daring Frenchman named Duclerc, who was on the seas for spoil. But a look at the strong defences of the harbor entrance, and some exchange of shots, warned him of the perils that would attend an attempt to pa.s.s them by force, and he sailed on to a point some forty miles down the coast, where he landed a party of a thousand marines.

His design to attack the city with this small party seemed folly. The governor, Francisco de Castro, had a force of eight thousand Portuguese troops, besides five thousand armed negroes and several hundred Indian bowmen. But he lacked the heart of a soldier, and Duclerc's marines marched like so many buccaneers through the forest for seven days without meeting a foeman. Even when near the city the only enemies in sight were a handful of men led by a friar, who attacked them boldly in defence of his church. After capturing this, the daring French charged into the city in the face of the fire from the forts on the surrounding hills, to which the governor's troops had been withdrawn.

The very boldness of the a.s.sault, and the failure of the governor to guard the streets with troops, nearly led to success. Little resistance was made by the few soldiers in the city, and the French traversed the narrow streets until the central square was reached. Here they met their first check from a party of fifty students, who had entered the palace of the governor and fired upon them from the windows. The first French a.s.sailants who forced their way in were taken prisoners and tied to the furniture. In the custom-house adjoining was the magazine. Here, as the storekeeper was hastily giving out ammunition, a fellow with a lighted match approached and carelessly set fire to the powder. In a moment the building was blown into the air, and the palace, which the French were still a.s.sailing, was set on fire.

The people were now rising, and the several detachments into which the attacking force had divided found themselves fiercely a.s.sailed. Duclerc, at the head of the main body, after losing heavily, barricaded himself in a stone warehouse on the quay, round which his foes gathered thickly.

While there the bells of the city rang out merrily, a sound which he fancied to be made by his own men, who he thought were thus celebrating their victory. In reality it signified the victory of the Portuguese, who had fallen upon, defeated, and slaughtered one of his detachments. A second detachment, which had entered and begun to plunder the magazine, was set upon by the rabble and completely butchered. Duclerc's defence soon grew hopeless, and he was forced to surrender at discretion. The Portuguese sullied their victory by acts of cruel reprisal, many of the prisoners in their hands being murdered. In all nearly seven hundred of the French were killed and wounded. Six hundred, including the wounded, were taken prisoners, and of these many died through bad treatment in the prisons. Duclerc was murdered some-months after being taken. Soon after the fight the squadron appeared off the port, where its officers, learning of the loss of the a.s.sailants, squared their yards and sailed away for France. Thus ended the first act in our tragedy of plunder.

The second act was one of revenge. In France was found a second Dominique de Gourgues to call to a harsh account the murderers of his countrymen.

France, indeed, was in a fury throughout when the news came of the inhuman slaughter of its citizens. The man who played the part of De Gourgues was a distinguished and able naval officer named M. de Guay-Trouin. He was moved by a double motive. While hot for revenge, the hope for plunder was an equally inspiring force. And the fame that might come to him with victory added still another motive. The path was made easy for him, for the government gave its approval to his enterprise, and certain wealthy citizens of St. Malo, eager for gain, volunteered the money to fit out the expedition.

It was important to keep the affair secret, and the vessels were fitted out at different ports to avoid suspicion. Yet the rumor that an unusual number of war-vessels were being got ready was soon afloat and reached Portugal, where its purpose was suspected, and a fleet of merchant and war-vessels was hurried to sea with supplies and reinforcements for Rio.

The suspicion reached England, also, and that country, then on the side of Portugal, sent out a fleet to blockade Brest, where the vessels of the expedition then lay, and prevent its sailing. But Admiral Trouin was not the man to be caught in a trap, and he hurried his ships out of port before they were quite ready, leaving the British an empty harbor to seal up. The work of preparation was finished at Roch.e.l.le, whence the fleet sailed in June, 1711. It consisted of seven line-of-battle ships, their number of guns varying from seventy-four to fifty-six, six frigates, and four smaller vessels, and had on board five thousand picked men,-a formidable force to send against a colonial city.

The powerful fleet made its way safely over the sea, and reached the vicinity of the northern Brazilian port of Bahia on August 27. Trouin had some thought of beginning his work here, but his water-supply was getting low and he felt obliged to hasten on. On the 11th of September he found himself off the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, with the city and its environing hills in full view.

The Portuguese had got ahead of him, the fleet from Lisbon having arrived, giving warning of the danger and reinforcing the garrison. Three forts and eleven batteries defended the narrow-mouthed harbor, within which lay four ships-of-the-line and as many frigates. Had all this force been directed by a man of ability the French might have found entrance to the bay impossible. But Francisco de Castro, the hopeless governor of the year before, was still at the head of affairs, and no man could have played more thoroughly into the hands of the French.

As it chanced, fortune favored the a.s.sailants. A heavy fog descended, under cover of which the fleet ran with little damage past the forts and entered the harbor. When the fog rose the Portuguese were dismayed to see their foes inside. Gaspar da Costa, the admiral of their fleet, was known as an able commander, but he was old and in feeble health, and such a panic now a.s.sailed him that he ran his ships in haste ash.o.r.e and set fire to them, leaving to his foes the undisputed command of the harbor. Admiral Trouin had won the first move in the game.

Governor de Castro proved to be as completely demoralized as Admiral da Costa. He had twice as many troops as the French, but not half the courage and ability of his adversary. Fort Villegagnon, one of the chief defences, was blown up by the mismanagement of its garrison, and during the state of panic of the Portuguese Trouin landed about four thousand men, erecting a battery on an island within easy cannon-shot of the city, and occupying a range of hills to the left which gave him command of that section of the place. The governor with his troops looked on from a distance while the French pillaged the adjoining suburb, dest.i.tute of tactics that any one could discover unless he proposed to let the French enter the streets and then attack them from the houses.

It was in this way they had been defeated the year before, but Trouin was too old a soldier to be caught in such a trap. He erected batteries on the surrounding hill-slopes till the town was commanded on three sides, while the governor kept the bulk of his forces at a distance, waiting for no one knew what. Trouin had been permitted, with scarcely a blow in defence, to make himself master of the situation, and he needed only to get his guns in place to be able to batter the town to the dust.

He now sent a demand to the governor to surrender, saying that he had been sent by the king of France to take revenge for the murder of Duclerc and the inhuman slaughter of his men. De Castro answered that his duty to his king would not permit him to surrender, and sought to show that the French had been honorably killed in battle and Duclerc murdered by an a.s.sa.s.sin beyond his control.

A poor affair of a governor De Castro proved, and the French were permitted to go on with their works almost unmolested, the Portuguese occupying hill forts, the fire from which did little harm to the enemy.

Trouin had already begun the bombardment of the city, and on receiving the governor's answer he kept his guns at work all night. At the same time there raged a tropical storm of great violence, accompanied by thunders that drowned the roar of the guns, the frightful combination throwing the people into such a state that they all fled in blind terror, the troops in the town with them. In the morning, when Trouin was ready to launch his storming parties, word was brought him that the city was deserted and lay at his mercy. Some of the richest magazines had been set on fire by the governor's order, but otherwise the rich city was abandoned, with all its wealth, to the French.

Of the relics of Duclerc's force, about five hundred remained alive in the city. These do not seem to have been then in prison, but living at large, and they were already abroad and plundering the abandoned city when the French forces entered. They had met good treatment as well as bad. Some of the people had been kind and hospitable to them, and in the sack of the city that ensued the houses of these charitable citizens were marked and left untouched.

Otherwise the sack was general, houses and warehouses being broken open, and quant.i.ties of valuable goods which could not be taken off being thrown into the mud of the streets. Now was the opportunity for the Portuguese to attack. Trouin was aware of the danger, but was unable to control his men, and a sudden a.s.sault by the garrison might have proved disastrous to the French. But the opportunity was allowed to pa.s.s, the governor, in fact, surrendering all his forts and marching his troops a league from the city, where he lay waiting reinforcements from the interior while the French plundered at their leisure.

Trouin was wise enough to know that his position was perilous. He might be overwhelmed by numbers, and it was important to finish his work and get away with little delay. But the plunder of the city was not sufficient for his purpose, and he sent word to the governor that he must ransom it or it would be burned. To make his word good he began by setting fire to the environs.

De Castro, eager to get rid of his foes at any price, offered six hundred thousand _cruzadoes_. This was refused by Trouin, and to stir up the governor to a better offer, the admiral took his messenger through the city and showed him that he was spoiling everything that fire would not burn. Learning, however, that the expected reinforcements might soon arrive, anxiety induced him to march his men to the front of the Portuguese camp, where he began to negotiate for better terms. The only addition De Castro would agree to was to promise the French a supply of cattle for food, fifteen days being allowed to collect the ransom.

Trouin, knowing well that he had no time to waste, accepted the terms, and none too soon, for shortly afterwards a strong body of reinforcements, led by an able general, entered the Portuguese camp. They came too late, the treaty had been made, and the new general felt bound in honor to make it good. So the ransom was paid, and on the 4th of November the triumphant French set sail, their ships deep laden with the rich plunder of the Brazilian capital and the gold of the governor's ransom.

The return home was not attended with the success of the earlier part of the expedition. Trouin had left Bahia to be visited and plundered on his return, but when he came near it the weather was so stormy that he was obliged to abandon this part of his plan. The storms followed the fleet on its way across the seas, and rose to such a height that two of his ships went to the bottom, carrying down twelve hundred men. One of these was the finest ship of the fleet, and in consequence had been laden with the most valuable booty. Of gold and silver alone it took down with it a weight valued at six hundred thousand livres. A third vessel went ash.o.r.e and was wrecked at Cayenne. Yet with all these losses, so much wealth was brought home that the speculators in spoil made a profit of ninety-two per cent.

on their investment.

The French had won in large measure revenge and plunder, while Trouin had gained his meed of fame. It was now Portugal's time for vengeance, and it was visited princ.i.p.ally on the worthless governor to whose cowardice the disaster was due. He had been praised and rewarded for the victory over Duclerc' s expedition-praise and reward which he certainly did not deserve. For very similar conduct he was now deposed and sentenced to degradation and perpetual imprisonment, on the charge of cowardice and lack of judgment. His nephew was banished for life for bad conduct, and a captain who had given up his fort and fled was hung in effigy. There were no others to punish, and Portugal was obliged to hold its hand, France being a foe beyond its reach. Rio had met with a terrible misfortune, from which it took many years to recover, and rarely have the sanguinary deeds of a murderous rabble led to so severe a retribution.

THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS

The March of the Ten Thousand, from Babylon to the Black Sea, is one of the famous events of history. The march of the three hundred, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which we have here to tell, is scarcely known to history at all, yet it was marked by a courage and command of resources as great as those of the ancient Greeks. We think our readers will agree with us when they read this story, taken from the records of the freebooters on the Spanish Main.

After ravaging the settlements of Spain on the Atlantic coasts, various fleets of these piratical adventurers sought the Pacific waters in 1685, and there for several years made life scarce worth living to the inhabitants of the Spanish coast cities. Time and again these were plundered of their wealth, numbers of their ships were taken, and a veritable reign of terror prevailed. As time went on, however, most of these freebooters withdrew, satisfied with their abundant gains, so that, by the end of 1687, only a few of them remained, and these were eager to return with their ill-gotten wealth to their native land.

This remnant of the piratical fraternity, less than three hundred in number, had their head-quarters on an island in the Bay of Mapalla, on the Central American coast. What vessels they had left were in a wretched condition, utterly unfit to attempt the vast sea voyage by way of the Straits of Magellan, and nothing seemed to remain for them but an attempt to cross the continent by way of Nicaragua and Honduras, fighting their way through a mult.i.tude of enemies. To the pen of Ravenneau de Lussan, one of the adventurers, we are indebted for the narrative of the singular and interesting adventure which follows.

The daring band of French and English freebooters were very ill provided for the dangerous enterprise they had in view. They proposed to cross an unknown country without guides and with a meagre supply of provisions, fighting as they went and conveying their sick and wounded as best they could. They had also a number of prisoners whom they felt it necessary to take with them, since to set them free would be to divulge their weakness to their enemies. Nature and circ.u.mstance seemed to combine against them, yet if they ever wished to see their native lands again they must face every danger, trusting that some of them, at least, might escape to enjoy their spoils.

After questioning their prisoners, they decided to take a route by way of the city of New Segovia, which lies north of the lake of Nicaragua, about one hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific and seventy-five miles from the waters of a river that flows, after a long course, into the Atlantic opposite Cape Gracias-a-Dios. In order to gain further information about the route, sixty men were sent to explore the neighboring country. These advanced till they were near the small city of Chiloteca. Here, worn out by their journey and learning that they were in a thickly settled country, most of the pioneers decided to return. But eighteen of the bolder spirits had the audacity to advance on Chiloteca, a place of perhaps a thousand inhabitants.

Into it they rushed with such ferocious yells and so terrific a fusillade of shots that the frightened inhabitants, taken utterly by surprise, fled in mortal terror, leaving the place to its captors. These quickly seized a number of horses, and made haste to retreat on their backs, hotly pursued by the Spaniards, who soon discovered to what a handful of men they had surrendered their city.

On receiving the report of their scouts, the freebooters determined on the desperate venture. They had little to convey except their spoil, which, the result of numerous raids, was valued at about one million dollars. It chiefly consisted of gold and jewels, all heavier valuables, even silver, being left in great part behind, as too heavy to carry. The spoil was very unequally owned, since the gambling which had gone on actively among them had greatly varied the distribution of their wealth. To overcome the anger and jealousy which this created among the poorer, those with much to carry shared their portions among their companions, with the understanding that, if they reached the Antilles in safety, half of it should be returned. As for the prisoners, it was decided to take them along, and make use of them for carrying the utensils, provisions, and sick.

On the 1st of January, 1688, these freebooters, two hundred and eighty-five in number, with sixty-eight horses, crossed in boats from their island refuge to the main-land and began their march. Their ships had been first destroyed, their cannon cast into the sea, and their bulkier effects burned. Divided into four companies, with forty men in front as an advance guard, they moved forward into a land of adventure and peril.

It was soon found that the people expected and had prepared for their coming. Trees had been felled across the roads and efforts made to obstruct all the foot-paths. Provisions had been carried away, and the dry herbage of the fields was set on fire as they advanced, almost suffocating them with the heat and smoke. This was done to hinder their march until the Spaniards had completed a strong intrenchment which was being built at a suitable place on the route.