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As we have
seen that the buccaneers were mainly English, French,
and Dutch sailors, who were united to make a common
piratical warfare upon the Spaniards in the West Indies,
it may seem a little strange to find a man from Portugal
who seemed to be on the wrong side of this peculiar
fight which was going on in the new world between the
sailors of Northern and Southern Europe. But although
Portugal is such a close neighbor of Spain, the two
countries have often been at war with each other, and
their interests are by no means the same. The only advantage
that Portugal could expect from the newly discovered
treasures of the West were those which her seafaring
men, acting with the seafaring men of other nations,
should wrest from Spanish vessels homeward bound.
Consequently, there were Portuguese among the pirates
of those days. Among these was a man named Bartholemy
Portuguez, a famous flibustier. It may be here remarked
that the name of buccaneer was chiefly affected by the
English adventurers on our coast, while the French members
of the profession often preferred the name of "flibustier."
This word, which has since been corrupted into our familiar
"filibuster," is said to have been originally a
corruption, being nothing more than the French method
of pronouncing the word "freebooters," which title had
long been used for independent robbers.
Thus, although Bartholemy called himself a flibustier
(filibuster), he was really a buccaneer, and his name
came to be known all over the Caribbean Sea. From the
accounts we have of him it appears that he did not start
out on his career of piracy as a poor man. He had some
capital to invest in the business, and when he went
over to the West Indies he took with him a small ship,
armed with four small cannon, and manned by a crew of
picked men, many of them no doubt professional robbers,
and the others anxious for practice in this most alluring
vocation, for the gold fields of California were never
more attractive to the bold and hardy adventurers of
our country, than were the gold fields of the sea to
the buccaneers and flibustiers of the seventeenth century.
When Bartholemy reached the Caribbean Sea he probably
first touched at Tortuga, the pirates' head-quarters,
and then sailed out very much as if he had been a fisherman
going forth to see what he could catch on the sea. He
cruised about on the track generally taken by treasure
ships going from the mainland to the Havanas, or the
island of Hispaniola, and when at last he sighted a
vessel in the distance, it was not long before he and
his men had made up their minds that if they were to
have any sport that day it would be with what might
be called most decidedly a game fish, for the ship slowly
sailing toward them was a large Spanish vessel, and
from her portholes there protruded the muzzles of at
least twenty cannon. Of course, they knew that such
a vessel would have a much larger crew than their own,
and, altogether, Bartholemy was very much in the position
of a man who should go out to harpoon a sturgeon, and
who should find himself confronted by a vicious swordfish.
The Spanish merchantmen of that day were generally well
armed, for getting home safely across the Atlantic was
often the most difficult part of the treasure seeking.
There were many of these ships, which, although they
did not belong to the Spanish navy, might almost be
designated as men of war, and it was one of these with
which our flibustier had now met.
But pirates and fishermen cannot afford to pick and
choose. They must take what comes to them and make the
best of it, and this is exactly the way in which the
matter presented itself to Bartholemy and his men. They
held one of their councils around the mast, and after
an address from their leader, they decided that come
what may, they must attack that Spanish vessel.
So the little pirate sailed boldly toward the big Spaniard,
and the latter vessel, utterly astonished at the audacity
of this attack, for the pirates' flag was flying, lay
to, head to the wind, and waited, the gunners standing
by their cannon. When the pirates had come near enough
to see and understand the size and power of the vessel
they had thought of attacking, they did not, as might
have been expected, put about and sail away at the best
of their vessel's speed, but they kept straight on their
course as if they had been about to fall upon a great,
unwieldy merchantman, manned by common sailors.
Perceiving the foolhardiness of the little vessel, the
Spanish commander determined to give it a lesson which
would teach its captain to understand better the relative
power of great vessels and little ones, so, as soon
as the pirates' vessel was near enough, he ordered a
broadside fired upon it. The Spanish ship had a great
many people on board. It had a crew of seventy men,
and besides these there were some passengers, and regular
marines, and knowing that the captain had determined
to fire upon the approaching vessel, everybody had gathered
on deck to see the little pirate ship go down.
But the ten great cannonballs which were shot out at
Bartholemy's little craft all missed their aim, and
before the guns could be reloaded or the great ship
be got around so as to deliver her other broadside,
the pirate vessel was alongside of her. Bartholemy had
fired none of his cannon. Such guns were useless against
so huge a foe. What he was after was a hand to hand
combat on the deck of the Spanish ship.
The pirates were all ready for hot work. They had thrown
aside their coats and shirts as if each of them were
going into a prize fight, and, with their cutlasses
in their hands, and their pistols and knives in their
belts, they scrambled like monkeys up the sides of the
great ship. But Spaniards are brave men and good fighters,
and there were more than twice as many of them as there
were of the pirates, and it was not long before the
latter found out that they could not capture that vessel
by boarding it. So over the side they tumbled as fast
as they could go, leaving some of their number dead
and wounded behind them. They jumped into their own
vessel, and then they put off to a short distance to
take breath and get ready for a different kind of a
fight. The triumphant Spaniards now prepared to get
rid of this boat load of half-naked wild beasts, which
they could easily do if they should take better aim
with their cannon than they had done before.
But to their amazement they soon found that they could
do nothing with the guns, nor were they able to work
their ship so as to get it into position for effectual
shots. Bartholemy and his men laid aside their cutlasses
and their pistols, and took up their muskets, with which
they were well provided. Their vessel lay within a very
short range of the Spanish ship, and whenever a man
could be seen through the portholes, or showed himself
in the rigging or anywhere else where it was necessary
to go in order to work the ship, he made himself a target
for the good aim of the pirates. The pirate vessel could
move about as it pleased, for it required but a few
men to manage it, and so it kept out of the way of the
Spanish guns, and its best marksmen, crouching close
to the deck, fired and fired whenever a Spanish head
was to be seen.
For five long hours this unequal contest was kept up.
It might have reminded one of a man with a slender rod
and a long, delicate line, who had hooked a big salmon.
The man could not pull in the salmon, but, on the other
hand, the salmon could not hurt the man, and in the
course of time the big fish would be tired out, and
the man would get out his landing net and scoop him
in.
Now Bartholemy thought he could scoop in the Spanish
vessel. So many of her men had been shot that the two
crews would be more nearly equal. So, boldly, he ran
his vessel alongside the big ship and again boarded
her. Now there was another great fight on the decks.
The Spaniards had ceased to be triumphant, but they
had become desperate, and in the furious combat ten
of the pirates were killed and four wounded. But the
Spaniards fared worse than that; more than half of the
men who had not been shot by the pirates went down before
their cutlasses and pistols, and it was not long before
Bartholemy had captured the great Spanish ship.
It was a fearful and a bloody victory he had gained.
A great part of his own men were lying dead or helpless
on the deck, and of the Spaniards only forty were left
alive, and these, it appears from the accounts, must
have been nearly all wounded or disabled.
It was a common habit among the buccaneers, as well
as among the Spaniards, to kill all prisoners who were
not able to work for them, but Bartholemy does not seem
to have arrived at the stage of depravity necessary
for this. So he determined not to kill his prisoners,
but he put them all into a boat and let them go where
they pleased; while he was left with fifteen men to
work a great vessel which required a crew of five times
that number.
But the men who could conquer and capture a ship against
such enormous odds, felt themselves fully capable of
working her, even with their little crew, Before doing
anything in the way of navigation they cleared the decks
of the dead bodies, taking from them all watches, trinkets,
and money, and then went below to see what sort of a
prize they had gained. They found it a very good one
indeed, There were seventy-five thousand crowns in money,
besides a cargo of cocoa worth five thousand more, and
this, combined with the value of the ship and all its
fittings, was a great fortune for those days.
When the victorious pirates had counted their gains
and had mended the sails and rigging of their new ship,
they took what they wanted out of their own vessel,
and left her to sink or to float as she pleased, and
then they sailed away in the direction of the island
of Jamaica. But the winds did not suit them, and, as
their crew was so very small, they could not take advantage
of light breezes as they could have done if they had
had men enough. Consequently they were obliged to stop
to get water before they reached the friendly vicinity
of Jamaica.
They cast anchor at Cape St. Anthony on the west end
of Cuba. After a considerable delay at this place they
started out again to resume their voyage, but it was
not long before they perceived, to their horror, three
Spanish vessels coming towards them. It was impossible
for a very large ship, manned by an extremely small
crew, to sail away from those fully equipped vessels,
and as to attempting to defend themselves against the
overwhelming power of the antagonists, that was too
absurd to be thought of even by such a reckless fellow
as Bartholemy. So, when the ship was hailed by the Spanish
vessels he lay to and waited until a boat's crew boarded
him. With the eye of a nautical man the Spanish captain
of one of the ships perceived that something was the
matter with this vessel, for its sails and rigging were
terribly cut up in the long fight through which it had
passed, and of course he wanted to know what had happened.
When he found that the great ship was in the possession
of a very small body of pirates, Bartholemy and his
men were immediately made prisoners, taken on board
the Spanish ship, stripped of everything they possessed,
even their clothes, and shut up in the hold. A crew
from the Spanish ships was sent to man the vessel which
had been captured, and then the little fleet set sail
for San Francisco in Campeachy.
An hour had worked a very great change in the fortunes
of Bartholemy and his men; in the fine cabin of their
grand prize they had feasted and sung, and had gloried
over their wonderful success, and now, in the vessel
of their captor, they were shut up in the dark, to be
enslaved or perhaps executed.
But it is not likely that any one of them either despaired
or repented; these are sentiments very little in use
by pirates.
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