In the wake of the buccaneers

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IN THE WAKE OF
THE BUCCANEERS

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THE DANGEROUS VOYAGE

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IN THE WAKE OF
THE BUCCANEERS

BY
A. HYATT VERRILL
AUTHOR OF “PANAMA, PAST AND PRESENT,” “ISLES
OF SPICE AND PALM,” “THE BOOK OF THE WEST
INDIES,” “THE REAL STORY OF THE PIRATE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH DRAWINGS AND
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND
RARE OLD ENGRAVINGS ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK AND LONDON ☙ ☙ MCMXXIII

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Copyright, 1923, by
The Century Co.

PRINTED IN U. S. A. [[v]]

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INTRODUCTION

There is no more entrancing body of water in either the Western or the Eastern Hemisphere—than the Caribbean Sea, with a fringe of lovely tropical islands on the one side and on the other the Spanish Main and its picturesque centuries-old towns and fascinating sights. Aside from its beauty, its delightful climate, and its ever-shifting scenes, the Caribbean and its shores are redolent of romance. It was the starting-point of those brave though ruthless adventurers who carved a new world for Castile and Leon. For centuries it was the treasure-house of the world and the battle-ground of the mightiest European powers. Across this sapphire sea sailed the caravels of Columbus, the Golden Hind of Drake, and the stately, plate-laden galleons of Spain.

And across this same sea coursed those fierce sea-rovers the buccaneers.

Of all the dare-devil spirits who sailed the Caribbean and ravaged the Spanish Main, the buccaneers were the most picturesque and romantic. [[vi]]Villains though they were; reddened with the blood of the innocent and helpless though their hands; black-hearted cutthroats beyond denial—yet there is something about them that appeals to all, and that, despite their ill deeds, fills one with admiration.

Perchance it is the fact that we all appreciate bravery—and, notwithstanding their multitude of sins, the buccaneers were brave beyond compare. Again, it may be that in all of us lurks a little of the gambling spirit and we admire those who can take a chance, even though we do not, and no greater gamblers ever lived than the buccaneers. They staked their lives at every turn, they gambled with death, and the greater the odds the more readily did they throw themselves into the game. And it was this gambling spirit, this recklessness that enabled them to defy the world of their day.

We hear much of the bold, wild ways of these adventurers; we have been taught by history and tradition to consider them devoid of redeeming qualities, and few of us realize that the buccaneers were far from being true pirates, that they were not alike, that many were corsairs through force of circumstances rather than by choice, that they had their own laws and code of honor, and that they were a most important factor in shaping the [[vii]]destiny of the New World. To them, incredible as it may seem, we owe an immense debt of gratitude. Had it not been for them the British never would have retained their foothold in the Caribbean, and we, to-day, might be under Spanish rule. Many of them, too, were educated men and left us records which are of incalculable scientific or historic value; for example, Dampier, who was a keenly observant field naturalist and devoted far more of his time to penning descriptions of fauna and flora than to slitting Spanish throats;[1] and Esquemelling,[2] the erstwhile accountant, who [[viii]]left us a classic as a result of his years as a ship’s supercargo among the buccaneers.

Yearly, Americans by the thousands flock southward to tour or to stop for a time in the West Indies or about the shores of the Caribbean, but few of these are aware of the intimate associations with the buccaneers which all these places hold. Yet we may dwell in the very hostelry wherein pirate chieftains reveled and spent their ill-gotten gold; we stroll through little towns which have echoed to the ribald songs and lusty shouts of roistering pirate crews; we sail, in palatial steamships, above the long-forgotten hulks of burned and scuttled galleons, and we haggle with shopkeepers or native boatmen in whose veins may flow the blood of Morgan, Hawkins, or Montbars.

Bereft of the buccaneers, the Caribbean and its shores lose their greatest fascination, and as the most desirable localities are those intimately associated with the sea-rovers and their deeds or misdeeds, it seems fitting to travel about the Spanish Main and the West Indies in the wake of the buccaneers.

It is to point out the romantic associations of [[ix]]these waters and islands and make a visit to them more interesting, to weave a little of the lives and deeds of the buccaneers into the story of the locality, and to give brief sketches of the most noteworthy, while at the same time describing the places, their attractions, and their present condition, that this book has been prepared.

So much of a purely fictional nature has been related of these sea-rovers that many of the statements contained herein will come as a distinct surprise, for time and tales have woven a glamour and a deal of misconception about them. But even stripped of all romance, with their histories before us, the “Brethren of the Main” retain enough and to spare of adventure, deeds of daring, and picturesque villainy, and many of the true stories of these men are more thrilling, more astounding than any the imagination could invent.

When such stories are made more vivid by a setting of actual present-day scenes, or are read in the very places and in the same surroundings in which the buccaneers held forth, their interest is enhanced, while the whole neighborhood is given an added attraction.

The author, who has lived and traveled in the West Indies and about the shores of the Caribbean for nearly thirty years, knows every island and [[x]]town intimately. Being deeply interested in the history of the vicinity and particularly in the reckless freebooters who frequented it, he has written this narrative of a most novel cruise. A cruise taken in a real pirate ship manned by a native West Indian crew some of whom were lineal descendants of notorious buccaneers; and while not all the Caribbean islands or the lands and towns of the Spanish Main were visited, those places are included which are of particular interest from an historical point of view and their associations with the freebooters.

The volume is not intended as a guide-book, but rather as a colorful account of the places visited on this unusual cruise; a description of many little-known, out-of-the-way corners; with mention of their most interesting features, the customs of the people, a bit of their turbulent past and their somnolent present, and their existing relics of buccaneer days. [[xi]]

[1] Dampier was the son of a Somerset farmer, but at seventeen years of age was apprenticed to a sea captain sailing from Weymouth. Deserting in the West Indies, he took to the occupation of a logwood cutter for a time, and later joined the buccaneers. He wrote several books, working at his manuscripts between battles, and keeping his notes in a joint of bamboo which, to use his own words, he “kept stopt at the ends with wax to keep out water. In this I preserved my Journal and other Writings tho’ I was often forced to swim.” His descriptions of fauna and flora, his maps, and his detailed accounts of the Indians and their customs and languages are of great scientific value, though his conclusions are often erroneous. [↑]

[2] Esquemelling was a Hollander who went to Hispaniola in the capacity of clerk for the French West India Company. When the latter withdrew their business from Tortuga and sold off all their possessions, the clerk went to the auction block with the other chattels and was purchased for three hundred pieces of eight (approximately $300.00) by a cruel master. Under the treatment accorded him Esquemelling became dangerously ill, and his owner, fearing to lose his slave and his money at the same time, disposed of the sick man, for seventy pieces of eight, to a surgeon who treated Esquemelling kindly, nursed him to health, and granted him his freedom on condition that the penniless ex-clerk should pay him one [[viii]]hundred pieces of eight when able to do so. He promptly joined the buccaneers and took part in most of their notable exploits for nearly seven years. His records, especially his “Buccaneers of America,” are the best histories of these men extant. [↑]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

I [Among the Caribbees] 3

Reasons. The romantic isles. The Vigilant. A real pirate ship. The Virgin Islands. Dead Man’s Chest. Sam, the descendant of the pirate chief. The Vigilant’s crew. Trouble comes to the Vigilant. Arguments. My happy family.

II [St. Thomas and Its Past] 22

First view of St. Thomas. Charlotte Amalie. The people. Shops and commodities. The home of bay-rum. Wet and dry. Odd wares. The ships’ graveyard. Blackbeard’s Castle. The pirates’ haunts.

III [The Buccaneers in the Virgin Isles] 38

The lairs of the buccaneers. Buccaneers and pirates. Queer conditions. When life was cheap. Interesting characters. A buccaneer poet. Blackbeard and his ways. The end of Blackbeard.

IV [On the Way to St. John] 58

Farewell, St. Thomas. Sail Rock. The joke on the Frenchman. The lure of the Caribbean. A man of peace. St. John. An island gem. At Rendezvous Bay. Relics of the buccaneers. The bloody past. A deserted Eden. The St. John of to-day.

V [St. John and Some Discoveries] 77

Buccaneer haunts. The pirates’ friends. Hamlin the corsair. The friendly governor. Tales of treasure. Relics of the past. An ancient souvenir. Reminiscences. The concert. A discovery.

VI [Anegada and a Bit of Treasure-Trove] 94

Tortola, the Isle of the Turtle-dove. The once prosperous port. Onward to Anegada. The Fat Virgin. Norman Island and Kidd’s treasure. The truth about Captain Kidd. The Don Quixote of the Caribbean. The end of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Anegada, the Drowned Island. Through the guardian reef. Wreckers. Flotsam and jetsam huts. Pirate forts and pirate cannon. The Portuguese derelict. Treasure-trove. [[xii]]

VII [Lonely Isles] 114

Across the Anegada Passage to St. Martin. Anguilla, the Eel. The island under two flags. St. Martin a charming island. Salt pans and industries. Onward to St. Barts. A poverty-stricken spot. Once Sweden’s colony. The gathering-place of the buccaneers. On the beach. A privateers’ lair. Gustavia’s heyday. Montbars the Exterminator. Statia. Where the Stars and Stripes were first saluted. Orangetown and its treasure. The world’s greatest auction sale. Statia’s knell. Saba the marvelous. The town in the crater. Saba and its people. Strange industries.

VIII [St. Kitts and the Gorgeous Isle] 136

St. Kitts the beautiful. Basseterre. The island’s golden past. The first settled of the British isles. French and English. Early days. Brimstone Hill and its massive fort. An echo of the past. The Travels of Captain Smith. Caribs and quarrels. The “overgrowne stormes.” Convict slaves. The Gorgeous Isle. Nevis and its past. Where Nelson married and Hamilton was born. The submerged city. A miraculous escape. A moral pirate. Sharp the great adventurer.

IX [The “Dangerous Voyage” and the Effect of a Nagging Tongue] 152

Bartholomew Sharp and his great adventure. Across Darien. The attack on the Spanish fleet. The Blessed Trinity and its marvelous cruise. Down the west coast. Around the Horn. The log of the Trinity. Mutiny. Religious buccaneers. Homeward through storm-lashed seas. The end of the “dangerous voyage.” The “sea artist” goes home. Stede Bonnet the gentleman pirate. The less of two evils. The effect of a nagging tongue. In evil company. The fate of the major. Over Saba Bank. Sam’s sixth sense. Good hauls. Land ho!

X [The Isle of the Holy Cross] 171

St. Croix or Santa Cruz. An Emerald Isle. Where sugar was king. Christiansted. Ashore. Attractions of the island. A target for hurricanes. How Hamilton attracted attention. Cannibals. A turbulent past. Dreams of a kingdom. Knights of Malta. The home port of the Vigilant. Over the sea to Porto Rico. Porto Rico’s beauties and attractions. A tamed island. Drake’s repulse. The man with the queen’s glove in his hat. How the Earl of Cumberland took San Juan. An enemy he could not conquer. Ogeron’s attempts. The pirate prisoners. Ogeron’s escape. The rescuers. In the chain-gang. Birds of a feather. Mona the forbidding. Hispaniola the mighty. A miniature continent. The most historic spot in America. A land drenched in blood. [[xiii]]

XI [The Gibraltar of the Buccaneers] 195

Samana Bay and its environs. Where the first blood was spilled. The Bay of the Arrows. Trade Wind Cay. The pirates’ stronghold. A miniature Gibraltar. Legends and superstitions. Ruins on the cay. Treasure. Joseph’s find. Those who frequented the isle. Round and about Samana Bay. Samana and its people. Sanchez. A wild coast. Caverns. The amber beach.

XII [The Birthplace of the Buccaneers] 210

The rugged island. The Dons in Santo Domingo. First gold in the New World. La Vega la Antigua. Old Weapons. The Cibao. Along the coast to Puerto Plata. The port. The Silver Shoals and Phipps’s treasure. The first European settlement in America. Isabella. Monte Cristi and El Morro. Tortuga the birthplace of the buccaneers. Cayona. The origin of the buccaneers. Strategies. Pirate governors. The buccaneers’ fort. The fate of the West India Company.

XIII [The Brethren of the Main] 226

The buccaneer island. Early forays. Humane practices. How the pirates got their vessels. Daring assaults. The buccaneers’ ships. A motley lot. Honor among thieves. The inventors of accident insurance. Employees’ indemnities. Division of spoils. Oaths and agreements. Rules. Penalties. Recompense. Temptations. A few of the buccaneers. Rock Brasiliano the German. A degenerate brute. Bravery of Brasiliano. Escape from Campeche. John Davis the Jamaican pirate. A “kind and considerate man.” Lolonais the most cruel of the buccaneers. An ex-slave. A protégé of the governor. A notable feat. A monster in human form. Cannibalistic tendencies. Lolonais shipwrecked. The awful fate of Lolonais. Quarrels among the freebooters. The British buccaneers help take Jamaica. The pirates’ new lair.

XIV [The Granddaddy of the Dollar] 243

Through the Windward Passage. Cuba. Navassa the barren. The island that sent the S. O. S. The buccaneers in Cuba. Morgan at Puerto Principe. The Isle of Pines and its crocodiles. Gonaives. Over historic seas. Pieces of eight. Origin of the dollar sign. Doubloons and onzas. The forerunner of the metric system. Cross money. Mixed coins. Canny Sam. A prospective wedding. Sail ho!

XV [Where a Pirate Ruled] 257

Lovely Jamaica. The long-suffering island. The Port Royal of to-day. Fort Charles and its associations. Nelson’s quarter-deck. Nelson at Port Royal. The fleet that [[xiv]]never came. Scenes in Port Royal. The Port Royal of the past. The metropolis of the buccaneers. The richest and wickedest city in the world. Pirates’ pastimes. Vice and debauchery. The pirates’ church. Harry Morgan’s way. The fate of Port Royal. The destruction of the town. Survivors. Founding of Kingston. Fire, hurricane, and earthquake. Columbus and his shipwreck. Cimmaroons and slave uprisings. The grip of the trust.

XVI [Jamaica and Its Pirate Governor] 274

Kingston and its surroundings. The destruction of Kingston. In the country. Motor roads. Newcastle. Cataracts. The three-fingered bandit. The Natural Bridge. Spanish Town. Origin of names. The sleepy town. Round and about Spanish Town. The cathedral. Epitaphs. Penn and Venables. The angler soldier. Benbow and his bravery. Benbow’s tomb. The battle with Du Casse. Death of Benbow. Sir Henry Morgan. The pirate knight. His short career. Origin and life. How Morgan won fame and fortune. Morgan’s first great deed. Sack of Puerto Principe. Morgan’s quixotic nature. Little loot. The taking of Porto Bello. Immense treasure. Attack on Panama. Morgan arrested. The pirate honored. The buccaneer governor. Morgan disgraced. The end of Morgan.

XVII [The Bridge of the World] 294

Farewell to the Vigilant. Westward by steamer. Old Providence. The Spanish Main. Colon. A petty squabble. Colon and Cristobal. Porto Bello. The Gold Road and its past. Grim tales. San Jerome. The fall of Porto Bello. Morgan’s attack on Porto Bello. The valiant governor. Morgan’s brutalities. Tortures. Ransoms. The viceroy’s message. Morgan’s pleasantries. The ruins of Porto Bello. The forgotten Gold Road.

XVIII [The Castle of Gold] 313

The riches of Panama. The greatest gold-producing country. Output of mines. The treasure-house of Spain. Decadence of Panama. Indian uprisings. Slaves. Emancipation. Lost mines. Revolutions. The Panamanian people. A degenerate race. People of the interior. Inhabitants of cities. Business and industry. Exceptions to the rule. What the Americans have done. Lack of gratitude. Animosity. A wonderful land. Darien the unknown. Indians. The bravos. The pirates’ treatment of the Indians. Sharp’s trip across Darien. The sack of El Real de Santa Maria. El Real to-day. A deserted wonderland.

XIX [Panama New and Old] 332

How Ringrose described Panama. Changes of to-day. In the city. A hustling modern town. Round the town. The old fort. Walls. Chiriqui and Las Bovedas. Where the [[xv]]creek once flowed. The old city wall. Churches. Odd architecture. Ruins. The Golden Altar of San José. Old Panama. The bridge crossed by Morgan. Ruins. St. Anastasio’s tower. Old fort and walls. Reconstruction of the ruins. The facts about old Panama. Burning of the city. Relics. Old Panama as it was. Wanton destruction. Morgan’s blackest deed.

XX [How Morgan Kept His Promise] 349

Morgan’s rise to fame. The gathering of the great fleet. The taking of Old Providence. Treachery. The attack on San Lorenzo. A furious battle. The accident that won the day. Bravery of Spanish troops. Awful slaughter. Morgan’s arrival. Morgan garrisons the fort. Loss of ships. Up the Chagres. Overland. Hardship and sufferings. In sight of Panama. The battle before the city. The buccaneers’ victory. Deviltry let loose. Tortures and murder. Burning of the city. The return. Morgan’s gallantry. Sir Henry’s treachery. The pirate Judas. The dishonored chieftain. Monuments to the past. [[xvii]]

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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IN THE WAKE OF THE BUCCANEERS [[2]]

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The Cruise in the Wake of the Buccaneers

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IN THE WAKE OF THE BUCCANEERS

CHAPTER I

AMONG THE CARIBBEES

I had started forth on a novel journey, a trip I had long wanted to take—a cruise in the wake of the buccaneers. Many a time I had traversed the Caribbean, steaming from port to port of those island gems, the Lesser Antilles, that are strung, like emeralds and sapphires, in a great curving chain stretching from our own St. Thomas, five days south of New York, to Trinidad at the mouth of the Orinoco. Many a time, too, I had skirted the coasts, climbed the mountains, and explored the bush of Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica. And whenever I had stood upon a liner’s deck and watched the huge-sailed island sloops and schooners courtesying to the sparkling waves and, with lee rails awash, surging through the blue sea toward some distant isle, I had envied those aboard. [[4]]I had vowed that sooner or later I too would stand upon the heaving deck of a nimble sailing-craft and cruise hither and thither among the islands, going and coming as humor willed, seeing the out-of-the-way places, the little-known islets, the hidden, quiet bays and coves which no churning screws had disturbed and no smoke-belching funnels had besmirched.

No locality is more filled with romance, more remindful of adventurous deeds of the past, more closely associated with the early history of our country than the Caribbean. Here is the islet first sighted by Columbus after his long and thrilling voyage into the west. Here dwelt the conquistadors, the explorers, the voyagers who with fire and blood blazed their trails across the continents of North and South America. Here one may still see the crumbling houses in which such noted old dons as Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Pizarro, Cortez, and others dwelt when Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) was the center of wealth and fashion in New Spain. Here was established the first university of the New World wherein Las Casas taught his pupils a century and more before the Mayflower sailed into Plymouth harbor. Here the great nations of Europe contended for control of the new-found lands, and here cruised the buccaneers, ever seeking [[5]]their prizes. But to sail these waters and visit these isles in a modern steamship robs them of their greatest charm. Who can visualize gilded, purple-sailed galleons swinging to anchor when buff steel masts, huge funnels, and wireless aërials fill the foreground? Who can picture swashbuckling, roistering pirates when the streets they once trod swarm with jitneys? Who can imagine mail-clad men about to embark on some great adventure when the jetty bears a creaking, wheezing crane, and sweating negro stevedores bustle and crowd and swear? No, to find the romance of these islands, to visualize their past and appreciate their present, one must forego luxuries and leave the beaten path, and, like the voyagers of old, seek new scenes in a white-sailed craft whose motive power is the humming trade wind and whose crew is made up of natives who, in appearance at least, might well have stepped out of the past.

And at last Fate—in the guise of good-natured and sympathetic friends in the islands—had made possible my dream and I was cruising one-time pirate waters in a pirate ship. Yes, a real pirate ship, the Vigilant, whose solid teak keel was laid well over a century ago; the oldest boat plying the Caribbean, but still as stanch, seaworthy, and fast as when, manned by sea-rovers, she had swept [[6]]under her cloud of canvas upon some lumbering merchantman or had showed her fleet heels to British corvettes, as, laden with a cargo of “black ivory,” she had crept forth from the fetid mouth of some African river, bound with her human freight for the slave marts of the Antilles. Privateer, pirate, slaver, and man-o’-war she had been in turn through the long years she had sailed the seas. Within her hold were still visible the ring-bolts to which the groaning blacks had been chained. In her timbers were still the wounds of round shot and bullets, and despite her peaceful present-day employment as a packet between the islands, she was yet the typical pirate craft—the “long, low, black schooner with raking masts” so dear to writers of lurid fiction.[1] And we were bound to that erstwhile haunt of the sea-rovers, the Virgin Islands. [[7]]

When Columbus, cruising westward on his second voyage, sighted these green-clad islets rising above the blue Caribbean, he despaired of finding saint’s names for all of them, and so called them collectively “The Virgins,” in honor of the eleven thousand companions of St. Ursula. The name was not inappropriate, for while there were not eleven thousand of the isles, they were far too numerous to be counted. The history of these bits of wave-washed coral and volcanic rock, since their discovery by the great navigator, has been anything but happy and peaceful. The Spaniards, finding neither gold nor precious stones upon them, contented themselves with kidnapping the primitive inhabitants and then, having depopulated the islands, left them severely alone. Later, after a period of varying fortunes and misfortunes, they were parceled off among the European powers, changed hands over and over again, were sold, bartered, and fought for, [[8]]and at last, with the exception of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and one or two others, were dubbed worthless and were virtually forgotten by the nations which had battled so long and bloodily to retain them.

Here in close proximity, often but two or three miles apart, were islands belonging to half a dozen powers,—British, French, Danish, Swedish, Dutch,—with one owned jointly by Holland and France, while close at hand, conveniently and temptingly near, in fact, were rich Spanish possessions. And here, to the eleven thousand Virgins, came the pirates and the buccaneers. So it was fitting that my cruise in the ancient but rejuvenated Vigilant should begin with the Virgin Isles.

Presently, above the impossibly blue sea loomed a bit of land, a tiny, gray-green, barren cay, rimmed with ragged, weather-beaten rocks in whose coves and hollows coral beaches gleamed, white as the beating surf, beyond the turquoise water. Leaning upon the schooner’s rail, I gazed idly and curiously at the little isle, the one break upon the shimmering sea, a lonely spot whose only signs of life were the circling sea-birds hovering over it in clouds.

I turned to the fellow at the wheel—a giant of a man, black as ebony and muscled like a Hercules, [[9]]naked to the waist, his dungaree trousers rolled to his knees and supported by a wisp of scarlet sash, his huge flat feet wide-spread, and a flapping jipijapa hat upon his huge head. His lusterless eyes, bloodshot from constant diving (for he was a sponger by profession), and the huge hoops in his ears, gave him a fierce, wild look, and, glancing at him, one might well have imagined him a member of a pirate crew, a corsair steering toward some doomed prize.

“Sam,” I asked, “what’s that island over there to port?”

The big negro slowly turned his head and gazed at the speck of rock and sand.

“Tha’ ’s Dead Man’s Chest, Chief,” he replied in the soft drawl of the Bahaman.

Dead Man’s Chest! Instantly, at his words, the song made famous by Stevenson flashed through my mind: “Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Dead Man’s Chest! The little cay at once took on a new interest. Now I could almost picture them yonder,—those shipwrecked men, fifteen of them,—gaunt, fierce-visaged, unshorn; sprawled on the sand in the scanty shade of the twisted sea-grape trees above the surf. Marooned, cast away, but reckless daredevils to the last; gambling in the [[10]]face of death, tossing a gleaming golden doubloon in their final game of chance—the stake, their lives against that one bottle of rum! And then drink and the devil would have done for them as for the rest, and only their whitening bones over which the sea-birds fought and screamed would remain to tell their grim tale.

Dead Man’s Chest! What more fitting than that this bit of ocean-girt land should have been the first of the isles made famous by the buccaneers to greet my eyes, and what more appropriate than that I should have sighted it from the deck of a real pirate craft! Fortunate indeed had I been when her owners delivered the Vigilant into my hands for my cruise, and I pondered, as we sped past wave-beaten Dead Man’s Chest, on the story the Vigilant might tell could she but speak. Then my thoughts were brought back to the present as Sam spoke:

“The’ says as how the’ ’s plenty o’ tr’asure yonder, on Dead Man’s Chest,” he remarked, “but Ah can’ say as how true ’tis, Chief. Plenty folks has s’arched for it, but Ah can’ say as the’ ’s foun’ it. I ’spec’ the’ ’s tr’asure a plenty on th’ cays here ’bout. The’ says as how th’ pirates was num’rous roun’ here.”

“Yes, it was a great place for pirates,” I replied. [[11]]“You know these islands well, Sam. Have you ever run across any old guns or forts or wrecks on any of them? By the way, what’s your last name?”

Sam grinned.

“Ah got a right funny name, Chief,” he responded. “Ah don’ ’spec’ you ever hear it. It’s Lithgow, Chief.”

Lithgow! What a name to conjure with, in the old buccaneer days! Red Lithgow, the bold, unprincipled pirate chieftain who hailed from Louisiana and met death at the end of a rope from his own yard-arm! Perchance—nay, in all probability—some of the old rascal’s blood still flowed in Sam’s veins; for all through the islands one finds lineal descendants (though they may be brown, black, or yellow) of the buccaneers, whose progeny was legion.

But Sam was again speaking, replying to my first question and telling me that hidden among the brush and weeds on St. John, St. Martin, and others of the Virgins, were numerous old walls, ruins, and cannon which, rumor had it, were relics of the pirates who once made the islands their stronghold.

My itinerary included all of these in turn, and so the Vigilant’s course remained unaltered and [[12]]with the wind humming through the taut rigging and filling the great straining sails, we rushed on toward St. Thomas, looming like a cloud upon the horizon far ahead.

And now, as the schooner races onward toward the quaint port of Charlotte Amalie, a word about the crew that manned the Vigilant; for Sam was not by any means the only or the most important personage besides myself. A mixed lot they were, but most valuable factors in my cruise and an entertaining lot as well. Originally they were all Virgin Islanders, save Sam, the Bahaman pilot and “captain,” and Joseph, the long-legged, solemn-faced cook, who, notwithstanding his ebony skin and kinky head, dubbed all of his race “stupid niggers,” who found everything not to his liking “pure corruption,” and who proudly boasted of being a Turks Island boy.

With the Chesterfieldian manners of a duke, painstakingly perfect English, and the dignity of a Spanish grandee, Joseph looked down upon the “stupid niggers” of the crew as from an impregnable height, and fraternized with Sam only, the others being merely tolerated. A right good cook and a faithful boy was Joe, and a never-ending source of amusement because of his assumption of a sort of guardianship over me. [[13]]

But ere the cruise was over he and Sam and one other were the only remaining members of my original crew. Never did the Vigilant’s mud-hook seek bottom in the limpid waters of some lovely isle that one or more of my sailors did not desert. Not that they had aught of which to complain, or found their duties on the ship irksome, but good American dollars in their pockets, a rich green shore, and chocolate-colored sirens were temptations beyond the black man’s power to resist. Yet never were we short-handed. For every man who left, a score clamored to be taken on, and had the Vigilant been on a pirating adventure I could have filled her to the hatches with as varicolored and vari-charactered a crew as ever swarmed over the bulwarks of a stricken prize.

To the West Indians, every American is a millionaire and a philanthropist, and in their eyes, apparently, he is morally bound to carry each, all, and sundry to that dreamed-of-land the States, the Mecca of every inhabitant of the islands. Wherever the Vigilant folded her white wings and came to rest, we were besieged by a small army of black, brown, yellow, and every intermediate shade, all begging to be allowed to accompany us. For the West Indian is a restless soul, never content unless on the move and caring not a jot where day or [[14]]night may find him, albeit he is intensely patriotic, and thinks his island preferable to all others and his people the salt of the earth.

Thus it came about that, what with deserters and new-comers, the crew was a sort of kaleidoscopic aggregation, shifting from yellow to brown, from black to tan, from soft-voiced, slurring-tongued “patois men” to h-dropping ’Badians and brogue-speaking Montserratans. And a happy family they were at that—good-naturedly chaffing one another, having long-winded arguments over the respective merits of their various island homes, using preposterous, meaningless words of their own invention. And all and each making life miserable for the hapless natives of that “right little, tight little island” designated on the maps as Barbados, affectionately dubbed “Little England” by its sons and daughters, and also known as “Bimshire Land,”[2] whose natives seem for some strange reason ever to be the butt and the jest of the other [[15]]islanders, and who are the pariahs of their race, if we are to believe their fellow negroes of the Caribbees.

Never did my men tire of taunting some poor ’Badian with the doggerel verse

A ha’penny loaf an’ a bit o’ salt fish,

Da’ ’s wha’ de ’Badian call’ a dish.

A bottle o’ soda divided ’twix’ t’ree,

Da’ ’s wha’ de ’Badian call’ a spree.

If the ’Badians happened to be in the minority, they bore it as best they might or retorted that “You men awnt civ’lized. You don’ know better’n to wear alpargats to a charch of a Sunday,” a response which usually brought on a loud cracking of tough skulls, as, like enraged goats, the men butted one another’s wool-covered craniums—a contest in which the ’Badian always emerged victorious. For to accuse an islander of wearing alpargatas (the sandal-like footgear brought from Venezuela) to church, is an insult not lightly to be suffered. Indeed, if ever there was a being who outshone Solomon in all his glory, it is the West Indian negro on the Sabbath; and his highest ambition is, in order to draw greater attention to his gorgeous raiment, to possess a pair of brilliant, pumpkin-colored shoes which, to quote his own [[16]]words, “goes queek, queek when Ah walks in de charch.”

As might be expected, in the constant change and interchange of multicolored flotsam and jetsam, we picked up many a strange and interesting, not to say downright weird, character.

There, for example, was Trouble. He appeared one glorious golden morn as we lay at anchor off St. John, like Aphrodite rising from the sea, his scanty garments dripping with brine; for, being both boatless and penniless, he had used nature’s gifts to win his way from shore to ship like the amphibious creature he proved to be. But, aside from the unexpected manner of his appearance, nothing could have resembled the goddess of the sea less. In fact, he was unquestionably the ugliest and most repulsive representative of the genus Homo and the species Sapiens that I have ever gazed upon—bony and big, with gorilla-like arms and a face so broad and forehead so low that his head appeared to have been forced out of shape by hydraulic pressure, while his natural absence of human-like features had been enhanced by some accident which had deprived him of even the semblance of a nose. There, above his immense mouth, were two huge round holes which, when he grinned,—as he constantly [[17]]did,—stretched into slits that seemed ever on the point of meeting his ears and literally severing his black face into upper and lower hemispheres.

Like a prize bull-pup, he was so extravagantly ugly that he actually was fascinating, and not until he spoke could I take my eyes from him. And his first words were almost as astounding and unexpected as his appearance:

“Ah’m beggin’ o’ yo’ pawdon, Boss, for mah audacity an’ assumption o’ de manner o’ mah absence o’ dignification for precip’tately discommodin’ yo’, but Ah’d like for to propoun’ de interrogation ef yo’ can absorbinate mah sarvices for a member o’ de crew, sir, for to circumnavigate de islan’s, sir.”

Was I dreaming, or had the climate affected my brain? I literally gasped.

But the next instant I had recovered myself, for I knew that this noseless apparition with his wide mouth filled with long words could have originated in but one locality in all the islands, Antigua, whose dusky inhabitants seem to pride themselves upon the amplitude of the words they can command, regardless of their meaning or aptness.

“What’s your name, and what can you do?” I [[18]]asked, more as a formality than anything else, for I never dreamed of taking this creature on.

The noseless negro scratched his head and wiggled his bare toes.

“Ah was christened wi’ de cognomen o’ Henry Francis William Nelson Wellington Shand, sir,” he replied; and then, as an afterthought, “but Ah’m most usually designated by de name o’ Trouble, sir.”

“Trouble!” I exclaimed.

“Yaas, sir,” responded the grinning negro, instantly. “Thank yo’ sir, for mekkin’ acceptance o’ mah sarvices, sir. Ah’ll endeavor for to conduc’ mahself wif circumspection an’ implicitness. Ah’s a sailor, sir, an’ Ah’m not expandulatin’ buncomb when Ah takes upon mahself de assumptiveness o’ de assertion, sir.”

I was speechless,—so astounded at the man’s “assumptiveness” that he had been hired that I could not find words to inform him of his mistake,—and by the time I recovered from my astonishment he had disappeared in the forecastle.

Sam stood by, chuckling to himself.

“Ah ’spec’s he may be a good sailor, Chief,” he vouchsafed. “An’ we’re in need o’ two han’s, Chief.”

“All right, Sam,” I replied. “I suppose he [[19]]doesn’t need a nose to run aloft or tail onto a rope.”

And so Trouble came unto us, but if ever a man belied his name it was “Henry Francis William Nelson Wellington Shand, sir,” for Trouble was a very treasure of a hand. He was as much at home in the water as on land or deck, and when, later, our anchor fouled one day, in fifteen fathoms, Trouble made nothing of diving down and releasing the fluke from its lodgment under a mass of coral and rock, while the height of his enjoyment was to challenge Sam to dive overboard and kill a big shark in a single-handed duel beneath the sea. And Sam, though a diver by profession, who had killed many a man-eater with a blow of his long, keen-bladed knife, freely admitted Trouble’s amphibious superiority.

Aloft he was a very monkey; he was ever scouring decks or polishing brass; he was as good-natured as he was ugly, and even dignified Joseph unbent and passed many a half-hour chinning with this weird waif of the sea. As for the other members of the crew, after one or two tests and trials they abandoned all attempts to out-talk or out-argue him, for his ready flow of multisyllabled words left them floundering in a vocabulary totally inadequate to cope with Trouble’s “expandulations” [[20]]and “supercil’ous methodictions.” On one occasion I overheard a bit of argument between our Antiguan find and a recent addition to the crew—for the older members invariably egged on new recruits to argue with Trouble.

I do not know what the argument had been about nor what the new man had said, but as he was a French mulatto from Dominica,—or, as the other islanders have it, a “patois man,”—I presume he had been referring in no complimentary terms to Henry Francis et cetera’s native heath.

“Yo’ worthless specimen o’ misguided humanity yo’!” exclaimed Trouble. “Yo’ insignificant an’ fragment’ry yaller element! For wherefo’ yo’ have de audacity to let yo’ imagination direc’ yo’ to dat assumption? Who yo’ t’ink yo’ addressin’ in dat highfalutin’, presumptious, dictatious manner? Ah desire yo’ to distinc’ly an’ def’nitely absorbinate de eminen’ly interestin’ an’ important info’mation Ah’s propoundin’, an’ if yo’ declinates to precip’tately reconsider de sentiments yo’ jus’ expressed an’ at once an’ immediately an’ hereby and in witness whereof retrac’ yo’ asservations once, forever, an’ henceforth, der’ ’s boun’ for to occur a casulty an’ a deceased patois nigger, an’ de gentleman is goin’ for to be compulsified for to discommode hisself to acquire another incumbent for [[21]]to fill de work what yo’ lack o’ intellec’ don’ fit yo’ for.”

Needless to say, in the face of this dire threat—which to the fear-stricken recipient savored of an incantation by a witch doctor or “obeah man”—the French islander promptly and “precip’tately” reconsidered and retracted whatever it was that had inadvertently brought on Trouble’s outburst.

To the last day of the voyage Trouble was with us in name if not in spirit, and never did I regret that he had hired himself, so to speak.

Aside from him and Sam and Joe, the only fixture was a red-haired, freckle-faced Montserratan boy whom I could not resist employing on account of his rich brogue and who served as cabin-boy, laundryman, and clown, and with the ready wit of his wild Irish ancestors kept us all in good humor throughout the cruise. [[22]]

[1] According to the most reliable records, the Vigilant was built in Baltimore in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Originally named the Nonesuch, she was intended for a privateer, but, the Revolution being virtually over before she was launched, she was sold and won an unsavory reputation as a pirate. She later turned privateer, during the War of 1812, and afterward engaged in the slave-trade until England’s anti-slavery crusade made this work too dangerous. She was then sold again, and became a notorious smuggler. Still later she changed hands once more, and under her new owner, a Danish West Indian merchant, resumed privateering with letters of marque from the Danish Government. In 1825 the Vigilant became a man-of-war. A Spanish privateer had been harassing the Danish shipping, and, all available Danish warships being too large to follow through the shallow channels where she sought refuge, the Vigilant was chartered and a company of soldiers [[7]]concealed upon her. As she cruised within sight of the privateer the latter swept down upon her, thinking her a helpless merchantman, only to be surprised and completely overwhelmed by the hidden troops. After this episode the old schooner became a peaceful mail-packet among the Virgin Islands. She has been repeatedly sunk and raised again. In the hurricane of 1876 she went on a reef off Christiansted, St. Croix, and again, in 1916, a hurricane sent her to the bottom in almost the same spot. Her rig originally was that of a topsail schooner, but this was later changed to that of a fore-and-aft schooner with gaff topsails. Probably very little besides the keel and timbers of the original craft remains, as she has been repaired from time to time during her long career. [↑]

[2] The origin of the colloquial name of “Bimshire Land” for Barbados and of “Bims” for its natives appears to puzzle many people. One writer in a well-known magazine went so far as to suggest that it was a corruption of “bam”! In reality it was applied to the island owing to the fact that Robert Bims (who was one of the earliest colonizers of St. Kitts), hearing of Barbados, went there with a party of settlers and took possession. Half-humorously and half-sarcastically (for it was generally believed the island was worthless) it was referred to as “Bim’s Shire,” a nickname which has always stuck. [↑]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER II

ST. THOMAS AND ITS PAST

St. Thomas is very beautiful when seen from a distance, with its gray-green mountains rising above the sea, mottled with soft mauves of shadow and dazzling silvery sunlight—a mass of opalescent tints, as though the hills were carven from a giant pearl shell. And as the harbor opens to view, and the little town of Charlotte Amalie is seen spreading fanwise up its three hillsides in triangles of soft buff, creamy white, and red, it seems a bit of the Mediterranean detached and transplanted here in the Caribbean.

But it must be confessed that the enchantment is mainly loaned by distance, for St. Thomas is a barren, arid island. Charlotte Amalie—shut in by the hills—is unbearably hot; there is but one level street, and while steep lanes, often ascending in stairways, lend picturesqueness to the place, they are most discouraging thoroughfares on a sweltering tropical day. Moreover, St. Thomas, having ever been a world’s mart, a free port depending entirely upon commerce, has not the foreign, fascinating [[23]]atmosphere we find in many of the islands.

Its people, a marvelous potpourri of nationalities, of necessity have become remarkable linguists, with a smattering of virtually every civilized tongue, but they are neither picturesque nor interesting.

On such a cruise as ours, however, this Virgin Island possession of Uncle Sam’s could not well be passed by, although, truth to tell, its piratical associations are somewhat meager and of questionable authenticity.

I had seen this famed source of bay-rum under both Danish and American rule, in rain and in shine, in war and in peace; in prosperity with a forest of masts in its snug harbor, and, again, devastated by hurricanes, its shores strewn with tangled wrecks of countless vessels. But never before had St. Thomas appeared to me just as it did when, passing Sail Rock in the lee of the land, we entered the harbor and dropped the Vigilant’s anchor before Charlotte Amalie.

I was looking at it now from a new point of view. I was blind to the great coaling-piers, to the gaunt dry-dock, to the fact that gray-painted cruisers and big liners rode upon the glassy surface of the harbor, that the Stars and Stripes flew from the mastheads and flagstaffs, that motor-cars scurried along [[24]]the waterfront street. I was trying to visualize St. Thomas as it had been two centuries and more before, when ships with lateen yards, high poops, and wall-sided hulls pierced with cannon ports had swung to anchor before the town; when roistering crowds of fierce-whiskered, besashed sea-rovers with cutlasses at their belts and bandanas on their heads had swaggered through the steep and crooked streets; when the little pink “Christian’s” fort beside the quay had been looked upon as a real fortification, and the Danes had not been above receiving the corsairs with open arms.

It is not a difficult matter to imagine Charlotte Amalie’s streets filled with buccaneers, for after a few encounters with boatmen, beggars, guides, and gamins the average visitor will be convinced that the pirates still haunt the place in spirit if not in body. Maybe the freebooters’ traits have been passed down in their blood that flows to some extent in the veins of a large proportion of the Virgin Islanders; but, however that may be, the present inhabitants of St. Thomas know little and care less about piratical history or relics.

And an investigation of the contents of the shops in Charlotte Amalie will lead one to think that much of the buccaneers’ loot still remains in stock after a lapse of two centuries or more. Such juxtaposition [[25]]of odds and ends from all quarters of the world, it would be hard to duplicate in any other port upon the planet.

Predominant, and everywhere in evidence, are the two items inseparably associated with St. Thomas,—jipijapa hats and bay-rum,—although I understand that since my last visit to the island the Volstead law has shown its effects even on bay-rum. But formerly—at any rate, until its acquisition by Uncle Samuel—St. Thomas was more famous for its bay-rum than for anything else; bay-rum and St. Thomas were synonymous around the world. Charlotte Amalie reeked of bay-rum: every ragged negro one met upon the streets besought one to purchase it, and from mysterious pockets or other receptacles produced a bottle or two; every shop was filled with it, and the bumboats that flocked about every incoming and departing ship were laden with it. And, strangely enough, very little bay-rum is or was made in St. Thomas. To be sure, it was adulterated, bottled, and labeled there, but the oil itself, the distilled extract of the aromatic bay-tree, was largely produced in St. John. Not one person in a million has ever heard of St. John, perhaps the most charming island of the Virgins, and yet it is really the home of the bay-rum which made St. Thomas [[26]]famous. Such are fate and the effects of publicity; and as the St. Johnians ultimately reaped a goodly portion of the profits, I do not suppose they ever complained.

If the visitor to St. Thomas could not be cajoled or nagged into purchasing bay-rum, then the islanders at once pressed upon him their next most famous commodity, the jipijapa or Panama hats. Somehow the visiting public was imbued with the idea that Panama hats could be purchased more cheaply in St. Thomas than elsewhere, and despite the fact that very few of the St. Thomas head-coverings ever saw the Isthmus of Panama, and still fewer ever were made in far-off Ecuador (the home of the bona-fide Panama), tourists, seamen, and other visitors to St. Thomas invariably stocked up. It made no difference, apparently, whether the hats were made in the neighboring Virgins or in Porto Rico; as long as they were bought in St. Thomas the purchasers reasoned that they must be genuine and cheap. Even the braided paper affairs made by the Japanese were often passed off on the unsuspecting and gullible tourists as real Panamas—whatever that may mean. Of course, St. Thomas being formerly under Danish rule and a free port, many articles which were subject to high duties in the United States were to be had in [[27]]the island at bargain prices, but Monte Cristi Panama hats were not among them.

In the good old days before our country and all its colonies became Saharas, St. Thomas was noted up and down and roundabout the islands for its liquid refreshments. Not only was there the justly famed St. Croix rum, but countless other beverages were procurable there, brought from every liquor-producing country on the globe, in addition to several native concoctions that were not to be laughed at, especially after a few glasses with the jovial Danes on a holiday. Oddly enough, inhabitants of tropical lands, especially the West Indies, consume incredible quantities of alcoholic drinks and seem to thrive upon them. Indeed, it is a source of pride among the islanders that their native islets consume more alcohol per capita than any other lands, and there is always a keen rivalry between Barbados, Bermuda, and Demerara in this respect. But I had never heard that St. Thomas strove for first honors and when, on one occasion, I inquired of a huge blond-bearded St. Thomas Dane why this was so, he informed me in all seriousness that as the St. Thomas people consumed more than all the others combined, it was beneath them even to mention the question. Surely it must make the old buccaneers squirm in their graves [[28]]to think of St. Thomas, of all places, being dry, dry as old Dead Man’s Chest with its one bottle of rum to fifteen men, at least on the surface, though I know there is many a cask, bottle, and keg stored safely away in private stocks for the proper drinking of a skoal when occasion arises.

But to return to the shops of Charlotte Amalie and their strange and motley contents. Here, with the bay-rum, jipijapa hats, and dried corals and starfish, are French perfumes, picture post-cards, and seed necklaces. Miscellaneous hardware, groceries, tinned goods, cloth, and bric-à-brac are inextricably mixed. A salesman searches among piles of cordage and bundles of rowlocks to find a pair of shoes or a package of patent medicine, for every shop in Charlotte Amalie, save the drug stores, is a little of everything with nothing in its place. I remember seeing a pair of very old-fashioned skates dangling rusty and forlorn outside a shop one blistering December day. Curious to know how such things happened to be in the island, or to whom the proprietor expected to sell them I entered and inquired. Imagine my amusement and surprise when I was solemnly informed that they had been there for years, that no one knew exactly what they were used for, but, in the words of the chocolate-colored shopkeeper: [[29]]

“I am aware that they are significant of the holiday season, and so I hang them outside regularly each year as an indication to passers-by that my Christmas stock of merchandise is on sale.” Truly, an original method of advertising!

In another shop a pair of strange slipper-like objects, unlike anything I had ever seen, were displayed. The owner of the shop, without appearing to think it at all curious, told me they were from Lapland, and, perhaps with a faint hope of making a sale, thereupon rummaged among his stock of countless years’ standing and proudly produced a pair of moth-eaten Eskimo boots! Had he brought forth a full suit of armor or the skeleton of a buccaneer, I could scarcely have been more astonished. But after all, when we come to think of it, it is not so remarkable, for both Greenland and St. Thomas were Danish colonies, and no doubt some far-cruising Dane brought the reindeer-skin foot-coverings here on one of his trading voyages. We may laugh at the Dane for not realizing that such things were hardly suitable for everyday wear in the Virgin Islands, but is his mistake any more ridiculous than that of our own countryman who shipped a cargo of warming-pans to St. Kitts, or our own United States Senator who, when about to start on a mission to Porto Rico, [[30]]asked a friend if the people there had means of heating their houses in winter?

Far more interesting than the shops, however, and a spot which every visitor who is interested in maritime matters should see, is the “ships’ graveyard” at Krum Bay, near the harbor entrance.

Here, for countless years, have been towed the disabled, storm-beaten ships condemned as unworthy of repair, and here they have found their last port, their final resting-place. Stripped of rigging and other fittings, they have been burned for the copper they contained; but though they are lost forever, though history makes no mention of them, though their very names have long since been forgotten, yet they still live on, perpetuated in their figure-heads which have been saved and, while sadly neglected, are prized as relics.

There is something pathetic, almost tragic, in these dumb and lifeless figures lying there exposed to the elements, their once-gay paint and gilt tarnished, faded, and flaked off by storm and wind and sun. They seem almost like tombstones, as indeed they are—monuments to dead and gone ships that once proudly plowed the seven seas and the five broad oceans. Only carven effigies, perhaps, but all that remain to tell of stately hulls and towering pyramids of canvas, of lofty trucks and [[31]]clipper bows, of craft that, disabled, maimed, battered, and wrecked, have left their bones here in St. Thomas at Krum Bay.

Looking at these reminders of a bygone day, one can visualize the ships of which they formed a part, can almost identify the craft beneath whose soaring bowsprits these figures once gazed forth across the tumbling, foam-flecked brine. Here, leaning against a cocoanut palm, is a Roman legionary, his short sword broken at the hilt as though in some hard-fought battle, his shield dented and bruised, and his wooden face seamed and scarred. Faded, weather-beaten, and forlorn, he is still a martial figure. He has fought more battles, has seen victory in more hard-won fights than ever soldier of Cæsar,—battles against the elements, struggles between lashing, storm-flung waves and puny man,—and while in the end the sea was victorious, yet we know that the stern-visaged warrior fought a good fight and bore the brunt of battle always in the foremost rank, ever there with threatening falchion at the bows. Massive, heroic he is, and we feel sure that in years gone he looked proudly, defiantly upon the sea from some ship of war or privateer with grinning ports along her sides.

Close by, coquettishly peeping from behind a pile of junk, is a very different figure, a female [[32]]form with doll-like, simpering face, long, flowing hair, and clinging draperies. Upon her cheeks are still patches of pink, as though she had but freshly rouged; her skirts and low-cut bodice still are gaudy with red and yellow, and we can see that once her wooden tresses were of raven hue. Looking at her, we can reconstruct the ship she graced, we can see the bluff-bowed, wallowing, honest merchantman, and we feel sure, could we but look upon the stern, we should see, painted across her counter, “Polly” or “Betsy” or perchance even “Mary Ann.”

Near this lady, with her fixed wooden smile that has withstood the tempests of centuries, a sailor lad in glazed hat lurches drunkenly, propped up by an iron post just as his living counterpart no doubt was supported many a time after a glorious night ashore. Now his eyes are fixed in an unwinking stare upon raven-haired Polly, while behind him, with outflung arm, one shapely foot spurning a carven shield, poises a Victory. A masterpiece she, albeit her wings are sadly clipped and disrespectful insects have pitted her classic features with their borings until she looks as though she had suffered from smallpox. But the finely chiseled draperies, the perfectly proportioned, softly rounded limbs speak eloquently of beauty long since faded, of expert craftsmanship. All [[33]]who love ships must pause before her in reverence, for once she flew gracefully at the sharp prow of some famous clipper-ship, a grayhound of the sea, a fabric such as never will be seen again,—the very acme of Yankee shipbuilding skill. A craft with sky-piercing masts, vast tapering yards, and acres of billowing canvas, the clipper was the queen of transatlantic liners, and proudly she flaunted the Stars and Stripes for all the world to see.

And something of an epitome of St. Thomas’s history and St. Thomas’s trade is this graveyard of the ships. As each old sailing-craft was towed to its funeral pyre at Krum Bay the island took a step nearer its doom, for with the passing of the old West India trade, with the discarding of crossed yards and square sails, St. Thomas’s greatness departed. Never again will her harbor be filled with a forest of masts flying the flags of every maritime nation.

Perchance under the United States Government she may be more stable than heretofore: she may suffer less from lack of cash and a mother country’s interest. Coaling-docks and grimy colliers will attract a certain number of hideous tramps and spotless liners to her harbor; tourists may spend a few hours and a few dollars in quaint Charlotte Amalie, [[34]]but never again will this port be world-famed as of yore.

But even so,—even though the island’s romantic past is little more than tradition, with the old days gone forever; even with the omnipresent marines and Fords upon the streets and the American flag flying over the old pink fort,—St. Thomas is still a charming resort with its three hills rising like pyramids of multicolored, red-roofed buildings, its gray-green mountains over all, its blue sky and bluer waters and its brown, black, and yellow good-natured, care-free inhabitants, who, though the blood of pirate chieftain or old Viking may run in their veins, one and all proudly proclaim themselves “Americans.”

Of all things in St. Thomas, the most cherished, even sacred, to the natives, and invariably the first to be pointed out to the visitor, is the famous “Blackbeard’s Castle” at the apex of the hillside town of Charlotte Amalie.

Perhaps old Blackbeard never dwelt in the tower that bears his name, any more than Bluebeard of the inquisitive wives built or occupied the neighboring structure which bears his name. Indeed, there is no denying that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a striking resemblance to an old stone windmill tower. But the skeptics who have pointed this out and have [[35]]scoffed at the beloved legend of the St. Thomians have overlooked the fact that even if the tower was originally only an unromantic cane-mill, there is no valid reason why Teach should not have made use of it. Dutch windmills were built, used, and abandoned years before the famous pirate saw the light of day, and a cylindrical tower of massive stone, whether designed for a windmill or otherwise, was an ideal structure for a freebooter’s dwelling and fortress, and was admirably adapted to defensive tactics.

In fact, between the two, I would far rather have been within that tower on the hill than in the squat pink fort, in case of attack in the days when muzzle-loading guns and round shot were in vogue, and the fact that Blackbeard’s Castle bears a family likeness to a windmill proves or disproves nothing. Everywhere in the West Indies one finds Spanish, French, Dutch, and even English towers built for forts and as much like that upon this St. Thomas hilltop as peas in the same pod. Right on the splendid Malecon in Havana there is one; several are scattered about Puerto Plata, Macoris, and other towns in Santo Domingo. They may be seen in a more or less ruined state all up and down the Antilles and the Main, and yet no one has the temerity to suggest that they were once windmills! [[36]]Why, then, should any one try to destroy this almost sacred tradition of St. Thomas? Why try to rob the islanders of that one reminder of the buccaneers? No, let us not be doubting Thomases, but rather be thankful that this old-time haven of the pirates still retains at least one landmark that links it with the past.

And there is no reason why Blackbeard should not have dwelt in St. Thomas in those days of his prosperity. All the Virgin Isles—Danish, Dutch, and British—were safe refuges for the pirates, retreats wherein they could lie in peace, where they could refit and careen their craft, could secure supplies, could exchange their loot for gold and silver currency, and could gamble and carouse to their hearts’ content.

Very canny were the thrifty islanders in thus opening their doors to the freebooters. It protected them from attack, and it insured a lively trade. And they well knew that whatever they paid in good pieces of eight and golden onzas for plundered goods would eventually return to their own pockets over bars and gaming-tables, for the pirates were free spenders and money ever burned holes in their pockets. So we may feel sure that St. Thomas has sheltered many a pirate ship and many a famous or infamous buccaneer, [[37]]especially in the great harp-shaped bay to the west of Charlotte Amalie, and separated from the harbor by a rocky peninsula. Here the pirates were wont to lie in wait for unsuspecting merchantmen bound through the Virgin Passage between the island and neighboring Porto Rico, until, to save their faces, the Danish authorities were compelled to request their welcome but disreputable guests to confine themselves to more peaceful pursuits while in Danish waters or else betake themselves elsewhere. [[38]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER III

THE BUCCANEERS IN THE VIRGIN ISLES

It was due to peculiar circumstances that the Virgin Islands and their harbors became neutral ground—or, rather, neutral waters—wherein the corsairs could be sure of safety, and where they never harmed the inhabitants or such peaceful craft as might come to trade or to seek refuge.

With the European countries constantly at one another’s throats, the men without a country, flying no flag but the Jolly Roger, could always find safety among these disputed isles, and were always sure of a welcome. The hated Spaniards were the chief sufferers from the pirates’ attacks, and while they might virtually be at peace with Spain, yet the other powers saw no real reason to interfere with the pirates’ activities merely to aid an hereditary enemy who might at any moment see fit to start another war. England, as ever, desired the supremacy of the seas, and, hard put to it to maintain her grip in the Antilles, she was quite willing that the Dons should be kept in check by fair means or foul. France was too busy with more serious [[39]]matters to bother about the freebooters in the far-off Caribbean. The thrifty Dutch found it more profitable to trade with the pirates than to fight them, and the Danes,—with the adventurous blood of the Vikings in their veins,—no doubt had more or less of a fellow-feeling for the sea-robbers.

And so, although the governments of Europe sent forth royal decrees, bearing most impressive seals, gay with colored ribbons and engrossed with lengthy words and involved sentences, and on parchment frowned upon the corsairs, yet no real effort was made to enforce the law. So the buccaneers laughed at the “scraps of paper” and went merrily and virtually unchecked upon their way.

It may be well here to call attention to the fact that we should not confuse the buccaneers with ordinary pirates, for while buccaneers were pirates, yet pirates were not necessarily buccaneers; and even in their piracy the buccaneers or “Brethren of the Main,” as they called themselves, were by no means the conventional pirates of fiction.

Nearly all of them started on their careers as privateers with royal warrant to prey upon the enemy’s ships. Then, having found the game to their liking and with no other means of earning a [[40]]livelihood when peace was declared, they kept it up, regardless of such trifling matters as treaties of peace between kings and emperors several thousands of miles distant. With a few exceptions, they continued their depredations in much the same manner and along the same lines as they had conducted their privateering ventures.

The British buccaneers—and the majority were of that nationality—never attacked a vessel flying the thrice-crossed flag of England; they did not molest the Dutch, who were ever friendly, for as long as there were plenty of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Frenchmen for the plucking they were quite content to pick and choose. The French buccaneers were perhaps a little less squeamish, while the Dutch and the Spanish apparently preyed on friend and foe alike.

But, no matter what their nationality or origin, all left certain places free from molestation, and among these the favorites were the Virgin Isles, the island of Tortuga off Haiti, the islets about Santo Domingo, Aves Island off Venezuela, the Caymans south of Jamaica, Jamaica itself, and the Bay Islands off Honduras. These islands, especially the Virgins, became known far and wide as lairs of the reckless sea-rovers, whither none dared to follow and where they could, for a space, [[41]]cast aside all fear of shipwreck, murder, and sudden death and live in peace.

Callous, case-hardened, and ruffianly as they were, yet they knew well which side their bread was buttered on, and they made and enforced strict laws and discipline in their retreats. The natives’ lives and property were sacred, the towns were patrolled by armed men selected by the buccaneer chiefs, and death, swift and sure, was the punishment for any infringement of rules, or a violation of the hospitality accorded. Many a drunken pirate was pistoled out of hand by his own comrades for taking, or attempting to take, liberties with some Virgin Island maid. Many a buccaneer has kicked and writhed as he swung to his ship’s yard arm as a penalty for picking a quarrel with some citizen of St. John or St. Barts, and more than one corsair has been cut down without mercy and his body thrown to the waiting sharks because he refused to pay for drinks or commodities purchased in the island shops or bar-rooms.

Strange, incomprehensible, quixotic men, these reckless buccaneers. Cruel, relentless, unprincipled, and yet with their own inexorable laws, their own code of honor, their streak of gallantry and their bravery which, despite their sins and their wickedness, we cannot but admire. [[42]]

We cannot understand them; it would baffle the most expert psychoanalyist to fathom the workings of their brains; but we must not judge them by modern standards. In their day piracy was a profession rather than a crime and, while openly frowned upon by the powers, privately abetted and encouraged. Indeed, it was looked upon rather as a gentleman’s profession, and not a few gentlemen were engaged in it. To us these men appear bloodthirsty monsters, but we must bear in mind that in their day life was cheap and torture was legalized as a punishment for the most trivial crimes.

Such pleasantries as burning holes through liars’ tongues, cutting off eavesdroppers’ ears, branding the palms of thieves’ hands, or putting out eyes were in the same category as ten days’ imprisonment or ten dollars’ fine to-day. And death in fiendish forms was meted out for violations of the law which in our day we should think severely punished with six months in a modern jail with such accessories as motion pictures, baseball games, and musical concerts in lieu of rack, wheel, and thumb-screw.

In the days when the Virgins were a haven for pirates the bodies of men hanging in chains and surrounded by carrion crows were almost an essential [[43]]part of the waterside landscape in all seaports, and attracted no more attention than an illuminated advertisement on Broadway does at the present time.

No doubt the country people who came to town for a holiday or to do their marketing, stared with bulging eyes at the rotting corpses swaying in the wind and pointed them out to their young hopefuls as awful examples of the end they would come to if they ran away to become sea-rovers, just as to-day our country cousins stare and gape at the sights of the metropolis. And unquestionably the denizens of the ports snickered and made rude jokes about the “rubes” and “bumpkins” who were such “jays” as to stare at a pirate’s body in chains.

But such a fate overtook the buccaneers only when, by some mischance, they forgot themselves and overstepped the bounds of propriety; for as a rule they had a peculiar sense of patriotism—although men without a country, legally—and seldom troubled persons or ships of the land of their birth. And as long as they confined their activities to harassing hereditary enemies, even though official peace might have been established, their countrymen put tongues in cheeks, figuratively speaking, and let well enough alone.

Indeed, from a diplomatic and economic point of view it was not a bad plan to have a score or two [[44]]of corsairs preying on a competitor nation’s commerce, or within call in case of war. No small proportion of the buccaneer ships were fitted out and partly owned by law-abiding and highly respectable gentlemen and merchants who would have become apoplectic with righteous indignation if any one had dared assume that they were even morally in sympathy with piracy.

Many of the buccaneers were exceedingly interesting characters, and the pity is that, aside from Esquemelling and one or two others, they had no chroniclers, no biographers to leave us a true account of their lives, to give us a real insight into their natures, their ideals, and their aims, and to thrill us with their adventures. A few have become famous, have lived on in history and legend; but doubtless many more, whose careers were far more thrilling and whose characters were far more interesting, have been completely forgotten. Now and then some bit of tradition, some fragment of story makes us wish we knew more of them.

It is hard to imagine a swashbuckling, blood-spilling pirate, spending his leisure hours in writing poetry, but it was no other than Foster, a pirate who served under Morgan and whom the famous Sir Harry one time rebuked for his ruthlessness, that penned “Sonnyettes of Love,” which, although [[45]]they may not be good verse, are certainly more intelligible than much of our modern poetry, and express delightful and tender sentiments.

BLACKBEARD’S CASTLE (ST. THOMAS)

(From an old print)

No doubt the screams of captive Spanish wives and daughters maltreated by his ruffianly crew furnished the author with inspiration and turned his mind to thoughts of shady Devon lanes or ivy-clad Surrey cottages and buxom, fair-haired, red-cheeked English lassies. But this is mere speculation; all we know is that he was a romantic soul and preferred writing tender effusions of love, in [[46]]his cramped, painstaking hand, to carousing ashore and making merry with negro wenches.

Old Teach, the Blackbeard associated with the castle in St. Thomas, was a most interesting type, a man such as even Poe or Stevenson could not have created out of whole cloth or vivid imagination. Born as Edward Teach, in Bristol, England,—a port, by the way, where many a redoubtable freebooter was recruited,—the youngster in due course of time became a sailor and voyaged, among other places, to the West Indies. To be sure, the heyday of buccaneering was then over, but still, in 1716, there were many freebooters afloat upon the Caribbean. Having heard, in Port Royal and other notorious resorts, glowing tales of the pirate’s life, Edward decided that life aboard a merchantman was a very unattractive and unprofitable one and that piracy was the most promising get-rich-quick scheme.

Regardless of his failings, we must admit that young Teach would have won the highest esteem of an efficiency expert (had such beings existed in his day), for he believed implicitly that a thing worth doing at all was worth doing well and bent all his energies to practising his profession in a thorough manner. As an example of the rewards [[47]]or successes attendant upon application to an idea, Teach was a model, for within a space of two years from the time he announced his intention of turning corsair he could lay undisputed claim to being the world’s greatest pirate.

Moreover, the amiable Edward was a firm believer in publicity and in the spectacular. Indeed, he very evidently was far in advance of his time, and to-day he would have brought untold joy to the heart of a film director and would be drawing a far larger income than he ever enjoyed through his chosen career. If ever there was an original of the buccaneer of melodrama and lurid fiction, it must have been Teach; only, no author or playwright would ever dare draw a character as bizarre, repulsive, and hideously ferocious as this Prince of Pirates.

Of immense size and coarse and brutal aspect, Teach nurtured a huge black beard which covered his ugly face to his eyes, and which, falling to his waist, was braided into innumerable small pigtails, the ends being tied together over his ears. His hair, also of inky hue, fell to his shoulders and almost met his beetling, bushy black eyebrows over his forehead. As though not ferocious-looking enough naturally, he was accustomed, when making an attack, to stick burning slow-matches in hair and [[48]]beard, which surrounded his fierce face and gleaming eyes with a ring of fire and smoke and, according to a contemporaneous description, “glowed most horribly.” Unlike many of his notorious predecessors and compeers, Blackbeard was no dandy. His favorite costume was a long-skirted, deep-cuffed coat, much the worse for wear and dribbled liquor; a rough shirt open to the waist and exposing a chest as hairy as a gorilla’s; short, wide breeches, and low seaman’s shoes. Stockings he usually dispensed with, and a battered felt hat of the type made familiar by stage robbers crowned his ebon mane, while, to complete his get-up, a pair of cutlasses and a knife or two hung at his belt and half a dozen pistols were stuck through his sash.

BLACKBEARD

And, in truth, Blackbeard’s character was as ferocious as his looks, and his soul as black as his whiskers. There was not a single redeeming feature about him, unless it was his sheer courage, and altogether he was a despicable scoundrel. On more than one occasion he robbed and murdered his own men, and he cared not a whit whether prizes he took were flying the flag of his mother country or of another. To him, torture and butchery were mere pastimes, and one day, just as a joke, he placed seventeen of his own crew on a tiny desert island, promising to return at intervals [[49]]to see how long they could survive without food or water. Fortunately for the castaways, Teach was unable to carry out this, to him, interesting experiment in human endurance, for another corsair,—and a rank amateur, at that,—Major Stede Bonnet, rescued the marooned pirates.

No doubt time hung heavy on the pirates’ hands at times as they sailed aimlessly about waiting for a prize, but those upon Blackbeard’s ship could always be sure that tedium would not be their lot. As an entertainer Teach was a marvel, albeit his ideas of amusement were not always appreciated by others and he must have devoted a considerable portion of his spare time to inventing new schemes to relieve the monotony between fights.

THE VIGILANT AS ORIGINALLY RIGGED

Once, when his ship was becalmed on a blistering hot day and no sail broke the scintillating horizon, the resourceful Blackbeard appeared on deck hatless, coatless, and in his bare feet, and proposed that his shipmates should make a little “hell of their own,” adding that, as they were all bound for the lower regions eventually, it would be interesting to learn in advance who would be able to bear it the longest. As his crew well knew that any imitation devised would be nothing to the inferno their captain would raise if they declined his invitation, they rather hesitatingly and half-heartedly fell in [[50]]with his plan. Thereupon Teach and his men—some of whom had to be urged by sundry well-aimed kicks and blows—descended into the ship’s hold and, having securely fastened the hatches, set fire to several kegs of sulphur and seated themselves upon the stone ballast.

We can well imagine that in the ill-smelling, unventilated hold a very creditable imitation of the infernal regions soon resulted, while Blackbeard might well have served as a model for the Evil One himself. At any rate, the officers and crew soon decided that even if they were on the straight road to perdition they had no desire to arrive ahead of time, and, choking and gasping, they broke through the hatches and climbed on deck. But not so with old Teach. Long after the last of his men had deserted the hold, he remained, seated on the stones, breathing the brimstone fumes, and throughout the rest of his days it was his greatest pride that he had been the last to give in.

Indeed, when one of his officers informed him that he had looked like a half-hanged man as he emerged, Teach seemed greatly pleased and declared that at some future time he was going to make a test to see who could dangle the longest from a noose without being wholly hanged.

Blackbeard believed in keeping himself before the [[51]]public and in not allowing even his friends to forget who he was or what his character, as illustrated by an incident in his career when he was entertaining his own sailing-master and a pilot in the cabin of his sloop, which was at anchor in one of the Virgin Island harbors.

After a time conversation lagged and Teach, blowing out the solitary candle, cocked his pistols, and, crossing his arms, fired point-blank toward his companions. The unfortunate sailing-master was shot through the knee and permanently crippled, but in the darkness of the cabin the other shot went wild and the pilot escaped with nothing worse than a fright. When, after this pleasantry, the candle was re-lit and the two indignant seamen demanded an explanation, Teach cursed them fluently and at length, and finished by explaining that they would forget who he was if he didn’t shoot one of them now and then.

Strangely enough, Blackbeard, despite his unattractive face and still more unattractive personality, appears to have been a good deal of a lady-killer, figuratively if not literally, for he managed to win the hearts and hands of fourteen maidens whom he married. History fails to record their subsequent fate or whether Teach devised some speedy form of divorce to suit himself. The fourteenth wife was [[52]]a “most charming young creature of sixteen,” if we are to believe those who wrote of her at first hand.

Blackbeard’s courtships would have made entertaining reading had they been recorded, and it would be interesting to know what there was about him that appealed so strongly to feminine tastes, but chroniclers evidently considered such matters too trivial to record.

Of course it would be expected that a man of Edward Teach’s character and attainments would die with his boots on and fighting to the last, and he was not one to disappoint the lover of lurid adventure. In the end he completely fulfilled everything expected of him. So great a menace had he become to shipping, especially to the merchant marine of the British colonies in America, that the powers that were demanded that his activities be brought to a speedy end. Accordingly, the Governor of Virginia, in 1718, posted divers and sundry notices to the effect that forty pounds sterling would be paid as a reward for the capture of any pirate captain, and that Edward Teach, otherwise known as “Blackbeard,” was worth one hundred pounds to the authorities, whether he be brought in dead or alive. In those days such a sum was a small fortune, enough to tempt any brave and hardy soul to have a try for it, but the first to camp on Blackbeard’s [[53]]trail was Lieutenant Maynard of H. M. S. Pearl. By some means never fully revealed, Maynard learned that the redoubtable pirate was enjoying a brief vacation in a secluded cove near Ocracoke Inlet (North Carolina). Gossip had it that the Governor of Carolina was on far too friendly terms with Teach, and that no small portion of that worthy gentleman’s wealth had found its way into the governor’s pockets, owing to the pirate’s appreciation of being left undisturbed in his chosen haven on the Carolina coast.

Whatever the truth may be, the young naval officer started forth in a sloop he had fitted out and manned, intent on Blackbeard’s capture or death. Although the pirate was apprised of the lieutenant’s approach, he scorned to move from his retreat, but spent the night before the expected visit in striving to outdrink a friendly merchant skipper who had dropped in for a call. Toward daylight, however, Teach’s men saw Maynard approaching, and the pirate, realizing that the officer really meant business, cut his cables, hoisted the Jolly Roger, and let his vessel drift ashore. Here, in the shoal water, he felt sure the sloop could not follow, and as, oddly enough, neither vessel carried cannon and it would be a hand-to-hand conflict, Blackbeard’s ruse was worthy of him. [[54]]

But the one hundred pounds still glittered before the lieutenant’s eyes, and, determined to do or die, he cast everything possible overboard, including the water-casks, set his sails, and headed directly for the pirate vessel. Thereupon Blackbeard, with his slow-matches smoking and sputtering in hair and beard, “hailed him in a most rude manner,” cursed him, defied him, and, to show his utter contempt, stood in plain view upon his ship’s rails and drank a goblet of liquor to Maynard’s damnation. Finding that, even with everything movable jettisoned, his sloop still drew too much water to grapple with the pirate, the lieutenant manned small boats and attempted to board Blackbeard’s craft. He was met with so hot a welcome of musketry and pistols that twenty-nine men were killed and wounded, and the boats retreated to the sloop.

Meanwhile the tide was rising, and Maynard’s sloop was constantly drifting closer to the pirate. Still confident of success, the lieutenant ordered all his men below, he alone remaining on deck with the helmsman. Presently, the sloop grated and bumped against the other vessel, and immediately the pirates began to pelt her with fire-grenades. Then, drawing cutlasses and pistols, they sprang over the bulwarks and swarmed upon the sloop’s decks in true melodramatic piratical style. Up [[55]]from the hold poured Maynard’s men, and hot and furious was the battle. Teach and the lieutenant were face to face. Both fired at the same instant, at point-blank range, but while the officer dodged, Teach was less fortunate, and Maynard’s bullet buried itself in the pirate’s face.

With blood streaming from the wound and dripping from the braided ends of his beard, the maddened pirate flung down his pistol, whipped out his cutlass, and, swearing horribly, leaped at the officer, who also had drawn his sword. Then followed a duel, a hand-to-hand struggle to the death between the gigantic, cursing, horrible-featured pirate and the young officer—a contest between brute strength and trained swordsmanship. Chasing each other back and forth across the blood-covered deck, stumbling and tripping over dead and wounded men, they hacked and parried and thrust. Again and again the officer’s sword went home, more than once the pirate’s cutlass found its mark, until at last a terrific blow of Blackbeard’s heavy blade snapped his opponent’s light sword at the hilt and the lieutenant was at the pirate’s mercy.

With a blood-curdling yell and a terrible oath, Teach swung his cutlass and struck with all his failing strength, expecting to cut his enemy down with a single blow. But Maynard, leaping back, [[56]]escaped, the stroke falling short and merely slicing off several fingers from the officer’s hand. Before Teach could strike again, ere he could raise his arm, one of Maynard’s men leaped forward, his naval hanger flashed, and the pirate chief staggered back, his head lolling on one side, his neck half severed. But even then, with his life-blood spouting like a crimson fountain from the gaping wound, with his head rolling horribly on his shoulders, Blackbeard swung his cutlass and with a mighty blow cut the brave sailor down.

Knowing his doom was sealed, realizing his death was but a matter of moments, the pirate was still game. Kicking off his shoes, that his feet might not slip upon the bloody planks, he backed to the bulwarks, fighting off a half-dozen men who fell upon him. Dripping with blood from a score of wounds, holding his all but decapitated head in place with one hand, he roared like a maddened bull, drew a pistol from his sash, cocked it, and with a last superhuman effort aimed at the oncoming men. But the piece was never fired; before his finger could pull the trigger, before a swinging blade could reach him, his hands fell at his sides, his head dropped forward in ghastly fashion on his blood-drenched beard, and he slumped to the deck, dead. [[57]]

Those of the pirate crew still alive had leaped into the water; the fight was over, the battle won, the notorious, inhuman Blackbeard was no more. Cutting the sinews and muscles that still kept Teach’s head and body together, the victorious Maynard suspended the gruesome trophy at his sloop’s bowsprit end, and with thirteen captured pirates under hatches, sailed into Bath Town, North Carolina, where the unlucky thirteen were promptly hanged and Lieutenant Maynard received his well-merited and hard-won reward.

Oddly enough, the one man of Blackbeard’s crew who escaped unscathed was his sailing-master, Israel Hands, the selfsame man whom Teach had wounded in the knee a short time previously, and who, owing to his late captain’s practical joke, was ashore nursing his injured leg at the time of Maynard’s attack. [[58]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER IV

ON THE WAY TO ST. JOHN

Sam had assured me that there were many relics of buccaneer days on St. John, and in St. Thomas his statements had been confirmed by several persons. Moreover, the names of many a bay and cove that broke the coast-line of this near-by neighbor of St. Thomas were associated with the buccaneers, and so, although I had originally planned to pass it by and set sail direct for Anegada, I changed my itinerary to include this neglected Eden of the Virgins.

Sam had rounded up the crew—who, considering that St. Thomas is supposedly “dry,” were, with the exception of Joe, extremely hilarious—and had them safe aboard and under his watchful eye the evening preceding our departure; for the Bahaman, unlike the majority of his race, never believed in putting off until the morrow what could be done the night before.

Many an old-time friend of pre-American days had I met in Charlotte Amalie, and many a toast to the success of my cruise had been drunk in delectable [[59]]guava-berry cordial and other beverages dear to the Danish West Indians,—a fine, hospitable, easygoing lot,—and it was with real regret that I bade them farewell.

Hardly had the first rosy tints of approaching dawn lightened the eastern sky when Sam routed out his men. The creak and purr of tackle and sheave broke the silence of the sleeping harbor, the capstan clanked and clattered to the rhythm of shuffling black feet upon the deck, and the Vigilant glided slowly from the land as the sun rose above the gently swaying cocoanut-palms and transformed the ancient schooner’s sails to cloth of gold.

To the west as we cleared the land, and looming sharply in the morning light, rose Sail Rock, more than ever the very semblance of a ship. And, my mind filled with thoughts of pirate and of buccaneer, I could picture the solitary pinnacle as a great galleon sailing majestically southward through the narrow channel. There, shimmering in the sun, was the high, ornate stern; along the low, dark waist the creamy foam sparkled brightly; upward in towering pyramids soared the huge, square sails; and toward her—like a falcon after a helpless gull—the Vigilant swept.

How often, I wondered, had the little schooner’s bowsprit swung toward some distant gleam of sail? [[60]]How many times had her dark-skinned, fierce-faced crew run out the long guns and sent round shot hurtling through the hull and rigging of a prize?

And then Sam spoke:

“Tha’ Sail Rock mos’ cert’n’y do have th’ aspec’ o’ a ship, Chief. Did y’ ever hear o’ th’ ’casion when one o’ th’ ’Merican battle-ships fired on th’ rock for a target, an’ th’ Danes made plenty o’ rumpus an’ humbuggin’ ’bout it?”

The spell was broken. The galleon vanished in thin air. I saw only a curiously formed rock surrounded by screaming sea-birds, and as a smoke-belching, grimy tramp appeared from behind it I turned away and looked toward the soft, deliciously green hills to the eastward—the hills of St. John. And as though she too were suddenly disillusioned and had bethought herself that she was no pirate ship running down a prize, but a law-abiding and peaceful packet carrying an American on an innocent mission, the Vigilant swung about and headed for St. John.

But, as Sam said, the rock did certainly have the “aspec’ ” of a ship, and I could not blame the bellicose captain of a French frigate who, a century and more ago, sighted the rock one night and, mistaking it for a privateer, ran close and hailed the supposed enemy. No response being forthcoming, [[61]]he blazed a broadside at the shadowy mass. Back came an echoing thunder of the cannonade, and the rebounding shot, falling on the frigate’s deck, convinced the Frenchman that the privateer was returning his fire.

For hours the battle raged, the French gunners pouring broadside after broadside at the massive cliffs, and not until day dawned did the deluded commander of the frigate discover his mistake and, crestfallen and mortified, creep away, leaving Sail Rock unscathed and triumphant.

Sailing in a fresh breeze, with a buoyant, well-built, easily handled ship under one’s feet, is a never-ending delight to one fond of the water, regardless of what portion of the seven seas one’s craft may be spurning from her bow. But to me no other water is so sparkling, no other wind so free, balmy, and life-giving, as that of the Caribbean; no other sea is so delightful for sailing.

Never, I am sure, should I tire of voyaging this sea in a speedy vessel, of watching the streaming, far-flung wake of verdigris, turquoise, and veridian; of standing in the very eyes of the plunging craft and, with the rushing wind whipping the salt spray in my face, gazing at the hissing, prismatic curling bow wave and the skittering flying-fish like miniature hydroplanes. Never should I [[62]]weary of watching those wondrous masses of a thousand shades of green rising above the rim of the sea, of seeing the hazy, opalescent forms develop into mile-high mountains, stupendous gorges, and vast, forest-clad hills. Glorious are the saffron-and-pink-hued dawns when the sea seems swept and scoured, so scintillating it is. And equally wonderful are the flaming orange-and-crimson sunsets, with the water mauve, lavender, and royal purple in the fading light of day. Then, when night comes, suddenly and like a black curtain dropped from the zenith, and the myriad gleaming stars spangle the velvety dome of the sky and the Southern Cross glows low in the heavens,—then is the world filled with romance and peace as the gentle rise and fall of the vessel lulls to rest, the creaking tackle and rigging and the soft lapping of the waves whisper a lullaby, and the balmy night wind touches one’s cheek with a caress. If I could have my heart’s desire, I should, I think, choose to spend my declining years sailing the Spanish Main in a swift and handy ship, cruising aimlessly, touching where fancy willed, free as one of the swift-winged frigate-birds, untrammeled as the leaping porpoises.

Being possessed of a passion for the sea and for the ships that sail thereon, and with an even greater [[63]]fondness for my familiar and beloved Caribbean, I can well understand why the buccaneers loved their wild life.

It was not simply gain, murder, debauchery, or lawlessness that lured them, that kept them ceaselessly reaching, scudding, tacking, and beating back and forth, round and about the Spanish Main. Most of them had more treasure than they could ever need—more than they could ever spend—cached here and there. No, it was largely sheer love of the sea, a resistless desire to feel the heaving decks under their feet, the pure fascination of adventure.

So let us not judge them too harshly. In their day, loot in time of war was legitimate and included the females of the vanquished; slavery flourished; debtors were sold as slaves. Taken all in all, the buccaneers were gentlemanly in their treatment of prisoners according to the customs of their times, while, compared with other forms of death then in vogue, walking the plank was a merciful end.

Besides, men’s tastes, ideas, constitutions, feelings, and sensitiveness vary. Many a man would have found the blazing sun and the spray-sprinkled deck of the Vigilant a most uncomfortable and unpleasant spot, and would have gone mad had he been obliged to sail hither and yon on the old [[64]]packet. To straddle a yard, soaring back and forth sixty feet above the sea, as must those of my crew, would have been a physical impossibility to thousands. To climb mountains is pure enjoyment to many, and yet I can imagine nothing more irksome. Big Sam, standing there on his firm flat feet, and deftly twirling the wheel, would have found it far harder and more of a strain to write a dozen misspelled lines than to dive for sponges in shark-infested waters day after day. And so we cannot hope to fathom the depths of others’ thoughts, to realize their sensations, or to understand their points of view, and we might just as well give up trying to analyze the buccaneers and, forgetting their shortcomings, enjoy the romance of their lives.

Thus musing, I glanced at Sam; and, remembering that in his veins flowed a bit of the wild blood of Red Lithgow, I asked:

“Sam, how would you like to be a pirate?”

For a brief instant the huge negro looked puzzled,—perhaps thinking the sun had affected my head,—and then a broad, tooth-filled grin spread over his shining black face.

“Lordy, Chief!” he rumbled. “Ah’ spec’ yo’ ’s jus’ tryin’ for to spoof me. The’ ain’t pirates now-’days; th’ parsed on years agone.”

“Aren’t there!” I exclaimed. “You’ve never [[65]]ridden in a New York taxi, Sam, or dined in an American restaurant, or traveled in a Pullman.”

The Bahaman’s eyes widened.

“Lordy!” he ejaculated. “You don’ is tellin’ me true, Chief?”

Sam’s childlike simplicity and his utter innocence were irresistible, and I burst into a roar of laughter.

“I was just speaking figuratively,” I explained. “But honestly, Sam, wouldn’t you like to sail up alongside a ship, leap over her rails with a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, and murder her crew and take her treasure?”

Sam shook his broad-hatted, kinky head decidedly.

“No-o, sir, Chief!” he declared. “Ah’s a man o’ peace, Ah is, an’ Ah’s no desire for to do nothin’ that’s like what yo’ says. An’ ah’s tellin’ yo’ true, Chief, if Ah sees a man wif a gun or pistol approachin’ me, Ah don’ mek to remain to argify. No, sir! Ah jus’ says to mah feet, ‘The Lord put you on mah laigs for to run, an’ now you obey the Lord.’ ”

Truly, Red Lithgow’s blood had turned to water in his descendant’s veins!

But now St. John was close aboard, and there were other matters to engage attention besides jollying good-natured, harmless old Sam. Rugged and bold the coast-line loomed above the beating [[66]]surf. Behind the beetling cliffs and ragged, needle-pointed rocks of the shore rose the rich green hills and mountains, and, like glimpses of fairyland between the outjutting fangs of rock, were cream-white beaches rimmed with turquoise, shaded with nodding palms, and backed by luscious green.

Almost like a continuation of St. Thomas seemed the island, with only the narrow sound three miles in width separating its western tip from its sister isle; while, beyond, Mingo, Grass, Lovango, and Congo cays looked from the distance like low-lying connecting land.

But if the two islands were separated by a thousand miles of sea, there could not be a greater difference in their appearance. St. Thomas—dry, barren, denuded of trees—reminds one of a gray-haired man oppressed with the weight of years; it is as though sere autumn made its abode there. But St. John—fresh, green, forest-clad—is perpetual youth, everlasting summer epitomized in sunshine, sparkling streams, and luxuriant verdure.

Swiftly the Vigilant drew near the island gem, heading in for Rendezvous Bay, once the favorite meeting-place of privateer and freebooter, and off the beach the schooner’s anchor splashed over and dropped swiftly through the crystalline water to the floor of coral sand. Here, in the neighboring [[67]]bush, I had been told, was to be found many a relic of buccaneer days; but so wild and untouched did the shore appear that it was hard to believe even the buccaneers ever had set foot upon it.

But then, St. John is almost deserted throughout its length and breadth. Yet it was once a prosperous and well-inhabited spot, a land of broad fields, great plantations, and rich estates. Its shores were fortified, its sheltered bays were filled with shipping, and it was a source of envy, dispute, and even bloodshed among the powers. To-day it is all but unknown; its landlocked harbors are bare of ship or sail; its plantations are overgrown with bush; great forest trees have sprung from gardens and have hidden the crumbling remains of once stately residences; its forts are ruins.

St. John is one of the most fertile of the islands, the best by far of all the Virgins, incomparably superior to St. Thomas in point of scenery, climate, and resources, and worth more intrinsically than St. Thomas and St. Croix rolled into one, while Coral Bay is probably the safest and most commodious harbor in the Lesser Antilles. Unlike St. Thomas, it is well watered, with an abundance of streams; it is the source of nearly all the bay-oil which goes to make the famed St. Thomas bay-rum, its waters teem with fish, and as a winter resort it would be [[68]]ideal. Why, we may ask, is the most attractive of Uncle Sam’s three Virgin Isles in so lamentable a state? It is difficult to say, but present conditions are due largely to its past; for, like human beings with a shady record, the West Indies find it hard to live down a reputation acquired in years gone by, and lands, like individuals, seldom “come back.”

And so, while Sam and his black and brown shipmates are furling the old Vigilant’s sails, a brief outline of St. John’s turbulent history may not come amiss.

Although the Spaniards saw little in the Virgin Isles to attract their cupidity and insatiable lust for gold, and, with so many far richer and more promising lands to loot and ravage, left them alone, yet other Europeans saw promise in them and took possession in the names of their respective sovereigns.

Just when St. John was first settled, or by whom, is not recorded; but in 1687 the papers appointing the governor of the Danish islands included St. John as a Danish possession. Two years previously Barbadians had attempted to settle on the island, but the jealous governor of the Leeward Islands promptly ejected the forty colonists who had established their homes on St. John. From that time on, the little island was a bone of contention [[69]]between England and Denmark, and although the Danes were anxious to settle and to cultivate St. John they hesitated because of the dog-in-the-manger attitude of the governor of the neighboring British island of Tortola.

It was not until 1717 that, acting under instructions from the Danish West Indian Company, Governor Erik Bredal—arriving in an armed vessel carrying five soldiers with an officer, sixteen negro slaves, and twenty planters—set the flag of Denmark on St. John’s soil and, having duly fired a salute and drunk the king’s health, erected a fort overlooking Coral Bay. But while the little garrison remained loyally to guard this addition to the Danish possessions, the faint-hearted planters withdrew to the more secure shores of St. Thomas until it might be seen how the dreaded British would take the move. And they had not long to wait. No sooner was word carried to the Leeward Islands that the Danes had had the temerity to place their flag upon a fort on St. John than a man-of-war was despatched to St. Thomas, demanding, with dire threats, that the Danes at once withdraw their claims and abandon the fort. But, apparently, stout old Governor Bredal had inherited some of the Viking spirit as well as blood, and instead of meekly acceding to the British demands he [[70]]promptly sent to Denmark a request for one hundred soldiers to augment his little garrison on St. John. With this reinforcement the Danes felt quite secure, and by 1720 thirty-nine planters were established on the island.

From this nucleus the colony rapidly grew, for the land was fertile and the grants given the settlers were larger than in St. Thomas. By 1733, or only thirteen years after the first real settlement was established, St. John had a population of nearly thirteen hundred, of whom two hundred were whites and the other one thousand and eighty-seven negro slaves. Oddly enough, these settlers were not Danes but Dutch, and to-day the majority of local names and the family names of the few remaining inhabitants are largely Dutch.

But in that same year, 1733, other and more serious troubles than the British beset the islanders, for in November the inhuman treatment accorded the slaves resulted in a bloody revolt. And if we look at the old records we can scarcely blame the negroes, and can almost forgive the fiendish savagery with which they carried on their hopeless struggle for freedom.

Gardelin, who was then governor, was an unusually brutal man even for his time, and in order to prevent the slaves from running away to Porto [[71]]Rico an inhuman assortment of punishments were decreed. A leader of runaway slaves was to be hanged after having been pinched three times with red-hot irons. Any runaway slave was to forfeit an ear or a leg, or receive one hundred and fifty lashes, according to his owner’s preference. A slave who was cognizant of a plot and did not betray his fellows was branded on the forehead and received one hundred lashes as well, and any black who raised his hand against a white was hanged, or had his right hand cut off, as his accuser chose. To attempt to poison a white man meant to be pinched three times with red-hot irons and then broken on the wheel. Any slave giving information of a conspiracy received a reward of money equal to about ten dollars for every negro named as participating in the plot.

These terrible measures—which every four months were publicly proclaimed to the beat of drums—did not in the least repress the slaves, but, if anything, made matters worse, and the negroes secretly planned to surprise the garrison of the fort, which then consisted of only eight men and two officers. Knowing that an open attack would be fruitless, the slaves resorted to strategy. On the morning of November 23d a small band of them, carrying bundles of firewood, approached the [[72]]fort, and in reply to the sentry’s challenge stated that they had been ordered to bring the fuel for the use of the soldiers. Not suspecting the smoldering revolt, the sentry allowed them to enter, whereupon the negroes, casting the fagots aside and whipping cane-knives from their bundles, massacred all but one man who had secreted himself under a bed.

Once in possession of the fort, the slaves fired three guns as a signal, and instantly a general slaughter of the whites began. The first place to fall was the Caroline Estate, where the presiding judge of St. John was murdered together with his daughter and twenty-five men, women, and children. But as was ever the case in negro revolts in the West Indies, a few slaves who had been fortunate enough to have kind and humane masters remained faithful, and as a result many of the planters were warned in time to escape. Accompanied by their faithful blacks, these people sought refuge at Peter Duerloo’s plantation at Little Cinnamon Bay, known nowadays as K. C. Bay, on the northwestern coast. This estate was in effect a fortification, as it was situated on a height and was armed with two cannon; and, moreover, it was within easy distance of St. Thomas. Reaching the place in safety, the women and children were despatched [[73]]to outlying cays, and messages were sent to Charlotte Amalie telling of the revolt and beseeching assistance.

Hardly had the appeal been sent and the defenses strengthened when the horde of blood-crazed negroes arrived; but instead of finding easy victims they were met with a fusillade which wrought havoc among them, and, demoralized and frightened, they drew off. Before they could summon enough courage to attack the estate again, eighteen soldiers arrived by boat from St. Thomas and a larger body landed at Coral Bay. But although the troops relieved the refugees at Little Cinnamon Bay, they could not suppress the revolt nor capture the negroes, who held the entire island with the exception of the estate of Peter Duerloo. Having disposed of the few remaining planters, the slaves burned and pillaged, firing cane-fields, wrecking and destroying buildings and machinery, and doing everything in their power to transform the fair and fertile land into a desolated wilderness. Unable to cope with the situation, the Danes called on their one-time enemies for aid, and a British frigate, which happened to be at Tortola, sent her boats’ crews of bluejackets to the island. But even these allies were unsuccessful, and, being ambushed, were forced to retreat with heavy loss. [[74]]

A second attempt on the part of the British to aid the Danes, resulted in an ignominious defeat when in 1734 volunteers from Nevis sought to conquer the victorious negroes. With a loss of several killed and more wounded ere they had really set foot on St. John the English beat a hasty retreat and left the Danes to their own devices. By now the Danes, deserted by the British, had become desperate and sought to induce the French in Martinique to help them, offering to the French four fifths of all negroes taken prisoners. This was a strong temptation, and two Martinique barks sailed for the stricken island, carrying a force of two hundred and twenty men. Forcing a landing at Coral Bay, this large company,—who had had much experience in putting down uprisings in the French possessions,—augmented by the Danish and local forces numbering nearly two hundred men, began a systematic guerrilla warfare, hunting down and killing the revolting slaves wherever these were found. As an island less than ten miles in length and but four miles wide is easily covered by four hundred determined men, the negroes were very soon put to death or captured. A few, rather than surrender and suffer the tortures which they knew would be their lot, committed [[75]]suicide, and one band of twenty-five were found all of whom had taken their own lives.

By May 24th the revolt was over. Only fourteen slaves were still at liberty, and these soon gave themselves up, relying on a promise of pardon. But, as usual, a promise to a negro was not looked upon as binding, and the fourteen were promptly executed. What the French gained is hard to see, for from the records it appears there were no living negroes to be turned over to the Martinicans as their share, the twenty-seven rebels who had been captured during the fighting having been tortured and put to death as a grim warning to others.

During the insurrection many of the St. John planters moved bag and baggage to Tortola. But, despite these desertions and the almost complete loss of everything on the island, the place rapidly recovered, and by 1789 had a population of over twenty-four hundred, consisting of about one hundred and seventy whites and over twenty-two hundred slaves. Indeed, this was the period of St. John’s greatest prosperity. From that time on the island’s fortunes slowly declined, until, to-day, it is doubtful if a complete census of the island would show eight hundred human beings, including the Moravian missionaries at Emmaus. There are [[76]]no towns, the only settlements being at Cruz Bay, where there are fewer than two hundred people, East End with fewer than one hundred, and Emmaus with about fifty.

By burning charcoal, making baskets, fishing, gathering and distilling bay-leaves, and raising a few cattle and some garden truck, the natives make an easy if not very luxurious living, while all that remains to testify to the island’s former prosperity are the crumbling ruins of the mills, the overgrown walls and courtyards of the estate buildings, and the remains of the forts upon the hills. [[77]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER V

ST. JOHN AND SOME DISCOVERIES

No one can say when the buccaneers first selected St. John as a refuge, but no doubt it was long before the Danes or the Dutch first settled there. Pirates haunted the Virgin Islands previous to 1687, and it would not be surprising if honor for the first buildings erected on St. John and for the first settlements should be accorded them. Many of its bays and coves bear names which associate them with the corsairs,—as, for instance, Rendezvouz Bay and Privateers’ Bay,—and undoubtedly these names were already in use when the first Dutch and Danes arrived on St. John. There are also ruins of forts and buildings covered with brush and jungle which unquestionably antedate the first peaceful settlement; but history took no cognizance of the freebooters, and the story of their occupancy of St. John probably will never be known. At any rate, for many a year, the Virgin Isles were notorious as a resort of buccaneers, and in Coral Bay, Privateers’ Bay, and Rendezvouz Bay they beached and careened their [[78]]ships and romped and skylarked on the coral sands, while the woods and cliffs rang to the echoes of their lusty songs and shouts and the smoke of barbecue fires rose in blue wisps against the greenery, just as a column of lilac smoke from a negro hut was rising upward in the clear morning air as the Vigilant’s anchor splashed overboard and the big sails came rattling down within the sheltered bay that had harbored many a pirate craft.

We know too, from historical records, that the Danish authorities were friendly to the pirates and buccaneers before St. John was settled, for in 1682 Jean Hamlin made his headquarters in St. Thomas and was well received by the governor, who no doubt shared the corsair’s loot in return for the refuge accorded.

In the year mentioned, Hamlin made a prize of the French ship La Trompeuse and, finding her a better craft than his own, fitted her out with guns, shipped a pirate crew, and proceeded to ravage the Caribbean, making Charlotte Amalie his headquarters. Hamlin was by no means an ideal buccaneer. He attacked any merchantman he sighted, regardless of flag or nationality, and in 1683 a number of British ships fell to his cannon. Not content with the pickings to be had among the islands, he sailed for the African coast and there [[79]]had a joyous and profitable time, taking seventeen Dutch and English vessels. But the fever-ridden, jungle-covered coasts of the Dark Continent did not appeal to the romantic soul of the merry sea-rover; and so, feeling he had accomplished quite enough to have earned a vacation, he hoisted sail and headed westward for St. Thomas.

Here he was warmly welcomed by his old crony the governor, who willingly gave him permission to bring the loot of the cruise ashore for safekeeping—and probably division as well—and entertained the piratical chieftain in right good style. Three days after Hamlin’s arrival, however, another ship sailed into Charlotte Amalie’s snug harbor and came to anchor before the picturesque town. And, to the discomfiture of some and the delight of others, this new arrival proved to be no other than H. M. S. Francis under command of Captain Carlile of His Britannic Majesty’s navy, who had been sent forth by Governor Stapleton of the Leeward Islands to hunt for all pirates in general and one known as Jean Hamlin in particular.

We may imagine the satisfaction with which the scarlet-faced old sea-dog noted the long-sought La Trompeuse snugly moored within easy reach. With the British seaman’s usual disregard for red tape and diplomatic correspondence, he took matters [[80]]into his own hands and promptly disposed of the pirate craft by blowing her up. To be sure, the buccaneer captain and some of his crew were on board, but Hamlin was no such fool as to attempt to resist when under the broadsides of a frigate half a gunshot distant; and, after firing a few shots merely as a protest or to ease his conscience, he decided discretion to be the better part of valor, and sought the shore and his Danish friends.

ST. JOHN

The careenage, Rendezvous Bay

STATIA

Along the waterfront

ST. JOHN

A vista on the Peter Duerloo estate

No doubt, over their cups, the governor and the corsair gazed forth with mingled sorrow and resentment as the glare of the blazing ship illuminated the harbor and the red-roofed town, for La Trompeuse had proved a lucky and profitable craft. As the two discussed the matter and damned the British, the governor waxed exceeding wroth, and he forthwith penned a note to Captain Carlile, vigorously denouncing his actions in having brazenly and unwarrantedly destroyed a frigate which had been confiscated in the name of the King of Denmark. But the governor was a mortal who believed in never letting his left hand know what his right was doing, and as he scribbled his note to the Englishman he sent Hamlin and his men to a safe refuge in another part of the island and, providing the captain with a speedy sloop, [[81]]wished him God-speed on his way to join the French buccaneers in Tortuga.

Indeed, this worthy governor, who bore the name of Adolf Esmit, had the reputation of being an all-round bad egg. Privateering had been his former occupation, and while buccaneers and their ilk were looked upon, even by law-abiding citizens, as something of gentlemen and good fellows, and no one greatly blamed Adolf for protecting these soldiers of fortune—for a consideration, of course—still, the islanders did not like the idea of his harboring riffraff from far and near and gathering under his hospitable wing a crowd of runaway slaves and servants, deserting seamen, and debtors. Moreover, he was a usurper. He had driven away his brother Nickolas, who was the rightful governor, and then, having acquired what we should nowadays dub a case of “swelled head,” had seen fit to declare himself governor of all the Virgin Isles and snapped his fingers, figuratively if not literally, at the British claimants and the Danish authorities as well. In the meantime he piled up a goodly sum for a rainy day by outfitting pirate ships and refusing to restore to their rightful owners prizes brought to his island.

But even Adolf realized that there was a limit [[82]]to effrontery, and when protests became too numerous for comfort he hinted to his associates that St. John was far more attractive than St. Thomas, that its harbors were safer and more commodious, and that, it being uninhabited, his corsair friends could be sure that no one would object to their presence there. And as the place was but three miles distant from St. Thomas, it was quite feasible for him and his cronies to spend jolly evenings together and none the wiser.

Of course, in time, tales of Esmit’s activities reached Denmark; and, whatever his private opinions may have been, the Danish sovereign was in no mind to have serious difficulties with Great Britain. Therefore he promptly despatched a new man, named Iversen, to take charge of St. Thomas’s fortunes, and, foreseeing difficulties in getting rid of Esmit, suggested that Governor Stapleton should aid the new executive with force of arms. The British, nothing loath, gladly agreed, and, reinforced with an armed sloop from the British islands, Iversen arrived at St. Thomas in October, 1684, and without resistance took possession not only of the islands but of Adolf as well.

Possibly Iversen had no ill-will against the buccaneers; or possibly he followed his orders to the letter and, not being quite certain in his mind as [[83]]to whether St. John was under his jurisdiction or not, left the freebooters in the neighboring isle unmolested and diplomatically informed the British that if they wished St. John rid of pirates they could do the job themselves. Whether they attempted it or not, history fails to record, but if they did they must have been unsuccessful, for English history seldom fails to call attention to every victory, no matter how small, although British historians are often remarkably absent-minded regarding the other side of the ledger.

Moreover, as the islands then under the British flag were not above harboring well-disposed pirate craft, it is exceedingly doubtful if even peppery old Governor Stapleton bestirred himself greatly, with his meager forces, against the buccaneers. He well knew that he could not hope to destroy or capture them all and that too much hostility would merely result in reprisals on British merchant ships which the struggling English colonies could ill afford.