Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean

by David Cordingly

  The Manila galleon was not expected to arrive off Mexico until November or December, so the privateers had six or seven months to wait before taking up an intercepting position between Acapulco and Cape San Lucas. It would prove a testing time for all of them but particularly for Rogers. He had to overcome a rash and ill-thought-out proposal from Thomas Dover and other officers who wanted to carry out a raid on the gold mines of Barbacoa; and he had to put down a mutiny from a group of sailors who were dissatisfied with the arrangements for dividing up the plunder from prizes. As he confided in his journal, ‘If any sea officer thinks himself endowed with patience and industry, let him command a privateer and discharge his office well in a distant voyage.’11

  From Guayaquil they sailed to the Galápagos Islands, intending to rest, refit and fill up with water a safe distance from any Spanish or French warships who might be on the look out for them. They spent two weeks cruising among the remote islands which would later be made famous by Charles Darwin. They noted the numerous giant tortoises and the sailors shot some of the iguana dragons and reckoned they were good to eat, but nowhere could they find any fresh water. Forced to sail back to the mainland they made for the island of Gorgona, which Dampier knew well from his previous travels. Situated some eighteen miles off the coast of modern Colombia, the island provided a temporary refuge. The anchorage was somewhat exposed but there was fresh water, and amid the dense woods were many tall trees suitable for making masts. There was also good fishing, and a variety of animals including monkeys, guinea pigs and hares. They anchored off the eastern shore on 7 June and for the next two months the island was their base. They careened the Duke and the Dutchess, and after careening the Marquiss they replaced some of her masts and spars. As at Juan Fernández, a village of tents was set up ashore to house the sick men and to provide shelter for the ships’ carpenters, coopers, sailmakers and ropemakers while they carried out essential repairs.

  The two ships sailed from Gorgona on 7 August and by the beginning of October they were off the coast of Mexico. Rogers noted in his journal that ‘Captain Dampier, near this place, five years past, met the Manila Ship in the St George, and had a fight at a distance, but he says for want of men could not board her, and after a short dispute, was forced to let her alone’. No doubt Dampier put the best possible slant on an action which had failed miserably owing mainly to his poor leadership. Slowly they made their way towards the point where the Manila ship was likely to make her landfall after her journey across the Pacific. They sailed past Cape Corrientes and spent nearly three weeks among the Tres Marias islands, where, on 24 October, the council of officers drew up a resolution. It was agreed that, having examined the opinion of Captain Dampier and taken into account the information provided by prisoners, they would cruise off Cape San Lucas, the southernmost cape of California, and ‘to wait here the coming of the Manila Ship belonging to the Spaniards, and bound for Acapulco; whose wealth on board her we hope will prompt every man to use his utmost conduct and bravery to conquer’.

  5

  The Manila Galleons

  They sighted Cape San Lucas on 2 November 1709 and took up their stations. They spread out so that between them their lookouts could spot any vessel which appeared between the coast and a point some sixty miles out to sea. The Marquiss was stationed nearest the mainland, the Dutchess in the middle and the Duke on the outside, with the bark roving to and fro to carry messages from ship to ship. Rogers was keenly aware they were cruising close to the spot where Sir Thomas Cavendish had captured the Manila galleon on 4 November 1587. Cavendish had two relatively small ships, the 18-gun Desire of 120 tons and the 10-gun Content of sixty tons. The Manila galleon that year had been the Santa Anna, a much larger ship of 600 tons, but she had no carriage guns because the Spanish were not expecting a hostile attack. When Cavendish moved in to attack, her crew had to resort to hurling javelins and throwing rocks on to the heads of the English sailors. Thanks to the massive construction of the galleon her crew battled on for five hours but suffered such heavy casualties that her Spanish commander was forced to surrender. Many of his seamen were Filipinos and among his many passengers there were women and children. The total value of the galleon’s cargo was reckoned to be around two million pesos.1

  The annual voyage of the Manila and Acapulco galleons across the Pacific was the longest non-stop passage made by any ships in the world on a regular basis. The westbound voyage from Acapulco took between two and three months and was made easier by a call at the island of Guam towards the end of the voyage, but the eastbound voyage took a gruelling five or six months and sometimes as long as eight months. This put a considerable strain on food and water supplies and inevitably resulted in deaths from scurvy. The track of the galleons was determined by wind and weather patterns and by ocean currents. The shorter and quicker westbound voyage taken by the Acapulco galleon took advantage of the north-east trade winds and a westerly current in the region of latitude 13 degrees north, known as the North Equatorial Current. The eastbound Manila galleon had to follow a curving track some 2,000 miles to the north which took her past the islands of Japan with the help of the Kuro Siwo Current, then across the Pacific with the aid of the westerly winds and then south-east to Acapulco assisted by the California Current which flows along the coast of North America.

  It took some years of trial and error before the winds and currents were worked out and the situation was complicated by the typhoons – the cyclonic storms which sweep across the Philippines with a destructive power similar to the hurricanes of the Caribbean region. To take advantage of prevailing winds and avoid the typhoons it was reckoned that the Manila galleon must set sail in May or June, which meant that she could be expected to arrive off the coast of California at any time between October and December unless delayed or blown off course by storms – and many of the galleons had to endure a succession of violent storms during the voyage. In 1600 the Santa Margarita was so disabled by months of heavy weather that she was driven south and wrecked on the Ladrones Islands (Islas Ladrones), off the coast of Panama. Only fifty of the 260 men on board survived the shipwreck and most of the survivors were then killed by the native islanders.2

  The annual crossings of the Pacific had begun in 1565 and over the following 250 years more than thirty galleons were lost in storms or wrecked. Since no more than one or two galleons made the crossing each year this was a heavy toll in lives, ships and treasure. ‘The voyage from the Philippine Islands to America may be called the longest and most dreadful of any in the world,’ wrote Gemelli Careri, an experienced traveller, ‘… as for the terrible tempests that happen there, one upon the back of another, and for the desperate diseases that seize people, in 7 or 8 months, lying at sea sometimes near the line, sometimes cold, sometimes temperate, and sometimes hot, which is enough to destroy a man of steel, much more flesh and blood …’3

  As far as Rogers and his men were concerned, the only thing that mattered was locating the Manila galleon, and they were experiencing troubles of their own. By 17 November they were running short of water. They sent the bark ashore, where they found a primitive settlement of local Indians. They were given a cautious welcome and allowed to fill up their water barrels from a nearby river. There was still no sign of the galleon on 14 December. They had now been at sea for seven weeks and the Marquiss, which was under the command of Edward Cooke, was in urgent need of repairs to her hull and rigging. She was sent to refit at a place which Rogers and Cooke refer to as Port or Puerto Seguro, on the basis that this was the name given to it by Thomas Cavendish. No such place exists today and it is evident from the description given by one of Cavendish’s sailors, and by Rogers’ detailed description, that the place they were referring to was the sheltered harbour now called Cape San Lucas or Cabo San Lucas. This is situated in the lee of the cape of the same name. Rogers described the entrance of the harbour as being marked by four high rocks which looked like the Needles at the Isle of Wight – and the promontory at the end of the cap
e certainly does bear a striking resemblance to the Needles.

  Out at sea Rogers was increasingly doubtful about seeing the Manila galleon because it was nearly a month past the time when the ship was due. The chief concern now was the shortage of bread and provisions. There was no safe place on the American coast where they could obtain supplies and they had barely enough left to last them the fifty-day voyage across the Pacific to Guam, which was their next destination. On 19 December a council meeting was held on board the Dutchess at which the chief officers decided they would have to abandon their cruise for the Manila galleon. They were bitterly disappointed and as they put their signatures to the resolution ‘all looked very melancholy and dispirited’.

  Before heading west into the vastness of the Pacific all three ships needed to stock up with wood and water, so the Duke and Dutchess set a course for Cape San Lucas. They were hampered by calms and a contrary current and were still some way off the coast when, at nine o’clock on the morning of 21 December 1709, the lookout at the masthead of the Duke cried out that he could see a sail on the horizon. ‘We immediately hoisted our ensign, and bore away after her, the Dutchess soon did the same.’

  The calm weather continued all through the afternoon of 21 December. The Duke and Dutchess made little progress towards the distant sail and there was some speculation that the ship might be the Marquiss coming out of the harbour at Cape San Lucas. This led to some of the crew laying bets on whether it was the Marquiss or the Manila galleon. They watched the Duke’s pinnace make contact with the Dutchess and lie alongside her for a while before rowing on towards the strange ship. Robert Fry was despatched in the yawl to see whether the men on the Dutchess had managed to identify the ship, and while he was away the Duke hoisted a French ensign and fired a gun, which was answered by a gun from the ship. When Fry returned he brought the good news that ‘it was the ship we had so impatiently waited for, and despaired of seeing her’.4

  With dusk approaching it was agreed that the two pinnaces should keep close contact with the galleon during the night and at intervals show false fires (an early form of flare) so that the two privateers, which were hampered by the lack of wind, would know exactly where they were. The ships were cleared for action and everything was made ready for engaging and boarding the galleon in the morning. Throughout the hot night the pinnaces showed their lights, which were answered by lights on the privateers. At daybreak the crew of the Duke could see the galleon on their weather bow, about three miles away. The Dutchess was beyond and to leeward of her. At 6 a.m. the pinnace returned and her crew said that during the night the Dutchess had passed close to the galleon, which had fired two shots at her which she had not returned.

  There was still no wind, so Rogers ordered his crew to get out eight of the ship’s large oars or sweeps and for an hour they rowed until a light breeze sprang up. He then ordered a kettle of chocolate to be prepared for the ship’s company, before arranging for prayers to be said. While these were in progress they were interrupted by the guns of the galleon, which was slowly bearing down on them with barrels of gunpowder hanging from her yardarms to discourage the privateers from attempting to board her. At 8 a.m. the Duke opened fire, first with her bow-chasers and then, as they came closer, with her full broadside. The thundering boom of the carriage guns was joined by the rattle of small-arms fire as the crews of the Duke and the galleon fired volleys of shot at each other with muskets and pistols. Rogers was the first and only serious casualty on his ship. ‘I was shot through the left cheek, the bullet struck away great part of my upper jaw, and several of my teeth, part of which dropped down on the deck where I fell … I was forced to write what I would say, to prevent the loss of blood, and because of the pain I suffered by speaking.’5

  The Duke’s gun crews had been well trained and were able to fire faster and more effectively than those of the galleon. They kept on firing as the Duke swung alongside the stout wooden hull of the galleon, causing so many casualties that the galleon’s commander hauled down his ensign and surrendered. As there was still very little wind, the Dutchess, being to leeward, had difficulty in reaching the galleon. When she came within range she fired her guns and a volley of small shot, but the fight was over. As the clouds of acrid gunsmoke cleared and drifted away the three ships drifted on the calm waters of the Pacific. Edward Cooke, who watched the action from a hill overlooking the harbour where the Marquiss was anchored, reckoned the engagement lasted no more than half an hour.

  Rogers sent a boat across to the galleon to bring her captain and officers over to the Duke. They learnt that the ship they had captured was called the Nuestra Señora de la Incarnación Disenganio and her commander was Monsieur Jean Pichberty, a French chevalier (in his report Rogers anglicised his name and rank to Sir John Pichberty). He was the brother-in-law of Admiral Jean-Baptiste du Casse, who had fought Admiral Benbow and Admiral Whetstone in the West Indies. On board his ship were 190 sailors and servants, ten passengers and eight black Africans. During the action they had lost nine killed, ten wounded ‘and several blown up and burnt with powder’.

  The vessel which the privateers had captured was not, strictly speaking, a galleon but a frigate-built merchant ship, armed with 20 carriage guns on a single gun deck and 20 swivel guns mounted on her rails. At 400 tons burden she was not much larger than the 350-ton Duke and her captain had little option but to surrender when faced with the 30-gun Duke and the 26-gun Dutchess. From her commander the privateers learnt that she had set sail from Manila in company with a much larger galleon, the Nuestra Señora de Begoña, a newly built vessel of 900 tons armed with 40 carriage guns on two decks and an equal number of swivel guns. The two galleons had lost touch with each other during the 7,000-mile voyage but had an agreement to meet off Cape San Lucas in order to present a combined front to the privateers – the captains of both ships had received information at Manila, via English trading posts in India, that two Bristol ships were planning to intercept and attack them.

  For the rest of the day and during the night the three ships remained out at sea while their crews carried out repairs, and the privateers’ surgeons dressed the wounds of the injured men on board the Spanish ship. The following day, 23 December, they headed towards Cape San Lucas and at 4 p.m. they rounded the distinctive rocky promontory at the end of the cape and dropped anchor in the sheltered waters of the bay beyond. The Marquiss was there to greet them ‘and all the company much overjoyed at our unexpected good fortune’. That night Rogers felt something clog his throat. He swallowed with great pain and presumed the object was either part of his jawbone or the musket shot which had hit him. In his journal he made light of the injury but admitted that his head and throat were badly swollen and he had considerable difficulty in swallowing the liquids he needed for nourishment. In the morning a council meeting was held on the Duke but Rogers was unable to attend. The other chief officers agreed that the Dutchess and the Marquiss would set sail immediately and cruise for eight days with the objective of intercepting the other Manila galleon. They duly weighed anchor at eight in the evening and headed out to sea.

  By dawn the next day they were six miles off Cape San Lucas. Edward Cooke, commanding the Marquiss, recorded in his journal, ‘Sunday, December 25, being Christmas Day, at eight in the morning were two leagues of Cape St Luke, and saw a sail bearing S.W. distant about seven leagues, which we concluded to be the great Manila ship.’6 Both ships gave chase but made little progress and by nightfall they were still several miles away. At around midnight the Dutchess came within gunshot of the galleon and opened fire. In the ensuing action the powerful guns of the galleon inflicted so much damage on the masts and rigging of the Dutchess that Captain Courtney was forced to break off the action in order to carry out repairs. The Marquiss was still some four miles from the scene at daybreak owing to the continuing lack of wind. And then, at 8 a.m., Cooke saw the Duke slowly emerging from Cape San Lucas and heading their way.

  Rogers had wanted the Duke and Dutchess to go o
ut together to intercept and attack the great galleon but he had been over-ruled. He had, however, arranged for two lookouts to be positioned on the hill above the harbour with orders to signal him if they saw another ship appear on the horizon. Meanwhile he had spent a productive Christmas Day negotiating terms with the commander of the captured Manila ship, who was clearly a man of influence. Jean Pichberty agreed to pay five bills of exchange, payable in London, for the sum of 6,000 dollars. This would cover the remaining ransom money due for the taking of Guayaquil and would enable the privateers to release the three Guayaquil hostages who were still being held as surety for the ransom.

  During the afternoon of 25 December the lookouts on the hill above Cape San Lucas made the agreed signal with flags to indicate that a third ship had appeared in addition to the distant sails of the Dutchess and the Marquiss. Rogers was determined to put to sea at once. Arrangements were hastily made to secure the large number of prisoners now in their hands, and at 7 p.m. the Duke set sail. His officers had tried to persuade him to remain on board the prize in the harbour but to no avail. He remained in command in spite of the injury he had sustained, but admitted, ‘I was in so weak a condition, and my head and throat so much swelled, that I yet spoke in great pain, and not loud enough to be heard at any distance.’7