Raiders and Rebels

by Frank Sherry

  Life at sea certainly seemed to many to offer a better existence than life ashore.

  But this was only a cruel illusion.

  3

  A Seaman’s Lot

  A mariner named William Richardson, who served as an ordinary seaman on a slave ship in the early 1700s, wrote in his diary that the captain of his vessel “would flog a man as soon as look at him.”

  Richardson was unusual—a sailor who could read and write at a time of almost universal illiteracy among ordinary seaman. In his diary he also recounts how the brutal captain of his ship “flogged a good seaman for only losing an oar out of the boat, and the poor fellow soon after died.”

  Such was the “discipline” that obtained aboard most merchant ships in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If anything, discipline in the Royal Navy was even more capricious and harsh than that of the merchant service.

  The sailor of this age, with his wage of a pound or more per month, and with his food and shelter provided by his employer, might appear to be better off than those who labored ashore, but in several crucial respects he was much worse off. The vicious attitude of the times that granted to the privileged and powerful a cruel license over the poor and weak not only pervaded life at sea (just as it did ashore), it was exacerbated in the enclosed world of a ship where long-term proximity, under miserable conditions, often inflamed tensions and incited passions.

  Captains possessed the power of life and death over their crews, and savage mistreatment of helpless sailors formed an integral part of life aboard ship, whatever flag it might fly. All ordinary seamen, whatever their nationality, knew and feared the brutal discipline that called for whipping a man to death for losing an oar. Sadistic and psychopathic officers could—and did—indulge with impunity in the most atrocious mistreatment of sailors under their command. Richardson’s account of the slave-ship master who would “flog a man as soon as look at him” is far from unique. For example, a Captain Staines of the English ship Rochester became so angry at an infraction of his ship’s rules that he had a young seaman beaten with six hundred lashes from an inch-thick tarred rope. Although the ship’s log did not record it, the chances are that the man died under such punishment.

  While flogging was the most common form of punishment, it was by no means the only barbarity practiced aboard ship. The punishment for drawing a weapon in a quarrel, for example, was the loss of a hand. Other punishments an unlucky mariner might have to endure included keelhauling (being scraped across the barnacled hull of the ship), being ducked at the end of a rope from the yardarm, being strung up from the yardarm, and being towed, often with hands tied, from the stern. Some punishments, besides being barbarous, were also bizarre. One particularly sadistic mate forced his men to eat cockroaches as a punishment. Another delighted in cracking off the teeth of miscreants with an iron bolt.

  The food supplied to seamen was usually abominable. Most sailors had to subsist on salt beef or pork crawling with worms or maggots, bread blue with mold, and water that stank from the barrel. Most sailors learned to swallow these disgusting provisions without looking at what they were eating or chewing more than was necessary. And when even these wretched provisions ran out, as they often did, the sailor ate shipboard rats, or whatever he could fish from the sea.

  Nor were the sailors’ accommodations in any way superior to the shelters of the poor on shore. The sailor had to sleep, when he was allowed to do so, in a crowded fo’c’sle, jammed in with other men, inhaling the fumes of unwashed bodies, sweating when it was hot, shivering when it was cold, and almost always wet through from weather or leaks. Sickness, especially scurvy, was a constant hazard.

  Moreover, a sailor’s life was dangerous. Fire aboard a wooden ship was a special hazard. Sailors often fell from the rigging, or were washed overboard during storms, or were maimed by equipment falling from the shrouds, or were tossed from a rolling deck into hatches or against bulkheads. The chances of being hurt in the course of his duties were very high for the ordinary seaman. At the same time, if he was disabled, he had no recourse. He was now unemployable at his trade. Nor was he eligible for compensation of any kind. There were no pensions or even medical care for an ordinary seaman.

  The mariner of this period faced still another danger: He might be killed or wounded in battle. Merchant vessels of the day were almost always armed with cannon, and crewmen were expected to man them when ordered to do so. On many occasions during wartime, such armed merchants would capture enemy ships, often worth considerable prize money. Yet ordinary sailors never received a fair share in the prize, even though they might have been exposed to great danger, or even wounded, in its taking. While this inequity did not obtain aboard privateers (where special agreements divided booty in a relatively fair manner among officers, crew members, and backers), it was a serious grievance among the seamen who served on regular merchant vessels or on the men-of-war of the Royal Navy.1

  Further, with all the inequities, dangers, discomforts, and cruelties he had to endure aboard ship, the sailor also lived with the dismal knowledge that under the all-encompassing class system of the day, he could seldom escape his role or better himself. Only under the most extraordinary circumstances could a seaman in “honest service” rise in the ranks. To become a ship’s officer and buy a share of a cargo was extremely rare in the merchant service, although it did happen. In the Royal Navy, however, such an eventuality was not only impossible, it was unthinkable, since to qualify as an officer in the Royal Navy, a man had to be certifiably a “gentleman.”

  The ordinary sailor, therefore, could seldom expect to share to any important extent in the wealth that his labor—or his bravery—made possible for his employers. (Of course, this rule did not apply to those relatively few seamen who were fortunate enough to land berths aboard successful privateers. Although ordinary sailors seldom rose in the ranks even as members of a privateering crew, they did at least realize a fair share of whatever prizes their ship took. But privateers were always few in number compared to the fleets of merchant ships that plied the sea lanes in this era. The majority of sailors, therefore, were fated to spend their entire careers aboard merchant vessels, or men-of-war.)

  In one way the average seaman aboard a merchant ship or a warship was far worse off than the poor man who labored for his daily bread on shore: The sailor, once at sea, could not escape. He could find no refuge, even for a brief time, from the wretched conditions under which he lived and worked. Day or night, he was always under orders, never sure when the lash or the rattan cane might whip across his back. He had to eat what they gave him, no matter how vile, and he had to take whatever rest he could get, whenever and wherever his overseers permitted. Aboard ship the ordinary sailor had no respite, no appeal, no sanctuary. He was, except in name, no better than a slave.

  Because of the cruelty and the injustices they had to bear, most ordinary seamen eventually came to hate not only their own officers but all who wielded authority. Under the lash, even loyalty to king and country eroded, until by the late seventeenth century thousands of resentful and rebellious sailors manned the ships of the seagoing nations. But life at sea did offer one escape route: If they became bitter enough, or rebellious enough, they could seize their ship and turn pirate.

  By the 1690s piracy was already a time-honored, if censured, occupation for seafaring men willing to risk their lives for fortune, or for escape—or both. In one form or another piracy had existed for centuries in every corner of the world washed by the sea.

  Ancient Assyrian kings had complained of corsairs in the Persian Gulf who plundered goods en route from Arabia and Africa. In the fourth century B.C., the sailors of Alexander the Great, plying those same waters, encountered the descendants of those earlier pirates. For almost ten centuries the Romans of both the Republic and the Empire contended with the clever, oared pirates of the Mediterranean. These were usually local cutthroats who employed the numerous islands and sheltered bays of the Middle Sea as bases. So much di
d the orderly, legalistic Romans despise these seaborne outlaws that they labeled them—in Cicero’s words—hostes humani generi, “enemies of the human race.” Before he entered upon his career as conqueror, the youthful Julius Caesar was captured by a flotilla of these pirates and held for more than six weeks until his noble family purchased his liberty.

  After the fall of Rome, the Barbary corsairs of the north coast of Africa became the scourge of the Mediterranean. They remained a thorn in the side of European commerce well into the nineteenth century. The Vikings, too, were consummate pirates, plundering on both land and sea.

  In medieval times, among the English, German, and French mariners who sailed the European Atlantic Coast, piracy as a way of life became almost commonplace as seaborne trade increased in the English Channel and the North Sea.

  One of the most celebrated of these medieval pirates was a onetime monk from Flanders, who was believed to have sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for magical powers that enhanced his ability to capture victims.

  Known as Eustace the Monk, this brigand—who operated around the year 1216—specialized in plundering French shipping in the English Channel, using Dover as his base. He was tolerated, and even occasionally employed, by England’s King John as long as he confined his depredations to French shipping. But eventually, impelled by greed or wrath, he began to take English ships and the furious king outlawed him in England.

  Eustace the Monk then made a deal with his former victims. He would guide the French in an invasion of England. But the effort misfired when the English blinded their enemies by flinging lime aboard their ships—and then destroyed the sightless French with a lethal hail of arrows. The traitorous Eustace, taken in the battle, had his head struck off.

  Another infamous medieval pirate was the German Klein Henszlein who preyed on shipping in the North Sea. Captured by a fleet sent by German merchants, Henszlein and thirty-three of his crew were beheaded publicly in the city of Hamburg and their heads were jammed onto stakes as a warning to others.

  In the early sixteenth century the sporadic piracy of the Middle Ages became an organized affair in England, especially in the Scilly Isles, the south of Ireland, and the Cinque Ports of England’s southeast coast. Pirate syndicates were especially brazen in the Cinque Ports (Hastings, Hythe, Dover, Sandwich, and Romney). These towns, originally established to provide men and ships to protect the coast and coastal trade in time of war, became the headquarters for corsairs known as the King’s Pirates, a title conferred upon them because of their custom of forwarding 20 percent of their take to the monarch.

  Protected by important noblemen, the pirates would sail out of the Cinque Ports to attack any merchant that happened into range. Returning to port, the plunderers, with the connivance of their protectors, would openly display their booty for sale on the decks of their ships. At one point during this era the Cinque Ports became a virtual pirate kingdom, where outlaw captains boldly swaggered in the streets. Yet despite its widespread practice, piracy—even when it was most popular—was never considered a minor crime. It was always, and everywhere, punished by death, provided the miscreants could be caught and convicted, which was usually no easy task.

  By the time Elizabeth came to the throne of England in 1558, it was estimated that some four hundred pirate ships prowled the Channel with near impunity, thanks in no small measure to the connivance of officials ashore. Yet, for all their numbers, the Channel pirates had never seriously dislocated the trade of their day. In Elizabethan times, however, privateering began to dominate the fine art of attacking and appropriating the commerce of other nations.

  Although there is evidence that the practice of commissioning privately owned ships to attack enemy merchants dated back to at least the thirteenth century, privateering became widespread only from the second half of the sixteenth century onward.

  Privateering attracted many of the finest seamen of the age because it was a legally sanctioned activity, fundamentally different from illegal piracy in that pirates preyed on all shipping, while privateers took only enemy ships. Unlike pirates, privateers could be heroic, winning fame and their country’s thanks, as well as high fortune, for their efforts. Privateering became especially popular among the English sea dogs of Elizabeth’s reign.

  The Spanish Main—primarily the coastal regions of Spanish America in the Caribbean—became the chief theater of operations for the Elizabethan privateers. Spain claimed most of the Americas for herself, based on the fact that Columbus had planted the Spanish flag in the Caribbean in 1492. To back up her claim—which was supported by the pope—Spain treated all foreigners who entered the waters of the New World without her permission as illegal intruders in her domain. Because of this attitude, all foreign seamen on the Spanish Main were regarded as pirates by the Spanish colonial authorities, and were dealt with ruthlessly.

  But neither Spanish threats, nor Spanish force, could deter the English privateers from Spanish waters. Captains such as Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh swooped down like hawks on the Spanish fleets, capturing treasure and tearing great holes in the myth of Spanish invincibility. The English privateers also raided and pillaged Spanish shore installations. Many of the English privateers, denounced as piratas in Madrid, received knighthoods in London for their depredations. Many of them also played major roles in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

  Elizabeth herself not only derived considerable revenue from the sale of privateering licenses to her sea hawks, she is also said to have used the Crown’s treasure to finance Drake and other likely privateers—and to have profited immensely by their pillaging.

  By the seventeenth century privateering had become both a popular way of life for seamen who managed to obtain employment in such ventures and a lucrative, if risky, business for merchants willing to gamble a ship to win a fortune. At the same time outright piracy, though still in existence, had shrunk to negligible proportions—a refuge for only the most desperate of those who followed the sea.

  For ordinary sailors in the seventeenth century, life aboard a privateer was, generally speaking, more attractive than life aboard a merchant vessel or a man-of-war. While food and accommodation were no better than merchant and naval vessels offered, a privateering berth provided an opportunity for a seaman to achieve some worldly prosperity. Furthermore, the cruel discipline aboard other ships was virtually absent on privateers. Enterprising sailors, therefore, were usually more than willing when offered a chance to join a privateering venture, even though the rule aboard privateers was always “no prey, no pay,” and even though privateering seamen had to face the danger of combat at sea.

  Privateering, however, was far less popular among traders than it was among sailors. Because of the high costs of mounting and maintaining a privateer, and because of the hazardous combat a privateer had to engage in, most businessmen preferred to invest in merchant vessels and their cargoes. For this reason there were always more sailors willing to go privateering than there were berths available.

  Nevertheless, throughout the seventeenth century, merchants and other backers, especially in the English colonies, did finance privateering ventures in significant numbers. In fact, English and American privateers had played an important role in England’s almost incessant naval wars with Holland and Spain in those years. During these wars, which had as their objective the establishment of England as a power in the New World, English and colonial adventurers had been especially active in the Caribbean, harrying the shipping and the ports of the Spanish Main—as Drake and Raleigh had in an earlier century.

  Many of the privateers who fought the Spanish in this period became known as “buccaneers,” from the French word boucaniers—“smokers of meat.” The term was originally applied to English and French refugees who had settled on the large Caribbean island of Hispaniola—illegally according to the Spanish law that claimed all the New World for Spain. These settlers, herdsmen for the most part, had supported themselves by selling hides and meat that they
smoked over a wooden frame known as a boucan in the language of the Carib Indians. Eventually the Spanish authorities had ousted the boucaniers from their settlements, and these one-time butchers and smokers of meat became sea raiders against the Spanish, switching their base to the uninhabited island of Tortuga.

  These buccaneers—as the English came to call them—were full of hatred for the Spaniards who had driven them from their homes. Most of them were also Protestants and fired with religious zeal against the Catholic Spaniards, who treated all such “heretics” with great cruelty. Before long the buccaneers attracted recruits that included French Huguenots and English adventurers—many of them freebooters, all of them enemies of Spain. By degrees these motley groups became a formal confederacy known as the Brotherhood of the Coast. Tortuga became a fortified base for their operations against the hated Spanish.

  By the middle of the seventeenth century, as adventurers of many nationalities began to drift into Tortuga, both French and English colonial governors started issuing privateering commissions that authorized levies of buccaneers to prey on Spanish shipping and ports. Tortuga became a thriving town, where freebooters, privateers, and refugees, of varying degrees of honesty and legitimacy, but united in their common hatred of Spain, came together under the generic name buccaneers.

  Although the Spanish tried more than once to oust the buccaneers from Tortuga, they never succeeded. Many of those who operated from the island became infamous for the atrocities they inflicted upon their victims. There was, for example, the diabolical François L’Olonnois who sacked the city of Maracaibo on the coast of Venezuela, and who stated proudly that he had never permitted his men to spare a prisoner’s life. There was also the Englishman Lewis Scott, who raided the town of Campeche on the Yucatán Peninsula. Other famed buccaneers on the Spanish Main were Roche Brasiliano, Bartholomew the Portuguese, Pierre François, and Montbars the Exterminator—names that testify to the international character of the brotherhood.