Empire of Blue Water

by Stephan Talty

  Roundshot: A cannonball.

  South Sea: The present-day Pacific Ocean.

  Spanish Main: The Spanish-held mainland of North and South America.

  United Provinces: The present-day Netherlands.

  Woolding: A commonly used form of torture in which a knotted cord was tied around a victim’s head and then twisted with a stick until the eyes popped out.

  General Bibliography

  Allen, H. R. Buccaneer: Admiral Sir Henry Morgan. Arthur Baker Ltd., London, 1976.

  Aveling, J. C. H. The Handle and the Axe: The Catholic Recusants in England from Reformation to Emancipation. Blong & Briggs, London, 1976.

  Bassett, Fletcher. Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors. Singing Tree Press, Detroit, 1971.

  Bennassar, Bartolomé. The Spanish Character: Attitudes and Mentalities from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979.

  Black, Clinton. Port Royal: A History and Guide. Bolivar Press, Kingston, Jamaica, 1970.

  Bradley, Peter. The Lure of Peru: Maritime Intrusion into the South Sea, 1598–1701. Macmillan, Hampshire, U.K., 1989.

  Bridenbaugh, Carl and Roberta. No Peace Beyond the Line: The English in the Caribbean, 1624–1690. Oxford University Press, New York, 1972.

  Carr, Raymond, editor. Spain: A History. Oxford University Press, New York, 2000.

  Coote, Stephen. Royal Survivor. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000.

  Cordingly, David, consulting editor. Pirates: A Worldwide Illustrated History. Turner, Atlanta, 1996.

  ———. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Harvest Books, San Diego, 1997.

  Cruikshank, Brigadier General E. A. The Life of Sir Henry Morgan. Macmillan, Toronto, 1935.

  de Madariaga, Salvador. The Fall of the Spanish American Empire. Collier, New York, 1963.

  Earle, Peter. A City Full of People: Men and Women of London 1650–1750. Methuen, London, 1994.

  ———. Pirate Wars. Metheun, London, 2002.

  ———. The Sack of Panama: Sir Henry Morgan’s Adventures on the Spanish Main. Viking Press, New York, 1982.

  ———. Sailors. English Merchant Seamen 1650–1775. Methuen, London, 1998.

  Elliott, J. H. Imperial Spain 1469–1716. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1964.

  ———. Spain and Its World, 1500–1700. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1989.

  Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell, the Lord Protector. Knopf, New York, 1973.

  Galvin, Peter. Patterns of Pillage: A Geography of Caribbean-Based Piracy in Spanish America, 1536–1718. Peter Lang, New York, 1998.

  Gohau, Gabriel. History of Geology. Rutgers University Press, 1991.

  Haring, C. H. The Spanish Empire in America. Peter Smith, Gloucester, U.K., 1973.

  Honigsbaum, Mark. The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2002.

  Hume, Martin. The Court of Philip IV: Spain in Decadence. Eveleigh Nash, London, 1907.

  Jackson, Stanley. J. P. Morgan. Stein and Day, New York, 1983.

  Jenkins, Geraint. The Foundations of Modern Wales, 1642–1780. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.

  Jenkins, Philip. A History of Modern Wales, 1536–1990. Longman, London and New York, 1992.

  Johnson, Charles. The History of the Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates, Their Trials and Executions. The Lyons Press, Guilford, U.K., 2004.

  Kamen, Henry. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763. HarperCollins, New York, 2003.

  ———. Spain in the Later 17th Century, 1665–1700. Longman, London and New York, 1980.

  Kietzman, Mary Jo. The Self-Fashioning of an Early Modern Englishwoman: Mary Carleton’s Lives. Ashgate, Burlington, U.K., 2004.

  Lane, Kris E. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750. Sharpe, Armonk, N.Y., 1998.

  Langdon-Davies, John. Carlos the Bewitched: The Last Spanish Hapsburg, 1661–1700. Jonathan Cape, London, 1962.

  Marx, Jennifer. Pirates and Privateers of the Caribbean. Krieger, Malabar, Fla., 1992.

  Marx, Robert. Port Royal Rediscovered. Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y., 1973.

  McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1977.

  Newton, Arthur Percival. The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans. Kennikat Press, Port Washington, N.Y., 1966.

  Newton, Norman. Thomas Gage in Spanish America. Faber, London, 1969.

  O’Laughlin, K. F., and James Lander. Caribbean Tsunamis: A 500-Year History from 1498–1998. Springer, New York, 2003.

  O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2000.

  Parry, J. H. The Spanish Seaborne Empire. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1966.

  Payne, John. History of Spain and Portugal. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1973.

  Peterson, Mendel. The Funnel of Gold. Little, Brown, Boston, 1975.

  Petrovich, Sandra Marie. Henry Morgan’s Raid on Panama—Geopolitics and Colonial Ramifications, 1669–1674. Caribbean Studies Press, Volume 10, Edwin Press, Lewiston, N.Y., 2001.

  Pope, Dudley. The Buccaneer King. Dodd, Mead, Mellen, New York, 1977.

  Pringle, Patrick. Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy. Dover, New York, 2001.

  Rappaport, Angelo S. Superstitions of Sailors. Gryphon, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1971.

  Roberts, W. Adolph. Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer and Governor. Pioneer Press, Kingston, Jamaica, 1952.

  Stevens, John Richard, ed. Captured by Pirates. Fern Canyon, Cambria Pines by the Sea, Calif., 2003.

  Taylor, S. A. G. The Western Design. The Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, 1965.

  Thornton, A. P. West India Policy Under the Restoration. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, U.K., 1956.

  Todd, Janet, and Elizabeth Spearing, eds. Counterfeit Ladies. Pickering & Chatto, London, 1994.

  Ure, John. The Quest for Captain Morgan. Constable, London, 1983.

  Volo, Deborah Denneen, and James M. Volo. Daily Life in the Age of Sail. Green-wood Press, Westport, Conn., 2002.

  Winston, Alexander. No Man Knows My Name: Privateers and Pirates 1665–1715. Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1969.

  Primary Sources

  Barlow, Edward. Barlow’s Journal of His Life at Sea in King’s Ships. Transcribed by Basil Lubbock, Volume II. Hurst & Blackett, London, 1934.

  Carleton, Mary. News from Jamaica in a Letter from Port Royal Written by the Germane Princess to Her Fellow Collegiates and Friends in New-Gate. London, Printed by Peter Lillicrap, for Philip Brigs Living in Mer-maid Court near Amen Corner in Pater-Noster Row, 1671.

  de Lussan, Raveneau. Journal of a Voyage into the South Sea in 1684 and the Following Years with the Filibustiers. Translated by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur. Arthur H. Clark, Cleveland, 1930.

  Dunlop, John. Memoirs of Spain 1621–1700. Neill & Company, Edinburgh. 1834.

  Esquemeling, John. Buccaneers of America. Dover, New York, 1967.

  Gage, Thomas. The English-American. George Rutledge, London, 1648.

  Johnson, Captain Charles. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, May 1724. Carroll and Graf, New York, 1999.

  Rogers, Woodes. A Cruising Voyage Round the World. Cassell, London, 1928.

  Sloane, Hans. Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christopher and Jamaica. Self-published, London, 1707.

  Wafer, Lionel. A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America. The Burrow Brothers, Cleveland, 1903.

  Notes

  The titles of the sources are listed in the bibliography. The notes are given by chapter and indicated by the last words of a sentence or phrase.

  The main sources for research are the Archivo General de las Indias, Seville, Spain, and the British Library and Public Records Office in London. The following abbrevia
tions are used: CSPWI (Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies); CSPD (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic); COP (Colonial Office Papers, British Library) Panama (the Panama Section of the Archivo General in Seville); IG (the Indiferente General Section of the Archivo); Escribiana (Escribiana de Cámara section, Archivo); Contratación (Contratación section, Archivo); Add Ms. (Additional Manuscripts, British Library).

  1. “I Offer a New World”

  “on a secret mission”: Thompson, p. xliv.

  “by order of the Protector”: CSPD, December 20, 1654, p. 586.

  “‘many secret conferences’”: quoted in Newton, p. 190.

  “blush to behold”: quoted in Thompson, p. xv.

  “across the oceans to drown them”: Bassett, p. 108.

  “I offer a New World”: Gage, intro, p. xxvi.

  For the preparations for the Hispaniola expedition, see Taylor, p. 1.

  “rather to die than to live”: quoted in Taylor, p. 94.

  “fetch their pedigree”: quoted in Cruikshank, p. 1.

  “measuring, uninnocent”: this portrait can be viewed at: www.data-wales.co.uk/morgan.htm.

  “even more tedious pedigrees”: Jenkins, Foundations, p. 213.

  “surrounded by goats and unpronounceable names.” Jenkins, A History, p. 19.

  “used to the pike than the book”: Morgan to Lords of Trade and Plantations, February 24, 1680, CSPWI item 1304.

  “the daily prayer of Henry Morgan”: Morgan to Leoline Jenkins, August 22, 1881, CSPWI item 208.

  “who would kill her”: Gage, intro, p. xiii.

  “acquainted with gamblers’ oaths”: Gage, p. 40.

  “leaving Gage in despair”: Newton, p. 164.

  “sounded like ‘an Indian or a Welshman.’” Newton, p. 178.

  “until the moment of his execution”: Newton, p. 184.

  “within two years”: Fraser, p. 523.

  “the great enterprise you have in hand”: quoted in Fraser, p. 526.

  “on the shores of Hispaniola”: Pope, p. 72.

  “‘turned into dross’”: quoted in Newton, p. 194.

  “many of these were already failing”: Turner, p. 92.

  For the history of tsunamis in the Caribbean, see O’Laughlin.

  2. The Tomb at the Escorial

  “wear black from head to toe”: Hume, p. 447.

  “where his own body would lie.” Hume, p. 449.

  “the rest of mankind are mud”: quoted in Kamen, p. 8.

  “180 tons of gold flowed through the official port of Seville”: Kamen, p. 287.

  “16,000 tons of silver”: ibid.

  “a minting machine”: Peterson, p. 42.

  “to his country”: quoted in Kamen, p. 292.

  “in unadjusted dollars”: Peterson, p. 38.

  “totaled nearly 74 million”: Carr, p. 144.

  “93 percent of the budget”: ibid., p. 155.

  “and the Calle Mayor”: Hume, p. 439.

  “Blessed be his holy name!”: quoted in ibid., p. 439.

  3. Morgan

  “cartridges on an infantryman”: Newton, 192.

  “to light their muskets”: ibid.

  “They grow bold and bloody”: Sedgwick to Thurloe, March 12, 1655, quoted in Taylor, p. 102.

  “only 4 percent had taken a wife”: Cordingly, p. 69.

  “strange countries and fashions”: Earle, Sailors, p. 18.

  “the longer and more dangerous, the more attractive”: du Lussan, p. 33.

  “where we rob at will.” The original reads: “We might sing, sweare, drab, and kill men as freely as your cakemakers do flies…when the whole sea was our empire where we robbed at will.” Quoted in Earle, Pirate Wars, p. 25.

  “4,500 white residents and 1,500 Negro slaves”: Pope, p. 80.

  “three hundred more than its competitor, New York”: Roberts, p. 10.

  “by faithful Protestant hands”: Cootes, p. 40.

  “in both marriage and war”: ibid., p. 40.

  “life-bitten”: ibid., 176.

  “the great Spanish treasuries in America”: Thornton, p. 71.

  “for a decade”: ibid., p. 14.

  “nothing new in the English situation”: quoted in Langdon-Davies, p. 12.

  “‘I am thine’”: quoted in ibid., p. 54.

  4. Into the Past

  “built to fly.” For a discussion of the pirate ship, see Konstam, Angus, The Pirate Ship 1660–1730. Osprey, Oxford, 2003.

  “gleamed like porcelain”: For examples of the seventeenth-century French musket, see Grancsay, Stephen, preface and notes . Master French Gunsmiths’ Designs of the XVII–XIX Centuries. Facsimile. Winchester Press, New York, 1970.

  “in the style of Sir Francis Drake”: Pope, p. 115.

  “a diamond cross hanging around it”: Cordingly, p. 12.

  “searching and purging”: quoted in Cordingly, p. 95.

  “10 pounds.” The compensation rates come from Esquemeling, p. 59.

  “toward the Yucatán Peninsula”: The main source for Morgan’s first raid is the “Examination of Captains John Morris, Jackman and Morgan,” included in a letter from Modyford to Albemarle, March 1, 1666, CSPWI item 1142, volume 5 (1661–1668), pp. 359–61.

  “lead them to land”: ibid., p. 62.

  “to their approach”: ibid.

  “gathered a few hundred prisoners”: ibid.

  “to every day’s distance”: Pope, p. 112.

  “when they would have meat”: Gage, p. 67.

  “set course for Jamaica”: The account of Morgan’s raid is taken from Modyford to Albemarle, March, 1, 1666, CSPWI item 1132.

  5. Sodom

  “fell and died”: Report by Colonel Cary, CSPWI item 1086.

  “nor trade but privateering”: Lynch to Bennet, May 25, 1664, CSPWI item 774.

  “liable to turn on their own”: from “Mr. Worsley’s Discourse on the Privateers of Jamaica,” Add Ms. 11410, pp. 623–45.

  “beneath which lay coralline limestone”: “The Port Royal Earthquake of June 7, 1692,” unpublished, by George R. Clark, Department of Geology, Kansas State University.

  “for many weeks”: For an account of Juana’s bizarre procession, see Langdon-Davies, pp. 24–27.

  “neither Jewish nor Muslim”: Langdon-Davies, p. 45.

  “and so on with the rest”: Payne, p. 299.

  “the Christian Algiers”: quoted in Cordingly, Pirates, p. 55.

  “from the Portuguese or French”: Modyford to Albemarle, March 1, 1666, CSPWI item 1142.

  “the council declared”: Minutes of the Council, CSPWI item 1138.

  “gone to the French”: Modyford to Albemarle, August 21, 1666, CSPWI item 1264.

  “very narrowly concerned here”: quoted in Esquemeling, p. 125.

  “lose their lives”: quoted in Esquemeling, p. 127.

  “battered with the irons”: Deposition of Robert Rawlinson, October 5, 1668, CSPWI item 1851.

  “to his wicked life”: Esquemeling, p. 125.

  6. The Art of Cruelty

  “new insolences”: Modyford to Arlington, July 30, 1667, CSPWI item 1537.

  “commerce of the region”: letter from Don Francisco Calderón Romero, April 4, 1668, IG 2541.

  “some pieces of cannon”: Esquemeling, p. 134.

  “very dextrous at their arms”: ibid., p. 135.

  “come to their aid”: ibid., p. 137.

  “full of danger”: Morgan’s report, September 7, 1668, CO 1/23.

  “where he was raised”: For an account of L’Ollonais’s career, see Esquemeling, pp. 79–119.

  “vile crew of miscreants”: quoted in Cordingly, Under, p. 93.

  “forget who he was”: Johnson, p. 69.

  “than the rest”: Johnson, p. 101.

  “a silence followed”: Stephens, p. 219.

  7. Portobelo

  “way of conversing”: Roberts, p. 219.

  “in the spoils”: Esquemeling, p. 141.

  “
seriously undermanned”: Earle, Sack, p. 57.

  “to attempt that place”: Morgan’s report, CO 1/23.

  “with the usual ceremonies”: du Lussan, p. 187.

  “pay for the expedition himself”: Earle, Sack, p. 54.

  “marching over land”: ibid., p. 69.

  “formerly brought from Puerto Rico”: Morgan’s report, CO 1/23.

  “charged each gun anew”: Esquemeling, p. 144.

  “ascend by them”: ibid.

  “at Portobelo on Saturday”: quoted in Earle, Sack, p. 81.

  “It was very possible”: ibid., p. 76.

  “a thousand lives”: Bennassar, p. 214.

  “the Province of Panama”: Morgan’s report, CO 1/23.

  “in this place”: The letters are collected in Panama 81, (III), fos. 40–46, 1669.

  “you to do it”: ibid.

  “as the Spanish are used to doing”: ibid.

  “with considerable damage”: Morgan’s report, CO 1/23.

  “whichever way we went”: quoted in Earle, Sack, p. 86.

  “silver cobs”: Panama 81, 1669 (III), “Inventory of the Treasure.”

  “achieved at Portobelo”: Both letters are quoted in Esquemeling, p. 148–49.

  “on February 17, 1669”: The report of the council is addressed as a letter of March 16, 1669, to the queen and is contained in the file “Original Consultations” in IG 1877.

  8. Rich and Wicked

  “‘rushing through’ its streets”: quoted in Bridenbaugh, p. 380.

  “a Law to your self”: quoted in Bridenbaugh, p. 384.

  “for married women”: Crespo’s “declaration,” dated June 12, 1669, is found in IG 2541.

  “on a river barge”: for Mary’s testimony and glimpses of her later career, see Todd and Spearing, Counterfeit Ladies; and Kietzman, The Self-Fashioning of an Early Modern Englishwoman.

  “Seamen of the Ship”: The quotations from the letter are from Carleton, News from Jamaica, 1671.

  “her intended designs”: quoted in Black, p. 22.

  “and more corruption”: see Black, epigram.

  “returned again to sea”: Dunlop, p. 37.

  “a better sort of folk”: quoted in Marx, Port Royal, p. 2.

  9. An Amateur English Theatrical

  “hunting licenses”: Pringle, p. 84.

  “to port”: The English version of the Maracaibo raid is included in Esquemeling’s account and Morgan’s report, contained in A. P. Thornton’s article “The Modyfords and Morgan,” from Jamaican Historical Review, 1952.