The Monarchs of the Main; Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers. Volume 1 (of 3) — A Reader’s Guide

The precursors of the Buccaneers--Description of Tortuga--Origin of the Buccaneers--Conquest of Tortuga by the French--The hunters, planters, and corsairs--Le Basque takes Maracaibo--War in Hispaniola--French West Indian Company buy Tortuga--The Governor, M. D'Ogeron.

Drake, Cavendish, and Oxenham, indeed all the naval heroes of Elizabeth's reign, were the precursors of the Buccaneers. The captains of those "tall ships" that sailed from Plymouth Sound, and the green nooks of the sunny coast of Devon, to capture stately carracks laden deep with silks, spices, pearls, and precious stones, the treasure of Potosi and Peru, were but Buccaneers under another name, agreeing with them in the great principle of making war on none but Spaniards, but on Spaniards unceasingly. "No peace beyond the line" was the motto on the flag of both Drake and Morgan.

Sir John Hawkins, who began the slave trade, and who was Drake's earliest patron, took the town of Rio de la Hacha, and struggled desperately with the galleons in the port of St. Juan d'Ulloa. Drake sacked Nombre de Dios, and, passing across the isthmus, stormed Vera Cruz. He destroyed St. Domingo and Carthagena, burnt La Rancheria, and attacked Porto Rico. But still more truly a Buccaneer was John Oxenham, one of Drake's followers, who, cruising about Panama, captured several bullion vessels; but was at last slain, with all his men, having fallen in love with a Spanish captive, and liberated her son, who surprised him with reinforcements from Nombre de Dios. Then came Raleigh, more chivalrous than them all--looser in principle, but wiser in head. He planned an attack on Panama, and ravaged St. Thomas's.

The first Buccaneers were poor French hunters, who, driven by the Spaniards out of Hispaniola, fled to the neighbouring island of Tortuga, and there settled as planters.

This Buccaneer colony of Tortuga arose rather by accident than by the design of any one ambitious mind. The French had established a colony in the almost deserted island of St. Christopher's, which had begun to flourish when the Spaniards, alarmed at a hostile power's vicinity to their mines, to which their thoughts then alone tended, put a stop to the prosperity of the French settlements by frequent attacks made by their fleets on their way to New Spain. From the just hatred excited by these unprovoked forays sprang the first impulse of retaliation. These injuries provoked the French, as they had done the Dutch, to fit out privateers. But a still more powerful motive soon became paramount. A spirit of cupidity arose, which was stimulated by the heated imaginations of men poor and angry. Before them lay regions of gold, timidly guarded by a vindictive but feeble enemy; and Spain became to these pioneer settlers what a bedridden miser is to the dreams of a needy bravo.

The report of the Dutch successes spread through all the ports of France. Sailors were the ready bearers of wild tales they had themselves half invented. Some hardy adventurers of Dieppe fitted out vessels to carry on a warfare that retaliation had now rendered just, war made legal, and chance rendered profitable. The sailor who was to-day munching his onion on the quays of Marseilles might, a few weeks hence, be lord of Carthagena, or rolling in the treasures of a Manilla galleon, clothed in Eastern silks, and delighted with the perfumes of India. Finding their enterprise successful, but St. Kitt's too distant to form a convenient depot for their booty, they began to look about for some nearer locality. At first they found their return voyages to the West Indian islands frequently occupying three months, which seemed years to men hurrying to store up old plunder, and to sally forth for new. In search of an asylum, these privateersmen touched at Hispaniola, hoping to find some lonely island near its shores; but as soon as they had landed, and saw the great forests full of game, and broad savannahs alive with wild cattle, and finding it abandoned by the Spaniards, and the Indians nearly all dead or emigrated, they determined to settle at a place so full of advantages, where they could revictual their ships, and remain secure and unobserved. The sight of Tortuga, a small neighbouring island, rocky, and yet not without a harbour, convinced them that nature had constructed for their growing empire at once a magazine, a citadel, and a fortress. They had now a sanctuary and a haven, shelter for their booty, and food for their men.