Galleon (6 page)

“Constitutions are luxuries that can wait,” Ned said warily. “Tell us about the orders you have to carry out immediately.”

“Well,” Luce said apprehensively, “I have to withdraw all commissions granted to privateers and order the captains to return to port.”

“Oh, so at least the Privy Council did not regard us as pirates, because it knew we all have commissions signed by the then acting Governor. It was just you who regarded us as pirates. Anyway, what ports do these privateers return to? Lisbon, Brest, Cadiz, Bristol…?”

“All that was just a misunderstanding,” Luce said hastily. “But you appreciate that now with the peace signed, your position has changed. Without commissions you are no longer privateers – or buccaneers, if you prefer the word.”

“No,” Ned said sourly, “without commissions we are simply pirates, if you prefer the word.”

“But it’s not what I prefer; that’s the legal position,” Luce said with a return to his old primness. “We are now at peace with Spain. Remember that.”

“I hope I never have to remind you of your words,” Ned said bitterly, “but do remember Sir Thomas’ injunction about the Spaniards, and my reference to ‘the Line’.”

“Oh, I will, I will,” Luce said eagerly, anxious to change the subject. “Now let me tell you the rest. It has been decided that everyone granted land in Jamaica shall pay no rent for seven years. Of course, new settlers must be Protestants and obey the laws of England.”

Thomas started laughing, a laugh which began deep down and shook the table on which his elbows rested. “The laws of England…isn’t that splendid, Ned? Most of the Army he’s about to disband are the sweepings of Roundhead jails; most of the present settlers were transported by Cromwell because they were prisoners of war, or had been naughty boys, stealing sheep and laughing on Sundays, fornicating and even blaspheming, too. Who are the ‘new’ settlers going to be?”

Luce flushed. “Well, you hardly expect prosperous folk to leave their homes in England and come out here, do you?”

“Of course not; that’s why I’m asking.”

Luce sorted through several sheets of paper. “Well, yes, the Privy Council is agreed that convicts will be transported here as settlers – but no murderers, burglars or ‘incorrigible rogues’.”

“Ah, that rules out defaulting politicians,” Thomas commented, “so perhaps we’re luckier than we deserve. What now happens to poor old Heffer’s Army?”

“Ah, yes. He tells me he had 1,523 men (plus 550 I’ll refer to in a moment) and I have £12,247 to share out among them, their pay up to date plus a gratuity.”

“So, clutching their pay and their gratuity to their bosoms,” Thomas said sourly, “what do they do then? Swim back to England?”

“Of course not,” Luce said, having appeared to take the question seriously. “They will settle here.”

“Despite the ban on ‘incorrigible rogues’?”

“They’re already here,” Luce said, nimbly avoiding Thomas’ trap. “But General Heffer will not be left entirely defenceless; I have instructions to keep a force of 400 infantry and 150 cavalry for the defence of the island–” He glanced down another page of written instructions and ran his fingers along a line. “Yes, to be kept ‘as long as is thought fit for the preservation of the island’.”

“Very wise,” Thomas said judiciously, his tone making both Ned and Heffer look up. “Five hundred and fifty men…fewer than one man at every mile if they’re placed carefully round the island. They’ll hardly be able to see each other, let alone roister and gamble. Very shrewd men, the Privy Councillors.”

“I’m sure General Heffer will make the best possible use of his force,” Luce said hurriedly. “Now, the fort which you have built here on Cagway is to be called ‘Fort Charles’–”

“It already is,” Ned said, “in honour of the King.”

“–and the whole spit, or peninsula, on which it and this building and the market stand, is to be called Port Royal.”

“What excellent taste the Privy Council has,” Thomas said.

“Now for the important part, which will affect those soldiers who are disbanded, along with everyone else. Every male and female over the age of twelve now living in Jamaica or arriving within two years is to be granted thirty acres of ‘improvable land’.”

“Hard luck on bachelors and spinsters,” Ned commented. “A married man with a large family will receive a large estate – and no rent to pay for seven years.”

“Do you want to hear about the new constitution?”

Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Well, since we’re just sitting here, I suppose…”

“Well, the Governor will rule with a council of twelve locally elected men. The Governor and council–” he began reading again, “–‘will obtain and preserve a good correspondence and commerce with the plantations and territories of the King of Spain,’ but if the Spanish governors refuse,” Luce explained, “then all this will be done by force.”

“By what force?” Ned asked innocently. “You will have 400 infantry and 150 cavalry, but how do they get across to the Main – to Cartagena, say, or Santiago, or Ríohacha, or Vera Cruz, or Havana in Cuba, to wield ‘force’?”

It was Luce’s turn to shrug his shoulders. “I assure you, gentlemen, that I understand my problems better now than I did when I first read these instructions.

“But let me finish. The Assembly (the Governor acting with the council) will make laws to remain in force two years, and no longer, unless approved by the Privy Council in London.”

Thomas sniffed, doubtful and wary. “That means we’re ruled entirely from London,” he grumbled. “If they don’t like a law, they don’t approve it and it lapses after two years. But how will they know what’s needed out here? They’ve shown no signs of doing so up to now. Stupidity reinforcing ignorance…”

“We’ll have had a couple of years’ benefit from it,” Ned said, “and after two years we can pass other laws almost identical and that’ll give us another two years…”

“Now, here’s the final thing and I should have mentioned it earlier,” Luce said hurriedly, not liking the loopholes being revealed. “I am to form a militia of five regiments, and each regiment is to be named after the particular area where the volunteers were recruited.”

Ned sighed. “So we’ll have the Port Royal Volunteers, commanded by the butcher with the candlemaker as second in command, and with three sawyers, two coopers, one potman and a rheumatic pickpocket as the fighting force. Five regiments, Thomas: I haven’t seen five horses in the last five days!”

“I take it that you two gentlemen have no objection to me putting your names forward for election to the council?” Luce asked.

Thomas laughed and again the table trembled. “By all means do. I want particularly to be on the committee responsible for ‘preserving a good correspondence and free commerce’ with the Dons. And you, Heffer, you’d better start pacing out the positions for the sentry boxes for those 550 soldiers of yours. In the meantime, Your Excellency, Mr Yorke and I will open a few taverns and bordellos and we’ll see if we can’t get our hands on some of that £12,274 you will soon be giving to those dry-throated and womenless soldiers…”

“Well, there they are,” Ned said tapping the parchment of twenty-eight creased and stained commissions which he and Thomas had collected from the buccaneers, using their visits to explain the situation now that the Governor had arrived with a new constitution.

“None of the captains liked the news,” Thomas said, more to tell Diana and Aurelia than comment on it.

“I should think not,” Diana said. “If this shows what the Privy Council know about the Spanish, the Caribbee Islands and how to choose men to be governors, I hate to think what’s happening in Barbados and Antigua, or even the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Dogs.”

Thomas gave a bitter laugh. “Lopez made the most interesting comments, and don’t forget he’s Spanish. He said two things. First, that obviously our King has secretly converted to Catholicism and knows he has to curry favour with the Pope by returning Jamaica to His Most Catholic Majesty, and second, among our King’s advisers is someone in the pay of Spain – probably a Catholic who was in exile with him and who drafted that secret treaty handing over Jamaica and Dunkirk.”

Aurelia asked: “Do you think Lopez’s right?”

Thomas glanced up at Ned, who nodded. “It sounds possible. I don’t think the Duke of Albemarle is involved in the religious aspect, but obviously someone in the pay of Spain (or a Catholic fanatic) has the King’s ear. It’s the only way to account for Jamaica and Dunkirk – the Duke knows the bitter fighting for Dunkirk, and as for the place’s importance to England, it doesn’t matter whether it was Roundhead or Cavalier keeping out the Dons.”

“Is Lopez likely to tell other captains what he thinks has happened in London?” Aurelia asked.

“Yes, he has to, out of loyalty to them.”

“He wouldn’t take your assurance that he was wrong?” Diana asked.

“Would
you
give anyone such an assurance?”

“No, I suppose not. What happens now, Ned? Do we all depart for Tortuga and forget we are just starting to build ourselves houses and clear land for planting after finding guns and gold for this island?”

Thomas sat down with a thump, his fingers beginning to curl the ends of his beard. “Thanks to the Portobelo purchase, none of us has to worry about money, and this fellow Loosely or whatever his name is can’t avoid confirming Heffer’s land grants to us, so we can go ahead and build the houses and clear the land, but…”

“Exactly,” Aurelia said. “That ‘but’…the island will have no Army, except for 550 pathetic buffoons spaced round the beaches, and no ships to protect it because the buccaneers will get bored and go after purchase: the Restoration of Charles II doesn’t make the Dutch, French and Portuguese buccaneers suddenly love Spain. But you two men are going to enjoy clearing land and building houses and dressing up to attend council meetings whenever this buffoon Luce decides to call them.
Quelle blague
,” she said disgustedly. “Do any of the buccaneer captains want a cook?”

“There’s no holding a French lady once she gets going,” Diana said laughingly. “Can I say my Catechism now?”

“Go ahead,” Ned said ruefully. “You’ll have to say ‘
quelle blague
’ in English, and anyway, the Spaniards won’t be here before Michaelmas!”

“Thank you, kind sir, for that reassurance. First, if you two leave the island now for Tortuga, it means that Luce blunders along with the help of a few misguided tradesmen as councillors. Poor old Heffer – who at last has learned a few lessons from you – will be left with no allies.”

“Good point,” Thomas grunted, “but do we really
care
what happens to the island now? Hasn’t London cast us off by giving us back to Spain?”

“
Going
to give,” Aurelia said. “They haven’t done it yet.”

“It’s the anchorage, not the island,” Diana said. “But anyway, I’m not going to waste all that work we’ve done pegging out the foundations for our house. We have at least six months before we need worry about the Spanish. Five months, perhaps four – how many? Anything can happen by then.”

Ned shrugged his shoulders. “The Dons haven’t the ships over here to do us much harm – yet. But what’s going on in Madrid? If they feel strongly about Jamaica, then they’ve got to dig the money out of their treasury and fit out enough ships to send a fleet to deal with us here. And collect the silver and gold and gems that have been piling up in Cartagena and Vera Cruz for shipment to pay Spain’s debts. The Spanish King will soon be defaulting on his loans from the Fuggers and the other bankers in Europe. So sending out a fleet (if he can afford it) would serve two purposes.”

“I doubt he can borrow the money to fit out a fleet,” Thomas said.

Ned disagreed. “He might be able to borrow more because the bankers know they won’t get a dollar more of interest or principal for years unless the Dons get at least one plate fleet from the Main. The last was years ago, from Vera Cruz. The Spaniards’ treasury is really in the silver mines out here, which means the King can’t spend a dollar of it until he ships it home.”

“What you mean,” Thomas said, “is that the bankers will have to risk more money to get their original loans back.”

“Yes. Risk throwing good money after bad. Bankers hate that.”

Diana smiled and held her hands palm uppermost. “Then we need to be more frightened of the bankers than the Spaniards!”

Ned nodded. “For many years Spain has been using her money to try to force converts to her religion, but I begin to think that bankers must be shaking their heads now over a new loan which might end up bringing Spain to its knees faster than an invading army!”

“None of which,” Diana reminded them, “helps us decide what we do. If our new King gives us away to Spain, it doesn’t matter about bankers. What about us? What do you think, Aurelia?”

“I agree with you about the house. I’ve ridden over those mountains so often and been bitten by so many mosquitoes, that I’d like to see it finished. Clearing the land for planting – when we know if we keep the land or give it to a
hidalgo
– can wait until later. We have time, haven’t we Ned?”

“I think so, but whether we have time or not really depends on what the buccaneers decide. They long ago elected me their Admiral, and Governor Luce’s arrival doesn’t change that. But now he’s cancelled their commissions will they go on using Port Royal as a base? That’s what matters. If they don’t, many merchants and chandlers will be ruined.”

“They’ll still attack the Spanish or smuggle?” Diana asked.

“Of course they will. It’s the only life they know!”

“How does that affect you?” Aurelia asked quietly.

“If I remain their leader, I’ll be a pirate as far as the English are concerned, because now we’re at peace with Spain.”

Thomas interrupted by holding up his hand. “But what about that ‘forcing a trade’ clause in the Governor’s orders?”

“That is to follow attempts at doing it peacefully!”

“Well, you don’t think the Spanish will agree to a peaceful trade, do you? It’s a contradiction. People either trade or they don’t trade – you can’t force ’em. The third method is the one we’ve always done – smuggle. Anyway, that sort of decision about trade would have to be made in Spain, and it’d take months to get an answer back from Madrid. Six months at least.”