The Book of Pirates and Highwaymen (6 page)

… The destruction of his principal ship was to him a very sensible loss; he had now only fifteen remaining, the largest of which carried only fourteen small cannons. He could still reckon, indeed, on board his fleet nine hundred freebooters; but he had not yet arrived at the height of his misfortunes. In one night, after various adventures, his fleet was so ill-treated by a tempest, that on the following day it was reduced to eight ships, and his little army to five hundred men. In case of a separation, it had been previously determined that they should resort to the bay of Ocos, as the point of re-union; and thither the commander-in-chief hastened, but not one of his ships appeared there.

From that time he changed his plans of operations; and by the advice of the celebrated Peter the Picard, who had been with Olonois in the expedition to Maracäibo, he determined to pay a new visit to that Spanish possession. He fortunately arrived with his men on the borders of the lake of that name, where he found that the Spaniards had recently built a fort, the artillery of which commenced and kept up a most terrible fire upon his ships. With this unexpected reception the pirates were by no means daunted; they ventured to land. Intimidated by such audacity, which recalled to the mind the first attack of the free-booters, the Spaniards rapidly evacuated the fort, and placed a lighted match near the powder magazine, in order to blow up both the fort and the pirates themselves. The plot, however, was detected by Morgan at the very moment that the explosion was about to take place. He found in the fort thirty quintals of gunpowder, several fusees and pikes, an extensive military baggage, and seventeen large cannons. A few pieces only were spiked, the remainder being carried on board the ships. The fort was demolished as far as precipitation would allow them; for it was constructed in a peculiar manner, so that it could only be ascended by an iron ladder which was drawn up as soon as the person attained the top of the wall.

But this conquest was not attended with any great utility to the free-booters. They were obliged to advance further, and they had many obstacles to surmount. The shallowness of the water compelled them to abandon their ships, and continue their navigation in canoes. But the terror with which the Spaniards were struck removed all difficulties. Their inconsiderable strength might have encouraged their enemies to make some resistance; this however was not the case. Though so valiant under other circumstances, they durst not contend with these ferocious free-booters; they abandoned not only the city of Maracäibo, but also the fort of La Barra, and betook themselves to flight. The pirates found only a few aged slaves who could not walk, and some invalids in the hospital, a very small quantity of provisions, and the houses stripped and deserted. The Spaniards had had time to secure their merchandise and moveables; they had even sent their small craft out of the port, and had conducted themselves further into the interior of the lake.

Morgan ordered the woods to be searched: in a short time there were brought in fifty mules richly laden, and thirty fugitives, men, women, and children. Conformably to the horrible custom of these robbers, they put the hapless captives to the torture, in order to extort their confessions. Their limbs were fastened to ropes, which were violently drawn in contrary directions; to their fingers were applied pieces of burning wood; their heads were tightly bound with cords, till the eyes were ready to start from their sockets. Some slaves who would not betray the place of their masters’ retreat, were cut to pieces while alive. Every day were detachments sent into the woods to hunt the fugitives; and the hunters never returned without bringing in some human prey.

Juvenile Criminal

‘Among the children,’ says that active philanthropist, the Hon. Grey Bennet, in his evidence before the Police Committee, ‘whom I have seen in prison, a boy of the name of Leary was the most remarkable; he was about thirteen years of age, good-looking, sharp, and intelligent, and possessing a manner which seemed to indicate a character very different from what he really possessed. When I saw him, he was under sentence of death for stealing a watch, chain, and seals, from Mr Princep’s chambers in the Temple; he had been five years in the practice of delinquency, progressing from stealing an apple off a stall, to housebreaking and highway robbery.

He belonged to the Moorfields’ Catholic Chapel, and there became acquainted with one Ryan in that school, by whom he was instructed in the various arts and practices of delinquency; his first attempts were at tarts, apples, &c; next at the loaves in bakers’ baskets; then at parcels of halfpence on shop counters and money-tills in shops; then to breaking shop windows, and drawing out valuable articles through the aperture, picking pockets, house-breaking, &c. Leary has often gone to school the next day with several pounds in his pockets, as his share of the produce of the previous day’s robberies; he soon became captain of a gang, generally since known as Leary’s gang, with five boys, and sometimes more, furnished with pistols, taking a horse and cart with them; and, if they had an opportunity in their road, they cut off the trunks of gentleman’s carriages, when, after opening them, and according to their contents, so they would be governed in prosecuting their further objects in that quarter; they would divide into parties of two, sometimes one, and leaving one with the horse and cart, go to the farm and other houses, stating their being on their way to see their families, and begging for some bread and water; by such tales, united with their youth, they obtained relief, and generally ended by robbing the houses and premises.

In one instance Leary was detected and taken, and committed to Maidstone gaol; but the prosecutor not appearing against him, he was discharged. In these excursions he has stayed out a week and upwards, when his share has produced him from £50 to £100. He has been concerned in various robberies in London and the vicinity, and has had property at one time amounting to £350; but when he had money, he either got robbed of it by elder thieves, who knew he had much money about him, or he lost it by gambling at flash houses, or spent it among loose characters of both sexes.

After committing innumerable depredations, he was detected at Mr Derrimore’s, at Kentish Town, stealing some plate from that gentlemen’s dining room; when several other similar robberies coming against him in that neighbourhood, he was, in compassion of his youth, placed in the Philanthropic Asylum; but being now charged with Mr Princept’s robbery, he was taken, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, but was afterwards respited, and returned to that Institution.

He is little, and well-looking; and has robbed to the amount of £3,000 during his five years’ career. This surprising boy has since broke out and escaped the Philanthropic, went to his old practices, was again tried at the Old Bailey, and is transported for life.’

Piracy, Murder, And Rape: Part One

In the year 1735, Captain De Tracy, a Frenchman of a distinguished family, had acquired considerable wealth by his extensive plantations in the vicinity of Samana, in the island of St Domingo. He had constantly resided on one of his own estates, and had married a Creole lady of remarkable beauty and accomplishments, and was blessed by her with an early family of healthy and interesting children. De Tracy, of an open-hearted and generous disposition, uniformly conducted himself towards his slaves and dependants with kindness and affability. The family of De Tracy consisted at that time of one daughter, verging on fifteen, and a second one year older, a fine grown boy of thirteen, another of eight years old, and a smiling infant at the mother’s breast. The elder daughters possessed all the personal charms, with all the gentleness of their mother; of the boys it need only be said, that they bade fair to inherit the noble-mindedness of their parents.

De Tracy, with his amiable and fair family, had resided since his marriage entirely on his principal estate in the island of St Domingo; but in the summer of the year 1735, he determined to visit the Bahama Islands, of which Madame De Tracy was a native, and where she had now become possessed of considerable property by the bequest of her father, recently deceased. A residence of some months in the Bahamas being advised to the re-establishment of Madam De Tracy’s health, it was arranged that the whole family should accompany them.

In the month of January preceding, a brig, apparently designed for a vessel of war, with a mixed crew of twenty men, and commanded by a Frenchman, was driven, in a severe gale, on the coast, and, having received extensive damage, had been compelled to remain on the island for repair and refitted. Her captain described himself as a naval commander, educated in the French marine, but compelled to resort to the pursuits of commerce to repair the destruction of his early pursuits and fortune. The numbers and appearance of his crew seemed to be at variance with this account, and the vessel itself bore strong resemblance, in its sitting and general equipment, to one used for the purpose of privateering depredation, rather than the peaceful occupations of trade. The account which La Force, the commander, gave of himself, however, ran, that he was on an outward-bound voyage from Marseilles to the gulph of Florida, with a cargo of Dutch and English manufactured goods, to trade with the Spaniards; and that the unusual number of his crew arose from his having shipped, as passengers, several Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians, who were proceeding to settle in the Spanish South-American dominions. The relation accounted tolerably well for the doubtful appearance of his men, and the presence of a number of bales and packages of every variety of sizes, marks, and denominations. The guns of his vessel, with the ammunition, and a quantity of small arms, had, in fact, been thrown overboard as a matter of necessity during the gale, as well to lighten and ease the ship, as to remove all violent cause of suspicion, from the shore on which they were inevitably driving. In few words, to relieve the suspense of the reader, the brig Julie, we are describing, was in reality a stout vessel of war, expressly fitted out by a band of adventurers who formed her desperate crew, for piracy and marauding, and previous to the storm which drove her into St Domingo, had been in a complete state of warlike readiness to grapple even with armed vessels of much superior rate; and the merchandize and valuables saved from her when stranded, were the result of many rich captures. La Force, who with courteous and specious manners glossed over the blackest heart that perhaps ever animated the human frame, was a pirate of the most determined and fearless character, and of disposition more cruel and relentless than was usual, even amongst the desperadoes of his own class.

De Tracy, in the sincerity and openness of his heart, suspected no guile in others, and in an evil hour determined to avail himself of the Julie being ready for sea, and take his projected passage to the Bahamas under the conduct of the pirate La Force and his band of miscreants. It should be told, that from the first landing of La Force from his wicked vessel, De Tracy, with his wonted kindness, had bade him a cheerful welcome to the comforts of his house and table, and the charming family. La Force, ever alert in desperate villany, was, like the adder of the old fable, scarcely warmed with the hospitality that sheltered and protected him, ere he sat down coolly to calculate the possibility of undermining and destroying for ever the peace and happiness of his benefactor: the ties of moral obligation would with La Force have weighed but little to prevent his insulting the virtue and modesty of De Tracy’s wife and daughters; but in spite of his infamous passions, this diabolical intention readily gave way to a plan of a still blacker hue, of a more sweeping and comprehensive mischief.