The Lost Fleet (11 page)

S
UMMER
1683
N
EWPORT,
R
HODE
I
SLAND

T
hough the English, French, and Spanish authorities routinely alternated between tolerating piracy and accusing one another of tolerating piracy, the English governors began to turn on one another as well. And with good reason. The leaders of the various colonies had very different levels of tolerance when it came to piracy. Sir Thomas Lynch had already complained about the amount of cooperation the pirates received in the North American colonies. After Paine used Lynch's commission to launch his attack on St. Augustine, the Earl of Craven fired back:

This was not the last time that Paine would be at the center of a storm.

In the fall of 1683, Paine returned to Rhode Island. His name was well known there, as were his questionable activities of the past years. Government officials called for his arrest. Fortunately for Paine, the governor of Rhode Island, William Coddington, was not one of them. In fact, for unknown reasons, Coddington did everything he could to obstruct efforts to bring Thomas Paine to account.

One of the governors who called for Paine's arrest was Edward Cranfield of New Hampshire. In October 1683, he related that Paine had come in “with a counterfeit commission from Sir Thomas Lynch styling him [Lynch] one of the Gentlemen of the King's Bedchamber, instead of his Privy Chamber, whereby I knew it to be forged. Colonel Dongan [governor of New York] and I asked the government to arrest [him], but they refused.”
²
A few months later, Paine's ship
Pearl
was briefly detained in Boston but was soon released. For the moment, Paine was safe.

The next spring, Paine's past once again came back to haunt him. Just when it seemed royal officials were losing interest in prosecuting Paine, the declaration from the king of England arrived, specifically naming him as one of the worst offenders of that “race of evildoers” to be exterminated.

The deputy tax collector of Boston, T. Thacker, attempted to impound Paine's ship at Newport and have Paine arrested. Like any government official, Thacker filed an extensive report:

Thacker does not hesitate to call Paine a pirate. Rather, it was the governor who equivocated, and would continue to do so. Like Gov
ernor Dongan of New York, Governor Cranfield of New Hampshire was also in Newport, and they too joined in the fray. Cranfield had already called for Paine's arrest the year before, and still wanted to see the pirate locked up. Thacker continues:

The next day, Thacker continued to urge the governor to seize the ship and men, “especially Thomas Paine, as the Commission was certainly false, and the ship had not been to Jamaica but on a piratical cruise, and had plundered the town of St. Augustine,” giving Paine more credit than he was due.

Coddington continued to refuse to arrest Paine and informed Thacker that if he wished, he could prosecute Paine through the courts. Thacker said he would be happy to, if Coddington would arrest him. Not only did Coddington refuse to do so, he would not supply Thacker with a copy of Paine's commission from Sir Thomas Lynch.

As soon as Thacker returned to Boston, he tried one last time to convince Coddington that Paine's commission was a fake by sending off a sample of Lynch's handwriting to the governor. In frustration he later reported, he “…sent him [Coddington] one of Sir Thomas Lynch's passes to convince him, but he would not see with eyes like other men.”
⁵

Why Coddington went to such lengths to protect Thomas Paine is something of a mystery. It might have been rivalry. Coddington and Cranfield had their own problems. Just days after the affair with Thomas Paine, the two men engaged in a bitter and acrimonious fight concerning unsettled claims of land and jurisdiction in the Narragansett area, with Cranfield at the head of a royal commission looking into the matter.

It is entirely possible that this dispute had already started, and the
land question was the reason that Cranfield was in Newport at the time. Perhaps Coddington was feeling protective of his fellow Rhode Islander, especially in light of the fact that the two governors and the tax collector were representatives of the Crown, New Hampshire and New York being Crown colonies. Coddington might have felt it his duty to protect his fellow Rhode Islander against such tyranny. It was the attitude of independence that would lead to the American Revolution nearly a century later.

Some of the problems may have stemmed from the character of Rhode Island in those days. Unlike other areas of New England, Rhode Island was a uniquely liberal and tolerant colony, a freewheeling little place, founded by religious dissenters and iconoclasts. Nor was it a particularly wealthy colony; enough money distributed in the right directions could generally quash curiosity as to the origins of a man's personal fortune. In 1657, a Dutchman writing from “New Amsterdam” (modern New York) noted that Rhode Island was “the Receptacle of all sorts of riff-raff people, and is nothing else than the latrina of New England. All the cranks of New England retire thither.” While this observer was certainly exaggerating, Rhode Island was a nursery for smugglers and pirates during the 1680s and 1690s.

In any event, the chief legal point was the validity of Paine's commission. Though it is unlikely that Sir Thomas Lynch intended to give Paine permission to sack St. Augustine, it does appear that he gave the filibuster some sort of commission. That much is indicated in his letter to Sir Leoline Jenkins, in which he states he “accepted the offer”
⁶
to grant Paine a commission to hunt pirates.

Knowing that Paine went to Florida on the strength of the commission that he, Lynch, had issued, Lynch must have been shaken to read the king's proclamation, stating, “You will permit no succor nor retreat to be given to any pirates, least of all to Thomas Pain, who…is lately arrived in Florida.”
⁷
Perhaps this is why little evidence exists concerning Paine's commission, beyond Lynch's letter to Jenkins.

The fact is that Cranfield was right in his assessment of the commission that Paine produced. Lynch was not a Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber, as the commission apparently stated, but was in fact a Gentleman of the Privy Council. The Bedchamber was reserved for peers of the realm, not men with mere knighthoods. Confusing the two was not a mistake that Lynch would have made.
⁸
Paine had shown the governors a forged document.

So what was the truth behind Paine's commission? If Lynch was
prepared to issue Paine a commission, why did Paine end up with a forgery? Perhaps Lynch changed his mind before actually issuing the document, leaving Paine to write his own. Perhaps Paine lost the original and tried to re-create it from memory.

Perhaps Lynch was not so innocent in the affair as he should have been. It is worth noting that he was posthumously accused of irregular practices in connection with a later pirate raid.

One of the perpetrators died at Port Royal shortly after the raid, and his effects, including treasure, were seized by the government. While most were forwarded home to London, as was right and proper, the attorney for the pirate's widow claimed that a parcel of “Spanish Jew-ells” somehow managed to end up in the possession of Governor Lynch's wife. It was also alleged that the wife of the Jamaican admiralty agent had received a ring from a Dutch freebooter, and that Lynch had taken bribes from assorted French pirates who were fearful of returning to Petit Goâve and sought asylum at Port Royal.

We know only that Thomas Paine had a piece of paper with the name Sir Thomas Lynch on it. He used it to justify his attack on St. Augustine, and he used it later to avoid the possible repercussions of his actions. It was authentic-looking enough to satisfy Governor Coddington, though Coddington was apparently eager to let Paine off. Wherever it originated, Paine certainly got a lot of mileage out of that document.

Despite Coddington's protection, Paine remained the subject of official badgering and Coddington remained under pressure for protecting him. In September, royal agent William Dyer wrote, “I have also caused Thomas Paine the arch-pirate, to be secured, and charged the Governor of Rhode Island with him and with his own neglect for not assisting the Deputy Collector to seize him and his ship.”
⁹
Once again, however, Paine somehow managed to avoid prosecution and gave the gallows the slip. Thomas Paine had a lot more fight left in him.

O
CTOBER
26, 1998
L
AS
A
VES

A
fter setting up and testing all of our gear in the Blue Room, we packed it all up again and loaded it on a plane, this time a small island-hopper that took us to Los Roques, the nearest inhabited land to Las Aves. That is not to say it is densely populated. Los Roques is a smattering of low brown-and-green islands that seem to float in the light-bluish-green water. It was once a hangout for my old friend Captain Sam Bellamy of the
Whydah.
We landed on an airstrip that looked like a straight gray scar across one of the larger islands, running from one shore to the other.

There we met our dive boat, the
Antares,
an eighty-five-foot cruiser that would be our home and work platform for the next two weeks. The
Antares
is a PADI dive boat. (PADI stands for Professional Association of Diving Instructors. It is a parent organization for sports diving instructors.) PADI rates dive boats like hotels, and the
Antares
was rated five stars. By the standards of American or European hotels, she might not have been five stars, but compared to the
Vast Explorer,
the boat we used for the
Whydah
project, a no-frills workboat, the
Antares
was the height of luxury.

The
Antares
was a big, boxy vessel. Her hull and deckhouses were white. The lower deck was made up of cabins. The next deck, at the
level of the open afterdeck, included a big salon and galley. The salon was decorated in the unfortunate earth tones of the mid-1970s, but what it lacked in taste it made up for in roominess and light. It had a wide parquet floor over which we were strictly warned we could not drag dive equipment or even walk with shoes. The salon became the central gathering place for the entire expedition. We met there, ate there, partied there, and argued there.

The
Antares
was set up as a dive boat, and that made her ideal. Carrying divers was her purpose in life, so she had on board everything we needed for that part of the expedition. She had air compressors and storage for tanks and gear. Todd Murphy had carefully figured the number of air tanks we would need, and the captain of the
Antares
had seen to it that they were all aboard.

The captain was Ron Hoogesteyn. In his late thirties, he is an imposing figure at six foot two and 260 pounds. He is from a well-known Dutch family in Venezuela. A diver himself, Ron understood what was needed for our expedition and he made certain that his boat was fully equipped.

I liked Ron right off and really came to appreciate his understanding of Las Aves, everything from the flora and fauna to the protocol of
dealing with the coast guard. Ron's love for the environment at Las Aves is evident, and he helped me appreciate what a beautiful and fragile ecosystem exists there.

Before setting out, we discussed some of the potential problems we might encounter. Ron knew Las Aves, having taken sports divers out there, and he knew that there might be problems with big surf and difficulty getting to the dive sites. He knew we might face other problems as well—sharks. Las Aves is a favorite hangout for lone hammerheads. Hammerheads are most dangerous when they are by themselves.

“You have tigers down here, too, don't you?” I asked.

“Yeah. Nasty ones,” Ron said, by way of encouragement.

Later in the expedition, when my own spirits were low and I was sick as a dog, Ron proved to be so eager to help it was irritating. If that is the worst problem a guy presents, then that's fine with me. We were lucky to have him.

The next morning we were under way, steering west toward Las Aves, plowing the sixty miles to the atoll through that beautiful blue-green ocean with the trade winds at our back. We were all aboard and the spacious afterdeck was crammed with our gear. It was the last leg
of the trip to the site, and we could all feel the excitement. The weather was fine but the seas were up and the trip was somewhat reminiscent of the bone-jarring ride we had had months before on our first boat ride to Las Aves. But despite that, we were all in good spirits for the upcoming explorations.

It was interesting to think that we were sailing close to the same course d'Estrées had been sailing on that terrible night more than three hundred years before. We, of course, enjoyed many advantages that d'Estrées did not. Foremost among them, we knew that the reefs were there.

As we approached Las Aves, we saw that we were not the only ones who knew about the reefs and the potential wealth they held. Another vessel, about the size of the
Antares,
was also making for Las Aves. As I mentioned before, there are fishing boats that go out to the island, and the occasional sports diver. There is also a Venezuelan coast guard base. But this boat did not look as if it was any of the above.

Ron and I took turns examining the stranger through the binoculars as she and the
Antares
drew closer.

I asked Ron, “Do you know what boat that is?”

Ron did not. He said, “We heard them on the radio, talking to the navy. They are going to dive at Las Aves.”

Everything about her—the size, the type of vessel, her apparent destination—suggested that she was heading for the reefs for a little treasure hunting, or was I being paranoid?

“This is a treasure-diving boat,” I said. “They're treasure hunters.”

Once word of an old shipwreck gets out, it can set off a gold rush. The ones who usually show up are the amateur treasure hunters who have never found anything of their own. They arrive off your site like the wild dogs of Africa, sniffing the air and circling, waiting for a chance to grab a few scraps and run. It was like that with
Whydah
and other projects. Never mind the fact that the wrecks at Las Aves probably did not have anything that would interest a real treasure hunter.

We never found out for certain who was on that other boat. My best guess is that as we were checking them out, they were watching us. They must have figured out who we were. Long before we came up with one another, they sheered off and headed for the horizon. We never saw them again.

Still, there were good reasons to be cautious. Along with treasure hunters, there is a real threat of piracy in the Caribbean. Not all the buccaneers died in the eighteenth century. While we were at Las Aves
we got a report of a yacht found floating and vacant. There was no clue as to what had happened to the crew, but one can guess. Every now and then during our stay at Las Aves we would see a beat-up boat motor slowly by, checking us out, and we'd think, Here we go…But we were never bothered.

Ron took the
Antares
carefully around the reefs and into the lagoon.

It is beautiful. The clear water of the lagoon is aquamarine, hedged in a thick tangle of mangrove, punctured by a small black stream that flows into the heart of the island. After the anchor is set, I go to the dive platform at the stern. The air is heavy with dampness, and the smell of the swamp is thick and syrupy.

Just a week before we had been on the Cape, bound in woolens against the cold late-autumn wind. The sun, when it appears, hangs barely above eye level. Here, the sun is directly overhead, just twelve degrees north of the equator.

I have been traveling for seventy-two hours. I am tired, dirty, and my skin seems to crawl with imaginary insects.

I am out of my filthy cargo pants in less than a heartbeat and stand naked on the platform for a moment. I look like one of those Bulgarian men you've seen in
Life
magazine, who bathe in the Black Sea in winter—white as a polar bear with a layer of winter fat.

I step off the platform and let myself sink to the bottom of the lagoon. I sit on a mat of pulverized pink coral; taking a handful, I begin to scrub myself from head to toe. Looking up, the round belly of the
Antares
appears like a June bug floating on air…except I cannot breathe here.

I let go of all my senses and swim for the mangroves about a hundred feet away. The tidal flow of the sea carries me into the swamp. My lungs begin to ache. I break the surface, letting my air out slowly, then ride the flow of the warm seawater toward the heart of the island. The bull shark sometimes hunts here…. I am still as death, but never have been more alive. I think we all had an unspoken sense that we had to dive into the tropical sea to wash ourselves clean of the winter cobwebs, to literally immerse ourselves in the beauty of the lagoon.

My team was aboard the
Antares,
the divers and support people who had come with me, as well as Mike Rossiter and the BBC crew. Max and his friends had chartered a large sailboat—very well appointed and a bit more luxurious than the overcrowded
Antares.
They were anchored nearby.

Charles had his own boat and his own team, including a film crew.
His cameraman was Guillermo Cisneros, the son of industrialist Gustavo Cisneros, reportedly the wealthiest man in South America. Guillermo had chartered the boat for Charles's team, a big power yacht with all the amenities. Still, as cushy as his boat was, Charles spent most of his time on board the
Antares,
the heart of the operation, central control.

Charles had plans for his own documentary, which worried me. Afraid of conflict with the BBC/Discovery contract, I chastised myself for not having made Charles sign something before we showed up there. Mike was not concerned, however, and since Mike was the BBC producer, I tried to be unconcerned as well.

It was early evening when we anchored in the lagoon, with the sun sinking toward the western horizon and lighting up the little hump of land that was the island of Las Aves yellow and gold. It was too late to get started; we settled for preparing for an early dive the next morning. The team checked over the gear we would need, saw that it was assembled and in working order. Todd Murphy, Charles, and I pored over the charts, ancient and modern, and discussed where best to start looking for wrecks.

Charles and I had different ideas as to what the mission should
entail. He wanted to choose just one wreck and partially excavate it. I vehemently opposed this idea as we had neither the personnel nor the time to conduct a proper excavation—much less the artifact conservation such a project would entail. Not to mention the fact that our plans and permits were predicated on filming only.

Charles and I had not butted heads for long before I realized that I just had to focus on what I was doing and let him do what he wanted. He had an agenda, whatever it was, and I did not have the time or energy to fight with him. I was there to locate and map shipwrecks. That was all I had to worry about. I decided I would not get dragged into Charles's game. And I did not. For the most part.

We had only two weeks to dive on the site. The BBC and the Discovery Channel were chartering the boat, and that was the amount of time that they calculated they needed, so that was the amount of time we had. Sure, I would have loved to have had more, but those decisions were above my pay grade.

Also, I had a bad feeling that the authorities would be showing up any day to see what we were doing. We had permits, of course, plenty of different permits from plenty of different people, but in a place like Venezuela that is not necessarily a guarantee of anything. We knew of at least one other group with their eyes on Las Aves, and God knew how many more there might be, and what governmental strings they might be attached to. It was possible that we would be shut down before we were finished.

With that in mind, I wanted to do as much as we conceivably could as quickly as we could.