Verrill The Boy's Book of Buccaneers

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-829-4
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Excerpt: Jack looked up from the book he had been reading. ?Father,? he asked, ?what was a buccaneer? Cousin Fred says buccaneers and pirates were the same thing, and Jim says they were not, and in this story they speak of pirates and buccaneers both.? ?Fred and Jim are both wrong and both right,? replied Mr. Bickford. ?Buccaneers were pirates, but pirates were not necessarily buccaneers. But nowadays the two are often confused and writers of stories do not seem to realize the difference and make it still more confusing. When Fred comes over to-night bring him into the library, and I?ll try to straighten out the puzzle and tell you about the buccaneers.? ?Say, Fred!? cried Jack, when his cousin came [2]bouncing into Jack?s den that evening. ?You were way off. Buccaneers were not the same as pirates. Dad says so, and he?s going to tell us all about them to-night. Come on down to the library.? ?That?ll be dandy,? agreed Fred, enthusiastically. ?And of course if Uncle Henry says they?re not the same, why they?re not, but I always thought they were. I wonder if Captain Kidd was a pirate or a buccaneer.? ?Ask Dad, he knows!? laughed Jack, as the two raced downstairs to Mr. Bickford?s library. They found him surrounded by books with odd, old-fashioned, worn leather bindings and with some faded and yellowed maps and cuts on the table before him. ?Well, boys,? he greeted them, ?I suppose you want to know all about the buccaneers who sailed the Spanish Main, eh??

Autoren/Hrsg.

Verrill, A. Hyatt

Leseproben

CHAPTER II
SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS
“Now, having learned why the buccaneers were so called and how they came into existence, we’ll take up a more interesting matter, and I’ll try to tell you something of the men themselves, of the most famous buccaneers and of their deeds,” continued Mr. Bickford. “Certain famous buccaneers’ names are almost household words—such as Morgan, Montbars, L’Ollonois and your friend Captain Kidd, who, as I said, was no buccaneer—but others, who did even braver and more terrible things and were the most noted of buccaneers in their day, are almost unknown to the world to-day. Among these was Pierre Le Grand, Brasiliano, Bartholomew Portugues, Sawkins, Sharp, Davis, Red Legs, Cook, Dampier, Mansvelt, Prince Rupert and many others.” “But you’ve forgotten Drake and Hawkins and Blackbeard,” put in Jack. “None of those men were buccaneers,” his father declared. “Drake and Hawkins were privateers—Drake being Admiral of Queen Elizabeth’s navy—and won their fame in the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Later they attacked and took towns on the Spanish Main and destroyed Spanish ships, but they were neither pirates nor buccaneers. In fact, they were both dead before buccaneers became of any importance as sea rovers. On the other hand, Blackbeard was an ordinary pirate—a sea robber who made no attempt to discriminate between friend and foe and scuttled and robbed ships of his own countrymen as readily as those of other nationalities. But as he was an interesting character and was among the last of the important or dangerous pirates of the Caribbean I will tell you something of his life and career later. “The first buccaneer to rise to any fame was Pierre Le Grand, or as he was oftener called, Peter the Great, a native of Dieppe in Normandy. Le Grand’s first and only achievement, and the one which brought him fame, was the taking of the Vice Admiral of the Spanish fleet near Cape Tiburon in Haiti. With a small boat manned by twenty-eight of the rough buccaneers Le Grand set forth in search of prizes and cruised among the Bahamas, but for many days saw no ship. Provisions were running low, his men were grumbling and he had about decided to give up in despair when they sighted a huge Spanish ship which had become separated from the rest of the convoy. Setting sail they headed for the vessel and at twilight were very close. In order to force his men to their utmost, Le Grand ordered one of his crew to bore holes in the bottom of the boat and then, running their tiny craft alongside the Don, and armed only with swords and pistols, the buccaneers swarmed over the sides of the doomed ship. Taken absolutely by surprise, for the Spaniards had not dreamed that the handful of ragged men in a tiny sail boat intended to attack them, the crew of the ship, nevertheless, resisted stoutly. But they were ruthlessly cut down and while some of the buccaneers drove the Spaniards across the deck, others with Le Grand at their head, dashed into the cabin where the unsuspecting Vice Admiral was enjoying a quiet game of cards with his officers. “As Le Grand leaped across the room and placed his pistol at the Admiral’s breast the dumbfounded Spaniard exclaimed, ‘Lord bless us! Are these devils or what?’ Money of the buccaneers’ times 1. Pieces of eight 2. Doubloon 3–4. Cross money 5. Castillano Cruising about in small boats and attacking every Spanish ship they saw “But he soon realized that whatever they were his ship was in their hands and that he and his men were prisoners. Le Grand, however, was neither a brutal nor a bloodthirsty wretch, as were many of his successors, and, having impressed as many of the Spanish seamen into his service as he required, he set the others, including the Admiral and the officers, ashore, and set sail with his prize for France. So great was the booty he secured by this one coup that he gave up buccaneering and settled down in France for life. “But his deed fired the buccaneers on Tortuga with dreams of easily acquired prizes and riches, and soon a host of the rough hunters and woodsmen were cruising about in small boats and attacking every Spanish ship they saw. Indeed, many, unable to secure sailboats, actually went a-pirating in tiny dugout canoes, and so daring and reckless were they that, despite their handicaps, they took two huge galleons laden with plate within the first month, as well as many smaller vessels. Now that they had seaworthy ships and plenty of wealth at their disposal they became bolder and bolder, and were soon not only cruising the Caribbean Sea, and taking ships, but were attacking the fortified and wealthy towns along the Central and South American coast with success. And let me mention here that it was very seldom that the buccaneers made use of the larger ships in their piratical raids. The smaller vessels were faster, they were more easily handled, and when necessity arose they could slip through narrow, shoal channels through which the Spanish men-of-war could not follow. The buccaneers’ vessels seldom carried over six guns, many had but two or three, but they swarmed with men armed to the teeth, and the buccaneers depended far more upon a dashing attack and hand-to-hand fights than upon cannon fire.” “Excuse me, Dad,” interrupted Jack, “but are there books that tell all these things?” “Yes, Jack,” replied Mr. Bickford. “And the best and most complete is a book called ‘The Buccaneers of America.’ It was written by a buccaneer, a man named Esquemeling, who took part in nearly all the most famous of the buccaneers’ raids and served with Morgan, L’Ollonois and many other buccaneer chiefs. His own history is almost as interesting as that of any of the men of whom he wrote. He was a Hollander by birth, but went to Tortuga as a clerk for the West India Company of France. The company, however, found that although the buccaneers were quite willing to purchase goods it was quite another matter when it came to paying for them, and as a result, the West India Company abandoned their agency in Tortuga and gave orders that all their goods and chattels on the island should be sold for what they would bring. This included servants of the company as well, and Esquemeling found himself sold for a slave for thirty pieces of eight. His master was a cruel, tyrannical man and abused his Dutch slave shamefully, although offering to let him buy his freedom for three hundred pieces of eight. Esquemeling, however, as he says himself, ‘was not master of one in the whole world.’ Finally Esquemeling became weak and ill from abuse and inadequate food, and his cruel master, fearing the man would die and he would be out of pocket and without a slave as well, disposed of the sick Hollander for seventy pieces of eight. His new master was a surgeon and a kindly man and, having doctored Esquemeling and restored him to health and strength, at the end of a year he gave him his liberty, exacting only the promise that Esquemeling should pay him one hundred pieces of eight when in a position to do so. Being, as he himself says, ‘at liberty but like unto Adam when he was first created, that is, naked and destitute of all human necessities,’ and with no means of earning a livelihood, Esquemeling threw in his lot with the buccaneers and he remained with them for a number of years. Being by profession a clerk, Esquemeling kept the logs and accounts of the buccaneers and also a journal of his own in which he recorded all the details and events of his adventurous life. His work is, in fact, the only authentic account of these men, and his quaint phraseology and droll remarks are very amusing. I have the book here, boys, and you’ll find it more interesting and absorbing than any story or fiction of the buccaneers that ever was written. “The first buccaneer of note with whom Esquemeling sailed was Bartholomew Portugues, so called as he was a native of Portugal. Portugues left Jamaica in a small ship of four small carronades with a crew of thirty men, and went cruising off Cuba. A few days later he met a heavily armed galleon bound to Havana from Cartagena and at once attacked her. Although the Spaniard carried a crew of over seventy, in addition to passengers, and was armed with twenty heavy cannon, yet Portugues assaulted the Dons without hesitation and after a desperate battle in which nearly fifty Spaniards were killed and wounded, the buccaneers took the galleon with a loss of only ten men killed and four wounded. Owing to contrary winds Portugues could not return directly to either Tortuga or Jamaica and so set sail for Cape San Antonio at the western extremity of Cuba. There he made necessary repairs to his prize and secured a supply of fresh water. As they were setting sail the buccaneers were surprised by three great Spanish ships and, greatly outnumbered, were taken prisoners and stripped of the booty they had so recently secured, a treasure of over ten thousand pieces of eight, in addition to valuable merchandise. We can imagine the chagrin of the buccaneers at this turn of fate and no doubt they gave themselves up for lost. But luck was with them. Two days after they had been made prisoners a great storm arose, the vessels became separated and the one containing the buccaneers was driven to Campeche in Yucatan. When the residents learned that Portugues and his fellows were captives on board there was great rejoicing, and the authorities sent off to the ship demanding...