Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean

by David Cordingly

  When Rogers consulted Dampier about Selkirk he was assured that he had been the best man in his ship, and on his recommendation he agreed to sign on Selkirk as a mate (we learn later that he was second mate on the Duke). In gratitude for his delivery Selkirk caught two goats which, when mixed with turnips and greens, provided an excellent broth for the men who were sick. He also pointed out where they could find watercress, parsley and other antiscorbutic greens ‘which mightily refreshed our men and cleansed them from the scurvy’. Of the twenty-one men who came ashore sick with scurvy only two died.

  Meanwhile the rest of the crew were hard at work, clearing the two ships in preparation for careening them. The topmasts came down, sails and stores were sent ashore and a tented camp was set up among the pimento trees. A smith’s forge was sent ashore, the sailmakers began mending the worn and torn sails, the rigging was overhauled and the coopers supervised the cleaning and assembly of casks and barrels. A notable feature of Juan Fernández was the presence of fur seals and elephant seals which gathered in thousands along the shoreline, filling the air with a continuous clamour of moans and barks and hideous roars. They were easy to slaughter with muskets and axes and within ten days the sailors had produced eighty gallons of seal oil for use in lamps and for cooking.

  By 12 February Rogers was able to note in his journal that the ships had been loaded with wood and water, the sails and rigging had been repaired, the men were all back on board and they were ready to depart. The next day a council meeting was held on the Dutchess at which it was agreed that they would head towards the mainland of Chile and then steer northwards, following the coast at a distance of six leagues (eighteen miles). The next objective was the island of Lobos, 2,000 miles from Juan Fernández and another staging post on the way to their main objective, the Manila galleon. A system of signals was worked out so that the ships could alert each other to the presence of a potential prize and could decide on the appropriate action to be taken. At three in the afternoon of 14 February they weighed anchor and sailed out of Cumberland Bay with a pleasant south-easterly wind setting them on their way.

  A month later, as they were approaching Lobos they captured the Asunción, a sixteen-ton sailing bark with a crew of nine men, mostly Indians. From them they learnt the welcome news that there were no longer any French ships on the Pacific coast of South America and no more were expected. They also learnt that Selkirk’s former ship, the Cinque Ports, had foundered on the coast near the small town of Barbacoas (close to the equator in what is now Colombia). Only Captain Stradling and half a dozen of his crew had survived the wreck but they had been captured by the Spanish and sent to Lima, where they had been imprisoned in harsh conditions for the past four years. Selkirk’s refusal to rejoin Stradling’s ‘leaky’ ship had evidently been a wise move.

  Lobos Island (Isla Lobos de Afuera) was a barren outcrop with no fresh water or vegetation and a pervading smell of rotten fish. The only inhabitants were seals, gulls, pelicans and vultures. Dampier, who had called there during his previous voyage, guided them into a sheltered cove where they dropped anchor. The captured bark was hauled ashore and converted into a small privateer by the ships’ carpenters. She was fitted out with a new mainmast and mainsail, her deck was repaired and she was armed with four swivel guns. Renamed the Beginning, she was provided with a crew of thirty-two men under the command of Captain Edward Cooke. Three more prizes were taken during the eighteen days they spent in the vicinity of Lobos: the Santa Josefa, a fifty-ton merchant vessel from Guayaquil which they renamed the Increase and put under the command of Alexander Selkirk; a merchant ship of 450 tons called the Ascensión which was en route from Panama to Lima; and the Jesús, Maria y José, a vessel of thirty-five tons with a cargo of timber.

  By 6 April the Duke and Dutchess and their flotilla of prizes were on their way, sailing north along the coast, past the saddle-shaped hills of Paita and past mile after mile of distant green shores lined with dense tropical forest. As they approached the equator the crews sweltered in the heat and there was some concern that they were running short of fresh water. On 12 May, at a council meeting held on board the Duke, it was decided that they would launch an attack on the town of Guayaquil, which lay at the head of a very large estuary some 200 miles ahead of them. This had never been one of their original objectives and although a surprise attack might prove almost as profitable as the capture of the Manila galleon, it was a risky enterprise.

  Guayaquil was one of the largest ports on the Pacific coast of South America. It was a major shipbuilding centre and an important staging post for vessels trading between Lima and Panama. It had a population of some 2,000 and was graced by five churches, the largest of which faced a handsome square and had a lavish baroque interior with rich carvings and pictures. The town was not heavily fortified but its chief defence was its position. The hot and humid atmosphere drained the energy of those unused to it, while outbreaks of deadly fevers were commonplace. Before approaching the town an attacking force had to sail and row more than eighty miles up a river estuary lined with mangrove swamps and strewn with islands and mudbanks. They had to contend with tides so strong that it was impossible to make any progress against the ebb tide and while they anchored among the mangroves waiting for the tide to turn they would be tormented by swarms of mosquitoes which flourished in the equatorial heat. Nevertheless it was a tempting prize and had attracted a number of raids in the past. Thomas Cavendish had looted and set fire to the town in 1587, destroying four great ships which were being built on the stocks. Dutch privateers had carried out a raid in 1624; and in 1687 a combined force of English and French buccaneers had led a particularly savage attack on the town.

  It may have been Dampier who convinced Rogers and his fellow officers that an attack would be worthwhile. In 1684, while serving in the buccaneer fleet led by Captain Eaton in the Batchelor’s Delight and Captain Swan of the Cygnet, he had taken part in an abortive raid on Guayaquil. They had toiled up the estuary in boats, and got within sight of the town when their presence was betrayed by one of their Indian guides who had escaped and raised the alarm. ‘Not a man after that had the heart to speak of going further.’ For Dampier the taking of the town, like the capture of the Manila galleon, was a piece of unfinished business.

  On 14 April 1709 the privateer fleet stood into the Gulf of Guayaquil. They sailed all night with a southerly wind and at daybreak they sighted a ship ahead of them. Not expecting any resistance, they sent two boats to intercept it. The men in the boats were lightly armed and among them was Rogers’ younger brother John, who had insisted on joining the boat’s crew led by Robert Fry. The other boat’s crew was led by Edward Cooke. After rowing hard for nearly eighteen miles the boats drew near the ship, which fired a gun at them and hoisted a Spanish flag at her main masthead. As the two boats closed in they came under heavy fire from mounted guns and more than twenty muskets and pistols. The boats dropped astern with the loss of one man dead and three wounded and then made a second attempt to come alongside and board the ship. In the words of Rogers, ‘At this attack my unfortunate brother was shot through the head and instantly died, to my unspeakable sorrow.’ The boats abandoned the attack but in the afternoon the ship surrendered to the superior force of Rogers’ fleet and the privateers found themselves in possession of the Havre de Grâce, a French-built ship of 250 tons bound for Lima with a crew of fifty Spaniards and 100 Indians and Negroes. Renamed the Marquiss [sic] she would become a useful addition to the privateer squadron.

  At noon the following day, with flags at half-mast, Rogers presided over a short but harrowing ceremony. ‘About twelve we read the prayers for the dead, and threw my dear brother overboard, with one of our sailors.’ A volley of small arms was fired from the deck of the Duke, followed by the crackling of small-arms fire from the other vessels. ‘All our officers expressed a great concern for the loss of my brother, he being a very hopeful active young man, a little above twenty years of age.’ It is evident that Rogers was consum
ed by grief and by a sense of guilt that he had allowed his brother to take part in the attack but he was not going to allow this to deflect him from his objective: ‘I began this voyage with a resolution to go through with it, and the greatest misfortune or obstacle shall not deter me, I’ll as much as possible avoid being thoughtful and afflicting myself for what can’t be recalled, but indefatigably pursue the concerns of the voyage.’8

  It had been agreed at a council meeting that the force to attack Guayaquil would consist of 200 men divided into three parties led by Rogers, Courtney and Dover. They would make their way upstream in two barks and the ships’ boats (two pinnaces, a large launch, a yawl and another boat). The Duke, the Dutchess and their prizes would remain in the vicinity of the island of Santa Clara, at the mouth of the estuary, with skeleton crews to guard the ships and their 300 prisoners. Around midnight on 18 April the raiding force left the ships and proceeded by stages up the river towards the large island of Puna, which lay across the centre of the estuary. They sailed with the incoming tide and then dropped anchor and hid among the mangrove swamps during the ebb tide. They made the final approach to Puna during the dark, rowing and towing each other with the flood tide ‘that if seen in the night we might look like drift timber’. At daybreak they entered the small settlement on Puna. This consisted of around twenty houses which were raised on stilts and were entered by ladders. The Indian inhabitants were mostly fishermen who were frequently employed as river pilots. The privateers had no difficulty in capturing the Spanish lieutenant in charge, together with his family and other villagers. It was essential that no one on the island was able to send a warning to the town upstream.

  After a difficult passage through the upper reaches of the estuary the raiding party arrived within sight of Guayaquil around midnight on 22 April and were perturbed to see a fire burning on a nearby hill and numerous lights in the town itself. As they drew nearer they heard a confused noise of church bells, small-arms fire and the boom of two guns. They later learnt that the lights and the hillside fire were part of a religious festival, but in the early hours of the morning a message had reached the town that Puna had been captured and an enemy was coming up the river. The bells and gunfire were to warn the town of their approach.

  With the alarm having been given and the ebb tide flowing against them, the invading force retreated back down the river and anchored. Rogers, Courtney and Dover held an urgent meeting to decide what to do next. Rogers wanted to attack at dawn to prevent the townspeople sending away their valuables and strengthening their defences. Dover thought that to attack after the alarm had been given would waste lives and jeopardise the main objective of their voyage. When Dampier was consulted he told Rogers that the buccaneers never attacked a large place after it had been alarmed. In the end it was decided that two of their Spanish prisoners (the lieutenant in charge of Puna and the captain of the Havre de Grâce) should be sent to the town with a series of proposals. In the meantime the privateers took possession of two new ships which were moored off the town as well as several smaller craft. After some comings and goings the Governor of Guayaquil arrived to discuss terms with Rogers and his two fellow captains. The Governor was a young army officer from Tenerife named Ieronimo Bosa y Solis. Although he had been in his post at Guayaquil for only two years he proved to be a competent negotiator. The privateers demanded 50,000 pieces of eight as a ransom for the town and for the two new ships and other vessels captured; they insisted that the townspeople must agree to buy the two merchant ships they had recently taken, together with their cargoes of goods and black slaves; and the town must provide hostages as surety for the payment of the ransom, which must be delivered within nine days.

  The Governor returned to the town and assembled a meeting of merchants and traders to discuss the demands. Not surprisingly the townspeople were angry and protested that they could find no more than half the sum demanded. A messenger returned to the privateers to say that they could raise only 30,000 pieces of eight. No mention was made of buying the captured ships. The negotiations dragged on, the privateers suspecting that the Spaniards were playing for time and were waiting for reinforcements. On 24 April the privateers hauled down their white flag of truce and attacked the town. The boats landed seventy men, who found themselves facing a formidable line of armed men, some on horseback. Rogers led the attack: ‘We who landed kept loading and firing very fast, but the enemy made only one discharge, and retired behind their guns.’ The Spanish had positioned four guns at the end of the main street and in front of the main church. As the privateers advanced the horses bolted. ‘This encouraged me to call to our men to seize the guns, and I immediately hastened towards ’em with eight or ten of our men till within pistol shot of the guns.’ As more privateers arrived to give support, the men behind the guns fled. In less than half an hour the privateers had routed the enemy and by sunset they were in possession of the town and the English flag was flying from the church tower.

  To show the Spanish what would happen if the ransom was not paid, some of the houses fronting the main church were set on fire. The other churches and storehouses and cellars were searched, though little of value was found. Unlike the raids of the buccaneers of Henry Morgan’s day, the sailors did not get riotously drunk and most behaved with considerable restraint. A much quoted incident concerned the discovery of some houses on the outskirts of the town which were full of women, ‘and particularly at one place there were above a dozen handsome genteel young women, well dressed, where our men got several gold chains and ear-rings but were otherwise so civil to them, that the ladies offered to dress them victuals, and brought them a cask of good liquor. Some of their largest gold chains were concealed and wound about their middles, legs and thighs.’9 The women were thinly clad in silk and fine linen and we learn that the sailors, under the command of Alexander Selkirk and a Mr Connelly, ran their hands ‘on the outside of the lady’s apparel’ and discovered the chains, whereupon the interpreter politely asked the women to remove them.

  Negotiations for the ransom of the town were resumed on 25 April and after a threat was made to set the whole town on fire, an agreement was concluded and signed the following day. The Spanish would pay a ransom of 30,000 pieces of eight, to be paid at Puna within six days. On the payment of this sum the privateers would release all hostages and prisoners. It was time to get back to the boats. The extreme heat and humidity were draining the energy of the sailors and Rogers admitted that ‘this hot weather has weakened and disordered me very much’. The privateers marched out of the town with their colours flying, and returned to the barks, which were now heavily laden with bags of flour, beans, peas and rice; jars of oil and liquor; cordage and ironware; and more than £1,000 in gold plate and jewellery. The flotilla of barks and boats set off downstream and two days later Rogers and his men were back on board their ships, ‘where I found all our people overjoyed at our meeting again’.

  On 2 May, the last day on which payment of the ransom was due, a boat came out to the ships with 22,000 pieces of eight. The money was unloaded and the messenger was sent back with the threat that unless the rest of the agreed sum was brought by the following morning the privateers would sail away, taking all the hostages with them. There was no sign of the money the next day but it was decided to allow the Lieutenant of Puna to return to his island, together with four elderly Negroes who were sick and several of the prisoners they had taken at sea. Rogers noted that they parted very friendly with them, ‘particularly an old padre that I had treated civilly at my own table, ever since we took him’.10 Four more days passed with no sign of the rest of the agreed ransom, and the hostages were becoming very uneasy at the thought that they might have to end their days in Great Britain, a fate which they apparently regarded as worse than death. On 7 May the privateer fleet was off Point Arena when a bark came alongside which had on board Señor Morell (captain of the captured ship Ascensión) and a gentleman who was related to some of the hostages. They brought with them gold and si
lver plate valued at around 3,500 pieces of eight, as a contribution towards the ransom. Since many of the officers were impatient to leave behind them the heat and mosquitoes of Guayaquil and head for the Galápagos Islands it was agreed that all but three of the hostages should be released. In the early hours of the next morning the fleet set sail and by 6 a.m. the little island of Santa Clara was twelve miles astern.

  It is evident from Rogers’ account that the raid on Guayaquil was a disappointment for him. They had lost three men dead (only one of these from Spanish gunfire) and they had come away with 25,500 pieces of eight in cash and gold and silver plate. They also had some useful provisions and stores, but the rewards would have been much greater if they had been able to take the town by surprise. By the time they entered Guayaquil in force most of the church plate, cash and jewellery had been removed and hidden in the surrounding woods and villages. According to some of the hostages a surprise attack would have yielded ‘above 200,000 pieces of eight in money, wrought and unwrought gold and silver, besides jewels’. The problem was the divided command and the fact that Rogers was bound by the democratic regime of the expedition to consult his fellow officers and bow to the majority decision. He had proved his resolution and personal bravery by leading the attack on the guns, but his decision to attack the town at dawn when they first arrived had been over-ruled by Thomas Dover.

  The privateers’ raid also had serious after-effects. A few months before their arrival at Guayaquil the town had been swept by an outbreak of a malignant and highly contagious fever which had caused the deaths of a dozen people a day for several weeks. When the usual burial places under the church floors had been filled the townspeople had to resort to burying the putrefying corpses in a mass grave close to the main church where Rogers and his men had made their headquarters. Within a week of leaving the Gulf of Guayaquil the Duke had fifty men seriously ill and the Dutchess more than seventy. The first death from fever occurred on 15 May and by the end of the month twelve more men had died. By 10 June Rogers was writing, ‘Our men being very much fatigued, and many of them sick, and several of our good sailors dead, we are so weak, that should we meet an enemy in this condition, we could make but a mean defence.’