If A Pirate I Must Be...

by Richard Sanders

France had just two substantial colonies in the eastern Caribbean - Martinique and Guadeloupe, lying at the heart of the Windward and Leeward Islands chain. Martinique was the larger of the two and the governor there, Marquis Isaac de Pas de Feuquières, had authority over both, as well as smaller islands such as St Bartholomew. Martinique had something approaching what contemporaries regarded as ‘society’. ‘Many families there now make a very splendid appearance,’ wrote a visitor at this time. It was ‘the rendezvous for the officers of men-of-war, and of the garrison, and the residence of the General, the Governor, the Intendants, the magistrates and of the sovereign court of judicature ... Here are also the agents of the French African Company, and those of many substantial merchants and factors in France’. The women, he added, were ‘as handsome as any in Europe, well fashioned and genteel’. As in the British islands, slaves heavily outnumbered the white population.

  Guadeloupe, very much the satellite colony, was felt to attract a slightly lower class of settler. Between the two lay the island of Dominica, formally ceded to the Carib Indians but containing a smattering of French settlers and clearly in the French sphere of influence. To the south lay St Lucia, fiercely contested between the British and French, but still empty at this time apart from the occasional Indian village.

  Revenge was not the only motivation for targeting the French colonies. Roberts and his men had been threatening revenge against Barbados ever since their skirmish with Captain Rogers and Captain Graves ten months before. But they never returned there nor, after the raid at St Christophers, to any of the larger British islands. For all their bravado pirates rarely went out of their way to pick a fight and the British colonies had shown that, however ineptly, they were prepared to offer resistance. In targeting the French, Roberts and his men were homing in instinctively on the weaker of the two powers in the eastern Caribbean. The French Navy, like the Spanish Navy, had been left severely weakened by the War of the Spanish Succession and had almost no presence in the region. Their experiences at Cayenne and St Bartholomew had taught the pirates that French governors tended to be more pliant as a result.

  The Royal Fortune and the Good Fortune made their way first to St Lucia, just south of Martinique. There, on 13 January 1721, they anchored on the north-western shore at a place called Pigeon Island. It was a popular spot for collecting wood and the pirates quickly snapped up six prizes, including four French sloops from Martinique, three of which they burned, dumping the crews on the island. They also destroyed a sloop from Barbados, handing its crew the remaining French sloop. But they kept one prize for themselves - a brigantine from Rhode Island under Captain Benjamin Norton.

  Roberts was keen to replace his old sloop, the Good Fortune, which he’d now had for more than a year since first seizing it from Captain Cane at Cayenne in November 1719. It had served them well. It had taken them through the disaster of Devil’s Islands and for six months after that it had been their only vessel. But it had suffered damage at both Barbados and St Christophers and it was becoming overcrowded. They loaded its ten guns on to Norton’s brigantine, along with eight guns they had down in the hold of the Royal Fortune. Then, perhaps with a small ceremony marking the occasion, they sank it. They gave their new consort the same name as its predecessor.

  The sinking of the Good Fortune brought definitively to a close the period when Roberts and his men had been a struggling, small-scale pirate crew. When he’d arrived at Trepassey in Newfoundland just over six months before Roberts had had 12 guns and sixty men under his command. He now had 52 guns and somewhere between 140 and 180 men in two large vessels. This was a crew with a reputation and an identity all of its own. Roberts marked the occasion by having his tailors stitch a new flag.

  All pirate ships in this era flew black flags, something that had been common practice since the turn of the century. Previously witnesses had described Roberts’ flags as containing ‘death’s head and co.’ or ‘death’s head and cutlass’, which sounds close to the skull and crossed swords, or bones, which, by his time, was becoming the convention. But many were far more elaborate. ‘Roger’ was a contemporary name for the devil and the term ‘Jolly Roger’, which had evolved from ‘Old Roger’, referred to the full-length skeleton that featured in most. Many also included an hour-glass and a heart dripping blood, conveying a crude and simple message - surrender now or face the consequences. But Roberts wanted something more distinctive, something that would convey his thirst for vengeance.

  According to Johnson, the new flag depicted Roberts himself standing upon two skulls, under which were written the letters ABH and AMH, signifying, ‘A Barbadian’s Head’ and ‘A Martinican’s Head’ - the two islands which had attempted to hunt him down. It was made from silk. A French witness gave a slightly different description. The flag, he said, had ‘a picture on each side and infamous inscriptions writ in French on them. The said pictures and their inscriptions are representations of the General of Martinique and of Barbados.’ Whatever its exact design, the new flag represented a brazen challenge to the colonial authorities of the Caribbean. It would be hoisted from the bowsprit at the front of Roberts’ ship for the rest of his career.

  On 16 January 1721 the pirates set sail from St Lucia and headed northwards for Martinique.

  8

  THE GREAT PIRATE ROBERTS

  WEST INDIES

  JANUARY-APRIL 1721

  ‘HE PUT ON A ROUGHER DEPORTMENT AND A MORE MAGISTERIAL CARRIAGE ... AND IF ANY SEEMED TO RESENT HIS USAGE, HE TOLD THEM THEY “MIGHT GO ASHORE AND TAKE SATISFACTION OF HIM ... AT SWORD AND PISTOL, FOR HE NEITHER VALUED NOR FEARED ANY OF THEM”’

  BY THE STANDARDS OF the early eighteenth-century Caribbean, Martinique was a formidable island. Eyeing it warily from Antigua, Governor Hamilton estimated it contained 5,000-6,000 men able to bear arms as well as 300-400 regular troops. The coast was guarded by a number of forts and Roberts was smart enough not to attempt the sort of frontal assault he had employed at Trepassey and St Christophers. Instead he used trickery in order to gain his revenge for the governor’s pursuit of him at Carriacou.

  Martinique was a popular destination for Dutch slave ships. Officially they were banned, the authorities anxious to preserve a monopoly for French traders. But such was the demand they always found a market. It was the custom of the Dutch to appear off Martinique flying a Dutch flag, and then to withdraw to Dominica to the north. The planters of Martinique would surreptitiously fit out sloops to follow them and engage in illicit trade.

  Roberts knew this and imitated them, raising a Dutch flag, sailing along the coast of Martinique, and then pulling away to Dominica. Once there he cast anchor and scanned the horizon. Sure enough, the French took the bait, and soon a steady stream of sloops was making its way from Martinique. It was only when they drew close enough to see the grinning pirates crowding the decks that the French realised their mistake, and by then it was too late. Gleefully the pirates gobbled up prize after prize, ordering them, as soon as they had been secured, to lie still at anchor as if trading so as not to alarm new arrivals. In all they took fifteen vessels, Roberts telling his captives ‘they were a parcel of rogues’ and that he ‘hoped they would always meet with such a Dutch trade as this was’. They also took a number of English vessels which happened to be in the area.

  On 18 January the pirates spotted a rather more formidable prize - the Puerto del Principe from Flushing in Zeeland, which turned out to be a real Dutch slave ship. Weighing in at somewhere between 250 and 300 tons it carried seventy-five men and was well armed with 22 guns. It had on board seventy to eighty slaves as well as substantial quantities of sugar, cocoa, ivory and cotton. The pirates anticipated a rich haul and quickly moved in, raising their new flag and firing their gun to signal the Dutch to surrender. But the Dutch were not prepared to give in without a fight. They returned fire, and when the pirates pulled alongside preparing to board they managed to run out fenders to push them away. Roberts’ men were not used to such effrontery. This was the
first ship to offer resistance since the Sagrada Familia off Brazil fifteen months before and the pirates responded with a ferocious bombardment. A number of the Dutch crew were killed before they finally surrendered.

  According to the Governor of Bermuda, Benjamin Bennet, writing to London a month later, the pirates then embarked on a grotesque orgy of torture and murder quite unlike anything that had gone before under Roberts’ captaincy. ‘What men the pirates found alive on board they put to death after several cruel methods,’ Bennet claimed. They then subjected their captives from the French sloops to even more horrific treatment. They were ‘barbarously abused ... Some they almost whipped to death, others had their ears cut off, others they fixed to the yard arms and fired at them as a mark.’ They sank fourteen of the fifteen sloops, sparing just one so it could return to Martinique with its ‘poor tormented’ crew to tell the story. These passages have been regularly quoted by historians ever since and have done much to shape an image of Roberts as a brutal sadist. But they are almost certainly untrue.

  There is not a single reference to this slaughter in any of the other numerous sources we have for this period - including statements from French captives themselves, who began arriving back in Martinique as early as 19 January. In a letter describing Roberts’ activities, written on 28 January, Governor de Feuquières makes no mention of the massacre. And the Dutch authorities, in a lengthy letter to the British describing the attack, also seemed unaware of it. It was never mentioned at any of the subsequent trials of members of Roberts’ crew, despite the fact that it would have been one of the worst crimes they ever committed. And, Captain Johnson, who, as a general rule, was quite happy to revel in tales of pirate atrocity, makes no reference to it whatsoever. Governor Bennet was located over 1,000 miles to the north and was relying on secondhand sources. His letter is inaccurate in a number of other respects - for example, he places the capture of the Puerto del Principe at St Lucia - and Johnson doubtless rejected his account as highly unreliable hearsay.

  It’s possible wild rumours were sparked because some of the prisoners disappeared. If so, there may well be a more obvious explanation for this - rather than being slaughtered, they had joined the pirates. Roberts’ crew was expanding fast at this time and we know of at least one man from the Puerto del Principe who was with them later.

  From Dominica Roberts headed north to Guadeloupe to complete his humiliation of the French authorities, taking the Puerto del Principe and two of the captured sloops with him. They drew fire as they passed the island’s forts, but it had little effect and they were able to seize a sloop and a large ship, whose crew fled ashore at the sight of the black flag. The sloop they burnt, but the ship they took with them to plunder at leisure, finding it contained a substantial cargo of sugar. A few days later they were reported chasing shipping off St Thomas at the eastern end of the Leeward Islands. They then disappeared from view.

  The impact of this raid was devastating. Trade in the Windward and Leeward Islands had been brought virtually to a halt and for the French it was an abject humiliation. Roberts had brazenly plundered shipping in the very heart of the French Caribbean for more than a week, and then waltzed away scot free. He was a plague that could no longer be tolerated. On 21 January 1721 Governor de Feuquières wrote to the British authorities in Barbados proposing that the two nations combine ‘to purge our seas from such a cursed race’. It was a highly unusual move that reflected the threat Roberts now posed. And, for de Feuquières, it must have been a difficult letter to write. ‘Unfortunately for us we are without any ships of war to enable us to send in chase of those villains,’ he admitted. He even had to ask the authorities in Barbados to pass on his message to Governor Hamilton in the British Leeward Islands because Roberts had left him with no ‘ships in a condition to undertake the voyage’. All he could offer was ‘good soldiers’ and a vague promise of ‘all that is in my favour to contribute to the extirpation of those villainous robbers’.

  Nevertheless, on Barbados his proposal was received favourably. Governor Lowther had been removed and replaced in control by Samuel Cox, former president of the island council, who was rather more resolute. ‘Common humanity’, but also self-interest, demanded that they take action, Cox wrote to London a few days later. ‘We may soon expect him to windward of this island, which might be attended with fatal consequences.’ The British were in a stronger position to help than they had been a few weeks previously. De Feuquières had seen HMS Rose and HMS Shark, finally returning after six months in New England, sail past Martinique a few days before and was hoping his letter would catch them at Barbados. In fact they had already left for their home base in the Leeward Islands when it arrived. But a few days later Captain Thomas Durrel of HMS Seahorse sailed into Bridgetown.

  Durrel had been sent by the authorities in Boston to escort New England shipping northwards in response to repeated reports that the region was ‘very much infested by pirates’ and that ‘the trade of the place did not care to venture without a convoy to protect them’. He was an enthusiastic and diligent officer and immediately offered to sail after Roberts. But, on examining de Feuquières’ letter, he hesitated. HMS Seahorse, like HMS Rose, carried just 20 guns and was no match for the pirate force described by the French Governor. The island council would need to supply him with ninety well-armed men, at their own expense, he told them. Even then, he would have to sail to Martinique to see what assistance the French had to offer before he could even think of confronting the pirates.

  The request for reinforcements proved problematic. The expedition against Roberts the previous February had involved considerable expense for no reward and the merchants of Barbados were not keen to stump up funds again. The island council was forced to borrow money. Then, when Captain Durrel attempted to recruit, Bridgetown miraculously emptied of sailors. They ‘had armed themselves and had gathered into a great body and gone up the country, whereby the intent of the press warrants ... was in great measure frustrated’, Durrel irritably reported on 31 January. Given Roberts’ strength, the reluctance of local men to take part in the expedition was not surprising - particularly if there were wild rumours circulating of a massacre on Dominica. In the end the militia had to be mobilised to force men aboard.

  On 2 February Durrel finally set sail for Martinique, only to find the wind had switched direction and that he was confronted with a ‘great ... rolling ... sea’ driving him back towards Barbados. He wrestled with this for a couple of days but was forced to limp back into Bridgetown on 5 February with the rigging around his bowsprit flapping loose and his main top-mast badly damaged. Cox conveyed the sorry news to Governor de Feuquières. The New England fleet could wait no longer and two weeks later Durrel set sail for Boston.

  But by now de Feuquières had managed to communicate with Governor Hamilton in the Leeward Islands. Hamilton had been fuming in impotent rage ever since Roberts’ brazen attack on St Christophers four months previously. With HMS Rose and HMS Shark now finally back on station, he saw the French offer as a perfect opportunity to rid himself of the man he by now referred to as ‘the great pirate Roberts’. De Feuquières had sent an aide, Monsieur Malherbe, to coordinate measures and by 19 February he and Hamilton had drawn up a detailed memorandum of understanding between the two nations. ‘It is agreed that the two governments will send a sufficient quantity of forces to run by sea after the pirates to take them, to fight and destroy them, or at least put them to flight,’ it began. It was agreed any booty captured would be divided proportionate to the number of men each side provided and that any ship failing to lend assistance to its ally would be ‘chastised and punished’. The French were now in a slightly stronger position and contributed a ship and two sloops. Combined with HMS Rose and HMS Shark this made a ramshackle flotilla of five small vessels. But between them they just about outgunned Roberts’ two ships.

  On 20 February Hamilton summoned Captain Whitney of HMS Rose, the larger of the two British men-of-war, to a meeting at St John’s in
Antigua. HMS Rose was at anchor off the island. But, to Hamilton’s fury, Whitney failed to show up. When, by midday, there was still no sign of him Hamilton fired off an angry note asking him to explain his absence. Whitney wrote back saying he was busy with his accounts, but that he would be happy to sail with the French if Hamilton would be so kind as to inform him ‘where the pirates are’ - a response that must have had Hamilton tearing his hair out. At the same time Whitney casually informed him that he was about to sail to St Christophers to take in water.

  Whitney had already had one unsuccessful encounter with pirates when he’d been driven from the harbour at New Providence in the Bahamas in July 1718. He’d also quarrelled repeatedly with Captain Woodes Rogers, the Governor there. He was not one of the more diligent Navy officers in the Caribbean and was perhaps less than enthusiastic about confronting the Caribbean’s most formidable pirate for little apparent gain.

  Hamilton responded by issuing a direct order to Whitney to proceed, in company with HMS Shark, to Martinique. ‘I don’t question but you will observe the order and do everything for His Majesty’s Service,’ he wrote. Whitney was forced to obey. But when he arrived in Martinique on 1 March, to his enormous satisfaction he found the French had changed their mind. ‘Affairs have changed face,’ Governor de Feuquières told him. Roberts, he believed, was now off Saint Domingue (modern Haiti) 750 miles to the north-west, and ‘no longer disposed to do you any harm or us any harm’. There was no reason at all to think Roberts had abandoned his hostility to the French and the British. But a number of French Navy vessels had now arrived in the region. Two frigates were on their way to cruise off Saint Domingue and de Feuquières also mentioned a large ship called the Dromadaire which he said was cruising to windward of Martinique with 400 men on board. Their presence freed him from his humiliating dependence on the British and he was happy to suspend what he called ‘the little armed expedition’ they had planned.