The Book of Pirates and Highwaymen

by Cate Ludlow

  The pursuit of the gendarmes continued, but was quite fruitless, as they never overtook the assassins. At the end of two days, letters came from the two girls to their uncle, requiring that 10,000 crowns should immediately be sent, when from thirty to forty persons were to be liberated, who were detained like themselves. The uncle sent the desired sum, and at the end of five days, during which time they were detained for the amusement of the robbers, the two girls were released. They could give no account of where they had been, as they were conducted blindfold to the bottom of the mountains, where they found provisions, which the robbers took on their mules, and then conducted them, almost dead, to their home.

  Since then, De Cessaris has continued his crimes.

  Piracy, Murder And Rape: Part Two

  The morning was not far advanced, when the sun dipped at once into a dark and tempestuous ocean of clouds; the wind began to whistle loudly through the rigging; and the prisoner could now clearly perceive that the weather was threatening, when he felt a flurried motion of the ship, and heard a voice, which he knew to be La Force’s, in the broken and feeble accents of intoxication, call ‘Put her before the wind, and let her go where she pleases.’ It now became evident, from the rushing of the water, that the velocity of the ship’s progress was tremendously increased; and it was equally evident, that there was a general incapacity of the crew to manage her. The wind now blew very fresh, and the ship went through the water at a rate of ten miles an hour. The night looked dreary and turbulent: the sky was covered with large fleeces of broken clouds, and the stars flashed angrily through them, as they were wildly hurried along by the blast. The sea began to run high, and the masts showed, by their incessant creaking, that they carried more sail than they could well contain.

  … De Tracy lay in speechless agony and utter despair; the noise and confusion on deck every moment increased; and, while musing on the probability of being dispatched by these villains, infuriated by drunkenness as they now were, to his astonishment he heard himself accosted by name, and in friendly language, by his faithful Dugald. ‘My loved and injured master, put your trust in Him whose power can still the tempest, THE HOUR IS COME!’ In a moment the lock was turned, and the door opened; the same faithful voice said, ‘Take this sword, and follow me in silence; if you have the courage to avenge the unutterable miseries and death of your beautiful and wretched wife and daughters, come, for the hour is at hand, and by the help of the Almighty, who protects you, and will avenge your wrongs, I will support you.’ The unhappy husband followed with a resolved step and in silence, as he was bid.

  They came on deck, where, by the gleam of a torch nailed against the mast, and the quick succession of lightning, which now flashed fiercely and rapidly, Dugald silently pointed to a scene which the hope of sure and immediate revenge rendered inexpressibly sweet. The infamous La Force and ten sailors, though nearly overcome with wine, were seated on deck: the remainder of the crew had been conveyed below in a state of complete intoxication and insensibility. The scene might be conceived to resemble the revelry of evil spirits in their infernal regions; some shouted, some sang, and they blasphemed the Being whose all-seeing eye even now rested on them in its anger; one loud din of cursing and carousal echoed far and wide: the mingled clamours which ascended from this scene of wickedness and debauchery partook of all the evil qualities of debased minds, and the most infamous pursuits, and cannot be described. Discord and confusion had their full share in the tumultuous conference between La Force and his diabolical confederates, who were vociferously debating on the share they were respectively to enjoy of the plunder and destruction of the miserable De Tracy and his family. Louder and louder grew the horrid clamour of blood; recriminations followed, with boasting declarations of the part each had taken in the horrible transaction of the previous night; the nature and extent of his injury was thus fully developed to the agonised De Tracy. The drunken ruffians soon came to blows amongst themselves; they drew their weapons generally; and ill-directed blows and ineffectual stabs were given and received in the flashing and unsteady light.

  De Tracy, gliding like a spectre amongst them, thrust one of them through and through; a second, a third, and a fourth dropped from his sword, ere they saw who was amongst them; in the mean time Dugald’s arm had been faithful, and three of the wretched miscreants had fallen beneath his trusty weapon. La Force, on the first recognition of De Tracy, and Dugald fighting at his side, leaped upon an arm chest, and discharged his pistols. De Tracy and Dugald, with one impulse, but still in deadly silence, sprang upon him, and in a few moments he was also stretched among the slain. Three yet remained unhurt; but dispirited by their loss, and terrified at the unexpected visitation, they were quickly lying with their infamous companions.

  De Tracy and Dugald now barricaded the gangway, and secured the cabin and the hatches; and after returning thanks to God for his merciful interposition, De Tracy, with a fainting and a heavy heart, inquired of his faithful servant for his wife and children! The honest and affectionate heart of Dugald melted as he gave the narrative. The convulsive sobs and groans of the wretched husband audibly told his agony and distress, and seemed to threaten the termination of his own existence. Of the brutal dishonour of his wife and daughters, he was already too well informed; but he had yet to be told their ultimate fate. His tortured brain had yet to learn, that his youngest daughter had not survived the horrible treatment she had received; that his eldest son had, in youthful indignation, lifted a weapon against La Force in his mother’s defence, and had been literally hewn to pieces by the barbarian before her eyes! That his wife, with his youngest son and the infant, had been forced into a small canoe with his mulatto servant, and set adrift during the height of the gale; and that at the moment of their departure, his eldest daughter, in a state of exhaustion and insensibility, had been thrown into the sea to her raving mother, in mockery of her cries for her remaining child, and had there perished, in her sight! The possibility of a slight and crazy boat out-living the hurricane of the preceding night was all the hope that remained to the unhappy De Tracy of the wretched remnant of his family.

  As dawn approached, the storm increased in violence; the gale roared through the rigging; and the sea, upturned by sudden and heavy gusts of wind, showed, as far as the eye could see, the dark and tremendous furrows so fatal to the mariner. Heavy billows now rolled around the ship, nearly as high as her mast-head, and now flashed and swept over the deck; the vessel hurried onwards with a terrific rapidity; her seams admitted water, and on every side symptoms manifested themselves of her speedy destruction; the only chance of safety lay in standing out to sea, by keeping the ship before the wind; and Dugald, with that view, determined to lash himself to the helm. In this attempt, a sudden lurch of the vessel shifted the rudder violently, and he was laid prostrate and senseless on the deck, by a blow from the tiller, and De Tracy hastened to his assistance.

  At this moment a figure, that crouched amongst the slain, and seemed one of their number, started on its feet before the astonished De Tracy, vigorous and unhurt; it was La Force, who had escaped his fate from the swords of De Tracy and Dugald, by a breast-plate of mail, which he wore beneath his clothes, as a measure of precaution against the treachery of his own crew; and who, to avoid a personal encounter with two determined men, had sunk, unhurt, among his companions at their first attack. Before De Tracy had recovered himself from the surprise at his appearance, the miscreant had fired a pistol-shot, which, unhappily, took effect in his right shoulder, and before he could either grapple with his murderous opponent, or take any measures for farther defence, La Force had completed his monstrous career of evil, and the broken-hearted De Tracy was released from his earthly suffering which oppressed him. The unhappy man received the dagger of La Force in his chest, and he was mercifully spared pangs of recollection: his death was instantaneous.

  Dugald, from the effects of his blow, was still insensible to all that passed; and La Force experienced no opposition to all his meas
ures. He instantly attached one or two cannon shot to the corpse of the unhappy man, and unrelentingly consigned it to the devouring deep. He proceeded to secure Dugald, before his recovery from his accident should render it difficult or impossible. He dragged him to the mast, to which, ere his senses had returned, he found himself bound hand-and-foot. The exulting fiend now seemed to have overcome all obstacle to the full completion of his crime, and wanted but the assistance of his fellows, who were still fastened below, totally incapable of any exertion.

  Through the thickness of the storm, Dugald now fancied he saw a small boat dancing on the tremendous waves at a short distance to leeward of the ship; now buried in the trough of the sea, and lost to his straining sight for some moments; now quivering between life and death on the raging summit of a billow, and again shooting down its roaring declivity, as if to destruction. The ship continued to gain on the frail bark, and, to the hopes and imagination of Dugald, it seemed to enjoy a special protection; for he could now perceive that it contained the precious burden of his beloved mistress and her remaining children, and he could distinctly observe the mulatto throwing up her arms in signal to the ship.

  Through the gleaming openings of the disturbed elements, there now appeared, about two miles from the starboard bow, a large ship, scudding before the wind, suffering, like themselves, under the storm, but evidently in good condition. The haunted imagination of La Force now saw before him the choice of punishment, a dreadful death with his devoted companions with the sinking vessel, or an ignominious and public punishment by the intervention of the passing ship. The evidence of Dugald would, in that case, be conclusive against him, and the wretched criminal yet conceived the thought of embruing his guilty hands in his blood also: but his doom was fixed. The remaining mast, to which Dugald was confined, was at this moment carried away by a heavy shock, and in the wreck of its fall he was so far released as to be able to disengage himself entirely.

  La Force, who, in his distraction, had not observed the canoe towards which the ship was driving, was now springing forward to an attack on Dugald; Dugald, on his part, had seized a crow-bar as a weapon, and, meeting the enraged monster in his advance, placed himself in a position of defence, and pointed out to his astonished sight the canoe in which four of his victims were thus miraculously preserved, and the floating corpse of the murdered De Tracy, which, from its natural buoyancy, and the shifting of the ballast, by which it was sunk, to the feet, now swam erect in the water, exposed below the breast, and had drifted towards the vessel, as if seeking judgement on its destroyer. The inanimate body seemed to the staring eye-balls of La Force to be the visitation of a spirit; the villain was nerveless; he raved for mercy, attempted prayer, and called, in vain, on his companions for succour; at this moment the ship, which had been for some time but struggling with her fate, made a lurch, which threw her broadside to the sweeping sea; she instantly filled, and shot down head-foremost. Dugald sprang from the stern in time to avoid the whirlpool of the sinking ship. La Force, in an attempt to throw himself over-board, was entangled by the head in the fallen rigging, and on his knees, screaming for mercy was the blood-stained and despairing wretch literally dragged, half strangled to the bottom, with the vessel.

  Dugald reached the canoe in safety, and succeeded in keeping it afloat till they were perceived by a passing ship, and rescued from their impending destruction.

  The youngest son, who had been forced into the canoe with the unhappy mother, died from the severity of the exposure, adding a fifth victim to the monster, La Force! Madame De Tracy, with her infant, and the mulatto, Rachel, were, with considerable difficulty, recovered from the effects of their brutal treatment, and were ultimately enabled to reach the scenes of their former happiness.

  Adventures of Morgan, Prince of Freebooters: Attack Of The Fire-Ship

  At the end of six days he was ready; and, on the 29th April, 1669, he advanced toward the Spaniards, who were quietly at anchor. The dawn was just beginning to appear. The admiral, whose ship was moored in the channel, expeditiously prepared to receive the enemy; and mistaking the fire-ship for the chief of the pirates’ vessels, he suffered it to approach him. He was astonished that, although it was so near, and had such a numerous crew upon deck, not a single cannon was fired. Supposing the freebooter intended to board him (as he knew it was their favourite manoeuvre) he suspended his firing, in order that he might oppose the stronger resistance. Nothing could render the pirates a greater service than this inactivity: never was the truth of the ancient proverb more verified, that ‘fortune favours the bold.’

  A few well-directed cannon-shots were sufficient to shatter the frail machine to pieces, and sink it to the bottom; as, in fact, it was scarcely the skeleton of a vessel. The Spaniards did not perceive this error until the fire-ship was close by them: from that moment all their efforts to stop its progress were useless. The few freebooters on board, fastened it to a Spanish ship, and, as is usual in this kind of operations, rapidly threw themselves into a canoes which had been brought for that purpose. The Spanish admiral, however, displayed much presence of mind: he ordered several Spaniards to board the fire-ship, in order to cut down its masts, and, if it were possible, to prevent the explosion; but his active adversaries were beforehand with him, and, as they were quitting the fire-ship, had already kindled the combustibles it contained. In a very short time the admiral’s ship took fire, which raged with such vehemence, that she was almost instantly buried in the waves, together with the greater part of the crew. Many of the Spaniards had thrown themselves into the sea, and were endeavouring to save themselves by swimming, but they sank before they could reach the shore. Some of them indeed might have received assistance from the freebooters, who, from motives of humanity, or some other impulse more congenial to their character endeavoured to rescue them from the sea; but the Spaniards preferred perishing, rather than owe their lives to these ferocious enemies, from whom they apprehended a treatment worse, perhaps, than death. A very small number only succeeded in landing; among whom was the Spanish admiral, who had taken refuge in a shallop, the moment he saw his ship in flames.

  The freebooters availed themselves of their first moment of the enemies’ consternation, to attack the second ship of war: which they took by boarding, after a slight resistance. They made the air re-echo with their cries of victory, as soon as they beheld the principal vessel disappear. At the sight of these astonishing events which to them seemed miraculous, the Spaniards on board the third ship were struck with such a panic, that they thought less of fighting than of saving themselves. They therefore cut their cables, and rapidly made for the fort; before which they bored their vessel, and sunk her to the bottom. The pirates hastened to seize at least a few pieces of the floating wreck; but the moment the Spaniards that were on shore saw them approaching, they set the wreck on fire.– All these circumstances, just related, occupied no more than one hour.

  This astonishing deliverance at so critical an emergency, and the gaining of such a signal and complete victory in so short a time, with such little force, and without losing a single man, was to the pirates almost a dream. But they were not content with it: they determined without delay to attack the fort, which was guarded by the seamen who had saved themselves, not indeed with the hope of finding any thing to plunder, but merely that they might impress the Spaniards with an exalted idea of their courage. The Spaniards, however, had to congratulate themselves on their foresight in putting the fort into a state of defence: under the conduct of the admiral, who had likewise fled thither, they made such excellent use of their cannons, and in general defended themselves with so much vigour, that the pirates, who could neither raise batteries, nor plant ladder against the walls, were obliged to relinquish the attack, and withdrew on board their ships somewhat confused, and bitterly regretted their folly, having lost thirty men killed, and forty wounded.

  From a Spanish pilot, who fell into their hands, Morgan received explanation of all that had occurred previous to their a
rrival. The hostile fleet, which was at first six ships strong, had been sent out from Spain for the express purpose of exterminating the freebooters; but the two largest vessels, each of which was mounted with thirty-six guns, were thought incapable of being effectively employed in the American latitudes; they were therefore sent back, and one of them was sunk in a storm. Don Alphonso, whose chief ship (the St Louis) was manned by a crew of three hundred men, was dispatched with the rest of the squadron in quest of the freebooters. Not meeting with them, either at Hispaniola, Campechy, St Domingo, or Caracas, he congratulated himself on finding them at Maracäibo. Two days before the fatal catastrophe, he was informed by a negro, who had escaped from the pirates, that they were preparing a fire-ship: he received this news with disdain.– ‘How can those rascals,’ said he, ‘have ingenuity enough to construct such a ship? Where will they find the instruments and materials necessary for the purpose?’ The Spanish pilot also related that on board the vessel which had been sunk there was silver, both in bullion and money, to the value of thirty thousand piasters.