The sailors on the Honest Seaman could make out their colleagues’ final moments through the storm. The condemned men were seen: ‘Taking a sad farewell of their friends, by making sorrowful signs one to another.’ But the Honest Seaman’s crew still refused to risk their lives attempting to save their comrades: the lifeboat was not even put in the water, ‘which savoured more of malice than excusable judgement’, according to the author of Prince Rupert’s papers. ‘Thus these distressed persons kept the ship above water until nine at night, and then, burning two fire-pikes, to give us notice of their departure, took leave of the world, being at that instant 100 leagues south and east from the island of Terceira.’[432]
When the Constant Reformation sank 333 men died. These were not the only casualties: soon after the storm abated, the wreck of the Loyal Subject was also found. Craven’s ship had been driven from its anchor and shattered against some rocks. Rupert was extremely fortunate not to have joined the casualties: Pitts believed that ‘God almighty had ... miraculously preserved his person.’[433] It remained to be seen how long he and his brother’s luck could hold, during such a perilous voyage.
Chapter Seventeen - Maurice
‘He that like Thunder still his Passage wrought,
who led like Caesar, and like Sceva fought,
Is stoop’d unto the Grave (he proud thou Earth)
More splendid than that Queen that gave him birth.’
‘An Elegy on the Report of the Death of the most renowned Prince, Prince Maurice’
Rupert was shaken by the loss of his men and deflated by the sinking of his cargo: much of the ‘treasure and rich goods’ harvested from enemy ships was in the Constant Reformation when she went down. The rest of his vessels were in a ragged state, blasted by the severity of the storm. The prince decided to head back for the Canaries, looking for new rigging for his masts and hoping for fresh plunder for his buccaneers. But when news arrived that the Commonwealth had sent a strong fleet to hunt him down, Rupert was forced to plot a new course. He headed for West Africa, to prepare his ships for the crossing to the Caribbean.
They sailed first to Cape des Barbas, before making their way along the coast to ‘a harbour near Cape Blanc, in the kingdom of Argen [Arguin], in the Barbary Coast, towards Guinea’. This was an Islamic, Moorish island, off modern-day Mauritania, controlled by the Santon of Sale. Cape Blanc was a safe distance from the Commonwealth force and it possessed a good, secure harbour. Here, Rupert personally oversaw repairs.
Locating provisions was more problematic than the prince had anticipated. Although fish — especially mullet — were plentiful, water and meat were not, and the Royalists needed plenty of both, for their ocean crossing. Fortunately the Netherlands had established a castle near by, to help its merchants trade along the coast. When the Dutch commander learnt of Rupert’s arrival, he sent him many barrels of fresh water: any enemy of the increasingly aggressive English Commonwealth deserved support.
The indigenous people were less forthcoming: ‘The inhabitants were a kind of banditti,’ the author of Prince Rupert’s diary observed, ‘who, refusing to pay tribute to the Santon of Sale, secure themselves in that sandy desert. They observed the Mahometan law, and are governed by the eldest of their family, whom they obey as Prince. They are tawny of complexion, habited in vests, after the Turkish manner. Their arms are darts and lances, which they use with great dexterity and skill.’[434] Because of the scarcity of fresh water, their staple drink was cows’ milk. Theirs was a nomadic existence, living in tents, their daily priority the care of their livestock.
Rupert wanted to meet these people — to explore trading opportunities and to assure them of his peaceful intentions. On 1 January 1652 he led one hundred men in an expedition inland, to establish contact with them. The Royalists had ventured nearly 20 miles when they discovered a track. This they followed through morning mists, until they suddenly found they had walked directly into the middle of the aboriginal settlement. The Moors scattered at the sudden appearance of armed and armoured Europeans, leaving behind their tents, their sheep, and their goats.
Prince Rupert tried to calm their fears. But the terrified Moors were understandably reluctant to listen to this massively tall figure who had appeared in their midst, surrounded by men carrying muskets. The prince attempted to stop one man from deserting the scene. However, when he continued to flee, Rupert lost patience and shot his mount — a camel. The Moor ran to another camel, hauled his wife up behind him, and lumbered off into the mist. The couple left behind a young boy, who looked to the prince for comfort, clinging to his legs for security. Rupert returned to the harbour with the boy beside him and the livestock in tow. The Royalists could see the Moors shadowing them, just out of range of their muskets.
Two days after the commotion in their camp, the Moors sent a hostage while they negotiated for the restoration of their belongings. Rupert anticipated spirited haggling for the beasts, but was surprised that the Moors’ only stated concern was the return of the boy. Suspecting that this was the prelude to something underhand, the prince forbade any of his men to leave camp. Soon afterwards, one of his men paid the price of disobedience: he was mutilated and his body was found bobbing in the sea.
Fearing his life would be taken in vengeance, the Moorish hostage bolted for safety. He zigzagged like a snipe as Rupert’s soldiers fired at him and escaped uninjured. The Moors then disappeared into the desert, leaving the boy behind. Although the prince and one of his braver officers, Captain Robert Holmes, tried to re-establish contact with the nomads, they were not found again. The boy remained in Rupert’s company, an exotic servant who was later included in one of the prince’s better-known portraits.
Hurrying to complete preparations for the next, demanding leg of their voyage, the Royalist vessels were soon ready: ‘Now, having cleansed, fitted, and new-rigged our 3 ships, viz., the Swallow, of 42 guns; the Revenge of 40 guns; and the Honest Seaman, of 40 guns,’ Pitts recorded, with optimism, ‘we are this instance setting sail from hence. In this intended voyage God Almighty guide us for the best, and send us better fortune than we had for the last, to his Highness’s content, he being resolved not to make any part until he shall get somewhat considerable to bring with him to serve his Majesty, and to make his fleet subsist.’[435]
Before leaving Arguin, Rupert sent gifts of ginger and sugar back to his cousin Charles in Europe, together with a letter that was at once proud and wistful: ‘Your Majesty he pleased to look upon us as having undergone some hazards equal with others, had it pleased God to preserve the Constant Reformation, I had loaded that vessel with better goods.’[436]
*
Rupert sailed for the Portuguese islands of Cape Verde, arriving at Sal, its most northeasterly isle. He had hoped to link up with the Newfoundland fleet, so he could barter for rigging and water, but he found neither shipping nor fresh water there — just a flat terrain, whose most remarkable features were a volcanic crater and the 40-acre saltpan that gave the island its name.
The larger island of Boa Vista, to the south, replenished the Royalists’ water supplies. The island’s population was tiny — ‘about 100 in number, of a mulatto kind’,[437] the descendants of Portuguese sailors and African slaves — but they were able to supply Rupert with goats. These were taken aboard, some live and ‘near 1,000 dried’[438]: apart from their meat and milk, goats were valued for their skins, which provided seafarers with prized waterproof clothing.
The prince next reached Santiago, the largest landmass in the Cape Verde chain with two mountain ranges, dominated by the 1,400-metre Pico d’Antonia, and surrounded by black reefs and white beaches. It was a stopping-off point for the East Indies fleet on its voyages between Lisbon and Brazil. The Portuguese governor seemed to be friendly, but the baskets of watermelons, plantains, oranges, lemons, and bananas that greeted Rupert were the gifts of an embarrassed host, burdened with an unwanted guest. His master, King John, was allied with Cromwell’s Commonwealth.
; Eager to move the princes on at the earliest opportunity, the governor reported sightings of English vessels high up the River Gambia. He encouraged Rupert to pursue them and offered to lend some of his own forces to join in the hunt. The prince agreed and set off for the African coast 280 miles to the east, but his Portuguese companions disappeared at the earliest opportunity, leaving the Royalists unsupported in alien waters.
There were some reasonable pickings in the river. Prince Maurice took the most substantial prizes, a Spanish merchant vessel and her smaller sister ship. After surrendering, the Spaniards complained that they had been tricked: ‘There was some dispute made by them,’ recalled Prince Rupert’s diary, ‘... by reason their merchant was not included in the conditions. The Prince, to avoid censure, offered them their ship in her former freedom, and so dispute it by force; but they rather obeyed the first conditions than hazard their lives.’[439] Maurice had an intimidating presence, being every bit as ferocious a warrior as his elder brother. Few risked crossing him.
Some of the Royalists penetrated 150 miles up the River Gambia, before the flotilla was ordered to regroup around the island of Tulfrey. The islanders proved fascinating to the visiting Britons, one recording that: ‘They are very severe in punishing such as transgress the rules of morality, which I observed by a law among them, that if any man made a lie which tended to the prejudice of the commonwealth, he is presently made a captive, and sold to the next Christians that trade with them. This makes them keep their words inviolable ...’[440]
*
Rupert realised that the summer hurricane season was approaching. He did not want to leave his ships vulnerable to a storm as terrible as the one that had claimed the Constant Reformation. The main Spanish ship was broken up, its parts cannibalised by the other vessels. Prince Maurice moved to the second of his prizes, judging her a superior sailing craft. She was named the Defiance.
Sailing for Cape Verde, the flotilla stopped at Reback, a town to the south of Cape Mastre. Here, relationships with the indigenous people proved fraught and one of Maurice’s sailors was kidnapped. As a reprisal, Maurice ordered a canoe to be seized and the two natives on board it to be held until his man was released. When this demand was ignored, Rupert led one hundred men ashore, determined to settle the matter by force. As soon as his unit landed, however, it was surrounded by irate hordes. Captain Holmes recognised the danger the prince was in and quickly organised a second force, which he took to reinforce Rupert’s beleaguered men.
A West African, known as ‘Captain Jacus’, now stepped forward. He vouched for Rupert, saying that he had been well treated by the prince on a previous occasion. This endorsement momentarily calmed his compatriots’ mood. However, soon afterwards, trouble erupted further down the shore: a native was killed in the commotion and, in revenge, the Africans took two Royalists prisoner — Captain Holmes and Mr Hall.
Rupert ordered his men to make for the safety of their ships, while he spent a day plotting the best way to recover his captured men. The prince eventually decided to negotiate their release in person and ordered some of his crew to row him near to the shore. He then opened negotiations, employing Captain Jacus — who was on land — as interpreter. Jacus told the prince that the natives promised to release the prisoners as soon as their canoe and its occupants were returned. However, when Rupert ordered his men to set the canoeists and their craft loose, Jacus ran forward into the waves and shouted to Rupert that it was all a trick: his people had no intention of releasing Holmes or Hall, and the prince should recapture the canoeists while he could.
Rupert ordered his men to open fire on the tightly packed crowd on the shore, while he summoned his pinnaces to bring reinforcements. As these small craft approached land, though, they were impeded by natives who were standing up to their necks in the water. They obstructed the Royalist landing by pushing their boats away. When the Europeans levelled their muskets at the Africans, they dived under the waves, firing darts and arrows on resurfacing. ‘Thus we exchanged shot in expectation of our pinnaces,’ noted the author of Prince Rupert’s diary, ‘until one of their arrows unfortunately struck his Highness Prince Rupert above the left pap, a great depth into the flesh.’[441] Rupert called for a knife and used it to prise the arrow from his chest. Fortunately, although the wound was deep, it was also clean.
During this tussle in the shallows, Captain Jacus gathered some of his friends together and managed to get Holmes and Hall away — ‘which act being both an example of gratitude and fidelity, may teach us that heathens are not void of moral honesty’,[442] the diarist recorded with surprised condescension. Captain Jacus, offered a safe place on board ship by Rupert, chose instead to stay with his people.
The Royalists returned to Santiago, the principal island of Cape Verde. They captured an English ship there, but this good luck was counterbalanced by the loss of the Revenge: unconvinced by the prince’s plan to head for the West Indies, her crew mutinied and sailed away to join Cromwell’s fleet.
The crossing to the ‘Caribbee Islands’, much delayed and much debated, proved uneventful. The navigators missed the first planned landfall, of Barbados — the flotilla passed it by mistake, in the night. This turned out to be a fortunate error for, unknown to Prince Rupert, the island had been taken by Sir George Ayscue’s Commonwealth squadron at the beginning of the year.
Rupert ordered his men on to St Lucia, which the author of Prince Rupert’s diary found: ‘Spacious and fertile, well stored with wood and water, and having divers fresh rivers in it; and on the leeward side two very good harbours. It hath also great store of wild hogs, goats, and other provisions.’[443] The Royalists anchored at Point Comfort, where Rupert successfully plugged a leak in his vessel with the help of some sewn-together bonnets. The island had been English, but the few settlers were slain by the indigenous ‘Indians’ and their houses destroyed. The French now claimed ownership of St Lucia. Their governor in Martinique, a snake-infested island to the north, invited Rupert to visit. On his arrival, Dutch ships greeted the prince, firing a salute for their fellow enemy of the Commonwealth. The prince now received disappointing news: all the English lands in the Caribbean were Parliament’s. Rupert decided that he would therefore ‘visit them as enemies’. His targets would be English and Spanish possessions, on land and sea.
Rupert also began to trade. ‘Our commodities for traffic were beads, glass, coral, crystal and amber, penknives, looking-glasses, bills, hatchets, saws, and strong liquors, for which they exchange tortoiseshells, fine cotton yarn, and green stones, which they bring from the mainland, having many virtues in them, as curing the falling sickness, and easing women in labour.’[444] On Dominica, the Royalists swapped a few of their glass beads for fruit, before bartering for goods prized in European markets.
Progressing northwards, in early June, Rupert’s flotilla sailed via Guadeloupe to Montserrat, taking two Commonwealth ships en route. Montserrat had a small English population and a reputation for producing the finest sugar in the Caribbean. It was an area ideally suited to privateering: there were many merchant ships to pursue and the inhabitants of the surrounding islands were used to supplying, and trading with, vessels passing through.
Continuing in a northwesterly arc, Rupert’s ships cruised towards Nevis. They sailed into the bay behind Pelican Point, scattering ships that had been sheltering there. Some made for the open sea, while others beached themselves on land. A lively encounter saw Rupert board one ship and take it, while sporadic gunfire claimed a few casualties, some of them notable: the prince’s secretary was killed and Maurice lost the master of his ship. The princes captured two ships, which contained large quantities of sugar, but five other merchantmen escaped. The vessels that had been run aground proved impossible to refloat and had to be left behind. Rupert’s aggression forfeited much of the goodwill that had previously greeted his approach of the islands.
Arriving off St Kitts, the Royalists anchored alongside twenty-four Dutch and French ships. There were some
Commonwealth vessels there, too, stationed to provide extra defences for the Parliamentarian troops holding the island. The two English forces fired at one another in a show of antagonism, but failed to engage. Rupert contemplated an attempt on his enemies, but judged them to be in too strong a position to attack. The prince took his flotilla round to Sandy Point Road — a good anchorage that was controlled by the French. Although the Royalists were given fresh water, no further supplies were forthcoming, for the French were in cahoots with the Commonwealth garrison.
After twelve days anchored off St Kitts, Rupert set sail for the Virgin Islands, where he intended to prepare his craft for the promised hurricanes and to rationalize his ragbag fleet of warships and prizes. On 2 July his men anchored at Dixon’s Hole. This was the start of a stay that was to last nearly two months, after which the cove was known first as ‘Cavaliers’ Harbour’, and subsequently as ‘Rupert’s Bay’. Despite their nominal link with this anchorage, the prince and his men’s association with it was neither easy nor pleasurable.
Essential provisions were hard to find and it took three days to discover water. The staple food was cassava — unpopular with the men, it also proved difficult to locate, since it was a root and the island was covered in dense undergrowth. The men ate it reluctantly, making a bitter bread from its flour. But it was found in such sparse quantities that Rupert was forced ‘to retrench our provisions, allowing to each man four ounces of bread per diem; and the like of all other viands, and himself no more; which abstinence of his made every one undergo their hardship with alacrity’.[445] But not everyone was prepared to endure such miserable conditions: when the prince sent carpenters ashore to cut timber, some of them took the opportunity to desert, sailing off in their pinnace towards the Spanish stronghold of Puerto Rico. Rupert appreciated that his fleet’s safety was compromised; the enemy would soon be aware of its position and would come after him. He had to move from his safe harbour just as the worst of the hurricanes were expected.
Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier Page 29