The privateers were elated by this haul, but not satisfied. Interrogation of the captain and officers of the Disengano revealed they had sailed from Manila in consort with a bigger ship, with a greater cargo, from which they had separated three months previously. Desiring the bigger, better and other prize, the men, inspired by their success, prepared themselves to pursue that too.
1709 A Brave Lofty New Ship
THE OTHER ship, the ‘great ship’, was twice the size. It was called Nuestra Senora de Begona and was on its maiden voyage.* Newly built in the Philippines, it had two decks, weighed nine hundred tons and could blast twelve-pound iron cannon balls from forty brass guns. Its captain Don Fernando de Angulo had a skilled master-gunner and an experienced crew of 450 men, many of whom were English or Irish freebooters, with personal stashes of plunder to defend.
On Christmas Day two sentries from the Duke, posted on a hill off Cape St Lucas ‘made 3 waffs’. They had sighted the second galleon. The Dutchess and Marquess closed in for a day and a night. At dawn on 27 December they bombarded the Begona with bullets, grapeshot, stones and cannon balls. In an eight-hour battle they damaged its rigging and mizzenmast, killed eight of its crew and wounded more.†
The Spanish response was slow but lethal. They had put netting round their decks to prevent the enemy from boarding. Their gunners were concealed ‘there being not a Man to be seen above-board’. From out of sight they lobbed fireballs, stink bombs and flaming grenades onto the decks of the English ships and smashed them with cannon balls.
The Duke arrived late on the scene. The prior agreement had been for it to separate and close in later, but then there was no wind. It got caught in the Dutchess’s fire:
those Shot that miss’d the Enemy flew from the Dutchess over us and betwixt our Masts, so that we ran the risque of receiving more Damage from them than from the Enemy.
There were only one hundred and twenty men capable of fighting on all three English ships ‘and those but weak, having been very short of Provisions a long time’. ‘The Enemy’s was a brave lofty new Ship’. Five hundred six-pound cannon balls did little damage to the Begona which blew up the foremast and gunpowder room of the Dutchess killing or injuring twenty men. It wrecked the rigging of the Marquess and smashed holes in its hull. It lobbed four fireballs on to the quarterdeck of the Duke, which destroyed the main mast, blew up a chest of arms and boxes of cartridges, and badly burned Carleton Vanbrugh the owners’ agent, and a Dutchman. Thirty-three other men were killed, wounded, or scorched with gunpowder. Woodes Rogers had his left heel blown off, Thomas Young, a Welshman, lost one of his legs and Thomas Evans’s face was ‘miserably torn’.
The privateers could not win this battle. They were outclassed in tactics and the Philippine ship was better built than any of theirs. The Marquess had three and a half feet of seawater in its hold, ‘wch we soon stopd’ Edward Cooke wrote, ‘and freed our selves and Knotted and Splised our Rigging and was bearing downe againe to the Enemy when we saw the Duke with a Signall out to speak with us.’
He immediately went with Stephen Courtney in a pinnace and boarded the Duke:
where we found Capt. Rogers wounded in ye foot by a Splinter with severall of his Men blowne up with the powder and his Main mast Shot through and found them all desirous not to engage the Enemy any farther and we not being able to Engage her by our Selves so left off the Chase … we having 27 Men killed and wounded and our Foremast shot through the heart in four places our Mainmast shot through in 2 places, our Mizen mast shot through in 2 places, the whole of our foretopmast shot away with our foretrestle trees and our Main yard Shot through &c.
‘We might as well’ he wrote, ‘have fought a Castle of 50 Guns as this Ship.’
So the Manila galleon sailed on to Acapulco its masts standing, its guns still out, its treasure defended and flying the Armada battle flag. The privateers had to make do with the smaller ship, the lesser prize. Rogers, shot to pieces, doubted if it was all worth the cost: ‘This Prize is very Rich but that nor anything else comes near the Unknown Risques and many Inconveniences we have and must Endure.’
They renamed their prize the Batchelor, after John Batchelor, a Bristol Alderman and linen draper, one of the owners. The officers quarrelled over who should command it on the journey home. Rogers opposed the election of Thomas Dover as its captain: ‘His Temper is so violent, that capable Men cannot well act under him, and himself is uncapable’ he wrote† Dover, in retaliation, called Rogers a dead weight, scornful, belligerent and swelled with pride. ‘His Sole Business has been to promote discord amongst us. But what can be Expected from a man yt will begin & drink ye Popes health.’†
Selkirk was appointed the Batchelor’s Master. He had proved himself a capable man and would navigate the ship of fortune on its 19,000-mile voyage home. He did not provoke these fractious captains who blamed each other but not themselves. The value of the plunder would not be known until it was sorted in London. He, like Dampier, supposed it to be a million pounds. He was entitled to a two and a half share. Enough to give him cloths of gold. The Island without men and money was gone from sight. The unheard echoes in its mountains. The unseen shadows of evening. He had moved from that invisible world to victory in battle, rank on board ship and to the promise of material wealth, and all that such wealth entailed.
1710 The Journey Home
AND SO BEGAN the long haul home. There was no delight now in moonlit nights or white sails filled with a gentle wind. The adventure was over. The sea was a tedious desert of water. Day after day after day. The men wanted comfort, and their share of the booty. ‘Itt went very hard with many of us for want of Provisions’ Woodes Rogers wrote.
The Manila Galleon though stuffed with riches was scant on stores. Supplies on all ships were rationed: a pound and a half of flour between five men if they were white, or between six if they were black. The men traded rats among themselves for fourpence or sixpence depending on size ‘and eat them very savourly’. When Pieces of Pork were stolen, the thieves were thrashed with a cat o’ nine-tails. ‘A Negro we named Deptford’ died of his punishment. Life was no better than death and one man’s demise was another’s bread.
On the 18th [January] we threw a Negro overboard, who died of a Consumption and Want together… On the 25th Thomas Williams, a Welch Taylor, died; he was shot in the Leg at engaging the 2nd Manila Ship, and being of a weak Constitution, fell into a Dysentery, which kill’d him… The Spanish Pilot we took in the Batchelor died; we kept him, thinking he might be of use to us, if he recover’d of his Wounds; but he was shot in the Throat with a Musket-ball which lodg’d so deep, the Doctors could not come at it… On March the 3rd we buried a Negro call’d Augustine, who died of the Scurvy and Dropsy.
And so it went on. The Duke ‘began to make much Water’ which had constantly to be pumped. Rogers could not walk because of his injuries, and had to be hoicked around in a chair. Dampier was vague about the route, and had forgotten landmarks.
They reached the island of Guam on 11 March. It looked green and pleasant. The Spaniards had planted it with melons, oranges and coconuts. Rogers, Courtney and Cooke sent the Governor a letter asking to buy ‘Provisions and Refreshments’ and promising, were their request refused, ‘such Military Treatment as we are with ease able to give you’.
The Governor complied. In exchange for twenty yards of scarlet cloth, six pieces of cambric, nails, religious artefacts and two Negro Boys dress’d in Liveries, he parted with eight calves and cows, four bullocks, sixty pigs, ninety-nine chickens, twenty-four baskets of corn, fourteen bags of rice, forty-four baskets of yams, eight hundred coconuts and an unspecified number of limes and oranges. His superiors in Manila, when they heard of his hospitality, viewed it as treachery, and put him in prison.
From Guam to the East Indies was another four long months. The going was slow and tedious and the men were again soon thirsty and hungry, Rogers was thin and in crippling pain, the Duke leaked non stop, the pumps were continually mann
ed, an April gale damaged all ships, and Dampier did not know the way between the myriad islands of the Moluccas.
On 20 June they reached ‘the long desired Port of Batavia’. It was in Dutch territory, and the Dutch were allies. It was a city of canals and suburban houses with neat gardens. It spoke of civilisation. Rogers compared it to Bristol. There was abundant food, with luxuries like butter. It seemed that the perils of the sea were over. Rogers sent the good news to the Bristol owners:
Having two prizes in our Company, of wch one is the lesser Manila Ship whom wee took on ye 22 December last off the coast of California We are in good health & are making all Convenient despatch hence, we hope the same good providence which has hitherto so wonderfully preserved & protected us will continue it and Conduct us to a happy meeting wth you and Enjoyment of the Effects of our labours & many risques.†
In the relative comfort of a hospital, Rogers had a large lump of musket shot cut out of his jaw. It had been there six months:
we reckon’d it a Piece of my Jaw-bone, the upper and lower Jaw being much broken, and almost closed together, so that the Doctor had much ado to come at the Shot, to get it out. I had also several Pieces of my Foot and Heel-bone taken out.†
The privateers stayed four months at Batavia. Their ships needed radical refitting and careening. Javanese caulkers helped with the work. The Marquess, when heeled over, revealed ‘the bottom being eat to a Honey-Comb by the Worms’. It was sold as salvage, and its cargo divided among the other three ships.* Edward Cooke returned to the Dutchess as second captain.
Though there was plenty to eat, the sun’s heat was a hazard. Five men died of dysentery and yellow fever. A crewman was torn to death by a shark while swimming. More than seventy men had died on the voyage. Those who had made it thus far drank arak at eight pence a gallon and bought sugar for a penny a pound.
1711 Great Jarring Among Us
THE BRISTOL owners wanted their prize home and the plunder in their pockets. A flurry of letters from Batavia filled them with alarm. The mood among officers and crew was deadly, laced with suspicion, threat and greed. Carleton Vanbrugh told them ‘We have had great Jarring among us.’ He described Woodes Rogers as a ‘Villainous Defamator’ who had abused him throughout the entire voyage. Thomas Dover wrote that Rogers was ‘disposeing of wt He thinks fitt out of this Ship’ and had threatened to cut the throat of anyone who complained. Rogers reminded them he had been promised ‘a two and thirtieth part of the whole’ at the outset of the enterprise, and warned them to keep to this. ‘For Christs Sake don’t lett me be torn to pieces at home after I have been so rackt abroad.’†
The owners replied that discord would lead to the overthrow of the voyage, that orders and directives must be observed and offenders punished as mutineers.
No precise inventory of the Batchelor’s cargo could be drawn up until it was unloaded. Rogers warned them that much might be spoiled. ‘We have not yet seen the Goods stowd in the Manila ships hold,’ he wrote. ‘I wish it might rise out of her free from Damadge.’† He put the cargo’s value at £200,000 ‘separate from all Dutys and Charges’. The crew, always on the edge of mutiny, and rightly suspicious of their officers, valued it at three million pounds and more. They accused Rogers of hiding treasure at Batavia, with the intention of picking it up later.
The plan was for the refitted Duke, Dutchess and Batchelor to sail from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope and wait there for an escort of Dutch and English warships to take them to Holland. The fear was that without such protection the enemy might seize the prize as it sailed near the coast of north Africa and Spain.
In three more months at sea they made good speed. On 3 and 4 December they covered 270 miles. They arrived at Cape Town on 29 December and anchored in the bay below Table Mountain. Again they were in a friendly town with all the food and drink they desired. To buy ‘Necessaries and Provisions like Carrots, Eggs and a suitable Quantity of Rack’, Rogers sold one hundredweight of silver plate, sixty ounces of unwrought gold, sundries, and fourteen Negroes. A Negro Woman and her Child fetched £3 10s, a Boy went for £26 5s, and nineteen dozen pairs of European silk stockings went for £56 10s 6d.†
The surgeon James Wasse died at the Cape. So too, to Rogers’ satisfaction, did Carleton Vanbrugh, badly burned in the battle with the Manila galleon. Edward Cooke arranged his funeral ‘the Ships firing Guns every half minute as is customary on these occasions’. He was buried in a Dutch cemetery.
The jarring captains sent more discordant letters to Bristol. Courtney said the Dutchess was ‘a very sickly ship’ and that he and forty of its crew were ill. Rogers described himself as ‘just recovered from ye Jaws of death almost’ and expressed concern that his share of the treasure should ‘make some Amends for what’s past’. And Dover and Dampier wrote of how, when they tried to imprison Woodes Rogers for stealing a chest of pearls, jewels and gold, he threatened to kill them.†
After three tense months an escort of sixteen Dutch and nine British warships arrived. The convoy of twenty-eight ships set sail on 6 April commanded by Admiral Pieter de Vos. It was a warlike spectacle and a disciplined manoeuvre, the galleon guarded, all cannon ready. It spoke of victory, triumph and riches. Nothing now was left to chance or luck.
This squadron sailed north over the Atlantic Ocean. Cooke filled sixteen pages of his journal with lists of his sailing and signalling orders. To avoid attack from the French in the Channel, they took a circuitous route to Europe: up the west coast of Ireland, round the Shetland Isles, down the east coast of Scotland, close to Selkirk’s home town, then down the East Coast of England.
Their escort delivered them to the Texel off the northern coast of Holland on 23 July, then sailed on. Danger from the enemy abroad had passed. It seemed they were safely home. The galleon’s namesake, John Batchelor, sent his joyful congratulations at ‘such wellcome Tydins’.*
But still the owners were nervous. There were still threats to their haul. They could not trust the ships’ officers and discontented crew. Both their agents, Carleton Vanbrugh and William Bath, had died on the voyage. They sent out a replacement, James Hollidge, to supervise and report to them. He arrived in Holland on 7 August and wrote that he found Captain Dover well, Captain Courtney ‘out of Order wth ye gout’, the men mutinous, and ‘Capt. Rogers under a great deal of Uneasiness. He seems desperate.’†
There was trouble, too, from the London East India Company. Its twenty-four directors were Knights, Aldermen and Whig politicians. They accused the Bristol owners and the privateers of encroaching on their trading charter. They declared themselves ‘incensed’ at what they perceived as this infringement of their rights. They had the backing of the Bank of England. They aimed to seize the ships, confiscate the prize cargo and arrest the captains. They were doubly provoked by the new Tory administration, which had granted wide trading privileges to its own newly formed South Sea Company. This Company was the idea of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Harley. His political adviser, Daniel Defoe, in his journal Review, championed its aims to the public.†
Hollidge took back to London a signed document designed to appease and deter the directors of the East India Company. It said the Duke and Dutchess had sailed as ‘private Men of Warr’, that they ‘did not traffick in any sort or kind whatsoever’, that any cargo sold was only so as ‘to furnish themselves with Provisions’, that the worm-eaten Marquess had been sold ‘to buy Necessaries’ and that ‘not one pin’s worth’ of cargo had been sold in Amsterdam.
The East India Company directors chose not to believe a word of it. Such protestations were not proof. They sent their own agents to Holland ‘to have an eye’ on the ships, particularly the Batchelor. The crew again threatened mutiny. There were too many claims to this treasure. Too many owners, agents and toffs with their eyes on it.
At the end of September 1711 a convoy of four naval warships, the Essex, Canterbury, Medway and Dunwich, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, arrived at the Texel
to bring back ‘ye South Sea men’. There were more delays while Rogers sought permission to refit the treasure galleon. Its sails were rotten and its masts split. He wanted to return in triumph with sails of blue damask and displays of gold. Eyes would be on these ships as they sailed up the Thames. The imminent arrival of the ‘Aquapulca Prize’ was front-page news in the Daily Courant, the Post-Boy and the London Gazette.†
Late on Wednesday 3 October, the ships arrived at the Downs. It was a clear autumn night. Three of the owners were rowed out to welcome and congratulate the men. The Batchelor was then towed ahead toward the Thames. It moved up river alone. This was the ship of interest, and Selkirk was its Sailing Master. He wore a swanskin waistcoat, blue linen shirt, new breeches and shoes with scarlet laces. He had been away eight years. He had sailed round the physical world, and for four years and four months survived alone on an uninhabited island. He of all those on this voyage had a story of raw survival, of rags to riches, that men might want to hear.
*Dr Dover was given the sobriquet ‘Dr Quicksilver’ because he advocated mercury as a remedy for ailments as diverse as infertility and malaria. He claimed a cure for scurvy too – a quarter of a pint of hot milk curdled with potassium and aluminium: ‘there needs nothing more to be done for the Cure of this Disease which has hitherto puzzled Physicians of all Ages’.
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