The Monarchs of the Main.
Volume III.
by Walter Thornbury.
CHAPTER I.
RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.
Joins De Graff--Cruises round Carthagena--Crosses the Isthmus--Hardships--Joins Buccaneer fleet--Grogniet--Previous history of the vessels--Fight with Greek mercenaries--Take La Seppa--Engagement off Panama--Take Puebla Nueva--Separate from English--Take Leon--Take Chiriquita--Take Granada--Capture Villia--Surprised by ambuscade--Treachery of Greek spy--Capture vessels--Behead prisoners--Burn the savannahs--Quarrel between French and English--Take Guayaquil--Love adventure of De Lussan--Retreat by land from North to South Pacific--Daring stratagem of De Lussan--Escape--River and torrents--Rafts--Arrive at St. Domingo.
For the cruises of Grogniet we are indebted to the pages of Ravenau de Lussan, a young soldier, as brave and as sagacious as Xenophon.
On the 22nd of November, 1684, Ravenau de Lussan departed from Pet.i.t Guaves with a crew of 120 adventurers, on board of a prize lately taken near Carthagena by Captain Laurence de Graff. Their intention was to join themselves to a Buccaneer fleet then cruising near Havannah. They had hitherto acted as convoy to the Lieutenant-General and the Intendant of the French colonies, who were afraid of being attacked by the Spanish piraguas. Soon after descrying the mainland, they were hailed by a French tartane, who, not believing that they were of his own nation, or had a commission from the Count of Tholouse, the Lord High Admiral of France, gave them two guns and commanded them to strike. The Buccaneers, thinking they had met a Spaniard, knocked out the head of two barrels of powder, intending to burn themselves and blow up the vessel, rather than be cruelly tortured and hung at the yard-arm with their commissions round their necks. A signal, however, discovered the mistake, and they were soon after joined by the vessels they sought. One of these was the _Mutinous_, formerly the _Peace_, commanded by Captain Michael Landresson, and carried fifty guns. The other was the _Neptune_, formerly the _St. Francis_, and carried forty-four guns. They had both been Spanish armadillas, had sallied out of Carthagena to take Captain De Graff, Michael, Quet, and Le Sage, and were themselves captured before the very walls. The four other boats belonged to Rose Vigneron, La Garde, and an "English traitor from Jamaica." They were then watching for the patache of Margarita, and a squadron of Spanish ships.
At Curacoa they sent a boat ash.o.r.e to ask leave to land and remast Laurence de Graff"s vessel that had suffered in a hurricane, but were refused, although they showed their commission, and the men who landed were required to leave their swords at the gate. At Santa Cruz they saluted the fort, and the governor, finding 200 of them roaming about the town, commanded them by drum-beat to return to their ships, offering them two shallops for two pieces of eight a man to take them to their ships, but refusing to let them walk through the island. They found the reason of this was that Michael and Laurence"s ships had lately taken 200,000 pieces of eight in two Dutch ships near the Havannah. This the freebooters did not touch, being at peace with Holland, but the sailors had stolen it and laid it to the French.
Arriving at Cape La Vella, they placed fifteen sentinels to watch for the patache, and sent a boat to the La Hache river to obtain prisoners, but, in spite of various stratagems, failed in the attempt. A dispute now arose among the crews, who were weary of waiting for the patache, such disputes invariably breaking out in all seasons of misfortune, when union was more than usually necessary.
Laurence de Graff, whom they accused of fraud, sailed at once for St.
Domingo, followed by eighty-seven men in the prize, and Ravenau accompanied Captain Rose and Captain Michael to Carthagena, where they captured seven piraguas laden with maize. From the prisoners they heard that two galleons lay in the port, that the fleet was at Porto Bello, and that some ships were about to set out. Soon after this, finding themselves separated from Captain Rose and Michael, Ravenau determined to cross over the continent and get into the South Sea, as he heard a previous expedition some months before had done.
Near Cape Matance a remarkable adventure happened. A Spanish soldier, belonging to the galleons, who had been taken in one of the maize vessels, although treated with every kindness, attempted to drown himself by throwing himself into the sea; his body, however, floated on its back, although he did all he could to drown, till at last, refusing the tackle thrown him from very compa.s.sion, he turned himself upon his face, and sank to the bottom. On landing at Golden Island and fixing a flag to warn the Indians, they saw a pennon hoisted upon the sh.o.r.e, and discovered it to belong to three of Captain Grogniet"s men, who had refused to follow the expedition, which had just started for the South Sea. Some Indians soon after brought them letters left for the first freebooters who should land, announcing that Grogniet and 170 men had gone into the South Sea, and that 115 Englishmen had preceded them. Soon after Michael and Rose, pursuing a Spanish vessel from Santiago to Carthagena, came in to water, and many of the crew resolved to join their march. 118 men left Michael, and the whole sixty-four of Rose"s crew, reimbursing the owners, burnt their vessel and joined them.
Ravenau"s ship was left in the care of Captain Michael, and the united 264 men now encamped on sh.o.r.e.
On Sunday, March 1st, 1685, after recommending themselves to the Almighty"s protection, the expedition set out under the command of Captains Rose, Picard, and Desmarais, with two Indian guides and forty Indian porters.
The country proved so rugged that they could only travel three leagues a day; it was full of mountains, precipices, and impenetrable forests.
Great rains fell, and increased the hardship of the journey, and the weight of their arms and ammunition clogged them in ascending the precipices. On descending into the plain, which, though pathless, appeared smooth and level, they found they had to cross the same river forty-four times in the s.p.a.ce of only two leagues, and this upon dangerous and slippery rocks. Arriving next day at an Indian caravansery, they remained some time shooting deer, monkeys, and wild hogs, flame-coloured birds, wild pheasants, and partridges that abounded in the woods. At length, after six days of painful and wearisome travel, the Buccaneers reached the Bocca del Chica river, that empties itself in the South Sea. Here, guided by the Indians, they fell to work making canoes, and bartered knives, needles, and hatchets, with the savages, for maize, potatoes, and bananas. Though well a.s.sured that their march had been impossible but for the friendliness of these savages, they still kept on their guard, fearing treachery. "They had," says Ravenau, with a pious sigh of pity, "no sign of religion or of the knowledge of G.o.d amongst them, holding that they have communion with the devil," and, indeed, as he declares, after spending solitary nights in the woods, often foretelling events to the Frenchmen, that came true to the minutest detail.
Just as they had finished making their canoes, Lussan heard that the English expedition, under Captain Townley, had captured two provision vessels from Lima, and soon after one of Grogniet"s men, who had been lost while hunting, joined them. Hearing that Grogniet awaited them at King"s Islands, before he attacked the Peru fleet, they started on the 1st of April in fourteen canoes, with twenty oars a piece, and with a score of Indian guides, who were sanguine of plunder. On the fourth they halted for stragglers, and mended their canoes, much injured by the rocks and flats of the river. In some places they were even forced to carry their boats, or to drag them over fallen trees that blocked the deeper parts by the flood. Several men died, and many were seized with painful diseases, produced by hard food and immersion in the water.
They were now reduced to a handful of raw maize a day.
From some Indians sent forward to meet them, they heard that provisions awaited them at some distance, and that 1000 Spaniards had prepared an ambuscade on the river"s banks. This, however, they avoided, by stirring only at dark, and then without noise. Surprised one night by the tide, the canoes were driven swiftly down the river, and some of them upset against a snag; the men were saved, but the arms and ammunition were lost. On approaching the Indian ambuscade at Lestocada, they placed their canoes one in the other, and telling the sentinels that they were Indian boats, bringing salt into the South Sea, escaped unhurt. On the 12th it grew so dark that the rowers could hardly see each other, and the heavy rain filled the boat so dangerously as to require two men to bale perpetually. At midnight they entered shouting into the South Sea, and found the provisions awaiting them at Bocca Chica, together with two barks to bring them to the fleet. Resting for a day or two, they repaired to the King"s Islands to await the ships. These mountainous islands were the stronghold of Maroon negroes.
On the 22nd, Easter Day, the fleet arrived. It consisted of ten vessels, Captain David"s frigate of thirty-six guns, Captain Samms, vice-admiral, with sixteen guns, Captain Townley, with two ships; Captain Grogniet, Captain Brandy, and Captain Peter Henry had also each a vessel, and the two small barks were commanded by quartermasters. Except Grogniet, who was a Frenchman, and David, who was a Fleming, the rest were all Englishmen. Their total force amounted to the number of 1100.
Of the different vessels, Ravenau gives the following laudatory account.
The admiral"s belonged to the English, who, at St. Domingo, had surprised a long bark, commanded by Captain Tristan, a Frenchman, while waiting for a wind. They took next a Dutch ship, and, changing vessels, went and made several prizes on the coast of Guinea, and, at Castres capturing a vessel from Hamburg, joined this expedition. They were, Ravenau declared, little better than pirates, attacking even, their own countrymen, which no true Buccaneer ever did. They had, a short time before, been chastised by a frigate, who, giving them a broadside and a volley of small shot, killed their captain and twenty men.
The vice-admiral"s was a vessel they had forced to join them, and had lately taken a ship called the _Sainte Rose_, laden with corn and wine, bound from Truxillo to Panama, and this vessel Davis gave to the French.
The others were all prizes captured in the South seas.
The holy alliance soon after took an advice boat that was carrying letters from Madrid to Panama, and despatches from the viceroy of Peru; but both the captain and pilot were bound by an oath rather to die than deliver up their packets or divulge any secret, and had thrown overboard the rolls as well as a casket of jewels. On the same evening 500 men, in twenty-two canoes, embarked to take La Seppa, a small town seven leagues to windward, of Panama. The next day, early in the morning, two armed piraguas, manned with Spanish mercenaries, seeing some of the Buccaneer canoes and forty-six men approaching them, ran ash.o.r.e on an island in the bay and prepared to defend themselves. These troops were composed of all nations, and had been sent to defend this coast. One of the "Greek"
boats split on the beach. The other the Buccaneers took, but the fugitives, planting their flag of defiance on a rising ground, fought desperately, and compelled the freebooters to land on another part of the island and take them in the rear. After an hour"s conflict they fled into the woods, leaving thirty-five men dead round their colours and two prisoners.
The attack upon La Seppa proved a failure, for the Sea Rovers had to row two leagues up a river, where they were soon discovered by the sentinels. Yet for all this they fell furiously on, and took it with the loss of only one man; but the booty proved inconsiderable.
The fleet now anch.o.r.ed at the beautiful islands called the Gardens of Panama. All the rich merchants of the city had pleasure-houses here surrounded by rich orchards and arbours of jessamine, and watered by rills and streams. The hungry sailors revelled in the fruits, and reaped plentiful harvests of maize and rice, which Ravenau says "the Spaniards, I believe, did not sow with an intention they should enjoy."
On the 8th of May they pa.s.sed the old and new towns of Panama in bravado with colours and streamers flying, anch.o.r.ed at Tavoga, another island of pleasure. Having caulked their ships, they sent out a long bark as a scout, and arranged a plan of attacking the Spanish fleet. Davis and Grogniet were to board the admiral; Samms and Brandy the vice-admiral; and Henry and Townley the patache; while the armed piraguas would hover about and keep off the enemy"s fire-ships. The next day they put ash.o.r.e forty prisoners at Tavoga; and the same day, the sound of cannon, which they could not account for, announced the un.o.bserved arrival of the Spanish fleet at Panama. The whole Buccaneer squadron, expecting a battle soon, took the usual oath that they would not wrong one another to the value of a piece of eight, if G.o.d was pleased to give them the victory over the Spaniard.
They had scarcely discovered from a Spanish prisoner that the fleet had actually arrived, and was careening and remanning before they ventured out, when Captain Grogniet, raising his flag seven times, gave notice to make quickly ready. The Buccaneers doubled the point of the island where they had anch.o.r.ed, and saw seven great vessels bearing down upon them with a b.l.o.o.d.y flag to the stern and a royal one at their masts. The Frenchmen, mad with joy at the prospect of such prizes, and thinking them already their own, threw their hats into the sea for joy. It was now noon. The rest of the day was spent by both fleets in trying to obtain the weather-gauge, and at sunset they exchanged a broadside. In the night a floating lanthorn deceived the Buccaneers, and in the morning they found themselves all still to leeward, with the exception of two vessels which had no guns. Although terribly mauled by the Spanish shot, the English admiral and vice-admiral resolved to die fighting rather than let one vessel be taken, although both being good sailors they might have at once saved themselves. The Spaniards, refusing to board, battered them safely at a distance, and prevented Grogniet from joining them, while Peter Henry"s ship, having received more than 120 cannon shot, sheered off and was taken by two piraguas.
The long bark, sorely handled, was deserted by her crew, who threw their guns overboard and left the Spanish prisoners to shift for themselves.
These wretches attempted to rejoin their countrymen; but the Spanish admiral, mistaking them for enemies, sank them with his cannon.
Peter Henry"s vessel reached the isle of St. John de Cueblo, twenty-four leagues from Panama, with five feet of water in the hold, and having repaired, rejoined his fleet in about a fortnight. They found that Captain Davis had been hard plied, having received two shots in his rudder, and six of his men were wounded, but only one killed. Captain Samms had been no less put to it. His p.o.o.p was half swept off, and he had received several shots between wind and water. He had had three men wounded, and his mate had had his head carried off by a cannon ball. The smaller vessels had lost no men, but had a few wounded. The Spanish admiral, they found, had carried 56 guns, the vice-admiral 40, the patache 28, and the conserve 18. The fire-ships had also been mounted with cannon to conceal their real purpose. On considering the disparity of force, and the little loss his companions received, Ravenau seems to have no doubt that if they could have intercepted the Spaniards before they entered Panama, and could have got the weather-gauge of them, he should have returned through the straits with wealth enough to have lived all his life at ease, and have escaped three more years of danger and fatigue.
Not the least discouraged by this repulse, the freebooters landed 300 men, from five canoes, to surprise the town of Puebla Nueva. Rowing two leagues up a very fine river, they captured one sentinel, but another escaped and gave the alarm. They found the place deserted, but took a ship on their way back.
A quarrel broke out here between the French and the English. The latter, superior in numbers, would have taken Grogniet"s ship away, and given it to Townley, had not the Frenchmen put on a determined front. Refusing to acknowledge this a.s.sumption of dominion, 130 of them banded themselves apart, and Grogniet"s crew made them altogether 330 in number.
"Besides national animosity, one of the chief reasons," says Lussan, "that made us disagree was their impiety against our religion, for they made no scruple when they got into a church to cut down the arms of a crucifix with their sabres, or to shoot them down with their fusils and pistols, bruising and maiming the images of the saints with the same weapons, in derision to the adoration we Frenchmen paid unto them. And it was chiefly from these horrid disorders that the Spaniards equally hated us all, as we came to understand by divers of their letters that fell into our hands." We have no doubt at all that, but for these "horrible disorders," the Spaniards would have considered the death of their children and the loss of their money as real compliments.
Returning to the isle of St. John, both nations in separate encampments began to cut down acajou trees to hollow into canoes in place of those they had lost in the fight.
These trees were so large that one trunk would hold eighty men. Afraid of the English, the Frenchmen placed a sentinel in a high tree on the sea-sh.o.r.e, to watch both the camps, and also to give the signal if any Spanish vessel approached. A Buccaneer ship putting into the harbour, they discovered it to be commanded by Captain Willnett. Forty of his crew left him, and joined the English, but eleven Frenchmen remained with Grogniet. This vessel had just captured a corn ship near Sansonnat, and hearing of other brothers being on the south coast, had set out in search of them. The Frenchmen were now very short of food, having little powder, and not daring to waste it upon deer and monkeys when Spaniards were at hand, for in fifteen days the Englishmen had eaten or driven away all the turtle. They were reduced to an allowance of two turtle for 330 men in forty-eight hours. Many of the men wandering into the woods ate poisonous fruits. Others were bitten by serpents, and died enduring terrible pains, ignorant of the fruit which is an antidote to such wounds. Several were devoured by crocodiles.
While in this strait, the English sent a quartermaster to ask the French to join in an expedition against the town of Leon, being too weak by themselves. The wounded vanity of the French contended with their hunger. They knew that the English had plenty of provisions, brought in Willnett"s ship, and thirty men, weary of fasting, left Grogniet and joined Davis. But Ravenau"s party having but one ship asked for another, in order that they might keep together, and this being refused, broke off the treaty.
As soon as the Leon party had embarked, the French, commanded by Captain Grogniet, also started with 120 men in five canoes, leaving 200 in the island to build more canoes, and join them on the continent. Coming on the mainland to a cattle station, and afterwards to a sugar plantation, they took several prisoners whom they found ignorant of the disjunction of the French and English. Sending back a canoe with provisions to the island, they landed again about forty leagues to leeward of Panama, and at c.o.c.k-crowing surprised a Spanish estantia, and took fifty prisoners, including a young man and woman of rank who promised ransom. These they carried to the island Ignuana, and received the money after a fortnight"s delay.
On their return to St. John"s they found that 100 men had been to Puebla Nueva, and taken the place, although discovered by the sentinels, and had remained there two days in spite of continual attacks. The commander of the place had come with a trumpet to speak to them, and inquired why, being English, they fought under French colours. But they, not satisfying his curiosity, fiercely told him to be gone from whence he came. Eight of them, having strayed from the main body, had been bravely set on by 150 Spaniards, who killed two of them, but, with all the advantage they had of numbers, could not hinder the other six from recovering the main guard, who fought and retreated with extraordinary vigour.
Once more reunited, these restless Nors.e.m.e.n started to the mainland in six canoes, 140 in number, to visit the sugar plantation near St. Jago, where they had been before. Two men were sent to the cattle station to obtain the ransom of the master, whom they kept prisoner, and others visited the sugar works in search of some cauldrons, which they needed; and, fired at hearing the governor of St. Jago, with 800 men, had visited the place since their departure, they sent to dare him to meet them.
Careening their ships and taking in water and wood, they would at once have sailed away, but were detained by eighteen days" rain, during which time the sun did not once appear. This part of the South Sea was proverbial for continual rains, and was called by the Spaniards "The Droppings." "These rains," Ravenau says, "not only rotted their sails, but produced dysentery among the men, and bred worms, half a finger long and as thick as a quill, between their skin and their flesh." Soon after leaving the island they were nearly cast away in a dreadful storm, and were compelled to repair their shattered sails with shirts and drawers, wherewith they were already very indifferently provided.
At Realegua, where there was a volcano burning, they landed 100 men in four canoes, and obtained some prisoners by surprising a hatto. They found the English had already taken Leon and burnt Realegua. In spite of Spanish reinforcements from eight neighbouring towns, they stayed at Leon three whole days, and challenged the Spaniards to meet them in the Race savannah. But the Spaniards replied, they were not yet all come together; "which means," says our friend Ravenau, "that they were not yet six to one." While here, one of their quartermasters, a Catalonian by birth, fled to the Spaniards, and compelled the French to abandon a design on the town of Granada. At Realegua six men tried to swim ash.o.r.e to fill some water casks, in spite of the Spaniards on the beach, and one of them was drowned in the attempt. They landed at the port, and found the churches and houses and three entrenchments half burnt.
Surprising the sentinels of Leon, they discovered that in spite of a garrison of 2000 men, the inhabitants, hearing the Buccaneers had landed, were hiding their treasure. They soon after put to flight a detachment of horse, and took the captain prisoner.
A few days after this 150 men left the vessels to take a small town of Puebla Vieja, near Realegua, which they found still deserted. It had become the custom now among the Spaniards, when the freebooters had frequently taken the same place, for the prelate to excommunicate it, and henceforward not even to bury their dead there. Discovered by the sentinel, the Buccaneers found the enemy entrenched in the church of Puebla, and about 150 horse in the market-place. A few discharges drove the hors.e.m.e.n away, and the defenders of the church fled through a door in the vestry. Staying a day and a-half in the captured town, the freebooters carried away all the provisions they could find on horses and on their own backs, taking with them a Spanish gentleman who promised ransom. The next day a Spanish officer brought a letter signed by the vicar-general of the province, written by order of the general of Costa Rica, declaring that France and Spain were at peace and leagued to fight the infidel, and offering them a pa.s.sage to the North Sea in his Catholic Majesty"s galleons. To this they returned a threatening answer, and, putting thirty prisoners ash.o.r.e, proceeded to careen their ships, the Spaniards lighting fires along the coast as they departed.
An expedition, with fifty men in three canoes, against the town of Esparso failed, but the hungry men killed and ate the horses of the sentinels whom they took prisoners, for they had now tasted hardly anything for four days. At Caldaria they visited a bananery, and loaded their canoes with the fruit, and at Point Borica stored their boats with cocoa-nuts, which Ravenau takes care to describe as nuts unknown in Europe. Laden with gold, but nevertheless, like Midas, starving for want of food, they landed sixty men in three canoes and took some prisoners at a hatto which they surrounded, but finding they were very near Chiriquita, and a garrison of 600 men, retreated to their ships, forcing their way through 400 horse who reviled them, and challenged them to revisit the town, which they took care soon after to do.
On the 5th of January, 1686, they started 230 men in eight canoes to revisit this place, going ash.o.r.e at night without a guide, and marched till daylight without being discovered. On the 7th they hid all day in a wood, and as night approached again pushed forward, the 8th they spent also hid in a covert, and then found they had gone ash.o.r.e on the wrong side of the river. Fatigued as they were, they waited till night, and then, returning to their canoes, crossed the river. Surprising the watch, they found the Spaniards, even on the former alarm, had removed all their treasure. On the 9th, they reached Chiriquita two hours before day, and found the inhabitants asleep. The townsmen had been two days disputing with one another about the watches, and the Buccaneers ridiculed them by telling them they had come to spare them the trouble.
The soldiers they discovered playing in the court of guard, and they found a small frigate ash.o.r.e at the mouth of the river.
About noon, five of the Buccaneers, straggling into the suburbs to plunder a house and obtain prisoners, were set upon by an ambuscade of 120 men. Finding no hope of escape, rather than be taken alive they resolved to sell their lives dearly, and back to back fought the enemy for an hour and a-half, when only two remained capable of resistance.
The main body, who thought they had been simply firing at a mark, came to their relief, upon which the enemy at once fled. Of this skirmish, at which Lussan was present, he says--"This succour coming in so seasonably, did infallibly save our lives; for the enemy having already killed us two men and disabled another, it was impossible we should hold out against such a shower of bullets as were poured in upon us from all sides; and so I may truly say I escaped a scouring, and that without receiving as much as one wound, but by a visible hand of protection from heaven. The Spaniards left thirty men dead upon the spot; and thus we defended ourselves as desperate men, and, to say all in a word, like freebooters."
The Buccaneers having burnt all the houses in the town, fearing a night attack, retreated into the great church, exchanging a shot now and then with the enemy. This town was built on the savannahs, and surrounded by hattoes, its chief trade being in tallow and leather. The men rested here till the tenth, rejoicing in plenty of provision after nearly four days" fast. They then removed their prisoners to an island in the river, where the Spaniards could only approach them openly in a fleet of shallops. The enemy, driven out of an ambuscade, sent to demand the prisoners, saying they would recover them or perish in the attempt; but grew pacified when Grogniet declared they should all be put to death if a single bullet was fired. Driving off a guard of 100 men, they also plundered the stranded vessel, and discovered by the letters that the admiral of the Peru fleet had lately been lost with his 400 men, by his vessel being struck by a thunderbolt. On the sixteenth, obtaining a ransom for their prisoners, they returned to the island of St. John.
The Spaniards, from fear of the freebooters, having put a stop to their navigation, no ships were to be captured, and having no sails, and their ship being useless without them, the French began to cut down trees and build piraguas. On the 27th they descried seven sail at sea, and put out five canoes to reconnoitre, suspecting it was the vanguard of the Peruvian fleet. Soon after discerning twelve piraguas and three long barks coasting in the distance, they retreated to their docks in the river, and ran their bark ash.o.r.e to render it useless to the Spaniards, placing an ambuscade of 150 men along the banks. The enemy, suspecting a trick, disregarded the two canoes that were sent to draw them into the snare, but commenced to furiously cannonade the grounded ship, which contained nothing but a poor cat, and then, perceiving her empty, bravely boarded and burnt her for the sake of the iron work, and soon afterwards sailed away. They learnt afterwards that the Chiriquita prisoners had reported that they had fortified the island, and the fleet had been sent to land field-pieces and demolish the works. This alarm of the Spaniards had been encouraged by the Buccaneers having purposely asked at Chiriquita for masons, and obliged the prisoners to give bricks as part of the ransom.
On the 14th of March, they left the island of St. John, in two barks, a half galley of forty oars, ten large piraguas, and ten smaller canoes, built of mapou wood. Taking a review of their men, fourteen of whom had died in February, they found they had lost thirty since the departure of the English. To prepare for a long-planned attack on Granada, a half galley and four canoes were despatched to get provisions at Puebla Nueva. Entering the river by moonlight, the Buccaneers approached within pistol shot of a small frigate, a long bark, and a piragua, which they supposed to be their old English allies, but were received by a splashing volley of great and small shot that killed twenty men. The ships were, in fact, a detachment of the Spanish fleet left to guard some provision ships lading for Panama. Quickly recovering from their surprise, the adventurers, though without cannon, fought them stiffly for two hours, killing every man that appeared in the shrouds, and bringing down one by one the grenadiers from the main-top. But as soon as the moon went down, the Buccaneers sheered off with four dead men and thirty-three wounded, waiting for daylight to have their revenge. In the mean time, the enemy had retired under cover of an entrenchment, to which the country people, attracted during the night by the firing, had crowded in arms; against these odds, the Buccaneers were unwillingly compelled to retire, and soon rejoined their canoes at St. Peter"s.