The Pirate who Stole Scotland: William Dampier and the Creation of the United Kingdom [1 ed.] 1399093649, 9781399093651, 9781399093644

Table of contents :
Cover
Booktitle
Copyright
Contents
Illustrations
Introduction The Rose and the Thistle
PART ONE A SAILOR I SHALL BE
Chapter 1 Freedom of the Seas
Chapter 2 Jamaica and Beyond
Chapter 3 The Farmer takes a Wife
Chapter 4 A Taste of the Darien
Chapter 5 Rivers of Blood
Chapter 6 A Year to the Day
Chapter 7 Eight More Years
Chapter 8 The Mystery of the Batchelors Delight
Chapter 9 The Age of Exploitation
Chapter 10 Raiding the Spanish Main
Chapter 11 Tace is Latin for a Candle
Chapter 12 Sad Reflections of a Lucky Man
Chapter 13 The Man who ate Everything
PART TWO THE TAKING OFSCOTLAND
Chapter 14 Oranges on Sticks
Chapter 15 Making a Name for Himself
Chapter 16 Off to (not so) sunny Spain
Chapter 17 Schemes and Schemers
Chapter 18 Scotland the Brave
Chapter 19 Dampier’s Deductions
Chapter 20 Evidence for the Prosecution
Chapter 21 An Overnight Success
Chapter 22 A Travesty of Justice
Chapter 23 Dash for Disaster
Chapter 24 For St George and England
Chapter 25 Unity from Disunity
Chapter 26 Dampier’s Legacy
Dates, days, spelling and sources
References
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Backcover

Citation preview

THE PIRATE WHO STOLE SCOTLAND

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 1

15-10-2022 03:18:49

By the same author Non-fiction The Hundredth Year The Audit Report The Landlord’s Handbook Fiction There’s only one Henry Green As translator An Armenian Family Torn Apart

Dedication For my father, John Hopkins who always had his head in a book

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 2

15-10-2022 03:18:49

THE PIRATE WHO STOLE SCOTLAND William Dampier and the Creation of the United Kingdom

Leon Hopkins

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 3

15-10-2022 03:18:49

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by PEN AND SWORD HISTORY An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd Yorkshire – Philadelphia Copyright © Leon Hopkins, 2023 ISBN 978 1 39909 364 4 The right of Leon Hopkins to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Typeset in Times New Roman 11/13.5 by SJmagic DESIGN SERVICES, India. Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd. Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl. For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Or PEN AND SWORD BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.penandswordbooks.com

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 4

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Contents Illustrationsvii Introduction The Rose and the Thistle

ix

PART 1: A SAILOR I SHALL BE

1

Chapter 1

Freedom of the Seas

2

Chapter 2

Jamaica and Beyond

9

Chapter 3

The Farmer takes a Wife

21

Chapter 4

A Taste of the Darien

28

Chapter 5

Rivers of Blood

36

Chapter 6

A Year to the Day

42

Chapter 7

Eight More Years

49

Chapter 8

The Mystery of the Batchelors Delight

53

Chapter 9

The Age of Exploitation

61

Chapter 10 Raiding the Spanish Main

67

Chapter 11 Tace is Latin for a Candle

75

Chapter 12 Sad Reflections of a Lucky Man

83

Chapter 13 The Man who ate Everything

89

PART 2: THE TAKING OF SCOTLAND

93

Chapter 14 Oranges on Sticks

94

Chapter 15 Making a Name for Himself

108

Chapter 16 Off to (not so) sunny Spain

115

Chapter 17 Schemes and Schemers

126

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 5

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Chapter 18 Scotland the Brave

138

Chapter 19 Dampier’s Deductions

147

Chapter 20 Evidence for the Prosecution

155

Chapter 21 An Overnight Success

163

Chapter 22 A Travesty of Justice

169

Chapter 23 Dash for Disaster

178

Chapter 24 For St George and England

185

Chapter 25 Unity from Disunity

194

Chapter 26 Dampier’s Legacy

200

Dates, days, spelling and sources

205

References207 Bibliography214 Index221 About the Author

227

Acknowledgements228

vi

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 6

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Illustrations 1 2 3 4

William Dampier (Wikimedia Commons, CC 1.0) Queen Anne (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) Map of New Caledonia (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) Map of the Isthmus of Darien and Panama (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 5 The Roebuck (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 6 Dampier’s passage through the East Indies (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 7 Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 8 Captain Robert Knox (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 9 Charles II of England and Scotland (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 10 Dampier’s illustration of a fish, bat and bird (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 11 Daniel (De) Foe (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 12 Execution Dock (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 13 Isabella Fitzroy (née Bennet), Lady Grafton, Countess Arlington (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 14 Jamaica (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 15 Spanish Galleon (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 16 Sir John Houblon (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 17 John Locke (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 18 Jonathan’s Coffee House (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 19. James II of England, and VII of Scotland (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 20 Brandenburg’s Navy at sea (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 21 Admiral Sir George Rooke (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 22 Dampier’s circumnavigation (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 23 Captain Kidd’s house in New York (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 24 Juan Fernandez (Wikimedia Commons, CC 1.0)

vii

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 7

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland 25 Punch teaches Jack Ketch how to hang (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 26 Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 27 A slave compound in Guinea (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 28 Mary of Modena (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 29 King William (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 30 John Evelyn (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

viii

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 8

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Introduction

The Rose and the Thistle It is not for nothing that the national emblems of England and Scotland are the thorny rose and the spikey thistle. The two countries have always been difficult neighbours. For centuries they lived beside each other in mutual mistrust and suspicion. Hostile excursions into each other’s territory were not uncommon. There were raids, battles, recriminations and executions. Some sort of marriage was achieved when, in 1603, the King of Scotland added the English throne to his personal domains. The two nations remained separate but James VI of Scotland was now also James I of England. James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots. Three times married and twice a queen (her first husband was Francis II of France), Mary had been held under house arrest in England for nineteen years. Her imprisonment ended when she was executed for supposedly plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. James did not hold a grudge. He apparently preferred life in London to his former home in cold and damp Edinburgh. Synchronised monarchy did not last too long. Its end was brought about by the English Civil War, which saw Charles II, son of the executed Charles I and grandson of James, declared King of Scotland. Oliver Cromwell, now Lord Protector of England, invaded Caledonia. The man who never lost a battle found little difficulty in overcoming the Scots. He also achieved more in uniting their fractious country than most native-born rulers. Nine years later, in 1660, normal service was resumed, with Charles II assuming the thrones of both Scotland and England. For a short and troubled period after Charles’ death, his brother James VII (Scotland) and II (England) was also the monarch of both countries. And after some initial squabbling and delay, King William and Queen Mary won a points victory to follow in his footsteps. William had effectively invaded England (by invitation) and ousted the unpopular James. William, who took the lead in the joint monarchies he shared with his wife, was no pushover. As much a general as a king, he welcomed having Scotland as a buffer to his northern borders. Equally, he questioned Scotland’s loyalty, not least because of its strong and long-standing closeness to his

ix

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 9

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland enemy, France, a country where James had found refuge. (James’ hopes of recovering his kingdom were finally ended when William won the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, defeating Scotland’s Celtic cousins). William wanted to solidify Scotland’s allegiance to England, and he decided an Act of Union would do the trick. It had been tried before but never achieved. Most Scots, proud of their independence, were against the idea. But somehow, 104 years after James became King of England, England effectively became ruler of Scotland. The country had been bankrupted and had no choice but to seek financial security by tethering itself to England. Its Parliament agreed to the union. A major cause of the country’s financial plight was the failure of its ill-fated ‘Darien adventure’. This had seemed a good idea at the time; a bold attempt to free the country from England forever. Scotland believed it could do this by becoming possessor of a strategically-placed free port, ‘a door to the seas’, and ‘an emporium of the world’. The scheme’s leading promoter, William Patterson, promised that trade would create wealth, and wealth would create more wealth. Most of Scotland was mesmerised by his prospectus and invested in the project. Its subscription book contained the names of lords and lairds, widows and corporations, clerics, politicians, lawyers and soldiers. The venture was a disastrous failure, costing many lives and much money. In all, close to half the nation’s wealth was lost. How could this happen? Was the Darien adventure just a very bad idea from the start, or were the quarrelsome Scots simply spectacularly bad at organising such things? Or, as suggested in this book, were outside forces at play? There is no doubt that the English Government made concerted efforts to make sure the Darien project failed. This may have been a matter of jealousy – not wanting the Scots to be seen to have seized an opportunity that their neighbour had failed to see. Equally, the English may have deliberately goaded the Scots into attempting the impossible. The aim would have been exactly as turned out; to force Scotland into submission. If there was such a plan, a likely candidate for its instigation is the Government adviser William Dampier. Dampier was a pirate – it says so at the foot of his portrait that hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery, just off Trafalgar Square. In fact, he was much more. He was a master navigator, born naturalist and successful author. He was interested in everything and had theories about most. He was certainly the most travelled man of his age. Born in 1651, the year after the English Civil War was effectively ended by the Battle of Worcester, he was the son of a Somerset tenant farmer. When orphaned, he opted for a life at sea. By his early twenties, he had

x

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 10

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Rose and the Thistle already made return trips to Nova Scotia, Java and the West Indies – and this at a time when ships were lucky to complete any long voyage with more than half their crew still breathing. In the following years, Dampier sailed around the world three times. He also led an expedition to Australia – this in the century before Captain Cook’s ‘discovery’ – doubling back by the same route. There is no doubt Dampier was a brutal man in a brutal age. He certainly did not overflow with compassion. Yet he was more aware of, and sensitive to, his environment than most. He had character flaws. He was persuasive in selling his wild ventures to merchant adventurers and ship owners, but failed to gain the confidence and respect of many of those under his command. He was arrogant and wilful and did not suffer fools lightly. He was unreliable and fickle, frequently changing his mind. And he had a temper. When Dampier married, he told his new wife he would take a short trip to Jamaica to make their fortune. He was away twelve years. During this time he crossed the Isthmus of Panama twice, plundered the Spanish-owned west coast of South America, sailed the Pacific, visited India, China and Thailand, and completed his first circumnavigation of the globe – albeit in a combination of different vessels. All the while he kept a journal detailing his adventures, sometimes protected inside a large bamboo cane whose ends he sealed and resealed with wax. On his return home, he turned his notes into a best-selling book. Feted for his achievements, he knew everybody. He was at home with privateers and buccaneers, murders, swindlers and thugs. He met with royalty, dined with Admiralty officials, worked for bankers, was consulted by Government committees, and parlayed with philosophers, writers and scientists, barons and earls. For a man of action, he was remarkably cautious. He would gladly take a ship or a town where there was little or no opposition, but he often broke off engagements where others would have pressed on in pursuit of great prizes. He preferred to use cunning and trickery to achieve his ends. Dampier certainly played a major role in persuading the Scots to pursue their Darien dream. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest he did much more.

xi

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 11

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 12

15-10-2022 03:18:50

PART ONE

A SAILOR I SHALL BE I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life  – John Masefield

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 1

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Chapter 1

Freedom of the Seas William Dampier, the pirate who stole Scotland, went to sea when he was seventeen. It was his own choice, and it was a strange one for somebody who had been brought up on a farm. That was Dampier for you. He was somebody who knew his own mind and didn’t care too much for the opinions of others. He wanted his freedom, and he found it in the sea. Dampier had been born in 1651 in East Coker, a village in Somerset in the south-west of England. It lies in the south of the county, close to the border with Dorset, and midway between the Bristol Channel to the north and the English Channel to the south. The nearest town is Yeovil, about three miles away. Weymouth, on the south coast, is about thirty miles. Bristol, to the north east, is about eighty miles. Somerset is and was an agricultural county and Dampier’s father, George, was a tenant farmer, renting land from the local lord of the manor, Colonel William Helyar. Being a tenant didn’t mean that George wasn’t well-to-do. According to the local Parish Council, village tradition has it that William Dampier was born in Hymerford House, a substantial property. The family would doubtless have had farm-worker employees and household servants. In other words, William was born into a world of some privilege and was not the simple seaman he later made himself out to be. He had an older brother, George, with whom he seems to have been on good terms throughout his life; eventually leaving him something in his will. There were other children too, although of these only Thomasina and Josias survived their first few years. William’s childhood was certainly not all plain sailing. In 1658, William’s father died. He was only forty. Seven years later, at a time when bubonic plague was sweeping the country, his mother also died. William was fourteen years old. Being the second son of a single-parent family, and later an orphan, did not have the disastrous impact on William’s childhood that might have been expected. He apparently had benefactors and guardians, probably Squire Helyar among them.

2

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 2

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Freedom of the Seas In a time when few children went to school, William received a reasonable education. King’s School in Bruton, a Somerset town about fifteen miles from East Coker, claims him as a pupil. The school says it has no absolute proof that he went there but it is known that he attended a ‘Latin School’, and that at the time William was being educated, King’s was one of only a very few in the region. Whichever school he went to, he certainly gained a sound grounding in English, Latin and Mathematics; sound enough to be able to use Latin to communicate with people he met on his travels, and proficient enough in maths to be able to complete intricate calculations when navigating his way around the world. He was bright too. The Dampier farm, like others in the village, did not comprise a cohesive tract but was instead split into separate parcels of land spread about the village. William boasted that even as a young child he knew which fields were most suitable for which crops. These crops may well have included hemp and flax sold to local textile makers for their ‘Coker Canvas’, much favoured in the making of sails. Colonel Helyar seems to have had his own textile-making business interests. Apart from this tenuous connection, Dampier does not appear to have had any reasons to go to sea other than a determination to travel the world. He was a curious child who was to become a curious man. He was also very much a man of his times. This was a period of change, of conflict and the pre-dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. Civil war between supporters of Parliament and of the Crown had raged for the nine years prior to William’s birth. It had three distinct three stages, the second ending with the execution of Charles I in 1649. This followed his conviction for treason on the grounds that he had wilfully exercised ‘unlimited and tyrannical power’ in disregard to the rights and liberties of his subjects. The third and final stage of the war ended when Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army crushed the (mainly Scottish) Royalist army at the Battle of Worcester; an event that almost coincided with William’s birth in September 1651. Charles II (of Scotland, years later to become Charles II of Scotland and England) avoided capture and eventually made his escape to France. Worcester is in the Midlands, but the West Country, including East Coker, had certainly been affected by the war. In 1642, the then Lord of the Manor, the Reverend William Helyar, had been arrested by parliamentary troops and held hostage until he agreed to pay £800 in what amounted to protection money. Later, a detachment of royalist soldiers, mostly local men, were for a while billeted in nearby West Coker.

3

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 3

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland William Helyar, who had risen from vicar to Archdeacon of Barnstable and had been one-time chaplain to Queen Elizabeth I, purchased Coker Court and its estates in 1616. Unfortunately for him, his £800 did not protect him against the ravages of the plague that swept through East Coker three years after his arrest, killing seventy villagers including the Archdeacon, his son, Reverend Henry Helyar and Henry’s wife Christian (the family were deep into the god business with ‘reverends’ popping up everywhere among the parents of wives, brothers, children and other assorted relatives). This meant that it was Henry’s eldest son, Colonel William Helyar, who inherited his estates and became Dampier senior’s landlord. The colonel’s other five brothers received a few hundred pounds each, graduated according to age. The youngest and darling of the family, Cary, inherited £150. William Helyar was a colonel by virtue of having, when little more than a child, raised a regiment of horse to fight for Charles I (it was soldiers from this regiment who were billeted in West Coker).1 In 1646, the recently orphaned Helyar, by now fifteen or sixteen, was wounded and then captured. His regiment was disbanded and he retreated back to his newly inherited Coker Court. For a while he was in danger of losing this too: until Parliament voted to grant him a pardon for his ‘delinquency’ on payment of a fine of £1,522, 16 shillings, this sum being a tenth of his estimated wealth (equivalent to somewhere between £1.5m and £3.5m in 2021 values).2 What followed Cromwell’s eventual victory was a period of puritanical denial, followed by one of royal excess. William Dampier was just sixteen when Charles II was able to reclaim the throne. Charles must have realised it would not be advisable to declare this had anything to do with divine rights, although he was certainly not too cautious to indulge his whims to the full. At least his reckless extravagancies and open dalliances had the side effect of opening his subjects’ minds to the possibilities that lay ahead. Advances were being made in mathematics and science, building technology, medicine, finance and many other areas. New discoveries were being made and new lands opened up. In London, Christopher Wren gave his first lecture to fellow ‘natural philosophers’ at what was soon to become the Royal Society; a meeting place for luminaries from many disciplines including, many years later, William Dampier himself. William had caught the mood of the times. He knew that he wanted to travel, to see and perhaps to discover new lands, meet new peoples, to observe all that the world had to offer. By the time he was seventeen, he had persuaded his benefactors and guardians that this was what he should do.

4

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 4

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Freedom of the Seas He was apprenticed to a ‘ship master’ in Weymouth. Being ‘apprenticed’ meant that somebody (perhaps George who would have inherited what there was of the family’s wealth, or perhaps Squire Helyar) was paying for him to ‘learn the ropes’. Most of those intent on a career at sea would have started much earlier, perhaps as young as ten or twelve. There was a lot to learn. For a start, there were indeed hundreds of different ropes, used for different purposes and each having its own name. There were sheets and warps, hawsers and halyards, shrouds and painters, braces, foot ropes and reefing lines. Pulling on one when told to pull on another might cause disaster. Then there was the question of navigation, of tides, of ship maintenance including careening and mast stepping, of stowage and of sail handling and repair. Sailors must learn the points of the compass, know something of astronomy and the night sky, be able to recognise different flags, know how to steer a course, and to be proficient in the use of backstaffs and other instruments allowing latitude and speed through the water to be assessed. It all took time, and most was learned ‘on the job’, while risking life and limb to reach some distant port, meanwhile enduring whatever weather happened to sweep by. Notwithstanding, Dampier was soon off, first to France, then to the chillier waters of Newfoundland. Next, he sailed to Java via the Cape of Good Hope aboard the East Indiaman John and Martha, a ship of 300 tons that made two voyages for the East India company between 1668 and 1670. Dampier’s formal training meant he was always going to be a valued member of any ship’s crew and always more than an ordinary seaman confined to quarters ‘before the mast’. Aged twenty, Dampier joined the king’s Navy. How or why isn’t known and he didn’t say. It may have been patriotism. He had chauvinistic views when it came to other European nations, and England was now at war with the Netherlands. Dampier joined the crew of the Royal Prince, a three-deck 100-gun first-rated ship built only two years previously. She was Sir Edward Spragge’s flagship at the ensuing Battles of Schooneveld and Texel. Dampier was present at the first but not the second. By a stroke of good fortune in disguise, he had been taken ill and was shipped off to Harwich to recover. During the battle, the Royal Prince suffered severe damage and loss of life. Spragge was among those killed. While trying to transfer to an alternative ship, his small boat had been hit by cannon fire, leaving the admiral clinging to the wreckage. Afterwards, it was not possible to say if he had died of his injuries or through drowning.

5

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 5

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Ironically, when the Royal Prince was rebuilt nineteen years later, it was also renamed. The Royal Prince became the Royal William, named in honour of William Prince of Orange who had been on the opposing side (although not a participant) at the time of the Battle of Texel, but who by then was King of England (and Scotland). The three Anglo-Dutch wars did not cover England with glory. They were a series of essentially trade-induced attempts to rein in the ambitious Dutch who, from their lowlands base, were becoming a world-beating naval power. They were achieving the makings of an empire, with spice islands in the Banda Sea yielding much prized nutmeg, cloves and pepper, other East Indies possessions, valuable trading links with Japan, and African and Caribbean possessions. What made these wars even more deplorable were the shenanigans of the dissolute Charles II, whose actions were not too far removed from those that got his father’s head lopped off. Protestant England had at first been a supporter of Holland against the aggressive, and Catholic, French. But Charles was high-maintenance and was finding it troublesome to persuade Parliament to fund his ‘merry’ lifestyle. His solution was to conclude a secret, and traitorous treaty with France. The basics of the secret part of the Treaty of Dover were that Charles would receive funding of £200,000 a year from France. In return, he agreed to support France in its quarrel with the Dutch. Further, much further, was a commitment from Charles to declare himself a Catholic at some time in the future (for which there would be a separate payment) and to lead his country down the same route. There was even more. Should there be public unrest when the matter of religion was raised, France would help Charles quell any uprising. That Dampier had any inkling of what was really going on is unlikely. If he did, the information would have been salted away in his lively mind, filed under ‘money buys power and lack of it leads even the most powerful to agree unpalatable actions’. Whatever was wrong with Dampier when he was removed from the Royal Prince, it must have been serious because he took a number of months to recover. After ‘languishing’ in Harwich, he retreated back to East Coker and to his brother to complete his recuperation. At some point during his stay there, he was summoned by Colonel Helyar to Coker Court and given a job offer. The colonel must have struck a daunting figure to the twenty-two-year-old Dampier. Helyar was just over fifty years old at the time and an establishment figure. He had been High Sheriff of Somerset in 1660. He was rich and powerful and lived in a house teeming with family and servants.

6

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 6

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Freedom of the Seas Like George Dampier, Helyar had a younger brother, Cary Helyar. And like William, Cary had gone off to see the world and to seek his fortune. His chief asset seems to have been his charm. He was good at making friends, gaining trust and cutting deals. His second most important asset was access to his brother’s wealth. He worked in partnership with the colonel, Cary doing the dirty work and Squire Helyar providing the finance. The elder Helyar indulged his brother but his love for him must have been tested by his frequent demands on the bank of big brother. Some of Cary’s earlier deals, in the 1660s, seem to have bordered on the illegal, involving trips to Madrid. Soon he was homing in on Spain’s American colonies, trading in all manner of goods, including sugar, cocoa, logwood, and slaves. In late 1664, then aged thirty-four, he decided to base himself in Jamaica.3 He soon made friends with members of the Modyford family and listened to their ideas. Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica, had arrived there in the same year as Cary. Previously he had been a successful planter in Barbados and was an advocate of farming, Caribbean style. He was particularly interested in chocolate. Once planted, cocoa trees needed little tending. Only a few slaves would be needed and the trees would go on producing crops for years. All the plantation owner had to do was to sit back and count the profits. That was his theory. Like William Dampier, Cary was able to come up with any number of sure-fire money-making schemes that for one reason or another never seemed to work entirely to his financial advantage. But listening to the Modyfords, Cary was sure it would be different this time. He went into the plantation business and started planting cocoa trees. The land he bought and named ‘Bybrook’ was at Sixteen Mile Walk, close to the Modyfords’ own plantations. It comprised a substantial plot of land. In 1669 he bought (for £20, 10 shillings), 160 acres, and in the same year a further 120 acres comprising ‘meadow or pasture and woodland’. He also bought a further twenty-six acres at Sixteen Mile Walk and a house and land in the town of St Jago de la Vega (Spanish Town, the then capital of Jamaica), intended for a house. In 1671 he purchased 1,000 more acres of ‘meadow, or pasture and woodland’, in ‘St Maries parish’ (St Mary’s parish), and 320 acres at Salvadores Cockpitts in Bybrook’s home parish of St Katherine’s.4 All was funded by Colonel Helyar. The persuasive Cary Helyar had talked his brother, the colonel, into becoming a partner in this venture also. By 1670 Cary had six acres of cocoa trees planted and was watching them mature. That was the year the blight appeared. Modyford took the hint and moved into sugar production, a venture that required many more slaves.

7

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 7

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland By 1672 Cary’s cocoa trees were all dead and he, too, was moving into sugar. He had already written to his brother asking him for equipment and all the people he could send. The colonel duly complied as best he could. Modyford, meanwhile had been sacked as governor and sent home to England to new quarters in the Tower of London. Cary asked his brother to visit him there to help raise his spirits. The colonel duly complied. He also sent a steady stream of people to Jamaica to work on his and Cary’s plantation. Most were from East Coker, or thereabouts, some were relatives or were otherwise connected to the Helyar family. One such was William Whaley, the squire’s godson, who was sent out in 1671 and subsequently became Bybrook’s bookkeeper and then manager.5 All had been going to plan. Bybrook was not yet in profit, but it seemed just a matter of time before it would be. More people were on the way. Cary had started building himself a house and got married. And then he died. He was thirty-nine years old. Cary left the house to his new wife, Priscilla, and his share of the plantation to Whaley. But the business was so much in debt that Cary’s older brother became the owner anyway. When Dampier was summoned to Coker Court, the colonel must have still been grieving his brother’s death. And he had some problems to solve. Living as he was in East Coker, and correspondence taking weeks if not months to reach its destination, controlling the business was difficult. William Whaley might have been his godson, but Helyar may not have known him too well, nor trusted him too much. He needed more ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground and yet more people in his fields. Just as the only form of communication available was by post, ‘snail mail’, so there was no form of mechanical power available to work the fields. Everything that was cut, crushed, boiled, skimmed, dried or bagged had to be done so using wind, water or muscle power. At the time Colonel Helyar made his job offer to Dampier, the plantation had a complement of between fifteen and twenty white employees, mostly tradespeople but also some weavers (perhaps of Coker Canvas) and fifty to sixty negro slaves. Of the tradespeople, potters were much in demand for the production of sugar pots, as were carpenters and coopers. All this would have been explained to a slightly daunted Dampier. He took it to mean that the squire wanted to send him to Jamaica to look after his personal interests. Dampier accepted the challenge. It didn’t turn out the way Dampier expected, although going to Jamaica did change the course of his life.

8

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 8

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Chapter 2

Jamaica and Beyond Dampier arrived in Jamaica sometime in 1674. He was soon at loggerheads with William Whaley. Whaley had been the bookkeeper at the Bybrook plantation to which Dampier had been sent, and he would certainly have known its parlous financial situation. On inheriting Cary Helyar’s half share in the business, he must have hoped that Colonel Helyar would be as generous to him as he had been to his own brother. He clearly wasn’t, and Whaley had been obliged to hand over his share of the business, along with its many debts, including those to the colonel himself, and to Cary’s widow, Priscilla. From plantation owner, Whaley had been reduced to plantation manager, albeit with a promise of a half share of profits once all debts had been paid off (if ever that should happen). And now, here was the bumptious upstart William Dampier, who knew nothing of sugar growing, coming in and saying he had free licence to take over the book-keeping and look after the colonel’s interests. It wasn’t fair and Whaley was not going to have it. Dampier, on the other hand, had arrived full of hope ‘by reason of the fair promises you made me in England which I thought had been already verified, or at least not to be doubted’, he wrote to Colonel Helyar in England. At first Dampier had been ‘well received by Mr Whaley, so welcomed, so gracious in his eyes, that I thought myself most happy’. But, he said, ‘this was too sweet to hold’.1 He complained that, from then on, he had been underpaid and ill-treated. As soon as Whaley had him ‘under his lash’ he had ‘thought of nothing but to abuse me’, said Dampier. He implied Whaley was lazy and wont to make merry in town where he had an ‘ill name’. He also suggested, in a circuitous way, that Whaley was not entirely straight and was putting things in his own name. Dampier may have been right. Soon he had had enough and was telling Whaley he wanted to leave. Whaley agreed because, according to Dampier, he thought the bumptious upstart would not be able to find any alternative to staying on. He did. He went back to sea.

9

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 9

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Despite what Dampier said, Whaley was probably pleased to be shot of the prying and interfering Dampier who, in his view, might, after training, have made a good ‘sugar stirrer’ but no more. Perhaps surprisingly, Dampier’s letter to the colonel was forwarded by none other than Whaley himself. The letter was no more than ‘a parcel of stories and lies’ and anybody could see that it contained ‘more spite than reality’, he said. Whaley continued in his post until his death in 1676, a year or so after Dampier left. His remaining tenure was characterised by long-range snipping between himself and Colonel Helyar, who never stopped worrying about his outlay on the plantation nor, probably, about Whaley’s ability and character. Whaley resisted advice from the colonel to diversify into new crops, and also the colonel’s further attempts to have an investor, or anybody else, brought in from outside. When the colonel’s cousin, another William Helyar, turned up, Whaley dismissed him as a ‘broken staff ’. At one point the colonel cut off Whaley’s credit altogether, although somehow, by the time of his death, Whaley had doubled the slave count, got sugar production up and running, and had sent his first shipment to England. The colonel continued to invest in the plantation, in 1674 buying a further 400 acres of land in Sixteen Mile Walk. In 1677 he also bought, for £35, the house Cary had built in St Jago and left to his wife Priscilla. In May 1675 she had remarried Edward Stanton, who was a long-time member of the Jamaica Assembly, eventually becoming Speaker. In 1670 he was listed as joint owner, with Henry Bonner, of 500 acres in the St Andrew’s parish. Bybrook eventually turned in profits and, over the years, hosted many members of the Helyar family. But its managers continued to send a stream of requests for more people to work its lands. When Dampier arrived in Jamaica, it was a wild place – both in the sense of being largely uncultivated and because of the nature of the few people who lived there. Jamaica had only been acquired by England in 1655. Oliver Cromwell had sent a substantial force to capture the larger island of Hispaniola as part of a ‘Western Design’ aimed at helping put England back on its feet after years of civil war. The assault failed and the joint leaders, Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables, had moved on and taken Jamaica as a second prize. Cromwell must have reasoned that Spain had grown rich and flabby, living off its American riches. It was now more interested in bureaucracy than innovation, its governors more concerned with protocol than initiative.

10

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 10

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Jamaica and Beyond Others realised this too. There was something of a slow-motion land grab going on, and Cromwell wanted to be part of it. Spain was still the predominant foreign power in the region, but the United Provinces (Netherlands), France and England all had footholds. Even Denmark was represented. So, despite the disappointment of failing to take Hispaniola and the temporary disgrace of Penn and Venables, Jamaica had been quite a prize. It was only in 1670, four years before Dampier’s arrival, that Jamaica and other Caribbean possessions were formally ceded to England by the Treaty of Madrid. It had taken almost as long for the English newcomers to gain something close to complete command of the inhabitants of the island. The Spanish, in fleeing, had released their slaves who understandably hotfooted it to the interior, from where they waged a guerrilla war to protect their newfound freedom. Jamaica is the third-largest Caribbean island, after Cuba and Hispaniola (an island that is now home to both modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). It comprises slightly over 4,200 square miles of mountains, valleys and coastal plains, making it about a twelfth the size of England and half the size of Wales. It is lozenge-shaped and at its widest point is close to 150 miles from coast to coast, and at its narrowest, about fifty miles. It sits to the south and almost equidistance from both Cuba and Hispaniola and is strategically placed, especially in the age of sail, to the windward of the Spanish Main: meaning ships from Jamaica could swoop down on trade routes and on the Darien, a name then used to denote a good portion of the Isthmus of Panama. Jamaica’s main port was conveniently on the south coast and in the lee of its Blue Mountains. Port Royal was on the seaward edge of a large bay, built on a substantial sandy spit that protected the harbour within. On this precarious foundation sat wharves, taverns, a church and counting houses. The town was without water so that barrels of various liquids and other essentials had to be ferried from Kingston, which stood on the inland side of the almost-enclosed bay. Port Royal was later washed away in the earthquake of 1692. Jamaica’s climate is hot and humid, pleasant for a holiday but not conducive to long hours working in the fields. There is a rainy season that runs from late April to October, when afternoon thunderstorms are common. There is also a hurricane season that lasts from June to early November, when strong winds are liable to lash the island. For the rest of the year Trade Winds blow reliably from the north east. When it is not raining, the sun beats down for most of each day, heating the ground and the heads and backs of workers.

11

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 11

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland A survey conducted by Sir Thomas Modyford in 1670 estimated that 209,000 of the island’s 2.7m acres of usable land had been cultivated.2 There were fifty-seven sugar works, ‘those still increasing, and others a going up’, forty-seven cocoa walks, forty-nine indigo plantations ‘to which many more works are daily adding’, and three salt ponds. In addition, ‘the mountains are full of pimento also Jamaica pepper everywhere, and some have planted it’, bragged Modyford. There were also ‘an undestroyable quantity of Fustick, Brasiletto, Lignum Vitae, Ebony, sweet smelling and other curious woods for several uses of which great quantities are daily exported’. The land was very good for cotton and tobacco ‘but the other commodities being more staple and profitable very few busy themselves with it’. The Governor added that the island had ‘large savannas, and now great stocks of cattle which we judge have increased within these six years from 60 tame cattle to 6,000. Sheep, goats and tame hogs great plenty, so that we are past all danger of want, and hope in a short time to be able to furnish the ships homewards bound’. In his letter home to Lord Arlington, telling him the results of the survey, Modyford estimated there were then just over 15,000 people living on the island – presumably an under-estimate because Modyford is unlikely to have counted slaves, but still a tiny number when compared to the three million people who live there today. Plantation owners tended to be absentee landlords not willing to risk their own health or limbs by actually living in Jamaica: the early deaths of both Cary Helyar and William Whaley illustrate the attrition rate among residents of the island. It would have been a tough life. When Dampier turned up, there was no grand house in which to live, no feather bed on which to sleep. Like others in his situation, he would have been given a simple hut, thatched to keep out rain and heat, in which to sleep. There would have been no water except that he could draw from well or stream, and no other facilities except access to the nearby fields. Daylight lasted only twelve hours or so each day throughout the year, meaning he would have had twelve hours to pass in darkness or by the light of a spluttering and guttering candle, of perhaps a bonfire. At least Dampier would have found other East Coker men and women with whom to pass the hours. Besides plantation owners and workers, Modyford’s 15,000 inhabitants would have included indentured servants, working off their debts, a few convicted criminals transported from England, run-away bankrupts and villains, deserters and chancers. Some 2,500 of the 15,000 were privateers,

12

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 12

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Jamaica and Beyond ‘lusty men’ whose boats plied the surrounding waters. They were the hardest of the hard, and it was among these men that Dampier sought new employment. Privateers were in effect marine mercenaries. The cost of maintaining a large navy was considered prohibitive, especially by Charles II who thought he had better use for his money. The solution was to issue commissions in times of conflict to private ship-owners willing to fit out their vessels to fight the enemy. These commissions specified who might be attacked and the reward for doing so; invariably a share of the value of the ship and whatever it was it happened to be carrying. Privateers were allowed to rummage vessels for loose valuables including those in the personal possession of anybody they captured, but they were not allowed to ‘break bulk’. Instead, they were supposed to take their prize to the nearest Admiralty court where the cargo would be unloaded and everything shared out. Something would go to the owners, a chunk to the Crown, and the rest to the captain and crew. Crews on privateer ventures were usually employed, much like some solicitors today, on a ‘no win, no fee basis’, or as more usually put, ‘no purchase, not pay’. In theory everybody won. England and its possessions were better protected, seamen stood the chance of making more money than they could dream of earning by other means, and money flowed back to the Crown. After all, Sir Francis Drake had been a privateer, and look how well he had done. It didn’t quite work out that way. There were two principal reasons. The first was that ships, out of sight of land, were their own jurisdictions. Mutinies were not uncommon; crews had the numerical upper hand and captains lived in fear of being usurped. Wise captains ruled with the consent of their crews. Sometimes, especially in the case of privateers who lived close to (or over) the divide between privateering and piracy, which was most of them, the relationship between crews and their captain was formalised into written articles. These men were socialists before their time. Captains and officers were to be elected, and only in times of engagement was it not permitted to question a captain’s decision. More than this, there was a form of social security with set payments agreed in advance for death or injury. A leg was worth so much, an eye a different amount. And of course, much was said about how prizes were to be shared amongst the survivors. Generally larger shares went to the (elected) captain and officers. Whether privateer or pirate, the captain had to deliver. He had to find suitable prizes; those that carried valuable cargos and were not too hard to take. It was the combination of the two that was the problem.

13

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 13

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Commercial vessels that carried cargo of limited value, had but small crews (to keep costs down). Any encounter with a privateer would be likely to see them outgunned and their crews outnumbered. Such crews were not too inclined to risk life and limb for the sake of an owner who was sat far away in the comfort of his own home. Often a few threats were sufficient for such a prize to ‘strike’ (pull down its colours and surrender). On the other hand, ships laden with valuables, such as Spanish treasure ships, were also the most likely to be well-manned and well-armed, perhaps even protected by escorts or sailing in convoy. Privateer crews employed on a ‘no purchase, no pay’ basis were likely to be unwilling to consider the ‘no pay’ option. And the longer a voyage continued without a valuable prize being taken, the more pressure was heaped upon the captain, and the more desperate he was likely to become. Commissions might be specific about the ships of which nation might be attacked, or they might simply refer to ‘enemies’. Either way, desperate captains were likely to take a more liberal attitude than the law presumed when deciding what was and what was not a legitimate target. Once a prize had been taken there was great temptation to keep everything that was aboard or at least not to surrender the most valuable items. Privateering was a risky business. Despite the possibility of death or injury, there was also, for those who overstepped the mark, the threat of the law and its hangman servant. And there was another risk; that privateers could simply be stood down, their commissions cancelled without consultation, explanation or compensation, and they left to make their living another way. This had happened to the Jamaica privateers following the 1670 Treaty of Madrid. The hated Spaniards were now apparently allies and should not be on the privateers’ hit list. This news arrived too late for one man who had dominated the privateering scene, Henry Morgan. The year after the treaty had been signed (and four before Dampier arrived on the scene), Morgan had set off on a daring raid in which he crossed the Darien with a force of some size, before fighting a pitched battle outside the gates of Panama City. The battle turned into a rout and Morgan sacked the city (it was later rebuilt a little further up the coast). On his return to Jamaica, he was arrested for breaking the treaty and sent off to England to explain himself. Governor Modyford suffered the same fate, but enjoyed less pleasant quarters, hence his meeting with Colonel Helyar in the Tower of London. Morgan talked himself out of trouble and, in 1674, was knighted and sent back to Jamaica. He was there at the same time as Dampier and the two most likely met on the wharves of Port Royal. Morgan subsequently

14

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 14

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Jamaica and Beyond became Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica and a member of its Assembly. Modyford also returned and took back his old position. Warned off by what had gone on, William Dampier did not immediately join the privateers. Instead, he signed on with a Port Royal trader who made short hops around the island, fetching and carrying all manner of goods between the town and planters’ jetties. This way, suggested future poet laureate John Masefield in a 1902 essay, On the Spanish Main, Dampier got to meet many old buccaneers; ‘kindly fellows’ always ready with a yarn. To-ing and fro-ing to the bustling Port Royal would certainly have made Dampier familiar with many of the denizens of the anchorage and its wharves, including, probably, a young William Patterson who worked as a factor, a man of commerce, receiving, checking, storing and dispatching cargoes (he is somebody who will crop up later in this story). And so, Dampier would have come to know about the island and the seas thereabouts, and the possibilities these offered. After seven months he had learned enough and signed on with one Captain Hudsel. The voyage to which he committed seems to have been speculative. Hudsel was to sail to the Bay of Campeachy (as Dampier called it) and in particular to One-Bush Key in the Terminos Lagoon, where there was a settlement of logwood cutters. Captain Hudsel had a suitable quantity of rum, sugar and other commodities on board that would allow him to make a trade with the cutters for their valuable wood. Its ‘blood heart’ was used to make dyes and sold for high prices in London. Although logwood-cutting communities later became the basis for the state of Belize, this eastern side of the Yucatán Peninsula was not Hudsel’s destination. Rather he was headed to the large tidal lagoon in the south west corner of the peninsula in what is now Campeche State, Mexico, a downwind distance of about 1,100 nautical miles from Jamaica. Part of Spain’s American possessions, it was in Dampier’s day a remote and largely unpoliced tract of land. About 300 or so former privateers, looking for alternative employment now that their commissions had been withdrawn, had gone there to cut down the trees that grew in clumps among the mangroves around the lagoon’s shoreline. Being privateers, they had written their own rulebook. It would have been very short but in essence treated all equally. The cutters worked hard and played hard, cutting wood all week and hunting at weekends, shooting the wild cattle that roamed the area. Their camps comprised ‘pavilions’ or shelters, sometimes thatched and hung with sailcloth to keep the mosquitos at bay. They slept on ‘barbecues’, raised

15

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 15

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland beds from which, in the rainy season, they often stepped down into a metre or so (more than two foot) of water. They were a boisterous lot. The custom was for any ship such as Hudsel’s to fire a gun on arrival, when the cutters would file down to the shore and come aboard. They expected to be entertained with suitable quantities of liquor. After a while there would naturally be singing and firing of pistols, followed by sore heads and sleep. The next day, trading would begin, the sharpness of each deal depending to some extent on the degree of generosity with which the logwood cutters had been entertained. Dampier was immediately smitten with the place. He was taken with the way of life and the freedom of the cutters who chose when and where they worked. They were their own masters and answered to nobody. They did as they pleased, worked hard and spent their evenings drinking by their fires with the women who had come with them (some ‘bought’ in Port Royal, where the going rate was similar to that of a house) or had been snatched from nearby Indian villages. In an age when a loose word could see a person hung for blasphemy, the logwood cutters swore and cussed to their heart’s content. Dampier was taken with the wildlife too. Besides the cattle, there were monkeys and alligators, birds, armadillos and snakes. And, of course, he saw the money-making potential of the place. After a few heady days, Hudsel sailed off with Dampier and his cargo of logwood. The journey back, against the wind, started with a hair-raising incident. Almost immediately they sighted two ships. They first thought them friendly but then realised they were Spanish on the lookout for logwood traders and had come to arrest them and take their cargo. The Treaty of Madrid had been a trade-off. Spain would recognise some English possessions in return for which England agreed to call off its privateers. The arrangement was not popular in the Caribbean with either the English or Spanish communities. The Spanish did not want to see the English, or anybody else, get a foothold in what they believed was their territory. The English did not want to give up the profitable business of privateering. And there was argument about whether the Campeche logwood settlements were covered by the treaty anyway. England said they were, Spain that they weren’t. There had been trouble. Even as Dampier was arriving in Jamaica, the Committee for Trade and Plantation in London was hearing complaints about ‘treacheries and force’ used by the Spaniards in the West Indies resulting in ‘barbarous inhuman cruelties committed upon his Majesty’s subjects’.

16

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 16

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Jamaica and Beyond Six logwood traders, including Edmond Cooke with whom Dampier would later sail, had petitioned the king, asking to be compensated for losses they had suffered when their ships had been seized.3 At the very least they wanted to be allowed to make reprisals. The committee agreed with them and England’s ambassador to Spain was instructed to raise the matter with the Queen of Spain. Cooke argued that there had been 300 English logwood cutters ‘inhabiting winter and summer at Yucatán for eight years past, and not any of them within 45 leagues of any Spanish Plantations’. In other words, they caused no nuisance to the Spaniards. Even so, his pink, a type of small ship with a narrow stern and usually a flat bottom, had been seized off Santa Lucia, Cuba, by a Captain Philip Fitzgerald and two other armed vessels. Fitzgerald, it turned out, was ‘an Irish Papist’. He had used his prisoners ‘barbarously’. He gave no reason ‘but that his countrymen were ill-used by the English 24 years ago’ (presumably a reference to Cromwell’s brutal Irish campaign) ‘and he should never be satisfied with English blood, but could drink it as freely as water when he was adry’. He had, he said, been commissioned by Spain to sink or take all Jamaican logwood traders. In the end, he took Cooke’s ship and set captain and crew adrift in an open boat with two week’s provisions. It was now two years later and the Spanish were still determined to seize any logwood taken illegally, as they saw it, from their territory. Hudsel made a run for it, narrowly escaping the two ships as the result of a lucky change of wind. But the chase meant they were taken off course and Dampier suspected Hudsel was uncertain where exactly they were. He was probably right, because they soon ran aground on a sandbank. Escaping this latest peril, they began to worry about whether they had enough water and food on board. They did what they could to replenish their supplies but made such slow progress that they were soon running short again. It looked bad. And then, unexpectedly, they sighted Jamaica. It had taken them three months to make the return journey. Dampier didn’t think too much of Hudsel as a mariner and parted with him as soon as they reached Port Royal in late 1675. But the voyage had taught him a lesson: it was that Spain would not easily allow others to inhabit its territory no matter how remote, how unused, and how wild. And no matter whether it seemed, as in this case, in its best interests to do so. Privateers allowed to work as logwood-cutters were no longer privateers and no longer posed a threat. It didn’t matter to the Spaniards. What was theirs was theirs.

17

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 17

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland The voyage also awakened in Dampier a desire to return to Campeche and become a logwood cutter himself. He thought it was worth the risk. As Masefield poetically explained: Dampier passed the next few weeks in Port Royal, thinking of the jolly life at One Bush Key, and of the little huts, so snugly thatched, and of the camp fires, when the embers glowed so redly at night before the moon rose. The thought of the logwood cutters passing to and fro about those camp fires, to the brandy barrel or the smoking barbecue, was pleasant to him. He felt inclined “to spend some Time at the Logwood Trade,” much as a young gentleman of that age would have spent “some Time” on the grand tour with a tutor. He had a little gold laid by, so that he was able to lay in a stock of necessaries for the trade such as “Hatchets, Axes, Long Knives, Saws, Wedges, etc., a Pavilion to sleep in, a Gun with Powder and Shot, etc.” When all was ready, he went aboard a New England ship, and sailed for Campeche, where he settled “in the West Creek of the West Lagoon” with some old logwood cutters who knew the trade. It was early 1676 and he was back in Terminos Lagoon and in his element. As Masefield said, he threw in his lot with an experienced gang of cutters who agreed to pay him to the tune of one ton of logwood a month in return for his labours. It was hard work, hauling and carrying the heavy wood to the quayside and stacking it ready for the next ship to arrive. In the process, the cutters would stain their hands, arms and clothes with the red sap of the trees, and impregnate their clothes with the sweet aroma of the small yellow logwood flowers. The logwood trees grow in swampy conditions and often the logwood cutters were forced to wade in a few feet of water to perform their work. Dampier didn’t care about any of this. He made notes about how the cutters lived and worked, and about their trade secrets and scams. He also took delight in writing about the wildlife, recording the sight and sounds of armadillos, humming birds, snakes and spiders. Typically he also described the taste of each of the animals that attracted his attention. And then a hurricane struck. The winds were so strong that it was impossible to stand in them, the rains were so heavy that boats were sunk. Most of the logwood camps were washed away; possessions lost in a sea of mud. ‘At Trist were four Vessels riding before the Storm; one of them was driven off to Sea, and never heard of afterwards’, wrote Dampier.

18

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 18

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Jamaica and Beyond ‘Another was cast dry upon the shore, where she lay and was never got off again: But the third rode it out’. Dampier, who was left with only the red-stained, sweet-smelling clothes he stood up in, made it over to Beef Island. The team in which he was working had huts about ten miles from One-Bush-Key. The area had been flooded to a depth of over a metre (three feet) and their provisions ruined. But at least they had a ‘good canoe’ that would take all four of them. They paddled to the key, where they expected to find four ships moored. Three had been blown out to sea and only one remained which gave them ‘very cold entertainment’. Cold, wet and hungry, they paddled on. Coming within three miles of Beef Island ‘we saw a Flag in the Woods, made fast to a Pole, and placed on the top of a high Tree. And coming still nearer, we at last saw a Ship in the Woods, about 200 Yards from the Sea’. It was sitting in three feet of water at the head of a channel clawed through the trees as the vessel was driven ashore. Dampier and his three fellow logwood cutters paddled up to the vessel and went aboard, where they were ‘kindly entertained’ with offers of food and punch. Clearly the logwood season was over. To rebuild his lost capital, Dampier went pirating. Two pirate ketches soon arrived and a number of the logwood cutters, including Dampier, agreed to join them. In doing so, he stepped beyond the law. The ships did not go too far but cruised up and down the bay, mainly making assaults on Indian villages and making off with their provisions. They made at least one attempt on a more substantial town, attacking Alvarado, about forty miles from Veracruz. The town was defended, and in a battle lasting four or five hours, ten or more of the sixty pirate attackers were killed. By the time the fort surrendered, most of the inhabitants had fled upstream, taking their valuables with them. All the pirates could find to take were some chickens, sides of beef and barrels of salted fish, plus some parrots. With their decks piled high with coops and barrels, the crews loafed about on deck ‘bidding the “yellow and red” parrots to say “Damn” or “Pretty Polly” or other ribaldry’, said Masefield. ‘But before any parrot could have lost his Spanish accent, the pirates were called from their lessons by the sight of seven Spanish warships, under all sail, coming up to the river-bar from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their guns were run out’. Luckily the tide was on its way out, giving the pirates a chance. Carried by the tide, they closed on the Spanish ships coming towards them, struggling to make headway against the tide. Making ready for a fight, the two pirate ships ditched their cargo overboard. ‘Many a Pretty Polly there quenched her blasphemy in water, and many a lump of beef went to the mud to gorge the alligators’, wrote Masefield.

19

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 19

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland In no time the pirates were in range of the ten-gun Spanish flagship, the  Toro. Shots were exchanged with much noise and smoke but little damage to either side. Dampier was in the leading ship, which stood to the eastward, followed by her consort. After her came the Toro, followed by a ship of four guns, and by five smaller vessels manned with musketeers. The Toro ranged up on the quarter of Dampier’s ship, designing to board her. The pirates dragged their cannon aft, and fired at her repeatedly, in hopes to have lamed either mast or yard. This tactic failed, but seeing the Toro tack one way, Dampier’s ship tacked the other and made off under a hail of fire from the other Spanish ships. Having sailed a mile to windward, Dampier’s ship tacked again, loosening its sails to sail back down wind so as to assist the other pirate ship, which was now under heavy fire. ‘As she ran down, she opened fire on the Toro, who fell off, and shook her ears, edging in to the shore, to escape, with her fleet after her. They made no fight of it, but tacked and hauled to the wind and stood away for Alvarado’. It had been a narrow escape and the pirates knew that if captured they would likely be sold off into slavery, to help row a galley or condemned to menial tasks while fettered to a ball and chain. After this Dampier went back to Campeche and his logwood camp where he stayed another year before returning to Jamaica and then to England. During his stay in the Caribbean, Dampier had stepped on alligators (by mistake), survived infection by parasitic worms, had marvelled at hummingbirds (‘no bigger than an overgrown wasp’, they kept their wings in ‘quick motion, like bees’) and had been chased and shot at by Spanish men-o-war. He had lived through a hurricane, shared yarns (and rum) with the roughest of the rough. He had eaten many kinds of exotic animals, talked to parrots, shot cattle from a canoe and somehow survived being lost in the maze-like mangrove swamps of Campeche. He had seen enough excitement for any twenty-six-year-old (for now, at least) and had probably been able to accumulate a little money. When he returned to England, arriving in August in 1678, Dampier had been away for over four years. If he reflected on his logwood cutting days he would have taken much from the experience, including the realisation that when down on his luck and out of money he had been prepared to do almost anything, including breaking the law and risking his freedom, as well as his life.

20

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 20

15-10-2022 03:18:50

Chapter 3

The Farmer takes a Wife Dampier might have asked his new wife what on earth he had done when they peered over the damp rails of their ship when it sailed up the Thames in August 1678. Summer was hot for England that year, but probably not for somebody who had spent four years in the Caribbean. Only the previous winter the Thames had been frozen over, as was becoming a common event. To make the most of Atlantic wind patterns, their ship would have first sailed north from Jamaica, jogging up the east coast of North America, stopping at Virginia or New York, perhaps both. It would then have sailed east, catching the westerly trade winds which would have held up until they reached the approaches to the English Channel and beyond. Slipping through the narrowest point of the Channel off Dover, the ship would then have followed a more northerly heading along the Kentish coast, passing The Downs anchorage and avoiding the Goodwin Sands, its protective barrier that lies off Deal. Once beyond Thanet, it would have turned westwards, so as to sail along the North Foreshore and into the beginnings of the Thames estuary. The whole voyage would have taken no less than six weeks, and, depending on the number of ports of call (and whether or not Captain Hudsel was in charge) no more than three months. Now in the final stages of the voyage, Dampier would have been able to see the new Royal Navy shipyard at Sheerness, and the nearby ‘Nore’ anchorage, a muster-point for navy ships. Passing over the eponymous sandbar into the narrower confines of the Thames, he would have passed Tilbury Point, where the tarred body of an executed criminal might have been swinging in the breeze. He would later have passed near to execution dock in Wapping, where the Admiralty Court ‘turned off ’ those seamen condemned to die for mutiny, murder or piracy. Pirates were hanged using a shortened rope, meaning they died of strangulation rather than a broken neck, and their bodies were then left to be swept over by three tides. The worst of them were then tarred and their bodies hung at Tilbury, a warning to all passing mariners. Before reaching this far upstream, Dampier would have passed Blackwall, where the East India Company had its own wharves and where

21

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 21

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland its powerful trading ships would have been tied up. His own vessel would have anchored near Wapping Wall. Likely there would have been many more ships already there, mainly coastal trading craft, from which sprouted a forest of masts and rigging. An armada of smaller boats would have been splashing around them, coming and going, taking off cargoes of wood, meat, animals, grain; perhaps indigo, cocoa, coffee, or Jamaica pepper, or bringing provisions or men. London was a changing city. Many of the eighty-seven churches destroyed or damaged in the great fire of 1666 were still being rebuilt, ‘natural philosophers’, astronomers, architects, and all-round clever clogs Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke were leading the way. Wren had been appointed Surveyor of the King’s Works, and Hooke City Surveyor. Dampier and his bride, Judith, would have gone ashore at Wapping, waiting by the steps for their chests to be brought to them. After weeks at sea, the very ground they stood on would have seemed to move. No doubt the tide would have been receding by the time all was assembled and they likely hired a Hackney carriage of some sort to take them on the rest of the journey. For people used to walking, the four miles they had to cover might not have been too much of a step, but few would have thought of wading through the detritus that lurked in the streets and waterways of London, including excrement of all kinds. No house boasted drainage. The contents of chamber pots were collected by ‘night soil men’, or simply thrown into the street where open drains, ‘kennels’, flowed towards the river. Here the filth would join the dead animals, bloated and ghostly-white, and other debris that floated on the surface of the Thames. The better-off avoided soiling their footwear and their senses by hiring Sedan Chairs, seats within an enclosed box lifted by means of two poles. Two chairmen, one front, one aft, would trot along carrying their passenger, who sat, nosegay in hand, in some discomfort. Hackney carriages were for longer journeys and wide roads. William and Judith’s destination was Arlington House, which stood on the site of the current Buckingham Palace. It was the home of the first Earl of Arlington, Henry Bennet (two ‘e’s, two ‘n’s, but only one ‘t’), who had built the place at impressive speed after his former home on the same site, Gore House, had burnt down. Judith, it seems, was a member of the extended Bennet family. The journey would have been marked by impressive sights, telling sounds, and awful smells. In Wapping itself, there would have been the shouts of the porters hefting sacks, barrels, casks, chests and animals up and down

22

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 22

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Farmer takes a Wife the steps, cursing when something was dropped or spilt. There would have been the flapping of canvas, perhaps Coker Canvas, being unfurled as ships prepared to get underway. Probably there would have been children, street urchins waiting to scamper away with any scraps that came their way, dogs too, sniffing likely-looking spillages. There would have been waiting carts, some hand-pulled, others with horses between their shafts, snorting and scuffing the cobbles with their hooves. There would be the sound of ropes being pulled through wooden blocks, the thump of oars and the splashes of the oarsmen as they pulled their bum boats out into the river. Further upstream, past the Tower of London, once the temporary home of Sir Thomas Modyford, was the City of London proper, where some 100,000 people lived and worked. Here, the continuing reconstruction works would have been more obvious, with some buildings nestled within a cobweb of wooden scaffolds. At London Bridge, there would be the sounds of trading in the premises and stalls that lined the outsides of the bridge, and of the trashing of waterwheels below. Wherrymen would have shouted their presence with offers of their taxi services, and street traders would have hawked their offerings. Next, atop Ludgate Hill, would come St Pauls. Once used by Cromwell to stable his men’s horses, it was now in the early stages of a rebuild that would take forty years to complete. Further still, on the city outskirts, there were the stinks of cattle being herded into Smith’s Fields, and the equally offensive smell of Newgate Gaol, rebuilt only four years before. It was connected to the Old Bailey courthouse, where crimes would be tried in a three-sided courtroom. The fourth wall was left open so that those accused could be kept outside in the open air and thereby not infect the people who would judge them with gaol fever. Beyond was the river Fleet, an open sewer now having its banks shored up. Its stink was made even more obnoxious by the tanneries that lined its routes, operations that used dog faeces to convert their bloody hides into leather. Then Temple Bar, the western gate to the City of London, and after that, the Strand. To the right was Drury Lane, once the haunt of orange-seller and actress-turned-king’s-mistress Nell Gwyn. Further on, and to the left, was Salisbury House, which was in the process of being demolished. Beside it was Salisbury Steps leading down to the marshy river bank where it had long been planned to create an embankment. (In 1666 Dutchman John Kiviet had been knighted as a reward for his plans for creating such an embankment. By September the following year he had formed a partnership with junior politician, courtier, diarist, gardener

23

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 23

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Pirate who Stole Scotland and serial snob, John Evelyn, for the making of bricks supposedly to be used in the project. Fellow diarist, the navy secretary Samuel Pepys, later reported that Evelyn had lost £500 in the venture ‘by which he presumed to have got a great deal of money, so that I see the most ingenious men may sometimes be mistaken’.) Carrying on, William and Judith would have been taken through St James’s Park. Between it and the river stood Westminster Palace and its ‘cockpit’, the ‘pile of houses’ that was the London residence of King Charles II. The park was the place where only this month Charles first heard of the so-called Popish Plot. Fantasist and petty criminal Titus Oates was claiming there was a plan afoot to kill the king and replace him with his Catholic brother. The claim caught the public’s imagination. Eventually Oates was exposed as a fraudster, but not until years later and after the false conviction and unjust and sometimes bloody execution of over thirty people. The king, whose brother, sister and wife were already Catholic, and who had spent many years living in (Catholic) France, might have nipped the hysteria in the bud by telling everybody how silly this claim was. After all, there was no need for Catholics to kill him because he had already signed the secret Treaty of Dover in which he had undertaken to convert to Catholicism and to lead his nation the same way. He clearly thought it politic not to mention this. Arriving at Arlington House, the Dampiers would have been found rooms in the massive building, rooms in which Judith could live while William was away. Previous biographies of William Dampier have tended to dismiss Judith as an insignificant figure about whom no records seem to exist except from a few mentions by William himself. In his writing, William very much took the role of journalist; of being an observer rather than a participant. He said very little about his own life or deeds. In particular, it was always somebody else who did the dirty work; when it clearly wasn’t. Judith is only known about because of a throw-away line or two in Dampier’s most famous book, A New Voyage Round the World, first published in 1697, nineteen years after their arrival at Arlington House, and by when Lord Arlington was long dead. When describing a landfall among five islands in the Philippines, Dampier said: ‘The northernmost of them, where we first anchored, I called the Duke of Grafton’s Isle, as soon as we landed on it, having married my Wife out of his Duchess’s Family, and leaving her at Arlington House at my going abroad’. ‘His Duchess’s family’ were the Bennets, Isabella being Lord Arlington’s only daughter and successor to his titles, and wife of Lord Grafton; in fact widow, since by 1697 when Dampier published his book, Grafton was

24

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 24

15-10-2022 03:18:50

The Farmer takes a Wife dead. He had succumbed to wounds received at the 1690 Siege of Cork, serving King William when snuffing out James II’s feeble attempt to regain his throne. Because, at the time he reached the Philippines, Dampier had not been home since 1679, his mention of Judith was taken to mean he had married her when in England for perhaps five or six months between August 1678 and early 1679. If he did marry then, he would have had very little time to find and court a wife, plus equip himself with the substantial quantity of goods he took with him back to Jamaica. (Dampier said he left England ‘at the beginning of the year 1679’. But at this time the official year began on 25 March. January, February and early March would have been expressed as 1678/9. He may have been in England for as long as seven months, but not more. It could have been only three or four months). It is much more likely William married Judith before he set foot in England in 1678, perhaps in Jamaica, or even en route while in Virginia or even onboard ship. There were certainly Bennets (one ‘t’) in Jamaica. For example, William Bennet married one Jane Jones in 1671 and an Alice White four years later, Jane presumably having died. Probably Judith would not have travelled across the Atlantic to Jamaica or Virginia in the first place on her own. Most likely she would have gone with a husband, ordered by Lord Arlington to check on his interests, just as William had been ordered by Colonel Helyar to find out what was going on at Bybrook. This means that probably Judith was a widow when she married William, and perhaps also older than him. Lord Arlington certainly had overseas interests. He was an investor in the then struggling Royal African Company, a slave-trading company led by the king and his brother. He was also a member of various ‘Trade and Plantation’ committees (it was to him that Modyford had sent his 1670 survey of Jamaica, and he was a member of the Council for Trade and Plantations that considered the petition of Captain Cooke and other logwood shippers mentioned earlier). Arlington had been granted a tract of land in Virginia in recognition of his support for the Stuarts during the English Civil War and beyond, having lived with Charles and James for a time during their exile in France. By the time William Dampier came knocking on his door, Arlington was a heavyweight politician with a substantial track record. He was currently Postmaster General and Lord Chamberlain. A favourite of King Charles, he was responsible for securing him a supply of mistresses (Charles is thought to have had at least fourteen mistresses and eleven illegitimate

25

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 25

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland children. Most, but not all, were given surnames with the pre-fix ‘Fitz’, meaning ‘son of ’). The most notorious of these, apart perhaps from Nell Gwyn, was Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (the king had made her cuckolded husband Earl of Castlemaine). Villiers had remained close to Arlington and in 1672 one of her sons by Charles, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, married Arlington’s only daughter, Isabella Bennet. She was four or five at the time and he was nine. They had a second marriage in 1679, after Dampier had left Arlington House. Isabella and Henry subsequently moved to Euston Hall in Suffolk. The Earl of Arlington, Henry Bennet who had supported the AngloDutch Wars, had married a Dutch bride, and who knew about the secret Treaty of Dover, died in 1685, leaving his earldom and his properties, including Euston Hall, to his only child, Isabella. Marriage at this time was primarily a private contract between two people which effectively transferred the bride’s possessions to her new husband. For all but the poorest, there would be a dowry involved, paid by the father of the bride, unless the wife was a widow and as a result had her own wealth. There was no requirement for a ceremony, much less that it should be in a church, or even in public. Of course, there were public marriages. William’s own brother George married Mary Bartlett in Godmanstone, Dorset in 1674.1 But if William and Judith married overseas, or even on board a ship, this was even more reason why there should be no record of the event. That Judith should be a relative of Lady Arlington, and not a servant in her household, as has been suggested, provides explanation of other aspects of William’s life. To start with William was clearly reasonably affluent in 1678/79. He paid for his passage to Jamaica. This was no small investment. Most people arriving in Jamaica and North America at this time did so as indentured servants. They would have been obliged to sign indentures to pay for their passage; a loan that would have taken at least five years to pay off. Many never achieved freedom again, either because they died before completing their indenture, or because it was continually extended by the addition of various warranted and unwarranted charges. This had been a problem for Dampier when first going to Jamaica. He had understood Colonel Helyar to have said he would foot the bill for the passage but the colonel’s London agents had other ideas and pressed Dampier to sign indentures. He refused and signed on as a member of the ship’s crew instead, and so worked his passage.

26

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 26

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Farmer takes a Wife This time, however, Dampier not only paid for his passage but also had no worries that we would be unable to settle any ‘extras’. And, as mentioned above, he took with him a substantial cargo of trading goods. He may have made a reasonable amount of money from his logwood cutting, although payment was often made in rum, or from his pirating. But he is also likely to have had the benefit of wealth brought to the marriage by Judith. Her less than lowly status would also explain how it was, in an age of patronage and preferment, that he was able to move seamlessly from the company of thieves and rogues to that of scientists, philosophers, politicians, barons, earls, kings and queens – and how he was able to make proposals of national importance to those at the very highest level. Dampier may have married for love with no regard to reward, but it does not seem too likely. He hardly seems capable of such emotions. Even so, he and Judith had a long marriage and he took care to see she was provided for when making his later voyages. But given what happened next, it does not seem that, at the outset at least, he was consumed by unquenchable passion.

27

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 27

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Chapter 4

A Taste of the Darien ‘I First set out of England on this Voyage at the beginning of the year 1679, in the Loyal Merchant of London, bound for Jamaica, Captain Knapman Commander. I went a Passenger, designing when I came there to go from there to the Bay of Campeachy in the Gulf of Mexico to cut Logwood’. So starts Dampier’s book A New Voyage Round the World which describes his twelve-year odyssey. Dampier never did go back to Campeche. Arriving at Port Royal in April 1679, he soon changed his mind about what to do next. His first idea had been to sell his goods and use the money to buy ‘rum, sugar, saws, axes, hats, stockings and shoes and such other commodities as I knew would sell among the Campeachy logwood cutters’. Dampier did sell his ‘English cargo’ soon enough, but on ‘maturer consideration’ he decided against going back to Campeche. Instead he stayed in Jamaica for the rest of the year ‘in expectation of some other business’. He does not ‘trouble the reader’ with details of this ‘other business’ but says he ‘made a purchase of a small estate in Dorsetshire, near my native country of Somerset’. To be able to buy an estate, however small, he must have shipped out a substantial ‘English cargo’ or have been able to issue a suitably large letter of credit. Either way, the deal was done and Dampier prepared to go home. ‘I was just embarking myself for England, about Christmas 1697, when one Mr Hobby invited me to go first a short trading voyage to the country of the Moskitos’. William agreed to go along, as he was ‘willing to get up some money’ having already spent all that he had brought with him. The deeds for the ‘small estate’, were sent back to England entrusted to the friends whom he would otherwise have accompanied. Mention of the estate does not crop up again in Dampier’s writings, but somebody must have been charged with its care. George Dampier was the obvious choice. Probably George and his Dorsetshire wife moved in and perhaps Judith also, at some stage. In his will Dampier left his brother something. At that time George was living in ‘Pouton’ (probably Poulton-le-Fylde) near Bridport.1 Perhaps this was where the ‘small estate’ was?

28

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 28

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Taste of the Darien William’s explanation of his decision not to return to England sounds a little like an excuse put into his book for the sake of Judith. And especially so, considering what happened next. Dampier sailed with Hobby to Negril Bay on the far west coast of Jamaica. It was a rendezvous point for ‘privateers’ (as William described them) and some of the best-known local exponents of that calling were already anchored there. They included captains Coxon, Sawkins, and Sharp. At least two of them had scored a notable ‘success’ only a year or so earlier. A letter from the informer ‘Don Pedro’, received in London in October 1679, said: ‘There has been lately taken from the Spaniards by Coxon, Batharpe, Bothing, and Hawkins, with their crew, 500 chests of indigo, a great quantity of cacao, cochineal, tortoiseshell, money, and plate. Much is brought into this country already, and the rest expected’.2 The same letter recorded that Captain Cooke, still smarting from the seizure of his pink, had taken matters into his own hands. He and his crew had rowed ashore in Cuba ‘where in a small time came a Spanish bark with cacao and money’. They seized the vessel and brought it away ‘and the cacao was brought in by shallops and paid custom, and was landed and shared’. ‘Don Pedro’ warned that all Jamaicans would be blamed when ‘in truth they are exceedingly against it, knowing that His Majesty had commanded a peace with the Spaniards’. Besides, he said, ‘it hinders and discourages the manufacture of this place, for those that can buy privateer goods cheap will not lay out their money on such unless they can have them much under the usual price’. Presumably those who bought privateer goods cheap were not amongst those ‘exceedingly against it’. Even so, ‘Don Pedro’ confirmed that the newly arrived navy ship Success had been ‘sent out to seize on all the goods they can find which do not appear to be intended hither for the payment of duty’. Hawkins had not been among those who took the indigo, but had been at Santa Martha, ‘which he and other privateers took not long since and plundered’. ‘Don Pedro’ warned that, so long as the pirates were able to bring their plunder to Jamaica and legitimise it by paying customs duty, ‘they will daily increase, and great depredations will be made on the Spaniards’. It seems the Treaty of Madrid was not being enforced too strictly. The Success, a fifth-rated, thirty-two-gun ship that had fought at the Battle of Texel, was not too well named. In 1679 its captain George Tyete had just died and its second-in-command, Thomas Johnson, had taken over. The following year the ship was wrecked on her own anchor.

29

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 29

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Masefield takes up the story of Dampier, Captain Hobby and the ‘privateers’. They had the red wheft flying, for they were bound on the account, to raid the Main. The boats alongside them were full of meat and barrels. Mr Hobby’s men did not wait to learn more than the fact that the ships were going cruising. They dumped their chests into the dinghy, and rowed aboard of them, and listed themselves among the sunburnt ruffians who were hoisting out the water breakers. Dampier and Mr Hobby were left alone on their ship, within hearing of the buccaneers, who sang, and danced to the fiddle, and clinked the cannikin, till the moon had set. For three or four days they stayed there, hearing the merriment of the rovers, but at the end of the fourth day Dampier wearied of Mr Hobby, and joined the buccaneers, who were glad to have him. In his version of events, Dampier had again played the part of the reluctant participant. And once again. he had stepped outside the law. As ‘Don Pedro’ had pointed out, the Treaty of Madrid, ‘for the settlement of all disputes in America’, still held and England and Spain were at peace. These were not privateers Dampier had joined, they were pirates, whatever their flaky commissions might pretend. ‘It was shortly after Christmas 1679 when we set out’, wrote Dampier. ‘The first expedition was to Portobello’, he blithely reports. This, apparently, was ‘accomplished’. Portobello was not an insignificant place. It had long been the principal shipping point for New World treasures and for more mundane goods coming from and going to mainland Spain. Although the Isthmus of Panama connects north and south America, it actually runs more or less from west to east (and separates the North Seas, the Caribbean, and the South Seas, the Pacific). Portobello lays on the Caribbean (north) side of the isthmus, roughly halfway along its 400-mile length. It is opposite Panama City, on the south side of the isthmus. In 1680, it was one of the most important staging posts in the Spanish Empire. (Nowadays ‘the Darien’ refers to a particular part of Panama close to the Columbian border. In Dampier’s time, before the State of Panama was ever dreamt of, ‘the Darien’ was the name given to the whole of the area now occupied by Panama.) Gold from the Andes and stolen from the Incas, and silver from the mines of Potosi (in modern-day Bolivia), were carried overland by pack animals to

30

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 30

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Taste of the Darien Panama City. Silver was shipped up there from Lima. Meanwhile, treasures of the East including precious gems, jade, valuable ceramics, lacquer-ware, silks and exotic fabrics, that had been brought to Mexico by the annual ‘Manila Galleon’, were also sent to Panama City. In the years that the Spanish treasure fleets were expected (once this had been an annual event but by 1680 their arrivals were less frequent; Dampier said once every three years) all was taken by mule-train the sixty miles or so from Panama City to Portobello. There was a problem, however. Although Portobello was ideally situated for ease of access, had a deep harbour and strong walls, it was far from ideal when it came to living conditions. The place was swampy, hot, damp and notoriously unhealthy. Because of this, the full-time population was never large; just a fraction of the size that it would be for the month of each treasure fleet visitation. The fleets went first to Cartagena where they typically stayed for two months. News of their arrival would be sent to Spain’s possessions, so that they might ship their tributes in gold, silver and other valuables either directly to Portobello, or to Portobello via Panama, which had stables full of mules kept ready to transport the ‘King’s Treasure’ (Dampier estimated the worth at 24 million pieces of eight) to Portobello. In those weeks that the fleet was in town, there would be a fair in Portobello in which everything available in the seventeenth-century world could be bought and sold. The treasure fleet was not just there to take away silver and gold. Its ships had come laden with commodities of all kinds, and also with traders willing to talk up their business by telling their New World fellow countrymen about all that was going on at home; the latest inventions, the latest fashions, and the latest prices. Each fleet was comprised of a mixture of ships; merchantmen and highsided Royal Galleons to protect them. It was a risky business. Loss of men through scurvy or flux was expected, but there were also the attentions of predatory interlopers to negotiate, unmarked reefs to avoid, and unexpected storms to weather. Only months after Dampier’s excursion to Portobello the Nuestra Señora de Encarnación, a carrack belonging to the Treasure Fleet, was caught in a storm and sunk near the mouth of the river Chagres, where the pirates would shortly be heading. Dampier and his pirate gang landed well short of Portobello so as to be able to spring a surprise attack. With much difficulty, they covered the seventy miles in a few days before falling on the town. The few inhabitants who were there ran into the castle (which the pirates had no desire to take or

31

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 31

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland intention of attacking) and for two days looked on as the pirates ransacked their homes and stole their belongings. The thieves only stopped long enough to rush out and capture a Spanish barque that had the misfortune to sail too close to the town. (The description ‘barque’ came to have a more specific meaning; a larger ship with three masts and some fore and aft sails. Here, and in the rest of the narrative, it can be taken to refer, as the pirates themselves did, to a much smaller one-masted vessel with fore and aft sails, much closer to a Thames Barge than a Galleon). The takings were not huge, not by the standards of Henry Morgan, who had taken Portobello eleven years before, a Treasure Fleet year, as a prelude to his march on Panama City. Even so, the pirates were hyped up by their success and decided that if they were capable of emulating Morgan’s raid on Portobello and live to tell the tale, they could also try to repeat his next step and make an attempt on Panama City. ‘It was resolved to march by land over the Isthmus of Darien, upon some new adventures in the South Seas’, wrote Dampier. ‘Accordingly, on the 5th of April, we went ashore on the isthmus near Golden Island, one of the Samballoes, to the number of between three and four hundred men, carrying such provisions as were necessary, and toys with which to gratify the wild Indians through whose country we were to pass. In about nine days’ march we arrived at Santa Maria and took it, and after a stay there of about three days, we went on to the South Seas coast’. It all sounded so easy. It wasn’t. Dampier was giving what these days would be labelled a much-redacted version of events. Seven ships, including that of Captain Cooke who had now joined the group, rendezvoused at Golden Island in April 1680. Their captains were Coxon and his ninety-seven men, Harris and 107 men, Sawkins, thirty-five men, Sharp, forty, Cooke, forty-three, Alleston twenty-four, and Macket (or Maggot) twenty. They agreed to attack Santa Maria on the way to Panama City, as Morgan had done. Near the Gulf of San Miguel, on the south side of the isthmus, Santa Maria was a fortified town used as a collection point for gold from nearby mines. Here it was stored before being transported to Panama City. Alleston and Macket, with about twenty-five men, were to remain with the ships while the others went off, split into companies and marching under their respective captain’s colours. Basil Ringrose, who wrote an account of the raid, put the number who set out to cross the Darien at 330. ‘Sharp came first, with some Indian guides, one of whom helped the captain, who was sick and faint with a fever’, wrote Masefield.

32

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 32

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Taste of the Darien This vanguard had a red flag, with a bunch of white and green ribbons. The second company, or main battle, was led by the admiral, Richard Sawkins, who had a red flag striped with yellow. The third and fourth companies, which were under one captain (Peter Harris), had two green flags. The fifth and sixth companies, under Captain John Coxon, had each of them a red flag. The rear-guard was led by Edmond Cooke, with red colours striped with yellow, with a hand and sword for his device. All or most of the men who landed, were armed with a French fuzee (or musket), a pistol and hanger, with two pounds of powder and proportionable bullets. Each of them carried a scrip or satchel containing three or four cakes of bread, or doughboys, weighing half-a-pound apiece, with some modicum of turtle flesh. For drink the rivers afforded enough. Besides Dampier, the force included Ringrose and Lionel Wafer. Like Ringrose, Wafer later put his name to an account of the crossing. Ringrose and Dampier were in Sharp’s lead group, Wafer was with Coxon. One thing is certain. These were not soldiers ‘marching’ behind brightly coloured flags. They were uncouth, unwashed ruffians clawing their way through soggy undergrowth and spine-covered thicket. They were in and out of their canoes, often having to drag them overland to the next navigable stretch of water. They all had a terrible time. April is the start of the wet season in the Darien, when it rains nearly every day. A total of almost fourteen inches of rain can be expected in the month. In July and August, the heart of the rainy season, twenty-nine inches worth of rain generally falls (in England and Scotland, more than three inches of rain would count as a wet month). April temperatures in the Darien, like most months, are in the 80s. When on foot, the travellers crossed and re-crossed rivers that meandered through their route, rivers that were choked with fallen, rotting tree trunks. They climbed trees to avoid flash floods. They made sure they slept off the ground for fear of being bitten by snakes. They waded through swamps filled with biting things. They watched out for alligators, they were kept awake by monkeys’ awful shrieks and the buzz of mosquitos, they feared being pounced upon by stalking Jaguars, and they brushed off giant spiders. They got lost and were obliged to climb mountains and scrabble down their shale-clad slopes.

33

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 33

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland In the mountains ‘we ran much danger oftentimes, and in many places, The Mountain being so perpendicular, and the path so narrow, but that one man at a time could pass’, wrote Basil Ringrose in his journal. At midnight on the ninth day, they arrived just outside Santa Maria. They had been helped along the way by a few local Kuna Indians and, as they neared their target, more Indians arrived. It turned out later that they had vowed to avenge the ill-treatment of their chief-of-chief’s daughter, who had been kidnapped and raped. Now pregnant, she was being held in the town. Next day the pirates and their Indian escorts attacked. In all, they were just shy of 380 men, of whom fifty were Indians. They estimated there were 200 Spaniards currently stationed in the town. There would have been 200 more had a detachment not been sent off in a barque three days before to make an important six-monthly delivery to Panama City. ‘As soon as we came out of the Woods into the open ground, we were descried by the Spaniards, who had received before-hand intelligence of our coming, and were prepared to receive us’, wrote Ringrose. The Spaniards ran back into their stockade and started firing at the pirates ‘very briskly’. Paying little heed, an advance guard of fifty pirates ran into the stockade ‘and made themselves Masters thereof ’. Some twenty-six Spaniards were killed in the brief battle, sixteen were wounded while ‘their Governor, their Priest, and all, or most of their chief men, made their escape by flight’. Two pirates had been injured. But that was not the end of the carnage. ‘After the Fight, the Indians destroyed as many more of the Spaniards as we had done in the assault, by taking them into the adjoining Woods, and there stabbed them to death with their lances’, said Ringrose. He claimed that when the pirates found out what was going on, they had put a stop to the killing. Already mistrustful of the ‘cunning’ Indians, the pirates now became yet more wary of them. They were even less happy with their haul from the raid. They had expected gold in abundance and a decent town to hold to ransom along with some high-ranking officials. They got none of these things. The town ‘proved to be only some wild houses made of Cane, the place being chiefly a Garrison designed to keep the Indians in subjection, who bear a mortal hatred, and are often apt to rebel against the Spaniards’, wrote Ringrose. ‘But as bad a place as it was, our fortune was much worse. For we came only three days too late, or else we had met with three hundredweight of Gold, which was carried thence to Panama by Barque’. At this point, most of the Kuna Indians left for home. They were shortly followed by the pirates, who jumped into every available canoe and paddled

34

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 34

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Taste of the Darien towards the sea. The Kuna chief-of-chief ’s son (called ‘Golden Cap’ by the pirates on account of the nature of his improvised crown) and his entourage insisted on going with the pirates. They also took with them as many of the Spanish soldiers as they could accommodate but had to leave most to take their chances with those Indians who had lingered on. Within a week the pirates had reached the Pacific, stolen two barques, and taken the island of Chepillo. Of the two barques, Captain Sharp had immediately sailed off in one to the Kings Islands in search of water (taking with him his crew of 137 men). The other proved something of a tub, so slow that it could not keep up with the pirates continuing by canoe. Harris, who had captured the ship, transferred to the main party for the voyage to Panama and left his thirty men to follow on with the barque as best they could. The pirates stayed at Chepillo only a few hours. Coxon and Sawkins had rowed out to board another barque which was going past the island under a press of sail, says Masefield. ‘The wind was so light that the canoas overhauled her, but before they could hook to her chains a young breeze, freshening at that instant, swept her clear of danger’. The barque had got away, leaving one pirate, a Mr Bull, shot dead. Seeing the vessel sail off in the direction of Panama, the pirates guessed those on board would raise the alarm. And so, to retain some element of surprise, they decided to leave Chepillo as quickly as possible and to paddle all night. They took with them a ‘great store’ on plantains, water, and ‘two fat hogs’. The fourteen prisoners they had taken on Chepillo were passed over to the Kuna Indians still with them. The pirates’ expectation was that they would be killed. In fact, all but one escaped. They ‘forced their way through those barbarous Indians, in spite of their Lances, Bows and Arrows, and got into the Wood of the Island’, said Ringrose. At four in the afternoon, sixty-eight of the pirates set off for Panama – thirty-six had found places in one or other of the best five canoes, and the remaining thirty-two, including ‘Golden Cap’, were in one of two periaguas (larger and heavier dugout canoes).

35

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 35

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Chapter 5

Rivers of Blood It was just before sunrise on 23 April 1680 that the pirates reached Panama City; in time to admired the ‘pleasant shew’. Besides the white-walled city, they also noticed a number of ships anchored in front of the warehouses that fronted Perico island, a loading and unloading point for ships about six miles out into the bay. There were five ‘great ships’ and ‘three pretty big Barques, called Barcos de la Armadilla, or little men of War; the word Armadilla signifying a Little Fleet’, Ringrose explained. As the pirates had guessed might happen, the Spaniards had been forewarned of their arrival in the area and the three barcos had been prepared and manned, ready to confront them. They carried a total complement of two hundred and twenty-eight men, split, it seems, along racial lines, but each commanded by an ex-pat Spaniard. The first, captained by Don Diego de Carabaxal, had a crew of ‘sixty-five Mestizos, of Mulatos, or Tawney-moores’. The second commanded by Don Jacinto de Barabona, a ‘High Admiral of those seas’, had eighty Spanish volunteers ‘who came designedly to shew their Valour’, and six Bicayners (Basque seamen). The third, whose captain was ‘an old and stout Spaniard’, Don Fransisco de Peralta, had a crew comprising ‘seventy-seven Negros’. The moment those on board the barcos clapped eyes on the pirates ‘they instantly weighed Anchor and got under sail, coming directly to meet us’, said Ringrose. In no time they were to windward and bearing down on the pirates. To paddle away was hardly an option. The Spaniards would have simply sailed after them and run them down. Having come so far, the pirates decided to make a fight of it. Heavily outnumbered they had a few potential advantages. The barcos were warships but were not huge. They probably had a few deck-mounted low-calibre cannons and a lot of men; so many in fact that they were obliged to crowd the decks, making them an easy target for musket fire. Neither were the vessels large enough to have dedicated powder cabins below the waterline and the explosives had to be carried in earthenware jars. On the other hand, the canoes were small and sat low in the water. Each carried eight or fewer men and, crucially, they were not reliant on the wind

36

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 36

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Rivers of Blood to move. With paddle power to call on, they were much more manoeuvrable than the Spanish ships. What is more, their movement was not predictable. In other words, they were difficult targets. If only they could get to windward of the ‘little fleet’, they would be able to stay out of its grasp, passing this way and that, all the while peppering the enemy with musket shot. And with this in mind, the pirates paddled their canoes and periaguas directly towards the oncoming ships, thinking to pass through their lines and gain the windward gauge. The Spaniards, meanwhile, confident of their superior strength and discounting the devastating effect of a well-aimed musket volley (and perhaps surprised also at the outlandish audacity of these scruffy seamen), obliged the pirates with their off-hand tactics. Carabaxal‘s lead barco chose to sail between two canoes, loosing cannon fire at each as he drew level, both bursts causing casualties in the canoes. But the effect was not so great as to prevent those on board these narrow, unstable boats from unleashing a volley of musket fire, one from each side. ‘He paid so dear for his passage between us, that he was not very quick in coming about’, wrote Ringrose. Thinking the pirates would not have had time to re-load their weapons, the admiral’s barco tried the same manoeuvre. ‘It fell out much worse for him’, said Ringrose. ‘We were so fortunate as to kill the man at the Helm’. As a result, the ship luffed up into the wind and lay in irons, stationery and temporarily unable to move. Paddling closer, the pirates shot down any of the crew that attempted to take the helm, and ‘besides such slaughter’ further disabled the ship by firing into its rigging. Meanwhile, Peralta’s barco came up and was immediately attacked by Sawkins, the two vessels lying alongside each other ‘giving and receiving death to each other as fast as they could charge’. Now the first barco came about and made to return to the battle. But two canoes broke away from their fight and headed straight for it, determined to board the vessel. With so many already dead and scarce enough men left standing to sail the ship, its captain had second thoughts and veered away downwind in the freshening breeze. As if the admiral’s barco had not already been in enough trouble, the pirates managed to get a canoe under the stern and close enough to drive wedges behind the rudder. Now the ship could not be steered even if somebody should be able to take the helm. It was condemned to lay helpless in the water and could do nothing other than soak up the pirates’ merciless volleys. One of these killed the admiral, along with his chief pilot. ‘Now they were almost quite disabled and disheartened likewise, seeing what a bloody massacre we had made among them with our shot’, said Ringrose.

37

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 37

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland With two thirds of its crew killed, the barco surrendered. The pirates had time to transfer their wounded to their prize before returning to concentrate on helping Sawkins win his ‘hot dispute’. Coming up close, the pirates fired a ‘full volley’ expecting to receive the like in return. It didn’t come. Instead there was an explosion. This was followed by another in another part of the ship. There were dead bodies everywhere. The exchange had lasted for a number of hours, but wasn’t over yet. Feeling invincible, with the smell of gunpowder in their nostrils and the taste of blood in their mouths, the pirates headed for the largest of the five galleons anchored in the bay, the Santisima Trinidad. Seeing a bunch of bloodied and bandaged mad-men closing in on them, shouting and screaming at the tops of their voices, all the while brandishing their smoking muskets and blood-stained cutlasses, those on board the Spanish vessel were quick to haul down their colours and surrender. The other four ships followed suit. It turned out these ships had been poorly manned; men having been transferred to the barcos in readiness to meet the pirates. The Santisima Trinidad had escaped from Morgan’s grasp nine years earlier, snatching its treasures away from him. It was a substantial ship of four hundred tons, and loaded with wine, sugar, sweetmeats, skins and soap. It was soon made the pirates’ flagship and re-named Trinity, although what the pirates had in mind for it was far from ‘holy’. The second ship was about three hundred tons and in its hold it carried iron bars, a high-value cargo. The Spaniards pretended otherwise and said they didn’t want the bars back at any price. To teach them a (pirate) lesson, the victors burned the ship. The third ship was one hundred and eighty tons and was full of sugar. She was given to Captain Cooke. The fourth was ‘an old ship of sixty Tons’ and this was also burnt. And the fifth ship, of fifty tons, was given to Coxon. Some eighteen pirates had been killed and twenty-two injured, including Captain Harris, who died shortly afterwards of his injuries. He had been shot through both legs. Gangrene had set in and his ‘putrid’ leg had been amputated but his going through the horror of such an operation without the benefit of anaesthetics had been in vain. Ringrose went aboard two of the barcos after the action had ended and was shocked by the level of carnage. On Peralta’s barco, ‘not one man there was found but was either killed, desperately wounded, or horribly burnt with Powder’. On the admiral’s vessel, he was astonished to find only twenty-five men still alive, sixty-one having been killed. ‘But what is more, of these twenty-five men (still living), only eight were able to bear Arms, all the rest being desperately wounded, and by their wounds totally disabled to make

38

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 38

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Rivers of Blood resistance or defend themselves. Their blood ran down the decks in whole streams, and not scarce one place in the ship was found that was free from blood’. Mad-man in chief in the battle had been Sawkins, who fought from the front and never stepped back. He might not have known danger when he saw it, but he would have recognised the inside of a prison cell. He had been one of those pirates arrested and hauled back to Jamaica by the soonto-be wrecked Success. Like so many times before, his arrest did not lead to prosecution and he was freed to join the Darien ‘adventure’ and lead his men under his yellow-striped red banner. The pirate ethic was to honour and reward bravery, especially when it brought extra prize money, and Sawkins was soon elected commander in chief. Coxon, who had been disgruntled and talking about returning to the Caribbean ever since the disappointment of Santa Maria, took umbrage at his demotion and stormed off to sail back to the Santa Maria River in his new ship and from there march back across the Darien. He took his ship’s surgeon with him, and his valued medical chest. Some seventy of the pirate gang also went along, plus most of those Indian leaders who were still with the pirates. The chief-of-chief’s son, Golden Cap, and his nephew were entrusted to Sawkins with a demand that the pirates ‘not be less vigorous in annoying their enemy and ours’. It is not known if Dampier was present at the ‘Battle of Perico’. He could have been one of those who sailed away with Sharp. But he was a friend and companion of Ringrose, who was also in Sharp’s company and who definitely did take part in the battle. It would be typical of Dampier not to mention something of this nature if it implicated him in law-breaking, and certainly not if wholesale slaughter was involved. So, he may very well have been there. Either way, the incident would have unnerved him. When he threw in his lot with the ‘privateers’, Dampier was probably expecting a few easy prizes, perhaps some French tubs, lumbering between the islands with their cargos of indigo, flour, sugar, marmalade; perhaps even logwood: easy prizes and easy money. But it hadn’t turned out that way. He had somehow got himself involved in something much bigger; the sacking of one of Spain’s most important cities, the storming of a garrison that saw Spanish troops shot down, the butchering of yet more soldiers by resentful Indians, and now carnage on a massive scale. It was not likely to be forgotten easily. Dampier would have known that the laws on piracy were hard to enforce. They relied on the Offences at Sea Act, passed in 1536 during the reign

39

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 39

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland of Henry VIII when there was no thought of Caribbean colonies. The act required those accused of piracy to be questioned and tried in England. For a pirate to go to trial he, or she, had to be caught, go before a jury, and sent to England along with suitable evidence. This didn’t happen too often, both because of the cost and the difficulty of getting local juries to take things further. Juries were reluctant to condemn people who they looked to for protection; and for cheap goods. This was all well and good for pirates who had no ambition to go anywhere other than the Caribbean, West Africa, or the Red Sea. But Dampier did have such ambition. He had a wife at home, a brother to whom he was close, and a ‘small estate’ to call his own. He could wait for one of the amnesties for pirates that came along from time to time. But there was no guarantee there would be further amnesties or pardons. Another tactic would be to provide his countrymen with something of such value that they would overlook his crimes. And the thing of most value that he could lay his hands on was information. Pirates valued intelligence about people and places, about ships, about wind and currents, about tides, about suitable places to careen their ships, where to water, and where to find wood to burn and that suitable for new masts, about which crops to grow and where, and about fishing. Sometimes this information came at a huge price. Inducements were offered and threats made; threats that were all too often carried through. Dampier was clearly a meticulous man who kept detailed records, otherwise he would not have been such a successful navigator. Sometime after the Battle of Perico, the idea began to form in his head of assembling a ‘how to’ book, a self-help volume for fellow countrymen who wished to take advantage of all the world had to offer. Dampier was fascinated by nature and natural phenomena. He went in search of birds, animals, fish, and plant life. He logged wind patterns and ocean currents, he recorded magnetic variations and the height of tides. He noted the safest approaches to anchorages and harbours. He charted islands and havens. He was a naturalist, but his interest was not esoteric. Just as pirates in general became quasi-socialists as a matter of self-interest, so Dampier wrote about nature and natural phenomena with a purpose in mind. He hardly ever mentions an animal’s appearance without also describing its taste. Flamingos move about in pink clouds but their tongues make a feast fit for a king. Seals are only good for their oil. Tortoises can be kept alive for months on their backs in the hold of a ship, so as to provide a ready source of fresh meat.

40

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 40

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Rivers of Blood Such an approach (buying a pardon with valuable information), was no mere pipedream. Bartholomew Sharp effectively bought himself a pardon by presenting Charles II with a book of charts, a ‘Waggoner’, that he had captured from a Spanish prize. Charts, although crude at this time, were highly valued. Keeping them secret from other nations was considered imperative and captains of Spanish ships were instructed, should they be taken, to destroy all Waggoners on board. Dampier knew the value of information and decided to record all that he could, accumulate his valuable intelligence, and wait. For now, he would go along with his Darien adventure.

41

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 41

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Chapter 6

A Year to the Day A year to the day after the taking of Santa Maria, Dampier began his journey back to the Caribbean. It had been an eventful year. Following the Battle of Perico, the pirates were soon re-joined by Sharp and by the crew of the tardy vessel that Harris had abandoned to his great misfortune. Along the way Harris’ old crew had acquired a faster and better barque. According to Ringrose, they had cut down the masts of the old vessel, put their prisoners on board and set it adrift. The next day, the re-united pirate force took another barque in the Bay of Panama and repeated this act of cruelty, putting aboard ‘all the meanest of the Prisoners’. Triumphant, they stayed on in the bay, taking any craft that came their way and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They knew they were not strong enough to take Panama City, but this did not stop Sawkins demanding payment and an undertaking from the governor that he would treat the Indians more fairly. He was unlikely to get either and the governor reminded him that England and Spain were at peace. By what right could he make such demands? Sawkins famously replied that as soon as his expected reinforcements arrived, he would show the governor his commission, bringing it to him on the end of a musket. The haughty Spaniard did not take the bait. He knew there were no reinforcements on the way and that the pirates would eventually get tired of waiting for the impossible to happen and move on: which indeed they did. In the meantime, there had been some brisk bargaining with Panamanian traders who sold the pirates what provisions they needed ‘buying also of as much of the goods we had taken in their own vessels’. The traders also bought slaves, paying two hundred pieces of eight ‘for each Negro we spared them of such as were our prisoners’. After three weeks Sawkins gave up and led his fleet to Puebla Nueba. They attempted to storm the town but were rebuffed, with the headstrong Sawkins getting himself killed. While making his escape Sharp took a ship laden with indigo, butter and pitch, and in a wanton act of vandalism, burnt two more ships. The new addition to their fleet was given to Cooke.

42

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 42

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Year to the Day Such was the disillusionment at Sawkins’ death that there was a near rebellion with many of the pirates saying it was time to head back to the Caribbean. Sharp talked most round, promising to make them wealthy to the tune of £1,000 each, and only then to sail back home through the Straights of Magellan. The majority agreed and Sharp was elected as the new leader. But sixty-three did not come around and, as was their right by pirate custom, decided to leave. They were given Cooke’s old ship, stocked with what provisions that could be spared. The departees took with them their share of the loot, along with Golden Cap and the remaining Indians. Ringrose said that he might also have left at this point but was distrustful of the Indians on whom they would have to rely to guide them; he had seen what they could do. Also, ‘I considered that the Rains were already up, and it would be bad passing so many Gullies, which of necessity would then be full of water, and consequently create more than one single peril unto the undertakers of that journey’. The remaining pirates, Dampier among them, sailed south, making mischief, stealing what they could, and bickering amongst themselves. Cooke’s men decided they had had enough of him and he was replaced as captain of the most recent prize by John Cox, an ‘old acquaintance’ of Sharp. By Christmas, they had reached Juan Fernandez, or ‘John Fernando’ as Dampier called this archipelago; three small islands about 400 miles out into the Pacific, opposite the coast of Chile. They are roughly as far south of the equator as the Mediterranean Sea is north of it. Not surprisingly, therefore, the islands benefit from a ‘Mediterranean’ climate. They were quite a find for those of Dampier’s era who wished to cruise the South Seas, especially those who wanted to stay out of the reach of and unnoticed by the Spaniards. The islands were uninhabited but had fresh water and wood aplenty, and were well stocked with things to eat. The main island had a sheltered anchorage. The story was that Juan Fernandez had discovered the islands and wanted to live there. In preparation he brought over some goats and let them run wild on the main island. He never did live on the island but the goats flourished. Realising the potential this had created for the island to be used as a raiders’ hideaway, the Spanish had let loose some dogs, hoping they would kill all the goats. The dogs all starved to death, unable to catch the agile goats that had made a home for themselves in the craggy mountains that divide the island.

43

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 43

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland These days the main island is called ‘Robinson Crusoe’ island, perhaps hoping to attract tourists on the pretext that it was for a time the home of castaway Alexander Selkirk, a hot-tempered Scottish seaman who is often cited as the inspiration for the fictitious Robinson Crusoe. Dampier visited the place on four occasions during his earth-girdling voyages, including the venture on which Selkirk got left behind, and also that on which he was rescued. On this very visit to the main island, the pirates also left behind a castaway. Sighting ships approaching and guessing they were Spanish, the pirates put to sea in a hurry. In their haste, they went without one of their Moskito Indian hunters. Dampier had great praise for these men who were often recruited by pirates for their skills at hunting fish, turtles and manatee. One or two Moskito hunters could feed a whole ship, he said. He also admired the way they lived, working only when they had to, growing only what they needed, and at other times enjoying basking in their ‘hammocks’ drinking their pineapple beer and being generally pampered by their women-folk. The Moskito Indians were so prized by the pirates that they were usually invited along as ‘free men’ and permitted to bear arms. On this occasion, the Indian whom the pirates had named ‘William’ (they being unable to pronounce or remember his Indian name), had not been hunting marine life but goats. When the pirates took to their boats, he was in the mountains and far out of earshot. Dampier was also present on the voyage which rescued William a few years later, with another Moskito Indian, renamed ‘Robin’ by the pirates, among the first to greet his kinsman and congratulate him on his survival skills. Although the pirates left the island in a hurry, it was not before they had had time to indulge in further squabbles. There was great argument as to whether to return to the Caribbean via the Straights of Magellan or to turn back north and continue in search of further ‘purchase’; prizes bought with blood. It was the latter group that won the day. Sharp was deposed as overall commander and John Watling ‘an old privateer’ was elected in his place and new articles were drawn up and signed. The pirates took off northwards, causing further havoc both to themselves and the towns along the coast. Before too long, Watling was also killed and they carried on for a while without an overall commander. By April 1681 they were back within 600 miles of their South Seas starting point, anchored at the ‘Island Plata’ as Dampier called it. Isla de la Plata, now part of Ecuador and a nature reserve, is thirty miles or so out into

44

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 44

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Year to the Day the Pacific, more or less due south of Panama and due east of the Galapagos Islands. According to both Dampier and Ringrose, it was supposed to have been so named by the Spaniards because Sir Francis Drake had, just over 100 years before, anchored there to share out the silver plate he had looted from the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, nicknamed the ‘Cacafuego’, or ‘Shitfire’. He took this ship, his biggest prize, some way to the north of the island, off the town of Esmeraldas. Dampier’s band were not so much interested in sharing as in arguing. Once again, the group was divided about what to do next. And they needed to elect a new leader. Dampier was quite snooty about what followed. Now Watling being killed, a great Number of the meaner sort began to be as earnest for choosing Captain Sharp again into the Vacancy, as before they had been as forward as any to turn him out. And on the other side, the abler and more experienced Men, being altogether dissatisfied with Sharp’s former Conduct, would by no means consent to have him chosen. In short, by the time we had come in Sight of the Island Plata, the difference between the contending Parties had grown so high, that they resolved to part Companies, having first made an Agreement that whichever Party should upon Polling appear to have the Majority, they should keep the Ship. And the others should content themselves with the Launch and Canoes, and return back over the Isthmus, or go to seek their fortune in other ways, as they would. True to form, Dampier wrote that he had never been pleased with Sharp’s management but had ‘kept my Mind to myself ’. But now he could not avoid casting a vote. It went with ‘the abler and more experienced men’ who, it turned out, were in a minority. Hence, Dampier found himself among the fifty-two, including five slaves and two Moskito Indians, sharing a longboat and a canoe, plus one other canoe which had been sawn in half to make ‘Bumkins’ for carrying water. The group, led by John (not Edmond) Cook (not Cooke), included Lionel Wafer, but not Basil Ringrose. It took the party two weeks to get themselves to Cape St Lorenzo, near to where they intended to start their march back across the isthmus. The last stretch was mostly against the wind and they ‘rowed and towed’ all night before being able to sail the last four miles. Dampier had wanted them to sail on further and then turn into the River Congo, thereby shortening their march by paddling a good deal further

45

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 45

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland inland. His companions did not believe there was a large river nearby and opted instead to pull into a small creek, rowing up only a mile before sinking their craft. They did not land until mid-afternoon, so walked only two miles the first day. They built ‘small huts’ and watched the ‘excessive’ rain. The second day they made six miles, and the third eight. And so it went on. With difficulty they recruited Indian guides and continued on through the sodden forest, crossing and re-crossing boiling rivers and climbing up and down slithery slopes. It was even worse than on the first crossing because this time they all had stolen loot to carry; silver plate and coins. One of the men, George Gayny, drowned as a consequence. He had volunteered to swim across a river, taking a line that could be secured on the other side. Foolishly he looped the rope around his neck. When this snagged, he was unable to swim further and his heavy backpack dragged him beneath the racing torrent. His body and backpack were found later by two stragglers, Robert Spratlin and William Bowman, but neither had the heart, nor the strength, to add the three hundred silver dollars he had been carrying (over a stone in weight) to their own luggage. Wafer found this out when Spratlin and Bowman caught up with him, ‘exceedingly fatigued with rambling so long among the wild Woods and Rivers without Guides’. By this time Wafer and two companions, Richard Gopson and John Hingson, had been left behind by the main party and ‘forced to stay’ among the Indians. Gopson, a Greek scholar, and Hingson were both ‘so fatigued with the Journey, that they could go no further’. Wafer, though, had another reason to stay behind. On the fifth day of the march be had suffered burns to his leg when a member of the party had been careless with his pipe, causing gunpowder to ignite. The explosive had been spread out to dry on a silver plate and Wafer was sitting nearby. ‘It blew up and scorched my Knee to that degree, that the Bone was left bare, the Flesh being torn away, and my Thigh burnt for a great way above it’, he later explained. Wafer struggled on for a further five days but eventually had to give up. He had been allotted a slave to carry his money and medical supplies. But late on the seventh day of the march, after having built their shelters for the night, the river beside which they had camped burst its banks. They were all forced to move to higher ground and find what shelter they could. Some were under one tree, some another, said Dampier, ‘which might have been indifferent comfortable if the Weather had been fair’. It was not. ‘The greatest part of the Night we had extraordinary hard Rain, with much Lightening, and terrible Claps of Thunder’.

46

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 46

15-10-2022 03:18:51

A Year to the Day Four of the five slaves took the opportunity to make a run for it. Among them was the slave assigned to Wafer, who took with him Wafer’s gun, money and medical supplies. ‘Deprived of wherewithal to dress my Sore’, Wafer said, the pain in his leg grew steadily worse and he was soon ‘not able to trudge it further through Rivers and Woods’. Dampier may have been covering for Wafer when it came to the matter of the slaves running away. Normally a two-man watch was kept at night ‘otherwise our own Slaves might have knocked us on the Head while we slept’. But that night the ‘Hardships and Inconveniences made us all careless, and there was no Watch kept (though I believe nobody slept)’, Dampier wrote. There were so many potential witnesses to Wafer’s accident that the story was probably true, to a degree at least. The rest of his account of what happened next and how he eventually re-joined his pirate comrades, is less convincing (of which there will be a great deal more later). Wafer missed at least part of a horrendous journey; one that must have been imprinted on Dampier’s mind. By the sixteenth day, ‘not a man of us did not wish the Journey at an End’, he said. ‘Our Feet were blistered, and our Thighs stripped with wading through so many Rivers, the way being almost continually through Rivers, or pathless Woods’. In all the crossing took twenty-three days. By Dampier’s count they had travelled one hundred and ten miles, ‘crossing some very high Mountains’, and ‘deep and dangerous Rivers’. He added, with an ‘I told you so’ implication, that had they chosen the route more wisely, they could have knocked fifty miles off of the journey. He also said, unrealistically, it would be possible (‘with ease’) to cross the isthmus from coast to coast in just three days and that ‘the Indians can do it in a Day and a half ’. The pirates had received much assistance from the Indians ‘but if a Party of five hundred or six hundred Men or more were minded to travel from the North to the South Seas, they may do it without asking leave of the Indians, though it is much better to be Friends with them’. By 24 May 1681, Cook’s band (minus stragglers) had reached La Sounds Key and boarded a ‘privateer’ anchored there. Two days later they sailed to Springer’s Key, another of the San Blas islands (Dampier called them the ‘Samballo Isles’) where they found eight more ships anchored, including that of their old leader Coxon. Dampier stayed in the Caribbean for the next year. The ships that had gathered at Springer’s Key were soon dispersed by bad weather and changes of heart and Dampier found himself sailing in a flotilla of three – two

47

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 47

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland barques captained by William Wright and Yankey Willems, and a tartane, a small single-masted vessel, on which he had a berth. Wright and Yankey both sailed out of Petit Goave where the French governor made free with privateering commissions. For some reason, Wright had a French commission and so had some claims to being a genuine privateer, albeit for a country other than England, but Yankey did not. Wright had taken the tartane as a prize. Soon after they left La Sounds Key, he allowed Dampier and others who had crossed the Darien, to take over this vessel. The proviso was that they acknowledged Wright as having overall command. Cook, who had led the group, did not join them on the tartane but became quarter-master (second in command) on Yankey’s barque. Lionel Wafer went with him. Wafer had at some point caught up with the group and was by now sailing with Yankey. The three ships cruised off the north coast of South America, generally involving themselves in questionable acts. When not engaged in theft and violence, Dampier passed his time following the arguments between various crew members and their captains, and in observing the sights that the ships coasted by. Eventually they ended up at Salt Tortuga where Yankey decided he had had enough, and sailed off with Cook and Wafer on board. After four days, in which all of the men were ‘drunk and quarrelling’, Wright set sail for the coast of Caracas. There they went ashore and took seven or eight tons of cocoa and three barques laden with hides, earthenware and ‘European commodities’. This was the furthest south and east reached on this cruise. Wright retreated to the Rocas islands to share out the loot. Here the group separated, ‘having enough Vessels to transport us all’. Dampier was among a group of twenty who took one of the barques and set sail ‘directly for Virginia’. They arrived in July 1682. It was three and a half years since Dampier had left England.

48

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 48

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Chapter 7

Eight More Years Dampier could have gone home. If he had waited until November, by when the season’s hurricanes would have passed by, it was a relatively easy and short sail across the Atlantic to England. He could have left Virginia and gone home to the bride he hardly knew, gone home to his small estate, gone home to a life of comfort. He didn’t. He may have been delayed by a spell in gaol. He did not elaborate on the ‘Affairs and Troubles’ that befell him during his thirteen months or so stay in Virginia. But he did reveal that most of those fellow crew members who came with him to Virginia had made a short return trip to Carolina without him. So perhaps he was locked up. Maybe he had spent all his ill-gotten gains and was afraid to go home without something to show Judith for his time away. Perhaps he was just ‘curious’ about the world, as he frequently claimed to be when asked about his reasons for a life at sea. Perhaps he had got himself involved with a woman. He admitted lodging with a ‘Gentlewoman’. More probably, Dampier was still worried about the prospect of arrest, imprisonment or Jack Ketch’s rope. He would have known that Sharp, who had sailed back from the South Seas around Cape Horn and then on to England, had only just been arrested for piracy. Sharp was acquitted in 1683 and pardoned, having presented the king with his famous Spanish Waggoner of South Sea charts. He subsequently retired to St Thomas where he died in 1702, impoverished and in gaol. (Jack Ketch was the public executioner who took five blows to behead the Duke of Monmouth in 1685. Already famed for botched beheadings, Ketch’s name was thereafter used as a slang term for successive public executioners.) Dampier had been in Virginia a year when Cook and Wafer sailed into Chesapeake Bay. Since leaving him at Salt Tortuga they had had an actionpacked time. First Yankey, when anchored at Cow Island among some French ships, had given command of his most recent prize to Cook. For his crew, Cook chose Englishmen with whom he had crossed the Darien, Wafer included.

49

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 49

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Then, through some argument or jealousies between them and the crews of the French ships, the Englishmen had been turfed out of their new command. One of the French captains, Captain Tristian, whose ship they had first boarded after returning over the Darien, had allowed a few of the English sailors to board his ship and sail with him to Petit Goave. There, and showing little gratitude for his act of generosity, they seized the ship. This was a risky move since Petit Goave was a French colony and the Englishmen were unlikely to get much sympathy from the French governor. They didn’t wait to find out, but set sail immediately, heading back to Cow Island. Here they picked up the rest of their crewmates and went off pirating once more. Soon they had taken a ship full of wine and another of ‘good force’. The Revenge was so good that they didn’t want to put it to waste. A vote was no doubt taken and ‘they resolved to embark themselves and make a new Expedition into the South Seas’. Before they could do this, they needed to sell their wine and refit their ship. They arrived in Virginia in April 1683 to do just that, and were ready to go off again four months later. Among the crew of seventy were Cook’s Cow Island crew, and Dampier and some of those who had arrived in Virginia with him the year before. The Darien-crossers were re-united. They all agreed to and to sign ships articles, laying down ‘particular Rules, especially of Temperance and Sobriety, by reason of the length of our intended voyage’. On 23 August 1683 they set sail from Accomac (Dampier called it ‘Achamack’), a small town that sits on a creek on the seaward side of the spit of land that runs down the east side of Chesapeake Bay. The creek enters the Atlantic in Metompkin Bay. And so started Dampier’s voyage around the world, the voyage ‘which makes up the main Body’ of the book that made his name. The journey was not completed on one ship alone, or without prolonged stays in some places. In all it took eight years. It was not until September 1691 that the ship which brought Dampier home ‘luffed in for the Downs’ and anchored in English waters. Cook’s first target was the Portuguese-owned Cape Verde Islands that lie to the west of West Africa, opposite Senegal. These days they are a holiday destination. In 1683 they were in the middle of nowhere and ‘most inhabited by Portuguese Banditti’, said Dampier. The people were poor and the governor of the first island they visited ‘had nothing but a few Rags on his back’. The islanders got up to all sorts of tricks to get by. One was to pass off goat’s dung as ambergris. Dampier was amused that a Mr Coppinger had exchanged clothes for a piece of the mysterious substance, having been told by the seller that it was so rare and so prized that he would be hanged by

50

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 50

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Eight More Years the governor should he find out what he had done. ‘We had not a Man in the Ship that knew Ambergriese’, said Dampier, although he was certain it ‘was not right’. From the Cape Verde Islands, they headed off for the southern tip of South America. But, after 400 miles or so, the winds moved round to the south and west, forcing Cook to ‘steered away for the Coast of Guinea’. After a few days they had reached the mouth of the River Sherbro, in Sierra Leone. They anchored behind Sherbro Island, having picked their way through the shoals by courtesy of a crew member who had been there before. Dampier said there was a town nearby the anchorage comprised of local people who, in the three or four days they were there, came more than once to the ship to sell plantains, sugar canes, palm wine, rice, chickens and honey. Having filled their casks with water and rice, they sailed off, bound for South America once again. It was mid-November. Two months later they were off Argentina and heading south. One of the surgeons died which was ‘much lamented’, said Dampier, because it meant there was only one left, and they had embarked on ‘such a dangerous Voyage’. Although not mentioned by name, the remaining surgeon was presumably Lionel Wafer. Evidently, at this point, Dampier did not have too much faith in him as a doctor. They approached the Falkland Islands (Dampier called them the ‘Sibbel de Wards’, which were ‘so named by the Dutch’) but could not find anywhere to anchor. Nor did it look likely that if they did get ashore they would find any water. ‘They are three rocky, barren Islands’, said Dampier. There were no trees, only cacti. They sailed on, heading for the Straits of Magellan. But the wind was against them and they had to settle for sailing further south, pulling four miles into the Le Maire Straits. These lie north and east of Cape Horn, at the tip of Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire. Cook and his crew were alarmed by the tides in the strait. They created ‘a short cockling sea’ which tossed the ship about ‘like an Eggshell’. As soon as the breeze got up, they sailed back the way they had come, continuing eastwards until they were able to round the Isla de los Estados (Dampier called them States Islands). From here they set a course south-west, aiming to round Cape Horn, the headland set on a small island at the southernmost point of Tierra del Fuego. Dampier saw neither land nor fire. The westerly winds meant they could not sail close enough. Instead, they had to maintain a southerly course until the wind changed. Eventually it did and they were able to tack to a more westerly course and head into the South Seas. By then they had reached 60 degrees south. It was no surprise that Dampier said this was the farthest south he had ever been.

51

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 51

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland (Bartholomew Sharp had sailed round Cape Horn from west to east four years previously, when returning from his South Sea raids. He also reached latitude 60 degrees south, which he said was as far south, if not further, ‘than any before me’. He also said it proved there was no such continent as Terra Australis Incognita, although Dampier was soon to prove him wrong on that count.) By February, six months after leaving Virginia, Cook and his crew were in the South Seas once more. They set their course northwards. A week and almost 1,000 miles later, they came across a ship flying French colours. James Kelley, one of Cook’s crew later gave an account of the meeting. The ship was the Nicholas, captained by John Eaton, and carried ‘20 odd guns’, Kelley said. ‘But he had French Colours and we English up. We exchanged several shot, she not seeing our English Colours’. When Cook bore down on the supposed prize it quickly showed its true English colours. ‘She made Friends and Joyn’d Consorts’. Both ships were heading to Juan Fernandez and they decided to sail the remaining 600 miles or so to the island in tandem. Dampier does not say why they took a month to reach their destination. Clearly there was some ‘pirate business’ going on. When they did reach Juan Fernandez, they were greeted by ‘William’ the Moskito huntsman left behind when Dampier was last on the island four years previously. Left with nothing but the clothes he stood up in and the gun, knife and powder he carried, William had contrived to make tools and weapons, to build huts, capture and tame animals, and feed and clothe himself. In his goatskin suit, he was a veritable ‘Robinson Crusoe’. William thought the ships had come specifically to rescue him. He was especially pleased to meet the ship’s current Moskito hunter, ‘Robin’, and elaborate greetings followed.

52

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 52

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Chapter 8

The Mystery of the Batchelors Delight Somewhere between Virginia and the South Seas, the ship on which Dampier was sailing got itself transformed from a ship of ‘good force’, to one of thirty-six guns: warship status. Not having changed ships, Dampier told his readers that this was the firepower of the vessel on which he went into action in the Bay of Panama the following May. There are a number of versions of how this transformation happened. Dampier himself does not mention it at all. And the competing accounts, all told with supreme confidence, illustrate the way in which the truth is often obscured by the motives of informers. Pirates who wrote about their experiences were usually careful not to incriminate themselves; not too much anyway. Dampier, whose stock in trade was information, seems to have done all he could to avoid outright lies that could catch him out. He lied by omission, simply leaving out from his narrative the most dubious of his exploits. Even so, it is clear there was an incident of some significance when the Revenge reached Sierra Leone. There were two other ships also involved, an unnamed Brandenburg ship (probably in fact Dutch) and the Danish ship Emanuell. The confusion about the Batchelors Delight, the supposedly renamed prize that took Cook and his crew to the South Seas, starts with accounts of the voyage written by William Ambrosia Cowley (there are a number of versions). He had joined Cook’s Revenge in Virginia, and was apparently taken on as its navigator. According to his account, he had been tricked into thinking that wrongdoing was the last thing on the minds of Cook and his crew. They just wanted somebody to take them to Petit Goave. Cook had a commission signed by the governor of Petit Goave and might have shown it to Cowley, but otherwise the story does not ring true, but then Cowley seems to have been easily confused. Cook, Davis, Dampier and probably others on board the Revenge were more than capable of guiding the ship to Petit Goave, and far beyond. And the amount of money promised Cowley, 500 pieces of eight he claimed, was exceptionally large for what he said he thought was only a four-month

53

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 53

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland voyage (500 pieces of eight translates to about four years’ wages for a skilled workman). Cowley said he soon found out that the true plan was to sail to the Guinea Coast and steal a better ship than the Revenge which, although of ‘good force’, had but eight guns and fifty-two men. (Dampier wrote that the ship had eighteen guns and a crew of seventy). On receiving this ‘news’, Cowley said he was forced to re-shape his course for the Cape Verde Islands. He then contradicted himself, not for the last time, saying that when anchored at St Nicholas Island, in the Cape Verdes, ‘a general Consultation was held amongst the Officers’ (of whom he was one) ‘to consider whether we should sail directly to the South-Sea in this Ship (the Revenge), or sail to Guiney, or any other Place to get a better Vessel’. In the end it was decided to try first for a better vessel in St Jago, another of the Cape Verde Islands. There, according to Cowley, they came across a Dutch ship that would have suited their purposes. But they were driven away, with the Dutch vessel firing a broadside at them. (In his own book Dampier referred to St Jago saying ‘we did not touch on this Island’, although the two accounts are not necessarily mutually exclusive. He also said that the only reason they ended up on the Guinea coast was that there was an adverse change of wind direction). Cowley said they then sailed to Sierra Leone, anchoring at the mouth of the river of the same name. Next day ‘a lovely ship’ of ‘44 good guns’, carrying a crew of about seventy, came and anchored in the self-same river. It was, according to Cowley, Danish. There was also a ‘Brandenburg ship’ already in the anchorage. Cowley, the man who had been ‘tricked’ into service, went on to say that he led an assault on the Danish ship, lashing the two vessels together and boarding the Dane. This tactic was possible because the larger ship, which presumably had two gun-decks, had not bothered to run out those cannon on its lower gun deck. Meanwhile, those on its upper gun deck were too high to be brought to bear on the smaller, and lower, Revenge tied alongside. Cook’s men took the ship. ‘We found she was very fit for so long a Voyage, for she was well stored with good Brandy, Water, Provisions, and other Necessities’, said Cowley. They also took the 10-gun ‘Brandenburg’ ship, for fear of reprisals. The three ships, the Revenge, the Dane and the ‘Brandenburg’ vessel, now sailed the short hop to Sherbro Island, where in Dampier’s version, they had been all along. Cowley said they made the move to fill their water barrels and because they had ‘heard’ that an even more powerful

54

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 54

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Mystery of the Batchelors Delight Brandenburg ship was on its way. They stayed for some while. At first the locals would not allow them any water. That changed after Cowley and the doctor (perhaps Wafer or perhaps the ‘much lamented’ surgeon who died not long afterwards) went ashore to barter with the local chief. Cowley (the outsider who referred to his shipmates as ‘they’, was now bragging that he had been given the delicate role of chief negotiator). He gave the ‘king’ four iron bars, ten gallons of brandy, some Indian clothes, and a trumpet. In return the chief gave Cowley and the doctor a mistress each. Cowley declined but the doctor was so ‘much in Love with his Black-Doxey, that he stayed on shore with her two or three nights’. The latter salacious details may well have been the fabrication of ‘Captain’ William Hacke, Cowley’s editor who compiled the ‘collection of voyages’ in which Cowley’s account appeared. So might his part in the taking of the mystery Danish ship. Neither ‘Captain’ Cowley, nor ‘Captain’ Hacke, were in fact captains, and Hacke may never have been to sea. Cowley said ‘they’ had refused to give the Revenge to the Danes but when ‘they’ got her to Sherbro, ‘they’ burned the ship, ‘by reason she should tell no tales, for they had stolen both ship and commission’. Some of Cowley’s version rings true. Frederick William, prince-elector of the German state of Brandenburg, was at that time attempting to make his country a major player in the slave trade. In 1683 Brandenburg, later to merge with Prussia, had a navy of around thirty ships. The Brandenburg African Company had been created only the previous year and its ‘Fort Fredericksburg’ in Ghana, named in honour of the elector, was at that very moment having its finishing touches applied. There is also mention in Cowley’s account of company agents in the Sierra Leone River, which was likely to be true because the Brandenburg company and the English Royal African Company, whose base was on Bance Island at the navigable limit of the Sierra Leone River, were both active in the area. But in general Cowley is not to be trusted. His book is full of transparent attempts to distance himself from any wrongdoing. Neither did Dampier rate him too highly as a mariner. Cowley had ‘discovered’ and named Pepys Island (Cowley was in the habit of taking it upon himself to name multiple islands). He put this at latitude 47 degrees, 40 minutes south. What he saw was in fact one of the Falkland Islands which lay at 51 degrees, 77 minutes south, at least 300 nautical miles away. At the time, Dampier had known exactly where they were. In his A Discourse of Winds, Dampier describes a ‘violent storm’ he encountered when sailing on the Revenge (of which Cowley was then

55

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 55

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland master), from Virginia to the Cape Verdes. The ship ‘scudded before the wind and sea some time, with only our bare poles’ when the helmsman made a mistake, allowing the ship to broach, turning itself to lay broadside to wind and waves that threatened to overwhelm it. ‘The master, whose fault this was, raved like a mad Man, and called for an axe to cut the Mizzen shrouds’, said Dampier The problem they faced was the urgent need to get the ship facing downwind again. Tossing the mizzen mast over the side, as Cowley proposed, might have turned the ship. But its effect would probably not have been quick enough to prevent disaster. Another solution would have been to loosen the foresails, but they knew that if they did this, the sails would simply be torn to shreds. They were saved, mizzen mast and foresails intact, when a ‘Mr John Smallbone’ beckoned Dampier to join him and climb partly up the fore shrouds of the ship. Once there, they unbuttoned their coats and spread them wide. The wind resistance created was sufficient to do the job. ‘I think we did not stay there above three minutes before we gained our point and came down again’, said Dampier. There is no mention of how the ‘mad man’ reacted. Another version of the taking of the Danish ship was given eighteen years later by Dampier’s crewmate James Kelley. His A full and true Discovery of all the Robberies, Pyracies, and other Notorious Actions, of that Famous English Pyrate Capt. James Kelly, was written on the eve of his hanging at Execution Dock, Wapping, in 1701. This document is also suspect because it was written so long after the time of the events it describes and because Kelley probably had his mind on other things. Indeed, in his account, he admitted ‘my thoughts are took up on things of a higher moment’. The account, which claimed to have been given ‘by the hand of his wife’, was probably taken down and enhanced by a prison chaplain (chaplains often conducted a smart trade in the ‘last confessions’ of condemned men, which they sold to those who came to watch their hangings). Even so, Kelley has some facts to add. He said that on the way to the Cape Verdes they crossed path with the Portsmouth, a pink that originally had been English but had been ‘taken by the Dutch the last Holland Wars’. We plundered her, soon after arrived to Cape De Verd (Cape Verdes), from thence to Siuraclone Guinea (Sierra Leone), there took two Dutch ships, one we made a Man of War, mounting 36 Guns in her. Our own Ship we burnt, the other we gave the Dutch Men.

56

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 56

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Mystery of the Batchelors Delight Three things stand out here: the mention of the Portsmouth, that the ships taken in Sierra Leone were Dutch and not Danish or German, and that one of these ships was ‘made’ a man-of-war. There was indeed a Portsmouth that had been captured by a Dutch privateer in 1673. She was a pink, having been converted from a ketch in 1669 (this presumably meant simply a change of rig to include a square sail rather than any change of hull shape). So, there is at least some sort of corroboration for Kelley’s version of events. That at least one of the ships taken in Sierra Leone (which did not include the pink) was Dutch and not Danish or German, could be explained by the colours they flew from their mastheads. Deception was an integral part of the privateer and pirate ‘art’. Ships very often flew false colours to trick likely aggressors or possible prizes. They only showed their ‘true colours’ when the fighting began. The year was 1683 and Holland and England were in the middle of fighting the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. Anchoring so near to an English fort, it would make sense for a Dutchman and an interloper to fly the colours of a nation friendly to England, such as a Brandenburg flag. Cowley, who appears to have been a little wet behind the ears, may simply not have been alert to this. And some of the time he clearly did not know exactly where he was. The prize they took was not a ship of forty guns, or even thirty-six guns. A crew of seventy, which Cowley says it carried, would not have been able to handle anywhere near that number of cannon. The prize they took was a ship the pirates converted into one of that force while they lay off Sherbro Island. She may well have been a ship of two or three decks, since she was presumably there as a slave trader. Like the ‘Brandenburg’ ship, she was probably an interloper rather than an official company ship, because otherwise more fuss would have been made about the incident. She may have had forty-gun ports, but she did not have forty guns to go in them. Even if the ports were not in place, it was not uncommon for privateers or pirates to make substantial changes to the ships they captured, transforming them into more efficient fighting machines. Often they made the decks flush or cut out more gun ports or mounted more guns in other ways. What with the pink, their own ship and the two they took, there would have been plenty of cannon to transfer across to, and to find a place for, in the new ship. The truth of it all seems to be something like this: while crossing the Atlantic, the Revenge exchanged fire with, and took, the former Royal Navy pink Portsmouth. This ship was taken to the Cape Verde Islands and plundered, with some of its ten guns taken aboard the Revenge. The Revenge sailed on to Sierra Leone where it took two ships, at least one of which was

57

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 57

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland flying false colours. One of these was bigger than the Revenge but kitted out as a merchantman or slave ship. It was converted for South Sea plundering, including the mounting of thirty-six guns. The other was burned so ‘she should tell no tales’. That is not the end of it. Numerous biographies have taken it as read that the ‘Danes’ had been slave traders and that they had African women chained in their orlop. Dampier and crew had re-named the ship the Batchelors Delight, saying much about the pirates’ attitude to women and to slavery. There is precious little evidence to suggest either the presence of women slaves on the Danish ship or that the pirates re-named their ship the Batchelors Delight. The second proposition is the more likely of the two, although the only mention of the name crops up in Lionel Wafer’s A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, published many years later. In this he said that off the coast of Mexico: ‘Captain Swan, in the Cygnet, was going to the Westward; and Mr Dampier chose to go with him. I staid with Captain Davis, in the Batchelors Delight; and he was for going again to the Southward’. For reasons that will be explained later, this work may not have been entirely or even partly Wafer’s own work, nor entirely truthful. The name mentioned in Wafer’s book could have been nothing but a crude joke at Cowley’s expense. Cowley seems to have been so sure of his own gross over-estimation of his limited abilities and importance, and so prissy, that he can hardly have been too liked by his shipmates. Even if the ‘doctor’s’ dalliance ashore had been fabricated, even if it were somewhere near the truth but another ‘doctor’ was the one to stay ashore and enjoy the hospitality provided by an African chief, Wafer might easily have been put out by Cowley’s comments. Both Cowley’s account, included within Hacke’s A Collection of Original Voyages, and Wafer’s book were published in 1699, and both were printed by James Knapton, who ran his business from The Crown in St Paul’s Churchyard. This means both ‘authors’ could easily have had access to each other’s manuscripts. The rough-and-ready Wafer might easily have taken the opportunity to retaliate by implying that the confirmed bachelor Cowley was more interested in his ‘lovely ship’ than in the company of a woman. Perhaps the entire crew thought that way, and they chose the name of their new ship for that very reason. Perhaps it was not called ‘Batchelors Delight’ at all. Perhaps it was a ship called the Emanuell, a Danish spelling of the name that was never changed. Whether or not Wafer or Dampier were playing tricks, whether or not the single mention of the ship’s supposed new name was right or wrong, a

58

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 58

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Mystery of the Batchelors Delight compendium of theories put forward as facts have conspired to gain this vessel the revisionist accolade of being one of the most famous pirate ships. In a nutshell, it is suggested that Davis, with Wafer aboard, eventually sailed the ‘Batchelors Delight’ back around Cape Horn and on to Philadelphia where it was sold to its crew (although it is now described as a fourteen-gun ship and although it is highly unlikely a pirate crew would ‘buy’ a ship when they were so used to simply taking what they wanted). The vessel was then supposedly taken to the Indian Ocean where James Kelley, who also used the alias James Gilliam, later became its captain (although he doesn’t mention this in his own confessions, which he surely would have done, had it been true). In Madagascar, Kelley met and joined Captain William Kidd on his way home after his piratical exploits in the Indian Ocean. When they arrived back in New York, Kidd and Kelley were arrested, sent to London, tried and hanged. This last bit is true. Kelley wrote that he sailed home with Kidd ‘and then was put in Prison, where I remaind till I was call’d to my Tryal at the old Baily’. But in November 1683 the Board of Plantations heard about two French ships that had sailed into Hudson’s Bay and attacked the English station there.1 The Frenchmen had taken an English ship, plundered the Hudson Bay Company’s factory (depot) and burned and destroyed the governor’s house. They had also raised a French flag and renamed two branches of the river, clearly considered a heinous crime. Then they had forced the English employees of the Hudson Bay Company on board ‘a leaky ship, with a very scanty store of provisions, though the sea was full of ice’. The ship they had taken was, the Board was told, the Batchelors Delight. Leading the attack on the depot were Pierre Radisson and Medard des Groseilliers. This Batchelors Delight was an interloper out of New England, captained by Benjamin Gillam (not James Kelley a.k.a James Gilliam). There is surely enough room for confusion here? There is yet another version of events described in depositions taken after the arrest of Davis and Wafer on their return to the Chesapeake area in 1688, with additions from Wafer’s book, A new Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America. They had, said Wafer, rounded Cape Horn and sailed up the east coast of South and North America. Davis was still captain but his ship was now of fourteen guns and 100 men, so presumably some of the guns they had carried into the South Seas had been jettisoned to make room for their ill-gotten gains and to make the ship faster for the homeward voyage.

59

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 59

15-10-2022 03:18:51

The Pirate who Stole Scotland The three pirates had left this vessel at Barbuda (so whatever its name, it did not return to Philadelphia) and they had switched to a ‘Barbadoes Sloop’, captain Edwin Carter, for the last part of the voyage. After ‘some time’ Wafer, Davis and John Hingson (who had supposedly been with Wafer during his enforced stay in the Darien and was still with him), ‘came down the River de la Ware’ taking their booty with them. At this point the three were arrested, in fact four were arrested, because Peter Cloyne, who had the misfortune to be Davis’ personal slave, was also arrested with them.2 Cloyne had been with Davis for nine years (so was with him in Sierra Leone) and he had plenty to say about what had happened. He told Captain Rowe of the Dumbarton, who had arrested the men, that on the ‘Coast of Guinea’ they had taken and plundered ‘a Holland ship’ from which they took a great deal of gold. They had seized ‘the Flemings’ and tied them to the gunnels before setting light to the ship ‘men and all’. So here seems to be the truth of it. The pirates had taken a Dutch ship laden with gold (Cowley’s ‘Brandenburg’ ship). Having removed the gold, they set light to the vessel with its crew on board, tied to its railings. They took a second ship, probably Danish, and converted it into one of greater force. This became Cook’s and later Davis’ ship, and they had sailed off in this to the South Seas. What became of the original crew of the Danish ship was probably no more pleasant than the fate allotted that of the ‘Brandenburg’ ship. Perhaps they were herded aboard the Revenge, which was also burnt. As there was no animosity between Denmark and England, any attempt on the Danish ship would have been outright piracy and any ill-treatment, or murder, of its crew a hanging offence. As there was a war going on at the time between England and Holland, there might have been some credence given to any claimed legitimacy of the attack on the ‘Holland ship’. But time of war or not, Cloyne had described an atrocity. If Dampier was complicit in this, seeing men with blackened and bubbling skin, clothes and hair ablaze, struggling to breath fiery air through scorched nostrils and throats, he was somebody who was capable of almost anything. And he had yet more good reason to delay his return to England while he assessed the likelihood of an enforced meeting with Jack Ketch and his rope. Peter Cloyne told his interrogators that the name of the ship in which Davis and his gang had commonly gone to sea, the Dane they had taken in Sierra Leone, was the Emanuell.

60

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 60

15-10-2022 03:18:51

Chapter 9

The Age of Exploitation The supposed women slaves were not mentioned again, not at all by Dampier, by Wafer, by Kelley, by Cloyne, or by Cowley. The story is most probably completely untrue. This is especially so since, unlike some of his more extreme exploits involving mass murder, theft and goodness knows what else, Dampier would not have been embarrassed to write about a surprise haul of slaves. There was no social stigma attached to slave ownership and slave trading. If anything it was the reverse. It was a business for god-fearing ‘men of quality’. Everybody was given free rein to take advantage of those unfortunate enough to be born weaker, less well-connected, poorer or more socially disadvantaged than themselves. The ‘age of enlightenment’ could just as easily be labelled the ‘age of exploitation’. When Dampier wrote about slavery, it was in his usual detached manner. He accepted it as a fact and something he was not afraid to benefit from personally. Yet even he acknowledged some of the unhappiness caused by slavery, if not the gross injustice. ‘All the Indians that I have been acquainted with who are under the Spaniards, seem to be more melancholy than other Indians that are free’, he said. Slavery has existed almost as long as mankind, certainly as long as mankind has thought of itself as ‘civilised’. The Egyptians had slaves, the Byzantines, the Greeks and the Romans. There was a long history of slavery in China. In Dampier’s time there was a recent history of serfdom in England (it still existed in some other countries, France among them), a system in which serfs could hardly be called ‘free’. English men might be pressed into the Navy, in its way a form of slavery. English women were owned by their husbands who, on marriage, became owners of their brides’ possessions and masters of household discipline. It was said women only attained their freedom when they became widows. Unfortunately this only applied to those widows wealthy enough to keep themselves and their children out of the parish ‘House of Correction’, and those women strong enough to survive the rigours of multiple pregnancies.

61

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 61

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Barbary pirates cruised the south coast of England looking for unprotected villages from which to snatch men, women and children to sell in Arab slave markets. Those individuals and families in financial straits could, and did, sell themselves or their relatives as indentured servants. Those wishing to make a break and head for an American colony or to the West Indies, often paid for their passage by signing indentures. On arrival, their contract could be sold on to the highest bidder. Such servants had to work to pay off their debt, and could in theory become free men and women once more. In practice this was not easy, pay was low, unexpected and unjustified charges were often added to their debts, and sickness took its toll. Neither was default looked on lightly. King Charles could simply refuse to pay his debts but indentured servants who tried the same tactic could expect more than a damaged credit rating. An extension to their indenture and a good whipping were the order of the day for such insolence. In September 1698, the council of the Caribbean island of Montserrat ordered that some servant women caught running away with a canoe should ‘be whipped on the bare back with not exceeding thirty-nine lashes’, and that they should ‘be restored to their masters until their term be completed’, after which they would be sold for four years more ‘to compensate the master for his expense and for the loss of their labour’.1 At least the cost of the canoe was overlooked. There are many other examples of such harsh treatment of indentured servants who tried to run away. Of course slaves who tried to escape were treated even more severely. In March 1687 the Council of Antigua heard that depositions had been taken ‘proving mutinous behaviour’ on the part of ‘the negro George’. It was ordered that he should be ‘burned to ashes’.2 Pirates and privateers could also find themselves slaves. Those on the wrong end of scraps with Spanish ships might be put to work on a galley, or forced to live out their lives tethered to a rock. In the book Robinson Crusoe, the eponymous hero had been held a slave for some years before escaping and setting himself up as a plantation owner. It was on a trip to buy slaves to work his plantation that he was shipwrecked. The earlier part of this was almost certainly based on the experiences of Robert Knox, whose father, also Robert Knox, was captain of the East Indiaman Ann. In 1657, when fourteen years old, the younger Knox signed on with his father for a voyage to Fort St George in Madras (now Chennai) in the south-east of India. The plan was to spend a year trading along the Coromandel Coast and then to return to England.

62

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 62

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Age of Exploitation When, in November 1658, their year was up, they began preparing for their voyage home. It was then that ‘a mighty storm’ struck their anchorage. A number of ships were ‘cast away’ and, to save the Ann from disaster, Knox senior was obliged to order its mainmast cut down. They clearly had to delay departure so as to repair the ship and were ordered by the Fort St George agent to take the Ann off to Cotair, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), it ‘being a very commodious bay, fit for our distress’. Commodious it might have been, but friendly it was not. Some of the crew, including the Knoxes, were seized by the local king and made slaves. Knox junior was quite put out. ‘There were sixteen of us left to the mercy of those barbarians’, he wrote. It was not until 1679, when Knox junior was thirty-six, that he was able to make his escape, his father having died in captivity. He made it home and in 1681 published an account of his years in captivity: An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon in the East Indies. He became an East India Company captain himself and befriended Robert Hooke, surveyor of London’s fire damage, rebuilder of churches and other buildings, and the curator of experiments at the Royal Society, to whom Knox supplied curiosities gathered on his voyages. Knox also knew Dampier, meeting him in London. Knox’s book included descriptions of the Sri Lanka countryside, its agriculture, its plants and animals, the way of life of those who lived there, and the local mode of brutal executions. It must have provided Dampier with something of a pointer as to how he might structure his own book. Knox described execution of miscreants by their being crushed by elephants; Dampier the despatch of a Bashee Islands thief by being buried alive. Of course, the number of European slaves was dwarfed by the number of Africans who were enslaved. As Spanish control of its sprawling American possessions gradually crumbled, other European nations piled in to take advantage. The Caribbean was one target, North America another. But while the territories that formed the core of Spain’s possessions were well populated with indigenous Indians who could be enslaved, many of the Caribbean islands and North American colonies were not. The new aggressors needed manpower to make their land-thefts pay; to grow and process tobacco, sugar, cocoa, coffee, and later cotton. And the source they hit upon was slave power, transported from Africa. Portugal, which had its own early stake in Brazil, was the first nation to begin transporting African slaves to the New World. In the three hundred or so years that this shameful trade continued, its ships carried the most slaves across the Atlantic – probably getting on for half of the total number of those unfortunate souls. But Spain, England, Holland, Denmark and

63

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 63

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Germany were all involved. For those prepared to overlook the human misery involved, it was good business. English ships were the second most prominent participants, carrying more slaves to their uncertain futures than those of France, Spain and Holland put together. English ships left their home ports with trading goods, sailed to West Africa, exchanged their goods for slaves, and sailed on to the Americas; especially Virginia and the Caribbean. There, they sold those slaves who had survived the trip and bought sugar, tobacco or other commodities that would sell for a profit in Europe. Holds were never empty, and profits were assured. The African slaves who were traded would have been bought from Arab slave traders and from other Africans who had taken these people in intertribal warfare (‘one Nation or Clan selling others that are their Enemies’, said Dampier) or who already ‘owned’ them through hereditary or other entitlement. Some were simply kidnapped. Various ‘African Companies’ were created to take advantage, including the Royal African Company (England), the Dutch West India Company, the Brandenburg African Company, the Danish West India Company, and the French West India Company. In England, the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa, subsequently transformed into the Royal African Company, was established in 1660. It had some illustrious ‘men of quality’ as shareholders. The Duke of York, the future James II, took the lead. But Charles II, Prince Rupert, Lord Arlington, Samuel Pepys, and the philosopher and sometime chairman of the Board for Trade and Plantation, John Locke, were also among the shareholders who benefitted from exploitation of West Africa and its people. Nobody knows for certain how many African people were dragged from their homes to swell the coffers of the pious, god-fearing Europeans who backed these companies, but it certainly ran into the millions. The huge number can be gauged from the statistic that probably more than one million slaves died in transit. As early as the 1680s the Royal African Company alone was transporting 5,000 or more African slaves each year to the Americas, and things were just getting started. It is said many were branded with the letters ‘DoY’ or ‘RAC’ , to denote ownership by the Duke of York or Royal African Company. Conditions aboard seventeenth-century ships were bad enough anyway. On privateering vessels, maybe less than thirty metres (100 feet) long, one hundred or so men and their possessions would be packed in amongst spare spars, coils of rope, canvas, barrels, bales, cannons and live animals. There was no sanitation other than the ‘heads’, planks over the anchor chains

64

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 64

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Age of Exploitation on which seamen were invited to sit, waving their bare behinds over the crashing waves. Many declined and found somewhere within the ship to deposit their faeces. This was hardly difficult. The spaces between decks were low and dark. There was little or no natural light and no room to stand fully upright. At the bottom of these ships were the bilges, full of ballast, filth washed from above, and rats. In bad weather the toxic liquid in the bilges would slosh about making the ship stink even more. Slaves were forced into this environment, chained together in the orlop decks immediately above the bilges. For six weeks or so they were left in the dark, given food they could not stomach, made sick by the tossing of the ship, and left lying in their own filth. It was no wonder so many died. Things didn’t get much better if they survived. Sold to the highest bidder, they were forced to work long hours, live in squalid conditions with insufficient food, and to submit to harsh discipline. They had low natural immunity to local diseases and little knowledge of local hazards. Heaping tragedy upon tragedy for those forced to suffer the inhumane degradation of slavery, the system was grossly inefficient in human life and effort. Poorly fed (Cary Helyar, one-time owner of Bybrook, confirmed it was usual to feed slaves ‘nothing but two salt Mackrell a week but Indian Frute [plantains] enough), bemused, disgruntled sickly people are hardly likely to make willing workers. And they are likely to look for every opportunity to abscond or to take revenge. At least this would have been the constant fear of slave-owners who looked down on their slaves for living in such depraved conditions; conditions that they themselves had forced upon them. Fearing ‘backlash’ they punished any perceived indiscretion, thus breeding further resentment. And so on, in a self-defeating circle. Attempts to better the slaves’ lot were resisted lest they ‘got above themselves’, realised the injustices of their situation and became strong enough to do something about it. In 1680, Barbados council member, member of the Royal Adventurers to Africa, and correspondent of John Locke, Sir Peter Colleton and the ‘the gentlemen of Barbadoes’ agreed a declaration that gave the game away.3 It was ‘that the conversion of their slaves to Christianity would not only destroy their property but endanger the island, inasmuch as converted negroes grow more perverse and intractable than others, and hence of less value for labour or sale. The disproportion of blacks to whites being great, the whites have no greater security than the diversity of the negroes’ languages, which would be destroyed by conversion, in that it would be necessary to teach them all English. The negroes are a sort of people so averse to learning that

65

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 65

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland they will rather hang themselves or run away than submit to it. Conversion will impair their value and price, and injure not only the Planters but the African Company’. In twenty-first-century eyes, merely going along with what was accepted is no defence, although anybody of European descent probably, and perhaps unknowingly, benefits from the economic afterburn of our ancestors’ blindness to wrongs against fellow men and women. Dampier did much more than simply go along with slavery. He was an active participant, often noting that so many slaves had been taken, or sold, sometimes even released. He was hardly alone but would have had few compunctions about selling his services to enslave even a nation.

66

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 66

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Chapter 10

Raiding the Spanish Main Nobody was left behind this time when, after a sixteen-day stay, Cook and Easton left Juan Fernandez. Instead Cook took with him a ‘sickness’ he had contracted. Even so, they were soon up to their tricks again, taking ships. From letters found on one, which among other things carried seven or eight tons of quince marmalade, they learned that the coast had been alerted to their presence. Cargos were being held back, no money or valuables were being transported, and defences were being strengthened. They carried on northwards and, when forty miles from the equator, set their course due west, towards the Galapagos Islands. These were, said Dampier, ‘a great number of uninhabited Islands, lying under and on both sides of the Equator’. They were farther west than charts put them, he said. He was impressed by the islands. There was water and plenty to eat. The guanos were ‘fat and large’ and so tame that ‘a Man may knock down twenty in an Hour’s Time with a club’. And there were turtles and tortoises galore. ‘The Land-turtle are here so numerous that five hundred or six hundred Men might subsist on them alone for several Months’. No chicken tastes sweater, said Dampier. And there were also a ‘great plenty of Turtle-Doves, so tame that a Man may kill five or six dozen in a forenoon, with a stick’. Arriving on 31 May 1684, the five ships (those of Cook and Eaton, plus three prizes) stayed in the islands for a month. But at the beginning of July, acting on information from one of their Indian prisoners, they set sail for Realego, in Nicaragua (Dampier called it Ria Lexa). The prisoner had been born there, and when ‘examined’ by the pirates, had told them its ‘Strengths and Riches’. The weather was fair, so Cook and Eaton expected an easy sail. But the winds did not oblige and they could only make Cabo Blanco, close to Cabuya in present-day Costa Rica (Dampier called it Cape Blanco, Mexico). The two white rocks lying off the cape mark the south-west headland, inland of which lies the Bay of Caldera. They went ashore to bury Cook, who had died a few hours earlier. ‘It is usual with sick Men coming from the Sea, where they have nothing but the Sea-Air, to die off as soon as ever they come within view of the Land’, said

67

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 67

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Dampier, rather coldly. This was a man who had led him across the Darien and been his comrade in arms on numerous occasions, who, as captain, had taken him safely through storms and to the icy extremities beyond Cape Horn, and who had steered his ship safely through shoals and reefs. And all Dampier could say was that it was ‘usual’. Edward Davis, the quarter-master and second in command, was elected captain in Cook’s place. After two weeks or so they left the Bay of Caldera, and headed for Realejo, which lay just over 300 miles to the north (in present-day Nicaragua). As well as its riches, the town was known to the pirates for its smoking, and sometimes spluttering volcano, which also dominated the entrance to the Gulf of Amapala. ‘The Wind was at North, which although an ordinary Wind, still carried us in three Days abreast of our intended Port’, said Dampier. Once there, the pirates did their usual trick of capturing and questioning some locals. Again they learned that the town had been forewarned and was well prepared to meet them. This was not something they wanted to hear, they much preferred targets that were all but defenceless. ‘We thought it best to defer this Design till another time’, said Dampier. The pirate flotilla headed off north to the Gulf of Amapala, just across the border in Honduras, intending to careen their ships. This they did, and then decided it was time to go their separate ways. It took Davis just short of three weeks to sail back south to the Isle de Plata. The following day Eaton sailed into the anchorage. ‘He was very willing to consort with us again but Captain Davis’s Men were so unreasonable that they would not allow Captain Eaton’s Men an equal share with them in what they got’, said Dampier. The next day Eaton sailed off in disgust. Davis was only a day behind. Before deciding on a new target, he sent a raiding party to round up some prisoners so that they could be questioned. The men landed during the night and attacked an Indian village. They kidnapped some villagers and also took a small barque, but not before those on board had attempted to set it on fire. It turned out there had been orders issued insisting that any vessel attacked by the pirates should immediately be set alight. They went back to the Isle of Plata to consider their options. They were still there a week later when two new vessels sailed in. The unlikely named Cygnet, Captain Swan, was a powerful trading ship out of London that had been ‘fitted out by very eminent Merchants’. The other vessel was a small barque commanded by Peter Harris, the nephew of the Peter Harris who had died after being shot through both legs at the Battle of Perico. Swan was in overall command.

68

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 68

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Raiding the Spanish Main The rotund captain had accompanied Eaton through the Straits of Magellan but had told anybody who asked that he was not a privateer at all, but a legitimate trader. He had tried his best to sell his goods but, with Davis and Eaton preceding him up the coast, the Spanish had been too suspicious of his motives to purchase anything. Swan’s men had then forced him to change tactics and he had taken in the group led by Harris that had newly arrived in Nicoya, in what is now Panama, having travelled overland across the Darien. The crews of the three ships captained by Swan, Harris and Davis agreed to pool their resources and to sail in ‘consort’. And after learning that the Spanish were fitting out a fleet of ten ships to chase them from the South Seas, they had second thoughts about the wisdom of sending Eaton off. They needed some extra fire-power and so sent one of their vessels to look for him. If only the crew of the ‘Batchelors Delight’/Emanuell had not been so unreasonable in the first place, said Dampier, somewhat smugly. Although they heard of Eaton’s escapades, they could not find him and soon realised he must have set off to sail across the Pacific to the East Indies, which he had talked about before. They did not cross paths with him or his ship again. Eaton had taken with him William Ambrosia Cowley, the young navigator who had been taken on by Cook in Virginia. Meanwhile, the pirate flotilla continued pillaging. At the beginning of November they had a plan to attack Guiaquil, in Ecuador. The town of Guiaquil lies about twenty miles inland from the Bay of Guiaquil, on the banks of the wide but swampy River Guiaquil. The raid was botched, partly because Swan had been slow in coming forward. ‘They did not fire one Gun at us, nor we at them’, said Dampier, summing up the raid. Even so, the pirates came away with three barques containing 1,000 Negroes ‘all lusty young Men and Women’. They selected about fifteen of them and released the rest. Dampier was disgusted. ‘There was never a greater Opportunity put into the Hands of Men to enrich themselves than we had’. The pirates could have taken the slaves to Santa Maria and used them to get gold out of the local mines, said Dampier. They could have held off the Spanish and waited for other privateers to flock to them, he suggested. Whether or not this was just musing or something said for effect, (for a Scottish readership), he went on to add: ‘These may seem to the Reader but Golden Dreams’. They all went back to Isla de la Plata to lick their wounds. Two days before Christmas Day 1684, they were off again. They had decided to move their centre of operations north. On 1 January, while on their way to the Bay of Panama, one of their canoes captured a packet boat heading south.

69

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 69

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland A parcel of letters that the crew of this boat had tossed into the sea was recovered. It, and the crew, were taken back to the ships anchored at Isla del Gallo off the Colombian coast. The pirates stayed there for the next five days while they read through all the letters. Information was worth a lot, especially so in this case. One letter from the ‘President of Panama’, informed the authorities in Lima that the Spanish treasure fleet had arrived in Portobello and that they should hurry to send their own consignment of silver to Panama so that it could be transported overland to Portobello. ‘We were very joyful of this News, and therefore sent away the PacketBoat with all her Letters’, reported Dampier. They decided that the place to be was at the Isla del Rey (Dampier called them ‘King’s Islands or Pearl Keys’) opposite Panama City. They ‘are a great many low Woody Islands, lying about seven Leagues (about twenty-three miles) from the Main, and about twelve Leagues (forty miles) from Panama’, Dampier reported. Here they could careen their ships and await the arrival of the ‘PlateFleet’ from Lima. They arrived there on 25 January, and cleaned their smaller boats while waiting for a spring tide to haul out the larger ships. By mid-February, all was done and they set off on a cruise of the bay. Dampier’s description might have been written for a travel brochure. It was a pleasant place to sail. The mainland, he said, was ‘beautified with many small Hills, clothed with Woods of diverse kinds of Tree, which are always green and flourishing’. The pirates made a deal with the governor of Panama for the exchange of prisoners; some pirates having fallen into his hands. They also began trading with local merchants. Secret trade deals were ‘common enough,’ said Dampier. Spanish merchants in both the North and South Seas broke the rules in this way ‘notwithstanding the severe Prohibition of the Governors’. But then, even the governors themselves ‘sometimes connive at it, and trade with the Privateers’. One of the traders played a ‘scurvy trick’ (which Dampier would have been pleased to have come up with himself). Under cover of darkness this man’s ship glided in next to Dampier’s, calling out an agreed password, as if to exchange goods. But as the vessels came close, the trader’s crew set light to what was in fact a fireship and paddled away for all they were worth. In typical fashion, Dampier said they had done it all wrong. His own ship was able to cut its cables and ‘scamper away’. If only they had chosen another meeting place where there had been less sea room and a lee shore, the pirate ship would either have been burned or run aground. But in an untypically generous mood, he added that perhaps they had selected the

70

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 70

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Raiding the Spanish Main ‘Scene of their Enterprise’ bearing in mind that if things should go wrong, they would be better placed to ‘skulk’ away. Soon after, when lifting their anchors, the pirates were met by a party of French and English chancers who had just crossed the Darien on foot. There were two hundred and eighty of them in total, mostly French, but another one hundred and eighty, mostly English, were following on. Among the French newcomers was a Captain Gronet (not Medard des Groseilliers who had been involved in the raid on Hudson’s Bay), who offered Swan and Davis new commissions. These were blank letters of marque signed by the governor of Petit Goave, who gave them out willy-nilly because he hoped to make his part of Hispaniola a ‘Sanctuary and Asylum of all People of desperate Fortunes’. By arrangement, the governors of both the French half of the island (Haiti) and Spanish half (now the Dominican Republic) offered commissions to protect their own people from their near neighbours. But ‘the French do not restrain them to Hispaniola but make them a pretence for a general ravage in any part of America, by Sea or Land’, said Dampier. Davis was pleased to accept the commission. Swan refused. But Gronet was given command of one of the prizes anyway. The pirate flotilla continued to cruise the Bay of Panama, taking what they pleased and also picking up more privateers newly arrived from the Caribbean. Captain Townley, who had been travelling with Gronet but was delayed while his men made canoes for themselves, was among them. He soon became one of the most active captains, buzzing here and there in his newly acquired barque and leading attacks. By the beginning of April they had a total of nine vessels and the logistics of feeding so many men were getting difficult. They were obliged to go searching for more cooking pots. One raiding party sent to find ‘coppers’, came across a seaman who had been aboard the ‘scurvy trick’ fireship. He was immediately hanged. By the end of April the pirate force numbered 1,000 and they were considering an attack on Panama City. They held off when the prisoners they questioned gave ‘small encouragement’, said Dampier. Panama’s walls were too high and its defenders too many. The pirates went back to Isla del Rey and waited. At last, on 18 May, getting on for four months after arriving in the Bay of Panama, they sighted the ‘Plate-Fleet’. It was an armada of some force, but no plate (only half had been shipped for fear of its loss, and all of that had been offloaded before the fleet reached the Bay of Panama). There were six powerful warships including one carrying forty-eight guns and 450 men, another with forty guns and 400 men, a third with thirty-six guns

71

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 71

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland and 360 men, and a fourth with twenty-four guns and 300 men. There were ‘two great Fireships’ and six other ships with no cannon but which together carried another 800 men armed with muskets. In addition, there were ‘two or three hundred’ men deployed in periaguas. In all, the Spanish fleet carried about 3,000 fighting men. The pirates were clearly heavily outnumbered. Their two largest vessels, the ‘Batchelors Delight’ and the Cygnet, had thirty-six guns and sixteen respectively. Captain Gronet and his men had slinked off, out of harm’s way, leaving 960 fighting men to seize what they thought would be a handsome prize. Being to windward of the Spanish, and having a poor opinion of their abilities as seamen, the pirates decided to attack. As night began to fall, they swept down towards the Spanish ships. Darkness didn’t stop them. They went in hot pursuit of the light carried at the admiral’s masthead. But when dawn broke, they were mortified to find out that they had been tricked. The light they had followed had been set on the masthead of a lesser ship tasked with leading them as far to leeward as possible. Looking around, they saw the rest of the Spanish fleet were now to windward. ‘So we ran for it, and after a running Fight all day, and having taken a turn almost round the Bay of Panama, we came to an Anchor again at the Isle of Pacheque, in the very same place from where we set out in the Morning’, said Dampier. ‘Thus ended this day’s Work, and with it all that we had been projecting for five or six Months’. The Spaniards did not care to continue the fight and both sides were happy to call the exchange a no-score draw. At the beginning of June, the pirates sailed off, heading west towards their rendezvous point at the island of Quibo (also known as Coiba), the largest island in Central America. Now part of Panama, it lies fifteen miles off that country’s south coast and 200 miles from Panama City. There, they took stock and, now ‘out of hopes to get anything at Sea’. they decided to start attacking towns. The most obvious first choice was Leon, another 500 miles or so up the coast in Nicaragua. But the town was over twenty miles inland, its port being Realejo, which they had thought about attacking before. They needed canoes to make the raid. There not being any available to steal, they set about making their own, felling trees and gouging and burning out their centres. The crew of the ‘Batchelors Delight’ made two, one thirty-six feet long, the other thirty-two feet, and both five or six feet wide. It took just over a month. The sail to Realejo took a little short of three weeks. Arriving off the port they had with them a total of thirty-one canoes and 520 men.

72

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 72

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Raiding the Spanish Main Dampier said Thomas Gage, an English friar and author who had lived in South America for over ten years in the early part of the century, had described Leon as ‘the pleasantest place in all America’. The pirates took the town and burnt it. (Dampier was left with a party of fifty men guarding the canoes while they did this). They next went to Realejo. They sailed in with their ships and stayed a week, also leaving the place smouldering. At this point Davis and Swan decided to split up. There was no bad feeling, but one wanted to sail back south, while the other, Swan, wanted to sail further up the coast. Dampier changed ships and went with him ‘to get some knowledge of the Northern Parts of this Continent of Mexico’. He explained: ’I knew that Captain Swan determined to coast it as far North as he thought convenient and then pass over for the East Indies, which was a way very agreeable to my Inclination’. Swan and Townley went one way, Davis and the others, the other. For the rest of the year Swan, with Dampier aboard, sailed west and north along the south coast of Central America, making occasional forays inland without much success. On one such raid a prisoner told them a ship had lately arrived in Acapulco, having come from Lima in anticipation of the Manila ship. This came annually at, or soon after Christmas, and brought various rare items from the Far East. Townley immediately wanted to go to Acapulco and steal the ship for himself. Swan said it would be better to make sure they had sufficient provisions first. Nobody listened, except perhaps Dampier. The upshot was that they sailed further down the coast to Acapulco and spent a few days reconnoitring the harbour before deciding it, and the ship, were too well defended to attempt. They sailed off, but hung around further up the coast, waiting for the Manila treasure ship. In the event they didn’t find it. In one of his ‘I told you so’ comments, Dampier said it probably slipped by when they were obliged to leave their station to re-supply. If only they had listened to Swan, they could all have been a lot better off, he said. It was now February 1686 and they were about 600 miles north of Acapulco, opposite the Maria Islands, almost into the Gulf of California, and desperate to stock up on food. When men sent out to explore the rivers and creeks of the nearby coast came back to tell Swan that Santa Pecaque, a town a few miles inland was likely to hold good stocks of maize, he was quick to organise a raiding party. It was a big mistake. The scavengers were too successful for their own good. Their haul was too substantial to be carried off in one go and had to be relayed back to waiting canoes. This meant the pirate force became divided and those left

73

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 73

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland guarding the canoes were set upon. All of them, some fifty pirates, were killed. When Swan found them, his men were ‘so cut up and mangled that he scarce knew one Man’. Dampier guessed the Spaniards had also lost many men in the fight. ‘The loss discouraged us from attempting anything more hereabouts’, said Dampier. Swan sailed off for Cape San Lucas, Baha, Mexico, a rocky headland at the southern tip of the Gulf of California. At the time it was uncertain, at least in English charts, whether the gulf was a strait between an island and the mainland or a gulf. Dampier confirmed it was the latter. The winds were against them and they had to settle for the Maria Islands, about a third of the way along their preferred course. Many of the crew had been sick since leaving Realejo, Dampier amongst them. Some had died. Dampier said he believed the illness was ‘Dropsy’, an illness that causes water retention within the body and limbs to swell. He said he knew of two supposed remedies. One was to drink pulverised alligator testicles. He would have tried it but as there were no alligators to be had, he tried the second cure instead. This was to have himself buried up to his neck in hot sand. ‘I endured it near half an Hour, and then was taken out and laid to sweat in a Tent’, he said. ‘I believe it did me much good, for I grew well soon after’. They treated the sick, cleaned their ship, loaded provisions, and filled their casks with water. ‘Having thus provided ourselves, we had nothing more to do but put in Execution our intended Expedition to the East Indies’, said Dampier. Turning westwards was also a turning point for Dampier. Although he hoped for ‘better success’ in the East Indies, his pirating days were mostly done for now. There were fewer opportunities for wrongdoing in the East Indies and he could concentrate on transforming himself from a criminal into a scientist/explorer.

74

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 74

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Chapter 11

Tace is Latin for a Candle Had he lived in the twenty-first century, William Dampier would probably have been categorised as a sociopath. He was somebody with little respect for social norms, he showed little or no remorse for his crimes, gave no signs of any feelings for the misery he caused, and was quick to shake off his responsibilities: as his wife would no doubt have agreed at this point. He was also perhaps a little way up the autistic scale. He was clearly obsessed with collecting facts and figures, which is why he was such a successful navigator. He was so absorbed in this collecting that he would often withdraw into his own world, marching off to take notes about local plant and animal life, without regard to other duties or his own health. In another world he might have been an academic, living in his own bubble. Some of his personality defects had positive outcomes for those around him. He was clearly good in a crisis, and cool under fire. And he did collect useful information about all sorts of things, ranging from magnetic variation, to the course of ocean currents, to wind patterns, and to the properties of soil. He drew maps and the profiles of mountains so that they could be identified from the sea. He kept so many notes about the taste of different animals and plants, and how these could be prepared, that they could have been turned into a classic cookbook. His writing ability was a major redeeming feature. His books are still readable more than three hundred years after they were first published. They are full of anecdotes and information presented in such a way that all might understand. Animals, plants, buildings, geographical features are all compared to home-grown examples; the colour of a Dorset pig, the size of one of our ducks, the thickness of a man’s arm. Like other sociopaths, he was on the face of things affable; he could not have collected so many anecdotes otherwise. It was affability for a purpose. Like the journalist he was, he saw people, perhaps mainly, as a source of information. It tended to be only later that the people he met found out what he really thought about them, which usually was not very much.

75

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 75

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland He certainly left out anything self-incriminating from his books, but he gave his readers fair warning. In the preface of his A New Voyage Round the World, he told those readers that: ‘I could not prejudice the Truth and Sincerity of my Relation, though by Omissions only’. He was a man of his times; a brutal man in a brutal age where, given the chance, anybody would exploit anybody else and everybody was fair game. He was not driven to a life of crime, he chose it. And he was a brilliant navigator. Until the point at which he headed off across the Pacific with Swan, there is no indication that he held any particular position of authority on the ships on which he sailed, although given his apprenticeship he was probably always something other than an ‘ordinary seaman’. But setting out into the ocean blue, he seems to have become more involved in management of the ship, and more listened to. In particular, his navigating skills, honed over his years at sea, were called upon. It was a daunting voyage. They were not exactly heading off into the unknown. Others had made the voyage before them (including the hapless Cowley, as it turned out), and they carried with them various charts picked up along the way. The description ‘charts’ may be misleading; they were approximations, showing little more than placenames with sketches and sometimes latitudes. Besides the Cygnet, Swan had at his disposal an unnamed captured ‘bark’ which he decided should sail in consort under the day-to-day management of his chief mate, now captain, Teat. The barque carried a crew of fifty men, and the Cygnet 100 men. They knew the first place they could touch at was Guam, on which Magellan had landed in 1521 and which had long been a staging post for Spanish treasure ships sailing annually to and from Acapulco in Mexico and Manilla in the Philippines. Smaller than Singapore, Guam is the largest island of the Mariana archipelago, a string of tiny islands in the middle of nowhere. (In Dampier’s day they were known as the Islas de los Ladrones: the ‘Islands of Thieves’.) Guam is roughly 1,700 miles south of Japan, 1,400 miles north of Papua New Guinea, and 1,600 miles east of the Philippines. There is not much else in between. The voyage Dampier and Swan planned from Mexico to Guam was close to 7,200 miles (6,300 nautical miles). Nobody aboard the Cygnet knew this for sure. ‘The great Distance between Cape Corrientes (their departure point from Mexico) and Guam is variously set down’, said Dampier. ‘The Spaniards, who have the greatest Reason to know best, make it to be between 2,300 Leagues and 2,400 Leagues’ (about 8,000 miles). ‘Our Books reckon

76

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 76

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Tace is Latin for a Candle it differently, between 90 and 100 Degrees, which in all comes short indeed of 2,000 leagues’ (6,900 miles). ‘But even this’, he said, ’was enough to frighten us’. Swan persuaded his crew that if they limited their food to half a pint of maize a day, the two ships had sixty day’s-worth of provisions in their holds, just enough to see them through. In this estimation Dampier said the ‘great many Rats aboard, which we could not hinder from eating part of our Maize’ had been factored in. But Swan said both Sir Thomas Cavendish and Sir Francis Drake had made the run in less than fifty days, and the Cygnet was a better ship than those which either of these famous English mariners had had at their disposal. Swan’s ‘Reasons were many, although weak’, said Dampier. But they were strong enough to carry the argument. In the end they made the crossing with a day’s food to spare. Relieved and re-provisioned, Swan and his ships stayed in Guam for just under two weeks. Had they known it, the annual Spanish Acapulco treasure ship had been wallowing helplessly nearby for some of the time they were there. The Spaniards had come within sight of the island shortly after the arrival of Swan’s two ships. The governor had sent a proa (a fast-sailing canoe with outrigger) to warn his countrymen that English privateers were in town and possibly lying in wait. The Spaniards promptly stood off to the south. In the process the captain had run his ship over a reef that Teat had noted on the way in. Being larger than Teat’s barque, the Acapulco ship could not pass over so easily and its rudder was ‘struck off ’. It took the Spaniards three days to repair the damage, during which time they had been sitting ducks. Dampier disapproved of the Spaniards’ seamanship. Although the shoal was near to Guam and the locals fished there every day, ‘the Master of the Acapulco Ship, who should (one would think) know these Parts, was utterly ignorant of it’, he wrote. Dampier and fellow crew members found out about the near-disaster later, when most were all for making a raid on Manilla where the Acapulco ship was then anchored. But this was after Swan was no longer in the picture. There were signs of tensions between Swan and some of his crew even before the pirate gang set off for Guam. Swan had confided in Dampier that he had no intention of privateering in the East Indies. Rather, he intended to take the first opportunity of returning to England. He had made money for the ship’s owners (mainly by selling a good part of his cargo to other pirates), and he thought he could use his ‘privateering’ profits to retire in

77

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 77

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland comfort. Some of his crew who also had plenty of value in their sea chests, were of similar mind. But others who had been less careful with their booty were intent on further piracy. With divisions growing, they decided to head for Mindanao, in the Philippines. Swan thought it a safe haven far enough away from Spanish possessions to keep temptation at bay. Those intent on further robbery went along with the choice because they believed (‘tho’ falsly’) that the island was at war with the Spanish. ‘Our Men, who it should seem were very squeamish of plundering without Licence, derived hopes from thence of getting a Commission there from the Prince of the Island, to plunder the Spanish Ships about Manila’, said Dampier. They realised they might have to split with Swan to do this, but thought they would have little trouble in getting (presumably by stealing) a new ship in Manilla. Dampier did not say whether he was among the ‘squeamish’ brigade. Mindanao was 1,400 miles away and the voyage took them almost three weeks. Mindanao is the second largest island and southernmost of the Philippines archipelago, which contains over 7,000 islands and stretches for over 1,100 miles from north to south. The largest island is Luzon (Dampier called it ‘Luconia’), on which Manila stands, and which is at the north end of the island chain. To the north of that, about 500 miles away, lies Taiwan (‘Formosa’ to Dampier). And to the south of Mindanao lies Indonesia, about 400 miles away, and Australia (then an unknown continent), about 1,400 miles away. Swan first brought his ships to anchor at the north-east of Mindanao. Surviving a storm, they coasted down the east of the island, and then across the south. By July 1686 they had made their way into the Gulf of Moro, where they anchored near the present-day town of Cotabato, the domain of Sultan Barahaman, also known as Minulu sa rahmatullah, and to Dampier as Almo Sobat. They immediately were intercepted by the sultan’s brother and fixer, ‘General’ Raja Laut. ‘There is no Man can come into the River or go out but by his leave’, explained Dampier. And it was not long before they were exchanging gifts and being introduced to the sultan himself, ‘a little Man, between 50 and 60 Years old’, who ‘had a Queen, and keeps about 29 Women, or Wives more’. In Dampier’s time the island was divided between four competing communities, of which the Sultan’s was the largest. Each had their own ruler and all were Muslim, with the men taking a number of wives. It was a pleasant place, the people were polite and friendly, and there was plenty to eat.

78

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 78

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Tace is Latin for a Candle Swan had wanted somewhere to ride out the tropical cyclones likely in August and September. This was ideal. Meanwhile, the presence of armed English ships suited the sultan and his brother very well. They saw them as a buffer against any attempts at Dutch or Spanish colonisation. ‘They are now most afraid of the Dutch, being sensible how they have inslaved many of the Neighbouring Islands’, said Dampier. A deal was struck. They could stay. In fact Dampier stayed for six months, some of his shipmates longer. Dampier liked the island and even mused about living there permanently. He liked the cleanliness of the people, and was surprised to see that they washed twice daily in the river (which was also used as a latrine). He later took up the practice of washing each day himself and said it helped him overcome his ‘distemper’. Unsurprisingly, he also had some critical things to say about the place, and especially about the sultan and his brother. His comments are also revealing about his own attitudes to man-management and to trickery. He was amused by two letters shown to the privateers by the sultan. Both were, of course, handwritten and were in English. They were probably not fully understood by the sultan. One, from the East India Company, with a gold line drawn between each line of text, asked for permission to build a fort on the island. The other had been left by a Captain Goodlud who had dropped anchor there to trade. Helpfully he had set down the prices he had agreed for various commodities. But, as Dampier noted, the letter ended with the warning ‘trust none of them for they are Thieves, but Tace is Latin for a Candle’ (this last phrase meaning ‘keep quiet’). Although the sultan was ‘very good natured’, Dampier clearly did not think too much of him. He had absolute power but was ruled over by his women. And he was continually after money; both from Swan and his crew, and, more significantly, from his own people. Whenever he discovered that anybody had any money ‘it be but 20 Dollars, which is a great matter among them’, he would ask for a loan; a loan that was never repaid. Another strategy he employed was to have one of his subjects buy something from him (a deal that could not be refused). But later he would ask to borrow back whatever it was he had sold: another loan that was probably not repaid or returned. He was a ‘poor Prince’, Dampier concluded. In general the Mindanaon people were imbued with ‘good natural Wits, are ingenious, nimble, and active when they are minded’. But, said Dampier, they were also ‘very lazy and thievish and will not work except when forced

79

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 79

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland by Hunger’. Their laziness seemed to stem not from natural inclinations but ‘from the severity of their Prince’. By dealing with his subjects ‘very arbitrarily, and taking from them what he could get, this damps their industry, so they never strive to have anything but from Hand to Mouth’. All this came from a pirate who was himself more than a little ‘thievish’ and was very adept at ‘taking what he could get’. His concerns about the sultan’s approach seem to have had more sympathy with the Genghis Khan guide to getting more out of people than to any thoughts for the lot of the sultan’s subjects. But Dampier had a good story to tell about a trick played on Raja Laut. Captain Swan, wanting to entertain the sultan and his brother, ‘sent for his Violins, and some that could dance English Dances’. Among the dancers was one John Thacker, ‘who was a Seaman bred, and could neither Write nor Read; but had formerly learnt to Dance in Musick-houses about Wapping’. Thacker had accumulated a sizable hoard of prize money and ‘had still some left, besides what he had laid out in a very good suit of Cloaths’. The general sized Thacker up and decided that, because of his fine clothes, he must be from a noble family. He turned to one of the crew and asked if this was indeed the case. ‘Yes’, said the man. In fact, ‘most of our Ship’s Company were of the like Extraction; especially all those that had fine Cloaths; and that they came aboard only to see the World, having Money enough to bear their Expenses; but for the rest, those that had but mean Clothes, they were only common Seamen’. After this Raja Laut showed great respect to Thacker and all of the others who were well-dressed. This was until Swan came to hear of the ruse and ‘marr’d all’ by giving the game away. Swan was beguiled by his introduction to royal life. He enjoyed the nightly dancing displays by young women who sang as they danced. He was in awe of the barefoot Sultan who was carried about on a couch held shoulder-high. He, and the other better-off sailors, enjoyed living ashore, entertained by paid women friends. It was the custom here, said Dampier, for husbands to offer their wives as ‘pagallies’ (after all, most had some to spare). This, he said, was a form of begging because ‘a Pagally is an innocent Platonick Friend’. Those befriended were expected to reward their pagally with gifts, and in return would be welcomed into her house where ‘he may be entertained for his Money, to Eat, Drink, or Sleep; and complimented, as often as he came ashore, with Tobacco and Betel-Nut, which is all the Entertainment he must expect gratis’. So, a sort of holiday club.

80

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 80

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Tace is Latin for a Candle Even the richest men’s wives were allowed to become pagallies, and to speak with their men-friends in public and receive gifts from them, said Dampier. ‘Even the Sultan’s and the General’s Wives, who are always coopt up, will look out of their Cages when a Stranger passeth by, and demand of him if he wants a Pagally’. Those crew members without the means to live ashore were not so enamoured with the place, they were bored and wanted action. Seeing Swan wallowing in luxury was beginning to grate. This was especially so when, keen to show off his own authority over his men, the captain started to become something of a martinet, meting out punishments to his crew and even to his second in command, Teat. This was not the sort of behaviour expected, or tolerated, by privateers, let alone pirates. Swan had formed a friendship of sorts with Raja Laut, but Dampier did not forget Captain Goodlud’s comments. He thought perhaps the general had played a part in the recent running away of some of the crew, and he had failed to come up with the full amount of rice and beef promised in a trade for metal bars. Dampier also suspected that when they arrived, Laut had persuaded the newcomers to moor their ships in a creek particularly prone to harbouring hull-eating worms. If it was his plan to delay departure of the Englishmen by disabling their ships, he had underestimated the ingenuity of Swan’s men. The Cygnet had a false keel and double planking. They simply ripped off the outer layer and replaced it with new planks they cut from trees that they felled locally. Things eventually came to a head when the gunner was sent by Swan to fetch some things he had left aboard the ship. The man looked around Swan’s cabin and found his journal. It was picked up by one of the liveaboard crew, who soon discovered the journal was littered with highly critical and probably incriminating comments. When he showed the others, there was uproar. Teat, who saw an opportunity to revenge his humiliation, was at the forefront. They decided there and then that Swan should be replaced, although no decision was taken about who should take over. They would have sailed at once but had no doctor aboard, and they thought that sailing without a doctor would be foolhardy. For two days they waited for the doctor to arrive. When he did, they fired a gun and weighed anchor. Swan, seeing movement on the ship, sent his replacement chief mate to find out what was afoot. Although he found a ship full of angry men, the mate persuaded them to stay another day. That day arrived and Swan sent a confidante aboard to talk the men down. ‘They were deaf to it’, said Dampier. He was, of course, critical of Swan. He should have gone aboard

81

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 81

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland long before to sort out any unrest, said Dampier. And he certainly should have stepped in towards the end. The pirates stayed in the bay until two o’clock. There was still no sign of Swan, so they sailed off leaving him and thirty-six others still ashore. They later heard that Swan had been killed when fighting for Raja Laut. Another version was that Raja Laut had arranged for the canoe in which Swan was travelling to be overturned and for Swan to be drowned. Dampier did not say which side he took in the argument between Swan and his crew but he was careful to say that once the decision had been made to take over command of the Cygnet, nobody was allowed ashore. Excepting, that is, one sawyer and ‘one William Williams that had a wooden Leg’.

82

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 82

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Chapter 12

Sad Reflections of a Lucky Man Swan’s Cygnet set off on its planned voyage to Manila in January 1687. Swan himself was not aboard. He had been left to pursue his regal career on Mindanao. The ship never did reach Manila, instead it followed the winds, cruising the South China Sea for the next year. Soon, a new captain was elected, the same John Read who had figured so strongly in the critical comments confided to Swan’s private (and now, not so private) journal. They were driven westward and by mid-March were at Con Dao, an island off the coast of South Vietnam (Dampier used the name then commonly used by the English, Pulo Condore, ‘a little parcel of islands, on the Coast Cambodia’). Along the way they engaged in some low-level piracy, taking a vessel laden with rice and Sailcloth, both intended for the elusive and neverto-be-taken Acapulco Galleon. Dampier was soon complaining that they had nothing but rice to eat. But they had other comforts. In Con Dao ‘they are so free of their Women that they would bring them aboard, and offer them to us; and many of our Men hired them for a small matter’. They stayed for just over a month before heading off for the Gulf of Thailand (called the ‘Bay of Siam’ by Dampier). On the way they stopped at Hon Khoai, an island at the southern tip of Vietnam (called Pulo Ubi by Dampier) and then sailed into the bay, where they managed to run aground. No damage was done and by late May they were back at Pulo Condore. Two weeks later they were on their way again, once more shaping their course towards Manilla. Once again, they didn’t make it. Contrary winds forced them to the north-east. ‘We despaired of getting to Manila; and therefore began to project some new design; and the result was a visit the Island Prata’ (in fact Pratas). Some 160 miles south of Hong Kong and mainland China, Pratas Island is 270 miles west of Taiwan (‘Formosa’ to Dampier), by which it is now administered. According to Dampier ‘the Chinese do dread the rocks about it’. Many ‘Jonks’ had been lost there ‘with an abundance of Treasure in them’. The danger ‘did not daunt’ Read and his crew, but again the winds beat them. They tacked towards the island for five or six days before giving up and heading for the mainland, finding shelter in an off-lying island.

83

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 83

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Driven away by storms and bad weather, they were by late July in the Pescadores Islands between Taiwan and the mainland. But by the end of the month they were on the move again, heading for a group of islands that were unnamed on their charts and which they thought would be uninhabited. Lying between the southern tip of Taiwan and the northern tip of the Philippines, they believed these islands would be a good base from which to mount a raid on Manila ‘which we did still intend to visit’. Arriving on 6 August 1687, they were surprised to find an ‘Abundance of Inhabitants’ and three large towns. One of the islands was about thirty miles long, and two more were about half that length. As they were unnamed on the charts, the crew took it in turns to come up with a name for each. A Dutchman christened the largest Prince of Orange’s Island. The second of the larger islands was named Duke of Monmouth’s Island, and of the smaller islands one was named Goat Island and the other, by unanimous vote of the crew, Boshee Island ‘from the Liquor we drank there plentifully every day, after we came to anchor at it’. The other of the three largest islands was named by Dampier himself. ‘The Northernmost of them, where we first anchored, I called the Duke of Grafton’s Isle, as soon as we landed on it; having married my wife out of his Dutchess’s Family, and leaving her at Arlington house at my going Abroad’. He might have added that his ‘going abroad’ had been getting on for nine years before. (Today the islands, which are a dependency of the Philippines, are known as the Ashee or Bashi Islands.) Read and his crew stayed in the islands until the end of September, using their time to mend their sails and clean the hull of their ship. They expected October to bring northerly winds that would sweep them down to Manila. And the winds did change, but with such vengeance that they were at one point forced to cut their anchor chain and sail into deeper water. Two days later, all had quietened down and they were able to return to Boshee Island to collect crew members who had been left behind. The experience had unnerved them all, ‘and frightened them from their design of cruising before Manila, fearing another storm there’. Now, said Dampier, ‘every Man wisht himself at home, as they had done a hundred times before’. Even so, the crew allowed themselves to be talked, by Read and Teat, who was now master, to head instead for Kanyakumari (then Cape Comorin) at the southern point of India. This was a voyage of some 3,000 miles, even taking the most direct route which meant sailing through the Straits of Malacca which separate Malaysia from the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The south-western end of the straits is accessed via Singapore. But Read and Teat proposed ‘a very tedious way about’. They

84

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 84

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Sad Reflections of a Lucky Man said the Cygnet should sail south as far as the Spice Islands, which lie in the Banda Sea, east of Indonesia, west of Papua New Guinea and north of Australia. From there they would turn west, then north. Dampier thought the intention was to cruise the Red Sea. He was ‘well enough satisfied’ with the proposed course because he was now ‘fully resolved to take the first opportunity of giving them the slip’. They sailed, as planned, to the Spice Islands which they reached in December. At this point they should have sailed west, but the winds persisted from this direction. So instead they ‘stood off South, intending to touch at New Holland’. Australis Incognita, the ‘southern unknown’, had in fact been known about for some time. Greek philosopher Aristotle had conjectured there must be a landmass in the southern hemisphere to ‘balance’ the world. And in 1606 Dutchman Willem Janszoon proved him right when he sighted, then landed upon the Cape York Peninsular. This is in the far north of Australia, the part that is nearest Papua New Guinea and is now part of Queensland. Thirty-six years later Abel Tasman sighted Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, in the far south. Even so, the exact size and dimensions of the southern continent remained unknown. But given the involvement of these Dutch mariners and others in charting parts of Australis Incognito, the known parts were marked down as ‘New Holland’, the name that Dampier used. ‘New Holland is a very large Tract of Land’, he said. ‘It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main Continent; but I am certain that it joyns neither Asia, Africa, nor America’. The charts gave approximations, but were not nearly as precise as Dampier would have wished. That did not stop them. ‘The fourth day January, 1688, we fell in with the Land of New Holland’, he reported. They found ‘a very good place to anchor’, probably somewhere to the west of present-day Darwin, in the Northern Territory. It meant that the Cygnet had become the first English ship, and its crew, the first Englishmen, to make landfall in Australia. Dampier was not too impressed with what he found. ‘The Land is of a dry sandy Soil, destitute of Water’. There were some small trees, he conceded, but ‘we saw no sort of Animal, nor any Track of Beast, but once’. There were ‘a few Land-birds, but none bigger than a Blackbird’, he said. ‘Neither is the Sea very plentifully stored with Fish, unless you reckon the Manatee and Turtle as such’. As for the people, Dampier thought them the ‘miserablest’ in the world. They had no boats, no houses, barely any clothes, and slept in the open air without any covering; ‘the Earth being their Bed, and the Heaven

85

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 85

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland their Canopy’. Their place of dwelling was a fire. ‘The Hodmadods of Monomatapa’ (nomadic African bushmen) ‘though a nasty People, yet for Wealth are Gentlemen to these; who have no Houses and skin Garments, Sheep, Poultry, and Fruits of the Earth, Ostrich Eggs, &c. as the Hodmadods have’. Into the bargain, Dampier found the people ugly and said they had poor eyesight because they always kept their eyes half-closed to keep out the flies. He could not understand their lack of inquisitiveness or drive. Despite all this, Read and his crew stayed just short of ten weeks, living ashore while they again mended their sails and cleaned their hull. They left in mid-March, sailing north-west, aiming for the Keeling Islands (Dampier called them the Cocos Islands) in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They were now well on the western side of Indonesia and the Malaysian Peninsular, and on course for India. They did not make the Keeling Islands. With the wind against them, they chose to bear away eastwards to ‘some islands on the West side of the Indonesian island of Sumatra’. From there they coasted northwards, taking a proa laden with coco-nuts along the way. ‘It was not for the lucre of the Cargo that Captain Read took this Boat, but to hinder me and some others going ashore, for he knew that we were ready to make our escapes’, said Dampier. ‘He thought that by abusing and robbing the Natives, we should be afraid to trust our selves among them’. But Dampier soon had his chance. Read continued to sail northwards and five days later, on 4 April 1688, was in sight of the Nicobar Islands. These form a chain stretching northwards across the western edge of the Andaman Sea, pointing towards Myanmar. Read anchored at Nicobar Island itself. Here the Cygnet was once more cleaned and re-provisioned. Dampier waited until the last minute before asking to be set ashore. Read agreed. Dampier thought this was because his captain believed he was bluffing, Nicobar Island being too out of the way and seldom visited by ships. But after some to-ing and fro-ing it was agreed. Dampier left the ship on which he had been sailing for most of the last three years and took his sea chest ashore. He was joined by three others from the crew, plus the four men taken with their proa. The surgeon, Herman Coppinger, would have left the ship too, but was prevented; he was apparently too valuable to them. Dampier, on the other hand, had become too much of a burden to hang on to. His navigational skills were useful, but there were other ‘sea artists’ among the crew, and many who were not so disruptive. (The Cygnet and its ‘mad, fickle crew’ was next heard of in southern India and later in Madagascar. Along the way many of the crew had dispersed,

86

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 86

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Sad Reflections of a Lucky Man including Read and ‘five or six more’ who joined a New York slaver. Teat at last took over as captain and cruised the Red Sea, but even he eventually left. With the ship now in very poor condition, a new crew tried to sail her back to England, but only made it as far as Madagascar where, one-time slave and now East India Company captain, Robert Knox, told Dampier ‘she now lies sunk’.) It was now May 1688, coming up to ten years since Dampier had left his bride for a short excursion to make their fortunes. He must have thought it was time to start making his way home, but first he had to get himself away from Nicobar Island. It took the dissenters just over a week to find themselves a boat. It was a canoe that they intended to use to sail across the open sea to Banda Aceh (Achin to Dampier) on the northern tip of Sumatra. They capsized at their first attempt to launch it through the waves and soon fitted outriggers to make the canoe more stable. The journey took them five days. It was not comfortable. They endured thunder and lightning, vicious winds and mountainous seas that threatened to snap off their outriggers and overcome them. It was so bad that Dampier even said he repented his piratical lifestyle. I must confess that I was in great Conflicts of Mind at this time. Other Dangers came not upon me with such a leisurely and dreadful Solemnity. A sudden Skirmish or Engagement, or so, was nothing when ones Blood was up, and pushed forwards with eager Expectations. But here I had a lingering view of approaching Death, and little or no hopes of escaping it; and I must confess that my Courage, which I had hitherto kept up, failed me here: I made very sad Reflections on my former Life, and looked back with Horror and Detestation, on Actions which before I disliked, but now I trembled at the remembrance of. I had long before this repented me of that roving course of life, but never with such concern as now. I did also call to mind the many miraculous Acts of God’s Providence towards me in the whole course of my Life, of which kind I believe few Men have met with the like. For all these I returned Thanks in a peculiar manner, and this once more desired God’s assistance, and composed my Mind, as well as I could, in the hopes of it, and, as the Event showed, I was not disappointed of my Hopes.

87

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 87

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland This is the nearest Dampier came to expressing any sort of religious belief. By morning he had recovered his normal demeanour and by noon he was even able to make a joke. One of the four local men, who had been taken with their proa and later released with Dampier, was the first to sight Wey Island, which lies off of Banda Aceh, Sumatra. In his excitement he shouted out ‘Pulo Wey, Pulo Wey’. Dampier said that at first he thought the man was shouting ‘pull away, pull away’, ‘an Expression usual among English Seamen, when they are Rowing’. They had reached safety and Dampier had decided it was time to start thinking about how he was going to get home.

88

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 88

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Chapter 13

The Man who ate Everything Despite Dampier’s ‘reflections’ on his life, it took him another two years to get back to England. One of the reasons that it took him so long was that he, along with the others who had sailed from Nicobar, was taken ill. Two died. There may have been more, because he lost contact with the four local men. It sounded from Dampier’s description of the symptoms, which involved fevers and ‘flux’ and which went and then came back again, as if he might have contracted malaria. It also seemed that the initial ‘cure’ prescribed by a Malay doctor was even worse than the disease. But a weakened Dampier insisted he was ‘accustomed to hardships and hazards’ and carried on as best he could, making contact with English ships in the harbour and with their captains. For the next year or so Dampier signed on for voyages to India, Vietnam and Malaysia. Finally, he took on the post of gunner for an East India Company fort in Bengkulu (Dampier called it Bencouli) in southwest Sumatra. Along the way, he had been gifted a half share in Jeoly, a ‘painted prince’. Jeoly had been bought, along with his mother, by a supercargo named Moody as a way of inveigling himself into the spice trade. His plan was to return Jeoly to his home island of ‘Meangis’ (Meangas, now the northernmost of Indonesia’s Sulawasi Islands, about sixty miles south-west of Mindanao. Ironically, its name is said to mean ‘exposed to piracy’). Dampier accepted the gift, seeing the possibility of putting the heavily tattooed man on display in England as a way of making money. ‘I was in hopes that when I had got some Money, I might there obtain what I had in vain sought for in the Indies, viz, A Ship from the Merchants, wherewith to carry him back to Meangis’, wrote Dampier. It was not as well-meaning as it sounded. There were strings attached because, taking up Moody’s idea, Dampier wanted Jeoly ‘by his Favour and Negotiation’ to help him set up his own ‘Traffick for the Spices and other products of those Islands’. He could have just let Jeoly go. But he didn’t. Meanwhile, the governor of the fort was also loathe to let his gunner leave. When the new owner of the other half of Jeoly (the mother having

89

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 89

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland died) turned up in Bengkulu as chief mate on the Defence, Dampier saw his chance. This was an East India Ship en route to England. Its commander, Captain Heath, agreed to take both Dampier and Jeoly with him, provided they could be smuggled aboard. ‘I slipt away at midnight (understanding the Ship was to sail away the next morning, and that they had taken leave of the Fort) and creeping through one of the Port-holes of the Fort, I got to the shoar, where the Ships Boat waited for me’, said Dampier. He had brought his journal and ‘most of my written Papers’ but was obliged to leave behind ‘some Papers and Books‘ and all of his ‘furniture’: ‘Being glad I was my self at liberty, and had hopes of seeing England again’. Dampier made his getaway from Bengkulu in January 1691. It took the Defence just over nine months to reach England, sailing first to the Cape of Good Hope and then, after a stay, in convoy via the south Atlantic island of Santa Helena (later the island where Napoleon Bonaparte was held for the last six years of his life). They stayed at the island a little less than a week, but while there Jeoly was much admired. The people ‘flocked about him’, said Dampier. If he had still been in reflective mood, Dampier had plenty to mull over during the voyage home. He was about to complete a twelve-year circumnavigation of the globe at a time when ships were considered lucky to return from any long voyage with more than half their crew still breathing. As he said himself, he had been to many places that few other Englishmen had visited. Along the way he had conducted some awful acts of cruelty but had also accumulated facts, figures, and descriptions: a hoard of intelligence that he judged to be of considerable value. And he had tasted a compendium of creatures. He had eaten flamingo tongues (a feast fit for a king), peccary (‘a sort of wild Hog’), monkeys, buffalo (‘drest very nastily’), pigeons, parrots and turtle doves, penguins, boobies and seals. He had tasted guanos (‘they make good broth’), locusts (they ‘eat most moist, their Heads would crackle in one’s Teeth’), turtles, tortoises and seals. He enjoyed manatee (‘their flesh is white, both fat and lean, and extraordinary sweet wholesome meat. The tail of a young Cow is most esteem’d; but if old both head and tail are very tough. A Calf that sucks is the most delicate meat; Privateers commonly roast them’). Dampier thought the skin of the manatee ‘of great use’. Privateers, he said, cut this into straps ‘which they make fast on the sides of their Canoas through which they put their Oars in rowing, instead of tholes or pegs’. Sharks were a different matter. ‘While we lay in the calms we caught several great Sharks; sometimes two or three in a day, and eat them all,

90

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 90

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Man who ate Everything boyling and squeezing them dry, and then stewing them in Vinegar, Pepper, &c. for we had but little flesh aboard’. Dampier does not seem to have been a religious man (except when in the danger of drowning), although religion was something that was hard to escape in the seventeenth century. He would have been aware of the church’s teaching which held that animals had no souls and were part of ‘God’s Bounty’, put on earth for the use of man (and possibly woman also, so long as she obeyed her husband). It was only a small step from this notion to end up considering all ‘heathens’ fair game. Despite their heartless, uncharitable and positively unchristian way of life, privateers and pirates liked to consider themselves god-fearing people. Some captains, Sawkins, Watling and Woodes Rogers (see later) among them, insisted that their crews observe the Sabbath and outlawed gambling on Sundays (sometimes on any days). This was not so simple when England then observed the Julian Calendar and most other European countries (including Scotland), the Gregorian Calendar. England switched from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, but in the meantime, the days of the week were not standard. Unless the crew were all English, not often the case, different crew members would count themselves to be at different days of the week. Dampier made a joke of this. He said that when aboard a predominantly French-crewed ship, he found the crew so lazy that they counted every day a Sunday. Nevertheless, pirates would often fortify their spirits before action by hearing a sermon and drinking rum, or if no rum was available, drinking hot chocolate. Like his crewmates, Dampier’s moral compass seems to have been affected by a good deal of variation. But unlike those others of his ‘calling’, he maintained a healthy scepticism about most things, including religion. He believed in science, not magic. One mystery is why Dampier’s takings should not have been higher, and why he should have been so broke. He had been complaining about having no money since leaving Mexico and things did not seem to have improved in the intervening years. In general, privateers and pirates allowed money to flow freely through their fingers. ‘A short life but a merry one’, was their credo. They accepted ‘no purchase no pay’ because their reward was in part the freedom that a ‘roving life’ allowed them. Going to sea as a privateer or pirate was one of the few ways those born into the petrified society of seventeenth-century England could hope to break free.

91

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 91

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Being generous was also good for business. It supported the romantic perception of piracy, the ‘Robin Hood’ fallacy, and made those on the receiving end less likely, if called upon to sit on a grand jury, to indict such stout fellows. When they made money, pirates spent it. Tomorrow they might be dead. Some, such as ‘Musick-house’ denizen John Thacker, were ‘pretty good Husbands’ of their share (keeping enough even to buy a good suit of clothes). But many were pleased to spend their money as soon as it arrived, on drinking, gambling and womanising. The whore houses of Port Royal were testimony to this. There is no evidence that Dampier was partial to any of the above. In his usual fashion, his books suggest it was always the others who did these things. But he did say he abhorred drunkenness. Neither does Dampier seem to be the sort to be taken with gambling. He was too much of a fact-andfigures man, too much of a mathematician and too aware of the unlikelihood of beating the odds. As to his sexual preferences, little is said and nothing is known. The truth seems to be that for all their plundering, the cruise of the South Seas had not been too successful as regards booty. Many of their raids and other engagements had been to keep themselves in provisions, taking such things as maize, rice and flour, wine and marmalade. They had missed the ‘plate-fleet’ and the Acapulco treasure ship twice, once off Mexico and once off Guam, and they had failed to make it to Manilla to capture the same ship on its return voyage. The exceptions seem to have been Captain Harris and his crew, and Captain Swan, who had profits from the sale of his legitimate trading stock, mainly to members of Harris’ crew. Captain Peter Harris, nephew of the Captain Harris shot through both legs at the Battle of Perico, had arrived late to the party. Crossing the Darien overland, he had ‘routed the Spaniards away from the Town and Gold-Mines of Santa Maria’. The town had been rebuilt since taken by Coxon and crew, including Dampier, in 1680. In the intervening years it had grown considerably, and grown considerably richer. Harris found not only gold dust but ‘great lumps’ of gold. ’I have seen a lump as big as a Hens Egg brought by Captain Harris from thence, who took 120 pounds there’, said Dampier. Thacker, who had been one of Harris’ crew, evidently had plenty to dance about. But Dampier did not. He was broke.

92

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 92

15-10-2022 03:18:52

PART TWO

THE TAKING OF SCOTLAND What force or guile could not subdue, thro’ many warlike ages, is wrought now by a coward few, for hireling traitor’s wages  – Rabbie Burns

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 93

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Chapter 14

Oranges on Sticks When Dampier made it back to London in late September 1691, he stepped ashore with nothing except Jeoly and a sea chest full of his scribblings. He was probably lost amid the bustle of Wapping Wall, an unknown seaman among many. Jeoly, on the other hand, was not. He was something of a sensation. ‘I was no sooner arrived in the Thames, but he was sent ashore to be seen by some eminent persons’, wrote Dampier of Jeoly. ‘I being in want of Money was prevailed upon to sell first part of my share in him, and by degrees all of it. After this I heard he was carried about to be shown as a Sight’. Jeoly was put on display, billed as ‘Giolo’ and the ‘Painted Prince’.1 In fact the island of Gilolo, now named Halmahera, was mentioned in Dampier’s text as ‘well stored with cloves’ and is close to 700 miles away from Jeoly’s home island of Meangas. Various stories were invented about Jeoly’s supposed past; his capture, his royal heritage, his amorous affairs, and the magical powers of his tattoos; all apparently centred on a tiny island, no more than two miles in length and at the time supporting fewer than fifty inhabitants. ‘He died of the Small Pox at Oxford’, said Dampier, without sympathy for anybody but himself. Worse still, at least a portion, perhaps much more, of Jeoly’s ‘painted’ and poxed skin was removed and saved as a curiosity by St John’s College, Oxford. It seems Judith soon welcomed Dampier back to her lonely bed. Her demeanour may have been the more welcoming because her relative, Isabella Fitzroy (née Bennet), Lady Grafton and, since the death of her father, Countess Arlington, had recently become a widow. Isabella’s husband, eponym of a Philippines island, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, Earl of Euston, had been killed at the siege of Cork when fighting for the new king, King William. The Graftons had been living in Euston Hall in Suffolk, a property they had inherited from Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington. Following Grafton’s death, Isabella had decided to move her household back to Arlington House in London.

94

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 94

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Oranges on Sticks Judith, already facing disruption in her life, would have had plenty to say to Dampier on his return. Some, no doubt, was less than loving. But she also had much to tell about the many changes the country had undergone during his absence. Charles had been king of England and Scotland when Dampier set off on his travels in 1679. Six years later, still only fifty-four, he had suffered seizures, unconsciousness, fevers and loss of speech. For five days he was purged, bled, cupped and blistered, all to no avail. Nobody knew exactly what was wrong with him, and even if they had have known, his doctors would not have had access to any cure. The arrogant, spendthrift, womanising, closet-Catholic, King Charles died. He was replaced by his arrogant, scheming, womanising, and openly Catholic younger brother James. As promised in his secret deal with the Sun King, Charles had converted to Roman Catholicism, if only on his deathbed. At least James had been open all along about his own religious affiliations. The Test Acts, the latest had been in 1678, required those accepting public office, all peers and all members of the House of Commons, to have sworn their allegiance to the Protestant faith and the Church of England. The latest incarnation of this law had been passed in response to the claims of sometime preacher and serial perjurer, liar and fantasist Titus Oates. He had invented a bogus ‘Popish Plot’ that he said involved Jesuits, the Queen’s physicians, and various leading Catholics. Their mission, he claimed, was to kill the then king, Charles II. Oates’ false claims had led to hysteria, arrests and executions. Famously, the ‘Five Catholic Lords’ had been imprisoned in the Tower of London, and there had also been calls for the king’s brother, James, to be excluded from the royal succession (he had refused to take the oath required by the Test Acts). A number of bills were presented to Parliament to this effect, although none were passed. At the end of 1680 one of the five lords named by Oates, Viscount Stafford, met with Jack Ketch’s axe. Another, Lord Petre, died while resident in the Tower. And it was not until 1685, the year that James (II of England, VII of Scotland) came to the throne, that the remaining three lords were released and charges against them dropped. The final ‘Popish Plot’ headcount had been in the twenties, including Stafford and the Archbishop of Armagh. James had Oates tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for perjury (should he survive the added punishment of five days whipping in the streets of London each year). The sentence was handed down by King James’ favourite judge, Judge Jeffreys, the ‘hanging judge’ who was soon to

95

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 95

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland get to work on the remnants of Monmouth’s rebel army. Jeffreys, concluded failed brickmaker, courtier and diarist John Evelyn, was ‘of nature cruel and a slave to the Court’. All this happened in the first few months of James’ reign, and before his coronation. He was able to act in this way because, in the years between 1678 and 1685 he had rehabilitated his succession credentials, largely by going abroad, staying out of the way and avoiding dogma and principle. He had, despite the previous fuss, been accepted as king with little dissent, especially when he promised to confine his Catholic preferences. At first things went well and he was popular enough to be able to put down Monmouth’s challenge with some ease (and the help of Lord Grafton). Monmouth was the eldest of Charles’ army of illegitimate offsprings. His justification for opposing his uncle was his claim that Charles had secretly married his mother, Lucy Walter (or Barlow). The lady herself was long dead, so couldn’t comment. James Scott (or Crofts, or Fitzroy; like his mother he had alternative surnames), Lord Monmouth, had only recently been implicated in an alleged 1683 plot to kill his father (the ‘Rye House Plot’) and had found it convenient to decamp to Holland, his birthplace. Two years later, Charles was dead and Monmouth was back again, landing in Lyme Regis and expecting those unhappy with James to flock to his side. He had badly misjudged the situation. Relatively few were that unhappy; as yet. In under a month, Monmouth’s rag-tag band had been routed at the Battle of Sedgemoor and the would-be king had met his gory and botched end. The battle had been a mismatch between professional soldiers and a larger force of ‘pitchfork volunteers’. Of the latter, a third were killed or wounded on the battlefield and most of the rest were captured. Jeffrey’s ‘Bloody Assizes’ which followed, found over 400 of the prisoners deserving of a death sentence and had most of the rest transported to America or the West Indies. Jeffreys was rewarded by being made Lord Chancellor (although he did not live too long to enjoy his rewards, being arrested and sent to the Tower of London by King William, where he died in 1689. William also pardoned Oates, who had only escaped the rope on a technicality). As a pointer to future divisions within Scotland, the Earl of Argyll, Archibald Campbell, a Protestant and somebody else who had been implicated in the Rye House Plot, attempted a similar rebellion in Scotland. Monmouth and Argyll had devised a coordinated plan when in Holland together. The Scottish rising reached a similar conclusion to Monmouth’s; defeat and execution of its leader.

96

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 96

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Oranges on Sticks Another Scot to be involved (and who will feature again later) was Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, ‘the great patriot’. He also had been in Holland with Monmouth and returned with the would-be usurper, serving as his Master of the Horse. As such he had thought it proper to requisition for his own use the most handsome beast within Monmouth’s stables. It is said (by W C Mackenzie in his book Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun) that the animal he chose was that of goldsmith Heywood Dare, who had but lately arrived at Monmouth’s camp sat upon this very beast. Not caring to ask who owned the charger, Fletcher threw a saddle on the horse and went to place himself upon its back. Seeing this, Dare, a goldsmith and man of some substance, came puffing over, calling Saltoun a common thief and a beggarly Scot to boot. At this slur, the fiery Scot drew out his pistol and discharged it into Dare, killing him instantly. The upshot was that Saltoun accepted the advice that he should leave immediately and return to Holland, which he did. Somebody else involved with Monmouth who will also feature again was Daniel Foe (soon to style himself ‘DeFoe’). He arrived at Monmouth’s camp bouncing atop his own charger, his sword flapping at his side. He was in time to take part in the battle, and, like many others, to run away. Foe was the dissenting son of a dissenter who believed in religious freedom, which Monmouth promised. He seems to have escaped punishment for his part in the rebellion (although there are some claims that he was fined) because, as a travelling salesman, he had a ready excuse for being out and about after the battle. It is also likely he found it important to take his holidays abroad that year, possibly going to Spain where he had business contacts. Putting down the Monmouth Rebellion was the high point of James’ reign. From then on it was all a downhill journey during which he perpetrated a growing number of perceived insults upon his subjects. John Evelyn, as a Commissioner of the Privy Seal and therefore often at the centre of things, logged the descent of James in his diary (a pious Protestant, he was perhaps not an entirely even-handed observer). His attitude towards the king seems to have been quite modern: he had distaste and later sympathy for the man, but respect for his office. On 5 November 1685, an important day in the Protestant diary since it was the anniversary of the arrest of the Catholic ‘Gunpowder Conspirator’ Guy Fawkes, the customary bonfires had been forbidden. ‘What does that portend’, said Evelyn. By June the following year he was worried about the king’s army camped on Hounslow Heath, commonly referred to as the king’s Irish Brigands. ‘There are many jealousies and discourses of what was the meaning of

97

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 97

15-10-2022 03:18:52

The Pirate who Stole Scotland this encampment’, said Evelyn. In the following March there was ‘another change of the greate officers’, reported Evelyn. ‘The Treasury was put into Commission, two profess’d Papists among them’. That was not all. Lord Tyrconnell had been made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ‘to the astonishment of all sober men, and to the evident ruine of the Protestants in that kingdom’. And, ‘Popish Justicies of the Peace establish’d in all counties, of the meanest of the people; Judges ignorant of the law, and perverting it’. In April 1687 James II issued a seemingly illegal (as it contravened laws made by Parliament) dispensation to ‘Dissenters and Papists, to hold services without penalty’. Evelyn thought ‘This was purely obtain’d by the Papists, thinking thereby to ruine the Church of England, being now the onely Church which so admirably and strenuously oppos’d their superstition. What this will end in, God Almighty onely knows’. A year later the writing was on the wall. James had not been helped by a steady stream of French Protestant refugees arriving in England, having fled persecution in France. And James did not help himself by continuing to interpret his commitment to freedom of religion as allowing him to disregard the laws of the land by appointing whomever he pleased to whatever post he pleased. Despite being ‘alarm’d by the greate Fleete of the Dutch’, James reissued his ‘Declaration of Indulgence’, giving liberty of conscience, especially his own. And this time he went further, ordering that it should be read out in all the churches in England. After all, why worry when he had his army camped on Hounslow Heath; ‘doubtless kept and increase’d in order to bring in and countenance Popery’, said Evelyn? (Hounslow Heath was strategically important since it spanned the western approaches to London. Very little remains of the heath today and the area is dominated by London Heathrow Airport, named after a hamlet adjacent to the heath.) Army or not, the king was brought to his knees by the dogged resistance of six bishops: of Bath and Wells, Peterborough, Ely, Chichester, St Asaph, and Bristol. They petitioned the king on behalf of all bishops, asking him not to impose the declaration. It was, they suggested, against the law as it stood and should be put before Parliament, which had not sat for some years. In other words, the king had exceeded his powers; again. ‘The King was so far incens’d at this addresse, that he with threatening expressions commanded them to obey him in reading it (the declaration) at their perils’, reported Evelyn. ‘The action of the Bishops was universally applauded, and reconcil’d many adverse parties, Papists only excepted’.

98

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 98

15-10-2022 03:18:52

Oranges on Sticks The bishops held out, were arrested and sent to the Tower. Two days later, 10 June, the queen, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward Stuart. This was almost the last straw. It had been known that Mary was pregnant and expecting a child in July. It was also expected that the result would be the same as her previous five pregnancies. None of the children had survived, infected as it was said they were, with their father’s venereal disease. James had two daughters by his first wife, Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, who had died in 1671. Mary and Anne had been brought up as protestants. In 1671 Mary had married her cousin, William of Orange, grandson of James I/VI, and currently stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherland. Anne had married Prince George of Denmark six years later, in part as a counterbalance to growing Dutch influence. Neither Mary nor Anne had children (during her life Anne had seventeen pregnancies but only one child that lived for any length of time. Her son William, born in 1689, reached the age of eleven before suffering much the same fate as his great uncle Charles II). In the succession stakes, Mary held first place, Anne second, and William of Orange third. The Protestant succession was assured; until the birth of James Frances, that is. He immediately became James’ (no doubt Catholic) heir. This seemed incredibly convenient, so incredible that it was openly questioned. Mary of Modena was said to be past childbearing age (she was thirty-one) and the popular belief was that she must have miscarried and a doppelgänger baby had been smuggled into the queen’s bedchamber (perhaps in a bedpan). (Royal births were a public event in the seventeenth century and many were present at this one. It was suggested at one point that ‘all the ladies and lords’ who had been there should testify that all was above board. But this was ruled out as ‘below his majesty to condescend to’. In fact Mary was not too old to have children since she later gave birth to a daughter, Louisa Stuart. James Frances, the ‘Old Pretender’ was the father of Bonny Prince Charley, who, like his father, later attempted and failed to restore Jacobite fortunes.) Nineteen days later the bishops who had so enraged James were brought to trial. They were acquitted. ‘When this was heard, there was greate rejoicing; and there was a lane of people from the King’s Bench to the water side, on their knees, as the bishops pass’d’, reported Evelyn. ‘Bonfires were made that night and bells rung, which was taken very ill at Court’. By the end of June, seven parliamentarians (the lords Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley, plus Bishop of London Henry Compton,

99

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 99

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Edward Russell and Henry Sydney), without any authority but their own, had written to William of Orange, alleging that the supposed birth of James Frances was a fraud upon the nation and inviting the Dutchman to ride (or at least sail) to the rescue. William didn’t need asking twice. He had been canvassing for such an invitation and immediately stepped up his invasion preparations. By September Evelyn was reporting that ‘the Dutch make extraordinary preparations both at sea and land which, with the very small progress Popery makes among us, puts us to many difficulties. The Popish Irish soldiers commit many murders and insults; the whole nation disaffected, and in apprehensions’. In early October William published a declaration giving reasons for his planned invasion; which were ‘restoring the laws and liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland’.2 William said it was ‘both certain and evident to all men, that the public peace and happiness of any state or kingdom cannot be preserved where the law, liberties, and customs, established by the lawful authority in it, are openly transgressed and annulled’ and its inhabitants ‘deprived of their religion’. Yet, said William, that is exactly what had happened in England where religion, laws, and liberties had been overturned, ‘not only by secret and indirect ways, but in an open and undisguised manner’. His ‘expedition’ was ‘intended for no other design, but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled, as soon as possible’. James’ various illegal appointments would be declared ‘null and of no force’ and Members of Parliament will only be chosen from those ‘qualified by law’, and ‘being thus lawfully chosen, they shall meet and sit in full freedom’. William also promised an ‘enquiry into the birth of the pretended Prince of Wales, and of all things relating to it, and to the right of succession’. A few days later there was ‘hourly expectation of the Prince of Orange’s invasion’ and the king showed signs of mounting panic with a series of desperate actions that did little to relieve the ‘universal discontent’. People were so desperate that they ‘seem’d passionately to long for and desire the landing of that Prince whom they look’d on to be their deliverer from Popish tyranny, praying incessantly for an east wind’, said Evelyn. On 14 October, the king’s birthday, no guns were fired from the Tower in his honour. And at last the wind came from the east. By 5 November (that day again) the Dutch invasion force was in the Channel. The ‘protestant wind’ was so strong it prevented the English fleet leaving its anchorage, or so its admirals said. And it propelled the Dutch ships along the Channel at such a rate that they almost overshot any viable landing place.

100

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 100

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Oranges on Sticks It must have been an awesome sight for anybody standing on a south coast headland on that wild and windy day. It was said it took all day for William’s ships to pass, heading as they were for Torbay. William had arrived with ‘a fleete of neere 700 saile’, said Evelyn. ‘This put the King and Court into greate consternation’. The start of William’s campaign was wet and miserable and he was worried that a lack of ready money and of new volunteers to his army would cause difficulties. But soon he was being welcomed into Exeter and then Plymouth. Now James’ advisors and officials, his army, its generals, admirals and family began to defect. Lord Grafton, who was himself King Charles’ bastard son and so related to all involved, warned James against resistance. He told him that although on paper he had more troops at his disposal than William, in practice (his ‘Irish brigands’ apart), his army would not support a return of the Catholic religion. All remembered the consequence of such a change when Mary Tudor had been queen. By 23 November John Churchill, the future first Duke of Marlborough, and Grafton, James’s nephew, had both defected to William, taking 400 cavalrymen with them. Meanwhile, William was being feted on his march to London, his forces now being added to by the day. By December Bath, York, Hull and Bristol had all declared for William and ‘all eminent nobility and persons of quality through England had declared for the Protestant religion’, said Evelyn. ‘The Papists in offices lay down their commissions and fly’. James was not far behind them. On 13 December ‘the King flies to sea, puts in at Faversham for ballast; is rudely treated by the people; comes back to White-hall’, reported Evelyn. His capture by Kentish fishermen was an inconvenience to all concerned. James had hoped to escape to France and William and the English parliamentarians would have liked him out of the way. There followed some to-ing and fro-ing before, five days later, James was transported to Rochester in Kent, (‘I saw the King take barge to Gravesend at 12 o’clock – a sad sight!’ said Evelyn). From Rochester he soon ‘escaped’ to France, re-joining the wife and son, who had already made the journey, on 24 December. James’ removal from London on 18 December had been to make way for William’s triumphant arrival. William was usually a quiet, serious and thoughtful man, but he knew the benefits of good public relations. He had been careful to do everything to be seen not as an aggressor (which might have put off would-be allies) but as a liberator. It was a fiction that the English parliamentarians had been pleased to go along with, talking up their own part in a ‘glorious revolution’.

101

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 101

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland William was above all a general and a tactician whose life-long goal had been to defend his lowland home, a country devoid of natural defences. Standing almost alone against the might of the French king, he had worked wonders. But he would not be able to resist a joint English-French attack; hence his strategic goal of shoring up his western flank by neutralising any chances of success for James’ Catholic ambitions or, better still, by becoming king himself. After all, England would give him access to a substantial navy, to troops, to money and other resources, such as the competent and daring General Churchill. It had been a huge gamble for William, and also for those who put their necks on the line by signing an invitation to him to come over. Despite its seemingly unfortunate geography, the Netherlands was rich and powerful and probably more than a match for England. Its people were cultured, sophisticated and ingenious (first by contriving to drain and make more of their land, but also in their inventiveness and industry). They had formed the hugely successful Dutch East Indies Company which brought them spice islands, a monopoly of trade with Japan, and much wealth. Their Dutch West Indies Company had also claimed a share of the Caribbean and North America. Fewer than thirty years before William’s arrival in England, New York had been New Amsterdam (Beverwijck the centre of New Amsterdam was renamed ‘Albany’ by the English when they took the colony in 1664, but it remained the New York State capital). The Dutch were skilled carpenters and shipbuilders whose vessels plied the oceans of the world, they were inventors of clocks, of bandsaws and sources of wind power. They were makers of maps. They even made the humble carrot grow a vibrant shade of orange. And probably above all, they were merchants, skilled in finance with fingers in many pies (including the slave trade. although ownership of slaves was outlawed in the United Provinces themselves). Had William been less ambitious for the country of his birth, he might not have risked all. But he was, and he did. And it paid off. His entry into London was a chance to seal the deal. And so, he camped it up. The throng that lined his route saw a white-clad William astride his white charger, heading his troop of horse comprised of ‘English men of quality’. Next came black men with embroidered caps enhanced with white plumes, followed by Laplanders with reindeer skins across their shoulders. The whole army took a few hours to pass by in the rain. The foot soldiers were accompanied by the beating of their drums, while other troops had trumpeters and waved banners embroidered with William’s promise to save the Protestant religion.

102

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 102

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Oranges on Sticks It was a show of force rarely if ever seen in London before. The crowds stood in wonder, holding oranges impaled on sticks and wearing orange-coloured favours tied about their necks. King Charles had bedded a seller of oranges and now an Orange had returned to penetrate the kingdom that Charles’ brother had so abused. William himself did not stay for the whole of his victory parade. He galloped off across St James’ Park, keen to see his new palace and its ornamental garden. (William was a keen gardener and had visited stately homes and their gardens on his march across England. In the next few years he was a frequent visitor to Moor Park in Surrey, the home of Sir William Temple, a retired diplomat and friend of the king, who had famously good looks. But Temple suffered from gout and could not often accompany the king as he wandered around the garden, constructed in the Dutch manner, including a canal. That task was left to Temple’s young secretary Jonathan Swift. Swift, who like Dampier, was an angry man hidden behind a convivial façade, was critical of many people, including, apparently, the Prince of Orange. According to his biographer Leo Damrosch, Swift made personal notes questioning William’s ‘non-linear’ choice of extra-marital sexual partners. Also, like Dampier, Swift rescued himself from obscurity through his writing ability. Swift’s Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World [now known as Gulliver’s Travels], published in 1726, was in some ways an appreciative parody of Dampier’s book, giving an account of ‘remote regions’ [there is mention of the old pirate in the introduction where he is described as ‘cousin Dampier]. Sixteen years Dampier’s junior, Swift was by 1726 dean at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. His masterpiece contains, among many other things, a lampoon of the differences between Protestants and Catholics. When visiting Lilliput, the sea captain Lemuel Gulliver discovers that which end a boiled egg is cracked first is a matter of extreme controversy in the country, and one on account of which ‘eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end’. There had been six rebellions and ‘one emperor had lost his life, and another his crown’. Many books had been written on the subject, ‘but the books of the Big-endians have long been forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable, by law, of holding employments’. Perhaps with King William’s fluid sexuality in mind, Swift also described how the Lilliputians faced other, non-egg-related frictions. This time it was

103

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 103

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland in the matter of shoes. It was alleged that high-heels were ‘most agreeable’ to the constitution, he told his readers. But the king would wear only lowheeled shoes, and his appointees were expected to wear low-heeled shoes as well, although not as low as those of the king. There were more high-heeled than low-heeled enthusiasts in the kingdom, but the power was wholly in the hands of the low-heelers. There was hope for the future, however, because the heir to the throne had exhibited ‘some tendency towards high heels’, this being manifest in his having one of his heels higher than the other, ‘which gives him a hobble in his gait’.) Triumphant entry into London or not, William was now determined to be more than just a liberating force. The crown was within his reach and he wanted it. Meanwhile the English ruling classes were keeping up the pretence that they had choices in the matter. All agreed that by fleeing and tossing his Great Seal into the Thames, James had forfeited his kingdom, but what next? On 15 December Evelyn reported that ‘there was as yet no accord in the judgements of those Lords and Commons who were to convene; some would have the Princesse (William’s wife Mary who was rightful heir to the throne) made Queene without any more dispute, others were for a Regency; there was a Tory party – then so call’d – who were for inviting his Majesty (James Stuart) againe upon conditions; and there were Republicarians who would make the Prince of Orange like a Stadholder. The Romanists were busy among these several parties to bring them into confusion’. William effectively put his delicate foot down. Either something to his liking had to be agreed without delay or he would be off back to Holland, leaving these dithering fantasists to face the consequences. It was a bluff, but it worked. On 19 December Evelyn was able to record that: ‘The convention (or Parliament as some call’d it) sitting, exempt Duke of Hanover from the succession to the Crowne, which they seem to confine to the present new King, his wife, and Princesse Anne of Denmark, who is so monstrously swollen that its doubted whether her being brought with child may prove a tympany onely, so that the unhappy family of the Stuarts seems to be extinguishing’. It was a done deal. William and Mary were to be joint monarchs (although Mary had no desire to rule or contradict her husband), and Anne was to be their successor. It was the second time William had manoeuvred himself into the highest position in the land. The first had been sixteen years earlier, when he had been appointed stadholder of the seven United Provinces of the Netherlands.

104

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 104

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Oranges on Sticks William had been born to the position: a guardianship type of constitutional monarchy (William was born in 1650, within a year of Dampier). His father, another William and another stadtholder, had died a week before William, Prince of Orange, first made his appearance on this earth. But things were not that simple in the Netherlands. Its ‘golden age’ had come mostly when it wasn’t even an independent nation, but a rebellious and emerging region, fighting a war of independence against Spain. It took eighty years to resolve the issue and the Netherlands was not formally independent until 1648. When William senior died, he left Johan de Witt as top office holder (‘grand pensionary’). No new stadholder was appointed and de Witt headed a ‘Dutch Republic’. By the time he reached majority, William had had enough of this arrangement and was looking for ways to reclaim what he saw as his birth-right. These ways included asking help from his uncle, Charles II of England. Charles, encumbered by his secret Treaty of Dover and beholden to the French King Louis XIV, envisaged making William a puppet ruler, also subservient to the Sun King. But when Charles met William, he found him to be so committed to his Protestant faith, so patriotic towards the United Provinces, and to detest the French king so much, that Charles didn’t even mention the matter. William’s chance came in 1672, a year of disaster for the United Provinces when it was confronted on all sides, including the west, where England chose this moment to launch the third Anglo-Dutch War in support of Louis. De Witt resigned and William was called in to save the day. He fought back from an impossible position, the dykes were breached to stop French incursions and a long standoff against France began; during which time the United Provinces were able to rebuild their wealth and their defences. The English fleet had meanwhile been defeated. (William had a slight build and an asthmatic constitution but, even so, managed to contrive a domineering presence that was helped no end by his eagle-like looks. His face was dominated by piercing eyes and a great bill-like nose. When he entered a room he was ‘very pompous, but nothing approaching that of King Charles II’, said Evelyn. William’s disconcerting looks were matched by his hawkish outlook. Showing his ruthless nature, in August 1672, he let it be known that his uncle Charles had written to him, declaring that he had only decided to make war against the Dutch because of De Witt’s aggressions; something which both he and Charles knew to be untrue. Shortly afterwards De Witt and his brother were lynched by an enraged mob. It was never established whether William had simply been manipulative or whether he had been manipulative and culpable.)

105

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 105

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland The official proclamation of the joint monarchy of England came on 13 February 1689 ‘with greate acclamation and general good reception’, said Evelyn. There were ‘bonfires, bells, guns, &c’. Evelyn thought this would have been a good time for Mary to show at least a little regret that her father had ‘by his mismanagement necessitate the Nation to so extraordinary a proceeding’. But there was nothing of the sort. Mary ‘came into White-hall laughing and jolly, as to a wedding’. The new (joint) king of England did not have things all his own way. By March, his nerve temporarily restored and prodded by his French host, James made a landing in Ireland. William went to meet him. The encounters were intense and bloody, but by July William had won the Battle of the Boyne and James had gone back to France. James’ forces were able to hold out at the Siege of Limerick and William went back to England, leaving the campaign in the hands of his capable generals; the end result was not in doubt. A year after the Battle of the Boyne, it was all over, William’s forces putting an end to it with victory at the Battle of Aughrim. (James’ favourite, the Catholic Richard Talbot, Lord Tyrconnell, whose appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Evelyn had found so astonishing, had initially continued to hold the country, probably illegally, in James’ name. He made Limerick his headquarters where he stayed to the end. He died in 1691, aged 61, not of battle wounds, but of ‘apoplexy’, his overindulgences having caught up with him.) Meanwhile there were problems in Scotland as well. It had taken the Scottish Parliament an embarrassingly long time (more than two months) to follow England’s lead and proclaim William and Mary their king and queen. Almost as soon as they did, there was an uprising. John Graham, the laird of Claverhouse (Claverhouse is on the northern outskirts of Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland), recently promoted by James to Viscount Dundee, had raised a highland army and marched it fifty miles or so north-west to the central region of Perth and Kinross. Graham was an Episcopalian by religion, a church that had been backed by the Stuarts (in opposition to the Presbyterians and its Covenanters) and it had remained faithful to James. On 27 July 1689, Graham managed to trap a larger government force headed by Hugh Mackay as it marched along beside the River Garry, near the village of Killiecrankie. There was a standoff for some hours while the Scots, who commanded the high ground to the east, waited for the sun to go down. When it did, they came hurtling down the slope, yelling, whooping, cutting and slashing. In twenty minutes it was all over. An estimated 2,000 men had been killed; mostly Mackay’s regulars

106

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 106

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Oranges on Sticks but a good many highlanders also. Dundee was one of the wounded, and died soon afterwards. Mackay managed to retreat to Stirling along with 800 or so of his 3,000 plus force. A month later the highlanders, under a new leader, attempted Dunkeld, also in Perth and Kinross. Fighting within the town lasted all day. This time an outnumbered government force won through. Following this, the rising fizzled out, the highlanders went back to their holdings, and Mackay was left to mop up the pieces. William would not have been too pleased with the troublesome Scots. He was on the verge of agreeing a Grand Alliance that would soon unite England, the United Provinces, Austria, Hungary, various German states, Spain, Portugal and the rest of the Holy Roman Empire against his archenemy Louis XIV of France. He had secured England for himself, Ireland was now more or less under control, but the Scots were another matter. They were a stubborn and argumentative race whose resilience in the face of geographic disadvantages he would have admired. And they had their ‘auld alliance’ with France to fall back on. If Dampier had ever thought about the squabbles between Protestants and Catholics, High Church and Dissenters, Episcopalians and Presbyterians or any other Christian flock, he probably would have agreed with Swift’s comedic analysis; he was too much of a pragmatist to think otherwise. But he would not have thought it of no consequence, since too many had lost their lives as a result. Almost twenty years before, Dampier had served on the Royal Prince during the Anglo-Dutch wars, fighting against the United Provinces. Now England was ruled by a Dutchman. It may well have occurred to Dampier, when learning of William’s ‘expedition’ that had earned him the crown, that William was as much a pirate as himself. While Dampier had stolen ships and taken towns, William had stolen kingdoms and taken nations.

107

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 107

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Chapter 15

Making a Name for Himself William and Mary’s accession to the English throne proved a turning point for the country. It had been dragging itself forwards, attempting to throw off its past as a medieval home for peasants and pirates. But it seemed that for every two steps forward there was at least one back. There had simply been too much uncertainty concerning religion and government. Now, suddenly, there was a new confidence. The Protestant succession was assured. The authority of Parliament had been established, or at least the capriciousness of royal control had been reigned in. England had become part of an alliance that offered stability, if not peace. And it could call on the ingenious Dutch for new ideas, for new ways of finance, and of trading, and new ideas about civil engineering and architectural innovation. The latter was not in short supply, but even more were needed to fuel the building boom that was obvious for all to see. The fashion was for everything Dutch. Along with this came a flowering of English invention, discovery and innovation. The Royal Society (the Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge), founded by Charles II in 1660, was bearing fruit. Luminaries, calling themselves ‘natural philosophers’ met regularly to hear about and to discuss latest discoveries and achievements, such as those described by Dampier. Members included adventurers, politicians, administrators, amateur scientists, mathematicians, astronomers, architects, engineers and writers. Men such as Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, John Evelyn, Edmund Halley and John Aubrey sat on their hard chairs and benches while their peers described their work and their findings. Some years earlier Cambridge professor, alchemist and soon to be master of the Royal Mint, Isaac Newton, had famously written to Robert Hooke saying: ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants’. These early Royal Society members included a good many giants. Pepys is credited with saving the navy, Wren was an astronomer and architect who worked with Hooke to rebuild London after its ‘Great Fire’ of 1666. Hooke opened the door to a new world with his lenses and

108

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 108

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Making a Name for Himself microscopes, while Halley plotted the magnetic variation of the earth and the movement of heavenly bodies above it. And there were business developments too. It was the dawning of what Daniel (De) Foe christened ‘the age of projectors’. Whereas individual adventurers had joined together to finance trading and privateering voyages, sharing the profits ‘when their ships came home’, these were only temporary arrangements, in place for only as long as the voyage lasted. Now, a new form of joint venture was taking the stage. The ‘joint-stock’ company was all the rage. There had been companies in existence for a long time. They were generally concerned with major, national-scale ventures, such as opening up trade with the West Indies or with the East Indies, or developing Hudson’s Bay. These were cumbersome outfits, created by Royal Charter, offering the crown a stake in profits, and often protected with monopoly rights. Some, such as the East India Company, were highly successful. ‘Joint-stock’ companies were at the other end of the scale. They were smaller, freewheeling enterprises, and often highly speculative. Their structure was much like a modern public limited company, except that they were not limited, and not regulated in any way. There were shareholders but no shareholders’ rights, except those written into whatever the constitution and bye-laws of the company might be. There were directors, or governors, but no limitation on their powers except those written into that same constitution or bye-laws. And these legal agreements would have been drawn up by or for the ‘projector’, the person raising money for the venture in hand. Joint-stock companies had important advantages over simple partnerships. First, once formed they continued in being indefinitely (or at least until they went broke and folded). Secondly, they could call on large numbers of individual investors who did not necessarily have to stump up too much (investors might buy just one share in the company or as many more as were available). Thirdly, shareholders could cash in at any point, provided they could find a buyer for their shares. Buying and selling of shares was becoming a new if somewhat dubious profession. ‘Stock-jobbers’ would hawk their offerings at whatever price they thought appropriate, talking up the prospects of companies whose shares they wished to sell, downplaying those whose shares they wished to buy. There were no published share prices as yet. In his An Essay Upon Projects, written about the time William Dampier came home from his first circumnavigation, but not published until some years later, Foe made a distinction between honest and dishonest projects. The former included an element of public good, he said. The latter concerned

109

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 109

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland an invention or idea of little worth and were designed purely for the benefit of the projector. There were ‘too many fair pretences of fine discoveries, new inventions, engines, and I know not what, which – being advanced in notion, and talked up to great things to be performed when such and such sums of money shall be advanced, and such and such engines are made – have raised the fancies of credulous people’. Too many such projections turned out to be ‘new nothings’, said Foe. What had helped to trigger the enthusiasm for investing in new companies was the success of William Phipps. The same age as Dampier, Phipps was a Massachusetts-born shipbuilder and captain. After receiving a royal licence, Phipps had raised enough money to finance a number of attempts to recover treasure from sunken Spanish galleons. In 1687, he struck lucky off the coast of Hispaniola from where he managed to raise over thirty tons of silver from the wreck of the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, one of a succession of ships to bear this name. Turning up at Gravesend, he was feted for his success and knighted. Most of the £200,000 money from the haul went to the king and to Phipps’ principal investor, Lord Albemarle. But Phipps also became a wealthy man, and was soon appointed governor of Massachusetts. Albemarle, the son of Cromwell’s general George Monck (the first Duke of Albemarle who later supported the restoration of the monarchy) was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. He took with him his volatile wife, the ‘Mad Duchess’, and Dr Hans Sloane as his personal physician. Sloane spent much of his time treating the duchess but was unable to prevent Albemarle drinking himself to death. He died in 1688, aged thirty-five. Phipps’ treasure-hunting success was the talk of London and, driven by greed, a desire not to be left out, fashion or hunger for entertainment, it seemed that everybody with the means wanted to put money into a jointstock company. Any company that had the slightest chance of making money out of a new idea or venture would do. In his essay, Foe mentioned that proffered enterprises included linen manufacturers, saltpetre works, copper miners, ‘dipping’ and diving machines. And he dismissed Phipps’ venture as ‘a mere project; a lottery of a hundred thousand to one odds; a hazard which, if it had failed, everybody would have been ashamed to have owned themselves concerned in; a voyage that would have been as much ridiculed as Don Quixote’s adventure upon the windmill’. What he didn’t say, perhaps because he was ashamed, was that he had himself invested, and lost money, in a treasure-hunting venture.

110

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 110

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Making a Name for Himself There was no stock exchange in the 1690s, but there were the beginnings of one. Jonathan’s, in Exchange Alley, was a coffee house that had been in existence for around ten years. Coffee houses were popular places for discussion but had not always had good reputations. Not everybody believed in free speech and coffee itself was thought of as a stimulant more powerful than alcohol; of which young and old partook daily, not least because the available water was so foul. ‘Small beer’ was a much safer drink than water. Jonathan’s had been implicated as a meeting place for plotters, but the place nonetheless survived and became something of an institution. There were other coffee houses nearby, but Jonathan’s had built up a clientele that included a good many gentlemen of the Royal Society, the well-to-do with time on their hands, big ideas, and money to invest. Situated adjacent to a dog-legged shortcut between Cornhill and Lombard Street, and emerging opposite the Royal Exchange, it was the natural choice for many city merchants, and for those who lived in nearby Threadneedle Street; such as John Houblon. It also attracted mariners, returning sea captains such as Robert Knox, and mapmakers of which the most eminent was Herman Moll. About the doorway of Jonathan’s there were always stock-jobbers, blackcoated ravens waiting to proposition those who came and went. This was the soup of humanity, comprising the greedy, the bored, the inquisitive and the foolhardy, into which Dampier soon pitched himself. He may have relied on his wife’s contacts to find his way into the Royal Society/Jonathan’s crowd. He may equally well have been introduced by bookseller James Knapton or Knapton’s favourite cartographer Herman Moll. Dampier must have been thinking about making his notes and diaries into a book even before he made it back to England and, once home, probably did not waste any time in trying to find a suitable bookseller/ publisher. St Paul’s churchyard was at the time a centre for England’s small but growing book trade and Dampier might well have wandered around the area seeking out a suitable publisher. He alighted upon James Knapton, who operated out of The Crown, having moved from the Queen’s Head the previous year. Knapton was relatively young and upcoming and he was hungry for authors of pamphlets and books. He would have known that Alexander O Exquemelin’s The Buccaneers of America had been a success when first published (in Dutch) in 1678. Further editions followed, including English language versions featuring a contribution from Dampier’s friend and shipmate Basil Ringrose. But the genre was still not well established and Dampier was a new author who wanted paying.

111

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 111

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland New books had to sell quickly if publishers such as Knapton were to make money. Copyright laws did not then exist in England (the first came along in 1710), and if a new title was any good, it was sure to be copied and published by others (without payment to the author) in weeks, if not days. Pamphlets and journals were a better bet for publishers because the author might well fund the printing himself or herself (usually himself), and subscribers might sign up, or already have been signed up, for future editions in the series. Knapton would probably have felt on safer ground with plays, poems, and economic and religious texts, especially when these had been written by high profile authors. He published the plays and some poems of Thomas Shadwell who had been appointed poet-laureate in 1689. These included The Scowrers, published 1691, the year of Dampier’s return, and prior to that A congratulatory poem to the most illustrious Queen Mary upon her arrival in England. There was also the equally toe-curling poem A congratulatory poem upon his highness the Prince of Orange his coming into England. Other Knapton authors included Charles Davenant, the son of a previous poet-laureate, theatre owner and playwright. Like his father, Charles was interested in the theatre, but he was more interested in politics (he had been an MP since 1685) and economics, about which he wrote a series of essays. And there was the ground-breaking woman author and playwright Aphra Behn, for whom Knapton published The forced marriage, or, the jealous Bridegroom, and The Widow Ranter, first performed and printed after Behn’s death in 1689. Knapton was not averse to taking some risks. In 1688 he had published the controversial The history of the inquisition as it is exercised in Goa, by Frenchman Gabriel Dellon. The author had been subjected to the inquisition himself and when free again wrote his account laying into the Catholic religion, as exercised in the Portuguese-owned colony. Knapton published an English language version in 1688, two years before the book was declared condemned. Knapton must have shown guarded interest in what Dampier had to say but told him to go away and sharpen up his text and to get some better illustrations than those he had drawn himself. He would have suggested Dampier make contact with Moll. Of course, it could have happened the other was around. Moll was always on the lookout for mariners with stories to tell and accurate but crude maps to share, maps that the engraver could beautify and embellish. When it came to far-off places, Moll did not travel there himself but relied on the

112

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 112

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Making a Name for Himself descriptions of those who had. This way he sometimes made mistakes, for instance, showing the Californian Baha Peninsular as an island. He did, of course, produce many much-admired maps of great use; maps of the world, of Europe, of Chili, of the West Indies, and of Great Britain. He produced pocket globes, and he also drew fictional maps for Foe and for Jonathan Swift, including Robinson Crusoe’s island home, and the famed Lilliput. Moll was about the same age as Dampier and, from drawings of him at the time, he appears to have been a robust character. He had been born in ‘Flanders’ (possibly Bremen, but some say Holland) but had come to England before he was thirty (some say later). There is no doubt he lived, and had different shops at different times, adjacent to The Strand in the ‘West End’ of London, somewhere near St Clement Danes (the church of ‘Oranges and Lemons’ fame). The area is just west of the City of London but within easy walking distance of Jonathan’s (along The Strand, past Blackfriars Steps, up Ludgate Hill, along Cheapside, then Poultry and Cornhill; in all a mile or so) of which Moll was a stalwart. He also had a large circle of friends, many of whom were also Jonathan’s regulars. These included Hooke, Foe, Swift, John Locke (of whom more later) and Halley. Through these connections Dampier must also have become a Jonathan’s regular. The place was essentially a lofty room with high windows, probably often open to allow the smoke from a hundred clay pipes to escape. There was room for those who came to move around, and to mingle in groups, either standing or sitting at communal tables and benches. There would have been quiet corners for gossip and grumbles, and for the exchange of news and investment tips. There would certainly have been some hints of the trading floor into which it would develop. Among the people Dampier would have met at Jonathan’s were the Houblon brothers, perhaps not all of them (there were seven City merchants in the family) but almost certainly three. Recently knighted Sir John Houblon was the most prominent. He was a City alderman and Master of the Grocer’s Company, one of eighty City Livery Companies in existence at that time (an early form of trade association; closed shops, some of which had been in existence for over 500 years). Sir John’s older brother James, soon also to be knighted, was also an alderman. Abraham was the youngest of the three and was also headed for great things. The Houblons were a Huguenot family, French protestants whose forebears had sought refuge in England three generations before. They, like other Huguenot families, lived close to the French Church in Threadneedle

113

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 113

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Street (Sir John actually lived on the site which was later to become the home of the Bank of England). The three brothers were well thought of as public-spirited and forward-looking merchants. They were all involved in shipping, especially to Spain and Portugal and in finance. They had all done well for themselves, were wealthy and had powerful friends (James Houblon was particularly friendly with Samuel Pepys). James had been born in 1629, so was twenty-two years older than Dampier, Sir John was three years younger, and Abraham seven years younger still. Although they were all over fifty years old (James was sixty-two), they all had substantial achievements ahead of them. But for now they had treasurehunting on their minds. Using their Spanish contacts, the brothers decided to set up the ‘Spanish Expedition Shipping’ company, which would seek a trading and treasurehunting licence from the Spanish crown.1 To make this possible they acquired investors (including City merchants George Boddington, Sir Alexander Rigby, and John Lethieuller; Boddington and Rigby were also, like Sir James Houblon, Members of Parliament). They then purchased four vessels, the Charles the Second (named in honour of the then Spanish king, the inbred and disfigured Carlos II), the Dove, the James, and the Seventh Son. And they were on the lookout for a crew of seasoned mariners to sail under the direction of expedition leader Admiral Sir Don Arturo O’Byrne, an Irishman who had achieved his senior rank in the service of Spain. Sometime between their first meeting with Dampier and the expedition’s departure in 1693, the former was appointed second mate of the Dove. As such his duties were primarily linked to navigation; route planning, course setting, finding suitable anchorages, pilotage and record-keeping. If he was well in with the Houblons by this time, he would probably also have been asked to keep an eye on their interests. Dampier likely accepted because he was in need of funds. He would have already spent his Jeoly money, or most of it, and he needed something to keep him going until his book was published. Like the others on the voyage, he was to be paid not on results (no purchase, no pay) but on a monthly wage. His decision to join the Houblons’ treasure-hunting expedition was one he probably later regretted. Not only did the voyage prove tedious in the extreme, it brought him under deep suspicion. Had he stayed at home he would probably now be remembered not as an author, pirate and navigator, but as a great explorer who had ‘discovered’ Australia.

114

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 114

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Chapter 16

Off to (not so) sunny Spain It was in July 1693 that Customs Commissioners gave permission for the ships Charles the Second, James and Dove galley to set sail on the Houblons’ ‘Spanish Expedition Shipping’. The Seventh Son is not mentioned, perhaps because it was due to rendezvous with the other vessels en route. As far as possible the ships would have sailed in convoy so as to discourage French privateers who might be lurking in the channel and its approaches (since England was now clearly aligned to Holland, and therefore an enemy and at war with France, French privateers had become more and more of a problem for English shipping). Not that the four Houblon-owned ships had too much to worry about. They were fitted out as privateers, in other words for fighting, and they were more than ready should the opportunity of capturing French ships arise. Their flagship, the Charles the Second, was a ship of some force, having forty-six guns and a crew of one hundred or more. In all, the ‘squadron’ must have had a complement of at least 300 seamen and a substantial wage bill to meet. It went first to Kinsale, on the southwest corner of Ireland, to recruit extra crew. After that, it sailed on to La Coruna, on the north-west corner of Spain, handily placed for an Atlantic crossing as soon as the promised Spanish commissions had been issued. It was in Ireland that John Every probably joined as a crewman, signing on as mate of the Charles the Second. Dampier almost certainly knew or knew of Every, who went by a variety of names at different times and places: sometimes he called himself ‘Avery’, sometimes ‘Long Ben’, sometimes ‘Benjamin Bridgeman’, sometimes plain old ‘Every’ and probably sometimes by another name that nobody knew about. Although Dampier was a few years older than Every, both had served in the AngloDutch Wars, both had sailed on privateers in the West Indies, and both had experienced the charms of Campeche (and both were from the west country, Every having been born near Plymouth). Dampier also knew a good many of the other seamen aboard the four ships because recruiting seems to have favoured seasoned sailors, hardened by years at sea, and with West Indies experience.

115

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 115

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Leaving Ireland, the vessels, perhaps now all four, headed almost due south across the Bay of Biscay, a voyage of at least 500 nautical miles. They would have kept well away from the French coast. There seems to have been problems from the start, not least tensions between the English and Irish recruits. They probably met storms and rough seas along the way, and when they arrived at La Coruna, Captain John Strong of the Charles the Second took sick and died. He was replaced by Captain Charles Gibson. Strong was an important loss. He had been an experienced man newly returned from a South American treasury-hunting voyage as captain of the Welfare, which carried forty guns and a crew of ninety. He had also been mate on the James and Mary, when in 1687 its captain, one William Phipps, managed to haul over thirty tons of sunken treasure from the, not too deep, depths. Strong was subsequently made captain of the James and Mary. La Coruna harbour, known to English sailors as ‘The Groyne’ because of the long spit of land which formed a breakwater, was large and a little distant from the town. When the expedition arrived it was getting late in the year, meaning the weather was wet and not too pleasant. Here they sat it out for four months or so, waiting for the promised paperwork from the Spanish authorities. They had nothing to do, and worst still, no money. The promised wages had failed to arrive. The sailors filled their time with their own entertainment. Dampier would have worked on his book, others would have gambled or told tall tales. The musicians would have been fully employed and there might have been a mock trial or two, in which the ‘condemned criminal’ would have been tried on an unlikely charge by an abusive and deliberately dissolute judge with a mop for a wig and a bottle for a gavel. All was just about tolerable for a while, as a succession of Spanish officials came aboard the ships seeking suitably sized ‘presents’ to ease things along. But the sailors were men of action, not used to being cooped up. Pleas and warnings were sent to the owners asking for the promised pay. By May 1694 the men aboard the Charles the Second had had enough and had hatched a plot. When O’Byrne was not around and Gibson was asleep, they seized the ship, cut its cables and made for the open seas. Next day Gibson was set ashore with other refuseniks, leaving Every in command of a crew of eighty-four. If all this was not bad enough, much worse was to follow. There was trouble between O’Byrne, who feared further mutinies by the still unpaid crews, and his remaining captains. He complained they would not obey his commands. The captains in turn wrote home accusing O’Byrne

116

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 116

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Off to (not so) sunny Spain of ‘treacherous imprisonment’ and of pretending they were about to run away with their ships.1 It was not until early 1695 that the expedition was put to rest and the ships were allowed to sail back to England, and to a succession of court cases. In 1696 ‘mariners, carpenters etc in the squadron of the “Spanish Expedition Shipping”’, were suing the investors for return of property. The case dragged on for another six years and was not settled until after the death of a number of the litigants.2 Meanwhile, Dampier joined with shipmates to sue the ship-owners for back pay. This was eventually settled when the remaining ships were sold. Clearly the Houblons and their investors, hard-nosed businessmen all, had got carried away with the treasure-hunting bug. Their wage bill alone would have meant they could only have made profits if they had been even luckier than William Phipps and his ‘hundred thousand to one’ shot. As it was, in Foe’s prophetic words, the venture had failed and ‘everybody was ashamed to have owned themselves concerned’. But this was only half the story. What Every did next was to catapult the incident into one of national importance and truly give everybody involved a reason to be ashamed. Re-naming his stolen ship the Fancy, Every sailed off down the coast of Africa and into the Indian Ocean, the up-and-coming destination for up-andcoming pirates. Madagascar had become a suitable hangout, especially Ile Sainte-Marie, just off the north-east coast of Madagascar, or the Comoros Islands which lay further to the north and west of Madagascar. Here was the centre of a developing pirate round, with ships from New York and the West Indies bringing supplies, then sailing on up to the Red Sea in search of suitable prey (especially pilgrim ships taking wealthy Muslim pilgrims to and from Mecca). On their return trip to their colonial bases, the privateer/pirates would be loaded with stolen goods or stolen people to sell as slaves. Leaving the Comoros Islands, Every sailed north, following the east coast of Africa up to Bab-el-Mandeb, ‘The Babs’. Here, at the entrance to the Red Sea, there were conveniently placed islands to hide behind in wait for passing prey. Along the way Every came across some other less-powerful privateer ships and found himself in command of a small flotilla. While they were anchored at the Babs, twenty-five ‘Moors’ ships’ forming the annual fleet that vied between Surat and Mocha, slipped past them in the night. Learning this from a captured ketch, Every and his gang decided to give chase. Steering for Surat, the pirates caught up with the Fateh Muhammed, owned by Abdul Ghafur, an important Surat merchant and shipowner who

117

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 117

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland had had ships pirated before. After a short tussle the ship was taken along with £50,000 or £60,000 worth of silver and gold. Shortly afterwards Every came across another of the Mocha fleet, the Ganj-i-sawai, known to English courts as the ‘Gunsway’, an armed dhow owned by the Great Mogul Aurangzeb. It was reputed to be a massive 1,500 tons and to carry a fighting force of 800 men. In a three-hour battle, Every took this ship also. With its considerable armament and fighting force, it had been thought to be one of the safest vessels for merchants to use to ferry their goods to Mocha and Jedda. This meant that on the day it was captured by Every, it was carrying both the sales proceeds of its trip and a good many homewardbound pilgrims. After bloody exchanges of cannon and musket fire, the pirates boarded the ship, slashing, stabbing and shooting anybody who showed signs of continued resistance. They then sought out any passengers cowering below, praying for salvation. The women, in particular, were targeted. They were dragged shivering and shaking onto the deck, the whereabouts of their supposed treasure demanded. Those who did not have any, or who refused to say what was hidden where, were ‘abused’. Some women passengers, seeing what was going on, jumped over the side of the ship or killed themselves in other ways. It was a cruel, shameful attack on families who had travelled the oceans to assert their faith, not to fight. When news of the attack reached Surat, it was seen as the outrage that it was, sacrilege on the high seas. There were riots with mobs intent on taking revenge on anybody who dared to call himself English. Soon a troop of horse had descended on the East India Company’s Surat factory and ‘some fifty Englishmen’ had been placed in irons and under guard. Aurangzeb, who was seventy-seven at the time and ruler of most of India, was not a man to be crossed. He demanded that the three European powers with factories in Surat, (England, France and Holland), send ships to search for and arrest Every, or alternatively that they pay compensation for the loss of the Gunsway. The French and Dutch merchants, who had so far escaped any blame, were not too happy, although resistance was not an option. Back in England, there was a degree of panic in the Leadenhall headquarters of the ‘Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies’. It had been around since 1600, having been created by royal charter, and had originally been designed to grab part of the spice trade. To this end, it had been given a monopoly of trade east of

118

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 118

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Off to (not so) sunny Spain the Cape of Good Hope and the right to wage war. The navy had been partly privatised by employment of ‘privateers’ and foreign policy in the Indian Ocean had been partly privatised by creation of the East India Company. By the 1690s the company had four important factories (trading depots) in India. They were in Surat in the north west corner of the sub-continent, in Mumbai (then Bombay) about 200 miles to the south, in Chennai (then Madras) on the south east coast, and in Kolkata (then Calcutta) on the north east coast. It had a fleet of powerful ships that regularly made voyages around the Cape of Good Hope to India and the East Indies. It was heavily involved in slaving and very profitable. It also had many powerful investors and a good number of Members of Parliament in its pocket. But there were problems; at home its monopoly was under scrutiny and in India Aurangzeb was threatening to withdraw its trading rights. Using its considerable lobbying power, the East India Company managed to secure a Royal Proclamation against Every. A cross between a ‘wanted dead or alive’ poster and an international arrest warrant, this called for the ‘outmost diligence’ to be used ‘for seizing, and apprehending’ Every, alias Bridgeman, and twenty-five named ‘accomplices’. A price of £500 was placed on Every’s head and £50 on those of each of his accomplices.3 Further, anybody attempting an arrest was indemnified against prosecution for any ‘slaughter, mutilation, or other acts of violence which they may commit against the said Henry Every, or any of his accomplices’. Anybody offering the pirates shelter, harbour, concealment or assistance in any other way would do so ‘upon their highest peril’. This manhunt yielded some (meagre) results. By the summer of 1696 arrests had been made and details of what had gone on, and of Every’s escape, began to come out. It also became clear that colonial governors had, as usual, done just as they pleased. Philip Middleton, a London mariner arrested in Ireland told how, after the taking of the Gunsway, Every had sailed to the Bahamas where the governor, Nicholas Trott, had agreed to allow them ashore on payment of twenty pieces of eight and two pieces of gold per man plus the Fancy and all that was in her.4 John Dann was arrested in Rochester, ‘a maid having found my gold quilted up in my jacket’. He told a similar story. After the Gunsway had been taken, the pirate ships had dispersed with Every sailing off to Providence. The truth was that Every had disappeared, never to be seen again. Presumably he lived out his life in some distant land in a degree of luxury, or perhaps he was cheated out of his ill-gotten gains and died a pauper, as Daniel (De)Foe suggested. Nobody knows.

119

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 119

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Almost immediately he became a popular hero, a ‘Robin Hood’ character lauded in verse and in songs. Eventually there was even a play in which excited Drury Lane theatre-goers could see wooden actors duel with wooden swords in front of wooden waves. In the ‘Successful Pirate’, the ‘Pirate Prince’ (Henry Every) was portrayed as the rescuer of an oriental princess, who he whisked away to his island hideout to live in a pirate heaven. The authorities, however, comprising the East India Company and its investors, the Admiralty, city merchants, the government and the king had a different opinion. They knew that somebody had to pay for what had happened. The international manhunt had come up with a paltry eight suspected pirates. Two, Dann and the cabin boy Middleton, had turned king’s evidence. In mid-October 1696, the remaining six were put on trial at the Old Bailey (sitting as an Admiralty court). Seven names were on the indictment. Every had not been captured, nor would he ever be, but his name was added to the list of those charged. The six who were brought before the court were Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May (‘Old May’), William Bishop, James Lewis, and John Sparkes. Dawson had already pleaded guilty.5 It was a show trial, held to show the world in general, and Aurangzeb in particular, that England would no longer tolerate piracy on the high seas. It began with a long list of dignitaries, all no doubt dressed in great finery, wearing the best and longest of wigs and doing their utmost to appear solemn and dignified. Conducted to their places, preceded by an orderly carrying a Silver Oar, the emblem of the Admiralty’s authority, they were led to seats along the back wall of the open-fronted hall of justice, immediately behind the judges. There were six Admiralty Commissioners, including Sir George Rooke and Sir John Houblon, the latter newly appointed as a commissioner and taking part in the trial no matter that it was his ship that had been stolen and used by Every, and that Every and most of the accused were his former employees. At that time many criminal trials were conducted without an abundance, or any, lawyers other than a judge. This trial was attended by Sir John Holt, the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Sir George Treby, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Sir Edward Ward, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. There were also four other senior judges besides the trial judge, Sir Charles Hedges. The defendants did not have a lawyer of their own. They did not even have a roof. Brought in via the passage that linked Newgate Gaol with the Old Bailey, the accused men would have appeared shabby, sallow and ill-nourished; a sorry crew standing, perhaps shivering, with their backs to the wind (John

120

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 120

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Off to (not so) sunny Spain Evelyn recorded that there was ‘unseasonable stormy weather’, towards the end of October and that a week into November ‘the first frost began fiercely). This same wind would have lifted the papers and chalk of those clerks who sat to one side of the court, opposite the jury, already scratching away with their newly-cut Goose quills. Dr Newton, Doctor of Law and King’s Counsel, read out the charges. They were in essence that the prisoners had robbed and plundered the Gunsway. Everybody thought the verdict a foregone conclusion. It was not. Perhaps persuaded by the wave of public sympathy for Every, or by the seeming unfairness of the trial of six beggars by men in wigs, the Petty Jury returned ‘not guilty’ verdicts. Dumbfounded and no doubt angry, Hedges was having none of it. Rather than release the prisoners, he adjourned the trial and had them re-arrested on different charges: namely that they had ‘piratically and feloniously’ set upon Charles Gibson, putting him in fear of his life, and had stolen the Charles the Second. The trial resumed on the last day of October with a new Petty Jury and additional prosecution witnesses; men who had declined to join Every. The six (plus Every) were found guilty of the new charges, but not before it had emerged that twenty-six men from the James had also joined Every. Clearly quite a few people knew in advance of what Every had planned. There was also an argument raised by the accused that they had already been tried for running away with the Charles the Second as it was included in the judgement from the first trial. And they were successful in getting the foreman of the new Petty Jury to question this; something that was sternly handled by Hedges. The verdict, this time was that all were guilty. But just to make sure, there was a second adjournment and yet another trial. This took place on 6 November when the six men were charged with taking both a Danish and a ‘Moorish ship’; presumably that owned by Abdul Ghafur. This time there was to be no doubt. King’s Counsel opened. Dr Newton told the jury that the six accused (plus Every) had committed many acts of piracy over many years. Their last such act had been the taking of the Gunsway and this was likely ‘to be the most pernicious in its consequences, especially as to Trade, considering the Power of the great Mogull, and the natural Inclination of the Indians to Revenge’. It was therefore in the national interests to convict, he said, and the jury should do the right thing. They did. All the accused were convicted and nineteen days later, the six who were in the hands of the authorities were sent off to be hung at Execution Dock on shortened ropes, their bodies left to be washed over by three high tides.

121

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 121

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Full details were eventually included in Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings, but in the meantime a jumbled version, treating all three trials as one and the guilty verdict as applying to all, was rushed out by bookseller John Everingham, working from the Star in Ludgate. It was presumably this version that was sent to Aurangzeb as evidence of part payment on intended appeasement. It has been suggested that Dampier gave evidence in defence of the six men who had been tried. He knew some of them, perhaps all, and he may have sympathised with them, but he did not give evidence at the trial. This would be much against his style, he preferred to be the observer and certainly not to draw attention to his actual or possible involvement in questionable acts. He might, perhaps, have gone along and stood in the public gallery in the frozen courtyard outside Old Bailey, but this is unlikely and there is no evidence that he took part in the trial itself. It is said in Cobbett’s transcript that the accused men had not presented witnesses. Nor would it be usual or expected that they should do so. The Old Bailey itself points out that criminal trials in the seventeenth century were not the battles of evidence that they now are. Rather they were confrontations between accuser and accused in which the accused were expected to explain their actions. Although not directly involved in Every’s crimes, Dampier had for once, and irrefutably, ‘been there’ when Every took off with his Fancy. Some, such as Admiralty Commissioners Sir George Rooke and Sir John Houblon, both of whom clearly knew all the details very well, would have harboured deep suspicions about him. Dampier had much to explain. He had certainly once been a pirate and, in La Coruna, had been on a ship whose crew knew in advance about Every’s planned mutiny. Dampier knew Every and others who took part in the mutiny. Surely, at the very least, he could have informed somebody in authority? He did not. He had stayed quiet. But he had stayed on the Dove to the end, despite not being paid. Dampier may have thought about going off with Every, but he would have reasoned that he had too much to lose. He had revived his marriage, he had made important contacts, and his book was close to publication. Also, he was now over forty years old and probably a little less impetuous than in his youth. Returning from his enforced stay in La Coruna, Dampier would have found that he and his shipmates were not the only ones to be experiencing difficulty getting paid. In fact their discomfort was no more than a sign of things to come.

122

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 122

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Off to (not so) sunny Spain William and Mary’s accession had also heralded in a period of almost continuous war. William had his Grand Alliance and was determined to use it to snuff out the French threat to his beloved United Provinces. Almost before Jacobite uprisings in Scotland and Ireland had been extinguished, he was off fighting his European battles. In the Spanish Netherlands (parts of the low countries ruled by Habsburgs that formed a buffer between France and the United Provinces; an area that encompassed what are now Belgium, Luxembourg and more), the results were soon draw-ish, extending the conflict into the ‘Nine Years’ War’. It proved a huge drain on resources for all involved. English men, money and equipment were shipped out in huge quantities. The army was increased in size and re-equipped. Warships were built and renovated. A building programme for seventeen new third-rated and ten fourth-rated ships had been put in place, while three first-rated ships were rebuilt (the Royal Prince was re-named as the Royal William, the Royal Charles as Queen, and the Royal James as Victory). Meanwhile, taxes were becoming more burdensome, at least for the better off. Prior to William’s invasion there had been little distinction between crown and country. The king’s debts were the country’s and vice versa. But when William and Mary came to the throne, national finances came under the control of Parliament. And Parliament agreed, only a year at a time, to finance William’s European wars. The old Hearth Tax had been abolished when William and Mary took the throne, but their government was in need of extra revenue. There was no Income Tax, but a new Land Tax came into being in 1692 (which soon evolved into something equivalent to Rates or Council Tax). This soon brought in about £2m a year, about a third of total government income. Then there was a Window Tax, introduced in 1696, and new or increased excise duties on such things as beer (in 1690 there was an Act of Parliament for ‘doubling the Duty of Excise upon Beere Ale and other Liquors dureing the space of one yeare’), leather and glass (in 1697 the House of Commons debated the effectiveness of duties levied on ‘Glass, Stone, Earthen Wares, and Tobaccopipes’ and concluded they ‘bring in but little Advantage to the King, and are grievous to those concerned in the several Manufactures; and that, if the said Duties are continued, the said Manufactures will be in Danger of being lost to this Kingdom’). Despite all this, the country remained solvent, but it had a problem with money; not wealth, but with the number of coins it could muster. In the seventeenth century, money was a physical entity, not a number on a sheet of paper. Things that were purchased, loans that were made, debts

123

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 123

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland that were repaid, were all eventually settled with an exchange of coins or precious metals. In England, in the 1690s there were simply not enough coins; too many had been shipped off to Europe to pay the wages of the 50,000 or more troops busy confronting the French, or melted down for their more valuable silver content. And those coins that remained were much debased and deformed, or they were fake. Coin ‘clipping’, removing silver from the edge of a coin, was rife and the worth of coins could not be judged by face value alone. Clipping was a serious offence and could bring a death sentence although, perhaps because of this, the acquittal rate among those tried for clipping offences was high. The government of the day was well aware of the problem with money, it could hardly not be, and in 1696 it ordered a recoinage. All old coins were to be replaced by new coins with milled edges (to put a stop to clipping) and a more intricate design (to stop counterfeiting). And there were to be more coins in circulation, many more. Mathematician and apple-apologist Isaac Newton was appointed Warden of the Royal Mint (later Master) to see the job through, which he did. Even when the recoinage was complete there remained an issue with money. Merchants, were used to accepting coins of different origination, size and shape. Like South American drugs-dealers, before accepting or rejecting what was on offer, they would have assessed its purity and weight. But the more the value, the more the weight, and money was simply difficult to cart about in large quantities. It was bulky, it was heavy, and it was a target for thieves; including the likes of William Dampier. For these reasons, a form of paper money had grown into use, especially by those who traded internationally or needed to buy supplies when far from home (such as ships’ captains). This system was informal, nonregulated, and non-standard, as were the seemingly interchangeable terms that described its use. But it seemed to work. When Cary Helyar wanted to buy slaves but did not have the money on hand, he would have drawn up what he might have called a ‘Letter of Credit’. This was in effect a cheque drawn on the bank of big brother. To collect the money in the form of coin, the seller would have to present this letter of credit to Colonel Helyar in East Coker. And it is the Colonel who would have gone to his strongbox and handed over the coins. Of course, it was not always convenient, or possible, for the seller to travel to East Coker. In such circumstances he or she would have sold the Letter of Credit, or ‘Bill’, at a discount concomitant with the perceived risks in the transaction and the time it would take to get paid. In this way Letters of Credit or Bills became a rather risky form of paper money.

124

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 124

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Off to (not so) sunny Spain Cary would have made his debt payable by his brother and partner, sea captains might issue letters of credit payable by their owners. When countersigned by these people (people rather than firms) they would have been of less risk and more value. Today a ‘Letter of Credit’ is understood to be more in the nature of a guarantee that a buyer will indeed pay a seller, issued by the buyer’s bank. What Cary and the others were using were more in the nature of ‘Bills of Exchange’, financial instruments requiring a third party to settle a debt, just as a cheque is an instruction to a bank to pay a named individual or concern. In the twenty-first century, there is a weight of law and banking practice and regulation behind their use. In the 1690s there were banks but these bore little resemblance to the sort of banking organisations now in existence. In London they had arisen out of the practice of goldsmiths to equip themselves with extra-strong strongboxes and then to hire out this facility to those who had a hoard of coins to protect. Where there is a problem, there is an opportunity, and always somebody to exploit that opportunity. Into this financial quagmire strode one William Paterson. He could see that the Government needed money and that the public needed something other than bent and battered, sometimes counterfeit coins. And he had a solution.

125

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 125

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Chapter 17

Schemes and Schemers William Paterson may have been the original ‘City Slicker’. Born in Dumfriesshire in the south of Scotland, he had left home at seventeen and taken himself off to Bristol. From there he had sailed to the West Indies, perhaps as an indentured employee or perhaps, as is suggested by the NatWest Heritage Hub, paying his way out of an inheritance he received. Either way, he is thought to have worked in the Bahamas and Jamaica for seven or eight years, during some of which time Dampier was also in the West Indies. The two probably knew of each other and are likely to have met, if only in passing. Although Paterson was seven years younger than Dampier, the two had much in common and each played an important part in the other’s life. Both had experienced life in the West Country and the West Indies, both came from farming backgrounds, born to parents who were reasonably well-off. They both wrote, but not about themselves. (Not too much is known about Paterson’s personal life and he never bothered to correct speculation.) Both were obsessed with facts and figures. In Dampier’s case these were facts and figures about winds, waves, natural phenomena, plants and animals. In Paterson’s case they were about money and finance. Paterson’s natural bent was towards what would nowadays be called ‘accountancy’. In the West Indies, he probably worked as a bookkeeper or factor, prowling the waterfront warehouses, watching and learning, or perching on a high stool scribbling in his ledgers. He was a counting-house warrior rather than a man of action. And he knew there was more money to be made from finance than even Henry Every could have dreamt of salting away in his pension pot. After the West Indies, Paterson seems to have spent time in Holland. Certainly, he acquired knowledge of the latest in Dutch ways of finance. In Holland he would have come across the ex-pat British community seeking shelter from King James’ unpredictable regime. Perhaps he was doing the same. Whether or not, he would have rubbed shoulders with the likes of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun and John Locke. About the time of King William’s invasion, Paterson was back in England, this time taking up residence in London where he threw himself

126

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 126

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Schemes and Schemers into projecting, creating and selling the shares of newly-launched jointstock companies. By all accounts he was not only proficient in coming up with clever financial offerings, he was also persuasive when hawking them. He was not the dour Scotsman he might have been, but somebody with charisma. This did not stop many people looking on him as a bit of a wide boy; a spiv on the make. Because there was much to make. Typically projectors were able to recover their development costs, claim something by way of reward for their ideas, and be awarded shares and perhaps a senior position in their corporate creations. Richard Saville, author of the Bank of Scotland, A history (published in 1996) gave the blunt judgement that although Paterson had ‘tremendous energy’, he was regarded by those who ran the institutions with which he worked, and with whom he frequently argued, as ‘a crook’. Such jaundiced assessments were not made purely on the basis that he was a jumped-up outsider with no right to participate in the cosy City establishment (in fact he had been a member of the Merchant Taylors’ Company since 1681, and liveryman since 1689).  Saville concluded that ‘the basic problem with Paterson’s ideas was their attempt to include in already grandiose schemes, hidden agendas that would make himself and his friends wealthy’. John Giuseppi’s 1966 book The Bank of England gave an equally damning verdict. ‘Paterson seems to have been one of those men whose ideas range some years ahead of their time and who have a streak of the true visionary about them, but in whom intellect outruns intelligence and whose ingenuity may sometimes approach, but never quite reaches, genius’, he wrote. ‘Such men are, in consequence, regarded by the conservative – often with full justification – as being “not quite sound” or “too clever”, while they arouse the deepest resentment and suspicion in the breasts of the hidebound’. Many of Paterson’s ideas were not so much visionary as polished up old or borrowed thinking. But on the plus side, he had some notable and longlasting successes. He had been working on many of his proposed projects for some years and, with the support of his City contacts, a number came to fruition in the mid-1690s; meaning that by the time Dampier returned from his fretting in La Coruna, Paterson was holding court at Jonathan’s in full sales mode. He was making a success of his Society of Hampstead Aqueducts, later known as the Hampstead Water Company.1 The City of London had already been taking water from the heights of Hampstead but in 1692, for want of money, decided to sell off thirty-one-year leases to would-be private

127

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 127

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland suppliers. There was a need for water, but also a need to enlarge and improve the Hampstead and Highgate ponds. Paterson bought one of these leases and in January 1693 formed the Hampstead Aqueducts company with Samuel Tucker and Israel Hayes. The company had 600 £20 shares. Of these, 100 were reserved for the three promoters; thirty-five each to Paterson and Tucker, and thirty to Hayes. The rest were sold to a list of the usual suspects including slave trade enthusiast Sir Thomas Dalby, plantation owner, East India Company and Royal African Company investor Francis Tyssen, and Secretary of State Sir John Trenchard. The company set to work tapping the upper reaches of the Fleet River, taking water before it flowed through the cattle yards, butchers, slaughterhouses and tanneries of Spitalfields, all emitting a stinking, toxic soup of faeces and entrails that were washed into the Thames at Blackfriars. No doubt the company had its ups and downs but it was no splash in the pan. Over 150 years later A Topographical Dictionary of England reported that it had ‘a reservoir on the heath, which supplies the inhabitants of Kentish-Town, Camden-Town, and Tottenham-Court road’.  Paterson had been able to tap into the fashion for investment in water companies because of the parlous state of City finances. While individual merchants were faring well (especially those involved in overseas trade with Spain, such as the Houblons, or in slavery, such as Tyssen (who owned the Bridges plantation in Antigua), the lack of money had hit the finances of the City itself very hard. It had been not too long since it had had to cope with the onslaught of plague, and after that the Great Fire. Recovery in corporation finances was proving difficult and privatisation seemed to offer some sort of solution. National finances were also suffering because of King William’s war on France, and it was against this backdrop that Paterson was able to pitch another of his Dutch-inspired financial schemes. The Government needed money and he argued that it could borrow what it needed without ever having to pay it back. This would be possible by creating a ‘fund of credit’ or ‘fund of perpetual interest’; in effect what would nowadays be called a ‘bond issue’. In return for the finance it needed, the Government would issue bonds guaranteeing a certain rate of interest for as long as they remained outstanding. There was no commitment, or need, for any of the principal to be repaid. Paterson added another twist to the proposal that was put to Parliament. Money would not be borrowed directly from the public but via an intermediary, a bank, in fact The Bank, the Bank of England. Paterson said

128

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 128

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Schemes and Schemers he could raise all that was needed by selling shares in the new bank. It would then lend the money to the Government at a fixed rate of interest. And although the loan would never be repaid, investors in the scheme would not object, because they would be the owners of shares that could be traded, sold to other investors. In effect a liability was to be turned into an asset in the hands of the Bank which would become owner of a fund of perpetual credit. Guaranteed by government, this was as good as gold, and like the goldsmiths of Lombard Street, the Bank would be able to issue notes against this security. Originally these were not to be bank notes as understood today, but high denomination notes that could be discounted and passed on, just in the way of bills of exchange. It was a magic trick. Money would be raised, it would not have to be paid back, and in the meantime paper money of an equal or greater amount would be created. Despite this, Parliament initially baulked at the idea (which was one of a number of alternatives put forward). According to Parliament’s own history, ‘some said it was a new thing and they did not understand it, besides they expected an immediate peace and so there would be no occasion for it. Others said this project came from Holland and therefore would not hear of it, since we had too many Dutch things already’.2 Perhaps some realised it was more sleight of hand than magic, more akin to stealing from the future. In the end Treasury Minister Charles Montagu took matters in hand and in April 1694 smuggled an amended version of Paterson’s proposal through Parliament, embedded in an Act ‘for granting to theire Majesties severall Rates and Duties upon Tunnage of Shipps and Vessells and upon Beere Ale and other Liquors for secureing certaine Recompenses and Advantages in the said Act mentioned to such Persons as shall voluntarily advance the summe of [£1,500,000] towards the carrying on the Warr against France’ (the ‘Tunnage Act’). An initial £1.2m was duly raised and lent to the Government. The National Debt was on its way. The future had been mortgaged. Naturally, the promoters of the scheme and of the share issue that ensued, were duly rewarded. William Paterson supporter and City merchant Michael Godfrey was appointed Deputy Governor, with the expectation that he would be appointed Governor in due time, and Paterson was appointed a director in a ‘Court’ of twenty-six directors that also included Sir James Houblon and Abraham Houblon. (Godfrey did not make it to be Governor. In the summer of 1695 he travelled to Antwerp, along with Sir James Houblon, to investigate the

129

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 129

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland possibility of minting coins there to be used to pay William’s British troops. While there, he visited King William on the front line at the siege of Namur where he was killed within sight of the king, having been hit by a cannonball.) Sir John Houblon, who had set up in business in a house which he had built in Threadneedle Street soon after the Great Fire of London in 1666, was appointed the first Governor (he was already a Lord of the Admiralty and the following year became Lord Mayor of London). After a somewhat shaky start (the goldsmiths of Lombard Street, who saw the Bank as a rival, tried to make things difficult) the Bank of England became a lasting success, working much as Paterson had suggested. But the man himself did not last too long as a director, effectively having been thrown out. The minutes of the Court of Directors do not give any hint of friction between Paterson and his fellow directors, although there probably was. The court met every few days at the Grocers Hall and Paterson was usually in attendance. The minutes are largely confined to such things as the granting of loans, the acceptance of various forms of security, including jewels and silk, payments of money to the Government and the disciplining of staff. However, on 16 February 1695 the directors were presented with a potential bombshell. ‘A printed proposal by W Paterson dated 12th February instant was read, upon which he withdrew, and after some debate thereupon, it was resolved he should be called in and told: That this Court take notice, that his proceeding in the business relating to a fund of the Orphans Estate, in conjunction with those who he told the Court were knowne Enemies of the Bank, is not becoming a Director of the Court, but a breach of his Trust. And Mr Paterson being called was acquainted therewith’. (The minute book recorded this as having taken place in February 1694 because in England, but not Scotland, the administrative year ended not on 31 December but 24 March. The next day, Lady Day, was the official New Year’s Day.) That was not the end of it. On 20 February the Court of Directors met again, and again Paterson was present. The minutes recorded that ‘upon hearing Mr Paterson and reading a paper of three heads by him, proceed the question was put whither he had cleared himself of the charge against him to the satisfaction of the Court. The same passed in the negative. It was ordered that he be called in and acquainted with the said vote, And further, that though this Court have noe power to suspend him, yet tis their opinion that tis most convenient for this Court, and him, that he should

130

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 130

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Schemes and Schemers absent himself from their meetings, till he hath given better satisfaction to the Court’. And still he turned up at the next meeting, held on 27 February. There, ‘the votes of the last Court in relation to Mr Paterson being read to him, he declared to the Court, he did decline further being a Director and took his leave of the Court’. He didn’t return and soon sold his 2,400 shares. In common with other municipalities, the City of London had long been responsible for taking care of its poor and its orphans and widows. Treatment of the latter was overseen by the London Court of Orphans.3 Its basic purpose was to ensure the orphaned children of City Freemen should not be tricked out of their inheritances by unscrupulous relatives or other adults. The court insisted that money left to orphans be protected by personal guarantees or held in safe-keeping until the heirs reached maturity. Because the City itself, by common practice if not by legal obligation, paid a good rate of interest on such money deposited with it, a substantial fund (over £700,000) had built up. Rights in this were often sold to investors as a form of negotiable security, turning the enterprise into something akin to an investment fund. But it turned out the City had not been such a good guardian of the orphans’ money after all, and had itself dipped into the funds for various purposes. When it ran into financial trouble in the mid-1690s, it had no way of repaying inheritances as they fell due. Some of those who lost out petitioned Parliament. Both the Lords and the House of Commons took an interest and various solutions were put forward, all of which involved taking control to some degree of the City’s finances. This was anathema to a corporation that prided itself on its independence, and it came up with its own proposal; an Act of Parliament that would ‘consolidate’ its liability into a fund of credit. This would raise money, on which interest would be paid, by way of a public subscription. The fund would take on the liability for paying out what was owed to orphans in return for certain tax and other ringfenced City revenues. It was a scheme not dissimilar to that behind the Bank of England itself. The City went to great lengths to get this Act passed, not least by bribing the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Trevor.4 (Sir James Houblon, at this time a Member of Parliament, had been a sponsor of the legislation and had been present when £1,100 [some of Henry Every’s crew had been hanged for stealing a similar amount] had been handed over to Trevor and £110 to the Clerk to the House of Commons, Paul

131

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 131

15-10-2022 03:18:53

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Jodrell. Although Houblon, who claimed he knew nothing about the bribe, received no direct censure, Trevor was sacked. Jodrell continued in office.) The Act was passed shortly after the Bank of England got going. Paterson was soon on the case. He proposed that he and some others, including lifelong friend Paul Daranda, MP and Freeman of the Merchant Taylors company Samuel Ongly, and MP, lawyer and pamphleteer John Asquill should together launch their own joint-stock version of an orphans’ fund. Over this they would have ‘full and absolute direction’ for managing the required subscription (the subscription book to be available in the Merchant Taylors Hall). These trustees would naturally be rewarded, this time to the tune of ‘Twelve Pence in the Pound of all Clear Profits’. There were several ‘Samuel Onglys’ but this one is likely the MP who had been a commissioner for the taking of subscriptions for the Bank of England and also the Land Bank; so, despite the Land Bank connection, not exactly an ‘enemy’ of the Bank. A more likely candidate for this was Asquill who was more heavily involved in the ill-fated Land Bank and was soon writing about Several Assertions Proved in Order to Create Another Species of Money than Gold or Silver.  This prospectus was, presumably, the proposal that Paterson’s fellow Bank directors found so distasteful. Besides ‘enemies’ of the Bank being involved, the directors would have worried that Paterson would look to turn his company into a bank in competition to the Bank of England. Paterson had a vested interest in the Orphans Fund legislation since part of the revenue raised was to come from profits from ‘all the Aqueducts and right of bringing and conveying water’ into the City. Clearly this did not turn out to be as scary as it sounded because the Hampstead Aqueduct Company continued in reasonable health. Paterson was acting as what today would be called a ‘venture capitalist’, raising money to take over all or part of the fund (hopefully at a discount so that the effective rate of interest was all the more). And he and his cronies did raise a considerable amount of capital and did launch what amounted to a private banking venture based upon their ownership of Orphans Fund stock. Some banknotes were issued, but the venture was short-lived. The credit-worthiness of the underlying Orphans Fund had been blown and Paterson’s notes were not well-received or accepted, and certainly not by the Bank of England. In a few years it was all over. (The non-Paterson-ised version of the Orphans Fund struggled in the early years, being unable to pay its way in full. The deficit continued until, a few years later, Coal Tax revenues, assigned it in the Act, grew considerably and rescued the day.)

132

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 132

15-10-2022 03:18:53

Schemes and Schemers Whatever the ins and outs of his spat with the Bank of England, Paterson had, not for the first or last time, failed to see the bigger picture. Blinded by the prospect of short-term profit, his intellect had again outrun his intelligence, as Giuseppe would have put it. He turned his attention instead to Scotland. Ever since he had worked in the West Indies Paterson had been nurturing a plan for establishing a trading centre in the Caribbean, along the lines of the free port in Curaçao. On this island, which lays about forty miles north of what is now Venezuela, the Dutch West India Company had a flourishing trading base open to vessels of all nations. Paterson thought he could go one better. He knew about the isthmus that divided the ‘North’ and ‘South’ seas. He had never been there, but he reasoned that the distance from coast to coast was short. The Spaniards had long transported gold and silver from South America, and treasures from the East Indies, across the isthmus by mule train. But this was a closed system, not open to merchants from other countries. Paterson believed that if he could set up a free port on the coast of the isthmus, the ‘Darien’, he could attract business from both the East Indies and Europe. Merchants would be attracted by the considerable saving in time needed to travel only to a mid-way point between these two destinations where they would conduct trade via his ‘emporium’. No longer would it be necessary to sail to the East Indies via the Cape of Good Hope, or via South America and Cape Horn, or the treacherous Magellan Straits. Anticipating the reasoning behind the Panama Canal (which did not materialise until over 200 years later) he was certain his free port could become the trading centre of the world, the ‘door to the universe’, as he put it. Since returning to Europe he had tried to interest others in the idea, perhaps the expansion-minded Brandenburgers and Dutch acquaintances, or fellow Scots he met in Holland such as Andrew Fletcher? There weren’t any takers. But now there was an opportunity to interest the Scots. Scotland, like England, was facing something of a financial crisis, but not for the same reasons. Some causes of the country’s strictures were natural. It was a cold and wet place. If Londoners thought the Thames freezing over in the last few winters had been a cause for celebration by way of ‘Frost Fairs’, they might have given a thought for those facing near arctic conditions in the Highlands of Scotland. It was barely better in summer with a recent succession of failed harvests. To a large extent the country was left to its own limited devices to deal with its freezing, starving and disgruntled population, divided as it was

133

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 133

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland between the relatively better-off lowlanders and the deprived and belligerent Highlanders, scratching out something that sometimes amounted to a living. The Highlanders often fought with one another. Privatisation of some aspects of policing did not help. Aggrieved Highlanders were able to apply for ‘Letters of Fire and Sword’, giving them official and legal free range to take revenge on their neighbours. So, while privateers at sea relied upon their commissions to plunder shipping of other nations, members of Scottish clans in possession of a Letter of Fire and Sword were able to seize their own countrymen’s belongings and even sometimes take their lives without fear of retribution. Had the intention been to foment unrest and create and sustain feuds among the clans, there could have been no better instrument. Having the same king (and for a time queen; Mary had died of smallpox in December 1694, aged just thirty-two) as England had not helped Scotland one bit. In fact, the country had got poorer as a result of the unification of the crowns. King William did not have too much time for Scotland except as a source of men and money for his European campaigns. He had looked upon its existence as a convenience, shoring up his northern borders. More lately it had become an irritation. Back in 1688 the Scots had been slow to confirm William and Mary as king and queen. And there had been uprisings that needed to be put down. He could understand all that, and to an extent overlook it. After all, Scotland and the United Provinces had much in common. They were both small countries bereft of natural advantages. They had both been dominated by powerful neighbours and were proud of how they had been able to resist dilution of their heritage. But enough was enough. The Scots, with no apparent liking for the French or even an understanding of what was meant by it, were never slow to remind him of the ‘Auld Alliance’ with his sworn enemy, France. Not only that, a good proportion of the country, mostly those who lived in the wild and craggy north, were Catholic. William had thought it quite reasonable that, given the rocky start to his reign, he should require the Highland chiefs, who had so recently brandished their claymores, basket-handled broadswords and dirks in his direction, to swear an oath of allegiance to his regime. The details were left to William’s fixer for Scotland, joint Secretary of State Sir John Dalrymple. Dalrymple was known as the ‘Master of Stair’, having been born in Stair House, in Ayrshire, south of Glasgow. Later Earl of Stair, he was a lowlander and lawyer who had a lowlanders’ low opinion of lawless highlanders.

134

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 134

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Schemes and Schemers (Stair’s enemies, and there were many, hinted that his family indulged in ‘black arts’, and that his mother was a witch. When nine, his eldest son, another John who later became a distinguished soldier, had killed his younger brother in a shooting accident and had to be packed off to Holland. Stair’s career was not affected by the claims.) There was a good deal of wrangling over details of the exact oath to be sworn and indemnities to be given. For a while Dalrymple put the Earl of Breadalbane, an ambitious Campbell, in charge of negotiations and also of distribution of £12,000 offered as a sweetener (there were also various threats from Dalrymple about the dire consequences of refusing to swear). Breadalbane was removed from the scene when it became known that he had reached a secret arrangement with other highland chiefs allowing a get-out clause. Not for the first time, he had been trying to play both sides at once; that of William and Mary and also that of James and the Jacobites. Eventually Stair and William lost patience and in August 1691 published a Royal Proclamation offering Highland chiefs pardons for any parts they had played in the recent Jacobite uprising. To meet the terms of the declaration and to claim their share of the £12,000 handout, the chiefs were to ‘swear and sign the oath of allegiance to us by themselves, or a sheriff clerk subscribing for such as cannot write, and that before famous witnesses, betwixt and the first day of January (1692) next to come, in the presence of the Lords of our Privy Council, or the sheriffs, or their deputies, of the respective shires where any of the said persons live’. News of the final form of the required declaration and the deadline for swearing was slow to arrive in many places and some chiefs, Alasdair MacIain of Glencoe among them, found great difficulty in making the necessary trip in time to meet the deadline. He would have been wary about the arrangements for swearing. It meant he would have to travel to Inveraray at the head of Loch Fyne, an administrative centre and a Campbell stronghold. By now in his sixties, it took Glencoe and his entourage six days to battle through mid-winter weather to reach the town and obtain the necessary meeting with Sir Colin Campbell, the Sheriff of Argyle. He stopped along the way at Fort William to receive a letter confirming his intention to sign. But by the time he signed the official oath in front of Campbell, it was 6 January. Some other Highland chiefs were later still in signing. The MacIains were part of the MacDonald clan. A few hundred of them lived in Glencoe where they spent most of their days tending their cattle, and their nights telling stories about the mysteries of the mountains and its streams, about their ancestors and of the Lords of the Isles, about quarrels

135

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 135

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland and feuds, acts of bravery and of chivalry. These they often told in verse to make them all the more memorable. Their way of life was similar to that of crofters. Most lived in low hovels with few or no windows, and turfed or thatched roofs with a hole for a chimney. In winter they shared their accommodation with the less-hardy of their animals and allowed the peat fires to fill their rooms with meagre heat and abundant smoke. Their chief, Alasdair MacIain, was a giant of a man, his once-red hair and beard were now white but his appetite for fighting remained undimmed. He took his clan to Dundee’s muster and one hundred or so MacIains were part of the Highland army that charged down the hill with such effect at Killiecrankie. Much reduced in number, they went on to fight in the Battle of Dunkeld. What is known is that Glencoe and his clan had a penchant for adding to their herds through cattle raids that were not confined to near neighbours. On their way home from Dunkeld they took part in a raid on Glenlyon, coming away with more than enough cattle to see them through the winter. When Alasdair MacIain missed the deadline for swearing his allegiance to the king, somebody, probably Dalrymple, perhaps prodded by King William, decided to make an example of Glencoe and his clan. This, it was argued, would help bring other unruly Highlanders into line and might even blunt the MacIains’ thieving ways. In February 1692 a detachment of Argyll Foot, mostly Campbells or relatives, arrived in Glencoe and claimed shelter. They were entertained as well as circumstances allowed but they repaid their welcome by turning on their hosts. Alasdair MacIain was among those murdered. His sons, one married to a Campbell, survived the night but between twenty-five and forty others did not. They were shot or slashed or simply chased into the wild and deadly night. News of the incident soon spread. Highland clans that had been enemies of the MacIains for generations were outraged, as were the lawyers and politicians of Edinburgh who had their own rivalries to pursue. In the way of politicians, they jumped into action, setting up an inquiry ‘into the barbarous slaughter committed at Glencoe’. It did not report until July 1695. The killings had been murder, it eventually decided, but King William was exonerated, sort of. Even if he had given ‘positive orders for executing the law upon the highlanders that had already despised your repeated indemnities, they had but met with what they justly deserved’. On the other hand, the Master of Stair had exceeded his instructions by identifying Glencoe’s clan ‘as men absolutely and positively ordered

136

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 136

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Schemes and Schemers to be destroyed without any further consideration than that of their not having taken the indemnity in due time’. Dalrymple had treated the news that Glencoe had missed the 1 January deadline ‘as a happy incident since it afforded an opportunity to destroy them, and the destroying of them is urged with a great deal of zeal’. With an almost equal level of zeal, the committee charged with the inquiry begged ‘that your majesty will give such orders about him (Dalrymple) for vindication of your government’. The report, accepted by the Scottish Parliament, also asked for compensation for the surviving ‘Glencoe-men’, and that ‘the actors’ responsible for the actual killing should be prosecuted.5 Dalrymple had to resign (although later came back into favour). The principal ‘actor’ Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, was never prosecuted. He died in Bruges in 1696. A big spender and heavy drinker he had been on the verge of bankruptcy when he joined the Argyll Foot a year or two before the massacre. One of the final blows to his finances had been the cattle raid on his much-reduced estate in which the MacIains had been involved. (Dalrymple, a lawyer and judge as well as a politician, was generally disliked by his Scottish colleagues. He became a confidante of King William after playing a leading role in persuading the Scottish Parliament to accept William and Mary as joint monarchs of Scotland. He was one of three dignitaries who made the trip to London to perform the necessary formalities; William and Mary being unwilling to travel to Scotland for their coronation. Dalrymple was a man who kept his own counsel and conducted many of his affairs at long range, being often in the king’s entourage and in London or Flanders. His orders for dealing with the Glencoe MacIains arrived this way.)  The committee of enquiry’s conclusions came at a bad time for King William. He was in the middle of a siege, in mourning for his wife, and in shock at the death of Michael Godfrey. Now he had something more to think about; the impertinence of the Scottish Parliamentarians in not clearing him wholeheartedly of complicity in the Glencoe Massacre. Not only that, they expected him to sack Dalrymple. Distracted, he took his eye off the ball, as he had done when the Scottish Parliament was first in uproar about the Glencoe Massacre. The event had cost him dearly, but the upshot cleared the way for Paterson to launch yet another of his schemes, one in which Dampier was to become embroiled.

137

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 137

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Chapter 18

Scotland the Brave Scotland had effectively been kept out of international trade for the last forty years and more. A series of English protectionist Navigation Acts had seen to it that only English ships carried goods between England and its colonies, and only English ships, or those of exporting nations that were the place of origin of the goods they carried, could land cargoes at British ports. On top of this, the East India Company and Royal African Company both guarded their monopolies for trading with India and Africa with as much force as they could muster, and were apt to act in a high-handed manner in doing so. By the 1690s Scottish merchants were left with a limited number of potential markets. Most trade was to or via England. Overseas trade relied on English ships. There was a limited clandestine trade with Ireland, France, Scandinavia and even the West Indies, but nothing to buy as exciting as gold, or silks, ‘elephants’ teeth’ or rare spices. In truth there was not too much to sell either, neither cattle nor coal being ideal for the purpose. And there was little enough grain to feed the starving population as it was. When Scottish merchants did try their hand at circumventing the rules, their English counterparts were quickly on their backs. In December 1694, for example, ‘Merchants and Traders of the City of Bristoll’ were petitioning Parliament for action to be taken against the ‘growing evil’ of cargos being taken ‘directly to Scotland and Ireland, without paying Custom’.1 A month later, the merchants of ‘Leverpoole’ sent a similar petition, complaining that ‘several ships belonging to England, Scotland and Ireland have, for several Years last past, carried the Produce to Scotland and Ireland, without paying any Custom for the same’. There was no Scottish navy to speak of and, unsurprisingly, there were not too many privately owned Scottish ships available to carry Scottish goods; and little prospect of more soon. Shipbuilding was hardly viable. Yet Scottish merchants, especially those who were Edinburgh-based, saw how well their London counterparts were doing from overseas trade and were jealous of their privileged position. Among these Edinburgh men, a movement began, and gathered force, pushing for Scotland to be

138

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 138

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Scotland the Brave allowed the same shipping and trading rights as England so that the country might take advantage of the ‘joint-stock’ boom to establish overseas trading companies. Exasperated at Scotland’s haughty insistence on doing things its own way, and not wishing to inflame still further an opposition that was set on an inquiry into the events at Glencoe, King William had gone a small way to allowing Edinburgh merchants their wish. In 1693, he allowed the Scottish Parliament to pass an enabling act; an Act for the Encouraging of Forraign Trade.2 There had been Acts with similar names before, but these had tended to be protectionist measures, banning certain imports for example. This was different. It was expansive and forward-looking, talking about improving the wealth of the kingdom, establishing companies, and setting up ‘undertakings to the remotest parts’. It was William’s first Scottish Parliament (although he wasn’t there personally, of course) and he wanted it to be known that he wasn’t the remote, disinterested and callous monarch, that he was being made out to be (and indeed was). The Act allowed ‘more or fewer’ merchants to form ‘Societies and Companies, for carrying on of Trade as to any Subject or sort of Goods and Merchandize, to whatsoever Kingdoms, Countries, or parts of the World‘, provided only that those countries or parts of the world were not at war with the king (so this proviso meant there was to be no trading with any nation at war with Scotland or England). ‘Kingdoms and Countries of Europe, to the East and West Indies, to the Straits, and Trade in the Mediterranean, or upon the coast of Africa, or Northern parts, or else whereas above’, were all mentioned as possibilities. The new law didn’t put in place any means of conducting such trade, it merely made it possible for businesses to be established. When, and if they were, they would need a ‘serious’ recommendation from the Estates of Parliament to be able to obtain a patent that would allow them actually to start trading. William played politics as if it were a game of chess, moving his pieces around so as to gain advantage, faking a move here, covering his true intentions there. He had played his Scottish gambit and now had to wait to see how things played out. He probably thought he had done a good job. He had responded to the Scottish merchants’ requests and had shown himself to be mindful of their needs. He probably also thought nothing would come of the Act. After all, the Scots had not been allowed to build up any expertise in overseas trade, they were in poor shape financially and had few ships available to them.

139

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 139

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland And there were powerful English monopolies that would be sure to keep them in check. William hadn’t reckoned on Scottish tenacity, nor how little ‘encouragement’ it took to set William Paterson off on a new venture. It was in London that serious notice was first taken of the passing into law of the 1693 Act. Members of the City’s Scottish community and other merchants who were, or had aspirations to become ‘interlopers’ (unauthorised merchants willing to trade in disregard to the legal monopoly of the East India and African companies), were particularly interested. It is said that James Chiesley, a Scottish merchant living in London, was the first to champion the Act in conversations with William Paterson and his friend Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. The three no doubt took part in many discussions about the possibilities the new law had presented them as financiers, merchants and public-spirited Scots (Paterson would have concentrated on the first, Chiesley the second, and Fletcher the third). Paterson would have quickly realised that his cherished plan for a Caribbean free-port emporium could reconcile the three objectives. As usual, his enthusiasm was infectious and Fletcher took him up to Scotland to meet his near neighbour, the Marquis of Tweeddale, Lord Chancellor of Scotland. Fleshy-faced, long-nosed, with full lips and born with a dimpled chin (with a later addition below), Tweeddale’s portrait of about this time shows him looking down on the artist in a somewhat distant, disinterested manner. He had a history of going with the flow, even if that meant changing sides. Now sixty-seven and in the last four years of his life, he was certainly in no mood to change such a successful strategy. But on the other hand, in Paterson’s grand plans he saw a flow that was certainly worth going with, perhaps something that would turn the fortunes of the nation forever and, by his support, ensure his own place in history. Paterson spoke to him of rich and fertile lands waiting to be claimed for Scotland, and of a country, the Darien, that had ‘gold’ in the names of its rivers and islands for good reason. It had a ‘temperate’ and healthy climate, he claimed, and was fortunate to be in such a location that it could easily become the commercial crossroads of the world. What is more, Paterson pointed out, he was probably the most successful projector in England, having only this very year succeeded in raising more in subscriptions for Bank of England stock than all the wealth in Scotland put together. If his proposal were accepted, he could easily raise the capital required to carry the plan forward. Tweeddale would have been polite and thoughtful, Saltoun outspoken and passionate. Here was an opportunity that could not be missed for Scotland

140

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 140

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Scotland the Brave to break the English shackles that had held it back too long. Paterson would not have agreed with Saltoun’s unbridled nationalism, he believed there should be a union of England and Scotland, but there was money at stake and he would not have argued the point. No doubt Paterson was invited to put his proposals in writing. And he obliged. By 1695 all was ready. Tweeddale was able to welcome the latest sitting of the Estates Parliament with a promise that it would be given an opportunity to put flesh on its 1693 (Encouraging of Forraign Trade) Act. It could do this by creating a joint-stock trading company: The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies.3 When the proposal came forward it was evident it had Paterson’s hands all over it. He was one of twenty-one named founding subscribers. Others included Sir Robert Chiesley, and James Chiesley. Two, Robert Blackwood and James Balfour, were described as ‘merchants in Edinburgh’ and one, John Corse, as a Glasgow merchant. London-based founding subscribers included Paterson, John Smith, James Chiesley and Walter Stewart. (Subscribers Thomas Coutts, Hugh Fraser and Walter Stewart were also named as founding subscribers to the Bank of Scotland in an enabling Act passed the same year.) As a nod to Saltoun’s aspirations for the nation, at least half of the stock was reserved for Scots, first to those actually living in Scotland, and after August 1696, to ex-pats as well. The minimum subscription was to be £100, and the maximum £3,000 (sterling, not the lower value Scots pounds). The company was authorised to fit out its own ships and, for ten years, be exempt from the Navigation Act of 1661; meaning it was allowed by law to send its ships ‘from any of the ports or places of this kingdom, or from any other ports or places in amity, or not in hostility with his majesty, in warlike or other manner, to any lands, islands, countries or places in Asia, Africa or America, and there to plant colonies, build cities, towns or forts, in or upon the places not inhabited, or in or upon any other place, by consent of the natives or inhabitants thereof and not possessed by any European sovereign, potentate, prince or state’. The Act went on to allow the company to defend its colonies and trading stations by force and, if necessary, ‘make reprisals’. No other company was to be given such rights for thirty-one years and the company was further empowered to seize interlopers and their goods and extract payment from them. When it came to America, the company would own any land or islands it settled, any cities and towns or forts it built, any plantations it established, together with ‘all manner of treasures, wealth, riches, profits, mines,

141

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 141

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland minerals, fishings, with the whole product and benefit thereto, as well under as above ground, and as well in rivers and seas, as in the lands’. And it was authorised to collect customs and other duties within its territories. Of course, the company would demonstrate its allegiance to the crown, paying each year a hogshead of tobacco by way of a token, ‘if required only’. The company’s ships were to be given royal protection and ‘all ships, vessels, merchandise, goods and other effects whatsoever belonging to said company shall be free of all manner of restraints or prohibitions, and of all customs, taxes, cesses, supplies or other duties imposed, or to be imposed by Act of Parliament, or otherwise, for and during the space of twenty-one years, excepting always the whole duties of tobacco and sugar that are not of the growth of the plantations of the said company’. In other words, the company had a monopoly for thirty-one years, an exemption from tax for twenty-one, and indefinite royal protection. It could go where it wished, trade with almost anybody it wanted, and take and settle land. What could possibly go wrong? The Scottish Parliament didn’t take too long to decide that the company was just what was needed, and thinking they were agreeing to establish a trading company along the lines of the East India Company, voted the Act through. Paterson, it seems had forewarned the compliant Tweeddale, who had stirred himself into mild enthusiasm for what was planned, that there would be some reaction from the East India Company itself. It would not want another company with even greater privileges than its own, muscling in on its most lucrative markets. Paterson certainly wrote to Sir Robert Chiesley, Lord Provost of Edinburgh and a Member of Parliament for Edinburgh, in these terms. In September 1695 he wrote: ‘It is absolutely necessary that you would with all expedition gett the Act of Parliament past the Seals’. And, he added, ‘It is not fit for us to write the Reasons for passing the Seal and therefore it ought not be delayed a day longer’.4 He was saying that once passed, the Act had to receive Royal Assent as soon as possible. In the event, Tweeddale obliged once more. With the power to complete the formalities himself, but without first gaining the consent of the king, he immediately touched the Act with his sceptre, making it a done deal. (Whatever the murmurs against the Master of Stair, suggesting he was either a curse or was himself somehow cursed, the Chiesleys [or Chieslys, Chieslelies, or Chieslays, or Chishleys as their name was sometimes spelt] could probably lay a greater claim to being cursed. A younger brother, John Chiesley was forty-four years old, when in 1689, he murdered the senior

142

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 142

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Scotland the Brave judge, Member of Parliament and of the Privy Council, George Lockhart, Lord Carnwath. Chiesley’s marriage had been unhappy, but not so unhappy as to prevent the birth of ten children, and he wanted a separation. He was outraged by the amount of maintenance awarded his departing wife and, being a violent and unstable man, decided to show the judge his own view of ‘justice’ by shooting him in the back. The judiciary, particularly touchy about the murder of one of its own, then took its own revenge. Chiesley was sentenced to death. His hand that held his pistol was duly lopped off and he was hung in chains. James and Sir Robert Chiesley were both bankrupted as a result of their financial involvement in the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. Sir Robert is reported to have buckled under the strain and to have passed the last years of his life in a mental asylum.) As soon as the Act establishing the Company of Scotland became law, Paterson swung into action. Without any agreement as to what the company would actually do, he opened a subscription book in London. He must have been canvassing likely investors for some time beforehand because in no time he had raised commitments for £300,000. The Act had been passed in July 1695, Paterson had opened his subscription book in November 1695, and two weeks later it was fully subscribed. In the City, Parliament, the East India Company, and in Kensington Palace, there was panic. Despite asking to be kept informed of progress of the Act (at long range, of course) it seems the king had not been. He was surprised and not a little upset by the outlandishly generous concessions the Scots had been able to grant themselves. Above all, he faced losing revenue, and in his European wars, he knew that having enough money was just as important as having enough men. But it would not be easy to go back on what had been written into the Scottish statute book. The law had been approved and simply demanding it be withdrawn would certainly cause uproar amongst those prickly Scots. There would no doubt be a stand-off with the Scottish Parliament and a delay, or worse, in the flow of Scottish funds into royal hands. Soon the English Parliament was involved and enquiries were put in hand. Both the House of Commons and the House of Lords were involved and the two agreed to combine forces and make a joint address to the king.5 ‘An Act of Parliament that hath lately received your Majesty’s Royal Assent in your Kingdom of Scotland, for erecting a Company trading to Africa and the Indies, is likely to bring many great Prejudices and

143

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 143

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Mischiefs to all your Majesty’s Subjects, that are concerned in the Wealth or Trade of this Nation’, they said. By reason of which great Advantages granted to the Scotch East-India Company, and the Duties and Difficulties that lie upon that Trade in England, a great Part of the Stock and Shipping of this Nation will be carried thither; and, by this Means, Scotland be made a free Port for all EastIndia Commodities; and, consequently, those several Places in Europe, which were supplied from England, will be furnished from thence much cheaper than can be done by the English; and therefore, this Nation will lose the Benefit of supplying foreign Parts with those Commodities; which hath always been a great Article in the Balance of our foreign Trade: Moreover, the said Commodities will unavoidably be brought by the Scotch into England, by Stealth, both by Sea and Land, to the vast Prejudice of the English Trade and Navigation, and to the great Detriment of your Majesty, in your Customs. That was not all. ‘And, when once that Nation shall have settled themselves in Plantations in America, our Commerce in Tobacco, Sugar, Cottonwool, Skins, Masts, &c. will be utterly lost; because the Privileges of that Nation, granted to them by this Act, are such, that that Kingdom must be the Magazine for all those Commodities; and the English Plantations, and the Traffick thereof, lost to us, and the Exportation of our own Manufactures yearly decreased’. Although the Act contained ‘great Prejudices, Inconveniences, and Mischiefs’, there were no remedies proposed. The law complained of was the law of another nation over which Parliament had no say. Parliamentarians were perhaps unsure at this stage of the involvement of King William in its passing (for all they knew, he might have genuinely approved of the Act) and they did not think it politic to risk raising his considerable ire. In any case, remedies might ‘be more securely provided for in Bills that may be agreed on between the Two Houses’. Some expression of royal approval for the line taken by the English Parliament might hasten the progress through Parliament of the remedial legislation that would be put forward. In the meantime, the king ‘may be fully informed of the great Mischiefs which this Scotch Act of Parliament may bring upon the Trade of this Nation’. By December the Lords and Commoners had had themselves summoned to Kensington Palace where King William had agreed he would hear ‘the

144

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 144

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Scotland the Brave Address of both Houses of Parliament, in relation to an Act of Parliament lately passed in Scotland, for establishing an East-India Company’. The day after this meeting the Speaker of the House of Commons reported that ‘his Majesty had been pleased to make a most gracious Answer (to the joint address), to the Effect following; viz. I Have been ill served in Scotland; but I hope some Remedies may be found to prevent the Inconveniencies which may arise from this Act’.6 Parliament had been given free rein to act. It took the less than subtle hint to take action. Less than a month later the House of Commons Journal (for 21 January 1696) recorded that the enquiry into the ‘Scotch Company’ had produced its report. It had been beavering away since news first came out of the passing of the Act. It suspected that bribery and wrongdoing had been involved and it wanted to know who had done what, and when. At first it had met with something of a brick wall. The witnesses it called, including William Paterson, all claimed to know next to nothing about the events leading up to the Scottish Act, and in particular nobody knew where the subscription books were kept or anything about the company’s accounts. Eventually, though, the committee charged with the enquiry had obtained minutes of various company meetings, and a full list of Paterson’s English subscribers.7 The minutes revealed, among other things, that far from knowing little about the ‘Scotch Company’, Paterson had ‘been at great Pains and Expence, in making several considerable Discoveries of Trade, and Improvements, in and to both Indies; and likewise in procuring needful Powers and Privileges, for a Company of Commerce, from several sovereign Princes, and States; which he and they have contrived, suited, and designed for the said Company’. In consideration of this he was to receive 2% of the money subscribed to the company and 3% of profits made by the company ‘for the Space of One-and-twenty Years; which shall be redeemable for Two per Cent more of the said Capital Fund, any time in 5 Years’. (Even Paterson soon found this to be too generous and he renounced his legal right to such rewards but in doing so made clear that he was relying on the ‘Justice and Gratitude’ of the other directors, ‘so many excellent Persons’, to see him all right. Whether said ‘excellent Persons’ had told him to back down or not, it was a similar tactic that had occurred before, when the outcome wasn’t what Paterson had hoped for.) Apart from discovering what appeared to be somewhat chaotic management and accounting practices, in its search for illegalities the Commons enquiry had come up with something of a trump card. Directors, officers, and servants of the company had been required to swear an oath of

145

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 145

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland allegiance to the company. But, said the enquiry, administering and taking an oath in England in favour of a foreign power was ‘a High Crime and Misdemeanor’. Parliament resolved ‘that the Directors of the Company of Scotland trading to Africa, and the Indies, under Colour of a Scotch Act of Parliament, styling themselves a Company, and acting as such, and raising Monies in this Kingdom for carrying on the said Company, are guilty of a High Crime and Misdemeanor’.8 The committee of enquiry was empowered to send for Persons, Papers, and Records, and ordered to prepare Impeachment papers against twenty-one named people. They included Lord Belhaven, William Paterson, James Chiesley, James Balfour, James Foulis, Thomas Coutts, and Hugh Fraser. Paterson’s English subscribers were quick to scurry away. They withdrew. The London subscription book was no more. Meanwhile, February brought another blow to the ‘Scotch Company’. The Lords of Trade and Plantations issued a circular to the governors of English colonies warning them of the passing of the Scottish Act. ‘You will receive from the Commissioners of Customs copy of the Act and of the address of the Lords and Commons, together with a letter from the Commissioners recommending to you a vigorous execution of the laws passed for the security of the Plantation Trade’. It warned the governors to ‘see that all officers of the Customs perform their duty strictly’. No doubt worried that some governors would, as usual, ignore instructions, the authors added for good measure: ‘The King is very sensible how prejudicial this Scotch Act may be to the trade and commerce of England and the Colonies, and expects from you a strict performance of the duties enjoined on you by the Commissioners of Customs and a like enforcement of the Acts of Trade and Navigation’. It seems Paterson had once again failed to see the bigger picture. Blinded by his two and three percents, he had underestimated the reach and Parliamentary power of the English East India Company, he had not seen that pushing for too much for Scotland would alarm a king whose interests were elsewhere, and he had certainly not reckoned on the vindictiveness of that same king who was now convinced he had been tricked. But Paterson being Paterson, he ploughed on regardless.

146

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 146

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Chapter 19

Dampier’s Deductions Paterson must have sought out Dampier shortly after he arrived back in London in 1691, after completing his twelve-year journey around the world. It was about this time that Paterson was busy on the launch of his Society of Hampstead Aqueducts and was also pushing his Bank of England ideas. He would have been a regular at the financial hot-spots such as Jonathan’s and would have known many of the potential investors who lurked in its smoky corners. And he would certainly have taken time to become re-acquainted with the newly arrived adventurer, especially as Dampier had an intimate knowledge of the Darien. Paterson had been musing about his plan for establishing a free port in the area for so long that he would hardly have missed such an opportunity. From his point of view, Dampier would also have been pleased to spend time with Paterson. He was trying to re-establish himself in England and here was somebody who seemed to know everybody, even if many were a little wary of this hawker of shares. Paterson was at this point well in with the Houblons and other City merchanting royalty. What is more, he was somebody well-practised at writing down his thoughts. Dampier might have sought his literary advice, even given him some of his notes to look over. Certainly, later events suggest Paterson had gained an early sight of what Dampier had to say about the Darien. At the very least Paterson talked often with Dampier about the possibility of establishing a Scottish colony in the Darien. In his usual way, Dampier would have been non-committal but informative. He would have answered Paterson’s questions and the two would have discussed possible locations. Then, in 1693, Dampier had gone off to Spain. During his time away Paterson had come and gone from the Bank of England and had managed to make himself a prime mover behind the creation of the ‘Scotch Company’; the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. He had tackled the latter with his usual enthusiasm and bluster but, by the beginning of 1696, was confronted by two major hurdles. The first, losing the right to raise subscriptions in England, did not worry him too much. His self-belief was such that he would have been confident of raising

147

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 147

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland the money elsewhere. After all, the constitution of the Scotch Company, which he had played a significant role in drafting, allowed the company to bring in foreign investors. Paterson would have thought the second hurdle more of an obstacle to his personal ambitions. He wanted the Scotch Company to be a vehicle for his Darien scheme. Many of those founding directors in Scotland, and some in England, did not even know of such a possibility. They saw the Scotch Company as nothing more than a new East India Company, a trading concern that might acquire a few forts and factories along the way. Paterson knew he had to make a persuasive case for his vision. By the time Dampier returned from Spain, Paterson had a presentation worked up, and probably the outline of a written proposal, which he would have shown to Dampier. The Houblons had still not paid Dampier for his nigh-on two years’ service and he must have been short of money, again. Perhaps Paterson paid him, or promised to pay him for his services. By February 1696 Paterson was in Scotland, opening his Edinburgh subscription book. The offer was an enormous success and Paterson became a national hero. Nobility, professionals, tradesmen, merchants, shopkeepers, widows, companies, local authorities, even orphanages pledged their support. More money than the country knew it had was put into Scotch Company shares by way of promises and commitments. Money and species were retrieved for the purpose from hidden strongboxes, from under mattresses, lofts, and many other secret places. The nation was simply investing its future in the company, and doing so without knowing, or perhaps caring, what it was that the company was actually going to do. Paterson was the genius who would save Scotland and show the niggardly and uncaring English what the country could do when allowed to compete on an equal footing. He had turned investing in the project into an act of faith, faith and patriotism; an act that no ‘true’ Scotsman or Scotswoman could or should refuse. By July 1696 the full £400,000 had been pledged, £100,000 more than the subscription originally envisaged for Scotland, the limit being raised to make up part of the shortfall caused by withdrawal of London investors. Basking in his success, Paterson turned up at a meeting of the company’s Foreign Trade Committee with his papers, journals and calculations in hand.1 No doubt there were charts prepared by Herman Moll, and perhaps some by Dampier himself, among the papers. He was ready to unveil his grand scheme that would transform Scotland’s medieval economy into that of an international financial powerhouse.

148

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 148

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Dampier’s Deductions Paterson’s presentation was the first time most of those present had heard of the Darien scheme, and they liked what they heard. They liked it so much that they asked Paterson to put his plan in writing; and to make sure it was kept secret, very secret. Soon Paterson had his plan written down (a document of over 6,000 words) and the Court of Directors were all let in on the secret. There was a part of the ‘isthmus of America’ that was as yet uninhabited or is in the free possession of the native Indians’, he wrote, before going on to extol the virtues of this wonderful place. There was a good deal of rain, he conceded, but frequently there are ‘several days, nay sometimes weeks together, wherein there is not any sort of rains’. There were sometimes tornadoes and gusts of wind, and ‘also much thunder and lightning; but I never heard of any harm it did’. There were diseases but generally speaking, those ‘seasoned to the Indies lived long lives and faced few dangers from disease’. Definitely on the plus side, there were good harbours, valuable wood to be cut, and rich soil to cultivate. He made the jungle sound like Richmond Park, a wooded area with well-spaced trees and little undergrowth through which a man might easily gallop his horse. He didn’t mention that equine beasts, apart from the Spaniards’ mules, were in short supply. Most importantly to the eager listeners, was the prospect of gold. It could be mined and even found laying in rivers. It was so common a commodity that rivers and islands were named after it. If 30,000 ‘negroes, and others, were employed, at but half an ounce of gold each head per day, it’s easie to be seen, even at this rate, to what immense sums it would amount’, he said. And this would ‘open these doors of Tubagantee and Cacarica, and through them will naturally circulate and flow all the treasures, wealth, and rich commodities, of the spacious South Seas, such as gold, silver, copper, cochanill, saltpeter, caraco, vigonia wool, tortois-Shell, balsam of Peru, ambergrease, beaser stone, pearls, emeraulds, saphires, and other wealth, to the value of one hundred millions of crowns yearly’. Paterson really laid it on thick. Some of his words sound remarkedly like those of Dampier who, when disgusted at the release of slaves after an attack on Guiaquil had concluded: ‘There was never a greater Opportunity put into the Hands of Men to enrich themselves than we had’. The pirates, he said, could have taken the slaves to Santa Maria and used them to get gold out of the local mines. But then he calmed down and admitted that the idea ‘may seem to the Reader but Golden Dreams’. Indeed, a neutral and cool-headed observer might have had pause to stand back and think a little at the passing reference in Paterson’s proposal to

149

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 149

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Nombre de Dios. This had once been a thriving coastal city about 120 miles west of Paterson’s proposed settlement. It had been known to Drake, but not to Dampier. By the time the latter visited the site where the city had once stood, he found only a stretch of overgrown and abandoned jungle; as unhealthy a spot as its replacement, Portobello. Dampier was, if nothing else, a cool-headed observer. He knew from the start that Paterson’s plan had very little chance of success. Spaniards and Spanish possessions ‘beyond the line’ had been fair game for English freebooters when Spain and England had been at loggerheads. Now they were not. Far from it, maintaining his alliance with Spain was one of King William’s foremost priorities. Dampier knew, and had experience at first hand, of Spain’s possessive attitude towards its territories. It had acted against the logwood cutters of Campeche even though it had no use for the place itself. He knew also of the importance to the Spanish economy of the Panama mule trains that carried gold and silver across the Darien. Spain had grown fat on its South American gold, and now it was over-reliant on regular shipments. It would not allow anything to jeopardise continuance of its treasure fleet deliveries. Dampier would have guessed that the Spanish would not permit anybody to take possession of land anywhere remotely close to the strategic byway across the Darien, the route that made these shipments possible. There were many other reasons the Scotch Company seemed to be setting itself up for a fall, and Dampier would have known or guessed many of these. Some sprang from the inexperience of those involved. Shut out from commerce with other countries for so long, there were very few Scottish merchants with any in-depth knowledge of international trade. Those who were to run the Scotch Company were proud men, with a deep belief in their own uninformed opinions and management styles. Paterson himself, ‘Mr two percent’, was a master at launching companies but hardly had an enviable track record when it came to running them. It seems nobody involved had actually been to the Darien. There was no doubt that it was strategically well-placed (another reason why Spain would guard this possession well) but Paterson and others underestimated the difficulty of crossing that narrow stretch of land between the north and south seas. It involved traversing its steep and slithery mountains, and hacking through damp and dense jungle, all the while avoiding its flash floods, hostile Indians and venomous creatures. Paterson’s bland dismissal of the hazards to health was also soon to be proved disastrously wrong. The favoured location for the proposed settlement was also fraught with difficulties. It offered what seemed to be a perfect harbour, deep and well

150

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 150

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Dampier’s Deductions protected. But the prevailing winds and narrow, rock-strewn entrance meant it became a prison for the larger ships riding at anchor within. To leave, ships often had to be warped out, swinging at the end of a rope, praying it would not snap or slip, and at the mercy of the wind and waves that pushed them towards the reefs. At least one ship had been sunk in its attempt to leave the harbour. Golden Island, just beyond the harbour entrance, was a pirate rendezvous point only because it was remote, well out of the way, and rarely visited. The unsuitability of the site chosen for the settlement is underlined by the fact that over 300 years later it remains a remote stretch of jungle. Even the descendants of the Indian people who once lived there have relocated themselves to nearby islands. And the Scots were intent on buying the wrong type of ship. They wanted to (and eventually did) order prestige ocean-going vessels festooned with gold leaf and fine carvings; square-rigged vessels designed for running before a healthy wind. They were good at getting to the West Indies, but were hardly suited for trading trips that meant harbour-hopping between islands separated by shallow waters. More nimble craft were needed for this, smaller ships with fore and aft sails, able to sail well into the wind as well as before it. And why, anyway, did the Scots want to buy their ships? Might it not have been more financially sound to lease vessels at least until the venture was well underway, by when future needs would have been more obvious? Why were there no preliminary voyages to prepare the way, to assess needs, to check on risks, to meet the locals, to evaluate markets? And what were the Scots going to sell anyway? Was it plaid to keep the jungle inhabitants warm, shoes to shod those who preferred to go barefoot, Scottish headgear intended to protect from cold not sun, wigs to cover shaven heads, or bibles for those who knew no English? Because these were some of the items that the Edinburgh directors thought imperative. The Scottish adventurers might have taken axes, saws, shovels, and machetes to trade, as Dampier had intended for his Campeche trade. And indeed, such things were taken, but were reserved for use in construction. Like lottery-winners, the directors of the Scotch Company abandoned the supposed national characteristic of meanness and, at first at least, splashed their new-won cash. Dampier would also have had misgivings about the reliability of the local Indians. He had seen how they had taken things into their own hands and, against all advice, hacked Spanish soldiers to pieces in the woods outside Santa Maria. He knew the Indians were pleased to have the English pirates

151

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 151

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland fight alongside them against the Spanish, and that their services could be bought for the price of an axe, but not their loyalty. (In his New Voyage Round the World, Dampier said the pirates/privateers had ‘dreadful Apprehensions’ of the ‘numbers and fierceness’ of the Kuna Indians. But this had changed after an Indian boy had been taken from his canoe. The boy, given the name John Gret by his captors, had been treated well. When returned to his people some years later he had nothing but good to say about his English captors and some sort of understanding had been established between the Kuna people and the English privateers. But Gret had since been killed when a ship from Jamaica had tried to capture him to sell as a slave. Now, if any Kuna asked after Gret, the privateers feigned ignorance, he said. The implication was that there would otherwise be serious repercussions. The relationship between the Kunas and the English, and by extension, the Scots, was on a knife-edge.) Dampier realised he could earn something for himself by selling his information about the Darien to the Scotch Company. What he had to say would not be that encouraging, but Paterson was not going to give up. He was already talking about raising more money from European investors. Clearly, King William had said enough to let it be known that he was against any Scottish venture that would endanger his income and his prospects of success in his European wars. He had already seen to it that warnings about tax collection had been issued, English investors had been threatened, and Parliament put on alert. Dampier did not want to be a party to any renegade Scottish schemes, he knew what it was like to have his motives and actions called into question, as they had been after Every had mutinied. But here was a means of rehabilitating his prospects. Instead of assisting the Scots, he might work instead for the English. He could become an informer, providing intelligence about Paterson’s scheme and the progress being made towards its accomplishment. After all, other people he knew were paid informers. He certainly had the contacts to do this, through his wife, and through those influential people he had met at Jonathan’s and the Royal Society. Contenders included treasury minister and King William confidante Charles Montagu, also Member of Parliament, one-time secretary to King William, and, like Montagu, a president of the Royal Society, Sir Robert Southwell. There was Robert Harley, an up-and-coming Politian who, as a Presbyterian, had an interest in Scottish affairs. In his History of Parliament biography, it is said that he was a ‘devious and secretive’ man who was a ‘master of schemes’ and was ‘generally allowed as cunning a man as any

152

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 152

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Dampier’s Deductions in England, and has been always employing spies and inspectors into every office to have a general information of everything’. And then there was John Locke, a commissioner of the Council of Trade and Plantations. Locke was a philosopher, doctor, and poet. He had opposed the Stuarts, fled to Holland and returned to England with William, Prince of Orange, in 1688. Since then, he had involved himself in colonial affairs, both for the government and on this own account. He had served in various guises on Trade and Plantations committees, was involved in the development of the English colony of Carolina, and was an investor in the Bahamas and in the Royal African Company. Some twenty years older than Dampier, his 1696 portrait suggests a somewhat imperious figure with a long, straight nose; although not quite as dominant an organ as was that of King William. Later portraits show a leaner face, even more prominent nose, and large, remorseful eyes. There was, if anything, a slightly manic look about him. He was a member of the Royal Society and personal friend of Isaac Newton and Samuel Pepys. Not surprisingly, given his dislike of the Stuarts, and James II in particular, one of his philosophical tenets was that those who ruled could only do so successfully with the consent of those they ruled. It was a two-way process. In effect he was saying that nothing good would come in trying to go against the will of the people. He must have been fascinated by Dampier’s tales of life on board privateering and pirate vessels, of how captains were elected and only remained in place by consent, and how they accepted limitation of their authority and powers. He would have listened carefully to explanations of how the crews of these ships provided for each other by sharing their spoils amongst themselves, but only after fellow crew members wounded in action, and the families of those killed, were taken care of financially. Dampier would also have spoken to Locke, probably reluctantly at first, about pirates’ and privateers’ tactics, about their use of bluster, bullying and trickery to achieve their ends; and how they often sailed under false colours so as to bamboozle those they wished to attack. Such talk would have alerted Dampier to other possibilities for his own advancement, profit and preferment. He could be more than simply an informer. He had in his hands a means of thwarting the Scotch Company’s ambitions and perhaps even achieving the king’s stated wish for a United Kingdom and an end to the troublesome Scottish Parliament. At first, anyway, the opportunity that presented itself to Dampier would not have been explicit, nor his plan complete in every detail. But the outline could not be ignored.

153

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 153

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland The Scots could not be dissuaded from their grand adventure. They had managed to wangle for themselves some valuable concessions and they were determined to use these to best advantage. How this might be done was still up for debate. Many wanted to restrict their enterprise to that of a trading company, Paterson had grander ideas, ideas that were almost certain to lead to failure. So, instead of trying to discourage the Scots, which was only likely to make them more determined than ever to pursue their newly-aroused pretensions to world trading power status, might it not be better to encourage the Scots, as surreptitiously as possible, to adopt Paterson’s ill-advised venture? Of course, the whole of the financial burden for the venture would have to fall on the Scots. Paterson was even at this moment going off to Holland and Hamburg to open new subscription books. Any new money from this source must be stopped. If the king allowed the Scots to move forward with a clone of the East India company that had an exemption for taxes, he would lose money. If the king were to somehow abolish the Scotch Company, he would cause a massive argument with the Scots and no doubt a suspension of, or delay in remittances. But if he were to let the Scots spend their money on a doomed Darien settlement, there would be no argument and taxes would still have to be paid on time. Also, battered by the experience, the Scots might even be more malleable. They might even find it necessary to turn, cap in hand, to England for support. If, just if, the Scots were to fail so badly that they bankrupted and embarrassed themselves internationally, then they would have few options other than to seek the protection offered by a union with England. Job done. Locke would have seen the sense, and justice, in allowing the Scots to order their affairs as the majority wished (at least, if the popularity of Paterson’s Edinburgh and Glasgow subscriptions were an accurate guide to what the majority wished). And Locke had the ear of many of the leading figures in government, not least the king himself. Dampier, meanwhile, brought two unique qualities to the arrangement. He had unsurpassed knowledge of the Darien, and he had a special relationship with, and the trust of, Paterson. He also had an accomplice already primed and waiting in the wings, one Lionel Wafer.

154

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 154

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Chapter 20

Evidence for the Prosecution There is no written evidence to support this reading of Dampier’s involvement in the submission of Scotland to an Act of Union. But then there wouldn’t be. King William had already demonstrated in his Glencoe moment that he was reluctant to leave a paper trail when it came to controversial, potentially criminal, instructions. Far better, and in the tradition of rulers, to let a trusted member of his coterie know his desires by way of off-hand remarks, hints or insinuations. ‘Deniability’ was the name of the game. The Master of Stair had taken the blame for what happened at Glencoe without a murmur. He retired to his estates to enjoy an enhanced income and to await an eventual recall. Locke would have known this all too well. And anyway, seventeenth-century government was not nearly as centralised or as controlled as government is today. Members of Parliament and ministers were not ‘on’, or ‘off message’. There was no message. There were embryo political parties, Whigs and Tories in England, and in Scotland the Country Party (to which Saltoun was nominally linked), the Court Party, the Cavaliers (or Jacobites) and soon the ‘Squadrone Volante’. But, in general, politicians were able to plough their own furrows, making their decisions based on personal preferences, preferments, whims, interests, and the potential for, or promise of, financial gain. As John Evelyn put it, when members of the Lords and Commons were confronted with an important decision, it was taken by ‘most for ambition or other interest, few for conscience and moderate resolutions’. Lack of written evidence or not, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that Dampier did his utmost to set the Scotch Company on a path to disaster. Part concerns Dampier’s later actions and the rewards that came his way, part concerns John Locke and his Trade and Plantations Council, and part concerns Dampier’s accomplice Lionel Wafer. Dampier did not come across Wafer for some years after they sailed off in different directions, one south, the other westwards, at the end of 1685. Dampier had found Swan’s plan to sail across the Pacific Ocean

155

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 155

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland ‘very agreeable’ to his inclination. Wafer had preferred to stay with Captain Davis and sail back towards Cape Horn. Wafer had taken three years to round South America and make it back to Philadelphia. On the way, he said, he had heard of King James’ proclamation offering pardons to surrendering pirates (unlikely because even the Governor of Virginia had not heard of it at this time). John Hingson, who had re-crossed the Darien with Wafer, and Captain Edward Davis were still with him. They were, until they reached Barbuda, still on the same ship, the Emanuell/Batchelors Delight. Here they left it and most of the rest of the crew, and switched to a smaller vessel for the final leg of their voyage. After ‘some time’ in Philadelphia and for some undeclared reason, Wafer, Hingson and Davis decided to decamp to the Elizabeth River area of Virginia. Passengers on a shallop that was intercepted by a naval vessel, the Dumbarton, they were found to have chests full of silver plate and other likely loot of an unlikely value. They were arrested and their chests seized.1 So started their ‘troubles’, which continued for another three years. Wafer, Hingson and Davis at first claimed to be honest traders, usually resident in Jamaica. Then, after Davis’ slave, Peter Cloyne, gave the game away, they said they were privateers, had heard about the offer of amnesty and had come to surrender themselves and claim the pardon that was promised. To begin with they were held in James City gaol, but were eventually shipped to England, along with their booty, to face trial. There followed some bickering between officials who thought they might have a claim to part of the loot, and it was not until 1692 that their petitions to the king gained a response. Unlikely as it sounds, they were deemed to have done sufficient to qualify for a pardon. Most of their treasure was returned to them. There were deductions, no doubt, and a donation of £300, agreed as part of the deal, towards the setting up of a free school in Virginia. When Wafer was first shipped to England, he would have been held on the vessel that had brought him home, or his movements would have been restricted in other ways. It was not until 1692, when his pardon came through, that he would have been able to go where he wished. This left him a free man although probably not one with a clear conscience, and one who was somewhat poorer than he might have hoped to have been. After a few months of kicking his heals, Wafer would have been pleased to meet up again with Dampier. But then Dampier was off to La Coruna and he would not have come across him again until 1695. By now he was probably running down his resources and would have listened carefully to Dampier’s money-making proposition. Having recently

156

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 156

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Evidence for the Prosecution had dealings with Paterson and helped him with his presentation, and now intent on helping, for all the wrong reasons, promotion of the Darien scheme, Dampier was looking to produce a new book. This would be separate from his own long-worked-on account of his voyage around the world, and it would be devoted exclusively to the Darien. He would like this to be as complimentary as possible about the prospects of settlement there but without calling into question in any way the truth of his ‘voyage’ book. Involving Wafer gave him the excuse he needed for such a book. The account could be credited to Wafer and, as usual, Dampier would be left blameless should there be repercussions. Wafer had never shown any inclination to write down his experiences until this moment, and he didn’t ever have the urge to become an author again. There is no suggestion that he kept a diary or wrote notes as he travelled. Of all his adventures and incidents that he might have written about, he chose as his primary topic the short time he spent with the Indians of the Darien. Of all the interesting places he could have written about, he chose the Darien. And he did this at a time when there was a secret plan in being to send colonists there. It was too much of a coincidence, Wafer was prompted to write his account of the Darien, and he was prompted by Dampier, who made it all sound so easy. Dampier had already written his unflattering account of his and Wafer’s re-crossing of the Darien but he would withhold this chapter from his own book, which was now all but ready for printing. All Wafer had to do was to repeat what Dampier had written, but in his own words, glossing over the worst of their experiences and talking up all that the Darien had to offer. Dampier would help. He would have reminded Wafer of their experiences together and how he had helped Wafer out of a number of holes. Wafer, it seems, was a bit of a drinker, apt to nod off when others needed him to stay alert, blundering about when stealth and caution were required. An accident with gunpowder had caused Wafer to fall behind on the journey back across the Darien with those pirates who had decided they had had enough of Sharp. A tray, spread with damp gunpowder and held close to a fire so that it might dry, was somehow knocked. It fizzled, flared and spitted, scorching Wafer’s leg so badly that ‘the Bone was left bare, the Flesh being torn away, and my Thigh burnt for a great way above it’, he said. As a result, he was soon unable to continue the march. The accident happened on the fifth day of their journey when they were still on the south (Pacific) side of the mountain range that divides the Isthmus.

157

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 157

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Dampier now suggested they use this convenient injury as an explanation for a claim that Wafer had stayed with local Indians for some months, getting to know the local area better than any other European. He would have said he was confident he could sell ‘Wafer’s’ written account to Paterson, and he and his co-conspirator would no doubt be rewarded handsomely for their troubles. Wafer must have agreed and the two set to work. The story they came up with was that Wafer, Hingson, Richard Gopson, and two other stragglers, Robert Spratlin and William Bowman, were all too exhausted to continue on the trek across the isthmus. Instead, they stayed behind in an Indian settlement to rest and recuperate. They were treated indifferently at first, effectively held hostage against the safe return of guides that Dampier and the others had hired to take them back to the Caribbean. While they were waiting, Wafer recovered from his injuries after being treated by various poultices comprising leaves masticated and applied by the Indian women. ‘This prov’d so effectual that in about 20 Days use of this Poultess, which they applied fresh every Day, I was perfectly cured’, said Wafer. But the Indians were becoming anxious about the guides and talked about ‘disposing’ of the five men, or perhaps handing them over to the Spanish. In the end they decided to wait a little longer. According to Wafer, they wanted to wait until enough time had been allowed for any reasonable journey to the north coast and back. ‘And this, as they computed, would be ten days, reckoning it up to us on their Fingers’. (Wafer had confirmed that he was walking about freely at this point, which means it must have happened after much of his twenty-day recovery time had passed. He had unwittingly revealed that the journey to the north coast and back to the settlement would be expected to take a month [twenty plus ten days] which was hardly compatible with the ‘two days’ that Dampier alleged it would take an Indian to cross the isthmus.) On the tenth day, a fire was lit, ready to burn Wafer and his fellow travellers. But the chief of all the local settlements, Lacenta, just happened to be passing by and ‘dissuaded them from that Cruelty’. Instead, he said, they should be guided to the north coast. Next day the party set off with two guides. But after two days of marching through swamps, thunderous rain and falling trees, the guides decided to return home. Wafer and party continued, using a pocket compass to direct themselves northwards. After a week of this, they found themselves back where they had started (perhaps Cowley had been giving them lessons in

158

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 158

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Evidence for the Prosecution navigation?). But things had changed for the better at the Indian settlement. The guides who had been with Dampier and his party had returned, saying they had been well treated. All was forgotten, and Wafer and his companions were welcomed back. Now friends with the Indians, the party was taken to Lacenta’s own village. Shortly afterwards, Lacenta’s wife, or one of them, fell ill with a fever. Wafer sprang into action. Taking out his lancets (which he just happened to have had in his pocket when his medical chest had been stolen sometime before), he bled the woman, taking two-thirds of a pint of blood from her arm. The next day her fever had gone. ‘This gained me so much Reputation, that Lacenta came to me and before all his Attendants, bowed, and kiss’d my Hand’, wrote Wafer. The Indians had never seen anything like it. When they took blood, they used specially adapted miniature bows and arrows with which they peppered the patient/victim until some blood spurted out. The Indians were so pleased with what they had seen that they carried Wafer in a hammock ‘from Plantation to Plantation’, and he ‘lived in great Splendor and Repute, administering both Physick and Phlebotomy to those that wanted’. What is more, Wafer ‘lived thus some Months among the Indians who in a manner ador’d me’. Lacenta never went anywhere without him. It was a good story and it was certainly made up. Blood-letting was such a commonplace remedy applied by European doctors that it obviously did not occur to Wafer and Dampier that it would not have been used by the Indians. The practice, now considered worthless except perhaps in the case of hypertension, was based on the ancient Greeks’ idea that good health depends on maintaining a balance between four ‘humours’; black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. It therefore stood to reason that restoring this balance, by removing blood, for example, would overcome illness. Natives of Central American took a different view of medicine. Their ideas were more to do with spirits than ‘humours’, and their remedies more to do with herbal cures, such as that applied to Wafer’s leg, than blood-letting. It is unlikely that Lacenta would have let Wafer anywhere near one of his wives with a rusty lancet in hand. And seeing the surgeon holding a container that held such an alarming amount of blood would certainly not have made things easier. If his people’s medicine could provide miracle cures for severe burns, why would Lacenta think such a primitive solution as blood-letting would cure such a common illness as fever? And why, if the Indians should

159

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 159

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland want to take blood, would they have used such a haphazard method as firing arrows at somebody, the results of which might easily have been seriously harmful? It was an invented story that might have caused Dampier and Wafer some amusement in its concoction, but it was accepted by ‘Wafer’s’ readers as fact. So were his generous descriptions of the hinterland. There was ‘good game’, there were hills ‘cloath’d with tall Woods’, and of course plenty of gold to be had. Strangely, the doctor had little to say about local ailments. But Golden Island, and the harbour which lay behind it, did figure. ‘I have been ashore at this Golden Island, and was lying in the Harbour near it for about a Fortnight together, before I went into the South Seas’, said Wafer. ‘Near the Eastern Point of the Bay, which is not above three or four Furlongs distant from Golden Island, there is a Rivulet of very good Water’. The style of the book which was credited to Wafer was very much that of Dampier. It follows a narrative interspersed with descriptions of the land, its vegetation and wildlife, with a bit of history thrown in. There was all manner of things to eat. To be fair, most of Wafer’s book does have the ring of authenticity about it, and is not overly biased. It makes clear, for example, the aquatic perils of the wet season. But it gives the overall impression that the Indians are friendly and the terrain and climate supportive of colonial pursuits. And, of course, it is laden with gold. The book contains nothing that Dampier could not have written without Wafer’s involvement. But then, if he had done so, he would have been responsible and his descriptions would have lacked a corroborating voice. The story-book account of Wafer’s return to civilisation also smacks of invention. He said he was out with Lacenta hunting for peccary when the chief expressed dissatisfaction at the performance of his hunting dogs. Wafer told him that English dogs would be much better and, if allowed to return home to England, he would bring the chief some. Lacenta agreed, on the proviso that Wafer would promise to return and marry one of his daughters. Lacenta added that, to please Wafer, his four companions would also be allowed their liberty. During his time with the Indians, Wafer had ‘turned native’, dressing in their style; that is to say, he went naked and painted his skin. Again, this was a very convenient device because it meant that when he later reboarded a ship on which Dampier happened to be among the crew, nobody recognised him. There was therefore a ready excuse should anybody be around to challenge the idea that he had not returned when he said he had, but at some other time.

160

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 160

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Evidence for the Prosecution It was probably true that Wafer had indeed suffered a minor injury to his leg, and this may have caused him a slight delay in his return overland from the South Seas. But the incident seems to have been blown up considerably more than the gunpowder that was blamed for his accident, and it is unlikely he was given the special treatment he claimed. But none of this prevented him from being described by Dampier as the greatest living authority on the Darien. Nor did it prevent the lessthan-sceptical Scots from agreeing a lucrative deal with Wafer. He was ‘persuaded’ to delay publication of the book so that nobody else would have access to his insights, and he was to travel to Scotland and give a first-hand account to the directors of the Scotch Company. Meanwhile, Paterson was facing further setbacks. It had seemed a good idea to open new subscription books in Amsterdam and Hamburg. The Scotch Company had already ordered fine new vessels to be built in these cities, and having locally-raised money would mean the costs could be paid for out of local subscriptions. When he first made his pitches, Paterson thought things were going well in both Amsterdam and Hamburg. There was interest from the margins; those who thought the company’s tax-free status would give them the opportunity to make cheap imports. But the climate soon changed. Established businesses, such as the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie; or ‘VOC’), and government authorities were not enthusiastic. In fact, they were hostile. In Hamburg, King William’s representative, Sir Paul Rycaut, let it be known that his boss would be more than displeased should the city decide to invest in the Scotch Company. There would be no further money coming the way of the company in the form of foreign investment. Worse was to follow. It turned out that at least eight thousand pounds (some estimates are half as much again) entrusted to Paterson and by him to James (or John) Smith (or Smyth) had gone missing. The youthful Smith had been an associate of Paterson for some time. He held shares in the Hampstead Water Company and was involved in the Bank of England, the Orphans’ Fund and the Scotch Company. He seems to have been operating under a false name and to have come originally from Flanders. Two things about him were certain: he was a speculator on the make, and he had been trusted by Paterson. With the financial situation as it was, with money at a premium, he had reneged on Bills drawn against him. His fragile financial construction had tumbled about his ears. Rycaut made the most of Smith’s arrest in Amsterdam. He accused both Smith and Paterson of having contrived to cheat the Scotch Company.

161

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 161

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland A subsequent Scotch Company inquiry cleared Paterson of dishonesty, but not of ‘easy credulity’. Very little of the missing money was ever recovered and, in the repeat of a familiar story, Paterson was effectively frozen out of Court of Directors meetings. Smith, meanwhile, fled the country. On top of all this, when, in 1697, Paterson returned to Edinburgh emptyhanded, some of those involved in the Scotch Company were having second thoughts about sending people to the Darien at all. There were directors who thought that, especially given the shortfall in expected capital, it was not now feasible and the company should revert to the original idea as had been understood by many, and become a trading company.

162

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 162

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Chapter 21

An Overnight Success At the age of forty-six, Dampier became an overnight success. His book, A New Voyage Round the World, was finally published, complete with a dedication to Charles Montagu, later the first Earl of Halifax. Although a poet and, in 1697, the then president of the Royal Society, Montagu was primarily a politician and money-man. During his career he held various treasury appointments, and had been instrumental in creation of the Bank of England, making Paterson’s vision a practical proposition. He had also pushed through the recoinage. He was relied upon by King William for a steady flow of money, and sometimes acted as the king’s regent in his absence abroad. In his ‘New Voyage’ dedication, Dampier called himself a ‘stranger’ to this most influential of men. In fact, Paterson must have known Montagu well because of their work together on creation of the Bank of England, and Dampier is at least likely to have come across Montagu through his Paterson and Royal Society connections. Whether or not they were genuinely strangers, Dampier was suitably humble. ‘Dare I avow, according to my narrow sphere and poor abilities, a hearty zeal for the promoting of useful knowledge, and of anything that may ever so remotely tend to my country’s advantage’, he said. The book was a first. It was a travelogue written in plain English, full of anecdotes, descriptions of unknown places and unheard-of animals, tips about wind and weather, and a good deal about food and cooking. There were no mythical beasts, no dragons or sea monsters. But there were explanations of atmospheric and marine phenomena, speculation about the origin of species (with Dampier’s own thoughts about the Galapagos islands), much about government, a little about ‘privateering’, and almost nothing about Dampier himself. This was a time of burgeoning literacy and growing curiosity. The book was an immediate success. It was soon sold out and a new print run was on the way, with more to follow. Dampier was the man of the moment, a celebrity and a sage, and a sought-after guest.

163

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 163

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Soon Hans Sloane was buying manuscripts from him and arranging for his portrait to be painted. The chosen artist was Thomas Murray, whom Sloane had probably met when Murray painted his patient, the alcoholic Duke of Albemarle, sometime before 1688. Sloane had also had himself painted by Murray, who also painted King William and Queen Anne. He painted Dampier’s friend Edmund Halley too. Thomas Murray was Scottish by birth. Dampier’s portrait still hangs in England’s National Portrait Gallery. Bequeathed to the nation by Sloane, it identifies Dampier as a hydrographer and pirate. At the time of painting Dampier was forty-six or forty-seven. The portrait shows a man who could have been younger (although to be fair, Murray even managed to make himself look youthful in his self-portraits). Dampier does not wear a wig and his own shoulder-length hair is dark, thick and lustrous. He is modestly dressed; there are no silver buttons or fancy lace on show. But his jacket looks well-made and new. He has obviously been scrubbed up for his sitting. He has a long, straight nose and oversized chin, not pointed or square, but prominent. His mouth has a determined look about it. In all, the impression is of a strong-minded and probably stubborn man. But the most remarkable feature of the likeness, given that Dampier had spent years at sea, exposed to blazing sun and thrashing seas, is that the skin on his shaven face is unblemished. He is not weather-beaten, there are no signs of cuts, scars or wrinkles to be seen. There is certainly no eye patch or hook. Here is a man who looked after himself; except for his eyes, that is. There is something a little wrong with them, his left eye appears to wander off in a different direction to the right. Perhaps he had taken too many sightings, stared at the mid-day sun too often and too long? Perhaps Murray had detected some evasiveness? Certainly, Dampier had been careful to pass over any responsibility for what was said in his book about the Darien. ‘I might have given a further account of several things relating to this Country; the In-land parts of which are so little known to the Europeans’, he wrote. ‘But I shall leave this province to Mr Wafer, who made a longer abode in it than I, and is better able to do it than any man I know; and is now preparing a particular Description of the Country for the Press’. Dampier was here admitting that the two had colluded. Almost before the ink was dry on the first edition of his book, Dampier was called before Locke’s Council for Trade and Plantations.1 Wafer was also called. They were given notice that ‘they may be examined as to the design of the Scotch East India Company to make a settlement on the isthmus of Darien’.

164

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 164

15-10-2022 03:18:54

An Overnight Success Minutes of the council confirm that the two former pirates attended on 2 July 1697 when, besides Locke, they would have met the likes of the First Minister of Trade, the Earl of Bridgewater and East India Company critic John Pollexfen. Dampier and Wafer evidently ‘gave an account of the isthmus of Darien and the country between it and Porto Bello, which they were desired to draw up in writing’. Dampier (but not Wafer) subsequently did this, saying that the Darien could support a colony and that it might be defended with relatively few men. This was probably his real view, but he would have had in mind a colony of men whose hardness had been tempered in the tropics rather than in the drizzle of Scotland, men who were well-nourished and battle-hardened, not men who were underfed and sickly. He did not touch on the political infeasibility of such a colony (except to the extent that his comments about defending it were a tacit admission that Spain would be sure to react badly to any such settlement). Otherwise, his only untruths were by omission, yet again. Later the same year there was further evidence that Dampier was now a trusted Government man. With no apparent sense of irony, the Council for Trade and Plantations asked him for advice on how long it would take for an ‘expedition against the pirates’ to sail from England to Madagascar. ‘To the best of my judgment it might be done in three months and a half’, said Dampier. He later told the Council that a ship leaving England in November might reach Madagascar by the middle of February and the Red Sea by the middle of April. To sail on to Cape Comorin, she would then have to wait ‘about a month’ for the monsoon, reaching the cape ‘about the middle of June’. And then in September the Council went further with its Darien debate. Its minutes noted that: ‘On intimation of the importance of Golden Island and of the Port upon the Main over against it, in case of any settlement by any nation on the Isthmus of Darien, a representation was ordered that a competent number of men should be sent from England or Jamaica to seize the Port and Island for the Crown of England’.2 The Council was composed of competent politicians who were sufficiently savvy to realise that King William’s policy goals would mean he would never approve seizure of ‘the Port and Island for the Crown of England’. These were Spanish possessions and even if there were lawyers who might be able to find arguments to the contrary, Spain thought they were Spanish possessions, and that is what counted. The Council’s decision to order a ‘representation’ was a bluff, one aimed at spooking the Scotch Company.

165

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 165

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland The remarkable thing about the Council’s deliberations about the ‘design of the Scotch East India Company to make a settlement on the isthmus of Darien’ was that this was supposed to be a secret plan. And, at this time, it had not even been formally adopted by the Scotch Company. In fact, there were a growing number of doubters. Some directors, reacting to the rebuffs suffered in London, Amsterdam and Hamburg, and now having to face up to financial realities, were calling for a course of action that carried fewer risks. There were even soundings taken on the possibility of selling off some of the company’s soon-to-becompleted fleet of expensive ships. Somebody, probably Dampier himself, had alerted Locke to these developments. Dampier must have argued that showing interest in the Darien would take away doubts about the practicality of Paterson’s plan and even suggest that unless action was taken quickly, Scotland could be beaten to the punch. Dampier, through Wafer, would have made sure the Scotch Company was kept informed of the Council for Trade and Plantations’ decisions. After all, as he had written, he was prepared to do ‘anything that may ever so remotely tend to my country’s advantage’. In the event, the company did have second, second thoughts and decided to endorse Paterson’s plan for setting up a trading base on the Darien after all. Both plan and decision were still supposed to remain secret, although they seemed to be secret only from other Scots. (In some accounts the impression is given that the Scotch Company’s expedition to the Darien just happened upon ‘Golden Island and of the Port upon the Main over against it’. This is clearly not true. The site of what was to become ‘New Caledonia’ had been singled out long before the company’s ships ever left Scotland.) In July 1698 Dampier was back before the Council to answer an allegation in an anonymous letter from Edinburgh.3 It claimed the Scotch Company had asked Wafer to give it information about the Darien. ‘Mr Dampier attending, said that he knew nothing of proposals made to Mr Wafer, nor thought him capable of doing the Scotch East India Company any great service’. The second part of this was true. Dampier didn’t know of anything that Wafer could say which would be of service, only of a great deal that would be of great disservice. The story was that Wafer had been approached by the Scotch Company and asked to provide it with a pre-publication copy of the ‘particular Description of the Country’ which Dampier had said in his book that Wafer was preparing. Wafer agreed. For a suitable fee he would not only provide the

166

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 166

15-10-2022 03:18:54

An Overnight Success text, but delay publication of his book and travel to Scotland to answer any remaining questions that the directors of the Scotch Company might have. Wafer went to Scotland, using the name ‘Brown’ and initially stayed with Fletcher of Saltoun. He was subsequently moved to Edinburgh, giving his by now well-rehearsed answers. Having got all they could from Wafer, which probably was not very much, the directors of the Scotch Company reneged on their offer, gave him a much smaller sum of money for his trouble, and sent him on his way. In this book, The Price of Scotland, Douglas Watt throws doubt on this version of events, saying that it came from arch company critic Walter Herries, who was not always punctilious with the truth. But Watt did find a directors’ minute saying Wafer had made an offer to the company, which had been rejected. Whatever the truth of the matter, there was obviously contact between the company and Wafer, and it seems he couldn’t tell them too much, or anything, that they didn’t know. He probably got some money out of it and also out of ‘his’ book, which was eventually published in 1699. Meanwhile, Dampier was continuing his social rounds. In August 1698 he was a star turn at a lunch given by Samuel Pepys, the retired but still influential secretary to the Navy. John Evelyn was there; he was a regular. Pepys evidently liked to invite along celebrities and Evelyn, at another recent lunch, had the pleasure of hearing ‘the rare voice of Mr Pule’, singing various Purcell compositions. This time he heard Dampier talk about his travels. Dampier seemed, Evelyn said, ‘a more modest man than one would imagine by the relation of the crew he had assorted with’. Modest or not, Dampier had been experiencing a marked upturn in his own earning power. He had been paid his author’s fee by Knapton, but much more by the Government. In August 1697 he was paid £200 from public funds, according to the Calendar of Treasury Books. He had already been appointed a Customs official.4 In March 1697, prior to Dampier’s book seeing the light of day, it was recorded that the Treasury had agreed to his application, asking to be made a ‘King’s Waiter’ in the Port of London (a real job involving pottering around the port in a small boat).5 There not being such a post immediately available, he was in the meantime to be employed as ‘a landcarriageman in extraordinary’, (a sinecure). Perhaps this was just the way these things were done. In the event, the greatest navigator of his age remained a landcarriageman for the rest of his days. The following year the Treasury agreed to pay his salary to his wife ‘during his absence; he being ordered to sea upon public service’. And in April

167

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 167

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland 1699 it was again confirmed that he was ‘nominally a landcarriageman’.6 He ‘does not attend any duty, and his salary is paid him as bounty only’. He was being paid five shillings a day, or just over £91 a year. These were substantial amounts. £200 would have bought Dampier a herd of fifty cows. An annual ‘bounty’ of £91 was enough to live on, being roughly three times the yearly income of a skilled workman. Dampier was not being paid out of appreciation for his book; which brought its own income. He was being paid for services rendered, for information supplied, and for misinformation dispersed. With the Scotch Company now set on colonising the area behind Golden Island, Dampier had completed his part in the plan that he had proposed to his coterie of politicians. For the time being the Scots could be left to their own devices. Meanwhile, it would be sensible to remove the former pirate from the scene, make him unavailable to answer any awkward questions that might arise, or to give evidence to any inquiry that might be set up. There could hardly have been a better way of doing this than by sending him off on another voyage, a mission to New Holland.

168

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 168

15-10-2022 03:18:54

Chapter 22

A Travesty of Justice Dampier had been the first Englishman to write about reaching New Holland, the continent that was supposed to balance the world. It was decided he should be sent back to obtain more ‘useful knowledge’ to the advantage of the country. If successful, he would be able to repeat his literary success. It not, well he was expendable. Dampier was soon employed by the Navy, made up to a captain and charged with leading a voyage of discovery, a scientific expedition to New Holland. Other than a canoe or ship’s boat, he had not commanded any vessel before. It might be supposed that, remembering their suspicions about Dampier’s complicity in Every’s mutiny and piracy, navy commissioners Sir John Houblon and Admiral Sir George Rooke might have taken exception to Dampier’s appointment. They almost certainly did, and they probably had serious misgivings about his lack of experience as a commander. But Dampier now had friends in high places. In a December 1699 letter to Lord Shrewsbury, Secretary of State James Vernon wrote that Dampier had gone off ‘to discover whether there be any isles lying between the Straits of Magellan in America and the Cape of Good Hope in Africa’. He supposed, he said, ‘Mr Montagu recommended him for this, and, no doubt, had a fair meaning in it’. Houblon, Rooke and the rest of the Navy establishment took their revenge for having such a man foisted upon them. They allotted him a tub of a ship, the Jolly Prize, and appointed a subversive and pirate-hating officer, George Fisher, as his second in command. They also restricted the size of the expedition, limiting it to one ship and fifty men only, instead of the two ships and seventy men Dampier had asked for. Dampier complained about the ship, and was given, instead, the Roebuck, a former fireship that had been converted into a fifth-rated warship. It was relatively new, having been launched in 1690. It was just under twenty-nine metres long (ninety-six feet) and a little under eight metres wide (twenty-five feet). Fully armed it could carry up to twentysix guns, although it packed less than half this number for the expedition

169

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 169

15-10-2022 03:18:54

The Pirate who Stole Scotland (each gun required a team of at the very least six men to fire, meaning that with only fifty men aboard a good proportion of the crew would be needed to fire a broadside of only six guns). There was nothing much Dampier could do about the appointment of Fisher or the refusal to allow him a second ship and more men. Fisher had been a soldier, a gunner in the artillery who had served in Ireland and been present at the relief of Londonderry in 1689. When discharged from the army, his commanding officer, Major General Percy Kirke, recommended him for preferment in the navy. He was subsequently taken on as gunner on the fireship Griphon. He was next appointed a lieutenant on the Royal Oak, which subsequently became Sir George Rooke’s flagship. More recently, he had been third lieutenant on the second-rated Saint Michael during her tour in the Mediterranean. At the end of 1695, he had been transferred to the bigger, second-rated, Albemarle. At forty-nine metres (160 feet) in length, she carried ninety guns and 660 men. Fisher joined the ship as third lieutenant, and in October 1696 had been promoted to second lieutenant. According to his own written evidence, during his ‘Severall Yeares’ on these ships, he had served under a number of captains including Rooke, Chamberlaine, Lee, Gardner, Elves and George Byng who, like Rooke before him, eventually reached the rank of admiral. Fisher left the Albemarle at the end of 1696 and took eight months leave before he had the ‘misfortune’ of being appointed lieutenant on the much smaller Roebuck. Its commander, Fisher wrote, knew ‘but little of the Methods used in the Royall Navy’. What is more, Dampier, he said, proved himself ‘a very mean artist’ (navigator) and had ‘Committed many irregularitys’.1 In short, Fisher was a ‘jobs-worth’ who continually quoted navy regulations to Dampier. All the signs were that he was a plant. It was not until January 1699 that the Roebuck was finally on its way. There had been various delays along the way. There had been a refit in Deptford and it was not until October 1698, already later in the year than planned, that the ship was able to sail down the Thames to wait in the Downs for final orders. Dampier reported that he had provisions for twenty months and a full crew, barring only a carpenter, the person so appointed had come on board and then changed his mind. In December the ship was still waiting in the Downs when its ship’s boat, ‘the yawl’, capsized when pulling away from Deal beach. All the oars were lost and Dampier ordered more. The boatswain and new carpenter were dismissed for unspecified reasons, but perhaps related to the capsizing. Meanwhile, Dampier bought new ‘axes, hatchets and machetes’ for his

170

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 170

15-10-2022 03:18:55

A Travesty of Justice ship. And then they were delayed further by contrary winds until, at last, they got underway. In nautical terms, the expedition was a great achievement. In other respects, it was less so. Dampier managed to sail his small ship to New Holland and almost back, bringing with him notes sufficient for a new book, and various plant specimens. But the voyage hardly went smoothly. Dampier and Fisher had clashed from the start. Even while they were still in the Downs, Fisher had told Sir Cloudesley Shovell (the rear admiral having happened to come to anchor there) that it ‘was proper’ for him to tell the admiral about things ‘the captain promised to do, but did not, though Fisher Reminded him several times thereof ’. Fisher seemed to like to throw his weight around and when this didn’t work too well with some of Dampier’s personal appointees (no doubt rough and ready men themselves) he retaliated with complaints. He passed on gossip that one of these, James Grigson, when drunk had talked about throwing the master overboard and running off with the ship. He had Dampier punish the man and then said the punishment had been too lenient. Fisher had been well briefed about Dampier’s past, and in particular his suspected part in Every’s mutiny. Talk of running off with the ship may well have been initiated by Fisher himself. Certainly, he had lost no time in undermining Dampier’s authority by telling other members of the crew that their captain was nothing but a rogue and an old sea dog intent on returning to piracy. This last part was arrant nonsense. Dampier had already turned down the chance to sail off with Every and had established a new life for himself as a celebrity author and government informer and advised. He had too much to gain by making a successful voyage and returning to England as the triumphant leader of the navy’s first scientific sortie. But Fisher was a details man, concerned with his petty rules. He was also a little put out that he had been dragged from a senior position on a fine ship of the line, to serve under (as he saw it) a ruffian who commanded a tub. No doubt Dampier was arrogant and thought he knew best, and he would not have suffered fools such as Fisher lightly. Once at sea there was more trouble. Fisher questioned Dampier’s seamanship, even his ability to navigate. He questioned his captain’s decisions, and his motives, and continued to refer to him as a rogue and a pirate. He also gave orders without consulting Dampier, who was livid when he discovered one morning that the ship’s course had been changed without his knowledge.

171

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 171

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Fisher saw plots against himself everywhere and suggested Dampier was out to have him murdered. When they made landfall, Fisher went ashore when Dampier had ordered nobody to do any such thing. He took the ship’s boat, telling the boatswain he ‘didn’t give a fart’ for what the captain had said. Then there was an argument, not the first, over supplies (in fact, a barrel of small beer). Dampier lost his temper and struck Fisher with a cane. Fisher reacted with more outbursts and Dampier had him locked up. On arrival in Bahia, Brazil, he had him thrown in the local gaol to await arrival of a suitable vessel to carry him home. Dampier sailed on. It was too late in the year to attempt Cape Horn as intended, so instead they set their course for the Cape of Good Hope and beyond. They arrived at the north-west coast of New Holland in August 1699. The voyage had taken just over seven months. They named the landfall ‘Shark’s Bay’. Dampier found Australia to be an unforgiving land. The people were elusive and disinterested, food was scarce and water was nowhere to be found. The ship could manage without most things, but not without water. ‘Having ranged about a considerable time upon this coast without finding any good fresh water, or any convenient place to clean the ship, as I had hoped for: and it being moreover the height of the dry season, and my men growing scorbutic for want of refreshments, so that I had little encouragement to search further, I resolved to leave this coast and accordingly in the beginning of September set sail towards Timor’, wrote Dampier. They might have been disappointed by New Holland but they carried on. By 1 January 1700 they were off New Guinea. They gave names to the island of ‘New Britain’ and its ‘Cape Orford’, ‘Cape Dampier’, ‘Roebuck Point’ and ‘Port Montagu’, and (for all the good it did Dampier), the nearby ‘Sir George Rooke Island’. They saw a ‘burning island’ and a water spout, and they discovered a new passage, the ‘Dampier Strait’ between New Britain and Sir George Rooke Island, before turning back towards home. It was not until January 1701 that they got beyond the Cape of Good Hope and by then they were nursing their ship along, the timber for this former fireship having been chosen with flammability rather than imperviousness in mind. Towards the end of February, a leak was found. The carpenter (Dampier’s third choice carpenter) attempted to repair it by first sawing through some planks. Dampier quipped that it was the first time he had seen a hole patched up by making it bigger.

172

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 172

15-10-2022 03:18:55

A Travesty of Justice Seawater gushed in. By dint of ingenuity and pumping, they kept the Roebuck afloat until they reached Ascension Island, where they warped the ship into shallow water. They were able to retrieve some essentials, get themselves to the shore and set up camp. They were relieved when, in a search of the cinder-covered island, they discovered a source of fresh water. They hunkered down and waited to be rescued. It was not until the beginning of April that four navy ships turned up and took them aboard. The result was that Dampier arrived back in England towards the end of May 1701, more than two years after his departure. Fisher had made it back before him and had marshalled his complaints. Despite his obvious subversions, he claimed ill-treatment. The loss of the Roebuck also had to be addressed and accusations of ill-treatment from the widow of Dampier’s late boatswain, John Norwood, answered. Dampier was obliged to face two court-martials. The first, in September 1701, charged him with being deficient in the loss of his ship. He was acquitted.2 The second, held in June 1702 concerned Dampier’s treatment of Norwood, who had in fact died aboard a navy ship after being rescued from Ascension Island, and of the agent provocateur Fisher. For this Dampier travelled to Portsmouth from where he was rowed out and obliged to climb the tall sides of the Royal Sovereign, a new and wellappointed vessel of 102 guns which Admiral Rooke had taken as his flag-ship. The ship was part of a fleet gathered at Spithead, shortly to sail upon Cadiz, there now being a new war against Spain. It had been to the inconvenience of the Scots colonists that the new war had not started sooner. The court-martial was something of a travesty. The navy establishment had turned out in force to support their man. Over thirty captains crammed into Rooke’s scrubbed and polished cabin to sit in judgement on the former pirate. Many, including the most senior presiding officer, Admiral Rooke, had served with Fisher; none with Dampier. Rooke’s commendation was even allowed to be presented to the court-martial as evidence. In 1693 he had written, that during the ‘four months or so’ Fisher had been his third lieutenant he had ‘behaved himself with sobriety, diligence and obedient to Command’. Sir Cloudesley Shovell was also there. Dampier was acquitted of the charge concerning Norwood, but not of that concerning Fisher. The assembled captains were men who would whip any of their men for the most trivial of slights, to within an inch of their lives and sometimes an inch or two further. They concluded that by punishing a mutinous officer with confinement and by striking him with a slender cane, Dampier had treated him ‘barbarously’.

173

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 173

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland The weight of evidence seemed to be on Dampier’s side. He had signed statements from various crew members attesting to Fisher’s subversive behaviour. Fisher dismissed these, saying they had been extracted under threat of exposure as would-be mutineers. He gave no backing for this assertion. His own evidence was largely confined to his statements of complaint and various commendations of past behaviour. Perhaps it was his assertion that he had lost two year’s-worth of pay that caught the attention of the assembled captains. Had Dampier court-martialled Fisher in Bahia and had had him hanged, he might have got away with it. As it was, depriving a naval officer of pay was clearly the act of a ‘rogue’. All signed the verdict that found Dampier had been guilty of ‘very Hard and Cruel usage’ of Fisher. He was fined his wages, part to be used to pay a bill drawn on the navy board by Fisher. Further, they declared ‘that the said Captain Dampier is not a fitt person to bee employed as commander of any of her Majesty’s ships’. Adding insult to injury, the verdict also found that ‘the Informations sett forth by Captain Dampier against Lieutenant Fisher have not been made good, and therefore the Court does Acquit him (Fisher) from that Charge’. Fisher was rewarded by the Navy for his services to justice. In July 1702, immediately after Dampier’s second court-martial, he was made up to commander and given charge of the Shark, a sloop of some fifteen metres (fifty feet). And then in 1704 he was made commander of the Vulture, a twenty-seven metre (ninety feet), fifth-rated fire ship. He finally made the rank of captain not long before his death in 1705, by which time he was in command of the fifth-rated, thirty metres (100 feet) Tartar. (Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who had held Dampier to be unfit to command a Navy vessel, succeeded in sailing his own ship, and some others besides, onto the rocks that surround the Isles of Scilly. He had believed himself to be elsewhere and had declined to heed those others who challenged this conclusion. It was said he had been the first to leave his foundering ship, demanding to be rowed ashore. But on gaining the safety of dry land, he was murdered by wreckers who took the opportunity to prise an emerald ring from his finger. Close to 2,000 sailors were lost due to his miscalculations, but this did not prevent his body being brought back to London for honourable burial.) To be fair to Fisher, his fixation on the idea that Dampier was set on running away with the Roebuck might not have been as outlandish as it seemed. At the very moment that Dampier was moored in the Downs, Captain William Kidd was prowling the Indian Ocean in search of prizes.

174

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 174

15-10-2022 03:18:55

A Travesty of Justice Kidd, whose home was in New York, was already rich by dint of having married a much younger and very rich widow. He had come to England with the idea of obtaining a letter of marque, commissioning him to hunt down pirates and seize any treasure they had on board. It was a ‘win-win’ idea. England would be seen by the Great Mogul Aurangzeb to be policing the Indian Ocean, pirates would be tamed, King William would get his cut, and Kidd and his many rich and powerful backers would get still richer. All was set, and in early 1696 Kidd’s new ship, the Adventure Galley left London to slip into the English Channel. It was already short of a full complement of men and before he reached open waters, Kidd made a mistake that worsened the situation and set his adventure inextricably on course for a ‘lose-lose’ outcome. He failed to acknowledge a navy vessel that he passed. He was expected to dip his colours and fire a salute. But Kidd had a Royal Commission of his own and the Scotsman thought himself immune from such niceties. The navy ship, which had fired a warning shot by way of a reminder of its superior status, received a less welcome salute in return. It came in the form of a ship’s crew mooning at it from its rigging. The insult was repeated when Kidd passed another navy ship at the mouth of the Medway. Enough was enough. The navy valued its pride and its independence. Its hackles were easily raised by such incidents. It was not going to accept being forced to take on an ex-pirate as a captain, nor having its protocol openly insulted by another privateer cum pirate. The Adventure Galley was boarded, and its crew impressed into navy service. The ship itself was brought to anchor at Sheerness. Eventually Kidd had most of his crew numbers restored (although probably packed with more than a few substituted navy rejects), but was still left short of men. He sailed off to recruit more in that haven for privateers and pirates, New York. Those who joined him there were not the gentlest creatures on this earth, or the most patient. When they accepted ‘no purchase, no pay’ as a condition, they did not dream for a moment that there was any likelihood of ‘no purchase’ or ‘no pay’ coming their way. They demanded that Kidd deliver. The inevitable happened. When pickings were slim, Kidd was pressurized by his crew into turning a blind eye to the nationality of the ships he took. He turned pirate and, in a re-enactment of Every’s foray into the Indian Ocean, captured the Quedah Merchant, soon re-named the Adventure Prize. Its home port, just as the Ganj-i-sawai’s had been, was Surat. And just like

175

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 175

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland the Ganj-i-sawai, it had royal connections, with part of its cargo belonging to a member of the Great Mogul’s court. The ship was much, much smaller than the Ganj-i-sawai, reputedly 250 tons; much the same size as the Adventure Galley itself, but less wellarmed. Even so, it carried enough in fine textiles, opium, saltpetre, jewels and other valuables to make Kidd and his crew rich men. It was captained by an Englishman, John Wright. Despite this, when it came into sight of the Adventure Galley it was flying French colours. So was the Adventure Galley. Outgunned, Wright surrendered. Needless to say, Kidd’s actions caused fury in London, especially in the East India Company. Coming so soon after Every’s piracy, it was clear that something had to be done. That something was to declare Kidd a pirate and to hunt him down. At first unaware of his notoriety, Kidd sailed for home, stopping along the way at St Mary’s, Madagascar. Here he divided the spoils among his crew and allowed those who so wished to jump ship. He took on replacements from the pirate community on the island, including Dampier’s former shipmate James Kelley (and possibly Wafer’s recent prison-mate Edward Davis, because somebody of that name was among his crew). When Kidd arrived back in New York he was arrested by one of his original backers, Lord Bellomont, who was now governor of the colony. Kidd was shipped back to England for trial. There was considerable political fall-out and Parliament insisted on examining Kidd’s commission, demanded to know who had authorised a pardon for previous piracies, and who were his backers. King William, acting through proxies, was rumoured to be one. In April 1700 secretary of state James Vernon updated his sponsor, the Duke of Shrewsbury (who was definitely one of those who had invested in Kidd’s voyage) on the current state of play. He said that the Admiralty had questioned Kidd from four in the afternoon until eleven at night and that its report would be presented to Parliament. Sir George Rooke had briefed him on Kidd’s testimony which, he said, ‘will not be very satisfactory to the House of Commons, since it is not what they looked for’. Kidd had given ‘a plain account who were his owners’ and named some names, including ‘my Lord Chancellor’ and Shrewsbury, Lord Romney and Lord Orford. And ‘he said my Lord Bellomont brought him one day to your Grace’s office’. Kidd protested his innocence throughout, claiming that papers proving he had acted within the terms of his commission had gone missing. It was to no avail, in May 1701 he was convicted of murder. It only took one trial,

176

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 176

15-10-2022 03:18:55

A Travesty of Justice he having killed one of his crew with the swing of an iron-bound bucket; a hanging offence in itself. In the same month he was taken, somewhat the worse for drink, to Execution Dock to be hanged. In fact, Kidd was hung three times. On the first attempt the shortened rope snapped leaving the sturdy seaman sitting on Wapping’s muddy shore. At this point, according to the prison chaplain who later sold a pamphlet describing the event, Kidd recanted, admitted guilt and asked for forgiveness (all of which was highly unlikely). On the second hanging the life was squeezed out of the luckless captain, and his body was left to be swept over by the statutory three tides. Next his remains were tarred and hung again; this time in chains at Tilbury Point. Here the gruesome trophy remained for years, a decomposing warning, swinging in the breeze. Fisher’s fears that Dampier would resort to type and turn pirate again were wide of the mark. Before setting sail in the Roebuck, Dampier had been assisting the Council for Trade and Plantations and the East India Company’s ‘Secret Committee’ in their plans to send a squadron of ships to Madagascar. To be commanded by Thomas Warren, the East India Company saw the commitment of men and ships as a way to demonstrate that it was policing the Indian Ocean and bringing the pirates to heel. Dampier had corresponded with Warren and also with William Popple, secretary of the East India Company, about routes and timings.3 In August 1698 Popple sent the Council for Trade and Plantations a copy of a deposition that had been made by one of Kidd’s former crew, Benjamin Franks, who had joined Kidd in 1696 in New York. They had steered for the Cape of Good Hope, said Franks, but ‘before we reached those latitudes, we met three English men-of-war and a fireship under Captain Warren’. The commodore had confirmed that Kidd’s commission was good and that he could not molest him. ‘Kidd promised to spare the Commodore twenty or thirty men, and a day or two after he went on board one of the men-of-war, and returning much disguised in drink left the squadron without furnishing the men’. At the time Kidd had yet to turn pirate and Warren had concluded that Kidd might turn out to be an ally rather than a target. He didn’t live long enough to rue his assessment, dying aboard his ship, the Windsor, in Madagascar in 1699.

177

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 177

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Chapter 23

Dash for Disaster Scotland’s attempt to create a colony on the Isthmus of Panama was not a disaster waiting to happen; it was a disaster that couldn’t wait to get started. The Scotch Company began making losses from the start. Of the £400,000 promised by subscribers, a quarter was called up immediately. This left the company awash with funds but as yet uncertain exactly what it would do with the money. It was more than likely William Paterson’s suggestion that it indulge in a little speculation by way of buying Bank of England notes. These were not banknotes as understood today, but bills of exchange that changed hands not at face value but at a discounted rate; the amount of discount depending on the current market for the notes. Here was money to be made, and money to be lost. It seems the Scotch Company lost. It also dipped into banking, lending money to subscribers, although this was in clear breach of a monopoly awarded the Bank of Scotland and soon had to be stopped. The exit was expensive. It took time to retrieve the loans, and (according to The Price of Scotland) some loans proved to be bad debts All this was against a background of failed harvests and a monetary crisis caused by King William’s war-chest demands. The cure offered for the latter, recoinage of the currency, was itself another constraint. And then there was the little matter of John Smith’s embezzlement, perhaps a personal speculation with somebody else’s money gone wrong? When the Scotch Company’s five-ship expedition finally set sail in July 1698, the wrong type of ships sailed from the wrong port, carrying the wrong cargo and a writhing, fractious detachment of expectant Scotsmen who did not even all speak the same language. The goldleaf-encrusted vessels (the Caledonia, St Andrew, Unicorn, Dolphin and Endeavour) were mostly not nimble enough for Caribbean trading duties. The embarkation point was Edinburgh’s port of Leith, on the east coast of Scotland, for a voyage heading westward. The hopeful colonists included both lowland and highland Scots, including some who had been involved in the Glencoe massacre: there were Hamiltons, McLeans, Campbells, Drummonds, MacKenzies, Mackays, Montgomeries and Stewarts among their numbers. With money now much tighter, probably

178

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 178

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Dash for Disaster not enough was spent on trading goods, and the spending decisions that were made would have benefitted from more forethought. The ships carried an estimated 1,200 people, almost exclusively men. William Paterson was amongst them, allowed to seek corporate rehabilitation as a humble participant in what had been his own grand plan. The men were divided between seaman and landsmen, between officers and colonists, between English-speakers and those whose mother tongue was Gaelic. There was a problem with communications from the start. While most of the world knew where they were headed, most of those on board did not. Getting messages home was difficult; it was ironic that the English Government generally knew more about what was happening in the Darien, via its colonies and international contacts, than the directors of the Scotch Company. A ridiculous management structure meant that the project was to be directed by a council whose chairmanship was supposed to change weekly. When the ships arrived in the Darien in November 1698 (in the rainy season), they duly trapped themselves inside the harbour chosen for them by Dampier. The sailors among those on board declined to leave their ships or give up their supplies. The landsmen colonists set to work clearing the jungle, building defences and constructing accommodation. It was laborious, back-breaking work in an unaccustomed climate that seemed benign, but was not. An agreement, grandly called a treaty, was soon struck with the local Indians so that the terms of the Scotch Company’s constitution (which allowed it ‘to plant colonies, build cities, towns or forts, in or upon the places not inhabited, or in or upon any other place, by consent of the natives or inhabitants’) could be met. The local Indians who ‘signed’ this document probably did not understand the concept of land ownership or treaties (even though the Scots helpfully had their agreement translated into Spanish: of the Indians’ own language they were ignorant). Having got this out of the way, the Scots might have thought that their grand project was at last set to make some sort of progress. It was not, the colonists were simply too busy burying their dead. There had been deaths on the ships during the voyage from Scotland. Now the expedition was hit by new diseases about which it knew little and had no inbuilt immunity and no cures. At one point ten deaths were being recorded every day. Among the first to die (one before arrival) were the expedition’s two Presbyterian ministers and one of the few women included, Paterson’s wife. His servant also died. The hopeful colonists had been

179

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 179

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland offered their own plots of land as reward for their efforts. What most got was a burial plot. The local Indians found little interest in the trade goods carried by the Scots and few of those expected to ‘flock’ to the colony, that was now known as New Caledonia, had bothered to come. The Scots sent the Dolphin to trade with the Spanish. Off Cartagena it sprang a leak and was obliged to run ashore. In the process it was shipwrecked and the Spanish seized both cargo and crew, which they declined to return. In response the colonists petitioned King William, asking him to intervene, assuring him that the land they had settled was not in the possession of any ‘Prince or State in Europe’ and that ‘the Indians on all sides’ were in open war with the Spaniards. (This was hardly the view of the Spanish.) They then made lightly veiled (and not very credible) threats about disturbing the alliance between England and Spain by ‘taking measures greatly disadvantageous to the Crown of Spain’. They added that ‘we have hitherto proceeded no further, than of granting of Letters of Reprisals for the People and Effects unjustly detained from us’. Given the long lines of communication and William’s policy of appeasing Spain (about which the Scots had shown themselves to be aware), it is difficult to know what the signatories, who included William Paterson, hoped to gain by this appeal. King William did not have knowledge of it until it was too late to do anything effective, not that he would have acted on it anyway. His policy in such matters appears to have been to say the right things and then to do nothing. The Scots may have been alert to international developments, but they failed spectacularly to realise that, to William, the affairs of Scotland were no more than a side-show; an inconvenient but necessary complication. And anyway, he had already done something that had made matters worse, much worse, for the Scottish colonists. He had had James Vernon write to the various governors of England’s American and West Indian colonies, telling them to have nothing to do with the Scottish colonists.1 The instructions were not entirely unwelcome. In March 1699 (by when at least 200 of the colonists had died), governor of Jamaica, Sir William Beeston, wrote to Vernon saying he believed the Scots were running low on provisions. He also told him about the unfortunate fate of the Dolphin and said the presence of the colonists was making life difficult with the Spanish who cared little for the niceties of the distinction between Englishmen and Scots. Beeston’s preferred solution would have

180

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 180

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Dash for Disaster been to allow the Scots to ‘run to Jamaica’ where they would have provided welcome additional strength. But by April Beeston had received Vernon’s instructions and had issued a proclamation against the Scots.2 The king, he said, was ‘unacquainted with the Intentions and Designs of the Scots settling at Darien’. He had concluded that ‘it is contrary to the Peace entered into with his Majesty’s Allies; and therefore has commanded me, that no Assistance be given them’. None of ‘his Majesty’s Subjects’ (presumably he meant English subjects, not Scots or Dutch) were ‘on any pretence whatsoever’ to give the Scottish settlers ‘any assistance of Arms, Ammunition, Provisions, or any other Necessaries whatsoever, either by themselves or any other for them; or by any of their Vessels, or of the English Nation, as they will answer the Contempt of his Majesty’s Command to the contrary, at their utmost peril’. Soon a similar proclamation had been issued in New York by Governor Bellomont. When the colonists found out about Beeston’s proclamation they must have been dumbfounded. Here was the king of Scotland issuing instructions that nobody should assist his own Scottish subjects. Natural pride prevented them from admitting that they were way down William’s pecking order. In their eyes his actions must have seemed to be a betrayal of the highest order. They were also a major blow to the prospects of success. By June, seven months after their arrival in the Darien, the colonists had given up. They had tried their hardest but been defeated at every turn. Hungry, sick, and arguing among themselves, they packed up, went back to their ships (which had to be warped out of the harbour) and sailed away. Paterson was among them, a broken and delirious man, spouting gibberish. This was not the end of his, or their, ordeal. The ships on which they sailed had been moored in tropical waters for seven months, quietly deteriorating. They all leaked and none were in the best condition for an Atlantic crossing. It had been agreed amongst the colonists that they should first seek haven in a North American port before sailing on to Scotland. Only two ships, the Unicorn and the Caledonia, on which Paterson sailed, made it even as far as New York. With 100 of the 250 onboard Unicorn having died during the voyage to New York, the ship could go no further. Only the Caledonia was fit to continue. The Endeavour had sunk and the St Andrew had been abandoned in Jamaica. ‘In our passage from Caledonia hither our sickness being so universal aboard and mortality so great that I have hove overboard 105 Corps’, reported the Caledonia’s captain, Robert Drummond, writing from New York. ‘The Sickness and Mortality continues still aboard. I have buried

181

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 181

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland eleven since I came heire already’.3 It would, he said, be ‘a hard pull to get the Ship home’. But he made it. By November 1699 Drummond was back in Scotland (as was Paterson). Of the 1,200 Scotsmen who had sailed for the Darien, an estimated 750 had died and many more had melted away. They included deserters, refugees, castaways and runaways, consigned to live out their lives in the West Indies or the Americas. Only 250 or so made it back to Scotland, the Caledonia being the only one of the five original ships to return. Unfortunately, it arrived too late to prevent more ships setting off for the Darien. A first relief ship carrying supplies for the colony had been dispatched as early as February 1699. Had it ever arrived, the colonists might well have been encouraged to continue with their venture. It didn’t. It was wrecked before even leaving Scottish waters. By May, a second attempt was ready. This time two ships, the Olive Branch and the Hopeful Binning were waved on their way, together with their precious stores and 300 more colonists. They arrived at the Scottish settlement in August and were astounded to find the place deserted, its ramshackle assortment of huts, homes and earthworks already being reclaimed by the forest. Again, the mission was dogged by ill luck. Shortly after arrival the Olive Branch caught fire, causing loss of ship and cargo. The Hopeful Binning sailed off for Jamaica, never to return. It had escaped the fire but not the disease that was so prevalent in the colony. Towards the end of September, a second full expedition comprising four ships set sail. It would have left earlier but for bad weather that kept it in port for just short of six weeks. The small fleet was led by the Rising Sun, the pride of the Scotch Company, named after its ‘rising sun’ insignia. It, and the Hope, were owned by the company, the other two vessels, the Duke of Hamilton and the Hope of Bo’ness, were leased. Together the four ships carried an additional 1,300 colonists, including a detachment of women some of whose husbands had been on the first expedition and were mostly already dead. There had been reports in Scotland of the Darien colony having run into trouble, but nobody believed them. It was not until Drummond was able to tell the sorry story of the first expedition in person that it was believed. By then the second expedition had sailed, and, communications being such as they were, could not be recalled. It reached Golden Island at the end of November. The new colonists were no doubt pleased to be greeted by Thomas Drummond, brother of Robert, who had purchased a sloop in New York and sailed back to the Darien with extra supplies. He had been able to raise

182

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 182

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Dash for Disaster the money to do this by actually selling some of the Scotch Company’s trading goods in New York. The colonists would have been less pleased at the otherwise deserted and abandoned state of New Caledonia. There now followed, more or less, a repeat of the events experienced by the first expedition; but with two added complications. The first was that the Presbyterian ministers sent with the expedition all survived the voyage and a good deal of the remaining time in the colony. Sir John Dalrymple, not the Master of Stair but a later member of the same family (who less than 100 years after the events that he described, wrote the catchily titled Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II until the sea battle of La Hague) blamed these men of the cloth for a great deal. ‘Not meeting with the attention they expected from the higher, they paid court to the inferior ranks of the colonists, and by that means threw divisions into the colony’, wrote the snobbish Dalrymple. The ministers had ‘poured abuse on their rulers’ and had ‘damped the courage of the people by continually presenting hell to them’. In general, the ministers seemed to have disapproved of everybody and everything. The second, and finally fatal added difficulty, was that the cumbrous Spanish military machine had begun to get itself into gear to defend its Central American possessions. For their part, the Spaniards disapproved of anybody and everybody attempting to establish a claim over the Darien. Patiently but determinedly, they encircled the Scottish settlement both on land and at sea. By the end of February 1700, the colony was blockaded. The colonists had created new defences, earthworks and moats. They had revived their gun emplacements and no doubt drawn up cunning plans. And they had chalked up an initial success in a skirmish with a Spanish advance party (which was later hailed a great victory in Scotland). But they could not resist the inevitable. While the colony’s numbers continued to be eaten away by disease, gunfire and mishap, those of their would-be evictors grew through regular reinforcement. By the end of March the colonists had surrendered. The terms were not ungenerous. The Scots were given time to pack their things and leave and to do so with their flags and banners waving. It was small comfort. None of the four ships sent out on the second expedition made it home. The Rising Sun foundered when hit by a hurricane as it lay at anchor off Charleston. The Duke of Hamilton was sunk in the same storm while the Hope was wrecked off Cuba. The leaking Hope of Bo’ness had to run for Cartagena, where it was sold off.

183

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 183

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland According to The Disaster of Darien, written by Francis Russell Hart in 1929, of the 1,300 men who sailed from Scotland, fewer than 360 ever returned. He estimated that ‘160 had died on the voyage out, nine had been killed in the first engagement with the Spaniards, about 300 died in the Darien, approximately 100 more… in Jamaica’. A further 350 either died or were drowned on the return voyage. The two expeditions were responsible for close to 2,000 deaths, roughly the same number that resulted from Shovell’s incorrect assessment of his longitude. The episode was a disaster of epic proportions for Scotland. It was not only that it had lost so much of its wealth in so short a time, it was that the country had been humiliated, its self-esteem had been severely dented. News that the colonists had won a skirmish that Spanish officials did not even deem worthy of report, was accompanied by rioting on the streets of Edinburgh. Feeling ran so high that houses that did not show lighted candles in their windows by way of celebration were attacked. News that the colony had been forced to surrender, pack its bags and head home, was greeted with accusations, recriminations, denials, investigations and representations. There was even a move in the Scottish Parliament to send a task force to retake New Caledonia. In June 1700 Vernon wrote to Shrewsbury, telling him, ‘the Duke of Hamilton makes great use of the inclination that nation has to maintain their Darien project, and proposed on Monday that they should pass an act to assert their right to make a settlement at Darien, and that they would support it as a national concern’. Parliament had been adjourned so the matter could be taken no further, said Vernon. Later the same month an incident occurred which seems to have summed by William’s attitude to the Scots. Scotland had sent a deputation to King William to complain about what had happened, explained Vernon. This morning the (Scottish) Parliamentary deputies came hither and presented their address, but mistook in the manner of doing it. It was their intention to have read it to the King; but as soon as they kissed his Majesty’s hand they presented it; and the King not opening the paper, one of them made a motion as if he would have had it again to read it, but the King kept it fast, and said he would read and consider it, and so passed on to the Treasury, leaving the deputies to look upon one another as persons that found themselves in error; though, perhaps that may be improved in Scotland as a farther mark of his Majesty’s neglect of them.

184

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 184

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Chapter 24

For St George and England Dampier does not appear to have suffered too greatly as a result of the damning verdict of his 1702 court-martial. Within a year he was being presented to Queen Anne in advance of his departure on another voyage. Anne, the second daughter of James II, and the second of his daughters to become queen of England, had succeeded to the throne after the death of King William in early 1702. While out riding at Hampton Court, William had been thrown to the ground when his horse stumbled on a mole-hill. ‘The fall has caused a fracture at the end of the collar-bone, towards the end of the right shoulder’, James Vernon wrote to overseas envoy George Stepney. There had been no immediate cause for concern, William had not suffered any fever, or other ill symptoms and it was thought he would soon recover, But, a week later, things had changed and William was suffering ‘fits of an ague’. By 8 March he was dead. He was fifty-one years old, the same age as Dampier. His asthmatic, scarred, weakened and inundated lungs had simply given in to pneumonia. The last few years of the seventeenth century and the first few years of the next brought significant change on a number of fronts. William’s long-running war with France, as part of the Grand Alliance, had run out of steam; not least because Europe had run out of money. The Peace of Ryswick, signed in the winter of 1697 in the Dutch city of that name, gave William what he had been looking for all along; not territory but recognition by France that he was indeed king of England, Ireland and Scotland, and that he had the right to maintain a ‘Maginot Line’ of fortresses across the Spanish Netherlands, protecting Holland from attack by France. The treaty had left Spain a member of the Grand Alliance. But the ‘elephant in the room’ had been the question of what would happen after the expected death of Spain’s King Carlos II. Against all expectations, this sickly, disabled, and deeply unattractive monarch had remained in situ since 1661. Although twice married, he had had no children, and he had no direct heirs. To make matters even more difficult, the regal inbreeding that no doubt contributed to his unfortunate constitution and looks, had also

185

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 185

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland assured there was no shortage of possible, but equally distantly-related, claimants to the Spanish throne. There had been various attempts by European powers to decide amongst themselves what was to be done with the Spanish throne and the empire it controlled. None provided long-lived solutions. When he died in 1700, it turned out Carlos had (after French pressure) willed his throne to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of the Sun King. After years of trying to contain French aggression, this was not an outcome that was acceptable to other members of the Grand Alliance. Nobody had the appetite for yet more European warfare but, trapped in their own self-interests, the major players were unable to avoid just that. A new Grand Alliance, minus Spain, was created, while Anjou’s Spain lined up with the French. For England, it meant that Spain was once more an enemy. Dampier could go privateering again on the Spanish Main without fear of being branded a pirate. For the Scots, it meant one more bitter pill to swallow, since the Spaniards, who had so recently thrown them out of the Darien with King William’s mute acquiescence, had at the last become the late king’s enemy. Anne had got off to a feisty start, and anybody who expected the new queen to live up to a public persona of somebody who was a lightweight in intellect if not in body, soon received something of a shock. Aged thirty-seven when she became queen, the poor woman had a body wrecked by multiple pregnancies. She was short and stout, and had poor eyesight. Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, the new Lord High Admiral, was thought a dullard. He was content to take life as it came, but preferred a much slower pace than that. Anne also gave some people the impression that she was just as interested in other women as William had been in handsome young men. The impression was perhaps later dented by the heartbreak she expressed on the death of her husband in 1708. Despite all this, Anne got things done. She had the good sense to appoint John Churchill as her leading general, she oversaw creation of a new version of the Grand Alliance and put the country on a war footing yet again. She also had the odious Daniel (De)Foe pilloried (three times) and made it plain that her aim was to get an Act of Union with Scotland on the statute books as soon as possible. Like King William before her, Anne had been experiencing some frustrating delays in the Scots’ endorsement of her as their queen; hence her impatience for union of Scotland and England. The ‘of Denmarks’ were great friends with the Churchills. John’s wife Sarah (ten years his junior) was Anne’s childhood friend and a constant

186

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 186

15-10-2022 03:18:55

For St George and England companion (until seemingly supplanted by Abigail Masham in 1707), while John and his brothers were friendly with George. George’s office as Lord High Admiral was akin to being a non-executive chairman of the organisation. He was its figurehead only. After Anne’s succession to the throne, the executive power at the Admiralty moved increasingly into the hands of John’s brother, Admiral George Churchill. Anne clearly liked to have people she knew and trusted in positions of power. And she was generous to those within her circle. In December 1702 John Evelyn noted there had been an ‘excesse of honour conferred by the Queene on John Churchill by making him a knight of the garter, and a Duke (of Marlborough), for the success of but one campaign’. On top of this, he had asked for £5,000 a year, which was ‘a bold and unadvised request’ because he already had ‘an estate worth over £30,000 a year, with £50,000 at interest’. One of the first actions in the new war (of Spanish Succession) was in fact a naval affair fought in the autumn of 1702. Sir George Rooke had been tasked with establishing a land base near Cadiz. He was preparing for this when he court-martialled Dampier. At first things did not go too well. Rooke was seen off by the Bourbon Spaniards and started to sail home. On the way he was persuaded to attack the Spanish treasure fleet that had recently returned from the West Indies and was currently to be found in the Bay of Vigo, in north west Spain. Rooke’s combined Anglo-Dutch fleet, boasting twenty-five ships of the line, destroyed or captured all the Spanish ships, including eighteen warships. As it later turned out, much of the silver and gold they had carried had been offloaded from the treasure ships before Rooke turned up, and it was generally individual traders (not all Spanish) who lost out rather than the Spanish government. But the action did dent Spain’s naval power and did cause some excitement in England. In December 1702 Evelyn, now in his eighties, wrote in his diary that ‘the expectation now is what treasure will be found on breaking bulk of the galleon brought from Vigo by Sir George Rooke, which being made up in an extraordinary manner in the hold, was not begun to be opened till 5th of this month’. Rooke, who would have been entitled to a share of the prize money, must also have had some ‘expectation’ of his own. In the end £14,000 worth of gold and silver (about £1.5m in today’s money) was handed over to the Royal Mint. It was not unusual for those in the limelight to fall in and out of favour. It had happened to John Churchill before, and it would happen again. It had happened to Samuel Pepys, to Sir Henry Morgan and to Fletcher of Saltoun. The Master of Stair was still awaiting his soon-to-arrive recall to favour.

187

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 187

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland In allowing Dampier an April 1703 audience, the newly briefed, new queen may well have been showing the mariner her gratitude for services provided. Whatever the Admiralty had decided, she was demonstrating that she still valued his contribution. She may also have been sounding out his continued loyalty and demonstrating the importance she gave in the new order to naval power. Dampier had applied for, and in October 1702 received, letters of marque allowing him to sail against and plunder Spanish possessions. The plan had been to sail in consort with another ship of similar size, the Fame, Captain Pulling. Official records report that Dampier’s application had been made personally when he presented a warrant from the Prince of Denmark, Mr Queen Anne, ‘in pursuance of her Majesty’s Instructions to Privateers’. He had already sworn the required declaration giving details of his ship, the St George.1 It was said to be of 260 tons, to carry twenty-two guns and a complement of 100 hundred men. It was, said Dampier, owned outright by William Price (‘Gent’) of King Street near Golden Square. It was suitably armed, had spare sails, anchors and cordage, and was provisioned for eight months. That Price was the sole owner does not seem to be true since it later turned out there were a good number of others also involved in financing the voyage. Among them were Thomas Estcourt, who had stumped up to have his ship, the Nazareth, refitted and renamed the self-same St George. Others involved as backers and possibly part-owners include Richard Collet, John Jacob, and Thomas Goldney. All were named in a 1712 court case brought by Richard and Elizabeth Creswell (née Estcourt).2 Goldney was a Bristol-based merchant adventurer with whom Dampier was also linked on his subsequent and last voyage. He was just one of the financiers who traded on the edge with whom Dampier mixed. Goldney, who spent time in gaol as the result of unpaid bills, was nominally a Quaker and therefore a pacifist. But his conscience was fluid enough to allow him to finance fighting ships and also to become involved in the slave trade. (Elizabeth Creswell was Thomas Estcourt’s younger sister and his main beneficiary. She thought she had been short-changed by the executor of her brother’s estate, Richard Longford. The Creswells’ claimed he had ‘failed to bring the other defendants to account for the proceeds of the south seas for which a legal commission to seize French and Spanish shipping had been granted’. They further said that ‘the testator [Estcourt] owned half of the ship St George, formerly Nazareth’. The claim also named William Dampier, and ships’ masters Edward Morgan and Thomas Stradling as defendants.)

188

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 188

15-10-2022 03:18:55

For St George and England The falsehood over ownership of the ship was perhaps part of the fallout from William Kidd’s ill-fated exploits. Those who had backed the pirate on his initially legal privateering voyage had later faced great public approbation. Those backing this latest privateering venture would have wanted to protect themselves from such a possibility, and Dampier clearly went along with the lie. There was another inaccuracy to which he also put his name. Edward Morgan was listed as a ‘cook’. He was in fact neither a cook, nor a ship’s master, but the purser and the owners’ commercial representative on the voyage. The owners were not the only ones to have been reminded of Kidd’s piracy. At the beginning of April 1703 when Dampier’s ship was anchored in the Downs making ready to set sail, it was ‘stopped’. The reason was that the East India Company, ever protective of its position and its monopoly, had decided to cause a little trouble. It complained that the St George and the Fame, and ‘some other vessels now fitting out’ might do something that would ‘be prejudicial to the Company’s affairs in India’. It asked that a massive security of £3,000 be posted for each ship (three times the amount usually required from privateers) against this possibility and that in the meantime the ships be prevented from sailing.3 By 9 April the owners of the St George and Fame had appeared at the Court of Admiralty and had entered into ‘a recognizance of £3,000 to indemnify the security which they had before given for the civil and honest behaviour of the officers and men belonging to the said ships’. There were apparently now twelve joint owners and three sureties. By the ‘Queen’s command’, the embargo on the two ships was lifted and Dampier was afforded the extraordinary honour of again being presented to the Queen. A point was being made. It certainly was not that Dampier was such a nice man, because he wasn’t, as his crew were shortly to discover. By 30 April Dampier was at last able to leave. During the interim, there had been some disagreement (Dampier said between the owners of the two ships), and Pulling had sailed off alone. Dampier went to Kinsale in Ireland where he awaited a replacement consort. That turned out to be the Cinque Ports, which arrived sometime later. The Cinque Ports had had a commission since January 1703 and was described in its letter of marque as a galley (meaning that as well as sails it had sweeps, or oars) of some 130 tons, with twenty guns and a crew of ninety. Her captain was Charles Pickering. Her owners were listed as John Mascall, James Gould, John Crookshanks, James Sparrow, and Felix Calvert (Mascall and Calvert, who had family brewing interests in London and later became a Member of Parliament, were also named in the Creswell’s claim).

189

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 189

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland In terms of the war against France and Spain, the voyage was a great success. It caused havoc on the Spanish main, and probably diverted resources away from Europe. It demonstrated the ability of English warships to strike out far from home, and the inability of the Spanish to resist such action. In terms of its business aims, revolving around the accumulation of prize money, the voyage was less of a success. Although Dampier’s character and actions did not help, this was mainly down to the old problem associated with privateering: namely the ‘no purchase, no pay’ basis on which crews were habitually employed. It ensured they would quickly forget their duties as auxiliary members of the Navy and concentrate on the prize money available to them. The voyage was not the ‘failure’ it was later made out to be. The description of it as such relied on acceptance of the word of a disaffected and mutinous crew member, William Funnell, and his accomplice, midshipman John Welbe.4 They would have been aware of Dampier’s court-martial rebuke and perhaps considered him fair game. Lacking any sense of loyalty to Dampier, whose books had brought him considerable income, John Knapton was quick to publish Funnell’s account of the voyage. In it Funnell described himself as a first mate although he was not listed as such and Dampier said he had been taken on as a steward and later promoted to midshipman. Funnell seems to have been out to make a literary name for himself by mimicking Dampier’s style (Dampier as good as accused him of stealing some of his papers). Another Funnell motive was probably to get his defence against possible charges of mutiny and piracy into the public domain in advance of any prosecution. For whatever reason, he accused his captain of incompetence and cowardice. It cannot be denied that Dampier was an awkward character. He was determined and did not listen much to the views of others. In fact, he displayed little empathy or sympathy for those under his charge. But against this, the captain’s lot was notoriously difficult, especially when his ship was out of the sight of land, when mutiny was a constant possibility. Dampier was certainly not a coward. He was too devoid of emotions to entertain cowardly thoughts. His default position was that of observer rather than participant. Every event was viewed as an experiment, an opportunity to collect and confirm information. This is why he ate every type of food that was presented to him. He was interested to see what would happen if he ate flamingo tongues, armadillo meat or goats’ innards.

190

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 190

15-10-2022 03:18:55

For St George and England And there is no doubting Dampier’s expertise as a seaman and navigator (nor Funnell’s lack of credentials to offer an opinion either way about this). Dampier’s many achievements and his published calculations, descriptions and explanations speak for themselves. That, in later voyages he sometimes had difficulty in recognising places he had previously visited, can be put down to failing eyesight. Man-management was another matter. Dampier simply didn’t understand the feelings of his fellows, why some could get so seemingly het up about matters that seemed so trivial to him, or which had only one logical outcome. The 1703 voyage suffered some early setbacks. First, one of Dampier’s lieutenants, a Mr Griffith, was killed in a drunken brawl in Kinsale. His first lieutenant, Samuel Huxford got left behind in the Cape Verdes (Funnell said this was a cruel act on the part of Dampier, Dampier said it was Huxford’s choice). Later in the year, when approaching the coast of Brazil, Charles Pickering died. Thomas Stradling, his first lieutenant, took over captaincy of the Cinque Ports. The two ships continued regardless, rounding Cape Horn and fetching Juan Fernandez in February 1704. Here there was a near mutiny on board the Cinque Ports, and Dampier went on board and sorted things out. Next, they sailed up the Pacific coast of South America, much as Dampier had done on his previous sorties into the South Seas. They took a good number of prizes along the way. By May the two ships were in the Bay of Panama. While anchored off the island of Tobago (not Trinidad and Tobago, which is in the Caribbean), Dampier and Stradling argued, possibly over a prize they had taken. The two ships resolved to part company, a few crew members changing ships. Stradling headed south, Dampier north. By August Dampier’s crew were becoming restless. They had accepted ‘no purchase, no pay’ terms in expectations of a reasonably short cruise. They had already taken a considerable amount in prize money, and they wanted to head home. Dampier had other ideas. He was the captain of a warship, commissioned by the crown to engage the enemy, and he intended to continue to inflict the worst damage he could. He had set his sights on taking a Spanish treasure ship, a prize that would equal Rooke’s. He may also have had other intentions, or instructions, such as to gather information about the enemy. Whether or not this is so, he had his own agenda, one that differed from that of most of the rest of his crew. This might have been no more than to do the best he could for his owners. While they were careening the ship, one of the mates, a Mr Clipperton, persuaded some twenty of his fellow crew members to sail off with him in

191

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 191

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland a barque. Following this, remaining members of the crew demanded that their entitlements to prize money be shared amongst them there and then. Dampier said he refused but somehow managed to keep his crew together, but not for too long. Dampier did get his chance at taking a treasure ship, but by this time his forces were depleted and his crew disinterested. They were beaten off. And by January 1705 there was more trouble. By this time the crew was down to just over sixty men. More or less half, including Funnell, insisted on sailing for India and then home. This was mutiny. The remainder opted to stay with Dampier, ‘a very insignificant force indeed with which to make war on a whole nation’. The St George subsequently had to be abandoned and, taking everything of value, Dampier sailed in a ‘small bark’ they had captured for the Dutch East Indies (where he was briefly arrested as a suspected pirate). This major feat of seamanship, crossing the fearsome Pacific in so small a craft with so few men, went almost unnoticed. Relying on Funnell’s version, Robert Kerr included an account of the sortie into the South Seas in his 1814 A general history and collection of voyages and travels. He concluded: ‘Dampier returned naked to his owners, with a melancholy relation of his unfortunate expedition, occasioned chiefly by his own strange temper, being so self-sufficient and overbearing that few or none of his officers could bear with him’. It is an unfair assessment. Even Kerr had to admit that ‘he was received as an eminent man, notwithstanding his failings, and was introduced to Queen Anne (again) having the honour to kiss her hand (again), and to give her majesty some account of the dangers he had undergone’. Clearly there was something to celebrate. That he had come back not quite so ‘naked’ as advertised is evident in the subsequent decision of the Cresswells to take legal action against a good number of those involved in the voyage of the two ships, the St George and the Cinque Ports. It is true the Cresswells seem to have been serial litigants, but they obviously believed there was money made on the voyage, some or all of which was their due. They suggested that more than £12,000 had been converted into bills of exchange payable in Amsterdam, and they came up with a theory that all or part of this money had been used to finance a subsequent expedition to the South Seas, the expedition of Bristol mariner and adventurer Woodes Rogers (which was the last in which Dampier sailed). Given that Dampier appears all along not to have wanted to overburden the St George with bulky treasures. He and his purser might well have done

192

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 192

15-10-2022 03:18:55

For St George and England all they could to convert their prizes into more easily transported bills of exchange as they went along. This way they would have avoided the likely hazards in getting bulky treasure home, and the attention of the greedy East India Company. The Cresswells may have been onto something (which is perhaps why owners and backers were not slow to come forward for Woodes Rogers’ expedition) although it is unlikely too much of the money ended up with Dampier. Having read, and been enraged by Funnell’s account of the voyage and his own subsequent route home, Dampier dashed off a ‘vindication’ which was published not by Knapton (perhaps Dampier had argued with him) but by ‘Mary Edwards, against the Golden-Lion Tavern in Fetter-Lane’. He was clearly proud of what he had achieved and he concluded this short pamphlet by saying a further expedition to the South Seas would be ‘Proper and Advantagious’. He added that ‘I am ready to satisfy any Committee of Merchants, how Practicable and Expedient it is to put it into Execution forthwith’.

193

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 193

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Chapter 25

Unity from Disunity Besides Dampier’s safe return, Queen Anne had something else to celebrate in the summer of 1707. She had her Act of Union. Urged on by an impatient queen, two teams of commissioners, the Master (now Earl) of Stair among the Scottish commissioners, had met in London to thrash out a treaty of union. A previous attempt had failed, this time the talks, conducted from April to July 1706, took just three months to reach agreement. Not that the outcome had ever been in doubt. The Scottish commissioners had been carefully chosen. Heading the list was chief high commissioner, the second Duke of Argyll, a Campbell. Only one of the Scottish commissioners, George Lockhart of Carnwath, was opposed to the proposed union. And among them was the Earl of Stair, a royal fixer and professional scapegoat, masquerading as an impartial commissioner. According to the 1845 Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 by Mrs Thomson, the Earl of Mar had presented a draught act for appointing commissioners and was thus ‘the instrument of first presenting to the Scotch that measure so revolting to their prejudices, so singularly distasteful to a proud and independent people’. Scottish public opinion had definitely seemed to be against the union, although perhaps not as vehemently as it had once been. Mar’s brother, James Erskine, wrote to him in London saying that ‘there seems to be very many who are neither much for the Union nor against it, but are in a kind of suspense about it and know not what to think. I fancy many of the Ministers are of this sort, some of them seem afraid of it but generally they do not show much anger at it so far as I have heard’. For the most part ‘trading people talk favourably of it’, he added. This might have been true so far as the ruling classes were concerned. It certainly did not hold true in the Highlands, where opposition was intense. Lockhart was convinced of an unlikely unity within Scotland, saying ‘the whole nation appears against’. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik also thought the majority to be opposed. In truth Scotland had been left with few options but to agree to a union. It had been beaten down by English protectionism, by a succession of ‘lean

194

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 194

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Unity from Disunity years’ which brought starvation to many, and by the financial loss and blow to confidence that had resulted from the Darien debacle and the many bankruptcies that followed. And the path had been greased by enticing financial rewards of both a personal and corporate nature. Of course, it had not all been plain sailing and there had been some preliminary political argy-bargy, some flag-waving and saving of face. Scotland had a right to choose its own monarch. When the English Parliament seemed intent on pre-empting this right by limiting succession to the crown of England to Protestants, Scotland’s lawmakers reacted. They passed a 1704 Act reiterating the country’s right to an independent choice of monarch. Unless the next English king or queen guaranteed Scotland equal footing vis-à-vis trading rights and shipping, Scotland would insist on a different king or queen. Fletcher of Saltoun had been a prime mover in this. The English Parliament retaliated with its own 1705 Act which held that unless Scotland repealed its 1704 law or agreed to a unified approach, Scottish residents in England would be declared ‘aliens’. Further, Scotland would be banned from exporting black cattle, sheep, coal and linen to England. As these were the country’s most important exports and any ban would have hit landed families hard, Scotland agreed it was time to consider the possibility of union. England, in turn, agreed to repeal its ‘aliens’ Act, and commissioners were appointed to negotiate terms. By early 1707, all had been agreed and the Scottish Parliament had voted itself out of existence. Of the 175 parliamentarians to cast their vote, 106 were in favour of union, sixty-nine, including Fletcher of Saltoun, were against. On 1 May 1707, England and Scotland were united into a single kingdom, and Anne became the first queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Part of the agreement embodied in law was that Scotland be paid an ‘Equivalent’. This was to be a payment to compensate Scotland for having to pay (higher) English taxes which were needed in part to service the English national debt. Calculation of an appropriate amount was placed in the hands of six men; three from Scotland and three from England. They included William Paterson and eminent Scottish mathematician and astrologist, Royal Society member, Professor David Gregory. That Paterson, who had a vested interest in the outcome, should be able to wangle his way onto the team, is testament to his persuasive powers and lobbying abilities. The team worked away at intricate calculations involving estimates of the present value of future gains and losses at different interest rates. It was all something of a sham, window dressing to cover up what was really

195

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 195

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland going on. There was no ‘correct’ answer although the Equivalent was set at the remarkably precise sum of £398,085, 10 shillings; not too different to the £400,000 subscribed to the Scotch Company prior to its Darien misadventure. Indeed, the Indian and African Company of Scotland was specifically referred to in the detailed calculation of the amount to be paid. So, £49,888, 14s and 11d was included for losses on recoinage, £30,500, 0s, 0d for ‘commissioners, secretaries and accomptants’, and £232,840, 9s, 11½d for ‘capital stock, interest and debts’ of the Scotch Company. It was a bribe hidden behind a cloak of mathematical invisibility. Losses to private individuals arising from investment in a failed money-making scheme by a private company were hardly relevant to the calculation. They had nothing to do with the cost of additional taxation needed to contribute to a share of the English national debt. Yet it was there, all £232,840, 9s, 11½d of it. It meant that those who had invested in the Scotch Company, the instrument of Scotland’s downfall, were not only to get their money back, they were to get interest on that money. On top of that, the deal included the winding up of the Scotch Company. Those who had scrambled to sign Paterson’s subscriptions books would be relieved of the worry of having to make good on their promises and pay further cash calls (less than half of the pledged £400,000 in subscriptions had been called up and paid into the Scotch Company, meaning subscribers were technically liable for outstanding amounts; although many would by this time have been very hard-pressed to make good their commitments). The Equivalent might also be seen as an admission of guilt in the failure of the Scotch Company by the English Government. Why else would England agree to pick up the bill for such Scottish impetuousness? Some sort of reasoning might be that Scotland did not have its own national debt to speak of (only such items as unpaid wages), but a nationwide debt had been created by failure of the Darien venture. This was a failure in which the English Government, King William, John Locke and William Dampier had connived and watched unfold from afar. The money, which was to come to Scotland in gold and bills, was to be handed out in a stated order of priority. The first tranche was to be used to repay ‘any losses which private persons may sustain’ due to alignment of the English and Scottish currencies. ‘In the next place’, came repayment of the capital stock (plus interest at 5% per annum) of the Scotch Company. As is the way with official largess, final settlement to many of those who thought they had claims on the Equivalent was a long time coming. The first payment in hard cash was swiftly distributed to a privileged few. The rest of

196

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 196

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Unity from Disunity the payment was made in paper; debentures with no repayment date and no interest, a sort of official IOU. Among the individual losers from the Scotch Company was William Paterson. He had been voted large amounts by the company and claimed that over £18,000 was due to him. He had returned from the Darien a broken man, a jabbering, bankrupt wreck. He had somehow recovered his senses and his enthusiasm. He borrowed money to get by and, it is said, for a while relied for income on fees from teaching mathematics. But he was soon back to devising schemes and promotions, sending papers and proposals to all and sundry. Paterson’s claims were accepted to the extent that he ended up with company debentures with a nominal value equal to his claim. He later joined with other Scotch Company investors to form the Society of the Subscribed Equivalent Debt.1 His new big idea was to use the amount owed as the basis for another fund of credit operation which would get itself involved in banking activities. Eventually, after Paterson’s time (by when payment of interest on the debentures had been introduced and put on a firm basis), such an arrangement was put in place. This eventually morphed itself into the Royal Bank of Scotland. In the meantime England largely got away without having to pay the full amount of the Equivalent. Many of those holding debentures had sold them on at a heavy discount, often to London-based investors. And when interest was finally paid on the debentures, it turned out the cost was charged to Scotland, which therefore paid for its own Equivalent. Dampier may have taken some satisfaction at the turn of events in Scotland but he would not have been immediately aware of what followed. A year after his return from the South Seas, he was off there again. Evidently it had not taken him long to satisfy a committee of merchants of the likelihood of healthy returns from such a privateering venture. The investors included Thomas Goldney, who knew the potential risks and returns more than most. This was to be Dampier’s third and final circumnavigation. He did not sail as captain, that position went to Bristol mariner Woodes Rogers, but as pilot. The expedition comprised two ships, the Duke and the Dutchess, each carrying just over 100 men. As usual the expedition collected other vessels along the way. They set sail in August 1708. By November they were off the coast of Brazil, by January 1709 they were rounding Cape Horn, and at the end of the month had reached the Juan Fernandez archipelago. After this they repeated pretty much the routes of previous South Seas raids, sailing up the

197

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 197

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland coast of South America, causing havoc as they went, until they reached the coast of Mexico. Here they waited for the Manila galleon to appear. They began the long-haul home in January 1710. With stops along the way, it took them a year to reach Cape Town, where they stayed three months. Four months after that, in July 1711, they were off the coast of Holland and, they hoped, out of the prying reach of the East India Company. It was not until October 1711, a little over three years since setting out, that Dampier made it home. Two events during those three years stood out. The first happened when the Duke and Dutchess reached Juan Fernandez. It was here that Dampier had quelled a mutiny on Stradling’s ship, the Cinque Ports. And it was here that Stradling sailed back to after splitting with Dampier in 1704. Stradling appears to have been even more of a martinet than Dampier, and clashed with one of his crew in particular; the fiery Scot named Alexander Selkirk. The two argued over the state of the ship, Selkirk saying the Cinque Ports was unseaworthy. Stradling would have none of it and told Selkirk they were setting sail anyway, and he had better come aboard. Selkirk apparently said he would rather stay on Juan Fernandez. And although he had second thoughts as Stradling sailed away, that is what he did. He was still there when the Duke and Dutchess turned up almost five years later. He had survived by running down and taming some of the goats on the island, by keeping cats to catch the rats that would otherwise have overrun the huts he built for himself, and by clothing himself in goatskin. His experiences mirrored those of a Moskito man who had previously been left and then rescued by Dampier from the island. Daniel (De)Foe later used Selkirk as a model for his eponymous hero Robinson Crusoe, along with other experiences stolen from Dampier’s accounts. The second event was the taking of a Manila Galleon; not THE Manila Galleon (that was too powerful for their, by then, overstretched resources) but its consort, the Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación y Desengaño. It was big enough though, a rich enough prize to make the expedition more than worthwhile. It was assessed to be worth £148,000, or in the region of £14m in twenty-first-century money. Dampier’s share (according to The Cruising Voyages of William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and George Shelvocke and Their Impact, by Timothy Charles Halden Beattie, published by Exeter University) was eventually put at just under £2,400 (equivalent to somewhere between £250,000 and £550,000 in twenty-first-century money). Nobody got paid immediately though. There were the usual arguments and court cases to overcome first.

198

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 198

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Unity from Disunity Woodes Rogers, who had lost his brother, part of his jaw and of his foot during the expedition, went bankrupt while waiting for his pay-out. He eventually recovered and somehow managed to get himself appointed the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas (previous governors, including Governor Trott, had their authority from the Lord Proprietors of the Bahamas). He served two terms as such 1718 to 1721, and 1728 until his death in 1732. During his terms he led a campaign against piracy as captain (half pay) of an independent force, raised in Ireland and ‘victualled’ at ‘6d per day’. Dampier, however, was not able to stay alive long enough to collect his prize money.

199

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 199

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Chapter 26

Dampier’s Legacy Dampier left something of a financial mess when he died. The London Gazette of 26 November 1715 carried the notice: All Persons that have any Demands upon the Estate of Captain William Dampier, Deceased, are forthwith to make out their Claims before John Meller, Esq; one of the Masters of the High Court of Chancery, at his Chambers in Symond’s Inn, Chancery Lane; otherwise the Money in his hands on Account of the Interest which the said Dampier had in the Ships Duke and Dutchess and their Prizes, will be paid out to the Executrix of the said Captain Dampier. Queen Anne had died of gout on 1 August 1714. Her nominated successor, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, had died six weeks earlier. This meant Sophia’s son, George, now Elector of Hanover, became king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. At the time of her death, George had been Anne’s closest living Protestant relative, a second cousin. There was major unrest in Scotland among Jacobites who believed the Catholic Stuarts, especially the ‘Old Pretender’, James Stuart, had a better claim to the throne than George. James arrived in Scotland in December 1715, by when the action was largely over. He stayed two months before giving up and leaving. In Scotland John Erskine, the sixth Earl of Mar (he who had been instrumental in the ‘revolting’ and ‘distasteful’ appointment of commissioners to negotiate an Act of Union), raised a Jacobite army comprised mainly of highlanders. In November he had fought the Duke of Argyll’s smaller government force at the indecisive battle of Sheriffmuir. Mar had failed to make his advantage in numbers count and his support drifted away. In England, there were uprisings also in the north of England and in Cornwall, where James Butler, the second Duke of Ormonde was a prominent figure. The Battle of Preston put an end to Jacobite hopes, while the Cornish uprising never got going. Ormonde was an important figure,

200

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 200

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Dampier’s Legacy having until recently been general-in-chief of the British Army, previously he had fought for James II against Monmouth, and for William III against James II in Ireland. Like Mar, Ormonde had been sacked by George I. The top job went to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. The Earl of Stair, the son of the Master of Stair, the one who had accidentally shot and killed his brother those many years before, was briefly recalled from diplomatic duty in France to take over as commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland. Various trials, impeachments and executions followed the quelling of the disturbances, although Mar and Ormonde both escaped abroad. Mar, ‘Bobbing John’, who had bobbed again, had scuttled off to France with the Old Pretender. The same issue of The London Gazette which included the notice inviting claims against Dampier’s estate also included news that the House of Commons had begun preparing a Bill accusing Ormonde of high treason and offering a reward for his arrest. Judith Dampier had apparently died while her husband was away in the South Seas. On his return from his last voyage, he took up residence in Coleman Street in the City of London with his cousin Grace Mercer. Coleman Street was, and is, in the centre of the City, being roughly equidistant from the Guildhall and Jonathan’s. It would be pleasing to think that the ageing mariner, now in his early sixties, occasionally walked down the hill to the Royal Oak Inn, which was next to St Andrew church in the Hatton Garden area of London.1 There he might have talked to the landlord, his old co-conspirator Lionel Wafer, of their adventures together and how they had amused themselves with fanciful tales of blood-letting in the Darien. (Hatton Garden, now the centre of the jewellery trade, was a well-to-do area. Wafer was listed as owner of the Royal Oak in 1712 and the following year offered to sell part of his land to the church. By the time of his death, in 1723, he was living in Stratford, Essex, then a countryfied area in the parish of West Ham, increasingly favoured by wealthy London merchants. He was still describing himself as a ‘citizen and barber chirgeon (surgeon)’, although his days of sawing off mangled limbs or treating his crewmate’s sexually transmitted diseases were long past. He left a wife, Mary Wafer, who was his ‘widow, relic and executrix’.) Dampier would have walked with the rolling gait of a seaman and probably have found even the hardest chairs too soft. He was close to Grace. She seems to have been his housekeeper in the rooms they shared and was both his executrix and the main beneficiary of

201

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 201

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland his will. They may have shared a bed; such arrangements were not unknown. Dampier’s Royal Society acquaintance Robert Hooke employed a ‘Nell’ as housekeeper of his rooms in Gresham College and recorded in his diary whenever his groping and thrusting led to a successful outcome (for him). He also slept with his niece, another Grace. Dampier might easily have preferred to sleep most nights on the floor, where the boards would have seemed to have pitched and tossed beneath him. So used to living off sea rations, his food would never have had enough salt. But he must have entertained Grace with yarns about places he had been and sights he had seen. He would have bragged a little about how right he had been on many occasions when his suggestions and recommendations had been ignored. These would be stories of events and actions rather than his experiences of wonder, awe and emotion. Despite his detached and probably austere demeanour, his lack of empathy for others, and his uncaring single-mindedness, he had achieved much. He had seen the world, or at least more of it than anybody else then alive. He had put Australia on the map and, had the Admiralty been more sympathetic to his mission, might have claimed it for England getting on for a century before Captain Cook’s arrival. He had undoubtedly added to the fund of knowledge about nature, natural history and navigation; and food. Perhaps, above all, he had written a wonderful book that without dogma or prejudice (not too much prejudice, anyway) recounted how the peoples of the world lived their lives. All had come at a cost to his health (in his will he described himself as ‘Weak of body but sound and perfect mind and memory’) and to a certain extent his finances (although he did not seem at any stage to experience poverty). It was Grace who would have been tasked with sorting out his tangled finances. Some involved court cases that had, or would, drag on for years. Dampier’s nemesis George Fisher had pursued him for years claiming he had never paid his navy fines. Dampier probably never did, but Fisher’s death in 1705, when Dampier was having to deal with that other antagonist Funnell, put an end to that dispute. The Cresswells’ claims were of more immediate concern to Grace. Although they included accusations about unaccounted loot arising from Dampier’s St George voyage, the claim had only been lodged after it was clear there was money to be had from Woodes Roger’s expedition. Pay-out of the money from this was delayed until both the East India Company had been paid off (with a £6,000 bribe), and the Cresswells’ claims had been accepted or rejected by the courts.

202

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 202

15-10-2022 03:18:55

Dampier’s Legacy At the centre of this struggle was John Meller, Master of the High Court of Chancery, who had advertised for claimants on Dampier’s estate. His findings were reported in the doctoral thesis published by Exeter University, The Cruising Voyages of William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and George Shelvocke and Their Impact, mentioned above. It was Meller who concluded that the profits of Woodes Rogers’ expedition, after deducting all costs, amounted to £148,000. Short shift seems to have been given to the Cresswell’s claims. There were also problems raised against Dampier’s share. Meller said he had not signed the ship’s articles (even though the articles of governance specifically mentioned him as ‘pilot’, which would have entitled him to an eighth crew-member share). He also said that Grace Mercer had been unable to prove Dampier’s entitlement to a sixteenth share of the two-thirds of profits reserved for the owners. And he said Dampier had already received payments of £500 and £400. In short, it is unclear how much of the expedition profits went to Dampier either before or after his death, although it seems that Grace was eventually able to retrieve in the region of £1,000 (worth somewhere between £100,000 and £200,000 in twenty-first-century money). Grace was also involved in another long-running court case.2 In 1716 she lodged a claim against William Paterson, no less. She said that Dampier had lent money to Paterson when he was hard-up and that she required repayment. Paterson retaliated with his own claim. By 1719 the case was no longer ‘Mercer v Paterson’ but ‘Daranda v Mullett’. Paterson had died and his executor Paul Daranda, the son of his lifetime friend of the same name, stood in his place.3 Meanwhile, Grace had married Elisha Mullet. William Paterson had continued to lobby all he could for ‘compensation’; in other words for repayment of losses arising from his own championing of the unrealistic Darien Scheme. And in 1715 he was successful. An Act of Parliament was passed ‘relieving William Paterson Esquire, out of the Equivalent-money, for what is due to him’.4 Some would have said that nothing was due to him. Nevertheless, he received an award in the order of £18,000, as much as £3m in today’s money. He still had a good deal of this when he died at the beginning of 1719. It was hardly surprising, if he was so miserly as not to return money lent to him when confronted with his own ‘lean years’. In his response to Grace Mercer’s claim, Patterson admitted that ‘some time in or about the year of our Lord 1712’, he had borrowed from Dampier. Various amounts were mentioned but it all seemed to come down to a sum of £350.

203

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 203

15-10-2022 03:18:55

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Patterson had ‘applied himself to one Captain William Dampier’, he being ‘a person with whom your orator had been very acquainted and had dealings and transactions for several years before’. Because Dampier did not have ready money available to him at the time of the request, the loan came in the form of various promises and guarantees to third parties. Paterson’s defence was that Dampier had never made good on these commitments (which given Fisher’s claim that he had never, in fact, paid his Navy fine, may well have been true). The question is, why should Paterson believe that he deserved special treatment in the matter of the Equivalent and compensation? And why would Dampier agree to back him financially? After all, Dampier had not demonstrated great generosity to others in the past. The court case shows three things: that Dampier and Paterson had been ‘very acquainted’ for many years and maintained contact after the failure of the Darien Scheme, that Dampier had paid him money (or at least made promises to make payments on his behalf), and that Paterson had no intention of paying anything back. This suggests that perhaps Paterson had twigged that he and the Scotch Company had been deliberately manipulated by Dampier, persuading them to invest their all into something that Dampier knew was likely to fail? Perhaps, knowing this, Paterson had put pressure on Dampier to help him out? Given Dampier’s personality, for such an approach to bear fruit, any such pressure would have had to be explicit, intense and menacing; blackmail in fact. For whatever reason, Paterson decided he would not repay Dampier’s ‘generosity’ and that he would go as far as to fight him and his executrix in the courts. It cannot be denied that Dampier had played his part in promoting the Darien scheme, thereby ultimately forcing Scotland to accept union with England. He was a man who valued his own freedom and the right to exercise his own free will, almost above all else. And yet, by his actions, he had caused a nation to lose its freedom. Whether this helped or hindered the development of Scotland is another matter. Who knows what would have happened had it been left to its own devices, its own unfortunate climate, its own limited resources, its own disunited population, and its own pool of talent? Certainly Dampier didn’t give two hoots.

204

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 204

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Dates, days, spelling and sources Little if anything was standardised in the seventeenth century. Spelling and grammar were matters of personal choice, dates varied according to the preferred calendar, the value of coins was a matter of assessment of their gold or silver content. People often had more than one name, or more than one spelling of the same name. Place names, also, had a habit of changing. Map-makers drew precise charts of a world whose geography was uncertain and prone to revision. To reflect this, quotations in this book have been repeated as written at the time, idiosyncratic spelling intact. Dates have been given as recorded at the time (which means in most cases they are according to the Julian not the Gregorian Calendar). The exception to this is that each year has been taken to end on 31 December and not 25 March, Lady Day, which was the last day of the official administrative year. As far as possible place names have been given both in the form used at the time and also their twenty-first-century rendition. Much that is a common feature of life today had not even been thought of in William Dampier’s time. Income tax was one of them. Life was lived at a different pace, and many ‘necessities’ of today were unknown. This makes assessing the present-day equivalent of seventeenth-century money so difficult. In this text, two measures have been used. One, provided by the Bank of England, is an Inflation Calculator. The other, provided by The National Archives, is a Currency Converter giving values in terms of purchasing power and wages at the time. Both are available ‘online’, a word that would have been all but meaningless to Dampier and indeed to all others until very recently. Lucky those who would research the past today. The Internet and efforts to digitise the past have opened up untold possibilities. In researching this book I have made full use of the Internet and particularly those websites offering access to archives and other database. These have included The National Archives, the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, and The National Library of Scotland. These have given access to minutes and reports of various committees and

205

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 205

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland councils, civil court cases involving Dampier and others, warrant books with details of payments and much more of an official nature. The History of Parliament, and The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 (created and maintained by the School of History at the University of St Andrews), add to this by including information concerning parliamentary sessions and decisions, and profiles of those who served as Members of Parliament. British History Online, plus the Old Bailey and the Bank of England websites have also yielded helpful information including company minutes and subscriptions. Jstor is another online resource that offers access to academic and special interest papers and articles. Among the information gathered this way were details of the Helyar family and its and other plantations in Jamaica (J Harry Bennett’s Cary Helyar, Merchant and Planter of SeventeenthCentury Jamaica. Published in The William and Mary Quarterly in 1962) and concerning the Batchelors Delight (Edmund Berkeley’s Three Philanthropic Pirates published in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography in 1966). The South West Heritage Trust’s Somerset Archive Catalogue provided access to Documents and Muniments from Croker Court. 13th century 20th century, while the online Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library, gave access to the Survey of Jamaica 1670, contained in a letter from Sir Thomas Modyford to the Lord Arlington. Hard copy background and other information came by way of a small library of books, pamphlets and papers. Transcripts of Dampier’s two courtmartials, for example, came from The National Archives, while quotes from John Evelyn and James Vernon came respectively from Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, published by Bickers and Son in 1906 (four volumes) and Letters illustrative of the Reign of William III republished as an Elibron Classic in 2006 (three volumes). Information about the City of London’s Debt to its Orphans, 1694-1767, came in part from an article by I Doolittle in a 1983 edition of the Institute of Historical Research.

206

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 206

15-10-2022 03:18:56

References Chapter 1: Freedom of the seas 1. Colonel Helyer’s (sic) Regiment of Horse, Regimental wiki, royalist horse regiments, BCW Project, Regimental Wiki. 2. ‘House of Commons Journal Volume 5: 28 August 1648’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 5, 1646-1648 (London, 1802), pp. 686-689, Delinquency. 3. Bennett, J Harry. (1964). ‘Cary Helyar, Merchant and Planter of Seventeenth-Century Jamaica’, The William and Mary Quarterly, 21, no. 1. pp. 53–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/1923356 4. Helyar Documents and Muniments from Croker Court, Somerset Archive Catalogue, thirteenth century - twentieth century, South West Heritage Trust. Also includes various correspondence and details of other land purchases in Jamaica. 5. Bennett, J. H. (1966). ‘William Whaley, Planter of Seventeenth-Century Jamaica’,  Agricultural History, 40 (2), pp.113–124. www.jstor.org/ stable/3741089

Chapter 2: Jamaica and beyond 1. Bennett, J. H. (1966). ‘William Whaley, Planter of Seventeenth-Century Jamaica’, Agricultural History, 40 (2), pp.113–124. www.jstor.org/ stable/3741089 2. Livingston, Noel B. (1909). Sketch Pedigrees of some of the early settlers in Jamaica, Part VII, The Educational Supply Company, Jamaica. 3. ‘America and West Indies: February 1674’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 7, 1669-1674, ed. W Noel Sainsbury (London, 1889), pp. 552-559. British History Online http:// www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-westindies/vol7/pp552-559

207

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 207

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland

Chapter 3: The farmer takes a wife 1. Holy Trinity, Godmanstone, Dorset Register database. https://www. freereg.org.uk/search_records/5817cdfee93790eb7f9abca4

Chapter 4: A taste of the Darien 1. Will of William Dampier, Mariner, Captain of London, 23 March 1715, National Archives, PROB 11/545/151. 2. ‘America and West Indies: October 1679’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 10, 1677-1680, ed. W Noel Sainsbury and J W Fortescue (London, 1896), pp. 423-436. See also British History Online: www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/ colonial/america-west-indies/vol10/pp591-608

Chapter 8: The mystery of the Batchelors Delight 1. ‘America and West Indies: December 1683’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 11, 1681-1685, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1898), pp. 557-573. British History Online www. british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/ vol11/pp557-573 2. Berkeley, Edmund Jr. (1966). ‘Three Philanthropic Pirates’, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 74(4), 433–444. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/4247249

Chapter 9: The age of exploitation 1. ‘America and West Indies: September 1698’, 16-20, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 16, 1697-1698, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1905), pp. 444-446. www.british-history.ac.uk/ cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol16/pp444-446 2. ‘America and West Indies: March 1687’, 17-31, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 12 1685-1688 and Addenda 1653-1687, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1899), pp. 343-353. 3. ‘America and West Indies: October 1680’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 10, 1677-1680, ed. W Noel Sainsbury and J W Fortescue (London, 1896), pp. 608-623.

208

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 208

15-10-2022 03:18:56

References

Chapter 14: Oranges on sticks 1. Prince Giolo, British Museum, see both ‘Information’ and ‘Related objects’. www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG156134, and G. Barnes (2006). ‘Wonder, and William Dampier’s Painted Prince’, Curiosity, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 6(1), 31–50. www.jstor.org/stable/40339561 2. ‘Prince of Orange’s declaration: 19 December 1688’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 10, 1688-1693 (London, 1802), pp. 1-6.

Chapter 15: Making a Name for Himself 1. Cochrane v Hubson, 1696. Plaintiffs: Alexander Cochrane, George Story, John Hulcome, Richard Strong, John Turner, Sarah Swinson and others. Defendants: Sir James Hubson kt, Winne Hubson, George Boddington, Sir Alexander Rigby kt, John Ward, John Lethieuller and others, promoters of the ‘Spanish Expedition Shipping’. National Archives C 8/357/93.

Chapter 16: Off to (not so) sunny Spain 1. ‘William and Mary: July 1694’, in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: William and Mary, 1694-5, ed. William John Hardy (London, 1906), 14 July, pp. 207-248. 2. Cochrane v Hubson, 1696, National Archives C 8/357/93. See also Humphrys v Houblon, 1702 and 1703, National Archives C 8/593/62 and C 9/216/22. 3. ‘America and West Indies: September 1697, 17-30’, in  Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 15, 16961697, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1904), See Sept 30, Boston, and also Sept 20, pp. 611-626. 4. ‘America and West Indies: July 1698, 16-30’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 16, 1697-1698, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1904), pp. 353-359, entry 517.III. and 517.IV. 5. ‘The Trial of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, Wm Bishop, Jams Lewis and John Sparkes, at the Old-Bailey , for Felony and Piracy: 8 William, III, A.D. 1696’, Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings, 8 William III, pp. 451- 484.

209

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 209

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland

Chapter 17: Schemes and schemers 1. Hampstead Water Company, London Metropolitan Archives, City of London, also copy of articles of agreement 26 Jan 1693 between Samuel Tucker, William Paterson and Israel Hayes for establishing the Hampstead Aqueduct, London Metropolitan Archives, City of London, ACC 2558/NR13/61. 2. Bank of England, Minutes of the Court of Directors - July 1694 to March 1695, www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/ minutes/1600-1700/1694/court-july-1694-march-1695.pdf 3. Hanham, Andrew A. ‘London Orphans’ Debt 1685-95’, in The History of Parliament, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/explore/ articles?t=8812, see also Doolittle, I, ‘The City of London’s debt to its Orphans, 1694-1767’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol 36, no. 133, May 1983. 4. ‘Houblon, Sir James (1629-1700)’, in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/ member/houblon-sir-james-1629-1700 5. Address by the parliament to the king touching the murder of the Glencooe-men, Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, University of St Andrews, 1694/5/164.

Chapter 18: Scotland the brave 1. ‘House of Commons Journal Volume 11: 17 December 1694’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 11, 1693-1697 (London, 1803), pp. 188-189. Plantation Trade. See also ‘House of Commons Journal Volume 11: 3 January 1695’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 11, 1693-1697 (London, 1803), pp. 195-196, Plantation Trade. 2. Act for encouraging foreign trade, Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, University of St Andrews, 1693/4/107. 3. Act for a company trading to Africa and the Indies, Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, University of St Andrews, 1695/5/104 4. The Darien Papers: Being a Selection of Original Letters and Official Documents Relating to the Establishment of a Colony At Darien by the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. 16951700, Letter from William Paterson to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, 3 September 1695, 1849, Bannatyne Club.

210

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 210

15-10-2022 03:18:56

References 5. ‘House of Lords Journal Volume 15: 13 December 1695’, in Journal of the House of Lords: Volume 15, 1691-1696 (London, 1767-1830), pp. 610-612. 6. ‘House of Lords Journal Volume 15: 18 December 1695’, in Journal of the House of Lords: Volume 15, 1691-1696 (London, 1767-1830), pp. 616-617.  7. ‘House of Commons Journal Volume 11: 21 January 1696’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 11, 1693-1697 (London, 1803), pp. 399-407.  8. ‘House of Lords Journal Volume 16: 8 February 1700’, in Journal of the House of Lords: Volume 16, 1696-1701 (London, 1767-1830), pp. 508-509. 

Chapter 19: Dampier’s Deductions 1. Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II until the sea battle of La Hague, book VI, Part III, appendix 1, Sir John Darlymple, republished by Nabu Press in 2011.

Chapter 20: Evidence for the prosecution 1. Berkeley, Jr, Edmund. (1966). ‘Three Philanthropic Pirates’, in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 74(4), 433–444.

Chapter 21: An overnight success 1. ‘America and West Indies: June 1697, 16-30’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 15, 1696-1697, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1904), pp. 511-528, 30 June and 2 July. 2. ‘America and West Indies: September 1697, 1-15’, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 15, 1696-1697, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1904), pp. 594-611, 10 September. 3. ‘America and West Indies: July 1698, 11-14’, in  Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 16, 1697-1698, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1905), pp. 328-344.  4. ‘Warrants etc.: August 1697’, 1-10, in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 12, 1697, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1933), pp. 274-288, 6 August. 5. ‘Warrants etc.: April 1699’, in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 14, 1698-1699, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1934), pp. 313-330, 28 August, and see also ‘Warrants etc: August 1699, 26-31’,

211

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 211

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland in  Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 15, 1699-1700, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1933), pp. 138-157, 31 August and ‘Warrants etc: August 1697, 1-10’, in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 12, 1697, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1933), pp. 274-288, 6 August and ‘Index of persons and Places: D’, in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 11, 1696-1697, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1933), pp. 472-476.  6. ‘Warrants etc.: April 1699’, in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 14, 1698-1699, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1934), pp. 313-330, 26 April.

Chapter 21: A travesty of justice 1. Evidence given by Fisher at his and Dampier’s court-martial: William Dampier, Captain HMS Roebuck. Royal Navy Court Martial, 8 June 1702, National Archives, ADM 1/5262/287. 2. Dampier’s court-martial: William Dampier, Captain HMS Roebuck. Royal Navy Court Martial 29 September 1701, National Archives, ADM 1/5262/14. 3. ‘America and West Indies: September 1698, 26-30’, in  Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 16, 16971698, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1905), pp. 455-468, 27 September.

Chapter 23: Dash for disaster 1. Preface, in  Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 17, 1699 and Addenda 1621-1698, ed. Cecil Headlam (London, 1908), pp. vii-lix.  2. By the honourable Sir William Beeston Kt. His Majesties Lieutenant Governour and commander in chief, in, and over this his island of Jamaica, and other the territories depending thereon in America, and vice-admiral of the same. A proclamation Beeston, William, Sir, b. 1636., Bellomont, Richard Coote, Earl of, 1636-1701. Available via https://quod.lib.umich.edu/ 3. Darien Shipping Papers, Papers Relating to the Ships and Voyages of the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies. 1696-1707. Edited by George Pratt, 1924, T & A Constable Ltd, for the Scottish History Society, available at https://deriv.nls.uk/ dcn23/1276/3942/127639421.23.pdf

212

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 212

15-10-2022 03:18:56

References

Chapter 24: For St George and England 1. Commander: William Dampier. Ship: St George. National Archives, 13 October 1702, HCA 26/17/168. 2. Creswell v Dampier, National Archives, 1712, C 6/390/82. 3. ‘Anne: April 1703’, in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Anne, 1702-3, ed. R P Mahaffy (London, 1916), pp. 668-700, 9 April (see also various other references to St George in same ‘Anne: April 1703’ papers. 4. Funnell, William. (1703-1706). Voyage Round the World, originally published by James Knapton, now published in various Dampier compendiums.

Chapter 25: Unity from disunity 1. William Paterson, NatWest Group Heritage Hub, www.natwestgroup. com/heritage/people/william-paterson.html

Chapter 26: Dampier’s legacy 1. Miscellaneous papers concerning the following parishes and places, St Andrew Holborn, 1711-17, St Anne Soho, 1711, St Anne Limehouse, 1711-38, St Botolph Aldgate, 1711-26, St Botolph Aldersgate, 1711-28, St Botolph Bishopsgate, 1711-27, St Bride Fleet Street, 1711, Bethnal Green (St Dunstan Stepney), 1711-38 – St Andrew Holborn (Hatton garden chapel), Lambeth Palace Library MS 2712, see also MS 2750. And for will of Lionell Wafer, see National Archives, 22 November 1723, PROB 11/594/167. 2. Mercer v Paterson, National Archives, 1712, C 11/2353/12, Paterson v Mercer, National Archives 1716, C 11/1387/27, Mercer v Paterson, National Archives, 1716, C 11/2353/28, and Daranda v Mullett, National Archives, 1719, C 11/1415/20. 3. Will of William Paterson of City of Westminster, Middlesex, 22 January 1719, National Archives, PROB 11/567/154. 4. Private Act, 1 George I Statute 2,c.9, 1714, Parliamentary Archives HL/ PO/PB/1/1714/1G1s2n16.

213

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 213

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Bibliography Books – contemporaneous Cowley, William Ambrosia, Cowley’s Voyage Round the Globe, 1699, first published by James Knapton, republished 2010 as volume 11 of the Dampier Collection, published by Tomes Maritime Dampier, William, A New Voyage Round the World, 1697, James Knapton, Various reprints available including Hummingbird press and Tomes Maritime Dampier, William, A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the year 1699, 1703, James Knapton. Various reprints available including Hummingbird press and Tomes Maritime Dampier, William, The Complete Works of William Dampier (a compilation of: A New Voyage Round the World; Supplement of the Voyage Round the World; Two Voyages to Campeachy; A Discourse of Winds, Breezes, Storms, Tides and Currents; A Voyage to New Holland; A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland: and Captain Dampier’s Vindication of his Voyage to the South-Seas in the Ship St George - all published in his lifetime, mostly by James Knapton), compilation published 2014, Tomes Maritime DeFoe, Daniel, An Essay upon Projects, written in 1692/93 but not published until 1697, available from various publishers Evelyn, John, Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn Esq FRS, four volumes, editor William Bray, 1906, Bickers and Son Funnnell, William, A Voyage Round the World in 1703-1706, James Knapton Knox, Robert, A Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon in the East Indies, Together with An Account of the Detaining in Captivity of the Author, and Divers other Englishmen now living there; and the Author’s Miraculous Escape, (originally published 1681, and republished by in 1817), 2004, Asian Educational Services O Exquemelin, Alexander, The Buccaneers of America, first published in Holland in 1678, now available in a number of English language editions Ringrose, Basil, Baz Ringroses’s Journal into the South Seas: The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Attempts of Captains Sharp, Watling, Sawkins, Coxon,

214

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 214

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Bibliography and Others, Performed Upon the Coasts of the South Seas: From the Journal of Basil Ringrose written by Himself, first published in 1685, republished 2010 as volume 12 of the Dampier Collection, published by Tomes Maritime Sharp, Bartholomew, Captain Sharp’s Journey over the Isthmus of Darien and Expedition into the South Seas, 1699, first published as A collection pf Original Voyages, Captain William Hacke, J Knapton (ed), Tomes Maritime Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver’s Travels into several Remote Regions of the World, 1726 Wafer, Lionel, A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, 1699, James Knapton, available as Kessinger rare reprint

Books – other Backscheider, Paula R, Daniel Defoe, 1989, The John Hopkins University Press Bannister, S, William Paterson: The Merchant Statesman, and Founder of the Bank of England: His Life and Trials, 1858, William P Nimmo Barrie, David, Sextant, A Voyage Guided by the Stars and the Men Who Mapped the World’s Oceans, 2014, William Collins Bennett, Jim, Cooper, Michael, Hunter, Michael and Jardine, Lisa, London’s Leonardo: The Life and Work of Robert Hooke, 2003, Oxford University Press Bonner, Willard Hallam, Captain William Dampier: Buccaneer-Author, 1934, Stanford University Press Daiches, David, Scotland & the Union, 1977, John Murray Dalrymple, Sir John, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II until the sea battle of La Hague, first published 1771, W Strathan with later additions. See book VI, Part III and appendices Dalrymple, Sir John, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II until the sea battle of La Hague, first published 1771, W Strathan with later additions. See book VI, Part III and appendices Damrosch, Leo, Jonathan Swift, His Life and His World, 2013, Yale University Press Dillon, Patrick, The Last Revolution: 1688 and the Creation of the Modern World, 2006 Jonathan Cape, 2007 Pimlico Falkner, James, The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714, 2015, Pen & Sword Military

215

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 215

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Francis, John, History of the Bank of England: Its Times and Traditions from 1694 to 1844, 1862, Banker’s Magazine George, Alex S, William Dampier in New Holland: Australia’s First Natural Historian, 1999, Bloomings Books Gill, Anton, The Devil’s mariner: A Life of William Dampier, Pirate and Explorer, 1651-1715, 1997, first published by Michael Joseph, later by Endeavour Press Giuseppi, John, The Bank of England: A history from its foundation in 1694, 1966, Evans Brothers Goodrich, Samuel Griswood, The Story of Alexander Selkirk, 1841 Govier, Kelly, The Gaol: The Story of Newgate, London’s most notorious prison, 2008, John Murray Publishers Hacke, William, A collection of original voyages, 1699, republished 1993, Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints Halliday, Stephen, Newgate: London’s Prototype of Hell, 2006, Sutton Publishing Hamilton, Valerie, and Parker, Martin, Daniel Defoe and the Bank of England, The Dark Arts of Projectors, 2016, Zero Books Hart, Francis Russell, The Disaster of Darien: The Story of the Scots Settlement and the Causes of its Failure 1699-1701, 1929, Houghton Mifflin Howell, John, The life and adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe: a narrative founded on facts, 1829 Inwood, Stephen, The Man who Knew Too Much: The Strange and Inventive Life of Robert Hooke 1635-1703, 2002, Macmillan, 2003, Pan Books Jardine, Lisa, Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland’s Glory, 2008, Harper Collins Kenney, CE, The Quadrant and the Quill, 1944 Knox, Robert, A Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon in the East Indies, Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity of the Author, and Divers other Englishmen now living There; and the Author’s Miraculous Escape, (originally published 1681, and republished by in 1817), 2004, Asian Educational Services Larn, Richard and McBride Peter, Admiral Shovell’s Treasure and Shipwreck in the Isles of Scilly, 1999, published by the authors Levenson, Thomas, Newton and the Counterfeiter; The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist, 2009, Faber and Faber Little, Benerson, The Buccaneer’s Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish main, 1674-1688, 2007, Pontomac Books

216

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 216

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Bibliography Livingston, Noel B, Sketch Pedigrees of some of the early settlers in Jamaica, Part VII, 1909, The Educational Supply Company, Jamaica Lloyd, Christopher, William Dampier, 1966, Faber and Faber Macinnes, Allan I, Union and Empire: The Making of the United Kingdom in 1707, , 2007, Cambridge University Press Mackenzie, WC, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun: His Life and Times, 1911, The Porpoise Press Masefield, John, On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English Forays on the Isthmus of Darien, with a description of the Buccaneers and a short account of old-time ships and sailors, 1906, first published by The Riverside Press, later by Methuen & Co. McKendrick, John, Darien: A Journey in Search of Empire, 2016, Birlinn Novak, Maximillian E, Daniel Defoe: master of Fictions, 2002, Oxford University Press Pagan, William, The Birthplace and Parentage of William Paterson: Founder of the Bank of England, and Projector of the Darien Scheme, 1865, William P Nimmo Petrie, Donald A, The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail, 1999, Naval Institute Press, 2001, The Berkley Publishing Group Pope, Dudley, Harry Morgan’s Way: The Biography of Sir Henry Morgan, 1635-1684, 1977, House of Stratus Prebble, John, Glencoe, The Story of the Massacre, 1973, Penguin Books. Prebble, John, The Darien Disaster, 2002, Pimlico Preston, Diana & Michael, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier, Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer, 2004, Doubleday, later Corgi Reinhartz, Dennis, The Cartographer and the Literati: Herman Moll and his Intellectual Circle, 1997, The Edwin Mellen Press. Ritchie, Robert C, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates, 1986, Harvard University Press Rodger, NAM, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, 1986, William Collins Rose, Craig, England in the 1690s: Revolution, Religion and War, 1999, Blackwell Publishers Russell, W Clark, William Dampier, 1889, Macmillan and Co. Saville, Richard, Bank of Scotland: A History, 1695-1995, 1996, Edinburgh University Press Scott, Paul H, Andrew Fletcher and the Treaty of Union, 1992, John Donald Publishers

217

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 217

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Scott, Paul Henderson, The Union of 1707: Why and How, with a special chapter on the ‘Equivalent’ by J G Pittendrigh, 2006, The Saltire Society Scott, William Robert, The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint-stock Companies to 1720, Volume III, Water supply, postal, street lighting, manufacturing, banking, finance and insurance companies. Also statements relating to the crown finances, 1912, Cambridge University Press Sobel, Dava, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time,  1995, various publishers Somerville, Dorothy H, The King of Hearts: Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, 1962, George Allen & Unwin Southami, Diana, Selkirk’s Island, 2001, Weidenfield and Nicholson The Bank of England, in Old and New London, volume 1, 1878, British History Online The Bank of England: History and Functions, 1979, Bank of England Archives (G15/634) The Darien Papers: Being a selection of Original Letters and Official Documents relating to the Establishment of a Colony at Darien by the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, 1695-1700, 1849, Bannatyne Club (available via the National Library of Scotland The Writings of William Paterson (Founder of the Bank of England) Biographical Notices of the Author, his Contemporaries, and his Race, 1858. Edited by R Bannister, two volumes, Effingham Wilson. Thomas, Graham A, Pirate Hunter: The Life of Captain Woodes Rogers, 2008, Pen & Sword Maritime Vernon, James, Letters Illustrative of the Reign of William III, three volumes, 2006, Elibron Classics Watt, Douglas, The Price of Scotland, Darien, Union and the Wealth, 2007, Luath Press Wilkinson, Clennell, William Dampier, 1929, John Lane The Bodley Head William Dampier: Buccaneer Explorer, edited by Gerald Norris, 1994, The Portfolio Society Williams, Glyndwr, The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters 1570-1750, 1997, Yale University Press Wilson, Richard, The Man who was Robinson Crusoe: A personal view of Alexander Selkirk, 2011, Neil Wilson Publishing Wright, Arnold, Annesley of Surat and his Times: The True Story of the Mythical Wesley Fortune, 1918, Andrew Melrose Ltd.

218

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 218

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Bibliography

Articles and papers Bennett, J. H. (1964). ‘Cary Helyar, Merchant and Planter of SeventeenthCentury Jamaica’,  The William and Mary Quarterly, 21(1), 53–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/1923356 Bennett, J. H. (1966). ‘William Whaley, Planter of Seventeenth-Century Jamaica’, Agricultural History, 40 (2), 113–124. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3741089 Berkeley, Jr. Edmund. (1966). ‘Three Philanthropic Pirates’, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 74(4), 433–444. http://www.jstor. org/stable/4247249 Bingham, H. (1906). ‘The Early History of the Scots Darien Company: Organisation in London’, The Scottish Historical Review, 3(11), 316– 326. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25517737 Burgess, D. R. (2009). ‘Piracy in the Public Sphere: The Henry Every Trials and the Battle for Meaning in Seventeenth-Century Print Culture’, Journal of British Studies, 48(4), 887–913. http://www.jstor. org/stable/27752637 Carlton, C. (1974). ‘Changing Jurisdictions in 16th and 17th Century England: The Relationship between the Courts of Orphans and Chancery’, The American Journal of Legal History, 18(2), 124–136. https://doi. org/10.2307/844963 Claridge, C. (2015) ‘The Darién Scheme: Failure and its treatment in the press’, in C. Claridge & S. Brakensiek (eds.), Fiasko – Scheitern in der Frühen Neuzeit: Beitraege zur Kulturgeschichte des Misserfolgs (pp. 59– 84). Transcript Verlag. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8d5t2b.6 Clark, E. (1990). ‘City Orphans and Custody Laws in Medieval England’, The American Journal of Legal History, 34(2), 168–187. https://doi. org/10.2307/845520 Comunale, Rachael E. (April 2019). ‘‘Ill Used by our Government’: The Darien Venture, King William and the Development of Opposition Politics in Scotland, 1695–1701’, Edinburgh University Press, The Scottish Historical Review, vo. 98, No. 1: pp. 22-44 Conway J. (2017). ‘“To Banter the Age”: Sir William Phips and the Wonders of the Modern World’, Early American Literature, 52(2), 271–297. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/90009819 Davies, K. G. (1952). ‘Joint-Stock Investment in the Later Seventeenth Century’, The Economic History Review, 4(3), 283–301. https://doi. org/10.2307/2599423

219

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 219

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Doolittle. I. (May 1983). ‘The City of London’s debt to its Orphans, 16941767’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol 36, no. 133 Ferguson, W. (1964). ‘The Making of the Treaty of Union of 1707’, The Scottish Historical Review, 43(136), 89–110. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/25528559 Insh, G. P. (1924). ‘The Founding of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies’, The Scottish Historical Review, 21(84), 288–295. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25519689 Malt, R. A. (1959). ‘Lionel Wafer—Surgeon to the Buccaneers’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 14(4), 459–474. http://www. jstor.org/stable/24620723 Murphy, D. (2009). ‘Trade Will Beget Trade, and Money Will Beget Money The Origin of the Royal Bank of Scotland,’ History Ireland, 17(3), 6–7. Jstor.org/stable/27725996 Prince Barnes, G. (2006). ‘Curiosity, Wonder, and William Dampier’s Painted Journal’, Early Modern Cultural Studies, 6(1), 31–50. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/40339561 Young, John R. (2007). ‘The Scottish Parliament and the politics of empire: Parliament and the Darien Project’, 1695-1707, University of Strathclyde, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 27:1, 175190, DOI: 10.1080/02606755.2007.9522260

220

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 220

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Index (Ship names in italics, Il denotes illustration) Acapulco 73, 76, 77, 83, 92 Adventure Galley 175, 176 Albemarle, Duke of, Christopher Monck 110, 164, 170 Anglo-Dutch Wars 6, 26, 57, 105, 107, 115 Arlington House 22, 24, 26, 84, 94 Arlington, Lady, Isabella Bennet, Lady Grafton Il13, 24, 26, 94 Arlington, Earl of, Henry Bennet 12, 24, 25, 64, 94, 206 Aughrim, the Battle of 106 Aurangzeb, the Great Mogul 118, 119, 120, 122, 175 Australia (New Holland) xi, 78, 85, 114, 168, 169, 171, 172, 202 Babs, The (Bab-el-Mandeb) 117 Banda Aceh 87, 88 Bank of England 114, 127, 128, 130-133, 140, 147, 161, 163, 178, 205, 206 Bashi Islands 84 Batchelors Delight/Emanuell 53, 58-60, 69, 72, 156, 206 Battle of Perico 36, 39, 40, 42, 68, 92 Beeston, Sir William 180, 181 Bellomont, Lord 176, 181 Bengkulu 89, 90

Bloody Assizes 96 Boyne, the Battle of x, 106 Bybrook (plantation in Jamaica) 7-10, 25, 65 Caledonia 178, 181, 182 Campbell, Captain Robert of Glenlyon 137 Campeche 15-18, 20, 28, 115, 150, 151 Cape Horn 49, 51, 52, 59, 68, 133, 156, 172, 191, 197 Cape Verde Islands 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 191 Cartagena 31, 181, 183 Charles the Second/Fancy 114-117, 119, 121, 122 Chesapeake Bay 49, 50, 59 Chiesley, James 140, 141, 143, 146 Chiesley, John 142, 143 Chiesley, Sir Robert, Lord Provost of Edinburgh 141-143 Cinque Ports 189, 191, 192, 198 Cloyne, Peter 60, 61, 156 Cook, Captain John 45, 47-54, 60, 67-69 Cooke, Captain Edmond 17, 25, 29, 32, 33, 38, 42, 43

221

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 221

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Cowley, William Ambrosia 53-58, 60, 61, 69, 76 Coxon, Captain John 29, 32, 33, 38, 39, 47, 92 Creswell, Elizabeth 188, 189 Cygnet 58, 68, 72, 76, 77, 81-83, 85, 86

Dundee, Viscount, John Graham, Laird of Claverhouse 106, 107, 136 Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie; or ‘VOC’) 102, 161 Dutchess 197, 198, 200

Dalrymple. Sir John (Master of Stair, Earl of Stair) 134-137, 142, 155, 183, 187, 194, 201 Dampier court-martials 173, 174, 187, 190 Dampier, Captain William Il1, Il10, Il22, x, xi, 2-22, 24-33, 39-56, 58, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66-92, 94, 95, 103, 105, 107-117, 122, 124, 126, 127, 137, 147-161, 163-174, 176, 177, 179, 185-194, 196-204 Dampier, George (brother) 2, 5, 7, 26, 28 Dampier, Judith (wife) 22, 24-29, 49, 94, 95, 201 Daranda, Paul (father and son) 132, 203 Darien (part of Panama peninsular) Il4, x, xi, 11, 14, 28, 30, 32, 33, 39, 41, 48-50, 60, 68, 69, 71, 92, 133, 140, 147-150, 152, 154, 156, 157, 161, 162, 164-166, 179, 181-184, 186, 195-197, 201-204 Davis, Edward 53, 58-60, 68, 69, 71, 73, 156, 176 Dolphin 178, 180 Dove Galley 114, 115, 122 Dover, Treaty of 6, 24, 26, 105 Duke (The) 197, 198, 200 Duke of Hamilton 182-184

East Coker 2-4, 6, 8, 12, 124 East India Company (Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies) 5, 21, 62, 63, 79, 87, 89, 90, 109, 118-120, 128, 138, 140, 142, 143, 146, 148, 154, 165, 176, 177, 189, 193, 198, 292 Endeavour 178, 181 Equivalent (The) 195-197, 203, 204 Erskine, John, Earl of Mar 194, 200, 201 Estcourt, Thomas 188 Evelyn, John Il30, 24, 96-101, 104-106, 108, 121, 155, 167, 187 Every, Henry (a.k.a. Benjamin Bridgeman, John Avery, Long Ben) 115-122, 126, 131, 152, 169, 171, 175, 176 Fame 188, 189 Fateh Muhammed 117 Fisher, George 169-174, 177, 202, 204 Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun 97, 126, 133, 140, 141, 155, 167, 187, 195 Foe (De), Daniel Il11, 97, 109, 110, 113, 117, 119, 186, 198 Funnell, William 190-193, 202

222

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 222

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Index Houblon, Abraham 113-115, 117, 128, 129, 147, 148 Houblon, Sir James 113-115, 117, 128, 129, 131, 132, 147, 148 Houblon, Sir John Il16, 111, 113-115, 117, 120, 122, 128, 130, 147, 148, 169 Hounslow Heath 97, 98 Hudsel, Captain 15-17, 21

Galapagos Islands 45, 67, 163 George, Prince of Denmark, Lord High Admiral 99, 186, 187 Gibson, Captain Charles 116, 121 Glencoe Massacre 136, 137, 139, 155, 178 Godfrey, Michael 129, 137 Golden Cap 35, 39, 43 Golden Island 32, 151, 160, 165, 166, 168, 182 Goldney, Thomas 188, 197 Gopson, Richard 46, 158 Grafton, Duke of, Henry Fitzroy 24, 26, 84, 94, 96, 101 Grand Alliance 107, 123, 185, 186 Gronet, Captain 71, 72 Guam 76, 77, 92 Gunsway (Ganj-i-sawai) 118, 119, 121

Indonesia 78, 84-86, 89

Hacke, William 55, 58 Halley, Edmund 108, 109, 113, 164 Hampstead Water Company (Society of Hampstead Aqueducts) 127, 128, 132, 147, 161 Harris, Captain Peter (uncle and nephew) 32, 33, 35, 38, 42, 68, 69, 92 Helyar, Cary 4, 7-10, 12, 65, 124, 125 Helyar, Colonel William 2-10, 14, 25, 26, 124 Hingson John 46, 60, 156, 158 Hispaniola 10, 11, 71, 110 Hooke, Robert 22, 63, 108, 113, 202 Hope 182, 183 Hope of Bo’ness 182, 183 Hopeful Binning 182

Jamaica Il14, xi, 7-12, 14-17, 20-22, 25, 26, 28, 29, 39, 110, 126, 152, 156, 165, 180-182, 184 James 114, 115, 121 Jeffreys, Judge 95, 96 Jeoly (the Painted Prince) 89, 90, 94, 114 John and Martha 5 Jonathan’s (Coffee House) Il18, 111, 113, 127, 147, 152, 201 Juan Fernandez Il24, 43, 52, 67, 191, 197, 198 Kelley, James (a.k.a. James Gilliam) 52, 56, 57, 59, 61, 176 Ketch, Jack Il25, 49, 60, 95 Kidd, Captain William Il23, 59, 174-177, 189 Killiecrankie, Battle of 106, 136 King Charles II, (Charles Stewart) Il9, ix, 3, 4, 6, 13, 24-26, 41, 62, 64, 95, 96, 99, 101, 103, 105, 108, 112, 183, 201 King James II/VII (James Stewart) Il19, ix, x, 25, 64, 95-102, 104, 106, 126, 135, 153, 156, 185, 201 King Louis XIV of France (the ‘Sun King’) 95, 105, 107, 186

223

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 223

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Monmouth, Lord (James Scott, or Crofts, or Fitzroy) 49, 84, 96, 97, 201 Montagu, Charles, Earl of Halifax Il7, 129, 152, 163 Morgan, Edward 188, 189 Morgan, Sir Henry 14, 32, 38, 187

King William III (William of Orange) Il29, ix, x, 94, 96, 99, 108, 123, 126, 128, 130, 134-137, 139, 140, 144, 150, 152, 153, 155, 161, 163-165, 175, 176, 178, 180, 181, 185, 186, 196, 201 Knapton, James 58, 111, 112, 167, 190, 193 Knox, Captain Robert Il8, 62, 63, 87, 111, 127, 156

New Caledonia Il3, 166, 180, 183, 184 Newton, Sir Isaac 108, 124, 153 Nine Years War 123

La Coruna 115, 116, 122, 127, 156 Lacenta 158-160 Limerick, Siege of 106 Locke, John Il17, 64, 65, 113, 126, 153-155, 164-166, 196 Loyal Merchant 28 MacIain, Alasdair, of Glencoe 135-137 Madagascar 59, 86, 87, 117, 165, 176, 177 Madrid, Treaty of 11, 14, 16, 29, 30 Malaysian Peninsular 84, 86, 89 Manila 78, 83, 84 Manila Ship 31, 73, 198 Mary of Modena Il28, 99 Masefield, John 1, 15, 18, 19, 30, 32, 35 Meangas, island of 89, 94 Meller, John, Master of the High Court of Chancery 200, 203 Mercer, Grace (later Grace Mullett) 201-203 Mindanao 78, 79, 83, 89 Modyford, Sir Thomas 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 23, 25, 206 Moll, Herman 111-113, 148

O’Byrne, Admiral Sir Don Arturo 114, 116 Oates, Titus 24, 95, 96 Old Bailey 23, 120, 122, 206 Olive Branch 182 Ormonde, Duke of, James Butler 200, 201 Orphans Fund 130-132, 161 Panama City 14, 30-32, 34-36, 42, 45, 70-72, 150 Papua New Guinea 76, 85 Paterson, William 125-133, 137, 140-150, 152, 154, 157, 158, 161-163, 166, 178-182, 195-197, 203, 204 Peace of Ryswick 185 Pepys, Samuel 24, 55, 64, 108, 114, 153, 167, 187 Petit Goave 48, 50, 53, 71 Philadelphia 59, 60, 156 Philippines 24, 25, 76, 78, 84 Phipps, Sir William 110, 116, 117 Portobello 30-32, 70, 150 Port Royal (Jamaica) 11, 14-18, 28, 92 Pratas 83

224

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 224

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Index Preston, Battle of 200 Pulo Condore 83 Quedah Merchant/ Adventure Prize 175 Queen Anne, Anne Stuart Il2, 99, 104, 164, 185-188, 192, 194, 195, 200 Queen Mary, Mary Stuart ix, 99, 104, 106, 108, 112, 123, 134, 135, 137 Raja Laut, General 78, 80, 81, 82 Read, Captain John 83, 84, 86, 87 Realejo 68, 72-74 Recoinage 163, 178, 196 Revenge 50, 53-55, 57, 58, 60 Ringrose, Basil 32-39, 42, 43, 45, 111 Rising Sun 182, 183 Robinson Crusoe 44, 52, 62, 113, 198 Roebuck Il5, 169-174, 177 Rogers, Woodes 91, 192, 193, 197-199, 202, 203 Rooke, Admiral Sir George Il21, 120, 122, 169, 170, 172, 173, 176, 187, 191 Royal African Company 25, 55, 64, 65, 128, 138 Royal Mint 108, 124, 187 Royal Prince (a.k.a. HMS Prince, rebuilt as Royal William) 5, 6, 107 Royal Society 4, 63, 108, 111, 152, 153, 163, 195, 202 Rycaut, Sir Paul 161 Santa Maria 32, 34, 39, 42, 69, 92, 149, 151 Sawkins, Captain 29, 32, 33, 35, 37-39, 42, 43, 91

Scotch Company (The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies) 144-148, 109-155, 161, 162, 164-168, 178, 179, 182, 183, 196, 197, 204 Sharp, Captain Bartholomew 29, 32, 33, 35, 39, 41-45, 49, 52, 157 Sherbro Island 51, 54, 55, 57 Sheriffmuir, Battle of 200 Shovell, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Il26, 171, 173, 174, 184 Sierra Leone 51, 53-57, 60 Sloane, Dr Hans 110, 164 Spanish Shipping Expedition 115-117 St Andrew 178, 181 St George 188, 189, 192, 202 St Paul’s churchyard 58, 111 Stradling, Thomas 188, 191, 198 Straights of Magellan 43, 44, 51, 69, 133, 169 Strong, Captain John 116 Stuart, James Frances, the ‘Old Pretender’ 99, 200 Sultan Barahaman, (a.k.a. Minulu sa rahmatullah and Almo Sobat) 78-80 Swan, Captain 58, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76-83, 92, 155 Swift, Jonathan 103, 107, 113 Temple, Sir William 103 Texel, Battle of 5, 6, 29 Thacker, John 80, 92 The Seventh Son 114, 115 Trade and Plantation committees and councils 16, 25, 64, 146, 153, 155, 164-166, 177 Trial of Every’s crew 120-122 Trinity (Santisima Trinidad) 38

225

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 225

15-10-2022 03:18:56

The Pirate who Stole Scotland Trott, Nicholas, Governor of Bahamas 119, 199 Tweeddale, Marquis of, Lord Chancellor of Scotland 140-142 Tyrconnell, Lord, Richard Talbot 98, 106 Unicorn 178, 181 United Provinces (Holland) 6, 11, 56, 57, 60, 63, 64, 96, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105, 107, 113, 115, 118, 123, 126, 129, 133-135, 153, 154, 185, 198

Vernon, James 169, 176, 180, 181, 184 Wafer, Lionel 33, 45-49, 51, 55, 58-61, 154-161, 164-167, 201 Wapping 21, 22, 56, 80, 94, 177 War of Spanish Succession 187 Whaley, William 8-10, 12 Wren, Christopher 4, 22, 108

226

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 226

15-10-2022 03:18:56

About the Author After a short career as an accountant and financial analyst, Leon Hopkins moved into journalism. In the years that followed, he worked for national newspapers and also wrote for, edited and published numerous magazines, newsletters and websites. His non-fiction books include The Hundredth Year, The Audit Report, and The Landlord’s Handbook. He has also published a novel: There’s only one Henry Green. There is more information about his books on his Amazon author’s page. After a few years in France, he now lives happily in Cornwall with his wife, Jo, where he writes most days. Besides reading and writing, his other interests include sailing, playing chess and walking.

227

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 227

15-10-2022 03:18:56

Acknowledgements I thank the publishers, Pen & Sword History, and especially commissioning editors Sarah-Beth Watkins and Claire Hopkins (no relation), and marketing executive Lucy May for taking on this project. Also Ronald Sim for his encouragement, comments, suggestions and advice, James Pittendrigh for his wise words, and Avi Chandiok for helping me secure copies of documents held in Australia. Thank you also to my wife Jo for hardly complaining at all about the many hours I have spent staring at a computer screen while tapping away at a keyboard.

228

The_Pirate_who_Stole_Scotland_P7.indd 228

15-10-2022 03:18:56