On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of DarienMasefield, John
History
On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien
Masefield, John
Buccaneers; Spanish Main
soldier than be hanged as a coward for deserting his command, "so that
they were enforc'd to kill him, nothwithstanding the cries of his Wife
and Daughter."
The sun was setting over Iron Castle before the firing came to an end
with the capture of the Castle Gloria. The pirates used the last of the
light for the securing of their many prisoners. They drove them to some
dungeon in the castle, where they shut them up under a guard. The
wounded "were put into a certain apartment by itself," without
medicaments or doctors, "to the intent their own complaints might be the
cure of their diseases." In the dungeons of the castle's lower battery
they found eleven English prisoners chained hand and foot. They were the
survivors of the garrison of Providence, which the Spaniards
treacherously took two years before. Their backs were scarred with many
floggings, for they had been forced to work like slaves at the laying of
the quay piles in the hot sun, under Spanish overseers. They were
released at once, and tenderly treated, nor were they denied a share of
the plunder of the town.
"Having finish'd this Jobb" the pirates sought out the "recreations of
Heroick toil." "They fell to eating and drinking" of the provisions
stored within the city, "committing in both these things all manner of
debauchery and excess." They tapped the casks of wine and brandy, and
"drank about" till they were roaring drunk. In this condition they ran
about the town, like cowboys on a spree, "and never examined whether it
were Adultery or Fornication which they committed." By midnight they
were in such a state of drunken disorder that "if there had been found
only fifty courageous men, they might easily have retaken the City, and
killed the Pirats." The next day they gathered plunder, partly by
routing through the houses, partly by torturing the townsfolk. They seem
to have been no less brutal here than they had been in Cuba, though the
Porto Bello houses yielded a more golden spoil than had been won at
Puerto Principe. They racked one or two poor men until they died. Others
they slowly cut to pieces, or treated to the punishment called
"woolding," by which the eyes were forced from their sockets under the
pressure of a twisted cord. Some were tortured with burning matches "and
such like slight torments." A woman was roasted to death "upon a baking
stone"--a sin for which one buccaneer ("as he lay sick") was
subsequently sorry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account