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hold of the opportunity, and advanced with all their speed; which the captain perceiving betook himself to his heels, and was the foremost man to the Portuguese church, where he took courage to look behind him to see what was become of his men. Poor Monro, thinking to stop the enemy's career by a part of the wing that he commanded, found himself deserted by all but thirteen or fourteen stout fellows, who were soon surrounded by the enemy and cut to pieces.

"And now the Seddee being master of the whole island, except the castle and about half a mile to the southward of the castle, he raised batteries on Dungeree hill, which overlooked the fort wall, and disturbed the garrison very much; then he put four great guns in the custom-house, commonly called the India House, and raised a battery at the Moody's house, within two hundred paces of the fort, and another in the ladies' house that he had been so unkind to, so that it was dangerous to go out or in at the castle gate, till we got up a half-moon before it. All men were then pressed into the Company's service, and I amongst the rest. We passed the months from April to September very ill, for provisions grew scarce by the addition of 3000 Sevagees that were employed as auxiliaries in the military service of the Company."

With this quaint but spirited account of the siege of Bombay we close our Indian chapter for the present month. It may be taken as a pretty fair specimen of the mode in which operations were conducted, while as yet the Company's empire extended over a few factories only, and their troops consisted of nothing more than a handful of the offscourings of English society, with bands of undisciplined natives, hired as often as danger seemed to threaten. We shall return to the subject when a convenient opportunity offers.

MODERN MAROONERS.

No. VII.

IN CONCLUSION OF PIRATES AND PIRACY FROM THE EARLIEST AGES.

No sooner had the colonies of South America declared their independence, than the consequence of a sudden rupture of social ties, and the relaxation of law among a people of loose morals, became manifest in the number of predatory vessels which were fitted out in their ports. Under the style and title of patriot privateers, these corsairs scoured the Atlantic on pretence of seizing Spanish property; but as they often sunk what they took, after plundering, under the axiom that " il n'y a que les morts qui ne reviennent pas," it was soon seen that they were actuated by a spirit of lawless adventure, and that the commerce of all nations was threatened. Meanwhile Spain, which within our own remembrance, was at least the third naval power of Europe, had been so prostrated in the late wars, that she was unable to protect her coasts from the insults and ravages of these new and inveterate enemies.

The piracies in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico were committed by bands of robbers who preserved a good intelligence with the neighbouring towns of Cuba, where the pillage, as of old, was sold at seducing prices; and so feeble was the government, that it was utterly unable to suppress or punish so infamous a combination. Nay, the

very magistrates had the turpitude to give direct encouragement to crime by openly sharing in the spoil, and affording the thieves every facility for disposing of the remainder. It was no wonder, then, that the whole of the West Indian seas and the waters of the Spanish Main should become the theatre of the utmost depravity, and that a second system of buccaneering should be organized in those parts. Their vessels were generally very fast-sailing and well-armed schooners, under one or other of the revolutionary flags, and manned with Spaniards, English, Americans, and desperadoes of all nations. Like the Buc caneers, their professed object was to humble the pride of old Spain, while the real pursuit was debauchery and gain. They especially frequented the shallows and creeks of the coasts of Cuba, where they kept a good look-out for merchant-vessels, in stations inaccessible to menof-war on account of shoals and reefs; and there were instances where they have been among the Kays, within musket-shot of British and American cruizers, without being perceived, completely screened from observation by the exuberant vegetation.

The

For some time a salutary respect for English prowess checked the rovers from attacking our flag; though, from several acts of horrible atrocity which they perpetrated on other ships, there is much reason to apprehend that many of their misdeeds were buried in the ocean. apparent exemption did not last long on the 19th of April, 1815, a shallop of Margheretta, on the Spanish Main, suddenly attacked the Sisters, an English schooner, at anchor off Isle Blanco, and having carried her, cruelly murdered Mr. Beek, the master, and thirteen of the Occasional violations of right occurred, but the system had not attained its height; and though these hordes, who aggravated piracy by wanton barbarity, were dreaded by "all such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions," the grievance had not greatly attracted the public notice in England.

crew.

This impunity quickened crime, and the ravages inflicted on trade were rarely unaccompanied by brutality. On the 13th of December, 1821, a large Liverpool ship, as Mr. Canning informed the House of Commons, was boarded by the Corsairs, when the English captain, after having been tortured to insensibility, had his brains blown out by a wretch, who also killed the steward. The Martha, the Harborough, and the Alexander, were taken by the same ruffians shortly after; and the captain and crew of the Alexander were all murdered. In 1822 the Alpha, the Hebe, the Zephyr, the Vittoria, the Industry, the Protheroe, and other English vessels, were captured and pillaged, and their crews treated with the most savage inhumanity.

Such wholesale depredations naturally excited a great ferment in our commercial cities, and remonstrances both loud and deep were submitted to Government; but in several instances the complaints were too strongly tinged with the bias of the calculating economists, who, "sitting behind their desks, sneer at valour and virtue," since they winced more at the pecuniary loss than at the cruel aggression of the acts. Such men could not perceive the difficulty arising from so new a case as that of the insurgents and Spanish flags, either of which were worn by the same vessel as circumstances demanded, and whose commanders bore regular commissions. It was absolutely necessary for us to wait a reasonable time, to see in what way the Spaniards meant to act before

we could take very strong steps. There could exist no doubt, that if any of our naval captains got sight of a pirate, and had proof of his being one, he would take or destroy it, wherever it might happen to be, leaving the question of the flag and neutrality to be settled by higher authority; yet such straightforward measures can seldom occur, owing to the wary rover availing himself of all the wiles of paint, rig, documents, and flags, to hide identity and frustrate proof. Such considerations never entered many of the heads of those who so clamorously invoked the Government to execute vengeance; and even the Committee of Lloyd's carried themselves so untowardly on a fancied breach of etiquette, that the Admiralty declined all further correspondence with the subscribers.

From the recriminations which passed, reports deeply injurious to the naval character got abroad; and the extent to which they reached cannot be better proved than by the circumstance of the editor of a work so ably conducted as the Annual Register, after representing the measures of Government as being extremely inadequate to check the outrages, adding these odious words:-"One great topic of complaint was, that the captains of our frigates on the West Indian station, allured by the profits which they have on the freight of bullion, were more assiduous in transporting gold and silver from the contiguous ports of South America than in protecting our trade." Such are the ignorance and falsehood with which official matters are treated by general writers, and the passage affords a striking specimen of the malignity with which irresponsible people can impute motives to a whole body of high-minded men, of whose rules of behaviour or principles of action they can know nothing. Leaving private impulses to "the Searcher of all hearts," we will only remark that the imputation is absurd on its open bearing; for an editor who presumes to cater politics for the public ought to be sufficiently acquainted with the service of that public to know that "the captains of our frigates" could only act in obedience to their ordersorders which the same writer, in the same paragraph, had just before declared to be inadequate for their object. Accurate knowledge of the subject would have shown him that the conduct of these officers had been in exact accordance with the duty which they were directed to perform.

The discussion which had taken place, however angry and rife with invective, had the effect of awakening attention to the sufferings of commerce; and orders of a more direct tendency than they had hitherto received were despatched to our cruisers. The consequences were quickly apparent in the activity with which the pirates were pursued into their very haunts, and there crushed; and the gallant officers employed in exterminating this second race of Marooners gave a practical refutation to the slanders against them. Numbers of the outlaws ignominiously ended their lives at Jamaica and other islands, for the law was as severe as of yore, insomuch that of thirty-two men of Las Damas Argentinos, prize to H.M. sloop Victor, who were tried at St. Christopher's in 1828, twenty-eight were executed, three pardoned, and only one acquitted.

Some of the pirates were captured under circumstances highly creditable to the spirit and address of their captors. Early in 1823, H.M. ships Tyne and Thracian gained sight of the well-known and dreaded piratical schooner, the Zaragozana, on the coast of Cuba. They fol

lowed her at a distance for several days, for light and baffling winds prevented their closing, till at length they arrived off Port Baracoa, she evidently standing for the open anchorage of the Playa de Miel. The British ships, disguised to resemble merchantmen, also stood in under very easy canvass, and gradually neared the chase, who remained unaware of deception till they had approached pretty close, when she suddenly perceived her danger, and crowded all sail to the eastward, to gain the difficult harbour of Mata. Having the legs of her pursuers she soon got to an anchor, and sprung her broadside athwart the narrow entrance, which was little more than a furlong wide, and carrying only from twelve to sixteen feet water between the shoals. As the ships were thus debarred from acting, and it was essential that so mischievous a vessel should be taken or burnt, all the boats were instantly hoisted out, well manned and armed, and led by Captain Walcott, the commanding officer, proceeded to attack her. At about three in the afternoon the boats arrived within gun-shot, when the Zaragozana opened her fire under Spanish colours, which, after the first shot, were supplanted by the black flag. She had previously landed a party of marksmen, and stationed them among the bushes at the harbour's mouth, which increased the advantages of her already excellent position for defence, and placed our lads under an incessant and galling fire. This was sustained and returned with intrepidity and spirit for upwards of three-quarters of an hour, when a favourable moment arising, the Britons dashed alongside with three loud cheers, and boarded under a heavy fire of grape and musketry. The effect was instantaneous, for the pirates, who till then had evinced firmness and courage, were now panic-struck ten were slain outright, fifteen wounded, twenty-eight made prisoners, and the remainder leaped overboard, some of whom were drowned and others taken by the Spaniards. Our loss, considering the hardihood of the attack, was singularly small, being only two killed and four wounded.

The prize was a remarkably fine schooner, of 120 tons, carrying one long 18-pounder on a pivot, four long 9-pounders, and eight swivels, with a large proportion of small arms. Among other preparations against boarders, her decks were covered with bottles full of combustible materials, which might have proved destructive had not the desperate bravery first manifested evaporated. Knowing that the ships could not attack them, they were daunted by the resolute approach of the boats in full day, and to their wavering must be imputed the comparative smallness of our loss. The Zaragozana was conducted to Jamaica, where her commander, Guyatano Aroganez, and twenty-three of his associates, were tried, cast, and executed.

On

About the time that this was being transacted at the east end of Cuba, an equally gallant exploit occurred on its western shores. the 20th of March, 1823, H.M. cutter, the Grecian, observed a rakish schooner in the mouth of the Filipina river, at the bottom of the bay of Cortez, and, though apparently more than her match, instantly stood in. The place was a favourite haunt of the old marauders, whence it was named the Pirate's Lagoon; it has about three fathoms water, but some of the narrow passes formed by the reefs have not more than six or seven feet. While the cutter was threading her way, the schooner hoisted a blood-red flag at the fore, and one with a death's head and

cross-bones at the main, with a view, no doubt, of intimidating the British. This, however, was soon proved to be a fruitless bravado; for the gallant cutter only redoubled her efforts to close; whereupon the pirate opened her fire of round, grape, and small shot, having all her guns brought over on one side. At about one, P.M., the Grecian commenced close action, and continued it for nearly an hour, when she grounded in two fathoms water, within pistol-shot of her opponent. This might have been fatal to her, but that the freebooter had resolved to abandon the defence of the schooner, which at this critical moment blew up with a tremendous explosion. Meanwhile the pirates had taken to their boats, and made for the shore, which was only half a cable's length distant, whither they were quickly pursued by the English tars. A desperate, though short, conflict took place on the beach, in which the pirates had about thirty killed and wounded and five made prisoners, when the rest fled in all directions.

It proved that the schooner was La Gata, of ninety tons, commanded by Josef Sabina, a notorious outlaw, with a complement of ninety men ; she was armed with two long guns, an 18 and a 12-pounder on pivots, and six 9-pounders, with small arms. She had also a stout felucca with four carriage-guns, and two other boats with a mounted swivel in each, besides musketry, all of which were in the action.

Various and spirited were the attacks made upon the outlaws, in their very dens; but the service was of a very harassing nature. On one occasion, soon after the barbarous murder of one of our old messmates, Lieutenant Layton, in 1824, the boats of the Hussar frigate being sent, under the command of Lieutenant Holt, against a horde who had taken possession of the Isle of Pines, on the S.W. coast of Cuba, they were absent 67 days, enduring all the privation and fatigue of such a duty, in that sultry and unhealthy climate. On the 20th of August, in the same year, the boats of the Icarus were despatched from the Havannah, under the orders of Lieutenant Croker, in quest of a mischievous schooner, the Diableto, of 6 guns and 50 men. They stood to the eastward beyond Bahia Honda, and in a creek within Cayo Blanco, caught the pirate at anchor, with one of her prizes. A few shot that she fired not having retarded the resolute approach of the boats, some of the outlaws quitted their vessel, and made for the shore in four shallops, while others leaped overboard, and got among some mangrove bushes; five of them were killed by musketry, and several appeared wounded; but from the nature of the marsh, they could not be secured. On boarding the schooner, Lieutenant Croker had the satisfaction to release the master and crew (nine persons) of an American brig, the Henry of Hartford, which had been taken by the Diableto. They had been treated in the most inhuman manner, and were to have been put to death on the following morning, their lives having been spared so long only for the purpose of removing the brig's cargo.

The modern Marooners exhibited many of the traits by which their predecessors were distinguished, though they never acted in formidable concert. Yet the same proverbial carelessness in the disposal of their pillage, the same reckless cruelty, and the same drinking, gambling, roaring, brawling, ruffian revelry obtained among them. On the 19th of December, 1823, a man named Aaron Smith was tried at the Admirally sessions, in London, on charges of piracy committed in the Caribbean sea. Full proof was given in evidence that he had feloniously

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