THE REPRESSION OF PIRACY IN THE WEST INDIES, 1814-1825.
By Captain Carlos Gilman Calkins, U.S. Navy (Retired).
Any tale of pirates has a far-off, romantic sound to men of the twentieth century; and neither naval nor diplomatic programs need take much account of their pursuit. It was not so when our government was organized and our navy was granted ships and men. While the Constitution awaited ratification Jefferson planned an international league to suppress the Barbary corsairs; and Madison had the same rovers in mind when he wrote in The Federalist of the danger that our richest port might become a hostage "for the imperious demands of pirates and barbarians." Since greater complications might follow should war begin in Europe "and all the unruly passions attending it be let loose upon the ocean," he argued that a union capable of maintaining a navy was essential for the protection of our commerce and the restraint of our citizens who might disregard the obligations of neutrality. Jefferson was in power when a squadron had to be sent to Tripoli; and Madison had to deal with the corsairs of Algiers and the filibusters of the Gulf of Mexico as soon as he made peace with Great Britain in 1815. The problems which confronted his successor involved most of the phases of his vision of 1787—which had been partially realized during the war of maritime reprisals with France at the close of the eighteenth century. The service rendered by our navy in policing the seas which skirt the shores covered by the Monroe Doctrine were a necessary preliminary to the President's declaration; and the earlier measures of repression had a direct bearing upon the rectification of our southern boundaries. The naval chronicle of the Monroe administration is therefore a significant chapter of our national history; and it is by no means lacking in picturesque pages and racy anecdotes.
Few of these can be presented in detail, since the harder task of drafting an outline of the successive campaigns will exhaust the available space. The shorter contest with Tripoli, which cost far less in life and money and had little influence upon our national development, has been voluminously discussed and romanticized. The West Indian story has to be treated in a simpler and more objective fashion. The mangrove swamps and coral reefs of the Bahama Channels are somehow on a lower imaginative plane than the northern margin of the Saharan Desert: and though the men who sailed with Commodore Porter—let it be remembered that Farragut was one of them—had their full share of hazard and adventure. Put the climate was so much more deadly than the fighting, the mortality from yellow fever so much greater than that due to the malice of pirates, that a raid or a skirmish was a trivial matter in comparison with the hardships of a summer's cruise. At any rate, most of the reports are sober and modest, and even the journalists of the days failed to reap a sensational harvest. For crudely romantic treatment of the story, one may turn to the novels of Michael Scott: Tom Cringle's Log and The Cruise of the Midge abound in local color, but, as Marryat said, they are too melodramatic. The rank flavor of the Smollet tradition may account for the strict reserve with which these works are handled in the Boston Public Library, but they are sometimes misplaced among the juveniles in less careful collections. For solid fact, however, one must resort to prosaic volumes of American State Papers, with some help from the Register published by Niles in Baltimore.
I. Colonies of Adventure in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, 1814-1819
The rovers who sought bases for predatory operations among the islands of our southern coast were rarely professed pirates Filibusters they might have owned themselves to be, had that term been taken in its modern sense as describing revolutionary interlopers; but to the Spaniard, filibuster and pirate still had but one meaning. Moreover, the treaty between the United States and Spain left Americans who cruised under letters of marque from any enemy of Ferdinand VII subject to the penalties of piracy. Afloat or ashore, any partisan of the revolution in Spanish America was regarded as a brigand by the royalist leaders and punished accordingly when captured. To this Spanish custom the modern distinction between the filibuster and the pirate is doubtless due. Letters of marque from insurgent juntas or commissions in unorganized navies were of some advantage in our harbors, but they did not cover the sale of prizes in a neutral port. This had been decided, once for all, in the controversy about French privateers before 1800. The partisans of the independence of Spanish America were tempted to seize unguarded islands within trading distance of American towns in order to support their belligerent cruising by the clandestine sale of prize goods. Smugglers were not yet outlaws to the population of Georgia or Louisiana; but when the corsairs added cargoes of slaves to ordinary staples they encountered the statute prohibiting such traffic after 1808. Reports of the plundering of American vessels and of conflicts with revenue officials justified the national government in denouncing the interlopers as pirates, and compelled the employment of the army and navy for the suppression of their militant and predatory colonies, whether these lay within or without the recognized boundaries of the Union.
Barataria.
The first establishment to be broken up occupied the islands at the entrance of Barataria Bay in Louisiana. The inhabitants of the territory had lived under the government of Spain long enough to acquire the habit of dealing in smuggled goods, and slave-trading had been one of the foundations of the French colony. The facilities offered at Barataria were highly acceptable; and Governor Claiborne had little support in his campaign of repression. He could count on the loyalty of the officers of the naval station, though the first commander of the American troops had been a pensioner of Spain, and the district-attorney was too ready to defend the so-called privateers. When Commodore Porter took command of the station in 1807 he found the river open to French privateers. Acting on his own responsibility, he seized three of these by a boat expedition, and had them condemned in spite of local feeling. Prize-money was allowed, but the commodore did not find it easy to collect the reward of $60,000 which the captain-general of Cuba was said to have offered for the seizure of one of the vessels. Commodore Patterson, who commanded the flotilla and the station during the British invasion, was as ready to act in the governor's campaign against the corsairs as in General Jackson's defense of New Orleans.
The leader of the pirates of Barataria was the notorious Jean Lafitte. History has no record of the beginning of his career and his end also remains obscure. For one decade, however, he and his brother Pierre were men of note in the political as well as the financial affairs of Louisiana. It is said that Jean Lafitte had served in a British frigate, and this is not so unlikely as it sounds—particularly when it is added that the Frenchman deserted to become a privateer. Some of the islands of the Gulf were haunted by French rovers in 1810; and the boats of a British cruiser were beaten off at Cat Island in June. 1813. This may be taken as evidence that the British did not favor the corsairs as a means of diminishing the revenue of the United States, though that charge was current. The traffic in prize goods came to be concentrated at Grande Terre, where the Barataria Paswas closed by a bar over which only nine feet could be carried To the northward of the bay stretched inland channels by which canoes could reach New Orleans in less time than was required to ascend from the mouth of the Mississippi; and this bayou navigation was in constant use. Regular auctions were held at the island when cargoes were brought in; and the Lafittes or their agents took orders for prize goods among the merchants of New Orleans.
The situation implied the complicity of minor officials: but the governor was always zealous against "the brigands who infest our coast." In March, 1813, Claiborne proclaimed his purpose of suppressing a combination of banditti of different nations which had armed vessels " for the avowed purpose of cruising on the high sea and committing depredations and piracies on the vessel? of nations at peace with the United States, and carrying on an illicit trade." Unless the rovers were deprived of their "illgotten treasure," Louisiana would be forever dishonored. A few months later he declared that the smugglers were "setting the government at defiance in broad daylight " by running in contraband goods. When some of these had been captured they had been retaken " by a party of armed men under the orders of one John Lafitte " ; and a warrant for his arrest remained unexecuted. A custom-house inspector who ventured to Barataria in search oi a cargo of slaves was killed in fight, and twelve of his posse were held as prisoners.
Governor Claiborne then offered a reward of $500 for the arrest of the principal offender; and Lafitte replied by promising $15,000 for the delivery of the governor's head. Claiborne resolved to recruit troops for attacking Barataria; but his appeal to the legislature failed to procure a grant of funds, though he urged that the corsairs had destroyed the trade between Vera Cruz and New Orleans. Legal process was of little effect: both the Lafittes were indicted for violating the revenue and neutrality laws—it was hopeless to think of convicting them of piracy; and Pierre was actually arrested on one of his visits to New Orleans. The slave-trade had not yet been assimilated with piracy; but the report that the Lafittes—who seem to have been brokers for the corsairs rather than active privateers—were about to smuggle in 415 negroes, taken in a Spanish prize and valued at $170 per head, showed the magnitude of their offenses. Yet it was almost hopeless to send such cases before a jury; and the defection of the district-attorney was also a hindrance to the course of justice. He resigned to assist Edward Livingston in defending the outlaws, tempted, doubtless, by a fee of $20,000 which he went to Barataria to collect; and he shot his successor in a duel for venturing to condemn his unprofessional conduct. It was not easy to hold any of the clan in prison; but Pierre Lafitte was a captive for several months in 1814; and this may account for the patriotic spirit manifested by his brother when urged to make war on the Americans.
On September 2, 1814, a brig of the British navy anchored off Barataria. and a curious message from the commanding officers of the naval and military force which had invaded Florida was delivered by Captain Lockyer, R. N. Colonel Nicholls invited the commandant of Barataria to enter the British service with the rank of captain, to cease all hostilities against Spain and other allies of Great Britain, and to place his vessels under the orders of British naval officers, promising a guarantee of his property and the protection of his person. The truculent colonel added that he meant to "cut out some other work for the Americans than oppressing the inhabitants of Louisiana," who were invited to "assist in liberating from a faithless and imbecile government your paternal soil'' by helping Great Britain to attack the only enemy she had in the world. Loekyer's instructions from the local commodore required Lafitte to restore certain British property which he had taken if he wished to save his vessels and his town from immediate destruction; but liberal offers were attached to this warning: the rovers might serve afloat or ashore, or remain neutrals at their choice, all British subjects among them receiving a free pardon for past offenses. The "blessings of the British constitution" and grants of land were promised to all who might care to emigrate: and a verbal offer of a reward of $30,000 seems to have been made to Jean Lafitte. The corsair appeared inclined to yield to temptation, but his followers were eager to arrest the British envoys as spies. After a diplomatic delay Lafitte also resolved to seek an American alliance by sending the originals of the seducing letters he had received to the authorities at New Orleans. He asked Governor Claiborne to relieve the Baratarians from proscription, declaring that his vessels had made "perfectly regular" cruises under the flag of the republic of Cartagena: "If I could have brought my lawful prizes into the ports of this state, I should not have employed the illicit means which have caused me to be proscribed." Not long before Lafitte had said that he would rather risk his life than give up his goods, but events had moderated his resolution.
His submission was not acceptable to a council of the principal officers of the army and navy at New Orleans; and the governor was advised to hold 110 correspondence with "any of those people." General Jackson appealed to the inhabitants of Louisiana in a proclamation of September 21 to reject all offers from "these noble Britons," who had "courted an alliance with pirates and…dared to insult you by calling upon you to associate as brethren with these hellish banditti"—bitter words which the general must have regretted before the end of the year.
Meanwhile an expedition was dealing with the adventurers of Barataria. Commodore Patterson armed a flotilla and took on board a detachment of the army under Colonel Ross in time to sail from the South Pass on September 15. His force was made up of the U. S. Schooner Carolina, six of the Jeffersonian gunboats, and three barges. Arriving off Barataria on the morning of the 16th, shipping was sighted in the bay behind Grande Terre; "at 9 a. m., perceived the pirates forming their vessels, ten in number, including prizes, in a line of battle near the entrance." Since the Carolina could not cross the bar, the commodore had to shift his flag before standing in with his flotilla of eight sail. He saw them making smokes as signals, and doubtless hoped for a brisk action. But he soon saw that the largest schooner had hoisted the white flag at the fore, the American ensign at the main, and the flag of Cartagena, or Colombia, at the main topping-lift. Standing in under flags of truce, the Americans discovered that two of the enemy's best vessels had been fired; whereupon the white flag was replaced by the signal for battle. A pennant inscribed " Pardon for deserters " was hoisted because of rumors that men of the army and navy had run away to join the pirates. Neither signal realized the commodore's expectations; he could only report finding, '* to my great disappointment," that the rovers had abandoned their vessels and fled in all directions. Colonel Ross landed to burn the 40 palm-thatched huts of the colony, finding 20 guns mounted ashore and evidence that nearly 1000 men had belonged to the community. The Carolina had her reward when a large schooner appeared in the offing; the fact that she was ready to oppose the American squadron justified her capture, in spite of her Colombian colors.
Altogether eight prizes were brought to New Orleans after everything afloat or ashore had been collected or destroyed: it was estimated that the ships and goods were worth $500,000, and claims were duly filed for prize-money. The commodore reported that this blow to the pirates would "prevent their ever collecting again in force sufficient to injure the commerce of this state." Governor Claiborne informed the Attorney-General of the United States of the "entire dispersion of the pirates and smugglers and the capture of nearly all their vessels"; but he urged that, in view of the general sympathy for all sorts of contraband traffic, that the district-attorney might be instructed to "select a few of the most hardened of the Baratarians for trial and to forbear to prosecute all others concerned."
This program would hardly have tempted Lafitte and his captains to renounce the British alliance and assist in the defense of New Orleans. Yet before the crisis of January, 1815, there had been a friendly interview between General Jackson and Jean Lafitte in the batteries below the city; and the fateful morning of January 8 found some of these works manned by guns' crews led by "Captains Dominique and Beluche, lately commanding privateers at Barataria." The naval detachments who fought adjacent batteries received no higher praise than the general bestowed upon "these gentlemen" for "the gallantry with which they have redeemed the pledge they gave at the opening of the campaign to defend their country." The brothers Lafitte were expressly commended in this order of January 21; "and the General promises that the government shall be duly apprised of their fidelity." Nothing could be refused to the defenders of New Orleans, and the President complied with Jackson's covenant by issuing a general pardon for the men of Barataria. Jean Lafitte is said to have gone to Washington and to have spent most of his wealth, probably in opposing the claim of Commodore Patterson and his squadron for the proceeds of their capture at Barataria. It is to be hoped that the officers and men of the navy got some reward for the Barataria expedition, since their fortunes had been hard between that event and the day when they fought in the batteries alongside the rovers whom they had regarded as pirates and " hellish banditti" a few months ago. The only resistance which the British advance encountered before landing within six miles of New Orleans was that offered by the Jeffersonian gunboats, which were captured in Lake Borgne, and the Carolina. which was burned by hot shot in the Mississippi River.
Lafitte and his comrades could hardly venture to renew operations while a British fleet dominated the gulf: and few ports were open to privateers sailing under the Colombian flag in 1815. Cartagena had been recovered by Spain, and the Mexican insurgents had no harbor on the coast of the Gulf. They had even lost Acapulco; and their corsairs had to be manned and armed in neutral ports. Even the black king of Hayti warned all marauders away from his coasts; he would hang all pirates without fail. "let them call themselves what they will, Cartagenians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Spaniards." The cessation of war on both sides of the Atlantic added Americans to the Category denounced by King Henry; such adventurers as Lafitte could not be debarred from practicing their profession; and new squadrons of corsairs were soon seeking markets and harbors of refuge adjacent to the shores of the United States.
Galveston.
Though this establishment was a virtual revival of the Baratarian enterprise, the Lafittes held no military command in Texas during the first year of its notoriety, preferring to act as agents for the sale of slaves and other spoil in New Orleans. The commandant at Galveston was known throughout the West Indies as Commodore Aury, though it was never clear whether his authority for any particular capture was derived from Mexico or Colombia. This rover is said to have been a Parisian, who, after serving in the squadron under the command of Jerome Bonaparte which the British forces blockaded until its organization was lost, had joined the insurgents of Cartagena either as a naval captain or privateer. He had previously served under a commission from Victor Hugues, the Jacobin who held Guadeloupe for Napoleon until 1810. He was able to bring two well-armed cruisers into the Colombian service; and he is said to have preferred to attack Spanish men-of-war instead of pursuing his regular trade as a commerce-destroyer. He may have had political aims which were not to be reconciled with those of Bolivar; and after two or three years' service he withdrew from the Colombian navy to ally himself with the rovers of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Mexican leaders had sent an envoy to the United States in 1816; but Herrera got no farther than New Orleans, and thus never acquired diplomatic standing. In fact he reverted to his allegiance to Ferdinand VII in 1818—before the privateering colonies founded under his commission had ceased their activity. He was persuaded to visit Galveston and to appoint Aury civil and military governor of Texas; and an admiralty court was installed to deal with prizes taken by the corsairs in the name of the Mexican republic. The collector of customs at New Orleans reported that the negroes whom Aury had brought from Hayti in his schooners had been reinforced before 1817 by many French and Italian mariners who had been "hanging loose upon society in and about New Orleans ever since the breaking up of the establishment at Barataria." Pardon had not cured these vagabonds of their inclination for plunder; they seemed to regard the government's indulgence "almost as an encouragement to the renewal of their offenses." For the neutrality of Louisiana they cared nothing: their system of plunder drew all its resources from New Orleans, where they had been allowed to "enter in distress, augment their force, and renew their crews." The Lafittes were named as principal supporters of the Galveston trade and owners of several privateers; but other citizens were said to be equally guilty in both particulars.
The collector was able to name six vessels which cruised under Aury's commissions, and to enumerate their prizes during the summer of 1817. Slavers were the most profitable captures, since negroes could be sold for a dollar a pound, or about $140 per head. No less than 650 slaves are said to have been in stock at one time, though having found a cargo of 300 infected with a contagious fever, the pirates cut the ship's cable and set her adrift in the Gulf.
Aury may have tired of consuming the proceeds of his prizes and employing his ships in the service of the Mexican revolution. At any rate, after a short cruise in support of General Mina, the "student Mina" of the Peninsular War, and a brief occupation of Matagorda, he determined to abandon his Texan dominions; and before the summer of 1817 was over his squadron of 13 vessels, corsairs and prizes, sailed for the east coast of Florida. The huts at Galveston had been burned and the mud fort dismantled when Aury removed to Matagorda; but the island remained a rendezvous for the pirates for the next three years.
Jean Lafitte, duly equipped with a Mexican commission, took the place of Aury: and by the end of 1817 no less than a thousand freebooters had rallied under his flag. He built a red house on the ruins of Aury's post, entertained lavishly, wore a green uniform, and fought the Indians of Texas when they attempted retaliation for the buccaneering practice of carrying squaws to the island. Those merchants of New (Means who traded with Mexican ports sent a petition to Commodore Patterson asking convoy for their shipping: cupidity had rallied the freebooters of the gulf and their vessels under the flags of Buenos Ayres, Venezuela, and Mexico, who "pretending to have commissions from the constituted authorities there to cruise against their enemies, but manned with renegado crews of all nations, have lately commenced the plundering of the vessels of your memorialists, sailing under the flag of the United States on lawful voyages, and rob them of whatever specie they find on board." This petition doubtless went to Washington along with the collector's reports, and the new administration found itself compelled to act against the piratical interlopers.
President Monroe's first annual message declared an intention of suppressing the colonies of adventure without much regard fir the territorial limits claimed by Spain : and he intimated that Galveston might be regarded as belonging to Louisiana, a proposition which was not decided in that generation. A committee of Congress considered that part of the message and described the community at Galveston as an association for plundering on the high seas. Spanish property was the objective, but vessels of any nationality which carried specie or other goods of great value were also liable to pillage. The Mexican flag was used, though the connection was doubtful; the presumption of any authority for such an establishment was "repelled as well by its piratical character as by its itinerant nature." John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, discussed the situation with his usual austerity; writing on December 29, 1817, he referred to "that buccaneering and piratical spirit which has lately appeared among the South Americans, not of their own growth, but I am sorry to say, from the contamination of their intercourse with us. Their privateers have been for the most part fitted out and officered in our ports and manned from the sweepings of our streets." Naturally he concludes that the President could not delay action against their bases of operations.
The Spanish minister at Washington noted with alarm the President's announcement to the effect that, as Galveston fell within the limits of Louisiana and had been occupied by vagabonds who commit piracy and injure the trade of the United States, he has taken measures to correct these abuses. But, Don Luis de Onis protested. Galveston had never belonged to Louisiana, and its evacuation by the freebooters had been brought about by the royal army which had captured Matagorda and driven them away. Foreign intervention was inacceptable, though Spain's losses by the pirates had been far greater than those of the United States. Galveston had been made a magazine for goods taken from Spaniards and these had been purchased by American merchants for shipment to New Orleans or other ports of the United States.
Whether Monroe and Adams were restrained by the Spanish remonstrance during the negotiations for the purchase of Florida or discouraged by the lawless habits of the Louisianans does not appear; but Lafitte and his company had three prosperous years before Galveston had to be evacuated. In August, 1817, there were a dozen privateers in the Mississippi River, half of them using the Mexican flag under Aury's commission, and the rest that of Colombia under warrants from Bolivar. The Lafittes dealt with all of these, making this illicit trade their only occupation, threatening officials, and setting the laws at defiance. An eye-witness of their doings at Galveston testified that their sole object was "to capture Spanish property, under what they called the Mexican flag, but without any idea of aiding the revolution of Mexico or that of any of the Spanish revolted colonies." In fact, the government of Galveston "had no connection with that of any other nation, state or people." Yet some forms of law were observed: there was an admiralty court to condemn prizes, and a gallows for pirates who were refractory to Lafitte's discipline.
Thus when the U. S. Schooner Lynx approached the bar on November 8, 1819, her commander saw "a gibbet on the point of Galveston with a man hanging"; and he was informed that the victim was one Brown who had robbed an American vessel on the coast of Texas and had been pursued by the Lynx. In the version printed in various journals, Lafitte's first letter appears to have required Lieutenant Madison to explain "the reason fur your lying off this port without communicating your intentions," and warned him against trying to enter in a hostile manner. Lafitte added that his disposal of Brown proved that he was no abettor of piracy but a governor who respected the law of nations. Madison wrote to the papers—men of his profession had that unfortunate habit in that generation—to say that Lafitte had written in a different tenor: but there is no doubt that he replied by urging Lafitte to continue the good work by arresting other pirates whose names were set forth, and closed with thanks for a courteous invitation to visit Galveston. That privilege fell to Lieutenant Mcintosh, who testified that he had enjoyed "most friendly, generous, and hospitable" treatment during a three days' visit at Lafitte headquarters—where there was doubtless an abundance of the materials for conviviality, though it might not be reckoned civil to inquire how they were purveyed.
The visit of the Lynx must have alarmed the confederates at Galveston; and Pierre Lafitte filed on January 3, 1820, an offer "to clear Galveston and disband its inhabitants," with a pledge from both brothers that it should never again become a rendezvous for persons cruising under their authority. This proposal recognized the jurisdiction of the United States as extending to the Rio Grande; and its ostensible object was to rescue the name of Lafitte from the contempt due to its association with "the criminal undertakings of a gang of pirates of all nations," whose "depredations and atrocities" were committed within American territory. The letter was addressed to the commandant of the naval station at New Orleans, who was told that all that he had to do to restore confidence among those engaged in foreign trade from New Orleans and rid the gulf of "cruisers obnoxious to the government" was to issue the necessary permit for the departure of Lafitte's followers. A month later Commodore Patterson authorized the occupants of Galveston to "depart therefrom with their vessels, arms, goods, and furniture, and whatsoever else may to them belong"—all their plunder, would have been a briefer formula—to such places as they might select outside the jurisdiction of the United States; and the commanders of vessels attached to the station were instructed to respect this permit, provided the corsairs respected the shipping of all allies of the United States during their passage.
Patterson further specified that the defenses and buildings of Galveston should be razed to the ground, and "every means be removed from thence which has hitherto rendered it the retreat and security of pirates" and other disturbers of traffic. The Lynx visited Galveston on June 19; and Lieutenant Madison reported that Lafitte had evacuated the island some weeks before, burning all his houses according to contract. A rich prize had subsequently been brought in, abandoned, and run ashore; and some of her goods were buried among the sand-hills. This correspondence and its sequel seem to have been unknown to the best historians of Texas and Louisiana, though preserved in the records of the navy.
Lafitte had to take to the sea at last; and he was somewhat vaguely reported as a leader among the pirates who were fighting and plundering on the coast of Cuba in 1822. Two years earlier his status as a pirate was ascertained by the conviction of three of his men for piracy in robbing a Spanish vessel in the Gulf. This verdict of the federal district court at New Orleans was rendered ineffective by pardons from the President; and men thus restored to their friends were robbing American vessels in 1821. One of Lafitte's vessels was surrendered at New Orleans in 1820, the crew having mutinied and marooned their officers. In this year also the district court of the United States at Norfolk restored to the Spanish consul certain bales of cochineal which had been taken by an American captain in a cruiser hailing from Buenos Ayres. The court accepted the plea that no American citizen could lawfully take prizes from the Spaniards, whether he cruised as a privateer or an officer in the Argentine Navy, basing this rule upon our treaty with Spain. The decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court, though the doctrine was less clearly stated in the final decision. Xo obligation to punish the perpetrators of such seizures as pirates was established by the treaty; but had its provisions been applied to prize-goods brought to New Orleans by Lafitte's corsairs his profits would have been scanty.
It has been related that Jean Lafitte died in Yucatan in 1826, just as piracy was going out of fashion: but his end remains as obscure as his origin. In spite of his care in procuring commissions against the Spaniards and his care to avoid conflicts with the United States Navy. Lafitte must be rated as a pirate rather than a filibuster, since he robbed only for personal gain. He had little care for the public welfare of any of the countries he adopted, and, being a broker rather than a corsair throughout his career, he did nothing to make buccaneering romantic. Whatever he was. his record offers little enough for the purveyor of retrospective romance or melodrama. Yet he must take his chance with his betters in the hands of those who write for the market.
Amelia Island.
The predatory stations along the gulf coast had been located with reference to the market afforded by New Orleans and the plantations on the banks of the Mississippi. For traffic with the frontier towns of Georgia a station in eastern Florida was requisite, and such a colony of adventure might command the navigation of the Hahama Channel, the outlet of commerce by the flotas and galleons ever since the set of the Gulf Stream had been discovered in the sixteenth century; and the Huguenot strategists who planted a colony on the banks of the St. John had intended to reap a rich harvest along that track. Pedro Memendez put an end to that undertaking by the massacre of Jean Ribaut and his men in 1565. Had not the British occupation of Florida after the Seven Years' War terminated in 1783 the commerce of the West Indies and the gulf would have been subject to arbitrary control. The Spanish domination was a matter of less significance to the United States: but it proved inconvenient to have the Florida coast open to the establishment of roving colonies.
The first interloper who demonstrated the weakness of the Spanish garrisons in 1817 was Sir Gregor MacGregor. This chief of a clan whose very name had been proscribed in the days of Rob Roy, was the typical adventurer of the restless generation which saw the close of the Napoleonic wars. He had served in the Peninsular War in the British or Portuguese army before he went to the Spanish Main with Miranda and allied himself with Bolivar: and his rank of general in the Colombian service was won by hard fighting. But the patriots persisted in regarding him as a foreigner in spite of his record and his marriage with a lady of the Liberator's kindred; and MacGregor resolved to start a detached revolution to make Florida the eighth republic of Spanish America. He found certain Spanish-American commissioners in Philadelphia, and they granted some sort of a warrant for his enterprise. His troops were recruited in Charleston and Savannah, with the understanding that Florida was to be ceded to the United States at a convenient season. This force was sufficient to procure the surrender of Fernandina by the Spanish commander: and MacGregor proclaimed his intention of hoisting the green cross of Florida—his newly devised ensign—on "the proud walls of St. Augustine": but that town was held by a resolute Spanish governor. Authority for blockading the coast was claimed "under the commission of the supreme governments of Mexico" and other republics; and the privateers were described as a naval force adequate to its maintenance. Grants of land in the territory to be conquered were also offered to those ready to hazard money or life in this enterprise. Altogether, MacGregor had nearly a thousand men when his two schooners and his flotilla sailed from Darien, Georgia; and Amelia Island was in his possession on July 9, 1817. The event had more notoriety than its intrinsic importance justified; and random adventurers of all nations were soon heading for Fernandina.
The first reinforcement came in a schooner owned by Ruggles Hubbard, a politician who had been made sheriff of New York by a corrupt bargain; and his resources were sufficient to compel MacGregor to admit him to a share in the government. A Colonel Irvin of Vermont was made treasurer of the island: and bills based upon expectations of plunder were put in circulation. The government was prepared to collect a tariff on imported goods, as well to levy admiralty dues on the proceeds of privateering. There was force enough to beat off a Spanish attack on September 8; but the financial situation was desperate.
MacGregor resolved to cross to New Providence to seek money and supplies; and Hubbard lent him a schooner for the voyage. The American contingent thus held control when the arrival of Aury and his squadron from Galveston transformed the situation. MacGregor tried to bargain with the Frenchman; but Aury would take no lower place than that of commander-in-chief, though Hubbard was allowed to call himself civil governor for a season. The green cross of Florida was hauled down, as Aury declared that MacGregor never had any commission whatever for his conquest, and the flag of Mexico was displayed, as at Galveston. This revolution was but the beginning of Governor Hubbard's tribulations: and he must have regretted the difference between politics in New York and his adventure in Florida. Aury left no authority in the hands of the civil magistrate, and all opposition was silenced by the landing of a guard of 130 brigand negroes, "a set of desperate bloody dogs"—probably Haytians hardened to revolutions. Hubbard tried to intrigue for the cession of Florida to the United States, offering everybody promotion and Aury a commodore's commission in the American Navy. TV filibuster refused and paraded his black troops to force Hubbard to give up his authority; and thus the deposed leader was driven "to an act of intemperance which soon terminated his existence," or, as Aury related, "died under the agonies of his crimes." when his plots were detected.
This left the American party without a leader, Colonel Irvin, though he had been a member of Congress, proving incapable. The English-speaking element was soon strengthened by the arrival of some thirty officers, many of them Scotch or Irish, who had served in the wars with France and had been engaged to serve Venezuela with increased rank and pay. Upon arriving at St. Thomas they were discouraged from proceeding to South America, and rumors of MacGregor's conquest tempted them to sail for Florida. Aury was not inclined to welcome so many officers, and he tried to send most of them to Venezuela to seek employment. He had one restless Englishman brought before a court-martial made up of privateering captains for trial "under the naval code of the United States." Counsel for the accused found his objections overruled, and he ventured to warn the members of the court that he would "forward their names to the different governments of which they are still subjects, and…draw upon them the punishment which their contempt of justice deserved." Naturally, the prisoner was found guilty—and banished from the republic, which his defender also had to quit. Aury's faction was strengthened by the arrival of a party of Frenchmen, veterans of the Grande Armee for the most part, who had been recruited on the same terms as the British contingent. They had sailed from Charleston for Amelia Island as soon as they heard that their compatriot had won the command; and Commandant Persat, a truculent survivor of the Napoleonic wars, has told how he organized the French troops as Aury's chief-of-staff. The crisis arrived on November 16, when Persat drove the Americans from their block-house and captured their two guns, panic preventing any effusion of blood.
Aury did not long retain the supremacy he had won. Florida began to be the subject of international discussions; and President .Monroe coupled Amelia Island with Galveston as establishments which violated our laws and threatened our commerce—and therefore had to be suppressed. There were precedents for the seizure of Amelia Island: it had been the rendezvous of smugglers after the renewal of the Jeffersonian embargo or non-intercourse act in 1809; and its occupation had been ordered as a means of protecting the revenue. Congress had enacted in 1811 that the President might seize any part of the Floridas to prevent foreign invasion: and Pensacola and other places had been held during the war of 1812 by American as well as by British forces, though the law of 1811 was kept secret until after it had been determined to expel Aury from the borders.
An expedition was organized under the command of Captain Henley, U. S. N., and Colonel Bankhead, U. S. A., and the island was summoned to surrender on December 22, 1817. With troops enough to garrison the island, backed by the guns of two sloops-of-war, there could be no doubt of the result. Aury declared that he held the conquered island with all the rights that could pertain to any government: and that he was not aware that the United States were at war with any of the republics which had revolted from Spanish authority; "Are you acting in the name of the King of Spain or his allies? We cannot admit that you have already arrived at such a point of degradation." But his conclusion was that if the officers persisted, "we respect and esteem too highly the people of the United States to proceed to extremities." The island therefore capitulated on the 23d. The American commodore's anxieties were not yet over, however: he had given the Frenchman a month to collect his archives; and at the end of a week he reported, "I am fearful that Aury and his followers will give us much trouble before they quit the island. I am sorry to add that the Americans appear to be much worse than any other." Elsewhere the followers of Hubbard are described as rabble from the streets, by no means fit to contend with Aury's negro brigands, whose color caused so much apprehension throughout the southern states.
Aury was arrested in Charleston in March, 1818, for the capture of a Spanish brig on the high seas; but the district court declined to assume jurisdiction over prize cases occurring flagrante bello. That Aury was not an American citizen was indicated by this decision as well as by the fact that he was then trying to negotiate with the government by sending a Peruvian diplomatic agent to Washington. Don Vicente Pazos represented Aury's command at Amelia Island as a regular government, though it had only lasted twenty days after the overthrow of Hubbard; and he gave an interesting abstract of his principal's service in promoting the independence of Spanish-America. But he found the case closed before his appearance in Washington.
The President had sent a special message to Congress on January 14, 1818, reporting the suppression of the establishment at Fernandina and arguing the case against the adventurers with some vigor. They had dealt in everything contraband, and their conduct in regard to slaves had been "of the most odious character," causing injury and annoyance to the United States—that is, as stated in an earlier message, the island had been made "a channel for the introduction of slaves from Africa, an asylum for fugitive slaves, and a port for smuggling of every kind." The adventurers were not natives of Florida or, for the most part, of any of the countries they had set out to revolutionize: and their assumption of sovereignty threatened encroachment on territory belonging to Louisiana, as well as the conquest of Spanish possessions. Monroe's arguments were expanded in the report of a committee of Congress, as if in anticipation of protests from all concerned; and much was said of "the timely interposition of the naval force under direction of the executive" to break up an itinerant combination of foreign adventurers. The forms of free government had been "prostituted by a horde of foreign freebooters for purposes of plunder," and it was necessary to deprive them of their place of refuge.
The President had pointed out that Spain would be responsible for the mischiefs done by these interlopers were it not manifest that, although committed through her territory, she was utterly unable to prevent them; and he had denied any intention of making conquests of Spanish possessions—or of injuring the cause of the revolted colonies. But before the Spanish minister had time to file the inevitable protest General Jackson had invaded Florida in pursuit of Indians and those whom he called "land pirates," meaning certain Englishmen who, in pursuance of MacGregor's projects or others of the same type, were intriguing among the Indians; and Spanish sovereignty had hardly survived the shock of his operations. Nevertheless, Onis insisted in July. 1818, that, as MacGregor's expedition had been recruited and armed at Charleston and Savannah, there was "no just ground for converting into an act of hostility or detriment to Spain the evils resulting from the toleration of such armaments in the states for the invasion and plunder of the possessions of a friendly power." John Quincy Adams, who found arguments to justify even Jackson's arbitrary conduct, told the minister that Spain could hardly expect the United States to defend her territories or rescue them from adventurers for her exclusive advantage. It was still urged in behalf of Spain that the United States ought to prevent all hostile armaments in her ports against the commerce and possessions of Spain, either by Americans or adventurers of any other nation, or by the rebels of Spanish America; and that all pirates found in American waters should be arrested and their spoil restored to its Spanish owners. The treaty for the cession of Florida was signed by Adams as Secretary of State and Onis as Minister of Ferdinand VII on February 22, 1819, thus disposing of the affair of Amelia Island. Other controversies were elimination in the ninth article, the United States renouncing "all claims on account of prizes made by French privateers, and condemned by French consuls, within the territories and jurisdiction of Spain"; and against these were set off "all injuries caused by the expedition of Miranda, which was fitted out and equipped at New York." as well as certain unlawful seizures at sea or in American ports, thus condoning filibustering in retrospect.
MacGregor was expected to invade Florida in 1818 to found a colony of adventure at Tampa Bay; but he failed to find the resources for that enterprise. In December he sailed for the Caribbean at the head of a new expedition. Making Hayti his base of operations, he occupied the islands of St. Andrews and Providence, which had been formidable rivals of the settlement of Massachusetts Bay about 1640, when they were colonies of adventure under the control of the leaders of the Puritan party in England. To these isles MacGregor invited privateers of all nations; and Commodore Aury soon brought his black troops to the rendezvous; and Persat relates he died at Old Providence about 1819—though another story has it that he dwelt in Havana until 1845. His great wealth was divided among his French followers—millions of francs which he might have taken home to Paris had he not resolved, Persat reports, to found a republic of which he should be the head. Aury was, however, less addicted to fantastic adventure than his colleague. MacGregor took Porto Bello in April, 1819, but his followers fell sick or deserted, after trading cartridges for rum; the place was soon recaptured; and MacGregor only escaped by swimming off to his flagship. He then got a concession for some fifty millions of acres on the Mosquito Coast; and described himself as "His Highness Gregor, Cacique of Poyas," when he went home to recruit colonists and raise money. The Highlanders whom he carried to Nicaragua died miserably, and the borrowed funds were never repaid. In his old age, MacGregor had occasion to recall that he was after all one of Bolivar's lieutenants and a general in the Colombian army; and he got his rank recognized at Bogota. He did not long enjoy his retired pay, but died in obscurity some twenty years after his last venture as a promoter of privateering.
II. The Later Piracies of the Antilles.
When the corsairs lost their last refuge on the gulf coast the merchants who traded to the West Indies may have counted upon a season of comparative security. Although the revolt of Spanish America still gave Spain and half a dozen republics full belligerent rights there were many openings for legitimate traffic on the main and among the islands. Five years after the end of the great war in Europe and the small contest between Great Britain and the United States it might have been anticipated that the seas would have been policed, and that most of the privateers would have found other employment. But Spain could do little to protect her own commerce, since her navy had not recovered from defeat, and many officers had been granted leave to earn a living by fishing-. The purchase of a squadron from Russia proved a bad bargain, and no effective force could be sent to the West Indies. Yet the Spanish government proclaimed a paper blockade of the coasts of the main; and in default of regular cruisers, privateer coast-guards were armed in the Antilles and sent out to intercept all vessels suspected of breaking the blockade. Irresponsible captains abused the right of search and strained the doctrine of continuous voyages and contraband to make captures. The corsairs commissioned in the name of the new republics— many of them by exiles or pretenders to authority—were so frequently commanded by American seamen that vessels under the flag of the United States were generally respected, even by the most unscrupulous of the rovers, men hardened by privateering or the slave trade.
The two classes of corsairs for which Spain might be called to account, were, according to an official despatch by John Quincy Adams in 1823, "privateers…distinguishable from pirates only by commissions of the most equivocal character who committed outrages which no commission could divest of their piratical character and piratical vessels belonging to Cuba which went to sea without pretence or color of commission." The latter were disavowed as pirates by local authorities; but they were hardly distinguishable from the licensed privateers, especially when they could purchase connivance by sharing their spoil with merchants or magistrates. Americans were generally detested in the islands because their government had allowed so many of them to serve or supply the revolutionist of Mexico and the main; and successive revolutions in Spain prevented the adoption of any consistent policy for maintaining diplomatic or commercial relations with the United States.
The Coast of Cuba.
By the end of 1819 the mercantile community of the United States had to protest against the conditions which had led to the plundering of 44 American vessels in one year. The evil was "ascribed to defects in the law of nations or to the laws not being enforced" by the president of an insurance company in Boston, where Webster and Channing were then supporting an appeal for the suppression of all forms of privateering, since men were thus led "to shed blood for no other ends than private gain." The corsairs licensed in South America, some of whom had four commissions from different rulers and thus escaped all responsibility, took prizes on our Atlantic coast with little regard for their nationality. The slave-traders proscribed by previous statutes were in 1819 made liable to the penalty of piracy, and the definition of that crime was otherwise extended by Congress and the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1820, with reference to a privateer commissioned by Aury, that no person sailing from a port of the United States under commission from a belligerent is protected from punishment for any offense committed against vessels of the United States, and that the offender had committed piracy. The Admiralty of Great Britain had already instructed captains cruising in the West Indies concerning "divers piratical acts and outrages against the vessels and goods of his majesty's subjects" under color of hostilities between the King of Spain and the revolted provinces, and had ordered that offenders in this kind should be sent in for trial wherever there was a competent court in any British possession.
The Pacific was not free from these evils. Sir Thomas Hardy and Captain Ridgeley of the U. S. S. Constellation had occasion to act against piratical establishments at the islands of Santa Maria and Juan Fernandez on the Chilean coast in 1821. But the Cuban pirates were of more pressing importance, and the public heard with relief that the U. S. S. Macedonian, Captain Biddle, with a contingent of 200 marines was to sail on a "pirate-hunting" expedition, "to sweep the land as well as the sea of the pirates of Cuba." Something was accomplished during the summer: but Biddle was led to believe that the captain-general meant to exclude our cruisers from the Cuban ports of entry—a prohibition which does not appear to have been intended. This squadron sailed in March, 1822, a few days before a committee of Congress had filed a report upon the spread of piracy, "attracting to it the idle, vicious, and desperate of all nations, more particularly those engaged in the slave-trade from which the vigilance of American cruisers has driven them: and that if not winked at by the authorities in the island of Cuba, they are in no respect restrained by their interference." Congress did not act until the next session; but early in 1823 the President was authorized to build for purchase vessels at a cost of $160,000, to be employed for repressing piracy, though one member objected to the purchase of steamers and schooners because they would not be permanently useful in the service. But the reports from Cuba were too alarming to admit of further delays.
While committees were discussing measures of protection the navy had to act. Lieutenant Lawrence Kearney in the Enterprise had already broken up a pirate establishment at Cape San Antonio by sending in five boats to cut out three schooners and one sloop belonging to the pirates and recover three prizes, two American and one English. The brigands all fled without fighting; in fact the Enterprise took 17 sail within a few months without killing a single pirate. Among the papers captured evidence was found in regard to the seizure of the Exertion and Contention of Boston by a gang of pirates which included a score of Lafitte's men recently pardoned. These vessels were taken in December, 1821, and the crew of the Exertion was marooned on a barren cay. Six men perished in attempting to seek relief in a boat built out of sugar boxes found on the beach; but the captain was rescued. Among the incidents of pirate-hunting may be noted the rescue of a sloop found adrift "with only a dog on board and blood on her decks," a Colombian privateer in the hands of mutineers, and a British brig, the captain and mate of which had been hanged.
The domestic manners of the pirates appear in the record of the plundering of the American brig Aurilla on Sal Cay Bank in May. 1822. Upon sighting a schooner the American sent all her negro passengers on deck "to frighten them off if they were pirates," but after a shot had made her heave to the Aurilla's sails were riddled—and her deck cleared, no doubt—by a few rounds of grape. Boarders drove all hands below, and the prize was anchored. Next morning an inquiry began as to whether there was any specie on board; the pirates were polite at first, but they soon cleared the deck and prepared for torture. Each man called up expected death, as he heard a pistol shot terminating the examination of his luckless predecessor. Each had to run the gauntlet from cabin to windlass under blows from the pistols or cutlasses of 15 or 20 monsters, all of whom appeared to be Spanish. Then the victim was told to sit down to die, and a shot was fired. The murder was not completed, however, and the supercargo was made to endure two rounds of torture. The brig Hiram of Newport anchored on the bank and was also plundered. The negro women of the Aurilla's cargo were maltreated in public, and the captors showed that they knew all the tricks of their trade. Yet they were not invincible, as the brig Patriot of New York showed in September, 1822, by beating off a pirate schooner manned by 40 or 50 ruffians, many of whom fell. The American captain, whose wife was on board, and his second mate were killed in this action. The year did not close without brisk engagements between our cruisers and the pirates. Lieutenant Stockton in the U. S. Schooner Alligator had rescued several prizes in May and June before he had an encounter with a schooner near Sagua. The 70 pirates on board were said to be under the command of Jean Lafitte; but as they kept inside the shoals the rumor could not be verified by her capture. It was reported early in March that the Spanish governor of Matanzas had broken up piratical stations at Point Icacos and Puerto Escondido, bringing in prisoners from both; but later news showed that the plunder of wrecks and prizes was still carried to Point Icacos. Rumor had it that an American brig had been robbed off" the point; and the Alligator sailed from Matanzas for a search. On November 9 a schooner was sighted with her deck full of men and Stockton lowered his boats to chase in-shore. When some ten miles had been rowed the schooner rounded to, hoisted the red flag—this signal for battle was as often worn by pirates as the black ensign first adopted as an emblem of mourning and revenge after the execution of Charles I—and opened with round and grape. The boats could only return musketry; but a dash was made to board. The pirate was silenced and deserted by her crew, covered by the fire of a consort. Lieutenant Allen sent a midshipman in the gig to take charge of the prize, and pulled for the second schooner, which now had 100 men at quarters. Within two boats lengths the attack was checked: the cutter sheered off, encumbered by the dead and wounded at the oars; Allen in the launch was hit by two balls; and both boats dropped back to the schooner they had taken. The gallant officer died in four hours, regretting nothing except that he could no longer provide for his mother and sister. The prize was well armed with six and twelve-pounders: and two other vessels were recovered the next day. The governor of Matanzas paid honor to Allen and his comrades, of whom four were dead, by sending an escort to the funeral. He had already shown good will by lending arms and granting a warrant to a plundered American vessel to attack the pirates and recover her own. The Alligator's boats had killed 14 of the scoundrels, and many had been wounded.
Congress having sanctioned the equipment of a squadron "for the purpose of repressing piracy," Commodore Porter was appointed to command it and superintend the purchase of vessels. He bought eight schooners of the Baltimore type and also the steam galliot Sea Gull, perhaps the first steamer to be used as a flagship; and these were supported by two or three sloops-of-war and by the older schooners already in the service. These were named for marine monsters—a boatswain of forty years ago abounded in reminiscences of the schooner Shark, "with a flying berth-deck, all gratings and hatches"; but the newer lot had names ranging from Fox to Ferret; and there was also a flotilla called after insects. All expectations were disappointed when these light-draft vessels were set to work; the hardest tasks fell to boats cruising along the reefs; and Porter had to ask for frigates to give his men rest and comfort after weeks spent in open boats. Tactically, light guns and small arms were the most effective armament for pirates or their antagonists, as the buccaneers had long since demonstrated; and none of Porter's schooners ever closed with an enemy of equal force.
The commodore's instructions must have caused as much concern as his equipment. Congress had refused authority for the commanders of our public vessels to "destroy pirates and piratical vessels found at sea or in uninhabited places," holding it inconsistent with the laws to punish without trial. The Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Thompson, doubtless consulted President Monroe before giving Porter his sailing orders: "moderation and forbearance," were duly enjoined before tackling the problem of territorial jurisdiction. It could not be assumed that any nation would countenance piracy; and those sent to suppress it had "a right to the aid of every other power." As belligerents may carry pursuit into neutral territory, "in the case of pirates, the right…is more complete," since there could be no neutrals in regard to enemies of the human race. As for the retreat of the banditti into uninhabited parts of the islands, the commodore was told to pursue "only as long as there is reasonable prospect of being able to apprehend them," turning captives over to the local authorities for trial and punishment, or, if prosecution was not promised, holding them subject to the department's order. In port and in settled districts he could act only to aid the local authorities "to seize and bring the offenders to justice," a limitation which has to be kept in mind in discussing the commodore's subsequent trial by court-martial.
Porter's squadron sailed from the capes of Virginia in February, 1823, and on May 10 he reported from Matanzas that within 43 days from the date of sailing he had examined the north and south coasts of the Greater Antilles, searching coves and cays, and driving the pirates inland, where only Spanish authority could reach them. No captures had been made at sea during this "arduous and fatiguing" cruise: but something had been done for the protection of commerce. The commodore stated his case more emphatically in a letter to the New York Evening Post as soon as he had read its number of April 10, which had pointed out that piracy was still "prosecuted with increased and triumphant success every day," and that this compelled doubt as to whether his squadron had been disposed in the most efficient manner. Porter never refused a challenge to take part in a debate in the newspapers; and he replied by relating how he had set about his task of "thoroughly scouring the West Indies"; the Peacock had just been brought into the harbor of Matanzas by her captain and sailing-master without the help of other officers, the rest having been left "in the ship's boats in search of pirates among the cays 300 miles to windward." There had been no vessel of the Navy in Cuban waters when he sailed, and his request that the New York papers should keep his movements secret had been made in vain: "It is to the total destitution of protection to our commerce then, and to the information given to the pirates through the press…that they were encouraged to make a last effort to obtain all the plunder possible before my arrival." It is hard to conceive that Domingo and Diablito read the Evening Post, even when they found it in a prize, and it was soon apparent that piracy was not extirpated in May, 1823. Yet much had been endured and something accomplished before the commodore began to write.
The brig Pilot of Norfolk was taken by the notorious Domingo, who had commanded the pirates when Lieutenant Allen was slain; and the prize was sighted early in April, eight days after her capture, by the Jackall, commanded by Lieutenant Stribling. V. S. N. After chasing all day between Havana and Matanzas Stribling lowered his boats to take possession, and most of the pirates jumped overboard. Many were killed or drowned, 14 at least, but Domingo and three others swam ashore. The pirate captain's escape was to be regretted, of course, though Porter credits him with a "singular act of politeness" in forwarding all the letters for the squadron which he found when the Pilot was taken; but his Latin gallantry led him to retain the miniature of an officer's wife.
During April also the Peacock had gone to the westward as far as Cape San Antonio, Captain Cassin conducting a flotilla through the intricate channels inside the Colorados Reefs. After taking a new 16-oared boat which the pirates had hidden among the mangroves near Bahia Honda Cassin trimmed his vessels by the head and followed the boats which took soundings to find the channel. His vessels often grounded, and sometimes had to be hove through the mud in six feet of water. Not more than 20 miles a day could be covered; but Cassin succeeded where the English had failed; and his task can hardly be appreciated except by those who have cruised inside the Colorados. The voyage was enlivened by the discovery of a deserted village from which the pirates had fled, and their palm-leaf huts were burned to the ground. The same passage was made in 1824 by the Sea Gull and a barge which entered at Cape San Antonio and proceeded eastward to meet another flotilla; but they missed taking Diablito, who had sailed from the cape ten days before their arrival.
This rover had escaped from the active pursuit of Lieutenant Watson. U. S. N., in July, 1823, when the boats of the Mosquito and Gallinipper, manned by only 26 seamen, chased a topsail-schooner and a barge into Seguipa Bay. The schooner anchored with a spring on her cable, and her long nine and two six-pounders opened with grape. The boats dashed in with cheers—"Huzza for Allen!" and that sort of thing—and the pirates jumped overboard; some were killed in the water; but Diablito survived to renew his piracies. It is not always clear whether the failure to take prisoners was due to the facilities of the jungle or to the feeling that, in the words of the late Admiral Porter, the atrocities committed on our merchantmen had "placed the freebooters out of the pale of mercy." Lieutenant Newell in command of the Ferret seems to have held similar views when he chased a pirate into a bay east of Matanzas and found that the reef was breaking across the entrance: "I was then compelled to resort to making tacks close in with the reef, giving them long torn with round and grape in hopes to destroy the boats—as to killing any of them, it was impossible." But their den was broken up by Spanish troops next day.
The south coast of Cuba was no less infested by pirates than the Old Bahama Channel, and Cape Cruz and the Isle of Pines were among their lurking-places. Lieutenant Kearney sent two boats to assail the pirates who had fortified themselves near the cape; and the exhaustion of the senior lieutenant left the expedition under the command of Farragut. The pirates did not stand to the guns they had mounted on a bluff, and their huts were destroyed without loss of life. A woman was seen among the outlaws, but no captures could be effected. Two men so old and decrepit that they were not fit subjects for chastisement were released. Kearney had kept only one officer and men to work the guns in each schooner when he put them aground in six feet of water to support the landing-party. He recommended, in view of his experience at Cape Cruz and Cape San Antonio, that "the fishermen, as well as the pirates, should be removed from all the capes or other uninhabited parts of Cuba where the proper authorities have no control." Farragut's notes on the affair are somewhat in the Tom Cringle vein, as he had to describe the results of a long tramp through mangrove swamp and chapparal upon the costume of himself and his party.
The Yucatan Channel was by no means a safe trade-route. Pirates were said to inhabit the islands; and Contoy and Isla de Mugeres—which our people called "Mohair Key" in the same temper that transformed Cayo Hueso into Key West—were searched without result. But Lieutenant Gregory of the Grampus heard of a pirate establishment at New Malaga near Cape Catoche, where nine prizes had been brought under the shelter of a fort. Spoil was regularly shipped to Havana; and the brigands went out in small boats to intercept merchantmen. The American schooner Shibboleth was found at anchor in June, 1823, and boarded by 14 ruffians in a canoe. After killing the anchor-watch the pirates drove the rest of the crew- below, spiked down the hatches, and piled logwood upon them. When they finished plundering the ship was set on fire with her head sails hoisted to drive her ashore: but by desperate exertions the crew got on deck and saved their vessel. Among the nine prizes taken in two months was a Guineaman with a hundred slaves and a lot of ivory—for which a market had doubtless been found in Havana. Gregory could hardly venture inside the reefs to attack this establishment, but the pirates soon had to desert Yucatan.
Porter's first year in the West Indies closed more quietly than it had begun; and the President's message gave the squadron credit for having "almost entirely destroyed the unlicensed pirates of Cuba" prior to December, 1823, adding, however, that the same crime was still committed in adjacent waters "under the abusive use of Spanish commissions," with Porto Rico as a base of operations. The President also referred to foreign efforts for the suppression of piracy; and the story would be incomplete without some notice of the work done by the British naval forces.
The Admiralty had issued orders for the maritime police of the West Indies in 1818; but these seem to have been forgotten in the foreign office by 1822, when Canning, alive to the danger that the United States, in order to prevent further depredations, might seize Cuba as well as Florida, and thus hold "both shores of the channel through which our Jamaica trade must pass," sent warning to Madrid. He contemplated sanctioning reprisals by which the shipping and harbors of the Antilles and the main should be made answerable for the injuries done by those commerce-destroyers they had assisted or sheltered, calling this "a local remedy for a local grievance." The Spanish government, Ferdinand VII then ruling as absolute king, was urged to instruct its own officers to act "in time to prevent a blow being struck in anger."
Just after the new West Indian squadron sailed in December, 1822, Canning learned that the admiral on the station had "already taken upon himself, from the very necessity of circumstances, to do and threaten almost as much without orders as his orders will now prescribe." When a new squadron was sent out in 1823 it was placed under the command of Sir Edward Owen with a commodore's pennant, the admiral being recalled. Porter thought this was done in order that he and the British commander-in-chief might meet on equal terms, and though declining any general plan of cooperative cruising, he testified to the cordial support of the English officers on the station in the campaign against piracy. Sir Edward Owen did not refrain from calling Porter's attention to the fact that the British forces had better fortune in making captures than had fallen to the lot of their rivals and allies, the Americans. This was written with reference to the seizure of the notorious Zaragozana, with her crew of cut-throats, by the cruisers Tyne and Thracian in April, 1823. The British ships were disguised as merchantmen when the pursuit began; but the pirate was not deceived, and he crowded sail for one of the harbors to the westward of Baracoa. With his broadside trained on the entrance and his musketeers in the thickets he opened fire under the Spanish ensign—which he soon replaced by the black flag to give his men the courage of desperation. After 45 minutes the English boarded, and the pirates sprang overboard. Ten of them were killed; 16 fell into the hands of the Spaniards; and 28 were carried to Jamaica, where they soon paid the penalty of their crimes, dying bravely enough, if Michael Scott can be trusted. The Zaragozana had been fitted out in Havana in January, 1823, and allowed to sail as a merchantman—with a crew of 50 men.
Another rover called Pepe had lost his schooner La Gata in a similar action with H. B. M. S. Grecian in March, 1823. The pirate fought at anchor with his eight guns on one side, the red flag at the fore and skull and crossbones on a white ground at main. The Grecian lay aground for 50 minutes, plying round and grape until the pirate blew up. A third of her crew of 90 were killed or wounded, but only five were taken, a flotilla being at hand to rescue them, as well as to take part in the fight. The Icarus broke up a pirate colony at the Isle of Pines, where Pepe, who was on the best of terms with the Spanish governor, is said to have been killed; and the same captain visited Bahia Honda in August, 1824, killing many pirates and cutting out two of their vessels and a captured American brig. These were substantial achievements which Porter's captains were striving to emulate.
The commodore had established friendly relations with the captain-general of Cuba as well as with the British commander-in-chief. In May, 1822, Biddle had applied at Havana for leave to pursue pirates on shore, and met with an explicit refusal. A year later Porter understood that his ships were to be excluded from all Cuban harbors; but Captain-General Yives disavowed any such ruling and directed the cooperation of all local authorities with the Americans. In 1824 Porter released a vessel captured by Lieutenant Kennon, whose trial by court-martial was the sequel of the inevitable newspaper quarrel, accepting the captain-general's certificate and testifying to his loyal support of the campaign for the suppression of piracy.
The activities of 1823 were arrested in August by an outbreak of yellow fever at Key West, the new naval station which Porter had founded under the name of Thompson's Island. During the first week in September two lieutenants and two midshipmen died, and the commodore and all his surgeons were prostrated. Such epidemics were frequent in those days; the Peacock had lost as many officers and men in 1822 as were stricken at Key West in Porter's time; but the movements of the squadron were hampered: and the department had to inquire whether its new station could be made healthful. A medical board reported that pools of standing water made the air unwholesome and that the "annoyance of mosquitoes and sand-flies" deprived overtasked officers and men of the necessary amount of rest. The remedy was to send invalids north and to have a floating hospital anchored to windward, where the air would be pure and the sick beyond the reach of annoying insects. Doubtless the recommendation was sound, though the theory was still imperfect.
The commodore reported from Baltimore in November that he knew of no pirates afloat or established on shore in the West Indies; all had been taken, burnt, destroyed, or driven ashore to fall into the hands of Spanish troops. He had "searched every nook and corner" of the Cuban coast; and he had found barges the most efficient force, though a frigate was needed to supply crews for the flotilla. This report gave color to the President's message, and the new Secretary of the Navy, Samuel L. Southard, recorded the approbation of the department for the services of the squadron.
Porter sailed for the West Indies in February, 1824, and made the rounds of the station, beginning at St. Thomas and Porto Rico, and hearing of pirates on the Cuban coast. Yellow fever broke out at Key West on May 28, and the commodore wrote that he meant to send most of his vessels north. He and his letter arrived at Washington on the same day, June 24, and the department ordered several vessels to return to the station without delay. Two of the schooners had been left to convoy shipping between Key West and Matanzas; but the press, backed by complaints from merchants and insurance companies, began to indulge in criticism, all of which the commodore indignantly repelled. He pointed out that his efforts had changed the character of piracy, which no longer roamed the sea but took spoil in open boats, and thus became harder to suppress. The pirates could count on finding merchantmen becalmed at certain hours of every morning, and could retire to their lurking-holes as soon as they had taken plunder. The islands off Yucatan and the channels inside the Colorados Reefs had been diligently searched in April without finding any pirates.
Nevertheless, the brig Acasta of Portland was robbed in that month, and her crew were maltreated before their release. In July, however, it was reported that Domingo and Diablito, having formed a league of pirates in Yucatan, had quarreled with their comrades over the distribution of spoil, and that the latter had been blown to pieces by a blunderbuss, Domingo swimming ashore after his arm had been slashed by a cutlass and returning to Havana. An agent of the state department investigated conditions in Havana, and his reports, which the commodore much resented, gave notice of later piracies. A rendezvous at Sal Cay drew in many of the crews of slavers and other Spanish vessels which the Colombian privateers had captured and sent into .Matanzas. The captain of one of the rare Spanish men-of-war on the coast had been seen in communication with a notorious pirate, and his explanation that he had been treating under a flag of truce was not reassuring. In September a launch belonging to Regla took an American vessel; indeed, the captain-general is said to have declined to pursue a search for goods taken from a Boston vessel for fear "all Regla would be found to be implicated in the robbery." The brig Laura Ann of New York, laden with jerked beef from Montevideo, was taken and burned in October, only one of the crew escaping. The first hiding-place he found after swimming ashore among the sharks was stored with plundered goods, "which induced him to clear out and proceed from that scene of horror." A month later the Edward of New York was taken by four boats off Cape Maysi; and all but four of her crew were murdered. Evidently an American squadron was required in the West Indies when Commodore Porter was ordered on October 14 to return to his station.
The critical reporter at Havana explained the temper of the Spaniards in regard to piracy: the pirates themselves said that they robbed only the enemies of Spain; and others pointed out that Spanish merchants had sustained immense losses from captures made by Colombian or other privateers commanded and partly manned by citizens of the United States; thus the conduct of our government was no less reprehensible than that charged against the Spanish authorities, even if they chose to connive with pirates—with whom most public officials in Cuba were allied by a "pecuniary interest." The envoy urged the seizure of vessels belonging to towns where pirates were fitted out or received and the levy of contributions as a further penalty. His remark that, "the suppression of piracy and the transportation of specie are incompatible" drew a remonstrance from Porter, who showed that his ships had transported less than $400,000 and had gained but a trifle by that current practice. On the whole, the commodore proved that his forces had been judiciously disposed and actively employed up to the date of his return to the West Indies in October, 1824, though neither the President nor the Secretary concealed their disapprobation of his withdrawal in June.
The commander of the Porpoise reported that his boats had searched the coast to the eastward of Matanzas, and on October 22 had taken a pirate schooner and an American cutter, finding evidence on board these vessels that several prizes had been robbed, not without murderous incidents. Three pirates were taken and delivered to the authorities at Matanzas for trial. The next notable exploit of our West Indian squadron, which numbered 13 vessels until the Ferret was capsized in a squall, was the capture of a pirate schooner in the same region by the boats of the Sea Gull supported by those of H. B. M. S. Dartmouth. The rover anchored close to the mangroves and fought ten minutes before his crew began to swim ashore. Five of them were killed, and 19 captured. This vessel pretended to be a Spanish privateer, but it was believed that she had lately robbed the brig Betsey of Wiscasset and murdered her crew. Another ghastly tale was related of 13 bodies found tied to trees near the point where this pirate was captured. The British forces made another capture in this spring of 1825, judiciously hiring a small steamer to assist their boats.
Diplomatic relations with Spain and the financial affairs of several officers of the squadron were complicated by the seizure of certain vessels which the federal courts would not condemn for piracy. Thus the Spark had taken the Ninfa Catalana off Havana in October, 1822, because an American captain had reported that some such Spaniard had plundered his vessel; but the judges at Norfolk released the prize and awarded damages against Lieutenant Wilkinson, U. S. N., which amounted to $12,000 before Congress provided for his relief in 1827. The Carmen, taken by the Peacock, was also cleared, and Captain Cassin was accused of malicious contrivance by the Spanish minister because he sent the crew to Pensacola and the vessel to New Orleans. The courts at Charleston were not apt to show favor to our naval officers, as appeared by the famous decision in the case of the Panchita in 1822; and even condemnation did not ensure a reward for the captors. Thus Lieutenant Kearney petitioned Congress in regard to the condemnation of three piratical craft and two other vessels recovered from the pirates. These had been taken in 1821 by the Enterprise, but the costs had amounted to more than the pirates' vessels sold for, and most of the salvage allowed had gone the same way. Kearney asked that part of the $9000 paid in duties on the cargoes he had brought in might be allotted to the officers and men of his ship for " the risk and trouble they have had in the capture aforesaid "; but it does not appear that any general measure of relief was carried out for the benefit of the survivors or the families of those cut off by hardships or epidemics.
The Harbors of Porto Rico
This island was the storm-centre of Porter's campaign against piracy for special reasons which deserve consideration. In the first place, it was notorious for the privateers which sailed to harry the commerce of neutrals with Mexico and the Main to bring spoil to San Juan or Ponce. Both British and American protests abound in denouncing the conduct of these loosely commissioned rovers—their letters of marque under the royal seal and signature were sent out from Spain in blank and the names and dates were inserted at the discretion of some naval officer, usually one acting as captain of the port; they took vessels engaged in lawful trade within or without the limits of the 1200 miles of coast over which three vessels of the Spanish navy, a frigate, a brig, and a schooner, pretended to maintain a blockade: the right of search which they claimed often led to thefts from vessels which they dared not seize; and their inhuman dealings with captives of all sorts were notorious. They could not keep the seas clear of the privateers which used the flag of Colombia or Buenos Ayres or hold filibustering in check, but they were notorious disturbers of traffic.
Of the dozen privateers which hailed from Porto Rico in 1822, the Panchita or Palmyra—names could be shifted to suit the papers in hand—was destined to become the most notorious. In August, 1822, Lieutenant Gregory, U. S. N., had his facile indignation aroused by the statement of an American captain whose brig had been robbed by a boarding-party from a vessel like the Panchita; and the young captain of the Grampus—who was to survive the war which ended in 1865—resolved to call her to account when the ships met at sea. His opportunity came on August 15, and the Panchita was overhauled and summoned to surrender, a demand which the Spaniard affected not to understand, though the Grampus lay within pistol-shot under her lee; "while repeating the demand he poured into us a full volley from his small arms and cannon, which was instantly returned and continued three minutes and a half, when he struck his colors, a complete wreck, having one man killed and six wounded." The water was up to the cabin floor when an American officer took charge and "laid her over on her side by shifting the guns" to stop the leaks. Gregory landed the wounded in Porto Rico and carried the prize with 77 of her crew to Charleston.
The Spanish account relates that the Panchita had the Spanish ensign aft and a white flag at the fore—which was not denied—and that she stood for the Grampus to deliver an official letter until Gregory fired and "assassinated" one of her crew. The Spanish minister accordingly applied for redress: "The Spanish flag has been insulted and attacked; Spanish citizens killed and wounded; Spanish property plundered and carried away on the high seas." He added that the captor had kept his prisoners in irons and otherwise ill-treated them on the voyage and at St. Thomas, where he had "celebrated his victory with feasting and drinking."
Gregory thought he had treated a company of pirates as well as they deserved; a third of them, he said, belonged to "the Sugar Key gang" and had resorted to Porto Rico "for the purpose of covering their villany with Spanish commissions." Some were ready to turn informers, and much crime might be disclosed. But the evidence failed to satisfy the federal court at Charleston, Judge Drayton ruling on October 8 that the Panchita's commission was "a regular one of a private armed vessel, and that the acts of such part of the crew as have committed depredations on our commerce subject them only to punishment, and do not create a forfeiture of the vessel." Gregory wrote to the Charleston Gazette, "If I know anything, I hope I know the duties of my profession"—which seemed in that day to include writing for the journals; and he restated the evidence to show that he had not brought in a prize without strong grounds for her condemnation: two of the crew were recognized as belonging to the Cape San Antonio band of pirates; the Panchita or Palmyra, whose commission did not fit her tonnage, had boarded vessels while flying the French or Venezuelan flag instead of her proper colors; and her papers had been illegally extended. He disclaimed any intention of criticizing the court, though he had to appeal against an award of damages; but his opinion that there had been a miscarriage of justice seems to have been shared by Adams, the next President, who was then Secretary of State, and financial relief was doubtless granted.
Lieutenant Gregory had hoped that his action would not cause a coolness between the United States and Spain; but the Americans and English in Porto Rico were in need of protection when the wounded were brought in; and the story of the Panchita embittered the relations of our naval officers with the people and government of the island for years. Excitement was renewed when the schooner got home after her release; and Porter found that the affair had not been forgotten when he arrived on the station. He had fortunately been preceded by the Cyane, in August, 1822. Captain Spence sent a daily letter to the governor during a week in port, demanding and securing the release of one American crew and commenting severely upon the whole course of privateering in Porto Rico and the paper blockade. As for the Panchita, her conduct had been piratical: moreover, "What armed vessel could expect to fire on an American man-of-war with impunity?" The governor did his best to baffle the flow of discursive criticism by pleading ignorance or lack of authority: but Spence got what he had most urgently demanded. The gallant captain wrote in forwarding his correspondence to the department with obvious complacency that, "It cannot, however, be expected that an officer who embarked at the age of eleven on an element where the accomplishments of a scholar are not required, should shine in a correspondence of a diplomatic cast." Whether he found it inconvenient or not to lie without an interpreter capable of rendering the Spanish letters or not, Spence must have been proud of his ultimatum: the captain announced that, to prevent "maritime anarchy," he meant to give convoy and "treat as an enemy…any privateer…that shall cause hindrance to the lawful voyage of an American vessel." Little more was heard of the privateers of Porto Rico after this; but the era of good feeling was to be long postponed.
Pirates were forming colonies on the islands around Porto Rico, and the capital had lately been alarmed by a filibustering expedition which had sailed from New York to revolutionize the colony when Porter's squadron appeared on the north coast in March, 1823, and the commodore sent a communication to the governor. As the despatch-boat failed to return on March 4 the U. S. Schooner Fox was sent in to demand a reply. As she stood in for San Juan harbor warning guns were fired from the fort; the first shots were wide, but the vessel was struck at the fourth fire; and Lieutenant Cocke, her commanding officer was killed. Porter witnessed this outrage, and he disdained the forms of diplomacy in remonstrating with the governor: "Your excellency must be aware that it is always in my power to retaliate." Regrets were expressed promptly enough; the governor had been absent; subordinates were on the watch for another filibustering expedition; the shots were fired as a warning only: and the fatal fourth had been aimed high, hitting because of bad pointing or the heave of the sea. Lieutenant Cocke was to blame for crowding sail after the first warning; and the officer who had preceded him had been remiss in reporting. All these excuses the commodore denounced on March 11 as unworthy subterfuges: "Your officers may have thought this a fair opportunity to retaliate" for the affair of the Panchita, which the governor had indiscreetly mentioned: "I have satisfied your military officers that their force is despicable compared with that at my disposal, and I have convinced the inhabitants that, though they are at my mercy, they will not be made answerable for the offenses of an individual."
Porter's original communication had been less truculent: he asked cooperation in the suppression of piracy; and, in view of the complaints made against the Spanish privateers, he desired a descriptive list of those sailing from Porto Rico, with a set of blank forms for verifying their papers. How far they had been instructed to interfere with our trade to Mexico and other revolted provinces was also a matter of concern. The documents required were furnished, with the information that all commissions were sent out in blank and completed by naval officers on the station; and the commodore was informed that the Venezuelan blockade had been raised, except for contraband, while the Mexican situation was uncertain. If the governor's stipulations were observed there could be little further danger from Porto Rican privateers, and no specific charges seem to have been filed against them in 1823, though the President denounced their methods in his annual message.
The decline of privateering, like the check which the slave trade and more legitimate branches of commerce had suffered, tended to furnish recruits for the revival of unlicensed piracy; and the temper of the maritime population and the officials of the island may have accepted that pursuit as the only way to get even with the Americans. Both ends of Porto Rico border straits opening into the Caribbean; and the islands of Mona in the west and Vieques (Crab Island) in the east are convenient strategic outposts for preying upon commerce, as the buccaneers had long since demonstrated. Vieques might also serve to check the depredations of the notorious filibustering privateers who haunted St. Thomas while cruising for the new republics of Spanish America. Porter heard in January, 1824, that there might be found on the island of Mona "an establishment formed by the piratical population of Porto Rico" and said to be well-armed. He therefore directed Lieutenant Newton, who was about to sail in the Spark to search the southern coasts of Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, to seize the place and destroy all the boats which the pirates had collected, "thus cutting off their retreat": but it does not appear that the expedition had any success. A more fortunate enterprise was planned in March, 1825, for extirpating certain outlaws established at Vieques. Considering all that had happened in Porter's cruise in these waters, it is surprising to find Spanish officials in Porto Rico capable of cooperating with the American Navy. Yet they consented to aid Lieutenant Sloat of the Grampus in pursuing a native of the island who had won fame as a pirate; and the men of the Grampus embarked at Ponce in a vessel owned and commanded by a Spaniard, the allied forces sailing for Crah Island on March 2. The chief pirate was Roberto Cofusi, a Porto Rican sailor of 26 years, who had lost his first vessel at Mona in 1824, and had been sentenced for six years for his crimes. Escaping from prison without delay, he resumed his trade, and he was credited with seven or eight prizes before his career came to an end. He denied, however, that he had ever murdered his captives. He had only 14 men and a small sloop at Vieques, and he was constrained to hide his vessel among the mangroves in the narrow harbor called Boca de Infierno. The Spanish sloop found her way in with some hazard, and one pirate was slain and three taken with their vessel. The rest escaped for a time; but Cofusi was taken by Spanish soldiers that night; and his comrades within a few days. They were carried to San Juan and tried by court-martial on March 27, and two days later they were executed. Though they alleged that the crews of their eight prizes had been spared, rumor had it that they had murdered 400 men.
Five months before this episode was over Commodore Porter had committed the act that resulted in his exit from the service in which he had won so much honor; "the extraordinary transactions at Foxardo," as Secretary Southard called them—Fajardo is the Spanish name, but the navy never learned that spelling— were the culmination of two years of controversy and irritation. In October, 1824, Lieutenant Piatt of the Beagle was told that the store-house of an American merchant acting as consul at St. Thomas had been robbed of goods to the value of $5000, and that it was suspected that the spoil had been carried to Foxardo for delivery to a local trader in stolen property. No proof confirming this conjecture was ever secured; but Piatt thought it his duty to cross to Porto Rico and make search for the goods with the aid of one of the consul's clerks. He committed the tactical blunder of going ashore in plain clothes, but he presented himself to the alcalde of Foxardo as an American officer and thought that he had obtained a promise of cooperation. A few hours later the alcalde, apparently intimidated by the townsmen, ordered Piatt's arrest; and he and two companions were not released until his commission and his orders to command the Beagle were produced. As Porter declared after the affair had been reported to him, an officer in search of freebooters had been arrested and insulted; and he felt bound to exact an apology—though not to prosecute the search.
On November 12, 1824, the John Adams, Grampus and Beagle anchored off the mouth of the Rio Fajardo, and marines were landed to spike the guns of the shore battery. The commodore then marched inland to summon the town. The alcalde was invited to come out with the captain of the port to give satisfaction for the shameful affair: otherwise the competent force then present— the commodore had a strong battalion while the Spaniards could only array "an irregular assemblage of armed men"—would proceed to punish the aggressors and, should resistance be offered, to destroy the town. The alcalde obeyed, of course, realizing that he had to deal with a man who was pundonoroso; and the commodore withdrew his forces after a full apology had been made to Lieutenant Piatt in his presence. He said afterward that had he been called to account for failing to seize or destroy Foxardo and its marina "as pernicious nests of pirates" he should have regarded himself in more danger than when confronted with the charge of committing acts of hostility against the subjects of the king of Spain. At any rate, his men were kept in hand: and they are not charged with plundering or drunkenness. The Spanish story of their "precipitous retreat" need not be taken seriously.
As soon as his report reached the department Porter was ordered on December 27 to turn over the command and proceed to Washington. The court of inquiry was followed by a court-martial in due course; and Porter, though Barron whom he had helped to try in 1807 was president of the court, and the eccentric Elliot, the foe of every ally of Perry and Decatur, was among the members, objected only to the judge-advocate. The first charge coupled disobedience of orders with unbecoming conduct rather awkwardly, but the specification was impregnable when compared with Porter's instructions; the charge of insubordination related to the commodore's habitual use of the press in all controversies. With the sentence of six months' suspension was coupled a tribute to his zeal for the service; but he promptly resigned his commission because he "could not associate with those who were led away by men in power to inflict an unrighteous sentence": and he liked to believe that the affair had injured the Adams administration. General Jackson, whose example in pursuing "land pirates" in Florida had been invoked in the defense, offered to restore Porter to the navy, but finally made him minister to Turkey.
Porter was convicted on August 10, 1825: and the Secretary of the Navy congratulated his successor. Commodore Warrington, a month later on "the subdued state of piracy within the sphere of your operations." Relations with Spanish authorities had manifestly improved before Porter was relieved: thus in January he had exchanged compliments with Captain-General Vives and received a certificate that he had "respected the territorial rights" of Cuba throughout his cruise; and, though the Spanish minister had denounced his conduct in May, 1825, he offered no testimony on his trial for the Foxardo incident. In fact, he had said that the President's action in relieving the commodore and ordering a court-martial would doubtless satisfy his Catholic majesty of Spain. When it was rumored that Porter was resolved to create a Mexican navy offers were made with reference to the reward of $60,000 which he had earned at New Orleans in 1807; but the commodore was not to be tempted.
In 1825 the governor of Porto Rico directed all his subordinates to aid American cruisers in suppressing piracy; and one instance of effective cooperation has been cited. A committee of Congress reported in January upon the evils of piracy and lawless privateering: proposals for reprisal and the blockade of Cuban ports were debated; and it was held that merchantmen might arm to defend themselves, but that the law which required bonds to prevent the improper use of arms—the Secretary of the Navy had declared this restriction to be indispensable—should be maintained. Though Spain had made no offer of reparation she had promised to send a new minister to Washington. The cessation of hostilities between Spain and her colonies brought partial relief before 1830; but piracy without political pretense was not infrequent during this period. Thus one crew of Spaniards was brought to justice at Gibraltar in 1829, after their spoil had found a market in Spain; and another was hanged in Boston in 1835, for robbing an American brig, having been arrested by a British cruiser.
Porter became commander-in-chief of the Mexican Navy in 1827, and again found employment in the West Indies, making Key West his headquarters until an American squadron induced him to withdraw. From Vera Cruz he had issued an invitation to corsairs of all nations to cruise against the ships and goods of Spaniards. Spanish cargoes might be taken from neutral ships, and the prizes were to be brought to Vera Cruz if possible, though Porter allowed his cruisers to sink or burn captured vessels and to seize spoil on shore in Cuba. The report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1827 did not name the commodore, but, after stating that there had been no recent piracies in the West Indies, added that the "only unpleasant occurrences afloat" were due to his occupation of Key West and his indiscreet invitation to privateers. In both cases, our cruisers were ordered to protect our commerce and neutrality; but there proved to be no necessity for the employment of force. The harbor was evacuated as soon as the Spanish men-of-war, which had begun to cruise effectively at last, were out of the way; and a treaty with Mexico put an end to irregular privateering.
The officers and men who pursued the West Indian pirates had few opportunities to gain honor or reward in naval engagements, but their experience in navigating unsurveyed coasts and channels must have advanced their professional capacity. No prize money could have balanced the risk of health involved by climatic exposure, but the release of so many prizes by the courts was a sharp disappointment to many. The mortality from yellow fever was a painful blow to the service; Lieutenant Watson only lived a few months after his defeat of Diablito; and many officers who, like Farragut, Kearney, and Gregory, might have survived to take part in or witness the Civil War, sacrificed their lives on the coast -of Cuba or at Key West. Sanitary science had done little for the sojourner in the tropics in that age; and an epidemic might be regarded as an inevitable feature of any protracted cruise in the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico.
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