TORTUGA—1655-1664
When the Chevalier de Fontenay
was driven from Tortuga in January
1654, the Spaniards left a small
garrison to occupy the fort and
prevent further settlements of
French and English buccaneers. These
troops possessed the island for
about eighteen months, but on the
approach of the expedition under
Penn and Venables were ordered by
the Conde de Penalva, President of
S. Domingo, to demolish the fort,
bury the artillery and other arms,
and retire to his aid in Hispaniola.189 Some six months later
an Englishman, Elias Watts,190
with his family and ten or twelve
others, came from Jamaica in a
shallop, re-settled the island, and
raised a battery of four guns upon
the ruins of the larger fort
previously erected by the French.
Watts received a commission for the
island from General Brayne, who was
then governor of Jamaica, and in a
short time gathered about him a
colony of about 150, both English
and French. Among these new-comers
was a "poor distressed gentleman" by
the name of James Arundell, formerly
a colonel in the Royalist army and
now banished from England, who
eventually married Watts' daughter
and became the head of the colony.
It was while Watts was governor
of Tortuga, if we are to believe the
Jesuit, Dutertre, that the
buccaneers determined to avenge the
treachery of the Spaniards to a
French vessel in that neighbourhood
by plundering the city of St. Jago
in Hispaniola. According to this
historian, who from the style of the
narrative seems to be reporting the
words of an eye-witness, the
buccaneers, including doubtless both
hunters and corsairs, formed a party
of 400 men under the leadership of
four captains and obtained a
commission for the enterprise from
the English governor, who was very
likely looking forward to a share of the booty.
Compelling the captain of a frigate
which had just arrived from Nantes
to lend his ship, they embarked in
it and in two or three other boats
found on the coast for Puerta de
Plata, where they landed on Palm
Sunday of 1659.191
St. Jago, which lay in a pleasant,
fertile plain some fifteen or twenty
leagues in the interior of
Hispaniola, they approached through
the woods on the night of Holy
Wednesday, entered before daybreak,
and surprised the governor in his
bed. The buccaneers told him to
prepare to die, whereupon he fell on
his knees and prayed to such effect
that they finally offered him his
life for a ransom of 60,000 pieces
of eight. They pillaged for
twenty-four hours, taking even the
bells, ornaments and sacred vessels
of the churches, and after
refreshing themselves with food and
drink, retreated with their plunder
and prisoners, including the
governor and chief inhabitants.
Meanwhile the alarm had been given
for ten or twelve leagues round
about. Men came in from all
directions, and rallying with the
inhabitants of the town till they
amounted to about 1000 men, marched
through the woods by a by-route, got
ahead of the buccaneers and attacked
them from ambush. The English and
French stood their ground in spite
of inferior numbers, for they were
all good marksmen and every shot
told. As the Spaniards persisted,
however, they finally threatened to
stab the governor and all the other
prisoners, whereupon the Spaniards
took counsel and retired to their
homes. The invaders lost only ten
killed and five or six wounded. They
tarried on the coast several days
waiting for the rest of the promised
ransom, but as it failed to arrive
they liberated the prisoners and
returned to Tortuga, each adventurer
receiving 300 crowns as his share of
the pillage.192
In the latter part of 1659 a
French gentleman, Jérémie Deschamps,
seigneur du Rausset, who had been
one of the first inhabitants of
Tortuga under Levasseur and de
Fontenay, repaired to England and
had sufficient influence there to
obtain an order from the Council of
State to Colonel Doyley to give him
a commission as governor of Tortuga,
with such instructions as Doyley
might think requisite.193
This same du Rausset, it seems, had
received a French commission from
Louis XIV. as early as November
1656.194
At any rate, he came to Jamaica in
1660 and obtained his commission
from Doyley on condition that he
held Tortuga in the English
interest.195
Watts, it seems, had meanwhile
learnt that he was to be superseded
by a Frenchman, whereupon he
embarked with his family and all his
goods and sought refuge in New
England. About two months later,
according to one story, Doyley heard
that Deschamps had given a
commission to a privateer and
committed insolences for which
Doyley feared to be called to
account. He sent to remonstrate with
him, but Deschamps answered that he
possessed a French commission and
that he had better interest with the
powers in England than had the
governor of Jamaica. As there were
more French than English on the
island, Deschamps then proclaimed
the King of France and set up the
French colours.196
Doyley as yet had received no
authority from the newly-restored
king, Charles II., and
hesitated to use any force; but he
did give permission to Arundell,
Watts' son-in-law, to surprise
Deschamps and carry him to Jamaica
for trial. Deschamps was absent at
the time at Santa Cruz, but
Arundell, relying upon the
friendship and esteem which the
inhabitants had felt for his
father-in-law, surprised the
governor's nephew and deputy, the
Sieur de la Place, and possessed
himself of the island. By some
mischance or neglect, however, he
was disarmed by the French and sent
back to Jamaica.197
This was not the end of his
misfortunes. On the way to Jamaica
he and his company were surprised by
Spaniards in the bay of Matanzas in
Cuba, and carried to Puerto
Principe. There, after a month's
imprisonment, Arundell and Barth.
Cock, his shipmaster, were taken out
by negroes into the bush and
murdered, and their heads brought
into the town.198
Deschamps later returned to France
because of ill-health, leaving la
Place to govern the island in his
stead, and when the property of the
French Antilles was vested in the
new French West India Company in
1664 he was arrested and sent to the
Bastille. The cause of his arrest is
obscure, but it seems that he had
been in correspondence with the
English government, to whom he had
offered to restore Tortuga on
condition of being reimbursed with
£6000 sterling. A few days in the
Bastille made him think better of
his resolution. He ceded his rights
to the company for 15,000 livres,
and was released from confinement in
November.199
The fiasco of Arundell's attempt
was not the only effort of the
English to recover the island. In
answer to a memorial presented by
Lord Windsor before his departure
for Jamaica, an Order in Council was
delivered to him in February 1662,
empowering him to use his utmost
endeavours to reduce Tortuga and its
governor to obedience.200
The matter was taken up by the
Jamaican Council in September,
shortly after Windsor's arrival;201
and on 16th December an order was
issued by deputy-governor Lyttleton
to Captain Robert Munden of the
"Charles" frigate for the
transportation of Colonel Samuel
Barry and Captain Langford to
Tortuga, where Munden was to receive
orders for reducing the island.202
The design miscarried again,
however, probably because of
ill-blood between Barry and Munden.
Clement de Plenneville, who
accompanied Barry, writes that "the
expedition failed through
treachery";203
and Beeston says in his Journal that
Barry, approaching Tortuga on 30th
January, found the French armed and
ready to oppose him, whereupon he
ordered Captain Munden to fire.
Munden however refused, sailed away
to Corydon in Hispaniola, where he
put Barry and his men on shore, and
then "went away about his
merchandize."204
Barry made his way in a sloop to
Jamaica where he arrived on 1st
March. Langford, however, was sent
to Petit-Goave, an island about the
size of Tortuga in the cul-de-sac
at the western end of Hispaniola,
where he was chosen governor by the
inhabitants and raised the first
English standard. Petit-Goave had
been frequented by buccaneers since
1659, and after d'Ogeron succeeded du Rausset as governor
for the French in those regions, it
became with Tortuga one of their
chief resorts. In the latter part of
1664 we find Langford in England
petitioning the king for a
commission as governor of Tortuga
and the coast of Hispaniola, and for
two ships to go and seize the
smaller island.205
Such a design, however, with the
direct sanction and aid of the
English government, might have
endangered a rupture with France.
Charles preferred to leave such
irregular warfare to his governor in
Jamaica, whom he could support or
disown as best suited the exigencies
of the moment. Langford, moreover,
seems not to have made a brilliant
success of his short stay at
Petit-Goave, and was probably
distrusted by the authorities both
in England and in the West Indies.
When Modyford came as governor to
Jamaica, the possibility of
recovering Tortuga was still
discussed, but no effort to effect
it was ever made again.
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