The Lost Fleet by Barry Clifford Page B

had been “on the account” for years and many of whom had been among those flung up on the beach at Las Aves three years earlier.
    Of the English and Dutch captains, there was Paine, with a ship of ten guns and carrying one hundred men; Captain John Coxon, similarly outfitted; and Paine’s old consorts Wright and Yankey Willems.
    Over the next decade, Yankey would become one of the foremost of the buccaneers and participate in nearly every major filibuster engagement in the region. For this expedition Yankey commanded what was essentially a very large sailing boat, called a barcolongo, carrying four small cannons and manned by a crew of sixty men, including Englishmen, Frenchmen, and fellow Dutchmen.
    The French captains included a Captain Archemboe and Captains Tucker and Jean Rose. Little is known about them. Their crews numbered around 150 men, about half the size of the English force.
    One of the political realities illustrated by this meeting was the fluid nature of English and French alliances. Despite on-again, off-again warfare for more than a century, the filibusters of the two nations could work together and even accept commissions from the others’ government. What unified them was a universal hatred of the Spanish, and particularly of Spanish attempts to retain an iron grip on the riches of the Caribbean.
    To this gathering of filibusters came another French captain named Tristian. Although his ship was undermanned and in poor condition, he had on board William Dampier, the great adventurer, filibuster, and author, fresh from the South Seas. Tristian had recently rescued Dampier and his shipmates from the nearby La Sound’s Key after theyhad abandoned their former captain in the Pacific and marched back over the Isthmus of Panama.
    Dampier stayed with the buccaneers, and we are fortunate that he did and that he lived to write about it. Dampier provides us with a wonderful firsthand account of the organization of a buccaneer raid.
    Paine’s consort, Captain Wright, had been sent to the Panamanian coast to find a prisoner from whom they might gather intelligence. He returned with two prisoners and their canoe laden with flour. The captains assembled aboard Wright’s ship and interrogated the prisoners as to the condition and strength of the city of Panama. Their plan was to march overland to the town, using the wild and often hostile San Blas Indians as guides.
    The captains took under advisement the intelligence gathered from the prisoners and fell to discussing where they might mount an attack, whether Panama or elsewhere. Here again is classic pirate democracy in action. For seven or eight days they discussed their plans, meeting every day to try to find a mutually agreeable course of action.
    The men at Springer’s Key were very knowledgeable about the Spanish Main. As Dampier expressed it, “The privateers have an account of most towns within 20 leagues of the sea, on all the coasts from Trinidad Island down to La Vera Cruz: and are able to give a near guess to the strength of them….” 3
    It was decided at last to mount a raid on a town lying on Carpenter’s River. The river allowed the filibusters to attack the town in boats, thus avoiding the horrible and often fatal march though the Central American jungle required to reach Panama.
    The pirates weighed anchor and set sail for the small, uninhabited island of San Andreas. They intended to fashion dugout canoes from the abundant cedar there for their attack on the river town, a most ambitious plan.
    The English ships already assembled at Springer’s Key were overmanned. Paine’s ship of a mere ten guns could not have been very big, certainly not to ship one hundred men aboard. Dampier was forced to sail aboard the French captain Archemboe’s vessel of eight guns, which was undermanned with just forty men.
    Though they might be able to put aside political differences on the grand scale, the English