The Oxford Incident
The riches gained by Morgan and the rest of the buccaneers during their raid on Portobello were mostly squandered the moment they arrived back in Port Royal. While the raid had been daring and dangerous, Morgan’s next mission would cement his reputation as the most successful buccaneer of the age. It would prove beyond doubt just how much of a brilliant tactician he was as well as how much the Spanish feared him.
To relate this adventure we return to our regular sources, Esquemeling, Talty, Pope, Breverton and Morgan himself. But before we examine the Maracaibo affair and the near disaster the mission could have been, it is worth putting into context the times and environment of Jamaica, specifically Port Royal.
The riches seized at Portobello were divided up at Cow Island off Hispaniola. In cash they had 250,000 pieces of eight, which was a very large amount at the time. In addition were the materials, gold and silver that would be sold to merchants in Port Royal.
His ships were low in the water with their freight of gold and silver, silks and satins, furniture and weapons, and the chained slaves in the hold soon to be sold to the planters.1
The buccaneers had suffered heavy casualties in this siege, some to action but most to tropical disease, so much so that less than 400 men rendezvoused at Cow Island for distribution of the booty. This meant greater shares for each man. Philip Lindsay tells us that shares were distributed according to the wounds suffered by the men—how serious they were—and according to rank. As commander-in-chief, Morgan would get 5 per cent of the total amount. Modyford, as the king’s representative, would also receive a sum. The rest would be apportioned appropriately.
With the loot distributed they sailed into ‘the broad harbour, guns firing, flags and pennants flying to anchor off The Point.’2
The city of Port Royal was built on the end of a sand spit that acted as a breakwater against the sea. This sandy peninsula (The Point) formed a natural harbour, which, as Lindsay tells us, was about 7 miles long and 4 miles wide. It was a deep water harbour that could take ships of more than 1,000 tonnes. Many people had settled along this sand spit, which boasted warehouses, fortifications and large ‘merchant palaces’ as well as the ‘ramshackle dens of debauchery near the wharves’.
The currency in this city of sin was gin and whoring and any sailor or privateer could get just about anything he could think of provided he had the money. There were plenty of people—harlots, merchants, con artists, card sharks and more—prepared to relieve the buccaneers of their hard-fought plunder.
A cask of rum, a deck of cards, or a dice-box, an opulent harlot with skilled caresses, and these rascals, devils to the Spaniards, became children to be gulled in expert hands.3
In Port Royal what little law existed revolved around money. For example, if a buccaneer spent all his money on gambling, drinking and whoring and found himself unable to pay any debts he may have racked up, he could be sold as a slave to his creditor until the debt was paid or worked off.
The Point was away from the places frequented by the finer gentry and it is unlikely that Morgan took part in the debaucheries of his men. After all, he was a married man, a plantation owner, and he moved in the highest society in Jamaica. He was feted by the planters and wealthy merchants while also spending time with Modyford, for there was much to discuss regarding the raids and the dispatches that needed to be sent back to London. However, Lindsay states that Morgan was a heavy drinker and probably did his drinking ‘on plantations or in the luxurious merchant palaces, chiefly away from The Point, arguing how best to invest his profits.’
Of course with such wild behaviour the riches earned by the buccaneers were soon gone and once again many found themselves penniless. ‘They were all very liberal, and in a short time came clamouring to their captain to put to sea; for they were reduced to a starving condition.’4
It would not be long before Morgan was once again planning a new mission with the approval from Modyford.
But in Port Royal not everyone was involved in the debauchery and deplored the actions of the buccaneers, along with the industries that catered for their desires. John Styles, a wealthy merchant, wrote to the Secretary of State, complaining that:
The number of tippling houses is now doubly increased, so that ‘there is not now resident upon this place ten men to every house that selleth strong liquors.’ There are more than 100 licensed houses, besides sugar and rum works that sell without licence; and what can that bring but ruin, for many sell their plantations, and either go out for privateers, or drinking themselves into debt, sell their bodies or are sold for prison fees. Since Styles has been a prisoner there have been twenty sold thence; ‘so interests decrease, negro and slaves increase,’ yet were not this course taken, the prisons would not hold the prisoners.5
While complaining about the behaviour of the buccaneers in town and the sinful industries that had built up to cater to their needs there were also allegations of prisoner abuse that Styles claimed to have overheard the buccaneers boasting about in the taverns.
It is a common thing amongst the privateers, besides burning with matches and such like slight torments, to cut a man in pieces, first some flesh, then a hand, an arm, a leg, sometimes tying a cord about his head, and with a stick twisting it till the eyes start out, which is called ‘woolding’. Before taking Puerto Bello, thus some were used, because they refused to discover a way into the town which was not, and many in the town, because they would not discover wealth they knew not of: a woman there was by some set bare upon a baking stone and roasted, because she did not confess of money which she had only in their conceit; this he heard some declare boasting, and one that was sick confess with sorrow: besides the horrid oaths, blasphemies, abuse of scriptures, rapes, whoredoms, and adulteries, and such not forborne in the common highways and not punished, but made a jest of even by authority.6
From the research done for this book it appears that the allegations put forward by Styles went largely unheeded. Perhaps it was a question of Morgan being so successful that the authorities, in this case, Modyford, looked the other way. There is no direct evidence that links Morgan with any act of torture. But with hundreds of men under his command and the men scattered throughout the towns and cities he sacked, he could have no way of knowing what any one man or group of men were doing. Yet a commander should always be responsible for his men—shouldn’t he!
While the only true English evidence that points towards cruelty and torture is Esquemeling, we know we must be mindful of his bias and embellishments about the misuse of prisoners. It also depends on which translation of Esquemeling’s book is used, as we shall see in later chapters. The Spanish reports that Stephen Talty cites regularly in his book do not run to the same flights of fancy as those of Esquemeling, nor do they always support every detail of the expeditions, so we are left without knowing for sure if these events took place.
Other events around this time are described and explained differently depending on the source used. The origin for Morgan’s next mission is also a little murky. Morgan still had his commission as an admiral, which put him in charge of Jamaica’s forces and second only to Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor. Both men believed that the Spaniards were preparing for an attack on Jamaica—according to intelligence that Morgan had received on the Portobello raid. They also believed that the best way to keep the enemy at bay was to attack his heart, forcing him to hold back his forces in a defensive posture while he wondered where the next attack was coming from. The best targets were along the Spanish Main in either New Spain or Cuba. Of the targets they identified, Cartagena was the most important, and the wealthiest. With a powerful enough force Morgan could sack the city.
Cartagena was the port through which the gold and silver from Peru flowed to Spain and was the largest along the Main. This also made it the best port from which to launch an attack on Jamaica.7
While one can assume from the way that Pope describes the relationship between Modyford and Morgan that the men by and large agreed to this expedition, Lindsay is more specific in his terminology:
therefore he gave Morgan further powers and sent him out again under sealed orders with his ferocious army, and he even committed himself and his government openly to the expedition by sending the 300-ton fifth-rate frigate Oxford, thirty-four guns and a crew of 160 men, under the command of Edward Collier who held the King’s commission, to join the buccaneers.8
Morgan was once again sailing away from Port Royal with ten ships and more than 800 men towards the old rendezvous point, Cow Island, off south-west Hispaniola. It was October 1668, and while Morgan waited off Cow Island the first warship intended purely for the defence of Jamaica arrived from England. The Oxford was a frigate that had a crew of 125 men and twenty-six guns. It was twelve years old and no longer in the service of the Royal Navy. It was to be a private man-of-war, owned and operated by the Jamaican government. The problem was, however, that the government could not afford to run her. Indeed, the government of Jamaica did not have the infrastructure, men or resources to run its own navy so the Oxford would have ended up being in the service of the people who could run a navy—the buccaneers. Under the command of Edward Collier, Modyford ordered the frigate to be refitted, victualled and sent to meet up with Morgan at Cow Island. ‘The Oxford frigate is to face Cartagena and will sail about five days hence.’9 Collier was an experienced privateer and well known to Morgan. However, according to Pope, Modyford ordered Collier to deal with a French pirate who was known to have joined Morgan’s fleet at Cow Island. The French ship Le Cerf Volant had attacked a British ship from Virginia and Modyford wanted Collier to get the pirate. The Oxford sailed for Cow Island and found the French pirate ship riding its anchor in the island’s anchorage with the rest of Morgan’s fleet. The French captain and crew were then arrested by Collier and both the Oxford and Le Cerf Volant returned to Port Royal so the French pirates could stand trial for robbery and piracy. The French captain was sentenced to death but this was later commuted by Modyford.10
However, Le Cerf Volant, armed with fourteen guns, was quickly refitted and renamed the Satisfaction and sailed, in consort with the Oxford, back to Cow Island. Aboard the Satisfaction was Dr Richard Browne, a surgeon who had come to Jamaica aboard the Oxford. He regularly communicated with Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of the Privy Council, and Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, providing them with detailed reports of everything he saw and experienced during his time in the West Indies. Browne wrote a letter, dated 20 January 1669, to Joseph Williamson about the arrest and return to Port Royal. He described the situation:
His Majesty’s ship Oxford, commanded by Captain Edward Collier, came to anchor 29 October, at the Isle of Vacour, on the coast of Hispaniola, where were several English and French privateers belonging to Jamaica, and two French men-of-war, one being the Cour Volant of Rochelle, Captain La Veven commander, that robbed Isaac Rush, of Virginia, Master of the Commonwealth, of twelve barréls of pork, a barrél of butter, and another of flour. Captain Collier sent his Lieutenant to command La Veven aboard, but he answered that it was not usual for any captain of a man-of-war of France to be commanded out of his ship. The next morning, Captain Collier weighed, and came close to him, intending to board him, when La Veven came aboard; upon his commission being demanded he made several evasions, but subsequently produced one from Monsieur de Beaufort to La Veven, but on his taking Rush’s provisions, he went by the name of Captain la Roche of Toulon, and Rush coming into the Isle of Vacour the next day, maintained that he was the same man, whereupon Captain Collier, believing he was no other than a pirate, had him brought aboard his ship, ‘in order to his trial’ at Jamaica, and commanded all the French, to the number of forty-five, on board the Oxford also.11
From this letter it is pretty clear that Browne was an eyewitness and this is corroborated later in the letter when he states that Collier set sail in Veven’s ship for Jamaica, where he was put on trial for his crimes. He does not mention anything about the Oxford returning with Veven’s ship to Jamaica and then sailing back to Cow Island with the Satisfaction (the former Le Cerf Volant) because by that time the Oxford had been destroyed.
The sources used for this book mostly claim that the Oxford did return to Port Royal as escort to the French ship, and that her crew waited for the French ship to be condemned as a prize and renamed the Satisfaction, and then returned with the latter ship in tow. So we have a discrepancy in the account of this affair and what actually took place varies depending on the text used by the historian. One thing that is clear is that Browne was an eyewitness, if we take his letter at face value. He describes the destruction of the Oxford in a personal way, relating what he was doing and how he managed to survive at the time the Oxford was destroyed.
Before we look at the destruction of the frigate in greater detail it is worth looking at Esquemeling’s account of the French pirate incident.
The French pirates belonging to this great ship had met at sea an English vessel; and being under great want of victuals, they had taken some provisions out of the English ship, without paying for them, having, perhaps, no ready money aboard; only they gave them bills of exchange for Jamaica and Tortuga, to receive money there. Captain Morgan having notice of this, and perceiving he could not prevail with the French captain to follow him, resolved to lay hold on this occasion, to ruin the French, and seek his revenge. Hereupon he invited, with dissimulation, the French commander, and several of his men, to dine with him on board the great ship that was come to Jamaica, as is said. Being come, he made them all prisoners, pretending the injury afore-said done to the English vessel.
Because we have the letter from Richard Browne we know that Esquemeling’s account is at best an exaggeration of the facts or, at worst, a complete fabrication. The great ship that Esquemeling refers to that belonged to the French was likely Le Cerf Volant, ‘of twenty-four iron guns’. The great ship from Jamaica is very likely the Oxford frigate. Esquemeling leaves Captain Collier’s role in this affair completely out of his account and transfers Collier’s actions to Morgan. He does not name any of the ships, nor the French captain, in the way that Browne did. So in this case it is Browne’s report of the incident of Le Cerf Volant and the French crew that we will take as being the most accurate. It leads into the destruction of the Oxford. Esquemeling’s account of the frigate’s destruction will be looked at first as he provides some detail, but whether that detail is accurate is left up to the reader to decide.
Morgan, presently after he had taken these French prisoners, called a council to deliberate what place they should first pitch upon in this expedition. Here it was determined to go to the Isle of Savona, to wait for the flota then expected from Spain, and to take any of the Spanish vessels straggling from the rest. This resolution being taken, they began aboard the great ship to feast one another for joy of their new voyage, and happy council as they hoped: they drank many healths, and discharged many guns, the common sign of mirth among seamen. Most of the men being drunk, by what accident is not known, the ship suddenly was blown up, with 350 Englishmen, besides the French prisoners in the hold; all which there escaped but thirty men, who were in the great cabin, at some distance from the main force of the powder.12
Esquemeling does not state who sat where when the powder magazine went up. Also, Esquemeling claims that the buccaneers decided to sail to the Isle of Savona off the eastern part of Hispaniola before they decided what the target should be for this new expedition. Our other sources, including Pope, suggest that at the council of war called upon the Oxford it was decided that Cartagena would be the target. Either way, it was after the council of war that the Oxford was destroyed. This is what Browne had to say about the event:
While the captains were at dinner on the quarter-deck, the Oxford blew up, when 200 men were lost, including Captain Aylett, Commander of the Lilly, and captains Bigford, Morris, Thornbury, and Whiting, only six men and four boys being saved. The accident is supposed to have been caused by the negligence of the gunner. I was eating my dinner with the rest, when the mainmasts blew out, and fell upon captains Aylett, Bigford and others, and knocked them on the head; I saved myself by getting astride the mizen-mast.13
Pope goes further in his detail of this account. He states that Morgan and the rest of the captains went down into the ‘great cabin’ of the frigate, where they began a hearty meal. Instead of sitting at the head of the table, Morgan sat on one side of it in the middle, with Captain Collier sitting on his right. Captains Bigford, Whiting, Thornbury and Aylett sat opposite Morgan, as did John Morris the younger. His father sat on the same side as Morgan, as did Browne, who sat at the far end of the table. Those who sat on Morgan’s side miraculously survived the explosion while those on the opposite side perished.
Indeed, when the ship’s magazine erupted and blew the ship to pieces, the effect of the blast threw the men into the air. They hit the water, surrounded by the debris from the disintegrated frigate and floating human body parts. Fortunately, the men on the other ships were quick to react and launched their boats, which rowed amongst the wreckage picking up survivors. They managed to save Browne, Collier, two cabin boys, the elder John Morris and, of course, Admiral Morgan.14