On the Spanish Main, by John Masefield
CHAPTER VII
JOHN OXENHAM
The voyage—His pinnace—Into the South Sea—Disaster—His unhappy end
The John Oxenham, or Oxnam, who followed Drake to Nombre de Dios, and stood with him that sunny day watching the blue Pacific from the tree-top, was a Devonshire gentleman from South Tawton. He was of good family and well to do. He may, perhaps, have given money towards the fitting out of Drake's squadron. It is at least certain that he held in that voyage a position of authority considerably greater than that of "soldier, mariner, and cook"—the rates assigned to him by Sir Richard Hawkins. On his return from the Nombre de Dios raid, he disappears, and it is uncertain whether he followed Drake to Ireland, or settled down at home in Devonshire. He did not forget the oath he had sworn to his old Captain, to follow him to the South Sea in God's good time. But after waiting a year or two, and finding that Drake was not ready to attempt that adventure, he determined to go at his own charge, with such men as he could find. He was well known in the little Devon seaports as a bold sailor and fiery sea-captain. He was "a fine figure of a man," and the glory of Drake's raid was partly his. He was looked upon as one of the chief men in that foray. He had, therefore, little difficulty in getting recruits for a new voyage to the Main.
In the year 1574 he set sail from Plymouth in a fine ship of 140 tons, with a crew of seventy men and boys.[99] He made a fair passage to the Main, and anchored in Drake's old anchorage—either that of the secret haven, in the Gulf of Darien, or that farther west, among the Catives. Here he went ashore, and made friends with the Maroons, some of whom, no doubt, were old acquaintances, still gay with beads or iron-work which he had given them two years before. They told him that the treasure trains "from Panama to Nombre de Dios" were now strongly guarded by Spanish soldiers, so that he might not hope to win such a golden booty as Drake had won, by holding up a recua on the march. Oxenham, therefore, determined "to do that which never any man before enterprised"—by leaving his ship, marching over the watershed, building a pinnace in the woods, and going for a cruise on the South Sea. He dragged his ship far into the haven, struck her topmasts, and left her among the trees, beached on the mud, and covered with green boughs so as to be hidden from view. Her great guns were swung ashore, and buried, and the graves of them strewn with leaves and brushwood. He then armed his men with their calivers and their sacks of victual, "and so went with the Negroes," dragging with them two small guns, probably quick-firing guns, mounted on staves of wood or iron. Hawkins says that he left four or five men behind him as shipkeepers. After a march of "about twelve leagues into the maine-land" the Maroons brought him to a river "that goeth to the South Sea." Here the party halted, and built themselves little huts of boughs to live in while they made themselves a ship.
They cut down some trees here, and built themselves a pinnace "which was five and fortie foot by the keele." They seem to have brought their sails and tackling with them, but had they not done so they could have made shift with the rough Indian cloth and the fibrous, easily twisted bark of the maho-tree. Having built this little[100] ship, they went aboard of her, and dropped downstream to the Pacific—the first English crew, but not the first Englishman, to sail those waters. Six negroes came with them to act as guides. As soon as they had sailed out of the river's mouth, they made for the Pearl Islands, or Islands of the King, "which is five and twentie leagues from Panama." Here they lay very close, in some snug inlet hidden from the sea. Some of them went inland to a rocky cliff, to watch the seas for ships coming northward from Peru with treasure from the gold and silver mines. The islands are in the fairway between Panama and Lima, but ten days passed before the watchers saw a sail, and cried out to those in the boat. "There came a small Barke by, which came from Peru, from a place called Quito"; and the pinnace dashed alongside of her, and carried her by the sword, before her sailors learned what was the matter. She was laden with "sixtie thousand pezos of golde, and much victuals." John Oxenham took her lading, and kept the barque by him, while he stayed on at the islands. At the end of six days, another "barke" came by, from Lima, "in whiche he tooke an hundred thousand pezos of silver in barres." This was plunder enough to "make" any voyage, and with this John Oxenham was content. Before he sailed away, however, he marched upon one or two of the Pearl fisheries, where he found a few pearls. He then sailed northward to the river's mouth taking his prizes with him, with all the prisoners.
At the river's mouth he very foolishly "sent away the two prizes that hee tooke"—a piece of clemency which knotted the rope under his ear. He then sailed up the river, helping his pinnace by poles, oars, and warps, but making slow progress.
Before he reached this river, the negroes of the Pearl Islands sent word to the Governor of Panama that English[101] pirates had been in those seas plundering their fisheries. "Within two days" the Governor despatched four galleys, "with negroes to rowe," and twenty-five musketeers in each galley, under the Captain John de Ortega, to search the Pearl Islands very thoroughly for those robbers. They reached the islands, learned in which direction the pirate ships had gone, and rowed away north to overtake them. As they came near the land, they fell in with the two prizes, the men of which were able to tell them how the pirates had gone up the river but a few days before.
John de Ortega came to the river's mouth with his four galleys, and "knew not which way to take, because there were three partitions in the river, to goe up in." He decided at last to go up the greatest, and was actually rowing towards it, when "he saw comming down a lesser river many feathers of hennes, which the Englishmen had pulled to eate." These drifting feathers, thrown overboard so carelessly, decided the Spanish captain. He turned up the lesser river "where he saw the feathers," and bade his negroes give way heartily. Four days later, he saw the English pinnace drawn up on the river-bank "upon the sands," guarded by six of her crew. The musketeers at once fired a volley, which killed one of the Englishmen, and sent the other five scattering to the cover of the woods. There was nothing in the pinnace but bread and meat. All the gold pezoes and the bars of silver had been landed.
The presence of the boat guard warned the Spanish captain that the main body of the pirates was near at hand. He determined to land eighty of his musketeers to search those woods before returning home. "Hee had not gone half a league" before he found one of the native huts, thatched with palm leaves, in which were "all the Englishmen's goods and the gold and silver also." The Englishmen were lying about the hut, many[102] of them unarmed, with no sentry keeping a lookout for them. Taken by surprise as they were, they ran away into the woods, leaving all things in the hands of the Spaniards. The Spaniards carried the treasure back to the galleys, and rowed slowly down the river "without following the Englishmen any further."
It appeared later, that Oxenham had ordered his men to carry the gold and silver from the place where they had hauled the pinnace ashore, to the place where the ship was hidden. To this the mariners joyfully assented, "for hee promised to give them part of it besides their wages." Unfortunately, they wished this "part of it" paid to them at once, before they shifted an ingot—a want which seemed to reflect upon John Oxenham's honour. He was naturally very angry "because they would not take his word" to pay them something handsome when he reached home. He was a choleric sea-captain, and began, very naturally, to damn them for their insolence. "He fell out with them, and they with him," says Hakluyt. One of them, stung by his Captain's curses, "would have killed the Captaine" there and then, with his caliver,[2] or sailor's knife. This last act was too much. Oxenham gave them a few final curses, and told them that, if such were their temper, they should not so much as touch a quoit of the treasure, but that he would get Maroons to carry it. He then left them, and went alone into the forest to find Maroons for the porterage. As he came back towards the camp, with a gang of negroes, he met the five survivors of the boat guard "and the rest also which ran from the house," all very penitent and sorry now that the mischief had been done. They told him of the loss of the treasure, and looked to him for guidance and advice, promising a better behaviour in the future. Oxenham told them that if they helped[103] him to recover the treasure, they should have half of it, "if they got it from the Spaniards." "The Negroes promised to help him with their bows and arrows," and with this addition to their force they set off down the river-bank in pursuit.
After three days' travelling, they came upon the Spaniards, in camp, on the bank of the river, apparently in some strong position, sheltered with trees. Oxenham at once fell on "with great fury," exposing himself and his men to the bullets of the musketeers. The Spaniards were used to woodland fighting. Each musketeer retired behind a tree, and fired from behind it, without showing more than his head and shoulders, and then but for a moment. The Englishmen charged up the slope to the muzzles of the guns, but were repulsed with loss, losing eleven men killed and five men taken alive. The number of wounded is not stated. The negroes, who were less active in the charge, lost only five men. The Spaniards loss was two killed "and five sore hurt." The English were beaten off the ground, and routed. They made no attempt to rally, and did not fall on a second time.
The Spanish captain asked his prisoners why they had not crossed the isthmus to their ship in the days before the pursuit began. To this the prisoners answered with the tale of their mutinies, adding that their Captain would not stay longer in those parts now that his company had been routed. The Spaniards then buried their dead, retired on board their galleys, and rowed home to Panama, taking with them their prisoners and the English pinnace. When they arrived in that city, the prisoners were tortured till they confessed where their ship was hidden. Advice was then sent to Nombre de Dios, where four pinnaces were at once equipped to seek out the secret haven. They soon found the ship, "and brought her[104] to Nombre de Dios," where her guns and buried stores were divided among the King's ships employed in the work of the coast. While this search for the ship was being made, the Viceroy of Peru sent out 150 musketeers to destroy the "fiftie English men" remaining alive. These troops, conducted by Maroons, soon found the English in a camp by the river, "making of certaine Canoas to goe into the North Sea, and there to take some Bark or other." Many of them were sick and ill, "and were taken." The rest escaped into the forest, where they tried to make some arrangement with the negroes. The negroes, it seems, were angry with Oxenham for his failure to keep his word to them. They had agreed to help him on condition that they might have all the Spanish prisoners to torture "to feed their insatiable revenges." Oxenham had released his prisoners, as we have seen, and the Maroons had been disappointed of their dish of roasted Spaniards' hearts. They were naturally very angry, and told John Oxenham, when he came to them for help, that his misfortunes were entirely due to his own folly. Had he kept his word, they said, he would have reached his ship without suffering these reverses. After a few days, being weary of keeping so many foreigners, they betrayed the English sailors to the Spaniards. "They were brought to Panama," to the justice of that city, who asked John Oxenham "whether hee had the Queene's licence, or the licence of any other Prince or Lord, for his attempt." To this John Oxenham answered that he had no licence saving his sword. He was then condemned to death with the rest of his company, with the exception of two (or five) ships' boys. After a night or two in Panama prison, within sound of the surf of the Pacific, the mariners were led out, and shot. Oxenham and the master and the pilot were sent to Lima, where they were hanged[105] as pirates in the square of the city. A force of musketeers was then sent into the interior, to reduce the Maroons "which had assisted those English men." The punitive force "executed great justice," till "the Negroes grew wise and wary," after which there was no more justice to be done. The ships' boys, who were spared, were probably sold as slaves in Lima, or Panama. They probably lived in those towns for the rest of their lives, and may have become good Catholics, and wealthy, after due probation under the whip.
Sir Richard Hawkins, who was in Panama in 1593, and who may have heard a Spanish version of the history, tells us that aboard the treasure ship taken by Oxenham were "two peeces of speciall estimation: the one a table of massie gold, with emralds ... a present to the King; the other a lady of singular beautie." According to Sir Richard, John Oxenham fell in love with this lady, and it was through her prayers that he released the other prisoners. He is said to have "kept the lady" when he turned the other prisoners away. The lady's "sonne, or a nephew," who was among those thus discharged, made every effort to redeem his mother (or aunt). He prayed so vehemently and "with such diligence," to the Governor at Panama, that the four galleys were granted to him "within few howers." The story is not corroborated; but Oxenham was very human, and Spanish beauty, like other beauty, is worth sinning for.
A year or two later, Captain Andrew Barker of Bristol, while cruising off the Main, captured a Spanish frigate "between Chagre and Veragua." On board of her, pointing through the port-holes, were four cast-iron guns which had been aboard John Oxenham's ship. They were brought to England, and left in the Scilly Islands, A.D. 1576.
Note.—The story of John Oxenham is taken from "Purchas his Pilgrimes," vol. iv. (the original large 4to edition); and from Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 526. Another version of the tale is given in Sir R. Hawkins' "Observations." He is also mentioned in Hakluyt's account of Andrew Barker.
[2] Caliver, a light, hand musket. A musket without a crutch, or rest.