The Lost Fleet

Preface

1
The French Fleet

2
The Buccaneers

3
Las Aves—Round One

4
A Desolate Place

5
“Beasts of Prey”

6
A Change of Plans

7
Over the Reef

8
The Blue Lagoon

9
The Chevalier de Grammont

10
The Sack of Maracaibo

11
Curiosity Sparks Expedition

12
Logistics

13
A Pleasant Accident

14
The Sack of Caracas

15
Ready for the Ends of the Earth

16
Tools of the Trade

17
The Recidivism of Thomas Paine

18
A Homecoming for a Pirate

19
In the Wake of Jean Comte d'Estrées

20
A Visit from the Navy

21
“A Great and Mischievous Pirate”

22
Nikolaas Van Hoorn

23
The Documentary That Officially Wasn't

24
Where the Wrecks Are

25
Unwelcome Intrusions

26
The Sack of Vera Cruz

27
The Search Continues

28
Mapping

29
War and Peace

30
The Wooing of Laurens de Graff

31
Of Destruction and Death

32
Of Men-of-War and Pirates

33
Flibustier

34
The Battle at Alacrán Reef

35
A Naval Officer at War

36
From Good to Bad to Ugly

37
Cannons, Anchors, and Surf

38
A Pirate Reaches Retirement

39
The Legacy of Las Aves

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by Barry Clifford

Copyright

About the Publisher

T
his is a book about pirate hunting. More than twenty years ago, I began a hunt that resulted in the discovery of the first pirate-ship wreck ever discovered and authenticated: the
Whydah
, a pirate ship captained by the legendary buccaneer Sam Bellamy that sank more than 250 years ago off the coast of Cape Cod. The project team and I have been recovering artifacts from this underwater time capsule ever since, and each has its own story to tell—of pirates and their ships, raids, brutal sea battles, and sunken treasures. With the
Whydah,
we've been allowed a few glimpses into the world of pirates, yet with each new discovery another mystery has been uncovered. In search for more answers we embarked on a second quest, this time to the coast of Venezuela.

In 1678, on the reef of Las Aves, “the Birds,” a small pirate army was shipwrecked together with the majority of a French fleet. It was one of the most fatal naval catastrophes of its time—more than one thousand pirate and French sailors were rumored to have been killed. The event launched an era in pirate history called “the golden age of piracy,” a massive outbreak, almost a maritime revolt, that for the next fifty years shook the crowns and counting houses of Europe and would have a profound effect on the history of the Americas.

This naval disaster, an unprecedented, world-altering, and yet nearly forgotten calamity, is the subject of this book.

When I began my investigations into the world of piracy, I thought a pirate was “a monstrous enemy of all mankind” who made his prisoners walk the plank—either a hook-brandishing, rum-swilling, backstabbing Robert Newton or an acrobatic, dashing, misunderstood Errol Flynn. I didn't know that a third of all pirates were of African descent or that pirate crews carried on a unique social experiment, creating a seaborne society that was fundamentally democratic, egalitarian, fraternal, and libertarian. In such “hell towns” as Tortuga, Lib
ertalia, Roatan, New Providence, and even Penzance in Old England, men found that they could choose their own leaders and that those leaders were far more able than those thrust upon them by birth or lineage.

I have since learned that every one of my childhood images of pirates was wrong and I've had to go through the process of getting past cultural stereotypes and suppressed history to the lives of real men. This “demythification” is often lonely work. People like to cling to their legends and myths. “History,” someone once said, “is written by the winners” I have found that much of it has also been written by Hollywood. In both cases, “history from below”—the history of the common man—has often been lost, obscured, or deliberately suppressed. Sometimes the pages of history have to be wrenched open in much the same way explorers had to force their way into the new worlds they found.

The best way for me to make my way to the “Old World”—the world of history—is by discovering and examining the material remains of the past to see with my own eyes how men of the past lived and died. You could say that my entire life has been directed toward learning about the history of piracy. Who were these rough men and what effect did they have on colonial society? Were they simply criminals or was their depraved behavior a reaction to political and economic oppression—a harbinger of revolution? At Las Aves, Venezuela, some of those questions were going to be answered.

During the weeks and months after the catastrophe at Las Aves, treasure hunters came for the ships' remains, looking for gold or, more practical, for cannon and rigging. Decades later, adventurers returned to search once again for the fleet's treasures. When we prepared our expedition to Las Aves in 1998, however, the prospect of gold was not the lure. To us, a team of divers and shipwreck salvors, it was the veil of history we were about to lift that was the most important issue at hand: encrusted cannon, dishes half-buried in the sand, weapons, and barrels—objects untouched for 320 years. We came to Las Aves to learn about the spark that ignited the golden age of piracy.

We have worked to shed light on a near forgotten chapter in history, but this book is more than just a chronicle of a disaster and its consequences. It is also about the spirit of exploration. For better or worse I have never been able to resist the lure of a lost shipwreck and I have found that there is no antidote for gold fever. You carry the germ until the day you die. This is another part of my quest: I feel a
fascination—and a kinship—with the explorers of the past. Some of our project team's work, past, present, and future, follows in the wake of great explorers. You will meet some of them in these pages: famous ones like William Dampier, who, but for a quirk of fate, would now be considered common cutthroats. Others may be less familiar. By today's standards some are heroes, some are villains, some were clearly madmen. I believe, however, that John Masefield summed them all up best:

Plus ultra!

M
AY
II, 1678
O
NE
H
UNDRED
M
ILES
N
ORTH OF THE
V
ENEZUELAN
C
OAST

T
hey came from the east, running before the steady trade winds that blew along Venezuela's north coast and the islands of the Netherlands Antilles. Ponderous and beautiful, graceful in their heavy and slow way, the ships drove along under deep topsails and fully bellied courses. The French West Indies fleet—great engines of war, like Hannibal's elephants, but vastly more powerful.

Indeed, those ships,
Le Terrible
of seventy guns and five hundred men,
Le Bellseodur
of seventy guns and four hundred fifty men,
Le Tormant
of sixty-six guns and four hundred men, and the fifteen other battleships of the fleet were among the most deadly fighting machines on earth.
¹
On May 11, 1678, they were on their way to Curaçao, the last Dutch outpost in the West Indies, to drive out the Dutch and conquer that island for France and her king, Louis XIV.

The events of the night of May 11, 1678, are described in official reports and memoirs, but perhaps the best account comes from William Dampier. Dampier was a sometime Royal Navy officer who circumnavigated the globe three times, sailed with the pirates of the Caribbean and the Pacific, and chronicled his adventures in the best
selling book
A New Voyage Round the World.
What Dampier did not witness himself he heard firsthand from men who were there. In Dampier's words, the fleet of French admiral Jean Comte d'Estrées was “a Squadron of stout Ships, very well mann'd….”
²

By the time the fleet sailed for the Netherlands Antilles, the Franco-Dutch War had technically been ongoing for six years. In reality, the previous century of European history had been little more than one long, protracted war between the major powers—France, Spain, England, the Netherlands—interrupted now and again by shaky peace.

The last of those wars, known as the War of Devolution, had ended in 1668, just four years before the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle concluded the conflict between France and Spain, which had led to the creation of the anti-French Triple Alliance, composed of the United Provinces, now known as the Netherlands, England, and Sweden. Four years of peace, and now they were at it again.

The French fleet that descended on Curaçao had been preparing for action in the Caribbean for a month. Their preparations were well known in the region and caused no end of anxiety, since no one knew
for certain where they were bound or on what unhappy island they might bring their force to bear.

By April 26, Governor William Stapleton on the British island of Nevis could actually watch the fleet gathering in the harbor at Basseterre, the chief town on the neighboring island of St. Kitts. The sight did not please him. He later reported to the Lords of Trade and Plantations that he “was forced by the clamors and cries of the people to secure the helpless sex, old men and children.”
³

That Governor Stapleton should have been so uncertain about whom the French intended to attack is hardly surprising. Ten years before, England and France had been enemies. Four years before, they had been allies against the Dutch. Who knew where they stood now?

At daybreak on the 27th of April, the French were under way. Their actions indicated that perhaps Governor Stapleton's fears were well-founded. All day long the fleet tacked, back and forth, trying to make headway against a southerly wind, appearing to close on Nevis.

Fortunately for that island, those unweatherly seventeenth-century men-of-war could make no progress. Though they worked to windward for better than twelve hours, the French fleet simply could not sail the few miles between St. Kitts and Nevis.

To the great relief of the English colonists, the French fleet finally gave up trying. Governor Stapleton reported that “about sunset they bore away. [I am] Apprehensive they have gone to Martinique to wait
for further orders or to take in men to attack some part of this government…”
⁴
The target of the French fleet was still a mystery.

There is only one man who we can say with certainty knew the destination of the fleet, and that was Admiral Jean Comte d'Estrées. Fifty-four years old in 1678, d'Estrées had been in military service since he was twenty.

D'Estrées was born in Soleure, in present-day Switzerland. He was of impeccable lineage, like any officer destined for high command. He also had the good fortune to be born during an era of almost constant warfare, when military men could count on regular employment, and the opportunity for distinction and promotion was high.

Comte d'Estrées' first interest was not the navy. He entered the French army in 1644 and fought in Flanders for the next three years, being promoted to colonel of the elite Navarre Regiment by the age
of twenty-three. By the time he was thirty-one, he had achieved the rank of lieutenant general.

For all of his rapid promotion, Comte d'Estrées was not the ideal soldier. His courage was never questioned; it was demonstrated amply on many occasions. He was a proud and arrogant man (hardly an anomaly among the aristocracy of France), unpleasant to those who served under him, difficult with his superiors. He was described as “a brave man, but a bad leader, and a worse subordinate.”
⁵

Not until 1668, after quarreling with his senior commander in the army and subsequently quitting the service, did d'Estrées join the French navy. He had never sailed as anything but a passenger before, but thanks to his years of military service, his connections, and his noble birth, he was made vice admiral of the West Indies only three years after entering the navy.

D'Estrées might have done better to remain on land. At first, his career as a fighting sailor was marked by one defeat after another at the hands of the Dutch. Although failure in so large an operation as a major fleet action can rarely be blamed on an individual, d'Estrées' lack of experience and uninspiring leadership did not help.

In 1676, when Louis XIV sent him against the Dutch in the West Indies, d'Estrées finally began to enjoy some success. In December 1676, he captured the Dutch island of Cayenne, and the following year he took Tobago on his second try.

In these actions, d'Estrées' ships were employed largely as transports and the real fighting took place on land. This may have helped d'Estrées, since a land battle was an altogether more familiar situation for the former army lieutenant general. The French were also able to bring overwhelming numbers to bear against the Dutch in that region.

By May 1678, there was only one Dutch stronghold left, Curaçao. Conquering that one small island was all that the French needed to drive their enemy completely from the Caribbean and to acquire the wealth of those islands, leaving France the dominant power in the West Indies.

Curaçao was more than just a lonely outpost. It was situated not far from the stretch of South American coast from Trinidad to Costa Rica known as the Spanish Main. The island was the
entrepôt,
the central gathering spot for goods and shipping, of Dutch trade in the West Indies. Spain, which had huge wealth but little manufacturing and not much of a distribution system, needed the port as a means of supplying
its colonies in America. By replacing the Dutch on the island, France stood to put itself in a pivotal position in the New World.

D'Estrées had no intention of failing in this mission. He had in his company eighteen massive warships mounting in total more than seven hundred cannons and carrying more than four thousand men.

But d'Estrées wanted still more, and so he secured for his use a second fleet, a flotilla manned by some of the hardest, most fearless, and most vicious men on earth. Sailing in company with the French fleet, this second armada was composed of fifteen or so ships with their combined complement numbering around fourteen hundred.

They were mercenaries, pirates, renegades. They were the buccaneers of Tortuga.