The Lost Fleet (17 page)

S
PRING
1684
P
ETIT
G
OÂVE,
H
ISPANIOLA

P
irates continued to be a mixed blessing for the governor. Lynch was happy to entice French pirates like de Graff and the “honest old privateer” de Grammont, but he chafed at the activities of English pirates and the support that they received in the North American colonies.

From Charlestown, Massachusetts, to Charleston, South Carolina, pirates were very welcome, and would continue to be. The Navigation Acts prohibited the colonists from trading with almost anyone except the mother country. The cash-and-merchandise-strapped colonists naturally welcomed pirate booty with open arms and purses. Lynch griped:

Nonetheless Lynch was still interested in recruiting de Graff. He noted with some satisfaction that “the
Ruby
met [de Graff] off Cartagena, and I was pleased to hear that the Spaniards noticed how respectful they were.”
²
Lynch was happy to have the Spanish believe that the powerful de Graff was in his corner. Soon the governor and the pirate resumed their correspondence.

 

In late April 1684, de Graff wrote to Lynch to report the incident of the English prize ship he had released:

De Graff, undoubtedly chafing at Governor Sieur de Franquesnay's hard line on piracy, was flirting with the idea of coming over to the English side. Sir Thomas Lynch found that idea appealing. In August he wrote back to de Graff:

Lynch and his superiors had already put together a package crafted to bring Laurens to their side. The agreement they had drawn up stated:

All in all, it was a good offer, but before Laurens could act on it, several events occurred that kept him firmly in the French camp.

In April 1684, a month before the offer to Laurens was drawn up, Pierre-Paul Tarin de Cussy arrived in Petit Goâve to replace the unpopular Governor Sieur de Franquesnay. De Cussy found the buccaneers near revolt, many of them deserting Petit Goâve for such congenial locations as the Carolinas, New England, and the Pacific coast of Panama.

The government in Versailles understood that the safety of French possessions in the West Indies depended on the loyalty of the well-armed buccaneers. That was plain reality, and in large part a result of the disaster at Las Aves.

Just as Lynch had recognized the strategic importance of the buccaneers to Jamaica, so de Cussy realized that he could not afford to alienate this quasi militia. He began immediately to retreat from de Franquesnay's strict enforcement of the law. Soon it was business as usual.

About the same time de Cussy was remaking Petit Goâve into a welcome haven for the pirates, de Graff captured a Spanish vessel with dispatches announcing the resumption of hostilities between the French and Spanish, a war that he himself had helped to foment with his attack on Vera Cruz. De Graff left his consorts Yankey Willems and Andrieszoon to blockade Cuba while he returned to Petit Goâve to plan his next move.

De Cussy was as eager to have de Graff on the French side as Lynch was to have him on the English. He greeted de Graff with the respect due a military hero and gave him an honorary commission, a
brevet de grâce.
It was a fine honor for a man known to the world as a notorious pirate. For a pirate who was also a black man, it was astounding. Best of all, it gave de Graff leave to continue to do exactly what he had been doing for the past decade.

De Graff spent most of the summer and fall of 1684 at Petit Goâve. Meanwhile, his subordinates Willems and Andrieszoon continued blockading Cuba.

Off Havana, they intercepted two Dutch West Indiamen, the
Stad Rotterdam
and the
Elisabeth.
Willems and Andrieszoon boarded the ships and discovered that they carried large quantities of Spanish money and several Spanish passengers, including a bishop. The Spaniards had hoped to benefit from Dutch neutrality by shipping their specie and people in vessels that were nominally off limits to privateers. It did not work. The Dutch buccaneers took half of the 200,000 pesos aboard and all of the Spanish citizens.

From Cuba, the two Dutchmen sailed north to the English colonies in America. There they met with the kind of warm reception that was driving Thomas Lynch to distraction. The governor of New Hampshire, Edward Cranfield, wrote to London that “a French privateer of 35 guns [Andrieszoon's ship
Mutine
] has arrived at Boston. I am credibly informed that they share £700 a man. The Bostoners no sooner heard of her off the coast than they dispatched a messenger and a pilot to convey her into port…”
⁶

Both Andrieszoon and Yankey Willems found a welcome in Boston, especially from a local merchant, Samuel Shrimpton, who was also the wealthiest man in Boston.

The vigorous Puritan ethic in Massachusetts in general, and Boston in particular, had relaxed considerably by this time—at least insofar as business practices were concerned. Boston merchants of these decades are now remembered as pious, frugal, and industrious pillars of the community. While this image may have been true between 1630 and 1670 (and then again after the Great Revival of the 1740s), it certainly wasn't the case during the late 1600s. This becomes evident when we look at how Bostonians were seen by outsiders—as opposed to how the Boston “Saints” saw themselves. Sailors commented about the “sly, crafty tricking designing sort of People” they met in Boston. No one doubted that the city's big merchants were the slyest and craftiest of them all.

One 1699 observer found that “whosoever believes a New-England Saint shall be sure to be cheated; and he that knows how to deal with their Traders, may deal with the Devil himself and fear no Craft.” Another noted, “It is not by half such a flagrant sin to cheat and cozen one's neighbour as it is to ride about for pleasure on the Sabbath Day or to neglect going to church and singing of psalms.”

Prior to at least the time of the Great Revival, sailors considered Boston a good town for frolicking—primarily because of its “well-rigged” young women—although at least one early-eighteenth-century sea dog warned the amorous young sailor to be careful lest one of these women “give you a doase of Something to remember them by.” There were music houses with dancing and entertainment, and good times were to be found at such taverns as the Dog & Pot by Bartletts Wharf, the Widow Day's Crown Tavern by Clarke's Wharf, or the Sign of the Bull by modern-day South Station.

Boston was never as wild as the hell towns of Tortuga or Port Royal. A sailor in search of “a bit of fun” had to be wary and discreet. The Bostonian was more than willing to part him from his cash, but otherwise cared little for outsiders—least of all for those without local property or local family ties.
⁷

Andrieszoon set about refitting his ship. It was Yankey's intention to refit once his compatriot was done, but in the interim the king's proclamation prohibiting the aiding and abetting of pirates reached the city. Massachusetts customs agent William Dyre seized
Mutine.
This was not a popular move, and under pressure from Shrimpton and Governor Simon Bradstreet he released her after a brief time.
⁸
Nonetheless, the buccaneers felt their warm welcome turn cool and sailed for the more temperate Caribbean.

A P
IRATE'S
W
EDDING

Laurens de Graff had been busy as well. Legend has it that while ashore, de Graff met the great love of his life, a Breton woman named Marie-Anne Dieu-le-Veut (“God Wills It”). The story has all the romance of the tale of de Grammont's slaying his sister's suitor, and might be taken with an equal grain of salt.

Marie-Anne was the widow of another adventurer, and was hardly a blushing maiden. In fact, she was at least as bold and headstrong as
Laurens himself. According to the legend, Marie-Anne heard that de Graff had made some remarks about her that she deemed inappropriate. With pistol in hand, she went straight to the tavern to find Laurens and demand public apology. There “the filibuster, filled with admiration for so bold a gesture, proposed he should marry her by way of apology.”
⁹

With his other wife out of reach behind Spanish guns in the Canaries, and with the moral outlook of a pirate, Laurens apparently had few reservations about adding bigamy to his misdeeds.

Petronila de Guzmán, his first wife, may have been important enough for the English to include in their offer to de Graff, and for the Spanish to use as bait in
their
offer. But as long as Petronila was in Spanish territory, she was as good as dead to him. Pragmatically, remarrying must have seemed the reasonable thing to do, given the outbreak of war.

Marie-Anne was at least as pragmatic. If Thomas Lynch knew about de Graff's first wife, it is a sure bet that Marie-Anne did, too. In any event, the couple were married soon after. The story has it that Marie-Anne wore a brace of pistols with her wedding dress, just the sort of accessorizing one would expect of a pirate's bride.

G
ATHERING FOR
A
NOTHER
R
AID

On November 22, 1684, de Graff finally took his leave of Marie and Petit Goâve, going to sea with a crew of 120 men in the fourteen-gun Spanish dispatch vessel he had captured the previous spring. After a long passage battling contrary winds, de Graff finally arrived off the Spanish Main. On the evening of January 17, 1685, he came across a squadron of two ships and four smaller vessels.

Believing he had blundered into a Spanish
armadilla,
de Graff cleared for action. An eyewitness aboard de Graff's ship, Ravenau de Lussan, described the near disaster that took place:

De Graff's preparations were akin to the philosophy of saving the last bullet for yourself. De Graff knew that he could not trust any promises the Spanish would make to secure his surrender. Pirates frequently prepared for mass suicide when threatened with capture, knowing that the Spanish would give them a far slower death.

The ships maneuvered to within hailing distance before any further exchange of gunfire. De Graff did not yet realize that he had come
across the very squadron he was seeking, the ships
Neptune
and
Mutine,
commanded by Yankey Willems and Michiel Andrieszoon.

The smaller, unknown vessel that had initially approached de Graff was commanded by the pirate Jean Rose, who had recently joined Willems and Andrieszoon and who was not familiar with de Graff's ship. Fortunately, Willems and Andrieszoon recognized the vessel and ran up a private recognition signal. With disaster averted, their meeting called for celebration, or, as de Lussan put it, “obliged us to put in at the Cape, and spend that Day to visit one another.”
¹¹

The pirates next headed for Curaçao. De Graff dispatched one of his consorts to request permission to buy masts to replace those that the pirates had lost in a storm. The governor was well aware of Willems and Andrieszoon's plundering of the Dutch West Indiamen the year before and was not interested in aiding the pirates.

The small buccaneer fleet continued along the Spanish Main, meeting with little success in the ventures they undertook. This was the lull before yet another storm. De Graff was, at this point, near the height of his fame and power. He had participated in nearly every major buccaneer raid of the decade and had been the prime mover of several of them, including the sack of Vera Cruz. He had a taste for such action, and was looking for more.