The Lost Fleet (21 page)

Reinforcements poured in from the countryside. Blas Miguel and those of his Cuban raiders who were still alive retreated to the small fortress. In the harbor, his brigantine abruptly departed in a hail of
French cannon fire. De Graff himself waded out through the surf sword in hand and captured the piragua.

Trapped and surrounded, Blas Miguel made a laughable offer: to return all the booty he had taken if he and his men were allowed to sail away. Instead, the buccaneers of Petit Goâve stormed the fortress and took Miguel and forty-seven of his men.

The next day, forty-eight surviving raiders were tried, with predictable results. Miguel and two of his officers were sentenced to be “broken alive on the wheel.” Two were found to have been forced into the Cubans' service, and they were released. The rest were sentenced to hang.

The punishments were carried out the next day. Attacking the buccaneer stronghold of Laurens de Graff with sixty-five lightly armed men had not been a prudent move.

S
UMMER
1687
I
LE À
V
ACHE

B
y summer 1687, de Graff was no longer an outlaw, taking ships and sacking towns on his own authority, but rather was taking his orders from de Cussy. In September, the French governor dispatched him to Ile à Vache, under the guise of reinforcing the French claim to that island off the southern coast of Hispaniola. In fact, an old Spanish shipwreck had recently been uncovered there and de Graff's presence was meant to discourage any but the French from working the wreck.

Laurens was appointed a major, or royal adjutant, of Ile à Vache. De Cussy reported that the former pirate promised “to acquit himself with the same zeal and fidelity as he had done during the ten years he has served under the French standard.”
¹
That was exactly what he did.

The British were quickly informed that Ile à Vache was now off limits. Molesworth was not concerned, as his intelligence assured him that the island was of no great value. Not everyone agreed with that. Nearly a year later, the Duke of Albemarle, who succeeded Molesworth as governor of Jamaica, wrote to the Lords of Trade and Plantations saying that

From fall 1687 to fall 1689, Laurens de Graff seems to have lived an unusually peaceful existence, at least by his standards.

After asserting French dominance over Ile à Vache, de Graff received a new mission from Governor de Cussy. Information from a captured Spanish captain alerted them to the presence of a valuable wreck on the Serranilla Bank, a submerged mountain on the ocean floor, nearly equidistant from Jamaica and the east coast of Nicaragua. De Cussy suggested that de Graff work the wreck.

When de Graff sailed for the Serranilla Bank, no one in the Caribbean knew that the nations of Europe were once again at war. This time it was the War of the Grand Alliance, also known as King William's War, pitting France against England and its allies. Even though they did not know that de Graff was officially their enemy, the English kept a wary eye on the filibuster. The acting governor of Jamaica, Sir Francis Watson, wrote, “A number under Laurens have left Petit Guavos [
sic
] after a wreck, as they give out.”
³

Though Watson does not appear entirely convinced that de Graff was on so benign a mission as fishing an ancient Spanish wreck, that was exactly what he was doing. Using grappling hooks and Indian divers, the filibuster worked the site with limited success for a month or so. When the ship de Graff had dispatched for more supplies failed to return in a reasonable time, he was forced to up-anchor and to search out supplies himself on the southern coast of Cuba.

The former pirate soon learned of the new conflict in Europe, and he knew that he would be called upon to join the fight. He touched at Jamaica, but rather than raid the island, he left a brazen and terrifying promise to return. Watson reported to the Lords of Trade and Plantations:

De Graff was either exhibiting a concern for protocol that had been quite lacking during his days of wanton piracy or perhaps was simply displaying his customary panache.

When Pierre-Paul Tarin de Cussy first took office, he maintained what amounted to a “don't ask, don't tell” policy toward the filibusters, recognizing their importance in the defense and prosperity of the French West Indies. By 1687, in part as a result of the sack of Campeche, the French court ordered de Cussy to reverse that policy and, against his better judgment, he reined in the buccaneers.

As war came upon them, it became clear that de Cussy's initial policy would, in fact, have been the best course. The governor wrote bitterly that if he had been allowed to continue the wink-and-a-nod attitude toward the pirates, “there would be ten or twelve stout ships on this coast, with many brave people aboard to preserve this colony and its commerce.”
⁵
De Cussy understood that maintaining a large fleet of privateers gave the government a navy of sorts at no expense.

Fortunately, de Cussy still had Laurens, now Major Laurens de Graff, Knight of the Order of St. Louis, and de Graff had not forgotten his promise to the people of Jamaica.

D
E
G
RAFF
R
ETURNS

In the beginning of December 1689, de Graff returned to Jamaica, having called at Saint-Domingue to receive official orders from de Cussy and to recruit a small fleet of French filibusters. Despite de Graff's earlier threat, official word of the hostilities in Europe had not reached Jamaica. De Graff was able to scoop up eight or ten unwary English ships as prizes, as well as to stage a raid on at least one coastal plantation.

The English hurriedly assembled a fleet under the command of Captain Edward Spragge of HMS
Drake.
The minutes of the Council of Jamaica reflect the hasty preparations. “On the report of the pirate Laurens, ordered that the Island's armed sloop come to Port Royal to join the fleet against Laurens, and that a second sloop be fitted out…. Order for pressing a ship for the fleet against Laurens.”
⁶

The minutes also reflect the realization that it was no longer safe to venture out to sea with de Graff lurking offshore. Six days later the council ordered “the sloops not ready to accompany Captain Spragge against Laurens, not to leave the harbor.”
⁷
And three days after that, “that the known trading sloops and no others be allowed to leave the harbor after the departure of the fleet against Laurens.”
⁸

Implicit in this order is the fear that spies might warn Laurens of the preparations being made against him.

The little fleet had no effect against the pirate and his squadron. HMS
Drake
was in such poor shape that she was condemned early the following year, so it is hardly surprising that Spragge could not drive the filibuster away.

In March 1690, a second attempt was made to expel Laurens from the Jamaican coast, with similar results. In fact, it was not until the end of May that he finally sailed from that island. Laurens de Graff had terrorized the coast of Jamaica for half a year and had held it under the thumb of his blockade.

When HMS
Drake
was condemned, the Council of Jamaica was forced to dispatch its armed sloop to the Cayman Islands to protect the English turtling vessels working there. De Graff was also making
for the Caymans. The Earl of Inchiquin, who was then governor of Jamaica, reported the incident to the Lords of Trade and Plantations:

It was one of the few occasions in which a pirate was able to defeat an English naval vessel. The sloop apparently put up a terrific fight before she was taken, fighting well into the night. Inchiquin's complaint concerning a lack of ships reflects the ongoing problem of European nations' unwillingness to dispatch their best ships to the West Indies and thus strip the home defenses. The naval forces in the Caribbean and the American colonies tended to be older, second-line ships.

Thomas Lynch, the former governor of Jamaica, had carried on an amiable correspondence with de Graff, with the hope, of course, of luring him into the English fold. Now that de Graff was fully on the side of the French, the new governor had quite a different attitude. No matter what commission de Graff held or what title was given him by the king of France, he was always labeled a pirate by the English.

After taking the English sloop in the Cayman Islands, de Graff returned to Saint-Domingue, having heard rumors of a joint English-Spanish raid on the island. De Cussy transferred de Graff's base of operations from Ile à Vache to Cap François, as he did not wish to “risk further a person so zealous in his service in such a feeble quarter.”
¹⁰

C
OMBINED
O
PERATIONS

In January 1691, de Cussy was ready to lead an offensive against the Spanish near Santo Domingo. With de Graff's filibuster fleet for transportation, he landed with a small army at Saint-Domingue and marched inland. Past Spanish military performance in the region gave de Cussy and de Graff cause for optimism in their venture.

This time, they met with something that de Graff had never seen: fierce and overwhelming Spanish force. The Armada de Barlovento landed 2,600 Spanish troops near Cap François. Another seven hundred made the march overland from Santo Domingo. They outnumbered the French three to one.

Such odds had never been a problem for de Graff in the past. He had always come out on top. This time, however, the Spanish soldiers were not poorly trained and unmotivated militia or garrison troops, but well-disciplined and well-prepared line infantry.

French and Spanish met on an open plain called Sabane de la Limonade, and what began as a battle soon became a rout. The Spanish killed as many as five hundred of the French troops, including Governor Pierre-Paul Tarin de Cussy.

Laurens de Graff was the man the Spanish wanted most, but he managed to flee into the hills. In the weeks while the Spanish rampaged throughout the countryside before finally withdrawing, de Graff narrowly avoided capture. Arrogance and an underestimation of the fighting capability of the Spanish had resulted in the loss of the governor's life and the filibuster's greatest defeat yet. And there was more to come.

Governorship of Saint-Domingue passed to Jean-Baptiste Ducasse, an energetic and able man. With the loss of so many officers in the disastrous battle at Sabane de la Limonade, de Graff now assumed an even more important role in French military activity in the West Indies. At this point, the former slave became Sieur de Graff, lieutenant du roi for the government of Ile la Tortue and coast of Saint-Domingue.

In 1692, de Graff was busy recruiting, organizing, and maneuvering French forces against another possible Spanish invasion, but the Spanish never came. Despite de Graff's three years of land fighting, Ducasse recognized that the filibuster would be far more effective afloat than he was leading ground troops. Having de Graff loose at sea would help keep the enemy off balance. By 1694, the governor was
ready to employ de Graff in the manner in which he had been so effective for the past decade: leading a massive buccaneer army in an amphibious raid.

For the first time in his career, de Graff would be leading his filibuster army against the English, not the Spanish. The target was Jamaica. In June 1693, de Graff and Ducasse organized an armada consisting of twenty-two ships and more than three thousand filibusters. Among these men were English and Irish Jacobites, supporters of the recently deposed James II as the true king of England. With this powerful force, de Graff fell on the eastern tip of Jamaica.

This attack had not even a tinge of piracy. De Graff was a legitimate military officer, a knight of the Order of St. Louis, leading French troops. The sanction of legal authority did not make the former pirate any less effective. He and his men landed at Cow Bay and Point Morant and ravaged the eastern part of the island, then made a feint toward the capital of Jamaica, Port Royal. When the English sent columns of troops to meet them, the seaborne raiders returned to their ships and stood out to sea.

They reappeared on the night of July 28, landing fifteen hundred
men at Carlisle Bay. The next day de Graff and his men advanced against a garrison of 250 men. Boldly holding their fire until the last moment, the filibusters were able to deliver a devastating volley that drove the English defenders from their trenches and sent them fleeing.

Unfortunately for the buccaneers, Jamaica is considerably smaller than the Yucatán, towns were not so isolated, and, since the island was the capital of the English West Indies, there also were significant forces stationed there. Reinforcements were sent from Port Royal and arrived after a hard forced overnight march. Only their arrival prevented de Graff from laying waste to the entire area. For nearly a week he maintained control of the ground he had taken, sending his filibusters out to scour the countryside.

The Jamaican plantation houses, however, were each built like mini-fortresses, and the filibusters had no artillery to take them on. They satisfied themselves with whatever loot they could find, as well as nearly sixteen hundred slaves. On August 3, 1694, de Graff and his men reembarked and left Jamaica behind.

It was the last time De Graff led a seaborne raid at the head of a buccaneer army.

The following spring found Laurens de Graff again in command of a small land-based force near his new home at Cap François on the north shore of modern Haiti. On May 24, 1695, the enemy came.

Not just a raid but a major combined operation landed near de Graff's plantation. The British Commodore Robert Wilmot and Colonel Luke Lillingston had arrived in the West Indies and formed a joint operation with their opposite numbers in the Spanish naval and land forces. They completely overwhelmed de Graff and his small army, forcing the French to retreat in the face of their onslaught. De Graff abandoned his home to the invaders. His wife, Marie-Anne Dieu-le-Veut, and their two daughters were captured and made prisoners.