A Mainsail Haul/Captain John Coxon
CAPTAIN COXON
Eight generations ago, the island of Carmen, in the Lagoon of Tides, in the Bay of Campeachy, was one of the loneliest places in the world. It was a wilderness, half swamp half jungle, where the red mangrove trees, and the stunted whitethorn, shut away a few Indians from the roaring of the Lagoon tides at flood and ebb.
To the north of it there lay the Bay, to the south the Lagoon; to the west and east a number of sandy islands about which the tides raced. On some of the islands, and on all the marshy mainland, there grew the valuable logwood-trees, which made the neighbouring waters to smell sweetly when their profuse yellow blossoms were in season. To these islands, at certain times of the year, there came a Spaniard from Campeachy, with a gang of cowboys, to hunt the wild cattle for their hides and tallow. This Spaniard, whose name was Juan de Acosta, was the only white man who ever came there. How the cattle got there will never be known; but it is to be supposed that they had strayed from the Spanish settlements, and multiplied, and at last swum across to the islands at low water.
During the first ten years of the reign of Charles II a buccaneer ship, cruising far to "leeward," discovered the Lagoon, and explored its shores. Her seamen found several belts of logwood near the salt creeks, and took some stacks of the timber to Port Royal, where they sold it at a good price. After that, several ships (both merchant ships and buccaneer cruisers) went thither yearly to load logwood for Jamaica. The wood, which was then much used for dyeing, sold for from £15 to £70 a ton in the English markets. It could be had for the cutting all about the Lagoon of Tides, while the great plenty of fruit and cattle thereabouts made the business inexpensive. Perhaps no people since the beginning of time have shown so evident a fondness for free quarters and large profits as the buccaneers displayed at this period of their history. The business of logwood cutting suited them very well, for it did not necessarily interfere with their rightful calling; while the title "logwood cutter" looked rather better on a Charge Sheet. Very soon the creeks of the Lagoon were peopled by little settlements of buccaneers, who built themselves huts of palm leaves, and laboured very hard at their new craft. Many of them stayed there all the year round, cutting timber and stacking it, and selling it to the merchant ships which came thither from Port Royal. They lived together in little gangs, with their common casks of rum and sugar, and such wives as they could buy in Jamaica, or steal from the local Indians. They called the present Carmen Island Beef Island, and made some arrangement with Juan de Acosta for the slaughtering of the beeves for their food. Five days in each week they cut logwood. On the sixth they took their guns and went hunting. The seventh they observed as the Sabbath. When a ship came to the Lagoon all work was laid aside. The cutters went aboard her, and passed the rest of the day in drinking her commander's rum and firing off her guns. If the captain were sparing of his rum and powder, they gave him a cargo of bad wood. Thus did they encourage a generous spirit and a virtuous liberality among their patrons. All this is by way of prelude, or prologue, to the history we propose to present.
In the years 1669 and 1670 two Englishmen, brothers, named John and William Coxon, began business as logwood merchants, trading between Port Royal and the Lagoon of Tides. With William Coxon we have no concern; but we may take it for granted that at this time both he and his brother were fairly virtuous. Had they been otherwise, they would hardly have gone trading at a time when Henry Morgan was about to march on Panama. We surmise that John Coxon was then a young man, and (very possibly) new to the Indies. He was one of the first to enter into friendly relations with Juan de Acosta. We may be sure that he was very prodigal in rum and powder, and that the "Old Standards," the senior lumbermen, always laid by for him the choicest wood. He passed his days between the Lagoon and Port Royal, making perhaps two trips in each year. But in the summer of 1672 the Spaniards began to look with disfavour upon the growing trade in the Bay. Juan de Acosta was accused of encouraging the English, and cast into prison at Campeachy. One or two trading ketches, laden with supplies of logwood, were snapped up by Spanish "Armadillies," while the Spanish guarda-costas, from San Juan de Ulloa, received orders to destroy any logwood cutter's settlement which they could find. John Coxon was troubled by these gentry, and lost a part of his business. The Jamaican Government could not allow him to make reprisals; nor was it strong enough to protect a station so far away as the Lagoon. The Governor gave order that in future all logwood ships were to sail in fleets not less than four ships strong. This arrangement worked fairly well, until the final destruction of the logwood industry a few years later.
After 1672 the Bay of Campeachy attracted large numbers of buccaneers, who found the "windward" seas too hot to hold them. The camps in the Lagoon of Tides became rather more riotous than they had been. The lumbermen began to make forays along the coasts, when business was slack, with the result that their virtuous members became "debauched" into "wickedness." We fear that one of the first to be "debauched" was John Coxon. By 1675 he had left the logwood business. He had gathered together a crew of "Privateers," and had sailed to the island of Tortuga, where, for a sum down, a compliant French Governor gave him a commission to make "war" upon the Spaniards, with the "right" of landing "to hunt" on Spanish territory. With this precious "protection" in his pocket, John Coxon cut himself temporarily adrift from virtuous living. He hoisted the red flag, and set sail.
We do not know how he began his privateering; but we are forced to conclude that he wasted little time. By August 1676, he had been declared a pirate; and the Jamaican Government had offered mercy to all his men if they would deliver up their captain. To their credit, they refused this offer; but Coxon seems to have taken it as a hint to keep clear of Port Royal, and of the windward waters generally, till some other pirate had put him out of mind for the time being. Probably he went to some quiet place like Boca del Toro, off Nicaragua, where he could live upon turtle and manatee, and dice with his officers for tots of rum. He lay low, in this way, for nearly nine months.
His next appearance was in June or July 1677. He was then in command of about 100 Englishmen, who had taken as their allies some three of four French captains, with commissions from Tortuga. He induced these Frenchmen to come with him to attack Santa Martha, a strong little city not far from Cartagena, which had proved too strong for the buccaneers, though it had surrendered, twenty years before, to an English squadron. Drake had been driven from Santa Martha, so that there was a certain amount of glory to be won there. It could not be approached easily from the landward, and the defences to the sea-approach were powerful. Coxon was not dismayed by the difficulties it presented. He rowed in boldly in the early morning, a little before the dawn, and carried the main fort with a rush, while the garrison were sleeping. The town was taken after a little fighting in the streets. All the credit of the capture was due to Coxon, who "did all," with his Englishmen, before the Frenchmen ventured to come ashore. At least, this was what he told Sir Thomas Lynch on his return to Port Royal. The plunder of Santa Martha was "nothing to babble about." It came to £20 a man, in "money and broken plate"; though Coxon's share came to rather more. He brought away with him the Governor and the Bishop of the city, both of whom he held to ransom. There must have been something charming in him, for when he came to Port Royal to surrender to the Government (and to pay his tenths and fifteenths), the "good old man" (the Bishop) expressed himself "exceedingly satisfied" with his treatment. He expressed himself thus to Sir Thomas Lynch, who had come aboard to inquire after him, and to make him more comfortable, and to treat for his release. When he spoke, the entire buccaneer crew was lying on the deck blind drunk, and perhaps few bishops would have shown such charitable broadmindedness in such a situation, and at such a time.
The ransoms of the Bishop and the Governor were duly paid, and Coxon found himself rich enough to take advantage of an Act of Oblivion. For nearly two years he lived honestly in Jamaica; but (as he confessed) he then "grew weary" of being honest (probably he ran short of money), so that he put to sea again in command of a small cruiser. In the summer of 1679 he was on the coasts of Honduras, where he made a great haul of indigo, tortoiseshell, cacao and cochineal. He would have preferred pieces of eight, but the homely proverb, "it is not always May," was doubtless a consolation to him. He smuggled much of his booty into Jamaica, where he flooded all the markets, and ruined half the dry-goods merchants. Then he set sail again (December 1679) to Negril Bay, at the west end of Jamaica, to fill provisions for a raid along the Spanish coasts. With him were Captains Sawkins and Sharp, both of whom have their niches in the sinks and cellars of Fame's temple. While they lay at Negril, a small trading ketch put in and anchored by them. She was going to leeward, to trade among the Moskito Indians. Aboard her was William Dampier, a merchant and logwood cutter, who was trying to make a little money, before he returned to England. The crew of the ketch promptly volunteered to join the buccaneers; so that Dampier "was, in a manner, forced" to join them also. About Christmas 1679, Coxon made sail, and steered away to the Main, with designs upon the town of Porto Bello, where Drake had died, some eighty-three years before. Coxon took 200 men ashore, and marched for three days through swamps and woods, till on the dawn of the fourth he came to the city, and rushed it, as he had rushed Santa Martha. Porto Bello had been squeezed by the velvet glove of Henry Morgan in 1668, but Coxon's men secured booty which "whacked up" to ₤30 or ₤40 a man. This was "good gains," and with this they were content. They rejoined their ships and sailed to Golden Island, a noted haunt of the buccaneers, in the "Samballoes," or Mulatas Islands, where they planned to cross the Isthmus of Darien, to plunder Santa Maria, a gold-mine near the South Seas. When they mustered at Golden Island, Coxon was in a ship of 80 tons, manned by 97 men.
The story of that crossing of the Isthmus has been told by many writers, four of whom were in the ranks at the time. At the landing, Captain John Coxon commanded the fifth and sixth companies, both of which marched under red colours. The colours were probably petticoats, which could afterwards be traded to the natives. Coxon landed in a bad mood, because he was not the chief commander of the expedition; that post having fallen to Richard Sawkins, a valorous imp of fame who was more popular than he. Two days after landing he had "some Words" with another company commander, one Peter Harris, a Kentish gentleman. On this occasion he so far forgot himself as to say Dn, and to whip up a gun and to fire at Peter Harris, who was by no means backward in retaliating. However, another company captain "brought him to be quiet," and so the voyage continued. Santa Maria was duly captured, "but when they got there, the cupboard was bare," for the month's take of gold has just been sent to Panama. This disappointment caused the buccaneers much annoyance. Some were for returning to their ships at Golden Island. Others, more venturous, were for attacking Panama. Coxon, who had taken Santa Martha and Porto Bello, was for returning to the ships, because, he argued, the honour of any further exploit, in this galère, will fall, not to me, but to Richard Sawkins. However, Sawkins was not so covetous of honour as Coxon thought. He caused the buccaneers to make Coxon their Admiral in his stead; which was promptly done, "Coxon seeming to be well satisfied." Then they embarked in "canoas and periagoes" and rowed away west for Panama. On St. George's Day (1680) the canoas of Sawkins and Coxon fought and defeated a Spanish squadron near the island of Perico. The battle was well-contested and abominably bloody; and the laurels were won by Richard Sawkins, who captured the Spanish admiral. This was a sore blow to Coxon, who now determined to return to his ship. Some of Sawkins's men "stickled not to defame or brand him with the note of cowardice," crying out that he had been backward in the battle, and that he wasn't half the Admiral he gave out. At this, Coxon took leave of the fleet, with some seventy hands. He took with him a ship and a periagua, which, as Sharp, his shipmate, says, "will not much Redound to his Honour." He recrossed the Isthmus without trouble; rejoined his ship at Golden Island; and again went cruising along the Main.
Shortly after his return to the North Sea, he decided to row far up the Gulf of Darien to get gold from the Indians of those parts. He caused his seamen to cut up a useful suit of sails and to make a number of strong canvas bags (a bag apiece) for the ready conveyance of the gold, when it had been "purchased," or "conveyed." But though he rowed with creditable perseverance, "with an astonishing Degree of Enthusiasm," under a sun that was hot and through an atmosphere that was nearly liquid, he got no gold whatsoever. He could not even get any Indians to sell in Port Royal; for the Indians were not only "Shy," but "Treacherous"; and had a way of potting your pirate, through a blowpipe, from behind a tree. Plainly, such Indians were best left alone by a force which, however civilized, lacked machine-guns. They wished these Indians might some day come into the hands of the Spaniards. Then, they argued, they wouldn't be so perky with their blowpipes, nor yet so suspicious of those who were really their best friends. Thus growling, they rowed out of the Gulf, and set sail for Jamaica. On the way, an English frigate chased them for a day or more, to give them a relish of the sweets of liberty.
We do not know what John Coxon did for the next few months. He probably cruised along the Main, taking what he could, and lying up, among the Mulatas Islands, when weary of the sea. He was at anchor at one of the Mulatas Islands in May 1681, when Dampier arrived there, after his tramp across the Isthmus. He was then in very good fettle, and did not want hands. With him were several other buccaneers, French, Dutch, and English, who were planning a "concerted piece," or buccaneer orchestral effect, which should startle the Spaniards extremely. However, it came on to blow; the ships were separated; the great scheme came to nothing; and Coxon disappears again, under storm-staysails, for the best part of a year. In June or July 1682, he turned up at the Bahama Group, at the office of the Governor of New Providence. He explained that he wanted a commission to enable him "to make war on the Spaniards of Cuba, St. Augustine, and others"; which commission (to his great surprise) was promptly granted. He recruited at New Providence, by the simple method of inviting defaulting debtors to come aboard. Then he sailed to Jamaica, apparently to show Sir Thomas Lynch what a beautiful commission he had gotten from Bahama. Sir Thomas reproved the too trusting official, and diverted honest Coxon's fervour into another channel, by bidding him go to Honduras to escort home some logwood merchants. Coxon gave up his intention of making war on the Spaniard, and sailed to Honduras to do this, but, unfortunately, his men had little heart for convoy duty. Being Government men, at £1 a month and their victuals, was less pleasant, and infinitely less glorious, than being "on the account" for "whatever they could rob." They plotted to heave John Coxon into the gulf, and to run away with the ship, "and go privateering." So they came aft in a body to put their bloody resolutions into effect. "But he valiantly resisted, killed one or two with his own hand, forced eleven overboard, and brought three to Port Royal," where they were condemned and hanged. This action so delighted Lynch that he made Coxon his trusted henchman. Early in 1683, Lynch sent him out again, this time to his old ally, Captain Yanky-Dutch, with an offer of "₤200 in Gold, besides Victuals," if, between them, they could capture the French privateer La Trompeuse, commanded by their whilom friend, Captain Peter Paine.
Virtue so fervent as that of John Coxon soon burns itself out. The pure flame which forced eleven mutineers into the sea in November 1682, was but a smoke and a memory a year later. In a letter dated November 1683, we find the curt entry, "Coxon is again in rebellion"; while another, of March 1684, describes him as cruising off the Terra Firme. Then a vagrant impulse to virtue drove him back to Jamaica, where he found a surety, and some honest employment, which kept him ashore, but only for a little while. In January 1686, he returned to Jamaica from another piratical raid, the details of which are missing. He claimed on this occasion to be weary of piracy; but the authorities were more weary than he, so he was laid by the heels, and sent for trial at St. Jago de la Vega, "where there will be few sympathizers among the jury." Those who are to be tried in a place where there will be few sympathizers among the jury, have every incentive to find sympathizers in the gaol. Coxon discovered the practical virtues of this statement. He got away from the prison before the jury was called; and he was next heard of in Campeachy, cutting logwood, and raiding the coasts. A ship was sent after him; but this ship, though she captured some of his men, failed to take him. In 1687 he was still cruising, and making a good deal of money "by snapping up Indians to sell." In 1688, for some reason, he again surrendered at Jamaica to the Duke of Albemarle, who "sent him to Lynch" in despair.
We do not know how he escaped hanging; but the stars in their courses fought for him, and he got off somehow. He had still ten years of life before him; and these he passed quietly, as a trader to the Moskito shore. At times the old Adam rose up strongly in him; and then he would gather the Indians together, and take them to the Spanish settlements, "surprizing them in the night," as he had once surprised Santa Martha. "This Coxon encouraged the Indians to such practices." He died among them, surrounded by "wild Indian slaves and harlots," in the year 1698. The Indians sorrowed for him "after their manner"; and three old English pirates, who lived in that strange place, helped dig his grave; and then drank a cup of rum to his memory, and fired a French volley to his wandering shadow.