Spanish galleon

“ I don't set up to be infallible. The best men may make mistakes. Listen to me, now, till I explain. The galleon is lying jammed in that channel. The water is, of course, comparatively calm there on account of the shelter of the headland. The Spanish captain, not being a fool—we agreed from the first, you remember, that the Spanish captain wasn't an absolute fool—sees that there is no immediate danger of the galleon breaking up. These Spanish galleons were all pretty tough. You remember the one that came ashore on Robinson Crusoe's island. ”

“ That the bewitched old galleon should{202} have run her nose exactly into this place of all others, when there were miles of fair sloping beach on which she might have stranded, seemed like a deadly stab in the back by a treacherous adverse fate. It was enough to make a man swear, if that would have done any good. ”

“ When the pearl-fishers sailed we observed them with the glass and noted that the whole party was on board; therefore we should not need to keep a watch for the present. That night, tired out, I slept soundly, but was troubled with dreams about the galleon. For example, I dreamed that we had emptied her hold completely and found nothing in it but a sealed jar, which upon opening we found to contain a dirty visiting-card, on which was written, “I raised this galleon in 1830 and took out all her contents. This is for the benefit of the next man who tries it. ”

“ It is feared that both of the Acapulco galleons have been lost at sea; and all these things fill the people with sadness. The small remnant of the crew of a Spanish galleon wrecked the preceding year among the Ladrones Islands arrive at Manila.
Letters from Corcuera to the confraternity of Santa Misericordia ask (December 4, 1637) their prayers for the success of his Jolo expedition; and (October 26, 1639) that they will take into their [16] house two Moro hostages, to train them in the Christian doctrine. ”

“ I said; “we have plenty of time before us, and a little done every day makes a great deal. Now I roughly calculate that we must have a pile of gourds as large as the Spanish galleon, if you can imagine it lying on the beach; for the floating capacity of these round gourds in a heap would not represent, owing to the interstices between the individual gourds, more than half that of a single, great gourd of the size of the heap. Or to put it in another way, let us say we want a sufficient number of gourds to hold half the air that the galleon would hold if empty{168} of water. ”

“ Having rejoined the Gloucester, which had taken only two small vessels, Anson steered for the southern part of California, there to watch for a Spanish galleon annually dispatched with treasure from the port of Acapulco to Manilla. On arriving at their destination, after cruising for some time, during the night a light was seen, when they were about twenty-five leagues from the shore. Chase was immediately made, it being supposed it was the galleon’s light. ”

“ As [Pg 257] for the golden galleon, let her rot, let her sink, say I. Let her treasures go down to the mermaids' halls, that the precious gems may bedeck the mermaids' necks withal. It will not be the first ship-load of Spanish doubloons that hath gone unto the depths for the children of the ocean to play with. And I say to you, were the galleon thrice her size, with thrice her present wealth aboard of her, I would not turn back a fathom's distance with the thought of entering her. ”

“ These crazy Englishmen they climb to the decks of that galleon just like monkeys. These four hundred Spanish sailors and soldiers are all chopped to pieces. The tall galleon she is on fire and blazes all up. And these English piraticos dump the gold and silver bars through the ports, into their two little ships, just like you shovel coal.
“Whew! My old grandfather in his shiny armor, all so grand and brave, has to give up his sword to the English capitan. He is treated very nice as a prisoner, but he has to get ransom for himself in Cartagena, four thousand pieces of eight. ”

“ At last after a weary wait the tide reached its lowest, and as I feared, we found that we dared not go into the race-way with the boat. Each swell swept through it with a great rush, breaking into foam in the narrower part, so that a boat would have been dashed to pieces unless fortunate enough to swim fairly out through the exit, and would then be extremely liable to be overwhelmed. We drew up to the rock which lay adjoining the beach and landed, so that we might look down on the galleon from above. ”

“ Even as we looked we heard a hoarse order in Spanish, a language I am familiar with. It was DeNortier's command to the pirates to put about in the direction of the distant vessel.
All the morning long we followed that dark speck upon the water, gaining little by little, until about two of the evening we had gotten well in sight of her. She was a great galleon, bearing the yellow flag of Spain, her decks crowded with men, women, and children, who pointed and gesticulated at us. ”

“ By carefully guarding against raising a smoke during the day with our fires, we should greatly diminish the chances of being discovered, and at night we would keep no fire. We could lower the masts of the boats, and by mooring them a little farther up they would be partly hidden by the willows. So, too, as to the galleon; unless one actually climbed upon the rocks and looked down into the basin, there was nothing in the external appearance of the place from sea or shore to denote its existence. ”

“ I had no right on any account to subject Alice and her father for a moment more to the tender mercies of such a gang of cutthroats. Let the galleon and its treasure go if necessary, we must put to sea at once. The full moon would rise by nine o’clock, and as we wanted to be off shore before that time, we had to hurry our preparation. The boats were fortunately both provided with a supply of fresh water in gourds, which would keep sweet, and it did not take us long to put our provisions on board, together with such things as we thought we might need{267} for a voyage. ”

“ The frame was in position, and it now only remained to attach the calabashes, one cage of them at a time, and we hoped the galleon would be lifted. In preparation for this work,—which we would not be ready to undertake for some time, or until all the calabashes were caged and fitted with attaching ropes,—we had, before sinking the frame-work, passed over the spar that connected the two triangles the bight of an endless rope, for use as a down-haul with which the calabash cages might be pulled down. ”

“ On the fourth day the water was so low that the shark was almost aground, and I put two loads of buckshot into the living grave of Captain Senlis, whereupon it succumbed, and left the galleon unguarded.
By night of this fourth day the basin was pumped out sufficiently, and the galleon lay almost completely exposed, the water inside of her still leaking out slowly. Completely exhausted we went to bed early and left her to drain as she might. Human nature could endure no more. ”

“ But you I never understood,
Your spirit's secret hides like gold
Sunk in a Spanish galleon
Ages ago in waters cold. ”

“ Transferred to one of King Philip's great galleons, I was taken once more to the Spanish Indies; but by God's providence the galleon was captured on the high seas by Captain Ned Horseley, the English buccaneer, and I was by him handed over to Captain Francis Drake. Under Drake, so please you, I served at the attack on Nombre de Dios, and at the taking of Porto Bello in the year seventy-two. Again I fell into the hands of our enemies, and was for eight long years in the Everlasting Prison Remediless in Hispaniola; since when I have been in the Indies—in Darien, in Brazil, in Virginia. ”

“ The practical advantage of this discovery was the establishment of the annual Manilla galleon, in which was sent out 1,000,000 silver dollars to purchase Oriental products for the consumption of Spain and all her American colonies. In this galleon sailed the friars that went forth to the spiritual conquest of India. In it sailed Spanish soldiers, who followed hard after the priests, to add the temporal to the spiritual subjugation of Oriental empires. To this harbor the galleon returned, freighted with the rich merchandise of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. ”

“ That night I slept very little till toward morning. All night I lay thinking about the galleon and the treasure that it contained. If I only had a diving-apparatus I could see my way clear. The old man and his daughter would be all the help I should need. I began to dislike the idea of leaving the island even temporarily, until I had secured the treasure. But probably I could not procure a submarine helmet and diver’s dress, with air-tubes and pump, short of Kingston, Jamaica,{147} or Havana in Cuba, and possibly not nearer than New York. Ah! ”

“ Now the Spanish admiral, when he reported that the galleon bore east of north from the point of rocks, and about a mile therefrom, probably spoke, as to direction at least, from actual observation of the compass, as a sailor would; for nobody knows better than a sailor the impossibility of guessing at direction without a guide. ”

“ As we made the north-eastern corner of the island we espied, far away to the west, two Spanish galleons making what speed they could against the wind, and, we doubted not, coming in chase of us. At sight of them Captain Q was beset by a great excitement, and called upon our master to heave-to and await the villain Dons. ”

“ It will never do to have the courier who brings such good tidings take harm by his journey.”
After I had gone into my little sleeping-place and put{225} on dry clothing, we sat down, and I had to describe minutely what I had seen. We then went into general committee to discuss ways and means for getting at the cargo of the sunken hull. Mr. Millward was for setting sail at the first favorable wind for Martinique to get divers and return with them. But I could not bring myself to agree to leaving the galleon to chance for so long a time as that might require. ”

“ Owing to the heat, I had been sleeping in my hammock at the shed. I immediately got up, partly dressed myself, and carried my hammock to the house, where I found my companions both wakened by the thunder. I called Duke in and secured the door, expecting a heavy rain, which speedily came down with a rush and steady roar upon the thatched roof. The wind followed from the old quarter, the northeast, and soon became almost a gale, beating and driving the rain against the walls in angry gusts.
Mr. Millward and I, talking through the darkness, speculated on the probable result to the galleon ”

“ I judged that this galley, which was under sail when first sighted, had come out from Cartagena in search of us, and from the fact that she did not at once bear down upon us, but hung persistently to windward, I conjectured that she was not alone, that she had one or more consorts somewhere to windward, and that, upon fully identifying the galleon, she would lower her sails, out sweeps, and be off to windward for help to tackle us. ”

“ It was off the island of Terceira that the Revenge—or what remained of her—came to her end. She had been taken out in tow by the San Andrea galleon, but when the tempest rose to its height she was cast off and abandoned to her fate. Driven by the tremendous [Pg 322] waves upon the outlying rocks, she was shattered to splinters, so that not a trace of her remained but a few balks of her stout oaken timbers that drifted as flotsam to the beach. There had been seventy men on board of her, many of them Spaniards, some few of them captive Englishmen. ”

“ But yet the Spanish galleys had a sight of them when they were come within three English miles of the town, and made after them with all possible haste; and although they saw that they were far out of their reach, yet in a vain fury and foolish pride they shot off their ordnance and made a stir in the sea as if they had been in the midst of them, which vanity of theirs ministered to our men notable matter of pleasure and mirth, seeing men to fight with shadows and to take so great pains to so small purpose. ”

“ To begin with, these Spaniards have been languishing for many months in an evil climate; they will surely be reduced by disease, by famine, and I know not what other pestilential ills, while we shall meet them strong and fresh and hearty. Their galleons will be half rotten, bored by the teredo worm, overgrown with weeds and barnacles, and, moreover, very heavily laden; while our own ships, on the other hand, are newly fitted out with good sails and riggings, strong clean hulls, good guns, and an abundance of ammunition. ”

“ Another consideration moving Spain was a desire for a harbor of refuge on the Californian coast for her Manila galleons. Once each year, a lone galleon made its way across the Pacific from Mexico to the Philippines, to return rich laden with the products of those tropical isles and the nearby lands of the Orient. ”

“ On a large galley, besides 270 rowers, there was a mixed crew of about 75 men, together with 50 or 60 soldiers; so that the whole equipment of a fighting-galley must have reached about 400 men. A galleas originally was a large, heavy galley, but later it became a sailing ship, as was the galleon of the Spaniards. ”

“ The other children gathered closer round him.
"You must know, then," he began, looking from one to the other of the rosy faces, "that our great enemies the Spaniards have long been famous for the vast wealth that they have gathered out yonder in the islands that we name the West Indies. Every year King Philip doth send out a fleet of his galleons to bring home to Spain their cargoes of silver and gold. 'Tis that same vast wealth that hath made him able to fit out his armadas and pay his armies of soldiers to fight against your fathers. Now Queen Elizabeth (God bless her!) ”