University of Virginia Library

6. SKETCH SIXTH.

Near two centuries ago Barrington Isle was
the resort of that famous wing of the West
Indian Buccaneers, which, upon their repulse
from the Cuban waters, crossing the Isthmus of
Darien, ravaged the Pacific side of the Spanish
colonies, and, with the regularity and timing
of a modern mail, waylaid the royal treasure-ships
plying between Manilla and Acapulco.
After the toils of piratic war, here they came
to say their prayers, enjoy their free-and-easies,
count their crackers from the cask, their doubloons
from the keg, and measure their silks of
Asia with long Toledos for their yard-sticks.

As a secure retreat, an undiscoverable hidingplace,
no spot in those days could have been
better fitted. In the centre of a vast and silent
sea, but very little traversed—surrounded by
islands, whose inhospitable aspect might well
drive away the chance navigator — and yet
within a few days' sail of the opulent countries
which they made their prey—the unmolested
Buccaneers found here that tranquillity which
they fiercely denied to every civilized harbor in
that part of the world. Here, after stress of
weather, or a temporary drubbing at the hands
of their vindictive foes, or in swift flight with
golden booty, those old marauders came, and
lay snugly out of all harm's reach. But not
only was the place a harbor of safety, and a
bower of ease, but for utility in other things
it was most admirable.

Barrington Isle is, in many respects, singularly
adapted to careening, refitting, refreshing,
and other seamen's purposes. Not only has it
good water, and good anchorage, well sheltered
from all winds by the high land of Albemarle,
but it is the least unproductive isle of the
group. Tortoises good for food, trees good for

fuel, and long grass good for bedding, abound
here, and there are pretty natural walks, and
several landscapes to be seen. Indeed, though
in its locality belonging to the Enchanted
group, Barrington Isle is so unlike most of its
neighbors, that it would hardly seem of kin to
them.

“I once landed on its western side,” says a
sentimental voyager long ago, “where it faces
the black buttress of Albemarle. I walked
beneath groves of trees—not very lofty, and not
palm trees, or orange trees, or peach trees, to
be sure—but, for all that, after long sea-faring,
very beautiful to walk under, even though
they supplied no fruit. And here, in calm
spaces at the heads of glades, and on the shaded
tops of slopes commanding the most quiet scenery—what
do you think I saw? Seats which
might have served Brahmins and presidents of
peace societies. Fine old ruins of what had
once been symmetric lounges of stone and turf,
they bore every mark both of artificialness and
age, and were, undoubtedly, made by the Buccaneers.
One had been a long sofa, with back
and arms, just such a sofa as the poet Gray

might have loved to throw himself upon, his
Crebillon in hand.

“Though they sometimes tarried here for
months at a time, and used the spot for a
storing-place for spare spars, sails, and casks;
yet it is highly improbable that the Buccaneers
ever erected dwelling-houses upon the isle.
They never were here except their ships remained,
and they would most likely have slept
on board. I mention this, because I cannot
avoid the thought, that it is hard to impute the
construction of these romantic seats to any
other motive than one of pure peacefulness and
kindly fellowship with nature. That the Buccaneers
perpetrated the greatest outrages is
very true—that some of them were mere cutthroats
is not to be denied; but we know that
here and there among their host was a Dampier,
a Wafer, and a Cowley, and likewise
other men, whose worst reproach was their
desperate fortunes—whom persecution, or adversity,
or secret and unavengeable wrongs,
had driven from Christian society to seek the
melancholy solitude or the guilty adventures
of the sea. At any rate, long as those ruins of

seats on Barrington remain, the most singular
monuments are furnished to the fact, that all
of the Buccaneers were not unmitigated monsters.

“But during my ramble on the isle I was not
long in discovering other tokens, of things quite
in accordance with those wild traits, popularly,
and no doubt truly enough, imputed to the freebooters
at large. Had I picked up old sails
and rusty hoops I would only have thought of
the ship's carpenter and cooper. But I found
old cutlasses and daggers reduced to mere
threads of rust, which, doubtless, had stuck between
Spanish ribs ere now. These were signs
of the murderer and robber; the reveler likewise
had left his trace. Mixed with shells,
fragments of broken jars were lying here and
there, high up upon the beach. They were
precisely like the jars now used upon the Spanish
coast for the wine and Pisco spirits of that
country.

“With a rusty dagger-fragment in one hand,
and a bit of a wine-jar in another, I sat me
down on the ruinous green sofa I have spoken
of, and bethought me long and deeply of these

same Buccaneers. Could it be possible, that
they robbed and murdered one day, reveled
the next, and rested themselves by turning
meditative philosophers, rural poets, and seat-builders
on the third? Not very improbable,
after all. For consider the vacillations of a
man. Still, strange as it may seem, I must
also abide by the more charitable thought;
namely, that among these adventures were
some gentlemanly, companionable souls, capable
of genuine tranquillity and virtue.”