A direct and necessary result of the licensing of privateers, which prevailed throughout the wars between France and England, and England and the United States up to the year 1815, was the development of a horde of pirates in the West Indies. The lust of prize-money worked on the minds of the baser sort of sailors who had been members of the crews of privateers until the distinction between flags was nothing—even the distinction between a lawful flag and a black one was of no moment. From shedding the blood of non-combatants under license in time of war it was but a short step to the murder of seamen and passengers on common cargo-carriers in time of peace.

Moreover, the condition of governmental affairs in the West Indies and along the Spanish main was near that of anarchy. The Spanish American colonies were in a state of revolt against the crown, and yet they cannot be said to have had a stable government anywhere. There was, indeed, a form of government on the north coast of South America and another at Buenos Ayres—mere military dictatorships at best—but these, instead of serving the ends of peace and order, really promoted robbery on the high seas; for they issued licenses to swift-sailing vessels that went forth ostensibly to prey lawfully on the commerce of Spain, but, when once at sea, did not hesitate to take any well-laden merchantman they found, appropriate so much of the cargo as was of value, and then sink her and her crew and passengers together.

Naturally other ships were fitted out, to prey on commerce, that had not even the flag of a country like the South American republics. It was not difficult to find capitalists to support such enterprises and merchants who were literally “fences” for sea robbers. There were spirits who did not need any capital beyond a sword, men who would get a ship by taking it with a crew of their own kind. Nevertheless, the curse of the criminal was upon them this far, that they never dared venture so far from their hiding-places as to attack the packet trade that crossed the Banks of Newfoundland en route between Europe and the northern ports of the United States. And this seems a little curious, too, for rich prizes might have been had there.

The geographical conditions of the waters favored them, for the Caribbean Sea was a sea of a thousand islands and ten thousand inlets and bays, where the piratical craft might hide ship and plunder, and fit out for further depredations. And it was a climate to delight the lazy, while fruits and wild animals for food abounded, and the morals of the inhabitants that were nominally law-biding were of a grade to suit the pirates.

After the peace was made between the United States and England the Yankee merchants hastened to retrieve the losses they had endured during the prolonged trouble, by engaging once more in the West India trade. It was a lucrative trade. A ship that hit the market just right might clear the cost of her in a single voyage. But as time went by, the number that sailed from port and never returned, although no hurricane had been encountered, and the number that came in with tales of races for life with vessels that swarmed with eager cutthroats, increased until, in the year 1819, the Government of the United States undertook the task of clearing the sea of the vicious horde.

It was not as easy a task as it would seem to one who in this day reads of the matter. For the leaders of the states in South America were striving under the most adverse circumstances to set up republican forms of government. They were patriots in principle. The Monroe doctrine had not yet taken form, but the people of the Anglo-Saxon republic looked upon the efforts of the Latin-Americans with a kindly eye, holding fast to the doctrine that “the cure for the evils of liberty is more liberty.” It was necessary to destroy the pirates and yet at the same time aid rather than injure the young nations of the continent.

Accordingly Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of Lake Erie (he was commodore by courtesy only, captain being the highest rank in the navy), was detailed to the work. He had the John Adams for a flagship, and the Constellation, Captain Alexander Scammel Wadsworth, and the Nonsuch, Captain Alexander Claxton, for his squadron.

That was an unfortunate assignment for Perry. He reached the mouth of the Orinoco on July 15, 1819, shifted his flag to the Nonsuch, that alone could cross the bar, and started up the river to Angostura, then the capital of the country. It was a river trip of three hundred miles. His journal tells a pitiful story of that journey—a story of suffering from the dead, hot air; of the feverish thirst, of the fierce onslaught of myriads of winged insects; of sitting in smudges to escape the insects; of trying to sleep in the suffocating berths, “until almost mad with the heat and pain.”

On July 26th Angostura was reached. Perry wanted a list of the vessels licensed by the republic and compensation for an American vessel that had been unlawfully condemned. President Bolivar was away, but the Vice-president, Don Antonio Francisco Zea, promised to do all in his power to make the matters right—“mañana,” to-morrow. Perry went to live on shore. The yellow fever prevailed. Two foreigners in the house with Perry died of it. The crew of the Nonsuch became infected. The natives did all they could to annoy the Americans, but on August 11th a satisfactory official reply was received from the government. With it came an invitation to a state banquet to be given in honor of the Americans on the 14th. Perry felt obliged to accept.

On the 15th he sailed for the sea and arrived at the bar on the night of the 17th, but the fever had clutched him. He awoke at 4 o’clock on the morning of the 18th in a chill; the fever rapidly developed, and just as the ship was entering the Port of Spain, Trinidad Island, he died.

As it happened, a number of British officers were stationed here, who had fought against Perry on Lake Erie. They had learned that he was to visit the port and had made every preparation to give him a hearty British welcome, and when they learned that he was dead, they showed him every honor at his funeral. His body was afterward taken to Newport, Rhode Island.

Until 1821 nothing more of consequence appears to have been done to suppress the pirates. In this year the famous sloop-of-war Hornet, Captain Robert Henley; the famous brig Enterprise, Captain Lawrence Kearny; the brig Spark and the schooners Porpoise and Grampus, with three gun-boats, were sent down. It was as if eight policemen had been assigned to enforce the laws and preserve order in the whole of the Greater New York. However, the force went to work in earnest, and soon proved that the pirates were cowards in the face of naval authorities. On October 16, 1821, four pirate schooners and a sloop were found plundering three American merchantmen near Cape Antonio. Captain Kearny of the Enterprise sent five row-boats with his men after the pirates, who fired two of their schooners and tried to escape in the other three vessels. The three vessels were taken, however, with forty of the pirates, who were sent to Charleston. A month later a pirate resort on shore was destroyed near the same point, and in December another schooner was captured, although its crew escaped ashore. On March 6, 1822, the Enterprise captured four pirate barges and three launches with one hundred and sixty men. The Enterprise was still a lucky ship. Meantime the Hornet and the Porpoise had done almost as well.

In 1822 Commodore James Biddle came down in the Macedonian with a large addition to the fleet. The Shark, under Captain Matthew Calbraith Perry, captured five pirate vessels and helped in the capture of the Bandara de Sangare, a piratical vessel very well known in that day, while the Grampus took the Pandrita, a vessel of superior force to herself, and as well known as the Sangare.

On October 16th the Grampus captured a brigantine that was flying Spanish colors, which proved to be the Porto Rico privateer Palmira. But the Palmira had recently plundered the American schooner Coquette. She was one of the commissioned vessels that plundered indiscriminately. Nevertheless the Porto Rico authorities took revenge the next year, as will appear further on. The Palmira carried a long eighteen and eight short ones—she was a formidable craft of her kind.

Lieutenant William Howard Allen, who had had command of the Argus, after her captain was killed in the fight with the Pelican, was at this time in command of the Alligator. On November 8, 1822, he went after a force of pirates three hundred strong that, with three schooners, had five merchantmen in their possession, only forty-five miles east of Matanzas, Cuba. He found them in shoal water and ordered away the boats, himself taking the lead. The pirates, far outnumbering Allen’s force, made something of a resistance. Allen was struck twice and mortally wounded, but his men kept on and routed the pirates, capturing one of their schooners and freeing the merchantmen. Fourteen of the pirates were killed and an unknown number wounded.

In 1823 Captain David Porter, of Essex fame, took command of the force operating against the pirates. Farragut came with him, but not in command of a vessel. He added five twenty-oar barges to his fleet, and eight small schooners of three guns each, together with a small steam ferryboat from New York called the Sea-gull.

Captain Porter desired first of all to get the help of the local governments, and sailed to Porto Rico; and on March 3, 1823, sent the Greyhound, under Captain John Porter, in with a letter to the governor. Later the Fox, Captain W. H. Cocke, was sent in for an answer. As the Fox entered the port a fort opened fire on her and Cocke was killed. The port authorities explained the matter, on inquiry, by saying that the governor had gone away, leaving orders to fire on any suspicious craft entering the harbor, and the Fox looked suspicious in their eyes; but it was believed that the firing was intended to sink the Fox in revenge for the capture of the piratical Palmira.

At Cape Cruz a pirate resort was discovered that fully sustains the most ghastly stories of the sensational novel writers. It was captured by crews of the Greyhound and Beagle, under Captains Lawrence Kearny and J. S. Newton, after a desperate resistance. The pirate commander had a wife, who fought by his side with a fierceness equal to his own, and it was with great difficulty that she was overcome. When the fight was over an exploration showed that a number of caves had been used by the pirates. Bales of merchandise in some, and quantities of human bones in others, told a horrible story.

In April of 1823 the twenty-oar barges Gallinipper, Lieutenant William H. Watson, and the Mosquito, Lieutenant William Inman, chased a pirate schooner and a barge into the bay where Allen had lost his life the year before, and there the pirates anchored with springs on their cables, and made a fight. There were over seventy of the pirates, and the Americans were short-handed, having only thirty-one, all told. But they raised the cry of “Remember Allen!” and made a dash that drove the pirates overboard helter-skelter. The blood of the Yankee sailors had grown hot at the cry, and without stopping to take the pirate vessels they rowed in among the swimming cutthroats, and plied right and left with pikes and cutlasses, so that few if any escaped either death or capture, and there were but five prisoners. These were given to the Spanish authorities, and executed. The schooner had been captured from the Spanish. The pirate leader was known as Diabolito—a word that means “little devil.” He was killed while swimming for the shore.

On the whole, the work of Porter’s fleet was rapidly clearing the waters of the pirate plague. Nevertheless, when he compelled a Porto Rico Alcalde to show a proper respect for an American officer, the United States Government drove him from the navy. The trouble began near the end of 1824. The storehouse of the American consul at St. Thomas had been robbed, and Lieutenant Charles T. Platt of the Beagle learned that the property was concealed at Foxardo, a port on the east side of Porto Rico. Going to Foxardo, Platt landed with Midshipman Robert Ritchie and made known the Beagle’s errand.

Unquestionably Platt made one mistake. He went ashore in the clothes of a common citizen instead of wearing his uniform. If there is anything that incenses an official of one of the little American states, it is to have an official of a big state omit any of the forms and ceremonies usual to official business. The Foxardo officials pretended to doubt that Platt was an American officer, and demanded his commission. When this was exhibited they declared it a forgery, and that Platt was a pirate. Then they imprisoned both Platt and the midshipman, and treated both with great indignity before allowing them to return to the Beagle.

When the matter was reported to Porter, he took the John Adams, the Beagle, and the Grampus to Foxardo, and sent a letter dated November 12, 1824, to the Alcalde, demanding an explanation. While he awaited a reply he saw the soldiers on shore preparing a battery to fire on the Americans, and a force was sent to spike the guns of this and another battery, a service that was performed without opposition. Finding that the Americans were in earnest, the Foxardo authorities apologized and expressed proper regrets for the treatment of Platt and the midshipman.

Porter reported the whole matter home, but instead of approval received an order to return home and face a court-martial. After trial he was sentenced to suffer suspension for six months, when he resigned his commission.

It was a most unfortunate affair. It was a shameful thing to allow the hero of the Essex to leave the navy, but what was worse than that was the fact that a precedent was established that rules to this day. An American naval officer protects an American citizen—protects even his own shipmates—from insult at the hands of a foreign official at his peril. When an American naval officer raises his sword between even the most contemptible of foreign officials and one who wears the American uniform the shadow of “the Foxardo affair,” and of a long train of similar affairs, comes upon him to relax his grasp.

Captain Lewis Warrington having succeeded Porter, he found the work almost completed. Following in Porter’s policy of keeping the lighter vessels actively employed, a number of actions similar to those already described occurred, and thereafter, save for an occasional gathering of the members of the old coast brotherhood, there was no outbreak of piratical doings. The steamer Sea-gull did not, so far as appears by the record, accomplish anything of moment; and yet the continued increase in the use of steam at sea did, after Porter broke up the pirate nests in 1823 and 1824, make it impossible for the black flag to float on the sea, even in sporadic cases.