Introduction
Après le retour du capitaine Coxon à Port Royal, le gouverneur de la Jamaïque, sir Thomas Lynch, demanda des explications à son homologue des Bahamas, Robert Clarke, qui avait permis au flibustier d'armer contre les Espagnols. Clarke s'empresse de justifier son action, rappelant que ce sont les Espagnols qui ont commencé la «guerre». En fait, dès 1676, des Anglais des Bahamas avaient attaqué en mer un bâtiment cubain appartenant à Martín de Melgar qui détenait le monopole de la pêche à l'argent sur l'épave du galion Maravillas, coulé dans les Bahamas dans les années 1620, et ils furent ensuite imités en cela par des flibustiers de Saint-Domingue. Mais Clarke blâme aussi Coxon d'avoir outrepassé les termes de sa commission, en commettant par terre des agressions contre les Espagnols aux côtes de la Floride. Ces agressions par terre, auxquelles le gouverneur fait référence, sont sûrement les descentes de deux ou trois compagnies de flibustiers français et anglais à San Marcos et à La Chua, aux côtes de Floride, dans les premiers mois de l'année. Clarke soutient même que ce que voulait Coxon s'était une autorisation pour attaquer San Agustin, la capitale de la Floride. Lynch, dans la réponse qu'il fait à Clarke, nie que Coxon ait participé ou voulut participer à de pareilles entreprises par terre. Il prendra d'ailleurs le flibustier à son service (voir sa lettre de novembre suivant) pour lutter contre les forbans. Quoique Coxon fût certainement coupable, il n'en demeure pas moins que Lynch voit juste en faisant observer à Clarke qu'il fera de son île une nouvelle Tortue qui sera le refuge de tous les écumeurs des mers. En effet, moins d'un an plus tard, quelques flibustiers, dont plusieurs venant des Bahamas, tenteront une descente contre San Augustin.
|
The Governor of New Providence to Sir Thomas Lynch Providence (Bahamas), July 6, 1682 [16 juillet 1682]. I write to congratulate you and to offer my services on your arrival at your former government; also to give you the following information. The Spaniards have committed several robberies upon the inhabitants of these Bahama Islands. First they took two vessels without any provocation. Next there came in April 1681 two barcoluengos sent out from Panama by the Governor and his accomplices the merchants, with orders to take all the vessels they could, to land soldiers on this and other English plantations, to plunder the inhabitants of goods and negroes and return to Havana. This was confessed to me by oath on the Holy Cross by an alferes in their service who was taken prisoner, also that they had taken two of our vessels, and several of our inhabitants whom they had carried to Havana, where some are imprisoned and others put to hard labour in a starving and naked condition. They then pillaged a vessel of Carolina coming to trade with us, but some vessels on our coasts prevented their mischief for the present, and I have since procured assistance to defend our coasts by making war against them and any other pirates that invade us. Piracy is always unjustifiable and this especially, since it is grounded on lawful authority given by the Sovereign, as you may see by the enclosed copies. But if any under my commission have acted with violence by sea or land towards any Spaniards except pirates and robbers within the limits of the Island, they may be prosecuted. I have often declared that if the Spaniards come to prosecute their rights, justice shall be done accordingly to the King's laws, wherein I humbly ask for your advice and assistance. Some here have been contemptuous and mutinous, but by due process of law have been brought to submission. Against others I have been obliged to used military force. I believe you are well acquainted with the disposition and rude behaviour of those who call themselves privateers. Captain John Coxon being denied a commission to take St. Augustine, Florida, went hence in contempt of any order and contrary to law and custom, carrying away some persons that are indebted to the inhabitants. All that he did in landing and plundering on Spanish territory was done by his own power. I thought fit to inform you of this since I hear he is now at Jamaica. Robert Clarke. source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1681-1685: no. 599. Sir Thomas Lynch to the Governor of New Providence I have received yours of 10th July, with Coxon's commission, and the clause on your Lords' charter that seems, in your opinion, to justify the letter-of-marque. Im my opinion it does not justify it, and I say so frankly because you desire my advice, and it is for the King's service and your safety that you be not deceived on so arduous a point as that. I do not presume to judge what the king has granted to your Lords, nor can any one well do so on a particular clause without seeing the whole charter, for such clauses are often explained or retrenched by what precedes or follows. If you have been injured, and your Lords have given you instructions to do yourself right on the Spaniards or the King's allies, contrary to the conditions which the King has sworn, which oblige us to complain to London and Madrid before letters-of-marque are to be granted, then they must know that the King has alienated his sovereignty, and that they can answer it by law. You may thus believe yourself sufficiently justified and be safe in following their orders, but not in expounding their charter after such a manner. For, even if you have a power against pirates and savages that may attack you, it will hardly be concluded in England that the Spaniards are such, particularly when it is known that your Islands are peopled by men who are intented rather on pillaging Spanish wrecks than planting, that they carry on their work by Indians kidnapped or entrapped on the coast of Florida, and that all the violence you complain of arises only from disputes about these wrecks, from which the English and French have driven the Spaniards contrary to natural right. For the sea ought to be free and the wrecks are the Spaniards'. I have not heard that Coxon landed anywhere. He came straight here to deliver me your commission, which I have thought it my duty to send to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, for I believe the granting of such commissions by any subject are contrary to treaty, prejudicial to the commerce of Europe, and ruinous to the King's colonies. We know what slight papers the French call commissions of war, and as slight may serve our privateers to make another sally as fatal to themselves and others as these late ones have been. Nor I do understand how you came to give such commission to any of the King's subjects under this Government without taking the usual security to ensure compliance and respect. I know not how you will account for this omission, but I am sure you will not be so ill informed as to think that one who lately pretended to be a general in the South Seas (Coxon) would go hunting a barco luengo in the Bahama Shoals. I fear that in England they will rather suppose you intended to make your Government a Tortugas, for certainly all the pirates in the Indies are now lying in your latitude. Yet I do not suppose that the King meant to give Havana any more than Mexico or St. Augustine's to your Lords Proprietors. Nor I think that you intended to grant commissions which might bring such evils in their train. Let me therefore advice and desire you to grant no more till the King makes you a judge in your own case, or the Lords instruct you to take satisfaction or levy of war as you see convenient. Above all, give no commissions to men of this Island, for our laws will judge it piracy, which may be prejudicial to you as well as fatal to them. They are far from respecting your commissions, for Coxon, seeing that I was amazed and angry at him, said that, if I pleased, he would fetch you to answer for it. I checked him, as you may believe, for I knew nothing of you or your Government more than your letter tells, nor do I pretend to do more than is for the King's service, wherein I expect you to join me. source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1681-1685: no. 668.i. |
| LES ARCHIVES DE LA FLIBUSTE |
| sommaire || summary |
| Le Diable Volant |