Sir Thomas Lynch to Secretary Sir Leoline Jenkins

Jamaica, July 26, 1683 [5 août 1683].

Two days ago, just as our fleet was leaving Port Royal, one of our fishermen came in from Caimanos with the news that the privateers had taken Vera Cruz. I wrote this hastily to Mr. Blathwayt for your information. I give you what particulars I can, though I have no good intelligence.

In my former letters I gave you an account of the career of Vanhorn. On leaving the President of St. Domingo he picked up three hundred men at Petit Guavos and sailed with them to the Bay of Honduras. On his way he anchored at the Cays and sent me a letter from Mons. Ponçay, saying that Vanhorn is sent after La Trompeuse, but instead of going to Hispaniola he bore up for the Bay of Honduras where Laurens the privateer was lying in wait for a couple of ships from Guatemala. The Spaniards hearing of this put little on board these vessels, but sent to Havana for a great ship. Vanhorn coming in at the time when this ship was expected, sails into the road, boards the larger of the two ships, finds but thirty chests of indigo, burns her in a rage, and, bringing, off the smaller, joins Laurens, who was violently enraged at having thus lost his prize.

The other pirates, however, made them unite; and so about the middle of May (as I judge) they sailed from Bonaco, a little island in the Bay of Honduras, with seven or eight ships, five or six barques, and twelve hundred men; chief commanders, Vanhorn, Laurens and Yankey, Dutch no English, except one Spurre, and Jacob Hall in a small brig from Carolina. With this force (having hardly agreed who should command in chief) they came, at the latter end of May, on the coast of Vera Cruz, and then put eight hundred men into Yankey's and another ship. They approached the coast, and, by a mistake as fatal as that of Honduras, were taken by the Spaniards ashore for two of the Flota. They lit fires to pilot them in without sending to find out who they were, and thus the pirates landed in the night but two miles from the town. By daybreak they came into it, took two forts of twelve and sixteen guns, finding soldiers and sentinels asleep, and all the people in the houses as quiet and still as if in their graves. They wakened them by breaking open their doors, and then a few gentlemen appeared with swords but immediately fled. So the pirates had the quiet possession and plundering of churches, houses and convents for three days, and not finding gold and silver enough they threatened to burn the great church and all the prisoners, who were six thousand in number. So the prisoners sent into the country for money for them; and the fourth day the pirates left the town and went with their pillage to a cay, and there divided it in the face of the Flota, who, to add to the miracle, had been two days off the port, and durst neither land nor attack the privateers' empty ships, though the Flota was fourteen good ships.

The pirates made ten or twelve hundred shares, and had about eight hundred pieces of eight a share. Vanhorn struck thirty shares or about six thousand pounds for his own ship alone. When he came on board he pressed the Captains to attack the Flota and offered to board the Admiral himself, but Laurens would not, either because he had got enough, or from jealousy of Vanhorn, whom he woundeed and was like to have killed on shore, out of revenge for taking the Spanish ship and for calling him coward. On the third day of the sack Spurre found the Governor under a manger and with great difficulty saved him from some of the French who had been prisoners there and ill-used. These would have killed him, but they appear to have spared him and all the Spaniards. They brought away abundance of negroes, mulattoes and mesteios. In the action the Spaniards killed but one man. Some three more, all English, that were of the forlon, were killed by the French themselves. Once at sea again they parted. Most talked of going to Petit Guavos. Vanhorn could not go there without careening, so said he would make for New England. Jacob Hall is gone to Carolina, Yankey got first to Caimanos and is bound for Hispaniola.

A sloop that came in yesterday got this information from his men. I have sent orders to the Point ti prohibit the sloops from bringing in persons or goods, for as we were not the thieves we will not be the receivers. The Council meets to give further orders tomorrow. The design is affirmed to be lawful not only by Vanhorn's Brandenburg commission but by the Governor of Tortugas, for the war is publicly owned and declared.

The authorities in Spain or the Governors here have thought that the interloping trade of Dutch ships and some few sloops of ours in an injury to the commerce of Europe, and have therefore armed some small craft and ordered them to take all ships that have on board any frutas dessas Indias, whereby they make all fish that come to net. They (the holders of Spanish commissions) have committed barbarous cruelties and injustices, and better cannot be expected, for they are Corsicans, Slavonians, Greeks, mulattoes, a mongrel parcel of thieves and rogues that rob and murder all that come into their power without the least respect to humanity or common justice. It was one of these, one Juan Corso, who by landing on the coast of Hispaniola and carrying away many prisoners, salves, etc., caused the French Government to grant commissions of war, and it is to be feared that on the privateers' return they will destroy St. Jago de Cuba, where Corso shelters himself. If Vanhorn should get up, it may be St. Domingo that will suffer. The injustice and avarice of the President (of St. Domingo) is the cause of all this; and all the Goverments act after like manner, forced to it either by orders from Spain or an insatiable desire to get money. So that it is to ne feared that these Indies will be ruined. The Spaniards are so covetous that hardly one of them will spend a piece of eight to save a province, so formal that they will not redress the most notorious injury but remit it to Spain. Still, for all these discouragements I have done my best, for it is England's interest that peace should be kept and the Spaniards not destroyed. But it is impossible to save those quos perdere vult Jupiter.

All the Governors in America have known of this very design for four or five months. Jus about so long ago Don Juan de Castillo, by whom I wrote to Viceroy of Mexico about our prisoners, left this Island in one of our sloops, so he was aware of it. The President of Panama received advice by Don Juan de Ollo. Three month since I wrote the Governor of Havanna complaining of the piracies of Juan Corso, and desiring to know if he owned them; but neither he nor the Governor of St. Jago would ever answer. This Juan a month since took a boat of ours bound to New Providence; he has killed divers of our people in cold blod. In one case he cut off a man's head because he was sick and could not row so strongly as he expected. Barbarities like these and worse he commits daily, so i would beg you to direct to me what to do. No redress is to be expected of any Spanish Governor. He of St. Jago has now a New England ketch that some French seized at Salt Tortugas and forced to come into Hispaniola. Off the coast this Juan Corso takes them, and brings them into St. Jago. The Frenchmen are then condemned to death as pirates, but the vessel and the Englishmen detained. As the French pirates were marched to execution the town mutinied and reprieved them from fear of the Frenchmen's revenge, and paid the Governor two hundred pieces of eight in composition. This is the manner in which they do everything.

The Ruby as you know is to windward, where La Trompeuse and other pirates were. I hear now that the pirates have made for Virginia to capture Lords Culpeper and Baltimore on their way to Boston. They will miss them, however, for the Lords will travel by land; and I rather believe now that La Trompeuse is gone to the coast of Africa for more gold. The Guernsey is expected every day from the coast of the Main. I am thinking whether to send her to Vera Cruz for the English prisoners.

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source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1681-1685: no. 1163.