Introduction
Dans deux lettres de novembre 1685, le gouverneur de la Jamaïque, le colonel Molesworth, annonçait que l'équipage du capitaine Duchesne s'était embarqué avec le pirate Bannister, dont il ne cesse d'espérer la capture. Mais les Français ont rompu récemment leur association avec Bannister et probablement mis le feu è son navire... N'empêche que le forban court toujours... et le gouverneur Molesworth après lui. La pièce principale est suivie de l'extrait d'une dépêche qui raconte le combat livré par les capitaines Charles Talbot, commandant le H.M.S. Falcon, et Thomas Spragge, commandant le H.M.S. Drake contre Bannister, à Samana, combat précédant la rupture du forban avec les Français (pour d'autres détails sur cet affrontement, voir le mémoire du gouverneur de Saint-Domingue, du 13 août 1686). Jusqu'à la fin de l'année, Bannister échappera aux capitaines de la Royal Navy, en trouvant refuge aux Honduras (voir la lettre de Molesworth, de décembre 1686).
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Lieutenant-Governor Molesworth to William Blathwayt [extrait] Jamaica, August 31, 1686 [10 septembre 1686]. The frigates are returned from looking after Banister for the second time. They found his ship burnt, she having been much disabled by their shot, but the pirates abandoned her and went away in their smaller vessel. On Captain Sprag's first arrival (about a week before Captain Talbot's), he found about twenty men on the little island, who fired some small shot at him, but immediately fled over the Main. He thinks it probable that Banister was among them. The French, after the disabling of his ship, refused to obey him, and it is believed that some of the French, owing to their disputes with him, set fire to the ship. Sprag brought away twenty of her best guns in a sloop, but she had not yet arrived here, having been driven to the north side of the island by stress of weather. (...) source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1685-1688: no. 839. dispatch from Jamaica [extrait] ...on the June 24th [4 juillet 1686] the Falcon and Drake frigates found the chief buccaneer Bannister with two ships in a deep bay fit to go on the careen at Samana on the north side of Hispaniola, having got his guns on shore and mounted them in two batteries. The frigates stood in, though they were warmly entertained for two hours from the batteries, and with small shot from the ships, and, bringing all their guns to bear, sunk and beat almost to pieces the buccaneer's ships, but not having enough water to carry them in, the Drake having but eleven foot, they could not fire them. The Drake had thirteen killed and wounded and the Falcon ten... source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series: James II, vol. 2: no. 961. |
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