AN AUSTRALIAN BUCCANEER

Dunstan Times, Issue 3513, 16 March 1931, Page 6

AN AUSTRALIAN BUCCANEER

THE MAN AND HIS BRIG SPANISH MAIN BOOTY The London ‘ Times ’ publishes from un Australian correspondent the following interesting sketch oi \\ illiain Campbell, tlio last of the “ Buccaneers ' ’ : Australian bushrangers have had a very fair share ol publicity. Ned Kelly’s plough-share armour and the late "date at which he practised his profession, together with has final blazing exploit, have made his name as " idely known as Scullin or Hughes. I he pirates and buccaneers ol Australia, on the other hand, have fallen into undeserved oblivion. Few know that any buccaneer later than William Dampiei had anything to do with Australia. In Australia Itself the story of William Campbell “ the last of the buccaneers, who raided the Spanish Main over a century after Dampier, carried away a Spanish ship of war from Caldera, and brought about the despatch of Australia’s first diplomatic mission to a ft renai Power more than a century before “Canada took advantage of the new dominion status to send a Minister to Washington, is hidden away m official records. Bike some of his predecessors on the Atlantic side of America, in the spacious clays ol Klizabetli, began as a smuggler. After one or two vovages from India to Sydney no decided to try trading on the coasts of Chile and Peru, in spite of the Spanish embargo on the importation of goods in foreign vessels. Accoiding to the Sydney shipping lists Ins 180-ton brig Harrington cleared in ballast” when she sailed from fort Jackson for the coast of Peru on October 8, 1802, but on her return to Svdney on April 22, 1803, Governor Kin., remarked in an official letter to Lord Hobart: — He (Campbell) wont from .hence some months ago with a quantity of those articles that could not he sold here owing to the quantity of goods of all kinds that abounded in tins colony. He touched at Masainero (Juan Fernandez), where he found a number of English and American sealing parties. From thence he went along the coasts of Chile and i cru stopping at such places as had no fortifications or cruiser to prevent .ns object. He went to the northward as far as Coquimbo, and on his return to the southward lie was chased by an armed vessel that took Ins boat and thirteen men. DON FELIX OF COQUIMBO. Campbell’s chief customer or agent was a certain shadowy Don Felix, a citizen of Coquimbo, of whom we shall hear a<min. Like a prudent and careful mariner, Campbell took good note of the Spanish forces in those parts, and reported to King that they consisted of “two frigates, a ship tit htty guns (that sails very ill—built m Peru), two armed whalers, a cutter brig and a lugger.” He had been told that the whaler Redbridge had been seized with a quantity of specie received for English goods, and, together with five American vessels, bad been sent to Lima to be condemned. \s a good freetrader King bad no objections to the smuggling of goods from Sydney into South America. At a later' date he observed that he saw considerable advantages in such a trade', in moderation, but that no would not allow any Government-con-trolled vessels to engage in it unless under specific advice from headquarters in London, Campbell was certainly not the man to sit down calmly under the loss of a boat and thirteen men, even though the copper Mexican dollars and florins ho brought back from his trading showed a fair profit. When he came back to Sydney from a run to Madras he had provided himself with a commission as captain in the Bombay Marines, and a letter of marque against Franco and the Batavian Republic from the East India Company, signed on behalf of the Presidency or Fort George by Lord William Bentinck. Governor of Dort St. Geoige, General James Stuart William Petrie, and John Cbamier. To hack this document the Harrington carried six-guns and a crew of forty men, which Campbell strengthened in Sydney to fifty, exclusive of officers. In addition be picked up two white seamen, Arnold Frisk and William Tozer, and some Tahitians at Tahiti on his way across the Pacific. • Explaining to King why he wanted the extra hands, Campbell wrote:— The object of my voyage is to collect a cargo of skins at Masafuero and the Galapagos Isles and, if I am able to collect certain information of a war existing between His Britannic Majesty and the Crown of Spain, in that case to cruise upon the Spanish Main in quality of an English privateer. King, in his reply, highly approved of tlio idea of collecting seal skins, hut pointed out that Campbell had no letter of marque against Spain, and warned him that if he brought any Spanish prizes to Sydney they would be taken away from him. He did not object to the increase in the nnm hers of the , Harrington’s crow. The Harrington ’returned to Port Jackson from the West Coast of America on March 23, 1805. ft was the year ot Trafalgar; but, though the despatch telling King that Spain had declared war on Great Britain was dated January 11, 1805, it did not reach Sydney for nearly twelve months. Campbell bad taken good ca.ro not to bring any Spanish prizes into Port Jackson. Nevertheless, strange stories of wild doings on the coast of Chile soon reached the ears of King, who impounded the log honk of the Harrington and the journal of the chief officer, Francis Gardner. In Campbell’s log bonk ho found the following entries :—■ September 20, 180).—Light Airs and pleasant Weather. Sailed into Coquimbo alongside a Spanish brig; fired one gun and ordered them to haul down their colours, then boarded them and sent all their men ashore; at 7 a.m hauled her alongside. On 27tli Brisk Wind and Clear; perceived them very busy ashore; expected were making preparations against us. At •> p.m weighed and sailed for G<>!is"u: the Prize astern. 1 On 2stb hauled our Wind and stood into Goasco Bay at Sunset, anchored. On 20th Employed clearing the Hold, expecting Don Felix from Coquimbo to take our Cargo tor copper. At •! p.m the Governor came on Board and informed me that he (Don Felix) was detained at Coquimbo, sent the boat

several times in the night to sec what was doing on Shore; at daylight found he had removed all the Copper. October I.—At 8 a.m. saw a Sad lying in Caldera Bay; bore up for her; at 9 she hoisted a Spanish Flag and got a Spring on her cable ; Shewed our Colours; she fired three Guns; we fired one Gun shotted at her which she returned with all her Guns, Hie shots going between our Masts; fired broadside over her; she cut her Cable and set her on Fire—all the Crew left in their Boats; boarded her and extinguished the Fire; got her hove off the shore and got her under Way in company with us; she proved to be a Spanish Cruiser. THE SPANISH CItUISEE. Campbell's grammar is a little shaky, but his last words show a, masterly touch. The Spanish merchant brig was named the San Francisco and San Paulo, and the King of Spain's cruiser was the Estremina or Etramina. It might seem from Campbell's log that the "pigs of copper" Avere removed by the Spaniards, but when the Harrington was searched at Sydney certain cargo of that kind was found under the casks of salt pork in the hold. From the log of William Tozer, who was put in charge of the Estramina, it appeared that Campbell took 52 dollars and a pair of stone knee-buckles from the Estramina. Poor booty as it seemed for the Spanish Main, it was all that the Spaniards had left on board. As for the merchant brig, she had a collection of cables and ropes, flour, beans, sugar, syrup, tallow, and sheep skins—a disappointing collection. Tozer, by the way, was an old hand on the Spanish Main; he had been left at Tahiti by Captain Donald MacLeniiiin, of the brig Dart, who had done business on the coast of Peru at an earlier date. From the statement of John Reynolds, boatswain of the Harrington, the hero of the raid appears to have been one Cummins. It was he who boarded the merchant brig and took possession of her, and he also went in change of the boat to put out the fire on the Estramina and bring her off. Francis Gardner deposed that the master, chief mate, and super-cargo of the San Francisco, and the harbour master of Coquimbo, came on board the Harrington after the seizure and "kept her people in conversation for the purpose' it was supposed, of giving time for the mounting of some guns on an eminence." The Harrington did not wait for the carrying out of this dark dosig". Asked by King whether he had any certain information that hostilities had started when he took the first vessel, Campbell replied that American sealers at Masafuero had told him that war had begun between Spain and Portugal, and that an English ship with a letter of marque was cruising on the coast, not to speak of the Americans having been ordered to leave Masafuero lest it should serve as a place of supply for English privateers. Campbell had sent the Estramina to Jervis Bay and the merchant brig to Kent's Group, at "-he eastern end of Bass Strait, to wait till he was ready to take them to India, but King held the Harrington at Sydney and despatched naval vessels to bring the two prizes to Sydney. Fearing international complications with Spain, King ordered Lieutenant Bobbins, in the colonial cutter Integrity, to Valparaiso with a flag of truce, and a letter written in English and French (Sydney's linguistic equipment at the time not running to Spanish) addressed to Lon Louis Munoz do Guzman, Cap-tain-General of Chili. In this he apologised for the actions of Campbell, and invited the Captain-general to send witnesses to give evidence at the trial of Campbell and his officers on a charge of piracy. Unhappily neither the Integrity nor any soul of her company was ever heard of again. A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN. Things dragged on in Sydney until the despatch announcing the outbreak of war arrived, when the officers and men of H.M.S. Buffalo, then lying in the harbour, claimed the Spanish vessels as lawful prizes. The two vessels and the Spanish property found on the Harrington were sold by auction, fetching £2,100. King bought the Estramina for the Government, and also sonic of the pigs of copper. The Estramina remained in J hc service of the colony, but in 1816 was wrecked at the mouth of the Hunter River. . s to the Harrington, Campbell received her back. On the evening of May 15, 1808, however, while he was ashore at Sydney, she was seized by fifty convicts, at avliosc head was Robert Stewart, once a lieutenant in His Majesty's Navy. Stewart and bis followers got clear away, but in March, 1809, they met H.M.S. Dedaigneuse off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines. They fought the ship, being the only crew of convicts who ever matched themselves vith a British man-of-war. When they were worsted they ran the ship ashore, and most of them escaped. In 181.°) Campbell received a grant of 2,01)0 acres of land as compensation for the loss of his vessel. lie called his seat Harrington Park, and became a country gentleman. lie even had a mountain named after him. When Hume and Hovell made their overland journey to Port Phillip in 1825 they recorded a Mount Campbell, "after William Campbell. Esq., of Harrington Park."