FINDING PIRATE GOLD.

Lake County Press, Issue 2135, 13 September 1906, Page 7

FINDING PIRATE GOLD.

DJSCOVKRY OF SECRET CAVE Uli COCOS ISLAND. The news comes from Valparaiso, Chili, that the latest of a score of treasure expeditions which have torn up the earth and rocks of this lonely l Pacific island is acting so mysteriously that th,- city is aflame with excited belief that the great treasure has at last been located. The vessel which carried this expedition to the island is the British auxiliary schooner yacht Ros Marine. Perhaps you read in the newspapers more than a year ago that when the rich Scotch Karl, Lord Fi t/wi 11 iam, landed his party of treasure-seekers on the island, his men were so fiercely attacked by those of the Ros Marine, owned and commanded by Harold W. S. Oruy, thai, trie;, were forred to sail away with one dead and .several wounded.

Well. in the months thai have passed since then nothing was heard ol the Bos Marine party untiH recently.

when the yacht put into Valparaiso for coal. It was the mysterious conduct of the crew and the extreme reticence, of the captain that have caused the report—perhaps true—l tha! the treasure has been found and; that the Bos .Marine had to refill her | coal bunkers for the long journey back to England with her £20.000,-j Oi.:0 find. But whether this is true' we cannot know with certainty until i the master of the Bos Marine chooses ! to tell his story. ;

The last of the great pirates, who nourished between IHUi and 1820, was a discredited Spanish gentlfltuili ; known as lii.'iiito P.oiiilo. This pir- j iitf, following the example of Morgan j in tin 1 Caribbean, had amassed much j treasure, which ho had concealed j somewhere in I he West Indies, when he sailed around Cape Horn, captured t.he English slaver, I ho Lightning, compelled alii on board to walk the plank except a Frenchman named . Chapelle and Thompson, an English- | man. then renamed the ship the lie- ! lnmpago, and, with a prize crew of j cutthroats, commenced playing havoc along the Pacific shore of America. as far north as Acapulco, .Mexico, It was not long before (ho Uelampago was so loaded with treasure that a secure hiding place for this booty became a necessity. It was said to in ml to not less than il'.Oiiii.iiiiii. Bonito had already fixed his eyes on Cocos Island, a wild, rocky, uninhabited point of land rising out of the Pacific about five hundred miles oIT Panama. To be exact, Cocos lies in hit itude ."> degrees • >•'! minutes north and longitude SO degrees .">'.» minutes west. It j is not morn than live miles in its j greatest width, and was dillicu'll of] access to sailing vessels because of j the prevailing calms of that part of j the Pacific. j On Cocos Island the Relatnpago , treasure was buried in three parts, but not till there had been a quarrel j over the division which strewed the' beach with fifteen dead bodies. The i remainder of the crew went ashore at. j Valpariaso for a carouse. They were recognized as pirates, condemned and executed—all but Chapelle and Thoinp- j son, who were handed over to the i British Government, and Bonilc him- j self, who escaped only to be hanged before he ever saw Cocos Island and his treasure again. So only two men still lived who knew the exact location of the pirate j treasure. Charlie, the Frenchman, ': went to Samoa, where he is supposed j to base died ; with Thompson it was j a case of "Twenty Years Alter." for j the year ISilO found him captain of I the British brig, Mary Dear, floating at anchor in the harbour of Lima, Peru. Now, when the custodians of Cms immense treasure saw the British flag lluttering at the peak of the I Mary Pear they decided that one of England's ships was a safer place, for all this wealth than a fortress which the revolutionists might capture any day. Captain Thompson { agreed with them, and as speedilv as possible the transfer was made. Then, as soon as it was dark, I Thompson and his crew cut the ' throats of the guardians of the treasure, slipped their cable and put out to sea. The- Mary Pear was a pirate. flying the British ensign instead of the "Jolly Roger." There were pursuers, but the Mary Dear showed them a clean pair of heels, sailing straight for Cocos Island. During the twenty years that had elapsed no detail of that | little island coast had escaped Thompson's memory. Here he found himself again with a richer pirate; cargo than Bonito had ever collected,! and which must be similiarly secreted for otherwise he knew that the war vessels of a half do/en countries would probably be buzzing about the Mary Pear. There are two bays indenting the northern coast of Cocos Island. Wafer Bay, the more westerly, offers good, deep anchorage, while Chatham is shallow. In the former the Mary; Dear was anchored. Part of thespoil in the hold was distributed among the crew. All the remainder was loaded into eleven of the ship's boats and rowed around the headland into Chatham Pay and landed upon the beach. Thompson's last act on the island was to shoot dead the two beside himself who were the only witnesses of the burial of the treasure. Returning alone- to the Mary pear, he immediately raised anchor and set sail, but not soon enough to escape the Peruvian gunboat that had followed the Mary Pear from Callao. Thompson cunningly .surrendered, (giufrUess feeling certain that no injury would come to the only person alive who knew the secret storage place of the Peruvian treasure. [•'or this reason both he and his mate were spared, everyone else aboard the Mary Pear being mercilessly shot, or hanged. The Peruvian warship immediately put into Wafer Bay. where Thompson and his male weir lauded under an armed escort and ordered to recover the treasure. But 'I hompson was a man of resource. 11" and the mate managed to elude the guard and hide themselves in the undergrowth. Pater the;, escaped into different caves, when squads of soldiers landed and poured volleys from their muskets into every thicket on the island. This proceeding lasted for four Then the warship drew away, leaving Thompson and the male marooned. They escaped starvation by eating berries and I he eggs of birds unl il rescued by a vessel thai called al Cocos Island for wafer. Thev w ere supposed to be shipwrecked sailors ami were carried to the mainland. The mate was soon to die in Cosla Kica of yellow \>:ver ; but Thompson Hole possessor of the secret hitting place of the great treasure, was to

live main years yet, and ins one. lions for finding the Cocos Islam treasure, transmitted at his death to be the cause of hundreds of thou sands of dollars thrown away in vail searching'. In the year 18-1-1 a brig sailing from England home to St. John's Newfoundland, carried n single pas senger, a handsome, middlenged mat with an air of deep mystery nbou him. During the voyage the strange) sought the companionship of a yoiini sailor named Keating, who. findlnj that the other wished to avoid pub lie places, took him to his own hotm in St.John's upon their arrival The stranger paid well for Ids nccomoda 1 ions, and never went out excep after dark. One das he called Keatini into his room and said to him : 'Keating .1 have something to lei you which will astonish you, thotigl it is quite true If you can get on of the St. John's merchants to fi out a \esse| for us. I know . wher you and I could find more gold am silver treasure than would buy, New foundland." Keating found a merchant who a "recti to send a vessel commanded li; a captain named Rogue, who wouh be his representative, according t< the diiectious. who. with Keating would be passengers and fellow treas ure-seekers. One evening when Hi party were seated in Keating's cot tage planning the details of the voyage, the si ranger received warnini that he was about to be arrested. lie was terror-stricken. Turning t< the wondering sailor he said : •'Keating, my life is nearly over and as you have been true to me vol shall become the richest man in th world. My real name is Thompson Many years ago 1 hid gold and silvc treasure on Cocos Island and in th Pacific, and with this clue you cai find it." He then drew from the lining o his coat nn old map on parchmenta chart of Cocos Island, in factlaid it on the table in front of th sailor, and, using it splinter of wooi as a pointer, illustrated instruction as follows : "You must go to the norlheas part of the island, and follow th course line of this bay (Chatham until yon find a creek—this creel where I am pointing. From the lug, water mark of this creolc you inns climb along the bed of the streai which Hows from the inland, measui ing seventy paces west by south. "You cannot mistake the spot foi from there, y oil can see, standin; clear against the skyline and quil close, a gap in the hills : i"roi anywhere else the gap is invisible Turn to the north and walk unti you cross a stream. You will then se a rock with a smooth face. like i wall : examine it carefully --it rise up like a cliff. Hut at the height of i man's shoulder from the ground, yo' will see a crevice or hole, in whirl a man might insert his thumb Thrust an iron bar in this lioilc, am lever out ward : yon u ill I hen open i cave in which are bars of gold am silver, coins, church images and gold en crucifixes." Then, trembling and pale, the oh pirate rushed out of the cot t.ige am away. A irw days later his corps was found fro/en stiff in a snowdrift The merchant's vessel sailed a planned, and eventually anchored ii Wafer Day. Captain Rogue and Kent ing, alone in one of the ship's boat s landed, f0110w,..1 the dead pirate's di rectious and found the treasure ex actl.v as he had indicated, i'v ing u a few coins in their hamlkerchi'-l they went back lo the ship to ai range for faking aboard the whol treasure. Th,. sight of the old coins mad.' t h crew mad with greed. They nilltiniei and wen! ashore without Bogie o Keating who refused lo act us guide Returning disappointed they (Iran themselves into a stupor, which 1,-ih Rogue and Keating a chance to pro vision one of the boats and go a shore. Although it was nighl the, found the treasure cave again, hast ily loaded themselves with as mud gold coin us they could carry, am hurried back to their boat. Now fate again interposed to mak one man the sole possessor of Ih secret of the treasure cave. Keatini got into the boat without mishap but Hogue, in pushing the crnl' through the line of surf, lost his hob and was dragged down and drownei by the weight of go'ld he carried. Keating was rescued by a Spanisl vessel, returned to St. John's, fitte out another vessel, made anothe trip to Cocos Island, and under con (litions of mutiny and disaster til most identical with his first effort at last, left the island again witl only what treasure he could carry oi his person, but still the sole pos sessor of the great secret. For twenty years nothing mor was heard of Keating. Then an oh man nearly dead from want and ex posure in a .shed on the Newfound land coast, whither he had cruwlci from a wrecked ship, was found am cared for by Nicholas Fitzgerald, th youthful owner of a fishing smack Through gratitude he revealed him self as Keating and made a contrac sharing his secret, with his youni preserver. I jut Fitzgerald, suspecting tha Captain Rogue had been murdered hj Keating, instead of acciUently drown ed, posponed making any use of (hi information. Keating died in 1.88:2 and still Fitzgerald either neglectei or was unable lo profit by his sec re I. 11l I HOOt 'apt ain Shrapnel. of Ihj Boy al English Navy . commanding M M.S. Haughty in Pacific waters Landed "(H) sailors and marines • > Cocoas Island. For two days ihi force tunnelled and blasted Hi- din" where they supposed the treasure wa hidden, but with no further rcs-ul than to destroy every landinar thereabout. Yes, there was one ol her result the wide publicity given to this ex ploit brought, to Captain Shrapnel from Nicholas Fitzgerald the i'orege ing account of the transmission I him of tile Cocos Island secret froi Pirate Thompson, through Keating and the efforts made to profit by it Captain Shrapnel was unable to con plete preparations for another expedi 'Hion, but some of his friends t whom he confided all this iuforuui lion formed a syndicate whose ni-:n hers, tin years ago. sailed to C< cos Island- ami sailed away agaii empty handed. They found Ihe creel, described i, Thompson to Keating, and rnrrie urn Ihe in: M net ions beginning "With a pock'.-l compass in han measure ',"( I pace . wei by -.i intli Dul the rav ages ol i ime and Ili d\ namiic inei hods of ol her searchei had robbed i.hompson's directions i all I their value. They spent soui hours in vain digging. Among soui debris in the creek they found pm of an old silver cross that, is all. "American and Journal."