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The Spaniards had retaliated by robbing vessels sailing to and from the Bahamas, whereupon Clarke, without considering the illegality of his action, had issued commissions of war to privateers. The Bahamas, however, were a favourite resort for pirates and other men of desperate character, and Lilburne soon discovered that his place was no sinecure.
The harbors of Key West, the Dry Tortugas and others along the Florida keys, as well as many of those in the Bahamas, the West Indies and the Antilles, were the haunts of buccaneers and privateers who careened their ships on shore for repairs, or held high revel on the beaches after their triumph over some Spanish treasure fleet. Those were bloody days, full of dramatic excitement.
What is the reason, our Government asked, that these gentle and unwarlike inhabitants of the Bahamas have so suddenly developed such an enormous appetite for percussion caps, rifles, cannon, and other instruments of warfare? The answer, of course, lay upon the surface; the cargoes were intended for reshipment into the Southern States, and they were, in fact, immediately so reshipped.
This he had proved on several occasions when sailing in other vessels, when the last ray of hope seemed to be gone. He approached the mate again, and with a pretence of making inquiries about the storage of the cargo, sounded him further in regard to his knowledge of the Bahamas, and with special reference to the port of Nassau.
Captain Flanger did not know that the steamer Chateaugay was cruising somewhere in the vicinity of the Bahamas; but his prisoner did know it, and the information given him was not pleasant or satisfactory.
He has lost that schooner, and all my property is in the hands of wrackers, who are worse than so many rats in a larder. 'Beaufort, N.C. Yes, that must be one of the Bahamas, and N.C. stands for New Providence Ah's me! Ah's me!" "But N.C. does not stand for New Providence it would be N.P. in that case, uncle." "N.C. or N.P., they sound so dreadfully alike, that I don't know what to think!
When Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island, but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the Bahamas.
After leaving Nassau we stood northward for half a day in order to get a safe and proper channel out of the crooked Bahamas, where there is more of shoal than of navigable waters, leaving a score of small islands behind us inhabited only by turtles, flamingoes, and sea birds. But we were soon steaming due south again towards our objective point, the island of Cuba, five hundred miles away.
She established councils and committees of trade and plantations, and, by the seizure of New Netherland in 1664 and the grant of the Carolinas and the Bahamas in 1663 and 1670, she completed the chain of her possessions in America from New England to Barbados.
The pilot was of opinion that they had gone round Cape Maze, at the eastern end of Cuba, and were making for one of the Bahamas, among which they had every prospect of escaping. "But what do you say, Tronson? Can you pilot us off the harbour where you suppose they have taken refuge?" asked Roger.
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