Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-26
Experiences p Of. Benjamin Laroom
Aboard an American Vessel.
BRIG MEXICAN And her GOLDEN CARGO
Crewof Thirteen Saved Their Lives,
but Lost the Dollars.
OTHER SEA YARNS RETOLD

| Written for The Evening Star.
| 1t is not often, nowadays, that we read
of piratical attacks or of murder and out
lawry on the high seas. All the more inter-
esting, then, is the experience of one who,
early in his life, was the victim of the last
riratical attack upon an American vessel
! Sixty-seven years ago, in August. 1892,
| the stanch brig Mexican set sail from the
port of Salem, Massachusetts, for Rio de
Janeiro. with a miscellaneous cargo and
| $40, 600 in Spanish milled dollars. She had
| the additionally unlucky number of thir-
| teen in her crew, including the master, who
was Captain John G. Butman Of Beverly.
The town of Beverly, skirtng the shore of
| the same bay on which Salem is situated,
| has history of which any people should
| be proud if we reckon the valor of Its men
! in colonial and revolutionary times. merely.
| 1t is the reputed home of privateering, for
| here lived that famous contemporary and
rival of John Paul Jones, Captain Hugh
Hill, and his descendants reside there to-
day.
Its male inhabitants. until within twenty
or thirty years. we're devoted 10 a seafar-
ing life and followed it over the world as
fishermen and merchantmen, their ac-
qurements being of service in at least four
great wars when our country had need OF
sailors for her navy.
Although situated on that fatal northeast
coast exposed to the fogs of Labrador and
winds from Newfoundland. where in past
years consumption has proved a terrible
scourge, yet Beverly counts among its resi-
dents probably as many octo and nonogen-
arians as any place of equal size in the
country. Last January there died one who,
had he lived another month, would have
reached the age OF 100: and there al
ways a score more of octogenarians on
hand. One of the most interesting of this
latter group is the subject of this article.
Pnyia 7 W hn W. hnr Ia
20, 1914, and who went to sea in youth, on
his third voyage, as one of the crew of the
Mexican, when she set out for Rio with
thirteen in her crew and $4,000 In specie
packed in the hold.
The Larcoms were among the old families
of Beverly. their ancestral estate lying in
the center of that bit of earthly paradise
known as Beverly Farms, of which and the
adjacent Manchester Parson Bartol once
remarked that God never would create any
thing fairer and more beautiful, hence he
was going to get all he could of it; which
he did, to his great enrichment.
The most famous member of this family
was the gifted poetess, Lucy Larcom. who
died a few years ago, and for whose poetry
her intimate &frieEd Whittier claimed
merit equal to- his own. She was survived
by her brother Benjamin, who now, at the
age of eighty-five, is hale and hearty, ac
tive and intelligent, and modestly narrates
his story of capture and abuse at the hands
of Spanish pirates.
That voyage in the Mexican was his last.
his latter years having been devoted to
Horticulture. and ONE has to dog his foot
steps patiently and worm the yarn" out
or him by bits. as he wanders amongst the
flowers he loves so well. and upon the beau
ties of which he prefers to diate, rather
than overhaul Renaissance that takes enc
back nearly the allotted span of human life.
Pirate Pnndn and Her Crew.
Twenty-Five days out from Salem, says
the salor-gardener. when off the Cape de
LII
by long, low, rakish schooner painted
black. This, prat;cals craft was the Pan
da. and she carried crew of fifty men.
commanded by Captain Gilbert. with one
Bernardo de Soto first mate. Captain
butman had become suspicious of her ac
tions the previous day, and in consequence
had changed his course. but cannon shot
across his bow brought his brig to in q
hurry. He was ordered to send a boat
aboard the pirate. and. taking with him
four men, of which number young Larcom
was one, Captain Butman did as directed.
But the pirate had no idea of allowing
the Yankees aboard his craft. and when
the boat arrived under his fore chains five
Spanish miscreants leaped into it ana or
dered them back to the brig.
Being unarmed as well as outnumbered
the Americans had no other course to fol-
low than to pass over those twenty thou
sand dollars which had been shipped Icy
Joseph Peabody, esq. of Salem, the owner
of the brig. That was the last they saw of
their pesos, and those Spanish dol
lars We're taken by Spanish pirates it would
seem something like a rendering unto
Caesar of his own.
The captain and first mate did not work
with that alacrity the pirates thought they
might have used and We're terribly mall
treated, while the terror-stricken crew
looked forward to nothing else than
wholesale butchery. and hardly expected to
escape with their lives
The Spaniards chased them about with
drawn cutlasses and made them ransack
every hole and Granny for money that
might possibly be hidden in their hunks
or clothing. Then, after they became sat
isfied there was nothing more, they drove
the Yankees below, fastened down the
matches and commenced the fiendish part
of their work. After casting overheard all
the spare spars, scuttling the small boats
and cutting away the halliards. tiller ropes
and rigging the wretches slit the sails into
ribbons. and then. collecting all the COM
bustbles they could find, set the brig on
fire.
Fastened below in the forecastle. caught
like rats in a trap. the unfortunate sailors
were soon made aware Of what the pirates
had done by the smell of smoke and the
cracking of the flames. But so long as
any Of the Standards were on deck. and
even long after they had departed and
probably sailed away, the imprisoned mar
liners dared not make an attempt to es-
cape. Tie pirates had left them, as they
thought, to their doom. which they felt sure
would be quickly sealed. A helpless hulk.
adrift on fire. the brig would soon be
sumed. and with 1t also the men in the
forecastle.
SOciabfIity Paid Here.
But the pirates had been too mercifu,, or
rather too negligent The old Mexican
was built, after the manner of some others
of her time with a passage between the
cabin and the fqqftecastle For the masters
of that period were not at all stuck up"
and as it frequently happened that officers
and crews were jIsflated by ties of blood and
marriage, they lived terms of great
ciability. AT all events. there was the mar
row passage, and cropping his way through
it in the dense darkness, Captain Butman
found a skyight loose. squeezed himself
through it apd gained the deck.
He knew well enough that if he showed
himself aboEf the rail the Spanish vultures
would be back and massacre all on board.
so he crawled along carefully. putting out
a little flame, here and a little there. the
crew below passing up water: but all the
time keeping up a dense smoke by means
of pile OF, cotton waste so that the pi-
rates would think the vessel was being con-
sumed. -
ranged that the pirates kept on their course