Elcano and the First Circumnavigation of the World
Copyright© 2024 by Mark West
Chapter 17
But instead of payment, the ropes holding our two vessels together were untied by the French sailors, their sail was hoisted, and their boat began to turn towards the mouth of the river. It was obvious that Gaston and the French men had no intention to pay us for the dangerous voyage we had made on behalf of the merchants. Instead, they planned to reach the safety of the harbour of Bordeaux where, no doubt, they would have bribed the port authorities to prohibit our landing while they were able to offload their cargo and vanish from our reach into the interior of their country where we would never be able to find them.
However, I was determined that our voyage should not be in vain, so I ordered the Santa Maria made ready to sail in pursuit. Their vessel was lighter than ours and had already pulled a league (3 miles or 5.5 kilometres) away from us before we were able to sail after it. However, we had bigger sails than them, so we began to overhaul them. Yet, the distance between the two ships decreased only slowly, and it was uncertain if we could prevent them from landing their cargo in Bordeaux. That was when Sean took command of the situation.
I had been standing beside the helmsman ready to order him to steer the most advantageous course to catch the fishing boat when I suddenly noticed that Sean was now standing in the prow of our nao with two men-at-arms by his side. I at first thought that he was planning to risk jumping aboard the French vessel if we could come alongside it, but then I noticed that he was holding a smouldering string known as a slow match, and the men-at-arms were standing by with powder and cannon balls to reload the small cannon I had installed at the prow, but which we had never needed to use.
When we were within one tenth of a league behind the fleeing vessel, Sean put the glowing slow match to the touch hole at the end of the cannon. The cannon belched smoke, and the stone cannon ball flew towards the fishing boat. His aim was true, or luck was with him, as the ball smashed the single mast of the boat. The mast and sail fell forward into the sea and immediately acted as a drag anchor, slowing the boat so that we were able to come alongside.
Sean ordered the 5 men-a-arms to stand at the side of our nao with arquebuses ready to fire at any sign of resistance from the disabled fishing boat. However, there was no attempt to fire on us. Instead, Gaston and the men with him raised their hands in the air as a sign of surrender. As Sean had control of the situation, and as he could speak French, I signalled to him to continue.
He demanded the payment that was due to us, but the reply was that they had no gold. Even when he threatened to sink their boat, they continued to assert that they had no gold with which to pay us. I joined Sean and we discussed what we should do. If there was no gold, we were within our rights to take their vessel or its cargo in payment, as we had carried out our part of the bargain that had sent us to the other side of the world exposed to dangers and possible death.
I was so angry, that my first thought was to kill them all, but Sean dissuaded me from this course of action. He pointed out that we were still within sight of the castle that dominated Royan, and the sound of the screams and cries of men being killed would be sure to alert the garrison of what was happening and we could be pursued and apprehended in prison while an investigation took place. We then discussed taking back the dried fruit, but it would have been difficult to reload the whole cargo while continuing to guard the crew and the men on the fishing boat.
In the end, we decided that we would take 10 kilos of the dried fruit known as tomatl because I was sure that I could sell it to the Duke of Terranova who had a large finca in Córdoba where he devoted his time to growing olives and other fruits. However, we could not leave the crew and the merchants in the stricken boat as they would be sure to be rescued, and this would cause the authorities to give chase to us.
So, we ordered them to return 10 kilos of the chosen dried fruit to us. As they thought that we would then set them free to make their way to shore, they complied without hesitation. When the dried fruit was in our possession, Sean ordered ropes to be lowered to the fishing boat and without warning he told the men-at-arms to use their pikes to make holes in the timbers of the fishing boat below the water line.
When the occupants of that vessel saw what was happening, they had no choice but to clamber up the ropes to our nao because, if not, they would have surely drowned or died in the cold waters of the sea. As each man boarded our nao, he was seized by the sailors and his hands and legs were bound. By the time the 5 sailors, 4 unknown French men and Gaston were on board, the fishing boat had begun to sink to the bottom of the ocean carrying with it the precious cargo that we had worked so hard to obtain.