Basil Ringrose (1653?-1686)
On January 28, 1653, an infant son of Richard and Mary Ringrose was christened Basill at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster. Richard had married Mary Blithe, of the nearby City of London parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, at St. Martin's on November 1, 1649, the year King Charles I was beheaded. In the parish rate book for 1653-54, Richard Ringrose is
[10] These were the members of the court:
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listed as living on the water (southern) side of High Street, Westminster, close to where Charing Cross station is today; his rates were assessed as 6s 6d . A second son, Symon, was born on April 13, 1655, and in the same year the endorsement "poore" appeared against Richard's name in the rate book, when he was 5s in arrears. In 1656-57 he was 2s in arrears; in 1657-58 the Ringrose house was inhabited by Mr. Russ (poore) and Mr. Raymond. Where the Ringroses went we do not know, but presumably they stayed in Westminster, as Richard and Mary had two other sons christened in St. Martin's—Richard, born January 14, 1661, and a second Symon, born August 31, 1663.[11] The Great Plague of London started in the parish of St. Martin's, Westminster, in November 1664, when Basill would have been nearly twelve. (The Great Fire of 1666 did not reach the parish.) Poverty and the plague are bound to have had a great effect on Basill's life.
Although we cannot be certain that this Basill is our Basil, it is highly likely. Certainly the date is right—he would have been twenty-seven when he joined the buccaneers. But where did he get his education, which was obviously of superior quality? We know that by 1680 he had some French and Latin; he learned Spanish with no difficulty, well enough to act as the buccaneers' interpreter; his English prose was of high quality; he drew some very creditable sea charts; his knowledge of navigation and pilotage techniques was far superior to that of most mariners of his time—how many would even attempt to determine their longitude by observing a solar eclipse? And yet his name does not appear in the lists of pupils at the London schools of Westminster, St. Paul's, Charterhouse, Merchant Taylors', or Christ's Hospital (where the Royal Mathematical School was founded in 1673 especially for training navigators—a bit late for Ringrose, who would have been twenty). Nor was anyone of that name recorded as being a graduate of any English or Scottish university of the period.
Although he first enters our story at the general rendezvous of the fleet at Boca del Toro in the early part of 1680, in his journal he likens the huts of the Darien Indians to those in Jamaica, indicating that, as one might expect, he had been in that island sometime before the departure of the Sharp expedition. One secondary source says that he was a runaway apprentice, but no evidence is offered (Lloyd 1966, 32).
In both journal and waggoner, particularly the latter, Ringrose exhibits what in today's terms might seem an unreasonable hatred of the Spaniards in America. However, when looked at through seventeenth-century English eyes, perhaps his feelings are not quite so unreasonable. Here is an example:
There is another village at the bottome of the bay called Chuluteca; it hath aboute 30 houses, not above 2 Spaniards amongst them. They live by gathering of provision wch they truck for necessarys when any ship comes to them but then the slye Spaniard will not suffer them to trade but trade for them under pretence that strangers mighte cheate them, but faile not to cheate them themselves of 3/4 of what they intrust them with. Were it not for this Shift, the lazy Spaniard could not grow soe rich, but there Insupportable crueltyes to these poor natives I hope in due time will reach the allmightyes ear, who will open the hearte of a more christian prince to deliver this people and drive away these Catterpillers from there superbous seats of Lazyness.
(Wag. pp. 92, 94)
—which is not the usual material from which sailing directions are made.
Ringrose seems to have been almost universally liked by his shipmates although he does mention having a duel with the quartermaster (effectively second-in-command), James Chappel, at the Isle of Plate in August 1681 (JP3 , 165).
Before proceeding with his later adventures, two quotations may do something to fill in the back-ground—the first is an unbiased opinion by William Dick describing the occasion of the Dutch interpreter James Marquis's desertion:
After his departure we had no great use for an Interpreter, neither now did we much want one; yet in what occasions we had, we made use of one Mr. Ringrose , who was with us in all this Voyage, and being a good Scholar, and full of ingeniosity, had also good skill in Languages. This Gentleman kept an exact and very curious Journal of all our Voyage, from our first setting out to the very last day, took also all the observations we made, and likewise an accurate description of all the Ports, Towns and Lands we came to. His Papers, or rather his Diary , with all his Drafts, are now in the hands of a person of my acquaintance at Wapping in London , and, as he telleth me, are very nigh being printed.
(JP2 , 3:79)
The second quotation is perhaps somewhat more biased, being taken from the preface to the printed edition of Ringrose's journal:
we have given unto us here, by Mr. Ringrose , an exact account of many places in the South Sea; the very Draughts and Maps . . . All which things, as they manifest unto us the inquisitiveness of the Author, so ought we highly to applaud his Curiosity and Genius , who all along the course of this Voy-
[11] Westminster City Library, Buckingham Palace Road, SW1, rate books and St. Martin's parish registers. The breakthrough—discovering where to look—occurred in the Mormon Genealogical Library, Los Angeles; we are most grateful for the assistance we found there.
age, not onely fought with his Sword in the most desperate Engagements and Battels of the Bucaniers against the Spaniards , but with his Pen gave us a true account of those Transactions; and with his pencil hath delineated unto us the very Scenes of those Tragedies. Thus we find him totally employed towards our information and instruction at home, while he endured the greatest fatigues and hardship abroad: at the same time making Quadrants at Sea, that others sate idle and murmuring upon the Decks; at the same time ship-wrackt, and almost naked, and starving upon a desart Island, and yet describing, even more exactly than the Spaniards themselves, the Gulf of Ballona , otherwise called of San Miguel , where he was cast away. These things, I say, as they are not undeserving of the highest praise and commendation of this ingenious Gentleman Mr. Ringrose their Author, so shall the Curioso 's of Nature and Posterity it self be his eternal debtors for their acquaintance with these writings.
(JP3 , sig. A2)
We know that, after the Trinity voyage, Ringrose arrived at Dartmouth on March 26, 1682, and sailed again for the South Sea in the Cygnet on October 1, 1683. The fair copies of his journal and waggoner (J4 , BL Sloane 3820; and W3 , NMM P.32, the subject of the present book), both in the same hand (assumed to be Ringrose's own), were presumably produced during these seventeen months in England, when he would have been in contact with Dick's "acquaintance in Wapping," the cartographer William Hack, whose work is discussed below. A doctored version of Ringrose's journal, dedicated by Hack to the duke of Albemarle (J5 , BL Sloane 48)—doctored to praise Bartholomew Sharp—was used as the copy for the second volume of Bucaniers of America —"From the Original Journal of the said Voyage. Written by Mr. Basil Ringrose, Gent. Who was all along present at those Transactions" published by William Crooke in London in February 1685. His waggoner sees its first publication with the present work.
During those same seventeen months, some London merchants were persuaded—by Ringrose himself, according to Dampier[12] —that a ship should be fitted out for trade along the western coasts of South America. The 180-ton, sixteen-gun Cygnet was chosen, under the command of Capt. Charles Swan, with thirty-six men, including three supercargoes of whom Ringrose was one.[13] She sailed from the Downs on October 1, 1683, with a cargo worth £5,000.
As a trading voyage, it was a disaster. At Valdivia in March 1684 they were driven off by the Spaniards despite a flag of truce, with two men killed and Ringrose and one other being the only ones of the landing party to escape unhurt. Dampier continues: "Captain Swan began to repent that ever he took this voyage in hand and he did never affect Master Ringrose afterwards . . . for Mr. Ringrose being the proposer of this voyage, did demonstrate the thing being very feasible in England which now Captain Swan found to be difficult" (JP4 , 1:540-42nn). They then tried to trade in the gulf of Nicoya in Costa Rica with equally disastrous results. Dampier says that, although Ringrose was an ingenious gentleman, his commercial acumen left much to be desired in choosing two places to trade, "the one being only a garrison, the other a port of poor mulattos."
Because of general failure in legitimate trading and the desertion of many of his crew, Swan decided in October 1684 that the Cygnet should join the several English and French buccaneer ships then active in the South Sea.
Their raids up and down the coast met with no great success either, however. On February 19, 1686, Swan and his men landed at the mouth of the Rio Grande de Santiago in Mexico, opposite the Tres Marías Islands, seeking provisions. They captured the small town of Sentispac (Santa Pecaque), fifteen miles inland, without resistance, but while they were transferring supplies of maize to horses to take to their canoes in the river, a large body of Spaniards ambushed the English party, killing fifty of the buccaneers, a quarter of Swan's entire force. Among them, said Dampier, was "my Ingenious Friend Mr. Ringrose . . . who wrote that Part of the History of the Buccaneers which relates to Captain Sharp. He was at this time Cape-Merchant, or Super-Cargo of Captain Swan's Ship. He had no mind to this Voyage; but was necessitated to engage in it or starve" (JP4 , 1:271-72).