Excerpts from The Pirates Caesar: Secret Caesar pt. 2

(Author’s note: Every story appearing in the “Excerpts from The Pirates Caesar” is fiction. Because the book itself is fiction. There may be some, incredibly limited, connection to men who existed in history, but these pirate stories are written for a fun tie in to the relevant Junior Rangers Investigative Club Novels. Basically: don’t get it twisted nothing below is fact. Also, this is pt. 2. it picks up exactly where pt. 1 left off, so you might want to check that out first.)

The following is an excerpt from the new chapter in The Pirates Caesar: version 2. Where the author updated his book after learning about a Caesar who was part of the ill-fated 1622 Tierra Firme Spanish Treasure Fleet.

sketch of Horacio Caesar on an island, with the wreckage of the Magdelene in the distance.

Captain Horacio Caesar, of the Nuestra Señora de Magedelene had his ship stricken from the record soon after her construction. After that, he sailed his boat around the Gulf of Mexico, until it was attached, despite the loss of it’s official position, to the rear guard of the 1622 fleet. The ship was one of many wrecked by a hurricane on their way back to Spain. In an effort to recover her, Horacio Caesar contacted Gaspar de Vargas by mail, and requested his assistance with her salvage, an act, which for some reason would be considered piracy. But why?

Many records have been lost, and much of what has been found still needs to be authenticated, but what my experts have been able to piece together is a compelling tale which will shake up the history of the 1600s as we know it!

From scraps of paper in Spain, to moldy ledgers discovered in the basements of Old Havana, my team of experts is working diligently to uncover the secrets of Horatio Caesar and the missing treasure ship. Here is what they have uncovered so far:

Horacio Caesar, sailor for the Spanish navy, was sent along with other men to supervise construction of ships for a treasure fleet in 1620. He was assigned as captain of the Nuestra Señora de Magedelene, when she launched. But all records of said ship were stricken near the end of 1621 when she was declared derelict. Yet, despite this, she continued to sail.

The Nuestra Señora de Magedelene had not sunk, and would not sink for over a year. We have written record, in the form of the Captain’s log of the Rosario, a sister ship to the Magedelene, which lists her amongst the rearguard of the Tierra Firme fleet just days before the hurricane, a year after her ‘deriliction.’ Instead, Horacio Caesar’s disappearance, and his ship’s removal from records seems to be part of an elaborate plan, concocted by an unknown number of sailors of the Tierra Firme fleet, who intende to smuggle a wealth of treasure past the heavy taxes of King Phillip.

Smuggling was not uncommon in the treasure fleets. Captains and sailors alike would secrete treasure in hiding spaces and personal belongings in hopes of sneaking them past the tax collectors, who would take 20% of everything onboard. But for the bold Captain Horatio, coins sewn in pockets, or an emerald hidden in the floorboards was small time

My team has unearthed clues which prove that his plan was much larger.

A ledger in Venice, Italy from 1619 describes negotiations with a Horatio Caesar, (the ledger notes that he is a son of Spain but spell his name as they would in Italy.) The negations are for a future trade. They set future prices for the planned purchase of silver, gold, emeralds and other goods, and the rates of trade upon their entry into Venetian Port.

There is a note from someone in Panama which mentions loading treasure into the holds of the Atocha, and the Magedelene, in 1622, despite the latter’s supposed dereliction. The writer, a porter, was confused why unmarked bars of silver and gold were being carried aboard the Magedelene. (It was common for the metals to be minted with the mark of the crown.) He tells his wife he was paid twice his usual rate to keep silent.

There is record that several of the sailors rescued in Los Tortugas, who claim to have come from the Magdalene. Some of those sailors spoke of plans to sail to Italy with their captain.

There is evidence that someone changed the accounting ledgers of the treasure recorded aboard the Atocha and other ships which were part of the Tierra Firme Fleet.

From all of these clues my team has been able to piece together Captain Horacio Caesar’s plans. Captain Horatio was not content smuggling small belongings through the port in Spain. Instead, he wanted to sneak an entire ship, loaded with treasure, past the Spanish ports entirely.

We believe that, working with unnamed officials and members of the 1622 treasure fleet, Captain Caesar had his ship, the Magdelene stricken from the ledger before she had completed her first mission. Then, operating as Captain of shadow ship, Horacio Caesar sailed the Galleon alongside ships like the Atocha, collecting treasures throughout the Gulf of Mexico. His plan was to then sail them East, beyond Spain, to Venice, where they could fetch higher prices, with lower taxes.

His plan was to sail alongside the 1622 Tierra Firma fleet, positioned amongst the rear guard, but as the other ships turned for Spanish ports, his ship and crew would continue on to Venice with their unmarked treasures. Then they would return to Spain, with their money, either by ship, or more likely, across land with a wealth of untaxable trade items.

It was a clever plan, and it could have worked, if not for a late start and a hurricane. Instead, the Magdelene suffered the same fate as much of the treasure fleet. She and her treasure were sunk, somewhere near the Dry Tortugas. We can presume from letters, that Horacio Caesar and members of his crew survived the shipwreck and were rescued from the islands of Los Tortugas, but the massive treasure he tried so hard to smuggle to Europe was lost beneath the waves.

Pirate or Smuggler?

The line between the two is often blurred, but we have to judge the man by his actions, and the theft of a ship belonging to the Spanish treasure fleet and treasure to be marked by the Spanish Crown, is Piracy, even if his plan was a conspiracy avoiding violence.

The fact that Horatio Caesar almost got away with such a daring and clever plan marks him as an early example of successful pirates, and if there is ever an accounting of his treasure, he could have become one of the richest pirates of all time.

Except that he didn’t, not as far as we know.

After the letter to Gaspar de Vargas, (Ironically the first clue which lead me along this trail,) Horacio Caesar seems to disappear from record. We do not know if he ever convinced anyone to help him recover his stolen treasure. We know that the letter likely did not sway Gaspar de Vargas, as his time and rescue/salvage efforts are well accounted for. We know that the merchants in Venice were left wanting for a treasure which never came. But we don’t know much else.

And in that lack of knowledge we can write as many possibilities as we want.

 Perhaps Captain Caesar did find a crew to help him recover the smuggled treasure, and they sailed with their riches to ports unknown. Perhaps he used the storm as an opportunity to salvage a small amount of treasure (more than enough for one man,) and retire away before anyone could learn of his plan. Or perhaps he became one of the many sailors who settled in the west indies drinking in the bars and telling anyone who listened his story of a vast treasure once within his grasp but now forever out of reach.

I believe that his legacy, the wreck of the Madgelene and her vast store of secret treasure is out there still, waiting to be discovered. I had a different theory a long time ago, and perhaps you will read about that at the end of this book.

There is much more to be said of the pirate I like to call The Secret Caesar, and a team of archeologists is headed to the Dry Tortugas to do a survey of shipwrecks soon. It’s possible that they just may find some unmarked silver, or emeralds of a fine quality, along with the legacy of a man once lost to history, a pirate named Caesar, Horacio Caesar.

(Actual Authors note here. This is the second part in a supplement I am writing for the three books in the Junior Rangers Investigative Club Series loosely called: The Treaure Trilogy. Justin, Lucy, and Rudy, would have encountered The Pirates Caesar, and this story in particular, during their adventures in Dry Tortugas National Park, in the book titled. Treasure off the Coast.

If you would like some non-treasure related news, I am having my first book signing for the second book in the Junior Rangers Investigative Club Series: The Specters of Mammoth Cave, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at Barnes and Noble on October 19th. Stop by, and ask me about the 3 Pirates named Caesar! (Or about Mammoth Cave, or anything else)

Here’s a graphic for that.