Another pirate, Basil Ringrose, was on another voyage forced [through lack of supplies] to hunt the macaques and found it unnerving. It would take fifteen or sixteen shots to kill three or four, “so nimbly would they escape our hands and aim, even after being desperately wounded.”
In addition, there was something disturbingly human about the monkeys’ reaction when one of their troop had been shot. “The rest of the community will flock about him,” Ringrose reported, “and lay their hands upon the wound, to hinder the blood from issuing forth. Others will gather moss that grows upon the trees, and thrust it into the wound and hereby stop the blood or chew and apply as poultice.”
Source:
Talty, Stephan. “The Art of Cruelty.” Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws’ Bloody Reign. New York: Crown Publishing Group (NY), 2007. 98, 99. Print.
Further Reading:
Monkey doctors? I had no idea they did that. That is awesome!