e Spaniards
came to claim their property.[230] A letter from Secretary Bennet, on
12th November 1664, confirmed the governor in this course;[231] and on
2nd February 1665, three weeks before the declaration of war against
Holland, a warrant was issued to the Duke of York, High Admiral of
England, to grant, through the colonial governors and vice-admirals,
commissions of reprisal upon the ships and goods of the Dutch.[232]
Modyford at once took advantage of this liberty. Some fourteen pirates,
who in the beginning of February had been tried and condemned to death,
were pardoned; and public declaration was made that commissions would be
granted against the Hollanders. Before nightfall two commissions had
been taken out, and all the rovers were making applications and planning
how to seize Curacao.[233] Modyford drew up an elaborate design[234] for
rooting out at one and the same time the Dutch settlements and the
French buccaneers, and on 20th April he wrote that Lieutenant-Colonel
Morgan had sailed with ten ships and some 500 men, chiefly "reformed
prisoners," resolute fellows, and well armed with fusees and
pistols.[235] Their plan was to fall upon the Dutch fleet trading at St.
Kitts, capture St. Eustatius, Saba, and perhaps Curacao, and on the
homeward voyage visit the French settlements on Hispaniola and Tortuga.
"All this is prepared," he wrote, "by the honest privateer, at the old
rate of no purchase no pay, and it will cost the king nothing
considerable, some powder and mortar-pieces." On the same day, 20th
April, Admiral de Ruyter, who had arrived in the Indies with a fleet of
fourteen sail, attacked the forts and shipping at Barbadoes, but
suffered considerable damage and retired after a few hours. At
Montserrat and Nevis, however, he was more successful and captured
sixteen merchant ships, after which he sailed for Virginia and New
York.[236]

The buccaneers enrolled in Colonel Morgan's expedition proved to be
troublesome allies. Before their departure from Jamaica most of them
mutinied, and refused to sail until promised by Morgan that the plunder
should be equally divided.[237] On 17th July, however, the expedition
made its rendezvous at Montserrat, and on the 23rd arrived before St.
Eustatius. Two vessels had been lost sight of, a third, with the
ironical name of the "Olive Branch," had sailed for Virginia, and many
stragglers had been left behind at Montserrat, so that Morgan could
muster only 326 men for