untries abounding
with cattle, hogs and other provisions, the buccaneers could be
extirpated only by co-operation with its English and French neighbours,
it would have soon fallen back upon a policy of peace and good
understanding with England. But the news of the sack of Panama,
following so close upon the conclusion of the treaty of 1670, and the
continued depredations of the buccaneers of Tortuga and the declared
pirates of Jamaica, had shattered irrevocably the reliance of the
Spaniards upon the good faith of the English Government. And when Morgan
was knighted and sent back to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor, their
suspicions seemed to be confirmed. A ketch, sent to Cartagena in 1672 by
Sir Thomas Lynch to trade in negroes, was seized by the general of the
galleons, the goods burnt in the market-place, and the negroes sold for
the Spanish King's account.[353] An Irish papist, named Philip
Fitzgerald, commanding a Spanish man-of-war of twelve guns belonging to
Havana, and a Spaniard called Don Francisco with a commission from the
Governor of Campeache, roamed the West Indian seas and captured English
vessels sailing from Jamaica to London, Virginia and the Windward
Islands, barbarously ill-treating and sometimes massacring the English
mariners who fell into their hands.[354] The Spanish governors, in spite
of the treaty and doubtless in conformity with orders from home,[355]
did nothing to restrain the cruelties of these privateers. At one time
eight English sailors who had been captured in a barque off Port Royal
and carried to Havana, on attempting to escape from the city were
pursued by a party of soldiers, and all of them murdered, the head of
the master being set on a pole before the governor's door.[356] At
another time Fitzgerald sailed into the harbour of Havana with five
Englishmen tied ready to hang, two at the main-yard arms, two at the
fore-yard arms, and one at the mizzen peak, and as he approached the
castle he had the wretches swung off, while he and his men shot at the
dangling corpses from the decks of the vessel.[357] The repeated
complaints and demands for reparation made to the Spanish ambassador in
London, and by Sir William Godolphin to the Spanish Court, were answered
by counter-complaints of outrages committed by buccaneers who, though
long ago disavowed and declared pirates by the Governor of Jamaica, were
still charged by the Spaniards to the account of the English.[358] Each
return of the fl