re measures. The king did
not agree with their suggestion of compromise, and de Cussy, compelled
to deal harshly with the buccaneers, found his task by no means an easy
one.[451] Meanwhile, however, many of the freebooters, seeing the
determined attitude of the established authorities, decided to transfer
their activities to the Pacific coasts of America, where they would be
safe from interference on the part of the English or French Governments.
The expedition of Harris, Coxon, Sharp and their associates across the
isthmus in 1680 had kindled the imaginations of the buccaneers with the
possibilities of greater plunder and adventure in these more distant
regions. Other parties, both English and French, speedily followed in
their tracks, and after 1683 it became the prevailing practice for
buccaneers to make an excursion into the South Seas. The Darien Indians
and their fiercer neighbours, the natives of the Mosquito Coast, who
were usually at enmity with the Spaniards, allied themselves with the
freebooters, and the latter, in their painful marches through the dense
tropical wilderness of these regions, often owed it to the timely aid
and friendly offices of the natives that they finally succeeded in
reaching their goal.

In the summer of 1685, a year after the arrival of de Cussy in
Hispaniola, de Grammont and Laurens de Graff united their forces again
at the Isle la Vache, and in spite of the efforts of the governor to
persuade them to renounce their project, sailed with 1100 men for the
coasts of Campeache. An attempt on Merida was frustrated by the
Spaniards, but Campeache itself was occupied after a feeble resistance,
and remained in possession of the French for six weeks. After reducing
the city to ashes and blowing up the fortress, the invaders retired to
Hispaniola.[452] According to Charlevoix, before the buccaneers sailed
away they celebrated the festival of St. Louis by a huge bonfire in
honour of the king, in which they burnt logwood to the value of 200,000
crowns, representing the greater part of their booty. The Spaniards of
Hispaniola, who kept up a constant desultory warfare with their French
neighbours, were incited by the ravages of the buccaneers in the South
Seas, and by the sack of Vera Cruz and Campeache, to renewed
hostilities; and de Cussy, anxious to attach to himself so enterprising
and daring a leader as de Grammont, obtained for him, in September 1686,
the commission of "Lieutenant de Roi" of