ose to the history of the buccaneers. On 26th September 1696
Ducasse received from the French Minister of Marine, Pontchartrain, a
letter informing him that the king had agreed to the project of a large
armament which the Sieur de Pointis, aided by private capital, was
preparing for an enterprise in the Mexican Gulf.[516] Ducasse, although
six years earlier he had written home urging just such an enterprise
against Vera Cruz or Cartagena, now expressed his strong disapproval of
the project, and dwelt rather on the advantages to be gained by the
capture of Spanish Hispaniola, a conquest which would give the French
the key to the Indies. A second letter from Pontchartrain in January
1697, however, ordered him to aid de Pointis by uniting all the
freebooters and keeping them in the colony till 15th February. It was a
difficult task to maintain the buccaneers in idleness for two months and
prohibit all cruising, especially as de Pointis, who sailed from Brest
in the beginning of January, did not reach Petit Goave till about 1st
March.[517] The buccaneers murmured and threatened to disband, and it
required all the personal ascendancy of Ducasse to hold them together.
The Sieur de Pointis, although a man of experience and resource, capable
of forming a large design and sparing nothing to its success, suffered
from two very common faults--vanity and avarice. He sometimes allowed
the sense of his own merits to blind him to the merits of others, and
considerations of self-interest to dim the brilliance of his
achievements. Of Ducasse he was insanely jealous, and during the whole
expedition he tried in every way to humiliate him. Unable to bring
himself to conciliate the unruly spirit of the buccaneers, he told them
plainly that he would lead them not as a companion in fortune but as a
military superior, and that they must submit themselves to the same
rules as the men on the king's ships. The freebooters rebelled under the
haughtiness of their commander, and only Ducasse's influence was able to
bring them to obedience.[518] On 18th March the ships were all gathered
at the rendezvous at Cape Tiburon, and on the 13th of the following
month anchored two leagues to the east of Cartagena.[519] De Pointis had
under his command about 4000 men, half of them seamen, the rest
soldiers. The reinforcements he had received from Ducasse numbered 1100,
and of these 650 were buccaneers commanded by Ducasse himself. He had
nine frigates, besides s