gnizing their independence. France had four armies in the field
against her (1637). A fleet equipped with great sacrifice and
difficulty was destroyed by the Hollanders in the waters of Brazil
(1630). Van Tromp annihilated another in the English Channel,
consisting of 70 ships, with 10,000 of Spain's best troops on board.
Cataluna was in open revolt (1640). The Italian provinces followed
(1641). Portugal fought and achieved her emancipation from Spanish
rule. The treasury was empty, the people starving. Yet, while all
these calamities were befalling the land, the king and his court,
under the guidance of an inept minister (the Duke of Olivares), were
wasting the country's resources in rounds of frivolous and immoral
pleasures, in dances, theatrical representations, and bull-fights. The
court was corrupt; vice and crime were rampant in the streets of
Madrid.[40]

Under such a regime the colonists were naturally left to take care of
themselves, and this, coupled with the policy of excluding them from
all foreign commerce, justified Spain's enemies in seeking to wrest
from her the possessions from which she drew the revenues that enabled
her to make war on them. Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Hollanders made of
the Antilles their trysting-ground for the purpose of preying upon the
common enemy.

These were the buccaneers and filibusters of that period, the most
lawless class of men in an age of universal lawlessness, the refuse
from the seaports of northern Europe, as cruel miscreants as ever
blackened the pages of history.

The buccaneers derived their name from the Carib word "boucan," a
kind of gridiron on which, like the natives, they cooked their meat,
hence, bou-canier. The word filibuster comes from the Spanish
"fee-lee-bote," English "fly-boat," a small, swift sailing-vessel
with a large mainsail, which enabled the buccaneers to pursue
merchantmen in the open sea and escape among the shoals and shallows
of the archipelago when pursued in their turn by men-of-war.

They recognized no authority, no law but force. They obeyed a leader
only when on their plundering expeditions. The spoils were equally
divided, the captain's share being double that of the men. The maimed
in battle received a compensation proportionate to the injury
received. The captains were naturally distinguished by the qualities
of character that alone could command obedience from crews who feared
neither God nor man.

One of the most dreaded amo