re at daggers
drawn, the foreign seawolves, who had been gathering together, surveying
with longing eyes the fold of riches so rigorously banned from them,
were now making preparations for active aggression. But the history of
the expeditions on the part of these formidable rovers is worthy of more
than one chapter to itself.

CHAPTER IX

FOREIGN RAIDS ON THE SPANISH COLONIES

Had the laws of the Indies been differently framed, there is no doubt
that the hardy sailors and reckless buccaneers who plundered these
coasts would have had no existence, and that South America would have
remained unprovided with much of its grim romance. As it was, Spain, by
her imperious policy of "hands off," had flung a challenge to every
adventurer of the other nations throughout Europe.

During the earliest periods of its colonization the reports from the New
World were naturally somewhat nebulous in character, and the Spanish
authorities themselves saw to it that as little authentic news as
possible should be allowed to filter beyond their own frontiers. This
policy succeeded for a while in restraining the undesired enterprise of
the rival peoples who were, so far as South America was concerned,
groping in the dark. This phase was naturally only fleeting. At the
first evidence of a desire on the part of the other nations to
participate in the benefits accruing from South America, the Spanish
Court thundered forth threats and edicts.

Thus on December 15, 1558, King Philip II. decreed that any foreign
person who should traffic with Spanish America should be punished by
death and confiscation of property. The edict was emphatic and stern,
and contained a clause which deprived the Royal Audiences in Spanish
America of any powers of dispensation in the execution of these
penalties:

"If anyone shall disobey this law, whatever his state or condition,
his life is forfeit, and his goods shall be divided in three parts,
of which one shall go to our Royal Treasure, one to the judge, and
one to the informer."

It is, of course, notorious that the distance which separated the
colonies from the motherland prevented the enforcing of many laws,
whether good or bad, and that the Spanish-American local
expression--"The law is obeyed but not carried out"--was common to
nearly every district. At the same time, the mischief caused by decrees
such as these may readily be imagined. A rich bribe to an informer was
in itsel