of Tweeddale, then chief Minister of Scotland,
Sir John Dalrymple, etc.]

In 1526 a company of English merchants was formed to trade with the West
Indies and the "Spanish Main," and commanded great success. Other
merchants did the same. Soon after the Spanish court instituted a
coast-guard to make war upon these traders; and as they had full power
to capture and slay all who did not bear the King of Spain's commission,
there were terrible tales told in Europe of mutilation, torture, and
revenge. The Windward Islands having been gradually settled by French
and English adventurers, Frederick of Toledo was sent with a large fleet
to destroy those petty colonies. This harsh treatment rendered the
planters desperate, and under the name of buccaneers,[24] they continued
"a retaliation so horribly savage [_v._ Notes to Rokeby] that the
perusal makes the reader shudder. From piracy at sea, they advanced to
making predatory descents on the Spanish territories; in which they
displayed the same furious and irresistible valor, the same thirst of
spoil, and the same brutal inhumanity to their captives." The pride and
presumption of Spain were partly resisted by the English monarchs, but
not with real effect before the time of Cromwell, strongest of all the
rulers of Britain. Under his government of the seas Spain was deprived
of the island of Jamaica; and the buccaneers to their disgust found that
the flag of the great Protector was a check against all piracy and
injustice.

[Footnote 24: Named from _boucan_, a kind of preserved meat, used by
those rovers. They had learned this peculiar art of preserving from the
native Caribs.]

Under Charles II, however, the buccaneers resumed their conflict with
the Spanish, and in 1670, Henry Morgan, with 1,500 English and French
ruffians resolved to cross the isthmus like Balboa, to plunder the
depositories of gold and silver which lay in the city of Panama and
other places on the Pacific coast. Having stormed a strong fortress at
the mouth of the Chagres River, they forced their way through the
entangled forests for ten days, and after much hardship reached Panama,
to find it defended by a regular army of twice their number. The
Spaniards, however, were beaten, and Morgan thoroughly sacked and
plundered the city, taking captive all the chief citizens in order to
extort afterward large ransoms.

Ten years afterward the Isthmus of Darien was crossed by Dampier,
another celebrated buccaneer,