cy in the
New World and were unanimously arrayed against Spain. There were among
them recruits from almost all nations, classes and professions. There
were bankrupt shopkeepers, discharged soldiers, runaway convicts,
thieves and murderers, vagabonds and adventurers and many a black sheep
of good family under an assumed name. A large proportion was attracted
by the possibility of getting hold of some of the unlimited treasures of
gold and silver which the New World was said to hold. For the reports
that had been spread by the participants in the early expeditions, not
always limited to natives of Spain and Portugal, were so fairy-like that
the classic tale of the Argonauts paled into insignificance beside them.
It is reported that a noted French freebooter who had joined the pirates
as a runaway debtor, hoped in this way to secure enough to pay off his
debts. An equally large number consisted of men who in that period of
adventure were seized with an insatiable desire for roving about the
world, free from all fetters of conventional life.

The attitude of England, France and Holland against Spain was so
hostile, that whenever one of these powers was at war with Spain, these
outlaws were granted the rights of belligerents. Mariner-warriors,
prepared to defend themselves and to attack by force, they became a
mercenary navy at the service of any power that happened to be at war
with Spain. At bottom of this united effort, which at the end resulted
in ruining the overseas commerce of Spain, was the opposition against
its restrictions of the navigation and commerce of other countries.
Bancroft who is referred to by Pedro J. Guiteras in his "Historia de la
isla de Cuba" says in the first volume of his "History of the United
States" (p. 163)

"The moral sense of mariners revolted at the extravagance; since
forfeiture, imprisonment, and the threat of eternal woe were to
follow the attempt at the fair exchanges of trade; since the
freebooter and the pirate could not suffer more than menaced
against the merchant who should disregard the maritime monopoly,
the seas became infested by reckless buccaneers, the natural
offspring of colonial restrictions. Rich Spanish settlements in
America were pillaged; fleets attacked and captured; predatory
invasions were even made on land to intercept the loads of gold, as
they came from the mines, by men who might have acquired honor and
we