uba which had been blown up by
filibusters a few years before, was rebuilt under his orders. The
batteries of La Punta, la Estrella and Santa Clara were established.
The governor of Santiago and D. Pedro Bayone finished these works and
also walled up the convent of San Francisco making it equivalent to a
fort. In the year 1665 the French pirate Pedro Legrand penetrated into
Santo Espiritu with a force of filibusters. He set fire to thirty-three
houses and demanded a ransom from every inhabitant. During that and the
following year, the pirates plundered more than two hundred haciendas
(farms) carrying off cattle and furniture. They committed unspeakable
outrages, violating even the wives and daughters of the men whose homes
they destroyed or robbed.

One of the most curious historical documents of this period is "De
Americansche Zee Rovers," a narrative of piratical exploits on the
coasts of Cuba and other Spanish possessions by a member of the
redoubtable fraternity, Alexander Exquemeling, a Dutch pirate, whose
talent for piracy was coupled with the gift of literary style and a
pious disposition. The book was translated into many languages and was
very popular at the time; it gives a vivid account of the life and
habits of the buccaneers and of conditions in the colonies they visited.
Exquemeling had come to Tortuga in one of the vessels of the Dutch West
India Company and, as was frequently done then, was sold into servitude
for three years. Being ill-treated by his masters, he made his escape
and joined the Brothers of the Coast. He was with Morgan at the capture
of Puerto del Principe in Cuba, at an attack upon Porto Bello on the
Isthmus of Darien and at the dastardly sack of Panama, and indulges in
no little moralizing about the monster Morgan and his associates.

In the year 1670 steps were finally taken by the British and the Spanish
government to crush this outlaw power of the seas. As if in defiance of
this act the expedition against Panama was made which Exquemeling
describes with evident horror. He also reports that the new governor of
Jamaica, who had been particularly instructed to enforce the treaty
against piracy, which in the diplomatic documents goes under the name
"American treaty," ordered three hundred French corsairs who had been
shipwrecked on the coast of Porto Rico to be slaughtered. But he does
not forget to add that the same governor only a few years later secretly
abetted the operations of the