ies of veteran infantry and four others of free Pardos (a
mixed race of blacks and whites) and Morenos, sent by the Major Jeronimo
Luque Salazar.

The perfidy of the French king contributed seriously to the insecurity
of Cuba at this period. There is little doubt that he aided and abetted
the operations of French pirates in the West Indies. The island of
Tortuga was once more in their hands. Barbadoes and Jamaica were the
haunts of great numbers of these outlaws, who kept the Spanish ships
sailing on these seas as well as Campeche, Tabasco, Honduras, Nicaragua,
New Granada, Costa Rica, Santa Catalina, la Guayra and others of the
rich Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere in a continual state of
suspense. Governor Davila succeeded in several punitive expeditions
against the pirates. The notorious Lolonois or El Olones, was executed
in Nicaragua and in Cuba itself more than three hundred were hanged in
the different places where they had been caught. During Davila's
administration some wealthy citizens made bequests for the public good.
The most important was that of Martin Calvo, who left an income of five
thousand pesos to be annually distributed as gifts among five poor
orphan girls. Governor Davila Orejon y Gaston was in the military
literature of his time known as the author of a work called "Escelencias
del arte militare y variones illustres." He demonstrated in that work
the importance of the port of Havana for the conservation of Spanish
dominion in Mexico and Peru. He retired from the governorship on the
sixth of May, 1670, and died in Venezuela.

The immediate successor of Davila was Field Marshal D. Francisco
Rodriguez de Ledesma, Chevalier of the Order of Santiago. Determined to
curb the brazen bullying in which the buccaneers were still indulging,
he issued privateering patents to a number of valiant mariners and
merchants, who were willing to face the foreign pirates in open fight
and prevent further encroachments upon the coasts of Spanish America.
The two men who especially distinguished themselves in these expeditions
were Felipe Geraldini and Major Marcos de Alcala. Ledesma also carried
on the work of fortification. During his administration was built a
portion of the cathedral under the supervision of D. Juan Bernardo
Alonso de Los Rios; but the imposing edifice was not finished until many
years later.

Governor Ledesma was not to be spared an experience with the
freebooters. In the year 1678 th