flitting before the eyes of the English for a century
before, and had not even been eclipsed by the signal failures of Sir
Walter Raleigh in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Indeed the
expeditions of the gallant knight, however bootless to himself, may have
served to stimulate the cupidity of his countrymen for a long time
afterward, inasmuch as some of Sir Walter's officers testified that they
actually approached within sight of the golden city. Sir Walter's great
contemporary, Sir Francis Drake, after committing many depredations upon
the Spanish American coast, had returned to England with a vast amount
of treasure. The expeditions both of Sir Francis and Sir Walter were of
a character bordering closely upon piratical; and in that romantic age,
it was not considered as greatly transcending their examples for daring
spirits to seek their fortunes in the New World, even by associating
themselves with the buccaneers of Tortuga. Be this, however, as it may,
England and Holland and other European states respectively furnished
many reckless and daring recruits to the army of freebooters; and their
piracies increased with their numbers. Ostensibly they directed their
operations only against the commerce of Spain, with whom they were
directly at war, and whose galleons from the continent, freighted with
the produce of the mines, offered golden incentives to bravery. But
however virtuous in this respect might have been the intentions of the
sea robbers, it was not invariably the merchantmen of Spain which
suffered from their depredations, since from 'an imperfection, in the
organs of vision,' or from some other cause 'they were not always able
to distinguish the flags of different nations.' Others than the
Spaniards, were consequently occasional sufferers; and a ready market
was found for their plunder in the French, and English islands,
especially in Jamaica, which England had conquered from Spain in 1655.
This latter island was in fact their principal depot; for although the
British Government, both under the Protectorate and afterward, had
endeavored to direct the attention of the Jamaica colonists to
agricultural pursuits, they had entirely failed, for the reason that the
buccaneers, making it their principal resort, poured in such vast
treasures, that the inhabitants amassed considerable wealth with little
difficulty, and despised the more honest occupations of honest labor.
The population rapidly increased, and in a few