Those who were not killed by the fall were put to the
sword; and few or none returned to rehearse the bloody story.
This ill-starred expedition was the last sent from St. Domingo against
the buccaneers, who thenceforward became the masters and lord
proprietaries of Tortuga. Nor were the buccaneers longer exclusively
composed of adventurous Frenchmen. Visions of golden cities in the New
World had been 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.
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