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 years amounted to twenty
thousand, whose only source of subsistence was derived from the
buccaneers.
Hitherto France had disclaimed as her subjects the roving cattle-hunters
upon the island of Hispaniola; but after they had formed settlements and
established themselves so firmly upon Tortuga, the French West India
company took them under the aegis of the lilies for protection; and M.
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