From the time the Buccaneers made Tortuga a base of operations until the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, when they were finally suppressed, was more than half a century. From this little island they spread over the entire Caribbean sea and had places of rendezvous in Jamaica, Santa Catalina, the sequestered coves of the Gulf of Darien and in many secret places along the Spanish Main. Their distinctive mark during all this time, from which they never deviated, as it had been the distinctive mark of pirates and privateers of England, France and Holland during nearly a century and a half before, was their incessant and relentless war against Spain; their determination to break her power and destroy that trade monopoly which she was so determined to retain.
So numerous and powerful did they eventually become that some of their leaders, notably Mansvelt and Morgan, dreamed of establishing an independent state. They had selected the small island of Santa Catalina—now known as Old Providence—just a short distance north of the course along which we are now sailing—as a starting point and, had they undertaken this project while the French and English Buccaneers were still united, they might have been successful.[16]
To us of the twentieth century, with our ideas of law and order, it seems strange that the pirates and Buccaneers of the West India islands and the Main should have been able to continue their nefarious operations for so long a period, and that they were so numerous. But, when we remember how they were countenanced and abetted by their respective governments, how they were provided with letters of marque and reprisal, how they were openly assisted by the English[17] and French governors of the West Indies, how they were assisted even by their own sovereigns,[18] the wonder ceases. Considering the love of adventure that distinguished this period of the world’s history, and the princely fortunes that rewarded the successful raids of the daring sea rovers, it is surprising that the number was not greater. If the same conditions now obtained, it is safe to say that the seas would swarm with similar adventurers. It is interesting to surmise what would now be the condition of the Western Hemisphere if the Buccaneers, instead of confining themselves to capturing treasure ships and sacking towns, had, like the bold Vikings, their antitypes, set out to conquer and colonize.
Whatever else may be said of the Buccaneers, there can be no doubt that it is to them that England owes her proud title of Mistress of the Seas. They gave birth to her great navy, and developed that great merchant marine whose flags are to-day seen in every port of the world. They distinguished themselves in the destruction of the Spanish Armada, and closely followed Magellan in circumnavigating the globe. They had a hand in the formation of the East India Company and were “Britain’s sword and shield for the defence of her nascent colonies.”
Of the occupation of the Buccaneers one can assert what James Jeffrey Roche writes of that of the filibusters of the middle of the last century—that it “is no longer open to private individuals. The great powers have monopolized the business, conducting it as such and stripping it of its last poor remnant of romance, without investing it with a scrap of improved morality.”[19]
And one can also say of them, what Byron writes of his Corsair, that they left a
“Name to other climes
Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes.”