[1] The amount of loot and tribute obtained by de Pointis was, according to some estimates, no less than forty million livres—an enormous sum for that period. [↑]
[2] W. Robertson, The History of America, Vol. II, p. 514, Philadelphia, 1812. [↑]
[3] History of the New World, pp. 124, 125, printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1857. [↑]
[4] Writings of Christopher Columbus, p. 202, edited by P. L. Ford, New York, 1892. [↑]
[5] The Discovery of America, Vol. II, p. 370. [↑]
[6] John Boyd Thacher declares that Las Casas was “the grandest figure, next to Columbus, appearing in the Drama of the New World. Against the purity of his life, no voice among all his enemies ever whispered a suggestion. If the Apostle Peter was a much better man, the story is told elsewhere than in his acts. If the Apostle Paul was braver, more zealous, more consecrated to the cause of humanity, which alone can ask for Apostleship, Las Casas was a consistent imitator. The Church has never passed a saint through the degree of canonization more worthy of this signal and everlasting honor than Bartolomé de las Casas, the Apostle of the Indies.”—Christopher Columbus, His Life, His Work, His Remains, Vol. I, pp. 158 and 159, New York, 1903. [↑]
[7] The line here referred to is not the equator, but the tropical line. The phrase practically signified that European treaties did not bind within the tropics; that, although Spain might be at peace in the Old World, there could be no peace for her in the New. [↑]
[8] The History of the Buccaneers of America, Vol. I, p. 22, fourth edition, London, 1741.
Esquemeling, as the reader will observe, does not apply to his associates the euphemious term Buccaneers, but calls them “the Pyrates of America, which sort of men are not authorized by any sovereign prince. For the Kings of Spain having on several occasions sent their ambassadors to the Kings of England and France to complain of the molestations and troubles those pyrates often caused on the coasts of America, even in the calm of peace, it hath always been answered that such men did not commit those acts of hostility and pyracy as subjects to their Majesties, and therefore his Catholick Majesty might proceed against them as he should think fit. The King of France added that he had no fortress nor castle upon Hispaniola, neither did he receive a farthing of tribute from thence. And the King of England adjoined that he had never given any commission to those of Jamaica to commit hostilities against the subjects of his Catholick Majesty.” Op. cit., p. 58, Vol. I. [↑]
[9] Here, says Sir Frederick Treves, in his charming work. The Cradle of the Deep, “In defiance of the ban of Spain, a strange company began to collect.... They came across the seas in obedience to no call; in ones and twos they came. Frenchmen, British, and Dutch, and, led by some herding instinct, they foregathered at this wild trysting-place. Some were mere dare-devil adventurers, others were wily seekers after fortune; the few were in flight from the grip of justice, the many had roamed away from the old sober world in search of freedom.