great numbers have committed frequent robberies, which hath occasioned great prejudice and obstruction to Trade and Commerce.'
1688. A twenty years truce had, in the year 1686, been agreed upon between France and Spain, but scarcely a twentieth part of that time was suffered to elapse before it was broken in the West Indies. Danish Factory robbed by the Buccaneers. The Flibustiers of Hispaniola did not content themselves with their customary practice: in 1688 they plundered the Danish Factory at the Island St. Thomas, which is one of the small Islands called the Virgins, near the East end of Porto Rico. This was an aggression beyond the limits which they had professed to prescribe to their depredatory system, and it is not shewn that they had received injury at the hands of the Danes. Nevertheless, the French West-India histories say, 'Our Flibustiers (nos Flibustiers), in 1688, surprised the Danish Factory at St. Thomas. The pillage was considerable, and would have been more if they had known that the chief part of the cash was kept in a vault under the hall, which was known to very few of the house. They forgot on this occasion their ordinary practice, which is to put their prisoners to the torture to make them declare where the money is. It is certain that if they had so done, the hiding-place would have been revealed to them, in which it was believed there was more than 500,000 livres.' Such remarks shew the strong prepossession which existed in favour of the Buccaneers, and an eagerness undistinguishing and determined after the extraordinary. Qualities the most common to the whole of mankind were received as wonderful when related of the Buccaneers. One of our Encyclopedias, under the article Buccaneer, says, 'they were transported with an astonishing degree of enthusiasm whenever they saw a sail.'
In this same year, 1688, war broke out in Europe between
the French and Spaniards, and in a short time the English joined against the French.
1689. July. England and France had at no period since the Norman conquest been longer without serious quarrel. On the accession of William the IIId. to the crowns of Great Britain, it was generally believed that a war with France would ensue. The English driven from St. Christopher. The French in the West Indies did not wait for its being declared, but attacked the English part of St. Christopher, the Island on which by joint agreement had been made the original and confederated first settlements of the two Nations in the West Indies. See p. 38. The English inhabitants were driven from their possessions and obliged to retire to the Island Nevis, which terminated the longest preserved union which history can shew between the English and French as subjects of different nations. In the commencement it was strongly cemented by the mutual want of support against a powerful enemy; that motive for their adherence to each other had ceased to exist: yet in the reigns of Charles the IId. and James the IId. of England, an agreement had been made between England and France, that if war should at any time break out between them, a neutrality should be observed by their subjects in the West Indies.
This war continued nearly to the end of King William's reign, and during that time the English and French Buccaneers were engaged on opposite sides, as auxiliaries to the regular forces of their respective nations, which completely separated them; and it never afterwards happened that they again confederated in any buccaneer cause. They became more generally distinguished by different appellations, not consonant to their present situations and habits; for the French adventurers, who were frequently occupied in hunting and at the boucan, were called the Flibustiers of St. Domingo, and the English adventurers,
who had nothing to do with the boucan, were called the Buccaneers of Jamaica.
1690. July. The English retake St. Christopher. The French had not kept possession of St. Christopher quite a year, when it was taken from them by the English. This was an unfortunate year for the French, who in it suffered a great defeat from the Spaniards in Hispaniola. Their Governor De Cussy, and 500 Frenchmen, fell in battle, and the Town of Cape François was demolished.
The French Flibustiers at this time greatly annoyed Jamaica, making descents, in which they carried off such a number of negroes, that in derision they nicknamed Jamaica 'Little Guinea.' The principal transactions in the West Indies, were, the attempts made by each party on the possessions of the other. In the course of these services, De Graaf was accused of misconduct, tried, and deprived of his commission in the army; but though judged unfit for command in land service, out of respect to his maritime experience he was appointed Captain of a Frigate.
No one among the Flibustiers was more distinguished for courage and enterprise in this war than Jean Montauban, who commanded a ship of between 30 and 40 guns. He sailed from the West Indies to Bourdeaux in 1694. In February of the year following, he departed from Bourdeaux for the coast of Guinea, where in battle with an English ship of force, both the ships were blown up. Montauban and a few others escaped with their lives. This affair is not to be ranked among buccaneer exploits, Great Britain and France being at open War, and Montauban having a regular commission.