In their sea enterprises, they followed most of the customs which are generally observed in private ships of war; and sometimes were held together by a subscribed written agreement, by the English called Charter-party; by the French Chasse-partie, which might in this case be construed a Chasing agreement. Whenever it happened that Spain was at open and declared war with any of the maritime nations of Europe, the Buccaneers who were natives of the country at war with her, obtained commissions, which rendered the vessels in which they cruised, regular privateers.
The English adventurers sometimes, as is seen in Dampier, called themselves Privateers, applying the term to persons in the same manner we now apply it to private ships of war. The Dutch, whose terms are generally faithful to the meaning intended, called the adventurers Zee Roovers; the word roover in the Dutch language comprising the joint sense of the two English words rover and robber.
CHAP. V.
Treaty made by the Spaniards with Don Henriquez. Increase of English and French in the West Indies. Tortuga surprised by the Spaniards. Policy of the English and French Governments with respect to the Buccaneers. Mansvelt, his attempt to form an independent Buccaneer Establishment. French West-India Company. Morgan succeeds Mansvelt as Chief of the Buccaneers.
1630. The Spanish Government at length began to think it necessary to relax from their large pretensions, and in the year 1630 entered into treaties with other European nations, for mutual security of their West-India possessions. In a Treaty concluded that year with Great Britain, it was declared, that peace, amity, and friendship, should be observed between their respective subjects, in all parts of the world. But this general specification was not sufficient to produce effect in the West Indies.
1633. In Hispaniola, in the year 1633, the Government at San Domingo concluded a treaty with Don Henriquez; which was the more readily accorded to him, because it was apprehended the revolted natives would league with the Brethren of the Coast. By this treaty all the followers of Don Henriquez who could claim descent from the original natives, in number four thousand persons, were declared free and under his protection, and lands were marked out for them. But, what is revolting to all generous hopes of human nature, the negroes were abandoned to the Spaniards. Magnanimity was not to be expected of the
natives of Hayti; yet they had shewn themselves capable of exertion for their own relief; and a small degree more of firmness would have included these, their most able champions, in the treaty. This weak and wicked defection from friends, confederated with them in one common and righteous cause, seems to have wrought its own punishment. The vigilance and vigour of mind of the negro might have guarded against encroachments upon the independence obtained; instead of which, the wretched Haytians in a short time fell again wholly into the grinding hands of the Spaniards: and in the early part of the eighteenth century, it was reckoned that the whole number living, of the descendants of the party of Don Henriquez, did not quite amount to one hundred persons.
Cultivation in Tortuga. The settlement of the Buccaneers at Tortuga drew many Europeans there, as well settlers as others, to join in their adventures and occupations. They began to clear and cultivate the grounds, which were before overgrown with woods, and made plantations of tobacco, which proved to be of extraordinary good quality.