Anxious to get the adventurers out of the way while he collected the spoil, De Poincy spread a report that 10,000 Indians were approaching, and sent the Flibustiers to drive them back. After plundering the country for four leagues, they returned with fifty prisoners, a drove of cattle, and 4000 crowns. During the siege, they had been employed in skirmishing, cutting off supplies, and foraging, and were accustomed to laugh at the sailors, who dragged the guns and called them "white negroes."
Disease breaking out, and carrying off 800 men in six weeks, De Poincy embarked his plunder, and prepared to sail. Eighty-six guns he carried off, and destroyed St. Lazarus and Bocca Chica. The Buccaneers, calling out loudly for their share, received only 40,000 crowns. The men instantly shouted—"Brothers, we do wrong to take anything of this dog, our share is left at Carthagena." This proposal was received with a ferocious gaiety, and they all swore never to return to St. Domingo. They derided M. du Casse's promises to get them justice from the French king, and fired at those vessels that would not follow them. The people of Carthagena shuddered to see them return. Shutting up all the men in the cathedral, they promised to depart on receiving five millions as a ransom. In one day a million crowns were brought, but, this being still inadequate, they broke open the very tombs, and goaded the citizens to the torture, firing off guns, and pretending to put men to death in the neighbouring rooms. Two men, guilty of cruelty, their leaders hanged. Each man received about 1,000 crowns; and having spent four days in collecting and dividing the gold and silver, they appointed the Isle à la Vache as a rendezvous to divide the slaves and merchandise.
The retribution was at hand. They had not sailed thirty leagues when they fell in with the combined English and Dutch fleets. Le Christ, with 250 men, and more than a million crowns, was taken by the Dutch, Le Cerf Volant by the English, a third was driven on shore and burnt near St. Domingo, a fourth, running on land near Carthagena, was taken, and her crew employed in rebuilding the fortifications they had destroyed. Of De Poincy's plunder, 120,000 livres were carried off by an English foray on Petit Guaves. Admiral Neville, who failed to overtake the French deep-laden and weakly manned fleet, died of a broken heart at Virginia.
Du Casse was rewarded with the cross of St. Louis for his services, and orders arrived from France to distribute 1,400,000 of De Poincy's spoil among the freebooters, very little of which, however, reached them. A curse, says Charlevoix, rested on the whole enterprise.
In 1698, a French fleet, under the command of Count d'Estrees, on its way to attack the Dutch island of Curaçoa, was lost on the Aves Islands, a small cluster of rocks surrounded by breakers. Attracted by the distress-guns fired by the first ship that ran aground, its companions, believing that it had been attacked by the enemy, hurried pell-mell to its assistance, and, blinded by the fog, ran one by one on destruction. Eighteen of them were lost. Of this disaster, Dampier, who visited the island about a year afterwards, gives a very interesting account. The Buccaneer part of the crew (for the Buccaneers took an active part in these wars), quite accustomed to such chances, scrambled to shore, and proceeded to save all they could from the wreck; but a few of them, breaking into the stores of a stranded vessel, floated with her out to sea, drinking and cursing on the poop, and holding up their flasks, shouting and laughing to the drowning men around them. Every soul of them perished.
Several Flibustier vessels were lost at the same time, about 800 Buccaneers having joined the expedition at Tortuga. About 300 of these perished with the wrecks. Dampier describes the islands as strewn with shreds of sail, broken spars, masts, and rigging. For some years, in consequence, the Aves became the resort of Buccaneer captains, who careened and refitted here, employing their crews in diving for plate, and in attempts to recover guns and anchors.
To console themselves for this failure, M. de Poincy led 800 Buccaneers to attack Santiago, first touching at Tortuga for reinforcements. They landed unseen, taking advantage of a bright moonlight night. The vanguard wound their way round the base of a mountain that barred their approach to the town, and, instead of advancing, worked round till they met their rearguard, whom they mistook for the enemy, and furiously attacked. They discovered their mistake at last by their mutual cries of "Tue, tue." But it was now late; all hopes of surprise were over; the Spaniards, alarmed, put themselves on their defence, and at daybreak drove back the freebooters to their ships with an irresistible force of 4000 men. Another party, more successful, plundered Port au Prince, St. Thomas's, and Truxillo on the mainland.
Grammont, during this time, had been left behind on the Aves Islands, to collect all that was valuable from the wreck, and to careen the surviving vessels. Having completed this, and finding himself short of provisions, and the season being favourable for an excursion to the Gulf of Venezuela, Grammont decided upon a visit to Maracaibo. Arriving at the fort of the bar, mounted with twelve guns and garrisoned by seventy men, he commenced an attack. The French had opened a trench, had already pushed it within cannon shot, and were preparing the ladders to scale, when the governor surrendered on condition of obtaining the honours of war. Passing on to the town, Grammont found it abandoned. Gibraltar also made little resistance. From the lake he carried off three vessels, and also took a prize of value, cannonading it with his guns, and at the same time boarding it with a swarm of canoes. Being now master of the whole lake, he visited all the places where his prisoners told him he was likely to find gold hidden, defeating the Spaniards wherever he met them.
Then, collecting all his scattered plunderers, Grammont prepared to attack Torilla, making a detour of forty-five leagues in order to take it by surprise. Arriving near the town, the Buccaneers came to the banks of a rapid river, with only one ford, which they had the good fortune to find, crossing over under shelter of a hot fire that the rearguard kept up upon the Spaniards, who lay intrenched upon the opposite bank. The moment they had crossed, their enemies fled, and Torilla was their own. The prize, however, proved not worth the winning, for the town was abandoned, and the treasure hid. The Buccaneer rule, indeed, was that no place was worth sacking which was taken without a blow, as the Spaniards always fought best when they had most to fight for. The Buccaneers departed with little booty; their 700 men having taken three towns, and conquered a province, with the loss of only seventy men, and these chiefly by illness.
In 1680 Grammont made another expedition to the coast of Cumana. Having collected twenty-five piraguas, he ascertained from some prisoners that there were three armed vessels anchored under the forts of Gonaire, and these he determined to cut out. He embarked all his 180 men in a single bark, and left orders for the others to sail up to Gonaire at a given signal. He landed with a few men at night, and surprised four watchmen, who, however, had still time left to fire, and alarm the town, before they could be overpowered. Gonaire leaped instantly from its sleep. The bells rang backward; the guns fired; the musketeers hurried to the market-place; doors were barred; and the women and children fled in tears to the altars. Grammont, doubling his speed, arrived at the east gate, his drums beating, trumpets sounding, and colours flying. Although it was defended by twelve guns, he took it with the hot fierceness of a Cæsar, pushed on at once to a fort about a hundred yards distant, and commenced a vigorous attack. At the head of his crew he entered the embrasures, killing twenty-six out of its thirty-eight defenders. Planting his colours on the wall, the men shouted "Vive le Roi!" with such unanimity and fierceness that at the very sound the whole garrison of the neighbouring fort at once surrendered, and forty-two men instantly laid down their arms. These successes were obtained with only forty-seven men—a mere handful being able to keep up in the rapid and headlong charge. Grammont, rallying his men, then placed garrisons in the forts, razed the embrasures, spiked the cannon, and then proceeded to intrench himself in a strong position. The next day he entered the town, making several vigorous sorties on the enemy, who now began to gather in round him on all sides. Being informed that 2000 men were advancing to meet him from Caragua, he gave orders for embarkation, the Buccaneers seldom fighting when no booty was to be obtained. Remaining last upon the shore to cover the retreat of his men, withstanding for nearly twenty-four hours the onslaught of 300 Spaniards, he was at last dangerously wounded in the throat, and one of his officers had his shoulder broken.