These preparations proved to be only too justified. For the Dutch had fitted out an expedition against the Spanish possessions in America. In June of that year there appeared a fleet of more than thirty vessels with three thousand men, commanded by Pit Hein, one of the most famous mariners of his time. The Dutch had several encounters with the Spanish fleet and were compelled to retire from Havana, which they had tried to enter. They gained some advantages over the armada commanded by Don Juan de Benavides, but in the following year the Spaniards inflicted great losses upon the Dutch fleet commanded by Cornelius Fels, driving him back from Havana and capturing one of his frigates.
A little pamphlet published or printed by Heinrich Mellort Jano in Amsterdam in 1628 gives the Dutch version of the expedition of Pit Hein. It is entitled "Ausführlicher Bericht wie es der Silber Flotille herganger wann (durch wen wie und wie viel) solcherin diesem 1628. Jahr Erobert fort und eingebracht." Therein is related with much detail how the West India Company, recognizing the rich booty which the capture of Spanish ships promised, had furnished and fitted out a fleet and manned it with a crew of brave and hearty sailors and soldiers, with the avowed purpose of intercepting a silver-laden fleet returning from the colonies to Spain. The Dutch set out on the twentieth of May, 1628, under the command of General Petri Peters Heyn and Admiral Heinrich Corneli Lang.
The Dutch reached San Antonio on the west end of Cuba on the fourth of August. Their arrival became known to the Spaniards and on the twenty-third of that month Governor Cabrera dispatched some vessels to warn the silver fleet. General Peters Heyn sailed close up to the fortifications of Havana and then turned three or four miles out to sea to meet the treasure-laden ships, which his informers had reported to be sailing in that neighborhood, but south winds drove him northeast. Finally on the eighth of September the famous fleet hove in sight, and the Dutch captured nine vessels, and seeing eight more, sailed briskly out to cut them off from the port of Havana. The Spaniards arrived at Matanzas Bay, hotly pursued by the Dutch, and immediately organized a defensive. But they were outnumbered in the combat which ensued and laid down their arms. The Dutch General and his staff offered thanks to the Almighty for this great victory. The next day the ships were all secured fast by chains, and the third day the booty was unloaded from the Spanish and transferred to the Dutch ships. There were bars of silver, crosses, chalices, other vessels and art objects fashioned out of silver, in all weighing eighteen thousand four hundred pounds.
The Dutch started on their home voyage on the seventeenth of September and took with them four Spanish galleons, two laden with skins and two with iron and other ore. On the twenty-sixth they reached Bermuda and sent two couriers to Holland to report to the directors of the West India Company. The first reached Rotterdam on the fifteenth of November and received from the Prince of Orange as reward for the good news a jewelled gold chain. To the story of the expedition is added a detailed account of the goods carried by the individual ships, which shows that they also brought dye-stuffs, oil, wine, silks, furniture and other merchandise which with the silver, other ore and skins brought the total value up to thirty millions, presumably of Dutch gulden.
In the meantime there sailed from Cadiz an imposing squadron under the command of the Marquis de Valdueza and carrying as second in command the celebrated mariner D. Antonio de Oquendo. The object of the expedition was to clear the coasts of the islands of all the pirates which had begun to infest the Antilles. Off Nelson's Island, or Nevis, so called by Columbus in 1493 because the cloud-veiled summit of its highest peak reminded him of snow, they captured four Dutch corsairs in a violent combat from which the island suffered seriously. In September the Spanish fleet sailed for the island of San Cristobal, and obtained possession of the fortifications of Charles and Richelieu, compelling the French filibusters who were garrisoned there to surrender. These brilliant exploits had within the brief space of eight weeks placed the Spaniards in possession of two thousand three hundred prisoners, one hundred and seventy-three pieces of artillery, seven vessels and a great quantity of arms, powder and tobacco. Besides losing the islands the pirates suffered a loss of property to the amount of fifty million pesos. For a time the Antilles and surrounding sea enjoyed freedom from the menace that had hung over them and disturbed their tranquillity for so many years.
But in spite of these successes Cabrera was unpopular. By permitting a cargo of negroes to be sold in Havana he had called forth heated discussion in official circles and among the people. Not a few voices were heard to question his honesty. Other charges, some of a grave nature, were raised against him and an investigation was demanded. In response to the island's urgent request the Court of Madrid sent Don Francisco de Praga, prosecutor of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo, to Cuba, with instructions to inquire into the state of things. The charges being proved, Cabrera was removed from office on the seventh of October, 1630, and taken to Spain for trial. He died in Seville in a dungeon. De Praga acted as provisional political governor, and the Alcalde of the Morro, Cristobal de Arranda, as military governor until the successor of Cabrera arrived from Spain.
CHAPTER XXIV
Spain was at this time gradually working her defection, political and economic. Philip III. had died in 1621 and, as he had thrown the responsibilities of the government upon the shoulders of the Duke of Lerma, so his successor, Philip IV., left them to his favorite Olivares. Olivares immediately renewed the war with the United Provinces, which were still a thorn in the flesh of Spain, for, on being freed from the Spanish yoke, they had plunged into feverish activity which portended their development into a maritime and mercantile power bound in due time to rival and surpass Spain.
The Dutch were by the nature of their country obliged to seek their means of subsistence upon the sea and in far-off regions. Their famous son, Hugo Grotius, had been the first to proclaim the freedom of the seas as an indispensable condition to the growth and progress of the world's civilization. Since Lisbon had closed her ports to the Netherlands and Spain was imposing a series of unreasonable restrictions upon the navigators of other countries, the Dutch had for some time past been determined to discover a passage by which their ships could penetrate the seas of Asia. Dutch mariners who had been in the employ of the Spaniards and Portuguese and had shared in their voyages of discovery, had brought home tales of the strange lands and stranger peoples, which stirred the imagination of the ambitious and capable nation. The unknown continents and islands stimulated the scholars' desire for investigation and research. Exaggerated reports about the mineral wealth and other treasures of the New World had roused the merchants' spirit of enterprise and acquisition. As visions of the riches that awaited development in those foreign climes, and of territories they might once call their own, rose before the minds of these merchant princes and lords of the sea, the thirst of conquest quickened in this sturdy seafaring people.
Step by step the Dutch followed the discoveries and explorations of the Spaniards, and recorded and described them minutely. From the middle of the sixteenth century on the publishing houses of Amsterdam, Leyden and other centers of the printing trade of the country sent out books dealing with the new continent conquered by their enemy, and especially the West Indies. Stirred by this reading, the spirit of the people rose and demanded a share in the lands and the wealth which their mariners had helped to discover. There was an abundance of unemployed labor and capital in the country. Hence the government, knowing only too well that the future of the Dutch people lay on the seas, encouraged this spirit and deliberated upon numerous plans of exploration and colonization.