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They did not scruple to attack English traders and fishing sloops, and when pursued took refuge in Petit Goave, the port in the cul-de-sac at the west end of Hispaniola which had long been a sanctuary of the freebooters, and which paid little respect to the authority of the royal governor.
These last were divides between our two ships, under Captains Davis and Swan; and the Frenchmen were put into our prize, named the Flower, under the command of Captain Gronet, their countryman, in return for which he offered commissions to Captains Davis and Swan, from the governor of Petite Goave, as it is the custom of the French privateers to carry with them blank commissions.
Ducasse, who had returned to Petit Goave when de Pointis sailed for France, sent one of his lieutenants on a mission to the French Court to complain of the ill-treatment he had received from de Pointis, and to demand his own recall; but the king pacified him by making him a Chevalier of St. Louis, and allotting 1,400,000 francs to the French colonists who had aided in the expedition.
He was perfectly indifferent as he told Hagthorpe, who ventured once to offer a remonstrance whether they went to Petit Goave or to Hades, and whether they entered the service of Louis XIV or of Satan. Captain Blood was still in that disgruntled mood when he sailed from Tortuga, and still in that mood when he came to his moorings in the bay of Petit Goave.
Except at Petit Goave, however, the French were really desirous of preserving peace with Jamaica, and did what they could to satisfy the demands of the English without unduly irritating the buccaneers.
About a fortnight later Vanhorn died of gangrene in his wound, and de Grammont, who was then acting as his lieutenant, carried his ship back to Petit Goave, where Laurens and most of the other captains had already arrived.
De Pointis, however, insisted upon the order which he had published before the expedition sailed from Petit Goave, that the buccaneers should be subject to the same rule in the division of the spoil as the sailors in the fleet, i.e., they should receive one-tenth of the first million and one-thirtieth of the rest.
The Spaniards seem to have left the interior of the island to the few survivors, as they had too few slaves to cultivate it. They settled themselves at St Domingo, and at various places upon the coast, such as Santiago and St John of Goave. They planted tobacco, sugar, chocolate, and ginger, and carried on a considerable trade with the cities on the Main and in the mother country.
They sailed from Achamack in Virginia on the 23d August, 1683, taking their departure from Cape Charles in the Revenge of eight guns and fifty-two men, John Cooke commander, and bound for the South Sea; but Captain Cowley, who had charge of the navigation of the Revenge as master, not being then let into the secret object of the enterprise, steered a course for Petit Goave in St Domingo, in which he was indulged for the first day, but was then told that they were bound in the first place for the coast of Guinea.
Now, put on these dresses, they are such as are worn by the planters of this country, and you can pretend you are going to a fair at Goave to buy mules, that is what Francois advises, and he has got a good head on his shoulders.
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