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Updated: May 31, 2025
But the Spaniards were not contented with such a petty triumph as that of sweeping the island of Tortuga free from the obnoxious strangers, down upon Hispaniola they came, flushed with their easy victory, and determined to root out every Frenchman, until not one single buccaneer remained.
In this they acted foolishly, for their atrocities stirred the interlopers to revenge themselves. A band of them returned to Tortuga, to the ruins which the Spaniards had left standing. Here they formed themselves into a corporate body, with the intention to attack the Spanish at the first opportunity. Here, too, for the first time, they elected a commander.
Nicholas Mole, beat up between the island of Tortuga and the larger island, overhauled the Grange and Cape François, took a small row-boat with six swivels and fourteen sharp-looking, smutty-coloured gentlemen, destroyed her, and bore up for the north side of Cuba, where we captured a small Balaker schooner, who informed us that a Spanish corvette of eighteen guns was lying at Barracow.
First voyage: The Great Canary Gomera Magnetic variation Symptoms of revolt Land, land San Salvador Taking possession Conception Fernandina or Great Exuma Isabella, or Long Island The Mucaras Cuba Description of the island Archipelago of Notre-Dame Hispaniola or San Domingo Tortuga Island The cacique on board the Santa-Maria The caravel of Columbus goes aground and cannot be floated off Island of Monte-Christi Return Tempest Arrival in Spain Homage rendered to Christopher Columbus.
After the hunt is over, and the spoil divided, they commonly sail to Tortuga, to provide themselves with guns, powder, and shot, and other necessaries for another expedition; the rest of their gains they spend prodigally, giving themselves to all manner of vices and debauchery, particularly to drunkenness, which they practise mostly with brandy: this they drink as liberally as the Spaniards do water.
It was then, apparently, that the Spaniards left upon Tortuga an officer and twenty-eight men, the small garrison which, says Charlevoix, was found there when the hunters returned. The Spanish soldiers were already tired of their exile upon this lonely, inhospitable rock, and evacuated with the same satisfaction with which the French and English resumed their occupancy.
He was a man of courage and command as well as a skilful engineer, and soon rose high in the councils of de Poincy. Being a Calvinist, however, he had drawn upon the governor the reproaches of the authorities at home; and de Poincy proposed to get rid of his presence, now become inconvenient, by sending him to subdue Tortuga.
It was while Watts was governor of Tortuga, if we are to believe the Jesuit, Dutertre, that the buccaneers determined to avenge the treachery of the Spaniards to a French vessel in that neighbourhood by plundering the city of St. Jago in Hispaniola.
Later they settled there and on other islands, and after a while began to prey upon Spanish commerce. In 1630 they made their chief head-quarters on the island of Tortuga; in 1655 they aided in the English conquest of Jamaica, and ten years later settled the Bahamas. All these islands became centres of their activities.
In the minutes of the Providence Company, under date of 19th May 1631, we find that a committee was "appointed to treat with the agents for a colony of about 150 persons, settled upon Tortuga"; and a few weeks later that "the planters upon the island of Tortuga desired the company to take them under their protection, and to be at the charge of their fortification, in consideration of a twentieth part of the commodities raised there yearly."
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