The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century | Page 9

galleons from Porto Bello to
Cartagena in 1637, four buccaneers hovering near them carried away
two merchant-ships under cover of darkness. As the same fleet was
departing from Havana, just outside the harbour two strange vessels
appeared in their midst, and getting to the windward of them singled
out a Spanish ship which had strayed a short distance from the rest,
suddenly gave her a broadside and made her yield. The vessel was
laden with sugar and other goods to the value of 80,000 crowns. The
Spanish vice-admiral and two other galleons gave chase, but without
success, for the wind was against them. The whole action lasted only
half an hour.[31]
The Spanish ships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were

notoriously clumsy and unseaworthy. With short keel and towering
poop and forecastle they were an easy prey for the long, low,
close-sailing sloops and barques of the buccaneers. But this was not
their only weakness. Although the king expressly prohibited the
loading of merchandise on the galleons except on the king's account,
this rule was often broken for the private profit of the captain, the
sailors, and even of the general. The men-of-war, indeed, were
sometimes so embarrassed with goods and passengers that it was
scarcely possible to defend them when attacked. The galleon which
bore the general's flag had often as many as 700 souls, crew, marines
and passengers, on board, and the same number were crowded upon
those carrying the vice-admiral and the pilot. Ship-masters frequently
hired guns, anchors, cables, and stores to make up the required
equipment, and men to fill up the muster-rolls, against the time when
the "visitadors" came on board to make their official inspection, getting
rid of the stores and men immediately afterward. Merchant ships were
armed with such feeble crews, owing to the excessive crowding, that it
was all they could do to withstand the least spell of bad weather, let
alone outman[oe]uvre a swift-sailing buccaneer.[32]
By Spanish law strangers were forbidden to resort to, or reside in, the
Indies without express permission of the king. By law, moreover, they
might not trade with the Indies from Spain, either on their own account
or through the intermediary of a Spaniard, and they were forbidden
even to associate with those engaged in such a trade. Colonists were
stringently enjoined from having anything to do with them. In 1569 an
order was issued for the seizure of all goods sent to the colonies on the
account of foreigners, and a royal cedula of 1614 decreed the penalty of
death and confiscation upon any who connived at the participation of
foreigners in Spanish colonial commerce.[33] It was impossible,
however, to maintain so complete an exclusion when the products of
Spain fell far short of supplying the needs of the colonists. Foreign
merchants were bound to have a hand in this traffic, and the Spanish
government tried to recompense itself by imposing on the out-going
cargoes tyrannical exactions called "indults." The results were fatal.
Foreigners often eluded these impositions by interloping in the West
Indies and in the South Sea.[34] And as the Contratacion, by fixing

each year the nature and quantity of the goods to be shipped to the
colonies, raised the price of merchandise at will and reaped enormous
profits, the colonists welcomed this contraband trade as an opportunity
of enriching themselves and adding to the comforts and luxuries of
living.
From the beginning of the seventeenth century as many as 200 ships
sailed each year from Portugal with rich cargoes of silks, cloths and
woollens intended for Spanish America.[35] The Portuguese bought
these articles of the Flemish, English, and French, loaded them at
Lisbon and Oporto, ran their vessels to Brazil and up the La Plata as far
as navigation permitted, and then transported the goods overland
through Paraguay and Tucuman to Potosi and even to Lima. The
Spanish merchants of Peru kept factors in Brazil as well as in Spain,
and as Portuguese imposts were not so excessive as those levied at
Cadiz and Seville, the Portuguese could undersell their Spanish rivals.
The frequent possession of Assientos by the Portuguese and Dutch in
the first half of the seventeenth century also facilitated this contraband,
for when carrying negroes from Africa to Hispaniola, Cuba and the
towns on the Main, they profited by their opportunities to sell
merchandise also, and generally without the least obstacle.
Other nations in the seventeenth century were not slow to follow the
same course; and two circumstances contributed to make that course
easy. One was the great length of coast line on both the Atlantic and
Pacific slopes over which a surveillance had to be exercised, making it
difficult to catch the interlopers. The other was the venal connivance of
the governors of the ports, who often tolerated and