Note 31 — PREFACE.

Saris makes an interesting remark on this practice of the Dutch:—“Before our coming they passed generally by the name of Englishmen, for our English nation hath been long known by report among them, but much scandalled by the Portugals Jesuits as pirates and rovers upon the seas; so that the naturals have a song which they call the English Crofonia, shewing how the English do take the Spanish ships, which they (singing) do act likewise in gesture with their cattans by their sides, with which song and acting they terrify and scare their children, as the French sometimes did theirs with the name of the Lord Talbot.”—Purchas, i. 368.