Note 116 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Footnote 116:
(return)
According to a Spanish MS., there were in Tortuga in 1653 700 French inhabitants, more than 200 negroes, and 250 Indians with their wives and children. The negroes and Indians were all slaves; the former seized on the coasts of Havana and Cartagena, the latter brought over from Yucatan. In the harbour the platform had fourteen cannon, and in the fort above were forty-six cannon, many of them of bronze (Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499 ff.). The report of the amount of ordnance is doubtless an exaggeration.