Note (return) — Chapter VII

In 1683, however, these filibusters of Hispaniola carried out a much larger design upon the coasts of New Spain. In April of that year eight buccaneer captains made a rendezvous in the Gulf of Honduras for the purpose of attacking Vera Cruz. The leaders of the party were two Dutchmen named Vanhorn and Laurens de Graff. Of the other six captains, three were Dutch, one was French, and two were English. Vanhorn himself had sailed from England in the autumn of 1681 in command of a merchant ship called the "Mary and Martha," alias the "St. Nicholas." He soon, however, revealed the rogue he was by turning two of his merchants ashore at Cadiz and stealing four Spanish guns. He then sailed to the Canaries and to the coast of Guinea, plundering ships and stealing negroes, and finally, in November 1682, arrived at the city of San Domingo, where he tried to dispose of his black cargo. From San Domingo he made for Petit Goave picked up 300 men, and sailed to join Laurens in the Gulf of Honduras.445 Laurens, too, had distinguished himself but a short time before by capturing a Spanish ship bound from Havana for San Domingo and Porto Rico with about 120,000 pieces of eight to pay off the soldiers. The freebooters had shared 700 pieces of eight per man, and carrying their prize to Petit Goave had compounded with the French governor for a part of the booty.446