Note 7 — Chapter XIII · IN THE TRACK OF PLATE-FLEETS AND BUCCANEERS

Besides these unscrupulous and sanguinary pirates, there was another class of men whom their friends and countrymen insist on grouping in a class by themselves. The majority of these were Englishmen, of whom the most distinguished representatives, along the Spanish Main, were Raleigh, Hawkins and Drake. When these men did not act under secret commissions from their government, they relied on its tacit connivance in all the depredations for which they are so notorious. In the light of international law, as we now understand it, they were as much pirates as those who attacked the ships of all nations, and as such they have always been regarded by Spanish writers. All three of the men just mentioned made their raids on Spanish possessions while England was at peace with Spain. Thus the two nations were at peace when Drake sacked Panama in 1586, as they were at peace when Raleigh attacked Trinidad in 1595. These sea rovers lived up to the old forecastle phrase, “No peace beyond the line”7 and recognized, at least in the Spanish territory in the New World, no law of nations except that