Note 11 — Chapter XIII · IN THE TRACK OF PLATE-FLEETS AND BUCCANEERS

Compared with the Spaniards, they were usually in a small minority. But in their case, as in so many similar ones, it was not numbers, but their skill and courage, that gave them possession of rich galleons and placed the well-guarded plate-fleets at their mercy. At times the Buccaneers had only simple canoes—mere dugouts—but these, according to Esquemeling, were so fleet that they might well be called “Neptune’s post-horses.” In these they went out to sea for a distance of eighty leagues and attacked heavily-armed men of war, and, before the Spanish crew had time to realize what the daring sea rovers were after, their vessel was in the possession of their irresistible foe.11