aves born on their estates. But the Republican
French, being nearly ten to one, were practical masters of the
island; and Don Chacon, whenever he did anything unpopular, had to
submit to 'manifestations,' with tricolour flag, Marseillaise, and
Ca Ira, about the streets of Port of Spain; and to be privately
informed by Admiral Artizabal that a guillotine was getting ready to
cut off the heads of all loyal Spaniards, French, and British. This
may have been an exaggeration: but wild deeds were possible enough
in those wild days. Artizabal, the story goes, threatened to hang a
certain ringleader (name not given) at his yard-arm. Chacon begged
the man's life, and the fellow was 'spared to become the persecutor
of his preserver, even to banishment, and death from a broken
heart.' {65}

At last the explosion came. The English sloop Zebra was sent down
into the Gulf of Paria to clear it of French privateers, manned by
the defeated maroons and brigands of the French islands, who were
paying respect to no flag, but pirating indiscriminately. Chacon
confessed himself glad enough to have them exterminated. He himself
could not protect his own trade. But the neutrality of the island
must be respected. Skinner, the Zebra's captain, sailed away
towards the Boca, and found, to his grim delight, that the
privateers had mistaken him for a certain English merchantman whom
they had blockaded in Port of Spain, and were giving him chase. He
let them come up and try to board; and what followed may be easily
guessed. In three-quarters of an hour they were all burnt, sunk, or
driven on shore; the remnant of their crews escaped to Port of
Spain, to join the French Republicans and vow vengeance.

Then, in a hapless hour, Captain Vaughan came into Port of Spain in
the Alarm frigate. His intention was, of course, to protect the
British and Spanish. They received him with open arms. But the
privateers' men attacked a boat's crew of the Alarm, were beaten,
raised a riot, and attacked a Welsh lady's house where English
officers were at a party; after which, with pistol shots and
climbing over back walls, the English, by help of a few Spanish
gentlemen, escaped, leaving behind them their surgeon severely
wounded.

Next morning, at sunrise, almost the whole of the frigate's crew
landed in Port of Spain, fully armed, with Captain Vaughan at their
head; the hot Welsh blood boiling in him. He unfurled