of Wormeley, and in
February 1636 it learned that Riskinner was in possession of the
island.[93] Two planters just returned from the colony, moreover,
informed the company that there were then some 80 English in the
settlement, besides 150 negroes. It is evident that the colonists were
mostly cattle-hunters, for they assured the company that they could
supply Tortuga with 200 beasts a month from Hispaniola, and would
deliver calves there at twenty shillings apiece.[94] Yet at a later
meeting of the Adventurers on 20th January 1637, a project for sending
more men and ammunition to the island was suddenly dropped "upon
intelligence that the inhabitants had quitted it and removed to
Hispaniola."[95] For three years thereafter the Providence records are
silent concerning Tortuga. A few Frenchmen must have remained on the
island, however, for Charlevoix informs us that in 1638 the general of
the galleons swooped down upon the colony, put to the sword all who
failed to escape to the hills and woods, and again destroyed all the
habitations.[96] Persuaded that the hunters would not expose themselves
to a repetition of such treatment, the Spaniards neglected to leave a
garrison, and a few scattered Frenchmen gradually filtered back to their
ruined homes. It was about this time, it seems, that the President of
San Domingo formed a body of 500 armed lancers in an effort to drive the
intruders from the larger island of Hispaniola. These lancers, half of
whom were always kept in the field, were divided into companies of fifty
each, whence they were called by the French, "cinquantaines." Ranging
the woods and savannas this Spanish constabulary attacked isolated
hunters wherever they found them, and they formed an important element
in the constant warfare between the French and Spanish colonists
throughout the rest of the century.[97]

Meanwhile an English adventurer, some time after the Spanish descent of
1638, gathered a body of 300 of his compatriots in the island of Nevis
near St. Kitts, and sailing for Tortuga dispossessed the few Frenchmen
living there of the island. According to French accounts he was received
amicably by the inhabitants and lived with them for four months, when he
turned upon his hosts, disarmed them and marooned them upon the opposite
shore of Hispaniola. A few made their way to St. Kitts and complained to
M. de Poincy, the governor-general of the French islands, who seized the
opportunity to establish a Fren