it did off the Nicaragua coast and in the very
track of Spanish commerce in those regions, was, until captured in 1641,
a source of great fear to Spanish mariners; and when in 1642 some
English occupied the island of Roatan, near Truxillo, the governor of
Cuba and the Presidents of the Audiencias at Gautemala and San Domingo
jointly equipped an expedition of four vessels under D. Francisco de
Villalba y Toledo, which drove out the intruders.[109] Closer to the
buccaneering headquarters in Tortuga (and later in Jamaica) were the
straits separating the great West Indian islands:--the Yucatan Channel
at the western end of Cuba, the passage between Cuba and Hispaniola in
the east, and the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. In
these regions the corsairs waited to pick up stray Spanish merchantmen,
and watched for the coming of the galleons or the Flota.[110] When the
buccaneers returned from their cruises they generally squandered in a
few days, in the taverns of the towns which they frequented, the wealth
which had cost them such peril and labour. Some of these outlaws, says
Exquemelin, would spend 2000 or 3000 pieces of eight[111] in one night,
not leaving themselves a good shirt to wear on their backs in the
morning. "My own master," he continues, "would buy, on like occasions, a
whole pipe of wine, and placing it in the street would force every one
that passed by to drink with him; threatening also to pistol them in
case they would not do it. At other times he would do the same with
barrels of ale or beer. And, very often, with both in his hands, he
would throw these liquors about the streets, and wet the clothes of such
as walked by, without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel or not,
were they men or women." The taverns and ale-houses always welcomed the
arrival of these dissolute corsairs; and although they extended long
credits, they also at times sold as indentured servants those who had
run too deeply into debt, as happened in Jamaica to this same patron or
master of whom Exquemelin wrote.

Until 1640 buccaneering in the West Indies was more or less accidental,
occasional, in character. In the second half of the century, however,
the numbers of the freebooters greatly increased, and men entirely
deserted their former occupations for the excitement and big profits of
the "course." There were several reasons for this increase in the
popularity of buccaneering. The English adventurers in Hispaniola