ews merely because they were found in some part of the Caribbean Sea,
and even though bound for a plantation actually in possession of English
colonists. It was the old question of effective occupation _versus_
papal donation, and both Cromwell and Venables convinced themselves that
Spanish assaults in the past on English ships and colonies supplied a
sufficient _casus belli_.[124] There was no justification, however, for
a secret attack upon Spain. She had been the first to recognize the
young republic, and was willing and even anxious to league herself with
England. There had been actual negotiations for an alliance, and
Cromwell's offers, though rejected, had never been really withdrawn.
Without a declaration of war or formal notice of any sort, a fleet was
fitted out and sent in utmost secrecy to fall unawares upon the colonies
of a friendly nation. The whole aspect of the exploit was Elizabethan.
It was inspired by Drake and Raleigh, a reversion to the Elizabethan
gold-hunt. It was the first of the great buccaneering expeditions.[125]

Cromwell was doubtless influenced, too, by the representations of Thomas
Gage. Gage was an Englishman who had joined the Dominicans and had been
sent by his Order out to Spanish America. In 1641 he returned to
England, announced his conversion to Protestantism, took the side of
Parliament and became a minister. His experiences in the West Indies and
Mexico he published in 1648 under the name of "The English-American, or
a New Survey of the West Indies," a most entertaining book, which aimed
to arouse Englishmen against Romish "idolatries," to show how valuable
the Spanish-American provinces might be to England in trade and bullion
and how easily they might be seized. In the summer of 1654, moreover,
Gage had laid before the Protector a memorial in which he recapitulated
the conclusions of his book, assuring Cromwell that the Spanish colonies
were sparsely peopled and that the few whites were unwarlike and
scantily provided with arms and ammunition. He asserted that the
conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba would be a matter of no difficulty, and
that even Central America was too weak to oppose a long resistance.[126]
All this was true, and had Cromwell but sent a respectable force under
an efficient leader the result would have been different. The exploits
of the buccaneers a few years later proved it.

It was fortunate, considering the distracted state of affairs in Jamaica
in 1655-56, th