nd and returned
to rejoin the Earl.[50]

The English in the sixteenth century, however, had no monopoly of this
piratical game. The French did something in their own way, and the Dutch
were not far behind. Indeed, the French may claim to have set the
example for the Elizabethan freebooters, for in the first half of the
sixteenth century privateers flocked to the Spanish Indies from Dieppe,
Brest and the towns of the Basque coast. The gleam of the golden lingots
of Peru, and the pale lights of the emeralds from the mountains of New
Granada, exercised a hypnotic influence not only on ordinary seamen but
on merchants and on seigneurs with depleted fortunes. Names like Jean
Terrier, Jacques Sore and Francois le Clerc, the latter popularly called
"Pie de Palo," or "wooden-leg," by the Spaniards, were as detestable in
Spanish ears as those of the great English captains. Even before 1500
French corsairs hovered about Cape St Vincent and among the Azores and
the Canaries; and their prowess and audacity were so feared that
Columbus, on returning from his third voyage in 1498, declared that he
had sailed for the island of Madeira by a new route to avoid meeting a
French fleet which was awaiting him near St Vincent.[51] With the
establishment of the system of armed convoys, however, and the presence
of Spanish fleets on the coast of Europe, the corsairs suffered some
painful reverses which impelled them to transfer their operations to
American waters. Thereafter Spanish records are full of references to
attacks by Frenchmen on Havana, St. Jago de Cuba, San Domingo and towns
on the mainland of South and Central America; full of appeals, too, from
the colonies to the neglectful authorities in Spain, urging them to send
artillery, cruisers and munitions of war for their defence.[52]

A letter dated 8th April 1537, written by Gonzalo de Guzman to the
Empress, furnishes us with some interesting details of the exploits of
an anonymous French corsair in that year. In November 1536 this
Frenchman had seized in the port of Chagre, on the Isthmus of Darien, a
Spanish vessel laden with horses from San Domingo, had cast the cargo
into the sea, put the crew on shore and sailed away with his prize. A
month or two later he appeared off the coast of Havana and dropped
anchor in a small bay a few leagues from the city. As there were then
five Spanish ships lying in the harbour, the inhabitants compelled the
captains to attempt the seizure of the