t out annually, and brought
back the rich spoils of the South American colonies. Within two years
the extraordinary number of eighty ships, with 1500 cannon and over 9000
sailors and soldiers, were despatched to American seas, and although
Bahia was soon retaken, the Dutch for a time occupied Pernambuco, as
well as San Juan de Porto Rico in the West Indies.[62] In 1628 Piet Heyn
was in command of a squadron designed to intercept the plate fleet which
sailed every year from Vera Cruz to Spain. With thirty-one ships, 700
cannon and nearly 3000 men he cruised along the northern coast of Cuba,
and on 8th September fell in with his quarry near Cape San Antonio. The
Spaniards made a running fight along the coast until they reached the
Matanzas River near Havana, into which they turned with the object of
running the great-bellied galleons aground and escaping with what
treasure they could. The Dutch followed, however, and most of the rich
cargo was diverted into the coffers of the Dutch West India Company. The
gold, silver, indigo, sugar and logwood were sold in the Netherlands for
fifteen million guilders, and the company was enabled to distribute to
its shareholders the unprecedented dividend of 50 per cent. It was an
exploit which two generations of English mariners had attempted in vain,
and the unfortunate Spanish general, Don Juan de Benavides, on his
return to Spain was imprisoned for his defeat and later beheaded.[63]

In 1639 we find the Spanish Council of War for the Indies conferring
with the King on measures to be taken against English piratical ships in
the Caribbean;[64] and in 1642 Captain William Jackson, provided with an
ample commission from the Earl of Warwick[65] and duplicates under the
Great Seal, made a raid in which he emulated the exploits of Sir Francis
Drake and his contemporaries. Starting out with three ships and about
1100 men, mostly picked up in St. Kitts and Barbadoes, he cruised along
the Main from Caracas to Honduras and plundered the towns of Maracaibo
and Truxillo. On 25th March 1643 he dropped anchor in what is now
Kingston Harbour in Jamaica, landed about 500 men, and after some sharp
fighting and the loss of forty of his followers, entered the town of St.
Jago de la Vega, which he ransomed for 200 beeves, 10,000 lbs. of
cassava bread and 7000 pieces of eight. Many of the English were so
captivated by the beauty and fertility of the island that twenty-three
deserted in one night to the Spa