of Providence,
but unable to land among the rocks, was after five days beaten off
"considerably torn" by the shot from the fort.[79] On the strength of
these injuries received and of others anticipated, the Providence
Company obtained from the king the liberty "to right themselves" by
making reprisals, and during the next six years kept numerous vessels
preying upon Spanish commerce in those waters. King Philip was therefore
all the more intent upon destroying the plantation.[80] He bided his
time, however, until the early summer of 1641, when the general of the
galleons, Don Francisco Diaz Pimienta, with twelve sail and 2000 men,
fell upon the colony, razed the forts and carried off all the English,
about 770 in number, together with forty cannon and half a million of
plunder.[81] It was just ten years later that a force of 800 men from
Porto Rico invaded Santa Cruz, whence the Dutch had been expelled by the
English in 1646, killed the English governor and more than 100 settlers,
seized two ships in the harbour and burnt and pillaged most of the
plantations. The rest of the inhabitants escaped to the woods, and after
the departure of the Spaniards deserted the colony for St. Kitts and
other islands.[82]

Footnotes:

[Footnote 1: Herrera: Decades II. 1, p. 4, cited in Scelle: la Traite
Negriere, I. p. 6. Note 2.]

[Footnote 2: Scelle, _op. cit._, i. pp. 6-9.]

[Footnote 3: "Por cuanto los pacificaciones no se han de hacer con ruido
de armas, sino con caridad y buen modo."--Recop. de leyes ... de las
Indias, lib. vii. tit. 1.]

[Footnote 4: Scelle, _op. cit._, i. p. 35.]

[Footnote 5: Weiss: L'Espagne depuis Philippe II. jusqu'aux Bourbons.,
II. pp. 204 and 215. Not till 1722 was legislative sanction given to
this practice.

M. Lemonnet wrote to Colbert in 1670 concerning this commerce:--"Quelque
perquisition qu'on ait faite dans ce dernier temps aux Indes pour
decouvrir les biens des Francois, ils ont plustost souffert la prison
que de rien declarer ... toute les merchandises qu'on leur donne a
porter aux Indes sont chargees sous le nom d'Espagnols, que bien souvent
n'en ont pas connaissance, ne jugeant pas a propos de leur en parler,
afin de tenir les affaires plus secretes et qu'il n'y ait que le
commissionaire a le savoir, lequel en rend compte a son retour des
Indes, directement a celui qui en a donne la cargaison en confiance sans
avoir nul egard pour ceux au nom desquels le chargement a ete fait, et
l