y
might by them be dispossessed also of Hispaniola. Thus taking an
opportunity (when many of the French were abroad at sea, and others
employed in hunting), with eight hundred men, in several canoes, they
landed again in Tortuga, almost without being perceived by the French;
but finding that the governor had cut down many trees for the better
discovery of any enemy in case of an assault, as also that nothing of
consequence could be done without great guns, they consulted about the
fittest place for raising a battery. This place was soon concluded to be
the top of a mountain which was in sight, seeing that from thence alone
they could level their guns at the fort, which now lay open to them
since the cutting down of the trees by the new possessors. Hence they
resolved to open a way for the carriage of some pieces of ordnance to
the top. This mountain is somewhat high, and the upper part thereof
plain, from whence the whole island may be viewed: the sides thereof are
very rugged, by reason a great number of inaccessible rocks do surround
it; so that the ascent was very difficult, and would always have been
the same, had not the Spaniards undergone the immense labour and toil
of making the way before mentioned, as I shall now relate.

The Spaniards had with them many slaves and Indians, labouring men, whom
they call matades, or, in English, half-yellow men; these they ordered
with iron tools to dig a way through the rocks. This they performed with
the greatest speed imaginable; and through this way, by the help of many
ropes and pulleys, they at last made shift to get up two pieces of
ordnance, wherewith they made a battery next day, to play on the fort.
Meanwhile, the French knowing these designs, prepared for a defence
(while the Spaniards were busy about the battery) sending notice
everywhere to their companions for help. Thus the hunters of the island
all joined together, and with them all the pirates who were not already
too far from home. These landed by night at Tortuga, lest they should be
seen by the Spaniards; and, under the same obscurity of the night, they
all together, by a back way, climbed the mountain where the Spaniards
were posted, which they did the more easily being acquainted with these
rocks. They came up at the very instant that the Spaniards, who were
above, were preparing to shoot at the fort, not knowing in the least of
their coming. Here they set upon them at their backs with such fury as
forced