different vessels, Ravenau gives the following laudatory account. The admiral's belonged to the English, who, at St. Domingo, had surprised a long bark, commanded by Captain Tristan, a Frenchman, while waiting for a wind. They took next a Dutch ship, and, changing vessels, went and made several prizes on the coast of Guinea, and, at Castres capturing a vessel from Hamburg, joined this expedition. They were, Ravenau declared, little better than pirates, attacking even, their own countrymen, which no true Buccaneer ever did. They had, a short time before, been chastised by a frigate, who, giving them a broadside and a volley of small shot, killed their captain and twenty men.

The vice-admiral's was a vessel they had forced to join them, and had lately taken a ship called the Sainte Rose, laden with corn and wine, bound from Truxillo to Panama, and this vessel Davis gave to the French. The others were all prizes captured in the South seas.

The holy alliance soon after took an advice boat that was carrying letters from Madrid to Panama, and despatches from the viceroy of Peru; but both the captain and pilot were bound by an oath rather to die than deliver up their packets or divulge any secret, and had thrown overboard the rolls as well as a casket of jewels. On the same evening 500 men, in twenty-two canoes, embarked to take La Seppa, a small town seven leagues to windward, of Panama. The next day, early in the morning, two armed piraguas, manned with Spanish mercenaries, seeing some of the Buccaneer canoes and forty-six men approaching them, ran ashore on an island in the bay and prepared to defend themselves. These troops were composed of all nations, and had been sent to defend this coast. One of the "Greek" boats split on the beach. The other the Buccaneers took, but the fugitives, planting their flag of defiance on a rising ground, fought desperately, and compelled the freebooters to land on another part of the island and take them in the rear. After an hour's conflict they fled into the woods, leaving thirty-five men dead round their colours and two prisoners.

The attack upon La Seppa proved a failure, for the Sea Rovers had to row two leagues up a river, where they were soon discovered by the sentinels. Yet for all this they fell furiously on, and took it with the loss of only one man; but the booty proved inconsiderable.

The fleet now anchored at the beautiful islands called the Gardens of Panama. All the rich merchants of the city had pleasure-houses here surrounded by rich orchards and arbours of jessamine, and watered by rills and streams. The hungry sailors revelled in the fruits, and reaped plentiful harvests of maize and rice, which Ravenau says "the Spaniards, I believe, did not sow with an intention they should enjoy."

On the 8th of May they passed the old and new towns of Panama in bravado with colours and streamers flying, anchored at Tavoga, another island of pleasure. Having caulked their ships, they sent out a long bark as a scout, and arranged a plan of attacking the Spanish fleet. Davis and Grogniet were to board the admiral; Samms and Brandy the vice-admiral; and Henry and Townley the patache; while the armed piraguas would hover about and keep off the enemy's fire-ships. The next day they put ashore forty prisoners at Tavoga; and the same day, the sound of cannon, which they could not account for, announced the unobserved arrival of the Spanish fleet at Panama. The whole Buccaneer squadron, expecting a battle soon, took the usual oath that they would not wrong one another to the value of a piece of eight, if God was pleased to give them the victory over the Spaniard.

They had scarcely discovered from a Spanish prisoner that the fleet had actually arrived, and was careening and remanning before they ventured out, when Captain Grogniet, raising his flag seven times, gave notice to make quickly ready. The Buccaneers doubled the point of the island where they had anchored, and saw seven great vessels bearing down upon them with a bloody flag to the stern and a royal one at their masts. The Frenchmen, mad with joy at the prospect of such prizes, and thinking them already their own, threw their hats into the sea for joy. It was now noon. The rest of the day was spent by both fleets in trying to obtain the weather-gauge, and at sunset they exchanged a broadside. In the night a floating lanthorn deceived the Buccaneers, and in the morning they found themselves all still to leeward, with the exception of two vessels which had no guns. Although terribly mauled by the Spanish shot, the English admiral and vice-admiral resolved to die fighting rather than let one vessel be taken, although both being good sailors they might have at once saved themselves. The Spaniards, refusing to board, battered them safely at a distance, and prevented Grogniet from joining them, while Peter Henry's ship, having received more than 120 cannon shot, sheered off and was taken by two piraguas.

The long bark, sorely handled, was deserted by her crew, who threw their guns overboard and left the Spanish prisoners to shift for themselves. These wretches attempted to rejoin their countrymen; but the Spanish admiral, mistaking them for enemies, sank them with his cannon.

Peter Henry's vessel reached the isle of St. John de Cueblo, twenty-four leagues from Panama, with five feet of water in the hold, and having repaired, rejoined his fleet in about a fortnight. They found that Captain Davis had been hard plied, having received two shots in his rudder, and six of his men were wounded, but only one killed. Captain Samms had been no less put to it. His poop was half swept off, and he had received several shots between wind and water. He had had three men wounded, and his mate had had his head carried off by a cannon ball. The smaller vessels had lost no men, but had a few wounded. The Spanish admiral, they found, had carried 56 guns, the vice-admiral 40, the patache 28, and the conserve 18. The fire-ships had also been mounted with cannon to conceal their real purpose. On considering the disparity of force, and the little loss his companions received, Ravenau seems to have no doubt that if they could have intercepted the Spaniards before they entered Panama, and could have got the weather-gauge of them, he should have returned through the straits with wealth enough to have lived all his life at ease, and have escaped three more years of danger and fatigue.

Not the least discouraged by this repulse, the freebooters landed 300 men, from five canoes, to surprise the town of Puebla Nueva. Rowing two leagues up a very fine river, they captured one sentinel, but another escaped and gave the alarm. They found the place deserted, but took a ship on their way back.

A quarrel broke out here between the French and the English. The latter, superior in numbers, would have taken Grogniet's ship away, and given it to Townley, had not the Frenchmen put on a determined front. Refusing to acknowledge this assumption of dominion, 130 of them banded themselves apart, and Grogniet's crew made them altogether 330 in number.

"Besides national animosity, one of the chief reasons," says Lussan, "that made us disagree was their impiety against our religion, for they made no scruple when they got into a church to cut down the arms of a crucifix with their sabres, or to shoot them down with their fusils and pistols, bruising and maiming the images of the saints with the same weapons, in derision to the adoration we Frenchmen paid unto them. And it was chiefly from these horrid disorders that the Spaniards equally hated us all, as we came to understand by divers