Buccaneers and Pirates


French Antilles, like their English and Dutch colleagues,
often utilized the services of the filibusters whenever the war
raged in Europe between their countries and Spain. Then
they gave "Letters of Marque" to the buccaneer captains and
so legalized their situation. These bandits of the high seas
were often cruel, sometimes they were generous, never were
they coward. Nor did they neglect their religion.
 Pere Labat tells us that on March 6, 1694 he was very busy
all that morning confessing a crew of filibusters who had ar-
rived at Les Mouillages, Martinique, with two prizes they
had captured from the English. "The Mass of the Virgin was
celebrated with all solemnity, and I blessed three large loaves
which were presented by the captain and his officers, who ar-
rived at the church accompanied by the drums and trumpets
of their corvette. At the beginning of the Mass the corvette
fired a salute with all her cannons, at the Elevation of the
Holy Sacrament she fired another salvo, at the Benediction
a third, and finally a fourth when we sang the Te Deum after
Mass. All the filibusters contributed thirty sols to the sacris-
ty, and did so with much piety and modesty. This may sur-
prise people in Europe where filibusters are not credited with
possessing much piety, but as a matter of fact they generally
give a portion of their good fortunes to the churches. If
church ornaments or church linen happen to be in the prizes
they capture the filibusters always present them to their
parish church." It was the custom of many of the English
buccaneers to read a chapter from the Old or New Testament
and to recite the Psalms.
 It has been the practice to exclude details about the buc-
caneers from the history of the colony. This presents an in-
complete picture. The buccaneers fought mainly Spain, the
power with which their countries were nearly always at war.
Some had licenses from the great rulers of their time who
were jealous of the wealth of Spain, and most of them had the
active or tacit support of the Dutch, English, and French
establishments in the Caribbean. The fortunes of the bucca-