Another serious charge against them is, the favour which they showed to the buccaneers. “These remarkable freebooters,” says Hildreth, “a mixture of French, English and Dutch, consisted originally of adventurers in the West India seas, whose establishments the Spaniards had broken up. Some fifty or sixty years before, contemporaneously with the English and French settlements on the Caribbee Islands, they had commenced as occasional cruisers on a small scale against the Spaniards, in the intervals of the planting season. During the long war between France and Spain, from 1635 to 1660, they had obtained commissions to cruise against Spanish commerce, principally from the governors of the French West India Islands. Almost anything, indeed, in the shape of a commission was enough to serve their purpose. As an offset to that Spanish arrogance which had claimed to exclude all other nations from these West Indian seas, the Spanish commerce in those seas was regarded by all other nations as fair plunder. The means and number of the buccaneers gradually increased. The unquiet spirits of all countries resorted to them. Issuing from their strongholds, the island of Tortugo, on the west coast of St. Domingo, and Port Royal in Jamaica, they committed such audacious and successful robberies on the Spanish American cities, as to win almost the honours of legitimate heroes. They were countenanced for a time by France and England; one of their leaders was appointed governor of Jamaica, and another was knighted by Charles II.”