When Cromwell, who caused many liberal ideas to be introduced into England, tried to induce Spain to abolish the Inquisition and to allow the free navigation of the Atlantic, the Spanish ambassador replied: "For my master to relinquish those prerogatives would be the same as to put out both his eyes." One instance of Spain's cruelty, for which, however, she suffered a well-merited retribution, may be related here. In 1564, a party of French Huguenots settled in Florida near the mouth of the river St. John. A certain Menendez, who was sailing under orders to "gibbet and behead all Protestants in those regions," fell upon the colonists and massacred all he could find. Some of the settlers, who happened to be away at the time, shortly afterward fell into the hands of Menendez, who hanged them all, placing this inscription above their heads: "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." In 1567, however, a French expedition surprised a body of Spaniards who had undertaken to found St. Augustine, and in their turn hanged these settlers, "Not as Spaniards, but as murderers." Hampered and oppressed as they were, deprived of a free and convenient market for the produce of the soil by reason of the monopolies imposed by the mother country, it is not strange that the Cubans had recourse to smuggling, and this was especially the case after the British conquest of Jamaica in 1655. So universal did the practice become, that when Captain-General Valdez arrived, he found that nearly all the Havanese were guilty of the crime of illicit trading, the punishment of which was death. At the suggestion of Valdez, a ship was freighted with presents for the king, and sent to Spain with a petition for pardon, which was finally granted. But the whole of Europe was against Spain in her arrogant assumption of the suzerainty of the New World. Especially were her pretensions condemned and resisted by the English, French, Portuguese and Dutch, all of whom were engaged in colonizing different portions of America. Then arose a body of men, who were productive of most important results. These were known as buccaneers, and were practically a band of piratical adventurers of different nationalities, united in their opposition to Spain. Hayti, as has already been intimated, had been almost depopulated by the oppressive colonial policy of Spain. The island had become the home of immense herds of wild cattle, and it was the custom of the smugglers to stop there to provision their ships. The natives, which were still left, had learned to be skilled in preserving the meat by means of fire and smoke, and they called their kilns "boucans." The smugglers, besides obtaining what they desired for their own use of this preserved meat, established an extensive illicit trade in it. Hence, they obtained the name of buccaneers. Spanish monopolies were the pest of every port in the New World, and mariners of the western waters were filled with a detestation, quite natural, of everything Spanish.