They were treated with the most atrocious barbarity. They formed an engagement for seven years, and then, at the end of that time, when the moment to regain their liberty had at length arrived, they were intoxicated, and advantage was taken of their condition to make them sign a second engagement for the same period. Cromwell, after the sack of Drogheda, sold more than 30,000 Irish for Jamaica and Barbados. Nearly two thousand of these wretched succeeded in escaping on board a vessel, which, in their ignorance of navigation, they allowed to drift and the current cast it ashore at Saint Domingo. The poor fellows, not knowing where they were, and being without food or resources, all died of hunger. Their piled-up bones, bleached by time, remained for several years on Cape Tiburón, at a spot which was called Irish Bay on account of the terrible catastrophe, and still bears the name. The reader will pardon us for having entered into such lengthened details about the establishment of the filibusters of St. Kitts; but as it was on this little island that the terrible association of adventurers, whose history we have undertaken to tell, had its birth, it is necessary to make the reader fully acquainted with these facts, so that we might not be obliged to return to them hereafter. Now, we will resume our narrative to which the preceding chapters serve, so to speak, as a prologue, and leaping at one bound across the space that separates Sainte Marguerite from the Caribbean islands, we will proceed to St. Kitts a few months after the escape, for we dare not say the liberation, of Count Ludovic de Barmont Senectaire. CHAPTER XIII. THE COUNCIL OF THE FILIBUSTERS. Several years elapsed without producing any notable changes in the colony. The adventurers still continued, with the same obstinacy, their expeditions against the Spaniards; but as their expeditions were isolated, and had no sort of organization, the losses experienced by the Spaniards, though very great, were much less considerable than might be anticipated. About this time, a lugger manned by forty resolute men, and armed with four iron guns, anchored off St. Kitts, proudly displaying the French flag at its stern. This vessel brought to the colony a fresh contingent of brave adventurers. Immediately after their arrival, they landed, formed the acquaintance of the inhabitants, and testified a desire to settle on the island. The chief, to whom his comrades gave the name of Montbarts, and for whom they appeared to have an unbounded devotion, informed the colonists, that like them, he professed a profound hatred for the Spaniards, and that he was followed by two ships of that nation, which he had captured, and had given the prize masters orders to steer for St. Kitts. These good men were received with shouts of joy by the inhabitants, and Montbarts had a narrow escape from being carried in triumph.