Havana, and a Spaniard called Don Francisco with a commission from the Governor of Campeache, roamed the West Indian seas and captured English vessels sailing from Jamaica to London, Virginia and the Windward Islands, barbarously ill-treating and sometimes massacring the English mariners who fell into their hands.[354] The Spanish governors, in spite of the treaty and doubtless in conformity with orders from home,[355] did nothing to restrain the cruelties of these privateers. At one time eight English sailors who had been captured in a barque off Port Royal and carried to Havana, on attempting to escape from the city were pursued by a party of soldiers, and all of them murdered, the head of the master being set on a pole before the governor's door.[356] At another time Fitzgerald sailed into the harbour of Havana with five Englishmen tied ready to hang, two at the main-yard arms, two at the fore-yard arms, and one at the mizzen peak, and as he approached the castle he had the wretches swung off, while he and his men shot at the dangling corpses from the decks of the vessel.[357] The repeated complaints and demands for reparation made to the Spanish ambassador in London, and by Sir William Godolphin to the Spanish Court, were answered by counter-complaints of outrages committed by buccaneers who, though long ago disavowed and declared pirates by the Governor of Jamaica, were still charged by the Spaniards to the account of the English.[358] Each return of the fleet from Porto Bello or Vera Cruz brought with it English prisoners from Cartagena and other Spanish fortresses, who were lodged in the dungeons of Seville and often condemned to the galleys or to the quicksilver mines. The English ambassador sometimes secured their release, but his efforts to obtain redress for the loss of ships and goods received no satisfaction. The Spanish Government, believing that Parliament was solicitous of Spanish trade and would not supply Charles II. with the necessary funds for a war,[359] would disburse nothing in damages. It merely granted to the injured parties despatches directed to the Governor of Havana, which ordered him to restore the property in dispute unless it was contraband goods. Godolphin realized that these delays and excuses were only the prelude to an ultimate denial of any reparation whatever, and wrote home to the Secretary of State that "England ought rather to provide against future injuries than to depend on satisfaction here, till they have taught the Spaniards their own interest in the West Indies by more efficient means than friendship."[360] The aggrieved merchants and shipowners, often only too well acquainted with the dilatory Spanish forms of procedure, saw that redress at Havana was hopeless, and petitioned Charles II. for letters of reprisal.[361] Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the Admiralty, however, in a report to the king gave his opinion that although he saw little