The success of this exploit, and the rich reward by which it was crowned, at once stimulated the cupidity of the Tortugans, and fired their breasts with the ambition of emulating the bravery of the Great Peter. Those who were yet engaged in planting or in other honest occupations, at once abandoned them, and betook themselves to the more inviting trade of piracy. Being unable to build larger vessels than the boats or hoys then in use, they carried on the war in these against the smaller vessels of Spain engaged in the coasting trade and in the traffic of hides and tobacco with the inhabitants of Jamaica. The vessels thus captured were substituted for their own smaller craft, by means of which they were soon enabled to make longer voyages, and stretch across to the coasts of the Spanish main. At Campeachy and other points they found many trading vessels, and often ships of great burden. Two of these commercial vessels they captured, and also two large armed ships, all laden with plate, within the port of Campeachy, which they boldly entered for that purpose, and sailed with them in triumph to Tortuga. Such rich returns greatly augmented the wealth of the island; and every additional capture enabled them to increase their marine, until at the end of two years from the last achievement of Pierre Le Grande, the pirates had a navy, very well manned and equipped, of more than twenty ships of different sizes. With such a force, composed of men of the most desperate fortunes and dauntless courage, the commerce of Spain with her colonies in Central and South America was in a few years almost entirely destroyed. The ships bound from Europe for the colonies were rarely molested by the pirates, who chose to fall upon them when laden with the precious metals, which Spain, in her avarice, was transporting home--not foreseeing that by that very process she was gradually working her own national ruin. Sometimes a fleet of galleons, when under strong convoy, succeeded in the return voyage; but a single ship, of whatever strength or force, seldom escaped the vigilance of the pirates. They followed such fleets as they judged it unsafe to attack, and a slow sailer or a straggler was inevitably captured. So daring were these robbers, that even before they were enabled to obtain a smaller craft, a crew of fifty-five of them in one of the large canoes sailed into the Southern Ocean, and proceeded along the coast of the continent as far north as California. On their return, they entered one of the ports of Peru, and captured a ship, the cargo of which was valued at several millions. Their canoe was then exchanged for the noble prize, in which they returned in triumph.