could scarcely venture out of port, and one merchant alone is known to have lost 300,000 crowns' worth of merchandise in a single year. It is easier to conquer than to retain a conquest, and vigilance grows blunted by success. The Chevalier, too confident in his strength, allowed half his population to embark in cruisers. The sick, the aged, the maimed, laboured in the plantations with the slaves. The Spaniards, informed of this, landed in force, without resistance. The few Buccaneers crowded into the fort, which the enemy dared not approach. Discovering, however, a mountain that commanded the rock, precipitous, but still accessible, they determined to plant a battery upon it, and drive the Buccaneers from their last foothold. With infinite vigour and determination they hewed a road to the mountain between two rocks. Making frames of wood, they lashed on their cannons, and forced the slaves and prisoners to drag them to the summit, and, with a battery of four guns, suddenly opened a fire upon the unguarded fort. The Chevalier, not expecting this enterprise, had just deprived himself of his last defence, by cutting down the large trees that grew round the walls. In spite of all the threats and expostulations of the governor, the garrison, galled by this plunging fire, at once capitulated. They left the island in twenty-four hours, with arms and baggage, drums beating, colours flying, and match burning, and set sail in two half-scuttled vessels lying in the road, having first given hostages not to serve against Spain for a given time. In another vessel, but alone, set sail the two murderers, who, being short of food, consummated their crimes by leaving the women and children of their company on a desert island. The Spanish general, repairing the fort, garrisoned it with sixty men, whom he supplied with provisions. Fontenoy, repulsed in an attempt to recover the island, soon afterwards returned to France. In 1655, when Admiral Penn appeared off St. Domingo with Cromwell's fleet, the Spaniards, to increase their forces in Hispaniola, recalled the troop which had held Tortuga eighteen months--the commander first blowing up the fort, burning the church, the houses, and the magazines, and devastating the plantations. Not long afterwards, an English refugee of wealth, Elias Ward (or, as the French call him, _Elyazouärd_), came from Jamaica, with his family and a dozen soldiers, and with an English commission from the general, and was soon joined by about 120 French and English adventurers.