In making war against Spain, the hunters were mere privateersmen cruising against a national enemy; but in their endurance, patience, and energy, they stood alone. In their onset--rushing, singing, and dancing through fire and flame--they resembled rather the old Barsekars or the first levies of Mohammed. But in one point they were very remarkable; that they did more, and were yet actuated by a lower motive. Almost devoid of religion, they fought with all the madness of fanaticism against a people themselves constitutionally fanatic, but already enervated by climate, by sudden wealth, and a long experience of contaminating luxury. The galleons of Manilla were their final aim, as they gradually passed from the devastated shores of South America to the Philippine Islands and the coasts of Guinea. They had been the instrument of Providence, and knew themselves so, to avenge the wrongs of the Indian upon the Spaniard; they were soon to become the first avengers of the Negro. Long years of plunder had made the Spaniard and the Creole as secretive as the Hindu. At the first intelligence of some terrified fisherman, the frightened townsman threw his pistoles into wells, or mortared them up in the wall of his fortresses. Laden mules were driven into the interior; the women fled to the nearest plantation; the old men barred themselves up in the church. Their first thought was always flight; their second, to turn and strike a blow for all they loved, valued, and revered. The debauchery of the Buccaneers was as unequalled as their courage. Oexmelin relates a story of an Englishman who gave 500 crowns to his mistress at a single revel. This man, who had earned 1,500 crowns by exposing himself to desperate dangers, was, within three months, sold for a term of three years to a planter, to discharge a tavern debt which he could not pay. A conqueror of Panama might be seen to-morrow driven by the overseer's whip among a gang of slaves, cutting sugar canes, or picking tobacco.