There was no peace on the ocean. The sea was a vast No Man's domain, where every man might take his prey. Law and order stopped short at low-water mark. The principle that traders might claim protection and vengeance for their wrongs from their country, had not yet been recognized, and they sailed the seas at their own risk. Before the close of the seventeenth century the buccaneers had passed away, but their depredations, in pursuit of what they called "free trade," were of a different nature from those of the pirates who succeeded them. Buccaneer exploits were confined to the Spanish main, where they ravaged and burnt Spanish settlements on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, moving with large forces by sea and land. According to Esquemeling, Morgan sailed on his expedition against Panama with thirty-seven sail and two thousand fighting men, besides mariners and boys. But the Spanish alone were the objects of their attack. So long as Spain claimed a monopoly of South American trade, it was the business of Spain alone to keep the marauders away; other Governments were not disposed to assist her. Hardly had the last of the buccaneers disappeared from the Western seas, when a more lawless race of rovers appeared, extending their operations into the Indian Ocean, acting generally in single ships, plundering vessels of every nationality, though seldom attacking places on shore. Of these men, chiefly English, the most notorious were Teach, Every, Kidd, Roberts, England, and Tew; but there were many others less known to fame, who helped almost to extinguish trade between Europe, America, and the East. Some idea of the enormous losses caused by them may be gathered from the fact that Bartholomew Roberts alone was credited with the destruction of four hundred trading vessels in three years. In a single day he captured eleven vessels, English, French, and Portuguese, on the African coast.