The Peace of Ryswick in 1697 put an end to most of the privateering in the West Indies and sixteen years later England’s wars with France, over the Spanish succession, lasting for nearly a half-century, ended with the treaty of peace signed at Utrecht. By its terms Great Britain received Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and the right to send African slaves to America. While the notable battles of this war had been fought on land yet, in many respects, it had been a conflict between naval powers and the peace released a great many men who found themselves unable to obtain employment in the merchant shipping. This was particularly true in the West Indies where the colonial governors had commissioned a large number of privateers. When adventurous spirits have been privately employed under a commission to sail the seas and plunder the ships of another nation, it is but a step forward to continue that fine work without a commission after the war is over. To the mind of the needy seaman there was very little distinction between the lawfulness of one and the unlawfulness of the other. [Illustration: MAP OF THE WEST INDIES ABOUT 1720, SHOWING “THE TRACTS OF THE GALLIONS” From Herman Moll’s “Atlas Minor,” London, 1732, in the Harvard College Library] Another training school for pirate ships also existed among the buccaneers who flourished in the West Indies during the last half of the seventeenth century. Spain at that time claimed sovereignty over all the lands lying in or about the Caribbean Sea, a territory which she looked upon as a great preserve over which to exercise absolute control and from which to extract the wealth of the mines. Manufactures were forbidden and commerce with other nations was not permitted. Clothing and supplies of all kinds, wines, oil, and even some kinds of provisions must be purchased from merchants in distant Spain. No foreigner might land under pain of death and no foreign ship was permitted to anchor in any of their harbors. Twice each year a splendid fleet left Spain, bound for Mexico and the Isthmus of Panama, laden with all kinds of merchandise required by Spanish-America. On the arrival of the galleons a great fair was held where the traders met and for forty days Porto Bello, the city of the deadly climate, was thronged by the merchants of Peru, cargadores and sailors from the ships, negroes and native Indians.