124 CHAP. IX.
H I S T O R Y
O F
not wifh that avarice, ambition, and cruelty may be thus always entangled in their own projects ? THE reader is doubtlefs apprized that I here allude to the eftablifhment in St. Domingo of that daring and defperate band of adventurers, the Bucaniers ;—an affociation conftituted of men of all countries and defcriptions, but of whom it may truly be faid that, if felf-prefervation be a law of nature, the hoftilities which they maintained for upwards of fifty years againft their oppreffors, were more juftifiable and legitimate in their origin, than all the wars which the pride and ambition of king doms and nations have occafioned, from the beginning of the world to the prefent hour. As the cruelty of the Spaniards firft compelled thefe men, from a fenfe of common danger, to unite their ftrength, fo the blind policy of ftocking with cattle a coun try of fuch extent, became their fupport ; for the flefh of thofe animals fupplied them with food, and they purchafed arms, am munition, and clothing with the fkins. O F the rife of thefe people, and the primary caufe of their combining together to make reprifals on the Spanifh fettlements, a fhort account may be neceffary. I have elfewhere treated the fubject more at large (a).—They confifted originally of a body of French and Englifh planters, whom, in the year 1629, a Spa nish armament had expelled from the ifland of St. Chriftopher, with circumftances of outrageous barbarity. Driven from thence, by a force which they could not refift, as the only alternative of. (a) Hift. of the Britifh Colonies, Book ii. C. 2 .
efcaping