6/2 H. p. Biggar During the same period, French privateers were continuaHy en- gaged in preying upon the Spanish colonies and Spanish shipping. So early as 1498 indeed Columbus had been obliged to divert the course of his third voyage in order to avoid a French fleet ; ^ and in the year 1 5 1 3 two caravels were sent out to guard the coasts of Cuba. ^ Ten years later the rich fleet from Mexico was waylaid near Cape St. Vincent by six French rovers who carried off two caravels loaded with gold. ^ In the year 1528 a French corsair burned the town of San German in Porto Rico, ^ while during the years 1536 and 1537 a perfect reign of terror existed among the islands on account of the ravages of a fleet of these buccaneers. ^ Early in the year 1538, Havana was burned and destroyed. " Dur- ing the war with Spain from 1542 to 1544 these islands proved a happy hunting-ground for many a French rover and so pleased were they as a rule with the success of their visits that they continued to return, even after peace had been declared. " The list of English voyages and discoveries during the first half of the sixteenth century is on the other hand a very meagre one. About the year i 507 Sebastian Cabot seems to have made an at- tempt to find a northwest passage * and twenty years later an English vessel, which had lost her consort in a storm near Newfoundland, made her way along the coast southward as far as the island of Porto Rico." Beyond an unimportant expedition to Newfoundland in 1536, there'" is nothing further to record except a few trading voyages to Brazil." The only English privateer, of which we have any notice at this time, is one that visited the West Indies in the year i 540 under a French pilot. '- ' F. Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Deiaibrimientos, etc., Madrid, 1825, I. 245 ; " y navegue a la Isia de la Madera por camino no acostumbrado, por evilar es- candalo que pudiera tener con un armada de Francia." 2 Coleccion de Documentos Iiteditos de Indias, second series, VI. 3, Xo. 2S1 and ^ Archive General de Indias at Seville, est. 2, cajon 5, leg. ^V, fols. 1-2. An English translation of this document will be found in Murphy, T/ie Voyage of I'errazaaiio, New York, 1875, Appendix No. IV., pp. 164-165.
- Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos de Indias, first series, XL. 564.
^ Ibid., second series, IV. 425-426; VI. 22-31. ^ Ibid., second series, VI. 34-35, 73. 1 1bid., second series, IV. 197, Nos. 407-408 and pp. 199 and 240; VI. 256, 297-298 and 302. Archive General de Indias, Seville, est. 2, caj. 5, leg. ,',-, fols. 14- 15, and 17-23. 8 The Geographical Journal, London, February 1899, pp. 204-209. » Hakluyt, Principall Navigations, London, 1600, III. 129. Purchas, His Pilgriines, London, 1625, III. S09. Colec. de Doc. liied., first series, XXXVII. 456-458; XL. 305-354, and second series, IV. 57-60. '"Hakluyt, op. cit., pp. 129-131. "^ Ibid., pp. 700-701. 1^ Col. de Doc. Ined., first series, I. 572 and 575.
