THE HAND OF THE GIANT 229 



selves that eventually was controlled and put to use by France 

 and England against the Spanish. 



For the Spanish and the Portuguese, as we have seen, were 

 the natural heirs of western discovery, operating as they did 

 from their favorable position at the mouth of the Mediter- 

 ranean where just to the south the Canary and Equatorial 

 Currents and favoring winds led westward downstream to the 

 Caribbean world. Nor did the Spaniards have much choice 

 of action. The Portuguese under the old papal decree con- 

 trolled the African coastal route by way of the Cape of Good 

 Hope to the Indies; and in the Mediterranean behind the 

 western gates the Moorish pirates, backed by the Moslem 

 strength to the east, effectively blocked commerce on the 

 inland sea. This was conclusively demonstrated in 1538 when 

 Admiral Doria with a combined fleet from Genoa and Venice 

 was badly defeated by the Moorish Admiral Barbarossa off the 

 Dalmatian coast. So Spain turned west to get her treasure 

 from the Spanish Main; but since there also piracy on a grow- 

 ing scale was the problem, she fortified her ports and set up 

 heavily armed convoys for her treasure ships. 



Piracy was an old, established trade applied to new waters 

 in the Atlantic. Just as Spain at home augmented the Moorish 

 fleet by her expulsion of the Moors from Spain, so in the 

 Caribbean, by attempting to suppress the cattle hunters or 

 buccaneers in the West Indian islands, she created a local 

 counterpart of the Moorish fleets but of European origin. 

 There was no simple category of pirates. Some were smugglers, 

 some were slave-runners, some were explorers not averse to 

 taking a little booty on the side, and others finally became 

 important organized enterprises seeking the concentrated 

 treasure of the Americas. All in all, it was a sporadic, lawless, 

 and anarchial beginning of what finally settled down into 

 oceanic commerce. Even monarchs used pirates to accom- 

 plish ends that were best obscure. 



