68 



WANDERINGS IX SOUTH AMERICA. 



St. Vincent's ; and thus the noise heard in the night 

 of the first of May, which had caused such terror 

 amongst the Indians, and made the garrison at Fort 

 St. Joachim remain under arms the rest of the night, is 

 accounted for. 



Sails for After experiencing every kindness and 

 Granada. attention from ]\Ir. Edmonstone, he sailed 

 for Granada, and from thence to St. Thomas's, a few 

 days before poor Captain Peake lost his life on his own 

 quarter-deck, bravely fighting for his country on the 

 coast of Guiana. 



st. Thomas's At St. Thomas's they show you a tower, 

 ower ' a little distance from the town, which, they 

 say formerly belonged to a bucanier chieftain. Probably 

 the fury of besiegers has reduced it to its present dis- 

 mantled state. What still remains of it bears testimony 

 of its former strength, and may brave the attack of 

 time for centuries. You cannot view its ruins without 

 calling to mind the exploits of those fierce and hardy 

 hunters, long the terror of the western world. While 

 you admire their undaunted courage, you lament that 

 it was often stained with cruelty ; while you extol their 

 scrupulous justice to each other, you will find a want 

 of it towards the rest of mankind. Often possessed of 

 enormous wealth, often in extreme poverty, often trium- 

 phant on the ocean, and often forced to fly to the 

 forests ; their life was an ever-changing scene of ad- 

 vance and retreat, of glory and disorder, of luxury and 

 famine. Spain treated them as outlaws and pirates, 

 while other European powers publicly disowned them. 

 They, on the other hand, maintained that injustice 

 on the part of Spain first forced them to take up 

 arms in self-defence ; and that, whilst t they kept in- 



