TEINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



29 



but to do so would take up too much of the 

 book I have set out to write. 



The buccaneers or free-booters mainly confined 

 their depredations on the small commerce of Trini- 

 dad — as it then was — to attacks from outside the 

 gulf. They had their rendezvous in a series of small 

 but well-sheltered bays — sufficiently large for their 

 small ships, — on the north coast, behind a group of 

 little islands at the places now called La Vache and 

 Balata bays, between the North-post and Maracas 

 bay, from either of which, by climbing the hills be- 

 hind them, they were able to have a good look-out. 

 It is probable that their reason for keeping outside 

 the gulf was the difficulty, at certain times of the 

 year, of either entering or leaving it, whereas from 

 the positions named they could always avail them- 

 selves of a better offing and a favourable wind, hence 

 they made it their base of operations. 



Even ships carrying the Spanish mails anchored 

 in Macqueripe Bay on the north coast, instead of 

 sailing through the Boca up to Port-of -Spain, — the 

 mails being carried overland through what is known 

 as " Tucker's Valley/' which accounts for the fine 

 broad road that runs through it. 



xilthough there is not much recorded of the 

 doings of the buccaneers in this island, there is, 

 however, a record of a buccaneer named Teach — 

 (called by Joseph, Tench — nicknamed 6 Black-Beard,' 

 a native of Bristol) making frequent inroads into 

 Trinidad.* There is also an account that early in 



* Joseph, p. 198. 



