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The kind of warfare in which they engaged would not now be regarded as honorable, yet it was then approved by all nations. Not only did they seek prizes upon the ocean; a descent upon the coast of the enemy, a plundering of a rich town especially if it was undefended, was an exploit from which they derived the liveliest satisfaction. They preferred that kind of an expedition, for, as was always the case with private armed ships, their aim was simply to acquire wealth for themselves, not to inflict unprofitable damage upon their adversaries. Privateering was only a species of legalized piracy as far as these raids were concerned. Happily the ruthless bloodshed and the outrages which characterized the raids of the buccaneers and other pirates were never charged against sailors on the legally commissioned private armed ships. Their trade was brutal but they carried it on with the approbation of their fellow men because it was a custom that had prevailed from time immemorial.

Very rarely have records of their raids been preserved, more rarely still accounts written by their victims. The one which follows was discovered and made public some three-quarters of a century ago by Bishop Kip of California. At the sale of a famous library in England he purchased a set of the “Letters of Jesuit Missionaries from 1650-1750,” bound in fifty or more volumes. In 1875 he published a volume containing translations of the letters relating especially to American history. From this volume, which has long been out of print, the following account is taken.