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Equally wild are some of the accounts of the raid. One writer states that “there can be no doubt that in this cruise Captain Potter and his command invaded and desolated 1500 miles of the enemy’s territory; that on the Spanish Main in his march he visited churches and dwellings, and brought from the field of his exploits large amounts of booty.” This writer was but repeating the tale as it had been told him in his childhood. He had never deemed it necessary to verify it. If he had considered the matter he would have realized that French Guiana is not a part of the Spanish Main at all, and a glance at the map would have shown him that between Cayenne and the mouth of the Orinoco River, where technically the “Spanish Main” begins, lie the hundreds of miles of coastline of Dutch and British Guiana. No privateer of the size of the Prince Charles could possibly have carried provisions and water sufficient for such a cruise if the expedition had been made in the vessel itself, and no ship’s crew of the size of that which Potter commanded could, by any stretch of the imagination, have made such a journey overland. Moreover no mention whatever of the Spanish Main, or of booty except that obtained at Cyann and Wiapock, is to be found in the records of the admiralty court. The statement affords an excellent illustration of the astounding growth of popular traditions.

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