business, and when he went over to the West Indies he took with him a
small ship, armed with four small cannon, and manned by a crew of picked
men, many of them no doubt professional robbers, and the others anxious
for practice in this most alluring vocation, for the gold fields of
California were never more attractive to the bold and hardy adventurers
of our country, than were the gold fields of the sea to the buccaneers
and flibustiers of the seventeenth century.

When Bartholemy reached the Caribbean Sea he probably first touched at
Tortuga, the pirates' headquarters, and then sailed out very much as if
he had been a fisherman going forth to see what he could catch on the
sea. He cruised about on the track generally taken by treasure ships
going from the mainland to the Havanas, or the island of Hispaniola, and
when at last he sighted a vessel in the distance, it was not long before
he and his men had made up their minds that if they were to have any
sport that day it would be with what might be called most decidedly a
game fish, for the ship slowly sailing toward them was a large Spanish
vessel, and from her portholes there protruded the muzzles of at least
twenty cannon. Of course, they knew that such a vessel would have a much
larger crew than their own, and, altogether, Bartholemy was very much in
the position of a man who should go out to harpoon a sturgeon, and who
should find himself confronted by a vicious swordfish.

The Spanish merchantmen of that day were generally well armed, for
getting home safely across the Atlantic was often the most difficult
part of the treasure-seeking. There were many of these ships, which,
although they did not belong to the Spanish navy, might almost be
designated as men-of-war; and it was one of these with which our
flibustier had now met.