Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/147

 did not inquire very minutely into the mode in which their employés conducted their business. Ostensibly their capital was required to fit out vessels to carry on the trade of immigration from the coast of Africa, where labour was too abundant, to the shores of the newly discovered country, which had no bounds to its vast and rich territory, and where labour was in still greater demand. If these roving Englishmen ruined the colonies Spain had established and menaced the safety of her merchant fleets, that was a matter of no concern to England; and if they pillaged a few of them when a favourable opportunity occurred, the capitalists who supplied the means received a bonus on their investment beyond the ordinary dividend, and did not of course trouble themselves to inquire how it had been obtained.

As might have been anticipated, slave fleets were fitted out at most of the leading ports; they had orders, it is true, not to approach the West Indies, or break the laws or injure in any way the subjects of the king of Spain; but when they returned richly laden, no formal inquiries were made whether these riches had been obtained from the freightage of some Spanish vessel which the silent ocean had engulfed, or from the proceeds of the slaves the freebooters had landed at some rendezvous on the shores

a considerable number. In a few instances, especially when the expedition consisted of only one vessel and a pinnace, the captain himself was the sole owner of ship and cargo. The rendezvous of these vessels after sailing from England was either Madeira or the Cape Verde Islands, whence they sailed wherever profit or plunder guided their course. Their profits in some instances were enormous.]
 * [Footnote: charge of the expedition and the masters of the vessels generally held