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Rh of their ancient foes, the Spaniards, guided across large parties both of English and French bucaneers, under many different captains, but all with the same purpose, of plundering the Spaniards in the South Seas. Between 1680 and 1688, these daring raiders had wiped out every settlement and mining-camp on the Pacific shore of Darien, plundered every island, defeated two Spanish fleets in the Bay of Panama, and fought a drawn battle with a third, and were only kept out of the city by its strong walls.

Among these later bucaneers were not a few well-educated men, like Captain Dampier, who carefully studied the natural history of the Isthmus, and made some excellent maps. Lionel Wafer, surgeon on one of the ships, lived for months among the Darien Indians, learned their language, and wrote a long book about them when he returned to England. Several of the captains were discussing the idea of forming a colony among these friendly Indians, and inviting all old bucaneers to come and settle there. This project was stopped, and the alliance between the English and French bucaneers broken off by England's becoming the ally of Spain against France, after the Revolution of 1688. At the same time a pardon was offered to all bucaneers who ceased making private war on Spain, and those that persisted were thereafter to be treated as pirates.

The idea of starting a colony in Darien, reopening the road between Acla and the Gulf of San Miguel, and establishing a transisthmian trade between Europe and Asia, appealed to James Patterson, a shrewd Scotch financier, who had already founded the Bank of England. His