Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/667

Rh 'its silver plate and ornaments, and committed other outrages. They did not venture farther into the interior, but took the cacique and other chiefs away for ransom. The news reached Mérida, whereupon the governor at once despatched to Hunucma Captain Juan Arévalo de Loaisa with a company of soldiers, who on arrival found that the raiders had already retired with the plunder and prisoners to their ship, and put to sea. The Spaniards followed the coast, and guarded the port eighteen days, the enemy standing off, though in sight. Upon reporting this to the governor, Arévalo and Juan Garzon were ordered to embark on a vessel in pursuit; seeing which, the enemy went away to the island of Cozumel. The governor then despatched against them Gomez de Castrillo, one of the old conquerors of Yucatan, who approached the island cautiously, surprised the French, and after a hard fight in which many were killed, the Spaniards took the remainder prisoners. This happened on the eve of corpus christi. Castrillo took his prisoners and the rescued silver to Mérida, thence sending the Frenchmen to Mexico, where the government did not deal leniently with them.

In 1575 English filibusters landed on the coast near Mérida, marched into the interior as far as the town of Dzmul, and after sacking, set fire to the place. In 1596 William Parker, or Park, after leaving his ship at anchor six leagues from Campeche, landed with a force of fifty-six men, as he affirmed, from a pirogue, at 3 near the convent of San Francisco, and took the town. Some of the