The End of an Era and the Onset of a New Phase

The buccaneer presence in the South Sea was not quite over when Davis and his former French companions set their separate courses for the West Indies, for the dispatches of the new Peruvian viceroy, the Count of La Monclova, indistinctly trace the comings and goings of a small band from mid-1689 through to the early days of 1694. The information provided by these letters, recording their encounters with shipping and entries into ports as narrated by eyewitnesses, may be supplemented by a two-part French journal, initially anonymous but completed by one F. Massertie.1 Like Davis, this party originally sailed from the coast of New England for the Guinea coast of Africa. They departed thence on 11 December 1686, three months later entered the Straits of Magellan and on 11 April 1687 emerged into the South Sea. Their most likely initial aim was to meet up with those French buccaneers already there, for after briefly putting in at Casma (21 June) and Tumbes (27 June), they headed for Coiba Isle (20 July) and the Gulf of Panama (4 August). From then until April 1689 they cruised the shores of New Spain, their total complement recorded by the anonymous journalist as being 41 men.

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