Then the rest of the
money and spoils were divided among all the buccaneers without reference
to what had been paid to the wounded. The shares of those who had been
killed were given to friends or acquaintances, who undertook to deliver
them to their families.
The spoils in this case consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand
dollars in money and a great quantity of valuable goods, besides many
slaves and precious stones and jewels. These latter were apportioned
among the men in the most ridiculous manner, the pirates having no idea
of the relative value of the jewels, some of them preferring large and
worthless colored stones to smaller diamonds and rubies. When all their
wickedly gained property had been divided, the pirates sailed to
Tortuga, where they proceeded, without loss of time, to get rid of the
wealth they had amassed. They ate, they drank, they gambled; they
crowded the taverns as taverns have never been crowded before; they sold
their valuable merchandise for a twentieth part of its value to some of
the more level-headed people of the place; and having rioted, gambled,
and committed every sort of extravagance for about three weeks, the
majority of L'Olonnois' rascally crew found themselves as poor as when
they had started off on their expedition. It took them almost as long to
divide their spoils as it did to get rid of them.
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