An echo of it had reached Europe, and at the Court of St. James's
angry representations were made by the Ambassador of Spain, to whom
it was answered that it must not be supposed that this Captain Blood
held any commission from the King of England; that he was, in fact,
a proscribed rebel, an escaped slave, and that any measures against
him by His Catholic Majesty would receive the cordial approbation
of King James II.
Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Admiral of Spain in the West Indies, and
his nephew Don Esteban who sailed with him, did not lack the will to
bring the adventurer to the yardarm. With them this business of
capturing Blood, which was now an international affair, was also a
family matter.
Spain, through the mouth of Don Miguel, did not spare her threats.
The report of them reached Tortuga, and with it the assurance that
Don Miguel had behind him not only the authority of his own nation,
but that of the English King as well.
It was a brutum fulmen that inspired no terrors in Captain Blood.
Nor was he likely, on account of it, to allow himself to run to rust
in the security of Tortuga.
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