It was a bright sunny morning in the lagoon at Sint Maarten as Peter Heyn, Captain of the Eenhoorn, a 16 gun Pinnance, emerged from his cabin onto the deck. Tied close by were two 10 gun sloops that operated with the Eenhoorn in pursuit of Spanish ships.<br/><br/>Unlike the other Privateers, Peter went after Spanish ships coming and going, for the arriving ones always brought supplies for the Spanish colonies, which Peter sold to the Dutch West Indies Company. Well at least what they didn’t keep for themselves.  Sometimes there were even women on board, which pleased his men to no end.  The idea was that if the Spaniards had to protect both coming and going they were thinned out and easier to attack.<br/><br/>Peter was 24 and stood six foot three inches tall with blonde wavy hair and blue eyes, full of mischief except in battle when they were steel blue. He had learned well the secrets of navigation as a boy and how to quickly maneuver even in the worst of conditions. The Spaniards knew not his name, only the Dutchman as he was called, but they feared him. He used the Spaniards constant stiff ways of doing things to his advantage relying on the fact that each Captain only wanted to save his own ship. Peter would send the sloops to harass and keep occupied the Spanish ship while he came up and destroyed the steering from the rear as well as the aft mast which usually fell forward to the front mast. The only prisoners he took were female and after relieving the ship of its cargo, he would sink it. He was no different than the Spaniards for they took no prisoners either. Life was vicious here in the Caribbean.<br/><br/>A small cargo sloop from Sint Eustatius reported three large sails on the horizon to the east as they sailed North. Peter had Quarters called and addressed all three vessels, they would sail immediately. Once at sea, Peter had set up a system of sending messages by flags meaning different words so he could give commands to all three vessels. Since they were coming from the east, they were supplies, which meant probably one Galleon and two merchant ships. Sink the Galleon and the other two were his. Maybe he could keep them whole and sell the ships. Sloop 1 headed out towards the approximate area they should be in with the second sloop and Eenhoorn following. They knew the average speed of a galleon was five knots and top in a good wind was eight.  The first sloop signaled Three masts ahead. Peter gave orders for the second to join the first and if only one galleon, to attack it.<br/><br/>As always the Spanish were predictable to the point of being boring. Upon sighting the two sloops the Galleon  turned to engage them while the two merchants took flight. The Spaniards were good fighters as long as you fought the king’s rules. The sloops under Peter’s command didn’t, they came hard fore on and went both sides of the galleon, the one on the port staying further out as that was the side the Spanish always went to first. The sloop on the starboard side raked the deck with its five cannon and quickly went to the stern. The two sloops switched sides and tacked so as to again only this time rake the desks from both sides. By now Eenhoorn was in position and delivered eight cannons into the stern, damaging the rudder and hitting the aft mast that help maneuver the ship. Reloaded, Eenhoorn not came along portside aiming for the masts.  This battle went on for a couple of hours as the merchants sailed off.