Cassard expedition
The Cassard expedition was a sea voyage by French Navy captain Jacques Cassard in 1712, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Departing in early March 1712 from the port of Toulon with a fleet of eight ships, 3,000 seamen, and 1,200 soldiers, his first destination was the Portuguese colony on the island of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, which he ruined completely. He took so much loot that he had to leave part behind, worth a million of francs.
After this, he headed to the Caribbean and raided the British-controlled islands of Montserrat and Antigua in the West Indies, and the Dutch South American colonial outposts of Surinam, Berbice, and Essequibo. He then proceeded to raid Dutch St. Eustatius, and also succeeded, although with some difficulty, at gaining control of Curaçao, the strongest Dutch settlement in the Caribbean. In many of the places he landed, officials paid a ransom to avoid pillage; this was not always successful, as Cassard sometimes ignored the terms of the agreements he made. After stopping on the French island of Martinique, he returned to France with a loot worth between nine and ten million francs. Cassard's exploits won him the Order of Saint Louis.
