Cassard expedition

The Cassard expedition was a sea voyage by French Navy captain Jacques Cassard in 1712, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Plans of the expedition started on December 2, 1711 as Cassard listened to the king's command fir three ships and five frigates. Departing from the port of Toulon with a fleet of eight ships, 3,000 seamen, and 1,200 soldiers, he landed at Praia Harbour on the island of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands and later raided and pillaged Cidade Velha where every building would be destroyed including the fort, a part of the island was occupied, the Bishop of Santiago de Cabo Verde Francisco Santo Agostinho retired into the interior of Santiago, where he reorganized his forces for the defence, leadership and resistance for a counterattack. The corsairs took the bells from the cathedral, its relics and the wooded furniture. Things that were not taken were burned down including the rich library of the bishop, damages totalled 3 million French livres. After this, he headed to the Americas and raided the British-controlled isles 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 in Martinique, he returned to France with a booty that worthed about 10 million livres.

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