While we worked, all kinds of rumours and reports reached us.  First one would come with a tale that war was declared with the Spaniards, or the French, or the Dutch, or else all three. Another would arrive breathless, saying that all the buccaneers of the Indies were off the port, and that our fleet had been worsted.  Yet another came with the information that only one battered and shattered ship had arrived during the night, the sole remnant of an English squadron, and that a hostile force had landed at a spot a few miles to the east of the town.