In late November 1683, de Graaf, his compatriots and their fleet of seven ships arrived off Cartagena and held for almost a month. Local governor, Juan de Pando Estrada, commandeered three private slave trading vessels - the 40-gun San Francisco, the 34-gun Paz and a smaller 28-gun galliot.Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present by David Marley (ABC-CLIO, 1998) 800 Spanish, led by a 26-year-old commander, set out to meet the pirates on Christmas Eve but immediately struggled against De Graaf's more experienced pirates. 90 Spaniards were killed compared to only 20 pirates. The San Francisco was grounded and the other two ships were captured. De Graaf re-floated the San Francisco as his new flagship and renamed it the Fortune, later the Neptune. Andrieszoon took the Paz and renamed it the Mutine ("Rascal") and Willems was given command of the Francesca. The group released a large number of Spanish prisoners on Christmas Day and sent them ashore with a note for Governor Estrada thanking him for the Christmas presents. The pirates then proceeded to blockade the town.
