FREEBOOTER, or FLIBUSTER, a name given to the pirates who scour the American seas, particularly such as make war against the Spaniards. See BUCCANEER.
The French call them flibusters, deducing the word from the English flibote, or flybote; by reason the first adventurers of this kind were the people of St Domingo, who made their excursions with flybotes, which they had taken from the English.