La Buse in a nutshell

According to some sites, Levasseur worked first as 'privateer' before coming a full-blown pirate. A 'privateer' (also called a 'corsair') was a privately owned and armed vessel, or its commander or one of its crew, cruising under a commission from a government. The commission was called a letter of marque (and reprisal). It licensed the privateer to capture or sink merchant vessels of an enemy nation. The justification was that the privateer’s sponsor country was only getting even for the harm done to it by an enemy nation. Privateers in some cases were authorized to keep  whatever they seized from the enemy ships.

When the countries of Europe made peace and tried to recall their privateers, Levasseur chose instead to become a full-blown pirate, attacking ships in the Indian ocean with a ferocity that earnt him the nickname 'The Buzzard' ('La Buse', in French). His greatest catch was the Portuguese galleon Nossa Senhroa do Cabo (a.k.a. 'La vierge du Cap' or 'The Virgin of the Cape'). In April 1721 this ship was traveling from Goa, India to Lisbon, Portugal carrying the Viceroy of Goa and the archbishop of Goa. Also on board was a vast amount of gold, silver, diamonds and other precious items such as the 'Fiery cross of Goa, a diamond-encrusted solid gold cross so heavy it took three many to carry it. The ship was caught in a storm so violent that the crew had to throw most of the 72 cannons overboard to stop the ship capsizing. The ship limped into the port of Saint Denis on Bourbon Island (now Réunion island) for repairs. La Buse and his then-partner, British pirate John Taylor, were lucky enough to come across this ship while it was in this vulnerable, poorly-armed state. They overpowered the crew and released the viceroy without even insisting that a ransom should be paid for his release, such was the value of the treasure remaining on the ship.

A mast of the Nossa Senhroa do Cabo, broken in the storm, had not yet been replaced, so La Buse had to tow the ship behind his own ship, the Victorieux. This meant his ship was traveling more slowly than Taylor's ship, the Cassandra, as they left Saint Denis, heading for the island of Sainte Marie (now called Nosy Boraha) off the east coast of Madagascar, which was their base. It's thought that La Buse may have stopped on the way from Saint Denis to Sainte Marie island to bury his share of the treasure somewhere, but where? 

A few years later a major clampdown on piracy took place and an amnesty was offered to pirates willing to abandon their wicked ways. La Buse was tempted by the offer of amnesty and gave back part of the treasure, but not all of it, as was required before amnesty could be granted, so he remained a wanted man. Several years later he was working as a pilot, helping captains navigate the Antongil Bay on Madagascar's east coast, when he was recognised by a captain who worked for a company whose ships had previously been attacked by La Buse. La Buse was arrested, tried and sentenced to be hanged in Saint Denis on Bourbon (Réunion) island a few weeks later on June 7, 1730. Just before he was hung, he threw a paper into the crowd (or even a 'set' of papers or parchments?) and shouted "Mes trésors à qui saura comprendre!" ("My treasures to he who will know how to understand!"). The document was a cryptogram. I don't have a date for the arrest of La Buse, which is a shame because it would be interesting to know how long he spent in captivity before being hung, and thus whether he would have had enough time to make the cryptogram while in captivity. The document presented on this site, presumed to be a copy of the original cryptogram, was passed from a notary in the Seychelles to a woman called Mme Savy who had discovered some mysterious carved stones on her waterfront property on the island of Mahé, the capital of the Seychelles archipelago. We don't know how the document came to be in the hands of the notary. Mme Savy in turn passed the document to a historian, librarian and writer called Charles Bourel de la Roncière who wrote a book about La Buse and the document in question called ' Le Flibustier mystérieux: Histoire d'un trésor caché' (The mysterious pirate: the story of a hidden treasure) which was published in 1934 (and is now available for Kindle!). As previously stated,  it seems obvious that the document is a copy (and a very poor one) of the original paper thrown into the crowd by La Buse, which has probably been lost.