The Monarchs of the Main, Volume II (of 3)

Son of a farmer-Runs to sea-Turns Buccaneer-Joins Mansvelt, and takes the Island of St. Catherine-Mansvelt dies-St.

Catherine retaken by the Spaniards-Takes Port-au-Prince-Quarrel of French and English Buccaneers about a marrow-bone-Takes Porto Bello-Captures Le Cerf Volant, a French vessel-It blows up-Takes Maracaibo-City deserted-Tortures an Idiot-Le Picard-Storms Gibraltar-Also deserted-Tortures the Citizens-With a Fire-ship destroys Spanish fleet, and repasses the Bar-Escapes by stratagem-Rancheria expedition-Sails for Panama-Captain Bradley takes the Castle of Chagres-Anecdote of wounded Buccaneer.

Morgan's campaigns furnish one of the amplest chapters of Buccaneer history. Equally daring, but less cruel than Lolonnois, less fanatical than Montbars, and less generous and honest than De Lussan or Sharp, he appears to have been the only freebooting leader who obtained any formal recognition from the English government. From an old pamphlet, we find, that the expedition to Panama was undertaken under the commission and with the full approbation of the English governor of Jamaica.

Sir Henry Morgan was the son of a Welsh farmer, of easy circumstances, "as most who bear that name in Wales are known to be," says Esquemeling, his Dutch historian. Taking an early dislike to the monotonous, unadventurous life of his father's house, he ran away from home, and, coming to the coast, turned sailor, and went to sea.

Embarking on board a vessel bound for Barbadoes, that lay with several others in the port, he engaged himself in the usual way to a planter's agent, who resold him for three years immediately on his arrival in the West Indies. Having served his time and obtained his hard-earned liberty, he repaired to Jamaica, a place of which wild stories were told all over the Main. He resolved to seek his fortune at that El Dorado, and arriving there, saw two Buccaneer vessels just fitting out for an expedition. Being now in search of employment, and finding this suit his daring and restless spirit, he determined to embrace the life of a Flibustier. The gentlemen of fortune were successful, and had not been long at sea before they took a valuable prize.

This early success was as fatal to Morgan as good luck is to a young gambler on his first visit to a hell. It roused his ambition, heightened his hope, and encouraged him to continue a career so auspiciously begun. He followed the Buccaneer chiefs, and learnt their manners of living. In the course of only three or four voyages, he signalized himself so much as to acquire the reputation of a good soldier, remarkable for his valour and success. He was a good shot, and renowned for his intrepidity, coolness, and determination. He seemed to foresee all contingencies, and set about his schemes with a firm confidence that insured their success.

Having already laid by much money, and being fortunate both in his voyages and in gambling, Morgan agreed with a few rich comerades to join stock, and to buy a vessel, of which he was unanimously appointed commander. Such was the usual beginning of an adventurer's career. Setting out from Jamaica, he soon became remarkable for the number of prizes which he took, his well known stations being round the coast of Campeachy. With these prizes he returned triumphantly to Jamaica, his name established as a terror to the Spaniard, and a war-cry to the English. Finding Mansvelt, an old Buccaneer, lying in harbour, about to start on a grand expedition to the mainland, he joined him, and was at once elected as vice-admiral of a small fleet of fifteen vessels and 600 men, part English and part French.

They sailed first to the island of St. Catherine, near the continent of Costa Rica, and distant about thirty-five degrees from the river of Chagres. Here they made their first descent, and found the Spaniards well entrenched in forts, strongly built of hewn stone, but landing most of their men they soon forced the garrisons to surrender. Morgan distinguished himself remarkably in this expedition, forcing even his very enemies to laud his skill and valour. He now proceeded to demolish all the castles but one, in which he placed 100 men, and the slaves and prisoners, and proceeded to attack a small neighbouring island. In a few days they threw over a bridge to join it to St. Catherine's, and conveyed over it all the larger ordnance which they had taken, laying waste their first conquest with fire and sword. They then set sail again, having first set their prisoners ashore near Portobello, intending to cruise along Costa Rica, as far as the river Colla, and burn and pillage all the towns up to Nata. They had, in fact, only taken the island in order to procure a guide who could lead them on their way to Nata, knowing that the Spaniards used St. Catherine's as a dep?t for their prisoners of all nations. The first step towards a Buccaneer expedition was to procure a guide. They found, to their delight, a mulatto who knew Nata, and who undertook to lead them to the destruction of a people whom he hated. It is probable, too, that Mansvelt had already projected founding a colony at St. Catherine's, which might be neither dependent on the French nor the English. But their schemes were frustrated, for the governor of Panama, hearing of their approach, and of their past success, advanced to meet them with a body of men, and compelled them to retreat suddenly, for the whole country was now alarmed and their plans all known.

Morgan, however, seeing St. Catherine's to be a well-fortified island, easily defended, and important as to situation, because its harbour was good and near the Spanish settlements, resolved to hold it, appointing as governor Le Sieur Simon, a Frenchman, whom he left behind, with a garrison of 100 men. St. Simon had behaved well in his absence, and put the island in a good posture of defence, had strengthened the four large forts, and turned the smaller island into a citadel, guarding carefully the three accessible spots, planting vegetables and clearing plantations in the smaller island, where abundance of fresh water could be procured, providing victual enough for the fleet for two voyages.

The two commanders now determined to return to Jamaica, promising to send recruits to Simon, for fear of an invasion, and themselves to bring speedy succours, intending to make the island a sanctuary and refuge for the brotherhood of both nations. The governor of Jamaica refused to accede to Mansvelt's requests for soldiers, afraid to weaken the forces of the island without permission from England. Mansvelt, worn out with delay, hastened to Tortuga, and died while collecting volunteers, his plans being still in embryo. Had his scheme succeeded, and been pushed with energy, the Buccaneers might have founded a republic, and have eventually driven the Spaniards out of the Indies.

While Simon was impatiently expecting succour from Jamaica, and astonished at Mansvelt's really unavoidable silence, the Spaniards were preparing to smoke out the wasps' nest that lay so dangerously near their orchard. A new governor of Costa Rica threw unusual decision into their plans. Fearing they should lose the Indies piecemeal, they resolved to crush the evil ere it grew indestructible. Don Juan Perez de Guzman equipped a fleet of four vessels with fifty or sixty men each, commanded by Don Joseph Sancho Ximenes, major-general of the garrison of Porto Bello. Don Juan, in a letter to Simon, promised him a reward if he would surrender the island to his Catholic Majesty, and threatened him with punishment if he resisted. Simon, seeing the impossibility and uselessness of resistance, surrendered it after a few shots, on the same condition with which Morgan had obtained it from the enemy.

The Spaniards made much of their victory, publishing "a true relation and particular account of the victory obtained by the arms of his Catholic Majesty, against the English pirates, by the direction and valour of Don Juan Perez de Guzman, knight of the order of St. James, governor and captain-general of Terra Firma, and the province of Veraguas."

The account goes on to describe the arrival of fourteen English vessels on the coast, 1665, their arrival at Puerto de Naos, and the capture of St. Catherine's from the governor, Don Estevan del Campo, the enemy landing unperceived. Upon this the valorous Don Juan called a council of war, wherein he declared the great progress the said pirates had made in the dominions of his Catholic Majesty, and propounded, "that it was absolutely necessary to send some forces to the isle of St. Catherine, sufficient to retake it from the pirates, the honour and interest of his Majesty of Spain being very narrowly concerned herein, otherwise the pirates, by such conquests, might easily, in course of time, possess themselves of 'all the countries thereabout.'" The less vapouring, or more pacific, ingeniously proposed to leave the pirates alone till they perished for want of provisions, but Don Juan, overruling their timidity, sent stores to the militia of Porto Bello, and conveyed himself there, with no small danger of his life. At this port he found the St. Vincent, a good ship, belonging to the Negro Company, which he equipped with a crew of 270 soldiers, thirty-seven prisoners, thirty-two of the Spanish garrison, twenty-nine mulattos of Panama, twelve Indian archers, seven gunners, two lieutenants, two pilots, a surgeon, and a Franciscan chaplain. Before they set sail, Don Juan (who did not go with them) encouraged them to fight against the enemies of their country and their religion, "those inhuman pirates who had committed so many horrid cruelties upon the subjects of his Catholic Majesty," promising liberal rewards to all who behaved themselves well in the service of their king and country. At Carthagena, they received a reinforcement of one frigate, one galleon, a boat, and 127 men.

On arriving at the island, the pirates discharged three guns, refused to surrender, and declared they preferred to lose their lives. The next day three negro deserters, swimming to the admiral, told him there were only seventy-two men on the island, and two days after the day of the Assumption the Spaniards landed and commenced the affray. The St. Vincent attacked the Conception battery, the St. Peter the St. James's forts, the pirates driving off many of the enemy by loading their guns with part of the pipes of a church organ, threescore pipes at a time. The pirates lost six men before surrendering, the Spaniards one. They found in the island 800 lbs. of powder, and 250 lbs. of bullets. Two Spanish deserters, discovered amongst the prisoners, were "shot to death" the next day. The prisoners were transported to Puerto Velo, all but three, who, by order of the governor, were kept as a trophy, like chained Samsons, to work in the castle of St. Jerome at Panama, a fortress building by the governor at his own expense.

A day or two after this unavoidable surrender, a vessel arrived at St. Catherine, bringing reinforcements and provisions from the governor of Jamaica, who had repented of his rejection of Mansvelt's proposal, but had not even yet the courage to be boldly dishonest. The Spaniards, hoisting an English flag, persuaded Simon to welcome it, and betray it into their hands. There were fourteen men on board and two women, all of whom were made prisoners.

On the death of Mansvelt, Morgan became without opposition the leader of all the adventurers of Jamaica. He at once published far and wide his intention of setting out on a grand expedition, and named Cuba as a rendezvous, St. Catherine's not being far distant. Morgan had been no less anxious than Mansvelt to make this island a fortress and a storehouse. He had written to the merchants of Virginia and New England, to contract with them for ammunition and provisions; but this hope being ended by the Spanish conquest, he felt himself free to embark on a wider and more ambitious field. His plans were for a moment defeated, but his courage and ambition were not a whit humbled.

Two months spent in the southern ports of Cuba sufficed him to collect a fleet of twelve sail, with 700 fighting men, part English, part French, resolved to follow him to the death. To prevent the disunion so frequent between the two nations, Morgan had a clause inserted in the charter-party, empowering him to condemn to instant death any adventurer who killed or wounded another. A council was then called to decide on what place they should first fall. Some proposed Santiago, which had been before sacked, others a swoop on the tobacco of the Havannah, or the dye-woods of Campeachy. Many voices were strong for a night assault on the Havannah, which, they said, could be taken before the castle could be ready to defend itself. The very ransom of the clergy they might carry off, would be worth more than the pillage of a smaller town. But some Buccaneers, who had been prisoners there, said nothing could be done with less than 1500 men, and the proposal was abandoned, when they proved that they must first go to the island de los Pinos, and land in small boats at Matamana, fourteen leagues from the city.

At last some one proposed a visit to Port-au-Prince, a town of Cuba, very rich from its traffic in hides, and which, being far inland and built on a plain, could be very easily surprised. The speaker knew the city well, and was sure that it never had been sacked. Despairing of collecting forces enough to attempt the Havannah, they pursued the Spaniard's plan. Morgan at once acceded to this scheme, and, giving the captain the signal of weighing anchor, steered for Port St. Mary, the nearest harbour to Port-au-Prince. The night of their arrival in the bay a Spanish prisoner threw himself into the sea, and swimming on shore went to inform the governor of the Buccaneers' plans, having, with a scanty knowledge of English, gathered a full insight, deeper than history tells us, of Morgan's intentions.

The governor instantly sent to the neighbouring town for succour, and collected, in a few hours, a force of 800 armed freemen and slaves, occupying a pass which the Buccaneers must traverse. He cut down the trees, barricaded the approaches, and planned eight ambuscades, strengthened by cannon to play upon them on their march. He then marched out into a savannah, where he might see the Buccaneers at a long distance.

The townsmen, in the meanwhile, prepared for the worst with the usual timidity of the rich, hiding their riches and carrying away their movables. The adventurers, on entering the place, found the paths almost impassable with trees, but, supposing themselves discovered, took to the woods, and thus fortunately escaped the ambuscade.

The governor, seeing the enemy, to his astonishment, emerge from the trees into the plain, instantly ordered his cavalry to surround them as he would have done a troop of wolves, intending to disperse them first with his horse and then pursue them with his main body. The Buccaneers, nothing daunted by the flashing of the spears or the tramp of the horsemen, advanced boldly, with drums beating and colours displayed. They drew up in a semicircle to receive the charge, and advanced swiftly towards the enemy, not waiting to be attacked. The Spaniards charged them hotly for a while, but, finding their enemies dexterous at their arms, moving their feet forward rather than backward; and seeing their governor and many of their companions dead at their feet, fled headlong to the town; those who escaped towards the wood were killed before they could reach it. The Buccaneers with few men either killed or wounded, advancing still in their phalanx, killed without mercy all they met, for the space of the four hours that the fight lasted. The fugitives of the town barred themselves in their houses and kept up a fire from the windows and loopholes. The shots from the roofs and balconies still continuing, though the town was taken, the Buccaneers threatened, if the firing did not cease, to set the town in a flame, and cut the women and children in pieces before the eyes of the survivors.

Having thus silenced all resistance, Morgan drove all his prisoners, men, women, children, and slaves, into the cathedral, where he placed a guard. He then gave the town over to pillage, for the benefit of his joint-stock company, finding much that was valuable, but little money, so skilful had the Spaniards grown in hiding. Parties were next sent out, as usual, to plunder the suburbs, and bring in provisions and prisoners for the torture.

The revelry then began, while the prisoners were allowed to starve in the churches; old women and children were daily tortured to make them disclose where their money was hidden.

The monks had been the first to fly from the English heretics, but bands of them were frequently captured in the woods, and thrown, half dead with fear, to confess the dying in the prisons. When pillage and provisions grew scanty, and they themselves began to feel the privations they had inflicted on others, the Buccaneers resolved to depart, after fifteen days' residence, a favourite time with the brotherhood.

They now demanded a double ransom of their chief prisoners; first, for themselves, under pain of being transported to Jamaica; and secondly, for the town, or it would be burned to the ground. Four merchants were chosen to collect the contributions, and some Spaniards were first tortured in their presence, to increase the zeal of their applications. After a few days, they returned empty-handed, and demanded a respite of fifteen days, which Morgan granted. They had searched all the woods, they said, and found none of their countrymen. Delay now grew dangerous-a party of foragers had captured a negro, with letters from the governor of Santiago, telling the citizens not to make too much haste to pay the ransom, but to put off the pirates with excuses till he could come to their aid. Enraged at what he deemed treachery, Morgan swore he would have no more delay, and would burn the town the next day if the ransom was not paid down, but not alluding to the detected letter, and betraying no apprehension. Still unable to obtain money, Morgan consented to take 500 oxen, which he insisted on the Spaniards placing on board his ships at Port-au-Prince, together with salt enough to "powder" them, needing the flesh to re-victual for a fresh and more profitable expedition.

The same day Morgan left the city, taking with him six of the principal citizens as hostages. The next day came the cattle, but he now required the Spaniards to assist him in killing and salting them. This was done in a great hurry, Morgan expecting every moment the Santiago vessels would appear in sight. As soon as the butchering was completed he released his hostages and set sail, unwilling to fight when nothing could be gained by victory.

At this juncture, the smouldering jealousy of the two nations that formed his crews broke into a flame. The grudges of the last voyage had been perpetuated, and had grown into a deep and lasting feud, producing ultimately a disunion fatal to all increase of the power of the brotherhood of the coast.

While the prisoners were toiling at salting the beeves, the sailors employed themselves in drinking and rejoicing at their success, cooking the richest morsels while they were still fresh, and all hands intent on securing the hot marrow bones, the favourite delicacy of the hunters of Hispaniola. A Frenchman, employed as one of the butchers, had drawn out the dainty and placed it by his side, as a bonne bouche when his work was over. An English Buccaneer, more hungry than polite, passing by, and knowing no reservation of property in such a republic, snatched up the reeking bone and carried it off. The Frenchman, pursuing him with angry vociferations, challenged him to fight for it, but before they could reach the place of combat, the aggressor stabbed his adversary in the back, and laid him dead on the spot. The Frenchmen, rising in arms, made it a national quarrel, and demanded redress. Morgan, just and impartial by nature and from policy, arrested the murderer and condemned him to be instantly shot, declaring that he had a right to challenge his adversary, but not to stab him treacherously. ?xmelin says, the man was sent in chains to Jamaica (and there tried and hung), Morgan promising to see justice done upon him. The French, however, remained discontented, lamented the fate of their comrade, and vowed revenge.

Morgan, not waiting for the governor of Jamaica to share his spoil, sailed to a small island, at some distance, to make the dividend. To the general grief and disgust, they found the whole amounted to only 60,000 crowns, not enough to pay their debts at Jamaica: this did not include the silk stuffs and other merchandise, which gave a poor pittance of 80 crowns to each man, as the return for so much danger and privation.

Morgan, as unwilling as the rest to revisit Port Royal empty-handed, proposed a new expedition, in search of a greater prize. But the French, not able to agree with the English, left the fleet, in spite of all their commander's persuasions, but still with every external mark of friendship, entreating to the last to have justice done to the "infame."

Morgan, who had always placed great reliance on the courage of the French adventurers, was not going to relinquish his new expedition on account of their desertion. He had inspired his men with courage and the hope of acquiring riches, and they all resolved to follow him to the attack of the place, whose name he would not yet disclose, exciting them by a mystery, which prevented the possibility of treachery.

He put forth to sea with eight small vessels, but was soon joined by an adventurer of Jamaica, just returning from Campeachy; with this new ally, he had now a force of nine vessels and 470 men, many French being still among them, and arrived at Costa Rica with all his fleet safe.

As soon as they sighted land, he disclosed his design to his captains, and soon after to all his seamen. He intended to storm Porto Bello by night, and to put the whole city to the sack: he was confident of success, because no one knew of his secret; although some of his men thought their force too small for such an enterprise. To these Morgan replied, that if their number was small, their courage was great, and the fewer they were the more booty for each, with the greater prospect of union and secresy; and upon this, all agreed unanimously to the design.

By good fortune, or by preconcerted arrangement, one of Morgan's crew turned out to be an Englishman who, only a short time before, had been a prisoner at Porto Bello, and his past sufferings now proved to have been the foundation of his future good fortune. Having escaped from that place, he knew every inch of the coast, which had been so painfully impressed on his mind, and Morgan submitted, with perfect confidence, to his guidance. By his advice, they steered straight for the bay of Santa Maria, arriving there purposely about dusk, and reached a spot about twelve leagues from the city, without meeting any vessel. They then sailed up the river to Puerto Pontin, four leagues distant, taking advantage of the land wind that sprang up, cool and fresh, at night.

They here anchored, and embarked in boats, leaving a few men to bring on the ships. Rowing softly, they reached about midnight a place called Estera de Longa lemos, where they all landed, and marched upon the outposts of the city.

Michael Scott describes Porto Bello as built in a miserable, dirty, damp hole, surrounded by high forest-clad hills, wreathed in mist, and reeking with dirt and fever. Everlasting vapours obscure the sun, and mingle with the exhalation of the steaming marshes of the lead-coloured, land-locked cove that forms the harbour.

They were now within reach of the strongest city in the Spanish West Indies, except Havannah and Carthagena, the port of Panama, and the great mart for silver and negroes. Leaving as usual a party to guard the boats, and preceded by their guide, they began halfway to the town to prepare their arms. Upon approaching the first sentinel, Morgan sent forward the guide and three or four others to surprise him. They did it cunningly, before he could fire his musket, and brought him with his hands bound to Morgan, who, threatening him with death, asked him how things in the city went, and what forces they had, making a "thousand menaces to kill him if he did not speak the truth." The terrified Spaniard informed them that the town was well garrisoned, but that there were very few inhabitants; the merchants only residing in the town while the galleons are loading, and that he would be able to take the place in spite of all the fortresses and the 300 soldiers. Morgan then pushed on to the fort, carrying the man bound before them, and after a quarter of a league reached the castle, where the man's company was stationed, closely surrounding it, so that no one could get in or go out. The prisoner had in vain attempted to avoid this redoubt, to which he had served as picket, encouraged by Morgan's promises of reward, and avowal that he would not give him up to his countrymen.

The Spaniards, finding the sentinel gone, had already spread the alarm of the Buccaneers' approach. From beneath the walls Morgan commanded the sentinel to summon the garrison to surrender at once to his discretion, or they should be cut in pieces without quarter. Not regarding these threats, the Spaniards began instantly to discharge their guns and muskets to alarm the town and obtain succour. But though they made a good resistance they were soon overpowered, and the Buccaneers, driving them into one room, set fire to the powder which lay about on the floor, and blew the tower and its defenders together into the air; all the survivors they put to the sword, in order to strike terror in the city.

At daybreak they fell upon the city, and found the inhabitants, some still asleep and others scared and alarmed; many had thought of nothing but hiding their treasure, and only the professional soldier prepared for resistance. The governor, unable to rally the citizens, fled into the citadel, and fired upon the town as well as the enemy. The frightened herd, stupid with fear, were throwing their money and jewels into wells and cisterns, or burying their treasure in their courtyards, cellars, gardens, and chapels. The adventurers, abstaining from pillage, sent a chosen party to the convents to make prisoners of the religious, male and female; while another division prepared ladders to escalade the fort, not relaxing for a moment either in attack or defence. They attempted in vain to burn down a castle-gate which proved to be of iron, and baffled their efforts, and kept up a warm fire at the embrasures, aiming with such dexterity at the mouths of the guns as to kill a gunner or two every time the pieces were either run out or loaded.

The firing continued from daybreak till noon, and even then the result seemed doubtful, for when the adventurers approached the walls with their grenades to burn the doors the defenders threw down upon them earthen pots full of powder, and lighted by a fusee, together with showers of stones and other missiles. Morgan himself began to despair of success, and did not know how to escape from that strait, when the English flag arose above the smaller fort, and a troop of men ran forth to proclaim victory with shouts of joy. The remaining castle, however, was the pièce de resistance, being the storehouse of the church plate, and the wealth of the richer citizens now with the garrison. A stratagem was suggested, appealing strongly to Spanish superstition, and, as it happened, successfully. Ten or twelve ladders were made so broad and strong that three or four men might mount them abreast. To all threats the governor replied he would never surrender alive, although the religious should themselves plant the ladders. The monks and nuns were then dragged to the heads of the companies, and forced to plant the ladders, in spite of the hot rain of fire and shot; the governor "using his utmost endeavours to destroy all who came near the walls, firing on the servants of God, although his kinsmen, and prisoners, and forced to the service. Delicate women and aged men were goaded at the sword's point to this hateful labour, derided by the English, and unpitied by their countrymen."

All this time the Buccaneers maintained an unceasing fire along the whole line of grey battlements at every aperture where a pike head glittered or a lighted match smouldered; suffering much in return, unarmed as they were, guarded neither by steel-cap nor cuirass, and unsheltered by palisade or earthwork. In spite of the cries of the religious as they reared the ladders, their prayers to the saints, and their entreaties to the garrison to remember their common blood and nation, many of the priests were shot before the walls could be scaled. The more superstitious of the Spaniards were unnerved at hearing the dying curse of the consecrated servants of God, rising shrill above the roar of the battle. The ladders were at last planted, amid a shower of fire-pots that killed almost as many of the Spaniards as the English, and the Buccaneers sprang up with all the agility of sailors and the determination of Berserkers; their best marksmen shooting down the few Spaniards who awaited their arrival at the summit. Their falling bodies struck a few Buccaneers from their ladders. Every man that went up carried hand grenades, pistols, and sabre, but the musket was now laid aside, for it had done its work, and was a mere encumbrance in the grapple of closer combat. The English swarmed up in great numbers, and reaching the top kindled their fusees and threw down their fire-pots upon the crowded ranks of the enemy, with destructive effect. Before they could recover their dismay, sabre in hand, as if they were boarding, they leaped down upon the garrison, who drove them off with pikes and clubbed muskets, and, closing with them, hurled many from the ramparts, or, stabbing them, fell clenched with the foe in their despair. When their cannon was taken, the Spaniards threw down their arms and begged for quarter, except the governor and a few officers, who determined to die fighting against the robbers and heretics, the enemies of God and Spain.

The Buccaneers, seeing the red flag flying from the first fort, which was the strongest, and built on an eminence which commanded the towers below, advanced with confidence to the attack of the remaining one, hitherto thought impregnable, which defended the port, and prevented the entrance of their vessels, which they wished to secure safe in the harbour, as the number of their wounded would require their long stay in the place they had captured. The governor, proud and brave, still refused to surrender, and fired upon them with his cannon, which were soon silenced by the superior fire of the newly-taken fort, which flanked his position. Out of this last stronghold, the weary and despairing defenders were quickly driven.

Major Castellon, the stout-hearted governor, disdaining to ask quarter of a pack of heretic seamen, killed several of his own men who would not stand to their arms and called on him to save their lives, and struck down many of the hunters who tried to take him alive, not from a generous compassion, for pity seldom entered a Buccaneer's heart, but in order to obtain his ransom. A still more cruel trial of his courage, and duty to his king, awaited him: his wife and children fell at his knees, and, with cries and tears, begged him to lay down his arms and save both their lives. But he obstinately and sternly refused, replying, "Better this than a scaffold," preferring to die as a valiant soldier at his post, than to be hanged as a coward for deserting it. He died the death of a brave man, fighting desperately, and was found buried under the bodies of his dead enemies. If unpitied by his ferocious foes, he has left a name to be honoured by all brave men, as one worthy of a more chivalrous age, and a better cause.

It now being nearly sunset, and the city their own, the adventurers enclosed all their prisoners in the citadel, separating the wounded, and, although heedless of their sufferings, employing the female slaves to wait upon them. It now being nearly night, they gave way to all the excesses of soldiers in a town taken by storm, exasperated by the recollection of past danger, and the death of friends, and maddened by both the certainty of present pleasure and the power of indulging in every success. ?xmelin says, fifty brave Spaniards might have put all the revellers to death, and recovered the place. We do not, however, hear that a single Spanish Jael was found to revenge herself on these modern Siseras.

The following morning Morgan summoned his vessels into the harbour, and collecting all the loose wealth of the town, had it brought into the fort. Directing the repairs of the ramparts, scorched and shattered, he remounted the guns, in order to be ready to repel any attack from Panama. He collected a few of the prisoners who had been persuaded to say they were the richest merchants in Porto Bello, and put all who would not confess to the torture. He maimed some and killed others, who remained silent because they were in reality poor, and had concealed no treasure. Having spent fifteen days in these alternate cruelties and debaucheries, Morgan resolved to retreat. No Buccaneer general had ever taken a city which could not be stripped clean in fourteen days. Famine and disease began ungratefully to take the part of the Spaniard against the nation that had fed them with so many victims. Wild waste compelled them already to devour their mules and horses, rather than die of hunger, or turn cannibals. Parties of hunters were sent into the suburbs to hunt the cattle, whose flesh they then devoured, saving the mules for the prisoners, who, between their wounds and their hunger, were reduced to dreadful extremities.

A death more terrible than that of a blow in battle now appeared in their midst. Many had already died victims of excess, and even the most prudent perished. The bad food, the sudden transition from excess to want, and the impurity of the tainted air, produced a pestilence. The climate of Porto Bello, always unhealthy, as Hosier's squadron afterwards experienced, was poisoned by the putrefaction of the dead bodies, hastily buried, and scarcely covered by earth. The wounded nearly all sickened, and the intemperate were the first to die.

The prisoners, crowded together, and already weakened mentally by despondency, and physically by famine, soon caught the fever, and died with dreadful rapidity. Rich merchants, accustomed to every luxury, and to the most varied and seasoned food, pined under a diet of half-putrid mule's flesh, and bad, unfiltered water. Everything warned Morgan that it was time to weigh anchor, for the president of Panama was already on his march towards the city at the head of 1500 men. Informed of their approach from a slave captured by a hunting party, Morgan held a council, at which it was agreed not to retreat until they had obtained a ransom for the town greater than the spoil at present collected; and, in order to prevent a surprise, he placed a body of 100 well-armed men in a narrow defile, where but a few men could go abreast, and through which the president must pass. They found that that general had fewer troops with him than was reported, and these took flight at the first encounter, and did not attempt again to force a passage, but waited for reinforcements. The president, with the usual gasconade of a Spaniard, sent word to Morgan, that if he did not at once leave Porto Bello he should receive no quarter when he should take him and his companions, as he hoped soon to do.

To this, Morgan, knowing he had a sure means of escape, said he should not leave till he had received 180,000 pieces of eight as a ransom for the city, and if he could not get this he should kill all his prisoners, blow up the castle, and burn the town, and two men were sent by him to the president to procure the money.

The president, seeing that nothing could either deceive or intimidate Morgan, gave up Porto Bello to its fate, not caring to erect a silver bridge for a flying enemy. In vain he sent to Carthagena for a fleet to block up the ships in the river; in vain he kept the citizens in suspense as to the money, in hopes of gaining time. He was deaf and obdurate to all the entreaties of the citizens, who sent to inform him that the pirates were not men but devils, and that they fought with such fury that the Spanish officers had stabbed themselves, in very despair, at seeing a supposed impregnable fortress taken by a handful of people, when it should have held out against twice the number.

Don Juan Perez de Guzman, the president, a man of "great parts," and who had attained high rank in the war in Flanders, expressed himself, with candour, as astonished at the exploits of 400 men (not regular soldiers) who, with no other arms but their muskets, had taken a city which any general in Europe would have found necessary to have blockaded in due form. He gave the people of Porto Bello, at the same time, leave to compound for their safety, but offered them no aid to insure it.

To Morgan himself he could not refrain from expressing astonishment. He admired his success, with no ordnance for batteries, and against the citizens of a place who bore the reputation of being good soldiers, never wanting courage in their own defence. He begged, at the same time, that he would send him some small pattern of the arms wherewith he had, with such vigour, taken so great a city. Morgan received the messenger with great kindness and civility, flattered by the compliment from an enemy, and glad of an opportunity of expressing contempt of any assailants. He took a hunter's musket from one of his men, and sent it, together with a handful of Buccaneer bullets, to the president, begging him to accept it as a small pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Porto Bello, hoping he would keep it a twelvemonth or two, at which time he hoped to visit Panama and fetch it away. The Spaniard, astonished at the wit and civility of the captain, whom he had deemed a mere brutal sea thief, sent a messenger to return the present, as he did not need the loan of weapons, but thanking Morgan and praising his courage, remarking at the same time that it was a pity that such a man should not be employed in a just war, and in the service of a great and good prince, and hoping, in conclusion, that he would not give himself the trouble of coming to see him at Panama, as he would not fare there so well as he had done at Porto Bello. Having delivered this message, so chivalrous in its tone, the messenger presented Morgan with a beautiful gold ring, set with a costly emerald, as a remembrance of his master Don Guzman, who had already supplied the English chief with fresh provisions.

Having now provided himself with all necessaries, and stripped the unfortunate city of almost everything but its tiles and its paving stones, carried off half of the castle guns and spiked the rest, he then set sail, taking on board the ransom, which was punctually paid in the shape of silver bars. Corn seldom grew where his foot had once been, and he left behind him famine, pestilence, poverty, and death. Orphans and widows, mutilated men and violated women leaped for joy as his fleet melted into the distance.

Setting sail, with great speed, he arrived in eight days at Cuba, where the spoil was divided.

They found that they had in gold and silver, whether in coin or bar, and in jewels, which from haste and ignorance were seldom estimated at one-fourth part of their value, to the value of 260,000 pieces of eight. This did not include the silks and merchandise, of which they paid little heed, only valuing coin or bullion, and regarding the richest prize without coin as scarce worth the taking. This division accomplished, to the general satisfaction of all but the people of Porto Bello, who were now poor enough to defy all thieves, they returned at once to Jamaica, where they were magnificently received, ?xmelin says, "surtout des cabaretiers." Every door was open to them, and for a whole week all loudly praised their generosity and their courage; at the end of a month, every door was shut in their faces, all but one-the prison for debts, and that closed behind their backs. "They spent in a short time," says one of their historians, "with boundless prodigality, what they had gained with boundless danger and unremitting toil." The people of Tortuga considered them as mere slaves, who dived to get their pearls, and cared not whether they perished by the wave or by the shark, so the pearls which they had gathered could be first secured.

"Not long after their arrival in Jamaica," says Esquemeling, "being that short time needed to lavish away all their riches, they concluded on another enterprise to seek new fortunes:" a sailor spends his money quickly, and so does a highwayman-in them both trades were combined. Morgan remained at rest as long as most Buccaneers did, that is to say, till he had drunk out half his money, strung the jewels of Spanish matrons around the necks of the fairest courtesans in Jamaica, and stripped himself at the gambling-table to-day in the hope of recovering the losses of yesterday. As his purse grew thin his heart grew stout, as his hunger grew greater his thirst for blood began also to increase. At last he looked seaward, turned his back on the lotus-land and the sirens, and prepared for sea.

His rendezvous this time was fixed in a small island on the south side of Hispaniola, in order to invite both the French hunters and the sailors of Tortuga. By this sign of confidence Morgan hoped to remove all rankling prejudice between the French and English adventurers, and to obtain recruits from both nations. He resolved this time upon an expedition which would enable him and his men to retire from the sea life for ever, or at least to hold a longer revel.

The Buccaneers of the coast seeing him always successful, and never returning without booty, less cruel and less rash than Lolonnois, and not only very brave but very fortunate, flocked to his flag almost without a summons. Every one furbished up his musket, cast bullets, bought powder, or fitted up a canoe. Parties were at once despatched to hunt in the savannahs, and to prepare salted meat sufficient for the voyage. Great numbers of French and English crowded to Cow Island.

A powerful ally appeared at this crisis, in the shape of a French vessel, Le Cerf Volant, of St. Malo, which had come out to the Indies, virtuously intending to trade with the Spaniards, but, finding this difficult or unprofitable, had less virtuously determined to live by plundering them, and was now manned by French adventurers from Tortuga, no friends to Morgan, but anxious to share his booty. The vessel, which had also a long-boat towing at its stern, had a short time before attacked a Genoese ship, trading with negroes, but which, mounting forty-eight cannon, had driven it off, and compelled the captain to return home and refit. The crew seemed unwilling to trust the English, and would not listen to any terms. Morgan, who had just been joined by a ship from New England with thirty-six cannon, longed to add the twenty-four iron guns and the twelve brass ones of Le Cerf Volant to his collection. In spite of his wish to unite the two nations, and close the green and still rankling wound, the temptation was rather too strong for him. His guardian angel slept for a moment, and when she awoke the English flag floated at the Frenchman's peak.

The change happened thus: the French captain having refused to join Morgan's expedition, unless he drew up a peculiar charter party opposed to all Buccaneer law, and quarrelling about this, he swore ventre St. Gris, he would return to Tortuga, reload his cargo, and return to France.

The blow was to be struck now or never. The English part of the St. Malo crew had already deserted to Morgan. Some of these men furnished him with an opportunity of revenge. The merchant captain, unaccustomed to the looseness of Buccaneer discipline, had treated them as sailors, and not as matelots and brothers. They told Morgan, that being short of victual, he had lately stopped an English vessel, and taken provisions by force, paying the commander only with bills of exchange, cashable at Jamaica, and that he carried secretly a Spanish commission, empowering him to plunder the English. These charges, though full of malice, had a specious appearance of truth. The captain had indeed stopped an English vessel, but had paid for all he had taken with honest bills. He did also carry a Spanish commission, having been driven to anchor at the port of Baracoa, on the north-east side of Cuba, where he had obtained letters of marque from the governor, in order to conceal his real errand. Morgan considered this a sufficient pretext, and sounded his crew to ascertain how far they would help him at the moment of need. It was at this very moment of indecision that the New England vessel joined the fleet, and enabled him to bear down any opposition. This ship, which ?xmelin calls the Haktswort (Oxford?) carried a crew of 300 men. It was said to belong to the king of England (Charles II.), and to have been lent by him to the present captain.

[A strange, improbable story, unless the English government had really determined to encourage the Buccaneer movement. The Haktswort was really sent by the governor of Jamaica to join the expedition.]

With this timely succour Morgan's mind was instantly made up. He asked the St. Malo captain and all his officers to dinner, on board the newly-arrived vessel, and there made them prisoners, without any resistance, away from their crew, and with their ship exposed to an overwhelming fire. He then affected the anger of indignant justice, declared they were robbers, who plundered the English under a commission from the enemy, and came there as mere spies and traitors. Fortunately for him, the English vessel that had been stopped by the St. Malo crew arrived at the very moment to repeat and exaggerate the charge. The ship was now his own, and only God could take it from him. And "God did so," says Esquemeling, who sees a judgment in all misfortunes that befal an enemy, but none in those that befal his friends.

Morgan, victorious and exulting, called a council of war, and summoned all his captains to attend him on board his large prize. They praised the vessel, laughed at the tricked Frenchmen, and discussed their plans. They calculated what provisions they had in store, and of what their force was capable. The island of Savona was agreed upon as a rendezvous, as at that east corner of Hispaniola they might lurk and cut off stragglers from the armed Spanish flota, now daily expected. Having completed their arrangements they gave way to pleasure, the real occupation and business of a Buccaneer's life, his toil being only expended to procure the means for pleasure, and time to enjoy it. They began to feast and drink healths, the officers below and the sailors on deck. Prayers for a successful voyage were blended with drunken songs, and unintelligible blasphemies. The captain and the cook were both drunk, the very gunners who discharged a broadside when the toasts were drained, fell senseless beside their smoking guns. Those who could not move slept, those who could walk drank on. By some accident, a spark from a smoking match caught the powder, and in an instant the vessel blew up. In perfect equality all ranks were lifted up towards heaven, in a column of flame, only to fall back again to perish, burnt and helpless, in the sea. More than 350 of the 400 men that formed the crew were drowned. By a singular coincidence, the officers nearly all escaped. The English having their powder stored in the fore part of the vessel, and not in the stern like the French, the sailors only perished; the officers and the St. Malo prisoners who were drinking with them were merely blown, much bruised, into the water. The English adventurers, declaring that the French had set fire to the powder, would have killed them on the spot, but Morgan, not apparently the least chapfallen by the disappointment, sent them all as prisoners to Jamaica. The thirty men, seated in the great cabin at some distance from the main force of the powder, escaped, and many more would have been saved had they been sober.

The French prisoners in vain endeavoured to obtain justice in Jamaica, were long detained in confinement, and threatened with death when they demanded a trial. Had Morgan returned unsuccessful they might have perhaps been listened to.

Eight days after this loss Morgan commanded his men to collect the floating bodies now putrifying, not to give them Christian burial, but to save the clothes, and to remove the heavy gold rings which the English Buccaneers wore upon their forefingers, abandoning their unsaleable bodies to the birds and to the sharks.

Undaunted by this accident, Morgan found he had still a force of fifteen vessels, and 860 men, but his gun ship, the largest of all, only carried fourteen small guns. They now made way to Savona, where all were to repair and careen, and the swift to wait for the slow. Letters were soon placed in bottles, and buried at a spot indicated by a mark agreed on. Coasting Hispaniola, they were detained by contrary winds, and attempted for three weeks in vain to double Cape Lobos. Their provisions ran short, but they were relieved by an English vessel, bound to Jamaica, which had a superfluity for sale.

Always seeking for pleasure, though in emergencies capable of the severest self-denials, six or seven of the fleet remained clustering round this vessel to purchase brandy, as eager and thoughtless as stragglers round a vivandière. The more thoughtful and earnest pressed on with Morgan, and, reaching the bay of Ocoa, waited for them there, the men spending their time usefully, as they had agreed before, in hunting, and foraging for water and provisions, killing some oxen and a few horses. Detained here by continued bad weather, Morgan maintained strict discipline, compelling every captain to send, daily, on shore eight men from each ship, making a total force of sixty-four. He also instituted a convoy, or a body of armed men, who attended the hunters as a guard, for they were now near St. Domingo, which was full of Greek soldiers and Spanish matadors. The Spaniards, few in number, did not attack them, but, adopting a Fabian policy, which suited their pride and phlegm, sent for 300 or 400 men to kill all the cattle round the bay. Another party drove all the herds far into the interior, wishing to starve the foe out of the island, knowing that a Buccaneer, pressed by hunger, did not care whether he ate horse, mule, or ass, falling back upon monkeys and parrots, and resorting to sharks' flesh or his own shoes as a last resource. But when the Buccaneers spread further inland, a body of soldiers was despatched to the coast, to practise a stratagem, and to form an ambuscade.

The following was their plan, which completely succeeded, but nevertheless ended in the Spaniards' total rout. A band of fifty Buccaneers having resolved to venture further than usual into the woods, a party of Spanish muleteers were ordered to drive the bait, a small herd of cattle, past the shore, where they had landed, pretending to fly when they caught sight of their enemies. When they approached the ambuscade two Spaniards were sent out, carrying a white flag of truce. The Buccaneers, ceasing the pursuit, pushed forward two men to parley.

The treacherous Spaniards beseeched them plaintively not to kill their cows, offering to sell them cattle, or furnish them with food. The Buccaneers, with all the good faith of seamen, replied that they would give a crown and a-half for each ox, and that the seller could make his own profit besides on the hide and the tallow. During this time, which was planned to give time for the operation, the Spanish troops were turning the flank of the enemy, and had now surrounded the small band on all sides. They interrupted the conversation by breaking out of the wood, with shots and cries of "Mata, mata"-"kill, kill," imagining they could cut to pieces so small a force without a struggle. The Buccaneers, differing from them in opinion, faced about with good heart, threw themselves into a square, and beat a slow retreat to the forest, keeping up a rolling fire from all four sides of their brave phalanx.

The Spaniards, considering the retreat a sure proof of despair and fear, attacked them with great courage, but great loss. The Buccaneers losing no men, while the Spaniards fell thick and fast, cried out, in imprudent bravado, that they were only trying to frighten them, and put no balls in their muskets. This jest cost them dear, for the Spaniards had been only aiming high, wishing to kill them on the spot and to make no prisoners. They now tried to maim as well as kill, and soon wounded so many in the legs that the Buccaneers were obliged to retreat to a clump of trees, where they stood at bay, and from whence the Spaniards did not dare to beat them. They then began to prepare to carry off their dead and wounded to the vessels, but seeing a small party of Spaniards piercing one of the bodies with their swords, they fired upon them, charged them, and drove them off, tracking their way by their dead, and then retreated, killing the cattle and bearing them off in sorrowful triumph to their vessels. The very next day, at the first light, Morgan, furious to revenge this treachery of the Spaniards, landed himself at the head of 200 men, and entered the woods, visiting the scene of the last night's skirmish. But the Spaniards had long since fled, discovering that in driving cattle towards the shore as a lure for the Buccaneer, they only brought destruction upon themselves, and a dangerous enemy nearer to their homes and treasures. Morgan, finding his search useless, returned to his ship, having first burned down all the deserted huts he could find: "Returning," says Esquemeling, "somewhat more satisfied in his mind for having done considerable damage to the enemy, which was always his ardent desire."

The day after, deciding not to venture an attack upon Bourg d'Asso, Morgan, impatient at the delay of his vessels, resolved to sail without them, and visit Savona, hoping there to meet his lingering companions. Alarming the people of St. Domingo, he coasted round Hispaniola. He determined to wait eight days at Savona, and, weary of rest, still wanting provisions, he sent some boats and 150 men to plunder the towns round St. Domingo, but they, finding the Spaniards vigilant and desperate, gave up the enterprise as hopeless, and returned empty-handed to endure the curses and sneers of their commander. Morgan now held a council of war, for provisions were very scanty and time was going. The eight ships did not arrive, and all agreed, with their seven small vessels and their 300 men, some place of importance might still be taken. Morgan had hitherto resolved to cruise about the Caraccas and plunder the towns and villages, mere hen-roost robbing and footpad work, compared with the enterprise proposed by one of his French captains amid great applause.

This captain was Pierre le Picard, the matelot of the famous Lolonnois when he took Maracaibo: he it was who had steered the vessels over the bar, and had served both as pilot at sea and guide on land; he reefed and fought, and could handle a rope as well as a musket. He now proposed a second attack upon the same place, and, with all the rude eloquence of sincerity, proved the facility of the attempt, and the riches that lay within their reach. As he spoke good English that could be understood by all, and was, moreover, much esteemed by Morgan, the scheme for a new campaign was at once rapturously approved. He disclosed in the council all the entries, passages, forces, and means. A charter-party was drawn up, containing a clause, that if the rest of the fleet joined them before they had taken a fortress, they should be allowed to share like the rest.

Having left a letter at Savona, buried in the usual way, the Buccaneers set sail for Cura?oa, stopping after some days' sail at the island of Omba, to take in water and provisions. This place was distant some twelve leagues from Maracaibo. Here they stayed twenty-four hours, buying goats of the natives for hanks of thread and linen. Sheep, lambs, and kids were the only products of the island, which abounded with spiders whose bite produced madness, unless the sufferer was tied hands and feet, and left without food for a night and a day. The fleet set sail in the night, to prevent the islanders discovering the object of their voyage.

The next morning they sighted the small islands that lie at the entrance of the lake of Maracaibo, anchoring out of sight of the Vigilia, in hopes to escape notice, but were observed by the sentries, whose signal gave the Spaniards ample time for defence. The fleet remained becalmed, unable to reach the bar till four o'clock in the afternoon. The canoes were instantly manned, in order to take the Bar Fort, rebuilt since Picard's last visit. Its guns played upon the boats as they pulled to land. Morgan exhorted his men to be brave and not to give way-for he expected the Spaniards would defend themselves desperately, seeing their fire was so rolling and incessant that the fort seemed like the crater of a small volcano, and they could now see that the huts round the wall had been burnt and removed, to leave them no protection or shelter. "The dispute continued very hot, being managed with great courage from morning till dark night."

That latterly the fighting died away to occasional shots is evident, for, at six o'clock when it grew dusk, Morgan reconnoitred the fort, and found it deserted. The cessation of the fire had already roused their suspicions. Suspecting treachery, Morgan searched the place to see if any lighted fuses had been placed near the powder, and a division was employed to enter the place before the main body. There was no lack of volunteers for this experimental and cat's-paw work. Morgan himself clambered up first. As they expected, they found a lighted match, and a dark train of powder communicating with the magazine. A little later and the whole band had perished together. Morgan himself snatched up the match. This fort was a redoubt of five toises high, six long, and three round. In the magazine they found 3,000 pounds of gunpowder that would have been wasted had the place been blown up; fourteen pieces of cannon, of eight, twelve, and fourteen pounds calibre, and abundance of fire-pots, hand-grenades, and carcases; twenty-four muskets and thirty pikes and bandoliers had been left by the runaways. The fort was only accessible by an iron ladder, which could be drawn up into the guard-room. But courage requires no ladder, and, like love, can always find out a way. When they had once examined the place, the Buccaneers broke down the parapet, spiked the cannon, threw them over the walls, and burnt the gun-carriages.

The Spaniards waited in vain for the roar of their bursting mine. Their own city was rocking beneath their feet; a more dreadful visitation than the earthquake or the hurricane was at their doors. At daybreak the fleet sailed up the lake, the ruined fort smoking behind them. Making great haste, they arrived at Maracaibo the next day, having first divided among themselves the arms and ammunition of the fort. The water being very low and the shoals numerous, they disembarked into their boats, with a few small cannon. From some cavaliers whom they could see on the walls they believed that the Spaniards were fortifying themselves. The Buccaneers therefore landed at some distance from the town, anchoring and disembarking amid discharges of their own cannon, intending to clear the thickets on the shore. Their men they divided into two divisions, in order to embarrass the enemy by a double attack.

But these precautions were useless. The timid people had already fled into the woods; only the beggars, who feared no plunderers, and the sick, who were praying for death, remained in Maracaibo. The brave fled with the coward, the monk with the sinner, the thief from the thieves, the soldiers from the seamen, the Catholic from the dreaded Protestant, and the Spaniard from the enemies of his name and race. The sick were expecting death, and cared not if it came by the hand of the doctor or the Buccaneer; the beggar hoped to benefit by those who could not covet, and might pity, their rags. "A few miserable folk, who had nothing to lose," says Esquemeling, "alone remained." Crippled slaves, not worth removing, lay in the streets; the dying groaned untended in the hospital. Children fled from parents, and parents from children; rich old age was left to die in spite of all the inducements of avarice. The prostitute fled to escape dishonour, and the murderer to avoid bloodshed.

The houses were empty, the doors open, the chambers stripped of every movable, costly or precious. The first care of the invaders was to search every corner for prisoners, the next to secure, each party as they arrived, the richest palaces for their barracks. The palaces were their dens, the churches their prisons; everything they defiled and polluted, the loathsome things they made still more horrible, the holy they in some degree contaminated. At sea they were brave, obedient, self-denying, religious in formula (half the world goes no further), determined, and irresistible; on land cruel, bloody, rebellious, and ferocious. At sea they exceeded most men in the practice of the sterner virtues, on land they were demons of wrath, devils of drunkenness and lust, mercenaries and outlaws in their bearing and their actions. The three former days of terror had sapped the courage of the bravest, and alarm and fear had, by a common panic, induced the inhabitants to hide the merchandise in the woods. The men who fled had had fathers and children killed and tortured in the first expedition. Friends, still maimed by the rack, increased their fears by their narrations. The Buccaneers seemed a judgment from God, irresistible and unavertable. The desire to defend riches seems to be a weaker principle in the human mind than the desire to obtain them. Great conquerors have generally been poorer than the nations they have conquered.

Scarcely any provisions remained in the town. There was no vessel or boat in the port, all had been removed into the wide lake beyond. The small demilune fort, with its four cannon, that was intended to guard the harbour, was also deserted. The richer the man, the further he had escaped inland; the needy were in the woods, the drunken beggars revelled alone in the town, rejoicing in an event that at least made them rich: "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good."

The very same day the Buccaneers despatched a body of 100 men to search the woods for refugees, any attempt to secrete treasure being a heavy offence in the eyes of Morgan. These men returned the next evening with thirty prisoners, fifty mules, and several horses laden with baggage and rich merchandise. Both the male and female prisoners seemed poor and worthless. They were immediately tortured, in order to induce them to disclose where their richer and more virtuous fellow citizens were hidden. Morgan, finding none to resist him, quartered his men in the richest houses, selecting the church as their central guard-house and rallying point, their store-room for plunder, their court of justice (blind and with false weights), and their torture-chamber.

Some of the prisoners offered to act as guides to places where they knew money and jewels were hidden. As several places were named, two parties went out the same night upon this exciting search. The one party returned on the morrow with much booty, the other did not wander in for two days, having been misled by a prisoner, who, in the hopes of finding means to escape through his knowledge of the country, had led them into such dangerous and uninhabited places that they had had a thousand difficulties in avoiding. Furious at finding themselves mocked by their guide, they hung him on a tree without any parley. In returning they came, however, suddenly upon some slaves who were seeking for food by night, having been hiding in the woods all day. Torture was at once resorted to, to find out where the masters lay, for slaves could not be there alone. The braver of the two suffered the most horrible pain without disclosing a syllable, and was eventually cut to pieces without confessing; the weaker, and perhaps younger negro, endured his sufferings at first with equal fortitude, although he was offered liberty and reward if he would speak. But when the seamen drew their sabres, still red with the blood of his companion, and began to hew and gash his brother's limbs that still lay palpitating on the ground, his courage fell, and he offered to lead them to his master. The Spaniard was soon taken with 30,000 crowns' worth of plate.

For eight days the men practised unheard-of cruelties upon the wretched townsmen, already starved and beggared, wretches whose only crime had been their yielding to the natural impulse of self-preservation. They hung them up by their beards and by the hair of their heads, by an arm or a leg; they stretched their limbs tight with cords, and then beat with rattans upon the rigid flesh; they placed burning matches between their fingers; they twisted cords about their heads, tightening the strain by the leverage of their pistol stocks, till the eyes sprang from the sockets. The deathblow was never given from pity, but as the climax and consummation of suffering, and when the executioners were weary of their cruelty. In vain the tortured Spaniards screamed that the treasure was all removed to Gibraltar, and that they were not the rich citizens but very poor men, monks and servants of Jesus, God help them! Many died before the rack could be loosened.

Captain Picard, exulting in the success of his expedition, was now very urgent in pressing Morgan to advance on Gibraltar before succours could arrive there from Merida, believing that it would surrender as it had done to Lolonnois. Morgan having in his custody about 100 of the chief families of Maracaibo, and all the accessible booty, embarked eight days after his landing, and proceeded to Gibraltar, hoping to rival Lolonnois in every virtue. His prisoners and plunder went with him, and he determined to hazard a battle. Expecting an obstinate defence, every Buccaneer made his will, consoling himself by the thought of revelry at Jamaica if he was one of those lucky enough to escape. "Death," says ?xmelin, "was never much mixed up in their thoughts, especially when there was booty in view, for if there were only some hopes of plunder they would fight like lions." Before the fleet started, two prisoners had been sent to Gibraltar to warn the governor that Captain Morgan would give him no quarter if he did not surrender.

Picard, who remembered the former dangerous spots, made his men land about a quarter of a league from the town, and march through the woods in hopes of taking the Spaniards in the rear, in case they should be again entrenched. The enemy received them with quick discharges of cannon, but the men cheered each other, saying, "We must make a breakfast of these bitter things ere we sup on the sweetmeats of Gibraltar." They landed early in the morning, and found no more difficulty than at Maracaibo. The Spaniards, deceived by a stratagem, had expected their approach by the road, and not by the woods. They had no time to throw up entrenchments, and only a few barricades, planted with cannon, protected their flight. They remembered Lolonnois; their hearts became as water, and they fled as the Buccaneers took peaceable possession of the town. The Spaniards took with them their riches, and all their ammunition, to use at some more convenient period. Morgan, rejoicing in the easy victory, posted his men at the strong points of the town, while 100 men, under Picard, went out to pursue and bring in prisoners. They found the guns spiked, and every house sacked by its owner, much spoiled, much carried off, and the heavy and the worthless alone left.

The only inhabitant remaining in the town was a poor half-witted Spaniard, who had not clearly ascertained what he ought to do. He was so well dressed that they at first took him, much to his delight, for a man of rank, and asked him what had become of all the people of Gibraltar. He replied, "they had been gone a day, but he did not know where; he had not asked, but he dare say they would soon be back, and for his part he, Pepé, did not care." When they inquired where the sugar-mills were, he replied that he had never seen any in his life. The church money, he knew, was hid in the sacristy of the great church. Taking them there he showed them a large coffer, where he pretended to have seen it hid. They opened it and found it empty. To all other inquiries he now answered, "I know nothing, I know nothing." Some of the Buccaneers, angry at the disappointment, and vexed at the subtlety of the Spaniards, declared the fellow was more knave than fool, and dragged him to torture. They gave him first the strapado, till he began to wish the people were returned; they then hung him up for two hours with heavy stones tied to his feet, till his arms were dislocated. At last he cried out, "Do not plague me any more, but come with me and I will show you my goods and my riches." He then led them to a miserable hovel, containing only a few earthen pots and three pieces of eight, wrapped in faded finery, buried under the hearth. He then said his name was Don Sebastian Sanchez, brother of the governor of Maracaibo, that he was worth more than 50,000 crowns, and that he would write for it and give it up if they would cease to hang and plague him so. They then tortured him again, thinking he was a grandee in disguise, till he offered, if he was released, to show them a refinery. They had not got a musket-shot from the hut before he fell on his knees and gave himself up as a criminal. "Jesu Maria!" he cried, "what will you do with me, Englishmen? I am a poor man who live on alms, and sleep in the hospital." They then lit palm-leaves and scorched him, and would have burnt off all his clothes had he not been released by one of the Buccaneers who now saw he was an idiot. The poor fellow died in great torment in about half-an-hour, and before he grew cold was dragged into the woods and buried.

The following day Picard brought in an old peasant and his two daughters; the old man, his crippled limbs having been tortured, offered to serve as guide, and lead them to some houses in the suburbs. Half blind and frightened, he mistook his way, and the Buccaneers, thinking the error intentional, made a slave, who declared he had intentionally misled them, hang him on a tree by the road side.

Slavery here brought its own retribution, for this same slave, burning to avenge some ill treatment he had received, offered, on being made free, to lead them to many of the Spanish places of refuge. Before evening ten or twelve families, with all their wealth, were brought into Gibraltar. It had now become difficult to track the fugitives, as fathers refused even to trust their children; no one slept twice in the same spot, for fear that some one who knew of the retreat would be captured, and then, under torture, betray the spot, generally huts in the darkest recesses of the woods, where their goods were stored from the weather. These exiles were, however, obliged to steal at night to their country houses to obtain food, and then they were intercepted. From some of these merchants Morgan heard that a vessel of 100 tons, and three barges laden with silver and merchandise belonging to Maracaibo, now lay in the river; about six leagues distant, and 100 men were despatched to secure the prize.

In scouring the woods again with a body of 200 human bloodhounds, Morgan surprised a large body of Spaniards. Some of these he forced the negro guide to kill before the eyes of the others, in order to implicate him in the eyes of the survivors. After eight days' search the band returned with 250 prisoners, and a long train of baggage mules, bound for Merida. The prisoners were each separately examined as to where the treasure was hid. Those who would not confess, and even those who had nothing to confess, were tortured to death-burnt, maimed, or had their life slowly crushed out of them.

Amongst the greatest sufferers in this purgatory on earth was an old Portuguese of venerable appearance, perhaps either a miser or purposely disguised. This man the blood-thirsty negro, now high in favour with the Buccaneers, and trying to rival them in cruelty, declared was very rich. The poor old man, tearing his thin grey hair, swore by the Virgin and all the saints that he had but 100 pieces of eight in the whole world, and these had been stolen from him a few days before, during the general chaos, by a runaway slave. This he vowed on his knees with tears and prayers, doubly vehement when coming from one already on the grave's brink. The cruel slave still looked sneeringly on, and swore he was known to be the richest merchant in all Gibraltar. The Buccaneers then stretched the Portuguese with cords till both his arms broke at the shoulder, and then bound him by the hands and feet to the four corners of a room, placing upon his loins a stone, weighing five cwt., while four men, laughing at his cries, kept the cords that tied him in perpetual motion. This inhuman punishment they called "swimming on land." As he still refused to speak, they held fire under him as he swung groaning, burnt off his beard and moustaches, and then left him hanging while they strapadoed another. The next man they threw into a ditch, after having pierced him with many sword thrusts, for they seem to have been as insatiable for variety of cruelty as they were for cruelty itself. They left him for dead, but he crawled home, and eventually recovered, although several sword blades had passed completely through his body.

As for the old Portuguese, his sufferings were far from ended; putting him on a mule they brought him into Gibraltar, and imprisoned him in the church, binding him to a pillar apart from the rest, supplying him with food barely sufficient to enable him to endure his tortures. Four or five days having passed, he entreated that a certain fellow prisoner, whom he named, might be brought to him. This request being complied with, as the first step to obtaining a ransom while he still remained alive, he offered them, through this agent, a sum of 500 pieces of eight. But the Buccaneers laughed at so small a sum, and fell upon him with clubs, crying "500,000, old hunx, and not 500, or you shall not live." After several more days of continued suffering, during which he incessantly protested that he was a poor man and kept a small tavern, the miser confessed that he had a store of 2000 pieces of eight, buried in an earthen jar, and all these, bruised and mutilated as he was and much as he loved money, he gave for his liberty, and a few days more of life.

Upon the other prisoners, without regard to age, sex, or rank, they inflicted tortures too disgusting and shocking to mention. Fear, hatred, and avarice generated crimes, till the prisoners grew as vile as their persecutors.

A slave, who had been cruelly treated by his master, persuaded the Buccaneers to torture him on the plea that he was very rich, although he was in reality a man of no wealth. The other prisoners, roused from the selfishness of self-preservation by a thrill of involuntary compassion, told Morgan that the Spaniard was a poor man, and that the slave had perjured himself to obtain revenge. Morgan released the Spaniard directly, but he had been already tortured. The slave was given up to his master to be punished by any sort of death he chose to inflict. Handed over to the Buccaneers, he was chopped to pieces in his master's presence, still exulting in his revenge. "This," says ?xmelin, with a cold na?veté, "satisfait l'Espagnol, quoyqu'il fust fort mal traité, et en danger d'estre estropié" (this satisfied the Spaniard, though he had been very badly treated, and almost lamed for life). Some of the prisoners were crucified, others were burnt with matches tied between their toes or fingers, many had their feet forced into the fires till they dropped from the leg black and charred. All that the Indians had suffered was now retaliated on the Spaniards. The Buccaneers themselves considered the punishment a vengeance of Providence. The only mercy ever shown to a Spaniard was to end his sufferings by death. The coup de grace was a kindness when it ended the misery of a groaning wretch, bruised and burnt, lying in the hot sun, half mortified, or with his body already paralyzed four or five days since. The masters being all tortured, the slaves next received the strapado. These men, weaker in their moral nature and with no motive for concealment but fear, told everything. Many of the hiding-places were, however, not known to them. One of them, during the fever of his wound, declared he knew where the governor of the town was secreted, with many of the ladies of Gibraltar, and a large portion of the treasure. Threats of death revealed the rest, and he confessed that a ship and four boats, laden with Maracaibo wealth, lay in a river of the lake. The Buccaneers were instantly on their feet. Morgan, with 200 men and the slave guide, set out to capture the governor; and 100 others, in two large settees (boats), sallied out to capture the treasure and the ships. The governor was not easily caught, for it needed a battalion of balloons to surprise him. His first retreat was a fort thrown up in the centre of a small island in the river, two days' march distant. Hearing that Morgan was coming in force, he retreated to the top of an adjoining mountain, into which there was but one ascent, so straight, narrow, and perilous, that it could only be mounted in single file.

The expedition altogether broke down, the rock proved inaccessible to any but eagles; a "huge rain" wetted their baggage and ammunition; in fording a river swollen by this "huge rain," many of their female prisoners were lost, and, what they valued more, several mules laden with plate were whirled down the torrents. Many of the women and children sank under the fatigue, and some escaped. Involved in a marshy country, up to their middles in water, the Buccaneers had to toil on for miles. A few lost their lives, others their arms (the means of preserving them). A body of fifty determined men, the Buccaneer historian himself says, could have destroyed the whole body. But the Spaniards were already so paralyzed by fear that they fled at the very rustle of a leaf. Twelve days were spent in this dangerous and useless expedition. Two days after them arrived their comrades, who had been somewhat more successful. The Spaniards had unloaded the vessels, and were beginning to burn them when they arrived, but many bales were left in the haste of flight, and the boats, full of plunder, were brought away in tow.

Morgan had now been lord in Gibraltar for five whole weeks, practising all insolences that a conqueror ever inflicts on the conquered; revenging on them the sufferings of the conquest, and trampling them under foot for the very pleasure of destruction. Provisions now failing, he resolved to depart; the provisions of Gibraltar, except the fruits, coming entirely from Maracaibo, were delayed and intercepted. He first sent some prisoners into the woods to collect a ransom from the fugitives, under pain of again burning down their newly rebuilt city. He demanded 5,000 pieces of eight. They promised to pay it in eight days, and gave four of their richest citizens as hostages. The governor, safe from all danger himself, had, however, forbidden them to pay any ransom, and they prayed Morgan to have patience.

Setting sail with his hostages he arrived in three days at Maracaibo, afraid that, during his long absence, the Spaniards had fortified themselves, and he should have to fight his way through the passes. Before his departure he released all his prisoners who had paid ransom, but detained the slaves. He refused particularly to give up the treacherous negro, because he knew they would burn him alive.

The only inmate of all the rich palaces and wide squares of Maracaibo, was a poor sick man, who informed him (Morgan), to his astonishment, that three Spanish men-of-war had arrived at the bar, and had repaired and garrisoned the fort. Their commander was Don Alonso del Campo d'Espinosa, the vice-admiral of the Indian fleet, who had been despatched to those seas to protect the Spanish colonists, and put to the sword every adventurer he could meet. This news did not alarm those who every day "set their lives upon the hazard of a die," but it enraged men who thought themselves secure of their plunder, and which they now might have to throw off to lighten them in their retreat. Morgan instantly despatched his swiftest vessel to reconnoitre the bar. The men returned next day, assuring him that the story was too true, and they were in very imminent danger. They had approached so near as to be in peril of the shot, the biggest ship mounted forty guns, the next thirty, and the smallest twenty, while Morgan's flag-ship had only fourteen. They had seen the flag of Castile waving on the redoubt. There was no means of escape by sea or land, and all were in despair at such enemies so placed.

Morgan, undaunted and roused to new courage by the extremity, grew more full of audacity than ever. He at once sent a flag of truce to the Magdalene, the Spanish admiral's vessel, demanding 20,000 pieces of eight, or he should set Maracaibo in flames. The admiral, amused and astonished at such temerity, wrote back to say, that hearing that they had committed hostilities in the dominions of his Catholic Majesty, his sovereign lord and master, he had come to dispute their passage out of the lake, from that castle, which they had taken out of the hands of a parcel of cowards, and he intended to follow and pursue them everywhere, as was his duty. The letter continued: "Notwithstanding if you be contented to surrender with humility all you have taken, together with the slaves and other prisoners, I will let you pass freely without trouble or molestation, on condition that you retire home presently to your own country. But if you make any resistance or opposition to what I offer you, I assure you I will command boats to come from the Caraccas, wherein I will put my troops, and, coming to Maracaibo, will put you every man to the sword. This is my last and absolute resolution; be prudent, therefore, and do not abuse my bounty with ingratitude. I have with me very good soldiers, who desire nothing more ardently than to revenge on you and your people all the cruelties and base infamous actions you have committed upon the Spanish nation in America."

This vapouring letter Morgan read aloud to his men in the broad market-place at Maracaibo, first in French and then in English, begging their advice on the whole matter-asking them whether they would surrender everything for liberty, or fight for both liberty and hard-won treasure. They all answered unanimously, they did not care for the Spanish brag, and they would rather fight to the last drop of their blood than surrender booty got with such peril. One of the men, stepping forward, cried, "You take care of the rest, I'll build a br?lot, and with twelve men will burn the biggest of the three Spaniards."

The scheme was adopted, but resolved once more to try negotiation, now that he was prepared for the worst, Morgan wrote again to Don Alonso, offering to leave Maracaibo uninjured, surrender all the prisoners, half the slaves, and to give up the hostages. The Don, trusting in his superior strength, and believing Morgan fairly intimidated or at least entirely in his mercy, refused to listen to any terms but those he had proposed, adding, that in two days he should come and force him to yield. Morgan resolved upon this to fight his way out and surrender nothing, his men, though discouraged, being still brave and desperate. All things were put in order to fight. The Englishman of Morgan's crew proceeded as fast as possible with his br?lot, or fire-ship. He took the small vessel captured in the Rivière des Espines, and filled it full of palm-leaves dipped in tar, and a mixture of brimstone and gunpowder. He put several pounds of powder under each of the ten sham guns, which were formed of negro drums. The partitions of the cabins were then broken down, so that the flame might spread unimpeded. The crew were wooden posts, dressed up with swords, muskets, bandoliers, and hats or montero caps. This fire-ship bore the English colours, so that it might pass for Morgan's vessel; and in eight days, by all hands working upon it, it was ready. During the preparation an extra guard was kept upon the prisoners, for one escaping would have destroyed all their hopes of safety. The male prisoners were kept in one boat, and the females, slaves, plate, and jewels in another. In others, guarded by twelve men each, came the merchandise. The br?lot was to go first and grapple with the admiral's ship.

All things being now completed, Morgan, with a heart as gay as if he fought for God and the right, made his men take the usual Buccaneer oath, employed on all occasions of pressing danger, when mutual confidence was peculiarly necessary. They vowed to fight till death, and neither to give nor take quarter. He promised a reward to all who distinguished themselves, exciting all the strongest feelings of their nature-revenge, avarice, and self-preservation.

With these desperate resolves, full of hope, for they were accustomed to consider his promises of victory as certain prophecies, they set sail on the 30th day of April, 1669, to seek the Spaniards.

They found the Spanish fleet riding at anchor in the middle of the entry of the lake, like gaolers of their spacious prison. It being late and almost dark, Morgan gave orders to anchor within range of the enemy, determined to resist if attacked, but to wait for light. They kept a strict watch, and at daybreak lifted anchor and set sail, bearing down straight upon the Spaniards, who, seeing them move, advanced to meet them.

Poor fishing boats the Buccaneers' barks seemed beneath those proud floating castles; "but the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." The br?lot sailed first, pushing on to the admiral's vessel, which lay stately between its two companions, and was suffered to approach within cannon shot. The Spaniards believing that it was Morgan's vessel, and intended to board them, waited till it came closer to crush it with a broadside. They little thought that they were fighting with the elements. The fire-ship fell upon the Spaniard and clung to its sides, like a wild cat on an elephant. Too late the Spaniard attempted to push her off, but the flames had already leaped from their lurking places; first the sails were swathed in fire, then the tackling shrivelled up, and soon the solid timbers burst into a blaze. The stern was first consumed, and the fore part sank hissing into the sea. The wretched crew, flying from one element to the other, perished, some by fire, some by water; the half-drowning clung to the burning planks and withered in the glare; the burning sailors were sucked down by the vortex of the sinking wreck. Don Alonso, seeing the danger, called out to them in vain to cut down the masts, and, throwing himself with difficulty into his sloop, escaped to land. The sailors, refusing quarter, were allowed to perish by the Buccaneers' boats' crews, who at first offered to save them. Perhaps the recollection of their oath lessened their exertions.

The boats were pulling round the burning vessel in hopes of saving plunder, and not of saving lives. The second vessel was boarded by the Buccaneers and taken, in the confusion, almost without resistance. The third ship, cutting its cables, drifted towards the fort, and there ran ashore, the crew setting fire to her to prevent capture. The Buccaneers, proud of their victory, determined to push it to extremities by landing and attempting to storm the fort at the bar, without ladders, and relying only on their hand grenades, but their artillery was too small to make any practicable breach. The fort they found well supplied with men, cannon, and ammunition. The garrison had not suffered personally by the loss of a fleet manned by strangers, and they repulsed all attacks. Unwilling to retire, Morgan spent the whole of the day till dusk in firing muskets at any defenders who showed themselves above the walls, and at dusk lit them up with a shower of fireballs, but the Spaniards desperately resisted, and shot so furiously at them as to drive them back to the ships, with the loss of thirty killed and as many wounded-more loss than they had suffered in the capture of Maracaibo and Gibraltar, while the fleet had been destroyed without the loss of a single man. The garrison, expecting a fresh attack at daybreak, laboured all night to strengthen their works, levelling the ground towards the sea, and throwing up entrenchments from spots that commanded the castle.

The next day Morgan, not intending to renew the attack, employed himself in saving the Spanish sailors who were still floating on charred pieces of the wreck; not rescuing them from mercy, but in order to make them help in recovering part of the sunk treasure. They acknowledged that Don Alonso had compelled them before the engagement, after they had confessed to the chaplain, to come and take an oath to give the enemy no quarter, which was the reason many had refused to be saved. The admiral's vessel, the Magdalene, had carried thirty-eight guns and twelve small brass pieces, and was manned by 350 sailors; the second, the St. Louis, had thirty-four guns and 200 men; and the third, the Marquise, twenty-two guns and 150 men. The Marquise derived its name from the Marquis de Coquin, who had fitted it out as a privateer. The Concepcion and Nostra Signora de la Soledad, two larger vessels, had been sent back to Spain from Carthagena; a fourth, Nostra Signora del Carmen (for the Spaniards generally drew the names of their war vessels from the lady of love and peace), had sunk near Campeachy.

The pilot of the smaller vessel being saved, and promised his life, disclosed all Don Alonso's plans. He had been sent, upon the tidings of the loss of Porto Bello, by direction of the supreme council of state, with orders to root out the English pirates in those parts, and to destroy as many as he could, for dismal lamentations had been made to the court of Spain, to the Catholic king, to whom belonged the care and preservation of the New World, of the damages and hostilities committed by the English, and he had resolved to punish these proceedings and avenge his subjects. The king of England being complained to, constantly replied that he never gave any letters-patent to such men or such ships. Sending home his more cumbrous ships, the Don had heard at St. Domingo of the fleet sailing from Jamaica, and a prisoner, taken at Alta Grecia, disclosed Morgan's plan on the Caraccas. On arriving there the wild fire had already broken out at Maracaibo a second time, and hither he came to extinguish it. A negro slave had indeed informed the admiral of the fire-ship, but with short-sighted pride he derided the idea, saying that the English had had neither wit, tools, nor time to build it.

The pilot who made these disclosures was rewarded by Morgan, and, yielding to his promises, entered into his service. He informed him, with the usual zeal of a deserter, that there was plate to the value of 40,000 pieces of eight in the sunken ship, for he had seen it brought on board in boats. The divers eventually recovered 2000 pounds' worth of it, some "in plate" and others in piastres, that had melted into large lumps, together with many silver hilts of swords and other valuables.

Leaving a vessel to superintend this profitable fishery, Morgan hurried back to Maracaibo, and, fitting up his largest prize for himself, gave his own ship to a companion. He also sent to the governor, now somewhat crest-fallen, to re-demand the ransom, threatening more violently than before to burn down the city in eight days if it was not brought in. He also demanded, in addition, 500 cows as victual for his fleet. These were brought in in the short space of two days, with part of the money, and eleven more days were spent in salting the meat and preparing for sea. Then returning to the mouth of the lake, he sent to Don Alonso to demand a free passage, offering to send all the prisoners on shore as soon as he had once passed out, but otherwise to tie the prisoners to the rigging, exposing them to the shot of the fort, and then to kill and throw overboard those who were not struck. The prisoners also sent a petition, praying the governor to spare their lives. But the Don, quite undaunted, sternly answered to the hostages, who besought him on their knees to save them from the sword and rope, "If you had been as loyal to your king in hindering the entry of these pirates as I shall be in hindering their going out, you had never caused these troubles, either to yourselves or to our whole nation, which hath suffered so much through your pusillanimity. I shall not grant your request, but shall endeavour to maintain that respect which is due to my king, according to my duty."

When the terrified messengers returned and told Morgan, he replied, "If Alonso will not let me pass, I will find out a way without him," resolving to use either force or stratagem, and perhaps both.

Fearing that a storm might separate his fleet, or that some might not succeed in escaping, Morgan divided the booty before he attempted to pass the bar. Having all taken the usual oath, he found they had collected 250,000 pieces of eight, including money and jewels, and in addition a vast bulk of merchandise and many slaves. Eight days were spent in this division, which took place within sight of the exasperated garrison in the fort.

The following stratagem was then resorted to. Knowing that the Spaniards were expecting a final and desperate attack on the day before their departure, the Buccaneers made great show of preparing to land and attack the fort. Part of each ship's crew embarked with their colours in their canoes, which were instantly rowed to shore. Here the men, concealed by the boughs on the banks, lay down flat in their boats, and were rowed back again to their vessels by only two or three sailors. This feigned landing they repeated several times in the day. The Spaniards, certain of an escalade, at night brought down the great eighteen pound ship guns of the fort to the side of the island looking towards the land, and left the sea-shore almost defenceless. When night came Morgan weighed anchor, and, by moonlight setting sail, at the commencement of the ebb tide, dropped gently down the river, till the vessels were almost alongside of the castle. Then spreading sails, quick as magic, he drove past, firmly but warily. Every precaution was taken. The crew were couched flat on the poop, and some placed below to plug the shot-holes as they came. The Spaniards, astonished at their daring, and enraged at their escape, ran with all speed and shifted their battery, firing hastily, furiously, and with little certainty; but by this time, a favourable wind springing up, the Buccaneers were almost out of reach, few men were killed, and little damage done.

In this manner escaped Morgan from the clutches of Don Alonso, who had thought himself sure of his prey. The baffled rage of the Spaniards and the wild joy of the Buccaneers, their clamorous approval of Morgan's skill, the exultation of their triumph, and the prisoners' dismay, may be easily imagined. Generous in success, Morgan, once out of range of the guns that thundered in pursuit, sent a canoe on shore with his prisoners from Maracaibo, but those of Gibraltar he carried off, as they had not yet paid their ransom. The joy of one and the grief of the other, their parting and the tears, were painful to witness. As he set sail, and the fort was still looming to the right, Morgan discharged a farewell salute of eight guns, to which the chapfallen Spaniards had not the heart to return even a single musket shot.

But out of Scylla into Charybdis was a Buccaneer's fate: one danger was succeeded by another, hope by hope, despair by despair. The very day of their escape the judgment of Heaven seemed to overtake the sea rovers, as if to warn them that no stratagems could defeat God. The fleet was surprised by such a tempest that they were compelled to anchor in five or six fathom water. The storm increased, they were obliged to weigh again, and at any risk keep off the land. Their only choice seemed to be death by the Spaniard, the Indian, or the wave-all equally hostile and deaf to mercy.

?xmelin says he was on board the least seaworthy vessel of the whole fleet, that, having lost anchors and mainsail, they had great difficulty in keeping afloat, and were obliged to bale as well as work night and day at the pumps, amid deafening thunder and mountainous seas that threatened to drown them even while the vessel still floated. The ship, but for the ropes that held it together, would have instantly sunk. The lightning and the wave disputed for their prey, but the rude arbiter, the wind, came in and snatched them from these destroyers. "Indeed," says ?xmelin, "though worn out with fatigue and toil, we could not make up our minds to close our eyes on that blessed light which we might so soon lose sight of for ever, for no hope of safety now remained. The storm had lasted four days, and there was no probability of its termination. On one side we saw rocks on which our vessel threatened every instant to drive, on the other were Indians who would no more have spared us than the Spaniards who were behind us; and by some evil fortune the wind drove us ceaselessly towards the rocks and the Indians, and away from the place whither we desired to go."

In the midst of these distresses, six armed vessels gave them chase through the storm when they were near the bay of Venezuela. They turned out to be vessels of the Count d'Estreés, the French admiral, who generously rendered them aid, and the wind abating enabled them to reach the shore. Morgan and some others made for Jamaica, and the French for St. Domingo,-the Spaniards at the fort probably believing they had perished in the gale.

The laggers of Morgan's fleet, who had never joined him, were less fortunate than the admiral they deserted. 400 in number, they landed at Savona, but could not find the buried letter. They determined to attack the town of Comana, on the Caraccas, choosing Captain Hansel, who had distinguished himself at Porto Bello, as their commander. This town was distant sixty leagues from Trinidad. On landing they killed a few Indians who awaited them on the beach, but the Spaniards, disputing briskly the entry of the town, drove them back at last to their ships with great loss and confusion. On returning to Jamaica they were jeered at by Morgan's men, who used to say, "Let us see what sort of money you brought from Comana, and if it be as good as that which we won at Maracaibo."

Morgan, encouraged by success, soon determined on fresh enterprises. On arriving at Jamaica, "he found many of his officers and soldiers already reduced to their former indigency by their vices and debaucheries. Hence they perpetually importuned him for new exploits, thereby to get something to expend still in wine and strumpets, as they had already done what they got before. Captain Morgan, willing to follow fortune's call, stopped the mouths of many inhabitants of Jamaica who were creditors to his men for large sums, with the hopes and promises of greater achievements than ever in a new expedition. This done, he could easily levy men for any enterprise, his name being so famous through all these islands, as that alone would readily bring him in more men than he could well employ."

Affecting a mystery, attractive in itself, and necessary where Spanish spies might be present, Morgan appointed a rendezvous at Port Couillon, on the south side of Hispaniola, and made known his intentions to the English and French adventurers, whether in Tortuga or St. Domingo. He wrote letters to all the planters and old Buccaneers in Hispaniola, and desired their attendance at a common council. At many a hunting fire this announcement was read, and many an engagé's heart beat high at the news, for Morgan was now the champion and hero of the Buccaneers of America. Great numbers flocked to the port in ships and canoes, others traversed the woods and arrived there by land, through a thousand dangers. Such crowds came that it soon became difficult to obtain a place in the crews. Vessels and provisions were now all that was wanted. Plunder was certain, and they had but to choose on what rich coast they should land. The French adventurers, ever gay and ready, were first in the field. Morgan himself, punctual and prompt, followed in the Flying Stag, the St. Malo vessel we have before mentioned, carrying forty-two guns. The vessel had been lately confiscated and sold by the governor of Jamaica, the unfortunate captain escaping with his life, happy in being free although penniless.

At the rendezvous on the 24th day of October, 1670, 1600 men were present, and twenty-four vessels assembled at the muster, amid shouting, gun firing, flag waving, and great joy and hope. Morgan's proposition was to attack some rich place which was well defended-the more danger the more booty, for it was only rich places that the Spaniards cared to defend. Several previous expeditions had failed from want of provisions, and the necessity of attacking small places to obtain food gave the alarm to the Spaniards and frustrated their plans. They therefore resolved to visit La Rancheria, a small place on the banks of the River de la Hache, on the mainland, with four vessels and 400 men. This was a place where corn and maize were brought by the farmers for the supply of the neighbouring city of Carthagena, and they hoped to capture in the port some pearl vessels from that place.

In the meanwhile, Morgan, not caring for lesser prey, employed his men in careening, cleaning, rigging, and pitching their vessels ready for sea, that all might be ready to weigh anchor the moment the expedition of foragers returned. It augured terribly to the Spaniard that it was necessary to sack a town or two before the Buccaneer fleet could even set sail.

Part of the men were in the woods boar-hunting, and others salting the flesh for the voyage. Each crew had a certain part of the woods allotted it for its own district, so perfect was Morgan's discipline. Each party prepared the salt pork for its own use, while the cauldrons of pitch were smoking on the beach, and the clank of the shipwrights' hammers could be heard all night by the hunters. The English, who were not so expert in hunting as their Gallic brethren (so says a French writer), generally took a French hunter with them, to whom they gave 150 or 200 piastres. Some of these men had trained packs of dogs that would kill enough boars in a day to load twenty or thirty men.

The Rancheria expedition arrived in six days within sight of the river, and was unfortunately becalmed for some time within a gunshot of land. This gave the Spaniards time to prepare for their defence, and either to bury their goods or throw up entrenchments, for these repeated visits of the Buccaneers had rendered them quick on such occasions. A land-wind at last springing up, gave a corn vessel from Carthagena, lying in the river, an opportunity to sally out and attempt its escape, but being a bad sailer it was soon captured, much to the Englishmen's delight, for corn was the object of their visit. By a singular coincidence, it turned out to be that very cocoa vessel which Lolonnois sold to the governor of Tortuga, who, on its return from France, had sold it to Captain Champaigne, a French adventurer, who in his turn sold it to the same merchant captain who then commanded it. He told the Buccaneers that it made the twelfth vessel taken from him by the brotherhood of the coast in five years only, and yet that with all these losses he had contrived to make a fortune of 500,000 crowns. "On peut juger par là," says ?xmelin, with a shrug, "s'il y a des gens riches dans l'Amérique."

Landing at daybreak, in spite of the mowing fire from a battery, and under protection of their own cannon, they drove the Spaniards back to their strongly fortified village, which they at once attacked. Here the enemy rallied and fought desperately, hand-to-hand, sword blow and push of pike, from ten in the morning till night, when they fled, having suffered great loss, into secret places in the woods. The Buccaneers, who had suffered scarcely less loss, pushed on at once headlong to the town, which they found deserted; and next day pursuing the Spaniards took many prisoners, and proceeded to torture them, inflicting on fear and innocence all the horrors of the Madrid inquisition. In fifteen days they captured many prisoners and much booty, and with the usual threats of destroying the town, they obtained 4000 hanegs, or bushels of maize, sufficient for the whole of the fleet. They preferred this to money, and in three days, the whole quantity being brought in by the people, eager for their departure, they at once sailed.

Morgan, alarmed at their five weeks' absence, had begun to despair of their return, thinking Rancheria must have been relieved from Carthagena or Santa Maria. He also thought that they might have had good fortune, and deserted him to return to Jamaica. His joy was great to see them arrive laden with corn, and more in number than when they departed. A council of war was actually holding to plan a new expedition, when Captain Bradley and his six vessels hove in sight. The maize was divided among the fleet, but the plunder was awarded to the captain who had risked his life for the general good.

The captured ship arrived very opportunely, and it was instantly awarded by general consent to Le Gascon, a French adventurer who had lately lost his vessel. Morgan having divided the meat and corn, and personally inspected every bark, set sail for Cape Tiburon, at the west end of Hispaniola, a spot convenient for laying in stores of wood and water. Here he was joined by several ships from New England, refitted at Jamaica. Morgan now found himself suzerain of a fleet of thirty-seven vessels, large and small, carrying sixteen, fourteen, twelve, ten, even down to four pound guns. To man these there were 2200 sailors, well armed and ready for flight and plunder. The fleet was divided into two squadrons, under his vice-admiral and subordinate officers. To the captains he gave letters-patent, guaranteeing them from all the effects of Spanish hostility, from "the open and declared enemies of the King his master," (Charles II.)

The charter-party which we give elsewhere was then signed, the rewards were higher than usual, and many modifications introduced. In the private council three places were proposed as rich and accessible-Panama, Carthagena, and Vera Cruz. In these consultations the only thing considered was whether a town was rich or poor, not whether it was well or ill defended.

"The lot fell" on Panama, as the richest of the three, though the least known to them, being further from the North Pacific than any Buccaneer had yet gone. Panama was the galleon-port and the El Dorado of the adventurer's yarns. Being so unknown a place they determined to first recapture St. Catherine's, where in the prisons they might obtain many guides, who had seen both the North and South Pacifics, for outlaws made, they found, the best guides for outlaws; and they agreed before sailing that, if they took a Spanish vessel, the first captain who boarded it should have for his reward a tenth part of her cargo.

They had begun by sacking a town to victual their fleet, they now proposed to storm a fort to obtain a guide-St. Catherine's batteries, if resolutely manned, being able to beat off three such fleets.

The admiral, it was agreed, should have a share for every hundred men, and every captain eight shares if the vessel they took was large. The crews then one by one took the oath of fidelity. On the 18th December, 1670, the fleet set sail for St. Catherine's, whose prisoners would rejoice at their arrival.

The one squadron carried the royal English and the other a white flag. The admiral's division bore a red banner with a white cross, "le pavillon du parlement," and at the bow-sprit one of three colours, blue, white, and red. Those of the other divisions carried a white and red flag. Morgan also appointed peculiar signals for all emergencies.

On their way to St. Catherine's they chased two Dutch vessels from Cuba, which escaped by aid of contrary winds that baffled their pursuers. In four days the fleet arrived at St. Catherine's, and Morgan despatched two small vessels to guard the port.

This island was renowned for its vast flocks of migratory pigeons, and is watered by four streams, two of which are dry in summer. The land, though fertile, was not cultivated.

The next day, before sunrise, they anchored in the bay of Aguada Grande, where the Spaniards had erected a four-gun battery. Morgan, at the head of 100 men, landed and made his way through the woods, having no guides but some old Buccaneers who had been there before with Mansvelt. On arriving that night at the governor's house and the Platform Battery they found the Spaniards had retreated by a bridge into the smaller and almost impregnable island, which they had made strong enough to beat off 10,000 men. Being driven back at first by a tremendous fire, Morgan was obliged to encamp that night in the woods or open country-no hardship to hunters or sailors in fine weather. There still remained a whole league of dense brush between them and their enemies, at once their protection and destruction. A chilling torrent of rain began to beat upon them, and instead of ceasing, as they had hoped, lasted till noon of the next day. They pulled down two or three thatched huts, and made small damp fires, that scorched a few but warmed none. They could not shelter themselves, and, what was worse, could not keep their arms and powder dry. But more than this, they suffered from hunger, having had no food for a whole day. The men for the greater part being dressed with no clothes but a seaman's shirt and trowsers, and without shoes or stockings, suffered dreadfully after the burning of a tropic noon from this freezing cold and rain. One hundred men, says Esquemeling, even indifferently well armed, might have cut them all to pieces. At daybreak they were roused from their shivering sleep by the Spanish drums beating the Diane, or reveillé. The rain had now ceased, and their courage rose as high as ever. But they could not answer this challenge, for their own drums were loose and soaked with wet, and they had now to employ themselves in quickly drying their arms. Scarcely had they done this, when it began to cloud over and rain with increased fury, as if the "sky were melting into waters," which blinded them and prevented them again from advancing to the attack. Many of them grew faint-hearted, and talked of returning. The men were now feeble for want of sleep, and faint with cold and hunger. The eager foragers found in a field "an old horse, lean, and full of scabs and blotches, with galled back and sides." This was instantly killed and flayed, and divided in small pieces among as many as could get any, and eagerly eaten without salt or bread by the few lucky epicures-"eaten," says the historian, "more like ravenous wolves eat than men."

The rain still gushing down, and the men, worn out in mind and body, growing angry, discontented, and clamorous, it became necessary for Morgan to act with promptitude. About noon, to his great joy, the rain ceased and the sun broke out. Taking advantage of this lull-for the rain had barred even their retreat-Morgan ordered a canoe to be rigged out in great haste, and dispatched four men with a white flag to the Spanish governor, declaring that if they did not all surrender he would put them to the sword without quarter. His audacity was luckily crowned with success. Opposed armies are often men mutually afraid, trying to frighten each other. The governor was intimidated. He demanded two hours to confer with his officers. At the end of this time, on Morgan giving hostages, two soldiers with white flags were sent to arrange terms. The governor had decided in full conference that he could not defend the island against such an armada, but he proposed a certain (Dalgetty-like) stratagem of war to save his own head, and preserve the reputation of his officers at home and abroad.

Morgan was to come at night and assault the fort of St. Jerome, which stood near the bridge that joined the two islands, and at the same moment his fleet was to attack the castle of Santa Teresa by sea, and land troops near the battery of St. Matthew. These men were to intercept and take prisoner the governor as he made his way to the St. Jerome batteries. He would then at once lead them to the castle, as if they were his own men. On both sides there was to be continual firing, but only with powder, and no bullets. The forts thus taken, the island would of course surrender.

This well-arranged performance took place with great éclat. Morgan, in acceding to the terms, had insisted on their strict performance of every item, and gave notice, for fear of ambush, that every straggling Spaniard would be shot. Afraid of a stratagem, some Buccaneers loaded their muskets with ball, and held themselves ready for any danger. With much smoke and great consumption of powder, the unsuspecting Spaniards were driven like sheep into the church, the island surrendered, and by this bloodless artifice Spanish pride remained unhurt.

But a cruel massacre now commenced. The Buccaneers had eaten nothing for nearly two days. They made war upon all the poultry and cattle-the oldest cow was slain, the toughest rooster strangled. For several days the island was lit up with huge fires, round which the men roasted their meat, and revelled and caroused. When wood grew scarce they pulled down cottages to light their fires, and having no wine very wisely made use of water.

The day after the surrender they numbered their prisoners, and found they had collected 450 souls-seventy of the garrison, forty-three children, and thirty-one slaves. The men were all carefully disarmed, and sent to the plantations to bring in provisions; the women were left in the church to pray and weep. They next inspected all the ten batteries, wondering in their strength and exulting in their victory. The fort St. Jerome contained eight great guns and sixty muskets; the St. Matthew three guns; the Santa Teresa twenty guns and 120 muskets. The castle was very strong, and moated; impregnable on the sea side, and on the land side ascended by a narrow mountain path, while the guns on its summit commanded the port. The St. Augustine fort mounted three guns; the Platform two; the St. Salvador and another also two; the Santa Cruz three; and the St. Joseph six and twelve muskets. In the magazine they found 30,000 pounds of powder, which they at once shipped, with all the other ammunition. In the St. Jerome battery Morgan left a guard, but in all the other forts the guns were spiked and the gun-carriages burnt.

The object of his visit was still to seek. Examining the prisoners, who were now crowded in with merchants and grandees, he inquired for banditti from Panama, and three slaves stepped forward who knew every path and avenue to the city. These men he chose as guides, promising them a full Buccaneer's share of the spoil if they brought him by a secure way to the city, and, in addition, their liberty when they reached Jamaica. These volunteers consisted of two Indians and a mulatto. The former denied all knowledge of the place; the latter-a "rogue, thief, and assassin, who had deserved breaking on the wheel rather than mere garrison service"-readily accepted Morgan's propositions, and promised to serve him faithfully. He had a great ascendancy over the two Indians, and domineered over them as he pleased, without their daring to disobey a half-blood already on the point of preferment.

The next step to Panama was to capture Chagres and its castle, and Morgan at once dispatched five vessels, well equipped, with 400 men on board, to undertake this expedition, remaining himself at St. Catherine's, lest the people of Panama should be alarmed. He was to follow his van-guard in eight days, guided by the Indians, who knew Chagres. This time he and his men prudently spent in pulling manioc roots for cassava, and digging potatoes for the voyage.

The Chagres expedition was led by the same Captain Bradley who commanded at Rancheria. He had been with Mansvelt formerly, and had rendered himself famous by his exploits both among the Buccaneers and the Spaniards. He arrived in three days at Chagres, opposite Fort St. Lawrence, which was built on a mountain commanding the entrance of the river. As soon as the Spaniards saw the red flag spreading from his vessels, they displayed the royal colours of Spain, and saluted him with a volley too hasty and angry to be very destructive. The Buccaneers, according to their usual stratagem, landed at Narangui, a place a quarter of a league distant from the castle, their guide leading them through thick woods, through which they had to cut a path with their sabres. It was early morning when they landed, and requiring half a day to perform the short distance, they did not reach a hill commanding the castle till two o'clock. The mire and dirt of the road combined, with the darkness of the way, to lengthen their march. The guides served them well, but brought them at one spot so near to the castle, and in so open and bare a place, that they lost many men by the shot. In other parts the wood was so thick that they could only tell that they were near the castle by the discharge of the cannon. The hill they had now reached was not within musket range, and they were thus deprived of the use of their favourite weapon. Could they have dragged cannon so far they might have taken the place without losing a man.

The castle of Chagres was built on a high mountain at the entry of a river, and surrounded by strong wooden palisadoes banked with earth. The top of the mountain was divided into two parts, between which ran a ditch thirty feet deep; the tower had but one entrance by a drawbridge, towards the land it had four bastions, and towards the sea two more. The south wall was inaccessible crag, the north was moated by the broad river. At the foot of the hill lay a strong fort with eight guns, which commanded the river's mouth; a little lower down were two other batteries, each of six guns, all pointing the same way. At another side were two great store-houses, full of goods, brought from the inland, and near these a flight of steps, cut in the rock, led to the castle of the summit. On the west side was a small port not more than seven or eight fathoms deep, with good anchorage for small vessels, and before the hill a great rock rose from the waves, which almost covered it at low water.

The place appeared such a perfect volcano of fire, and so threatening and dangerous, that the Buccaneers, but for fear of Morgan's rage and contempt, would have at once turned back. After many disputes and much doubt and perplexity, they resolved to hazard the assault and risk their lives. When they descended from their hill into the plain, they had to throw themselves on their faces to escape the desolating shower of balls; but their marksmen, quite uncovered and without defence, shot at the Spanish gunners through the loops of the palisading, and killed all who showed themselves. This skirmishing continued till the evening, when the Buccaneers, who had lost many men, their commander having his leg broken with a cannon shot, began to waver and to think of retiring, having in vain tried to burn down the place with their fireballs, and charged up to the very walls, which they tried in vain to climb, sword in hand. When the Spaniards saw them drawing back through the dusk, in some disorder, carrying their wounded men and gnashing their teeth in rage at the dark lines of defence, they shouted out "Come on, you dogs of heretics; come on, you English devils: you shan't get to Panama this bout, for we'll serve your comerades as we have served you." The Buccaneers, astonished at their cries, now for the first time learnt that Morgan's expedition had been heard of at Panama.

Night had already begun, and the rain of bullets, shot, and Indian arrows (more deadly almost than the bullets), harassing and well-aimed, continued as grievous as by day. Taking advantage of the gloom, another party advanced to the palisadoes; the light of their burning fuses directed the aim of the Spaniards.

A singular accident of war gave the place, so briskly defended, into the hands of the assailants. A party of the French musketeers were talking together, devising a plan of advance, when a swift Indian arrow fell among them and pierced one of the speakers in the shoulder (Esquemeling says in the back and right through the body, another writer says in the eye). A thought struck the wounded man, for the wound had spurred his imagination: coolly drawing the point from his shoulder, he said to those near him, "Attendez, mes frères, je m'en vais faire périr tous les Espagnols-tous-avec cette sacré flèche" (wait a bit, my mates, I'll kill all the Spaniards-all-with this d-- arrow); so saying he drew from his pocket a handful of wild cotton, which the Buccaneers kept as lint to staunch their wounds, and wound it round the dart; then putting it in his loaded musket, from which he extracted the ball, he fired it back at the castle roof. It alighted on some dry thatch, which in a moment began to smoke, and in another second broke into a bright flame, more visible for the darkness. The Buccaneers shouted and pushed on to the attack, and the wounded men forgot their wounds. Some of the men, seeing the result of the experiment, gathered up the Indian arrows that lay thick around them, and fired them at the roofs. Many houses were soon in flames. The Spaniards, busy with the defence, did not see the fire until it had gained some head, and reaching a parcel of powder blown it up and caused ruin and consternation within the fort. If they left the walls the Buccaneers gained ground, if they left the fire the flames spread more terribly than before; the want of sufficient water increased the confusion, and while they tried to quench the conflagration, the Buccaneers set fire to the palisadoes.

?xmelin, who was present as a surgeon at this attack of Chagres, relates an anecdote of courage which he himself witnessed, to show the indomitable fury of the assailants. One of his own friends was pierced in the eye by an Indian arrow, and came to him to beg him to pull it out, the pain was so intense and unbearable. Although a surgeon, ?xmelin had not the nerve to inflict such torture, however momentary, on a friend, and turned away in pity, upon which the hardy seaman tore out the arrow with a curse, and, binding up the wound, rushed forward to the wall. The few Buccaneers who had retreated, seeing the flames, now hurried back to the attack. The Spaniards could no longer see the enemy at whom they fired, the night was so dark and starless, while the Buccaneers shot down with the unerring aim of hunters the Spaniards, whose bodies stood out dark and well-defined against the bright background of flame. All this time, before the fire of the roofs could be extinguished, the Buccaneers had swarmed through the fosse, and, mounting upon each other's shoulders, burnt down part of the palisadoes, as we have before described, in spite of the hand grenades that were thrown from above, and which burst among them. The fire ran along the wall, leaping like a winged thing, and devoured wherever it clung, spreading with dreadful rapidity.

The fight continued all night, and when the calm daylight broke on the worn soldiers, the Buccaneers saw with sparkling eyes that the gabions had smouldered through, and that the earth had fallen down in large heaps into the fosse. The breaches in many places were practicable. The armour had fallen piece-meal from their giant adversary, and he now stood before them bare, wounded, and defenceless. The Buccaneers, creeping within musket shot of the walls, shot down the gunners in the breaches to which the cannon had been dragged by the governor's orders during the night. Divided into two bands, one party kept up a constant fire on the guns, and the other watched the motions of the enemy. About noon they advanced to a spot which the governor himself defended, belted round with twenty-five brave Spaniards, armed with pikes, halberds, swords, and muskets. They advanced under a dreadful hail of fire and lead, the defenders casting down flaming pots full of combustible matter and "odious smells," which destroyed many of the English. But we do not know how smells could drive back men who would have marched through hell if it had been the shortest way to Panama.

Nothing could equal the unflinching courage of the Spaniards-they disputed every inch of ground-they yielded slowly like wounded lions when the hunters narrow their circles. They showered stones and all available missiles on their assailants, only wishing to kill a Buccaneer, but feeling that resistance was hopeless; some, rather than yield, threw themselves from the cliffs into the sea, and few survived the fall. As the Buccaneers won their way to the castle the Spaniards retreated to the garde du corps, where they entrenched themselves with two cannon; to the last the governor refused quarter, and at last fell shot through the brain. The few who remained surrendered when the guns were taken and would have been turned against them.

Only fourteen men were found unhurt in the fort and about nine or ten wounded, who had hid themselves among the dead. They told Morgan that they were all that were left of a garrison of 314 soldiers. The governor, seeing that he was lost, had despatched the survivors to Panama to alarm the city, and remained behind to die. No officer was left alive; they had been the first to set their men the example of a glorious death. It appeared that a Buccaneer deserter, an Irishman, whom Morgan had not even informed of his design, had come to the port, and assured them of the attack on La Rancheria, and the contemplated movement on Panama. The governor of that place had instantly sent to Chagres a reinforcement of 164 men, with ammunition and provisions, and had placed ambuscades along the river. He was at that very moment, they said, awaiting them in the savannah with 3600 men: of these 2000 were infantry, 400 cavalry, and 600 Indians. He had also employed 200 muleteers and hunters to collect a drove of 1000 wild cattle to drive down upon the invaders.

"The taking of this castle," says Esquemeling, "cost the pirates excessively dear, in comparison to what they were wont to lose, and their toil and labour was greater than at the conquest of the Isle of St. Catherine." On numbering their thinned ranks, many voices were silent at the roll call. More than 100 men were found to be dead, and more than seventy grievously wounded. There were sixty who could not rise, and many in the ranks wore on their arms strips of the Spanish colours, or had their heads bound round with bloody cloths. The prisoners they compelled to drag their own dead to the edge of the cliffs and cast them among the shattered bodies on the beach, and then to bury them where the sea could not wash them out of their graves, or the birds devour them. The castle chapel they turned into an hospital for the wounded, and the female slaves were employed to tend them, for the surgeons in the heat of battle had only had time to amputate a limb or bind an artery.

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