For nearly three weeks these outrageous proceedings continued, and to
prove that they were lower than the brute beasts they allowed the
greater number of the prisoners collected in the church, to perish of
hunger. There were not provisions enough in the town for the pirates'
own uses and for these miserable creatures also, and so, with the
exception of a small quantity of mule flesh, which many of the prisoners
could not eat, they got nothing whatever, and slowly starved.

When L'Olonnois and his friends had been in possession of Gibraltar for
about a month, they thought it was time to leave, but their greedy souls
were not satisfied with the booty they had already obtained, and they
therefore sent messages to the Spaniards who were still concealed in the
forests, that unless in the course of two days a ransom of ten thousand
pieces of eight were paid to them, they would burn the town to the
ground. No matter what they thought of this heartless demand, it was
not easy for the scattered citizens to collect such a sum as this, and
the two days passed without the payment of the ransom, and the
relentless pirates promptly carried out their threat and set the town on
fire in various places. When the poor Spaniards saw this and perceived
that they were about to lose even their homes, they sent to the town and
promised that if the pirates would put out the fires they would pay the
money. In the hope of more money, and not in the least moved by any
feeling of kindness, L'Olonnois ordered his men to help put out the
fires, but they were not extinguished until a quarter of the town was
entirely burned and a fine church reduced to ashes.

When the buccaneers found they could squeeze nothing more out of the
town, they went on board their ships, carrying with them all the plunder
and booty they had collected, and among their spoils were about five
hundred slaves, of all ages and both sexes, who had been offered an
opportunity to ransom themselves, but who, of course, had no money with
which to buy their freedom, and who were now condemned to a captivity
worse than anything they had ever known before.

Now the eight ships with their demon crews sailed away over the lake
toward Maracaibo. It was quite possible for them to get out to sea
without revisiting this unfortunate town, but as this would have been a
very good thing for them to do, it was impossible for them to do it; no
chance to do anything wicked was ever missed by these pirates.
Consequently L'Olonnois gave orders to drop anchor near the city, and
then he sent some messengers ashore to inform the already half-ruined
citizens that unless they sent him thirty thousand pieces of eight he
would enter their town again, carry away everything they had left, and
burn the place to the ground. The poor citizens sent a committee to
confer with the pirates, and while the negotiations were going on some
of the conscienceless buccaneers went on shore and carried off from one
of the great churches its images, pictures, and even its bells. It was
at last arranged that the citizens should pay twenty thousand pieces of
eight, which was the utmost sum they could possibly raise, and, in
addition to this, five hundred head of beef-cattle, and the pirates
promised that if this were done they would depart and molest the town no
more. The money was paid, the cattle were put on board the ships, and to
the unspeakable relief of the citizens, the pirate fleet sailed away
from the harbor.

But it would be difficult to express the horror and dismay of those same
citizens when, three days afterward, those pirate ships all came back
again. Black despair now fell upon the town; there was nothing more to
be stolen, and these wretches must have repented that they had left the
town standing, and had returned to burn it down. But when one man came
ashore in a boat bringing the intelligence that L'Olonnois could not get
his largest ship across a bar at the entrance to the lake, and that he
wanted a pilot to show him the channel, then the spirits of the people
went up like one great united rocket, bursting into the most beautiful
coruscations of sparks and colors. There was nothing on earth that they
would be so glad to furnish him as a pilot to show him how to sail away
from their shores. The pilot was instantly sent to the fleet, and
L'Olonnois and his devastating band departed.

They did not go directly to Tortuga, but stopped at a little island near
Hispaniola, which was inhabited by French buccaneers, and this delay was
made entirely for the purpose of dividing the booty. It seems strange
that any principle of right and justice should have been regarded by
these dishonest knaves, even in their relations to each other, but they
had rigid rules in regard to the division of their spoils, and according
to these curious regulations the whole amount of plunder was apportioned
among the officers and crews of the different ships.

Before the regular allotment of shares was made, the claims of the
wounded were fully satisfied according to their established code. For
the loss of a right arm a man was paid about six hundred dollars or six
slaves; for the loss of a left arm, five hundred dollars, or five
slaves; for a missing right leg, five hundred dollars, or five slaves;
for a missing left leg, four hundred dollars, or four slaves; for an eye
or a finger, one hundred dollars, or one slave. Then the rest of the
money and spoils were divided among all the buccaneers without reference
to what had been paid to the wounded. The shares of those who had been
killed were given to friends or acquaintances, who undertook to deliver
them to their families.

The spoils in this case consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand
dollars in money and a great quantity of valuable goods, besides many
slaves and precious stones and jewels. These latter were apportioned
among the men in the most ridiculous manner, the pirates having no idea
of the relative value of the jewels, some of them preferring large and
worthless colored stones to smaller diamonds and rubies. When all their
wickedly gained property had been divided, the pirates sailed to
Tortuga, where they proceeded, without loss of time, to get rid of the
wealth they had amassed. They ate, they drank, they gambled; they
crowded the taverns as taverns have never been crowded before; they sold
their valuable merchandise for a twentieth part of its value to some of
the more level-headed people of the place; and having rioted, gambled,
and committed every sort of extravagance for about three weeks, the
majority of L'Olonnois' rascally crew found themselves as poor as when
they had started off on their expedition. It took them almost as long to
divide their spoils as it did to get rid of them.

As these precious rascals had now nothing to live upon, it was necessary
to start out again and commit some more acts of robbery and ruin; and
L'Olonnois, whose rapacious mind seems to have been filled with a desire
for town-destroying, projected an expedition to Nicaragua, where he
proposed to pillage and devastate as many towns and villages as
possible. His reputation as a successful commander was now so high that
he had no trouble in getting men, for more offered themselves than he
could possibly take.

He departed with seven hundred men and six ships, stopping on the way
near the coast of Cuba, and robbing some poor fishermen of their boats,
which he would need in shallow water. Their voyage was a very long one,
and they were beset by calms, and instead of reaching Nicaragua, they
drifted into the Gulf of Honduras. Here they found themselves nearly out
of provisions, and were obliged to land and scour the country to find
something to eat. Leaving their ships, they began a land march through
the unfortunate region where they now found themselves. They robbed
Indians, they robbed villages; they devastated little towns, taking
everything that they cared for, and burning what they did not want, and
treating the people they captured with viler cruelties than any in which
the buccaneers had yet indulged. Their great object was to take
everything they could find, and then try to make the people confess
where other things were hidden. Men and women were hacked to pieces with
swords; it was L'Olonnois' pleasure, when a poor victim had nothing to
tell, to tear out his tongue with his own hands, and it is said that on
some occasions his fury was so great that he would cut out the heart of
a man and bite at it with his great teeth. No more dreadful miseries
could be conceived than those inflicted upon the peaceful inhabitants of
the country through which these wretches passed. They frequently met
ambuscades of Spaniards, who endeavored to stop their progress; but this
was impossible. The pirates were too strong in number and too savage in
disposition to be resisted by ordinary Christians, and they kept on
their wicked way.

At last they reached a town called San Pedro, which was fairly well
defended, having around it a great hedge of prickly thorns; but thorns
cannot keep out pirates, and after a severe fight the citizens
surrendered, on condition that they should have two hours' truce. This
was given, and the time was occupied by the people in running away into
the woods and carrying off their valuables. But when the two hours had
expired, L'Olonnois and his men entered the town, and instead of
rummaging around to see what they could find, they followed the
unfortunate people into the woods, for they well understood what they
wanted when they asked for a truce, and robbed them of nearly everything
they had taken away.

But the capture of this town was not of much service to L'Olonnois, who
did not find provisions enough to feed his men. Their supplies ran very
low, and it was not long before they were in danger of starvation.
Consequently they made their way by the most direct course to the coast,
where they hoped to be able to get something to eat. If they could find
nothing else, they might at least catch fish. On their way every rascal
of them prepared himself a net, made out of the fibres of a certain
plant, which grew in abundance in those regions, in order that he might
catch himself a supper when he reached the sea.

After a time the buccaneers got back to their fleet and remained on the
coast about three months, waiting for some expected Spanish ships, which
they hoped to capture. They eventually met with one, and after a great
deal of ordinary fighting and stratagem they boarded and took her, but
found her not a very valuable prize.

Now L'Olonnois proposed to his men that they should sail for Guatemala,
but he met with an unexpected obstacle; the buccaneers who had enlisted
under him had expected to make great fortunes in this expedition, but
their high hopes had not been realized. They had had very little booty
and very little food, they were hungry and disappointed and wanted to go
home, and the great majority of them declined to follow L'Olonnois any
farther. But there were some who declared that they would rather die
than go home to Tortuga as poor as when they left it, and so remained
with L'Olonnois on the biggest ship of the fleet, which he commanded.
The smaller vessels now departed for Tortuga, and after some trouble
L'Olonnois succeeded in getting his vessel out of the harbor where it
had been anchored, and sailed for the islands of de las Pertas. Here he
had the misfortune to run his big vessel hopelessly aground.

When they found it absolutely impossible to get their great vessel off
the sand banks, the pirates set to work to break her up and build a boat
out of her planks. This was a serious undertaking, but it was all they
could do. They could not swim away, and their ship was of no use to them
as she was. But when they began to work they had no idea it would take
so long to build a boat. It was several months before the unwieldy craft
was finished, and they occupied part of the time in gardening, planting
French beans, which came to maturity in six weeks, and gave them some
fresh vegetables. They also had some stores and portable stoves on board
their dismantled ship, and made bread from some wheat which was among
their provisions, thus managing to live very well.

L'Olonnois was never intended by nature to be a boat-builder, or
anything else that was useful and honest, and when the boat was finished
it was discovered that it had been planned so badly that it would not
hold them all, so all they could do was to draw lots to see who should
embark in her, for one-half of them would have to stay until the others
came back to release them. Of course L'Olonnois went away in the boat,
and reached the mouth of the Nicaragua River. There his party was
attacked by some Spaniards and Indians, who killed more than half of
them and prevented the others from landing. L'Olonnois and the rest of
his men got safely away, and they might now have sailed back to the
island where they had left their comrades, for there was room enough for
them all in the boat. But they did nothing of the sort, but went to the
coast of Cartagena.

The pirates left on the island were eventually taken off by a
buccaneering vessel, but L'Olonnois had now reached the end of the
string by which the devil had allowed him to gambol on this earth for so
long a time. On the shores where he had now landed he did not find
prosperous villages, treasure houses, and peaceful inhabitants, who
could be robbed and tortured, but instead of these he came upon a
community of Indians, who were called by the Spaniards, Bravos, or wild
men. These people would never have anything to do with the whites. It
was impossible to conquer them or to pacify them by kind treatment. They
hated the white man and would have nothing to do with him. They had
heard of L'Olonnois and his buccaneers, and when they found this
notorious pirate upon their shores they were filled with a fury such as
they had never felt for any others of his race.

These bloody pirates had always conquered in their desperate fights
because they were so reckless and so savage, but now they had fallen
among thoroughbred savages, more cruel and more brutal and pitiless than
themselves. Nearly all the buccaneers were killed, and L'Olonnois was
taken prisoner. His furious captors tore his living body apart, piece by
piece, and threw each fragment into the fire, and when the whole of this
most inhuman of inhuman men had been entirely consumed, they scattered
his ashes to the winds so that not a trace should remain on earth of
this monster. If, in his infancy, he had died of croup, the history of
the human race would have lost some of its blackest pages.




Chapter XVI

A Pirate Potentate


Sometime in the last half of the seventeenth century on a quiet farm in
a secluded part of Wales there was born a little boy baby. His father
was a farmer, and his mother churned, and tended the cows and the
chickens, and there was no reason to imagine that this gentle little
baby, born and reared in this rural solitude, would become one of the
most formidable pirates that the world ever knew. Yet such was the case.

The baby's name was Henry Morgan, and as he grew to be a big boy a
distaste for farming grew with him. So strong was his dislike that when
he became a young man he ran away to the seacoast, for he had a fancy to
be a sailor. There he found a ship bound for the West Indies, and in
this he started out on his life's career. He had no money to pay his
passage, and he therefore followed the usual custom of those days and
sold himself for a term of three years to an agent who was taking out a
number of men to work on the plantations. In the places where these men
were enlisted they were termed servants, but when they got to the new
world they were generally called slaves and treated as such.

When young Morgan reached the Barbadoes he was resold to a planter, and
during his term of service he probably worked a good deal harder and was
treated much more roughly than any of the laborers on his father's farm.
But as soon as he was a free man he went to Jamaica, and there were few
places in the world where a young man could be more free and more
independent than in this lawless island.

Here were rollicking and blustering "flibustiers," and here the young
man determined to study piracy. He was not a sailor and hunter who by
the force of circumstances gradually became a buccaneer, but he
deliberately selected his profession, and immediately set to work to
acquire a knowledge of its practice. There was a buccaneer ship about to
sail from Jamaica, and on this Morgan enlisted. He was a clever fellow
and very soon showed himself to be a brave and able sailor.

After three or four voyages he acquired a reputation for remarkable
coolness in emergencies, and showed an ability to take advantage of
favorable circumstances, which was not possessed by many of his
comrades. These prominent traits in his character became the foundation
of his success. He also proved himself a very good business man, and
having saved a considerable amount of money he joined with some other
buccaneers and bought a ship, of which he took command. This ship soon
made itself a scourge in the Spanish seas; no other buccaneering vessel
was so widely known and so greatly feared, and the English people in
these regions were as proud of the young Captain Morgan as if he had
been a regularly commissioned admiral, cruising against an acknowledged
enemy.

Returning from one of his voyages Morgan found an old buccaneer, named
Mansvelt, in Jamaica, who had gathered together a fleet of vessels with
which he was about to sail for the mainland. This expedition seemed a
promising one to Morgan, and he joined it, being elected vice-admiral of
the fleet of fifteen vessels. Since the successes of L'Olonnois and
others, attacks upon towns had become very popular with the buccaneers,
whose leaders were getting to be tired of the retail branch of their
business; that is, sailing about in one ship and capturing such
merchantmen as it might fall in with.

Mansvelt's expedition took with it not only six hundred fighting
pirates, but one writing pirate, for John Esquemeling accompanied it,
and so far as the fame and reputation of these adventurers was concerned
his pen was mightier than their swords, for had it not been for his
account of their deeds very little about them would have been known to
the world.

The fleet sailed directly for St. Catherine, an island near Costa Rica,
which was strongly fortified by the Spaniards and used by them as a
station for ammunition and supplies, and also as a prison. The pirates
landed upon the island and made a most furious assault upon the
fortifications, and although they were built of stone and well furnished
with cannon, the savage assailants met with their usual good fortune.
They swarmed over the walls and carried the place at the edge of the
cutlass and the mouth of the pistol. In this fierce fight Morgan
performed such feats of valor that even some of the Spaniards who had
been taken prisoners, were forced to praise his extraordinary courage
and ability as a leader.

The buccaneers proceeded to make very good use of their victory. They
captured some small adjoining islands and brought the cannon from them
to the main fortress, which they put in a good condition of defence.
Here they confined all their prisoners and slaves, and supplied the
island with an abundance of stores and provisions.

It is believed that when Mansvelt formed the plan of capturing this
island he did so with the idea of founding there a permanent pirate
principality, the inhabitants of which should not consider themselves
English, French, or Dutch, but plain pirates, having a nationality and
country of their own. Had the seed thus planted by Mansvelt and Morgan
grown and matured, it is not unlikely that the whole of the West Indies
might now be owned and inhabited by an independent nation, whose
founders were the bold buccaneers.

When everything had been made tight and right at St. Catherine, Mansvelt
and Morgan sailed for the mainland, for the purpose of attacking an
inland town called Nata, but in this expedition they were not
successful. The Spanish Governor of the province had heard of their
approach, and met them with a body of soldiers so large that they
prudently gave up the attempt,--a proceeding not very common with them,
but Morgan was not only a dare-devil of a pirate, but a very shrewd
Welshman.

They returned to the ships, and after touching at St. Catherine and
leaving there enough men to defend it, under the command of a Frenchman
named Le Sieur Simon, they sailed for Jamaica. Everything at St.
Catherine was arranged for permanent occupation; there was plenty of
fresh water, and the ground could be cultivated, and Simon was promised
that additional forces should be sent him so that he could hold the
island as a regular station for the assembling and fitting out of pirate
vessels.

The permanent pirate colony never came to anything; no reГ«nforcements
were sent; Mansvelt died, and the Spaniards gathered together a
sufficient force to retake the island of St. Catherine, and make
prisoners of Simon and his men. This was a blow to Morgan, who had had
great hopes of the fortified station he thought he had so firmly
established, but after the project failed he set about forming another
expedition.

He was now recognized as buccaneer-in-chief of the West Indies, and he
very soon gathered together twelve ships and seven hundred men.
Everything was made ready to sail, and the only thing left to be done
was to decide what particular place they should favor with a visit.

There were some who advised an attack upon Havana, giving as a reason
that in that city there were a great many nuns, monks, and priests, and
if they could capture them, they might ask as ransom for them, a sum a
great deal larger than they could expect to get from the pillage of an
ordinary town. But Havana was considered to be too strong a place for a
profitable venture, and after several suggestions had been made, at last
a deserter from the Spanish army, who had joined them, came forward with
a good idea. He told the pirates of a town in Cuba, to which he knew the
way; it was named Port-au-Prince, and was situated so far inland that it
had never been sacked. When the pirates heard that there existed an
entirely fresh and unpillaged town, they were filled with as much
excited delight as if they had been a party of school-boys who had just
been told where they might find a tree full of ripe apples which had
been overlooked by the men who had been gathering the crop.

When Morgan's fleet arrived at the nearest harbor to Port-au-Prince, he
landed his men and marched toward the town, but he did not succeed in
making a secret attack, as he had hoped. One of his prisoners, a
Spaniard, let himself drop overboard as soon as the vessels cast anchor,
and swimming ashore, hurried to Port-au-Prince and informed the Governor
of the attack which was about to be made on the town. Thus prepared,
this able commander knew just what to do. He marched a body of soldiers
along the road by which the pirates must come, and when he found a
suitable spot he caused great trees to be cut down and laid across the
road, thus making a formidable barricade. Behind this his soldiers were
posted with their muskets and their cannon, and when the pirates should
arrive they would find that they would have to do some extraordinary
fighting before they could pass this well-defended barrier.

When Morgan came within sight of this barricade, he understood that the
Spaniards had discovered his approach, and so he called a halt. He had
always been opposed to unnecessary work, and he considered that it would
be entirely unnecessary to attempt to disturb this admirable defence, so
he left the road, marched his men into the woods, led them entirely
around the barricades, and then, after proceeding a considerable
distance, emerged upon a wide plain which lay before the town. Here he
found that he would have to fight his way into the city, and, probably
much to his surprise, his men were presently charged by a body of
cavalry.

Pirates, as a rule, have nothing to do with horses, either in peace or
war, and the Governor of the town no doubt thought that when his
well-armed horsemen charged upon these men, accustomed to fighting on
the decks of ships, and totally unused to cavalry combats, he would soon
scatter and disperse them. But pirates are peculiar fighters; if they
had been attacked from above by means of balloons, or from below by
mines and explosives, they would doubtless have adapted their style of
defence to the method of attack. They always did this, and according to
Esquemeling they nearly always got the better of their enemies; but we
must remember that in cases where they did not succeed, as happened when
they marched against the town of Nata, he says very little about the
affair and amplifies only the accounts of their successes.

But the pirates routed the horsemen, and, after a fight of about four
hours, they routed all the other Spaniards who resisted them, and took
possession of the town. Here they captured a great many prisoners which
they shut up in the churches and then sent detachments out into the
country to look for those who had run away. Then these utterly debased
and cruel men began their usual course after capturing a town; they
pillaged, feasted, and rioted; they gave no thought to the needs of the
prisoners whom they had shut up in the churches, many of whom starved to
death; they tortured the poor people to make them tell where they had
hid their treasures, and nothing was too vile or too wicked for them to
do if they thought they could profit by it. They had come for the
express purpose of taking everything that the people possessed, and
until they had forced from them all that was of the slightest value,
they were not satisfied. Even when the poor citizens seemed to have
given up everything they owned they were informed that if they did not
pay two heavy ransoms, one to protect themselves from being carried away
into slavery, and one to keep their town from being burned, the same
punishments would be inflicted upon them.

For two weeks the pirates waited for the unfortunate citizens to go out
into the country and find some of their townsmen who had escaped with a
portion of their treasure. In those days people did not keep their
wealth in banks as they do now, but every man was the custodian of most
of his own possessions, and when they fled from the visitation of an
enemy they took with them everything of value that they could carry. If
their fortunes had been deposited in banks, it would doubtless have been
more convenient for the pirates.

Before the citizens returned Morgan made a discovery: a negro was
captured who carried letters from the Governor of Santiago, a
neighboring city, to some of the citizens of Port-au-Prince, telling
them not to be in too great a hurry to pay the ransom demanded by the
pirates, because he was coming with a strong force to their assistance.
When Morgan read these letters, he changed his mind, and thought it
would be a wise thing not to stay in that region any longer than could
be helped. So he decided not to wait for the unfortunate citizens to
collect the heavy ransom he demanded, but told them that if they would
furnish him with five hundred head of cattle, and also supply salt and
help prepare the meat for shipment, he would make no further demands
upon them. This, of course, the citizens were glad enough to do, and
when the buccaneers had carried to the ships everything they had stolen,
and when the beef had been put on board, they sailed away.

Morgan directed the course of the fleet to a small island on which he
wished to land in order that they might take an account of stock and
divide the profits. This the pirates always did as soon as possible
after they had concluded one of their nefarious enterprises. But his men
were not at all satisfied with what happened on the island. Morgan
estimated the total value of the booty to be about fifty thousand
dollars, and when this comparatively small sum was divided, many of the
men complained that it would not give them enough to pay their debts in
Jamaica. They were utterly astonished that after having sacked an
entirely fresh town they should have so little, and there is no doubt
that many of them believed that their leader was a man who carried on
the business of piracy for the purpose of enriching himself, while he
gave his followers barely enough to keep them quiet.

There was, however, another cause of discontent among a large body of
the men; it appears that the men were very fond of marrow-bones, and
while they were yet at Port-au-Prince and the prisoners were salting the
meat which was to go on the ships, the buccaneers went about among them
and took the marrow-bones which they cooked and ate while they were
fresh. One of the men, a Frenchman, had selected a very fine bone, and
had put it by his side while he was preparing some other tidbits, when
an Englishman came along, picked up the bone, and carried it away.

Now even in the chronicles of Mother Goose we are told of the intimate
connection between Welshmen, thievery, and marrow-bones; for

    "Taffy was a Welshman,
      Taffy was a thief,
    Taffy came to my house
      And stole a leg of beef.

    "I went to Taffy's house,
      Taffy wasn't home,
    Taffy went to my house,
      And stole a marrow-bone."

What happened to Taffy we do not know, but Morgan was a Welshman, Morgan
was a thief, and one of his men had stolen a marrow-bone; therefore came
trouble. The Frenchman challenged the Englishman; but the latter, being
a mean scoundrel, took advantage of his opponent, unfairly stabbed him
in the back and killed him.

Now all the Frenchmen in the company rose in furious protest, and
Morgan, wishing to pacify them, had the English assassin put in chains,
and promised that he would take him to Jamaica and deliver him to
justice. But the Frenchmen declined to be satisfied; they had received
but very little money after they had pillaged a rich town, and they
believed that their English companions were inclined to take advantage
of them in every way, and consequently the greater part of them banded
together and deliberately deserted Morgan, who was obliged to go back to
Jamaica with not more than half his regular forces, doubtless wishing
that the cattle on the island of Cuba had been able to get along without
marrow-bones.




Chapter XVII

How Morgan was helped by Some Religious People


When the Welsh buccaneer started out on another expedition his company
consisted entirely of Englishmen, and was not nearly so large as it had
been; when he announced to his followers that he intended to attack the
fortified town of Porto Bello, on the mainland, there was a general
murmuring among the men, for Porto Bello was one of the strongest towns
possessed by the Spaniards, and the buccaneers did not believe that
their comparatively small force would be able to take it. But Morgan
made them a speech in which he endeavored to encourage them to follow
him in this difficult undertaking. One of his arguments was, that
although their numbers were small, their hearts were large; but he
produced the greatest effect upon them when he said that as they were
but a few, each man's share of the booty would be much larger than if it
must be divided among a great number. This touched the souls of the
pirates, and they vowed to follow their leader wherever he might take
them.

The buccaneers found Porto Bello a very hard nut to crack; they landed
and marched upon the town, which was defended by several forts or
castles. Even when one of these had been taken by assault, and after it
had been blown up with all its garrison, who had been taken prisoners,
still the town was not intimidated, and the Governor vowed he would
never surrender, but would die fighting to the last. The pirates raged
like demons; they shot down every man they could see at the cannon or
upon the walls, and they made desperate efforts to capture the principal
fort, but they did not succeed, and after a long time Morgan began to
despair. The garrison was strong and well commanded, and whenever the
pirates attempted to scale the wall they were shot down, while fire-pots
full of powder, with stones and other missiles, were hurled upon them.

At last the wily Morgan had an idea. He set his men to work to make some
ladders high enough to reach to the top of the walls, and wide enough to
allow three or four men to go up abreast. If he could get these properly
set up, his crew of desperate tiger-cats could make a combined rush and
get over the walls. But to carry the ladders and place them would be
almost impossible, for the men who bore them would surely be shot down
before they could finish the work. But it was not Morgan's plan that his
men should carry these ladders. He had captured some convents in the
suburbs of the town, with a number of nuns and monks, known as
"religious people," and he now ordered these poor creatures, the women
as well as the men, to take up the ladders and place them against the
walls, believing that the Spanish Governor would not allow his soldiers
to fire at these innocent persons whom the pirates had forced to do
their will.

But the Governor was determined to defend the town no matter who had to
suffer, and so the soldiers fired at the nuns and monks just as though
they were buccaneers or any other enemies. The "religious people" cried
out in terror, and screamed to their friends not to fire upon them; but
the soldiers obeyed the commands of the Governor, while the pirates were
swearing terribly behind them and threatening them with their pistols,
and so the poor nuns and monks had to press forward, many of them
dropping dead or wounded. They continued their work until the ladders
were placed, and then over the walls went the pirates, with yells and
howls of triumph, and not long after that the town was taken. The
Governor died, fighting in the principal fort, and the citizens and
soldiers all united in the most vigorous defence; but it was of no use.
Each pirate seemed to have not only nine lives, but nine arms, each one
wielding a cutlass or aiming a pistol.

When the fighting was over, the second act in the horrible drama took
place as usual. The pirates ate, drank, rioted, and committed all manner
of outrages and cruelties upon the inhabitants, closing the performance
with the customary threat that if the already distressed and
impoverished inhabitants did not pay an enormous ransom, their town
would be burned.

Before the ransom was paid, the Governor of Panama heard what was going
on at Porto Bello, and sent a force to the assistance of the town, but
this time the buccaneers did not hastily retreat, Morgan knew of a
narrow defile through which the Spanish forces must pass, and there he
posted a number of his men, who defended the pass so well that the
Spaniards were obliged to retreat. This Governor must have been a
student of military science; he was utterly astounded when he heard that
this pirate leader, with less than four hundred men, had captured the
redoubtable town of Porto Bello, defended by a strong garrison and
inhabited by citizens who were brave and accustomed to fighting, and,
being anxious to increase his knowledge of improved methods of warfare,
he sent a messenger to Morgan "desiring him to send him some small
pattern of those arms wherewith he had taken with such violence so great
a city." The pirate leader received the messenger with much courtesy,
and sent to the Governor a pistol and a few balls, "desiring him to
accept that slender pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Porto
Bello, and keep them for a twelvemonth; after which time he promised to
come to Panama and fetch them away."

This courteous correspondence was continued by the Governor returning
the pistol and balls with thanks, and also sending Morgan a handsome
gold ring with the message that he need not trouble himself to come to
Panama; for, if he did, he would meet with very different fortune from
that which had come to him at Porto Bello.

Morgan put the ring on his finger and postponed his reply, and, as soon
as the ransom was paid, he put his booty on board his ships and
departed. When the spoils of Porto Bello came to be counted, it was
found that they were of great value, and each man received a lordly
share.

When Captain Morgan was ready to set out on another expedition, he found
plenty of pirates ready to join him, and he commanded all the ships and
men whom he enlisted to rendezvous at a place called the Isle of Cows. A
fine, large, English ship had recently come to Jamaica from New England,
and this vessel also joined Morgan's forces on the island, where the
pirate leader took this ship as his own, being much the best and largest
vessel of the fleet.

Besides the ships belonging to Morgan, there was in the harbor where
they were now congregated, a fine vessel belonging to some French
buccaneers, and Morgan desired very much that this vessel should join
his fleet, but the French cherished hard feelings against the English,
and would not join them.

Although Morgan was a brave man, his meanness was quite equal to his
courage, and he determined to be revenged upon these Frenchmen who had
refused to give him their aid, and therefore played a malicious trick
upon them. Sometime before, this French vessel, being out of provisions
when upon the high seas, had met an English ship, and had taken from her
such supplies as it had needed. The captain did not pay for these, being
out of money as well as food, not an uncommon thing among buccaneers,
but they gave the English notes of exchange payable in Jamaica; but as
these notes were never honored, the people of the English ship had never
been paid for their provisions.

This affair properly arranged in Morgan's mind, he sent a very polite
note to the captain of the French ship and some of his officers,
inviting them to dine with him on his own vessel. The French accepted
the invitation, but when Morgan received them on board his ship he did
not conduct them down to dinner; instead of that, he began to upbraid
them for the manner in which they had treated an English crew, and then
he ordered them to be taken down below and imprisoned in the hold.
Having accomplished this, and feeling greatly elated by this piece of
sly vengeance, he went into his fine cabin, and he and his officers sat
down to the grand feast he had prepared.

There were fine times on board this great English ship; the pirates were
about to set forth on an important expedition, and they celebrated the
occasion by eating and drinking, firing guns, and all manner of riotous
hilarity. In the midst of the wild festivities--and nobody knew how it
happened--a spark of fire got into the powder magazine, and the ship
blew up, sending the lifeless bodies of three hundred English sailors,
and the French prisoners, high into the air. The only persons on board
who escaped were Morgan and his officers who were in the cabin close to
the stern of the vessel, at some distance from the magazine.

This terrible accident threw the pirate fleet into great confusion for a
time; but Morgan soon recovered himself, and, casting about to see what
was the best thing to be done, it came into his head that he would act
the part of the wolf in the fable of the wolf and the lamb. As there
was no way of finding out how the magazine happened to explode, he took
the ground that the French prisoners whom he had shut up in the hold,
had thrown a lighted match into the magazine, wishing thus to revenge
themselves even though they should, at the same time, lose their own
lives. The people of the French ship bitterly opposed any such view of
the case, but their protestations were of no use; they might declare as
much as they pleased that it was impossible for them to make the waters
muddy, being lower down in the stream than the wolfish pirate who was
accusing them, but it availed nothing. Morgan sprang upon them and their
ship, and sent them to Jamaica, where, upon his false charge, they were
shut up in prison, and so remained for a long time.

Such atrocious wickedness as the treatment of the nuns and monks,
described in this chapter, would never have been countenanced in any
warfare between civilized nations. But Morgan's pirates were not making
war; they were robbers and murderers on a grand scale. They had no right
to call themselves civilized; they were worse than barbarians.

[Illustration: "Morgan began to upbraid them, and ordered them taken
below."--p. 151.]




Chapter XVIII

A Piratical Aftermath


Morgan's destination was the isle of Savona, near which a great Spanish
fleet was expected to pass, and here he hoped to make some rich prizes.
But when he got out to sea he met with contrary and dangerous winds,
which delayed him a long time, and eventually when he arrived at Savona,
after having landed at various places, where he pillaged, murdered, and
burned, according to the extent of his opportunities, he found at least
one-half of his men and ships had not arrived. With the small force
which he now had with him he could not set out to attack a Spanish
fleet, and therefore he was glad to accept the suggestion made to him by
a Frenchman who happened to be in his company.

This man had been with L'Olonnois two years before when that bloody
pirate had sacked the towns of Maracaibo and Gibraltar; he had made
himself perfectly familiar with the fortifications and defences of these
towns, and he told Morgan that it would be easy to take them. To be
sure they had been thoroughly sacked before, and therefore did not offer
the tempting inducements of perfectly fresh towns, such as
Port-au-Prince, but still in two years the inhabitants must have
gathered together some possessions desirable to pirates, and therefore,
although Morgan could not go to these towns with the expectation of
reaping a full harvest, he might at least gather up an aftermath which
would pay him for his trouble.

So away sailed this horde of ravenous scoundrels for the lake of
Maracaibo, at the outer end of which lay the town of Maracaibo, and at
the other extremity the town of Gibraltar. When they had sailed near
enough to the fortifications they anchored out of sight of the
watch-tower and, landing in the night, marched on one of the forts. Here
the career of Morgan came very near closing forever. The Spaniards had
discovered the approach of the pirates, and this fort had been converted
into a great trap in which the citizens hoped to capture and destroy the
pirate leader and his men. Everybody had left the fort, the gates were
open, and a slow-match, communicating with the magazine, had been
lighted just before the last Spaniard had left.

But the oldest and most sagacious of rats would be no more difficult to
entrap than was the wily pirate Morgan. When he entered the open gates
of the fort and found everything in perfect order, he suspected a trick,
and looking about him he soon saw the smouldering match. Instantly he
made a dash at it, seized it and extinguished the fire. Had he been
delayed in this discovery a quarter of an hour longer, he and his men
would have been blown to pieces along with the fort.

Now the pirates pressed on toward the town, but they met with no
resistance. The Spaniards, having failed to blow up their dreaded
enemies, had retreated into the surrounding country and had left the
town. The triumphant pirates spread themselves everywhere. They searched
the abandoned town for people and valuables, and every man who cared to
do so took one of the empty houses for his private residence. They made
the church the common meeting-place where they might all gather together
when it was necessary, and when they had spent the night in eating and
drinking all the good things they could find, they set out the next day
to hunt for the fugitive citizens.

For three weeks Morgan and his men held a devil's carnival in Maracaibo.
To tell of the abominable tortures and cruelties which they inflicted
upon the poor people, whom they dragged from their hiding-places in the
surrounding country, would make our flesh creep and our blood run cold.
When they could do no more evil they sailed away up the lake for
Gibraltar.

It is not necessary to tell the story of the taking of this town. When
Morgan arrived there he found it also entirely deserted. The awful dread
of the human beasts who were coming upon them had forced the inhabitants
to fly. In the whole town only one man was left, and he was an idiot who
had not sense enough to run away. This poor fellow was tortured to tell
where his treasures were hid, and when he consented to take them to the
place where he had concealed his possessions, they found a few broken
earthen dishes, and a little bit of money, about as much as a poor
imbecile might be supposed to possess. Thereupon the disappointed fiends
cruelly killed him.

For five weeks the country surrounding Gibraltar was the scene of a
series of diabolical horrors. The pirates undertook the most hazardous
and difficult expeditions in order to find the people who had hidden
themselves on islands and in the mountains, and although they obtained a
great deal of booty, they met with a good many misfortunes. Some of them
were drowned in swollen streams, and others lost much of their pillage
by rains and storms.

At last, after having closed his vile proceedings in the ordinary pirate
fashion, by threatening to burn the town if he were not paid a ransom,
Morgan thought it time for him to depart, for if the Spaniards should
collect a sufficient force at Maracaibo to keep him from getting out of
the lake, he would indeed be caught in a trap. The ransom was partly
paid and partly promised, and Morgan and his men departed, carrying with
them some hostages for the rest of the ransom due.

When Morgan and his fleet arrived at Maracaibo, they found the town
still deserted, but they also discovered that they were caught in the
trap which they had feared, out of which they saw no way of escaping.
News had been sent the Spanish forces; of the capture and sacking of
Maracaibo, and three large men-of-war now lay in the channel below the
town which led from the lake into the sea. And more than this, the
castle which defended the entrance to the lake, and which the pirates
had found empty when they arrived, was now well manned and supplied with
a great many cannon, so that for once in their lives these wicked
buccaneers were almost discouraged. Their little ships could not stand
against the men-of-war; and in any case they could not pass the castle,
which was now prepared to blow them to pieces if they should come near
enough.

But in the midst of these disheartening circumstances, the pirate leader
showed what an arrogant, blustering dare-devil he was, for, instead of
admitting his discomfiture and trying to make terms with the Spaniards,
he sent a letter to the admiral of the ships, in which he stated that if
he did not allow him a free passage out to sea he would burn every house
in Maracaibo. To this insolent threat, the Spanish admiral replied in a
long letter, in which he told Morgan that if he attempted to leave the
lake he would fire upon his ships, and, if necessary, follow them out to
sea, until not a stick of one of them should be left. But in the great
magnanimity of his soul he declared that he would allow Morgan to sail
away freely, provided he would deliver all the booty he had captured,
together with the prisoners and slaves, and promise to go home and
abandon buccaneering forever. In case he declined these terms, the
admiral declared he would come up the channel in boats filled with his
soldiers and put every pirate to the sword.

When Morgan received this letter, he called his men together in the
public square of the town, and asked them what they would do, and when
these fellows heard that they were asked to give up all their booty,
they unanimously voted that they would perish rather than do such an
unmanly thing as that. So it was agreed that they would fight themselves
out of the lake of Maracaibo, or stay there, dead or alive, as the case
might be.




Chapter XIX

A Tight Place for Morgan


At this important crisis again turned up the man with an idea. This was
an inventive buccaneer, who proposed to Morgan that they should take a
medium-sized ship which they had captured at the other end of the lake,
and make a fire-ship of her. In order that the Spaniards might not
suspect the character of this incendiary craft, he proposed that they
should fit her up like one of the pirate war-vessels, for in this case
the Spaniards would not try to get away from her, but would be glad to
have her come near enough for them to capture her.

Morgan was pleased with this plan, and the fire-ship was prepared with
all haste. All the pitch, tar, and brimstone in the town were put on
board of her, together with other combustibles. On the deck were placed
logs of wood, which were dressed up in coats and hats to look like men,
and by their sides were muskets and cutlasses. Portholes were made, and
in these were placed other logs to represent cannon. Thus this merchant
vessel, now as inflammable as a pine knot, was made to resemble a
somewhat formidable pirate ship. The rest of the fleet was made ready,
the valuables and prisoners and slaves were put on board; and they all
sailed boldly down toward the Spanish vessels, the fire-ship in front.

When the Spanish admiral saw this insignificant fleet approaching, he
made ready to sink it to the bottom, and when the leading vessel made
its way directly toward his own ship, as if with the impudent intention
of boarding her, he did not fire at her, but let her come on. The few
pirates on board the fire-ship ran her up against the side of the great
man-of-war; and after making her fast and applying their matches, they
immediately slipped overboard, and swam to one of their own vessels
before the Spaniards had an idea of what had happened. The fire-ship was
soon ablaze, and as the flames quickly spread, the large vessel took
fire, and the people on board had scarcely time to get out of her before
she sank.