_Capture of St. Catherine and Chagres._
The Defences at St. Catherine.--Morgan’s Strategy.--The Midnight
Storm.--Deplorable Condition of the Pirates.--The Summons to
Surrender.--Disgraceful Conduct of the Spanish Commander.--The
Advance to Chagres.--Incidents of the Battle.--The Unexpected
Victory.--Measures of Morgan.
On the 16th day of December, 1670, the piratic fleet weighed anchor
from Cape Tiburon. They first directed their course to the recapture of
the Island of St. Catherine upon the coast of Costa Rica. This island
had become a penal colony, the Botany Bay, of Spain. The malefactors
from all the Spanish dominions in the West Indies were transported here.
Four days’ sail brought the fleet within sight of the island. The
settlement was near the mouth of one of the rivers. Morgan sent forward
one of his best sailing vessels to reconnoitre the defences. The river
emptied into a large bay or harbor called the Grande Aguada. Upon the
shores of this harbor the town was beautifully situated, surrounded by
massive and well-garrisoned forts. Several of Morgan’s desperadoes had
been there before. With his whole fleet he entered the harbor in the
night-time.
Guided by instinctive military ability, with his usual promptness
he landed one thousand men. Instead of marching directly upon the
batteries, a corps of able engineers, with their axes, cut a new path
through the tangled forest to the residence of the governor. Here they
found a small rampart which was abandoned. The Spaniards, not being
able to cope with so large a force as Morgan led, had retired to a
stronger position. The pirates pursued. Soon they came upon a massive
fort so fortified with encircling batteries as to seem impregnable. As
soon as the pirates arrived within gun-shot the Spaniards opened upon
them so deadly a fire from their heavy guns, that they were compelled
to retire beyond reach of the balls, and take a position upon the grass
of the open fields.
Night came. The pirates were weary and hungry. No food had been brought
from the ships. It was supposed that food would be found in abundance.
But the Spaniards had destroyed all which they could not remove; and
it took a very large quantity to satisfy the appetites of a thousand
hungry men. Faint from hunger, they threw themselves unsheltered upon
the grass to sleep.
At midnight a tropical tempest arose. The glare of the lightning and
the crashing peals of thunder were terrific. The windows of heaven
seemed to be opened, and the flood fell in sheets. The sailors had
left the ships with no clothing but their trousers and a shirt. In
one moment they were drenched. And yet, hour after hour, in blackest
darkness, the deluge descended, smothering them with its volume and
flooding the fields. Notwithstanding all their efforts, nearly all of
their powder was injured, and much was utterly destroyed.
In the morning, for an hour the rain ceased. They had just begun to
flatter themselves that a pleasant day was opening upon them, when
the clouds again gathered blackness, and the tempest assailed them
with redoubled fury. It did seem as though they were exposed to the
frown and the chastising blows of an indignant God. They found in the
fields a poor old sick horse, “which was,” writes Esquemeling, who was
present, “both lean and full of scabs and blotches, with galled back
and sides. This horrid animal they instantly killed and skinned, and
divided into small pieces among themselves as far as it would reach;
for many could not obtain one morsel. This they roasted and devoured
without either salt or bread more like unto ravenous wolves than men.”
They were at that time, Esquemeling says, in so deplorable a condition
that had the Spaniards fallen upon them with one hundred men they might
have cut them all to pieces. The rain fell in such blinding torrents
that the pirates could not even retreat. At noon there was another
lull. Morgan, assuming an air of great boldness and confidence, sent a
flag of truce to the governor, with the following summons to surrender:
“I solemnly swear unto you, that unless you immediately deliver your
works, yourself, and all your men into my hands, I will put every one
to the sword.”
The governor was appalled. A piratic fleet of thirty-seven vessels of
war, manned by over two thousand of the most fiend-like desperadoes
earth could furnish, presented a force greater than the governor
thought he could withstand. He sent back a request that two hours’ time
might be allowed him to deliberate with his officers, when he would
return a decisive answer. At the appointed time he sent to Morgan the
following humiliating proposal:
“The governor is willing to surrender the island, as he has not
sufficient force to repel the English fleet. But for the saving of
his reputation and that of his officers, he begs that Captain Morgan
would attack him by night, with all his marine and land forces. The
governor will feign an attempt to escape from one fort to another, when
Captain Morgan’s troops can intercept and capture him. There shall be a
continued firing on both sides, but without bullets.”
To these terms, so degrading to the governor, Morgan rejoicingly
acceded. Thus, from apparently hopeless defeat, his sagacity won a
signal and bloodless victory. The sham fight took place according to
the programme. That night there was a great and ridiculous roar of all
the big guns in the fort and on the ships. Powder was burned freely.
The white flag was raised by the governor, the surrender made, and the
island, with all it contained, passed into the hands of the pirates.
The buccaneers were half starved. Several days were spent in feasting.
The island was well stocked with beef cattle, swine, and poultry.
Recklessly they were destroyed. The houses were torn down to build
their fires. Two thousand men, by day and by night, indulged in the
wildest orgies of revelry. Many of the people of the settlement
fled into the woods. But the pirates counted four hundred and fifty
captives. The women, who were subject to every indignity, were
imprisoned in a church.
Morgan, upon inspecting the works, was astonished at their strength
and at his own victory. The main fort, or castle as it was called, was
very strong, built of stone, and surrounded by a wide ditch twenty
feet deep. Heavy guns commanded the port. There were other supporting
batteries which mounted nearly sixty guns. An immense amount of
ammunition, including thirty thousand pounds of powder, were found
in the fort. These were all transferred on board the ships. The guns
were spiked, the gun-carriages burned, and the pirates, with shouts of
victory, again spread their sails.
Among the prisoners there were three desperadoes, notorious robbers,
who professed to be familiar with the route to Panama, and with all the
region around. Eagerly they joined in the expedition with the promise
of sharing in the spoil. Esquemeling, speaking of the proposition made
to these wretches by Morgan, says:
“These propositions pleased the banditti very well. They readily
accepted his proffers, promising to serve him very faithfully;
especially one of these three, who was the greatest rogue, thief, and
assassin among them, and who deserved, for his crimes, to be broken
alive upon the wheel. This wicked fellow had a great ascendency over
the other two, and could domineer over them as he pleased, they not
daring to refuse obedience to his orders.”
The Isthmus of Panama was then celebrated for its gold and silver
mines. It was the seat of a very extensive commerce, and was perhaps
more strongly fortified and more populous than any other of the Spanish
colonies. This narrow tongue of land, which separates the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, is about three hundred miles in length, and from thirty
to forty in breadth.
Chagres, on the Atlantic coast, was a very strongly fortified
settlement at the mouth of the Chagres River. On the other side of the
isthmus, on the Pacific shore, was Panama, a far more important place,
abounding in wealth. Morgan’s plan was to capture Chagres; leave his
fleet in the harbor there; ascend the river in his boats as far as the
stream was navigable, and then to march to the doomed city. With his
two thousand well-armed desperadoes he doubted not his ability to crush
any force which might be brought against him.
Morgan sent, in advance, four ships and a large boat to capture
Chagres. The expedition was intrusted to the vice-admiral Bradley,
the same one who had so successfully led the foraging party to
Rancheria. He was a notorious buccaneer, renowned for his exploits.
Three days’ sail brought his squadron to Chagres. Upon an eminence,
commanding the entrance to the river, there was a strong fort, called
Castle Lawrence. As Bradley approached the harbor, he unfurled at his
mast-head the blood-red flag of the pirate. The garrison immediately
displayed the royal banner of Spain, and foolishly saluted them with a
volley of shot which did not reach their ships.
The buccaneers, according to their usual stratagem, instead of bringing
their wooden walls up to be battered by the guns of the fort, cast
anchor about a mile from the castle, and landing, cut a path with
hatchet and sabre through the tangled forest, to attack the works upon
their weakest side. Early in the morning the landing was effected. By
the middle of the afternoon they had reached a hill, from whose summit
they could throw their shot into the fort, could they but have drawn
their cannon to that spot.
But the marshy ground would not admit of this. The garrison had brought
their guns to bear upon the eminence, and opened a fire before which
many of the pirates fell. Bradley was greatly disheartened. The fort
proved to be of very unexpected strength. It was surrounded by two
high parallel walls of timber, filled in with earth. Well-constructed
bastions were at each corner. The works were enclosed by a ditch,
thirty feet deep. There was but one entrance, and that was by a
drawbridge across this ditch. The north side of the castle was washed
by the broad and rapid river. On the south there was a precipitous
inaccessible crag. Strong batteries guarded the approaches to both the
other sides.
Even the most desperate of the pirates recoiled from the idea of
attempting to carry works so formidable by assault. But Bradley could
not endure the thought of the scorn and rage he would encounter from
Morgan should he retreat without making the attempt. After much
perplexity and disputing it was resolved to hazard the assault. They
hoped with hatchet and sabre to cut down the timber, and then to
clamber over the crumbling earth. The interior of the works was all
of wood. There were barracks and huts, which, beneath the blaze of a
tropical sun, had become dry as powder.
Cautiously the buccaneers descended the hill, throwing themselves upon
their faces as the explosions of the massive guns showered the balls
around them. Their sharpshooters threw bullets through the loops of the
walls, and through the embrasures, to strike down the artillery-men at
the guns. This skirmishing was continued until night, but nothing was
accomplished. Many of the pirates were killed, and Bradley himself had
one of his legs broken by a cannon-ball. The reckless men charged up to
the very walls, threw over fire-balls, and hacked at the timbers.
The pirates, as darkness approached, began to retreat. The Spaniards
shouted to them from the walls:
“Come on, you English devils; you heretics; the enemies of God and of
the king. Let your comrades, who are behind, come also. We will serve
them as we have served you. You shall not get to Panama this time.”
This shout alarmed them. It revealed the fact that, in some way, the
Spaniards had been warned of the expected attack upon Panama, and would
prepare for resistance. As a group of the pirates were conferring
together, in the dusk, an arrow from the castle struck one of them in
the shoulder. He coolly drew the point from the bleeding wound, and
addressing his companions, said:
“Look here, my comrades, I will make this accursed arrow the means of
the destruction of all the Spaniards.”
He then drew from his pocket a quantity of wild cotton, which the
buccaneers carried with them as lint to staunch their wounds. This he
wound around the head of the arrow. Charging his musket with powder
only, he inserted the arrow and fired it back into the castle. It
lighted upon a roof of thatch. The powder set fire to the cotton, and
the cotton to the dry leaves. The roof was instantly in a flame.
The Indians had aided the garrison, and their arrows lay thick around.
Instantly the air was filled with a shower of these flaming meteors.
They fell upon the thatched roofs, and tongues of fire flashed in all
directions. One chanced to fall upon a large quantity of powder, and a
fearful explosion followed. A terrible conflagration blazed forth. A
scene of shrieks, confusion, and horror ensued which is indescribable.
The inmates of the fort found themselves in the crater of a volcano
in its most violent state of eruption. It was in vain to attempt to
extinguish the flames. No one could live in such a furnace.
The night was dark, moonless and starless. The bodies of the Spaniards
were clearly defined against the glowing background of flame. The
pirates, with unerring aim, shot them down. Every bullet struck
its target. The Spaniards, in the horrible tumult, could make but
little resistance. They still, however, taking refuge as they could
in different parts of the fort, fought with impotent desperation.
Oexemelin relates an incident illustrative of the indomitable fury of
the assailants.
One of the pirates was pierced in the eye by an Indian arrow. In
terrible agony he came to Oexemelin to draw it out. Its barbed point
had sunk deep in the socket of the eye, and could only be withdrawn
by cruelly tearing it out. Oexemelin hesitated; he had not sufficient
nerve to inflict such torture. The pirate seized it with both hands,
tore it out with its mangled and bloody adhesions, bound a handkerchief
over the wound, and with a curse rushed forward again to the assault.
The fire raged through the whole night. All the wood-work was consumed.
The walls of earth crumbled down. The pirates, mounting upon each
other’s shoulders, climbed the ramparts and threw down hand-grenades
and fire-balls, and pots of suffocating odors upon the helpless
garrison. “The armor had fallen piecemeal from their giant adversary,
and he now stood before them bare, wounded, and defenceless.”
Still, in one corner of the fort, the heroic governor rallied the few
survivors, twenty-five only in number, resolved to fight to the bitter
end. They were slightly protected from a charge by a deep ditch, which
ran directly before them. This, however, afforded them no shelter from
the bullets of their foes. A dreadful storm of fire-balls and lead fell
upon them. They had no hope of victory--no hope of escape even. Their
only desire was to kill as many of the pirates as they could before
they should die themselves. At last a shot pierced the brain of the
governor. The feeble remnant was easily overpowered.
The garrison had consisted of three hundred and fourteen men. All of
these, excepting fourteen, were either killed or helplessly wounded.
Not a single officer was left alive. The governor had previously
dispatched a courier to Panama to alarm the city. In this sanguinary
conflict the pirates had lost very heavily. One hundred were killed and
seventy grievously wounded. A large pit was dug and the one hundred
dead bodies of the pirates were thrown in and covered up from sight
and smell. The prisoners were compelled to drag the bodies of the dead
Spaniards to the cliff, and cast them into the sea. A large amount of
ammunition and provisions were found in the fort.
Morgan, informed of the fall of Chagres, devastated the Island of St.
Catherine as much as possible, so as to render it quite indefensible.
It was his intention to return and recover the place, so as to make
it a rendezvous for his fleet in future operations. On the cruise to
Chagres a violent storm arose. His fleet was scattered, so that they
were detained many days at sea. But as ship after ship entered the bay,
and the crews beheld the English flag floating from the blackened
walls of Chagres Castle, the bay resounded with their cheers, and with
salutes from their cannon. So eager was the admiral and some of the
others in their heedless joy, that, without waiting for a pilot, his
own and three other vessels were driven upon sunken rocks, where they
broke to pieces. The crew and cargoes were saved.
Morgan immediately set to work with great energy, employing all his
force of engineers, carpenters, and laborers in repairing the castle.
Here he stationed a garrison of picked men, storing the magazines with
provisions and ammunition, as a refuge from any possible disaster at
Panama. The fortunes of war are proverbially inconstant. The pirate
Morgan was a very able general. His plans were generally well formed to
meet adversity as well as prosperity.