take Panama, a large and populous city, which was defended by forts and
batteries, and into which the Governor had retired, together with the
fugitives. The conquest of this place was the more difficult, as the
pirates had dearly purchased their victory, and their remaining forces were
in no respect adequate to encounter the difficulties attending such an
enterprise. It was, however, determined to make an attempt. Morgan had just
procured from a wounded captive Spanish officer the necessary information;
but he had not a moment to lose. It would not do to allow the Spaniards
time to adopt new measures of defence; the city was therefore assaulted on
the same day, in defiance of a formidable artillery which wrought great
havoc among the freebooters; and at the end of three hours they were in
possession of Panama.
The capture of that city was followed by a general pillage. Morgan, who
dreaded the consequence of excessive intoxication--especially after his men
had suffered such a long abstinence--prohibited them from drinking any
wine under the severest penalties. He foresaw that such a prohibition would
infallibly be infringed, unless it were sanctioned by an argument far
more powerful than the fear of punishment. He therefore caused it to be
announced that he had received information that the Spaniards had poisoned
all their wine. This dexterous falsehood produced the desired effect, and
for the first time the freebooters were temperate.
The majority of the inhabitants of Panama had betaken themselves to flight.
They had embarked their women, their riches, all their movables that were
of any value and small in bulk, and had sent this valuable cargo to
the island of Taroga. The men were dispersed over the country, but in
sufficiently great numbers to appear formidable to the pirates, whose
forces were much diminished, and who could not expect any assistance from
abroad. They therefore continued constantly together, and for their greater
security, most of them encamped without the walls.
We have now reached the time when Morgan committed a barbarous and
incomprehensible action, concerning which his comrades--some of whom were
his historians--have given only a very ambiguous explanation.
Notwithstanding that all the precious articles had been carried away from
Panama, there still remained--as in every great European trading city--a
vast number of shops, warehouses, and magazines filled with every kind of
merchandise. Besides a very great quantity of wrought and manufactured
articles, the productions of luxury and industry, that city contained
immense stores of flour, wine, and spices; vast magazines of that metal
which is justly deemed the most valuable of all because it is the most
useful: extensive buildings, in which were accumulated prodigious stores of
iron tools and implements, anvils and ploughs which had been received from
Europe and were destined to revive the Spanish colonies. Some judgment may
be formed respecting the value of the last-mentioned articles only when it
is considered that a quintal (one hundredweight) of iron was sold at Panama
for thirty-two piasters (about thirty-three dollars).
All these multifarious articles, so essentially necessary for furnishing
colonists with the means of subsistence, were, it should seem, of no value
in the estimation of the ferocious Morgan because he could not carry them
away; although, by preserving them, he might have made use of them by
demanding a specific ransom for them. Circumstances might also enable him
to derive some further advantages from them, but, in fact, whatever was
distant or uncertain presented no attraction to this barbarian, who was
eager to enjoy, but more ardent to destroy.
He was struck by one consideration only. All these bulky productions of
art and industry were for the moment of no use to the freebooters. Of what
importance to him was the ruin of many thousand innocent families? He
consulted only the ferocity of his character, and without communicating his
design to any individual he secretly caused the city to be set on fire
in several places. In a few hours it was almost entirely consumed. The
Spaniards that had remained in Panama--as well as the pirates themselves,
who were at first ignorant whence the conflagration proceeded--ran together
and united their efforts in order to extinguish the flames. They brought
water, and pulled down houses, with a view to prevent the further progress
of that destructive element. All their exertions were fruitless. A violent
wind was blowing, and, in addition to this circumstance, the principal part
of the buildings in that city were constructed of wood. Its finest houses,
together with their valuable furniture, among which was the magnificent
palace belonging to the Genoese, the churches, convents, courthouse, shops,
hospitals, pious foundations, warehouses loaded with sacks of flour, nearly
two hundred other warehouses filled with merchandise--all were reduced to
ashes! The fire also consumed a great number of animals, horses, mules, and
many slaves who had concealed themselves and who were burned alive. A very
few houses only escaped the fire, which continued burning upward of four
weeks. Amid the havoc produced in every quarter by the conflagration, the
freebooters did not neglect to pillage as much as they possibly could, by
which means they collected a considerable booty.
Morgan seemed ashamed of his atrocious act; he carefully concealed that he
had ever executed it, and gave out that the Spaniards themselves had set
their city on fire.
%STRUGGLE OF THE DUTCH AGAINST FRANCE AND ENGLAND%
A.D. 1672
C.M. DAVIES
Seldom has any people held out so heroically against overwhelming numbers
as did the Dutch in 1672. Of the various wars during the reign of Louis
XIV, that which he carried on against Holland was one of the most
important. By its settlement, at the Peace of Nimwegen (1678-1679), the
long hostilities between France and Holland and their allies were brought
to a close, and Holland was once more saved from threatened destruction.
Louis, having invaded the Spanish Netherlands, had reluctantly consented to
the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), by which he retained a small part of
the Low Countries. By insisting on this treaty Holland gave deep offence
to the French monarch, who in 1672 began a war of revenge against the
Netherlands, where his schemes of large acquisition had been thwarted. His
first attempt was to isolate Holland, and having purchased the King of
Sweden, he bribed Charles II of England, uncle of William of Orange, to
enter into a secret treaty against the Netherlands.
The principal events of the war are narrated by Davies, who shows how the
old spirit of the Dutch returned to them in this supreme hour of new peril
to their liberties.
The Dutch, though, in defence of their religion and liberties, they had
beaten the first soldiers in the world, were never essentially a military
nation; and in 1672 a long interval of peace, and devotion to the pursuits
of commerce, had rendered them quite unfit for warlike enterprises. The
army was entirely disorganized; the officers, appointed by the magistrates
of the towns on the score of relationship or party adherence, without
the slightest regard to their efficiency, were suffered, without fear of
punishment, to keep the numbers of their regiments incomplete, in order
that they might appropriate the pay of the vacancies; while the men,
independent and undisciplined, were allowed to spend their time in the
pursuit of some gainful trade or peaceful occupation, instead of practising
military exercises. The disputes concerning the appointment of a
captain-general had impeded any fresh levies, the recruits refusing to take
the oath to the States except in conjunction with the Prince of Orange, and
had induced many of the best and most experienced officers to take service
in the French army; the fortifications of the towns were in a dilapidated
condition, and no measures had been adopted for the security of the
frontier.
Such was the state to which party spirit had reduced a nation filled with
brave, intelligent, and virtuous inhabitants, and governed by statesmen as
able and wise as the world ever saw, when the two most powerful sovereigns
of Europe declared war against her. The manifests were both issued on the
same day. That of the King of England is strongly marked by the duplicity
which was the distinguishing characteristic both of himself and of his
court as then constituted. From the style of the document one might be led
to suppose that he was forced into the war with extreme reluctance and
regret, and only in consequence of the impossibility of obtaining redress
by any other means for the deep injuries he had sustained. He declared
that, so far back as the year 1664, his Parliament had complained of the
wrongs and oppressions exercised by the Dutch on his subjects in the East
Indies, and for which they had refused to make reparation by amicable
means.
They had openly refused him the honor of the flag, one of the most ancient
prerogatives of his crown; had sought to invite the King of France to
hostilities against him; and had insulted his person and dignity by the
abusive pictures and medals exposed in all their towns. This expression was
understood to allude to a medal complained of three years before, and to
a portrait of Cornelius de Witt, in the perspective of which was a
representation of the burning of Chatham. Cornelius de Witt being an
ex-burgomaster of Dordrecht, the council of that town had, with a
natural pride, caused this picture to be painted and hung up in the
council-chamber. The extreme sensitiveness manifested by Charles on this
point appeared to the States rather superfluous in a monarch whose own
kingdom teemed with the most offensive truths relative to himself and his
government.
As if determined that the mode of commencing hostilities should be as
lawless and unjust as the war itself, the court of England, several days
before the declaration was issued, had commanded Sir Robert Holmes to
attack the Dutch Smyrna fleet on its return. While cruising near the Isle
of Wight, Holmes met the admiral, Sprague, by whom he was informed of the
near approach of the vessels; but, anxious to secure to himself the whole
of the booty, estimated at near a million and a half of guilders, he
suffered Sprague to sail away in ignorance of his instructions, and leaving
him with no more than nine frigates and three yachts. His covetousness,
happily, proved the salvation of the fleet. After a short encounter of two
days' duration, Holmes was forced to retire, having captured no more than
three or four of the more inconsiderable ships, while the remainder gained
their harbors in safety.
The King of France appeared, by the tenor of his declaration of war, to
imagine that his power and dignity entitled him to set at naught alike the
natural rights of mankind and the law of nations; it resembled, indeed,
rather the threat of a predatory incursion on the part of a barbarian chief
than the justification of the taking up of arms by a civilized government.
Without adducing a single cause of complaint, he satisfied himself with
declaring that the conduct of the States had been such as it was not
consistent with his glory to endure any longer.
If anything, indeed, could justify the arrogant tone assumed by Louis, the
circumstances in which he found himself would have done so. An army of one
hundred twenty thousand, able and well-equipped troops, commanded by Condé
and Turenne, and numbering in its ranks volunteers of the noblest families
in France eager to distinguish themselves under the eye of their sovereign;
funds lavishly supplied by the able minister of finance, Colbert; with vast
magazines of ammunition and every other necessary collected, and winter
quarters secured in the neighboring and friendly territories of Cologne and
Muenster, seemed means almost absurdly disproportioned in magnitude to the
end to be attained. At the same time he was but too well informed of the
defenceless condition of the enemy. Jan de Witt and the States conceived
that his first attempt would be upon Maestricht, the possession of which he
was known to have long coveted, and that the difficulties of its conquest
would be sufficient to deter from further enterprise a monarch of whose
military prowess no very high idea was entertained, and who was supposed to
be far more enamoured of the pomp and circumstance of war than of its toils
and dangers. They accordingly fortified and provided Maestricht with
the utmost care, leaving the frontier towns on the Rhine in an utterly
inefficient state of defence. Aware of this fact, Louis commenced his
operations on the side of Cleves, and, separating his army into four
divisions, laid siege simultaneously to as many places. He himself summoned
the town of Rhynberg, the Duke of Orleans sat down before Orsay, Condé was
commanded to reduce Wesel, and Turenne, Burick. All surrendered within a
week. To give an account of the capture of the towns which followed, would
be but to heap example upon example of cowardice or treachery, or--as they
are generally found together--both.
Nothing less than entire unanimity and the most undaunted resolution could
have enabled the Dutch to resist the overwhelming force employed against
them; whereas, the miserable effect of the internal dissensions of the
republic had been to destroy for the time all mutual confidence. In some
places the garrisons, despising their incapable commanders, refused to act;
or the governors, mistrustful of their undisciplined troops, lost all hope
of prolonging a defence; in others, the detestation entertained by the
magistrates toward the Orange party was so great that, preferring to submit
to France rather than to a native stadtholder, they hastened to deliver up
their towns to the invader; on the other hand, the friends of the house
of Orange looked not without some complacency on the misfortunes which
threatened the state, and which they hoped would reduce it to the necessity
of raising the Prince to the dignities of his family; while in those places
where the Catholics were numerous, the populace, under the guidance of the
priests, forced both garrisons and governments to open their gates to the
sovereign whom they hailed as the restorer of their religion. With scarcely
a show of opposition, therefore, Louis advanced to the Rhine.
The drought of the summer was so excessive that this river had become
fordable in three places, which, being pointed out to the French by some
peasants of Guelderland, the King determined on attempting the passage
between Schenkenschans and Arnhem, near the Tollhuys, a village and tower
about two miles distant from the separation of the branch of the river
called the Wahal. The Prince of Orange, who was stationed with about
twenty-two thousand men at Arnhem, and along the banks of the Yssel,
instead of concentrating his forces to oppose the passage of the enemy,
contented himself with detaching De Montbas to guard the Betuwe, and to
throw succors if requisite into Nimwegen. But this general, deeming the
troops placed under his command insufficient for the purpose required,
abandoned his post. He was arrested and sent to Utrecht, but afterward
allowed to escape. Immediately on the retreat of Montbas the Prince
despatched General Wurtz, but still with a vastly inadequate force, to
occupy the post at the Tollhuys. The French cuirassiers, led on by the
Counts de Guiche and Revel, first waded into the ford under the fire of
the artillery from the tower, which, however, as there were no more than
seventeen men stationed in it, was not very formidable. They were followed
by a number of volunteers, and in a short time the whole of the cavalry
passed over with trifling loss. The Dutch troops, discouraged as well by
the unexpectedness of the attempt as by their own inferiority in number,
were driven back after a short skirmish. A bridge was then thrown across
the river for the infantry, and thus this famous passage was accomplished
with comparative ease and safety.
As the position of the Prince of Orange on the Yssel, which in consequence
of the drought was fordable throughout nearly the whole of its course, was
now no longer tenable, he retired to Utrecht, abandoning Arnhem to the
enemy, who soon after received the submission of Nimwegen and the whole of
Guelderland, Thiel, and the Bommel. In order to put Utrecht into a state of
defence, the Prince considered it necessary to burn down all the suburbs;
a measure which, when he proposed to the States of the Province, he found
them reluctant to comply with. He therefore immediately quitted that city,
and with the whole of his forces made a further retreat into Holland. Thus
left wholly unprotected, the States of Utrecht conceived that the only
resource which remained to them was to mollify the conqueror by a speedy
submission; and accordingly, while Louis was yet at Doesburg, they sent
deputies to tender to him the keys of the city and the submission of the
whole province. The King shortly after entered Utrecht in triumph.
While the good-fortune, rather than the arms, of Louis subdued Guelderland
and Utrecht, his allies, the Bishops of Cologne and Muenster, found no more
vigorous resistance in Overyssel. Oldenzeel, Entschede, and other small
towns yielded at once to their summons; Deventer, though well garrisoned
and amply provided, was surrendered at once by the municipal government,
who, by their exhortations and example, induced that of Zwol to adopt a
like disgraceful course of conduct. The easily acquired spoil was divided
among the captors; the King of France, who had furnished a subsidy of
troops, placed garrisons in Campen and Elburg; the Archbishop of Cologne
retained Deventer; Groll and Breevoort being allotted to the Bishop of
Muenster, while Zwol was held in common. The troops of these warlike
prelates exercised everywhere unbounded license and cruelties. Numbers
of unhappy families were driven from their homes, and, taking refuge in
Holland, added to the consternation which prevailed there.
This province was now in imminent danger. No barrier remained, as it
appeared, to oppose the progress of the enemy; the army of the Prince had
dwindled to about thirteen thousand men; two of the frontier towns, Woerden
and Oudewater, had solicited safeguards from the invaders; and Naarden was
surprised by the Count of Rochefort. Had he marched on at once to Muyden he
might have occupied that town also, a post of immense importance from
its situation, as ships going to Amsterdam must come within reach of its
cannon; and by means of a sluice there, the surrounding country may at
any time be inundated. It had been left destitute of a garrison; but, the
French commander remaining two or three days inactive at Naarden, time was
afforded to John Maurice of Nassau to enter Muyden with a strong body of
troops, and the chance thus lost was gone forever.
Amazed at the rapid advances of the invader, and dispirited by the symptoms
of daily increasing aversion which the great body of the people manifested
to his government, the courage of Jan de Witt at this crisis so entirely
forsook him that he took upon himself the disgrace of being the first to
propose to the States of Holland that they should implore mercy from the
conqueror. The resolution was immediately adopted, and by them proposed to
the States-General, where it was passed with the dissentient voice only
of Zealand, who was of opinion that they should treat simultaneously with
England, from whence that province had to apprehend the principal danger. A
deputation was accordingly sent to Louis, at Keppel, near Doesburg, headed
by De Groot, and commissioned to inquire upon what terms his majesty was
inclined to grant peace to the republic. They were answered by Louvois,
that the King was not disposed to restore any of the conquests he had made
or to enter into any negotiation unless the deputies were furnished with
full powers and instructions as to what the States intended to offer.
Returning to The Hague, De Groot made his report to the States of Holland,
and, representing the desperate condition of their affairs, recommended
that Louis should be gratified with Maestricht and all the other towns of
the generality; and that a sum should be offered him to defray the expenses
of the war, provided the King would leave them in possession of their
liberty and sovereignty. Leyden, Haarlem, and most of the other towns
followed the example of the nobles in receiving these pusillanimous
counsels with approbation.
Amsterdam, however, proved that the spirit of the "Gueux" was not yet
utterly extinct in Holland. Prevailing with four towns of North Holland to
follow their example, the Council of Amsterdam refused to send deputies to
debate upon the question of granting full powers to the ambassadors, and
made vigorous preparations for the defence of their city. They repaired
the fortifications, and strengthened them with considerable outworks, the
magistrates themselves being the first to sacrifice their magnificent
country houses in the suburbs for this purpose; they assigned to each of
the regiments of burgher guards, who were ten thousand in number, a portion
of the city to watch; took into their pay as soldiers all those inhabitants
whom the cessation of trade would throw out of employment; stationed
outlyers in the Y, Amstel, Zuyder Zee, and Pampus, and, cutting the dikes,
laid the country to a great distance round under water. They likewise
passed a resolution that, though all the rest of Holland should make terms
with the conqueror, they would sustain the siege single-handed till some
friendly power should afford them assistance.
The causes which combined to expose the United Provinces to these terrible
disasters by land had, happily, no influence on their affairs by sea. The
fleet, commanded by De Ruyter, an officer surpassed by none of any age
or nation in ability and courage, and of devoted fidelity to the present
government, had been increased to ninety-one ships and frigates of war,
fifty-four fire-ships, and twenty-three yachts. That of the allies,
commanded by the Duke of York, comprised after the junction of the French
squadron under the Count d'Etrées, one hundred forty-nine ships-of-war,
besides the smaller vessels. Sailing in quest of the enemy, De Ruyter
discovered them lying in Solebay, evidently unprepared for his approach. On
this occasion was felt the disadvantage of intrusting an officer with the
chief command without at the same time giving him sufficient authority to
insure its beneficial exercise. In consequence of the presence on board of
Cornelius de Witt, the deputy of the States, De Ruyter, instead of ordering
an immediate attack, was obliged to call a council of war, and thus gave
the English time to arrange themselves in order of battle, which they did
with astonishing celerity.