HOW MORGAN KEPT HIS PROMISE
When Morgan sent his pistol and his bullets to the viceroy of Panama
with word that he would call for them in person within the twelvemonth,
it is doubtful if he dreamed of doing so. But there is many a true word
spoken in jest, and Harry Morgan was ever fond of jesting—in earnest.
While pressing matters delayed him elsewhere and the twelve months
passed without his appearance at Panama (for which, no doubt, the
viceroy gave fervid thanks to his saints), yet all too soon for the
Dons he kept his half-joking promise to the letter.
Having established his reputation as a buccaneer leader by the
successful if not very remunerative attack on Puerto Principe, Morgan
proceeded to equip a fleet and recruit men for a still greater coup,
which was nothing less than a descent upon Maracaibo. Never in the
history of this unfortunate town, which had been repeatedly ravished by
pirates, were such cruelties and inhumanities practised as by Morgan
and his ruffians. Even Lolonais, who had been there, could not invent
atrocities so fiendish as those devised and put into execution by the
British buccaneer, and when at last he sailed away he left the place
fairly heaped with burned, racked, broken, and dying men and women.
But so successful had he been, so cleverly had he outwitted the Spanish
fleet sent to block his exit from the Lake of Maracaibo, and so
complete had been his victory over the Spanish ships of war that his
prestige was enormously increased, and he at once began to plan greater
deeds.
Compared with the plan Morgan now had in mind, his former exploits had
been mere bagatelles, for his intention was to gather together the most
tremendous pirate fleet ever assembled and with it attack Vera Cruz,
Cartagena, or Panama. All three were marvelously rich towns, and all
three were heavily fortified. While Panama promised by far the greatest
loot, yet the difficulties to be overcome in taking it seemed well-nigh
insurmountable.
Although, as Esquemelling mentions, Morgan’s name and fame were enough
to bring him more men and ships than he could employ, still, to make
sure of gathering a large enough force, Morgan sent letters to “all the
ancient and expert pirates inhabiting Tortuga,” to the half-wild
hunters and planters of Haiti, and to the rascals on Trade Wind Cay. In
ships, canoes, and boats the buccaneers came, responding to his summons
from far and near, even traversing the forests of Hispaniola on foot,
until on October 24, 1670, the army of cutthroats was assembled.
To provision his expedition, Morgan despatched four ships to Rio de la
Hacha, where the crews sacked the town, tortured the inhabitants, and
secured four thousand bushels of maize. In the meantime, his men had
been busy hunting, and thus thoroughly provisioned, with bucanned meat
and corn, the fleet set sail from La Vaca Island, and at Cape Tiburon,
Haiti, met those who were coming from Jamaica.
The fleet now numbered thirty-seven ships, the largest of which was
Morgan’s, mounting twenty-two large and six small guns, while the
smallest vessel carried four. Never in the annals of piracy had such a
fleet been seen, and with two thousand fighting fiends, in addition to
the sailors, Morgan felt confident that he could take any city of the
Spanish Main.
When the other captains were summoned to a council and lots were drawn
to decide their objective, the choice fell upon Panama. So dangerous
did the pirates consider this adventure that the usual accident
insurance to be paid for loss of limbs, eyes, et cetera, was greatly
increased, fifteen hundred pieces of eight being adjudged right for the
loss of both legs, eighteen hundred for the loss of both hands, six
hundred for either leg, the same for a hand, and one hundred pieces of
eight for an eye. In addition, heavy rewards were offered for special
acts of bravery, and the usual bonuses of the officers were increased.
All this being arranged, the flotilla set sail, but Morgan had no mind
to leave an enemy in his rear and decided first to attack and conquer
Old Providence (St. Catherine). Not only would this leave a way clear
for his retreat, but, in addition, he well knew that countless outlaws
and bandits were deported to this island from Panama and that these
scoundrels would serve him well as guides.
So great was Morgan’s fame by now that the governor of Old Providence
made no show of resistance,—although the place was heavily fortified
and well garrisoned,—and offered to surrender provided Morgan would
enter into a scheme by which his Excellency might save his face, and
his neck as well. This was nothing more nor less than for Morgan to
make a sham attack which the governor would pretend to resist. The
scheme was carried out; the island fell into the buccaneers’ hands
without a real blow being struck, and the pirates at once proceeded to
rob the people. They destroyed the forts, spiked the guns, and secured
thirty thousand pounds of powder, vast amounts of ammunition, and
several hundred muskets.
As Morgan had foreseen, there were outlawed bandits on the island, and
three of these gladly offered to join his ranks. The next step in the
game was in a way the most difficult of all, for in order to reach
Panama or to ascend the Chagres River it was necessary to silence Fort
San Lorenzo at the river’s mouth, a fortification which was considered
absolutely impregnable and had been strengthened and more heavily armed
since the capture of Porto Bello two years previously.
Making the excuse that if he sent his entire fleet the Dons would
suspect his designs upon Panama, but unquestionably in reality
preferring not to risk his own precious life in the taking of a place
which would yield no loot, Morgan sent four ships with four hundred men
under charge of Captain Brodely (one of the “ancient and expert
pirates” referred to by Esquemelling), with orders to take San Lorenzo.
Although all the credit for this spectacularly daring and almost
hopeless task is always given to Morgan, he actually had no hand in it,
but waited in safety at St. Catherine, enjoying good wine and excellent
food while Brodely took all the risks and paved the way for the descent
upon Panama.
Never in all their savage conflicts did the pirates do harder and more
desperate fighting than that at San Lorenzo. We are so accustomed to
hearing of the buccaneers’ uninterrupted victories that we have come to
think that the Spaniards were cravens, and that they offered little
resistance to their enemies. But this is a great mistake. Even the
buccaneers freely acknowledged the courage, the determination, and the
valor of the Spanish troops. In every case, with the exception of the
treacherous surrender of Old Providence by its governor, the Spaniards
fought like furies, and in nearly every battle they performed feats of
bravery that won the greatest admiration and praise from the pirates.
But they were always taken by surprise, were always at a disadvantage,
and they were not the adepts at hand-to-hand fighting that the
buccaneers were.
Never before had the pirates been so hard put to it as in the taking of
the massive fort that guarded the entrance to the Chagres. For an
entire night and the following day the battle raged, and when at last
the fort was in the hands of the buccaneers they found but thirty men
remaining of the three hundred and fourteen who had formed its
garrison, and not one officer was left alive. Indeed, many of the
Spaniards, finding the place was about to fall, cast themselves from
the parapets into the river, or upon the rocks at the base of the
cliffs, rather than surrender to the hated English.
And had it not been for a mere accident it is questionable if the
pirates could have won the day. For hours they had made not the least
headway, for outside of the fortress proper were heavy palisades of
stakes set in double rows and filled between with earth, and so galling
was the fire from the soldiers that, try as they might, the attacking
force could not approach these to set them afire or pull them down. But
during an assault an arrow from the fort struck one of the pirates in
the back and passed completely through his body.
With a curse the fellow dragged the arrow from the wound, wrapped a bit
of rag about it, rammed it down his musket, and fired it at the
Spaniards. Mad with pain as he was, his only thought was to use the
first missile that came to hand, but his act won the day for the
buccaneers. The cotton cloth, catching fire from the powder, dropped
upon the tinder-like thatch of a house within the fort, and in an
instant it was in flames. Close at hand was a great quantity of powder,
and ere the Dons realized what had occurred there was a terrific
explosion which killed many of the soldiers, dismounted several cannon,
and caused consternation and confusion among the defenders of the fort.
Taking advantage of this, the pirates rushed the works, fired and
pulled down the palisades, and clambering across the moat, which was
filled with the earth falling from between the palisades, gained the
interior of the fortress.
But the fight was by no means over. Inch by inch the Spaniards
contested the pirates’ advance, fighting furiously with swords,
pistols, and even sticks and stones, while others sought desperately to
extinguish the fire now raging within the castle. Although the
buccaneers had made the breach and had entered the inner fortifications
soon after midnight, yet they had gained not a dozen yards at noon on
the following day, and back and forth the battle raged, first one side,
then the other, gaining an advantage, while dead and wounded fell on
every hand, and Dons and Britons were piled deep in bloody heaps. Soon
after noon, however, the pirates gained a breach where the Spanish
governor himself with a company of picked corps de garde was stationed,
and after desperate hand-to-hand fighting the brave governor fell with
a musket ball through his brain.
Demoralized by the death of their leader, the corps de garde
surrendered, when, to their amazement, the pirates found that, besides
these twenty-five picked men, only five Spaniards remained alive and
that of the thirty survivors more than twenty were seriously wounded.
The pirates also had lost heavily; in fact, their losses were the
greatest they had ever suffered in an attack, for over one hundred men
had been killed, and more than seventy were seriously wounded.
Forcing the captured Spaniards to cast the dead bodies over the walls
into the river, the victorious pirates then shut the wounded men and
the few women into the stone church above the fort and proceeded to
repair the damages, after sending word of the victory to Morgan.
But the leader’s plans had in a way fallen through, for he had thought
to take San Lorenzo quickly and to annihilate the Dons, so that no
warning of the pirates’ approach would reach Panama. Despite the
ferocity of the assault, the desperate fighting, and the fact that the
fortress was constantly surrounded by the buccaneers, a party of eight
daring Spaniards volunteered to attempt to get through the pirates’
lines, make their way to the capital, and give warning of the enemy’s
approach. It seemed an all but hopeless undertaking, but the men
succeeded. They reached Panama in safety, and ere Morgan started up the
river on his way across the isthmus the inhabitants knew of his coming
and were preparing to meet him.
Before leaving Old Providence, en route to San Lorenzo and Panama,
Morgan sacked the island, put the town and all the houses to the torch,
and, leaving only the one fortress of Santa Teresa, which he garrisoned
with his own men, he made prisoners of the people, placed them aboard
his ships, and set sail for the Chagres. At the mouth of the river four
of his ships went on the bar and were lost, among them the flag-ship,
but by heroic efforts all lives were saved—with the exception of a few
score of Spanish captives, who were of course of no account whatsoever
in the pirates’ estimation!
Reaching captured San Lorenzo, Morgan hoisted the British colors over
it (the rascal invariably committed his villainies under the British
ensign), and, chaining his prisoners in gangs, he forced them to labor
from dawn till dark at repairing the fortress, setting up a new
palisade, and remounting the guns. He had no intention of leaving the
Chagres unguarded so that a Spanish fleet could enter and bottle him up
on the isthmus. Having reconditioned the fortress and garrisoned it
with five hundred men, in addition to one hundred and fifty men on the
ships anchored in the stream, he felt quite secure and with twelve
hundred desperate pirates he and his fellows embarked in five large
boats and thirty-two canoes and started up the Chagres.
At the spot called Cruz de Juan Gallego, which they reached on the
second day, the company were compelled to desert their boats, for it
was the middle of the dry season (January) and the river was so low
that farther navigation was impossible.
Then began a journey of hardship, suffering, and dogged perseverence
which is almost unparalleled. The pirates had carried few provisions,
expecting to supply themselves from settlements and Indian camps on the
way, but word had gone ahead of their coming, every village and camp
was deserted, fields had been destroyed, and provisions taken away. Day
after day they tramped on, ever rushing madly toward some clearing or
group of huts, only to curse and rave when they found them deserted,
surrounded by smoking, blackened gardens, and without a morsel of
anything that could be eaten.
On the fourth day so ravenous had the men grown that they actually
devoured their leathern wallets, in order, as Esquemelling informs us,
“to afford something to the ferment of their stomachs, which was now
grown so sharp that it did gnaw their very bowels, having nothing else
to prey upon.” Maddened with hunger, they even fought over the scraps
of leather, and their chronicler continues: “Thus they made a huge
banquet upon those bags of leather, which doubtless had been more
grateful unto them if divers quarrels had not arisen as to who should
have the greatest share.” Indeed, they were ready for cannibalism, and
Esquemelling, referring to the Spaniards they hoped to meet, says,
“Whom they would certainly in that occasion have roasted or boiled to
satisfy their famine.”
But neither Dons nor foodstuffs were forthcoming, and with hunger
somewhat assuaged by their meal of leather they plodded wearily on,
most of them bereft even of the leathern equipment to devour, while a
few, who were more fortunate, had reserved a portion of their former
rations. “Here again he was happy,” says their historian, “that had
reserved since noon any small piece of leather whereof to make his
supper.”
Furthermore, Esquemelling goes into details regarding the culinary
phase of this leathern diet, evidently thinking that some future
traveler on the isthmus might find it of value in preparing an evening
meal. He says:
Some persons who were never out of their mothers’ kitchens may ask
how these Pyrates could eat, swallow and digest these pieces of
leather so hard and dry. To whom I only answer: That could they
once experiment with hunger, or rather famine, is that they would
certainly find the manner, by their own necessity as the Pyrates
did. For these first took the leather and sliced it in pieces. Then
did they beat it between two stones and rub it, often dipping it in
the water of the river to render it by these means supple and
tender. Lastly they scraped off the hair and roasted or broiled it
upon the fire. And being thus cooked they cut it into small morsels
and eat it, helping it down with frequent gulps of water, which by
good fortune they had near at hand.
Evidently there was some sustenance in the dried hides, for there is no
mention of any one having died of starvation, but hunger was not the
only trouble with which the company met. At every turn they were beset
by ambuscades; they were harassed by Indian allies of the Dons, who
shot poisoned arrows from the woods and hurled down rocks in narrow
defiles, until on the sixth day they discovered a cave containing two
sacks of meal, a few plantains, and two jars of wine. This providential
find was distributed by Morgan among the weakest men, who were put into
canoes; and, heartened and encouraged, the great troop pressed on and
on the following day found a store of maize in an Indian camp. On the
seventh day they also captured some emaciated cats and dogs which had
been deserted by the fleeing natives, and these they instantly killed
and devoured. On the same day they found sixteen jars of wine which
they gulped down, only to fall deathly sick as a result.
And yet not one man complained, not one thought of turning back. Ahead
lay Panama and its vast treasure; and subsisting on stray dogs and cats
and half-burnt corn, or going hungry, the company stumbled ever onward,
until, on the ninth day after leaving San Lorenzo, they ascended a hill
and saw the vast Pacific stretching to the horizon.
Filled with joy, shouting and laughing and cursing by turns, the
pirates hurried down the hill and reached a vale where a herd of
donkeys and horses and a few cattle were grazing. Falling upon these
beasts, the pirates slaughtered them, half roasted the still quivering
flesh over fires, and had their first full meal in more than a week.
Esquemelling says of them:
“Such was their hunger that they more resembled cannibals than
Europeans at this banquet, the blood many times running down from their
beards to the middle of their bodies.”
Having finished the meal and satisfied themselves with “these delicious
morsels,” the men resumed the march, and a little later they came
within sight of the tower of the cathedral—that same stone tower that
to-day stands alone and in ruins beside the sea. Here they pitched camp
for the night and, “sounding their trumpets and drums” (which are not
usually associated with pirates), prepared to attack the city at break
of day. That same evening a troop of fifty cavalry approached almost
within musket shot, taunted the pirates with derisive shouts, and
retired to the city, leaving a few scouts to watch the enemy’s
movements. Soon after this the big guns of the city began to thunder,
the shots falling about the pirates’ camp but doing no damage.
The following morning the buccaneers formed in columns, sounded their
trumpets, and with drums beating marched toward the doomed town,
choosing a trail through the woods to avoid attacks by the cavalry. In
the meantime the governor of Panama had gathered two squadrons of
cavalry, four regiments of infantry, a huge herd of wild bulls, and a
number of Indians and negroes to resist the invaders. Coming from the
woods and looking down upon the plain, the pirates were amazed at the
forces arrayed against them, and for the first time became doubtful of
their success. Indeed, as their chronicler puts it: “Yea few or none
there were but wished themselves at home, or at least free from the
obligation of that engagement, wherein they perceived their lives must
be narrowly concerned.”
But needs must when the devil drives, and the devil himself was there
in the person of Morgan. Being ordered to advance, the company marched
against the Dons. Fortunately for the pirates, heavy rains had rendered
the ground soft and soggy, the cavalry could not manœuver, and the
first squadron of two hundred pirates fired such a well-aimed volley of
musketry that “the battle was instantly kindled very hot.” Although the
fire was returned with vigor, and despite the Spaniards’ “valiant
attempts,” the pirates succeeded in separating the various groups of
soldiery and fell upon them tooth and nail. Thinking to demoralize the
enemy, the Spaniards drove herds of bulls against them, but the cattle,
frightened at the firing and the drums, scattered and ran away, while
the few that broke through the pirates’ ranks were quickly killed and
did no damage.
For two hours the battle raged, the Spanish cavalry suffering almost
total annihilation. The infantry, seeing the tide of battle turning in
favor of the enemy, threw down their arms and took to their heels. But
the exhausted pirates, after days of suffering and hours of fierce
fighting, could not follow up the advantage. They contented themselves
with hunting the wounded Spaniards down, murdering them in cold blood,
and capturing some priests and taking them before Morgan, who had them
instantly pistoled.
From one captive captain Morgan learned by means of torture that the
entire force in the city was less than three thousand, and, also
discovering how the forts and guns were disposed, he planned to change
his route to the city. But the pirates had not won the day without
loss, though their three hundred men killed or wounded were far less
than the six hundred dead and several hundred wounded among the Dons.
With their captives in the van, the pirates rushed on the town,
fighting doggedly at every turn, cut down by volleys of musketry and
cannon shot, mutilated by scrap-iron with which the Spaniards had
charged their howitzers, and after three hours of desperate fighting
and heavy loss won the low-arched bridge and poured, shouting and
yelling, into the town.
Then hell broke loose in earnest. The buccaneers, mad with fighting,
frenzied at the losses inflicted upon them, drunk with lust of blood,
ran hither and thither, shooting, cutting, stabbing all they met;
looting right and left, yelling like fiends, and ripping and tearing
tapestries, hangings, and paintings from the houses.
With difficulty, and only after shooting down several of his men,
Morgan succeeded in gathering them together and commanded them under
threat of the most severe punishment to refrain from touching wines or
liquor,—not that he had any scruples against drinking, but because he
feared poison. Also, no doubt he wished to prevent his men from
becoming so befuddled with drink that the Spaniards could retake the
city.
This matter being settled, Morgan turned his men loose once more, and
from building to building, from house to house they ran, slashing
priceless furnishings, battering down doors, trampling silks and
velvets underfoot, destroying, murdering, looting. From their
hiding-places they dragged cowering, trembling women, and in a stream
the captives and the loot were carried to Morgan.
But, as we have seen, the most valuable treasures, the gold and silver
and jewels of the churches, the bulk of plate and bullion from the
treasury, the greatest private fortunes, had been carried to sea, and
Morgan, in a towering rage, sent vessels in chase and in his fury
burned the town. In addition, he sent searching parties into the woods
and these returning brought prisoners from far and near about the
country-side, who were “presently put to the most exquisite tortures
imaginable to make them confess both other people’s goods and their
own.”
One man happened to be garbed in “taffety breeches” belonging to his
master, and the pirates assumed from his raiment that he was a person
of position. Moreover, he had a small silver key hanging at his belt.
Questioned as to where the cabinet to which the key belonged was
secreted, the poor trembling fellow declared he was a servant and knew
not where his master had taken the cabinet. Instantly, Morgan had the
terrified, babbling serving-man placed upon the rack and disjointed.
This failed to wring from his tortured lips the secret he was supposed
to know, and the pirates twisted a cord about his forehead until, as
Esquemelling assures us, “his eyes appeared as big as eggs and were
ready to fall from his skull.” Finding that even this had not the
desired result, Morgan had him hung up, beat him almost to death, cut
off his ears and nose, singed his face with burning straw, and finally
had a negro run him through with a lance and put an end to his agonies.
“After this execrable manner did many others of those miserable
prisoners finish their days,” says Esquemelling, and adds: “The common
sport and recreation of these Pyrates being these and other tragedies
not inferior.”
Sex or age made no difference. Children and women were tortured,
ravished, and murdered, although when those of evident high standing
and wealth were taken, they were usually put aside and kept in safety
for ransom.
For three long weeks the pirates wrought their will in Panama; and
then, having scraped it bare, having desolated the country about, and
having secured every man and woman within reach, Morgan prepared to
leave. On February 24, 1671, he evacuated the ruined town and with one
hundred and seventy-five mules laden with gold, silver, and precious
stones, silks and velvets, satins and brocades, and accompanied by over
six hundred prisoners began his return march toward San Lorenzo and the
Atlantic.
With fiendish cruelty Morgan ordered that the poor captives, most of
whom were women and children, should be given barely enough food and
water to keep them alive, his idea being, as our old friend
Esquemelling explains, that “it would excite them more earnestly to
seek money wherewith to ransom themselves according to the tax which
had been set upon every one.”
Never had the great forest trees and the smiling plains looked upon a
more pitiful, a more harrowing scene than that of those starved and
thirsty prisoners marching under the broiling sun, urged on with
curses, coarse jests, and blows; wading rivers, stumbling through muck,
clad in laces and silks and high-heeled, flimsy shoes, and bare-headed.
Bereft of homes and loved ones, unaccustomed to hardship, unused to
walking a dozen rods, these delicate, carefully nurtured ladies were
flogged like beasts, and subjected to every insult and indignity. If
they dropped from hunger or exhaustion, a blow from a pirate followed;
if they stumbled and fell, they were jerked to their feet by their
disheveled hair. “Nothing else was heard but lamentations, cries,
shrieks and doleful sighs,” said Esquemelling, and many fell by the
wayside and were ruthlessly trampled underfoot or more mercifully run
through with a cutlass still stained with the blood of those cut down
in the city. Many of the women fell upon their knees, begging Morgan to
put an end to their sufferings with death, or to let them return to the
bodies of those they loved; but to all the callous brute, who was later
honored by the King of England, replied that “he came not thither to
hear lamentations and cries but rather to seek money.”
Though the villain was unmoved by the sights and scenes which should
have melted a heart of stone, yet on that dreadful march he showed a
streak of gallantry which he was known occasionally to exhibit. Among
the prisoners taken at Panama was one “beautiful and virtuous lady,” a
woman of wealth and refinement whom Morgan had selected for himself.
But she being, as Esquemelling says, “in all respects like unto
Susannah for constancy,” and having refused Morgan’s offers of pearls,
gold, and money, and likewise having repulsed his amorous advances,
Morgan stripped the rich garments from her back and cast her into a
dungeon on a scant diet of bread and water. But so beautiful was the
captive, and so brave and virtuous, that even the rough buccaneers took
pity upon her, and Morgan, realizing that he had overstepped the bounds
of even pirate propriety, released her and held her for ransom.
On the second day of the march this abused lady’s lamentations “now did
pierce the skies,” and she declared to the two ruffians who guarded her
that she had given orders to two priests to go to a certain spot and
bring her ransom, that they had promised to do so, but, having secured
the cash, had made use of it to ransom one of their own brotherhood.
The pirate guards carried the story to Morgan, who at once halted his
march, interviewed a slave who had brought the lady word of the friars’
duplicity, and even apprehended the priests and wrung a confession from
them. Thereupon he placed his hand on his heart, swept the ground with
his plumed hat, begged a thousand pardons of his captive beauty, set
her at liberty, provided her with an armed escort to accompany her to
her home, and—wonder of wonders!—presented her with the ransom money as
a gift! Not content with this, he hanged the two deceitful priests from
the nearest tree, and calmly proceeded on his way.
It is needless to dwell upon that terrible march across the isthmus,
the sack of towns en route, the sufferings of the captives, or the
voyage down the Chagres. On March 9th the buccaneers and all their
prisoners and loot arrived at San Lorenzo, and at once complaints arose
that Morgan had retained more than his share of the loot. For when the
vast treasure was divided as Morgan saw fit, it was found that the
pirates received but a paltry two hundred pieces of eight each for
their share. But though his followers accused him openly of cheating,
none dared offer personal violence, and he ordered the fort demolished,
the guns taken aboard the buccaneers’ ships, and the buildings burned.
Then, while the men were busy at these tasks, the detestable scoundrel
sneaked off, boarded his own ship, and having secretly seized all the
available provisions, sailed away, leaving his followers to fare as
best they might—which was ill indeed.
Never in the history of the pirates had any captain been disloyal to
his men in this way, and had the buccaneers been able to lay hands upon
him Morgan’s career would have come to an abrupt as well as unpleasant
end, then and there. Realizing that to go to Tortuga would mean falling
into the wronged men’s hands, Morgan sailed boldly to Port Royal, where
he was promptly arrested and, in company with the governor, was sent a
prisoner to England. The rest of his story I have told. Knighted and
honored, he came back to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor, a pirate
Judas, to betray and hang his own men. He died in obscurity, but his
deeds, nefarious as they were, will live forever. For years to come the
ruins of old Panama will stand beside the Pacific, everlasting
monuments to his ruthless villainy, and upon its bluff old San Lorenzo
still stands, grim, frowning, but deserted! Its moat is dry and choked
with weeds, its guns lie dismounted and thick with rust; its vast
underground passages and rooms are empty; its parapets are crumbling
away. But within its dungeons may still be seen the manacles that held
the few survivors of that bloody battle; beneath the massive walls the
Chagres still ripples gently on its way to the sea; upon the bar the
waves still break and roar where Morgan’s ships went down.
Standing here to-day, it is hard to realize that once the peaceful spot
rang to the clash of steel, the crash of musketry, and the roar of
cannon; that curses and shots, cries of St. Jago and St. George,
shrieks of dying men, and the groans of wounded echoed from the hills;
that these ancient, weather-beaten stones once ran with blood; that the
weed-grown slopes were dotted with dead and dying men; that bodies lay
piled in heaps about the sally-ports and guns, and that Don and
buccaneer struggled in mortal combat where now gorgeous butterflies
flit from flower to flower in the sun and swallows nest beneath the
parapets.
For centuries old San Lorenzo has thus stood. For centuries it will
stand. It is almost as enduring as the living rock on which it rests.
Fire and shot have scarcely left a scar upon it. The pirates’ greatest
efforts at destruction made hardly an impression. The elements affect
it little, and until its last age-gray stone has crumbled to dust it
will bind the present with the past, and the past with Morgan—the
greatest pirate of them all, the most daring, most famous, and most
villainous of the buccaneers.
NOTES
[1] Dampier was the son of a Somerset farmer, but at seventeen years of
age was apprenticed to a sea captain sailing from Weymouth. Deserting
in the West Indies, he took to the occupation of a logwood cutter for a
time, and later joined the buccaneers. He wrote several books, working
at his manuscripts between battles, and keeping his notes in a joint of
bamboo which, to use his own words, he “kept stopt at the ends with wax
to keep out water. In this I preserved my Journal and other Writings
tho’ I was often forced to swim.” His descriptions of fauna and flora,
his maps, and his detailed accounts of the Indians and their customs
and languages are of great scientific value, though his conclusions are
often erroneous.
[2] Esquemelling was a Hollander who went to Hispaniola in the capacity
of clerk for the French West India Company. When the latter withdrew
their business from Tortuga and sold off all their possessions, the
clerk went to the auction block with the other chattels and was
purchased for three hundred pieces of eight (approximately $300.00) by
a cruel master. Under the treatment accorded him Esquemelling became
dangerously ill, and his owner, fearing to lose his slave and his money
at the same time, disposed of the sick man, for seventy pieces of
eight, to a surgeon who treated Esquemelling kindly, nursed him to
health, and granted him his freedom on condition that the penniless
ex-clerk should pay him one hundred pieces of eight when able to do so.
He promptly joined the buccaneers and took part in most of their
notable exploits for nearly seven years. His records, especially his
“Buccaneers of America,” are the best histories of these men extant.
[3] According to the most reliable records, the Vigilant was built in
Baltimore in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Originally
named the Nonesuch, she was intended for a privateer, but, the
Revolution being virtually over before she was launched, she was sold
and won an unsavory reputation as a pirate. She later turned privateer,
during the War of 1812, and afterward engaged in the slave-trade until
England’s anti-slavery crusade made this work too dangerous. She was
then sold again, and became a notorious smuggler. Still later she
changed hands once more, and under her new owner, a Danish West Indian
merchant, resumed privateering with letters of marque from the Danish
Government. In 1825 the Vigilant became a man-of-war. A Spanish
privateer had been harassing the Danish shipping, and, all available
Danish warships being too large to follow through the shallow channels
where she sought refuge, the Vigilant was chartered and a company of
soldiers concealed upon her. As she cruised within sight of the
privateer the latter swept down upon her, thinking her a helpless
merchantman, only to be surprised and completely overwhelmed by the
hidden troops. After this episode the old schooner became a peaceful
mail-packet among the Virgin Islands. She has been repeatedly sunk and
raised again. In the hurricane of 1876 she went on a reef off
Christiansted, St. Croix, and again, in 1916, a hurricane sent her to
the bottom in almost the same spot. Her rig originally was that of a
topsail schooner, but this was later changed to that of a fore-and-aft
schooner with gaff topsails. Probably very little besides the keel and
timbers of the original craft remains, as she has been repaired from
time to time during her long career.
[4] The origin of the colloquial name of “Bimshire Land” for Barbados
and of “Bims” for its natives appears to puzzle many people. One writer
in a well-known magazine went so far as to suggest that it was a
corruption of “bam”! In reality it was applied to the island owing to
the fact that Robert Bims (who was one of the earliest colonizers of
St. Kitts), hearing of Barbados, went there with a party of settlers
and took possession. Half-humorously and half-sarcastically (for it was
generally believed the island was worthless) it was referred to as
“Bim’s Shire,” a nickname which has always stuck.
[5] This is an excerpt from a report by Captain Thomas Warner, the
founder of the colony, who lies buried in Middle Island Church on the
highway between Sandy Point and Basseterre, where his tombstone informs
us that he “boughte an illustryous nayme with loss of noble blood.”
[6] See Introduction.
[7] One prize taken by the Trinity, the San Rosario, was laden with
over seven hundred “pigs,” or ingots of silver bullion, but the
buccaneers, mistaking the precious metal for tin, threw overboard all
but one bar which was retained by one of the men for a souvenir.
[8] Curiously enough, the term “buccaneer,” from the French boucanier,
was later adopted by the English freebooters and was applied
exclusively to them, whereas the French corsairs took to themselves the
English term “freebooters” and pronouncing it to the best of their
ability called themselves fribustiers or flibustiers, which eventually
became filibustiers.
According to some authorities, notably Van Esveldt in his work on the
buccaneers published in 1756, the word “Filibuster” was originally
derived from the Spanish “Flibotero,” meaning one who uses a small
boat. The British corsairs altered this to “Flybusters” or
“Freebooters”; the French used the form “Flibustiers” and the Dutch
“Vlieboters.”
[9] Of the several forts of the citadel or castle of San Jerome, the
largest was also called San Jerome.