THE GREAT SIR HENRY MORGAN
About the year 1636 a certain London mariner, named Dunton, had an
experience somewhat similar to that which we related in the last chapter
concerning Rawlins. Dunton had the bad luck to be taken by the Sallee
pirates, who then sent him out as master and pilot of a Sallee pirate
ship containing twenty-one Moors and five Flemish renegadoes. The
instructions were that Dunton should sail to the English coast and there
capture Christian prisoners. He had arrived from Barbary in the English
Channel and was off Hurst Castle by the Needles, Isle of Wight, when he
was promptly arrested as a pirate and sent to Winchester to be tried by
law. He was given his release at a later date, but his ten-year-old boy
was still a slave with the Algerines.
Now about the year when this was taking place, there was born into the
world Henry Morgan, who has become celebrated in history and fiction as
one of the greatest sea-rovers who ever stepped aboard a ship. His career
is one of continual success, of cruelties and amassing of wealth. He was
a buccaneer, and a remarkably clever fellow who rose to the position
of Governor-General of one of our most important colonial possessions.
Adventures are to the adventurous, and if ever there was a Britisher
who longed for and obtained a life of excitement, here you have it in
the story of Henry Morgan. It would be easy enough to fill the whole
of this book and more with his activities afloat, but as our space is
limited, and there are still many other pirates of different seas to be
considered, it is necessary to confine ourselves to the main facts of his
career.
The date of his birth is not quite certain, but it is generally supposed
to belong to the year 1635. He first saw light in Glamorganshire, and his
existence was tinged with adventure almost from the first. For whilst
he was a mere boy, he was kidnapped and sold as a servant at Barbados.
Thus it was that he was thrust on to the region of the West Indies,
and in this corner of the world, so rich in romance, so historic for
its association with Spanish treasure-ships of Elizabethan times, so
reminiscent of Drake and others, he was to perform deeds of daring which
as such are not unworthy to be ranked alongside the achievements of the
great Elizabethan seamen. But he differed from Drake in one important
respect. The Elizabethan was severe even to harshness, but he was a more
humane being than Morgan. All the wonderful things which the Welshman
performed are overshadowed by his cruel, brutish atrocities. In a cruel,
inhuman age Morgan unhappily stands out as one of the wickedest sailors
of his time. And yet, although we live in an epoch which is somewhat
prone to white-washing the world’s most notorious criminals, yet we
must modify the popular judgment which prevails in regard to Morgan. To
say that he was a pirate and nothing else is not accurate. At heart he
certainly was this. But as Sir John Laughton, our greatest modern naval
historian has already pointed out, he attacked only those who were the
recognised enemies of England.
I admit that in practice, especially in the case of men of such
piratical character as Henry Morgan, the difference between privateering
and piracy is very slight. The mere possession of a permission to
capture the ships belonging to other people is nothing compared to a
real sea-robbing intention. Morgan was lucky in having been required for
a series of certain peculiar emergencies. His help happened at the time
to be indispensable, and so he was able to do legally what otherwise
he would have done illegally. All those seizures were legalised by the
commission which he was granted at various times. But this is not to say
that without those commissions he would not have acted in a somewhat
similar manner.
We are accustomed to speak of Morgan and his associates as buccaneers.
Now let us understand at once the meaning of this term. Originally the
word meant one who dried and smoked meat on a “boucan.” A “boucan” was a
hurdle made of sticks on which strips of beef newly salted were smoked
by the West Indians. But the name of buccaneers was first given to the
French hunters of S. Domingo, who prepared their meat according to this
Indian custom. From the fact that these men who so prepared the flesh
of oxen and wild boars were also known for another characteristic,
namely, piracy, the name was applied in its widest sense to those English
and French sea-rovers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who
employed their time in depredating Spanish ships and territory of the
Caribbean Sea. Hence from signifying a man who treated his food in a
certain fashion, the word buccaneer came to mean nothing more or less
than a robber of the sea.
After young Morgan had finished his time in service at Barbados, he
joined himself to these buccaneer-robbers after arriving at Jamaica. It
should be added that Morgan’s uncle, Colonel Edward Morgan, went out
from England in 1664 to become Governor-General of Jamaica, but his
death occurred in the following year. There are gaps in Morgan’s life,
and there has been some confusion caused by others possessing the same
surname. But it appears pretty certain now that in the year 1663 Henry
Morgan was at sea in command of a privateer. Even by this time he had
begun to be an expert in depredation and in sacking some of the Caribbean
towns, and striking terror into the hearts of the wretched inhabitants.
We may pass over these minor events and come to the time when, his
uncle having died, Sir Thomas Modyford was sent out from England as
Lieutenant-Governor. Bear in mind that intense hatred of the Spanish
prevailing at this time, and which had not been by any means quenched
by the defeat of the Armada. To put it mildly, the Caribbean Sea was an
Anglo-Spanish cockpit where many and many a fight had taken, and was
still to take, place. Modyford wanted the island of Curaçoa to be taken,
and there was then no better man to do the job than a very celebrated
buccaneer named Edward Mansfield. Sir Thomas therefore commissioned
Mansfield to seize this island. He got together a strong naval expedition
and accomplished the task early in the year 1666, Henry Morgan being in
command of one of Mansfield’s ships.
Off the Nicaraguan coast lies an island which has been called at
different times Santa Catalina or Providence Island. This had been
taken from the English by the Spaniards more than twenty years before,
and Morgan was also present when Mansfield now recaptured it. A small
garrison was left to occupy it, and Mansfield returned with his ships to
Jamaica. But before long Santa Catalina fell again into the hands of the
Spaniards, and Mansfield died. It is now that Morgan’s career begins to
come into the limelight. For after Mansfield’s decease the buccaneers,
bereft of their leader, thought the matter over and decided to make
Morgan his successor, and the commissions which Mansfield had been
accustomed to receive from Modyford now fell to the Welshman.
The first of these duties occurred when Modyford became aware of a
rumour that the Spaniards were contemplating an invasion of Jamaica. It
was nothing more than a rumour, but, as governor, he desired to find
out the truth. He therefore despatched Morgan to ascertain the facts.
He was directed to get ten ships together and to carry 500 men in this
fleet. The ships gathered on the south side of Cuba and then, having
accomplished their voyage, Morgan landed his men and found that the
people had fled from the coast, driving all their cattle away. Morgan
marched inland, plundered the town of Puerto Principe, and then was able
to send information to Modyford that considerable forces were being
collected and that an expedition against Jamaica was, in truth, being
planned. He had fulfilled his commission as instructed.
His next big achievement occurred when he sailed to the mainland in order
to attack Porto Bello, where levies were being made to attack Jamaica.
Several Englishmen were known also to be confined here in grim dungeons.
And if any further incentive were required, this would certainly rouse
the ire and sharpen the keenness of Morgan and his men. Porto Bello
relied for its defence on three forts, and it was likely to be no easy
work to compel these to yield. But Morgan succeeded in his object, and
this is how he went to work: Arrived in the vicinity of Porto Bello,
he left his ships and, under the cover of night, proceeded towards the
shore with his men in about two dozen canoes. By three o’clock in the
morning his force had crept into the shore and landed. The first fort
was assaulted by the aid of ladders, and the garrison was slaughtered.
So, too, the second fort was attacked. Hither the Spanish governor had
betaken himself. For a time it offered a stout resistance, but Morgan had
a number of ladders so made that they were wide enough to allow several
men to climb up abreast of each other. By this means the castle walls
were overcome, the castle itself taken, and the governor slain. The third
fort surrendered, the town was sacked, and then, for over a fortnight,
the buccaneers indulged themselves as was their wont in debauchery. I
have no intention of suggesting the details either of these excesses nor
of the abominable tortures to which the inhabitants were now subjected
in order to compel them to reveal the places where their treasures were
hidden. Not even the most unprincipled admirer of the buccaneers could
honestly find it possible to defend Morgan and his associates against the
most serious charges on the ground of common justice.
Morgan may not have been any worse than some of his contemporaries at
heart, but whatever else he was, he was an unmerciful tyrant. As for
his enemies, we cannot regard them with much admiration either. This
Dago crowd were morally not much better than the Welshman, and though
sometimes they put up a good fight, they were too often cowards. In
this present instance they adopted that futile and weak plan of buying
off the aggressor. You will remember that, unfortunately, our ancestors
adopted this plan many hundreds of years ago when they sought to ward
off the Viking depredators by buying peace. It was a foolish and an
ineffectual method both then and in the seventeenth century in the case
of Morgan. For what else does such an action mean than a confession
of inferiority? Peace at this price is out of all proportion to the
ultimate value obtained, and the condition is merely a temptation to
the aggressor to come back for more. Stripped of any technicality,
Morgan blackmailed these Panamanians to the extent of 100,000 pieces of
eight, and 300 negroes. On these conditions, which were agreed upon, he
consented to withdraw. So, very well rewarded for his trouble, Morgan
returned joyfully to Jamaica, and for some time the buccaneers were able
to indulge themselves in the pleasures which this booty was capable of
affording them.
You will generally find that a buccaneer, a highwayman, a gambler, a
smuggler or any kind of pirate by land or by sea is a spendthrift.
There are certainly exceptions, but this is the rule. A man who knows
that he can easily get more money when he runs short shows no reserve
in spending, provided it affords him gratification. So with these
buccaneers. At length they came to the end of their resources and were
ready to go forth again. It is true that Modyford had been in two minds
after Morgan’s return from Porto Bello. He rejoiced at the success of his
arms, but he was nervous of the consequences. The Welshman had certainly
exceeded his commission, and there might be trouble, as a result, at
headquarters.
And yet there was work to be done, and Morgan was the only man who
could do it. So once more Modyford had to commission him to carry out
hostilities against the Spaniards. To the eastward of Jamaica lies the
island of S. Domingo, or as it was known in those days, Hispaniola.
If you were to examine a chart of Hispaniola you would see in the
south-west corner a bay and a small island. The latter is known as
Vache Island. This was to be the meeting-place where Morgan was now to
collect his ships. Apart from being a good anchorage, it was a convenient
starting-place if one wished to attack either the mainland of Central
America or Cuba. In the present instance the objective was in the latter.
The ships got under way, Morgan arrived at the scene of operations, and
positively ravaged the Cuban Coast, again striking terror wherever he
went. But, important as this was, it is not to be reckoned alongside the
achievement which he performed in the early part of 1669.
On the north coast of South America is a wide gulf which opens out
into the Caribbean Sea. But as this gulf extends southward, the shores
on either side narrow so closely that the shape resembles the neck
of a bottle. The town here is named Maracaibo. But a little distance
still farther south the shores on either side recede considerably like
the lower portion of a bottle, and there extends a vast lagoon which
takes its name from the town mentioned. It is obvious to any one that
the strategical point is at the neck. And when I mention that here
the navigation was both tricky and shallow, and that the channel was
protected by a strong castle, the reader will instantly appreciate that
any one who tried to bring his ships into the lake would have a very
difficult task.
Now in the month of March, Morgan, with eight ships and 500 men, had
arrived off this entrance. With great daring and dogged determination
he was able to force his way in through this narrow entrance. He not
only dismantled the fort, but he sacked the town of Maracaibo in his
own ruthless manner; then he followed up his attack by scouring the
neighbouring woods, and put the captured and terrified inhabitants to
cruel tortures in order to compel them to reveal the hiding-places of
their valuables. He captured many a prisoner and at length, very well
satisfied with his success, after the lapse of three weeks decided to
advance still farther. He had got his ships through the most difficult
portion, and now he intended to navigate the lagoon itself.
At length he arrived at a town called by the inhabitants Gibraltar, after
the European place of that name. Here Morgan again satiated himself
with plunder, with cruelties and with debauchery until the time came
for him to take his ships away with all the booty they could carry.
But the serious news reached them that awaiting them off the entrance
to the gulf were three Spanish men-of-war. Still more serious was the
information that the castle at Maracaibo had now been efficiently manned
and armed. That was more than awkward, for without the permission of the
fort it was quite impossible for his ships to make their exit in safety.
The situation would have puzzled many a fine strategist. Here was the
buccaneer positively trapped with no means of escape.
But Morgan was quite equal to the occasion, and he set to work. His
first object was to gain time, and so he began by opening negotiations
with the Spanish Admiral Don Alonso del Campo y Espinosa. He knew these
negotiations would prove fruitless, as indeed they did. But in the
meantime Morgan had been busily employing his men in getting ready a
fireship. In our modern days of steel hulls, fireships play no part in
naval tactics, but in the time of oak and hemp this mode of aggression
continued till very late. The fireship would first be filled with
combustible material, and then released, the wind or current taking her
down on to the enemy’s ships. The grapnel irons projecting from her
side would foul the enemy, and it would be no easy matter to thrust the
fireship off until she had done considerable damage by conflagration.
This method of warfare was one of the oldest tactics in the history of
naval fighting. It was successful over and over again, and the reader
can well imagine that the sight of a flaming ship rapidly approaching a
fleet of anchored ships with the tide was really terrifying. And even
if the attacked ships were under way and not brought up it made little
difference: for the flames would immediately set on fire a ship’s sails,
and the tarred rigging would soon be ablaze, rendering the attacked ship
disabled.
Of course it was possible at times for a fleet under way so to manœuvre
as to get out of the direction towards which the fire-vessel was
travelling. But Morgan was up to every eventuality. The fireship he
disguised as a man-of-war, and she was not yet set alight. With this
craft looking just like one of his own he took his fleet to look for
the Spanish men-of-war. On the 1st of May he found them just within the
entrance to the lagoon. He now made straight for them, and setting the
fireship alight when quite near, sent her right alongside the Spanish
flagship, a vessel of 40 guns. The latter was too late to shake her
off, burst into flames and soon foundered. Another Spanish ship was so
terror-stricken that her crew ran ashore, and she was burnt by her own
men lest she should fall into the hands of the buccaneers. The third
was captured after heavy slaughter. Some of the Spaniards succeeded in
swimming ashore, among whom was the Admiral Don Alonso himself.
Morgan was able to capture a number of prisoners, and from these men he
learned tidings which must have sent a thrill of great joy through his
avaricious mind. The sunken ship had gone down with 40,000 pieces of
eight! So the buccaneer took steps to recover as much of this treasure
as he could, and salved no less than 15,000, in addition to a quantity
of melted silver. His next work was to have the prize-ship refitted, and
her he adopted as his own flagship. So far, so good. But he was still in
the lagoon, and the door of the trap was yet closed as before, although
the enemy’s ships had been now disposed of. He again opened negotiations
with Don Alonso, and it is surprisingly true that the latter actually
paid Morgan the sum of 20,000 pieces of eight and 500 head of cattle as
a ransom for Maracaibo. But, on the other hand, Don Alonso declined to
demean himself by granting Morgan permission to take his ships out.
That, of course, set Morgan’s brain working. He was determined to put
to sea, and it was only a question of stratagem. He therefore allowed
the Spaniards to gain the impression that he was landing his men so as
to attack the fort from the landward side. This caused the Spaniards
to move the guns of the fort to that direction, leaving the seaward
side practically unarmed. That was Morgan’s chance and he fully availed
himself thereof. It was night-time and there was the moon to help him.
He waited till the tide was ebbing, and then allowing his ships to drop
down with the current he held on until he was off the fort, when he
spread sail and before long was well on his way to the northward. It was
a clever device for getting out of a very tight corner.
So he sailed over the Spanish Main with rich booty from Gibraltar, with
15,000 pieces of eight from the wreck, with another 20,000 from Alonso,
with a new ship and other possessions. Certainly the voyage had been
most fortunate and remunerative. He reached Jamaica in safety, but again
Modyford was compelled to reprove him for having exceeded his commission.
But the same thing happened as before. The Spaniards were becoming more
and more aggressive towards the English in the West Indies, and it was
essential that they should be given a severe lesson before worse events
occurred. Morgan was the only man for the task, and he was now appointed
commander-in-chief of the warships of the Jamaican station, and sent
forth with full authority to seize and destroy all the enemy’s vessels
that could be found. He was further to destroy all stores and magazines,
and for his pay he was to have all the goods and merchandise which he
could lay his hands on, his men being paid the customary share that was
usual on buccaneering expeditions.
We find him, then, at the middle of August 1670, leaving Port Royal (now
better known as Kingston), Jamaica, and as before his rendezvous was
Vache Island. With this as his base he sent ships for several months to
ravage Cuba and the mainland, and as usual “refreshed” himself, as an
Elizabethan would have said, with the things he was in most need, such
as provisions. But he was able also to obtain a great deal of valuable
information, and at length sailed in a south-west direction till he came
to that island of Santa Catalina which we mentioned earlier in this
chapter as having been taken by the Spaniards. This he now recaptured,
and thereafter he was to perform another wonderful feat. The object he
had conceived was to capture Panama. It was another bold idea boldly
carried out. First of all, then, he sent from Santa Catalina four of his
ships, and a boat, and nearly 500 men, under the leadership of Captain
Brodely. These, after a three days’ voyage, arrived off Chagres Castle,
which is at the mouth of the River Chagres, not far from where the modern
Panama Canal comes out. In a remarkably short time Brodely was able to
capture this castle: and presently Morgan arrived with the rest of his
expedition.
Having made security doubly sure, he proceeded inland, taking his ships
up the River Chagres. But after he had gone some distance it was found
that, through lack of rain, the river had dried considerably. He
therefore left 200 men behind to hold the place, and with the rest of his
forces he set out to march on foot. He did not hamper his expedition with
provisions, as he trusted to obtain supplies from the inhabitants whose
dwellings he passed. On the tenth day he had arrived at his destination.
Before him lay Panama and the Pacific. But the Spaniards were there on
the plain to meet his forces with a considerable strength, consisting of
3000 infantry and cavalry as well as some guns.
But the Spaniards had also ready a unique tactic which seems almost
ludicrous. We have already referred slightly to the cattle, which were
a feature of this region of the globe. The Spaniards decided to employ
such in battle. So, between themselves and the English, they interposed
a vast herd of wild bulls, which were driven on in the hope of breaking
the English ranks. The wild stampede of creatures of this sort is not
likely to make for order, but, like the boomerang on land and the ram
in naval warfare, such a device is capable of being less damaging to
the attacked than to the attacker. For, as it happened, many of these
bulls were shot dead by the English, and the rest of the animals turned
their heads round and made for the Spanish, trampling many of them under
foot. The English gained the day; the Spaniards were put to flight, and
although the buccaneers lost heavily, yet the other side had lost 600
dead. The city of Panama was captured early in the afternoon, and yet
again Morgan scooped in an amazing amount of booty. There was the same
series of tortures, of threats, and there was a total absence of anything
noble-minded in the way Morgan went about his way, satisfying his greed
for gold. But he had just missed one very big haul, and this annoyed him
exceedingly. For when the Spaniards saw their men were being defeated,
they sent to sea a Spanish galleon which was full of money, church plate
and other valuables, worth far more than ever Morgan had obtained from
what was left in Panama.
The expedition started on its return journey overland, and after twelve
days arrived at Chagres. Here the great quantity of booty was divided
up among the crews; but the men were not satisfied with their share,
protested that they had been cheated of their full amount, and much
discontent ensued. There can be little doubt but that this was so, and
that Morgan had enriched himself at the expense of his men. However,
he managed to slip away to his ship, followed by only a handful of his
former fleet, and once again found himself in Jamaica. Here he received
the formal thanks of the governor, but there was trouble brewing. For
while Morgan had been away, a treaty had been signed at Madrid concerning
Spanish America. It is true that Modyford had, in those days of slow
communication, known nothing of it; but he was recalled, and he returned
to England a prisoner to answer for his having supported and encouraged
buccaneering. The following year Morgan was also sent to England in
a frigate, but Charles II. took a great liking to this dare-devil,
and in 1674 sent him back again to Jamaica, this time with the rank
of Colonel and with the title of knighthood, to be not a buccaneer
but Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. If ever there was an instance of
the ungodly flourishing, here it is. Fourteen years longer did Morgan
continue to live in this island as a rich man possessing social prestige.
It is true that he made a good governor, but although he had defeated
Alonso, reduced Panama, made a clever escape from Maracaibo, taken Santa
Catalina and been a veritable thorn in the side of the Spaniards, yet
he had been a brute, and he died a brute. He was a blackmailer on a
large scale, he was unmercifully a tyrant, and he was a profligate.
It is only because he attacked the enemies of his own Government, and
because he was lucky to obtain the commissions demanded by law, that he
is prevented from being reckoned as a mere common pirate. But if there is
honour among most thieves, what shall we say of Morgan’s dishonesty and
harshness in cheating the very men who had fought under him of their fair
share of plunder when the battle was won? It is, perhaps, hardly fair to
judge even a Morgan except by the prevailing standard of his time. But
those who care to look up the details of Morgan’s private life will find
much to condemn even if there is something to admire in his exceptional
cleverness and undoubted courage. The sea is a hard school and makes hard
men harder, and in those days when might was right and every ocean more
or less in a chaotic state of lawlessness, when poverty, or chance, or
despair, or the irresistible longing for adventure drove men to become
pirates, there was no living for a soft-hearted sailor. He had to fight
or be fought: he had to swim with the tide, or else sink. The luckiest
and cleverest became the worst terrors of the sea, while the least
fortunate had either to submit to the strong or else end their days in
captivity. Morgan having been kidnapped while young may have been driven
to kidnap others by sea: or there may have been other causes at work.
One thing, however, is certain: the world is not made the richer by the
advent of such a man as this Welsh buccaneer.