THE SACK OF PANAMA
“There’s something I’d like to ask, Uncle Henry,” said Fred, as Mr.
Bickford paused in his narrative and reached for an old book. “You
spoke of the British flag flying from San Lorenzo. I thought the
pirates always used a black flag with a skull and bones.”
“And, Dad, how did they dress?” asked Jack. “Did they wear uniforms or
did they dress like the pictures of pirates, with big earrings and
handkerchiefs about their heads and their sashes stuck full of pistols
and knives?”
“Those are questions well taken,” replied Mr. Bickford, “and really
important if we are to understand the truth about the buccaneers and
their lives. The ‘Jolly Roger’ was never the emblem of the ‘Brethren of
the Main,’ as they called themselves, but later, after the buccaneers
were dispersed and a few had turned out-and-out pirates, the black flag
with its symbol of death became a recognized pirate standard. But in
the heydey of the buccaneers, when they attacked only Spanish ships and
Spanish cities, they fought under the colors of their
countries—British, French or Dutch, as the case might be, and very
often, in one fleet, there would be ships under the various flags. In
addition, each prominent buccaneer leader had his own colors—much as
merchant shipowners have their house flags—which were flown on all the
ships under the leader. The flag might be of almost any conventional
design, but it was known and recognized by all the buccaneers.
“Thus, Bartholomew Sharp’s flag was a blood-red burgee bearing a bunch
of white and green ribbons; Sawkins’ colors were a red flag striped
with yellow; Peter Harris flew a plain green ensign; John Coxon used a
plain red burgee; Cook used a red flag striped with yellow and bearing
a hand with a sword; Hawkins’ was appropriately a red flag with a black
hawk upon it and so on. In garments, the buccaneers were not by any
means uniform or particular. The rank and file of sailors dressed in
rough clothes, as a rule, like the ordinary seamen of their times, in
loose knee trousers or ‘shorts,’ coarse shirts and low, heavy shoes on
their bare feet and with knitted caps or bandannas on their heads. Many
wore the costume of the real buccaneers of the woods—rawhide shoes and
leg coverings, leather jackets and trousers and palm hats, while the
majority wore any odds and ends they could pick up. After a foray they
often togged themselves out in the garments of their victims—brocades,
silks and satins, gold lace and plumed hats, often stiff and caked with
the life-blood of their late owners. But the ordinary buccaneer was a
spendthrift drunkard ashore and any finery he possessed usually went to
pay for his debaucheries before he had been on land twenty-four hours,
after which he was left half naked. The leaders or captains, however,
dressed like dandies. To be sure, their wardrobes were often made up of
miscellaneous pieces looted from the wealthy Spaniards, and, like their
men, they were not over particular as to the condition they were in,
but they were more or less thrifty, had plenty of ready cash and spent
small fortunes in buying the most brilliant and costly costumes and
trappings. Here, for example, is a description of the costume worn by
Morgan. ‘A fine linen shirt brave with Italian lace with velvet
waistcoat of scarlet, much laced with gold and a plum-colored greatcoat
reaching to his knees and with great gold buttons fashioned from
doubloons and trimmed with heavy braid of gold. Upon his legs, breeches
of saffron silk, belaced like unto his shirt and ruffled, and hose of
sky-blue silk. Soft top boots of red cordovan with huge buckles of
silver beset with gems and his hat of Sherwood green belaced with gold
and gemmed, and wherein was placed a crimson plume draping onto his
shoulder. His periwig was lustrous brown and at his side he bore a
Toledo rapier, jeweled at the hilt, on a belt of gray shagreen buckled
with gold, and bore also a staff, gold headed and tasseled.’ Quite a
striking figure, surely, reminding us of one of the ‘three musketeers.’
And here is the description of another buccaneer chieftain: ‘A long
surtout of green satin with wide skirts slit far up the arms to give
his muscles play. Breeches wide and short of bullock-blood satin and
hose of canary silk.’ So you see the pirate or buccaneer of fiction is
by no means typical of the real thing. However, in one respect they
were all much alike. When on the ‘warpath,’ as we may say, they wore
all the pistols and daggers they could stow in belts or sashes, they
invariably carried heavy curved cutlasses with peculiar scallop
shell-shaped hilts and, in addition, they carried muskets slung over
their shoulders with horns of powder and pouches of bullets. Moreover,
men and officers alike were inordinately fond of gewgaws and jewelry,
and rings in ears were almost universal, as they were with all seamen
of their time and for years later.
“And now let us return to Morgan and his men encamped on the plain
before ‘ye goodlye and statlye citie of Panama.’
“Early the next day—the tenth after leaving San Lorenzo—Morgan
marshaled his men upon the plain and with drums beating and trumpets
blaring, marched like a miniature army towards the doomed city. It was
soon evident that to follow the high road would cost the buccaneers
dearly, and at his guides’ suggestion Morgan made a detour, in order to
approach the city through the woods. This was totally unexpected by the
Spaniards and in order to check the buccaneers’ advance the troops were
compelled to leave their forts and guns and meet the enemy in the open.
The Spanish numbered four regiments of foot soldiers, totaling
twenty-four hundred; two squadrons of cavalry, amounting to four
hundred men, and a large number of slaves who were driving a herd of
two thousand wild bulls which they expected would charge the buccaneers
and cause consternation among them.
“Reaching a low hill, the English looked with amazement at the
overwhelming forces sent to meet them and for the first time their
confidence began to waver. As Esquemeling puts it, ‘Yea, few 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 they had come too far, had undergone too many
hardships, and had the richest city of the New World too near, to
falter or turn back and, knowing no quarter would be given them, they
swore a solemn oath to fight until death.
“Dividing his men into three troops, Morgan then ordered the best
marksmen, to the number of two hundred, to scatter and advance and pick
off the Spaniards before the main body of buccaneers charged. The Dons
at once attempted a charge of cavalry, but the rains had softened the
ground and had transformed it to a quagmire; they could not maneuver
properly and the accurate fire from the buccaneer sharpshooters brought
them down by scores. Notwithstanding this, the Spaniards fought
courageously and the infantry tried again and again to force their way
through the buccaneers in order to support the cavalry. Then the bulls
were urged forward; with cracking whips and shouts from the slaves they
were stampeded towards the buccaneers, and like an avalanche they came
plunging on, a sea of wildly tossing horns, thundering hoofs and
foaming nostrils. But the buccaneers were the last men in the world to
be demoralized by cattle. They had made hunting savage wild bulls their
profession and with shouts, trumpets and waving hats they turned the
stampede to one side while the few bulls that kept on and dashed among
the British were shot down or hamstrung ere they did the least damage.
“The battle had now raged for two hours; practically all the Spanish
cavalry were killed or unhorsed, and the infantry, discouraged and
demoralized, fired one last volley and then, throwing down their
muskets, fled to the city. Many were not able to gain the town and
tried to conceal themselves in the woods, but these the buccaneers
hunted down and butchered wherever found.
“Upon the field the Dons had left six hundred slain, in addition to
several hundred wounded, and the buccaneers had lost, between killed
and wounded, nearly half as many. Weary with their long tramp overland
and the battle, the English were in no condition to follow up their
victory, but Morgan forced them on and after a short rest they resumed
their march towards the city. The approach, however, was directly under
the fire of the cannon in the forts and with the great guns roaring
constantly and the buccaneers falling at every step the English kept
doggedly on until, after three hours of fighting, they were in
possession of the city.
“Madly they rushed hither and thither, ruthlessly cutting down and
pistoling all they met, men, women and children, broaching rum casks,
looting shops and houses, destroying for mere lust and wantonness
until, after a great deal of difficulty, Morgan got his men under
control and, assembling them in the market place, gave strict orders
that none should touch or drink any liquor owing to the fact, so he
said, that he had won a confession by torture from prisoners that all
the wine had been poisoned. In reality, he undoubtedly foresaw that,
should his men become drunk, they would fall easy victims to the
Spaniards and that the Dons thus might retake the city.
“Morgan, however, was in a frenzy, an overpowering passion, a
demoniacal rage, for the people, having been warned of his coming, had
carried off the bulk of the riches in the city. The most precious altar
pieces, the wonderful gold altar of San José church, the chests of
coins, the bullion and plate, vast fortunes in gems and the most
valuable merchandise had all been loaded hurriedly onto ships which had
sailed away, no one knew whither, long before the buccaneers arrived.
There were to be sure, boats within the harbor, but it was low tide—the
tide in the Pacific rises and falls for nearly twenty feet—the boats
were high and dry, and Morgan could not even send a craft in chase of
the fleeing treasure ships.
“Beside himself with rage, Morgan secretly ordered the city fired and
in a moment the place was a hell of raging flames. Morgan, in order to
excite his men the more, and to bring greater revenge upon the
Spaniards, claimed that the Dons had started the blaze, but there is no
question that he was the culprit, for Esquemeling, who was present,
does not hesitate to make the statement. Morgan, however, had
overstepped his mark; even his men fought valiantly side by side with
the Spaniards to extinguish the flames, but to no avail. In half an
hour an entire street was a smoldering heap of ruins and as most of the
city consisted of flimsy houses of native cedar and of thatched and
wattled huts it burned like tinder. And here let me point out that the
accepted ideas of this old city of Panama are very erroneous. Because
the ruins left standing are of stone, the public, and many historians,
have assumed that it was a city of stone buildings. This, however, was
not the case. Esquemeling particularly states that, ‘all the houses of
the city were built of cedar, being of curious and magnificent
structure and richly adorned within, especially with hangings and
paintings, being two thousand of magnificent and prodigious building
with five thousand of lesser quality.’ Moreover, in the official
description of the city, preserved in the Archives of Seville, it is
stated that the houses were of wood, and they were divided into two
classes,—those with and those without floors, the latter being greatly
in the majority. Thus it is easily seen how a fire would sweep the city
and wipe it out of existence in a few hours, leaving only the solidly
built stone buildings remaining. Of these there were a number,
including eight monasteries, two churches and a hospital, the
cathedral, the slave market, the governor’s palace, the treasury and
the forts. One of the finest buildings was the slave exchange owned by
Genoese slave merchants, and within this, when the town fell to the
buccaneers, were over two hundred, cowering, helpless slaves. Guarding
the doors that none might escape, Morgan ordered the place burnt and
for hours the screams and shrieks of the manacled, helpless blacks and
Indians drowned all other sounds as the poor creatures were slowly
roasted to death.
“For four weeks the city burned, while the buccaneers camped within the
charred ruins, but taking great care not to become separated, as they
well knew that large numbers of the Spaniards were lurking near, fully
armed and ready to take advantage of the least carelessness on the part
of the invaders.
“In the meantime, the buccaneers searched the ruins for loot, explored
the wells and cisterns and recovered large amounts of hidden treasure
and valuables which had survived the flames. Meanwhile, too, Morgan
sent out five hundred heavily armed men to scour the surrounding
country and bring in all prisoners and valuables they could find, and
two days later they returned, bringing over two hundred captives. Each
day new parties were sent out and constantly they returned bearing more
loot and additional captives until the countryside for miles about was
a desolate uninhabited waste.
“Then, to wring confessions of where the miserable folk had secreted
their valuables, Morgan commenced such a series of devilish tortures
and inhumanities as the world had probably never seen before or since.
One poor wretch who was a mere serving man was captured while wearing a
pair of his master’s ‘taffety breeches’ which he had donned in the
confusion of the attack. Moreover, hanging to the trousers was a small
key, and these things convinced the buccaneers that the fellow was
well-to-do and that the key belonged to some secret chest containing
his wealth. In vain the fellow protested that he knew nothing of it,
that the garments and the key were his master’s and that he was merely
a servant. Paying no heed to his screams, the buccaneers placed him on
the rack and stretched him until his arms were pulled from their
sockets. Still the man protested his ignorance and the inhuman monsters
twisted a thong about his forehead until his eyes popped from their
orbits. Even this awful torture was, of course, without result, and
stringing him up by the thumbs, they flogged him within an inch of his
life, sliced off his ears and nose, singed his bleeding sightless
features with burning straw and, still unsuccessful in their attempts
to learn the supposed secret of his treasure, they ordered a slave to
run him through with a lance. There is no need to describe other
examples of Morgan’s fiendishness. He spared neither young nor old, men
or women, and the priests and nuns were treated with even greater
cruelty than any others. Only the most prominent and important men and
women were free from tortures, and these Morgan herded together to
hold, under threat of death or worse, for ransom.
“For three weeks the buccaneers occupied the ruined city, torturing,
slaying, committing every devilishness imaginable, until even Morgan’s
men sickened with the sights and a large portion of them planned to
steal away in a ship and desert their leader. Morgan, however, heard of
the plot, destroyed all the ships and ordered preparations made to
leave the city and return to San Lorenzo. But before he left he sent
certain prisoners to outlying districts demanding ransoms for those he
held, and for days wealth flowed in from friends of the captives and
many were freed. Still, hundreds remained, and on the 14th of February,
1671, Morgan and his men left the city, and, with one hundred and
seventy-two pack mules laden with booty and six hundred prisoners, he
started on the long and terrible overland trip.
“Never did heaven look down upon a more pitiable, awful spectacle than
that presented by the buccaneers with their captives. Surrounded by the
armed buccaneers, the prisoners—many of them tender, high-bred ladies
and young children—were forced over the rough trail and across rivers.
‘Nothing,’ says Esquemeling, ‘was to be heard save the lamentations,
cries, shrieks and doleful sighs of those who were persuaded that
Morgan designed to transport them to his own country as slaves.’ Given
barely enough food and water to sustain life, many of them wounded, all
terrified and frightened, they were forced on by blows, curses, prods
with swords or rawhide lashes. Women, unable to endure, fell upon their
knees and implored Morgan to permit them to go back to their loved ones
to live in huts of straw as they had no houses left, but to one and all
he replied, with a laugh, that he came not to hear lamentations and
cries but to gain money. Often, the women and children would stagger
and fall, and if unable to rise were pistoled or run through, the
others staggering over their dead bodies. And yet, in the midst of this
awful march, Morgan exhibited that strange paradoxical nature of his
and performed a gallant and commendable act. It happened that among the
prisoners was a lady who belonged on the island of Taboga, a most
lovely and virtuous woman according to Esquemeling, and to her
buccaneer guards she stated, amid her sobs and shrieks, that she had
sent two priests to secure her ransom, but that having obtained the
money they had used it to secure the release of their own friends. This
tale reached Morgan’s ears and instantly he halted his men, made an
investigation and finding it true at once released the woman, made her
a present of the amount of her ransom, swept off his plumed hat, bent
his knee and kissed her finger-tips and, with expressions of deepest
sorrow for her state, sent her happily on her way with an armed escort.
Then, to even scores, he made prisoners of the treacherous priests,
and, as Esquemeling tells us, ‘used them according to the deserts of
their incompassionate intrigues.’
“By the time La Cruz was reached on March 5, 1671, the bulk of the
captives who still lived had been ransomed, and, embarking with those
remaining and with a number of new prisoners taken at La Cruz, Morgan
and his men started down the Chagres.
“When midway to San Lorenzo, Morgan again halted, ordered every one
searched to be sure they had concealed no booty and, to show his
fairness, insisted that he too must be searched, ‘even to the soles of
his boots.’ Then once more they resumed their way, and on March 9th
reached the mouth of the Chagres and the fortress.
“Soon after he arrived, Morgan loaded a boat with the prisoners he had
taken at St. Catherine and sent them to Porto Bello with a demand that
a ransom should be paid for the evacuation of San Lorenzo without its
being destroyed. This time, however, Morgan’s bluff was called, and a
message was returned stating that not a farthing would be paid and
Morgan could do as he pleased with the castle.
“Meantime, the loot was divided—Morgan doing the dividing—and at once
grumblings and complaints arose and the men openly accused Morgan of
keeping far more than his agreed share. And there is little wonder that
they did, for, despite the immense booty taken, Morgan gave but two
hundred pieces of eight to each man!
“Then Morgan showed his yellow streak and, sneaking secretly aboard his
ship, while at his orders his men were demolishing the fort, he sailed
away, leaving the buccaneers to follow as best they might. With
scarcely any provisions, with no commander of experience, the deserted
buccaneers were in a sad state. As Esquemeling quaintly says, ‘Morgan
left us all in such a miserable condition as might well serve for a
lively representation of what reward attends wickedness at the latter
end of life.’ As a matter of fact, they separated, took to sea in the
remaining ships and scattered to the four winds, carrying on a
desultory and more or less successful buccaneering life on their own
account. Thus, by treachery, Morgan possessed himself of his men’s
hard-won loot, he double-crossed and deserted the men who, rough and
villainous as they were, had stood by him through thick and thin and
had made his most famous deed possible, and his career as a buccaneer
was over.
“But the monuments to his awful deeds remain. Above the placid Chagres’
mouth old Fort San Lorenzo still frowns down. Its quaint sentry boxes
jut from the battered walls; the great guns lie rusting and corroded in
the crumbling embrasures; piles of round shot are overgrown with weeds
and vines; the cisterns where the Dons dipped the water to quench the
flames caused by that blazing arrow are still there. Within the
dungeons are rusty leg irons, manacles and heavy chains; the patched
walls, where Morgan’s toiling prisoners repaired the breaches of his
buccaneers’ attack, are plainly visible; and the deep trench, half
filled with the piles of dirt whereon the gallant Governor made his
last stand, are there for all to see.
“And across the Isthmus—by the shores of the Pacific—looms the lonely,
ruined tower of the cathedral in Old Panama. Near it are the walls of
the ancient fort, the gaunt arches of a burned monastery, the solid
massive walls of the slave mart wherein those cowering wretches were
roasted at Morgan’s orders and, spanning a little stream, is the stone
bridge over which the buccaneers fought and fell as they took the city.
Half hidden in the jungle are the treasure vaults that once held
incalculable fortunes in plate and gold, in ingots and jewels, in
pieces of eight, onzas and doubloons. Among the shrubbery one may still
pick up bits of glass and china, hinges and locks, buttons and stray
coins, even an occasional pistol barrel or sword hilt, all warped,
misshapen, melted by the flames that wiped Old Panama from the map when
Morgan, in his rage, fired the richest city of New Spain and left death
and destruction, smoldering ruins and distorted bleeding corpses to
testify to the most wanton, ruthless deed ever perpetrated by a
buccaneer.”