The Naval History of the United States | Page 7

the town of Campeche, and, after stripping the place to the bare walls,
demanded that a heavy tribute be paid him, in default of which he
would burn the town. Loaded with booty, he sailed back to the
buccaneers' haunts in the Tortugas. This expedition was the example
that the buccaneers followed for the next few years. City after city fell a
prey to the demoniac attacks of the lawless rovers. Houses and
churches were sacked, towns given to the flames, rich and poor
plundered alike; murder was rampant; and men and women were
subjected to the most horrid tortures, to extort information as to buried
treasures.
Two great names stand out pre-eminent amid the host of outlaws that
took part in this reign of rapine,--l'Olonoise and Sir Henry Morgan. The
desperate exploits of these two worthies would, if recounted, fill
volumes; and probably no more extraordinary narrative of cruelty,
courage, suffering, and barbaric luxury could be fabricated. Morgan
was a Welshman, an emigrant, who, having worked out as a slave the
cost of his passage across the ocean, took immediate advantage of his
freedom to take up the trade of piracy. For him was no pillaging of
paltry merchant-ships. He demanded grander operations, and his bands
of desperadoes assumed the proportions of armies. Many were the
towns that suffered from the bloody visitations of Morgan and his men.
Puerto del Principe yielded up to them three hundred thousand pieces
of eight, five hundred head of cattle, and many prisoners. Porto Bello
was bravely defended against the barbarians; and the stubbornness of
the defence so enraged Morgan, that he swore that no quarter should be

given the defenders. And so when some hours later the chief fortress
surrendered, the merciless buccaneer locked its garrison in the
guard-room, set a torch to the magazine, and sent castle and garrison
flying into the air. Maracaibo and Gibraltar next fell into the clutches of
the pirate. At the latter town, finding himself caught in a river with
three men-of-war anchored at its mouth, he hastily built a fire-ship, put
some desperate men at the helm, and sent her, a sheet of flame, into the
midst of the squadron. The admiral's ship was destroyed; and the
pirates sailed away, exulting over their adversaries' discomfiture.
Rejoicing over their victories, the followers of Morgan then planned a
venture that should eclipse all that had gone before. This was no less
than a descent upon Panama, the most powerful of the West Indian
cities. For this undertaking, Morgan gathered around him an army of
over two thousand desperadoes of all nationalities. A little village on
the island of Hispaniola was chosen as the recruiting station; and
thither flocked pirates, thieves, and adventurers from all parts of the
world. It was a motley crew thus gathered together,--Spaniards,
swarthy skinned and black haired; wiry Frenchmen, quick to anger, and
ever ready with cutlass or pistol; Malays and Lascars, half clad in
gaudy colors, treacherous and sullen, with a hand ever on their
glittering creeses; Englishmen, handy alike with fist, bludgeon, or
cutlass, and mightily given to fearful oaths; negroes, Moors, and a few
West Indians mixed with the lawless throng.
Having gathered his band, procured provisions (chiefly by plundering),
and built a fleet of boats, Morgan put his forces in motion. The first
obstacle in his path was the Castle of Chagres, which guarded the
mouth of the Chagres River, up which the buccaneers must pass to
reach the city of Panama. To capture this fortress, Morgan sent his
vice-admiral Bradley, with four hundred men. The Spaniards were
evidently warned of their approach; for hardly had the first ship flying
the piratical ensign appeared at the mouth of the river, when the royal
standard of Spain was hoisted above the castle, and the dull report of a
shotted gun told the pirates that there was a stubborn resistance in store
for them.
Landing some miles below the castle, and cutting their way with

hatchet and sabre through the densely interwoven vegetation of a
tropical jungle, the pirates at last reached a spot from which a clear
view of the castle could be obtained. As they emerged from the forest
to the open, the sight greatly disheartened them. They saw a powerful
fort, with bastions, moat, drawbridge, and precipitous natural defences.
Many of the pirates advised a retreat; but Bradley, dreading the anger
of Morgan, ordered an assault. Time after time did the desperate
buccaneers, with horrid yells, rush upon the fort, only to be beaten back
by the well-directed volleys of the garrison. They charged up to the
very walls, threw over fireballs, and hacked the timbers with axes, but
to no avail. From behind their impregnable ramparts, the Spaniards
fired murderous volleys, crying out.--
"Come on, you English devils, you