[Contents]CHAPTER VITHE 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[101]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.[102]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[103]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[104]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[105]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[106]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[107]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[108]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[109]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.[110]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[111]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[112]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,[113]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[114]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[115]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![116]“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.The buccaneers’ fleetThe buccaneers’ fleetThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fortNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort“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;[117]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[118]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.”[119]
[Contents]CHAPTER VITHE 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[101]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.[102]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[103]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[104]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[105]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[106]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[107]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[108]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[109]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.[110]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[111]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[112]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,[113]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[114]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[115]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![116]“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.The buccaneers’ fleetThe buccaneers’ fleetThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fortNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort“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;[117]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[118]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.”[119]
CHAPTER VITHE 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[101]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.[102]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[103]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[104]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[105]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[106]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[107]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[108]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[109]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.[110]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[111]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[112]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,[113]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[114]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[115]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![116]“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.The buccaneers’ fleetThe buccaneers’ fleetThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fortNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort“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;[117]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[118]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.”[119]
“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[101]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.[102]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[103]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[104]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[105]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[106]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[107]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[108]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[109]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.[110]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[111]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[112]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,[113]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[114]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[115]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![116]
“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.
The buccaneers’ fleetThe buccaneers’ fleet
The buccaneers’ fleet
The ruined tower of the cathedral in Old PanamaThe ruined tower of the cathedral in Old Panama
The ruined tower of the cathedral in Old Panama
Near the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fortNear the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort
Near the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort
“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;[117]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[118]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.”[119]