Morgan, upon a review of his forces, found that he had fifteen vessels, large and small, and eight hundred and sixty men. With these he set sail for Savona. Head winds impeded their progress. Three weeks had elapsed ere they reached the eastern extremity of Hispaniola. Eight hundred hungry men consume a vast amount of food each day. Their provisions ran short. They chanced to meet an English ship which had a superfluity for sale. Thus recruited, they pressed on, in a long straggling line, until eight of the ships reached a harbor called Ocoa, on the southern coast of the great island. Here he cast anchor to wait the arrival of the rest of the fleet.
CHAPTER XVI
The Expedition to Maracaibo
The Delay at Ocoa. – Hunting Excursions. – The Repulse. – Cities of Venezuela. – The Plan of Morgan. – Suggestions of Pierre Picard. – Sailing of the Expedition. – They Touch at Oruba. – Traverse Venezuela. – Enter Lake Maracaibo. – Capture of the Fort. – The City Abandoned. – Atrocities of the Pirates.
At Ocoa, on the Island of Hispaniola, the pirates remained several days waiting for the arrival of the other vessels, which were unaccountably lagging behind. Every morning Morgan sent a party of eight men, from each ship, upon the island as hunters, in search of game. He also sent a body of armed men to protect them from any attack by the Spaniards. Though there were many Spaniards upon the island, they did not feel strong enough to assail so great a force as the pirates could muster. They, however, sent to the city of San Domingo for three or four hundred men, to kill or drive away all the cattle and game around the Bay of Ocoa. They hoped thus to starve out the buccaneers, and compel them to depart.
Goaded by hunger, a band of fifty of Morgan’s men ventured far into the woods. The Spaniards, who were watching them, drew them into an ambuscade. The pirates were outnumbered and surrounded. With cries of “Kill, kill,” the Spaniards opened a sudden and deadly fire. But these desperadoes, accustomed to every kind of danger, could not be thrown into a panic. Instantly they formed themselves into a hollow square, and keeping a rolling fire from the four sides, slowly retreated to their ships. Many fell by the way, dead or wounded. Many of the Spaniards were also slain.
The next day, Morgan, rendered furious by the discomfiture, landed himself, at the head of two hundred men, to take dire revenge upon his foes. But no foe was to be met. Finding his search useless, he gave vent to his rage in burning all the dwellings he encountered, from which the Spaniards had fled.
Still the seven missing ships did not appear. After waiting a few days more, he decided to delay no longer. Spreading his sails, he steered his course for the Island of Savona. But none of the missing vessels were there. While waiting, he sent several boats, with crews amounting to one hundred and fifty well-armed men, to plunder several of the small towns upon the San Domingo coast. But in the capital city and all along the shore scouts were on the watch. Sentinels were placed upon every headland. The moment the boats appeared in sight, signals were given. At every point where a landing was attempted such energetic resistance was presented, that the pirates were compelled to retreat.
They returned to Morgan with this discouraging report. He was in a towering rage, and with sneers and curses denounced them as cowardly poltroons. As no longer delay could be safely indulged in, and as the missing vessels did not arrive, he made another review of his fleet and army, and found that he had eight vessels of various sizes and about five hundred men.
Upon the coast of Venezuela there was a large and opulent city, called Caraccas. It was the capital of the province of Venezuela, and had been founded nearly one hundred years before, in 1567, by the Spanish Government. It was a well-built and beautiful city, delightfully situated, in the enjoyment of a salubrious climate, and enriched by extensive commerce. Near by were Valencia, Barcelona, and Cumana, all important commercial ports. The latter place was the oldest city on the continent of South America. It was established in 1523. The plunder of these four cities would indeed enrich the marauders. And Morgan, in command of fifteen vessels, and with an army of fifteen hundred men did not doubt that he could effect their capture, one by one, if he could strike them entirely by surprise. But it was folly to attempt it with eight vessels and five hundred men.
There was a Frenchman in command of one of Morgan’s ships, by the name of Pierre Picard. This man, several years before, had been the pilot of Lolonois’s fleet, in his capture and destruction of Maracaibo and Gibraltar, of which expedition we have already given an account. During the intervening years those places had, in a very considerable degree, recovered from their disasters. Again they presented riches sufficient to entice the buccaneers.
Picard was a remarkable man, of great resources. He was a bold soldier and a skilful sailor. Familiar with all these waters, fearless and unscrupulous, with French plausibility of address, and speaking the English language with volubility and correctness, he gained great influence over Morgan.
A council of the officers was called. He proposed an attack upon Maracaibo and Gibraltar. A chart was presented exhibiting the course to be run, the channels to be threaded, the forces to be encountered, and the means of overcoming them.
His proposition was received with general acclaim, and the fleet weighed anchor. After several days’ sail to the south, they reached an island called Oruba. It was inhabited only by natives. They had a large stock of sheep, lambs, goats, and kids. Here the pirates cast anchor, to take in water and provisions. For once these marauders seemed to come to the conclusion that honesty was more politic than thievery, and that it was easier to buy a goat with a skein of thread, than to steal it, and thus rouse the hostility of the whole native population. They remained here twenty-four hours, acting as nearly like honest men as such a gang of thieves, drunkards, and desperadoes could do. They filled their water-casks, and laid in quite a store of provisions, which they bought, though without money and almost without price.
They were now within a day’s sail of Maracaibo. They were anxious that the natives should not know their destination, lest in some way they might give the alarm. Therefore the anchors were raised and the sails spread in the night. When the morning dawned the islanders looked in vain for the fleet.
During the day the ships came in sight of the cluster of islands which are found at the entrance of the Lake of Maracaibo. A fair breeze from the north had swept them rapidly through the Gulf of Venezuela. Just within the narrows which connected the gulf with the lake, there was a mountainous island called Vigilia. Upon one of its eminences there was a watch-tower erected, where sentinels were stationed, ever on the lookout to give warning of the approach of any suspicious craft.
Just as the fleet reached this point the wind died away into a perfect calm. Though Morgan made every endeavor to cast anchor out of sight of the watch-tower, the vigilant eyes of the sentinels detected him. The alarm was instantly sent up to the city. Twelve hours passed away before there was a breath of wind to ripple the crystal surface of the lake. It was then four o’clock in the morning. All this time had been granted the Spaniards to prepare for their defence.
At a little distance beyond Vigilia there was a narrow channel to be threaded, which was defended by a fort. Not deeming it safe to expose his vessels to the heavy guns of the Spaniards, and knowing that the works would be weak on the land side, he manned his boats, and marching through the woods struck his foes in the rear. The garrison had made arrangements for the most desperate resistance. They had burned all the huts around the walls of the fort, and had removed everything which could afford the assailants any shelter.
The defenders of the works numbered probably not more than thirty or forty men. Nearly five hundred reckless desperadoes emerged from the woods for the assault. They were all veterans, and all sharpshooters. Not a hand could be exposed but a bullet would strike it. Such a storm of balls were thrown with unerring aim in at every embrasure, that the guns could not be worked.
When the pirates, in their large numbers, first appeared emerging from the forest, the fort opened a fire so intense and continuous that it resembled the crater of a small volcano in most rapid eruption. But the pirates, who could return ten bullets for every one received, and who were careful that every bullet should accomplish its mission, soon caused the fire to slacken. Still the fight continued for many hours, till night came, with no apparent advantage on either side.
With the darkness the conflict ceased. Morgan sent a party cautiously forward to reconnoitre. No light was to be seen. No sound was to be heard. Solitude and silence reigned. The fort was deserted. With shouts the pirates rushed forward to take possession of the works. The loud voice of Morgan arrested them. He was as cautious as he was brave. A party of engineers was dispatched, led by Morgan himself, to search lest there might be lighted fuses leading to the magazine. Morgan was the first to enter. His quick eye discerned the gleam of a fuse slowly creeping toward the magazine, where three thousand pounds of gunpowder were stored. It was instantly trampled out.
But for this caution, five hundred pirates would have swarmed all over the fort. There would have been an earthquake roar, a volcanic upheaval, and not one of those five hundred desperadoes would have survived to tell the story of the retribution which had so suddenly befallen them.
The fort was a small but strong redoubt, or outwork, built of stone, circular in form, with a massive wall thirty feet high. It was only accessible by an iron ladder which could be let down from a guard-room. It mounted fourteen cannons, of eight, twelve, and fourteen pound calibre. There was also found a quantity of fire-pots, hand-grenades, pikes, and muskets.
The pirates had no time to lose. It was needful to press forward as rapidly as possible, for every hour the inhabitants of the city might be adding to their defences. They blew up a portion of the wall; spiked the cannon, and threw them over the ramparts; burned the gun-carriages, and destroyed all the material of war which they could not carry away with them.
The way was now open for the passage of the fleet up the lake to the very entrance of the harbor. With the earliest dawn the fleet spread its sails, leaving behind the smouldering ruins of the fort. The breeze was light, the shoals many, the channel intricate. It was not until the next day that they came within sight of the city. There was still another fort to be passed at the very mouth of the port. Morgan stood upon his quarter-deck, spy-glass in hand. He could see the Spanish cavaliers at work on the ramparts, and had reason to expect a very desperate resistance. Again he decided not to expose his ships to the cannonade which the heavy guns of the fort could bring to bear upon them.
Casting anchor out of gun-shot, he disembarked his forces in the boats. They were ordered not to meddle with the fort, but to march in two divisions through the woods, and attack the town at points which the artillery of the fort could not protect. The guns of the fleet were brought to bear upon all the adjacent thickets, that no foe might find there a lurking-place.
The landing was effected without opposition. The march, through the narrow mule-paths, was undisputed. The town was reached. But there was no foe there; no inhabitant there. All had fled. Warned by the awful fate which had befallen Maracaibo, but a few years before, when sacked by the pirates under Lolonois, the citizens, men, women, and children, had fled utterly panic-stricken. It is easy for a man of any ordinary courage to brave death in the performance of duty. But who can endure demoniac torture? Who can bear the idea of seeing his wife, his daughter, his child exposed to every indignity, every cruelty which demons in human form can devise?
Maracaibo was emptied of its population. All had sought refuge in the forest, with speed to which terror lent wings. The aged, the sick had fled. Even the dying were carried away. And it is stated without denial that the ship, the Oxford, which took the lead in this enterprise, belonged to Charles II., King of England. This royal buccaneer had equipped it, had manned it, and was to share in the spoil. And he rewarded the demoniac leader of this demoniac gang with the honors of a baronetcy; and appointed him governor over one of the most important colonies of Great Britain. Such scenes were enacted only two hundred years ago. Surely the world has made some progress.
The fugitives had taken with them everything they could carry. There were no carriage roads in those parts. But there were many narrow mule-paths, leading in various directions. On pack-mules and horses much treasure had been removed. Two days had elapsed since the alarm had resounded through the streets, “The pirates are coming.”
The houses were empty. The doors were left wide open. The chambers were stripped of everything valuable. Nearly all the gold and silver and jewels had of course disappeared. There were some houses of much elegance in the place, sumptuously furnished. The pirates rushed through the streets, searching for the richest palaces for their barracks. The churches they wantonly defiled and converted into prison-houses. Not a vessel or a boat was left in the port. All had been used, by the terrified fugitives, to escape far away upon the wide lake beyond.
Morgan, chagrined at the loss of so much anticipated treasure, instantly dispatched one hundred fleet-footed men to pursue the encumbered and heavily laden refugees, along all the trails. Scarcely any provisions could be found in the town. The fugitives had taken the wise precaution to destroy what they could not carry away. The little fort which guarded the harbor was merely a half-moon rampart facing the water, and mounting but four cannon. These works the Spaniards had of course abandoned.
The men who had been dispatched in pursuit of the Spaniards returned the next evening. They brought with them thirty prisoners, and fifty mules laden with valuables. The prisoners were feeble men and women of the poorest class. The owners of the richly laden mules, seeing the approach of the pirates, had abandoned all, and outstripped the pursuers in their flight. The unhappy captives were put to the torture, but nothing could be wrested from them.
This Morgan, subsequently Sir Henry Morgan, governor of Jamaica, suspended his prisoners by the beard; hung them up horizontally by cords bound around their toes and thumbs; placed burning matches between their fingers; scourged them; twisted cords around their heads till their eyes burst from their sockets, and perpetrated other enormities too horrible to be mentioned.
“Thus,” writes Esquemeling, “all sort of inhuman cruelties were executed upon these innocent people. Those who would not confess, or who had nothing to declare, died under the hands of those tyrannical men. These tortures and racks continued for the space of three whole weeks; in which time they ceased not to send out daily parties of men to seek for more people to torment and rob: they never returned home without booty and new riches.”
In one of these excursions they captured two negro slaves, who were faint for loss of food. They were both put to the torture, to compel them to reveal where their master was concealed. One, the elder of the two, endured the horrible torment without a word, and almost without a groan, till death came to his release. The other captive, a young man, just emerging from boyhood, bore up bravely until the agony became utterly unendurable. He then offered to lead them to his master. The wealthy Spaniard was soon taken, and with him the exultant pirates seized thirty thousand dollars in silver.
In such days of disaster and woe, families, flying into the wilderness, would cling together. Morgan had gradually captured one hundred of the most prominent families. He had also acquired an unexpectedly large amount of plunder, in silver, gold, bullion, and rich merchandise.
Captain Picard was very exultant in view of the success of the enterprise which he had suggested and guided. He now urged that they should advance upon the city of Gibraltar. It will be remembered that this place was at the head of the lake, about one hundred miles south from Maracaibo. Morgan embarked his prisoners and all of his plunder on board his fleet and spread his sails for this new enterprise.
CHAPTER XVII
Adventures on the Shores of Lake Maracaibo
Preparations for the Defence of Gibraltar. – The Hidden Ships. – The Hiding-place of the Governor and the Women. – Disasters and Failure. – Capture of the Spanish Ships. – The Retreat Commenced. – Peril of the Pirates. – Singular Correspondence. – Strength of the Spanish Armament. – The Public Conference of the Pirates. – The Naval Battle. – The Fire-Ship. – Wonderful Achievement of the Pirates.
Before Morgan weighed anchor for his expedition to Gibraltar, he sent two Spanish prisoners to the city to say that if they made a peaceable surrender of the place, without attempting to conceal or carry off their valuables, their lives should be spared. But if any resistance were offered, the city should be laid in ashes and every individual put to the sword.
But ample time had been given to the citizens of Gibraltar to prepare for a vigorous defence. The garrison from Maracaibo had also fled to her forts. The troops were landed a mile and a half from the town, and marched through the woods to attack the foe in the rear. The Spaniards had anticipated this movement and were prepared to meet it. Still they were baffled by the strategy of Morgan. Instead of advancing by the regular route, he employed a large party of sappers and miners to cut a new path through the woods. Thus he approached the city without exposing his men to storm ramparts bristling with artillery and musketry.
The Spaniards had no time to throw up new intrenchments. It was evident, even to the most unintelligent soldier, that all was lost. Their hearts sank within them, and soldiers and citizens fled with the utmost precipitation. So general was the flight that the pirates, when they entered the streets of Gibraltar, found but one single man there, and he was a semi-idiot. Even that weak creature they tortured. The poor wretch cried out:
“Do not torture me any more, and I will show you my riches.”
The pirates thought, or pretended to think, that he was some rich person assuming the disguise of poverty and semi-insanity. He led them to a miserable hovel containing only a few earthern pots. He dug up, from under the hearth, three dollars which he had buried there. Still they affirmed that he was a grandee in disguise, and commenced torturing him anew. In his agony he cried out:
“In the name of Jesus; in the name of the Virgin Mary, what will you do with me, Englishmen? I am a poor man. I live on alms. I sleep in the hospital.”
He died under their hands. They dragged him aside and covered him with a few shovelfuls of earth. Some of the slaves, who had been inhumanly treated by their masters, now took revenge, and revealed their hiding-places to the pirates. A poor lame peasant, with his two daughters, was brought in. Appalled by the terrors of the rack, he promised to lead them through the woods to a retreat where several of the Spaniards were concealed. But the Spaniards, vigilantly on the watch, fled. The pirates, in the rage of their disappointment, hung the poor peasant. What became of his daughters we are not informed.
But I cannot torture my readers with a narrative of these horrors. They were dreadful beyond all powers of description. It seems inexplicable that God could have permitted such awful deeds.
Parties, thoroughly armed, were sent out to explore the region for many miles around. One of the slaves promised to conduct Captain Morgan to a river flowing into the lake, where there was a ship and four large boats richly laden with merchandise, taken both from Gibraltar and from Maracaibo. He also promised to lead a party to the place where the governor of Gibraltar was concealed, with most of the females of the city. The capture of the governor, for whom a great ransom could be expected to save him from death by torture, and the capture of the females, were deemed matters of the greatest moment by these demoniac pirates.
Morgan himself took a party of two hundred men, with the slave as a guide, and set out on an expedition to capture the governor and the women. At the same time he dispatched another party of one hundred men in two large boats, to seize the ships. They were to coast along the shores of the solitary lake until they reached the mouth of the river where the vessels of the refugees were concealed.
The governor was on the alert. His scouts watched all the approaches to his retreat. It required a very painful and laborious march of two days for the pirates to reach the spot where the fugitives were intrenched. The governor, with much sagacity, had selected a large island in a river. The region was difficult of approach, leading through the roughest paths of tangled thickets and bogs. God seemed to frown upon the pirates. The rain fell in floods upon them. They were drenched to the skin. Many mountain torrents they were compelled to ford, wading up to the waist through the foaming water. They sank to the hips in the softened marshes. Their shoes were torn from their feet. Their clothes were rent and their skin pierced by the thorns.
When they reached the river they found the current rapid and the channel deep. There were no boats with which to cross. These desperate men were provided for every emergence. They soon constructed canoes and crossed the stream. But in the hurried passage many of the canoes were swamped and the men lost. Upon reaching the island they found that the governor had taken refuge on a densely wooded and craggy mountain. The path which led to the summit, winding through the thickets and the immense rocks, was so narrow that it could only be mounted in single file.
In fording the rivers and wading through the bogs, and breasting the rain and the gale, all of the ammunition of the pirates had been injured, and much of it utterly spoiled. The whole party was in such a condition, that Esquemeling writes:
“If the Spaniards, in that juncture of time, had had but a troop of fifty men, well armed with pikes or spears, they might have entirely destroyed the pirates, without any possible resistance on their side.”
The governor was not aware of this. Prudently he remained upon the defensive. He had several of the soldiers of the garrison with him, and an ample supply of ammunition. His men were admirably posted behind rocks and trees, so that had the pirates persisted in their endeavor to ascend the mountain, every man must have perished. And it is doubtful whether they could have inflicted even a wound upon their unseen assailants.
Morgan perceived that the case was hopeless. Discouraged and maddened he commenced a retreat. Twelve days passed from the time they commenced their enterprise before Morgan, with his diminished and shattered party, returned to Gibraltar. They had, however, captured on the way quite a number of fugitives whom they had found scattered through the woods, and also a considerable amount of money. They took a sort of fiendish pleasure, on their return, in seeing the aged women and the children swept away by the foaming mountain torrents, which they forded. They returned to Gibraltar exasperated, and prepared to inflict severer torture upon all their captives.
The party sent to take the vessels were a little more successful. The Spaniards had unloaded the vessels and conveyed to unknown distances much of their cargoes. Hearing of the approach of the pirates, they fled precipitately, leaving behind them all which they had not removed, or which they could not immediately destroy. Still there were many bales of goods left in the vessels and on the shore. These the pirates seized and carried back to their ships.
When the pirates had been five weeks in Gibraltar, plundering, torturing, carousing, the failure of provisions rendered it necessary for them to depart. But first they sent some of their prisoners back into the woods to find their hidden companions, and to say to them that unless they sent Morgan, as a ransom for the city, five thousand dollars, in gold or silver, he would lay every building of the city in ashes. Those ruined men went forth on this sad mission. After searching every nook and corner for a long time, they came back to state that they could not find anybody. The terrified Spaniards had fled far beyond the reach of a day’s exploration.
They said, however, that if Morgan would have a little patience and give them eight days, they would endeavor to raise the money. The pirate replied:
“I am going to Maracaibo. I shall take with me eight of your most prominent citizens, whom I hold as captives. I shall regard them as hostages for the payment of the ransom. If within eight days the money is paid, they will be set at liberty. If the money is not paid, they must suffer the penalty.”
And what was that penalty? Death; and probably death by torture. Morgan began to feel a little solicitude about his retreat. In five weeks the Spaniards must have had time to assemble troops from various parts of the province, to repair the fortifications of Maracaibo, and to throw very serious obstacles in the way of his passing through the straits which connected Lake Maracaibo with the Gulf of Venezuela.
Influenced by this consideration, they moved with haste. Weighing their anchors and spreading their sails, with their fleet laden with plunder, they now directed their course toward Maracaibo. Baffled by light or contrary winds, four days passed before they reached the city. Here they found the same silence and desolation which they had left behind them. There was but one person in the place – a poor old man, sick and almost bed-ridden.
He gave them the alarming intelligence that three Spanish men-of-war were cruising off the head of the lake, watching their return. They had also repaired the fort which Morgan had partially destroyed, had mounted the guns anew, garrisoned the works with experienced artillerymen, and placed all things in posture for a vigorous defence. Over the redoubt the flag of Castile was proudly waving.
Morgan sent one of his swiftest boats down the lake to reconnoitre the state of affairs. The boat came back the next day, confirming the statements. The ships were large and evidently well manned, as well as powerfully armed. The largest mounted forty-nine guns; the next, thirty-eight guns of different calibre, and the smallest, sixteen guns of large calibre, and eight of less. Morgan could not hope to contend successfully against forces so much superior to his own. The commander of this fleet was Don Alonzo Espinosa. He was vice-admiral of the West-Indian fleet. His little squadron had been sent to those seas to protect Spanish commerce, and to put to the sword every pirate he could take. The pirates were thrown into a state of great consternation. Their largest ship carried but fourteen guns. There seemed no possible escape for them by sea or by land.
Whatever might have been Morgan’s secret feeling, he assumed an air of the utmost confidence. With audacity most extraordinary, considering the circumstances, he sent a Spanish prisoner to Admiral Espinosa, with the message that unless he immediately forwarded to him twenty-eight thousand dollars, in silver or gold, he would apply the torch to Maracaibo, and every building should be consumed.
The reply of the admiral was dated “On board the royal ship Magdalen, lying at anchor at the entry of Lake Maracaibo, this 24th day of April, 1669.” In it Espinosa wrote:
“My intention is to dispute your passage out of the lake, and to pursue you wherever you may go. But if you will surrender all that you have taken, with all your prisoners, I will let you pass without molestation. But if you make any resistance, I will send my boats up to Maracaibo, and you shall be utterly destroyed. Every man shall be put to the sword. This is my fixed determination. I have good soldiers, who desire nothing more earnestly than to revenge on you, and your people, the outrages and cruelties you have committed on the Spanish nation.”
Morgan, upon the reception of this letter, summoned all his men to meet in the market-place of Maracaibo. He submitted the question to them whether they would avail themselves of this offer, and thus escape with their lives, or run the risk of a battle with the Spanish squadron. The vote was unanimous that they would rather shed the last drop of blood they had, than give up the treasure they had obtained at the expense of so much danger and suffering. One of the pirates stepped forward, and said:
“Captain Morgan, I will undertake, with twelve men, to destroy the largest of those ships. I will convert the large vessel we captured up the river into a fire-ship. We will fill her full of the most combustible matter. Then we will place images of men around, and sham guns, made of logs of wood, at the port-holes, and unfurl the English flag. The crew of the admiral’s ship, not doubting that we are bearing down to give them battle, will not think of attempting to escape. We will run directly upon the Magdalen, throw our grappling-irons aboard, and, when both ships are instantly wrapped in flames, will, in the confusion, take to our boats, and reach some vessel near by.”