Then, realizing that he must leave, Morgan demanded that the stricken inhabitants pay a ransom for the deliverance of the city, and, ambushing the approaching Spanish troops, he drove them back along the Gold Road. Knowing that his threats to burn the town and to massacre the few remaining inhabitants would be carried out if the ransom were not paid, the people scraped from hiding-places the sum of one hundred thousand pieces of eight, and turned them over to the ruthless conqueror. Rarely did Harry Morgan break his word to an enemy (which was about his only redeeming trait), and so, the ransom being paid, he prepared to evacuate the town with all the treasure he had won, which amounted to more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash and as much more in merchandise—truly, a rich haul!
But before he departed there entered into this awful tragedy a bit of that humor that ever was cropping up with Morgan. Marveling how any one could have taken Porto Bello with its supposedly impregnable forts, its mighty guns, and its horde of soldiery,—to say nothing of its citizens, who were reputed to be brave fighters,—the Viceroy [[310]]of Panama despatched a messenger to the pirate, begging him to “send him some small pattern of those arms wherewith he had taken with such violence so great a city.” Courteously (now that hostilities were over and the ransom paid) Sir Henry received the messenger, entertained him,—with stolen wine and looted provender, of course,—and sent him back to the viceroy bearing a pistol and a handful of bullets along with a message to the effect that he “desired the viceroy to accept that slender pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Porto Bello and keep them for a twelvemonth; after which time he promised to come to Panama and fetch them away.”
We can readily imagine with what thanksgiving the harried, tortured, robbed inhabitants of Porto Bello saw the last of the pirates leave, and watched the sails of their ships as they sank from sight below the horizon. But never again would they trust to the old forts to safeguard their treasure. As a result of Morgan’s raid the Gold Road was abandoned between Porto Bello and Las Cruces on the Chagres. The mighty fortress of San Lorenzo at the river’s mouth was strengthened, and the treasure bound for Spain was brought via land and the Chagres River to the ships lying in safety under the guns of San Lorenzo. [[311]]
CHAGRES CASTLE (FORT SAN LORENZO)
But Porto Bello remained; its forts stand, and to-day one may wander about old Fort San Jerome. The ruins are in a good state of preservation, the chapel, the house of the valiant old governor, the cloisters from which the nuns and monks were dragged to form a human shield for the pirates, the massive treasury, and the huge barracks still stand; and one may yet trace the outlines and foundations of the old town.
Nearly as strong to-day as in the time of Morgan is old San Jerome, with its massive walls, its lantern-shaped sentry-boxes, the deeply carved coats of arms above its portals, its embrasures, and its battlements; but the modern Porto Bello is merely a native village of squalid huts and unkempt streets. Its glories have long since departed; the Gold Road is no more. Once the most fabulously rich of New-World cities, the third [[312]]greatest stronghold of Spain on the Spanish Main, and the storehouse for millions, Porto Bello is to-day almost forgotten and unknown.
PANAMA
San Lorenzo fortress as it is today