In clearing up the ruins, Dr. Dexter also secured an enormous collection of odds and ends, many of which were of great historical interest. There were bottles and glassware; crockery; buttons; coins; remains of daggers, guns, and pistols; sword hilts; locks; household utensils, et cetera. Some of them were in a good state of preservation, but most of them had been partly melted by the flames and illustrated graphically the terrific heat of the fire which Esquemelling tells us “continued for four weeks after the day it began.”
Never in the history of piracy has there been such wanton destruction. Not only was the city burned, but, out of pure villainy, Morgan set the torch to two hundred warehouses in which the pirate chief had placed “great numbers of slaves together with an infinite number of sacks of meal.” [[346]]
There has been much confusion as to the origin of the fire, and it has been contended that it was accidental, or that the residents started the blaze in order to keep the pirates from occupying the town. But there is not the least question that it was the deliberate act of Morgan, who was in a frenzy of demoniacal rage when he found that after his hard battle and heavy losses the bulk of the valuables had been “transported to remote and occult places.” Esquemelling, who was present at the sack of the town and who should know the truth, states particularly:
The same day about noon [the day the town was taken] he caused certain men privately to set fire to several great edifices of the city, nobody knowing whence the fire proceeded nor who were the authors thereof, much less what motives persuaded Captain Morgan thereto, which are as yet unknown to this day.
But he goes on to say:
Captain Morgan endeavored to make the public believe the Spaniards had been the cause thereof, which suspicions he surmised among his own people, perceiving they reflected upon him for that action.
That the houses were, as I have said, of flimsy construction is evident from Esquemelling’s statement that “in less than half an hour the fire consumed a whole street”; and later he says, speaking [[347]]of the Genoese slave market: “This building likewise was commanded by Captain Morgan to be set on fire; whereby it was burnt to the ground.”
Doubtless the villainous Morgan, finding his own men demurred at thus destroying a city without cause (and perhaps realizing that by so doing he could not demand the usual ransom), endeavored to put the blame on the unfortunate inhabitants, as Esquemelling says, but he was a ready liar, an utterly unprincipled scoundrel, and time and again betrayed the trust his men placed in him. So there is no use in trying to lessen the blackness of his character by endeavoring to absolve him of the crime of burning old Panama or of cremating the helpless slaves.
The taking of the city was the most noteworthy exploit ever performed by the buccaneers; in accomplishing it they displayed unparalleled bravery; they endured untold hardships and sufferings; they conquered against overwhelming odds, and with a scant one thousand men Morgan achieved what many a general with an army at his back would have hesitated to undertake. But he spoiled all by his execrable cruelty and by wanton, ruthless destruction, and to the end of time the sack of Panama will remain as the most utterly disgraceful and detestable crime of the British buccaneers. As [[348]]long as the crumbling stones of Old Panama stand they will remain mute testimonials of the most despicable act of that most despicable rascal, Sir Henry Morgan. [[349]]