In the temporary paralysis of commerce vast wealth had gathered and accumulated in the great treasure-houses of the walled and fortified towns of the West Indies—Cartagena, Porto Bello, Maracaibo, Havana, and numerous other centres of Spanish power. It was Lolonois who conceived the scheme of descending upon these storehouses of treasure, there to gather in one swoop a prize such as a score of ventures in times past could not return.
It was upon Maracaibo that the first attack was made, and in the matter-of-fact way with which our author describes the sacking of that city and of the town of Gibraltar a picture of a phase of the times is given, so grim, so terrible, that were it not for the further bearing out of the impeachable records, we of these days of light might well doubt that such things could really be in lands calling themselves Christian. The result of the expedition was all—more than all—that Lolonois’ most sanguine hopes could have anticipated; and when he returned in triumph to Tortuga, almost a howl of exultation went up from all the West Indies not under Spanish rule, for there were many other and richer towns than Maracaibo.
VI.
It was upon the lines marked out by Lolonois that the greatest of all the buccaneers reaped fame and wealth—Sir Henry Morgan, the hero of the author’s book, the Alexander of his history. Of the birth, parentage, and family of Morgan but little is known, that little being quite apocryphal in its nature. Our author tells us that he was a Welshman, as was to be supposed from his name; that he was of good strain, as was also to be supposed; and that his father was a rich yeoman. The history further tells us that Captain Morgan was, upon his first coming to the Americas, sold for his passage, such being the customary manner of dealing with the steerage passengers of the day. Having served his time he went to Jamaica, where he entered into the service of one Mansvelt, a buccaneer of not a little note, and presently his name becomes famous in the nether history of the period.
Another history, not so picturesque as that written by Esquemeling, but perhaps more accurate, tells us of the great buccaneer’s having been commissioned by Sir Thomas Modyford, then Governor of Jamaica, to levy war upon Spain and other nationalites upon behalf of the King of England.
As was said before, the governors of the non-Spanish West India Islands were accustomed to issue such warrants to the buccaneer privateersmen, but during Sir Thomas Modyford’s time some effort was beginning to be made by the home governments to put a stop to this semi-legal piracy. Sir Thomas, who, it was said, shared in the gains of the freebooters, was carried as prisoner to England to answer for the assumption of his authority in having declared war against a nation with whom the country was then at peace. Nevertheless the latent sympathy of the Government was still on the side of the buccaneers, and it was on account of his attack upon Panama that Captain Morgan was created Sir Henry Morgan by his Majesty King Charles II.
In the historical records of Jamaica his name appears twice as Lieutenant-Governor: once during the time that Sir Thomas Modyford, who had granted him commission, was a State prisoner in the Tower—once, succeeding Charles Earl, of Carlisle, in 1680.
It was perhaps a part of the paradoxical management of State affairs that he was finally recalled to England in 1683 by order of the Secretary of State, for breaking the peace with the Spaniards, contrary to his Majesty’s express orders, and it seems a very fitting epilogue to the comedy of fate that he should have died in the Tower of London for the very deeds for which he was knighted.
Such are the bald and meagre details of his life. Of his renown the world has heard more or less blatant blasts upon the trumpet of Fame for two hundred years and more, the notes whereof are not a little attuned to the history of his deeds written by honest John Esquemeling, the first English edition of which is here edited.