"What boots it," he exclaimed, "how small our number, if our hearts be great! The fewer we are the closer will be our union and the larger our shares of plunder."
Boldness and secrecy carried the day. One of the castles was taken by surprise, the first knowledge of the attack coming to the people of the town from the concussion when Morgan blew it up. Before the garrison or the citizens could prepare to oppose them the freebooters were in the town. The governor and garrison fled in panic haste to the other castle, while the terrified people threw their treasures into wells and cisterns. The castle made a gallant resistance, but was soon obliged to yield to the impetuous attacks of the pirate crews.
It was no light exploit which Morgan had performed,—to take with five hundred men a fortified city with a large garrison and strengthened by natural obstacles to assault. The ablest general in ordinary war might well have claimed renown for so signal a victory. But the ability of the leader was tarnished by the cruelty of the buccaneer. The people were treated with shocking barbarity, many of them being shut up in convents and churches and[pg 270] burned alive, while the pirates gave themselves up to every excess of debauchery.
The great booty gained by this raid caused numerous pirate captains to enlist under Morgan's flag, and other towns were taken, in which similar orgies of cruelty and debauchery followed. But the impunity of the buccaneers was nearing its end. Their atrocious acts had at length aroused the indignation of the civilized world, and a treaty was concluded between Great Britain and Spain whose chief purpose was to put an end to these sanguinary and ferocious deeds.
The first effect of this treaty was to spur the buccaneers to the performance of some exploit surpassing any they had yet achieved. So high was Morgan's reputation among the pirates that they flocked from all quarters to enlist under his flag, and he soon had a fleet of no fewer than thirty-seven vessels manned by two thousand men. With so large a force an expedition on a greater scale could well be undertaken, and a counsel of the chiefs debated whether they should make an assault upon Vera Cruz, Carthagena, or Panama. Their choice fell upon Panama, as the richest of the three.
The city of Panama at that time (1670) was considered one of the greatest and most opulent in America. It contained two thousand large buildings and five thousand smaller, all of which were three stories high. Many of these were built of stone, others of cedar wood, being elegantly constructed and richly furnished. The city was the emporium for the silver- and gold-mines of New Spain, and its[pg 271] merchants lived in great opulence, their houses rich in articles of gold and silver, adorned with beautiful paintings and other works of art, and full of the luxuries of the age. The churches were magnificent in their decorations, and richly embellished with ornaments in gold and silver. The city presented such a prize to cupidity as freebooters and bandits had rarely conceived of in their wildest dreams.
STREET IN OLD QUARTER OF PANAMA.
The daring enterprise began with the capture by four hundred men of the Fort of St. Laurence, at the mouth of the Chagres River. Up this serpentine stream sailed the freebooters, as far as it would bear them, and thence they marched overland, suffering the greatest hardships and overcoming difficulties which would have deterred men of less intrepid spirit. Eight days of this terrible march brought the adventurers within sight of the far-spreading Pacific, and of the spires of the coveted city on its shores.
The people of Panama had been apprised of what was in store for them, and had laid ambuscades for the buccaneers, but Morgan, by taking an indirect route to the town, avoided these. Panama was but partly fortified. In several quarters it lay open to attack. It must be fought for and won or lost on the open plain. Here the Spaniards had assembled to the number of two thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry, well equipped and possessing everything needed but spirit to meet the dreaded foe. They had adopted an expedient sure to prove a dangerous one. A herd of wild bulls, to the number of more than two thousand, was provided, with Indians[pg 272] and negroes to drive them on the pirate horde. The result resembled that in which the Greeks drove elephants upon the Roman legions. Many of the buccaneers were accustomed to the chase of wild cattle, and, by shouts and the waving of colored flags, turned the bulls back upon the Spanish lines, which they threw into disorder.