"After these transactions, Captain Morgan (having provided his fleet with all necessaries, and taken with him the best guns of the castles, nailing the rest which he could not carry away) set sail from Porto Bello with all his ships. With these he arrived in a few days unto the Island of Cuba, where he sought out a place wherein with all quiet and repose he might make the dividend of the spoil they had gotten. They found in ready money two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides all other merchandises, as cloth, linen, silks and other goods. With this rich purchase they sailed again from thence unto their common place of rendezvous, Jamaica. Being arrived, they passed here some time in all sorts of vices and debauchery, according to their common manner of doing, spending with huge prodigality what others had gained with no small labour and toil."[272]
Morgan and his officers, on their return to Jamaica in the middle of August, made an official report which places their conduct in a peculiarly mild and charitable light,[273] and forms a sharp contrast to the account left us by Exquemelin. According to Morgan the town and castles were restored "in as good condition as they found them," and the people were so well treated that "several ladies of great quality and other prisoners" who were offered "their liberty to go to the President's camp, refused, saying they were now prisoners to a person of quality, who was more tender of their honours than they doubted to find in the president's camp, and so voluntarily continued with them till the surrender of the town and castles." This scarcely tallies with what we know of the manners of the freebooters, and Exquemelin's evidence is probably nearer the truth. When Morgan returned to Jamaica Modyford at first received him somewhat doubtfully, for Morgan's commission, as the Governor told him, was only against ships, and the Governor was not at all sure how the exploit would be taken in England. Morgan, however, had reported that at Porto Bello, as well as in Cuba, levies were being made for an attack upon Jamaica, and Modyford laid great stress upon this point when he forwarded the buccaneer's narrative to the Duke of Albemarle.
The sack of Porto Bello was nothing less than an act of open war against Spain, and Modyford, now that he had taken the decisive step, was not satisfied with half measures. Before the end of October 1668 the whole fleet of privateers, ten sail and 800 men, had gone out again under Morgan to cruise on the coasts of Caracas, while Captain Dempster with several other vessels and 300 followers lay before Havana and along the shores of Campeache.[274] Modyford had written home repeatedly that if the king wished him to exercise any adequate control over the buccaneers, he must send from England two or three nimble fifth-rate frigates to command their obedience and protect the island from hostile attacks. Charles in reply to these letters sent out the "Oxford," a frigate of thirty-four guns, which arrived at Port Royal on 14th October. According to Beeston's Journal, it brought instructions countenancing the war, and empowering the governor to commission whatever persons he thought good to be partners with His Majesty in the plunder, "they finding victuals, wear and tear."[275] The frigate was immediately provisioned for a several months' cruise, and sent under command of Captain Edward Collier to join Morgan's fleet as a private ship-of-war. Morgan had appointed the Isle la Vache, or Cow Island, on the south side of Hispaniola, as the rendezvous for the privateers; and thither flocked great numbers, both English and French, for the name of Morgan was, by his exploit at Porto Bello, rendered famous in all the neighbouring islands. Here, too, arrived the "Oxford" in December. Among the French privateers were two men-of-war, one of which, the "Cour Volant" of La Rochelle, commanded by M. la Vivon, was seized by Captain Collier for having robbed an English vessel of provisions. A few days later, on 2nd January, a council of war was held aboard the "Oxford," where it was decided that the privateers, now numbering about 900 men, should attack Cartagena. While the captains were at dinner on the quarter-deck, however, the frigate blew up, and about 200 men, including five captains, were lost.[276] "I was eating my dinner with the rest," writes the surgeon, Richard Browne, "when the mainmasts blew out, and fell upon Captains Aylett, Bigford, and others, and knocked them on the head; I saved myself by getting astride the mizzenmast." It seems that out of the whole ship only Morgan and those who sat on his side of the table were saved. The accident was probably caused by the carelessness of a gunner. Captain Collier sailed in la Vivon's ship for Jamaica, where the French captain was convicted of piracy in the Admiralty Court, and reprieved by Governor Modyford, but his ship confiscated.[277]
Morgan, from the rendezvous at the Isle la Vache, had coasted along the southern shores of Hispaniola and made several inroads upon the island for the purpose of securing beef and other provisions. Some of his ships, meanwhile, had been separated from the body of the fleet, and at last he found himself with but eight vessels and 400 or 500 men, scarcely more than half his original company. With these small numbers he changed his resolution to attempt Cartagena, and set sail for Maracaibo, a town situated on the great lagoon of that name in Venezuela. This town had been pillaged in 1667, just before the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, by 650 buccaneers led by two French captains, L'Olonnais and Michel le Basque, and had suffered all the horrors attendant upon such a visit. In March 1669 Morgan appeared at the entrance to the lake, forced the passage after a day's hot bombardment, dismantled the fort which commanded it, and entered Maracaibo, from which the inhabitants had fled before him. The buccaneers sacked the town, and scoured the woods in search of the Spaniards and their valuables. Men, women and children were brought in and cruelly tortured to make them confess where their treasures were hid. Morgan, at the end of three weeks, "having now got by degrees into his hands about 100 of the chief families," resolved to go to Gibraltar, near the head of the lake, as L'Olonnais had done before him. Here the scenes of inhuman cruelty, "the tortures, murders, robberies and such like insolences," were repeated for five weeks; after which the buccaneers, gathering up their rich booty, returned to Maracaibo, carrying with them four hostages for the ransom of the town and prisoners, which the inhabitants promised to send after them. At Maracaibo Morgan learnt that three large Spanish men-of-war were lying off the entrance of the lake, and that the fort, in the meantime, had been armed and manned and put into a posture of defence. In order to gain time he entered into negotiations with the Spanish admiral, Don Alonso del Campo y Espinosa, while the privateers carefully made ready a fireship disguised as a man-of-war. At dawn on 1st May 1669, according to Exquemelin, they approached the Spanish ships riding at anchor within the entry of the lake, and sending the fireship ahead of the rest, steered directly for them. The fireship fell foul of the "Almirante," a vessel of forty guns, grappled with her and set her in flames. The second Spanish ship, when the plight of the Admiral was discovered, was run aground and burnt by her own men. The third was captured by the buccaneers. As no quarter was given or taken, the loss of the Spaniards must have been considerable, although some of those on the Admiral, including Don Alonso, succeeded in reaching shore. From a pilot picked up by the buccaneers, Morgan learned that in the flagship was a great quantity of plate to the value of 40,000 pieces of eight. Of this he succeeded in recovering about half, much of it melted by the force of the heat. Morgan then returned to Maracaibo to refit his prize, and opening negotiations again with Don Alonso, he actually succeeded in obtaining 20,000 pieces of eight and 500 head of cattle as a ransom for the city. Permission to pass the fort, however, the Spaniard refused. So, having first made a division of the spoil,[278] Morgan resorted to an ingenious stratagem to effect his egress from the lake. He led the Spaniards to believe that he was landing his men for an attack on the fort from the land side; and while the Spaniards were moving their guns in that direction, Morgan in the night, by the light of the moon, let his ships drop gently down with the tide till they were abreast of the fort, and then suddenly spreading sail made good his escape. On 17th May the buccaneers returned to Port Royal.
These events in the West Indies filled the Spanish Court with impotent rage, and the Conde de Molina, ambassador in England, made repeated demands for the punishment of Modyford, and for the restitution of the plate and other captured goods which were beginning to flow into England from Jamaica. The English Council replied that the treaty of 1667 was not understood to include the Indies, and Charles II. sent him a long list of complaints of ill-usage to English ships at the hands of the Spaniards in America.[279] Orders seem to have been sent to Modyford, however, to stop hostilities, for in May 1669 Modyford again called in all commissions,[280] and Beeston writes in his Journal, under 14th June, that peace was publicly proclaimed with the Spaniards. In November, moreover, the governor told Albemarle that most of the buccaneers were turning to trade, hunting or planting, and that he hoped soon to reduce all to peaceful pursuits.[281] The Spanish Council of State, in the meantime, had determined upon a course of active reprisal. A commission from the queen-regent, dated 20th April 1669, commanded her governors in the Indies to make open war against the English;[282] and a fleet of six vessels, carrying from eighteen to forty-eight guns, was sent from Spain to cruise against the buccaneers. To this fleet belonged the three ships which tried to bottle up Morgan in Lake Maracaibo. Port Royal was filled with report and rumour of English ships captured and plundered, of cruelties to English prisoners in the dungeons of Cartagena, of commissions of war issued at Porto Bello and St. Jago de Cuba, and of intended reprisals upon the settlements in Jamaica. The privateers became restless and spoke darkly of revenge, while Modyford, his old supporter the Duke of Albemarle having just died, wrote home begging for orders which would give him liberty to retaliate.[283] The last straw fell in June 1670, when two Spanish men-of-war from St. Jago de Cuba, commanded by a Portuguese, Manuel Rivero Pardal, landed men on the north side of the island, burnt some houses and carried off a number of the inhabitants as prisoners.[284] On 2nd July the governor and council issued a commission to Henry Morgan, as commander-in-chief of all ships of war belonging to Jamaica, to get together the privateers for the defence of the island, to attack, seize and destroy all the enemy's vessels he could discover, and in case he found it feasible, "to land and attack St. Jago or any other place where ... are stores for this war or a rendezvous for their forces." In the accompanying instructions he was bidden "to advise his fleet and soldiers that they were upon the old pleasing account of no purchase, no pay, and therefore that all which is got, shall be divided amongst them, according to the accustomed rules."[285]
Morgan sailed from Jamaica on 14th August 1670 with eleven vessels and 600 men for the Isle la Vache, the usual rendezvous, whence during the next three months squadrons were detailed to the coast of Cuba and the mainland of South America to collect provisions and intelligence. Sir William Godolphin was at that moment in Madrid concluding articles for the establishment of peace and friendship in America; and on 12th June Secretary Arlington wrote to Modyford that in view of these negotiations his Majesty commanded the privateers to forbear all hostilities on land against the Spaniards.[286] These orders reached Jamaica on 13th August, whereupon the governor recalled Morgan, who had sailed from the harbour the day before, and communicated them to him, "strictly charging him to observe the same and behave with all moderation possible in carrying on the war." The admiral replied that necessity would compel him to land in the Spaniards' country for wood, water and provisions, but unless he was assured that the enemy in their towns were making hostile preparations against the Jamaicans, he would not touch any of them.[287] On 6th September, however, Vice-Admiral Collier with six sail and 400 men was dispatched by Morgan to the Spanish Main. There on 4th November he seized, in the harbour of Santa Marta, two frigates laden with provisions for Maracaibo. Then coasting eastward to Rio de la Hacha, he attacked and captured the fort with its commander and all its garrison, sacked the city, held it to ransom for salt, maize, meat and other provisions, and after occupying it for almost a month returned on 28th October to the Isle la Vache.[288] One of the frigates captured at Santa Marta, "La Gallardina," had been with Pardal when he burnt the coast of Jamaica. Pardal's own ship of fourteen guns had been captured but a short time before by Captain John Morris at the east end of Cuba, and Pardal himself shot through the neck and killed.[289] He was called by the Jamaicans "the vapouring admiral of St. Jago," for in June he had nailed a piece of canvas to a tree on the Jamaican coast, with a curious challenge written both in English and Spanish:—
"I, Captain Manuel Rivero Pardal, to the chief of the squadron of privateers in Jamaica. I am he who this year have done that which follows. I went on shore at Caimanos, and burnt 20 houses, and fought with Captain Ary, and took from him a catch laden with provisions and a canoe. And I am he who took Captain Baines and did carry the prize to Cartagena, and now am arrived to this coast, and have burnt it. And I come to seek General Morgan, with 2 ships of 20 guns, and having seen this, I crave he would come out upon the coast and seek me, that he might see the valour of the Spaniards. And because I had no time I did not come to the mouth of Port Royal to speak by word of mouth in the name of my king, whom God preserve. Dated the 5th of July 1670."[290]