The Boy's Book of the Sea

by Eric Wood

First of all, he held a review of his force; it consisted of eight ships and five hundred men, quite a formidable little army. With these he sailed, and in due course arrived off Maracaibo. The buccaneers held off till night came, sailing in under cover of the darkness until they arrived near the bar. The Spaniards, sighting the strange vessels, were taking no risks, and opened fire immediately, pounding away at the pirates as they put out their boats and manned them, ready to sweep in and land. Of course, Morgan’s ships gave the Spaniards as much as they received, and during the day a fine little fight was kept up. Then night came again; and Morgan, meaning to take advantage of it, swooped in, to find that the Spaniards in the fort had bolted precipitately when night fell.

They had taken the precaution, however, of setting a fuse train to a barrel of gunpowder, sufficient to hurl the fort and the buccaneers into the Great Unknown. Fortunately, Morgan’s men, scouring about for such a likely thing, hit upon it in about a quarter of an hour, and soon destroyed the fuse.

That done, the fort was ransacked and demolished. Next day, free from hindrance of the fort, the eight pirate ships passed into the harbour, and went on to Maracaibo. The water, however, being too shallow to allow of the ships passing up, the buccaneers took to small boats and canoes, and in this way made their way to the town. Landing, they immediately rushed Fort De la Barra, only to find that it was deserted; the Spaniards here had fled like their comrades farther down, as also had the people in the town, with the exception of a few old folk.

Truly, Morgan was having an easy time.

Searching the town to make sure that there were no soldiers hidden in the houses to open fire upon them as they passed through the streets, and finding none, the buccaneers dispersed about the city, some taking up their abode in the church, for nothing was held sacred to these terrible scourgers of the sea and sackers of cities.

Although Morgan captured a number of fugitives and a good deal of booty, he realised that there was nothing much to be gained from Maracaibo, and decided to assault Gibraltar. First he sent a batch of prisoners to the city, to warn the inhabitants that they must surrender, or else they would receive no quarter; and almost immediately followed them with his ships. Gibraltar, however, was determined not to surrender at the behest of a scoundrelly buccaneer, and Morgan was met by a terrific cannonading.

Nothing daunted, the buccaneers accepted their welcome philosophically, counting it but the bitters before the sweets. Early next morning, they landed and marched on the town, taking the safe route through the woods, the Spaniards in the fort little expecting them to come by that way. However, the dons, aware of the reputation of Morgan, had followed the example of their compatriots at Maracaibo and had fled, leaving only one old man to receive the buccaneers. They had taken all the munitions of war, all the treasure, and as much of their goods as they could cope with, and they had spiked all the guns.

There were a number of murderous and cruel incidents connected with the prisoners they succeeded in taking later on. From one of these unfortunate men they learned of a certain river where there was a richly laden ship and four boats filled with treasure; he also told them that he knew where the governor of Gibraltar was hidden.

This was good news. Morgan went off with a large force to capture the governor, and sent another body of men to take the ship and the boats. Morgan was unsuccessful in capturing the governor, who had heard of his coming and had taken up a strong position on a mountain; so that the buccaneer had to forgo the pleasure of capturing him, and, moreover, had to make a perilous retreat, owing to the fact that the rains had come and the ground was swampy—sometimes, indeed, the men had to wade waist deep. Many female prisoners and children died of exposure; some of the buccaneers died also, and all their powder was wet and useless, so that, if the Spaniards had had the gumption of mice, they would have fallen upon Morgan and utterly routed him. But they hadn’t; and they didn’t.

Morgan, therefore, arrived safely back at Gibraltar, where two days later his other men turned up, bringing the four boats and some prisoners, but little treasure. The Spaniards had taken it out of the ship and the boats.