RUTHLESS INVADERS.
Soon after nightfall the invaders held entire possession of the city. They placed their own wounded in comfortable quarters under care of female slaves, and the wounded Spaniards in a separate apartment, without food, water, or attendance; and after posting their guards fell at once, as was their custom after victory, to feasting, drunkenness, and foul debauch. Matron and virgin, threatened at the point of the sword, were forced to yield to the embrace of these cut-throats, whose hands were yet stained with the blood of their husbands and brothers. Neither age nor condition was spared. The religious recluse torn from the shelter of the convent, and girls of tender age dragged from their mothers' arms, fell victims alike to the conquerors' lust. At length, stupefied with wine, and worn out with twenty-four hours of continuous toil, the marauders sank to rest. Fifty resolute men could then have delivered the town; but all night long no sound was heard save the moans of the wounded and the cries of heart-broken women.
At daylight the buccaneers plundered the place of all the valuables they could find, sacking the houses of the citizens, and stripping the churches of their gold and silver ornaments and their services of massive plate. Those who were believed to be the wealthiest of the prisoners were questioned as to the whereabouts of their concealed treasures; and failing to disclose them, were stretched on the rack, until many died under the torture.
For fifteen days Morgan remained at Portobello, though aware that the president of Panamá was preparing an expedition against him. His retreat was open to the ships, and the threatened attack gave him no uneasiness; but many of his men had died of wounds, of the effects of drunken excess, and of an atmosphere poisoned by half-buried corpses. Moreover provisions began to run short. They were compelled to live almost entirely on the flesh of horses and mules. Many of the captive and most of the wounded Spaniards had perished from privation, having been allowed no sustenance but a morsel of mule meat and a little muddy unfiltered water. Preparations were therefore made for departure. Placing the booty on board the fleet, Morgan demanded of his prisoners a ransom of 100,000 pesos, threatening otherwise to burn the town and blow up the castles. Two of the citizens, despatched to Panamá by his orders to raise the amount, gave information of the true condition of affairs. The president had a force of fifteen hundred men at his disposal, and at once marched to relieve his countrymen, and, as he hoped, cut off the retreat of the adventurers.
Forewarned of his approach Morgan posted a hundred picked men in a narrow defile through which lay the route of the Spaniards. At the first encounter the main body of the Spanish forces was routed; many fled at once to Panamá, bearing with them the news of their defeat; and for a time the expedition was crippled. While awaiting reënforcements the president resolved to try the effect of threats, though aware that he was in no position to enforce them. Sending a messenger to Morgan, he bid him depart at once from Portobello or expect no quarter for himself or his companions. The commander of the buccaneers answered by doubling the amount of the required contribution[XXVIII‑3] and stating that he would hold the place until the ransom was paid, or if it were not paid, would burn down the houses, demolish the forts, and put every captive to death.
As further effort appeared to be useless, the president left the inhabitants of the town to work out their own salvation; but surprised that a place defended by strongly fortified castles should fall a prey to so slender a force, he despatched a messenger to request of the conquerors a specimen of their weapons. Morgan received him courteously, and with grim humor handed him a musket and a few bullets, bidding him tell his master "that he was much pleased to show him a slender pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Portobello, and begged him to keep them a twelvemonth, after which he promised to come to Panamá and take them away." The president soon returned the weapon, together with a present of an emerald ring and a message "that he did not want for arms of that sort, but regretted that men of such courage were not employed on some just war under a great prince."
THE TOWN RANSOMED.
Meanwhile the freebooters had agreed to deliver up the town on receiving a ransom of a hundred thousand pesos. The amount was collected and paid over. The best guns of the stronghold were then put on board the vessels; the rest were spiked, and the buccaneers sailed for Cuba, where they portioned out the spoils, which consisted of coin, bullion, and jewels, to the value of two hundred and sixty thousand pesos, counting the jewels at less than half their real value, besides large stores of silk, linen, cloth, and other merchandise. Proceeding thence to Jamaica, they squandered in riot and gross dissipation the wealth that others had accumulated by years of patient toil and self-denial. A few days of swinish debauchery among the wine-shops and brothels of Port Royal left the majority of the gang without means or credit, and clamorous for some new expedition. It was nothing unusual for some of them to spend or gamble away in a single night their entire share in the proceeds of a successful raid, and to render themselves liable to be sold next morning as slaves to satisfy an unpaid tavern score. Some would drag out into the streets a cask of wine, others a barrel of strong ale, and presenting their pistols at the passers-by, compel them, whether men or women, to drink in their company, running up and down the streets, when crazed with liquor, and beating or bespattering whomsoever they met.
The standard of humanity among the buccaneers was such as might be expected among men who have been cut off from honorable intercourse with their kind. Many of them had been kidnapped in early youth, and shipped from England to the British West Indies, and there sold as slaves, and subjected to such treatment as often reduced those of weakly constitution to idiocy. They had been starved and racked and mutilated. They had been beaten till the blood ran in streams from their backs, and then rubbed with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. It is not strange that the temper of men who had passed through such ordeals should be permanently warped; that their hand should be against every man, and that they should afterward inflict on the prisoners who fell into their power tortures as cruel as they themselves had suffered at the hands of their masters.
The fame of Morgan's exploits induced numbers of both French and English to join the standard of the freebooter. To the veterans who had served under him during former raids was added a swarm of recruits, eager to share in the plunder if not in the glory of his expeditions. He was soon in command of his squadron of fifteen vessels and a force of nine hundred and sixty combatants, and appointing as a rendezvous the islet of Saona gave orders to sail along the southern coast of Española. Heavy gales were encountered during the voyage, and a portion of his ships being driven from their course he found his diminished forces inadequate for any great enterprise. Under the advice of a French captain, who had served under L'Olonnois and Michel Le Basque at the capture of Maracaibo and Gibraltar in 1666, he determined to plunder those towns and their surrounding neighborhood. The proceeds of this foray amounted, according to some authorities, to two hundred and fifty thousand pesos.[XXVIII‑4] After defeating a strong Spanish squadron stationed at the entrance of Lake Maracaibo to bar the escape of his fleet, Morgan returned to Jamaica, where he found most of his missing vessels.