Townley, having thus arranged matters with the inhabitants of Los Santos, bore away for Pearl Islands, and for the next two months cruised about the bay of Panamá making descents on the land and capturing prizes. The slaughter of the Spaniards in some of these engagements was great. On the 21st of August the buccaneers attacked a frigate and a bark, the former of which vessels had eighty killed and wounded out of a crew of one hundred and twenty, and of the crew of the latter only eighteen out of seventy remained unhurt. But Townley's career now came to a close. During the next two days they captured three more vessels, and in one of the engagements the captain of the pirates was mortally wounded, and died on the 8th of September.
During the remainder of the year the buccaneers cruised among the islands and in the bays on the coast of Veragua, frequently landing on the main in order to procure food, and so dire was their necessity that on occasions they imperatively demanded provisions as a ransom for their captives instead of money.[XXX‑58]
COSTA RICA.
At the beginning of 1687 freebooters were again off the Costa Rica coast and infesting the gulf of Nicoya, keeping the Spaniards in a state of constant alarm, wringing from them ransom for captives, and torturing prisoners to obtain information.[XXX‑59] On the 26th of January they were rejoined by Captain Grogniet, whose movements had been principally confined to the bay of Fonseca and the coast of Nicaragua, but dissension occurring, eighty-five of his men separated from him, and with the remaining sixty he turned once more toward Panamá.[XXX‑60]
Again this brood of ocean-banditti directed their course to the rich coast of South America, where they and their fraternity had acquired so infamous a reputation that the women they captured were in dread of being eaten by them.[XXX‑61] After amassing immense wealth they sailed northward and coasted along the Central American and Mexican shores as far as Acapulco, burning, destroying, and murdering as was their wont. But in spite of their sufferings from toil, hunger, and thirst, the pirates had amassed much wealth, and they now wished to return to the North Sea, where their hardships would end, and they could squander and enjoy their ill-gotten riches. Having consulted as to the best course to pursue, they decided to march overland through the province of Segovia to Cape Gracias á Dios. So on the 2d of January 1688, after they "had said their Prayers," they started on their perilous journey, two hundred and eighty in number.[XXX‑62]
Their overland march through the wildest part of Central America was somewhat extraordinary. The journeys of the pirates across the Isthmus, like those of the discoverers and conquerors, were full of danger and sufferings; but the difficulties overcome by these dauntless villains in some respects surpassed anything on record.
NUEVA SEGOVIA.
Their route lay from the bay of Fonseca to Wank River, down which they proposed to descend on rafts. Marching first to Nueva Segovia, they found the inhabitants ready to oppose them. In the woods their road was impeded by felled trees; in the open country the grass was set on fire, so that to avoid suffocation they were often compelled to halt until the fire should spend itself. The cattle were driven away and provisions removed or destroyed, while ambushed Spaniards assailed them everywhere.
There was nothing for them, however, but to trudge along, which they continued to do until they reached Nueva Segovia on the 11th. The town was deserted. Everything that could maintain life had been carefully removed. As they continued famished and footsore toward the river, now twenty leagues distant, they were harassed by a force of three hundred Spanish horse, constantly threatening their annihilation.
The road, which led over a steep mountain, was found on the second day from Segovia to be intrenched. Thus beset in front and rear, between two bodies each largely outnumbering their own, what were the pirates to do? Blood-besmeared and determined, they were now to the effeminate Spaniards what the early Spaniards had been to the Indians. It was on a bright moonlit night that the filibusters encamped before the intrenchment. Nevertheless two hundred of them managed to steal into the forest unperceived by their enemies.[XXX‑63] With incredible labor they worked their way round rocks and through quagmires, till, guided by the voices of the Spaniards at morning prayer, by daylight they found themselves in the road above, and in the rear of the intrenched Spaniards. A dense mist which had arisen just before dawn concealed them from sight, but while it in some measure aided them, it rendered their operations more dangerous from the nature of the ground. It appeared that there were three intrenchments, one behind the other, and with the reversed position the defenders of the rear one were not protected. Upon this exposed detachment, numbering five hundred men, the freebooters fell so suddenly that the Spaniards fled panic-stricken, and the successful assailants were in possession of the barricade. It was equivalent to victory. There was no hope for the Spaniards now. Guided in their aim by the flashes of the enemy's fire, the pirates, well protected, poured volley after volley upon the Spaniards, who did not know where to shoot or what to do. For an hour they held out; but when, still enveloped in the mist, the pirates charged upon them, unperceived till almost within reach of sword-blow, they turned and fled. What followed was mere butchery. The Spaniards, impeded in their flight by their own defences, were slaughtered till the ferocious victors, "weary of running after them and killing," desisted.[XXX‑64]