To render the triumph of cruelty and ferocity more complete, the Buccaneers, in an answer to the President, charged the whole blame of what they had done to his obstinacy; in exchange for the five Buccaneers, they sent only twelve of their Spanish prisoners; and they demanded 20,000 pieces of eight
as ransom of the remainder, which demand however, they afterwards mitigated to half that sum and a supply of refreshments. On the 4th of September, the ransom was paid, and the prisoners were released.
September. Death of Townley. September the 9th, the buccaneer commander, Townley, died of the wound he received in the last battle. The English and French Buccaneers were faithful associates, but did not mix well as comrades. In a short time after Townley's death, the English desired that a division should be made of the prize vessels, artillery, and stores, and that those of their nation should keep together in the same vessels: and this was done, without other separation taking place at the time.
November. In November, they left the Bay of Panama, and sailed Westward to their old station near the Point de Burica, where, by surprising small towns, villages, and farms, a business at which they had become extremely expert, they procured provisions; and by the ransom of prisoners, some money.
1687. January. In January (1687) they intercepted a letter from the Spanish Commandant at Sonsonnate addressed to the President of Panama, by which they learnt that Grogniet had been in Amapalla Bay, and that three of his men had been taken prisoners. The Commandant remarked in his letter, that the peace made with the Darien Indians, having cut off the retreat of the Buccaneers, would drive them to desperation, and render them like so many mad dogs; he advised therefore that some means should be adopted to facilitate their retreat, that the Spaniards in the South Sea might again enjoy repose. 'They have landed,' he says, 'in these parts ten or twelve times, without knowing what they were seeking; but wheresoever they come, they spoil and lay waste every thing.'
A few days after intercepting this letter, they took prisoner a Spanish horseman. Lussan says, 'We interrogated him with
the usual ceremonies, that is to say, we gave him the torture, to make him tell us what we wanted to know.'
Many such villanies were undoubtedly committed by these banditti, more than appear in their Narratives, or than they dared to make known. Lussan, who writes a history of his voyage, not before the end of the second year of his adventures in the South Sea, relates that they put a prisoner to the torture; and it would have appeared as an individual instance, if he had not, probably through inadvertence, acknowledged it to have been their established practice. Lussan on his return to his native land, pretended to reputation and character; and he found countenance and favour from his superiors; it is therefore to be presumed, that he would suppress every transaction in which he was a participator, which he thought of too deep a nature to be received by his patrons with indulgence. A circumstance which tended to make this set of Buccaneers worse than any that had preceded them, was, its being composed of men of two nations between which there has existed a constant jealousy and emulation. They were each ambitious to outdo the other in acts of daringness, and were thereby instigated to every kind of excess.
Grogniet rejoins them. On the 20th, near Caldera Bay, they met Grogniet with sixty French Buccaneers in three canoes. Grogniet had parted from Townley at the head of 148 men. They had made several descents on the coast. At the Bay of Amapalla, they marched 14 leagues within the coast to a gold-mine, where they took many prisoners, and a small quantity of gold. Grogniet wished to return overland to the West-Indian Sea, but the majority of his companions were differently inclined, and 85 quitted him, and went to try their fortunes towards California. Grogniet nevertheless persevered in the design with the remainder of his crew, to seek some part of the coast of New Spain, thin of
inhabitants, where they might land unknown to the Spaniards, and march without obstruction through the country to the shore of the Atlantic, without other guide than a compass. The party they now met with, prevailed on them to defer the execution of this project to a season of the year more favourable, and in the mean time to unite with them.