The storm destroyed all the tools and provisions of the lumbermen, and left Dampier destitute. His illness, with the poisonous worm in his leg, had kept him from work for some weeks, so that he had no cords of red wood ready cut, "as the old Standards had," to buy him new tools and new stores. Many of the men were in the same case, so they agreed with the captains of two pirate ketches which called at the creek at that time, to go a cruise to the west to seek their fortunes. They cruised up and down the bay "and made many Descents into the country," "where we got Indian Corn to eat with the Beef, and other Flesh, that we got by the way." They also attacked Alvarado, a little, protected city on the river of that name, but they lost heavily in the attack. Of the sixty pirates engaged, ten or eleven were killed or desperately wounded. The fort was not surrendered for four or five hours, by which time the citizens had put their treasure into boats, and rowed it upstream to safety. It was dark by the time the pirates won the fort, so that pursuit was out of the question. They rested there that night, and spent the next day foraging. They killed and salted a number of beeves, and routed out much salt fish and Indian corn, "as much as we could stow away." They also took a number of poultry, which the Spaniards were fattening in coops; and nearly a hundred tame parrots, "yellow and red," which "would prate very prettily." In short they heaped their decks with hen-coops, parrot-cages, quarters of beef, casks of salt fish, and baskets full of maize. In this state, the ships lay at anchor, with their men loafing on deck with their tobacco, bidding the "yellow and red" parrots to say "Damn," or "Pretty Polly," or other ribaldry. But before any parrot could have lost his Spanish accent, the pirates were called from their lessons by the sight of seven Spanish warships, under all sail, coming up to the river-bar from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their guns were run out, and they were not a mile away when the pirates first saw them. As it happened, the River Alvarado was full of water, so that these great vessels "could scarce stem the current." This piece of luck saved the pirates, for it gave them time to make sail, and to clear the bar before the Spaniards entered the river. As they dropped down the stream, they hove the clutter from the decks. Many a Pretty Polly there quenched her blasphemy in water, and many a lump of beef went to the mud to gorge the alligators. The litter was all overboard, and the men stripped to fight the guns, by the time the tide had swept them over the bar. At this moment they came within range of the Spanish flagship, the Toro, of ten guns and 100 men. She was to windward of them, and perilously close aboard, and her guns sent some cannon-balls into them, without doing any serious harm. Dampier was in the leading ship, which stood to the eastward, followed by her consort, as soon as she was over the bar. After her came the Toro, followed by a ship of four guns, and by five smaller vessels manned with musketeers, "and the Vessels barricadoed round with Bull-hides Breast high." The Toro ranged up on the quarter of Dampier's ship, "designing to board" her. The pirates dragged their cannon aft, and fired at her repeatedly, "in hopes to have lamed either Mast or Yard." As they failed to carry away her spars, they waited till "she was shearing aboard," when they rammed the helm hard up, "gave her a good Volley," and wore ship. As soon as she was round on the other tack, she stood to the westward, passing down the Spanish line under a heavy fire. The Toro held to her course, after the second pirate ship, with the six ships of the fleet following in her wake. The second pirate ship was much galled by the fleet's fire, and ran great risk of being taken. Dampier's ship held to the westward, till she was about a mile to windward of the other ships. She then tacked, and ran down to assist her consort, "who was hard put to it." As she ran down, she opened fire on the Toro, "who fell off, and shook her ears," edging in to the shore, to escape, with her fleet after her. They made no fight of it, but tacked and hauled to the wind "and stood away for Alvarado." The pirates were very glad to see the last of them; "and we, glad of the Deliverance, went away to the Eastward." On the way, they visited all the sandy bays of the coast to look for "munjack," "a sort of Pitch or Bitumen which we find in Lumps." When corrected with oil or tallow this natural pitch served very well for the paying of the seams "both of Ships and Canoas."

After this adventure, Dampier returned to the lumber camp, and passed about a year there, cutting wood. Then, for some reason, he determined to leave the Indies, and to visit England; and though he had planned to return to Campeachy, after he had been home, he never did so. It seems that he was afraid of living in that undefended place, among those drunken mates of his. They were at all times at the mercy of a Spanish man-of-war, and Dampier "always feared" that a Spanish prison would be his lot if he stayed there. It was the lot of his imprudent mates, "the old Standards," a few months after he had sailed for the Thames.

After a short stay in England, Dampier sailed for Jamaica, with a general cargo. He sold his goods at Port Royal, but did not follow his original plan of buying rum and sugar, and going west as a logwood merchant. About Christmas 1679 he bought a small estate in Dorsetshire, "of one whose Title to it" he was "well assured of." He was ready to sail for England, to take charge of this estate, and to settle down as a farmer, when he met "one Mr Hobby," at a tavern, who asked him to go "a short trading voyage to the Country of the Moskito's." Dampier, who was a little short of gold at the moment, was very willing to fill his purse before sailing north. He therefore consented to go with Mr Hobby, whose ship was then ready for the sea. He "went on board Mr Hobby," and a fair wind blew them clear of Port Royal. A day or two of easy sailing brought them to Negril Bay, "at the West End of Jamaica," where Dampier had anchored before, when the valorous captain drained the punch-bowl. The bay was full of shipping, for Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharp, and other buccaneers, were lying there filling their water casks. They had the red wheft flying, for they were bound on the account, to raid the Main. The boats alongside them were full of meat and barrels. Mr Hobby's men did not wait to learn more than the fact that the ships were going cruising. They dumped their chests into the dinghy, and rowed aboard of them, and 'listed themselves among the sunburnt ruffians who were hoisting out the water breakers. Dampier and Mr Hobby were left alone on their ship, within hearing of the buccaneers, who sang, and danced to the fiddle, and clinked the cannikin, till the moon had set. For three or four days they stayed there, hearing the merriment of the rovers, but at the end of the fourth day Dampier wearied of Mr Hobby, and joined the buccaneers, who were glad to have him.

A day or two after Christmas 1679 they got their anchors and set sail. They shaped their course for Porto Bello, which had recovered something of its old wealth and beauty, in the years of peace it had enjoyed since Morgan sacked it. They landed 200 men to the eastward of the town, "at such a distance" that the march "occupied them three nights." During the day they lay in ambush in the woods. As they "came to the town" a negro saw them, and ran to set the bells ringing, to call out the troops. The buccaneers followed him so closely that the town was theirs before the troops could muster. They stayed there forty-eight hours gathering plunder, and then marched back to their ships staggering under a great weight of gold. They shared thirty or forty pounds a man from this raid. Afterwards they harried the coast, east and west, and made many rich captures. Sawkins, it seems, was particularly lucky, for he made a haul of 1000 chests of indigo. Warrants were out for all these pirates, and had they been taken they would most surely have been hanged.

After these adventures, the squadron made for "a place called Boco del Toro," "an opening between two islands between Chagres and Veragua," where "the general rendezvous of the fleet" had been arranged. The ships anchored here, with one or two new-comers, including a French ship commanded by a Captain Bournano, who had been raiding on the isthmus, "near the South Sea," but a few days before. At the council aboard Captain Sawkins' ship, it was given out, to all the assembled buccaneers, that the Spaniards had made peace with the Darien Indians. This was bad news; but Captain Bournano was able to assure the company "that since the conclusion of the said peace, they had been already tried, and found very faithful"; for they had been of service to him in his late foray. He added that they had offered to guide him "to a great and very rich place called Tocamora," and that he had promised to come to them "with more ships and men," in three months' time. The buccaneers thought that Tocamora, apart from the beauty of the name, appeared to promise gold, so they decided to go thither as soon as they had careened and refitted. Boca del Toro, the anchorage in which they lay, was full of "green tortoise" for ships short of food. There were handy creeks, among the islands, for the ships to careen in, when their hulls were foul. The pirates hauled their ships into the creeks, and there hove them down, while their Moskito allies speared the tortoise, and the manatee, along the coast, and afterwards salted the flesh for sea-provision.

As soon as the squadron was ready, they mustered at Water Key, and set sail for Golden Island, where they meant to hold a final council. On the way to the eastward they put in at the Samballoes, or islands of San Blas, to fill fresh water, and to buy fruit from the Indians. When the anchors held, the Indians came aboard with fruit, venison, and native cloth, to exchange for edged iron tools, and red and green beads. They were tall men, smeared with black paint (the women used red, much as in Europe), and each Indian's nose was hung with a plate of gold or silver. Among the women were a few albinos, who were said to see better in the dark than in the light. "These Indians misliked our design for Tocamora," because the way thither was mountainous and barren and certain to be uninhabited. A force going thither would be sure to starve on the road, they said, but it would be an easy matter to march to Panama, as Drake had marched. New Panama was already a rich city, so that they would not "fail of making a good voyage by going thither." This advice of the Indians impressed the buccaneers. They determined to abandon the Tocamora project as too dangerous. Most of them were in favour of going to sack Panama. But Captain Bournano, and Captain Row, who commanded about a hundred Frenchmen between them, refused to take their men on "a long march by land." Perhaps they remembered how Morgan had treated the French buccaneers after his Panama raid, nine years before. They therefore remained at anchor when the squadron parted company. An Indian chief, Captain Andreas, came aboard the English flagship. The bloody colours were hoisted, and a gun fired in farewell. The English ships then loosed their top-sails and stood away for Golden Island, to an anchorage they knew of, where a final muster could be held. They dropped anchor there, "being in all seven sail," on 3rd April 1680.

Their strength at the Samballoes had been as follows:—

TonsGunsMen
Captain Coxon in a ship of80897
Captain Harris"15025107
Captain Sawkins"16135
Captain Sharp"25240
Captain Cook"35043
Captain Alleston"18024
Captain Macket"14020

but of these 366 buccaneers a few had remained behind with the Frenchmen.

While they lay at Golden Island, the Indians brought them word of "a town called Santa Maria," on the Rio Santa Maria, near the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific coast. It was a garrison town, with four companies of musketeers in its fort, for there were gold mines in the hills behind it. The gold caravans went from it, once a month in the dry seasons, to Panama. If the place failed to yield them a booty, the buccaneers were determined to attack new Panama. Had they done so they would probably have destroyed the place, for though the new city was something stronger than the old, the garrison was in the interior fighting the Indians. The design on Santa Maria was popular. On the matter being put to the vote it was carried without protest. The buccaneers passed the 4th of April in arranging details, and picking a party to protect the ships during their absence. They arranged that Captains Alleston and Macket, with about twenty-five or thirty seamen, should remain in the anchorage as a ship's guard. The remainder of the buccaneers, numbering 331 able-bodied men (seven of whom were French), were to march with the colours the next morning.