On the 5th of April 1680, these 331 adventurers dropped across the channel from Golden Island, and landed on the isthmus, somewhere near Drake's old anchorage. Captain Bartholomew Sharp, of "the dangerous voyage and bold assaults," came first, with some Indian guides, one of whom helped the Captain, who was sick and faint with a fever. This vanguard "had a red flag, with a bunch of white and green ribbons." The second company, or main battle, was led by the admiral, Richard Sawkins, who "had a red flag striped with yellow." The third and fourth companies, which were under one captain (Captain Peter Harris), had two green flags. The fifth and sixth companies, under Captain John Coxon, "had each of them a red flag." A few of Alleston's and Macket's men carried arms under Coxon in these companies. The rear-guard was led by Captain Edmund Cook, "with red colours striped with yellow, with a hand and sword for his device." "All or most" of the men who landed, "were armed with a French fuzee" (or musket), a pistol and hanger, with two pounds of powder and "proportionable bullet." Each of them carried a scrip or satchel containing "three or four cakes of bread," or doughboys, weighing half-a-pound apiece, with some modicum of turtle flesh. "For drink the rivers afforded enough."
Among the men who went ashore in that company were William Dampier, the author of the best books of voyages in the language; Lionel Wafer, the chirurgeon of the party, who wrote a description of the isthmus; Mr Basil Ringrose, who kept an intimate record of the foray; and Captain Bartholomew Sharp, who also kept a journal, but whose writings are less reliable than those of the other three. It is not often that three historians of such supreme merit as Dampier, Wafer, and Ringrose, are associated in a collaboration so charming, as a piratical raid. Wafer had been a surgeon in Port Royal, but Edmund Cook had shown him the delights of roving, and the cruise he had made to Cartagena had confirmed him in that way of life. Basil Ringrose had but lately arrived at the Indies, and it is not known what induced him to go buccaneering. He was a good cartographer, and had as strong a bent towards the description of natural phenomena, as Dampier had. He probably followed the pirates in order to see the world, and to get some money, and to extend his knowledge. Sharp had been a pirate for some years, and there was a warrant out for him at Jamaica for his share in the sack of Porto Bello. With Dampier's history the reader has been made acquainted.
The Indians, under Captain Andreas, led the buccaneers from the landing-place "through a small skirt of wood," beyond which was a league of sandy beach. "After that, we went two leagues directly up a woody valley, where we saw here and there an old plantation, and had a very good path to march in." By dusk they had arrived at a river-bank, beneath which the water lay in pools, joined by trickles and little runlets, which babbled over sun-bleached pebbles. They built themselves huts in this place, about a great Indian hut which stood upon the river-bank. They slept there that night, "having nothing but the cold Earth for their Beds," in much discouragement "with the going back of some of the Men." The buccaneers who had been some weeks at sea, were not in marching trim, and it seems that the long day's tramp in the sun had sickened many of them. While they rested in their lodges, an Indian king, whom they called "Captain Antonio," came in to see them. He said that he had sent word to one of his tributaries, farther to the south, to prepare food and lodgings for the buccaneers "against their Arrival." As for himself, he wished very much that he could come with them to lead their guides, but unfortunately "his child lay very sick." However, it comforted him to think that the child would be dead by the next day, at latest, "and then he would most certainly follow and overtake" them. He warned the company not to lie in the grass, "for fear of monstrous adders"; and so bowed himself out of camp, and returned home. The kingly prayers seem to have been effectual, for Captain Antonio was in camp again by sunrise next morning, with no family tie to keep him from marching.
As the men sluiced themselves in the river before taking to the road, they noticed that the pebbles shone "with sparks of gold" when broken across. They did not stay to wash the river-mud, for gold dust and golden pellets, but fell in for the march, and climbed from dawn till nearly dusk. They went over "a steep Mountain" which was parched and burnt and waterless. Four of the buccaneers refused to go farther than the foot of this hill, so they returned to the ships. The others, under the guidance of Antonio, contrived to cross the mountain "to an Hollow of Water," at which they drank very greedily. Six miles farther on they halted for the night, beside a stream. They slept there, "under the Canopy of Heaven," suffering much discomfort from some drenching showers. After some days of climbing, wading, and suffering, the army reached the house of King Golden Cap, an Indian king. The King came out to meet them in his robes, with a little reed crown on his head, lined with red silk, and covered with a thin plate of gold. He had a golden ring in his nose, and a white cotton frock over his shoulders. His queen wore a red blanket, and a blouse "like our old-fashioned striped hangings." This royal couple bade the army welcome, and ordered food to be brought for them. The buccaneers passed a couple of days in King Golden Cap's city, trading their coloured beads, and scraps of iron, for fresh fruit and meat. They found the Indians "very cunning" in bargaining, which means, we suppose, that they thought a twopenny whittle a poor return for a hog or a sack of maize.
When the men had rested themselves, and had dried their muddy clothes, they set out again, with Captain Sawkins in the vanguard. As they marched out of the town "the King ordered us each man to have three plantains, with sugar-canes to suck, by way of a present." They breakfasted on these fruits, as they marched. The road led them "along a very bad Path" continually intersected by a river, which they had to wade some fifty or sixty times, to their great misery. They passed a few Indian huts on the way, and at each hut door stood an Indian to give "as we passed by, to every one of us, a ripe plantain, or some sweet cassava-root." Some of the Indians counted the army "by dropping a grain of corn for each man that passed before them," for without counters they could not reckon beyond twenty. The army had by this time been swelled by an Indian contingent, of about 150 men, "armed with Bows, Arrows and Lances." The Indians dropping their corn grains must have dropped nearly 500 before the last man passed them. That night, which was clear and fine, they rested in three large Indian huts, where King Golden Cap's men had stored up food and drink, and a number of canoas, for the voyage south. The river went brawling past their bivouac at a little distance, and some of the men caught fish, and broiled them in the coals for their suppers.
At daylight next morning, while they were getting the canoas to the water, Captain Coxon had "some Words" with Captain Harris (of the green flags). The words ran into oaths, for the two men were surly with the discomforts of turning out. Coxon whipped up a gun and fired at Peter Harris, "which he was [naturally] ready to return." Sharp knocked his gun up before he could fire, "and brought him to be quiet; so that we proceeded on our Journey." They had no further opportunities for fighting, for Sawkins gave the word a moment later for seventy of the buccaneers to embark in the canoas. There were fourteen of these boats, all of them of small size. Sharp, Coxon, and Cook were placed in charge of them. Captain Harris was told off to travel with the land party, with Sawkins, King Golden Cap, and the other men. Don Andreas, with twenty-eight other Indians (two to a canoa) acted as boatmen, or pilots, to the flotilla.
Basil Ringrose, who was one of the boat party, has told us of the miseries of the "glide down the stream." The river was low, and full of rotting tree trunks, so that "at the distance of almost every stone's cast," they had to leave the boats "and haul them over either sands or rocks, and at other times over trees." Sharp, who was of tougher fibre, merely says that they "paddled all Day down the Falls and Currents of the River, and at Night took up our Quarters upon a Green Bank by the Riverside, where we had Wild Fowl and Plantanes for Supper: But our Beds were made upon the cold Earth, and our Coverings were the Heavens, and green Trees we found there." The next day they went downstream again, over many more snags and shallows, which set them wading in the mud till their boots rotted off their feet. Ringrose was too tired to make a note in his journal, save that, that night, "a tiger" came out and looked at them as they sat round the camp fires. Sharp says that the labour "was a Pleasure," because "of that great Unity there was then amongst us," and because the men were eager "to see the fair South Sea." They lodged that night "upon a green Bank of the River," and ate "a good sort of a Wild Beast like unto our English Hog." The third day, according to Ringrose, was the worst day of all. The river was as full of snags as it had been higher up, but the last reach of it was clear water, so that they gained the rendezvous "about Four in the Afternoon." To their very great alarm they found that the land party had not arrived. They at once suspected that the Indians had set upon them treacherously, and cut them off in the woods. But Don Andreas sent out scouts "in Search of them," who returned "about an Hour before Sun-set," with "some of their Number," and a message that the rest would join company in the morning.
A little after daybreak the land force marched in, and pitched their huts near the river, "at a beachy point of land," perhaps the very one where Oxenham's pinnace had been beached. They passed the whole day there resting, and cleaning weapons, for they were now but "a Day and a Night's Journey" from the town they had planned to attack. Many more Indians joined them at this last camp of theirs, so that the army had little difficulty in obtaining enough canoas to carry them to Santa Maria. They set out early the next morning, in sixty-eight canoas, being in all "327 of us Englishmen, and 50 Indians." Until that day the canoas had been "poled" as a punt is poled, but now they cut oars and paddles "to make what speed we could." All that day they rowed, and late into the night, rowing "with all haste imaginable," and snapping up one or two passing Indian boats which were laden with plantains. It was after midnight, and about "Two Hours before Day Light," when they ran into a mud bank, about a mile from the town, and stepped ashore, upon a causeway of oars and paddles. They had to cut themselves a path through jungle, as soon as they had crossed the mud, for the town was walled about with tropical forest. They "lay still in the Woods, till the Light appeared," when they "heard the Spaniard discharge his Watch at his Fort by Beat of Drum, and a Volley of Shot." It was the Spanish way of changing guard, at daybreak. It was also the signal for the "Forlorn" of the buccaneers to march to the battle, under Sawkins. This company consisted of seventy buccaneers. As they debouched from the forest, upon open ground, the Spaniards caught sight of them and beat to arms. The men in the fort at once opened fire "very briskly," but the advance-guard ran in upon them, tore down some of the stockade, and "entered the fort incontinently." A moment or two of wild firing passed inside the palisades, and then the Spanish colours were dowsed. The buccaneers in this storm lost two men wounded, of the fifty who attacked. The Spanish loss was twenty-six killed, and sixteen wounded, out of 300 under arms. About fifty more, of the Spanish prisoners, were promptly killed by the Indians, who took them into the woods and stabbed them "to death" with their lances. It seems that one of that garrison, a man named Josef Gabriele, had raped King Golden Cap's daughter who was then with child by him. (Gabriele, as it chanced, was not speared, but saved to pilot the pirates to Panama.) This was the sole action of the Indians in that engagement. During the battle they lay "in a small hollow," "in great consternation" at "the noise of the guns."
Though the buccaneers had taken the place easily, they had little cause for rejoicing. The town was "a little pitiful Place," with a few thatched huts, or "wild houses made of Cane," and "but one Church in it." The fort "was only Stockadoes," designed merely as a frontier post "to keep in subjection the Indians" or as a lodging for men employed in the gold mines. There was no more provision in store there than would serve their turn for a week. As for the gold, they had missed it by three days. Three hundredweight of gold had been sent to Panama while they were struggling downstream. News of their coming had been brought to the fort in time, and "all their treasure of gold," "that huge booty of gold" they had expected to win, had been shipped westward. Nor had they any prisoners to hold to ransom. The Governor, the town priest, and the chief citizens, had slipped out of the town in boats, and were now some miles away. Richard Sawkins manned a canoa, and went in chase of them, but they got clear off, to give advice to Panama that pirates were come across the isthmus. The only pillage they could find, after torturing their prisoners "severely," amounted to "twenty pounds' weight of gold, and a small quantity of silver." To this may be added a few personal belongings, such as weapons or trinkets, from the chests of the garrison.
When the booty, such as it was, had been gathered, the captains held a meeting "to discuss what were best to be done." Some were for going to the South Sea, to cruise; but John Coxon, who had taken Porto Bello, and hated to be second to Sawkins, was for going back to the ships. The general vote was for going to Panama, "that city being the receptacle of all the plate, jewels, and gold that is dug out of the mines of all Potosi and Peru." However, they could not venture on Panama without Coxon, and Coxon's company; so they made Coxon their admiral, "Coxon seeming to be well satisfied." Before starting, they sent their booty back to Golden Island, under a guard of twelve men. Most of the Indians fell off at this time, for they had "got from us what knives, scissors, axes, needles and beads they could." Old King Golden Cap, and his son, were less mercenary, and stayed with the colours, being "resolved to go to Panama, out of the desire they had to see that place taken and sacked." They may have followed the buccaneers in order to kill the Spaniard who had raped the princess, for that worthy was still alive, under guard. He had promised to lead the pirates "even to the very bed-chamber door of the governor of Panama."