“Her years were few, and her beauty so great as, peradventure, I may doubt whether, in all Christendom any could be found to surpass her perfections, either of comeliness or honesty.”
Oexemelin gives a more detailed account of her charms. He says that her hair was in glossy, silken ringlets of jet black. Though a brunette, her complexion was of dazzling purity. Her large, lustrous black eyes beamed with a peculiar expression of tenderness, which won the admiration of all who beheld her. The roughest pirates were subdued and softened by her presence. To them she presented almost the image of the Virgin Mary, and they regarded her charms as angelic.
The moment Morgan cast his eyes upon her he was overawed and captivated by her beauty, and was inspired with the most intense desire to win her love. Others had been his slaves, subject to his brutal will. But this lady, with her beauty, her grace, her accomplishments, her virtue, so far vanquished him, that he could not approach her but as a suppliant for her favor.
Love, the essence of the deity, is, under some circumstances, in its legitimate bearing, the most purifying of influences. Under other circumstances it is the most debasing and brutalizing of passions. It was observed that the demeanor of Morgan became quite changed. He became more social, more gentle, and was particularly attentive to his dress, clothing himself in his richest attire. He ordered his beautiful captive to be separated from the other prisoners, appointed a negress to wait upon her, sent her delicate viands from his own table, and treated her, in all respects, with the greatest consideration. The negress was instructed to do everything in her power to convince the captive lady that her captor was not a beast and a heretic, as she had been taught to believe, but a gentleman, and a Christian, a man of polished manners and cultivated mind. Esquemeling writes:
“This lady had formerly heard strange reports concerning the pirates, before their arrival at Panama, as if they were not men, but heretics, who did neither invoke the blessed Trinity, nor believe in Jesus Christ. But now she began to have better thoughts of them than ever before, having experienced the manifold civilities of Captain Morgan; especially as she heard him many times swear by the name of God and of Jesus Christ, in whom she had been persuaded that they did not believe.
“Neither did she now think them to be so bad, or to have the shapes of beasts, as she had often heard. For as to the names of robbers or thieves, which was commonly given them, she wondered not much at it, seeing, as she said, that among all nations there were to be found some wicked men who naturally coveted to possess the goods of others.”
Morgan visited the lady with smiles and bows and costly presents. He flooded her chamber with robes, jewels, and perfumes. She was not deceived. And when he ventured to propose that she should abandon her husband, and become virtually his wife, and accompany him to the home of splendor with which he would provide her, she repelled him with indignation and loathing. Replying to him with all the eloquence of impassioned innocence, she said:
“Sir, my life is in your hands. But sooner shall my soul be separated from my body than I will surrender myself to your demands.”
This repulse stirred up the rage of the infamous pirate. He stripped her of her rich attire, left her only the coarsest garments, and threw her into a dark and loathsome dungeon. She was supplied with only enough food to support life. By these brutalities he hoped to break her spirit, and to compel her to acquiesce in his wishes.
Even demons can appreciate true nobility of character. The beauty and virtues of this lady had won, in some degree, the sympathy of the vilest of these wretches. Morgan could not conceal his treatment from them. They began to murmur, to denounce him, to curse him as a brute.