Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers

by John S. C. Abbott

At a little distance beyond Vigilia there was a narrow channel to be threaded, which was defended by a fort. Not deeming it safe to expose his vessels to the heavy guns of the Spaniards, and knowing that the works would be weak on the land side, he manned his boats, and marching through the woods struck his foes in the rear. The garrison had made arrangements for the most desperate resistance. They had burned all the huts around the walls of the fort, and had removed everything which could afford the assailants any shelter.

The defenders of the works numbered probably not more than thirty or forty men. Nearly five hundred reckless desperadoes emerged from the woods for the assault. They were all veterans, and all sharpshooters. Not a hand could be exposed but a bullet would strike it. Such a storm of balls were thrown with unerring aim in at every embrasure, that the guns could not be worked.

When the pirates, in their large numbers, first appeared emerging from the forest, the fort opened a fire so intense and continuous that it resembled the crater of a small volcano in most rapid eruption. But the pirates, who could return ten bullets for every one received, and who were careful that every bullet should accomplish its mission, soon caused the fire to slacken. Still the fight continued for many hours, till night came, with no apparent advantage on either side.

With the darkness the conflict ceased. Morgan sent a party cautiously forward to reconnoitre. No light was to be seen. No sound was to be heard. Solitude and silence reigned. The fort was deserted. With shouts the pirates rushed forward to take possession of the works. The loud voice of Morgan arrested them. He was as cautious as he was brave. A party of engineers was dispatched, led by Morgan himself, to search lest there might be lighted fuses leading to the magazine. Morgan was the first to enter. His quick eye discerned the gleam of a fuse slowly creeping toward the magazine, where three thousand pounds of gunpowder were stored. It was instantly trampled out.

But for this caution, five hundred pirates would have swarmed all over the fort. There would have been an earthquake roar, a volcanic upheaval, and not one of those five hundred desperadoes would have survived to tell the story of the retribution which had so suddenly befallen them.

The fort was a small but strong redoubt, or outwork, built of stone, circular in form, with a massive wall thirty feet high. It was only accessible by an iron ladder which could be let down from a guard-room. It mounted fourteen cannons, of eight, twelve, and fourteen pound calibre. There was also found a quantity of fire-pots, hand-grenades, pikes, and muskets.

The pirates had no time to lose. It was needful to press forward as rapidly as possible, for every hour the inhabitants of the city might be adding to their defences. They blew up a portion of the wall; spiked the cannon, and threw them over the ramparts; burned the gun-carriages, and destroyed all the material of war which they could not carry away with them.

The way was now open for the passage of the fleet up the lake to the very entrance of the harbor. With the earliest dawn the fleet spread its sails, leaving behind the smouldering ruins of the fort. The breeze was light, the shoals many, the channel intricate. It was not until the next day that they came within sight of the city. There was still another fort to be passed at the very mouth of the port. Morgan stood upon his quarter-deck, spy-glass in hand. He could see the Spanish cavaliers at work on the ramparts, and had reason to expect a very desperate resistance. Again he decided not to expose his ships to the cannonade which the heavy guns of the fort could bring to bear upon them.

Casting anchor out of gun-shot, he disembarked his forces in the boats. They were ordered not to meddle with the fort, but to march in two divisions through the woods, and attack the town at points which the artillery of the fort could not protect. The guns of the fleet were brought to bear upon all the adjacent thickets, that no foe might find there a lurking-place.

The landing was effected without opposition. The march, through the narrow mule-paths, was undisputed. The town was reached. But there was no foe there; no inhabitant there. All had fled. Warned by the awful fate which had befallen Maracaibo, but a few years before, when sacked by the pirates under Lolonois, the citizens, men, women, and children, had fled utterly panic-stricken. It is easy for a man of any ordinary courage to brave death in the performance of duty. But who can endure demoniac torture? Who can bear the idea of seeing his wife, his daughter, his child exposed to every indignity, every cruelty which demons in human form can devise?