Esquemeling's commentary on this base conduct of the leader is surprisingly pious: "Captain Morgan left us all in such a miserable condition as might serve for a lively representation of what reward attends wickedness at the latter end of life. Whence we ought to have learned how to regulate and amend our actions for the future."
Sir Francis Drake, "sea king of the sixteenth century," the greatest admiral of the time, belongs not with the catalogue of pirates and buccaneers, yet he left a true tale of buried treasure among his exploits and it is highly probable that some of that rich plunder is hidden to-day in the steaming jungle of the road he took to Panama. There were only forty-eight Englishmen in the band which he led on the famous raid to ambush the Spanish treasure train bound to Nombre-de-Dios, a century before Morgan's raiders crossed the Isthmus. This first attempt resulted in failure, but after sundry adventures, Drake returned and hid his little force close by that famous treasure port of Nombre-de-Dios, where they waited to hear the bells of the pack-mule caravan moving along the trail from Panama. It was at dawn when this distant, tinkling music was first heard, and the Cimaroons, or Indian guides, were jubilant. "Now they assured us we should have more Gold and Silver than all of us could bear away." Soon the Englishmen had glimpses of three royal treasure trains plodding along the leafy road, one of fifty mules, the others of seventy each, and every one of them laden with three hundred pounds weight of silver bullion, or thirty tons in all. The guard of forty-five Spanish soldiers loafed carelessly in front and rear, their guns slung on their backs.
Drake and his bold seamen poured down from a hill, put the guard to flight, and captured the caravan with the loss of only two men. There was more plunder than they could carry back to their ships in a hasty retreat, and "being weary, they were content with a few bars and quoits of gold." The silver was buried in the expectation of returning for it later, "partly in the burrows which the great land-crabs have made in the earth, and partly under old trees which are fallen thereabouts, and partly in the sand and gravel of a river not very deep of water."
Then began a forced march, every man burdened with all the treasure he could carry, and behind them the noise of "both horse and foot coming, as it seemed, to the mules." Presently a wounded French captain became so exhausted that he had to drop out, refusing to delay the march and telling the company that he would remain behind in the woods with two of his men, "in hope that some rest would recover his better strength." Ere long another Frenchman was missed, and investigation discovered that he had "drunk much wine," and doubtless desired to sleep it off.
Reaching Rio Francisco, Drake was dismayed to find his pinnaces gone, and his party stranded. The vessels were recovered after delay and perilous adventure, whereupon Drake hastened to prepare another expedition "to get intelligence in what case the country stood, and if might be, recover Monsieur Tetu, the French captain, and leastwise bring away the buried silver." The party was just about to start inland when on the beach appeared one of the two men who had stayed behind with the French captain. At sight of Drake he "fell down on his knees, blessing God for the time that ever our Captain was born, who now beyond all his hope, was become his deliverer."
He related that soon after they had been left behind in the forest, the Spaniards had captured Captain Tetu and the other man. He himself had escaped by throwing down his treasure and taking to his heels. Concerning the buried silver, he had lamentable tidings to impart. The Spanish had got wind of it, and he "thought there had been near two thousand Spaniards and Negroes there to dig and search for it." However, the expedition pushed forward, and the news was confirmed. "The earth every way a mile distant had been digged and turned up in every place of any likelihood to have anything hidden in it." It was learned that the general location of the silver had been divulged to the Spaniards by that rascally Frenchman who had got drunk and deserted during the march to the coast. He had been caught while asleep, and the soldiers from Nombre-de-Dios tortured him until he told all that he knew about the treasure.
The Englishmen poked around and quickly found "thirteen bars of silver and some few quoits of gold," with which they posted back to Rio Francisco, not daring to linger in the neighborhood of an overwhelming force of the enemy. It was their belief that the Spanish recovered by no means all of those precious tons of silver bullion, and Drake made sail very reluctantly. It may well be that a handsome hoard still awaits the search of some modern argonauts, or that the steam shovels of the workmen of the Panama canal may sometime swing aloft a burden of "bars of silver and quoits of gold" in their mighty buckets. Certain it is that Sir Francis Drake is to be numbered among that romantic company of sea rovers of other days who buried vast treasure upon the Spanish Main.
[[1]] The Pirates' Own Book.
[[2]] The famous merchant and philanthropist of Philadelphia.
[[3]] "I happen to know the fact that Blackbeard, whose family name was given as Teach, was in reality named Drumond, a native of Bristol. I have learned this fact from one of his family and name, of respectable standing in Virginia, near Hampton." (Watson's Annals of Philadelphia.)