The blow was to be struck now or never. The English part of the St. Malo crew had already deserted to Morgan. Some of these men furnished him with an opportunity of revenge. The merchant captain, unaccustomed to the looseness of Buccaneer discipline, had treated them as sailors, and not as matelots and brothers. They told Morgan, that being short of victual, he had lately stopped an English vessel, and taken provisions by force, paying the commander only with bills of exchange, cashable at Jamaica, and that he carried secretly a Spanish commission, empowering him to plunder the English. These charges, though full of malice, had a specious appearance of truth. The captain had indeed stopped an English vessel, but had paid for all he had taken with honest bills. He did also carry a Spanish commission, having been driven to anchor at the port of Baracoa, on the north-east side of Cuba, where he had obtained letters of marque from the governor, in order to conceal his real errand. Morgan considered this a sufficient pretext, and sounded his crew to ascertain how far they would help him at the moment of need. It was at this very moment of indecision that the New England vessel joined the fleet, and enabled him to bear down any opposition. This ship, which Œxmelin calls the Haktswort (Oxford?) carried a crew of 300 men. It was said to belong to the king of England (Charles II.), and to have been lent by him to the present captain.
[A strange, improbable story, unless the English government had really determined to encourage the Buccaneer movement. The Haktswort was really sent by the governor of Jamaica to join the expedition.]
With this timely succour Morgan's mind was instantly made up. He asked the St. Malo captain and all his officers to dinner, on board the newly-arrived vessel, and there made them prisoners, without any resistance, away from their crew, and with their ship exposed to an overwhelming fire. He then affected the anger of indignant justice, declared they were robbers, who plundered the English under a commission from the enemy, and came there as mere spies and traitors. Fortunately for him, the English vessel that had been stopped by the St. Malo crew arrived at the very moment to repeat and exaggerate the charge. The ship was now his own, and only God could take it from him. And "God did so," says Esquemeling, who sees a judgment in all misfortunes that befal an enemy, but none in those that befal his friends.
Morgan, victorious and exulting, called a council of war, and summoned all his captains to attend him on board his large prize. They praised the vessel, laughed at the tricked Frenchmen, and discussed their plans. They calculated what provisions they had in store, and of what their force was capable. The island of Savona was agreed upon as a rendezvous, as at that east corner of Hispaniola they might lurk and cut off stragglers from the armed Spanish flota, now daily expected. Having completed their arrangements they gave way to pleasure, the real occupation and business of a Buccaneer's life, his toil being only expended to procure the means for pleasure, and time to enjoy it. They began to feast and drink healths, the officers below and the sailors on deck. Prayers for a successful voyage were blended with drunken songs, and unintelligible blasphemies. The captain and the cook were both drunk, the very gunners who discharged a broadside when the toasts were drained, fell senseless beside their smoking guns. Those who could not move slept, those who could walk drank on. By some accident, a spark from a smoking match caught the powder, and in an instant the vessel blew up. In perfect equality all ranks were lifted up towards heaven, in a column of flame, only to fall back again to perish, burnt and helpless, in the sea. More than 350 of the 400 men that formed the crew were drowned. By a singular coincidence, the officers nearly all escaped. The English having their powder stored in the fore part of the vessel, and not in the stern like the French, the sailors only perished; the officers and the St. Malo prisoners who were drinking with them were merely blown, much bruised, into the water. The English adventurers, declaring that the French had set fire to the powder, would have killed them on the spot, but Morgan, not apparently the least chapfallen by the disappointment, sent them all as prisoners to Jamaica. The thirty men, seated in the great cabin at some distance from the main force of the powder, escaped, and many more would have been saved had they been sober.
The French prisoners in vain endeavoured to obtain justice in Jamaica, were long detained in confinement, and threatened with death when they demanded a trial. Had Morgan returned unsuccessful they might have perhaps been listened to.
Eight days after this loss Morgan commanded his men to collect the floating bodies now putrifying, not to give them Christian burial, but to save the clothes, and to remove the heavy gold rings which the English Buccaneers wore upon their forefingers, abandoning their unsaleable bodies to the birds and to the sharks.
Undaunted by this accident, Morgan found he had still a force of fifteen vessels, and 860 men, but his gun ship, the largest of all, only carried fourteen small guns. They now made way to Savona, where all were to repair and careen, and the swift to wait for the slow. Letters were soon placed in bottles, and buried at a spot indicated by a mark agreed on. Coasting Hispaniola, they were detained by contrary winds, and attempted for three weeks in vain to double Cape Lobos. Their provisions ran short, but they were relieved by an English vessel, bound to Jamaica, which had a superfluity for sale.
Always seeking for pleasure, though in emergencies capable of the severest self-denials, six or seven of the fleet remained clustering round this vessel to purchase brandy, as eager and thoughtless as stragglers round a vivandière. The more thoughtful and earnest pressed on with Morgan, and, reaching the bay of Ocoa, waited for them there, the men spending their time usefully, as they had agreed before, in hunting, and foraging for water and provisions, killing some oxen and a few horses. Detained here by continued bad weather, Morgan maintained strict discipline, compelling every captain to send, daily, on shore eight men from each ship, making a total force of sixty-four. He also instituted a convoy, or a body of armed men, who attended the hunters as a guard, for they were now near St. Domingo, which was full of Greek soldiers and Spanish matadors. The Spaniards, few in number, did not attack them, but, adopting a Fabian policy, which suited their pride and phlegm, sent for 300 or 400 men to kill all the cattle round the bay. Another party drove all the herds far into the interior, wishing to starve the foe out of the island, knowing that a Buccaneer, pressed by hunger, did not care whether he ate horse, mule, or ass, falling back upon monkeys and parrots, and resorting to sharks' flesh or his own shoes as a last resource. But when the Buccaneers spread further inland, a body of soldiers was despatched to the coast, to practise a stratagem, and to form an ambuscade.
The following was their plan, which completely succeeded, but nevertheless ended in the Spaniards' total rout. A band of fifty Buccaneers having resolved to venture further than usual into the woods, a party of Spanish muleteers were ordered to drive the bait, a small herd of cattle, past the shore, where they had landed, pretending to fly when they caught sight of their enemies. When they approached the ambuscade two Spaniards were sent out, carrying a white flag of truce. The Buccaneers, ceasing the pursuit, pushed forward two men to parley.