The blood ran down the deck in streams, and every rope and plank was smeared with gore.
Peralta, as prudent as he was brave, attempted by every possible argument, forgetful of his own wounds and the death of his men, to induce the Buccaneers not to attack the remaining vessels in the harbour. In the biggest alone he said there were 350 men, and the rest were well defended. But a dying sailor, lifting up his head from the deck, contradicted him, and said that they had not a man on board, all their crews being placed in the armadillas. Trusting to dying treason rather than living fidelity, the Buccaneers instantly proceeded to the island, and found the ships deserted. The largest, La Santissima Trinidada, had been set on fire, the crew, loosing her foresail, having pierced her bottom. The captains soon quenched the fire, and stopping the leak turned their prize into a floating hospital-ship. They found they had eighteen men killed and twenty-two wounded (only two of whom died) in this desperate sea battle, which began an hour after sunrise and ended at noon. The third vessel, it appeared, while running away had met with two others, but even with this reinforcement refused to fight.
Their brave prisoner, Peralta, now that all was over, broke out into repeated praises of their courage, which was so congenial to his own. He said: "You Englishmen are the valiantest men in the whole world, always desiring to fight open, while all other nations invent all the ways imaginable to barricade themselves, and fight as close as possible." "Notwithstanding all this," adds Ringrose, "we killed more of our enemies than they of us." Two days after the battle the Buccaneers buried Captain Harris, a brave Englishman of the county of Kent, whose death was much lamented by the fleet.
The new city of Panama, built four miles more easterly than that which Morgan burnt, had been three times destroyed by fire since that event. A few people still lived round the cathedral in the old town. The new city was bigger than the old one, and built chiefly of brick and stone, and was defended by a garrison of 300 soldiers and 1,000 militiamen. They afterwards learnt that the troops were then absent, and that if they had landed instead of attacking the fleet, they might have taken the place, all the best shots being on board the admiral's vessel.
In the five vessels taken at Perico there was much spoil. The Trinidada (400 tons) was laden with wine, sugar, sweetmeats, skins, and soap. The second, of 300 tons, partly laden with bars of iron, one of the richest commodities brought into the South Sea, was burnt by the Buccaneers, because the Spaniards would not redeem it. The third, of 180 tons, laden with sugar, was given to Captain Cook; the fourth, an old vessel (60 tons), laden with meal, was burnt as useless, with all her cargo. The fifth, of 50 tons, with a piragua, fell to the lot of Captain Coxen. The two armadillas, the rigging and sails being saved, and a bark laden with poultry, were also burnt.
Captain Coxen, indignant at charges made against him of cowardice in the late action, determined to rejoin the ships in the northern seas, together with seventy men who had assisted in his election. The Indian king, Don Andræas, and Don Antonio, returned with him. The king left his son and nephew in the care of Captain Sawkins, who was now commander-in-chief, and desired him not to spare the Spaniards. A few days after Captain Sharp returned from the King's islands, having taken a Spanish vessel and burnt his own. Captain Harris's crew had also taken a vessel, and, dismasting their own, turned their prisoners adrift in the hulk, and soon after taking a poultry vessel, the meanest of the Spaniards were treated in the same way.
Having remained now ten days at Panama, the fleet steered to the island of Tavoga, where they found a village of 100 houses quite deserted, and many of these were burnt by the carelessness of a drunken sailor. The Panama merchants came here to sell the Buccaneers commodities and to purchase the plunder from their own vessels, giving 200 pieces of eight for every negro. Staying eight days, they captured a vessel from Truxillo laden with money to pay the garrison of Panama, while in the hold were 2,000 jars of wine and fifty jars of gunpowder. A flour vessel from the same place informed them that a ship was coming in a few days laden with 100,000 more pieces of eight.
To a message from the President, who sent by some merchants to ask why they came into those parts, Captain Sawkins replied, that he came to assist the King of Darien, the true lord of the country, and he required a ransom of 500 pieces of eight for each sailor, and 1,000 for the commander. He must also promise not to molest the Indians, who were the natural owners of the soil. Hearing from the messengers that a certain priest, now bishop of Panama, formerly of Santa Martha, lay in the city, Sawkins, remembering that he had been his prisoner when he took that city five years before, sent him two loaves of sugar as a present. The next day the bishop replied by forwarding him a gold ring. The President, at the same time, sent another letter, desiring to see his commission, that he might know to what power to complain. Sawkins replied, that as yet all his men were not come together, but when they had met, they would come up to Panama, and bring their commissions on the muzzles of their guns, at which time he should read them as plain as the flame of gunpowder would let him.
The men growing now mutinous for fresh meat, Sawkins was compelled to give up his hopes of capturing the rich vessel from Peru, and to sail to the island of Otoque, to buy fowls and hogs, losing two barks, one with seven, and the other with fifteen men. While lying off the pearl fishery of Cayboa, Sawkins and Sharp made an unfortunate attack with sixty men on the town of Puebla Nueva. They were piloted up the river in canoes by a negro prisoner. A mile below the town, great trees had been laid to block up the stream, and before the town three strong breastworks were thrown up. Sawkins, running furiously up the sloping ramparts, was shot dead, and his men driven back to their boats, two men being killed, and three wounded, in the retreat, which was made in pretty good order. They soon after, however, captured a vessel laden with indigo, and burnt two others. This Captain Sawkins, Ringrose says, was as valiant and courageous as any, and, next to Captain Sharp, the best beloved. His death was much lamented, and occasioned another overland expedition. Sharp, surrendering his last prize to Captain Cook, took his vessel and gave it to the sixty-three men who wished to return home. They led with them all the Indians to serve as guides overland.
Before they started, Sharp, in full council on board the Trinidada, offered to insure to all who would carry out Sawkins's scheme, and go home by the Straits of Magellan, a £1000 profit, but none would stay. Ringrose himself acknowledges he should have left with them, but was afraid of the Indians, and the long and dangerous journey in the rainy season.