About the year 1636 a certain London mariner, named Dunton, had an experience somewhat similar to that which we related in the last chapter concerning Rawlins. Dunton had the bad luck to be taken by the Sallee pirates, who then sent him out as master and pilot of a Sallee pirate ship containing twenty-one Moors and five Flemish renegadoes. The instructions were that Dunton should sail to the English coast and there capture Christian prisoners. He had arrived from Barbary in the English Channel and was off Hurst Castle by the Needles, Isle of Wight, when he was promptly arrested as a pirate and sent to Winchester to be tried by law. He was given his release at a later date, but his ten-year-old boy was still a slave with the Algerines.
Now about the year when this was taking place, there was born into the world Henry Morgan, who has become celebrated in history and fiction as one of the greatest sea-rovers who ever stepped aboard a ship. His career is one of continual success, of cruelties and amassing of wealth. He was a buccaneer, and a remarkably clever fellow who rose to the position of Governor-General of one of our most important colonial possessions. Adventures are to the adventurous, and if ever there was a Britisher who longed for and obtained a life of excitement, here you have it in the story of Henry Morgan. It would be easy enough to fill the whole of this book and more with his activities afloat, but as our space is limited, and there are still many other pirates of different seas to be considered, it is necessary to confine ourselves to the main facts of his career.
The date of his birth is not quite certain, but it is generally supposed to belong to the year 1635. He first saw light in Glamorganshire, and his existence was tinged with adventure almost from the first. For whilst he was a mere boy, he was kidnapped and sold as a servant at Barbados. Thus it was that he was thrust on to the region of the West Indies, and in this corner of the world, so rich in romance, so historic for its association with Spanish treasure-ships of Elizabethan times, so reminiscent of Drake and others, he was to perform deeds of daring which as such are not unworthy to be ranked alongside the achievements of the great Elizabethan seamen. But he differed from Drake in one important respect. The Elizabethan was severe even to harshness, but he was a more humane being than Morgan. All the wonderful things which the Welshman performed are overshadowed by his cruel, brutish atrocities. In a cruel, inhuman age Morgan unhappily stands out as one of the wickedest sailors of his time. And yet, although we live in an epoch which is somewhat prone to white-washing the world’s most notorious criminals, yet we must modify the popular judgment which prevails in regard to Morgan. To say that he was a pirate and nothing else is not accurate. At heart he certainly was this. But as Sir John Laughton, our greatest modern naval historian has already pointed out, he attacked only those who were the recognised enemies of England.
I admit that in practice, especially in the case of men of such piratical character as Henry Morgan, the difference between privateering and piracy is very slight. The mere possession of a permission to capture the ships belonging to other people is nothing compared to a real sea-robbing intention. Morgan was lucky in having been required for a series of certain peculiar emergencies. His help happened at the time to be indispensable, and so he was able to do legally what otherwise he would have done illegally. All those seizures were legalised by the commission which he was granted at various times. But this is not to say that without those commissions he would not have acted in a somewhat similar manner.
We are accustomed to speak of Morgan and his associates as buccaneers. Now let us understand at once the meaning of this term. Originally the word meant one who dried and smoked meat on a “boucan.” A “boucan” was a hurdle made of sticks on which strips of beef newly salted were smoked by the West Indians. But the name of buccaneers was first given to the French hunters of S. Domingo, who prepared their meat according to this Indian custom. From the fact that these men who so prepared the flesh of oxen and wild boars were also known for another characteristic, namely, piracy, the name was applied in its widest sense to those English and French sea-rovers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who employed their time in depredating Spanish ships and territory of the Caribbean Sea. Hence from signifying a man who treated his food in a certain fashion, the word buccaneer came to mean nothing more or less than a robber of the sea.
After young Morgan had finished his time in service at Barbados, he joined himself to these buccaneer-robbers after arriving at Jamaica. It should be added that Morgan’s uncle, Colonel Edward Morgan, went out from England in 1664 to become Governor-General of Jamaica, but his death occurred in the following year. There are gaps in Morgan’s life, and there has been some confusion caused by others possessing the same surname. But it appears pretty certain now that in the year 1663 Henry Morgan was at sea in command of a privateer. Even by this time he had begun to be an expert in depredation and in sacking some of the Caribbean towns, and striking terror into the hearts of the wretched inhabitants. We may pass over these minor events and come to the time when, his uncle having died, Sir Thomas Modyford was sent out from England as Lieutenant-Governor. Bear in mind that intense hatred of the Spanish prevailing at this time, and which had not been by any means quenched by the defeat of the Armada. To put it mildly, the Caribbean Sea was an Anglo-Spanish cockpit where many and many a fight had taken, and was still to take, place. Modyford wanted the island of Curaçoa to be taken, and there was then no better man to do the job than a very celebrated buccaneer named Edward Mansfield. Sir Thomas therefore commissioned Mansfield to seize this island. He got together a strong naval expedition and accomplished the task early in the year 1666, Henry Morgan being in command of one of Mansfield’s ships.
Off the Nicaraguan coast lies an island which has been called at different times Santa Catalina or Providence Island. This had been taken from the English by the Spaniards more than twenty years before, and Morgan was also present when Mansfield now recaptured it. A small garrison was left to occupy it, and Mansfield returned with his ships to Jamaica. But before long Santa Catalina fell again into the hands of the Spaniards, and Mansfield died. It is now that Morgan’s career begins to come into the limelight. For after Mansfield’s decease the buccaneers, bereft of their leader, thought the matter over and decided to make Morgan his successor, and the commissions which Mansfield had been accustomed to receive from Modyford now fell to the Welshman.
The first of these duties occurred when Modyford became aware of a rumour that the Spaniards were contemplating an invasion of Jamaica. It was nothing more than a rumour, but, as governor, he desired to find out the truth. He therefore despatched Morgan to ascertain the facts. He was directed to get ten ships together and to carry 500 men in this fleet. The ships gathered on the south side of Cuba and then, having accomplished their voyage, Morgan landed his men and found that the people had fled from the coast, driving all their cattle away. Morgan marched inland, plundered the town of Puerto Principe, and then was able to send information to Modyford that considerable forces were being collected and that an expedition against Jamaica was, in truth, being planned. He had fulfilled his commission as instructed.
His next big achievement occurred when he sailed to the mainland in order to attack Porto Bello, where levies were being made to attack Jamaica. Several Englishmen were known also to be confined here in grim dungeons. And if any further incentive were required, this would certainly rouse the ire and sharpen the keenness of Morgan and his men. Porto Bello relied for its defence on three forts, and it was likely to be no easy work to compel these to yield. But Morgan succeeded in his object, and this is how he went to work: Arrived in the vicinity of Porto Bello, he left his ships and, under the cover of night, proceeded towards the shore with his men in about two dozen canoes. By three o’clock in the morning his force had crept into the shore and landed. The first fort was assaulted by the aid of ladders, and the garrison was slaughtered. So, too, the second fort was attacked. Hither the Spanish governor had betaken himself. For a time it offered a stout resistance, but Morgan had a number of ladders so made that they were wide enough to allow several men to climb up abreast of each other. By this means the castle walls were overcome, the castle itself taken, and the governor slain. The third fort surrendered, the town was sacked, and then, for over a fortnight, the buccaneers indulged themselves as was their wont in debauchery. I have no intention of suggesting the details either of these excesses nor of the abominable tortures to which the inhabitants were now subjected in order to compel them to reveal the places where their treasures were hidden. Not even the most unprincipled admirer of the buccaneers could honestly find it possible to defend Morgan and his associates against the most serious charges on the ground of common justice.
Morgan may not have been any worse than some of his contemporaries at heart, but whatever else he was, he was an unmerciful tyrant. As for his enemies, we cannot regard them with much admiration either. This Dago crowd were morally not much better than the Welshman, and though sometimes they put up a good fight, they were too often cowards. In this present instance they adopted that futile and weak plan of buying off the aggressor. You will remember that, unfortunately, our ancestors adopted this plan many hundreds of years ago when they sought to ward off the Viking depredators by buying peace. It was a foolish and an ineffectual method both then and in the seventeenth century in the case of Morgan. For what else does such an action mean than a confession of inferiority? Peace at this price is out of all proportion to the ultimate value obtained, and the condition is merely a temptation to the aggressor to come back for more. Stripped of any technicality, Morgan blackmailed these Panamanians to the extent of 100,000 pieces of eight, and 300 negroes. On these conditions, which were agreed upon, he consented to withdraw. So, very well rewarded for his trouble, Morgan returned joyfully to Jamaica, and for some time the buccaneers were able to indulge themselves in the pleasures which this booty was capable of affording them.
You will generally find that a buccaneer, a highwayman, a gambler, a smuggler or any kind of pirate by land or by sea is a spendthrift. There are certainly exceptions, but this is the rule. A man who knows that he can easily get more money when he runs short shows no reserve in spending, provided it affords him gratification. So with these buccaneers. At length they came to the end of their resources and were ready to go forth again. It is true that Modyford had been in two minds after Morgan’s return from Porto Bello. He rejoiced at the success of his arms, but he was nervous of the consequences. The Welshman had certainly exceeded his commission, and there might be trouble, as a result, at headquarters.
And yet there was work to be done, and Morgan was the only man who could do it. So once more Modyford had to commission him to carry out hostilities against the Spaniards. To the eastward of Jamaica lies the island of S. Domingo, or as it was known in those days, Hispaniola. If you were to examine a chart of Hispaniola you would see in the south-west corner a bay and a small island. The latter is known as Vache Island. This was to be the meeting-place where Morgan was now to collect his ships. Apart from being a good anchorage, it was a convenient starting-place if one wished to attack either the mainland of Central America or Cuba. In the present instance the objective was in the latter. The ships got under way, Morgan arrived at the scene of operations, and positively ravaged the Cuban Coast, again striking terror wherever he went. But, important as this was, it is not to be reckoned alongside the achievement which he performed in the early part of 1669.
On the north coast of South America is a wide gulf which opens out into the Caribbean Sea. But as this gulf extends southward, the shores on either side narrow so closely that the shape resembles the neck of a bottle. The town here is named Maracaibo. But a little distance still farther south the shores on either side recede considerably like the lower portion of a bottle, and there extends a vast lagoon which takes its name from the town mentioned. It is obvious to any one that the strategical point is at the neck. And when I mention that here the navigation was both tricky and shallow, and that the channel was protected by a strong castle, the reader will instantly appreciate that any one who tried to bring his ships into the lake would have a very difficult task.
Now in the month of March, Morgan, with eight ships and 500 men, had arrived off this entrance. With great daring and dogged determination he was able to force his way in through this narrow entrance. He not only dismantled the fort, but he sacked the town of Maracaibo in his own ruthless manner; then he followed up his attack by scouring the neighbouring woods, and put the captured and terrified inhabitants to cruel tortures in order to compel them to reveal the hiding-places of their valuables. He captured many a prisoner and at length, very well satisfied with his success, after the lapse of three weeks decided to advance still farther. He had got his ships through the most difficult portion, and now he intended to navigate the lagoon itself.
At length he arrived at a town called by the inhabitants Gibraltar, after the European place of that name. Here Morgan again satiated himself with plunder, with cruelties and with debauchery until the time came for him to take his ships away with all the booty they could carry. But the serious news reached them that awaiting them off the entrance to the gulf were three Spanish men-of-war. Still more serious was the information that the castle at Maracaibo had now been efficiently manned and armed. That was more than awkward, for without the permission of the fort it was quite impossible for his ships to make their exit in safety. The situation would have puzzled many a fine strategist. Here was the buccaneer positively trapped with no means of escape.
But Morgan was quite equal to the occasion, and he set to work. His first object was to gain time, and so he began by opening negotiations with the Spanish Admiral Don Alonso del Campo y Espinosa. He knew these negotiations would prove fruitless, as indeed they did. But in the meantime Morgan had been busily employing his men in getting ready a fireship. In our modern days of steel hulls, fireships play no part in naval tactics, but in the time of oak and hemp this mode of aggression continued till very late. The fireship would first be filled with combustible material, and then released, the wind or current taking her down on to the enemy’s ships. The grapnel irons projecting from her side would foul the enemy, and it would be no easy matter to thrust the fireship off until she had done considerable damage by conflagration. This method of warfare was one of the oldest tactics in the history of naval fighting. It was successful over and over again, and the reader can well imagine that the sight of a flaming ship rapidly approaching a fleet of anchored ships with the tide was really terrifying. And even if the attacked ships were under way and not brought up it made little difference: for the flames would immediately set on fire a ship’s sails, and the tarred rigging would soon be ablaze, rendering the attacked ship disabled.
Of course it was possible at times for a fleet under way so to manœuvre as to get out of the direction towards which the fire-vessel was travelling. But Morgan was up to every eventuality. The fireship he disguised as a man-of-war, and she was not yet set alight. With this craft looking just like one of his own he took his fleet to look for the Spanish men-of-war. On the 1st of May he found them just within the entrance to the lagoon. He now made straight for them, and setting the fireship alight when quite near, sent her right alongside the Spanish flagship, a vessel of 40 guns. The latter was too late to shake her off, burst into flames and soon foundered. Another Spanish ship was so terror-stricken that her crew ran ashore, and she was burnt by her own men lest she should fall into the hands of the buccaneers. The third was captured after heavy slaughter. Some of the Spaniards succeeded in swimming ashore, among whom was the Admiral Don Alonso himself.
Morgan was able to capture a number of prisoners, and from these men he learned tidings which must have sent a thrill of great joy through his avaricious mind. The sunken ship had gone down with 40,000 pieces of eight! So the buccaneer took steps to recover as much of this treasure as he could, and salved no less than 15,000, in addition to a quantity of melted silver. His next work was to have the prize-ship refitted, and her he adopted as his own flagship. So far, so good. But he was still in the lagoon, and the door of the trap was yet closed as before, although the enemy’s ships had been now disposed of. He again opened negotiations with Don Alonso, and it is surprisingly true that the latter actually paid Morgan the sum of 20,000 pieces of eight and 500 head of cattle as a ransom for Maracaibo. But, on the other hand, Don Alonso declined to demean himself by granting Morgan permission to take his ships out.
That, of course, set Morgan’s brain working. He was determined to put to sea, and it was only a question of stratagem. He therefore allowed the Spaniards to gain the impression that he was landing his men so as to attack the fort from the landward side. This caused the Spaniards to move the guns of the fort to that direction, leaving the seaward side practically unarmed. That was Morgan’s chance and he fully availed himself thereof. It was night-time and there was the moon to help him. He waited till the tide was ebbing, and then allowing his ships to drop down with the current he held on until he was off the fort, when he spread sail and before long was well on his way to the northward. It was a clever device for getting out of a very tight corner.
So he sailed over the Spanish Main with rich booty from Gibraltar, with 15,000 pieces of eight from the wreck, with another 20,000 from Alonso, with a new ship and other possessions. Certainly the voyage had been most fortunate and remunerative. He reached Jamaica in safety, but again Modyford was compelled to reprove him for having exceeded his commission. But the same thing happened as before. The Spaniards were becoming more and more aggressive towards the English in the West Indies, and it was essential that they should be given a severe lesson before worse events occurred. Morgan was the only man for the task, and he was now appointed commander-in-chief of the warships of the Jamaican station, and sent forth with full authority to seize and destroy all the enemy’s vessels that could be found. He was further to destroy all stores and magazines, and for his pay he was to have all the goods and merchandise which he could lay his hands on, his men being paid the customary share that was usual on buccaneering expeditions.
We find him, then, at the middle of August 1670, leaving Port Royal (now better known as Kingston), Jamaica, and as before his rendezvous was Vache Island. With this as his base he sent ships for several months to ravage Cuba and the mainland, and as usual “refreshed” himself, as an Elizabethan would have said, with the things he was in most need, such as provisions. But he was able also to obtain a great deal of valuable information, and at length sailed in a south-west direction till he came to that island of Santa Catalina which we mentioned earlier in this chapter as having been taken by the Spaniards. This he now recaptured, and thereafter he was to perform another wonderful feat. The object he had conceived was to capture Panama. It was another bold idea boldly carried out. First of all, then, he sent from Santa Catalina four of his ships, and a boat, and nearly 500 men, under the leadership of Captain Brodely. These, after a three days’ voyage, arrived off Chagres Castle, which is at the mouth of the River Chagres, not far from where the modern Panama Canal comes out. In a remarkably short time Brodely was able to capture this castle: and presently Morgan arrived with the rest of his expedition.
Having made security doubly sure, he proceeded inland, taking his ships up the River Chagres. But after he had gone some distance it was found that, through lack of rain, the river had dried considerably. He therefore left 200 men behind to hold the place, and with the rest of his forces he set out to march on foot. He did not hamper his expedition with provisions, as he trusted to obtain supplies from the inhabitants whose dwellings he passed. On the tenth day he had arrived at his destination. Before him lay Panama and the Pacific. But the Spaniards were there on the plain to meet his forces with a considerable strength, consisting of 3000 infantry and cavalry as well as some guns.
But the Spaniards had also ready a unique tactic which seems almost ludicrous. We have already referred slightly to the cattle, which were a feature of this region of the globe. The Spaniards decided to employ such in battle. So, between themselves and the English, they interposed a vast herd of wild bulls, which were driven on in the hope of breaking the English ranks. The wild stampede of creatures of this sort is not likely to make for order, but, like the boomerang on land and the ram in naval warfare, such a device is capable of being less damaging to the attacked than to the attacker. For, as it happened, many of these bulls were shot dead by the English, and the rest of the animals turned their heads round and made for the Spanish, trampling many of them under foot. The English gained the day; the Spaniards were put to flight, and although the buccaneers lost heavily, yet the other side had lost 600 dead. The city of Panama was captured early in the afternoon, and yet again Morgan scooped in an amazing amount of booty. There was the same series of tortures, of threats, and there was a total absence of anything noble-minded in the way Morgan went about his way, satisfying his greed for gold. But he had just missed one very big haul, and this annoyed him exceedingly. For when the Spaniards saw their men were being defeated, they sent to sea a Spanish galleon which was full of money, church plate and other valuables, worth far more than ever Morgan had obtained from what was left in Panama.
The expedition started on its return journey overland, and after twelve days arrived at Chagres. Here the great quantity of booty was divided up among the crews; but the men were not satisfied with their share, protested that they had been cheated of their full amount, and much discontent ensued. There can be little doubt but that this was so, and that Morgan had enriched himself at the expense of his men. However, he managed to slip away to his ship, followed by only a handful of his former fleet, and once again found himself in Jamaica. Here he received the formal thanks of the governor, but there was trouble brewing. For while Morgan had been away, a treaty had been signed at Madrid concerning Spanish America. It is true that Modyford had, in those days of slow communication, known nothing of it; but he was recalled, and he returned to England a prisoner to answer for his having supported and encouraged buccaneering. The following year Morgan was also sent to England in a frigate, but Charles II. took a great liking to this dare-devil, and in 1674 sent him back again to Jamaica, this time with the rank of Colonel and with the title of knighthood, to be not a buccaneer but Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. If ever there was an instance of the ungodly flourishing, here it is. Fourteen years longer did Morgan continue to live in this island as a rich man possessing social prestige. It is true that he made a good governor, but although he had defeated Alonso, reduced Panama, made a clever escape from Maracaibo, taken Santa Catalina and been a veritable thorn in the side of the Spaniards, yet he had been a brute, and he died a brute. He was a blackmailer on a large scale, he was unmercifully a tyrant, and he was a profligate. It is only because he attacked the enemies of his own Government, and because he was lucky to obtain the commissions demanded by law, that he is prevented from being reckoned as a mere common pirate. But if there is honour among most thieves, what shall we say of Morgan’s dishonesty and harshness in cheating the very men who had fought under him of their fair share of plunder when the battle was won? It is, perhaps, hardly fair to judge even a Morgan except by the prevailing standard of his time. But those who care to look up the details of Morgan’s private life will find much to condemn even if there is something to admire in his exceptional cleverness and undoubted courage. The sea is a hard school and makes hard men harder, and in those days when might was right and every ocean more or less in a chaotic state of lawlessness, when poverty, or chance, or despair, or the irresistible longing for adventure drove men to become pirates, there was no living for a soft-hearted sailor. He had to fight or be fought: he had to swim with the tide, or else sink. The luckiest and cleverest became the worst terrors of the sea, while the least fortunate had either to submit to the strong or else end their days in captivity. Morgan having been kidnapped while young may have been driven to kidnap others by sea: or there may have been other causes at work. One thing, however, is certain: the world is not made the richer by the advent of such a man as this Welsh buccaneer.