CHAPTER III.
THE COMPANIONS AND SUCCESSORS OF MORGAN.

Œxmelin and a few of his French friends being informed by a female slave that an old Buccaneer lived in the neighbourhood, determined to go to him and barter goods, as they were told that, although a Spaniard, such was his custom. Following the slave with great expectation, they reached the veteran's fort after about six hours' march. The Buccaneers' "peel" towers were scattered all over the West Indies, and Waterton mentions seeing the ruins of one near Demerara. This fort was defended by a fosse of immense depth, and by massy walls of an extraordinary thickness, flanked at each corner by a bastion well supplied with cannon. The Frenchmen displayed their colours and beat their drums as a greeting, yet no one appeared, and no one answered; but, at the end of a quarter of an hour, they saw a light in one of the bastions, and perceived a man about to discharge a cannon. Throwing themselves on their faces with professional dexterity, the shot flew over their heads, and they then rose and retreated out of range. Believing at once that they had been betrayed, for many dangers had made them suspicious, they were about to cut their guide to pieces, when, running from them, she cried to the gunner, "Why is your master false to his word? did he not promise to receive these gentlemen?" "It is true," cried the soldier, "but he has changed his mind; and if you and your people do not go off, I will blow out your brains." The Buccaneers, enraged at the insolence of this threat, and the capricious change of intention, were about to attempt to storm the place, when four Spaniards advanced and demanded a truce, in the name of their master. "We had," they explained, "been alarmed at your numbers, and feared foul play or treachery." The old adventurer was now willing to receive them, if they would send four of their band as ambassadors and hostages. Œxmelin was one of the four chosen. They found the old man, grey and venerable, seated between two others. He was so old and feeble that he could not speak audibly, but he smiled and moved his lips, and stroked his long white beard, as they entered, and they could observe that he was pleased to see once more the well-remembered dress of the Buccaneer seamen. His majestic bearing was impressive. Though he could not rise to welcome them, he bent his head in answer to their greetings, and beckoned to one of his attendants to speak for him. By his orders they were at once taken to his store-rooms, where they bartered their goods, and obtained all that they required. They first eagerly selected some brandy, and Œxmelin is never tired of repeating "ses gens l'aiment avec passion." On their way back to the ships with the guide, delighted at their success, the Spaniards who carried the goods they had bought told them their master's history. He was, it appeared, properly speaking, neither an adventurer nor a Castilian, but a Portuguese, who had lived long both with adventurers and with Spaniards. A Spanish ship had picked him up in a drifted canoe when quite a boy, and he had been employed among the slaves in a cocoa plantation, where he soon became a successful steward, and much beloved by his master. His patron sent every year a vessel to his plantation to be loaded with cocoa. One day, as the steward was on board superintending the lading, a sudden squall came on, snapped the cable, and drove them out to sea. He being a good pilot, and accustomed to navigation, attempted to put back to land as soon as the storm abated, but the slaves, with one voice, declared that they would not return, and that he should not take them, for they knew that their master would suspect, and would cruelly punish them. At that time the slightest offence of a slave was punished with death. The steward remonstrated with them; but the slaves resolved to be free, although they knew not where to steer. At this crisis the bark was pursued by a Buccaneer vessel, from which a storm for a short time released them, but they were eventually overtaken and captured.

The Buccaneer captain brought these prisoners to the fortress they had just visited. Here he became again a faithful steward, and finally inherited the place at his master's death, and continued to trade with the Buccaneers, as his predecessor had done. The fortress had been originally built to repel the Spaniards, who had been several times beaten off with loss.

It is very seldom that we can follow the Buccaneer to the last scene of all: he flashes across our scene from darkness to darkness, and we hear of him no more. In the present instance, Œxmelin enables us to fill up the vacuum and tell out the tale. In a subsequent voyage he returned to the old spot, the scene of an oft told story. Devastation had fallen upon the devastator, the fortress was completely demolished and no dwelling remained. He ascertained from the Spaniards that the old man had died and left his riches to his two sons, who, impatient of a slothful wealth, and with imaginations excited from their youth by the recital of Buccaneer adventures, had at last turned Flibustiers. Before their father's death they had often expressed a wish to conquer the country of the ferocious Bravo Indians, but he had always discouraged them from the dangerous and unprofitable expedition, being afraid of attacks from the Spaniards in their absence. They were never heard of again, but report was current that, having been shipwrecked, the two Buccaneers had been taken by the Indians, and killed and eaten.

Leaving the Boca del Toro, about thirty leagues distant from Chagres, Œxmelin and his companions arrived at the country of the very dreaded Bravo Indians. These people were known to be warlike cannibals, cruel and very treacherous. They were expert archers, and could discharge their arrows, like the Parthians, even when in full retreat. They had axes and spears, and wore metal ornaments, the clash of which animated them to the charge. They carried tortoise-shells for shields, which covered their whole bodies, and were most to be dreaded when few in number and quite overpowered, for they would then throw themselves like wild-cats on the foe, and think only of destroying their enemy's life, regardless of their own. Morgan, who seems to have made every preparation for an extensive Buccaneer empire, had often sworn to totally destroy this nation which had slain so many shipwrecked men, and so frequently frustrated his plans. No Buccaneer historian ever seems to have reflected that these savages, rude as they were, fought as patriots defending their country. We sing of Tell and rave of Wallace, but we have no interest in a hero without breeches!

These Indians had at first been friendly to the Buccaneers, who had sold them iron in exchange for food, but on one fatal occasion, at a Buccaneer debauch, a quarrel had arisen, and some Indians had been killed and their wives carried off. From this time irreconcilable hatred existed between the two people, and to be wrecked on the Bravo shore was equivalent to certain death. On reaching Cape Diego (so called, like many other points of land, from an old adventurer), Œxmelin was compelled by hunger to feed on crocodile eggs, which were found buried in the sand. Meeting here with some French adventurers, they all removed to an adjacent spot, where they caught turtle and salted it for the voyage.

Ascending a river to obtain provisions, they surprised and killed two Indians, of whom one had a beard-case of tortoise-shell and another of beaten gold: the latter they took for a chief. Putting off from here, and meeting with contrary winds that drove them from Jamaica, they returned again to Chagres, and were pursued by a ship of Spanish build, which they feared had been sent from Carthagena to rebuild the fort.

They attempted in vain to escape, and were clearing the decks, preparing to fight to the last, when the enemy hoisted the red flag, and proved to be one of their companions' vessels driven back by the bise, or north-east wind. They lost two days' sail by this accident, more than they could regain in a fortnight, and returned to the Boca del Toro to get provisions and kill sea-cows, and then passed on to the Boca del Drago. The islands here they knew to be inhabited, for the fragrance of the fruits was wafted on the sea wind. One day a fishing party gave chase to two Indians in a canoe, which they instantly drew ashore and carried with them into the woods. This boat, weighing above 2,000 lbs. and requiring 11 men afterwards to launch it, was made of wild cedar, roughly hewn; being nimble the savages both escaped the Buccaneers. A pilot who had been often in those parts, told them that a few years before, a Buccaneer squadron arriving in that place, the men went in canoes to catch the humming birds that swarmed round the flowering trees of the coast. They were observed by some Indians who had hid themselves in the trees, who, leaping down into the sea, carried off the boats and men before their companions could arrive to their aid. The admiral instantly landed 800 men to rescue the prisoners, but so many Indians collected that they found it necessary to retreat in haste to their ships.

The next day the Buccaneers arrived at Rio de Zuera, but the Spaniards were all fled, leaving no provisions; they therefore filled their boats with plantains, coasting for a fortnight along the shore to find a convenient place to careen, for the vessel had now grown so leaky that slaves and men were obliged to work night and day at the pumps. Arriving at a port, called the Bay of Blevelt, from a Buccaneer who used to resort there, half the crew were employed to unload and careen the bark on the shore, and half to hunt in the woods—still much afraid of the Indians, though they had as yet seen none.

The huntsmen shot several porcupines of great size, and many monkeys and pheasants. The men took great pleasure in the midst of their danger in this pursuit. They laughed to see the females carrying their little ones on their backs, just like the negro women, and they admired the love and fidelity which some showed when their friends were wounded, and were delighted when they pelted their pursuers with fruit and dead boughs. The men were obliged to shoot fifteen or sixteen to secure three or four, as even when dead they remained clinging to the trees, and remained so for several days, hanging by their fore-paws or their tails. When one was wounded the rest came chattering round him, and would lay their paws on the wound to stop the flow of blood, and others would gather moss from the tress to bandage the place, or, gathering certain healing herbs, chew them and apply them as a poultice. If a mother was killed the young ones would not leave the body till they were torn away.

But these amusements were soon to come to an end. The Indians were upon their track. They had been now eight days hunting. It was the daybreak of the ninth day, and the fishermen and hunters were preparing their nets and guns to start for the sea and for the woods. The slaves were on the beach burning shells to make lime, which served instead of pitch for the vessels, and the women were drawing water at the wells which had been dug in the shore. A few of them were washing dishes, and others sewing, for they had risen earlier than usual. While the rest went to the wells, one of them lingered behind to pick some fruit that grew near the beach. Seeing suddenly some Indians running from the spot where she had left her companions, she ran to the tents, crying, "Indians, Indians, Christians, the Indians are come." The Buccaneers, running to arms, discovered that three of their female slaves were lying dead in the wood, pierced with fourteen or fifteen flint-headed arrows. These darts were about eight feet long, and as thick as a man's thumb; at one end was a wooden hook, tied on with a string, at the other, a case containing a few small stones. Searching the woods, no traces of Indians, or any canoes, were to be found, and the Buccaneers, fearing they should be surrounded and overpowered, re-embarked all their goods, and sailed in great haste and fear.

They soon arrived at Cape Gracias à Dios, and rejoiced to find themselves once more among friendly Indians; and at a port where Buccaneer vessels often resorted, the rudest sailors giving thanks to God for having delivered them out of so many dangers, and brought them to a place of refuge. The Indians provided them with every necessary, and treated them with friendship. For an old knife or hatchet the men each bought an Indian woman, who supplied them with food. These people often went to sea with the Buccaneers, and, remaining several years, returned home with a good knowledge of French and English. They were used as fishermen, and for striking tortoises and manitees, one Indian being able to victual a vessel of 100 men. Œxmelin's crew having on board two sailors who could speak the Indian tongue, they were unusually well received.

This nation was not more than 1700 in number, including a few negro slaves, who had swum ashore from a wreck, having murdered the Spanish crew, and, in their ignorance of navigation, stranded the vessel. Some of them cultivated the ground, and others wandered about hunting and fishing. They wore little clothes but a palm leaf hat, and a short apron, made of the bark of some tree. Their arms were spears, pointed with crocodile's teeth. They believed in a Supreme Being, and, as Esquemeling quaintly says, "believe not in nor serve the devil, as many other nations of America do, and hereby they are not so much tormented by him as other nations are." Their food was chiefly fruit and fish. They prepared pleasant and intoxicating liquors from the plantain, and from the seed of the palm, and at their banquets every guest was expected to empty a four-quart calabash full of achioc, as the palm drink was called, merely a whet to the feast to follow. Their achioc was as thick as gruel. When they were in love, they pierced themselves with arrows to prove their sincerity. When a youth wished to marry a maiden, the first question of the bride's father to the lover was, whether he could make arrows, or spin the thread with which they bound them. If he answered in the affirmative, the father called for a calabash of achioc, and he himself, the bride, and the bridegroom, all tasted of the beverage. When one of these hardy women was delivered, she rose, went to the nearest brook, washed and swathed the child, and went about her ordinary labour. When a husband died, the wife buried him, with all his spears, aprons, and ear jewels, and for fifteen moons after (a year) brought meat and drink daily to the grave. Some writers contend that the devil visited the graves, and carried away these offerings to the manes; but Esquemeling says, he knows to the contrary, having often taken away the food, which was always of the choicest and best sort. At the end of the year, an extraordinary custom prevailed. The widow had then to open the grave, and take out all the bones; she scraped, washed, and dried them in the sun; then placed them in a satchel, and for a whole year was obliged to carry them upon her back by day, and sleep upon them by night. At the end of the year, she hung up the bag at her door-post, or, if she was not mistress of her house, at the door of her nearest relation. A widow could not marry again till this painful ceremony was completed, and if an Indian woman married a pirate, the same custom prevailed. The negroes maintained the habits of their own countries.

After refreshing themselves in this friendly region, the Buccaneers steered for the island de los Pinos, and, arriving in fifteen days, refitted their vessel, now become dangerously leaky. Half the crew were employed in careening, and half in fishing, and by the help of some of the Cape Gracias Indians who accompanied them they killed and salted a sufficient number of wild cattle and turtle to revictual the ship. In six hours they could capture fish sufficient for a thousand persons. "This abundance of provision," says Esquemeling, "made us forget the miseries we had lately endured, and we began to call one another again by the name of brother, which was customary among us, but had been disused in our miseries." They feasted here plentifully, and without fear of enemies, for the few Spaniards who were on the island were friendly, and past dangers grew mere dreams in the distance. Their only anxiety now was about the crocodiles, which swarmed in the island, and, when hungry, would devour men.

On one occasion a Buccaneer and his negro slave, while hunting in the wood, were attacked by one of these monsters. With incredible agility it fastened upon the Englishman's leg, and brought him to the ground. The negro fled. The hunter, a robust and courageous man, drawing his knife, stabbed the crocodile to the heart, after a desperate fight, and then, tired with the combat and weak with loss of blood, fell senseless by its side. The negro, returning, from curiosity rather than compassion, to see how the duel had ended, lifted his master on his back and brought him to the sea-shore, a whole league distant, where he placed him in a canoe and rowed him aboard. After this, no Buccaneer dared to go into the woods alone, but the next day, sallying out in troops, they killed all the monsters they could meet. These animals would come every night to the sides of the vessel and attempt to climb up, attracted probably by the smell of food. One of these, when seized with an iron hook, instead of diving or swimming, began to mount the ladder of the ship, till they killed him with blows of pikes and axes. After remaining some time here they sailed for Jamaica, and arrived there in a few days after a prosperous voyage, being the first adventurers who had arrived there from Panama since Morgan.

In 1673, when the war between the French and Hollanders (Dutch) was still raging, the inhabitants of the French West Indian colonies equipped a fleet to attack the Dutch settlements at Curaçoa, engaging all the Buccaneers that could be induced to join the white flag, either from hopes of plunder or from hatred to the Dutch. M. D'Ogeron, the Governor of Tortuga, the planner of this invasion, headed the fleet in a large vessel named after himself, built by himself, and manned by 500 picked adventurers. His unlucky star led them to misfortune. The new frigate ran upon the rocks near the Guadanillas Islands, and broke into a thousand pieces, during a storm near Porto Rico. Being at the time very near to land, the governor and all his men swam safe to shore. The next day, discovered by the Spaniards, they were attacked by a large force, who supposed they had come purposely to plunder the islands as the Buccaneers had done before. The whole country, alarmed, rose in arms. The shipwrecked men were surrounded by an overpowering army, who, finding them almost without arms, refused to give them quarter, slew the greater part without mercy, and made the remainder prisoners. Binding them with cords, two by two, they drove them through the woods into the open champaign. To all inquiries as to the fate of their commander, whom they could not distinguish from the rest, they replied that he had sunk with the wreck. D'Ogeron, following up this deception with French sagacity, behaved himself as a mere half-witted suttler, diverting the Spanish soldiers by his tricks and mimicry, and was the only Buccaneer whom they allowed to go at liberty. The troopers at their camp fires gave him scraps from their meals and rewarded him with more food than his companions.

Among the prisoners there was also a French surgeon who had on former occasions done some service to the Spaniards, and him they also allowed to go at large. D'Ogeron agreed with him to attempt an escape at all risks, and after mature deliberation, they both agreed upon a plan, and succeeded in escaping safely into the woods, and in making their way to the sea-side. They determined to attempt to build a canoe, although unsupplied with any tool except a hatchet. By the evening they reached the sea-shore, to their great joy, and caught some shell fish on the beach from a shoal that ran in upon the sands in pursuit of their prey. Fire to roast them they obtained by rubbing two sticks together in the Indian fashion. The next morning early they began to cut down and prepare timber to build the canoe in which to escape to Vera Cruz. While they were toiling at their work they observed in the distance a large boat, which they supposed to contain an enemy, steering directly towards them. Retreating to the woods, they discovered as soon as it touched land that it held only two poor fishermen. These unsuspecting men they determined if possible to overpower, and to capture the boat. As the mulatto came on shore alone, with a string of calabashes on his back to draw water, they killed him with a blow of their axe, and then slew the Spaniard, who, alarmed at the sound of voices, was attempting in vain to push from the shore. Having filled the dead man's calabashes they set sail, using the precaution of taking the dead bodies with them out into the deep sea, in order to conceal their death from the Spaniards.

They steered at once for Porto Rico, and passed on to Hispaniola. A fair wind soon brought them to Samana, where they found a party of their people. Leaving the surgeon to collect men at Samana, D'Ogeron sailed to Tortuga to collect vessels and crews to return and deliver his companions, and revenge his late disaster. He sailed eventually with 300 men, and took great precautions to prevent the Spaniards being aware of his coming, using only his lower sails in order that his masts should not rise above the horizon. In spite of this the Spaniards, informed of his approach, had placed troops of horse upon the shore at various assailable points.

D'Ogeron landed his men under favour of a discharge from his great guns, which drove the horsemen into the woods, where, as he little suspected, the infantry lay in ambush. Eagerly pursuing, his men, who thought the victory their own, found themselves hemmed in on every side. Few escaped even to the ships. The Spaniards, cruel from the reaction of fear, cut off the limbs of the dead and carried them home as trophies. They lighted bonfires on the shore as tokens of defiance to the retreating fleet.

The first prisoners were now treated worse than ever. Some of them were sent to Havannah and employed on the fortifications all day, and chained up like wild beasts at night to prevent their desperate attempts at escape. Many were sent to Cadiz, and from thence escaped over the Pyrenees into France, and, assembling together, like sworn members of a common brotherhood, returned by the first ship to Tortuga.

These very men some time after equipped a small fleet, under command of Le Sieur Maubenon, which sacked Trinidad, and put the island to a ransom of 10,000 pieces of eight, and from thence proceeded to the Caraccas.

The Buccaneers fought against the Dutch, in 1676, and helped the French to recover Cayenne, that had been taken by Vice-Admiral Binkes. After this conquest, M. D'Estrees attacked Tobago, but was repulsed with the loss of 150 killed, and 200 wounded. His ship, the Glorieux, of seventy guns, was blown up, and two others stranded; several of the Dutch vessels were, however, burnt.

D'Estrees, returning to Brest, was ordered back to Tobago, with twenty sail of vessels of war, besides a great number of small craft. 1500 men were landed, and, approaching a fortified place called Le Cort, summoned Heer Binkes to surrender. The French began their attack by throwing fire-balls into the castle; the third grenade fell upon some loose powder in the path leading to the magazine, and blew it up. Heer Binkes and all his officers but one were killed. 500 French instantly stormed the works, killing all but 300 men, who were sent prisoners to France. D'Estrees then destroyed every fort and house in the island, and sailed away.

It was in 1678 that the same Comte D'Estrees collected 1200 Buccaneers from Hispaniola, and twenty vessels of war, besides fire-ships, to capture Curaçoa, which could have been taken with 300 Buccaneers and three vessels. This fleet was, however, lost on the Isles d'Aves, as we shall describe in Dampier's voyage.

In the year 1678, Captain Cook loaded his vessel with logwood, at Campeachy, and, while anchoring at the island of Rubia, on his way to Tobago, was captured by three Spanish men-of-war, who left his crew upon the shore, and carried off his ship and cargo. They had not lain there long before a Spanish sloop of sixteen men arrived, laden with cocoa and plate, and gave them opportunity for escape and for revenge. Borrowing muskets of the Dutch governor, they employed six of their men in seizing the sloop's boat as it came to land, and then embarked and took the larger vessel, leaving their prisoners bound upon the beach, to watch the combat that would decide their fate. Two men navigated, two more loaded the guns, and two others fired into the enemy as fast as they could pour their shot into the stern-ports. The Spaniards resisted stoutly for some time, but, seeing their priest and captain shot dead, threw their arms overboard, and cried for quarter. The Buccaneers gave the Dutch governor a handsome reward, with a recompence for the arms, and divided among themselves about £4,000 worth of plate. On arriving at Jamaica they burnt the prize, and embarked their goods for England.

In the year of our Lord 1679, a Buccaneer fleet of five sail, commanded by Captains Coxen, Essex, Alliston, Rose, and Sharp, set sail from Port-Royal, and steered for the island of Pines, losing two vessels in their passage, at the Zamballos islands. They met a French ship, whose commission was only for three months, and showed its captain, with great exultation, their forged commission for three years, purchased for only ten pieces of eight.

CHAPTER IV.
THE CRUISES OF SAWKINS AND SHARP.

The cruises of Sawkins and Sharp are recorded in the travels of Ringrose, who was present at all their exploits. At this time the Buccaneers widened their field of operations, and passed from the South into the North Pacific. The whole coast of South America, on either side, met the fate of the West Indian islands. The gold mines of Peru were the next object of their speculation.

A fleet which took Porto Bello a second time rendezvoused at Boca del Toro. A new expedition was then formed to follow Captain Bournano, a French commander, who had lately attacked Chepo, to Tocamora, a great and very rich place, whither the Darien Indians had offered to conduct him, in spite of a late treaty with the Spaniards.

The vessels first dispersed into coves and creeks to careen and salt turtle, and then reunited at the Water key. The fleet consisted of nine vessels, with a total of 22 guns and 458 men, in the following order:—Captain Coxen, a ship of 80 tons, with 8 guns, and 197 men; Captain Harris, 150 tons, 5 guns, and 107 men; Captain Bournano, 90 tons, 6 guns, and 86 men; Captain Sawkins, 16 tons, 1 gun, and 35 men; Captain Sharp, 25 tons, 2 guns, and 40 men; Captain Cook, 35 tons, and 43 men; Captain Alleston, 18 tons, and 24 men; Captain Row, 20 tons, and 25 men; Captain Macket, 14 tons, and 20 men.

The expedition sailed March 26, 1679. The first place to touch at was the Zemblas Islands, where they traded with the friendly Indians, who brought fruits and venison in exchange for beads, needles, knives, and hatchets. These Indians were quite naked, but richly decorated with gold and silver plates of a crescent form, and gold rings worn in the nose, which they had to lift up when they drank. They were generally painted with streaks of black and red, but were a handsome race, and frequently as fair as Europeans. The sailors believed that they could see better by night than by day.

The Indians dissuaded the captains from the march upon Tocamora, and agreed to guide them to the vicinity of Panama. The way to Tocamora, they declared, was mountainous and uninhabited, and ran through wild places, where no provisions could be obtained. In this change of plan, Row and Bournano, whose crews were all French, separated, being unwilling to risk a long march by land, and remained at the Zemblas, while Andræas, an Indian chief, guided the remaining vessels to the Golden Island, a little to the westward of the mouth of the great river of Darien. There the seven remaining vessels rendezvoused April 3, 1680.

They here agreed to follow the Indians' advice, and attack the town of Santa Maria, situated on the river of the same name, which runs into the South Sea by the gulf of St. Miguel. It was garrisoned by 400 soldiers, and from hence the gold gathered in the neighbouring mountains was carried to Panama, on which they could march if they could not find enough at Santa Maria.

On the 5th of April they landed 331 men, leaving Captains Alleston and Macket to guard the ships in their absence. Each man carried with him three or four "dough-boys" (cakes), trusting to the rivers for drink. Captain Sharp, who went at their head, was still faint from a late sickness. His company carried a red flag and a bunch of white and green ribbons. The second division, led by Captain Richard Sawkins, had a red flag, striped with yellow. Captain Peter Harris, with the third and fourth divisions, had two green flags; Captain John Coxen, two red flags; while Captain Edmund Cook bore red colours, striped with yellow, with a hand and sword for the device. All the men carried fusees, pistols, and hangers.

The Indian guides led them through a wood and over a bay two leagues up a woody valley, along a good path, with here and there old plantations. At a river, then nearly dry, they built huts to rest in. Another Indian chief, a man "of great parts," and called Captain Antonio, now promised to be their leader, as soon as his child, who was then sick, had died, which he expected would be next day. This Indian warned them against lying in the grass, which was full of large snakes.

The men, breaking some of the stones washed down from the mountains, found them glitter like gold; but, in spite of this, several grew tired and returned to the ships, leaving only 327 sailors and six Indian guides.

The next day they ascended a very steep hill, and found at the foot of it a river, on which Andræas told them Santa Maria was built. About noon they ascended another and higher mountain, by so perpendicular and narrow a path that only one man could pass at a time. Having marched eighteen miles, they halted that night on the banks of the same river, much rain falling during both nights. The next day they crossed the river, after wading sometimes up to the knee, sometimes to the middle, in a steep current. At noon they reached the Indian village, near which the king of Darien resided. The houses were neatly built of cabbage-tree, with the roofs of wild canes, thatched with palmito royal, and were surrounded by plantain walks; they had no upper storeys. The king, queen, and family, came to visit them in royal robes. Like most savages, he was all ornament and nakedness, gold and dirt. His crown was made with woven white reeds, lined with red silk. In the middle was a thin plate of gold, some beads, and several ostrich feathers; in each ear a gold ring; and in his nose a half-moon of the same metal. His robe was of thin white cotton, and in his hand he held a long bright lance, sharp as a knife. The queen wore several red blankets, and her two marriageable daughters and young child were loaded with coloured beads, and covered with strips of rag. The women seemed "free, easy, and brisk," but modest and afraid of their husbands. The king gave the sailors each three plantains and some sugar-canes to suck, but, after that regal munificence, did not disdain to sell his stores like his subjects, who proved very cunning dealers in their purchases of knives, pins, and needles. Resting here a day, Captain Sawkins was appointed to lead the forlorn hope of eighty men. Their march still lay along the river, and here and there they found a house. The Indians, standing at the doors, would present each with a ripe plantain or cassave root, or count them by dropping a grain of millet for each one that passed. They rested at night at some native houses.

The next day Sharp, Coxen, and Cook, and ninety men, embarked in fourteen canoes to try how far the stream was navigable, Captain Andræas being with them, and two Indians in each canoe serving as guides. But the water proved more tedious than the land; for at the distance of every stone's-cast, they were constrained to get out of the boats and haul them over sands, rocks, or fallen trees, and sometimes over spits of land. That night they built huts on the bank, being worn out with fatigue.

The next day proved a repetition of the past; at night a tiger came near them, but they dared not fire for fear of alarming the Spaniards. The following day was worse than before, and their men grew mutinous and suspicious of the Indians, who, they thought, had divided the troop in order to betray them. The fourth day, resting on "a beachy point of land," where another arm joined the river, they were joined by their companions, whom they had sent their Indians to seek, and who had grown alarmed at their continued absence. That night they prepared their arms for action. On the morrow they re-embarked, in all sixty-eight canoes and 327 Englishmen, with fifty Indian guides. They made themselves paddles, threw away the Indian poles, and rowed with all speed, meeting several boats laden with plantains. About midnight they arrived within half-a-mile of Santa Maria, and landed. The mud was so deep that they had to lay down their paddles and lift themselves up by the boughs of the trees; then cutting a way through the woods, they took up their lodging there for the night, hoping to surprise the Spaniards.

At daybreak, to their disappointment, they were awoke by the discharge of a musket and the beating of a drum. The Spaniards had already prepared some lead for their reception, and had sent away their gold to Panama. Directly they emerged into the plain, the enemy ran into a large palisaded fort, twelve feet high, and began to fire quick and close. The vanguard, running up, pulled down part of the stockade and broke in and took them prisoners, the whole 280 men. A few English were wounded, not one being killed of the fifty men who led the attack. 200 other Spaniards were in the mines conveying away the gold, the mines there being the richest of the western world. Twenty-six Spaniards were killed in the fort and sixteen wounded, but the governor, priest, and chief men all escaped by flight. The town proved to be merely a few cane houses, built to check the Indians, who frequently rebelled. Some days before, three cwt. of gold had been sent in a bark to Panama, the same quantity being despatched twice or thrice a-year.

During the fight the Indians, frightened at the whistling of the bullets, had hid themselves in a hollow; when all was over they entered the place, with great courage stabbing the prisoners with their lances, and putting about twenty to death in the woods, till the Buccaneers interfered. In the town the Indians found the eldest daughter of the Darien king, whom one of the garrison had carried off, and who was then with child by him. Rather than be left to the mercy of the Indians, this man offered to lead them to Panama, where they hoped to capture all the riches of Potosi and Peru. Sawkins in a canoe attempted in vain to overtake the governor and his officers, and rather than return empty-handed, resolved to go to Panama, to satisfy what Ringrose calls "their hungry appetite of gold and riches."

Captain Coxen was chosen commander, and the booty and prisoners sent back to the ships under a guard of twelve men. The Indians, being rewarded with presents of needles and beads, also returned, all but the king. Captain Andræas, Captain Antonio, and the king's son, King Golden Cap (bonete d'oro), as the Spaniards called him, resolved to go on, desiring to see Panama sacked, and offering to aid them with a large body of men. The Spanish guide declared he would not only lead them into the town, but even to the very door of the governor of Panama's bed-chamber, and that they should take him by the hand, and seize him and the whole city, before they should be discovered by the Spaniards.

After remaining two days at Santa Maria, they departed April 17th, 1680, for Panama.

They embarked in thirty-five canoes and a piragua which they had found lying at anchor, rowing down the river to the gulf of Belona, where they would enter the South Sea and work round to Panama. At the request of the Indian king the fort, church, and town were all burnt. The Spanish prisoners, afraid of being put to death by the savages if left behind, collected some bark logs and leaky canoes, although the Buccaneers could scarcely find boats for themselves, and went with them.

Ringrose and four other men were put in the heaviest and slowest canoe, and, getting entangled between a shoal two miles long, and obliged to wait for high water, the boat being too heavy to row against tide, were soon left behind. At night, it being again low water, they stuck up an oar in the river, and, in spite of a weltering rain, slept all night by turns in the canoe. The next morning, rowing two leagues, they overtook their companions filling water at an Indian hut, there being no more for six days' journey. Hurrying to a pond a quarter of a mile distant with their calabashes, they returned to their boats and found the rest again gone and out of sight. "Such," moralises Ringrose, "is the procedure of these wild men, that they care not in the least whom they lose of their company or leave behind. We were now more troubled in our minds than before, fearing lest we should fall into the same misfortune we had so lately overcome."

They rowed after them as fast as possible, but in vain, and lost their way among the innumerable islands of the river's mouth; but at last, with much trouble and toil, hit the Bocca Chica, the desired passage. But though they saw the door, they could not pass through, the "young flood" running violently against them—although it was only a stone's-cast off, and not a league broad. Here, then, in despair they put ashore, fastening the rope to a tree, almost covered by a tide that flowed four fathoms deep.

As soon as the tide turned, they rowed to an island about a league-and-a-half from the river's mouth, in the gulf of St. Miguel, in much danger from the waves, their boat being twenty feet long, but not quite a foot-and-a-half broad. Here they rested for the night, wet through with the continual and impetuous rain, without water to drink, and unable to light a fire, "for the loss of our company, and the dangers we were in," says Ringrose, "made it the sorrowfullest night that, until then, I ever experimented." None slept that tedious night, for a vast sea surrounded them on one side, and the mighty power of the Spaniards on the other. They were all without shoes, and their clothes were drenched through. They could see nothing but sea, mountain, and rock.

At break of day they rowed past several islands to the Point St. Laurence, one man incessantly employed in baling. As they passed one of these islands, a huge sea overturned their boat, but they gained the beach, swimming for life, and the canoe came tumbling beside them. The arms fast lashed at the bottom of the boat, the locks cased and waxed down like the cartouche boxes, and powder horns, escaped uninjured, but the bread and fresh water were either spoiled or lost. While carefully wiping and cleaning their arms, for a Buccaneer's musket was as his wife and child to him, they saw another canoe tossed to shore, a little to leeward. This proved to be six of the Spanish prisoners, who had escaped in an old piragua which was split to pieces, the English boat, formed of wood, six inches thick, having escaped unhurt. A common misfortune makes all men friends, and the English and Spaniards sat down together and broiled their meat amicably at the same fire. They then held a council, discussing for two or three hours what course to take, and all the men but Ringrose were for returning and living with the Indians, if they could not reach the ships lying in the northern sea. With much ado, Ringrose prevailed on them to persist for one day longer, and, just as they were concluding their debate, the man on the look-out cried that he saw Indians. Pursued into the woods by two Buccaneers, they found that he was one of the expedition, and had arrived with seven others in a great canoe. They were glad to see them, and declared, to their joy, that, all in one canoe, they could overtake the boats in the course of a day. On seeing the Spaniards (Wankers they called them), they would have put them to death but for Ringrose's interposition, for his men stood by indifferent. They then insisted on keeping one as a slave. Ringrose, still fearing for their lives, gave the five Spaniards his own canoe, and bade them shift for their lives. Now in a large canoe, with a good sail, and a fresh and strong gale, they made brave way, with infinite joy and comfort of heart, the smooth and easy passage, and the pleasant, fresh ripple of the sea, filling them with hope and gladness; but that very evening it grew very dark, and rained heavily. Suddenly two fires were seen to blaze up from the opposite shore of the continent, and the Indians, thinking they must indicate the encampment of their people, shouted, "Captain Antonio, Captain Andræas," and made for the shore as fast as they could pull. The canoe, however, had hardly got amongst the breakers, before sixty Spaniards, armed with clubs, leaped from the woods; and, drawing the boat on land, made all the crew their prisoners. Ringrose seized his gun, and prepared for resistance, but was pulled down by four or five of the enemy. The Indians, leaping overboard, escaped nimbly into the woods. Ringrose spoke to his captors in French and English, without obtaining any answer. On addressing the strangers in Latin, he discovered that they were the Spanish prisoners from Santa Maria, who had been liberated, for fear they might escape when nearer Panama, and inform the city of the Buccaneers' approach. The Englishmen were presently taken with shouts of joy into a hut made of boughs, and examined by the Spanish captain, who meditated retaliating upon them the injuries inflicted on the town. At this critical juncture, the Spaniards whom Ringrose had liberated came in, and explained how they had been delivered from the Indians. On hearing this, the Spanish captain rose, and, embracing Ringrose, said, "The English were good people, and very friendly enemies, but the Indians very rogues, and a treacherous nation." He then made him sit down and eat with him, and consented, for the kindness he had shown his countrymen, to give him and all his men, and even the Indians, if they could find them, their lives and liberties, which otherwise would have been forfeited. Finally, giving them a canoe, the noble-hearted enemy bade them go in God's name, praying that they might be as fortunate as they had been generous. All that night they skirted a dangerous and iron coast, without daring to land.

The next morning, after sailing, paddling, and rowing for a few hours, they saw a canoe suddenly making towards them. It was one of the English boats, which had mistaken them for a Spanish piragua. They at once conducted them to a deep bay, sheltered by rocks, where the rest lay at anchor. They were all delighted to see Ringrose and his men, having given them up as lost. They then made their way with all speed to a hilly island, about seven leagues distant, and surprised an old man, who was stationed there to watch. The road up to the hut was very steep, and the Buccaneers surrounded the old man, who did not see them till they had already entered his plantain walk. They were much encouraged by his declaration, that no tidings of their arrival had yet reached Panama. About dusk, two of their boats surprised a small bark that came and anchored outside the island. The crew had been absent eight days from the city, landing soldiers on the adjacent shore, to curb and drive back the Indians. The crews of the smaller canoes now crowded into this vessel to the number of 137 men, together with Captain Cook and Captain Sharp, the latter of whom Ringrose calls "a sea artist, and valiant commander."

Next morning, rowing all day over shallow water, they chased a bark, which Captain Harris took after a sharp dispute, putting on board a prize crew of thirty men. During this pursuit the vessels scattered, and did not reunite till next day at the island of Chepillo, a preconcerted rendezvous. They again chased a bark, but with less success, and Captain Coxen's canoe missed the prize, owing to a breeze springing up, having one man killed and another wounded, and, what was worst of all, the vessel not only escaped, but spread the alarm at Panama. At Chepillo they took fourteen negro and mulatto prisoners, and secured two fat hogs, plenty of plantains, and some good water. Believing it useless now to attack Panama, the Buccaneers resolved to hurry on to the town to at least surprise some of the shipping. Their boats had the addition of another piragua, which they found lying at Chepillo. Before starting, the captains cruelly decided, for reasons which Ringrose could not fathom, to allow the Indians to murder all the Spanish prisoners before their eyes, the savages having long thirsted for their blood. But by a singular coincidence the prisoners, though without arms, forced their way by a sudden rush through all the Indian spears and arrows, and escaped unhurt into the woods, to the chagrin of both white and black savages.

Staying only a few hours at Chepillo, the boats started at four o'clock in the evening, intending to reach Panama, which was only seven leagues distant, before the next morning. The next day (St. George's day), before sunrise they arrived at Panama, "a city," says Ringrose, "which has a very pleasant prospect seaward." They could see all the ships of the city lying at anchor at the island of Perico, two leagues distant, where storehouses had been built. There now rode at anchor five great ships and three smaller armadillas, (little men-of-war). This fleet, which had been hastily manned to defend the city, as soon as they saw the Buccaneers, weighed anchor, got under sail, and bore down at once upon them, directly before the wind, and with such velocity as to threaten to run them down. The Spanish admiral's vessel was manned by ninety Biscayans, agile seamen and stout soldiers. They were all volunteers, and had come out to show their valour under the command of Don Jacinto de Barahona, high-admiral of those seas. In the second were seventy-seven negroes, led by a brave old Andalusian, Don Francisco de Peralta. In the third, making 228 men in all, were sixty-five mulattoes, under Don Diego de Carabaxal. The Spaniards had strict orders given them to grant no quarter.

To add to the disparity of numbers, only a few of the Buccaneers' boats were able to arrive in time. The first five canoes that came up, leaving the heavy piraguas still lagging behind, contained only thirty-seven men, and these were tired with rowing in the wind's eye, and trying to get close to the windward of the enemy. The lesser piragua coming up with thirty-two more men, made a total force of sixty Buccaneers, including the king of Darien, engaged in this daring resistance to an overwhelming force.

Carabaxal's vessel, passing between Sawkins's and Ringrose's canoes, fired at both, wounding four men in the former and one in the latter, but being slow in tacking, the Spaniard paid dear for his passage, the first return volley killing several men upon his decks. Almost before they had time to reload, the admiral passed, but the Buccaneers' second volley quite disabled their giant antagonist, killing the man at the helm; and the ship ran into the wind and her sails lay aback. She fell now like a lamed elephant at the mercy of the hunters; the canoes, pulling under her stern, fired continually upon the deck, killing all who dared to touch the helm, and cutting asunder the mainsheet and mainbrace. Sawkins, whose canoe was disabled, went next into the piragua to meet Peralta, leaving the four canoes to harass the admiral. Between Sawkins and Peralta, lying alongside of each other, the fight was desperate, each crew trying to board, and firing as quick as they could load. In the mean time the first vessel tacked about and came to relieve the admiral, but the canoes, seeing the danger of being beaten from the admiral's stern and allowing him to rally, sent two of their number (Springer and Ringrose) to meet Peralta. The admiral stood upon his quarter-deck, waving his handkerchief as a signal for his captains to come at once to his help. The canoes pursued Peralta, and would have boarded him had he not given them the helm and made away.

Giving a loud shout, the remaining boats wedged up the admiral's rudder and poured in a blinding volley, that killed the admiral and chief pilot. Two-thirds of the Spaniards being now killed, many wounded, and all disheartened at the bloody massacre of the Buccaneers' shot, cried for quarter, which they had been already several times offered, and at once surrendered. Captain Coxen then boarded the prize, taking with him Captain Harris, who had been shot through both legs as he was heading a boarding party. They put all their other wounded men on board, and, manning two canoes, hurried off to aid Sawkins, who had already been three times beaten off by Peralta.

Coming close under his side and giving him a full volley, they were expecting a return, when suddenly a volcano of fire spouted up from the deck, and all the Spaniards abaft the mast were blown into the air or sea. While the brave captain, leaping overboard, was helping the drowning men in spite of the rain of shot and the pain of his own burns, another jar of powder blew up in the forecastle. Under cover of the smoke and confusion, Sawkins boarded and took the ship, or at least all that was left of it. Ringrose says it was a miserable sight, not a man but was either killed or desperately wounded, blind, or horribly burnt with the powder. In some cases the white wounds where the flesh had peeled to the bone, showed through the blackening of the powder. The admiral had but twenty-five men left out of eighty-six, and of these twenty-five only eight were now able to bear arms.

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.

At Cayboa, the men took in water and cut wood, killing alligators, and salting deer and turtle. Here two "remarkable events" happened to Ringrose. In the first place, he ate an oyster so large that he found it necessary to cut it into four large mouthfuls: secondly, as he was washing himself in a pond, some drops fell on him from a mançanilla tree, and these drops broke out into a red eruption that lasted a week. Here Sharp burnt one of his prizes for the sake of the iron work, and received Captain Cook, whose men had revolted, on board his own ship, making John Cox, a New Englander, commander in his stead.

Sharp now determined to careen at the island of Gorgona, and then to proceed to Guayaquil, where Captain Juan, the captain of the Tavoga money ship, assured them they might throw away their silver and lade with gold. They selected Gorgona, because, on account of the perpetual rain, the Spaniards seldom touched there. The sailors, who had lost their money at gambling, were impatient of these delays, and declared that the Spaniards would now gain time, and the whole coast be alarmed, and on the defensive. But the richer men, wanting rest, decided for Gorgona.

In this island, they fished their mainmast, shot at whales, killed monkeys, snakes, and turtle for food, being short of provision, caught a large sloth, and killed a serpent, fourteen inches thick, and twelve feet long. While moored here, Joseph Gabriel, the Chilian, who stole the Indian king's daughter, died of a malignant calenture. He had been very faithful, and discovered many plots and conspiracies among the prisoners of intended escapes and murders.

Sharp now abandoned the design on Guayaquil, and resolved to attack Arica, the dépôt of all the Potosi plate. An old man who had served much with the Spaniards, promised them £2000 a-man.

After a fortnight's sail they arrived at the island of Plate, so called from Drake dividing his plunder there among his men. The Spaniards had a tradition, that he took twelve score tons of plate in the galleon armada, and that each of his forty-five men had sixteen bowls full of coined money—his ships being so full that they were obliged to throw much of it overboard. In the adjoining bay of Manta, in Cromwell's time, a Lima vessel, laden with thirty millions of dollars, on its way as a present to Charles I., was lost by keeping too near the shore. While catching goats on this island, on which the cross of the first Spanish discoverer still stood, they were joined by Captain Cox, whom they had lost a fortnight before, as they feared, irrecoverably. They killed and salted on this island 100 goats in a day, and one man alone, in a few hours, in one small bay turned seventeen turtle. Peralta congratulated them on getting as far to windward in two weeks as the Spanish captains did in three months, from their keeping boldly so far from the shore.

While passing Guayaquil, they espied a Spanish vessel and gave chase. Being hailed in Spanish by an Indian prisoner, to lower their topsails, the enemy replied they would pull down the Englishman's first, and answered with their arquebuses to the Buccaneers' muskets, till, one bullet killing the man at the helm and another cutting their maintop halliards, they cried out for quarter. There were thirty-five men on board, including twenty-four Spaniards and several persons of quality. The captain's brother, since the death of Don Jacinto de Barahona at Panama, was admiral of the armada. The Buccaneers' rigging was much cut during the fight, and two men were wounded, besides a sailor who was shot by an accident. The captain, it appears, had in a bravado sworn to attack their fleet if he could meet it. The Spaniard, a very "civil and meek gentleman," informed them that the governor of Lima, hearing of their visit to Panama, had collected five ships and 750 sailors; while two other vessels and 400 soldiers, furnished by the viceroy, were preparing to start. A patache with twenty-four guns was also lying at Callao, ready to remove the king's plate from Arica. At Guayaquil they had built two forts, and mustered 850 men of all colours. The same day the English unrigged their new prize and sank her.

Reckoning up the pillage, they found they had now 3,276 pieces of eight, which were at once divided. The same day they punished a Spanish friar, who was chaplain in the last prize, and, shooting him on the deck, flung him overboard before he was dead. "Such cruelties," says Ringrose, "though I abhorred very much in my heart, yet here I was forced to hold my tongue and not contradict them, as having no authority to oversway them." The prisoners now confessed they had killed a boat full of the Buccaneers' men, lost near Cayboa, and had discovered from the only survivor the plan on Guayaquil.

Captain Cox's vessel being so slow as to require towing, they sank it, so there were now 140 men and boys and fifty-five prisoners in one and the same bottom. While to the leeward of Tumbes, Peralta told them a legend of a priest having once landed there in the face of 10,000 Indians, who stared at his uplifted cross. As he stepped out of his boat on the shore, before the water could efface his footprints, two lions and two tigers came out of the woods to meet him, but when he gently laid the cross on their backs, they fell down and worshipped it, upon which all the Indians came forward and were baptised.

The night they passed Paita they espied a sail and gave chase, following it by the lights which it showed through negligence. Scantiness of provisions made them more eager in the pursuit, and coming up the Spaniard instantly lowered all her sails and surrendered. The Buccaneers casting dice as to who should first board, the lot fell to the larboard watch. The vessel contained fifty packs of cocoa, and a great deal of raw silk and India cloth, besides many bales of thread stockings. The prize being plundered and dismasted, the prisoners were turned adrift in it, supplied with only a foresail, some water, and a little flour. The chief prisoners, as Don Thomas de Argandona, commander of the Guayaquil vessel, and his friends Don Christoval and Don Baltazar, gentlemen of quality, Captain Peralta, Moreno, a pilot, and twelve slaves, to do the drudgery, were still kept. The next day the sailor wounded in taking the Guayaquil vessel, died, and was buried with ceremony, three French volleys being fired as the body was let down into the deep.

Their next expedition was to attack Arica with 112 men, first sending five boats to capture some fishermen at the river of Juan Diaz, whom they might employ as spies.

To their great chagrin they found the landing impracticable, and the whole coast in arms. Troops of horse covered the low hills round the bay, and close beneath six ships rode at anchor. Abandoning this project, these indefatigable marauders (more pirates than real Buccaneers) despatched four canoes and fifty men, to plunder the town of Hillo. On the shore the English were met by some horsemen, who fled after a few volleys. Marching to the town, they forced their way through a small breastwork of clay and sandbags, and took the town. Keeping good watch for fear of surprise, a dying Indian, wounded in the skirmish, told them that the townspeople had heard from Lima nine days before, and expected their coming. In the town they found pitch, wine, oil, and flour, and sixty of the ablest men were sent up the adjoining valley to reconnoitre. They found it beautifully planted with fig, lemon, lime, olive, and orange trees, and four miles up came to a sugar-mill, the greater part of the sugar having been removed. The Spaniards, watching them from the hills, rolled stones upon them, but hid themselves when a musket-shot was fired in retaliation. Captain Cox and a Dutch interpreter being despatched with a flag of truce to the Spaniards, they agreed to give eighty beeves as a ransom for the mill, and a message was despatched to Captain Sharp not to injure the drivers of the oxen when they came. Hearing that sixteen beeves had already arrived at the port, the men, contrary to Ringrose's opinion, returned to the ships laden with sugar, and found the whole story of the oxen's arrival a mere ruse de guerre. The Spaniards being appealed to promised the cattle should arrive that night, but at last declared the wind was so high they could not drive the herds. Enraged at this delay, the Buccaneers, who had now taken in water, marched 100 men up the valley, and burned the house, the mill, and the canes, carried off the sugar, broke the oil jars, and cracked the copper wheels. Near the shore they were charged by a body of 300 horsemen, who took them by surprise, but not before they had thrown down the sugar and taken up their arms.

Ringrose shall tell the rest: "We being in good rank and order," he says, "fairly proffered them battle upon the bay; but as we advanced to meet them, they retired and rid towards the mountains, to surround us, and take the rocks from us, if possibly they could. Hereupon, perceiving their intentions, we returned back and possessed ourselves of the said rocks, and also of the lower town, as the Spaniards themselves did of the upper town (at the distance of half-a-mile from the lower), the hills and the woods adjoining thereunto. The horsemen being now in possession of those quarters, we could perceive as far as we could see, more and more men resort unto them, so that their forces increased hourly to considerable numbers. We fired at one another as long as we could see, and the day would permit. But in the mean time we observed that several of them rid to the watch hill and looked out often to the seaward. This gave us occasion to fear that they had more strength and forces coming that way, which they expected every minute. Hereupon, lest we should speed worse than we had done before, we resolved to embark silently in the dark of the night." They carried off a great chest of sugar (seven pounds and a-half to each man), thirty jars of oil, and much fruit, wild and cultivated. From appearances next morning they believed the enemy had also fled in the night, as only fifty men could be seen. The prisoners, seeing a comet at dusk, told the Englishmen that many such appearances had preceded the arrival of the Buccaneers in the South Sea. Their brave prisoner, Captain Peralta, began at this time to show signs of insanity, his mind being shaken by continued hardship and despair at his long imprisonment.

The Buccaneers next landed 100 men, hoping to take by surprise the city of La Serena. Here, too, they found the Spaniards vigilant, and had to break through 100 horsemen to reach the town, killing three officers and wounding four men. The town contained seven great churches and many rich merchants' houses surrounded by gardens. The inhabitants had fled, and either carried away or buried all their treasures, and a Chilian prisoner said the Spaniards had killed most of their negro and even their Chilian slaves, for fear of their revolting and joining the Buccaneers. A party of forty men, with a Chilian guide, searched the woods in vain to secure prisoners for guides. The Spaniards, sending a flag of truce, agreed to pay 95,000 pieces of eight as ransom for the town; but, not bringing it in, the place was set on fire. Taking advantage of an earthquake, the Spaniards opened the sluices and inundated the streets. Every house, Ringrose says, was separately fired to render the conflagration complete. Two parties were then despatched laden with booty to the ships, who on their way beat up an ambuscade of 250 Spanish horse. During their absence, a daring attempt was made to burn their ship. The enemy hired a man who floated under the stern of the ship on a horse's hide, blown out like a bladder. He then stuffed oakum and brimstone between the keel and the stern-post, and set the rudder on fire. The men, alarmed at the smoke, ran up and down, not knowing where the fire could be, and believing the prisoners had done it in order to escape. The source of the evil was at last discovered, and the flames extinguished. The Buccaneers, before sailing, released all their prisoners, not knowing what to do with them, and fearing that they would revolt or perhaps try to burn the ship.