As soon as Captain Morgan had received this letter, he called all his men together in the market place at Maracaibo, and after reading the contents both in French and in English, he requested the advice of his companions upon the whole matter, and asked whether they preferred to surrender all they had gained in order to obtain their liberty, or if they wished to fight for their possessions. With one voice they cried: "We will fight and spill the very last drop of blood in our veins rather than surrender the booty which we have captured at the risk of our lives." Among those who shouted most loudly was one who pushed his way forward to Captain Morgan and said: "If you will take care of the rest, I, with only twelve men, will agree to destroy the biggest of those ships. I will take that vessel which we captured in the River of Gibraltar and make of her a fire ship. However, to conceal our purpose from the enemy, we will fill her decks with logs of wood standing erect and wearing hats and caps. We will put more of these logs at the portholes where they can be made to counterfeit cannon. At the stern we will hang out the English colors, and so make the enemy think that she is one of our largest ships well equipped for battle." Everybody agreed to the sailor's proposal, but after all they were not fully satisfied nor fully relieved of their fears, and on the next day they tried again to come to some agreement with Don Alonso. Morgan sent him two messengers bearing the following propositions: First, that he would quit Maracaibo without doing any damage to the town, or taking any ransoms. Second, that he would set at liberty half of his slaves and all the other prisoners without ransom. Third, that he would send home freely those four chief inhabitants of Gibraltar whom he held as hostages for the ransoms which had been promised. Don Alonso rejected these propositions instantly, considering it dishonorable to grant them. In return he sent back a message to the effect that if the pirates did not surrender themselves voluntarily into his hands within two days under the conditions of his letter, he would immediately come and force them to do it.