“But while Panama was so rich, yet it had been free from attacks by buccaneers owing to its position. It was on the Pacific and in order to reach it the buccaneers would be compelled either to sail around Cape Horn; cross the Isthmus overland, or ascend the Chagres River and then go overland. To cross by the Gold Road meant that the forts at Porto Bello would have to be taken, and even after that the buccaneers would be exposed to ambuscades and constant attacks and might well have their retreat cut off. At the mouth of the Chagres was a most powerful fort—San Lorenzo—commanding the river mouth, while Panama itself was very strongly fortified and protected. It seemed impossible that the buccaneers could ever reach the place and yet that was just what Morgan planned to do. “Although it seemed a harebrained scheme, yet so famed had Morgan become that men flocked to his call, clamoring to go on the hazardous expedition, and Morgan appointed the Island of Tortuga as the rendezvous. Here flocked the sea rovers from far and near. They came in ships, boats, canoes and even tramped overland across hostile Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) to join him, until the greatest crowd of buccaneers and the greatest gathering of buccaneer ships the world had ever seen were assembled at Tortuga on October 24, 1670. “To provision the fleet, Morgan equipped four ships with four hundred men and dispatched them to La Rancheria near the present port of Rio de la Hacha in Colombia. His plan was for them to raid the coast towns, seize what maize and cattle were required and come back with supplies and salted meat, thus obtained free of cost. In this the ships were more than successful, for, at the end of five weeks, they returned laden with maize and beef and with a huge amount of loot, for they had taken a Spanish ship, had seized the town and had robbed it and the inhabitants, and had resorted to all their customary barbarities to wring the last piece of eight from the people. “Everything was now in readiness, and Morgan set sail for Cape Tiburón, Haiti, where vessels from Jamaica were to join him. These brought his force up to thirty-seven ships and two thousand fighting men, exclusive of sailors and boys, by far the greatest buccaneer force that ever had set sail to ravish the Spanish cities. Morgan’s flagship carried twenty-two large and six small guns, there were several ships of twenty, eighteen and sixteen guns and the smallest mounted four. Finding it impossible to command such a huge fleet by himself, Morgan divided it into two squadrons with a vice admiral, commanders and captains for each, and to these he issued elaborate commissions to act against the Spaniards, for all the world as though he were the King of England.