“The buccaneers, however, were greatly troubled, despite their hard-won victory—which had cost them nearly two hundred men—for the prisoners informed them that a party of volunteers had managed to steal from the fort, had passed through the buccaneers’ lines and had carried word of the attack and of Morgan’s coming to Panama. All plans of a surprise were now hopeless and realizing that quick work was necessary Captain Brodely at once sent a ship to St. Catherine bearing word to Morgan of the taking of San Lorenzo. “Hastily lading his ships with provisions and the unfortunate prisoners he had taken, Morgan left a garrison of his own men in the strongest fort, burned the town, destroyed the other forts, cast the cannon into the sea and set sail for the Chagres. Eight days after the fall of the castle he arrived, but his men were so elated at seeing the British flag flying from the castle that they succeeded in running four of the ships onto a bar at the river’s mouth. One of these was Morgan’s flagship, and while all the goods and persons on the vessels were saved the ships were a total loss. As soon as he landed, Morgan ordered his St. Catherine prisoners to be put to work repairing the fort and setting up new palisades and, leaving a force of five hundred men at the fort and with one hundred and fifty more upon his ships, Morgan set sail up the Chagres in small boats with a force of two thousand two hundred men. Thinking to be able to supply himself and his men with provisions taken from the Spaniards, Morgan carried practically no supplies and this very nearly caused the utter failure of his expedition. “It was on the 18th of January, 1671, that Morgan left San Lorenzo in his five boats and thirty-two canoes, with several pieces of light artillery and all the pomp of a military organization, even to drummers and trumpeters. The first day they covered barely twenty miles, reaching a spot known as Los Bracos. But already the men were suffering from hunger and being cramped and crowded in the small boats. Landing, they went in search of food, but the Dons, having been forewarned, had fled, carrying with them or destroying everything edible, and the buccaneers were ‘forced to stay their bellies with a pipe of tobacco.’