“Reaching a low hill, the English looked with amazement at the overwhelming forces sent to meet them and for the first time their confidence began to waver. As Esquemeling puts it, ‘Yea, few there were but wished themselves at home or at least free from the obligation of that engagement wherein they perceived their lives must be narrowly concerned.’ But they had come too far, had undergone too many hardships, and had the richest city of the New World too near, to falter or turn back and, knowing no quarter would be given them, they swore a solemn oath to fight until death. “Dividing his men into three troops, Morgan then ordered the best marksmen, to the number of two hundred, to scatter and advance and pick off the Spaniards before the main body of buccaneers charged. The Dons at once attempted a charge of cavalry, but the rains had softened the ground and had transformed it to a quagmire; they could not maneuver properly and the accurate fire from the buccaneer sharpshooters brought them down by scores. Notwithstanding this, the Spaniards fought courageously and the infantry tried again and again to force their way through the buccaneers in order to support the cavalry. Then the bulls were urged forward; with cracking whips and shouts from the slaves they were stampeded towards the buccaneers, and like an avalanche they came plunging on, a sea of wildly tossing horns, thundering hoofs and foaming nostrils. But the buccaneers were the last men in the world to be demoralized by cattle. They had made hunting savage wild bulls their profession and with shouts, trumpets and waving hats they turned the stampede to one side while the few bulls that kept on and dashed among the British were shot down or hamstrung ere they did the least damage. “The battle had now raged for two hours; practically all the Spanish cavalry were killed or unhorsed, and the infantry, discouraged and demoralized, fired one last volley and then, throwing down their muskets, fled to the city. Many were not able to gain the town and tried to conceal themselves in the woods, but these the buccaneers hunted down and butchered wherever found. “Upon the field the Dons had left six hundred slain, in addition to several hundred wounded, and the buccaneers had lost, between killed and wounded, nearly half as many. Weary with their long tramp overland and the battle, the English were in no condition to follow up their victory, but Morgan forced them on and after a short rest they resumed their march towards the city. The approach, however, was directly under the fire of the cannon in the forts and with the great guns roaring constantly and the buccaneers falling at every step the English kept doggedly on until, after three hours of fighting, they were in possession of the city.