Notwithstanding that all the precious articles had been carried away from Panama, there still remained--as in every great European trading city--a vast number of shops, warehouses, and magazines filled with every kind of merchandise. Besides a very great quantity of wrought and manufactured articles, the productions of luxury and industry, that city contained immense stores of flour, wine, and spices; vast magazines of that metal which is justly deemed the most valuable of all because it is the most useful: extensive buildings, in which were accumulated prodigious stores of iron tools and implements, anvils and ploughs which had been received from Europe and were destined to revive the Spanish colonies. Some judgment may be formed respecting the value of the last-mentioned articles only when it is considered that a quintal (one hundredweight) of iron was sold at Panama for thirty-two piasters (about thirty-three dollars). All these multifarious articles, so essentially necessary for furnishing colonists with the means of subsistence, were, it should seem, of no value in the estimation of the ferocious Morgan because he could not carry them away; although, by preserving them, he might have made use of them by demanding a specific ransom for them. Circumstances might also enable him to derive some further advantages from them, but, in fact, whatever was distant or uncertain presented no attraction to this barbarian, who was eager to enjoy, but more ardent to destroy. He was struck by one consideration only. All these bulky productions of art and industry were for the moment of no use to the freebooters. Of what importance to him was the ruin of many thousand innocent families? He consulted only the ferocity of his character, and without communicating his design to any individual he secretly caused the city to be set on fire in several places. In a few hours it was almost entirely consumed. The Spaniards that had remained in Panama--as well as the pirates themselves, who were at first ignorant whence the conflagration proceeded--ran together and united their efforts in order to extinguish the flames. They brought water, and pulled down houses, with a view to prevent the further progress of that destructive element. All their exertions were fruitless. A violent wind was blowing, and, in addition to this circumstance, the principal part of the buildings in that city were constructed of wood. Its finest houses, together with their valuable furniture, among which was the magnificent palace belonging to the Genoese, the churches, convents, courthouse, shops, hospitals, pious foundations, warehouses loaded with sacks of flour, nearly two hundred other warehouses filled with merchandise--all were reduced to ashes! The fire also consumed a great number of animals, horses, mules, and many slaves who had concealed themselves and who were burned alive. A very few houses only escaped the fire, which continued burning upward of four weeks.