The Pirates of Panama: or, The Buccaneers of America; a True Account of the Famous Adventures and Daring Deeds of Sir Henry Morgan and Other Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish MainExquemelin, A. O. (Alexandre Olivier)
History
The Pirates of Panama: or, The Buccaneers of America; a True Account of the Famous Adventures and Daring Deeds of Sir Henry Morgan and Other Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main
Exquemelin, A. O. (Alexandre Olivier)
Buccaneers; Pirates; Spanish Main; West Indies -- History
The pirates being extremely glad at this signal victory so soon
obtained, and with so great an inequality of forces, conceived greater
pride than they had before, and all presently ran ashore, intending to
take the castle. This they found well provided with men, cannon, and
ammunition, they having no other arms than muskets, and a few hand
granadoes: their own artillery they thought incapable, for its
smallness, of making any considerable breach in the walls. Thus they
spent the rest of the day, firing at the garrison with their muskets,
till the dusk of the evening, when they attempted to advance nearer the
walls, to throw in their fire-balls: but the Spaniards resolving to sell
their lives as dear as they could, fired so furiously at them, that they
having experimented the obstinacy of the enemy, and seeing thirty of
their men dead, and as many more wounded, they retired to their ships.
The Spaniards believing the pirates would next day renew the attack with
their own cannon, laboured hard all night to put things in order for
their coming; particularly, they dug down, and made plain, some little
hills and eminences, when possibly the castle might be offended.
But Captain Morgan intended not to come again, busying himself next day
in taking prisoners some of the men who still swam alive, hoping to get
part of the riches lost in the two ships that perished. Among the rest,
he took a pilot, who was a stranger, and who belonged to the lesser ship
of the two, of whom he inquired several things; as, What number of
people those three ships had in them? Whether they expected any more
ships to come? From what port they set forth last, when they came to
seek them out? He answered, in Spanish, "Noble sir, be pleased to pardon
and spare me, that no evil be done to me, being a stranger to this
nation I have served, and I shall sincerely inform you of all that
passed till our arrival at this lake. We were sent by orders from the
Supreme Council of State in Spain, being six men-of-war well equipped,
into these seas, with instructions to cruise upon the English pirates,
and root them out from these parts by destroying as many of them as we
could.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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