Before the distribution of the spoil, each adventurer held up his hand, and protested he had secreted nothing of what he had taken; and if any one was convicted of perjury, a case that seldom occurred, he was punished in a manner truly exemplary, and worthy the imitation of better men. He was expelled the community, and left, as soon as an opportunity offered, upon some desert island, as a wretch unworthy to live in society, even with the destroyers of their species!

After providing for the sick, the wounded, the maimed, and settling their several shares, the buccaneers indulged themselves in all kinds of licentiousness. Their debauches, which they carried to the greatest excess, were limited only by the want that such prodigality occasioned. If they were asked, what satisfaction they could find in dissipating so rapidly, what they had earned with so much jeopardy, they made this very ingenious reply:"Exposed as we are to a variety of perils, our life is totally different from that of other men. Why should we, who are alive to-day, and run the hazard of being dead to-morrow, think of hoarding ?-Studious only of enjoying the present hour, we never think of that which is to come."(1) This has ever been the language of men in such circumstances: the desire of dissipating life, not solicitude for the preservation of existence, seems to increase in proportion to the danger of losing it.

The ships that sailed from Europe to America seldom tempted the avidity of the first buccaneers, as the merchandise they carried could not readily have been sold in the West Indies in those early times. But they eagerly watched the Spanish vessels on their return to Europe, when certain they were partly laden with treasure. They commonly followed the galleons and flota, employed in transporting the produce of the mines of Mexico and Peru, as far as the channel of Bahama; and if, by any accident, a ship was separated from the fleet, they instantly beset her, and she seldom escaped them. They even ventured to attack several ships at once; and the Spaniards, who considered them as demons, and trembled at their approach, commonly surrendered, if they came to close quarters.(2)

A remarkable instance of this timidity on the one side, and temerity on the other, occurs in the history of Peter Legrand, à native of Dieppe in Normandy; who, with a small vessel, carrying no more than twenty-eight men, and four guns, had the boldness to attack the vice-admiral of the galleons. Resolved to conquer or die, and having exacted an oath to the same purpose from his crew, he ordered the carpenter to bore a hole in the side of his own vessel, that all hope of escape might be cut off. This was no sooner done than he boarded the Spanish ship, with a sword in one hand, and a pistol in the other; and, bearing down all resistance, entered the great cabin, attended by a few of the most desperate of his associates. He there found the admiral surrounded by his officers; presented a pistol to his breast, and ordered him to surrender. Meanwhile, the rest of the buccaneers took possession of the gun-room, and seized the arms. amazement, the Spaniards demanded quarter. (3) rous in the history of the buccaneers.

Struck with terror and Like examples are nume

The Spaniards, almost reduced to despair, by finding themselves a continual prey to those ravagers, diminished the number of their ships, and the colonies gave up their connexions with each other. These humiliating precautions, however, served but to increase the boldness of the buccaneers. They had hitherto invaded the Spanish settlements only to procure provisions; but no sooner did they find their captures decrease, than they determined to procure by land that wealth which the sea denied them. They accordingly formed themselves into larger bodies, and plundered many of the richest and strongest towns in the New World. Maracaybo, Campeachy, Vera Cruz, Porto Bello, and Carthagena, on this side of the continent, severely felt the effects of their fury; and Guaiaquil, Panama, and many other places on the coasts of the South Sea, were not more fortunate in their resistance, or

(1) Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xv. liv. vii. ch. i.
(3) Hist. Buccaneers, part í. chap. vii.

(2) Id. ibid.

treated with greater lenity.(1) In a word, the buccaneers, the most extraordinary set of men that ever appeared upon the face of the globe, but whose duration was transitory, subjected to their arms, without a regular system of government, without laws, without any permanent subordination, and even without revenue, cities and castles which have baffled the utmost efforts of national force; and if conquest, not plunder, had been their object, they might have made themselves masters of all Spanish America.

Among the buccaneers who first acquired distinction in this new mode of plundering, was Montbars, a gentleman of Languedoc. Having by chance, in his infancy, met with a circumstantial and perhaps exaggerated account of the cruelties practised by the Spaniards in the conquest of the New World, he conceived a strong antipathy against a nation, that had committed so many enormities. His heated imagination, which he loved to indulge, continually represented to him innumerable multitudes of innocent people, murdered by a brood of savage monsters nursed in the mountains of Castile. The unhappy victims, whose names were ever present to his memory, seemed to call upon him for vengeance: he longed to imbrue his hands in Spanish blood, and to retaliate the cruelties of the Spaniards, on the same shores where they had been perpetrated. He accordingly embarked on board a French ship bound to the West Indies, about the middle of the last century, and joined the buccaneers, whose natural ferocity he inflamed. Humanity in him became the source of the most unfeeling barbarity. The Spaniards suffered so much from his fury, that he acquired the name of the extermi nator.(2)

Michael de Basco and Francis Lolonois were also greatly renowned for their exploits, both by sea and land. Their most important, though not their most fortunate, enterprise was that of the gulf of Venezuela, with eight vessels, and six hundred and sixty associates. This gulf runs a considerable way up into the country, and communicates with the lake of Maracaybo, by a narrow strait. That strait is defended by a castle called la Barra, which the buccaneers took, and nailed up the cannon. They then passed the bar, and advanced to the city of Maracaybo, built on the western coast of the lake, at the distance of about ten leagues from its mouth. But, to their inexpressible disappointment, they found it utterly deserted and unfurnished; the inhabitants, apprized of their danger, having removed to the other side of the lake with their most valuable effects.

If the buccaneers had not spent a fortnight in riot and debauchery, they would have found at Gibraltar, a town near the extremity of the lake, every thing which the people of Maracaybo had carried off, in order to elude their rapacity. On the contrary, by their imprudent delay, they met with fortifications newly erected, which they had the glory of reducing at the expense of much blood, and the mortification of finding another empty town. Exasperated at this second disappointment, the buccaneers set fire to Gibraltar; and Maracaybo would have shared the same fate, had it not been ransomed. Besides the bribe they received for their lenity, they took with them the bells, images, and all the ornamental furniture of the churches; intending, as they said, to build a chapel in the island of Tortuga, and to consecrate that part of their spoils to sacred uses!(3) Like other plunderers of more exalted character, they had no idea of the absurdity of offering to Heaven the fruits of robbery and murder, procured in direct violation of its laws.

But of all the buccaneers, French or English, none was so uniformly successful, or executed so many great and daring enterprises, as Henry Morgan, a native of the principality of Wales. While De Basco, Lolonois, and their companions were squandering at Tortuga the spoils they had acquired in the gulf of Venezuela, Morgan sailed from Jamaica to attack Porto Bello; and his measures were so well concerted, that, soon after his landing, he surprised the sentinels, and made himself master of the town, before the Spaniards could put themselves in a posture of defence.

(1) Hist. Buccaneers, part i. ii. Hist. Gen. des Voyages, ubi sup. (2) Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xv. liv. vii. ch. i.

(3) Hist. Buccaneers part ii. chap. 1.

In hopes of reducing, with the same facility, the citadel or chief castle, into which the citizens had conveyed their most valuable property, and all the plate belonging to the churches, Morgan bethought himself of an expedient that discovers his knowledge of national characters as well as of human nature in general. He compelled the priests, nuns, and other women, whom he had made prisoners, to plant the scaling ladders against the walls of the fortress, from a persuasion that the gallantry and superstition of the Spaniards would not suffer them to fire on the objects of their love and veneration. But he found himself deceived in this flattering conjecture. The Spanish governor, who was a resolute soldier, used his utmost efforts to destroy every one that approached the works. Morgan and his English associates, however, carried the place by storm, in spite of all opposition; and found in it, besides a vast quantity of rich merchandise, bullion and specie equivalent to one hundred thousand pounds sterling.(1)

With this booty Morgan and his crew returned to Jamaica, where he immediately planned a new enterprise. Understanding that De Basco and Lolonois had been disappointed in the promised plunder of Maracaybo, by their imprudent delay, he resolved, from emulation no less than avidity, to surprise that place. With this view, he collected fifteen vessels, carrying nine hundred and sixty men. These ravagers entered the gulf of Venezuela unobserved, silenced the fort that defends the passage to the lake of Maracaybo, and found the town, as formerly, totally deserted. But they were so fortunate as to discover the chief citizens, and the greater part of their wealth, in the neighbouring woods. Not satisfied, however, with this booty, Morgan proceeded to Gibraltar, which he found in the same desolate condition; and while he was attempting, by the most horrid cruelties, to extort from such of the inhabitants as had been seized, a discovery of their hidden treasures, he was informed of the arrival of three Spanish men of war at the entrance of the lake.

At this intelligence, which was confirmed by a boat despatched to reconnoitre the enemy, the heart of the bravest buccaneer sunk within him. But although Morgan considered his condition as desperate, his presence of mind did not forsake him. Concealing his apprehensions, he sent a letter to Don Alonzo del Campo, the Spanish admiral, boldly demanding a ransom for the city of Maracaybo. The admiral's answer was resolute, and excluded all hope of working upon his fears. "I am come," said he, " to dispute your passage out of the lake: and I have the means of doing it. Nevertheless, if you will submit to surrender, with humility, all the booty and prisoners you have taken, I will suffer you to pass, and permit you to return to your own country, without trouble or molestation. But if you reject this offer, or hesitate to comply, I will order boats from Caraccas, in which I will embark my troops; and, sailing to Maracaybo, will put every man of you to the sword. This is my final determination. Be prudent, therefore, and do not abuse my bounty by an ungrateful return.(2) I have with me," added he, "very good troops, who desire nothing more ardently than to revenge on you and your people, all the cruelties and depredations which you have committed upon the Spanish nation in America."

The moment Morgan received this letter, he called together his followers; and, after acquainting them with its contents, desired them to deliberate, whether they would give up all their plunder, in order to secure their liberty, or fight for it!--They unanimously answered, that they would rather lose the last drop of their blood, than resign a booty which had been purchased with so much peril. Morgan, however, sensible of his dangerous situation, endeavoured to compromise the matter, but in vain. The Spanish admiral continued to insist on his first conditions. When Morgan was made acquainted with this inflexibility, he coolly replied: "If Don Alonzo will not

(1) Hist. Buccaneers, part ii. chap. vi.

(2) "Dated on board the royal ship, named the Magdalen, lying at anchor at the entrance of the lake of Maracay bo, this 24th of April, 1669. DON ALONZO DEL CAMPO." Voy.des Flibust. Hist. Buccaneers, part ii. ch. vii.

allow me to pass, I will find means to pass without his permission." He accordingly made a division of the spoil, that each man might have his own property to defend; and having filled a vessel, which he had taken from the enemy, with preparations of gunpowder and other combustible materials, he gallantly proceeded to the mouth of the lake; burned two of the Spanish ships, took one, and by making a feint of disembarking men, in order to attack the fort by land, he diverted the attention of the garrison to that side, while he passed the bar with his whole fleet, on the other, without receiving any damage.(1)

The success of Morgan, like that of all ambitious leaders, served only to stimulate him to yet greater undertakings. Having disposed of his booty at Port Royal in Jamaica, he again put to sea with a larger fleet, and a more numerous body of adventurers; and after reducing the island of St. Catharine, where he procured a supply of naval and military stores, he steered for the river Chagre, the only channel that could conduct him to Panama, the grand object of his armament. At the mouth of this river stood a strong castle, built upon a rock, and defended by a good garrison, which threatened to baffle all the efforts of the buccaneers; when an arrow, shot from the bow of an Indian, lodged in the eye of one of those resolute men. With wonderful firmness and presence of mind, he pulled the arrow from the wound; and wrapping one of its ends in tow, put it into his musket, which was already loaded, and discharged it into the fort, where the roofs of the houses were of straw, and the sides of wood, conformable to the custom of building in that country. The burning arrow fell on the roof of one of the houses which immediately took fire; a circumstance which threw the Spaniards into the utmost consternation, as they were afraid, every moment, of perishing by the rapid approach of the flames, or the blowing up of the powder magazine. After the death of the governor, who bravely perished with his sword in his hand, at the head of a few determined men, the place surrendered to the assailants.(2)

This chief obstacle being removed, Morgan and his associates, leaving the larger vessels under a guard, sailed up the Chagre in boats to Cruces, and thence proceeded by land to Panama. On the savannah, a spacious plain before the city, the Spaniards made several attempts to repulse the ferocious invaders, but without effect: the buccaneers gained a decided superiority in every encounter. Foreseeing the overthrow of their military protectors, the unarmed inhabitants sought refuge in the woods; so that Morgan took quiet possession of Panama, and deliberately pillaged it for some days.(3)

But Morgan met at Panama with what he valued no less than his rich booty. A fair captive inflamed his savage heart with love; and, finding all his solicitations ineffectual, as neither his person nor character was calculated to inspire the object of his passion with favourable sentiments towards him, he resolved to second his assiduities with a seasonable mixture of force. "Stop, ruffian!" cried she, as she wildly sprung from his arms;-" stop! thinkest thou that thou canst ravish from me mine honour, as thou hast wrested from me my fortune and my liberty? No! be assured, that my soul shall sooner be separated from this body:"-and she drew a poniard from her bosom, which she would have plunged into his heart, if he had not avoided the blow.(4)

Enraged at such a return to his fondness, Morgan threw this virtuous beauty into a loathsome dungeon, and endeavoured to break her spirit by severities. But his followers becoming clamorous, at being kept so long in a state of

(1) Voy. des Flibust. Hist. Buccaneers, part ii. ch. vii. (2) Ulloa's Voyage, vol. i. (3) Id. ibid. (4) The Spanish ladies, however, as we learn from the freebooter Raveneau de Lussan, were not all possessed of the same inflexible virtue. The buccaneers had been represented to them as devils, as cannibals, and beings who were destitute even of the human form. They accordingly trembled at the very name of those plunderers. But, on a nearer approach, they found them to be men, and some of them handsome fellows. And in this, as in all cases, where they have been abused by false representations of our sex, the women flew to the opposite extreme, as soon as they were undeceived; and clasped in their amorous arms the murderers of their husbands and brothers. Charmed with the ardour of a band of adventurers, whose every passion was in excess, they did not part, without tears of agony, from the warm embrace of their piratical paramours, to return into the cool paths of common life. Voy. des Flibust. chap. iv. v.

inactivity by a caprice which they could not comprehend, he was obliged to listen to their importunities, and give up his amorous pursuit. (1) As a prelude to their return, the booty was divided; and Morgan's own share in the pillage of this expedition, is said to have amounted to one hundred thousand pounds sterling. He carried all his wealth to Jamaica, and never afterward engaged in any piratical enterprise.(2)

The defection of Morgan, and several other principal leaders, who sought and found an asylum in the bosom of that civil society, whose laws they had so atrociously violated, together with the total separation of the English and French buccaneers, in consequence of the war between the two nations, which followed the revolution in 1688, broke the force of those powerful plunderers. The king of Spain being then in alliance with England, she repressed the piracies of her subjects in the West Indies. The French buccaneers continued their depredations, and with no small success, till the peace of Ryswick in 1697; when all differences between France and Spain having been adjusted, a stop was every where put to hostilities, and not only the associa tion, but the very name of this extraordinary set of men soon became extinct. They were insensibly lost among the other European inhabitants of the West Indies.

Before this period, however, the French colony in Hispaniola had arrived at a considerable degree of prosperity; and Jamaica, into which the spoils of Mexico and Peru were more abundantly poured, was already in a flourishing condition. The buccaneers found at Port Royal better reception and greater security than any where else. They could there land their booty with the utmost facility, and spend in a variety of pleasures the wealth arising from their piracy; and as prodigality and debauchery soon reduced them again to indigence, that grand incitement to their sanguinary industry made them eagerly hasten to commit fresh depredations. Hence the settlement reaped the benefit of their perpetual vicissitudes of fortune, and was enriched by their rapacity as well as their profusion; by the vices which led to their want, and their abundance.

The wealth, which flowed into Jamaica through that channel, gave great activity to every branch of culture; and, after the piracies of the buccaneers were suppressed, it proved a new source of riches, by enabling the inhabitants to open a clandestine trade to the Spanish settlements, whence it had its origin. This illicit and lucrative commerce was rendered mere facile and secure, by the assiento, or contract for supplying the Spanish colonies with negroes, which England obtained at the peace of Utrecht. In consequence of that contract, as I have already had occasion to observe, British factories were established at Carthagena, Panama, Vera Cruz, Buenos Ayres, and other important places in South America, and the isthmus of Mexico. The veil with which Spain had hitherto covered the state and transactions of her colonies, occasionally lifted by the buccaneers, was now entirely removed. The agents of a rival nation, residing in her towns of most extensive trade and ports of chief resort, had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with the interior condition of her American empire; of observing its wants, and knowing what commodities might be imported into it with the greatest advantage. The merchants of Jamaica, and other English colonies that traded to the Spanish main, were accordingly enabled, by means of information so authentic and expeditious, to assort and proportion their cargoes with such exactness to the demands of the market, that the contraband commerce was carried on to a vast amount, and with incredible profit.(3)

In order to put a stop to this trade, which, together with that carried on by the British South Sea company, had almost ruined the rich commerce of the galleons, formerly the pride of Spain, and the envy of other nations, ships of force, under the name of guarda-costas, were stationed upon the toasts of those provinces to which interlopers most frequently resorted.

(1) Hist. Buccaneers, part iii. chap. v. vi.

After Morgan settled in Jamaica, he was knighted by that prince of pleasure and whim, Charles II (3) Anderson's Hist. of Commerce, vol. ii. Robertson's Hist. of America, book vili.