title="32"/> prisoners in the citadel, separating the wounded, and, although heedless of their sufferings, employing the female slaves to wait upon them. It now being nearly night, they gave way to all the excesses of soldiers in a town taken by storm, exasperated by the recollection of past danger, and the death of friends, and maddened by both the certainty of present pleasure and the power of indulging in every success. Œxmelin says, fifty brave Spaniards might have put all the revellers to death, and recovered the place. We do not, however, hear that a single Spanish Jael was found to revenge herself on these modern Siseras.

The following morning Morgan summoned his vessels into the harbour, and collecting all the loose wealth of the town, had it brought into the fort. Directing the repairs of the ramparts, scorched and shattered, he remounted the guns, in order to be ready to repel any attack from Panama. He collected a few of the prisoners who had been persuaded to say they were the richest merchants in Porto Bello, and put all who would not confess to the torture. He maimed some and killed others, who remained silent because they were in reality poor, and had concealed no treasure. Having spent fifteen days in these alternate cruelties and debaucheries, Morgan resolved to retreat. No Buccaneer general had ever taken a city which could not be stripped clean in fourteen days. Famine and disease began ungratefully to take the part of the Spaniard against the nation that had fed them with so many victims. Wild waste compelled them already to devour their mules and horses, rather than die of hunger, or turn cannibals. Parties of hunters were sent into the suburbs to hunt the cattle, whose flesh they then devoured, saving the mules for the prisoners, who, between their wounds and their hunger, were reduced to dreadful extremities.

A death more terrible than that of a blow in battle now appeared in their midst. Many had already died victims of excess, and even the most prudent perished. The bad food, the sudden transition from excess to want, and the impurity of the tainted air, produced a pestilence. The climate of Porto Bello, always unhealthy, as Hosier's squadron afterwards experienced, was poisoned by the putrefaction of the dead bodies, hastily buried, and scarcely covered by earth. The wounded nearly all sickened, and the intemperate were the first to die.

The prisoners, crowded together, and already weakened mentally by despondency, and physically by famine, soon caught the fever, and died with dreadful rapidity. Rich merchants, accustomed to every luxury, and to the most varied and seasoned food, pined under a diet of half-putrid mule's flesh, and bad, unfiltered water. Everything warned Morgan that it was time to weigh anchor, for the president of Panama was already on his march towards the city at the head of 1500 men. Informed of their approach from a slave captured by a hunting party, Morgan held a council, at which it was agreed not to retreat until they had obtained a ransom for the town greater than the spoil at present collected; and, in order to prevent a surprise, he placed a body of 100 well-armed men in a narrow defile, where but a few men could go abreast, and through which the president must pass. They found that that general had fewer troops with him than was reported, and these took flight at the first encounter, and did not attempt again to force a passage, but waited for reinforcements. The president, with the usual gasconade of a Spaniard, sent word to Morgan, that if he did not at once leave Porto Bello he should receive no quarter when he should take him and his companions, as he hoped soon to do.

To this, Morgan, knowing he had a sure means of escape, said he should not leave till he had received 180,000 pieces of eight as a ransom for the city, and if he could not get this he should kill all his prisoners, blow up the castle, and burn the town, and two men were sent by him to the president to procure the money.

The president, seeing that nothing could either deceive or intimidate Morgan, gave up Porto Bello to its fate, not caring to erect a silver bridge for a flying enemy. In vain he sent to Carthagena for a fleet to block up the ships in the river; in vain he kept the citizens in suspense as to the money, in hopes of gaining time. He was deaf and obdurate to all the entreaties of the citizens, who sent to inform him that the pirates were not men but devils, and that they fought with such fury that the Spanish officers had stabbed themselves, in very despair, at seeing a supposed impregnable fortress taken by a handful of people, when it should have held out against twice the number.

Don Juan Perez de Guzman, the president, a man of "great parts," and who had attained high rank in the war in Flanders, expressed himself, with candour, as astonished at the exploits of 400 men (not regular soldiers) who, with no other arms but their muskets, had taken a city which any general in Europe would have found necessary to have blockaded in due form. He gave the people of Porto Bello, at the same time, leave to compound for their safety, but offered them no aid to insure it.

To Morgan himself he could not refrain from expressing astonishment. He admired his success, with no ordnance for batteries, and against the citizens of a place who bore the reputation of being good soldiers, never wanting courage in their own defence. He begged, at the same time, that he would send him some small pattern of the arms wherewith he had, with such vigour, taken so great a city. Morgan received the messenger with great kindness and civility, flattered by the compliment from an enemy, and glad of an opportunity of expressing contempt of any assailants. He took a hunter's musket from one of his men, and sent it, together with a handful of Buccaneer bullets, to the president, begging him to accept it as a small pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Porto Bello, hoping he would keep it a twelvemonth or two, at which time he hoped to visit Panama and fetch it away. The Spaniard, astonished at the wit and civility of the captain, whom he had deemed a mere brutal sea thief, sent a messenger to return the present, as he did not need the loan of weapons, but thanking Morgan and praising his courage, remarking at the same time that it was a pity that such a man should not be employed in a just war, and in the service of a great and good prince, and hoping, in conclusion, that he would not give himself the trouble of coming to see him at Panama, as he would not fare there so well as he had done at Porto Bello. Having delivered this message, so chivalrous in its tone, the messenger presented Morgan with a beautiful gold ring, set with a costly emerald, as a remembrance of his master Don Guzman, who had already supplied the English chief with fresh provisions.

Having now provided himself with all necessaries, and stripped the unfortunate city of almost everything but its tiles and its paving stones, carried off half of the castle guns and spiked the rest, he then set sail, taking on board the ransom, which was punctually paid in the shape of silver bars. Corn seldom grew where his foot had once been, and he left behind him famine, pestilence, poverty, and death. Orphans and widows, mutilated men and violated women leaped for joy as his fleet melted into the distance.

Setting sail, with great speed, he arrived in eight days at Cuba, where the spoil was divided.

They found that they had in gold and silver, whether in coin or bar, and in jewels, which from haste and ignorance were seldom estimated at one-fourth part of their value, to the value of 260,000 pieces of eight. This did not