them to row faster just before daybreak, brought them, much to their astonishment, at a bend of the river, opposite the camp fires of the enemy. The guide being hailed, replied they were from Panama; and being asked the name of the commander, hesitated about a fitting title, and received a volley in return. The Buccaneers driving off the enemy with two patereroes, passed them quickly, and, anchoring out of reach, waited for the ebb tide to return. Putting all their men under deck, the adventurers returned about an hour before daylight, saluting them with four paterero shots as they passed, and receiving no injury in return. The next day, taking a small Indian vessel, the Buccaneers landed lower down the river, intending to take the Spanish entrenchment in the rear; but seeing the enemy putting out a piragua to attack their galley, they returned in great haste and landed opposite the Spanish court of guard, killing a great many men and driving out the rest. They also shot an Indian, who, mistaking them for Spaniards, followed them and reviled them as they were re-embarking. The prisoners told them that the neighbouring town of Terrible was prepared for their coming. A letter to the camp-master of Terrible was found in the entrenchment. It concluded thus: "I have sent you 300 men to defeat these enemies of God and goodness; be sure to keep upon your watch; be afraid of being surprised, and your men will infallibly be gainers in defeating of them." The prisoners also put them on their guard as to many ambuscades and secret dangers. Having burnt the guard-house, and carried off the piragua with some pounds of gold-dust, the Buccaneers departed, dismissing the Indians to propitiate the nation who had received commission from the President of Panama to arm canoes against them. While descending the river, having put some Spanish prisoners on deck to deceive the Indians, some natives came and brought gold-dust to them, taking them for friends. A few days after this, forty Spanish prisoners put ashore at the King's Islands, met accidentally with some canoes, and escaped to Panama.

The French were now again surprised as they had been before, three of the enemy's vessels approaching under cover of an island. By venturing a dangerous passage between the island of Tavaguilla and a rock the Buccaneers at last obtained the weather-gauge. The fight lasted till noon, and the Spaniards were driven off in all attempts at boarding. Throwing grenades into the biggest ship, one of them set fire to some loose powder and burnt a great many men; and during this confusion, the adventurers boarded the enemy, who rallied in the stern, and made a vigorous resistance, but at last begged for quarter. The second was also at the same time carried and taken. The third, a kind of galley, pursued by three Buccaneer vessels, ran ashore and staved to pieces, few of the crew escaping, not more than a dozen, Ringrose thinks. In the frigate eighty men were killed and wounded out of 120 on board. The second ship had only eighteen unhurt out of eighty. All the officers were killed and wounded, and the captain received no less than five musket shots. He was the soldier that had received five wounds resisting them at Puebla Nueva, and he had also planned the ambuscade at Villia.

While busily employed in splicing the rigging and throwing the dead overboard, two more sail were seen bearing down from Panama. The English instantly put up Spanish colours to allure them, and placed the French and English beneath them. As the foe drew near, they received a volley, and, firing hurriedly, at once fled to the frigate which they supposed still theirs. The frigate replied by some grenades, which sent one to the bottom, and the piragua boarded the other, and, finding four packs of halters on board, put all the crew to death in revenge. They had been directed to spare none but the Buccaneer surgeons, and to send troops of horse to cut off all that escaped in canoes. On the very next day they took a shallop from Panama which the president had sent to pull up an anchor that the adventurers had left in the bay. Only one Buccaneer was killed in the fight, but Captain Townley and twenty men were wounded, and most of these died, for the Spaniards poisoned their bullets. They now sent a prisoner to the president, demanding his five captives and medicines for the use of his own people. The messenger was also told to complain heavily of the massacre of the three parties at Darien.

To these remonstrances the officer sent the following answer: "Gentlemen, I wonder that you, who should understand how to make war, should require those men of me that are in our custody. Your rashness hath something contrary to the civility wherewith you ought to treat those people that were in your power. If you do not use them well, God will perhaps be on our side." To this they returned a threat of beheading all their prisoners without mercy; and having done this, sailed at once to the isles of Pericòs, fearing the Spanish fire-ships. The Bishop of Panama, who, they knew, had stirred up the president to war, sent a letter, entreating them to show mercy, saying the president had the king's orders to restore no prisoners, and that the Englishmen, having turned Roman Catholics, did not wish to leave Panama.

Upon this the Buccaneers sent the president twenty Spaniards' heads in a canoe, threatening to kill all the rest, if the prisoners were not restored by the next day. Very early the next morning came the prisoners, four Englishmen and one Frenchman, with medicines for the wounded, the president leaving to their honour to give as many men as they chose in exchange. They at once sent a dozen of the most wounded on shore, accusing the president of being the murderer of the twenty they had killed, and threatening the death of the rest, unless 20,000 pieces of eight were paid for their ransom. The Spaniards at first tried to make it only 6000; but when the Buccaneers hung out their main flag, fired a gun, and prepared to enter the port, they hung out a white flag at a bastion, and promised the money shortly. The next day a Knight of Malta came in a bark with the money, and received the prisoners. While staying at Ottoqua to victual their ships, the Spaniards landed at night and murdered their Indian guides. The day after the French chased a provision vessel to the very guns of Panama, when the garrison hoisted the Burgundian flag on the bastion, and by mistake fired upon their own vessel, which the Buccaneers took. Putting nineteen prisoners on shore, they again attempted to surprise Villia, but failed, finding all the people in arms, and a reinforcement of 600 men newly come from Panama. They next took the town of St. Lorenzo, and surprising it at twilight, burnt it. They learned the Spaniards had orders to drive away the cattle from the sea-shore, to lay ambuscades, and to obtain from women intelligence of the Buccaneers' movements. A dreadful storm which overtook the fleet in the Bay of Bocca del Toro induced Lussan, with a naïve philanthropy, to tell his readers: "If you would enter into it with safety, you must keep the whip of your rudder to starboard, because it is dangerous to keep to the east side." While here the same writer gives us the following trait of Flibustier manners:—"On the 25th, being Christmas-day, after we had, according to custom, said our prayers in the night, one of our quartermasters being gone ashore in order to take care about our eating some victuals (for our ships being careening all our provisions were then put out), one of our prisoners, who served us as cook, stabbed him with a knife in six several places, wherewith crying out, he was presently relieved, and the assassin punished