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Never was there a band of Anglo-Saxon outlaws, cut-throats, pirates, or buccaneers that reached that point of human depravity that they could brand, as cattle are branded, with a red-hot iron, swarms of women taken by violence, in order that they might not make any mistakes in recognizing their numberless wives!
The French still permitted the freebooters to dispose of Spanish prizes in their ports, but the better market afforded by Jamaica was always a sufficient consideration to attract not only the English buccaneers, but the Dutch and French as well.
They penetrated only as far as Turrialva, however, whence weary and footsore from their struggle through the Cordillera, and harassed by the Spaniards, they retired through the province of Veragua in military order to their ships. On 12th June the buccaneers, laden with booty, sailed into Port Royal. There was at that moment no declared war between England and Spain.
'Tis the custom of honest buccaneers and pirates to divide the spoils by the strict rule, six shares for the commander, two for the master's mate, and other officers accordin' to their employment, with one share to every seaman alike. Think ye this bloody pick-purse dealt fairly by his crew? In yon sea-chest be the lawful shares of all the woesome lads he marooned this day.
Silently and quietly one night, without giving notice to any of the buccaneers at Chagres, except a few who were in his secret, Morgan, in his large ship, sailed away for Jamaica, followed by only a few other vessels, containing some of his favored companions.
He had the appearance of a Spanish or French cut-throat of the middle of last century, and of earlier times yet; for it may be known to you that the buccaneers of the Spanish Main and the South Sea were great lovers of finery; they had a strange theatric taste in their choice of costumes, which, as you will suppose, they had abundant opportunities for gratifying out of the many rich and glittering wardrobes that fell into their hands; and this man, I say, with his large fine hat, handsome cloak and boots, coupled with the villainous cast of his countenance and the frightful appearance his long hair gave him, rendered him to my notions the completest figure that could be imagined of one of those rogues who earned their living as pirates.
He was popular with the buccaneers, and had a name among them, for he was the first of them to cross the isthmus and to sail the South Sea. His South-Sea cruise had come to little, for provisions ran short, and his company had been too small to attempt a Spanish town.
Dampier, ed. 1906, ii. p. 206. The viceroy of New Spain, in a letter of 28th March 1665, reports the coming, in February, of 150 English in three ships to Tabasco, but gives the name of the plundered town as Santa Marta de la Vitoria. According to his story, the buccaneers seized royal treasure amounting to 50,000 pieces of eight, besides ammunition and slaves.
As I gazed upon this armament, and upon the palm-woods that fringed the shore, I could not help calling to mind the lawless doings of the buccaneers of old, and the terror spread through towns and villages by the appearance of a fleet of boats, manned by resolute crews, and armed with the most deadly weapons of destruction.
In an age when the line between the land and sea service, between regular campaigners and volunteers, between public and private warfare, between chivalrous knights-errant and buccaneers, was not very distinctly drawn, there could be nothing more exciting to adventurous spirits, more tempting to the imagination of those who hated the Pope and Philip, who loved fighting, prize-money, and the queen, than a foray into Spain.
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