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This information was sent to Henry Morgan at the Santa Katalina fort, with news of the reduction of the Chagres castle. Before he received it, Captain Joseph Bradly died in the castle, of a wound he had received in the fighting. When Morgan received the news that San Lorenzo had been stormed, he began to send aboard the meat, maize, and cassava he had collected in Santa Katalina.
While they cursed and raged at Chagres, Morgan sailed slowly to Port Royal, where he furled his sails, and dropped anchor, after a highly profitable cruise. The Governor received his percentage of the profits, and Morgan at once began to levy recruits for the settling of Santa Katalina. As for his men, they stayed for some days in considerable misery at San Lorenzo.
He had, therefore, retreated to the North Sea to his ships, and had then gone cruising northward along the Nicaragua coast as far as the Blewfields River. From this point he stood away to the island of Santa Katalina, or Old Providence an island about six miles long, with an excellent harbour, which, he thought, might easily be fortified.
The captains pronounced for Panama, but they added, as a rider, that it would be well to go to Santa Katalina to obtain guides. The Santa Katalina fort was still in the possession of the Spaniards, who now used it as a convict settlement, sending thither all the outlaws of the "Terra Firma."
The ruffians from Santa Katalina took their stations at the head of the leading company, with trusty pirates just behind them ready to pistol them if they played false. In good spirits they set forth from the beach, marching in the cool of the morning before the sun had risen.
He would not send a larger company, though the fort was strong, for he feared "lest the Spaniards should be jealous of his designs upon Panama" lest they should be warned, that is, by refugees from Chagres before he tried to cross the isthmus. Neither would he go himself, for he was still bent upon establishing a settlement at Santa Katalina.
He asked him to act as vice-admiral to the fleet he was then equipping for Santa Katalina. To this Henry Morgan very readily consented, for he judged that a great company would be able to achieve great things. In a few days, the two set sail together from Port Royal, with a fleet of fifteen ships, manned by 500 buccaneers, many of whom were French and Dutch.
As soon as they arrived at Santa Katalina, they anchored, and sent their men ashore with some heavy guns. The Spanish garrison was strong, and the fortress well situated, but in a few days they forced it to surrender. They then crossed by a bridge of boats to the lesser island to the north, where they ravaged the plantations for fresh supplies.
Morgan now sent his Santa Katalina prisoners to Porto Bello in "a great boat," demanding a ransom for Chagres castle, "threatening otherwise" to blast it to pieces.
To attack such a town some weeks after the townsfolk had received warning of their intentions would have been worse than useless. Mansvelt, therefore, returned to Santa Katalina to see how the colony had prospered while he had been at sea. He found that Le Sieur Simon had put the harbour "in a very good posture of defence," having built a couple of batteries to command the anchorage.
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