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Merchants gave as much as 1000 crowns for a moderate-sized shop in which to sell their commodities. Owing to overcrowding, bad sanitation, and an extremely unhealthy climate, the place became an open grave, ready to swallow all who resorted there. In 1637, during the fifteen days that the galleons remained at Porto Bello, 500 men died of sickness.
Ships engaged in this trade were to be searched on arrival at port, and all merchandise found on board was to be confiscated and heavy penalties inflicted. On condition, however, that the company should not attempt any unlawful trade, his Catholic Majesty granted them the privilege, during thirty years, of sending annually a ship of 500 tons to the fair at Porto Bello.
At any rate he sickened, and died there, "before he could accomplish his desires" "all things hereby remaining in suspense." One account, based on the hearsay of a sea-captain, says that Mansvelt was taken by the Spaniards, and brought to Porto Bello, and there put to death by the troops.
The spectators in the boxes, standing up and leaning over, called out at the top of their voices, 'Bello, bello! O che hello!, I never saw so much enthusiasm nor such a complete success, which was so much the greater, inasmuch as the people were quite prepared to laugh.... I am almost in tears when I think of this prayer.
On entering the gate, he was conducted through three huts serving as guard-houses, after which he found Sultan Bello seated on a small carpet in a sort of painted and ornamented cottage. Bello had a noble and commanding figure, with a high forehead and large black eyes. He gave the traveller a hearty welcome, and after inquiring the particulars of his journey, proceeded to serious affairs.
A nephew of the Sultan Bello paid him a visit the next morning and told him, after taking a cup of tea, which he liked very much, that he had hitherto looked upon a Christian as little better than a monster, though he now confessed that he liked the traveller.
In later years writing to his friend Marliano, he observed: De bello autem si consilium amici vis, bella gerant bellatores. Philosophis inhæreat lectionis et contemplationis studium.
A day or two after Christmas 1679 they got their anchors and set sail. They shaped their course for Porto Bello, which had recovered something of its old wealth and beauty, in the years of peace it had enjoyed since Morgan sacked it. They landed 200 men to the eastward of the town, "at such a distance" that the march "occupied them three nights." During the day they lay in ambush in the woods.
Having pillaged parts of Cuba, he took and ransomed Puerto Bello, in Colombia , and Maracaibo, in Venezuela . In 1670 Morgan gathered a fleet of nearly forty vessels, and a force of over two thousand men, for the greatest of the exploits of the buccaneers, the capture and plunder of the wealthy city of Panama.
Very early up, and, hearing that the Duke of York, our Lord High admiral, would go on board to-day, Mr. Pickering and I took waggon for Scheveling. His epitaph, is concluded thus: "Tandem Bello Anglico tantum non victor, certe invictus, vivere et vincere desiit." There is a sea-fight cut in marble, with the smoake, the best expressed that ever I saw in my life.
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