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Updated: June 12, 2025
The Dutch physician, Exquemelin, who lived with the buccaneers for several years, from 1668 to 1674, and wrote a picturesque narrative from materials at his disposal, has also been a source for the ideas of most later writers on the subject. It may not be out of place to quote his description of the men whose deeds he recorded.
At dawn on 1st May 1669, according to Exquemelin, they approached the Spanish ships riding at anchor within the entry of the lake, and sending the fireship ahead of the rest, steered directly for them. The fireship fell foul of the "Almirante," a vessel of forty guns, grappled with her and set her in flames.
The hunters of cattle became hunters of Spaniards, and the sea became the savanna on which they sought their game. Exquemelin tells us that when he arrived at the island there were scarcely three hundred engaged in hunting, and even these found their livelihood precarious.
The taverns and ale-houses always welcomed the arrival of these dissolute corsairs; and although they extended long credits, they also at times sold as indentured servants those who had run too deeply into debt, as happened in Jamaica to this same patron or master of whom Exquemelin wrote. Until 1640 buccaneering in the West Indies was more or less accidental, occasional, in character.
After repairing and provisioning the castle, and leaving 300 men to guard it and the ships, Morgan, on 9th January 1671, at the head of 1400 men, began the ascent of the river in seven small vessels and thirty-six canoes. The story of this brilliant march we will again leave to Exquemelin, who took part in it, to relate.
Morgan and his officers, on their return to Jamaica in the middle of August, made an official report which places their conduct in a peculiarly mild and charitable light, and forms a sharp contrast to the account left us by Exquemelin.
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