Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
Morgan sent him two messengers bearing the following propositions: First, that he would quit Maracaibo without doing any damage to the town, or taking any ransoms. Second, that he would set at liberty half of his slaves and all the other prisoners without ransom.
They took also another ship going from New Spain to Maracaibo, laden with divers sorts of merchandise and pieces of eight, designed to buy cocoa-nuts for their lading home: all these they carried to Jamaica, where they safely arrived, and, according to custom, wasted all in a few days in taverns, giving themselves to all manner of debauchery.
I have with me very good soldiers who desire nothing more ardently than to revenge on you and your people all the infamous cruelties and brutal acts that you have committed upon the Spanish nation in America. "Dated on board the royal ship Magdalena, lying at anchor at the entry of Lake Maracaibo, this twenty-fourth day of April, Sixteen Hundred Sixty-nine. Don Alonso del Campo y Espinosa."
Gibraltar, situate at the side of the lake about forty leagues within it, receives its provisions of flesh, as has been said, from Maracaibo. The town is inhabited by about 1,500 persons, whereof four hundred may bear arms; the greatest part of them keep shops, wherein they exercise one trade or another.
There was no haggling here, thanks to the fate of Gibraltar; only it was utterly impossible to raise that much money in all of the poverty-stricken region. But at last the matter was compromised, and the town was redeemed for twenty thousand pieces of eight and five hundred head of cattle, and tortured Maracaibo was quit of them.
It was the same piratical motive which animated Drake and Hawkins, which impelled Morgan to sack Maracaibo and Panama, and which, transferred to the dignified council chambers of England, took on a more humane but less romantic guise.
Houses and churches were sacked until nothing was left but the bare walls; men and women were tortured to compel them to disclose where more treasure lay hidden. Then, having wrenched all that they could from Maracaibo, they entered the lake and descended upon Gibraltar, where the rest of the panic-stricken inhabitants were huddled together in a blind terror.
In these they sailed towards Maracaibo, where they found "a poor distressed old man, who was sick." This old man told them that the Castle de la Barra, which guarded the entrance to the Gulf, had been mounted with great guns and manned by a strong garrison. Outside the channel were three Spanish men-of-war with their guns run out and decks cleared for battle.
By these reasons he was persuaded to bridle his anger, and remit the severity of his oath. Now Lolonois had got a good ship, but very few provisions and people in it; to purchase both which, he resolved to cruise from one port to another. Doing thus, for some time, without success, he determined to go to the port of Maracaibo.
On this news, Don Alonso instantly weighed anchor, and, crossing over to the continent, we came in sight of the Caraccas: here we found them not, but met with a boat, which certified us they were in the lake of Maracaibo, and that the fleet consisted of seven small ships, and one boat. "Upon this we came here, and arriving at the entry of the lake, we shot off a gun for a pilot from the shore.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking