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Updated: July 16, 2025
Morgan had passed through the Gulf of Venezuela, captured the town of Maracaibo and made his way through the narrow passage into the lake of the same name, where he captured and despoiled Gibraltar. Captain Morgan had been so long absent from Maracaibo that he knew that the Spaniards had had sufficient time to fortify themselves strongly, and so hinder his departure from the lake.
A certain pirate called Pierre François, or Peter Francis, waiting a long time at sea with his boat and twenty-six men, for the ships that were to return from Maracaibo to Campechy, and not being able to find any prey, at last he resolved to direct his course to Rancheiras, near the River de la Plata, in 12 deg. and a half north latitude.
Here the scenes of inhuman cruelty, "the tortures, murders, robberies and such like insolences," were repeated for five weeks; after which the buccaneers, gathering up their rich booty, returned to Maracaibo, carrying with them four hostages for the ransom of the town and prisoners, which the inhabitants promised to send after them.
At the southern end of Lake Maracaibo, about forty leagues from the town which the pirates had just desolated and ruined, lay Gibraltar, a good-sized and prosperous town, and for this place L'Olonnois and his fleet now set sail; but they were not able to approach unsuspected and unseen, for news of their terrible doings had gone before them, and their coming was expected.
They are equally common in Bolivia, and in the sierras of New Grenada and Venezuela. They are found on both sides of Lake Maracaibo in the sierras Perija and Merida. One of them, at least, has also been observed in the mountains of Guiana though naturalists have not met with it there.
The truth of these assertions was confirmed by a scouting party the same day. In order to gain a little time Morgan sent a Spaniard to the admiral of the men-of-war, demanding a ransom "for not putting Maracaibo to the flame." The answer reached him in a day or two, warning him to surrender all his plunder, and telling him that if he did not, he should be destroyed by the sword.
A certain pirate of Portugal, thence called Bartholomew Portugues, was cruising in a boat of thirty men and four small guns from Jamaica, upon the Cape de Corriente in Cuba, where he met a great ship from Maracaibo and Carthagena, bound for the Havannah, well provided with twenty great guns and seventy men, passengers and mariners; this ship he presently assaulted, which they on board as resolutely defended.
Everything plundered that could be taken, and then a ransom set upon the town itself. This time an honest, or an apparently honest, division was made of the spoils, which amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides merchandise and jewels. The next towns to suffer were poor Maracaibo and Gibraltar, now just beginning to recover from the desolation wrought by l'Olonoise.
Kay reports a case of twins in a girl of thirteen; Montgomery, at fourteen; and Meigs reports the case of a young girl, of Spanish blood, at Maracaibo, who gave birth to a child before she was twelve and to twins before reaching fourteen years.
Hither those of Maracaibo send great quantities of flesh, they making returns in oranges, lemons, and other fruits; for the inhabitants of Gibraltar want flesh, their fields not being capable of feeding cows or sheep.
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