id. "The fact, incredible as it may appear," said
the writers, "seeming to be that the nest of these Picaroons is actually
within the loyal dominions of the Spanish Crown." If Spain, our press
said, resented our recognition of South American independence, let it
do so openly, not by countenancing criminals. It was unworthy of a great
nation. "Our West Indian trade is being stabbed in the back," declaimed
the _Bristol Mirror_. "Where is our fleet?" it asked. "If the Cuban
authorities are unable or unwilling, let us take the matter in our own
hands."

There was a great deal of mystery about this peculiar outbreak of
lawlessness that seemed to be directed so pointedly against the British
trade. The town of Rio Medio was alluded to as one of the unapproachable
towns of the earth--closed, like the capital of Prester John to the
travellers, or Mecca to the infidels. Nobody I ever met in Jamaica had
set eyes on the place. The impression prevailed that no stranger could
come out of it alive. Incredible stories were told of it in the island,
and indignation at its existence grew at home and in the colonies.

Admiral Rowley, an old fighter, grown a bit lazy, no diplomatist
(the stories of his being venal, I take it, were simply abominable
calumnies), unable to get anything out of the Cuban authorities but
promises and lofty protestations, had made up his mind, under direct
pressure from home, to take matters into his own hands. His boat attack
had been a half-and-half affair, for all that. He intended, he had said,
to go to the bottom of the thing, and find out what there was in the
place; but he could not believe that anybody would dare offer resistance
to the boats of an English squadron. They were sent in as if for an
exploration rather than for an armed landing.

It ended in a disaster, and a sense of wonder had been added to the
mystery of the fabulous Rio Medio organization. The Cuban authorities
protested against the warlike operations attempted in a friendly
country; at the same time, they had delivered the seven pirates--the men
whom I saw hanged in Kingston. And Rowley was recalled home in disgrace.

It was my extraordinary fate to penetrate into this holy city of the
last organized piracy the world would ever know. I beheld it with my
eyes; I had stood on the point behind the very battery of guns which had
swept Rowley's boats out of existence.

The narrow entrance faced, across the water, the great portal of the