n sailed away towards Porto Bello, near which city he put his
prisoners ashore. He cruised to the eastward for some weeks, snapping up
provision ships and little trading vessels; but he learned that the
Governor of Panama, a determined and very gallant soldier, was fitting
out an army to encounter him, should he attempt to land. The news may
have been false, but it showed the buccaneers that they were known to be
upon the coast, and that their raid up "the river of Colla" to "rob and
pillage" the little town of Nata, on the Bay of Panama, would be
fruitless. The Spanish residents of little towns like Nata buried all
their gold and silver, and then fled into the woods when rumours of the
pirates came to them. To attack such a town some weeks after the
townsfolk had received warning of their intentions would have been worse
than useless.

Mansvelt, therefore, returned to Santa Katalina to see how the colony
had prospered while he had been at sea. He found that Le Sieur Simon had
put the harbour "in a very good posture of defence," having built a
couple of batteries to command the anchorage. In these he had mounted
his cannon upon platforms of plank, with due munitions of cannon-balls
and powder. On the little island to the north he had laid out
plantations of maize, sweet potatoes, plantains, and tobacco. The
first-fruits of these green fields were now ripe, and "sufficient to
revictual the whole fleet with provisions and fruits."

Mansvelt was so well satisfied with the prospects of the colony that he
determined to hurry back to Jamaica to beg recruits and recognition from
the English Governor. The islands had belonged to English subjects in
the past, and of right belonged to England still. However, the Jamaican
Governor disliked the scheme. He feared that by lending his support he
would incur the wrath of the English Government, while he could not
weaken his position in Jamaica by sending soldiers from his garrison.
Mansvelt, "seeing the unwillingness" of this un-English Governor, at
once made sail for Tortuga, where he hoped the French might be less
squeamish. He dropped anchor, in the channel between Tortuga and
Hispaniola early in the summer of 1665. He seems to have gone ashore to
see the French authorities. Perhaps he drank too strong a punch of rum
and sugar--a drink very prejudicial in such a climate to one not used to
it. Perhaps he took the yellow fever, or the coast cramp; the fact
cannot now be known. At any