r,
some negroes swam off to the ships to tell the Spaniards of the
garrison's weakness. After two more days of council, the boats were
lowered from the ships, and manned with soldiers. The guns on the
gun-decks were loaded, and trained. The drums beat to quarters both on
the ships and in the batteries. Under the cover of the warship's guns,
the boats shoved off towards the landing-place, receiving a furious fire
from the buccaneers. The "weather was very calm and clear," so that the
smoke from the guns did not blow away fast enough to allow the
buccaneers to aim at the boats. The landing force formed into three
parties, two of which attacked the flanks, and the third the centre.
The battle was very furious, though the buccaneers were outnumbered and
had no chance of victory. They ran short of cannon-balls before they
surrendered, but they made shift for a time with small shot and scraps
of iron, "also the organs of the church," of which they fired
"threescore pipes" at a shot. The fighting lasted most of the day, for
it was not to the advantage of the Spaniards to come to push of pike.
Towards sunset the buccaneers were beaten from their guns. They fought
in the open for a few minutes, round "the gate called Costadura," but
the Spaniards surrounded them, and they were forced to lay down their
arms. The Spanish colours were set up, and two poor Spaniards who had
joined the buccaneers were shot to death upon the Plaza. The English
prisoners were sent aboard the ships, and carried into Porto Bello,
where they were put to the building of a fortress--the Iron Castle, a
place of great strength, which later on the English blew to pieces. Some
of the men were sent to Panama "to work in the castle of St Jerome"--a
wonderful, great castle, which was burned at the sack of Panama almost
before the mortar dried.

While the guns were roaring over Santa Katalina, as Le Sieur Simon
rammed his cannon full of organ pipes, Henry Morgan was in lodgings at
Port Royal, greatly troubled at the news of Mansvelt's death. He was
busily engaged at the time with letters to the merchants of New England.
He was endeavouring to get their help towards the fortification of the
island he had helped to capture. "His principal intent," writes one who
did not love the man, "was to consecrate it as a refuge and sanctuary to
the Pirates of those parts," making it "a convenient receptacle or store
house of their preys and robberies." It is pleasant to specula