nocked off
their butcher's work to see the fight. As the poor Frenchman turned his
back to make him ready, his adversary stabbed him from behind, running
him quite through, so that "he suddenly fell dead upon the place."
Instantly the beach was in an uproar. The Frenchmen pressed upon the
English to attack the murderer and to avenge the death of their fellow.
There had been bad blood between the parties ever since they mustered at
the quays before the raid began. The quarrel now raging was an excuse to
both sides. Morgan walked between the angry groups, telling them to put
up their swords. At a word from him, the murderer was seized, set in
irons, and sent aboard an English ship. Morgan then seems to have made a
little speech to pacify the rioters, telling the French that the man
should be hanged ("hanged immediately," as they said of Admiral Byng) as
soon as the ships had anchored in Port Royal bay. To the English, he
said that the criminal was worthy of punishment, "for although it was
permitted him to challenge his adversary, yet it was not lawful to kill
him treacherously, as he did." After a good deal of muttering, the
mutineers returned aboard their ships, carrying with them the last of
the newly salted beef. The hostages were freed, a gun was fired from the
admiral's ship, and the fleet hove up their anchors, and sailed away
from Cuba, to some small sandy quay with a spring of water in it, where
the division of the plunder could be made. The plunder was heaped
together in a single pile. It was valued by the captains, who knew by
long experience what such goods would fetch in the Jamaican towns.

To the "resentment and grief" of all the 700 men these valuers could not
bring the total up to 50,000 pieces of eight--say L12,000--"in money and
goods." All hands were disgusted at "such a small booty, which was not
sufficient to pay their debts at Jamaica." Some cursed their fortune;
others cursed their captain. It does not seem to have occurred to them
to blame themselves for talking business before their Spanish prisoners.
Morgan told them to "think upon some other enterprize," for the ships
were fit to keep the sea, and well provisioned. It would be an easy
matter, he told them, to attack some town upon the Main "before they
returned home," so that they should have a little money for the taverns,
to buy them rum with, at the end of the cruise. But the French were
still sore about the murder of their man: they raised o