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usual scenes of torture to discover hidden treasure, and outrage to satisfy the passions of the soldiery. Morgan, himself, carried off the beautiful wife of a rich merchant, whom he strove in vain to subdue to his desires, first by gifts and then by cruelty. On his retreat she was dragged along for several days between two buccaneers, until finding that he could neither break her determination nor obtain a ransom, he released her. Other women fared still worse, and the air was filled with their shrieks and lamentations as they were haled along in the train of the commander.

On his arrival at the mouth of the Chagres river, Morgan divided the plunder among the captains and men. It is estimated by different chroniclers at widely varying amounts. One says it was one hundred and fifty thousand pesos; another that it was four and a quarter million pesos. In any case the expectations of the buccaneers ran high, and the common soldiers were hugely disgusted when they received only two hundred pesos apiece. The admiral was promptly accused, doubtless with justice, of secreting jewels and of taking the lion's share of everything for himself.

The clamor grew so great that Morgan, fearing the vengeance of the outlaws, took ship secretly and sailed away to Jamaica. Soon after his arrival, there came a new governor from England with orders to pardon past offences, but to enforce in the future the provisions of the treaty of America.

The rest of Morgan's career, as Fiske says, reads like a comic opera. Taking advantage of the amnesty, he sailed away to England. Here, perhaps by a judicious use of his ill-gotten gains, he obtained from Charles II the honor of knighthood. Later Sir Henry Morgan, incredible as it may sound, was appointed vice-president of Jamaica and commissioner of the Admiralty Court. As a judge he treated buccaneers with much severity; but when the Catholic James II came to the throne of England, Spain brought charges. against him of conniving with pirates, and for a time he was imprisoned. His career marks the culminating point in the history of buccaneering. Lawless bands still continued to

infest both the Mexican Gulf and the South Sea; but their operations were of minor importance as compared with those of this notorious rascal.

One of the results of Morgan's raid was that the Spanish government decided to abandon the old site of the city of Panama and to build another larger and stronger city on a deep bay six miles distant. The work was begun in 1671, and no expense was spared to make the fortifications impregnable to buccaneers. The wall that surrounded the city was twenty feet high, in places even forty feet; and ten feet thick, and was strengthened by the usual watch towers and forts. Like a mediæval town it was separated from the mainland by a deep moat. The harbor was so well protected by coral reefs running out a mile into the bay, that large ships could not approach dangerously near.

The city was laid out with great care in the form of a square. Its chief buildings were of brick and stone, and the church architecture made it remarkable among the cities of the new world. The bells for the new cathedral were cast in Spain, and the occasion was marked by a kind of religious ceremony, during which the queen and the high dignitaries of the court were so moved by pious enthusiasm that they threw into the melting pots the gold and silver ornaments that they wore.

Before the city was completed, however, the buccaneers came swarming around it, hoping that it might be taken by surprise and looted as before. But the fortifications were so strong and so well watched that they had to content themselves with sacking Santa Maria and other towns along the coast, or capturing such vessels as ventured in their way.

In every case where there was a conflict with the Spaniards, the latter showed themselves degenerate descendants of the conquerors, and whatever the superiority of their numbers, they often fled at the first sight of the buccaneers. The Indians, on their part, seem to have gladly assisted the robbers, and to have viewed with satisfaction the retribution that was falling on their own cruel conquerors. When the

Spanish treasure ships left Lima for Panama, it was with fear and trembling. They had to be convoyed by a powerful fleet of armed vessels, which, instead of trying to exterminate the pirates that infested the coast, considered itself lucky to escape them. Like the Algerine pirates of a later day in the Mediterranean, the buccaneers sailed triumphantly the waters of the South Sea until the end of the seventeenth century. Then their gains having become small, they yielded place to the legitimate traders. In accordance with the treaty of America some of them that ventured back to Jamaica or to England were seized on complaint of Spain and hanged. Others, claiming commissions from the Indian chiefs of Darien, whom they described as independent of the Spanish government, were tried and acquitted.

The wild and bloody adventures of the buccaneers on sea and land have been made the subject of many romances, in which these modern vikings have often been transformed from cut-throats into heroes.

CHAPTER XI

SETTLEMENT OF THE SCOTS IN DARIEN-WAR WITH ENGLAND

ONE of the strangest chapters in the history of Central America is that which records the attempt of a Scotchman named William Paterson to found a colony on the Isthmus of Panama. Paterson was a merchant, who at the end of the seventeenth century had distinguished himself by proposing a scheme for financing the national debt of England, a scheme which a few years later resulted in the establishment of the great Bank of England. Having travelled in the West Indies and visited Darien, he had been so enchanted by its commercial possibilities, that he now conceived the wild plan of settling this region with his own countrymen and of controlling the trade of the two oceans.

To carry out such a plan large capital was necessary, but here he was aided by his success in the banking business, and by the speculative spirit of the age, which culminated some years later in the disasters of the South Sea Scheme and the Mississippi Bubble.

In 1695 Paterson and his friends easily persuaded the Scottish parliament to pass a statute and then obtained from the representative of the crown letters patent, authorizing them to plant colonies in Asia, Africa, or America, wherever there was no Christian prince in possession, or wherever they could make terms with the natives. Under this vast and vague charter Paterson really purposed to found the colony in Darien. Such a colony, he now declared, would not only

draw rich products from the soil of that region, but would hold "the door to the seas and the key to the universe." "The settlers of Darien,” in the eloquent words of the prospectus, "would become the legislators of both worlds and the arbitrators of commerce. They would acquire a nobler empire than Alexander or Cæsar, without fatigue, expense, or danger, as well as without incurring the guilt and bloodshed of conquerors."

It may naturally be asked whether the claims of Spain to the Isthmus of Panama were not considered; for that country had held possession of the province for two hundred years, and though some of the native tribes were not subdued, it had discovered the land, made settlements in it, and asserted the right of occupation against the world. The new company, with a fine scorn of these patent facts, proclaimed that it challenged the Spaniards to prove their right to the province by inheritance, possession, or conquest, adding that it also refused to recognize any right through a papal donation. Paterson, himself, asserted that while the Spaniards held dominion to the east and to the west, the intermediate territory of forests and mountains had not been subdued and was in the possession of rude, unconquered tribes.

The sum necessary for this great enterprise was fixed at six hundred thousand pounds, and subscriptions having been opened in Scotland, England, Hamburg, and Amsterdam, the full amount was taken. Scotland, accounted a poor country, subscribed to the amount of three hundred thousand pounds, a kind of frenzy having seized the people to take advantage of this golden opportunity. The rich and the poor alike vied with each other to secure the stock. The savings of years were poured into the coffers of the company. The total cash payments amounted in all to two hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

Violent opposition to the whole scheme, however, soon. developed among the English merchants. As soon as they understood Paterson's plans, they became jealous of the

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