Trapped
Captain Morgan resumed new courage, and resolving to show himself still undaunted, he boldly sent a Spaniard to the admiral of those three ships, demanding of him a considerable ransom for not putting the city of Maracaibo to the flames.1
While the above statement written by Esquemeling reveals Morgan’s state of mind when he discovered that his escape out of the lake into open sea was blocked by the three Spanish warships, he was negotiating from a position of weakness.
The Spanish admiral, Don Alonso Del Campo Y Espinosa, held all the cards. He had far more firepower than had Morgan’s entire fleet and in addition to the three warships he also had the guns in the fort on San Carlos. Morgan and his men had taken that fort and nailed or spiked all the guns there. Don Alonso’s men had re-drilled the guns, re-mounted and primed them so they were now ready to fire. Also, the Spanish had added more guns to the fort so that they now, including the ships and the fort, had a total of 126 fully functional cannon with which to blast Morgan’s fleet out of the water.
The fleet of Spanish warships had been ordered to the Spanish Main by the Catholic king of Spain in revenge for the taking of Puerto Bello and all ‘damages and hostilities committed here by the English’. Despite the many protestations the Spanish ambassador had made to the British court the hostilities in the West Indies continued. The response from the government in England and the king had always been that no commissions or letters of marque had been given to any privateer to commit hostile acts on the subjects of Spain. Yet they persisted. Having had enough, the Spanish king ordered a fleet of six warships be equipped and commanded by Admiral Don Augustine de Bustos. Don Alonso was his vice admiral.
The biggest ship of the fleet had forty-eight large guns and eight smaller guns and was the NS de la Soleda, while the second largest ship, La Conception, of forty-four guns, was under the command of Don Alonso. The fleet set sail from Spain for Cartagena but when it arrived, the larger of the two ships named above ‘received orders to return to Spain, being judged too big for cruising these coasts.’2
With the two largest ships gone and Don Augustine with them, that left Don Alonso in charge of the Magdalen, thirty-six large and twelve small guns and a compliment of 250 men; the Santa Louisa, twenty-six large and twelve smaller guns and a crew of 200; the La Marquesa, sixteen great guns and eight small cannon and 150 men; and the NS del Carmen, with eighteen large cannon, eight smaller guns and 100 men.
Don Alonso left Cartagena and sailed for Campeachy to catch the English but on the way they encountered rough weather and the NS del Carmen was lost. Upon arrival at Santo Domingo, the Spanish received news that the buccaneers had passed that way and were heading for Caracas. Don Alonso, determined to hunt this fleet down, immediately set sail for Caracas. ‘Here we found them not, but met with a boat, which certified us they were in the lake of Maracaibo.’3
Don Alonso immediately set sail for the Lake of Maracaibo and discovered that Morgan was in Gibraltar. He set about creating a trap for the buccaneers, knowing full well they would have to sail through the channel and past the castle to get to the open sea.
Don Alonso held the upper hand. He had greater firepower and more men than the buccaneers, as well as the tactical advantage. Morgan and his fleet would have to sail through the channel. There was no other way they could leave.
The Spaniard that Morgan had sent to Don Alonso, with his threat of razing Maracaibo to the ground if the Spaniards did not let them pass, returned two days later with Don Alonso’s reply:
I let you understand by these lines that I am come to this place, according to my obligation, near that castle which you took out of the hands of a parcel of cowards; where I have put things into a very good posture of defence, and mounted again the artillery which you had nailed and dismounted.4
The reply from Don Alonso had been written in Spanish and so needed to be translated, which it was. Once that was done, Morgan could be in no doubt about this opponent’s intentions. ‘My intent is, to dispute with you your passage out of the lake, and follow and pursue you everywhere, to the end you may see the performance of my duty.’ The letter then described the terms for Morgan’s safe passage out of the lake and back to Jamaica. For their safe passage the buccaneers would have to surrender everything they had taken, which included slaves and all the other prisoners. At this time Morgan still had the four hostages from Gibraltar, who would only be freed when the people of Gibraltar paid their ransom.
Then came the threat. If Morgan didn’t surrender all the booty, slaves and prisoners, Don Alonso would ‘command boats to come from Caracas, wherein I will put my troops, and coming to Maracaibo, will put you every man to the sword.’ Adding to this threat, Don Alonso wrote, ‘I have with me very good soldiers, who desire nothing more ardently than to revenge on you, and your people, all the cruelties, and base infamous actions, you have committed upon the Spanish nation in America.’5
Don Alonso’s reply had been written on board his flagship, the largest of the three warships, the Magdalen, and was dated 24 April 1669.
Perhaps a testament to Morgan’s leadership ability is his intuition and understanding of the men he led. Rather than simply gathering his captains together for a council of war, Morgan had all the men gather in the hot square in the centre of Maracaibo, where, according to Esquemeling, he asked them for advice. The letter from Don Alonso had been translated into English and French and Morgan read this letter out to his men.
After he read the letter, he put a question to them. Would they rather surrender everything they’d obtained for their freedom or would they rather fight their way out?
The answer was unanimous: ‘They had rather fight to the last drop of blood, than surrender so easily the booty they had got with so much danger of their lives,’ Esquemeling tells us.
While they had all decided to fight, how were they going to do it? According to Esquemeling, one of the buccaneers in the crowd suggested they could defeat the Magdalen by using a fireship manned with only twelve men. The vessel proposed for this fireship was the one that had been taken in the river of Gibraltar. To fool the Spanish they needed to fill the decks with logs of wood, standing upright and wearing hats and caps, which from the flagship would look like men on the deck. Portholes were to be cut and logs stuck out from them to make the ship look like it had more guns than it actually had. Finishing off the deception, the buccaneers hung English colours at the stern, ‘to persuade the enemy she is one of our best men-of-war going to fight them.’6
The buccaneers agreed to the plan and Morgan ordered the preparations for the fireship to start immediately. In the meantime, he would try once again to negotiate with Don Alonso. It would be far better to leave the lake without losing any ships from his fleet or men. He sent two people under a flag of truce to Don Alonso. Morgan knew that he had something to offer. He still had all the slaves taken from Gibraltar, plus the Spanish hostages taken in lieu of the outstanding ransom that still needed to be paid and, finally, there was the town of Maracaibo that he still held. Don Alonso’s reply to Morgan’s original demands had mentioned none of these. So Morgan proposed that for safe passage for his men and his ships he would leave Maracaibo untouched, release the slaves and the four prisoners from Gibraltar without paying any ransom. This was the proposal the two men gave to Don Alonso.
The Spanish admiral rejected the proposals out of hand and sent back a message to Morgan that said, ‘If they [the buccaneers] surrendered not themselves voluntarily into his hands, within two days, under the conditions which he had offered them by his letter, he would immediately come and force them to do it.’7
So now Morgan would have to fight. The preparations were well under way. According to Esquemeling, all the slaves and prisoners were tied up and placed under guard, while the rest of the buccaneers scoured the town gathering up as much ‘pitch, tar and brimstone they could find’.
‘Likewise, they made several inventions of powder and brimstone, with great quantities of palm leaves very well anointed,’ Esquemeling wrote. Under each of the logs disguised as cannon they laid large amounts of powder and cut holes in the ship to ensure that once ignited the powder would have a maximum blast range.
Thus they broke open also new portholes where, instead of guns, they placed little drums of which the negroes make use. Finally the decks were handsomely beset with many pieces of wood dressed up in the shape of men with hats, as monteros,8 and likewise armed with swords muskets and bandoleers.9
Morgan ordered that the prisoners should be put into one of the bigger boats while the women, ‘plate, jewels, and other rich things’ were put into the largest boat. Other vessels were loaded with bulkier goods and, as Esquemeling tells us, ‘each of these boats, had twelve men aboard, very well armed.’ Morgan then called his men together and roused them to fight to the last drop of blood and give the Spanish no quarter.
Fully prepared, on the evening of 29 April 1669 Morgan and the buccaneers were ready to sail. The fireship would go first and head directly towards the largest of the three Spanish ships, the Magdalen, and the rest of the buccaneer fleet would split up and attack the other two Spanish ships, with Morgan leading the attack on the second largest ship, the thirty-eight-gun Santa Louisa.
On 30 April the buccaneers set sail covering 20 miles before they came within sight of the Spanish men-of-war anchored across the channel. By this time the light was fading and rather than attack at night, Morgan ordered his fleet to drop their anchors. The attack would take place in the early morning.
As the day dawned the Spanish watched as the English fleet came sailing towards them with the fireship in the lead. Of course at this point there was no hint of flame, no sign of any smoke to give away the ruse. The fireship headed directly for the Magdalen. According to Pope this was a classic move where a ship would steer directly for the enemy ship and, at the last moment, turn to fire its broadside at the other vessel.10
Indeed, the Magdalen did fire some shots at the approaching ship but her Spanish gun crews were waiting for the fireship to turn so they could destroy the smaller vessel with a broadside. From the yards and rigging the fireship had many grapples hanging loosely on ropes so they would catch the Magdalen’s rigging and force the two ships to come together so the fire could have maximum effect.
As the fireship approached within a few yards of the Magdalen the Spanish realized they’d been duped. Smoke poured out from the hatches as explosions throughout the fireship suddenly erupted. The few buccaneers on board ran aft and dived into the water, climbing into their boat that had been towed behind the fireship. Burning tar and pitch and pieces of blazing wood flew into the air from the explosions landing on the Spanish ship, the flames spreading like wildfire. Using whatever they could find the Spanish frantically tried to push the burning fireship away but it was no use. The powder under each of the logs that had been used to represent guns ignited, sending the burning logs onto the decks of the Magdalen. No matter what the Spanish did they were doomed as quite suddenly the flames on the fireship reached the magazine and the resulting explosion tore the ship apart, sending flaming wreckage all over the Magdalen. ‘The flame seizing her timber and tackling soon consumed all the stern, the fore part sinking into the sea, where she perished.’11
The captain of the second Spanish ship, Santa Louisa, realizing that the flagship was lost and there was a high probability of another fireship coming for his vessel, cut his cable and sailed the ship directly for the beach and for San Carlos Castle, ‘where the Spaniards themselves sunk her, choosing to lose their ship rather than fall into the hands of the pirates.’ This ship, according to Esquemeling, was also set on fire so that the buccaneers could not salvage anything from her. However, the third ship, La Marquesa, had no chance to escape as the buccaneers boarded her and took her crew prisoner.
Morgan now ordered his men to take the boats and look for survivors. When the flames had enveloped the Magdalen many of her crew had jumped into the water to avoid the fire and they now clung to whatever wreckage they could. They would not accept any help from the English. ‘They would not ask or take any quarter, choosing rather to lose their lives than receive them from their hands,’ wrote Esquemeling.12 Don Alonso had managed to escape the flames and make his way to the castle.
One of the prisoners that Morgan found was a pilot who was not Spanish and was happy to answer any questions Morgan put to him. It was this man who related the story of how the Spanish men-of-war came to be anchored in the channel waiting for Morgan under Don Alonso’s command. The pilot told Morgan how, when Don Alonso had received Morgan’s refusal to surrender, he ‘gave a very good supper to all his people; he ordered them not to take or give any quarter.’ This Morgan now knew accounted for so many of the Spanish floating in the water refusing to be saved, choosing to drown instead.
With such a resounding victory many of the buccaneers ran ashore intending to take the castle but were repulsed by heavy and accurate fire from the Spanish gunners. ‘This they found very well provided with men, great cannon and ammunition—they having no other arms than muskets and a few fireballs in their hands.’13
For the rest of the day the buccaneers fired at the castle with their muskets. Under the cover of darkness they stealthily moved up to the walls to throw in their fireballs, but the Spanish fire was just too great for them to succeed. Having lost many men in the process they eventually gave up and returned to their ships.
Morgan transferred his flag over to the La Marquesa, a much larger and faster ship than the fourteen-gun vessel he’d been using after the destruction of the Oxford. He turned again to the pilot, who also told him that there had been considerable gold plate and other riches on the Magdalen when it went down. Morgan ordered one of his ships to anchor as close to it as possible and begin salvage operations. The ship Morgan dispatched set about recovering as much of the ship’s treasure as possible while doing its best to keep out of range of the guns from San Carlos Castle.
So while the salvage operations were going on, and those Spanish who would be pulled from the water were taken prisoner, Morgan still had a bigger problem. How was he going to sail his fleet intact past the guns of the castle into open sea with all of the booty they’d taken?
He might have won a great victory but it would be a hollow one if he and his men remained trapped and unable to get home.