The Battle at San Lorenzo
Had it not been an Accident, which determined them to surrender, it would probably have repelled all their Assaults.1
Was it good tactics or good strategy for Morgan to send a small force to Chagres before the main fleet arrived? Such a strategy would certainly give him the intelligence he needed of the area and if the men he sent could secure a foothold and take the castle then the move downriver to Panama itself would be much easier, knowing that their escape route was covered. Could Morgan have been thinking of Maracaibo, where his fleet had been trapped, and he didn’t want that to happen again?
Perhaps the real question here is, why didn’t Morgan go with this fleet with the idea of bringing the rest of the men and ships to Chagres Castle once it was taken? Would not his charisma and ability to lead have been paramount for the men in the task of taking Chagres?
We could ask many questions about why Morgan chose to send a small force to Chagres without actually going and leading that force himself. The work taking place on Old Providence and the smaller island of Santa Catalina was not as important as ensuring a safe passage for the fleet to Panama. But perhaps there were other reasons for Morgan wanting to stay on Old Providence.
If we remember back to when Colonel Mansfield originally took Old Providence and left a small garrison there, which was subsequently captured by the Spanish, there was some doubt as to whether or not Morgan was on that expedition. If he had been, then perhaps his remaining on the island while sending a small fleet to Chagres was to ensure that every last piece of Spanish presence was removed or torn down in retribution for the way the English prisoners had been treated by the Spanish in Portobello. Perhaps he wanted to ensure that this time the English presence would remain on this island.
Whatever his reasons, Morgan remained behind while Bradley’s little fleet set sail for Chagres.
However, across the world in Europe the times were changing and these changes would have a deep effect on both Morgan and Modyford as well as on buccaneering itself. Sir William Godolphin, who had for some considerable time been negotiating a peace treaty between Spain and Britain, finally signed the treaty in Madrid on 11 July 1670. Key to this treaty was the recognition by Spain of the territories and lands in the Americas and the West Indies already occupied by Britain. For Jamaica it meant that Spain had given up her claim to the island. It was now British. It also meant that both countries would cease hostilities and that the task of dealing with the buccaneers and stopping their raids into Spanish territories now lay firmly on British shoulders.
It would not be until 18 November that the treaty was ratified in London and once this was done it would take another eight months for the treaty to be published throughout the colonies. So it was a little more than a year from the day it was signed in Madrid that it arrived in Jamaica.
With the new treaty signed Lord Arlington now decided it was time to get rid of Modyford and put someone in place that would not be so friendly towards the buccaneers. After all, the situation had changed and there was now no threat to Jamaica.
Thomas Lynch had been the Chief Justice in Jamaica five years previously and since Modyford dismissed him he’d travelled to London and stayed there, even though he had a large plantation on the island. For Arlington, Lynch was ideal—he came from a good family in Kent, was the grandson of a bishop and was still a youngish man at thirty-eight. Like Morgan, he’d originally gone to Jamaica with Venables.
In September 1670, Lynch was told he would be the next lieutenant governor of Jamaica. He could not be appointed governor while Modyford remained in office. On 3 December, Lynch was knighted by the king and a few days later married the daughter of Sir Edward Herbert. The woman in question, Vere, was also the sister of the Earl of Torrington, so not only had Lynch come from a respectable family, he had married into another respectable family. Shortly afterwards he received two important documents, one was his commission and the other contained the orders to strip Modyford of his commission as governor of Jamaica.
Of course, Morgan knew nothing of this. Modyford had an inkling of the changes in London through the private letters he’d received from his son, Charles. Even though he knew that the treaty had been signed he had no official letter from London. Undaunted, he set about writing to Arlington, building his case, telling him that he:
had despatched to the Admiral, before the first of these expresses arrived, a copy of the articles of peace with Spain, intimating that though he had them from private hands and no orders to call him in, yet thought fit to let him see them, and to advise him to mind His Lordship’s letter of 10 June, and to do nothing that might prevent the accomplishment of His Majesty’s peaceable intentions; but the vessel returned with Modyford’s letters, having missed him at his old rendezvous, however, has returned her to the main with strict instructions to find the Admiral out.2
While Modyford was doing his best to ensure he justified his actions to Lord Arlington, Morgan was hundreds of miles away on Old Providence planning the next phase of the Panama expedition. He’d just dispatched Bradley in three ships with 400 men to take and secure the mouth of the Chagres River. That meant, of course, taking San Lorenzo Castle.
According to Dudley Pope, there were two routes the buccaneers could take for crossing the isthmus to get to Panama. The first was the route down the Chagres River to Venta de Cruze and then onto Panama by foot, horse or mule. The second was by using a narrow track or path from the city of Portobello to Venta de Cruz. It is here that the Chagres River and the land route meet. Now the land route could only be used in the dry season but the Spanish used that route for transporting their gold and silver by horse or mule as they did not want to risk losing valuable cargo such as this in the river in a capsize or being swept away by currents. Since Morgan’s last attack on Portobello he knew that the Spanish would have greatly increased the defences around the town, so using the land route was not a practical option.3 That left the Chagres River route and the attack and capture of San Lorenzo Castle.
We have a description of the entrance to the Chagres River and of San Lorenzo Castle, mainly from Esquemeling, but also from our other sources. The castle itself had been built on the north side of the mouth of the river. The castle, or fort, was not a single structure but more of a sprawling affair built on different levels as distinct but connected structures on the first of three peninsulas that jutted out into the river. ‘The castle is built on a high mountain at the entry of the river, surrounded by strong palisades, or wooden walls, filled with earth, which secures them as well as the best wall of stone or brick,’ wrote Esquemeling.
He goes on to state that on the northern side of the mouth of the river, the castle is ‘surrounded by the river, which here is very broad’. At the foot of the mountain a fort had been built to house eight large guns ‘commanding the entry of the river’. Lower down, closer to the water’s edge, were two batteries of six guns each, which were for defending the mouth of the river. ‘At one side of the castle are two great storehouses of all sorts of warlike ammunition and merchandize, brought thither from the island country. Near these houses is a high pair of stairs hewn out of the rock, to mount to the top of the castle.’ These stairs were the only way up to the castle. At the top of the mountain where the castle sat, a ditch divided the peak into two parts and Esquemeling tells us it was some 30 feet deep. The only way to get into the castle was by using the drawbridge that the Spanish had built over the ditch.4 In addition, on the westward side was a small port, which was capable of anchoring small vessels only, ‘besides, before the castle, at the entry of the river, is a great rock, scarce to be described but at low tide.’5
Why go into such detail in describing this place? Morgan doesn’t in his official report but Esquemeling does. The idea here is to show just how much work the Spanish had done to fortify their territory and how seriously they took the threat of Morgan and the buccaneers. But, more importantly, it is to show the magnitude of Morgan’s task and what the cost would be for him to take and secure this castle.
When Bradley arrived in the Mayflower just off the entrance to the river, the Spanish began firing their cannon at the three ships. Bradley soon realized that he was completely outgunned. While the Spanish guns bellowed, Bradley surveyed the fort and the cliffs through his telescope. There was no way he could attack from the sea. The cliff was steep, the rock sheer and slippery, not to mention the guns—especially the battery closest to the water; they would destroy the small boats he would have to use to make a seaward landing.
Ruling out the sea, he decided to attack by land and sailed further up the coast until ‘they came to anchor in a small port, about a league from the castle,’ wrote Esquemeling. The following morning, Bradley led his 400 buccaneers from the shore on a march through thick jungle. The men hacked their way through the ‘mire and dirt’ and the vicious undergrowth of the humid jungle. This exhausting march lasted until two o’clock in the afternoon, when they suddenly found themselves in a clearing very close to the fort, despite the fact that their guides ‘had served them very exactly.’ The Spanish sentries on the fort immediately opened fire on the buccaneers ‘that they lost many of their men by its shot, they being in an open place without cover.’6
From his study of the fort Bradley had seen that the walls were made with wood and earth, which would be difficult to breach under normal circumstances. However, if the wooden planks of the walls were set on fire they would eventually collapse as they burnt; the earth would also collapse and that would create breaches through which the buccaneers could rush in and take the castle. That was Bradley’s plan and it was the reason why the buccaneers had brought so many fireballs or fire pots with them. These weapons were made of either cast iron or pottery, filled with combustible materials and set alight by cloth being stuffed into the opening and lit just before they were thrown at the target.
However, Bradley had lost part of his force in the first melee when they’d arrived out in the open in front of the fort. He had men dead and wounded, and the first attack in daylight using the fireballs had failed. ‘They advanced towards the castle with their swords in one hand, and fireballs in the other. The Spanish defended themselves very briskly, ceasing not to fire at them continually,’ wrote Esquemeling of the first attack. ‘The pirates making some trial to climb the walls, were forced to retreat, resting themselves till night.’
The night attack was a different story. While the snipers of the buccaneers concentrated on the Spanish soldiers the rest hurled fireballs at the walls and the gate. A fire started somewhere inside the castle, though how it started is unclear.
One of the pirates being wounded with an arrow in his back, which pierced his body through, he pulled it out boldly at the side of his breast, and winding a little cotton about it, he put it into his musket, and shot it back to the castle; but the cotton being kindled by the powder, fired two or three houses in the castle, being thatched with palm-leaves, which the Spaniards perceived not so soon as was necessary; for this fire meeting with a parcel of powder, blew it up, thereby causing great ruin, and no less consternation to the Spaniards, who were not able to put a stop to it, not having seen it time enough.7
Whether or not this story is true is debatable. It could be another of Esquemeling’s embellishments. The fact that one of the buccaneers was able to pull an arrow that had gone through his body out from the side of his chest seems a little over the top, especially when this same man had the foresight to wrap cotton around the shaft of the arrow and then fire it with his musket back into the castle. The pain and shock of having the arrow go through him and be stuck in him could have made it difficult for him to think clearly. But then, these men were hardy, much hardier than we are in the twenty-first century, so perhaps it was true—or partly true.
But the significance of this fire is that it was the beginning of the end for the Spanish because they soon found themselves surrounded by flames. Wherever they could, the buccaneers set fire to the planks, while the Spanish inside the castle tried desperately to put the fire out, ‘which caused great confusion because of their want of water,’ wrote Esquemeling, who continued to set the scene. ‘The fire thus seen at once in several parts about the castle, gave them great advantage against the Spaniards, many breaches being made by the fire among the pales, great heaps of earth falling into the ditch.’
By midnight the fire was out of control and most of the walls had collapsed. The Spanish continued to resist but the buccaneers would ‘creep on the ground, as near as they could, and shoot amidst the flames against the Spaniards on the other side, and thus killed many of them from the walls.’8
For Bradley this was a waiting game. By morning there were massive breaches in the walls, and where they had collapsed the earth had fallen into the ditch, creating earthen bridges for the pirates to cross. The governor of the castle, Don Pedro de Lisardo, had ordered his guns to be moved to cover these large gaps but it was to no avail. By this point the buccaneer snipers were picking off the gunners as they moved the cannon and tried to fire. Pedro de Lisardo took twenty-five men and defended one of the gaps but was killed along with most of his men. With that the buccaneers stormed in and took the castle. Most of the Spanish had been killed.
Understanding that the Castle of Chagraw blocked the way, it was determined to attack it, which was done by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bradley with 470 men, who after fighting in the trenches from three o’clock till eight the next morning, stormed the place. The enemy refused quarter, which cost them 360 men, while ours lost thirty killed and seventy-six wounded, whereof the brave Bradley was one, who died ten days after. Leaving 300 men to guard the castle and ships under Major Richard Norman, they started on 9 January 1671, with 1,400 men in seven ships and thirty-six boats up the river.9
When the Spanish surrendered to the buccaneers they found that only thirty of the entire Spanish garrison of 314 troops remained alive, and of these, twenty were wounded. All thirty were taken prisoner by the buccaneers. Interestingly, not one officer had survived.
However, upon demanding of the prisoners that they tell them everything they knew, the buccaneers soon realized they’d lost the element of surprise. Eight or nine of the Spanish soldiers in the lower gun emplacements had deserted and headed straight for Panama with news of the buccaneer invasion. Worse was to come. A deserter from the buccaneers during the operation at Rio de la Hache had made his way to Panama with news that the English and French buccaneers under Morgan were assembling a fleet to attack Panama.
The governor of Panama, Don Juan Perez de Guzman, might have been a sick man with erysipelas (an acute bacterial skin infection), but his mind was clear enough to understand what the news meant. He sent an additional 164 men to reinforce the garrison of 150 men at San Lorenzo. In addition, he’d sent another 200 men to reinforce the garrison at Portobello should the buccaneers land there. All these men, according to Esquemeling, had been given ‘much provision and ammunition’. The buccaneers also discovered from the Spanish captives that the governor had ordered ambushes be placed at key points along the Chagres River and ‘that he waited for them in the open fields of Panama with 3,600 men.’ This would have included artillery, cavalry and infantry so an extremely formidable force up against the relatively lightly armed buccaneers.
While the cost of the battle had been horrendous for the Spanish it had also been bad for the buccaneers. They’d lost a quarter of the men they landed with and Captain Bradley was mortally wounded. Those buccaneers who were fit to work began moving downriver to Chagres town, rounding up slaves and others they could find to get them to work on rebuilding San Lorenzo Castle. With Bradley so ill, Captain Richard Norman took over as commander. He must have wondered why on earth Morgan was taking so long to arrive.
Back at Old Providence Morgan had not been idle. He was doing all he could to ensure that the island, and especially Santa Catalina, the smaller island, was made ready to be ‘the perpetual possession of the pirates’, according to Esquemeling. He also ‘embarked all the provisions that could be found, with much maize, or Indian wheat, and cazave, whereof also is made bread in those parts.’ So while he made the entire fleet ready to depart, he ordered that all the houses and forts on Santa Catalina be burnt, with the exception of St Teresa, ‘which he judged to be the strongest and securest wherein to fortify himself at his return from Panama.’10
By New Year’s Day 1671, the Mayflower and her two consorts had sailed into the river and anchored so they were protected by the guns of the fort, battery and castle. To get to this anchorage they had to gingerly sail around the ‘great rock’ that Esquemeling wrote about, which could not be seen except at low tide and Dudley Pope refers to as Laja Reef.
Work had been under way on rebuilding the walls since 29 December, shovelling back the earth between the wooden walls in order to get the castle back into working order. The following day, when the lookouts on the walls of San Lorenzo finally spotted the sails of Morgan’s fleet, a great feeling of relief swept through the buccaneers. They watched as Morgan’s flagship, the Satisfaction, led a fleet of more than thirty ships towards the mouth of the river. It had taken the fleet eight days to sail from Old Providence to the mouth of the Chagres River on the Isthmus of Panama.
From the walls of the castle the buccaneers could clearly see the reef under the surface of the water, but Morgan and the men onboard the Satisfaction couldn’t have seen it as they were heading straight for it. With a sudden jolt and grinding crash the ship hit the reef, as did the Port Royal and two other ships coming in behind it. Immediately, the buccaneers of the stricken ships managed to board their boats and take off most of the provisions and powder before the ships were broken up on the rocks. The provisions Morgan had carefully overseen at Old Providence had been saved. Morgan had decided to leave 150 men garrisoned in San Lorenzo to protect the fleet, where another 150 men were left.11 This was his escape route once they’d achieved what they had set out to do.
‘Captain Morgan was brought into the castle with great acclamations of all the pirates, both of those within, and those newly come,’ writes Esquemeling. Indeed, he states that in the river were some Spanish ships that were probably coastal vessels, each with two large iron guns and four smaller brass cannon. These vessels were largely used to carry goods up and down the river and along the coast to Portobello and Nicaragua. Along with these ships, the buccaneers also captured four smaller vessels and all the canoes they could find.
As the rest of the fleet skirted around Laja Reef and anchored under the guns of the battery and the fort, Morgan inspected the work being done on San Lorenzo. He needed this castle to be strong and fortified enough to withstand an attack by the Spanish and so ordered that all the prisoners, including those he’d brought with him from Old Providence, be put to work on the rebuilding.
Now his attention turned to Panama. He would take 1,200 men and lead them to Panama carrying ‘little provisions with him, hoping to provide himself sufficiently among the Spaniards, whom he knew to lie in ambuscades by the way.’12
However, before he left he had one last task to do—bury an old friend. Charles Bradley had died.