Toast of the Town
But fears all may be lost if they have not a frigate or two to defend the island. It is impossible to raise privateers against the Dutch that have neither country nor merchants to take, and one caper of thirty or forty guns might exceedingly harass them, because our best settlements are all round the island along the coasts.1
On 4 July 1672, the Welcome anchored off Spithead and Captain Keane immediately sent word that the ship had arrived and that his two prisoners, pirate Captain Francis Witherborn, who was condemned to death, and Admiral Henry Morgan, were very ill. Indeed, Morgan had been getting sicker by the day as they drew closer to England. Morgan was used to high tropical temperatures and the weather dropped by a degree with each passing day. To make matters worse, the Welcome was a damp, leaky vessel so for Morgan there was nowhere on the ship for him to stay warm.
Back in Jamaica Lynch was alarmed at the news of war with the Dutch and he wrote, on 6 July, to the king asking for help. Instead of walking the fine line that Modyford had done with the buccaneers, keeping them close but with some degree of control during peace so that he had them there for war, Lynch had sentenced those privateers he could and executed them. Indeed, many hung from gibbets along the coast. Lynch believed that trading with the Spanish and appeasing them was in the best interests of Jamaica and that the buccaneers were the main obstacle to achieving that end.
Lynch had been in Jamaica a year and within the first few days of his arrival he’d written in his first letter that there was no money in the treasury, the sugar cane and cocoa crops were poor, and two Royal Navy vessels would cow the buccaneers. Yet by November 1671 his letters to Lord Arlington were more urgent, saying that he had declared martial law and was funding preparations to fend off a Spanish invasion. He called his first assembly in January 1672 and by February wrote to Lord Arlington that the assembly had refused to pay for rebuilding fortifications on the island. The following month he wrote to Arlington stating that he felt the people were content. Then in July 1672 came the letter that included the quote that begins this chapter, with Lynch begging for a couple of frigates to defend the island, otherwise ‘all would be lost.’
To make matters worse, a hurricane hit Jamaica in September 1672 and by November Lynch had received word from London that attacks on Jamaica from the Dutch fleet were imminent.2
In London, Modyford remained in the Tower, where prisoners had been tortured and murdered since the jail had been built. Yet Modyford was a prisoner without a charge and though he was not mistreated, he remained in this cold, damp, stone prison.
Morgan, on the other hand, had the freedom of London, where he had to pay for his own lodgings, food and clothing. He was free because of a change in the political winds. The war against the Dutch Protestants had not progressed as well as had been planned. Indeed, the French had advanced rapidly up the coast towards the Scheldt and the Dutch rallied; using guerrilla tactics they opened the dykes to flood their countryside, halting the French advance in its tracks. The battle of Sole Bay between the English and the Dutch fleets was a costly stalemate, with both sides claiming victory. With the war going badly, ‘the English commoners were growing weary of battle, and with weariness came irritation. Why was the nation expending its money and the lives of its youth on fighting good Dutch Protestants?’3
England was essentially a Protestant nation and the Dutch should have been their natural allies against Catholic France and Catholic Spain but it was the other way round and as the war dragged on the old hatred of Catholicism and France began to rear its head. King Charles II had taken a Catholic mistress and others in the court had converted.
‘Jailing Morgan would only have incensed Charles’s anti-Catholic critics, and so he stayed out of prison.’4
Also, this was not the England he’d left as a young man. This was the Restoration and London was buzzing in a similar way that Port Royal did when the buccaneers came back from an expedition with their pockets full of riches. There was hard drinking, open displays of wealth, extravagant and colourful dress and loose morals; to Morgan it must have seemed very familiar except that it was 30 degrees colder than Jamaica.
Because of the alliance with France, London fashion and fetishes were towards everything Catholic and French. London’s wealthy wore French wigs, spoke in French, read Catholic novels and patronized French and Spanish theatre. This was the environment that Morgan found himself in upon leaving the Welcome when he’d been released pending a trial.
Yet, though he was free, Morgan was not free of the fever and while he waited for his case to be decided he spent ‘his time being feted in London taverns and coffee houses, gambling and going to the races and theatre, and also visited his relatives in Wales.’5
Morgan’s victories were the only real successes that England had against their enemies during this time so he was hugely popular. Perhaps because of his popularity many people wanted to help him, including William Morgan, a relative. William Morgan was the lieutenant deputy to Lord Monmouth and he wrote to the Privy Council to plead Morgan’s case:
I have a very good character of him, and in the management of the late business to Panama he behaved with as much prudence, fidelity and resolution as could be reasonably expected . . . and all good men would be troubled if a person of his loyalty and consideration as to His Majesty’s affairs in those parts should fall for want of friends to assist him.6
Help also came from another very powerful individual Morgan met during the round of dinners, drinking and socializing. It came from the young Christopher Monck, Duke of Albemarle, son of General Monck and one of Modyford’s relatives. The general, the old duke, had helped to restore Charles to the throne and became one of the most influential and richest men in England. Now, Christopher, the second Duke of Albemarle, inherited his father’s wealth, influence and power. Because of his father’s very close ties with the king, the young duke, in his late teens, also had the same closeness as his father had with the king. Morgan was thirty-seven and the young Albemarle only nineteen when they met.7
Albemarle was a Member of Parliament, on the Privy Council and one of the Lords of Trade and Plantations who had the ear of the king. He had worked hard to have his relative Modyford released from the Tower, which took place in 1673. He had also promised to help Morgan, who was a frequent guest at Albemarle House, regaling attentive listeners with the stories of his expeditions—how the governor of Panama had, in a vain attempt to save his city, forced out hundreds of cattle to try to stop the advancing buccaneers, or how he had managed to sail past the Spanish at Maracaibo without fighting them. ‘These were stories that won Morgan the hearts of ladies and the envy of other men.’8 Why? The stories Morgan told impressed his audiences because they were true; these events had happened and he had been the one that had made them happen. As Dudley Pope states, they were accounts of expeditions that had been ‘well planned’.9
In the fashionable drawing rooms of London and at Albemarle House, Morgan told his eager listeners how, with 10,000 men, the whole of the West Indies could be conquered. The young duke of course made sure that everything Morgan said about the West Indies went directly back to the king.
By August of 1673 the war with the Dutch was still going badly. The Dutch could sail out of Curaçao at any time and threaten British colonies in the West Indies. ‘The unappeased Spanish were still a threat; even the French could not be trusted. But with Morgan thousands of miles away, the privateers could not be called on to defend the island, as Lynch had so alienated the Brethren that they would not come to the country’s defence.’10
With the changes in the threats facing the West Indies, the king and Secretary of State Lord Arlington were forced into a reversal of the earlier policy where they had, to appease the Spanish, arrested Modyford and put him in the Tower, brought Morgan home as a prisoner and put Lynch, an appeaser, in charge in Jamaica. From his letters begging for more frigates, it was clear Lynch was not up to the job. He had alienated the privateers whereas Modyford had shrewdly kept them close by as Jamaica’s private army and navy, led by Henry Morgan.
In July 1673, the king, through Lord Arlington, asked Morgan to draw up a memorandum on his ideas for the defence of Jamaica. He’d heard of Morgan’s exploits through Albemarle and now the king seemed to be interested in what Morgan had to say. Topping Morgan’s list were twenty large iron guns and ammunition to supply the batteries at Port Royal and a fifth-rate frigate to take him back to Jamaica. Morgan was called into to see the king and they went over his points. ‘The meeting went so well that he was later presented with a snuff box bearing the king’s profile done in small diamonds.’11
In his book Admiral Sir Henry Morgan: The Greatest Buccaneer of Them All, Terry Breverton states that Morgan wanted to clear his name and that he complained to the king that he had not had a chance to put his case forward. His wishes were fulfilled and he had an informal hearing where he and others gave evidence in front of the Lords of Trade and Plantations. Breverton tells us that the king personally saw the evidence, which was, at best, inconclusive. ‘Modyford could prove that he had sent a messenger to the Isle des Vaches [Île à Vache] to tell Morgan that there was a truce with Spain. Morgan could prove that the messages were returned with their seals unbroken.’12 No one who had been on the expedition was called during the hearing to testify to Morgan’s whereabouts when these messages allegedly arrived. He was then obliged to meet with the king and provide his personal account and answer a few questions.
The complaints against him were largely about the sharing of the booty from the Panama expedition. In Morgan’s defence he had the letter from William Morgan testifying to his good character, the letter from Major Bannister who had written about Morgan’s noble service. Albemarle too had been lobbying for Morgan’s name to be cleared.
However, the Spanish ambassador claimed that even if Morgan had not known about the signing of the Treaty of Madrid the commission he’d been given from Modyford did not permit him to undertake land campaigns against the Spanish. Morgan replied that there was a phrase within the commission that gave him the authority to do whatever necessary in order to ensure his men were paid from the booty they’d plundered.
Then a ministerial secretary suggested that ‘by marching and giving battle in military formation had not the accused arrogated the privileges of His Majesty’s Army and thus made an official act of war?’
Morgan replied that it ‘was a war to end a war’. As he saw it he had to continue the work he’d done at Portobello and Maracaibo. ‘That pestiferous nest of Panama had to be wiped out to stop Spanish aggression.’
‘Why did you not believe the Spanish when they told you that there was peace between our two nations?’ came the next question.
Morgan casually answered that he couldn’t remember if he’d been told that. ‘I would have disbelieved it anyway because my experience shows that the Spanish are liars.’
King Charles II, according to Breverton, was said to explode with laughter after Morgan’s last remark, which ended the hearing.13
Morgan’s expeditions had brought riches for the king as well as for his brother, the Duke of York, also the Admiral of the Fleet. Both men had gained financially from Morgan’s successes. The verdict from the hearings came from the closest advisors to the king, the so-called Cabal, consisting of Lords Arlington, Ashley, Buckingham, Clifford and Lauderdale, and the result was—not proven. Morgan was free and the complaints against him now gone.14
Charles and his inner circle realized they needed Morgan back in Jamaica, that they needed a strong firm hand on the rudder to ensure Jamaica’s success.
On 6 November, few days after the hearing, Morgan heard that he was to be deputy governor of Jamaica and later the same month he was knighted. The official announcement of his commission as deputy governor of Jamaica came on 23 January, when Lord Arlington, addressing the Council of Trade and Plantations, announced that the new governor of Jamaica would be the Earl of Carlisle and that Sir Henry Morgan would be his deputy.