Note XXVIII‑23 — Chapter XXVIII · MORGAN'S RAIDS ON THE ISTHMUS. 1664-1671.

All the leading authorities agree that the prisoners were subjected to excruciating torture. The author of Sharp's Voyages makes an attempt to clear Morgan's character, and to throw ridicule on the story of these atrocities. The work was published in London in 1684, a few years after Morgan was knighted by Charles II. The writer collected his materials in part from inquiry among the buccaneers themselves, and may therefore be worthy of credence in some matters of detail; but the fact that 16 out of 20 pages of preface are taken up with a sorry effort 'to rescue the Honour of that incomparable Souldier and Seaman,' while the narrative of the raid on Panamá occupies but 20 out of 170 pages, seems to show the purpose for which it was written.