Note (return) — Chapter VI

These same privateers, however, were soon out upon a much larger design. Six captains, Sharp, Coxon, Essex, Allison, Row, and Maggott, in four barques and two sloops, met at Point Morant in December 1679, and on 7th January set sail for Porto Bello. They were scattered by a terrible storm, but all eventually reached their rendezvous in safety. There they picked up another barque commanded by Captain Cooke, who had sailed from Jamaica on the same design, and likewise a French privateering vessel commanded by Captain Lessone. They set out for Porto Bello in canoes with over 300 men, and landing twenty leagues from the town, marched for four days along the seaside toward the city. Coming to an Indian village about three miles from Porto Bello, they were discovered by the natives, and one of the Indians ran to the city, crying, "Ladrones! ladrones!" The buccaneers, although "many of them were weak, being three days without any food, and their feet cut with the rocks for want of shoes," made all speed for the town, which they entered without difficulty on 17th February 1680. Most of the inhabitants sought refuge in the castle, whence they made a counter-attack without success upon the invaders. On the evening of the following day, the buccaneers retreated with their prisoners and booty down to a cay or small island about three and a half leagues from Porto Bello, where they were joined by their ships. They had just left in time to avoid a force of some 700 Spanish troops who were sent from Panama and arrived the day after the buccaneers departed. After capturing two Spanish vessels bound for Porto Bello with provisions from Cartagena, they divided the plunder, of which each man received 100 pieces of eight, and departed for Boca del Toro some fifty leagues to the north. There they careened and provisioned, and being joined by two other Jamaican privateers commanded by Sawkins and Harris, sailed for Golden Island, whence on 5th April 1680, with 334 men, they began their march across the Isthmus of Darien to the coasts of Panama and the South Seas.408