Note 408 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Footnote 408:
(return)
Sloane MSS., 2752, f. 29; S.P. Spain, vol. 65, f. 121. According to the latter account, which seems to be derived from a Spanish source, the loss suffered by the city amounted to about 100,000 pieces of eight, over half of which was plunder carried away by the freebooters. Thirteen of the inhabitants were killed and four wounded, and of the buccaneers thirty were killed.
Dampier writes concerning this first irruption of the buccaneers into the Pacific:—"Before my first going over into the South Seas with Captain Sharp ... I being then on Board Captain Coxon, in company with 3 or 4 more Privateers, about 4 leagues to the East of Portobel, we took the Pacquets bound thither from Cartagena. We open'd a great quantity of the Merchants Letters, and found ... the Merchants of several parts of Old Spain thereby informing their Correspondents of Panama and elsewhere of a certain Prophecy that went about Spain that year, the Tenour of which was, That there would be English Privateers that Year in the West Indies, who would ... open a Door into the South Seas; which they supposed was fastest shut: and the Letters were accordingly full of Cautions to their Friends to be very watchful and careful of their Coasts.
"This Door they spake of we all concluded must be the Passage over Land through the Country of the Indians of Darien, who were a little before this become our Friends, and had lately fallen out with the Spaniards, ... and upon calling to mind the frequent Invitations we had from these Indians a little before this time, to pass through their Country, and fall upon the Spaniards in the South Seas, we from henceforward began to entertain such thoughts in earnest, and soon came to a Resolution to make those Attempts which we afterwards did, ... so that the taking these Letters gave the first life to those bold undertakings: and we took the advantage of the fears the Spaniards were in from that Prophecy ... for we sealed up most of the Letters again, and sent them ashore to Portobel."—Ed. 1906, I. pp. 200-201.