Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/144

 1664 to become Governor-General of Jamaica, but his death occurred in the following year. There are gaps in Morgan's life, and there has been some confusion caused by others possessing the same surname. But it appears pretty certain now that in the year 1663 Henry Morgan was at sea in command of a privateer. Even by this time he had begun to be an expert in depredation and in sacking some of the Caribbean towns, and striking terror into the hearts of the wretched inhabitants. We may pass over these minor events and come to the time when, his uncle having died, Sir Thomas Modyford was sent out from England as Lieutenant-Governor. Bear in mind that intense hatred of the Spanish prevailing at this time, and which had not been by any means quenched by the defeat of the Armada. To put it mildly, the Caribbean Sea was an Anglo-Spanish cockpit where many and many a fight had taken, and was still to take, place. Modyford wanted the island of Curaçoa to be taken, and there was then no better man to do the job than a very celebrated buccaneer named Edward Mansfield. Sir Thomas therefore commissioned Mansfield to seize this island. He got together a strong naval expedition and accomplished the task early in the year 1666, Henry Morgan being in command of one of Mansfield's ships.

Off the Nicaraguan coast lies an island which has been called at different times Santa Catalina or Providence Island. This had been taken from the English by the Spaniards more than twenty years before, and Morgan was also present when Mansfield now recaptured it. A small garrison was left to occupy it, and Mansfield returned with his ships to Jamaica. But before long Santa Catalina fell again into the hands of the Spaniards, and Mansfield died. It is now that Morgan's career begins to come into the