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Morgan were confined in the dungeons of the castle, and among them, according to popular rumour, Prince Maurice. The French who were with him refused to join in the attack, which seemed too hazardous; but on 26 June Morgan, leaving his ships some distance to the westward, rowed along the coast with twenty-three canoes, and landed about three o'clock next morning. The place was defended by three forts, the first of which was carried at once by escalade, and the garrison put to the sword. The second, to which the Spanish governor had retreated, offered a more obstinate resistance; but Morgan had a dozen or more ladders hastily made, so broad that three or four men could mount abreast. These he compelled the priests and nuns whom he had captured to carry up and plant against the walls of the castle; and though the governor did not scruple to shoot down the bearers, Morgan found plenty more to supply the place of the killed. The castle was stormed, though the stubborn resistance continued till the governor, refusing quarter, was slain. Then the third fort surrendered, and the town was at the mercy of the buccaneers. It was utterly sacked. The most fiendish tortures were practised on the inhabitants to make them reveal where their treasure was hidden, and for fifteen days the place was given up to brutal riot and debauchery.

On the fifth day the president of Panama, at the head of three thousand men, attempted to drive the invaders out, but was rudely beaten back. A negotiation was then entered into, by the terms of which Morgan withdrew his men on the payment of a hundred thousand pieces of eight and three hundred negroes. According to the official report made at Jamaica by Morgan and his fellows—John Morris among the number—the town and castles were left 'in as good condition as they found them,' and the people were so well treated that 'several ladies of great quality and other prisoners who were offered their liberty to go to the president's camp refused, saying they were now prisoners to a person of quality, who was more tender of their honours than they doubted to find in the president's camp, and so voluntarily continued with them' till their departure (ib. 7 Sept. 1668, No. 1838). But the story as told by Exquemeling, himself one of the gang, and with no apparent reason for falsifying the facts, represents their conduct in a very different light (cf. ib. 9 Nov. '68, No. 1867). Exquemeling adds that the president of Panama, expressing his surprise that four hundred men without ordnance should have taken so strong a place, asked Morgan to send 'some small pattern of those arms wherewith he had taken so great a city.' Morgan sent a pistol and a few bullets, desiring him to keep them for a twelve-month, when he would come to Panama and fetch them away. To which the president replied with the gift of a gold ring and a request that he would 'not give himself the labour of coming to Panama.'

In August, when Morgan returned to Jamaica, Modyford received him somewhat doubtfully, not feeling quite sure how his achievement might be regarded in England. His commission, he told him, was only against ships. But in forwarding Morgan's narrative to the Duke of Albemarle, he insisted that the Spaniards fully intended to attack Jamaica, and urged the need of allowing the English there a free hand, until England's title to Jamaica was formally acknowledged by Spain (ib. 1 Oct. 1668, No. 1850)

The Porto Bello spoil was no sooner squandered than Modyford again gave Morgan a commission to carry on hostilities against the Spaniards. Morgan assembled a considerable force at Isle de la Vache (which in an English form is sometimes called Cow Island, and sometimes Isle of Ash), on the south side of Hispaniola, and seems to have ravaged the coast of Cuba. In January 1669 the largest of his ships, the Oxford frigate, was accidentally blown up during a drinking bout on board, Morgan and the officers, in the after part of the ship, alone escaping. It was afterwards resolved to attempt Maracaybo; but many of the captains, refusing to adopt the scheme, separated, leaving Morgan with barely five hundred men in eight ships, the largest of which carried only fourteen small guns.

With these, in March 1669, he forced the entrance into the lake, dismantled the fort which commanded it, sacked the town of Maracaybo which the inhabitants had deserted, scoured the woods, making many prisoners, who were cruelly tortured to make them show where their treasure was hid; and after three weeks it was determined to go on to Gibraltar, at the head of the lake. Here the scenes of cruelty and rapine, 'murders, robberies, rapes, and such-like insolencies,' were repeated for five weeks; when, gathering together their plunder, the privateers returned to Maracaybo. There they learned that three Spanish ships of war were off the entrance of the lake, and that they had manned and armed the fort, putting it 'into a very good posture of defence.' Morgan, apparently to gain time, entered into some futile negotiations with the Spanish admiral, Don Alonso del Campo y Espinosa; and meanwhile the privateers prepared a