, all aglare
with the blaze six miles away to the north-west. Negroes ran and
shrieked, carrying this and that up and down upon their heads.
Spaniards looked out, aghast. Frenchmen, cried, 'Aux armes!' and
sang the Marseillaise. And still, over the Five Islands, rose the
glare. But the night was calm; the ships burnt slowly; and the San
Damaso was saved by English sailors. So goes the tale; which, if it
be, as I believe, correct, ought to be known to those adventurous
Yankees who have talked, more than once, of setting up a company to
recover the Spanish ships and treasure sunk in Chaguaramas. For the
ships burned before they sunk; and Apodaca, being a prudent man,
landed, or is said to have landed, all the treasure on the Spanish
Main opposite.

He met Chacon in Port of Spain at daybreak. The good governor, they
say, wept, but did not reproach. The admiral crossed himself; and,
when Chacon said 'All is lost,' answered (or did not answer, for the
story, like most good stories, is said not to be quite true), 'Not
all; I saved the image of St. Jago de Compostella, my patron and my
ship's.' His ship's patron, however, says M. Joseph, was St.
Vincent. Why tell the rest of the story? It may well be guessed.
The English landed in force. The French Republicans (how does
history repeat itself!) broke open the arsenal, overpowering the
Spanish guard, seized some 3000 to 5000 stand of arms, and then
never used them, but retired into the woods. They had, many of
them, fought like tigers in other islands; some, it may be, under
Victor Hugues himself. But here they had no leaders. The Spanish,
overpowered by numbers, fell back across the Dry River to the east
of the town, and got on a height. The German jagers climbed the
beautiful Laventille hills, and commanded the Spanish and the two
paltry mud forts on the slopes: and all was over, happily with
almost no loss of life.

Chacon was received by Abercrombie and Harvey with every courtesy; a
capitulation was signed which secured the honours of war to the
military, and law and safety to the civil inhabitants; and Chacon
was sent home to Spain to be tried by a court-martial; honourably
acquitted; and then, by French Republican intrigues, calumniated,
memorialised against, subscribed against, and hunted (Buonaparte
having, with his usual meanness, a hand in the persecution) into
exile and penury in Portugal. At last his case was