the assault. There was only one landing-place on
the island, with a narrow path accommodating but two men at a time
leading to an eminence which was crowned with a fort and 450 Dutchmen.
Morgan landed his division first, and Colonel Carey followed. The enemy,
it seems, gave them but one small volley and then retreated to the fort.
The governor sent forward three men to parley, and on receiving a
summons to surrender, delivered up the fort with eleven large guns and
considerable ammunition. "It is supposed they were drunk or mad," was
the comment made upon the rather disgraceful defence.[238] During the
action Colonel Morgan, who was an old man and very corpulent, was
overcome by the hard marching and extraordinary heat, and died. Colonel
Carey, who succeeded him in command, was anxious to proceed at once to
the capture of the Dutch forts on Saba, St. Martins and Tortola; but the
buccaneers refused to stir until the booty got at St. Eustatius was
divided--nor were the officers and men able to agree on the manner of
sharing. The plunder, besides guns and ammunition, included about 900
slaves, negro and Indian, with a large quantity of live stock and
cotton. Meanwhile a party of seventy had crossed over to the island of
Saba, only four leagues distant, and secured its surrender on the same
terms as St. Eustatius. As the men had now become very mutinous, and on
a muster numbered scarcely 250, the officers decided that they could not
reasonably proceed any further and sailed for Jamaica, leaving a small
garrison on each of the islands. Most of the Dutch, about 250 in number,
were sent to St. Martins, but a few others, with some threescore
English, Irish and Scotch, took the oath of allegiance and
remained.[239]

Encouraged by a letter from the king,[240] Governor Modyford continued
his exertions against the Dutch. In January (?) 1666 two buccaneer
captains, Searles and Stedman, with two small ships and only eighty men
took the island of Tobago, near Trinidad, and destroyed everything they
could not carry away. Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes, had also
fitted out an expedition to take the island, but the Jamaicans were
three or four days before him. The latter were busy with their work of
pillage, when Willoughby arrived and demanded the island in the name of
the king; and the buccaneers condescended to leave the fort and the
governor's house standing only on condition that Willoughby gave them
liberty to sell their pl