urn to Jamaica in the middle of
August, made an official report which places their conduct in a
peculiarly mild and charitable light,[273] and forms a sharp contrast to
the account left us by Exquemelin. According to Morgan the town and
castles were restored "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 the
surrender of the town and castles." This scarcely tallies with what we
know of the manners of the freebooters, and Exquemelin's evidence is
probably nearer the truth. When Morgan returned to Jamaica Modyford at
first received him somewhat doubtfully, for Morgan's commission, as the
Governor told him, was only against ships, and the Governor was not at
all sure how the exploit would be taken in England. Morgan, however, had
reported that at Porto Bello, as well as in Cuba, levies were being made
for an attack upon Jamaica, and Modyford laid great stress upon this
point when he forwarded the buccaneer's narrative to the Duke of
Albemarle.

The sack of Porto Bello was nothing less than an act of open war against
Spain, and Modyford, now that he had taken the decisive step, was not
satisfied with half measures. Before the end of October 1668 the whole
fleet of privateers, ten sail and 800 men, had gone out again under
Morgan to cruise on the coasts of Caracas, while Captain Dempster with
several other vessels and 300 followers lay before Havana and along the
shores of Campeache.[274] Modyford had written home repeatedly that if
the king wished him to exercise any adequate control over the
buccaneers, he must send from England two or three nimble fifth-rate
frigates to command their obedience and protect the island from hostile
attacks. Charles in reply to these letters sent out the "Oxford," a
frigate of thirty-four guns, which arrived at Port Royal on 14th
October. According to Beeston's Journal, it brought instructions
countenancing the war, and empowering the governor to commission
whatever persons he thought good to be partners with His Majesty in the
plunder, "they finding victuals, wear and tear."[275] The frigate was
immediately provisioned for a several months' cruise,