oard the Price, and offered me
one hundred dollars per day and a handsome present for myself, to join
the fleet and go on an expedition with them for a few days. I told him
that my vessel was insured, and that it would be a total breach of my
orders to comply with his request. In the afternoon they laid an embargo
on the Price. The following day was appointed for a great celebration,
which was to take place at the house of Mrs. Lever, a respectable widow
lady. I visited the place where they landed the troops from the vessels,
raised a flag staff and hoisted the New Grenadian flag. Silk cushions
were brought into the house and placed on the table where General
McGregor, Governor Lopes, and other officers, took the oath of
allegiance to the government of New Grenada; most of the officers being
under half pay from the English, looked sad when they renounced their
allegiance to their own country. Three days after, they sailed for Porto
Bello, taking Colonel Woodbine as pilot, and proceeding within a few
miles of that place, they landed in a thicket of woods; then taking a
foot-path, they entered the city undiscovered by the inhabitants, and
took possession of the place without the loss of a man. Most of the
inhabitants fled from their houses and left them to the conquerors. Old
Lopes was appointed governor, and the officers taking possession of the
vacant dwelling houses which the Spaniards had left, sat themselves down
like private gentlemen. Soon after the soldiers revolted and refused to
do duty, alledging that the general had promised them twenty dollars
bounty for the first city they should capture. Before the insurrection
could be put down, the general raised eight dollars per man and
distributed it among them, and then issued a proclamation to the
inhabitants, inviting them to return to their habitations and take the
oath of allegiance to the new government, when private property would be
respected. Most of the people complied with his request, by taking the
oath required of them. In the meantime information was secretly sent
over to the Pacific by these Spaniards, where they raised an army of
eight hundred men, who marched across the Isthmus, and lay encamped in
the woods three or four miles back of the city; while those who had
taken the oath of allegiance were keeping up a regular communication
with them. The soldiers who had possession of the city having procured
an abundance of liquor, all got intoxicated, and the