for the repairing of the palisado.
Hearing that the Chagres garrison was in such good case, and so well
able to exercise piracy without further help, Admiral Morgan resolved to
make a longer stay in the ruins of old Panama. He arranged "to send
forth daily parties of two hundred men" to roam the countryside, beating
the thickets for prisoners, and the prisoners for gold. These parties
ranged the country very thoroughly, gathering "in a short time, a huge
quantity of riches, and no less number of prisoners." These poor
creatures were shut up under a guard, to be brought out one by one for
examination. If they would not confess where they had hidden their gold,
nor where the gold of their neighbours lay, the pirates used them as
they had used their prisoners at Porto Bello. "Woolding," burning with
palm leaves, and racking out the arm-joints, seem to have been the most
popular tortures. Many who had no gold were brutally ill treated, and
then thrust through with a lance.

Among these diversions Admiral Morgan fell in love with a beautiful
Spanish lady, who appears to have been something of a paragon. The story
is not worth repeating, nor does it read quite sincerely, but it is very
probably true. John Exquemeling, who had no great love for Morgan,
declares that he was an eye-witness of the love-making, "and could never
have judged such constancy of mind and virtuous chastity to be found in
the world." The fiery Welshman did not win the lady, but we gather from
the evidence that he could have had the satisfaction of Matthew Arnold's
American, who consoled himself, in similar circumstances, with saying:
"Well, I guess I lowered her moral tone some."

During the first week of their stay in Panama, the ship they had sent to
sea returned with a booty of three small coast boats. Captain Searles
had sailed her over Panama Bay to the beautiful island of Taboga, in
order to fill fresh water and rob the inhabitants. Here they took "the
boatswain and most of the crew"[17] of the _Trinity_, a Spanish galleon,
"on board which were the Friers and Nuns, with all the old gentlemen and
Matrons of the Town, to the number of 1500 souls, besides an immense
Treasure in Silver and Gold." This galleon had seven small guns and ten
or twelve muskets for her whole defence. She was without provisions, and
desperately short of water, and she had "no more sails than the
uppermost sails of the mainmast." Her captain was "an old and stout
Spaniard, a