pirates lost eighteen men killed, and
twenty-two men wounded, several of them severely. Sharp, who was not in
the fight, gives the numbers as eleven killed, and thirty-four wounded.
The battle began "about half an hour after sunrise." The last of the
Spanish fire ceased a little before noon.

Having taken the men-of-war, Captain Sawkins asked his prisoners how
many men were aboard the galleons, in the Perico anchorage. Don Peralta,
who was on deck, "much burnt in both his hands," and "sadly scalded," at
once replied that "in the biggest alone there were three hundred and
fifty men," while the others were manned in proportion to their tonnage.
But one of his men "who lay a-dying upon the deck, contradicted him as
he was speaking, and told Captain Sawkins there was not one man on board
any of those ships that were in view." "This relation" was believed, "as
proceeding from a dying man," and a few moments later it was proved to
be true. The greatest of the galleons, "the Most Blessed _Trinity_,"
perhaps the very ship in which Peralta had saved the treasures of the
cathedral church, was found to be empty. Her lading of "wine, sugar, and
sweetmeats, skins and soap" (or hides and tallow) was still in the hold,
but the Spaniards had deserted her, after they had set her on fire,
"made a hole in her, and loosened [perhaps cut adrift] her foresail."
The pirates quenched the fire, stopped the leak, and placed their
wounded men aboard her, "and thus constituted her for the time being our
hospital." They lay at anchor, at Perico, for the rest of that day. On
the 24th of April they seem to have been joined by a large company of
those who had been to leeward at the time of the battle. Reinforced by
these, to the strength of nearly 200 men, they weighed their anchors,
set two of the prize galleons on fire with their freights of flour and
iron, and removed their fleet to the roads of Panama. They anchored near
the city, just out of heavy gunshot, in plain view of the citizens. They
could see the famous stone walls, which had cost so much gold that the
Spanish King, in his palace at Madrid, had asked his minister whether
they could be seen from the palace windows. They marked the stately,
great churches which were building. They saw the tower of St Anastasius
in the distance, white and stately, like a blossom above the greenwood.
They may even have seen the terrified people in the streets, following
the banners of the church, and the prie