nees on the ground, firing
on the breastworks, and receiving a terrible fire from the Spaniards.
Five of the fifty-two men were down (three of them killed) and the case
was growing serious. The storming party left the fort, and doubled
downhill into the firing line, where they poured in volley after
blasting volley, killing a Spaniard at each shot, making "a very
desperate battle" of it, "our rage increasing with our wounds." No
troops could stand such file-firing. The battle became "mere bloody
massacre," and the Spaniards were beaten from their posts. Volley after
volley shook them, for the pirates "filled every street in the city with
dead bodies"; and at last ran in upon them, and clubbed them and cut
them down, and penned them in as prisoners. But as the Spaniards under
arms were at least twenty times as many as the pirates, there was no
taking the city from them. They were beaten from post to post fighting
like devils, but the pirates no sooner left a post they had taken, "than
they came another way, and manned it again, with new forces and fresh
men." The streets were heaped with corpses, yet the Spaniards came on,
and came on again, till the sand of the roads was like red mud. At last
they were fairly beaten from the chief parts of the town, and numbers of
them were penned up as prisoners; more, in fact, than the pirates could
guard. The battle paused for a while at this stage, and the pirates took
advantage of the lull to get their wounded (perhaps a dozen men), into
one of the churches to have their wounds dressed. As the doctors of the
party began their work, John Watling sent a message to the fort,
charging the garrison to surrender. The soldiers returned no answer, but
continued to load their guns, being helped by the armed townsfolk, who
now flocked to them in scores. The fort was full of musketeers when the
pirates made their second attack a little after noon.

At the second attack, John Watling took 100 of his prisoners, placed
them in front of his storming party, and forced them forward, as a
screen to his men, when he made his charge. The garrison shot down
friend and foe indiscriminately, and repulsed the attack, and repulsed a
second attack which followed a few minutes later. There was no taking
the fort by storm, and the pirates had no great guns with which to
batter it. They found, however, that one of the flat-roofed houses in
the town, near the fort's outworks, commanded the interior. "We got upon