* *

And now we come to the greatest of all the buccaneers, he who stands
pre-eminent among them, and whose name even to this day is a charm to
call up his deeds of daring, his dauntless courage, his truculent
cruelty, and his insatiate and unappeasable lust for gold--Capt. Henry
Morgan, the bold Welshman, who brought buccaneering to the height and
flower of its glory.

Having sold himself, after the manner of the times, for his passage
across the seas, he worked out his time of servitude at the Barbados.
As soon as he had regained his liberty he entered upon the trade of
piracy, wherein he soon reached a position of considerable prominence.
He was associated with Mansvelt at the time of the latter's descent
upon Saint Catharine's Isle, the importance of which spot, as a center
of operations against the neighboring coasts, Morgan never lost sight
of.

The first attempt that Capt. Henry Morgan ever made against any town
in the Spanish Indies was the bold descent upon the city of Puerto del
Principe in the island of Cuba, with a mere handful of men. It was a
deed the boldness of which has never been outdone by any of a like
nature--not even the famous attack upon Panama itself. Thence they
returned to their boats in the very face of the whole island of Cuba,
aroused and determined upon their extermination. Not only did they
make good their escape, but they brought away with them a vast
amount of plunder, computed at three hundred thousand pieces of eight,
besides five hundred head of cattle and many prisoners held for
ransom.

[Illustration: Henry Morgan Recruiting for the Attack

_Illustration from_
BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN

_by_ Howard Pyle

_Originally published in_
HARPER'S MAGAZINE, _August and September_, 1887]

But when the division of all this wealth came to be made, lo! there
were only fifty thousand pieces of eight to be found. What had become
of the rest no man could tell but Capt. Henry Morgan himself. Honesty
among thieves was never an axiom with him.

Rude, truculent, and dishonest as Captain Morgan was, he seems to have
had a wonderful power of persuading the wild buccaneers under him to
submit everything to his judgment, and to rely entirely upon his word.
In spite of the vast sum of money that he had very evidently made away
with, recruits poured in upon him, until his band was larger and
better equipped than ever.

And now it was determined that the plunder