This important expedition was not accomplished without great toil and fatigue. But on the ninth day of their journey the buccaneers came in sight of the South Sea, and towards evening they could distinguish the steeples of Panama. The Spaniards, though superior in numbers, were defeated in a pitched battle, and the buccaneers became masters of the city. In their cruelties, no sex nor condition was spared. Many of the inhabitants escaped with their effects by sea, and sought shelter among the islands in the Bay of Panama. But Morgan, launching a large boat, and filling it with a numerous and well-armed crew, sent it in pursuit of them. These made prizes of several vessels, one of which was well adapted for cruising. Here a new prospect was opened; and some of the buccaneers began to consult how they might quit Morgan, and seek their fortunes on the South Sea, whence they might sail, with the plunder they should obtain, by the East Indies to Europe. But Morgan took effectual measures to prevent this defection, and returned safely from Panama, taking with him 600 prisoners, some of them carrying burdens, and 175 mules laden with spoil. A few years afterwards he was knighted, and made deputy-governor of Jamaica; in which office he displayed unusual severity towards his old associates.

The authority of Morgan deferred, but did not defeat altogether, the design of the buccaneers. On the 5th of April, 1680, a party of 331, mostly English, commenced their march across the Isthmus of Darien ; each man provided with four cakes of bread, called doughboys, with a fusil, a pistol, and a hanger. Among these adventurers were William Dampier, who does not appear to have been distinguished at that time for the talents which afterwards procured him so much celebrity, and Lionel Wafer, so well known for his excellent description of Darien. At Santa Maria they embarked in canoes, and a small vessel, which was found anchored near the town, and commenced their courses in the South Sea. They soon captured several vessels, richly laden, and abandoning their canoes, they embarked in their prizes. After scour

ing the coast near Panama, they steered southward for Peru. They touched at the island of Gorgona, and afterwards at that of Juan Fernandez: here they found the shore covered with seals and sea-lions; innumerable sea birds had their nests among the rocks; cray-fish and lobsters were in abundance; and, on the island itself, goats were in such plenty that, beside what they ate during their stay, they killed about 100 for salting, and took away as many alive. While lying here, three sail, believed to be Spanish ships of war, were descried at a distance; all hands were immediately called on board, the cable was slipped, and the ship put to sea. But in this hurry it happened that William, a Mosquito Indian, who accompanied the buccaneers, being absent in the woods hunting goats, and hearing nothing of the alarm, was left behind; nor is this, perhaps, the first instance of a solitary individual being left to inhabit Juan Fernandez. The buccaneers pursued their course to the south, with indifferent success: they took a ship, named the San Rosario, from Callao, laden with wine, brandy, oil, and fruit, and with as much money in her as yielded ninety-four dollars to each buccaneer. But beside the lading already mentioned, the San Rosario contained 700 pigs of plate, which the buccaneers supposed to be tin, and therefore neglected: only one pig was taken for the purpose of making bullets; the rest was left behind in the Rosario, which was turned adrift. But on their arrival at Antigua, the buccaneers showed a specimen of this metal to a goldsmith, who immediately knew it to be pure silver, and sold it in England for 70%. sterling. Thus they lost their richest booty by their ignorance and impatience.

In their progress to the south of the coast of Chili, they reconnoitred the islands of the archipelago which had been previously surveyed by Sarmiento, and named them the Duke of York's Islands. They took a young Indian here, who could open large muscles with his fingers which the buccaneers could scarcely manage with their knives. To this young prisoner, who was very wild and insensible,

they gave the name of Orson. They doubled Cape Horn at a great distance from land, and fell in with large masses of floating ice. On their arrival in the West Indies, their commander, Sharpe, and a few others, were tried for piracy in the South Sea, at the instance of the Spanish ambassador, but were acquitted for want of evidence. Thus terminated this most extraordinary expedition, which was begun in canoes and finished in good ships.

The next expedition of the buccaneers into the South Seas was made from the Atlantic, and with better equipments. About seventy adventurers, among whom were William Dampier, Edward Davis, Lionel Wafer, and Ambrose Cowley, commanded by John Cook, sailed from the Chesapeake in August, 1683, in an eighteen gun ship which they had captured not long before. They first steered to the coast of Guinea; at Sierra Leone they captured by an ingenious stratagem a Danish ship, mounting thirty-six guns, victualled and stored for a long voyage. They all embarked in the new ship, which they named the Bachelor's Delight; and setting their prisoners on shore to shift for themselves as they could, they burnt their old vessel "that she might tell no tales." In their run towards the Straits of Magellan they saw an island, to which Cowley gave the name of Pepys' Island. Not far from it he saw another, "which made me," he says, "to think them the Sibble D'wards" (Sebald de Weerts),‚—a conjecture which might have spared him the trouble of giving him a new title to this many-named group. In rounding Cape Horn "the ship was tossed about like an egg-shell." after joined company with the Nicholas of London, commanded by John Eaton, a ship fitted out in the Thames on pretence of trading, but in reality for a piratical voyage. At the Straits of Magellan the Nicholas had met the Cygnet, a trading vessel commanded by captain Swan, who had a license from the duke of York, the lord high admiral of England, but they were afterwards separated by bad weather. Many of the bucca

She soon

neers in the Bachelor's Delight had accompanied the former expedition in 1680, when William the Mosquito Indian had been left behind in Juan Fernandez. On arriving at this island now a second time, they immediately lowered a boat, and hastened to the shore to try whether they could find any traces of their former comrade. A Mosquito Indian named Robin, and Dampier, were in the boat. As they drew near the land they were delighted to see William at the water's edge, waiting to receive them. Dampier gives the following affecting account of their meeting:-" Robin, his countryman, was the first who leaped ashore from the boats; and running to his brother Mosquito man, threw himself flat on his face at his feet, who, helping him up, and embracing him, fell flat with his face on the ground at Robin's feet, and was by him taken up also. We stood with pleasure to behold the surprise, tenderness, and solemnity of this interview, which was exceedingly affectionate on both sides; and when their ceremonies were over, we also, that stood gazing at them, drew near, each of us embracing him we had found here, who was overjoyed to see so many of his old friends come hither, as he thought, purposely to fetch him." William had lived in solitude on Juan Fernandez above three years. The clothes with which he had landed were worn out, and his only covering was a goat-skin round his waist. He had built himself a hut, which he lined with goat-skins, about half a mile from the shore. When first left on the island he had with him his musket, a knife, a small horn of powder, and some shot: "but when his ammunition was expended, he contrived by notching his knife to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces, wherewith he made harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife; heating the pieces of iron first in the fire, and then hammering them out as he pleased with stones. This may seem strange to those who are not acquainted with the sagacity of the Indians; but it is no more than what the Mosquito men are accustomed to do in their own country." He

saw the two ships the day before they cast anchor; and from their manoeuvring, believing them to be English,' he killed three goats, which he dressed with vegetables, thus preparing a banquet for his friends.

At the Galapagos the buccaneers found abundance of the large green turtle, which have given their name to those islands. Here they built storehouses, in which they lodged a large quantity of their prize flour to serve for future occasions. The chart of the Galapagos made by Cowley during this visit is still valued by navigators. Soon after, John Cook died, and was succeeded in the command by Edward Davis. He was joined on the coast of Peru by the Cygnet, for captain Swan found it impossible to dispose of his goods on account of the suspicion with which the Spaniards regarded him; and as he allowed on board a number of buccaneers (who at this time rushed in crowds to the South Sea), he was easily persuaded to join in their pursuits.

About this time Eaton, in the Nicholas, left the buc caneers under Davis, and sailed for the East Indies. Ambrose Cowley, the historian of his voyage, accompanied him. On their arrival at the Ladrones, they immediately quarrelled with the natives, and killed a number of them. The Spanish governor in a conference expressed a wish that he had killed them all. On this, Cowley, who writes in the spirit of a buccaneer, observes, "We then made wars with these infidels, and went on shore every day, fetching provisions, and firing upon them wherever we saw them; so that the greatest part of them left the island. The whole land is a garden." He relates in the same vein of brutal jocularity the behaviour of his companions to the Indians assembled peaceably on the shore. "Our people that were in the boat let go in amongst the thickest of them, and killed a great many of their number. The others, seeing their mates fall, ran away. were on shore, meeting them, making holes in their hides." England without

any accident.

Our other men who saluted them also by The Nicholas reached'