The pirate has always been something of a romantic figure.  Vicious, rough, a swashbuckler and a rebel, he conjures up images in our minds of ship board actions and coastal raids with but one purpose – plunder, and lots of it.  The 17th century saw a great deal of piracy along the Spanish Main, and many of its colorful (and oftentimes brutally violent) figures entered the pages of history as both heroes and villains.

Henry Morgan, an Englishman from a decidedly military family, was one of the most successful buccaneers of his, or any other, time.  A Welshman, Henry was raised to be skilled in the art of war.  Two of his uncles had served both in Europe as mercenaries, and in England during the English Civil War (albeit on opposite sides), and Henry later admitted that his education had left him, “. . . more used to the pike than the book.”

How Henry Morgan came to be in Jamaica at the English colony there is a little uncertain.  It is know that he came over as part of Cromwell’s “Western Design.”  What is not known is whether he came voluntarily, or if in fact he was fleeing the irate father of a young lass he had soiled.  Soon after settling in Port Royal, Henry became a captain of the Port Royal Volunteer Regiment, and received his first privatering commission.

Henry, obviously a charismatic man, was soon leading raiding bands of buccaneers against Spanish holdings along the Main.  Some of his early exploits included raids on Puerto Principe and Portobelo, both of which contributed to his growing popularity amongst the cut throats and mercenaries of Port Royal and elsewhere, as well as filling his purse with silver – a lot of silver.

It was then that Morgan gathered a large force of 900 to 1,000 freebooters and 12 assorted sailing vessels, for the purpose of plundering the large and wealthy Spanish port of Cartagena.  It was this port that had made Sir Francis Drake a wealthy man, and Henry Morgan was sure it could do the same for him.

Morgan’s captains gathered on Henry’s flagship, the Oxford, on January 12, 1669, for a pre-mission celebration.  During the middle of the feast, some unknown crewman proved that fire, gunpowder, and rum in great quantities do not mix.  The Oxford’s magazine exploded, destroying the ship in a great blast.  The captains sitting opposite the table from Captain Morgan were all killed, while those sitting next to him were unscathed, as was he.

The Spaniards claimed divine intervention.  Morgan scoffed at this, but realized that the loss of his flagship and over 200 men (and many of his captains) would require a change of target.  After some discussion, one of his surviving captains suggested Maracaibo.  This captain had been with the bloodthirsty and brutal French pirate, L’Ollonais , when he successfully raided Maracaibo three years previously, and felt that it could be done again for great profit.  Morgan considered this suggestion and, leading his 650 men on eight ships, set out into the Gulf of Venezuela on the way to Maracaibo.

Much to Morgan’s chagrin, the Spanish had, since the last raid, built a fort on a small island some 300 yards from the entrance to the Gulf.  Because the channel narrowed near this point, it would not be possible for the privateers to pass by without taking the fort first.  So, landing his buccaneers on shore, he led them under cover of a fierce, sand whipping wind, to the base of the bastion.  There, Henry found an open door and entered, only to find the place devoid of Spaniards (it turned out there were only eight to begin with).  What Henry did find, however, was a lit fuse leading to the fort’s powder magazine.  The fuse had been cut to burn for 15 minutes, and there were only five minutes left when he stamped it out.

This first obstacle overcome, the small fleet headed straight for Maracaibo, only to find the town deserted.  The men pillaged what they could find, which at the time was little.  Not one to go home empty handed, Morgan led his men to Gibraltar, which they plundered, then, returning to Maracaibo, they scoured the surrounding jungle for the hidden villagers.  Whenever the found one, they would “coerce” him or her into revealing the location of their valuables.

By the middle of April, Morgan and his buccaneers had their fill of Maracaibo, and, hauling their considerable loot, returned to their ships for the trip back to Port Royal.  The raid had gone pretty much as expected, but things almost turned disastrously wrong when they reached the gulf end of the channel.  There, waiting with orders from the King of Spain to put an end to Henry Morgan once and for all, were three Spanish warships, any one of which could have easily put an end to Morgan’s entire fleet.  Morgan immediately halted the advance of his eight small ships, and the two forces sat there staring at each other.  Morgan could not advance for fear of being destroyed, while the Spanish, led by Vice Admiral Alonso del Campo y Espinosa, were too deep drafted to enter further into the channel.  What happened next would become the stuff of legends.  Morgan’s plan was so fantastic that it has set a standard of daring, trickery and action that Hollywood cannot hope to match.

Late on April 30th, Don Alonso was pleased to see the buccaneer fleet approaching him in single file, however, night fell just before they were within the range of his guns, and both fleets anchored for the night.

At dawn the next morning, Alonso awoke to the site of the privateer’s ships once again approaching him.  In the lead was Morgan’s biggest ship, a newly captured Portuguese galleon that he had turned into his flagship, bristling with men and guns.  Don Alonso’s flagship, the 48-gun Magdalen, was far larger and more heavily armed, so he chose to wait until Morgan was right beside him before opening up with a devastating broadside which would probably sink the smaller vessel.
 
 

Just as the pirate ship pulled alongside the Magdalen, Don Alonso noticed that the enemy’s “guns” were in fact logs, and the “crew” were dummies.  The few real crew members could be seen diving overboard, as wisps of smoke came up from the hold.  Morgan had converted his flagship into a fireship, and the Spaniards had fallen for it, hook, line, and lit powder keg.
 
 
 

 
Before Don Alonso could react, the fireship’s magazine exploded, causing the Magdalen to burst into flames, its superstructure being converted into a deadly inferno in a matter of seconds.  The Spanish flagship sank quickly, but not before Don Alonso made good his get away to the small fort, now reoccupied by the Spaniards.
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
The site of their flagship exploding was too much for the other two Spanish captains.  The captain of the 38-gun Santa Louisa immediately panicked and ran his ship aground.  Meanwhile, the buccaneers came up quickly in their remaining ships and swarmed aboard the 24-gun Marquesa, capturing it and converting it into their own flagship.
 
 
 

Although the Spanish fleet was overcome, Morgan was still not out of hot water (it was the Spanish Main, after all).  Don Alonso was in the fort with a garrison of men and plenty of guns.  Morgan could not safely led his fleet out of the channel until this resurrected obstacle was dealt with.

The cleverness and guile Morgan used in “overcoming” the fort surpasses even that used in his overcoming the Spanish fleet.  For several hours, Morgan sent row boats to shore, filled with heavily armed buccaneers.  After depositing their charges, the row boats would return to the fleet where they would pick up another load of pirates.  This continued for the better part of the day, until, according to Don Alonso’s count, there were several hundred hostile buccaneers on shore, preparing to assault the fort from the rear.  In preparation for the oncoming attack, Don Alonso quite prudently ordered that the cannon be brought to the rear of the fort.

What Don Alonso did not know was that the row boats were only pretending to drop off the buccaneers on shore.  In fact, the raiding parties would simply lie down in the holds of the row boats prior to their return to the pirate fleet.  They spent a long but not unpleasant day doing this, thus tricking Don Alonso into thinking that he was to be attacked in the rear by a large force.  In fact, there were no buccaneers on the island with which to launch an attack of any kind.

The next morning, Morgan led his fleet from the deck of his new flagship, the Marquesa, safely past the fort, which now had all its guns facing the wrong way.  Morgan fired a few parting shots at the embarrassed Don Alonso, and headed home.

Admiral Henry Morgan got back to Port Royal on May 17, 1669.  In his hold was booty valued at 250,000 pieces of eight, a tremendous haul.

The battle of the Bar at Maracaibo was not Henry Morgan’s last, but it was perhaps his finest.  With his riches, he purchased an 836 acre plantation on which he grew sugar cane, an enterprise that turned out to be more profitable than piracy.  He continued his career as a privateer for some time, but had to give it up when peace was declared between England and Spain (a peace which did not last long).  He was eventually knighted, and returned to Jamaica as Lieutenant Governor, but was removed from his post in 1683 for his “irregularities and excesses.”  He died on August 25, 1688, and was buried in Jamaica.  The land on which he was buried sank into the sea when Port Royal was hit by a large earthquake in 1692, and now Henry Morgan lies five fathoms beneath the waves.