11 in 1660), in late 1665 he commanded a ship amongst the expedition commissioned by Governor Modyford led by veteran privateer Edward Mansfield to recapture the former English puritan colonies of Providence and Santa Catalina, off the coast of Nicaragua. After the older man’s death at the hands of the Spanish, Morgan took over the captainship of the pirate flotilla and soon carved out a name for himself as a right nasty piece of work. He led his men into battle by example and used
the most extreme methods imaginable to discover the whereabouts of Spanish booty. Having earned both his letter of marque and the nod from Jamaican Governor Modyford in 1688, Morgan, now more ‘privateer’ that ‘buccaneer’, pulled together his 700-strong bunch of mad bastards and attacked Puerto del Principe. That same year, he attacked Puerto Bello at the Isthmus of Panama, then the third richest and most fortified city in the New World, with just 460 men. He routed the garrison and
wracked the inhabitants, to return to Port Royal with 500,000 pieces of eight, a vast cache of jewellery and loot along with 300 slaves, which were then divided according to the charters, with the king and the governor getting their share and Morgan a massive whack. His most daring move was to attack the so-called ‘cup o’ gold’, Panama City – the gateway to the Spaniards’ coveted South America – with 40 ships and 2000 men. He captured the quiet port of San Lorenzo