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Morgan's Sack of Panama (1671)

The buccaneer expedition commissioned by Sir Thomas Modyford at Jamaica in July 1670 and directed at Panama by a vote of thirty-seven captains on 2 December 1670, which stormed the castle of San Lorenzo at the Chagres, crossed the isthmus with about 1,200 men, beat a Spanish army on the savanna on 18 January 1671 old style, that is 28 January 1671 new style, and took, plundered and burned the city of Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion de Panama, after which the Treaty of Madrid and Modyford's disgrace closed Jamaica's era of legal commissions against Spain and both Modyford and Henry Morgan were brought home under arrest.

Also writtenThe Sack of Panama; The Burning of Panama; The battle on the savanna before Panama; Morgan's Panama expedition, 1670 to 1671

A buccaneer expedition under a Jamaica commission crossed the Isthmus of Panama in January 1671, beat a Spanish army on the savanna and burned Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion de Panama. Two calendars run through the papers, ten days apart: Henry Morgan's 18 January is the familiar 28 January 1671. The event sits about forty-five years before this archive's core window, in the buccaneering world that later produced the Batchelor's Delight, and it is here because Jamaica's law turned on it.

The commission and the vote

The Council of Jamaica ordered on 29 June 1670, "in this great and urgent necessity", that a commission issue to Morgan as commander in chief of all ships of war in the harbour; Sir Thomas Modyford sealed it on 2 July, naming Santiago de Cuba as the target. Morgan assembled the fleet at the Isle of Ash through the autumn of 1670. Panama was chosen later, by the captains, on 2 December 1670, when thirty-seven signed a resolution "that it stands most for the good of Jamaica and safety of us all to take Panama, the President thereof having granted several commissions against the English".1

Across the isthmus

The fleet left Cape Tiburon on 8 December by Morgan's relation and on the 6th by William Fogg's, retook Old Providence and Santa Catalina, then stormed the castle of San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bradley led the assault and died of his wounds ten days later. The two accounts will not reconcile on its cost: Morgan gives 470 men engaged and 30 killed, Fogg 400 men and 150 lost besides Bradley.2

Morgan started up the river on 9 January 1671 with 1,400 men in seven ships and 36 boats. Three hundred stayed to hold the castle and 200 with the boats, so about 1,200 made the march, the Spanish burning Venta Cruz ahead. On 18 January he formed his hungry column as a tertia, the vanguard of 300 under Lawrence Prince and John Morris. Francisco de Haro died leading the Spanish horse, an attempt to stampede cattle into the buccaneers' rear failed, and the city was in their hands by three that afternoon.2

Who set the fire

Panama burned that night, and the cause is the central disputed fact of the event. Morgan states that the defenders commanded the city to be fired and blew up the chief fort with forty of their own soldiers in it. Fogg, reporting independently in April 1671, says they entered and found the houses fired by the enemy. Exquemelin says the reverse: that Morgan had fire set privately to several great edifices and afterwards "pretended the Spaniards had done it".3

The houses were of cedar, and a whole street could go in under half an hour: a demolition ordered by the Spanish might have spread past anyone's control. Morgan and Fogg agreed that the Spanish fired the city, and both reported into an administration with an interest in the answer. The sack and the ransoming were Morgan's work whoever struck the light.3

What it was worth

Morgan held the ruins about four weeks and took some three thousand prisoners for ransom, tortured for it by one account. The plunder, divided at Chagres on 26 February, disappointed everybody who wrote about it, and the accounts do not agree on the sum: Morgan says about 30,000 pounds, Richard Browne, writing to Joseph Williamson that August, above 70,000 pounds. Fogg and Browne put the share at 10 pounds a man; Exquemelin has the men complaining of 200 pieces of eight apiece, fifty pounds at the Jamaica rate. Browne counted 37 sail out and not above 10 returned, and Port Royal investors ruined by fitting them out.4

The treaty in the background

England and Spain had concluded the Treaty of Madrid on 8/18 July 1670, undertaking to end hostilities in America, before the fleet sailed. Whether Jamaica knew it, and how far Modyford knew of the design, is unsettled; ignorance of the treaty is not established. Sir Thomas Lynch's proclamation of 15 August 1671 charges Modyford with making war contrary to his Majesty's express order, and John Peek, Morgan's secretary on the voyage, deposed in April 1672 that Modyford had known of the design and sent no countermand.5

The recall

The warrant to arrest Modyford was drawn at Whitehall on 10 March 1671, before news of Panama can have crossed the Atlantic: the recall was probably already running on the treaty and on Jamaica's commissions, and Panama then made it irreversible. Lynch arrested Modyford aboard the Assistance on 12 August 1671 and shipped him home in the Jamaica Merchant on the 22nd; a warrant of 17 November committed him close prisoner to the Tower for misdemeanours committed during his government. On 15 August Lynch proclaimed the imprisonment and offered a free pardon and indemnity to all who submitted and abstained. Eleven weeks earlier the same board had thanked Morgan and approved his acting.6

Morgan went home too, the King's prisoner in the Welcome under Lynch's orders of 4 April 1672. No trial of him appears in the calendar for those years. Within two years he was being drafted back into the Jamaica government: a draft commission and instructions as Deputy Governor on 23 March 1673/4, delivered by John Locke, and then a sealed commission as Lieutenant Governor on 6 November 1674, which still styles him Colonel, not Sir Henry. When the knighthood came is contested, the Welsh dictionary and the colonial papers pointing two ways. Lynch reported the privateers afterwards all divided, lost, or gone to planting or fetching logwood. Others probably drifted to French Tortuga and Hispaniola.7

Whitehall tried to manage the story at once. A warrant issued on 4 April 1673 to Roger L'Estrange to suppress a pamphlet relating the late attempt upon Panama. It failed. Exquemelin's book of 1678 fixed Morgan in European memory as a torturer and an arsonist.

What the sources cannot yet give is the Spanish side of the fire. The President of Panama's own account, taken at sea and translated in Jamaica, survives in the calendar as one line describing a four page manuscript; no excavation report on the 1671 burn layer at Panama Viejo has been read. Everything quoted from the state papers comes through W. Noel Sainsbury's calendar of 1889, and only matter inside his quotation marks is verbatim.

What the evidence does not settle

Cause of the Panama fire

  • The cause of the fire that destroyed Panama is unresolvedPossible

Morgan's flagship

  • The name of his flagship wrecked at Chagres is unknown

Date of the Chagres storm

  • The exact date of the storm at Chagres is unfixed

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The expedition was authorised by an order of the Council of Jamaica of 29 June 1670, made "in this great and urgent necessity", and by Sir Thomas Modyford's commission to Henry Morgan of 2 July 1670 as commander in chief of all ships of war belonging to the harbour, which named Santiago de Cuba and not Panama as its specimen target; Panama was chosen later by the captains themselves, thirty-seven of whom signed a resolution on 2 December 1670 "that it stands most for the good of Jamaica and safety of us all to take Panama, the President thereof having granted several commissions against the English". Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Calendared state paper, commission and council minute: Minutes of the Council of Jamaica, 29 June 1670, and Modyford's commission and instructions to Morgan, 2 July 1670, entries 209 to 212 in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 7 (1669 to 1674), calendared by W. Noel Sainsbury; Morgan's relation of 20 April 1671, entry 504, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVI., No. 51
  2. Morgan started up the Chagres on 9 January 1671 old style with 1,400 men in seven ships and 36 boats, left 300 men holding the castle of San Lorenzo and 200 with the boats so that about 1,200 made the march, and on 18 January 1671 old style, that is 28 January new style, formed his column as a tertia with a vanguard of 300 under Lawrence Prince and John Morris, beat the Spanish army on the savanna in front of the city, and had the city in his hands by three that afternoon; the English accounts differ on the departure from Cape Tiburon, Morgan giving 8 December and William Fogg 6 December, and on the cost of the storm of Chagres, Morgan giving 470 men engaged with 30 killed and 76 wounded against Fogg's 400 men and a loss of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bradley, a Lieutenant Powell whom no other source names, and 150 men. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Calendared state papers, two independent English relations: "A true account and relation [by Henry Morgan] of this my last expedition against the Spaniards", signed 20 April 1671, entry 504, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVI., No. 51, with copy at Col. Entry Bk., No. XXVII., pp. 121 to 128; "Copy of the relation of Wm. Fogg concerning the action of the privateers at Panama, taken the 4th of April 1671", entry 483, Col. Entry Bk., No. XXVII., 120 to 121; The Pirates of Panama, the English text of A. O. Exquemelin's De Americaensche Zee-Roovers for the marching figure
  3. The cause of the fire that destroyed Panama on the night of 18 to 19 January 1671 old style is not established: Morgan's relation states that the defenders commanded the city to be fired and blew up the chief fort with forty of their own soldiers in it, William Fogg reports independently that the buccaneers entered and found the houses already fired by the enemy, and Exquemelin states that Morgan had fire set privately to several great edifices and afterwards "pretended the Spaniards had done it"; a mixed and uncontrolled fire through a city of cedar built houses is excluded by none of them, and the account by the President of Panama that bears most directly on the question has not been read. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Calendared state papers and period narrative: Morgan's relation, entry 504, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVI., No. 51; Fogg's relation of 4 April 1671, entry 483; The Pirates of Panama, the English text of Exquemelin; against the unread "Account by the President of Panama of the Expedition", entry 547, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVI., No. 70
  4. The plunder divided at Chagres on 26 February 1671 old style disappointed every writer who mentions it, but its size is not established: Morgan puts it at about 30,000 pounds and Richard Browne at above 70,000 pounds in plate and good plunder besides other rich goods with an accusation of embezzlement attached; the share is given as 10 pounds a man by both Fogg and Browne and as 200 pieces of eight, that is about fifty pounds at the Jamaica rate of five shillings the piece, by Exquemelin, and Browne reports that of 37 sail that went out 19 were cast away and not above 10 had yet returned, ruining Port Royal investors who had advanced money to fit them out. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Calendared state papers, private letter and period narrative: Morgan's relation, entry 504, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVI., No. 51; Fogg's relation, entry 483; Richard Browne to Joseph Williamson, 21 August 1671, entry 608, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVII., No. 24; The Pirates of Panama, the English text of Exquemelin
  5. The Anglo-Spanish Treaty of Madrid of 8/18 July 1670, by which the two crowns undertook to end hostilities in America, was concluded before the fleet sailed, but whether it was known or published in Jamaica by then, and how far Modyford knew of the design on Panama, is not established: nothing in the recall papers establishes ignorance, Sir Thomas Lynch's proclamation of 15 August 1671 charges Modyford with making war contrary to his Majesty's express order and command, and John Peek, Morgan's secretary throughout the Panama voyage, deposed on 3 April 1672 that Modyford had knowledge of the design by a ship sent on purpose and gave no countermand in a letter written ten days after that ship's arrival. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Calendared state papers, proclamation and deposition: Proclamation of Sir Thomas Lynch, 15 August 1671, entry 602, and the associated recall papers, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVII., Nos. 18 to 25; deposition of John Peek, 3 April 1672, annexed at entry 542, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVI., No. 69
  6. The King's warrant to Lynch to arrest Modyford was drawn at Whitehall on 10 March 1671, before news of Panama can have reached London, so the recall was probably already running on the Treaty of Madrid and on the general problem of Jamaica commissions, with Panama then making it irreversible; Lynch invited Modyford aboard the Assistance and arrested him on 12 August 1671, shipped him to England in the Jamaica Merchant on 22 August, and saw him committed close prisoner to the Tower on 17 November 1671 for several misdemeanours committed during the time of his government, in the calendar editor's abstract, while Lynch's proclamation of 15 August 1671 announced the imprisonment and offered a free pardon and indemnity to all who submitted and abstained from further hostilities. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Calendared state papers, warrants and proclamation: Minutes of the Council of Jamaica with the King's warrant of 10 March 1671, the proclamation of Sir Thomas Lynch of 15 August 1671 and Lynch on Modyford's departure of 22 August 1671, entries 601, 602 and 609, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVII.; warrants to the Lieutenant of the Tower, 17 November 1671, entries 653 and 654, Dom. Entry Bk., Chas. II., Vol. XXXIV., p. 121; Minutes of the Council of Jamaica, 31 May 1671, entry 543
  7. Morgan was carried to England as the King's prisoner in His Majesty's ship Welcome under Lynch's orders to Captain John Keene of 4 April 1672, no trial of him appears anywhere in the Calendar of State Papers Colonial for those years, and he was commissioned Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica on 6 November 1674 in a document that still styles him Colonel Henry Morgan; the date of his knighthood is contested between the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, which places it about January 1674, and the colonial papers, which still call him Colonel in November 1674. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Calendared state papers, commissions and biography: Lynch's orders to Captain John Keene of the Welcome, 4 April 1672, entry 794, Col. Papers, Vol. XXVIII., No. 34; draft commission and instructions as Deputy Governor, 23 March 1673/4, entries 1254 and 1255, and commission as Lieutenant Governor, 6 November 1674, entry 1379; Morgan, Sir Henry, in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, by David Williams