THE HAND OF THE GIANT 239 



her widespread, unequally defended empire of pillage. The 

 convoy of fleets began in the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 but a hundred years later Spain was still rich and vulnerable, 

 and though the French and the Dutch had their big strikes 

 their success was sporadic. In the seventeenth century the Eng- 

 lish began to dominate the pirate trade. By 1660, after Mans- 

 field had been captured and executed by the Spaniards, Henry 

 Morgan took command. Sir Thomas Modiford, then governor 

 of Jamaica, was a good friend and backer of those marauding 

 against Spain. Sure of his backing, Morgan attacked Porto 

 Bello, the great Spanish stronghold on the Gulf side of the 

 Isthmus, and after reducing the fortifications returned to 

 Jamaica with great loot, where he was immediately pardoned 

 for having exceeded his commission. His well-known cross- 

 isthmus march and sacking of Panama in 1671 was perhaps 

 the classic example of boldness and a rich reward. Morgan 

 was called back to England on the protest of the Spanish 

 government, but ended up Sir Henry, Governor of Jamaica. 

 In 1688 he died in his bed fat and unrepentant, and was 

 happily interred at Port Royal. 



Things had so changed in the Caribbean that it was no 

 longer the Spanish sea, but under the control of England 

 through the power vested in the Governor of Jamaica. Instead 

 of pursuing Spanish gold from the Main of Mexico, the 

 colonial British were searching for sunken treasure among 

 the islands and the shoals; and the sugar planters were estab- 

 lishing an orderly society on the land. A notable example 

 typifies the new order in the Caribbean. Up in the province 

 of Maine, off the Kennebec at Woolwich, a farm boy of eight- 

 een, William Phips, got tired of tending sheep and made his 

 way to Boston, where he studied to be a ship's carpenter. 

 He came back to Woolwich and near Montsweague on the 

 Sheepscote River set up a small shipyard. Indian troubles 

 drove him out and away to sea. He drifted down to the Carib- 



