184 DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. X.I.-B. S. 
Panamenians displayed great heroism, hut considerable 
as was the havoc which their grape and musket shots 
occasioned, great as was the number of assailants that 
fell, the buccaneers could not be repulsed. At last, 
after three hours of close combat, the citizens were 
vanquished, and their conquerors entered triumphantly 
the “ Golden Cup,” the object of all their toil and 
exertion. 
Thus fell Panama, in those days one of the most 
opulent cities on the American continent. It did not 
fall before an army, backed by the power and influ¬ 
ence of a great nation, but before a band of adven¬ 
turers, the mere scum of European society. Could, at 
that moment, the old Panamenians have risen from 
their graves, they would have uttered a cry of distress 
on beholding their offspring praying for mercy at the 
feet of rovers. Many of the citizens were only the 
grandchildren of those men who discovered or ex¬ 
plored the boundless shores of the Pacific Ocean,—the 
grandchildren of those men who overran Central 
America, Yeraguas, and Darien, and added the em¬ 
pires of Quito, Peru, and Chile to the dominions of 
the Spanish crown. 
After the confusion had abated, Morgan assembled 
his men, and knowing their propensity of indulging 
too freely in the use of intoxicating beverages after a 
victory, he pretended to have received information 
that poison had been introduced into the cellars. The 
pretence was so plausible that it completely served its 
purpose, preventing debauchery, which must have 
proved their inevitable ruin, when considerable bodies 
