As soon as our
men landed they were conducted by one of the Spanish pilots to the
entrance of a narrow street, not above fifty yards distant from the
beach, where they were covered from the fire of the fort; and being
formed in the best manner the shortness of the time would allow, they
immediately marched for the parade, which was a large square at the end
of this stree, the fort being one side of the square and the Governor's
house another. In this march (though performed with tolerable regularity)
the shouts and clamours of three-score sailors who had been confined so
long on ship-board, and were now for the first time on shore in an
enemy's country--joyous as they always are when they land, and animated
besides in the present case with the hopes of an immense pillage--the
huzzahs, I say, of this spirited detachment, joined with the noise of
their drums and favoured by the night, had augmented their numbers, in
the opinion of the enemy, to at least three hundred; by which persuasion
the inhabitants were so greatly intimidated that they were much more
solicitous about the means of their flight than of their resistance. So
that though upon entering the parade our people received a volley from
the merchants who owned the treasure then in the town, and who, with a
few others, had ranged themselves in a gallery that ran round the
Governor's house, yet that post was immediately abandoned upon the first
fire made by our people, who were thereby left in quiet possession of the
parade.
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