Although your letter does not deserve a response, since you call me a pirate,
despite that I am writing you these lines to ask you to come quickly. We are
waiting for you with great pleasure and we have gunpowder and bullets with
which to receive you. If you do not come very soon, we will, with the favour of
God and our arms, come and visit you in Panama. Now, it is our intention to
garrison the castles and save them for the King of England, my master, who
since he had a mind to seize them, has also a mind to keep them. And since I do
not believe that you have sufficient men to fight with me tomorrow, I will
order all the poor prisoners to be freed so they may to go to help you. As to
whether I will order them decapitated, I respond that I will not. I am not so
bloody as to kill people in cold blood, as the Spanish are used to doing.
--Captain Henry Morgan to Don Agustin de Bracamonte [President of Panama],
1668
