And Thereby They Are Fain In This Island To Use
Copper Money, Whereof Was Found Very Great Quantity.
The chief trade
of this place consisteth of sugar and ginger, which groweth in the
island, and of hides
Of oxen and kine, which in this waste country of
the island are bred in infinite numbers, the soil being very fertile.
And the said beasts are fed up to a very large growth, and so killed
for nothing so much as for their hides aforesaid. We found here great
store of strong wine, sweet oil, vinegar, olives, and other such-like
provisions, as excellent wheat-meal packed up in wine-pipes and other
cask, and other commodities likewise, as woollen and linen cloth and
some silks; all which provisions are brought out of Spain, and served
us for great relief. There was but a little plate or vessel of silver,
in comparison of the great pride in other things of this town, because
in these hot countries they use much of those earthen dishes finely
painted or varnished, which they call /porcellana/, which is had out
of the East India; and for their drinking they use glasses altogether,
whereof they make excellent good and fair in the same place. But yet
some plate we found, and many other good things, as their household
garniture, very gallant and rich, which had cost them dear, although
unto us they were of small importance.
From St. Domingo we put over to the main or firm land, and, going all
along the coast, we came at last in sight of Carthagena, standing upon
the seaside, so near as some of our barks in passing alongst
approached within the reach of their culverin shot, which they had
planted upon certain platforms. The harbour-mouth lay some three miles
toward the westward of the town, whereinto we entered at about three
or four of the clock in the afternoon without any resistance of
ordnance or other impeachment planted upon the same. In the evening we
put ourselves on land towards the harbour-mouth, under the leading of
Master Carlile, our Lieutenant-General. Who, after he had digested us
to march forward about midnight, as easily as foot might fall,
expressly commanded us to keep close by the sea-wash of the shore for
our best and surest way; whereby we were like to go through, and not
to miss any more of the way, which once we had lost within an hour
after our first beginning to march, through the slender knowledge of
him that took upon him to be our guide, whereby the night spent on,
which otherwise must have been done by resting. But as we came within
some two miles of the town, their horsemen, which were some hundred,
met us, and, taking the alarm, retired to their townward again upon
the first volley of our shot that was given them; for the place where
we encountered being woody and bushy, even to the waterside, was
unmeet for their service.
At this instant we might hear some pieces of artillery discharged,
with divers small shot, towards the harbour; which gave us to
understand, according to the order set down in the evening before by
our General, that the Vice-Admiral, accompanied with Captain Venner,
Captain White, and Captain Cross, with other sea captains, and with
divers pinnaces and boats, should give some attempt unto the little
fort standing on the entry of the inner haven, near adjoining to the
town, though to small purpose, for that the place was strong, and the
entry, very narrow, was chained over; so as there could be nothing
gotten by the attempt more than the giving of them an alarm on that
other side of the haven, being a mile and a-half from the place we now
were at. In which attempt the Vice-Admiral had the rudder of his skiff
strucken through with a saker shot, and a little or no harm received
elsewhere.
The troops being now in their march, half-a-mile behither the town or
less, the ground we were on grew to be strait, and not above fifty
paces over, having the main sea on the one side of it and the harbour-
water or inner sea (as you may term it) on the other side, which in
the plot is plainly shewed. This strait was fortified clean over with
a stone wall and a ditch without it, the said wall being as orderly
built, with flanking in every part, as can be set down. There was only
so much of this strait unwalled as might serve for the issuing of the
horsemen or the passing of carriage in time of need. But this unwalled
part was not without a very good /barricado/ of wine-butts or pipes,
filled with earth, full and thick as they might stand on end one by
another, some part of them standing even within the main sea. This
place of strength was furnished with six great pieces, demiculverins
and sakers, which shot directly in front upon us as we approached. Now
without this wall, upon the inner side of the strait, they had brought
likewise two great galleys with their prows to the shore, having
planted in them eleven pieces of ordnance, which did beat all cross
the strait, and flanked our coming on. In these two galleys were
planted three or four hundred small shot, and on the land, in the
guard only of this place, three hundred shot and pikes.
They, in this their full readiness to receive us, spared not their
shot both great and small. But our Lieutenant-General, taking the
advantage of the dark (the daylight as yet not broken out) approached
by the lowest ground, according to the express direction which himself
had formerly given, the same being the sea-wash shore, where the water
was somewhat fallen, so as most of all their shot was in vain. Our
Lieutenant-General commanded our shot to forbear shooting until we
were come to the wall-side.
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