A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

OF THE SUB-ORDINARIES. 197
common division among the survivors. The second day after his arrival certain
intelligence comes, that the Spaniards were upon their way to attack them, both by
sea and land, and that considerable numbers from Panama, Sancta Maiia, and
Carma, and other plantations of theirs on the South Sea, were upon a lull march
to attack them by land; and that, in a few days, their fleet would be at the mouth
of the harbour to block them up by sea. Things being in tins desperate situation,
and no- long time left to deliberate on what was to be done, the other counsellors unani-
mously gave him the command; and, as the safest course, he judged it absolutely
necessary, first, to attack their land forces, and not wait their attacking of him ; ac-
cordingly, on the 5th of February 1700, with two hundred men and proper officers,
being all he had in health in the colony, with forty Indians armed with bows and
arrows, he sets out towards them, directing his march up these inaccessible mountains,
over the Isthmus of Darien, through such monstrous woods and untrodden
paths, that for three days they seemed rather to creep and climb their way than
the sum-
march. Upon the third day, being the 8th of Februray, having then passed
mit of the mountains, and beginning to descend towards the South West Sea, he got
notice from his Indian spies, that he was very near the Spanish camp, where they
had been for three days (ever since they got account of his setting off from Darien)
felling of trees, and fortifying themselves on a little plain on the side of a mountain,
at a place, by the natives called Toubocanti, and at the source of that river called
Sancta Maria, which discharges itself in the Southern Sea, at the Spanish plantation
of that name : Their fortifications were thick piles driven in the ground about the
height of a man, and smaller branches of trees woven very close upon them, made
out in form of redoubts and bastions, with faces, flanks, and angles. In this situation,
he could not possibly come at the 1
knowledge of their numbers, else, it is probable,
he had not attacked them ; and, had they known the smallness of his force,
it is as likely they had not been at pains to fortify themselves. In this uncertainty
in the mean
he gave orders to attack them, with an huzza, sword in hand, ordering,
time, a competent number of hatchet-men to cut down the pallisadoes ; they sustained
a furious fire of the enemy a considerable time, but at length broke in upon
them, and put all to the flight or sword : Such as survived of the Spaniards
threw down their arms, and betook them to their heels. He pursued the victory
till evening, and lodged that night in the Spanish camp. In this action, he himself
was shot in the joint of the shoulder, which so enraged his men, that, with much
ado, he got the lives of only thirty prisoners spared, from w horn, and by the number
of the arms they got, they made account that the Spaniards consisted of about
sixteen hundred men, under the command of Don Balthasar, Knight of the Order
of St James. Among the rest of the plunder they got his equipage and coat, which,
in embroidery, bore the device and embellishment of his order. The Spaniards
hud above 200 killed upon the spot ; but the place being so surrounded with
shrubs, thickets, and tall trees, it was not possible to know the full account of their
slain, much less of their wounded ; and the Scots had about 30 killed, and 40
wounded. Next morning they set out towards the colony, and arrived at it on
the third day after, where they found things in the worst situation our enemies could
wish ; for fifteen Spanish ships, of which were five tall men of war, commanded
by Don Piomento, a Lieutenant-General, had blocked up the mouth of the harbour;
a council being called, it was agreed to by a vast majority that they should capitulate,
from which the Colonel strenuously dissented, and protested against their
proceedings ; alleging, that it was much more honourable for them to defend the place
to the last extremity, and then to make the best of their way through land, if
provisions failed before a relief, and so leave things entire, rather than capitulate
with so cruel and powerful an enemy, from whom no honourable terms could be
with a few
expected. Upon this they separate ; and the Colonel, in a little sloop,
that stood by him in the protest, came safe to Scotland in the July thereafter,
1700 : But it is observable, that not one of those who signed the capitulation ever
returned.
The Darien Company, in a grateful sense of his singular services, in full coun-
cil, ordered a golden medal to the value of L. 16 Sterling, to be struck for him,
and silver ones to the value of los. one of which is in the Advocate's Library,
among their Collections, and severals in private hands. See both sides of this me-
3D