The buccaneers found Porto Bello a very hard nut to crack; they landed and marched upon the town, which was defended by several forts or castles.  Even when one of these had been taken by assault, and after it had been blown up with all its garrison, who had been taken prisoners, still the town was not intimidated, and the Governor vowed he would never surrender, but would die fighting to the last.  The pirates raged like demons; they shot down every man they could see at the cannon or upon the walls, and they made desperate efforts to capture the principal fort, but they did not succeed, and after a long time Morgan began to despair.  The garrison was strong and well commanded, and whenever the pirates attempted to scale the wall they were shot down, while fire-pots full of powder, with stones and other missiles, were hurled upon them.

At last the wily Morgan had an idea.  He set his men to work to make some ladders high enough to reach to the top of the walls, and wide enough to allow three or four men to go up abreast.  If he could get these properly set up, his crew of desperate tiger-cats could make a combined rush and get over the walls.  But to carry the ladders and place them would be almost impossible, for the men who bore them would surely be shot down before they could finish the work.  But it was not Morgan’s plan that his men should carry these ladders.  He had captured some convents in the suburbs of the town, with a number of nuns and monks, known as “religious people,” and he now ordered these poor creatures, the women as well as the men, to take up the ladders and place them against the walls, believing that the Spanish Governor would not allow his soldiers to fire at these innocent persons whom the pirates had forced to do their will.

But the Governor was determined to defend the town no matter who had to suffer, and so the soldiers fired at the nuns and monks just as though they were buccaneers or any other enemies.  The “religious people” cried out in terror, and screamed to their friends not to fire upon them; but the soldiers obeyed the commands of the Governor, while the pirates were swearing terribly behind them and threatening them with their pistols, and so the poor nuns and monks had to press forward, many of them dropping dead or wounded.  They continued their work until the ladders were placed, and then over the walls went the pirates, with yells and howls of triumph, and not long after that the town was taken.  The Governor died, fighting in the principal fort, and the citizens and soldiers all united in the most vigorous defence; but it was of no use.  Each pirate seemed to have not only nine lives, but nine arms, each one wielding a cutlass or aiming a pistol.

When the fighting was over, the second act in the horrible drama took place as usual.  The pirates ate, drank, rioted, and committed all manner of outrages and cruelties upon the inhabitants, closing the performance with the customary threat that if the already distressed and impoverished inhabitants did not pay an enormous ransom, their town would be burned.