The permanent pirate colony never came to anything; no reenforcements
were sent; Mansvelt died, and the Spaniards gathered together a
sufficient force to retake the island of St. Catherine, and make
prisoners of Simon and his men. This was a blow to Morgan, who had had
great hopes of the fortified station he thought he had so firmly
established, but after the project failed he set about forming another
expedition.
He was now recognized as buccaneer-in-chief of the West Indies, and he
very soon gathered together twelve ships and seven hundred men.
Everything was made ready to sail, and the only thing left to be done
was to decide what particular place they should favor with a visit.
There were some who advised an attack upon Havana, giving as a reason
that in that city there were a great many nuns, monks, and priests, and
if they could capture them, they might ask as ransom for them, a sum a
great deal larger than they could expect to get from the pillage of an
ordinary town. But Havana was considered to be too strong a place for a
profitable venture, and after several suggestions had been made, at last
a deserter from the Spanish army, who had joined them, came forward with
a good idea. He told the pirates of a town in Cuba, to which he knew the
way; it was named Port-au-Prince, and was situated so far inland that it
had never been sacked.
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