At noon on the morrow, shorn of defences and threatened
with bombardment, Cartagena sent offers of surrender
to M. de Rivarol.
Swollen with pride by a victory for which he took
the entire credit to himself, the Baron dictated his
terms. He demanded that all public effects and
office accounts be delivered up; that the merchants
surrender all moneys and goods held by them for their
correspondents; the inhabitants could choose whether
they would remain in the city or depart; but those
who went must first deliver up all their property,
and those who elected to remain must surrender half,
and become the subjects of France; religious houses
and churches should be spared, but they must render
accounts of all moneys and valuables in their possession.
Cartagena agreed, having no choice in the matter,
and on the next day, which was the 5th of April, M.
de Rivarol entered the city and proclaimed it now
a French colony, appointing M. de Cussy its Governor.
Thereafter he proceeded to the Cathedral, where very
properly a Te Deum was sung in honour of the conquest.
This by way of grace, whereafter M. de Rivarol proceeded
to devour the city. The only detail in which
the French conquest of Cartagena differed from an
ordinary buccaneering raid was that under the severest
penalties no soldier was to enter the house of any
inhabitant. But this apparent respect for the
persons and property of the conquered was based in
reality upon M. de Rivarol’s anxiety lest a
doubloon should be abstracted from all the wealth that
was pouring into the treasury opened by the Baron
in the name of the King of France. Once the
golden stream had ceased, he removed all restrictions
and left the city in prey to his men, who proceeded
further to pillage it of that part of their property
which the inhabitants who became French subjects had
been assured should remain inviolate. The plunder
was enormous. In the course of four days over
a hundred mules laden with gold went out of the city
and down to the boats waiting at the beach to convey
the treasure aboard the ships.
THE HONOUR OF M. DE RIVAROL
During the capitulation and for some time after, Captain
Blood and the greater portion of his buccaneers had
been at their post on the heights of Nuestra Senora
de la Poupa, utterly in ignorance of what was taking
place. Blood, although the man chiefly, if not
solely, responsible for the swift reduction of the
city, which was proving a veritable treasure-house,
was not even shown the consideration of being called
to the council of officers which with M. de Rivarol
determined the terms of the capitulation.
This was a slight that at another time Captain Blood
would not have borne for a moment. But at present,
in his odd frame of mind, and its divorcement from
piracy, he was content to smile his utter contempt
of the French General. Not so, however, his captains,
and still less his men. Resentment smouldered
amongst them for a while, to flame out violently at
the end of that week in Cartagena. It was only
by undertaking to voice their grievance to the Baron
that their captain was able for the moment to pacify
them. That done, he went at once in quest of
M. de Rivarol.
