"I have shown your excellency this morning of what I am capable,"
he wrote. "Although outnumbered by more than two to one in men,
in ships, and in guns, I have sunk or captured the vessels of the
great fleet with which you were to come to Maracaybo to destroy us.
So that you are no longer in case to carry out your boast, even
when your reenforcements on the Santo Nino, reach you from La Guayra.
From what has occurred, you may judge of what must occur. I should
not trouble your excellency with this letter but that I am a humane
man, abhorring bloodshed. Therefore before proceeding to deal with
your fort, which you may deem invincible, as I have dealt already
with your fleet, which you deemed invincible, I make you, purely out
of humanitarian considerations, this last offer of terms. I will
spare this city of Maracaybo and forthwith evacuate it, leaving
behind me the forty prisoners I have taken, in consideration of your
paying me the sum of fifty thousand pieces of eight and one hundred
head of cattle as a ransom, thereafter granting me unmolested passage
of the bar.
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